Is it okay to scream “SHUT UP, JUST SHUT UP!” at someone else’s kid? No? Okay.

I’m glad I didn’t then. 

And, not that I would ever call someone else’s cute little girl of, oh, about 7 or so a immensely annoying little brat, BUT…

The Immensely Annoying Little Brat who lives across and 2 houses up the street from us was literally BEGGING me to come over and apply duct tape to her sweet, adorable little mouth on Thursday evening.

See, Braden and I were in our backyard, hanging out.  We had blown bubbles, he had pretended he was driving his car, then we played with chalk together ["chot!" new word!].  In general, we were enjoying some relaxing down time between dinner and bedtime outside.

Cue the Immensely Annoying Little Brat.

“Ellie!”  “Ellie!”  “Where are you, Ellie?!”

Hm.

“Ellie!!!”  “Ellll-liiiiieeee!!!”  “ELLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!”

Uh.

“EL-LIE! WHERE ARE YOU, ELLLL-LIEEEEE!?!”

“COME HERE, ELLLLLIIIEEEE, COME HERE!”

She was just standing on her front porch, looking nowhere in general.

I swear to you – her imaginary friend must have run away from her.

“ELLIE…ELLIE… ELLLLLIIIIEEEE!”

Overandoverandoveragain.

“EL-LIE! Fine, Ellie!  Fine!  Run away then, I never want to see you again!”

I tried to ignore it.

“ELLIE, COME HERE ELLLLIIIIEEE!!!”

It got louder and Louder and LOUDER.

With behavior like that, it’s no wonder her imaginary friend ran away from her, really, you know?

And then?  She just started shrieking.  Just standing there.  Shrieking to hear her own voice.

WTH, man?  I was cleaning up chalk and I looked up to see that Braden had climbed up in the hammock and was staring at her.

And suddenly?  He screamed back at her.

She shut up. 

Braden RULES.