Karma.

I was a kid who grew up in the 80's. I was also a kid who watched a lot of TV. As a result, my life, my sense of humor and often my vocabulary were shaped by the likes of Welcome Back Kotter reruns, The A Team and other stellar programing of the day.

My brothers and I would drive our mom nuts with our impressions of what we watched. And she especially hated it when our nice family dinners would be punctuated with outbursts like,

"Pass me the beans, FOOL!"

Eventually our shenanigans drove her to impose the No TV-Talk at the Table Rule. Whenever one of us would launch into some dumb Mork & Mindy monologue, she'd throw an angry look and scold, "No TV-talk."

I know, we were typical kids. We took funny things and drove them into the ground, inciting the adults around us to impose all kinds of crazy rules. It was our own inability to understand that there's a time and place for everything that got us in trouble. And in our house, dinnertime was not the time or the place to do your best Fonzi impression.

So of course, I've been blessed with kids who are equally influenced by what they watch. And unfortunately for me, they're watching this shit.

So, like my mom, I've now imposed the No TV-Talk at the Table. However, these little goof balls just don't stop -- not during a car ride, not on the bus stop, not in the bathtub.

It's just getting to be a little much.

So, this week, as I heard The Campfire Song for the 9,oooth time on the way home from the DMV, I snapped.

I told them they had to stop. Stop all of the goofiness. The verbal diarrhea. I lectured them on the necessity for proper communication. I tried to explain how mimicking what they see on TV is not a conversation. It's not sharing their thoughts or feelings. Spewing sound bytes from TV shows -- often at inappropriate times -- is simply not allowed anymore. And so help me, I am not raising mindless parrots -- I'm raising intelligent, well-spoken people.

I know. I'm a hypocrite. But I'm also a parent and I owe it to their teachers, grandparents and anyone else who comes into contact with them to try to get these kids to stop doing the There are Squirrels in My Pants Dance for like, two minutes.

So, allow me to formally, and in front of the whole world wide web, apologize to my mom for making her nuts -- and to acknowledge that her curse, hoping that someday I'd have kids who acted just like I did, worked.

Sorry, Mom. You were right.

Now... what can you do about reversing that curse?