Deflecting trouble with humor
Back in the early eighties there was a campaign for seven up soda - it was a catchy tune that had a song to it but the very last line was (after a refreshing sound of a can being opened a hefty swig of soda followed by Aaahhh sound)

"Just for the Taste of it!
...SEVEN UP!"

Brilliant marketing of course. We'd imitate it around the house sometimes making a big lip smacking Hmmm Aaaaah and then chanting it like good little consumers whenever we drank anything. No big thing... kinda stupid but whatever =)

Well, one time when my mom was well and truly pissed off at us, we had pushed her to the very edge and she was ragged and mean and just wanted to throttle the very life out of us, I was making the astoundingly wise move of arguing with her over whether or not we'd really done anything wrong or whether it was all just a big misunderstanding... her reply to us:

"You two better be quiet or I don't care what happened or who's fault it was - I'm going to beat you up just for the hell of it!"
followed by a big sigh of frustrated crazy as she opened the fridge... Hhhmm aaahhhh...

My 9 year old mind clicked, everything fell together and I dropped to one knee, spread my arms and sung in my best announcer's baritone...

"Just for the Hell of it!
...Beat-you UP!"

It was the perfect tension reliever and she just sat down on the kitchen floor and laughed till she cried and hugged us and then she'd laugh some more. (good soul my mom - she never would have done anything - we just pushed her pretty hard.)

"just for the hell of it, beat you up" became our catch phrase whenever you wanted to playfully tell someone they were pushing it from that day on =)
( Allisade would love to hear from you, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 22:52, 1 reply)

Haha
That reminds me that my nana once misread 7UP as 'zup' and the whole family still calls it that :D
(kadee may or may not be a nymphomaniac, Sun 23 Nov 2008, 5:46, closed)