I guess all parents use bribery to get their kids to do what they want them to do. This morning is the first day of summer break and Doug agreed to run up to the store to get the boys doughnuts, at their behest. They were fighting and bickering while he was getting ready to leave and I heard him chastise them a couple of times. They continued and I heard him yell out, "Ok! NO DOUGHNUTS THEN! YOU CAN FORGET THE DOUGHNUTS!"
I knew that he was still going to get the doughnuts...
My nephew Erick recently told me that Dwight and Scott used to say, "You know we were going to go to Dairy Queen, but I guess now we won't..." For every kind of thing - fighting in the back seat to cleaning their rooms. As an adult now, Erick realized that they were never planning to go to Dairy Queen, they'd just pull that out to get results. But as a boy, he would think, "Dang It! We could've gone to Dairy Queen!"