the p p p part

Ex was religious about teaching the kids to say please and thank you and to be gracious in every way.  If Youngest forgot to say please, she would typically give him a "passive" reminder by punctuating the first letter of please a few times until he's say it.  Then if he didn't jump in she'd say please.  He took to just mindlessly imitating her without even looking up to get it done, "p, p, p, please."  No one even thought about it much until one day, about the same time he discovered the purple dinosaur and became more independent, he just blurted out "Do I have to say the p p p part."