Needed: A parent-child translator

Will someone please invent a truly workable translator? Not for German-Spanish, Russian-French, or even IRS-English, but for Parent-Child.

I think I'm speaking clearly and succinctly to my offspring, but apparently, something is getting lost in translation. That's the only explanation I have for when a simple order to "Open a can of cat food" results in "Find the missing Lego piece when you bend down to pick up the cat bowl and spend the next eight hours working that one tiny piece into the 14,567 others you have to make new and amazing constructions."

What Mom says: I want the two loads of laundry done by the time I get home from work today.

What Kid hears: I want you to add your pile of dirty laundry to the mountain of dirty laundry in front of the washer, then go play Kingdom Hearts for six hours.

What Mom says: You need to walk the dog.

What Kid hears: I want you to walk the dog, but it's really not that important, I mean, your wants are more important than the dog's needs in the larger scheme of things and if you want to just put the dog on the front yard chain where he can make his messes between the door and the driveway, that's okay. Really, it is.

What Mom says: Where is your brother?

What Kid hears: Since your brother isn't here I'm going to make you do the nasty job I had planned for him, so you'd better pretend not to hear me in hopes senile dementia will set in in the next 10 seconds and I will forget what I was about to ask you to do. (Sadly enough, this one works all too often.)

What Mom says: Aren't your report cards due out soon?

What Kid hears: I don't know when your report cards are due, so you have free rein to bluff and procrastinate on the actual arrival of that D in science until, well, graduation. If you get that lucky.

What Mom says: Who ate the last of ice cream?

What Kid hears:

Communication both ways

Of course, any good translator has to work both ways. I want to know what my children are really saying on the rare occasions they want to talk to me (usually during Jeopardy!). I understand the words they are saying, but apparently I'm missing the deeper meaning. For instance, when my 17-year-old told me "I don't have to work Saturday," I heard "I don't have to work Saturday." What I didn't hear, and was apparently supposed to have heard, was "I don't have to work Saturday so that means I can go to dance rehearsal for show choir from 11 to 5 and that means I need chauffeur service to and from, as well as lunch money, and speaking of money, I'm going to need some next week because my paycheck is going to be real small because I don't have to work Saturday."

Translations

I've started on some preliminary translations myself. Studying the lexicon, diagramming the "uhs" and "likes" and extrapolating the "you knows," I've come up with the first few entries of Kidspeak Translator.

Kid: I'm out of lunch money.

Translation: I've been out of lunch money for six weeks and the lunch ladies made me talk to some guy in an dark alley named Crusher ...

Kid: Actually ...

Translation: The information I gave you previously was wrong, and we need 100 cupcakes, not 100 cups. Today.

Kid: Ummmm ...

Translation: The principal will be calling within the next 10 minutes.

Kid: By the way....

Translation: I found out where rain really comes from and angel sneezes don't have anything to do with it and you made me embarrass myself in front of my entire class and you can expect a bill from my therapist in about 20 years.

Guys, when you get into a relationship with a girl and she asks you a question, she will probably say, "But what do you really mean?" Don't take it personally -- she usually knows what you mean to say. She certainly knows what you should have meant to say. But in this case, she's just practicing for motherhood.