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Don’t change my punctuation!

“Mom, can I have some chips?” asked my then 14-year-old son. It was about 8:30pm on a Saturday.

“No,” I replied calmly from my comfortable blue couch. He’d already had several snacks that day. Besides, we didn’t have any more chips anyway.

The persistent teenager obviously would not be thwarted. Instead my son took several moments to regroup and then innocently asked again. This time, there was a new twist to the question.

“Mom…can I go to the store and buy some chips?”

Again I said, “No.” Then went back to relaxing. Chips were not a food emergency worthy of a trip to the grocer.

A few minutes later, he calmly asked again, as if my ‘No’ had been negotiable. I grew irritated, but I had to admire his tenacity.

This time I angrily replied, “There was a period behind my ‘No’, so stop trying to change it into a comma!”

You see, my son had ignored the fact that my ‘No’ had been final. That it had forever settled the chip conversation once and for all.

From that experience, I learned the value of the scripture that says, “Let your yea be yea and your nay, nay (James 5:12).

I took this scripture to signify that we must say what we mean and mean what we say. We must not allow anyone, not even a lovable teenage, to change our punctuation. And we must never let anyone cause us to waver off of a righteous stance.

Did my son get those chips he wanted? Oh no, not that day! I put that period back behind my ‘No’, looked past his feign disappointment, and went back to relaxing.

© 2006 Suprina Frazier