2003-10-27 | 12:01 a.m.

whenever corduroy licorice's friend pauly smoked weed, he would start calling out the colors of every item in the room. when corduroy told him to quit making so much noise, pauly yelled back from the kitchen: "it's not my fault. it's the pot calling the kettle black."

***

susie, the precocious, now 6-year-old, niece of my friend lm-girl has been up to her humorous tricks again.

her younger brother and another boy were playing in the backyard and she went out to see what was what. it didn't take too long for an emergency call for mom's intervention to be issued by the brother.

"mom! susie is bugging us! make her stop!" he screamed.

"what's going on back here, kids?" asked the maternal referee as she stepped out from behind the sliding glass door.

the boy answered first.

"mom, we're trying to play pirates and susie is ruining it!"

"susie?" began the mom.

"what?!" spit susie, crossing her arms in defiance. then re-crossing them the other way for added emphasis.

"are you interrupting your brother's pirate game?"

"mother," harumphed susie, "that's what pirates do. they kill everybody."

then with her suddenly uncrossed arms dramatically winging out to either side like a referee calling a baseball player crossing homeplate "safe," she squealed angrily:

"pirates ruin everything!!!"

hey, the kid knows her sea lore.

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