Tuesday

I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I am super good at video games. I’ll bet I could beat anyone in my grade head-to-head.

Unfortunately, Dad does not exactly appreciate my skills. He’s always getting on me about going out and doing something “active.”

So tonight after dinner when Dad started hassling me about going outside, I tried to explain how with video games, you can play sports like football and soccer, and you don’t even get all hot and sweaty.

head-to-head 正面交锋，短兵相接

英文解释：A head-to-head contest or competition is one in which two people or groups compete directly against each other.

e.g. Canadian business cannot compete head-to-head with American business.

get on sb. about doing sth. 让某人做某事

hassle 找麻烦，与某人争辩

英文解释：If someone hassles you, they cause problems for you, often by repeatedly telling you or asking you to do something, in an annoying way.

e.g. If you are tired of being hassled by unreasonable parents, leave home and pay your own way.

comment：同义词有bother, bug, annoy.

But as usual, Dad didn’t see my logic.

Dad is a pretty smart guy in general but when it comes to common sense, sometimes I wonder about him.

I’m sure Dad would dismantle my game system if he could figure out how to do it. But luckily, the people who make these things make them parent-proof.

Every time Dad kicks me out of the house to do something sporty, I just go up to Rowley’s and play my video games there.

Unfortunately, the only games I can play at Rowley’s are car-racing games and stuff like that.

Because whenever I bring a game up to Rowley’s house, his dad looks it up on some parents’ Web site. And if my game has any kind of fighting or violence in it, he won’t let us play.

dismantle 拆开

英文解释：If you dismantle a machine or structure, you carefully separate it into its different parts.

e.g. He asked for immediate help from the United States to dismantle the warheads.

kick someone out of 逐出

英文解释：To kick someone out of a place means to force them to leave it.

e.g. The country's leaders kicked five foreign journalists out of the country.

sporty 体育运动的

I’m getting a little sick of playing Formula One Racing with Rowley, because he’s not a serious gamer like me. All that you have to do to beat Rowley is name your car something ridiculous at the beginning of the game.

And then when you pass Rowley’s car, he just falls to pieces.

sick of 厌倦

英文解释：If you say that you are sick of something or sick and tired of it, you are emphasizing that you are very annoyed by it and want it to stop.

e.g. I am sick and tired of hearing all these people moaning.

fall to pieces 崩溃

Anyway, after I got done mopping the floor with Rowley today, I headed home. I ran through the neighbor’s sprinkler a couple times to make it look like I was all sweaty, and that seemed to do the trick for Dad.

But my trick kind of backfired, because as soon as Mom saw me, she made me go upstairs and take a shower.

mop the floor 击倒某人;把某人打得一败涂地

英文解释：to defeat decisively

sprinkler 洒水装置

backfired 事与愿违

英文解释：If a plan or project backfires, it has the opposite result to the one that was intended.

e.g. The President's tactics could backfire.

comment：可以试着用这个词代替failed，特别是要体现出结果与预计的相反的时候。