canoe! canoe!

You know people who are into BDSM sex have safewords that mean, no, seriously, stop now?

Scott and I need such a word for Ed and Kathleen. We ask for one thing – a gift bag, say, or a bit of gift wrap for stuff we'd brought to give them – and it starts like five minutes of digging out every roll of wrapping paper they can find and going down in the fucking basement and getting out four boxes of nice bags and store bags and ribbons and bows and three scissors and four things of tape and tissue paper and colored tissue paper and—CANOE!

Or we say, when throwing together some food, "Could I have a prep bowl or two?" that prompted like five minutes of opening cabinets and getting out all the glass, plastic, and metal bowls,— wait! I think there are more in the basement!— to have a place to put one diced onion so I could clear off the cutting board.

Kathleen thinks we're saying "noo" like Canadians. It's not entirely untrue; we think that "canoe" is Sue's suggestion for a safeword.

So to them, our saying, OK! That's enough! Stop! We're fine! is like S&M sex where ow! stop spanking means "oh yes do it harder." Seriously, we tried. It only intensified the pain, and believe me, it was without pleasure.

Update: I was trying to show her how to make challah. Aside from her complete lack of interest in the science of bread (Scott and I believe it's essential to understand why things work the way they do, if you're going to change them, or even follow a recipe), I asked for a measuring spoon. I'd already looked through all the logical drawers, such as the one containing silverware, serving spoons, and the measuring cups – only to discover that there is no order whatever to the kitchen. It was as if every box that they opened just got its own fucking drawer / cabinet with no thought to where you'd be using its contents. Outrageous, and almost unusable. Of course I asked her about them (don't normal people who pretend to cook know where such tools are?) and this prompted another search through all the same damn drawers, and then Ed had to get involved, and look through boxes and shit in the garage—CANOE!