way off

there's this facebook post that warns about
"verbally forcing other people's children to stop playing outdoors, or they will either be locked up in the offender's bathroom or forced to scrub the street gutters"

hmmm...  what curious examples.
i categorically say the statements do not apply to me.
i would like, however, to expand on the post
because certain words rang a bell
and i think i know where such ideas came from.

you know that pass-it-on game
where a group tries to relay the same message
through a queue?

i know someone who would be a perfect poster girl for that  -> the guy's friend.
this friend has a track record
(and when i say track record i mean spanning yearS)
of changing words and mangling statements beyond recognition.

i've warned her countless times about it.
i've told her so many times to make it a habit to quote verbatim.

her standard reply?
the statements are just the same.
in her own words:  "pareho lang 'yun"

differences and nuances that are very clear to me,
she fails to see at all.
she insists the original and her rewording are just the same.

i've been warning her that if this were an investigation
she'd be guilty of putting words in other people's mouths
because her version does not quite capture the original.

again in her own words:
"hindi naman investigation 'to,
hindi kailangan eksakto."
this is not an investigation.
we do not have to be exact.

i've been telling her, investigation or not,
she should try to develop good habits.
i've even tried to give her a drill a couple of times.
(yes, for yearS when my patience has not yet run out, i acted as her protector, editor, even benefactor.
no, and i say this emphatically, i was never at any point in time a partner in her "business.")
i'd ask her to repeat something i just said
->  not many words; just a simple subject-predicate statement.
she could not.  she'd be adding and changing words and altering meanings CONSISTENTLY.
it was appalling.
it was tiring.

now let me go to the words that rang a bell:

-  verbally forcing other people's children to stop playing outdoors

i have several times tried to stop children from playing around our vehicle telling them to play in their own van instead

hmmm...  "vehicle" to "outdoors"...

- locked up in the offender's bathroom

so this boy threw trash in our garbage sack.
i asked him why he did not put his trash in their own trash can.
he replied they don't have one.
i said go to *your* toilet!
my assumption is that people have trash cans in their toilet.

- forced to scrub the street gutters

so these boys play basketball
and their ball hits my dad's pots
spilling soil on the gutter.

i tell them to clean the gutter themselves.

so now, given my original statements
and the version probably heard by the one who made the post,
what can i say?

far off, once again.
nothing new.