Monday Morning Couldn’t Guarantee

“Morning comes early” is one of those incredibly stupid things we say to our children when we want them to do what we want. You know the sort of thing I’m talking about, things like “You’d better stop crying, or I’ll give you a reason to cry!” We think it makes us sound more parental, but in all honesty it just makes us sound foolish. When I say to my children, “You’d better get to bed soon. Morning comes early.” What I really mean is, “If you don’t get to bed soon you’re going to be very tired in the morning and won’t be able to wake up, and you’ll be draggin’ butt all day long.” Why I don’t say that is a mystery, because to my literal-minded children I’m simply proving what a moron Dad is. “Of course morning comes early! When else would it come? If it came later it would be afternoon or evening. Duh!”

Despite that, Monday morning proved to come a lot earlier than expected. At least for me. I was up kind of late the previous night, so when the alarm sounded at 5:00 a.m. – as it usually does – it wasn’t any surprise that I was not ready to wake up. I slapped the Snooze button and immediately fell back to sleep. Nine minutes later the alarm sounded once again, and once again I slapped the Snooze button. At 5:18 a.m. the alarm went off for a third time, and I was sufficiently aware of the need to get out of bed that I shut it off and forced myself onto the floor. I was trashed. I couldn’t even stand up. I literally crawled into the bathroom and got in the shower, where I promptly fell back to sleep. I woke with a start some time later, finished washing off and stumbled back out into the bedroom. I couldn’t understand why in the world I was so tired, but attributed it to the fact that I had gotten to bed late. I looked at the clock, and it said 6:10 a.m. Not only was I running late, but so was my wife (who usually gets up at 6:00).

“TR!” I said loudly while nudging her arm. “It’s after 6:00. You’re going to be late.”

I continued to encourage her to wake up while I threw on some clothes, and by the time I was dressed she was sitting up in bed with a dazed look on her face. I headed out into the kitchen to get my coffee and made a disconcerting discovery. The coffeemaker, set to go off at 5:45 a.m., hadn’t done so because someone had set it back two hours. The display read 4:15. Grumbling about how annoying my kids can be sometimes, I turned to look at the microwave clock in order to find out the real time so that I could correct it on the coffeemaker. It too read 4:15! What the heck?! I ran over and grabbed my cell phone, looked at the display, and sure it enough it said 4:15. I ran back into the bedroom and looked at the alarm clock. 6:15. Then I remembered… Some time during the night, one of our cats was playing near the clock. She must have managed to hit the Set button on the clock and pushed the time forward. I had gotten up at 3:18!

Needless to say, I felt like a zombie for the rest of the day, barely keeping awake and mumbling incoherently whenever someone tried to engage me in conversation. Be that as it may, one good thing did come of this little incident. I’ve come up with a title for the fantasy novel I plan to write. It’s the story of a knight in shining armor who suffers from narcolepsy, I’m calling it Dragon Butt.

Signs of Life

Overheard in my House

“Daaaaaaaaaad! She won’t get out of my room!”
“It’s my room tooooo!!!”

…

“I need some toilet paper! I need some toilet paper! I need some toilet paper!!”
“Why didn’t you think of that before you sat down!?”

…

“Ack! What did I just step in? EEeeeew! One of the cats threw up on the floor!”

…

“Bark! Bark! Bark!”
“Shut up! Stupid dog! It’s 2:00 in the morning!”

…

“Dad. I need some help with my homework.”
“Okay. What do you need?”
“I have to write a two page paper on chapters 4 and 5 of The Great Gatsby.”
“When is it due?”
“Tomorrow.”
“It’s 10:30 at night, and you’re just bringing this to me now?!”

…

“MMmmoooooommm! She hit me!”
“I did not!”
“Yes you did!”
“Well, you bumped into me!”
“It was an accident!”
“No it wasn’t!”
“Mooooooommmmm!!”

…

“Daddy? Will you read to me?”
“Sure, Binky. Go get our book.”
…

I’m sorry to be so sentimental this early in the morning. I know you probably don’t come here to get all teary-eyed. I just woke up this morning in a mood and felt the need to share it. I’ll probably think better of it, once I’ve had my coffee… I realize that most of the above is probably enough to drive a sane man crazy, especially when you consider that these are only a tiny fraction of the things that go on in our home on a daily basis. But I was thinking this morning about how much I’m going to miss all of this craziness when it’s gone. I guess as you get older you start to realize how temporary everything is. You blink and your children are born, you blink and they’re teenagers, you blink again and they’re moving out (well, I haven’t blinked that much yet, but it’s coming). I think that sometimes we neglect to count our blessings, sometimes we take our blessings for granted, and sometimes we don’t even realize we had any blessings until they’re no longer there. I’d like to be someone that recognizes his blessings… even when they sound like:

[CRASH!!!]
“I’m not hurt!”
“Good… what broke?”

There. That’s enough glurge for one day…

Overheard in my Car Pt. IV

TC: Dad?
Me: Yeah?
TC: Why do they have a giant plastic chicken in their yard?
Me: Well, I expect they decided to go all out.
TC: No. I meant “why do they have a plastic chicken in their yard at all?” Not “why is it a giant one.”
Me: Oh. I dunno. I expect they have their reasons. And if you’re going to have a plastic chicken in your yard you wouldn’t want a cheap one. You’d want the one that says, “Hey! Look at me! I’m a giant ten-foot tall plastic chicken!” No small-time, ordinary, mediocre, bargain basement chickens for us, boy! Only the best for our yard!
TC: Daaaaad!
Me: What?
TC: You’re weird.
Me: Yes, but at least I don’t have a ten-foot tall plastic chicken in my yard.
TC: Only ’cause Mom won’t let you.
Me: You’ve got a point.

Overheard in My Car Pt. I

Me: Hey, Hon. You’ve heard about microchipping pets, right?
TR: You mean where they put a microchip in your pet so they can track it if it gets lost? Like LoJack?
Me: Yeah. That’s it.
TR: Yeah. Why?
Me: Wouldn’t it be cool if they could do something like that with nanotechnology?
TR: What do you mean?
Me: I mean, what if they could inject your dog with thousands of microscopic robots, and then if it ran away they could guide it back home remotely.
TR: You’re weird… and don’t say, “That’s why you married me.”
Me: It’s not weird. Think about it. Little Fluffy runs away, you call up LoJack (or wherever), they send out a signal, the nanobots take over the dog’s limbs and guide it back home.
TR: That’d be kinda creepy, don’t you think.
Me: Um. No. Not really. But I’ll tell you what would be creepy.
TR: What?
Me: If little Fluffy was hit by a car before you made the call.
TR: Why would that be… ohhhh…
Me: Yeah. It’d be like, “Hey! Here comes Fluffy! She’s back! Kids! Fluffy’s back! C’mere Fluffy! C’mere! Oh my go… AAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!”
TR: You’re weird.
Me: That’s why you married me.

Dogs: The Tragic Story of Sammy

Dogs are inherently stupid creatures.

Now I know that that statement is probably going to get me into trouble with a lot of the dog lovers out there. But before you get angry with me and start sending me nasty messages, hear me out. I like dogs. I really do. We own three of them. I think they have a lot of admirable qualities – they’re the most loyal creatures in the world, some are cute and cuddly, they can provide security and comfort – intelligence is just not one of them. Sure, you get your occasional smart dog, like Lassie or Benji. But on the whole, most of the canines I’ve come into contact with have been – quite frankly – dumber than dirt.

Just so you know, I think cats have their bad qualities as well. Though they’re more intelligent than dogs, they are fiercely independent. Any loyalty they show is completely of the self-serving variety. I have no doubt that any cat would betray its master for a small piece of tuna – and I say that as a cat lover. But we’re talking about dogs and their lack of intelligence.

Case in point. My mom has a small shi-tzu named Sammy. Sammy is cute and cuddly and the friendliest dog on the planet – but he’s not too bright. Yesterday we were at my parents’ house for Easter, and at one point a number of us were sitting in the living room chatting about nothing-in-particular when Sammy came in, wagging his tail and begging to be paid attention to. No one was. Not to be deterred, Sammy proceeded to jump up onto the coffee table to see if he we’d notice him then. Earlier in the day my mom had lit some candles (the scented kind that make the room smell nice) and set them on the coffee table. Sammy’s tail, landed smack dab over one of the open flames and immediately caught fire. He let out an ear-piercing yelp, which finally got everyone’s attention, and leaped from the table. He began running around the room, past the drapes – which were instantly set ablaze – squealing in pain as his entire body was engulfed in a huge fireball. Pandemonium ensued. Several of us jumped up to put out the drapes. My mom ran to save her precious baby, who was busy setting other portions of the house on fire. A bunch of the kids ran outside screaming that the house was burning down. Someone managed to grab a fire extinguisher and began putting out the spot fires that had sprung up. My mom managed to smother Sammy, but by then he had been reduced to a quivering mass of burnt flesh on the floor.

Now, any of you that are laughing at this little anecdote are either a) sick and twisted animal haters, or b) much like my kids, you don’t believe a word I said. I have to admit, I stretch the truth a bit at times… Sammy is actually fine. He did, in fact, light his tail on fire. But fortunately, we were paying attention and saw it right away. The worst that happened was that the entire room smelled of burnt dog hair (completely overpowering the effect of the candles) and Sammy had a few singed tail hairs.

My immediate thought following this incident was the one that I opened this post with – “Dogs are inherently stupid creatures.” But, later on, I discovered that dogs have one quality that isn’t widely advertised. They can read minds. You see, when we got home our dogs had gotten into one of the bathroom trash cans. Tissue, paper and cardboard was ripped up all over the floor. It was a mess, and the only conclusion I can draw is that they “heard” my unflattering thought and decided to get back at me.

So, I guess my point with all of this is that you should be careful about what you think or say about your dogs. They might not be as loyal as you think.