What's More Powerful than a Movie Quote?

"This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy."

"It's pissing me off, actually."

"Well, excuuuuse us for living."

Me and Mr. T love talking in movie quotes. But usually pretty random ones. (In order from above: Vacation, You've Got Mail, The Muppets Take Manhattan.) The lines just infuse themselves into our conversations. I just know that T Junior, when he grows up, will be watching some (really) old movie, like Three Amigos!, and realize, "Hey, that thing they said all the time...that was a movie quote! The weren't original at all!"

Actually, T Junior has already developed his own movie-quote habit. The other day we were at Starbuck's sharing a peppermint hot chocolate (I had my own with coffee in it). Randomly, T Junior just goes, "It's sucky!" Um, what? He clued me in that it's from Elf. Then I remembered the mailroom scene. "Oh yeah!" I cracked up.

He's also learned to make them his own. In the opening song of The Muppet Christmas Carol, there's a mouse with a high-pitched voice that says to Scrooge, "Please, sir, I want some cheese!" T Junior loves this, and uses it for a lot of things. "Please, sir, I want some cheese roll-ups!" "Please, sir, I want some cheese sandwich!" "Please, sir, I want some mac 'n' CHEESE!"

I'm thinking it's his favorite quote. Incidentally, those are his favorite foods, too.

But, sometimes, I get worried that he knows too many movie quotes. He's only 3-1/2. I want him to be original. Then again, I suppose he says plenty of things that are his own.

Take, for example, "Let's put a puppy on the table and see what happens." That was all him. Oh, and, "I want some hot chocolate. But not the hot. Just the chocolate." Also him. And there was something the other night, too.

I was getting him ready for bed, squeezing toothpaste on his toothbrush. He was standing on his stool at his sink and he patted me gently on my chest (over my heart, now that I think about it), and said, "I'm so glad you're my mom."

Now, that is a quote I don't want to forget. Where's the Kleenex?