This is the story of an adorable three-year old girl who came into my section and was unable to say her “r’s.” It got awkward.
Dad arrives early at the restaurant to secure a good table on the off chance that it will be busy on Thursday night at 5:05 PM. He has the pick of the tables seeing that he is the only one in the place and he chooses a four-top explaining that his wife and daughter will be arriving shortly. He immediately requests a glass of chardonnay which I bring to his table about one minute later. I watch him as he sips his wine and plays Words With Friends on his cell phone. About ten minutes later, a woman and a little girl arrive. The girl has blond hair pulled into two pigtails and she is wearing silver shoes and a little peacoat. The woman spots her husband and walks towards him, but the little girl stays by the front door refusing to move. Dad gets out of his chair and kneels down with his arms spread open expecting his daughter to run to him for a big hug. She doesn’t.
“Hey, Sam, come here!” hhe pleads.
She still doesn’t budge.
“Come give me a hug!” he says.
Again, the little girl remains motionless at the front of the restaurant. Dad gets up to go to her, passing his wife on the way.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her today,” she says as she heads to the table and picks up his glass of Chardonnay.
When Dad gets to his daughter, she backs away and says, “No, Daddy, go away. No!”
I am standing behind the bar watching this and I can see that the father is embarrassed by his little girl’s behavior. He probably thinks I am assuming the worst about him, like he hits her or burns her with cigarettes. Actually, all I am thinking about is that I have four hours and forty five minutes to go before my shift is over and I am wondering if it’s beneficial for me to to do a wine-tasting of the wines even though I have already tasted all of them.
He convinces the girl to join them at the table and I go to take their order. Whatever issue was happening between the little girl and her dad seems to have been resolved by the time I get there and this is when I notice that she can’t say her “r’s.”
“Daddy, I want a hambugger and fench fies,” she says. “And apple juice.”
“I’m sorry, we don’t have apple juice,” I tell the dad.
Not missing a beat, the tyke pipes in and says, “Then I want oange juice. Daddy, I’m hungwy, ah you?”
The mom asks me if I can bring some bread or crackers and the little girl confirms that she indeed does want some “bwead and cwackahs.”
As I go to place the order for the family, I think how cute it is that she can’t say her “r’s.” It reminds me of Episode #8 of Season 2 of The Brady Bunch, “A Fistful of Reasons.” It’s the one where Cindy has a lisp and mean ol’ Buddy Hinton tells her, “Baby talk, baby talk, it’s a wonder you can walk.” Peter stands up for Cindy and hits Buddy, knocking his tooth loose and causing him to lisp now. Cindy gets the last laugh when she is able to taunt him right back with the same mean words.
Anyway, the little girl at Table 11 sounds cute. That is until, I take the bread to the table and she accidentally knocks her fork to the floor.
“Daddy, I dwopped my fok.”
Fork without the “r” suddenly sounds dirty to me.
I tell her I will get her a new one, but she is upset about her original fork being taken away.
“I need a fok!” She screams. “Where’s my fok? I need a fok right now! Daddy, give me a fok, Daddy. I need a fok!! I need a fok before I can eat. I need a fok and I need it wight now!”
Urgently, I rush to the sidestand to retrieve another fork so this child can’t stop screaming at her father to “fok” her. I hand the fork to her and she turns her face towards me and with the sweetest smile and cutest little voice imaginable, she tells me, “Thank you vewy much fa the fok.”
They need to get this girl to some speech classes or else start referring to forks as “eating utensils.” I don’t need to hear a three-year old girl screaming about her need for a good fok.
DanielleParent
My daughter was 2 and at the pool at our old apartments. She always used “sh” and not just “s” she started shouting “momma sh*t right here. Sh*t here momma” I got done really bad looks from the other residents!
Elly
This is hilarious!:)
Valerie
My 3 year old says “fok n poon.”
Kel
My ex boyfriends son had a peanut allergy, which he knew to tell people just in case even though he was really little. He also couldn’t say peanuts. So his dad thought it was hilarious to tell him to remind people (gramma, servers) of his allergy – which of course came out of his little mouth as “I’m allergic to ‘penus’.”
morganre
reminds me of the time i started working in a clothing store at the mall and the toy store next to us sold hermit crabs as a novelty. i’ll never forget how on my first shift ever the two cutest kids came in with their parents exclaiming ‘WE GOT CRABS, WE GOT CRABS’. poor parents just hung their head and took em back out. good laugh though.
Dogtroep
My nephew was also a “fokker”–but he always wanted a fork and spoon. It came out “fokkin’ spoon”…
sharon powell
This story had me cracking up…not sure why it needs a trigger warning….that’s just weird.
Anonymous
I never had speech impediment issues as a kid, but I did go through an ‘Oliver Twist’ phase where I went around singing the pickpocket song all the time….
Elly
I’ve got to pick a pocket or two! Lol. I saw the movie, “Oliver!” at a drive-thru when I was a little girl and I had a crush on the Artful Dodger.
Michelle
Yeah…my oldest had the same problem with the word “fork” and it was embarrassing. The only thing worse was walking out of the Disney store with his new Toy Story toy, while he’s loudly proclaiming, “I GOT A WOODY! I GOT A WOODY!” Or the first time he saw an African American boy…I could go on. He was quite the handful.
Debbie
Lol. Out of the mouths of babes….
Liz
My 2 year old is a little fokker too. Sometimes, she likes to salute us with a utensil and yell “FOK!” quite loudly. It’s not at all embarrassing and I’ve never tried to hide under the table when she’s done it. 🙂
JustRhon
My youngest had trouble with his r’s and his z’s always came out as an s. We were visiting my family one weekend when he asked for a “fok for his er, cat”. The look on my dad’s face was priceless.
skitz
When my daughter was 2, she couldn’t say her tr’s very well either. She would replace it with f’s..Imagine the embarrassment of us in ToysRus with her seeing a toy truck and yelling I WANNA F*CK!! I WANNA F*CK!
She’s now 5, and thank god she’s learned to annunciate letters correctly.
April
My son had a melt down in Target one day when he was about two. I had to drag him out of the store while he was screaming “Fire fuck! Wanna fire fuck! Mama PLEASE fire fuck?” Over and over again. We started working on the TR sound that night.
skitz
LOL! Oh man i thought mine was bad. I hate to say i’m glad i’m not the only one!
Enid OReilly
Err… I understand that this is meant to be funny and I can see me getting a giggle out of it in person, but this needs a trigger warning.
Amanda
No. No, it doesn’t.
Becca
How on earth does this need a trigger warning?