My 7-year-old's timing is impeccable. Or terrible.

Jun. 24—I've long suspected my 7-year-old daughter — we call her "Arlie" because that's what we named her — of having some latent preternatural abilities beyond those of normal human children.

Nothing too extraordinary, mind you; I'm not one of those parents who goes around bragging about how their toddlers have learned how to play the entirety of Hildegard of Bingen's "Ordo Virtutum" on didgeridoo or touting the way their infant emerged from the womb red-faced and glistening and also reciting word-for-word the prologue of "The Canterbury Tales."

No, from what I've observed, Arlie's special skills are much less flashy, although no less extraordinary because of their subtlety.

The particular one I'd like to highlight for now is her perfect timing. Or is it imperfect timing? I can't quite decide.

Obviously, my sample pool for such things is limited, but I struggle to believe many people out there, children or adults, capable of timing an interruption as flawlessly as my daughter.

No doubt, you require an example. Here's a hypothetical for you:

"Daddy, I'm hungry," Arlie claims just as you've begun scraping the blackened layers of foodstuffs from the back of your oven.

Annoyed at the interruption, as you always are, you'll ask her when she last snacked, to which she'll respond with claims of having never once eaten in all of her long seven years on this planet and the sensation of hunger is just now hitting her. Hard.

So, you'll set aside the pizza cutter you're using to pry away the baked-on remnants of a hundred meals and then ask the tiny child you helped foster into this world what she'd like to eat. She'll inevitably tell you "mac and cheese," because it's one of, like, three things she'll tolerate.

"I want homemade mac and cheese, please," she'll tell you. And then, just when you're about to protest, she'll drop a bit of flattery: "Your mac and cheese is sooooooo delicious."

So, you'll roll your eyes and reluctantly agree to make mac and cheese from scratch, and then off she'll skip, to continue starving and also doing whatever else it was before she realized the essential role subsentence plays in her ability to keep living.

But that's just one example that showcases my kid's impeccable or impeccably terrible (still undecided which) timing. There are so, so many others.

Maybe you've just settled into the restroom-using position when you hear a furious knock on the bathroom door and the panicked cries of a child claiming she absolutely must use the restroom right that very second or else flood the house.

Or ... or ... or maybe ... maybe you've just settled into your usual spot in the living room and pressed play on the extremely adult television show you've been watching in seven-minute increments over the past two months and although Arlie was happily playing by herself in her room not 30 seconds ago, now she's suddenly in the living room staring at the couple on television either doing very couple-like things or maybe getting brutally murdered or perhaps just unleashing a flurry of profanity, and she wants to know both what's happening on screen and if you will stop watching your terribly child-inappropriate show and instead pretend to be Ken or some other guy who looks almost exactly like Ken but she says isn't Ken while she acts out various nonsensical storylines as Barbie, Chelsea and most of the female cast of Frozen.

And guess what: You'll agree. Not because you want to, but because you're trying to be the kind of parent who nurtures his child's abilities, no matter how infuriating they might ...

...

... Sorry, had to stop to answer a question about the lifespans of cats. I'm so proud. Or not. Still undecided.

ADAM ARMOUR is the news editor for the Daily Journal and former general manager of The Itawamba County Times. You may reach him via his Twitter handle, @admarmr.