I’m brushing my teeth in the bathroom when the dog, as he often does, runs in, jumps up, pulls the bath towels off the rack and starts shaking them around. It doesn’t do any real damage, but of course someone has to re-rack the towels.
My son, who’s decided this morning that it will be funny to walk around shouting at everyone, walks in, surveys the damage and shouts at me, “Who let him do this? You?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“What were you thinking?” he shouts.
“He likes it, so I let him do it, just as I let you do certain things you like, even though I don’t like them myself.”
That seems to derail his current line of attack, so he shifts to another tactic: shouting non sequiturs — Reconciliation, my backside! — at the dog . . .