Still Steaming

"Dad? Daddy? Da-ad?"

It was Kailey. It was also 7:00 in the morning. On Saturday. During Christmas vacation. And this was the second time she had burst through my bedroom door with what she considered important information. She first interrupted my sleep to show me her freshly manicured fingernails and toenails, a reward from Diane for her dramatically improved report card. I am proud of her and might have been able to better show it at, say, 8 am. I somehow passed it off, she skipped out of the room, and I drifted back to sleep. Now she was back with Kyra in tow.

"Wha..." I managed from the depths of my pillow.

"Where is it?" asked Kyra to no one in particular.

"Daddy, where's our iron (pronounced eye-run)?" Kailey asked as she crawled across the bed.

"I have no idea," I answered, suddenly much more awake.

"Here it is!" added Kyra. Diane must have used it before going to work that morning.

"Dad, did you know that an eye-run can actually burn your clothes!" Kailey informed me, wide-eyed.

I just stared at her. Who are you, what did you do to my beautiful daughter, and why are you bothering me?

"Yeah, there's this thing that makes steam and you hang your clothes on this hook and it has this little, like, hose where the steam comes out and you put it on your clothes and the wrinkles come right out and it doesn't even burn your clothes!"

"Yeah, it's called a steamer," I informed her with much less enthusiasm.

"A TOBY steamer!" chimed Kyra from the peanut gallery.

"Yeah, a Toby steamer."

"How much television have you girls been watching this morning, and why are you watching infomercials?" I asked.

"I don't know," they replied in unison.

"What's an infomercial?" asked Kyra.

"It's a long show about stupid things like Toby steamers."

"Oh."

"Ummm...you said stupid."

At this point, the fatherly thing to do would have been to bite the bullet and get out of bed. But seeing as how I'm less than fatherly, I did the next best thing. "Why don't you girls turn off the TV and go play in your rooms."

"OK." And they fled the room.

I fluffed my pillow and flipped it over to the cold side, but the damage had been done. I lay there, wide awake, for several minutes before finally giving up and getting up.

Stupid Toby steamer. I'd better not be getting one for Christmas.