A recent long road trip saw The Monkeys in the back of the car squabbling.

Not the kind of squabbling that can easily be ignored, and conversation continued on and over. No. The kind that needs a turn of an adult head, a slight narrowing of the eyes and some tough words thrown at them. Yep, tough words.

Nope. Didn’t work.

Step two. Explain to them this is how it was going to work. If things continued like this, and at that noise level of bickering, desperate measures would have to be taken… Yep, desperate measures.

Nope. That didn’t work either.

Step three. Ok, really desperate measures.

Jelly snakes.

I first read of this drastic measure on Myrtle & Eunice. I laughed so hard reading it, and vowing it was a brilliant idea and was sure to be used on our own road trips down the track. Well here we were, down the track.

Crunch time. With noisy arguing kids in the back, a long way still to drive, and a bag of jelly snakes on my side. Well it was time wasn’t it…

It was jelly snake time.

The rules were simple. Every time they yelled/ argued/ annoyed one of us. A snake would lose it’s life. Tossed out the window without a second thought. The Monkeys looked on with wide eyed horror as the rules were laid out. Surely mama wasn’t serious?….

It was quiet… for a whole two minutes, and then the inevitable had to happen. The squabbling started up again and a snake had to go. No more warnings, no more threats, no more laying down of the rules. The rules were set and they had just been broken. Quickly and painlessly the snake was thrown. There was a collective gasp from all of us. From The Monkeys realising I had actually followed through with it and from Mr Chocolate and I on the realisation that there was no way I could slip that snake from its precarious open window seat to Mr Chocolate’s willing and open mouth.

The snake was thrown and peace reigned for the next three hours.

It only took the one.

*And I am very sorry to the person driving behind us who got a surprising jelly snake splat on his windscreen.