Double whatever

"double trouble!" (always either smug (thank god I was clever enough not to have twins) or snide (you are clearly an idiot for having twins). )

I have no idea how to respond to this. Because:

a) it's a stupid thing to say

b) it's a boring thing to say

c) it's rude.

I mean really, where do you go with it? (I get that it's just one of those things that people say without thinking and without meaning to cause offence, like the things men say to other men about marriage. But really, come on people. I do not buy 'not thinking' as an excuse for what comes out of your mouth. Engage brain THEN speak.)

Usually I smile politely and keep walking (or doing whatever I'm doing), taking advantage of the mother's prerogative to be too busy and too tired to stop and chat (with idiots), but some people are belligerent. To wit:

(yesterday, at the post office)

her: "Double trouble!"

me: smile politely, continue with posting packages

her: "I bet you hear that all the time!"

me: "quite often"

her: "well, it is true."

me: smile politely, continue posting

her: "They really are double trouble!"

me: aware that silence is not working "And double the fun and love."

her: "Oh for now, because you're in control. Wait until they're in control. It will be hell!"

me: less smiling, more determined silence.

I've heard a lot of twin parents talk about the best response to the "double trouble" drudgery. Discussions about how best to educate people to the fact that 1) twins are the best and 2) it's pretty rude to call other people's kids 'trouble', however many of them there feature on every multiples forum that there is. The search for the perfect one-line response is rife and almost everyone falls back on the (equally witty I must admit) "double the positives too" quip. But it's not working, people are determined to tell me how awful I have it having two babies at once. So from now on the conversations are going to go like this:

her: "Double trouble!"

me: "Fuck off you moron."

(smile politely, keep walking)