That is Priceless by Steve Melcher for April 30, 2024

Kid, just be happy your mother isn’t Governor Noem.

/// Maman points down at the broken dish,

and her sad four-year old has one wish:

That she won’t make him state

why he shattered that plate.

(She had served him a dinner of fish.)

“Just for that, no day off from the coal mines.”

The bad news is that your attorney is Dad … and that’s his favorite dish.

Why’s he weeping? Because he’s aware/

That the law is a terrible snare../

he’ll require a defense./

At colossal expense/

and he hasn’t the cash to spare ..///

Was there milk in that dish?

“Billy gets a whipping” was Bill Keane’s inspiration.

That and dad’s whiskey bottle, both within five minutes?!

Reminds me of a story, probably apocryphal, about FDR as a child. Story goes his mom got him some outfit which he hated so much that he threw it down the outhouse. His mom was furious and wanted his dad to whip him. But dad sympathized with FDR because it was a pan embarrassing outfit, so he took him to the barn and whipped a saddle instead, telling little Franklin to scream out as if in pain with every strike.

I’m not twisting your ear. I’m trying to get a better view to see if you have any brains at all in there!

“Just for that, I’m not letting you help with the dishes ever again, young man!”

Look, we’re poor and each of us has only one plate. You broke yours. You’re going to get smaller portions until you’re old enough to fix it.

You can catch a tiger by the tail, and a rascal by the ear :)

The plate is beyond repair -/

His sobs of remorse fill the air !/

I’m guessing this kid’ll/

play his Mom like a fiddle/

(As probably you were aware..)

Miranda was known for her unusual parenting style.

“I say it’s spinach.”

The Broken Dish: 

Paste (including the quote marks) 

"Category:Paul Seignac" Wikimedia 

(syntax supported by the Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and Yandex search engines) in the browser address bar (or search for it using one of those search engines) and choose the first Category: found and once there find the text string Dish, and click its link for info and links that point to more info about this roughly A5 paper size painting. 

Again, a larger strip image is shown by (Ctrl- or right-) clicking the image in Mr. Melcher’s MASTERPIECE #3313 (April 30, 2024) blog entry, accessible by the Check out the blog! box after the last comment, and using the dropdown menu (even larger, if you trim what’s after .jpg from the URL). I have added a comment there pointing to the info about this artist I used to point to here. Only work by him used here so far.

And no, just because you yelled “Opa!” when you did it does not make it alright!

The problem appears to be the family can’t afford new crockery, so a broken plate is a big deal.

Dang cat!

I’m going to pull on your ear until it’s the size of that plate and wipe it chopped liver and then sic Muffy on you.

Mommy Dearest …

No, I said you couldn’t go outside to play until the floor is clean.

CRASH

See? There is a broken dish on the floor still!

But mom! The dish was supposed to run away with the spoon! How was I to know it couldn’t run when that’s what it said in that book. Stupid fake news!

For Wednesday:

it’s a typical renaissance wedding/

It ain’t “Kiss me Kate”/

There’ll be envy and hate/

On one murder at least I’ll be betting..

The fashions will boggle the mind/

There’ll be plenty of male “behind”/

For the men all wear hose/

Through which everything shows/

And all buttocks are sharply defined ..