The Lie: No, we just thought it made sense for her to buy your clothes and me to buy your school supplies. It has nothing to do with me being “more smarter.”

The Truth: It has everything to do with me being more smarter. Thank you, Olivia, for implicitly lending your support to that theory by merely posing the question in those terms. Although Michelle would never admit it, I think it’s fair to assume that her assignment to me of certain parental tasks (buying the graph paper and the calculators, for example, while she buys the raincoats and the shoes) is tantamount to a tacit acknowledgment of our respective positions on the ol’ cognitive continuum. If it makes her feel better, she can tell herself it’s because my fashion sense is lacking. (Believe me, she can – she spent many years conveying that sentiment to me in innumerable varied and creative ways.)

As for Olivia’s usage of the double comparative “more smarter,” I think it follows that I’m the less culpable party with respect to that any other grammatical calamities my children may produce.