Spite Balls

It's not yet 9 am and all the creatures in the house are not only stirring, but stirred up. Fluffy is chasing a small sparkly ball around the sunroom and the boys are already wired up to the game that still shall not be named. They are tossing insults back and forth with glee. Barnacle Boy pings Crash with an oblique reference to a girl. "BBB est puella" Crash shoots back. (He's taken to insulting the Boy in Latin, with the generally unrealized hope that neither the Boy nor Math Man will understand. ) When they spot me, the three player version of the game begins in earnest. "Mooommmm, he's trying to kill me!" (Virtually, to be sure!) "Mom, he's throwing spite balls at me!" (Spite balls? and this is different from their usual behavior, how?) "Spite balls?"

I am firmly informed it's spike balls that are being thrown. Personally, I think I was right the first time.