STOP!
Several things come to mind when I think of this word…
My very young, eldest son chanting, “S-T-O-P spells Stop!” at every red, octagonal sign on the road when he was about 18 months old is forever a part of our memories.
The Bob Newhart shtick Stop It! Where Dr. Newhart applies a single intervention to each psychological ailment presented by simply yelling, “STOP IT!” at the bewildered “patient” is hysterical and worth the YouTube view. Makes perfect sense to me as I occasionally feel compelled to employ the same strategy…
But today, as I was attempting to wade my way through a day of constantly interrupted directives, I found that it really must have been a mommy who invented the “telegraph format” used for messages and directives sent via wire…had to be…every time I tried to start a directive, someone did something that required my personally seeing to it that the activity ceased immediately…take for instance…
“Please close the –STOP!
door.”
“Finish cleaning the – STOP!
toilet.”
“Don’t forget to take – STOP!
your jacket.”
“Have you emptied the – STOP!
Trash?”
Perhaps it is just overzealous multitasking on my part, but this mommy thinks that getting things done WHILE simultaneously administering psychotherapy is just darned efficient-STOP! Or maybe, I should STOP IT and wait to see what message ultimately gets delivered.
FreelanceBeth 