Magic word

A new story from my mother-in-law, the elementary school teacher:

She's sitting at a craft table between two kids, and the boy on her left points to her right and says, "Give me those crayons."
She says, "What's the magic word?"
"Hocus pocus." She shakes her head. "Abracadabra?"

Meanwhile, the girl on her left is jumping out of the chair. "Teacher, please, can I tell him? Please, teacher? Can I please tell him the magic word?"

At a recent picnic, I retold her "You want a piece of this?" story and a woman responded with this tale of slick old-school parenting.

Apparently, her two young sons were using too much blue language within her earshot, and she warned them to knock it off. They were OK for a little while, but soon she could hear cussing again. She told them she'd break out the soap if they didn't stop.

This wouldn't be a story if they didn't do it a third time. She marched them both into the bathroom, managed to swipe the bar of soap across their clenched front teeth, and sent them to their room for a time-out.

A while later, she let them go play again until dinner, after which she told them that their good behavior since the soaping had earned them ice cream for dessert. She scooped the ice cream and left the kids in the kitchen as she went to brush her own teeth. She tasted a distinct soapy flavor through the toothpaste on her brush. Revenge.

Pausing by the sink for a moment, she rinsed off the toothbrush, gargled, squared her shoulders, and went back to the kitchen.

"Do you boys want a second helping of ice cream before you brush your teeth?" she asked. Didn't say a word about her sabotaged toothbrush. The kids stared, spoons halfway to their gaping mouths, and spent the next several days walking on eggshells, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never needed to.