Little girls are so dramatic. I read the girls’ bedtime stories tonight using a fake Minnesota accent. Clara totally flipped out and could not handle it. She kept telling me to use the voice I used to talk to other people. When I told her that the fake accent was my real voice and my normal one was pretend she screamed, throwing herself backwards onto her bed and wailed, “You are destroying me!”

I had to stop before she exploded into individual gears and pulleys.

In her defense, it was a pretty awful attempt at a Minnesota accent and I was even starting to annoy myself in the end. I should maybe find a way to harness its obnoxious destructive power to defend our borders against the enemies of peace and liberty. I am become death, the destroyer of worlds, dontcha know.