On tablelism....

Tableism - the practice of sorting large families into smaller groups by table and age.
Phillip's New World Dictionary

When I was growing up, my grandmother's house was the place where everyone met for holidays and family gatherings; I called her house The Hub because it was where everything happened.  Since my extended family was scattered across several states, and I rarely got to see them, those gatherings at grandma's were special times indeed, and they occurred all too infrequently.

My grandmother always had two tables, a smaller one that was used for every day meals and a larger table that was used when my relatives were visiting.  My grandparent's, like most people, were tableists; when we had family functions the bigger table was reserved for the adults and the smaller table was used by us kids.  I used to always think that being an adult meant two things; that you got to sit at the big kid table and that you got to drink coffee.  I still don't drink coffee and I suppose that my refusal to drink it is just an expression of my desire to stay young and not grow up; coffee's always been just a little too grown up for me.  I do get to sit at the big kid table though, so I guess that I'm at least partially grown up.  For me sitting at the adult table was a right of passage, a sign that you'd arrived at adulthood.

The people at the big kid table always seemed so cool; they would drink their coffee, talk about their jobs and divorces, and tell dirty jokes.  I yearned to be a part of that cooler, older table, minus the divorces.  The younger table talked about stuff like school, the books we had read and what we had done during the long, lazy summers that is one of those unique gifts of childhood.  Though it was nice to see my cousins and I enjoyed their company very much, there was nothing in any of those conversations that was going to leave an indelible impression on your young mind; I couldn't tell you one thing that was ever said at that table, but I remember well some of the jokes told at the big kid table.  The conversations at that big kid table...now those were special.

There was also a group that I dubbed "the Tweeners", they were the people who were too young to sit at the big kids table, but too old to fit in at the little kid table.  When my grandmother had more people at the house than she could fit at either of the tables the Tweeners would get a folding tray table to eat at.  I always tried to be a Tweener whenever I could because it made me feel a little less like a kid and a little more like an adult.

I've come to realize that my life-long desire to be welcomed as a full voting member at the big kid table, with all of the rights and privileges thereto, was overrated and that I had idealized what occupying a spot at that table really meant.  Heck, I never could tell a good joke anyway.  It took me years of observation to reach this enlightened state, years that finally culminated in a kind of epiphany.  I came to this epiphany while sitting on the couch in my in-law's living room this past Thanksgiving.

As I sat there I observed that although we were obviously all there together, the larger group was made up of several smaller groups, with each group member interacting with one another in completely different ways.  The first group was the Wee Ones; they were all under 5 and were playing with dolls or crawling across the floor putting things into their mouths that didn't belong there.  This was the equivalent of the little kid table, though the age range didn't stretch quite as far as I was used to.

The second group ranged in ages from 16 to around 21.  This group was talking about World of Warcraft, games in general, and electronics.  This was the Tweener group from my childhood.  The only thing missing were the folding tray tables.

The third group was the full-fledged adults, the occupants of the big kid table. What were they talking about?  Social Security, maintenance medications, medical conditions and other old people stuff; it was like sitting in a cardiologist's waiting room.  It was at this point, sitting on that couch in my in-law's house and watching these three groups interact, that my soul begged to be thrust back into the comforting arms of my grandmother's little kid table, if just for one more time.  Either the big kid table isn’t what I had made it out to be or the kids that sit there, me included, aren’t nearly as cool as they used to be.  I think maybe it's probably a little of both.

On avoiding laundry duty....



Part one in my How to Avoid Household Chores series addresses how to avoid doing laundry.  Following these simple tips will not only allow you to avoid laundry, it will actually get you a lifetime laundry ban; she will BEG you not to ever wash anything again and you never doing laundry will be cause for celebration.

I hate doing laundry and I hated it even more when the kids were babies, there's just no good way to fold those little clothes.  And people get injured trying to fold fitted sheets; if a person could figure out how to neatly fold them they would probably win a Nobel Prize, have a holiday named after them and would have parades and festivals held in their honor.  The fitted sheet is a nut that I just haven't been able to crack, when confronted with one I just roll it up and shove it in the closet.

During our first couple of years of marriage Paula didn't mind me doing laundry; she started minding when she discovered my daughter using her favorite shirt to dress her Barbie.  I didn't just shrink that shirt, I broke several laws of physics and I'm pretty sure that my feat will never be duplicated.  If there was a Laundry Mistake Hall of Fame I would be in it.  That shirt sure did look good on Caitlin's Barbie though.

That first incident didn't quite do the trick.  The final straw was when I washed a red shirt with the whites and one of her favorite tank tops came out pink.  I actually suffered a little with this incident because all of my socks were pink too, but after a couple of washes and a few catcalls the pink came out. 

Since that day I have been banned from the laundry room.  Occasionally I will be in there doing something and she will yell from the other room "you aren't doing laundry are you?"  When I’m at home and she goes somewhere her last words are generally “don’t worry about the laundry, I’ll get it when I get back”, which really means I better not touch it.

So to avoid doing laundry all you really have to do is mix some darks in with the whites and totally ignore the advice on the tags.  The minute she realizes that the shirt she wore just last week is now three sizes too small your laundry days are over forever.

On Satan Claus....

 

Just like every couple, Paula and I have developed traditions around the way that we do things at Christmas.  We shop for most things together (except for the ones from Santa of course) and then we sneak everything into the house and hide them somewhere that we're pretty certain is safe from snooping eyes.  We change that spot every year just in case they've gotten wise to us.

On Christmas Eve we set our alarm clock for about 2 AM Christmas Morning and when the alarm goes off we get the gifts from their hiding places, wrap them, and stick them under the tree.  I'm not a very good wrapper, so I always fetch the gifts and get strips of tape ready while Paula wraps.  Then, when she's done wrapping them, I will put the name tags and bows on them.  We always do one tag for each of the kids that says that it's from Mom and Dad, but the others always say Santa.

Because we generally end up going to bed late, we're usually pretty tired when we get up at 2 AM to do that wrapping and we find ourselves making little mistakes like cutting the paper too short or putting the wrong name on the tag and stuff like that.  In fact Paula, always cuts at least one piece of paper too short and giggles about it; it's one of those little unintentional traditions that always makes me smile.

So a few years ago the kids got up, as usual, at around 6 AM, ready to open presents.  Someone always takes the initiative to grab them, read the tags, announce who they're from and for, and then distribute them.  This particular year my daughter, who was maybe 10 at the time, was passing them out, dutifully saying "From Santa to Tyler", "From Mom and Dad to Caitlin", etc.  She grabbed one of hers and with eyes the size of half-dollars read "From Satan to Caitlin".  Caitlin looked at me and said "very funny dad, that's mean".  The funny thing about it is that it was a complete mistake and in my sleep-deprived state I had just misspelled Santa.

So now it's become a tradition that someone says something like "there's none here from Satan are there?"

On Facebook Falsehoods....

People who post on Facebook are the most ardent group of sunshine pumpers I've ever seen in my entire life.  I've seen it time and again; someone posts a horrible picture of himself or herself and everyone comments on how handsome or pretty they are.  Everyone knows they're lying, but for some reason they feel compelled to leave a comment and it has to be a positive one.   

I guess they want to try to be nice and not mention how horrible the picture looks, so instead they say stuff like “nice sweater”, or don't really mention the picture at all and say something about the upcoming reunion or their kids instead.  If I was posting a picture of myself and someone told me that they liked my sweater I wouldn't know how to take it, but I would probably think that it was the only kind thing they could come up with.

I'm more of the "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all" kind of guy, so I don't say much of anything when I see these bad pictures.  Usually when I do end up saying something I stick my foot in my mouth anyway, so silence is a pretty solid policy and has probably kept me from being beaten up a couple dozen times.

So today I conducted an experiment and took a picture of myself in the mirror.  It's these kind of pictures that usually generate the most sunshine pumping.  I asked myself, would I be told what a handsome little fella I was or how skinny I looked or how pretty my sweater was, all of which are probably not true?  See for yourself (the names have been changed to protect the innocent):

Apparently either the compliments are reserved for other people, women maybe, or I have some mean friends.  Maybe I should have worn a sweater.

On Angry Birds....

Until I installed Angry Birds on my smart phone this past Saturday I was probably one of only two people in the world who had never played it; I uninstalled it on Sunday.  I didn't remove it because I didn't like the game or anything, I uninstalled it because the two times that I sat down and played it I ended up with a headache and temporary near sightedness and experienced a shift in the space-time continuum; before I knew it I had traveled into the future an hour and a half and that pig was still alive and laughing at me.

After my second dalliance with Angry Birds I quickly decided that any further involvement with this game would probably end with my wife being tried for what most would probably consider justifiable homicide.  I now have a full appreciation for why the game is so popular, it's really, really addicting.  Even now there is a little devil sitting on my shoulder telling me that it would be okay to reinstall it; that I can exercise self control and play it for a few minutes now and again, but I know that I am powerless against Angry Birds and that the only way to stay healthy is to walk away completely.  Though I know all of this, walking away still hurts my heart.  I think I just cried on my keyboard a little....

On guerrilla warfare....

From Wikipedia:  Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians (or "irregulars") use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and less-mobile traditional army, or strike a vulnerable target, and withdraw almost immediately.

 

I got a good chuckle the other night when my wife and daughter and I were discussing the possibility of me attending a bowl game this New Year's Eve.  My wife said that I should go and my daughter said no I shouldn't because although she wouldn't admit it, my wife would be mad at me if I did.  I told my daughter that last year when I got back from the New Year's Eve game her mother had admitted that she was mad at me for about 4 long and painful hours; it was like an anger marathon and because she had dozed after midnight while I drove home she was rested up for it.

The whole night of the game I thought I was golden; I had taken my son, my brother-in-law and his son-in-law and we had a great time.  My wife and daughter had gone to a movie and then come home and watched the ball drop.  I called my wife at around midnight and wished her a Happy New Year and then continued the long drive home, fat dumb and happy.

When I got home the house was quiet as expected, so I got a drink of water and headed to bed.  The bedroom was a little dark, so I turned on my cell phone and aimed it at the bed so that I wouldn't break a foot.  In the pale light of that cell phone this is what I saw:

Okay, it wasn't that bad, but there certainly wasn't any warmth in the eyes of the woman that was laying there waiting for me.  Right about the time I walked into the bedroom, unaware that I was about to be ambushed, I thought that I heard my wife whisper a line from this movie.  This is when I should have turned around and run.

I've heard people say things like "she's a demon in bed", but the knowing looks and dumb grins that usually accompany that expression gave me the impression that it meant something good.  In my case though the demon that I had just slid under the covers with was a creature (a lovely creature mind you) bent upon my destruction.  The 4 hours of education that I received that night taught me that "I'd really like you home with me at midnight, but if you'd rather go to the game then go ahead" had been misinterpreted by me as an okay to go. 

Needless to say this year I will be staying home.
 

On Occupy Wall Street....

Apparently in order to join the Occupy Wall Street movement you have to pass an exam.  Here's one of the questions:

Jimmy is 22 years old and is a lazy little pansy who thinks that everything should be given to him; he likes to cry and feel sorry for himself a lot.  Jimmy gets two apples for every hour he works at the factory.

Janet is 44 years old and has been working at the factory for nearly 20 years.  She worked hard to put herself through college and her hard work has paid off; she was prompted 2 years ago and is now a vice-president.  Janet gets 20 apples for every hour she works.

How many of her apples will Janet have to give Jimmy to make the little pansy happy?