Where I teach you about both French and Literature

Sam got a book called Jingle Bugs for Christmas a couple of years ago. It was a cute book, with lots of pop-ups and slide-outs and what-nots. The book was a mash-up of Christmas and bugs, which is weird, but they pulled it off.

Speaking of pulling things off . . . STUPID POP-UP BOOKS! Why do they even MAKE these for toddlers? They should only make them for grown ups. Toddlers are INCAPABLE of looking at these books and not ripping them apart. "What's this?! This picture just FLEW up into my face! I shall remove the offending picture, thus restoring the pristine page!"

Anyhow, the book had remained surprisingly intact for over a year now, and we'd read it often enough that even if the words got ripped off I remembered what they were. The denouement of the book, the raison d'etra, the carte blanche, the hors d'oeurves, was on the last page, where you pulled out a little tab and the little Christmas tree decorated with a star-bug sang "Jingle Bells" until you pushed the little tab back in (this is foreshadowing, or, as we say in French, "flambe").

So Chris was reading this book to the boys and apparently Owen got his enormous, powerful, man-hands on the book and ripped the little tab on the last page right off.

Which means it wouldn't stop singing.

So Chris hammered the shit out of this book. I mean he ripped it apart with his enormous, powerful man-hands until it no longer resembled a book. I saw it in the garbage and felt a pang at the sight of the mangle visage of the cute little jingle bugs who had to die to shut the tree up.

And yet my kitchen garbage has been singing a cheery, if vaguely techno, version of jingle bells to me for the past two days.