The hunt

I know I mentioned yesterday that I was going to do a series on "hair things". Well, change of plans. I woke up today and decided to write about something else. This is yet another confirmation of my ADD tendencies. Maybe tomorrow I'll get re-focused and do the hair topic. Hard to say.

Yesterday afternoon, while running some errands by myself, I heard peculiar noises coming from the back of my seat. At first, there was a squeaky sound, something along the lines that a chipmunk or mouse might make. I kind of got scared for a moment, thinking that some sort of woodland creature was going to jump on my shoulder at any time. (picture Clark Griswold in "Christmas Vacation" -a classic)

I should mention that I love the outdoors. I like animals. However, I think that animals belong in their natural habitats - the woods or preferably the zoo. I don't mind squirrels, or rabbits, or birds being outside. That's fine. But put 1 of them in a confined area with me such as a house or in this case, a car, it freaks me out. I will scream like a little girl and run fast and far away. Not necessarily proud to say that, just being honest.

Anywho, I noticed that each time I slowed down, the odd noise occurred. I thought that my braking was somehow making the varmint mad. Weird. But then I noticed if I stopped or sped up quickly, in addition to the clicking/squeaking noise, there also projected a ringing bell sound. Very weird.

At stoplights I tried to turn around and find the source of the calamity emitted from behind my seat. No luck. I had to wait until I got home to figure it out.

Upon arriving home, I hopped out and opened the back door of my car. (yes, I drive a 4 door sedan...2 door cars are for pansies) And there it was. A creepy, diabolical thing that has been around our home for approximately 9 years. I think I've tried to dispose of it a dozen times, but somehow it keeps eluding my attempts. And now, it had made its way into my car of all places.

What it was doing under my driver's seat, I have no idea. It always seems to move from location to location, never staying in one spot for very long - kind of like Osama bin Laden. I think that's how it's managed to survive for this long. Just when we decide to exterminate it, we can't find it. And when we do find it, our youngest child at the time decides to befriend it again and thus we have no choice but to accept it.

And to make matters worse, it always wears an evil grin upon its face. The mocking, taunting smirk is ever-present. Never relenting, never changing, always aggravating, and fueling my hatred for it.

So finally, I had the opportunity to rid ourselves of this menace. I forcefully grabbed it, and brought it inside the house. As it turns out, that was a costly mistake. I should have taken a hammer to it and threw the remains into the garbage can when nobody was looking. But I didn't. My ADD kicked in and I became side tracked with something else. Such a fool am I.

Because I didn't follow through with the elimination process right away, it has managed to yet again avoid its own demise. I've lost track of it once more and really don't feel like hunting it down. So, I'll just wait for it to show itself as it inevitably always does. This is my punishment for being a procrastinator. Somewhere, it lies waiting for the opportunity to unleash its array of audible annoyances.

Laugh now, Fisher Price beast. You'll have your day. YOU'LL HAVE YOUR DAY!

Hair things: Part I

This week I'm addressing some hair related issues...

Ok. What is this object in the picture? I believe it's called a "bobby pin". I do know that it is not a "safety pin". I won't go into great detail of how I learned the difference between the two, but I will just say that it involves a little pain, crying, and repeatedly saying the words, "Daddy's so sorry, sweatie." My wife had made the mistake of assuming I knew the difference between the two pins when she asked me to "please put a bobby pin in the girls' hair." My bad.

Whatever the name, this is one of approximately 468 that are lying around our home. They are in drawers, under furniture, stuck in drains, and pretty much any flat surface has at least one on it. We always have them in our bathtubs, which, if they are left in a wet tub, they leave rust stains. Fantastic.

My theory is if I was to put two in a drawer over night, in the morning there'd be at least three in there. Some how, they have the capability of reproducing. Sort of creepy.

They are hard to see when lying on the carpet, incidentally making them easy targets for the vacuum cleaner. I cringe whenever I hear the ricocheting clatter emitted from the sweeper. It sounds like a nail in a blender.

Additionally, I have yet to figure out how to use these. I’ve tried. However, the children’s heads look like pin cushions when I’m finished. They give me a glare of disapproval and quickly resort to trying to do it themselves. Of course, if their mother's around they avoid asking for my help altogether - which is nice. When they do have to come to me, I have really tried to make them stick in the girls' hair but within 2 minutes of my attempt, they fall back out. The girls refuse to let me use tape to help matters so I basically just decline to try anymore.

These little pieces of metal have turned me into a big proponent of hats.

What is that?

As with most families, odd situations pop up in our house continually. People tend to believe that these things only happen to them, when in reality we all go through these experiences. At least I hope. Otherwise, our family is very odd.

The other day, I stepped in the shower and prior to turning on the water, I looked down to notice a brown smeary glob by my feet. Now, I didn’t have my contacts in at the time so my vision was blurry. I couldn’t make out what exactly I was looking at, so I stepped back out to retrieve my glasses.

No longer legally blind, I still saw just a smudged brown mess in our bathtub. The hairs on my neck stood up as I considered the possibilities of its origin. Without sounding too crass, the substance in question resembled what might be left behind from a bathing individual who had intestinal issues. With this thought, my own stomach churned a little bit.

The dark gooey matter didn’t rinse out when I turned on the shower. So, I opted to stand straddling it, careful to not step on it. I usually take long showers, but on this day I voluntarily sped up the process. I felt icky just sharing the same space with it. Had our tub been reduced to a poor man’s bidet? Our kids are past the potty training stage (ages, 4,6 and9) but the youngest child has had some incidents in the past that might suggest her possible guiltiness in this situation.(stories for another day)

I dressed and walked downstairs to the kitchen. My wife was busy cleaning up after breakfast. Before I had the chance to mention to her about the disturbing circumstances that I just witnessed, she provided some information.

“By the way, that is a chocolate chip in the bathtub,” she interjected matter-of-factly.

Momentarily, my mind eased a bit. She chuckled at my obvious expression of relief. With this revelation, I no longer needed to locate rubber gloves, ammonia, and bleach. However, her news also raised another question.

“Sooo, why is there a chocolate chip in our bathtub? That’s not exactly normal,” I contended.

Sadly, at that time she didn’t have an answer for that one.

The word on the street right now is that one of the kids had been eating a cup of chocolate chips as a snack. One fell on the ground and rather than throwing it away, perhaps into something called a "trash can", they chose to place it in the bathtub instead. Makes perfect sense, eh? Weird.

My wife just shrugged and continued her kitchen cleaning. I too shook my head and went on about my day. In this house, you kind of just learn to roll with things. Personally, I’ve also adopted a motto to live by in situations such as this.

WHEN IN DOUBT, DON’T TOUCH IT

Lydia

El Stupido

My kids ask many questions. Many, many questions. Unfortunately for me, these inquiries just sometimes serve as constant reminders of just how stupid I am. So, on occasion when one of my children asks a question that I do not know the correct answer to, I do the best that I can.

I lie.

To them I then sound smart and they leave the conversation satisfied. It's just good parenting. It's what we call in the parenting biz, "a win/win situation".

Anyhow, yesterday during a casual dialogue, my little girl asked me if I knew what "El Nino" was. I said, "Well heck yes I do."

Now, El Nino has been a household term for approximately 15 years now it seems. I probably should actually know what it is. I kind of do, but to explain it to somebody is another thing. So, I proceeded to inform her of the following...

"El Nino has to do with weather - mostly rain, the temperature of the ocean, climate changes and patterns, Mexico, and the number 9. It's very complicated, dear," I told her.

She looked noticeably confused. So was I. She didn't respond for a moment but I could see her mind working overtime. I thought for a second that I might actually get away with the load of nonsense I just fed her, but then she responded.

"The number 9? What? I don't understand, dad."

"Oh sure, 'El Nino' is Spanish for 'the nine'," was my response. I would have been okay had I not added the whole "number 9" part. Idiot.

Still obviously confused, she said, "But Dad, I thought the number nine in Spanish was 'nueve'?".

"Honey, go to your room. I think about nueve minutes should be sufficient."

Of course, I didn't actually send her to her room. I think making her head spin with serious concerns about her father's mental capacity was punishment enough.

She'll think twice before she poses a question to me again anytime soon.

Stay-At-Home Dad's observation #13

Here's a laundry tip in case you weren't already aware of it.

If one load of laundry takes approximately 3 hrs to dry, and it doesn't include a large amount of towels, check the lint trap.

The specimen shown in this picture is real. It also is now serving as a comforter on our bed.

Yikes.

Road Rage

On occasion I screw up as a parent. No, no, it's true. I have days when I'm less than perfect. As I mentioned in the previous post, we went to the zoo on Friday. On the way home, we ran into some heavy traffic which spurred my latest poor display of behavior.

Traffic had basically came to a very slow methodical pace. We were in the middle lane, keeping a car's length behind the person in front of us. To our right was a semi truck. I looked in the rear view mirror to see our children all asleep. I was fighting the notion to do the same given that my wife and I were both exhausted from our excursion.

As I looked out towards the semi, I noticed it was getting closer. I jerked to attention because I thought I had drifted toward it. I then figured out that I was not moving toward it, rather the truck had decided to change to our lane. The problem with this was that the enormous vehicle was going to run right into us.

We were forced into the left lane, and fortunately, the driver in that lane noticed the situation and made a complete stop allowing us room to transition over. I was furious. We were very close to being pinned under the trailer of the semi. What an idiot. The next chance I got I decided to share my criticism of the semi driver's abilities.

The passenger side window was down so I leaned over my wife's lap and yelled up to the rather burly man behind the wheel. I can't remember exactly what I said, but it felt good to say it. He in return shouted back at me, but the truck's loud engine drowned out his voice.

I like to think that he simply stated, "My apologies, good sir. You have every right to be upset with me. I do not know what I was thinking to force my way into your lane. You are an awesome driver and I am not. By the way, your minivan is sweet." However, by the accompanying gestures he was making, those words were nothing like what he said in reality.

The traffic tempo picked up and soon we were traveling at a normal speed. I was still fuming a little bit about our near death experience when I heard a tiny voice pipe up in the back and ask, "Daddy, why did you yell at that man in the truck?"

Crap.

My wife glanced at me with an amused look on her face. "Well, Daddy, why did you?" she said tauntingly.

Double crap.

"Well, dear," I said thoughtfully. "It's because that man driving the truck did something very dangerous that almost hurt us. I just let him know that I was not happy about it."

Silence.

I could see in the rear view mirror that she was really thinking hard about everything. I began to feel guilty. To be honest, not so much that I yelled at the idiot in the truck, but rather that my little girl witnessed it. Man, I really thought she was asleep.

I can sense when she is uncomfortable with certain things, and this was one of those moments I feared. I think my sudden burst of anger kind of freaked her out actually. She was entitled to a further explanation. Some sort of life lesson could be made out of this experience I thought. She needs to know that Daddy's behavior is not how you interact with other people. So I contemplated what I was going to say, hoping for wisdom in the situation. And then it came to me.

"Who wants ice cream?" I shouted.

Cheers erupted from the back of the van.

Problem solved. She never said another word about the idiot in the truck.