Communication error

Sometimes words just don't mean the same thing to the receiver as the do for the sender.

I was helping my son with a project for school (it involved posterboard, scissors, and printing lots of stuff from the internet). We came to a point where we really needed the double-sided tape--cause, ya know, only dorks use glue in 8th grade--but it was missing from the desk drawer. I knew one of the kids had swiped it. He swore he hadn't, and I believed him because that kid never lets anything extra dwell in his room.

Which left his sister. Who Dad called out to the living room, and the following conversation took place:

DAD: Do you have your mother's double-sided tape?
HER LOVELINESS (hereafter, HL): No.
DAD: The double-sided tape is gone. Your brother doesn't have it. Do you?
HL: I have a roll of double-sided tape.
DAD: Go get it. (she produces the tape and he asks me if this is the roll I'm looking for)
ME: Yes, that's the one I keep in the drawer.
HL: Am I going to get that back?
ME: It's my tape!
HL: It was in my room!
ME: But you took it from my desk drawer.
HL: It was in my room (I really need to get as good as she is, at stopping with one point and repeating it). Am I gonna get it back?
ME: What do you need double-sided tape in your room for?
HL: (as if I'm the biggest dummy in town) To stick stuff!

For the record, the tape went back in the desk when I was finished with it.

Autumn Piper
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