Lets pretend

The boys are in the kitchen eating "man food" i.e. sardines and smoked oysters out of a can. I call it "man food" because their pawpaw Tim taught them to enjoy these treats and it smells so bad it runs me out of the room.   When they finish eating we are going to make plum jam with plums we picked from Miss Ann's house this morning.   We had all our plums picked and then needed to head to town to get a couple of ingredients to make our jam. I also had a couple of other things to pick up and by the time we got to the 4th store the boys were getting very testy. What I really wanted to do was get what i needed and get out of the store but it is so hard to keep on track with three little boys squealing and wrestling and tickling each other.  I was starting to feel like a broken record.  I pleaded and demanded "please keep your hands to yourselves, guys please stop, hey guys please knock it off, Ok stop boys, Guys don't touch each other" Boy that's it, put your hands in your pockets now!  Stop head butting each other!!"  Luckily this time I had a fresh Idea! I pulled the boys in close and began to whisper "you guys I have an Idea!  Ok you boys are going to pretend to be perfect little gentlemen, I mean like the best behaved boys ever and then when ever we pass someone I will say things like "Oh you are the sweetest little boys ever" and "I love taking you boys shopping" and "oh my what sweet little gentlemen you are." They were pretty excited about this new game at first and we had fun "tricking" people. But then we didn't see anyone for a while and it all fell  apart!  Oh well we got what we needed and the jam turned out great!