Kids Say the Damingest Things

ITEM: "I have problems with my father. But that doesn't mean he won't make a great president." Andrew Giuliani on ABC

Ah, how sharper than a serpent's tooth is an ungrateful child — especially one who talks to the press. But take heart, Rudy. Surprising new archeological evidence shows that children have been dissing their powerful parents since time began, as these artifacts suggest:

"I have problems with my father," said Calli, eldest daughter of Caligula and a scratch beheader herself. "But that doesn't mean he wouldn't make a great bloodthirsty madman." — Recently unearthed shard of "Rome Today"

"This is a family matter and I hope you'll respect my privacy and YEEEE-HAH!" — Shard of the next day's "Rome Today." The article seems to have ended there.

"Daddy's mean!" begins a hieroglyphic scroll now definitively attributed to Tutty, the princess who was just 6 when her father was negotiating with Moses. "He told me no more frogs. I begged him 'PLEEEEASE bring them back,' but he said no and I threw my cat at him, and he got a bump — because it was mummified — and then he stomped out, all mad, and said he was going for a ride, and he took his soldiers with him, and they were going toward the Red Sea, and I hope he never comes back EVER."

"My mom is, like, totally superficial," Cheri Antoinette told the Versailles Herald-Autocrat. Discovered by a Yale French, women, gender, race and social history graduate student, the wide-ranging interview touches on Cheri's taste in music ("Chamber music is so hot!") and boys ("I see lace, I want to ravish the guy"), but it always circles back to her mother.

"Like, I brought home a stray dog, and she kicked it out because it peed on the furniture. 'Mom!' I told her. 'The stuff's just nouveau riche crapola! It looks like some Italian king's living room!' But she just kept scratching under her wig and smiling at my dad, who is so fat my friends call him the Ton King. When I get married, you can bet —" From here the interview is impossible to read, as it is covered with hand-drawn hearts and different signatures of "Mrs. Cheri of Wales."

"Greetings, Al Jazeera viewers. My name is Omar and I think you are probably all familiar with my father, the cave dweller himself. I know a lot of you think he's a genius, but I'm here to ask you this: If YOU were a terrorist mastermind, don't you think YOU could figure out how to send your son enough money for a car? I mean, how is it you can smuggle tapes out after every piddling defeat of the American dogs (may sheep chew their entrails), but somehow, when it comes to remembering a son's birthday and sending one of those little cards with a pocket for the check, whoa — suddenly that's 'impossible for security reasons.' Or, 'He's dead, we just don't want to let anyone know.' Or, 'There aren't any card stores around here.' How about getting on a camel and FINDING a card store, huh? How hard is that? And by the way, Dad, if you're listening: Mom was right. The beard makes you look way old."

Lenore Skenazy is a contributing editor at the New York Sun. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lenore@lenoretown.com), and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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