Lickety Split

In my house, there is a lot of singing and dancing. Despite good advice by friends and my insurance agent, I too participate in the ongoing musical that is life in my home. I've been typecast as father, but have been known to play other roles such as Tickle Dog and Woogie from Something About Mary. And given my overall positive and humorous outlook on life, there is always something to sing about.

My wife and I try, sometimes unintentionally, to turn a word or phrase into song. I've lost count of how many times I have belted out instructions for the bedtime routine in my best tenor voice. My attempted soprano is bad enough to actually expedite bedtime routines and end otherwise perfect afternoons. If the kids knew the phrase "That's an hour of playtime I'll never get back," they certainly would have used it a million times by now. I also learned quickly that singing "Do you want a timeout? (I know you do!)" to the melody of Bob the Builder isn't nearly as effective as I hoped. However when we sing "Let's Go Lickety Split!", a phrase used to imply the need for great haste, the kids laugh and laugh as they pick up their pace.

My wife and I also catch ourselves singing our conversation to each other, even when the kids are in another room. We sing our conversation.

"How was your day?" I might sing.

"Please stop singing!" she might sing back.

"Do you want a timeout? (I know you do!)" I would conclude.

It's also very normal for us to take a normal phrase and make a silly song by truncating the words and making our own version of a remix. For example, "Zippity Do Da" might easily become "Zip it, Zip it! Do it! Do it! Zip Zip Zip it! Do it and Zip it!" This play with words is almost always safe with the kids, however recently my wife suddenly transformed a g-rated activity into a x-rated one when she tried to apply the word shortening and "It" appending game on the otherwise harmless phrase "Lickety Split". Go ahead, try it.

Please, Keep Your Feet Off Of The Foot Rest

Whenever we have company, I'm reminded that we have an unusual rule in our house.  It is best introduced with the statement often heard in our living room: "Keep your feet off of the ottoman!" I typically use that specific phrase to lighten the mood around what is a very serious toddler crime.

A couple years ago, we purchased a long red ottoman.  It was brought to our home as an alternative to a coffee table.  It's cushion top and corners are soft and we would never have to worry about trips to the emergency room with a toddler who did a face-plant on a wooden or glass tabletop. To keep it clean, we vacuum it. 

This particular ottoman opens to reveal a top-secret storage compartment, which is currently empty. I occasionally look in there to see what the kids have stored, but it seems that they don't go in there much. I lost my patience once and asked the kids if they had seen it. I'm not positive, but I think my son told me it was in there. I was afraid to look.

The table is not designed for parental dining and is too cushy even for the occasional coffee cup. However, the kids have come to learn that it is a table for sippy cups, kids plates and bowls, and toys.  They also know that if the kids plates and bowls tip over, we will vacuum it later. They have also learned that they are not to put their feet on the table. This includes standing on the table, laying on the table, dancing on the table, or jumping onto the table.  

It's only when we have company that we remember that our table was designed for feet.  Other kids (and some parents) can't help but put their feet on the foot rest.  And that's completely understandable.  Which is why, I realize how confused our kids must be about some of our rules.  Just to illustrate their disappointment with the conflicting messages, they decided to open it today and climb into the top-secret storage compartment. As a result, our new house rule is "Do not store your sibling in the ottoman."

I'm Being Stalked By A Robot

One day last week, I was in Boston for a job fair where I was representing my employer and hoping to find good candidates for our team.  I don't go to the city very often, but when I do I'm reminded of days past when the city was the epicenter of my social life and the backdrop for many late night and early morning alcohol-inspired outings.

While looking for a parking space, I was stopped at a traffic light I know very well.  On that particular corner stands a watering hole at which I spent many Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights for a few years in my early to mid 20s.  There were several of us in my core circle of friends who knew, without speaking, that we would end up there on those nights for as long as we were alive and not still recovering from the previous night.

I should mention here that there was a time during this era in which I started to get tired of the same old routine.  I wasn't the type to just start chatting away with strangers, so my conversations were limited to the friends I went there with.  Although I enjoyed these relationships, by Sunday night we had exhausted every possible topic.  The "So.... what have you been up to since I last saw you at 2am this morning?" discussion lasted about 10 minutes.   This was often the extent of our discussions anyways, because the music was too loud to truly hear what others were saying.  I had my own version of Cheers, except that nobody knew my name because they couldn't hear me.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that I was known by some as Tile, Tire, and Filer.

Feeling more and more disconnected from my own friends, I once proposed a "night in". 

"C'mon guys... let's watch a movie, take it easy and catch up over a pizza?"  

By the reaction I got, you would have thought I was proposing we all move to a dark cave in the Andes and eat fire roasted mutton while we play Pictionary with wild boar dung.  I eventually gave up on my efforts to redirect my friends towards less expensive and more audible discussions.  

Therefore while sitting at the traffic light in front of this once favorite bar of mine, I couldn't help but reflect on how much my social life has changed since then.  I smiled as I looked over my shoulder at the two car seats and Elmo books between them.  Here I was, driving to a job fair where I was now the hiring manager going to interview many young college grads who were probably getting ready to go (or had just come from) a local pub to yell over the music at each other.  I have bought a couple houses and been a landlord as opposed to being a renter with insurmountable debt.  

I also started to think about another major change; one that prompted me to write this anecdote.  

In the mid-90s, I did not have a cell phone or text messaging.  If someone wanted to reach me, they would email me (if they could even do that) or call my answering machine at home.  My social life and dating would have greatly benefited from a cell phone and (better yet) text messaging.  I even wonder if my wife and I would have texted each other after we first met, rather than let six years pass before we met again in person to plan our first date.  It would have been wonderful to have a "nice 2 meet u" text while driving home, especially given that she was on a date with someone else when we first met. Now that technology has advanced, we rely on it heavily to communicate to each other throughout the day.  

My Friday nights look very different than years ago.  I no longer eat mac and cheese on a beat up couch, nap for a couple hours in the early evening, go to a bar until 2am, and go to bed at 3am.  Instead, I get home from work in time to give my kids mac and cheese, put them to bed, do some laundry/dishes/ice cream eating/blogging/work/television watching, and go to bed earlier than a younger version of me would have awakened from a pre-drinking nap.

But thanks again to technology, I now get unexpected late night text messages.  Are these from my wife upstairs with a sweet message such as "Don't forget to lock the doors before you come up"?  Are they from my friends asking "Are you coming over to watch a movie? We're going to catch up over a pizza"?  

No. Instead, I get text messages from robots at work.  That's correct. Robots at work. When the robots we use nearly 24/7 to process biological samples encounter any problems, they send an email which is converted into a text message to my phone.  (A couple of the robots actually have their own Facebook pages, but that's a story for another day).  

I can't help but wonder if the robots are lonely and text me and my colleagues because of their desire for attention.  Whenever my phone beeps with a text message from the robots, my brain translates this to "Hey. HEY! What are you doing? It's me. One of the robots. I NEED you to come and see me.  Please. I need you now to come NOW."  I'm often tempted to text back: "No. I can't right now. I'm busy. Stop texting me. I'll come see you later..." 

Therefore, I can't help but think that this is the most dysfunctional variation of a man-robot relationship ever.  

On some level, I need the robots too.  They text me on Friday nights.  And they never ask me to go to loud bars where we'll never be able to truly catch up on the day's events.  Besides, from me it would be about the daily grind and from the robot it would be a recount of some very repetitious behavior.  On the other hand, I'm worried about the day when they drink too much WD-40 and text me with photos of themselves with their exterior hardware removed.  

Pink-Subtracted

You probably know from a previous post, that cereal and other bready foods are an integral part of the kids' menu.  In fact if the kids will eat it, we buy it in bulk.  Or in the case of Yogurt Burst Cheerios, the by-products are generated in bulk in our kitchen.  

My son only likes to snack on the pink "yogurt" coated cheerios.  He picks through bowls of perfectly normal beige brown tan-like cheerios to find those hidden gems.  What remains in the bowl is what I call "Pink-subtracted Cheerios."  When he discovers and eats all of the pink Cheerios, he asks for more at which point we dump the Pink-subtracted Cheerios into a storage baggie.  The storage baggie of Pink-subtracteds are kept "just in case."  The picture above clearly demonstrates that "just in case" rarely happens, yet at times we have more than one of these bags available.  It did happen once that we needed these rejects because my wife and I talked about them so much that the kids wanted them.  Although I thought the sudden shift would balance our Cheerio inventory, demand dropped the next day and the demand for yogurt Cheerios was again bursting.

I laugh when I open the cabinet (surprisingly, not the fridge) to discover these forgotten picked-over Cheerios.  However, these aren't nearly as funny (or tasty) as the Meatball-subtracted  Hot Pockets.

Box O' Knives, Cabinet O' Glass

Most kitchens have a jar or similar container in which harmless kitchen implements such as spatulas and wisks are kept.  These utensils are usually strategically positioned for immediate action. Unfortunately, the end which will most likely end up in the food is readily available to bugs and projectile germs.  

In my house, we have the culinary version of Dan Akroyd's Bag O' Glass from SNL.  We have the Box O' Knives, as in Box O' Vipers, Box O' Sulfuric Acid, Box O' Knives.  They're decent kitchen items, you know what I mean?

Let me explain in further detail.  Our mission-style box is 5" Wide x 5" Deep x 7" Tall.  It is very important that you note that the box is 7" Tall.

I just took inventory of the evil box's contents.  I have binned these items into 2 categories below.

Equal to or Greater than 7" in Length

5 skewers

2 bread knifes

A very, very large fork

A very, very large knife

Toaster tongs (dangerous in the right hands)

Definitely Less Than 7" in Length

3 very, very sharp knives 

2 Vegetable/Fruit Peelers

Meat thermometer (purchased when we replaced the neighbor's that we destroyed on Christmas day)

Pizza wheel 

Apple corer ('Corer' is a funny word to say. Corer. Corer. Corer.)

Meat tenderizer

1 salad serving spoon

*And, most importantly, 1 dearly missed corkscrew

The reason this setup scares me is that the list of items that I can't actually see is longer than the list of items I can see.  Therefore, adventuring into the Box O' Knives is done at one's own risk.  In fact, it probably should have been part of our marriage vows as in "I offer you my solemn vow to enter the Box O' Knives at my own risk in sickness and in health."  

Let's say, for example, that I needed to core a watermelon.  I could go in for the corer, but what horrible fate lies below the 7" mark?  I can handle the toaster tongs (with great skill, I might add), the fork, and most of the other visible items.  But it's the hidden knives and pizza wheel that scare me.  

Therefore, the only time since 2001 that we have actually seen the items in the "Definitely Less Than 7" in Length" category is when I did this inventory last night.  

But, while writing this post my wife and I had a discussion that went as follows:

She said, "Are you going to explain why we have the Box O' Knives?"

"Yes, but please do tell me your version.  And don't get saucy with me or I'll grab the toaster tongs," I replied.

"The box's purpose is to contain all the sharp objects in the kitchen and keep them away from little kids' hands."

"Agreed."

But, why this is so funny to me and not to her (mainly because she is now asleep) is that right behind her during this discussion was our unlocked Cabinet O' Glass.  The Cabinet O' Glass is under the sink and well within toddler reach.  This cabinet is where we keep all 800 of our glass vases, which is especially annoying when I have to remove wads of Mac and Cheese from the sink's plumbing every few weeks.  The cabinet is usually child safety locked, but only since a few weeks ago.  Prior to that we used a rubber band that was often broken.  At least my daughter (20 months old) would point it out to us.  "Uh oh. Uh OHHHH!"

Therefore, in my house it's dangerous living.  You'll see when you visit us.  Bring a bottle of wine, ask me where the corkscrew is, and let's see what transpires.  At your own risk, that is.

Some Ballpark Franks Would Do a Better Job

There are some things in my house that simply aren't discussed.  One of them is how this will never be the solution we all hoped for.

The Lure of Bug Sex, Of Course.

This is a story that begins many years ago.  My girlfriend-now-wife and I lived in Belmont, MA circa 2001 in a two-family house with an outdated kitchen.  We quickly discovered that we shared our apartment with the moths also known as "pantry pests."  

It didn't help that my wife had seen a news segment on pantry pests not long before we moved in. Upon realizing what we had, she explained to me (with terror in her eyes) what we were dealing with.

The moths find their way into bread and cereals, lay little eggs which hatch, giving birth to little worms that eventually turn into winged 'nasties' that eventually fly around our kitchen.  The moths can get around cabinets, boxes, bags, and into and out of the food.  In fact, the eggs may have been in the food before we even brought it home from the store.

How did we fix our immediate infestation?  The lure of bug sex, of course.  Traps designed to capture the pests are laced with moth pheromones.  

According to the advertisement, the pheromones attract the pests who then fly into the trap and stick to it's glue-covered sides.  When we bought a package of the traps and opened them nonchalantly in the kitchen, we were swarmed by a dozen pantry pests within minutes!  They came crawling out of whatever cabinet, box, and container in which they were hibernating with high hopes of bug intercourse.  Despite having other pests flying about looking for sex, they were still more interested in the promise of better sex in that contraption.  One by one, they stuck to the glue.  How stupid they must have felt, lying there aroused and surrounded by available moths yet hopelessly stuck to a wall covered in adhesive and synthetic hormones.

What if this worked on humans? A cop car could simply pull up to a house where a criminal was believed to be hiding.  The officer could open a package containing human pheromones and watch the thug come running out of his house and into the cruiser where they would stick to glue-covered seats.  Of course the whole neighborhood might show up and citations would most likely be given for public indecency.  

We left the traps out overnight and were pleased to find more pests caught in the trap. The problem was solved for the time being.  However, we occasionally saw a pest fly about and we would promptly get out the pheromones. "

We began to take preventative measures by keeping cereals and bread in Tupperware containers.  When pests continued to appear from our cabinets, we moved these items to the refrigerator.  Eventually we bought a new house and moved 50 miles away.  They surely won't find us there, we thought.  And we were right.  However, we continued to keep our flour-based foods in the refrigerator.  After several months, I suggested to my wife that we remove the cereals and snacks from the fridge.  

"No. What is more air tight than a fridge? We don't want the nasties to come back, ok?" 

"Ok."

Since then, our bread-like foods and grains have only tripled thanks to hungry little kids.  Unfortunately our new house did not have a walk-in "cold room", but rather a kitchen cubby hole that was designed to fit only the smallest fridge on the market.  The current inventory includes:

• Seven boxes of cereal including a village-sized (as in it takes a village to eat it before it expires) Honeycomb box.  It's big enough to create the illusion of a solar eclipse when placed too close to the kitchen windows.
• Four open bags of pretzels: thin fat-free, minis, pretzel sticks, and peanut butter sandwich pretzels.
• One open bag of Veggie Booty.
• Two open bags of Goldfish.
• Two partial loaves of bread.
• One open bag of Chex mix.
• Two open bags of cookies.
• One open bag of sugar.
• One open bag of flour.
• One partially eaten Apple Cake.

Add to that everything else that normal families keep in their refrigerator, and you have a fridge that is always full.  Getting anything out, typically results in a Kellogg's Avalanche.  The light bulb is useless given the amount of items on the top shelf.

Because salt looks like sugar and is white and granular like flour, we keep it in the fridge also.  As my neighbor mentioned while pointing and laughing at it's fridge door location, salt is a preservative.  That's should be enough to explain how far we haven't come.

It didn't help that a couple weeks ago, we accidentally ordered too much milk.  We order some of our groceries online so when it arrived one Saturday morning, we had to make it fit.  Stop for a moment and re-read the inventory above.  Add normal people fridge foods. Now add 8 gallons of milk. 

This scene wouldn't normally frustrate me.  I would usually just have a beer and laugh it off.  However, I can't reach the beer past the milk and cereals.  In fact, I can't even see the beer thanks to a useless light bulb and a solar eclipse that occurs every time I try to move the Honeycombs out of the way.

(photo credit)