“I didn’t mean–” her daughter spoke back at her mother.

“Of course, you did,” her mother disagreed with her. “You wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t mean it.”

“But, Mom,” the daughter pleaded her case.

“That’s what you’re always saying,” the mother was announcing her victory. “There’ll be no ifs, ands, or buts. Not in my house.”

“How about a however,” her father said with a smile on his face.

“That’s as bad as a yet,” The mother was not happy about his however. It usurped her authority. It was bad enough that her daughter wanted to give her a hard time. Now she had to take on two members of the family instead of one. “That’s a nyet if ever there was one.”

“And yet,” he came back at her.

“What’d I tell you about starting a sentence with ‘and’.” The English teacher in the mother was coming out big time now.

The daughter was happy for the reinforcements. “Even though—“

“Now hold on,” the mother was not accepting the challenge with ease.

“Oh,” the father chipped in. “now you’re pulling one of those now-hold-ons. You know how we hate those. That’s hitting below the belt.”

“You think?” the mother wasn’t having none of his sass either.

“So you want to conjugate,” the father had a big smile on his face. “You think, you thought, you thunk.”

“Thunk?” the mother was not believing what she was hearing. “I thunk not. It’s you think, you thought, you had thought.”

“Maybe it’s to thunk or not to thunk,” Dad piped in blowing smoke rings with his pipe.

“Now don’t you go Hamlet on me,” the mother was getting to the point she had had it up to here.

“I spent a long time thunking it,” the daughter was trying to catch up with her parents.

“That’s enough,” the mother came back.

“Oh, now we’re getting a that’s-enough,” the father.

“You know you’re all wet,” the mother said. She had completely forgotten where the argument had started, forgotten enough to use a cliche’.

“So it’s going to be water pistols at ten paces,” the father said.