Peeow! You're dead!

"Peeow! You're dead!"

Thus rings out the merry cheer of half-term at our house... usually followed by...

"No! I'm not dead!"

"Yes you are!"

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are. I shot you."

"No, I shot you first."

"Peeow! You're dead! Got you this time!"

"But you were already dead so you can't shoot me."

The conversation carries on like this until their mother is on the verge of madness and cries out for them to stop.

Not that their parents are immune to being shot. Their father, however, usually responds along the lines of:

"You didn't shoot me. In that millisecond that you shot, I super-laser-zapped my head and it split in two down the middle, your shot missed and then my head stuck back together again."

...or...

"You couldn't see it but I time-travelled for a short while, so I wasn't here when the shot was fired and so can't have been killed."

My reaction? Usually:

"I'm dead? Oh."

And then I get on with clearing the dishes, hoovering the floor, putting the washing out ... well, life really.