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I used to have a horse named Sugarfoot that was well known for her sighs: she would start in with the sighing as soon as she saw me coming across the pasture with a halter in my hand–huge, earth-rattling, 1000-pound sighs. Sighhh as I slipped the halter over her nose. Sighhh as I tossed a bareback pad up on her back. Sighhh as we headed down the driveway in search of adventure. Since Sugarfoot was a rather round horse already, her sighs were not something I could easily ignore; how could I ignore something that caused my already nearly horizontal legs to stick out even further each time she gathered breath for one of her monumental sighs? It was like riding a bellows. And even if I could have ignored the pendulum-like rise and fall of my legs, there was no way I would have been able to ignore the look that accompanied those sighs: it was the closest I have ever seen an animal come to actually rolling their eyes in exasperation.

“Are you really going to make me leave my nice, comfortable pasture to go on the Bataan Death March?” her look said.

Not that I was asking Sugarfoot to do anything so extreme: nothing beyond walking for a few miles alongside the canal until we had found a suitable watermelon field for “guerrilla harvesting.” It wasn’t like I was asking her to hold still while I stood on her withers and practiced my trick-riding skills (well, not more than once). It wasn’t like I was asking her to gallop between the rows of the pistachio orchard so I could pretend I was Alec Ramsay on The Black Stallion (again, not more than once). It was just a nice, pleasant little ride. And that was the problem.

Between the look and the sighs, it all too obvious that Sugarfoot had a very low opinion of the whole horseback riding thing in general, and horseback riding as it concerned her in particular: while she might have to put up with it (grudgingly), she sure wasn’t going to make it enjoyable for the rest of us.

Fast forward twenty years or so, and, take away the nine-hundred-pound difference in their weights, the tail, and the fact that I have never, not even once attempted to stand on her withers, and Clementine is Sugarfoot all over again.

It starts in the morning when I ask her to put her cereal bowl in the sink–sighhh, followed by requests to get dressed–sighhh, gather up her homework–sighhh, brush her hair–sighhh. Every tiny request is met with the same shuddering sigh, until our house sounds like a bunch of asthmatics trying to play the tuba. The only thing that breaks up the monotony is that sometimes the sigh is accompanied by a complimentary eyeroll (who knows: maybe with six you get eyeroll).

As a matter of fact, Clementine has been sighing so much lately that I can’t remember what it’s like to talk to someone whose words don’t all come out on the exhale. It’s like living in a meditation hall. Or in a garage where all of the tires are suddenly going flat.

“Did you brush your teeth?” I’ll ask.

“Yessssss…” she’ll sigh.

“When are you going to clean your room?”

“Sooooon…”

The funny thing is that, just like with Sugarfoot, this spectacular performance is taking place for an audience of one–me–a person whose appreciation for the dramatic arts borders on the low side of negligible. And just like with Sugarfoot, the whole point of the performance is to get across the idea that while certain activities will be tolerated (grudgingly), they will not generate any enjoyment whatsoever–for anyone.

At least with Sugarfoot, every now and then I still got a watermelon out of the deal.

Recently, my daughter, Clementine, spent five hours cleaning one of the bathrooms in our house. This wasn’t by choice–it was one of her chores–and although, judging from the amount of time she spent cleaning it you might think that we possess what must either be the world’s biggest, or the world’s cleanest, bathroom, neither is true. The fact is, she spent five hours cleaning a four by five foot space and never even got around to sweeping the floor.

Oh, sure, she claimed to have swept it. Every one of the 75 times she marched out of the bathroom and announced she was done (in much the same tone Civil War surgeons must have announced they were done after amputating their 300th leg of the evening) she responded to my questions about the floor’s status with an exasperated, “”It’s swept, ok? There’s nothing on the floor.” But, alas, just as the doctors learned to their dismay at Gettysburg (and as I was to also learn to my dismay after a quick peek at the bathroom), she was not, in fact, done.

And how did I know this? Had I planted some tiny little scrap, some infinitesimally small object somewhere on the floor which I was now using as an evaluative guide? Not quite: it was more like the sight of a six inch long rubber bat being devoured by a mammoth grey dust bunny that tipped me off.

“Are you honestly telling me you don’t see that?” I asked the third time I had returned to the “finished” bathroom and gazed down upon the horrifying tableau.

“You never said I was supposed to clean that,” was the reply. In her defense I suppose I had only said “clean the floor,” and not “clean all the floor–especially the parts that look like they came straight out of Monty Python Meets Dracula.” Of course, it wasn’t like the rubber rodent population was her only obstacle, either: there was also the little matter of her having–perhaps in a bid for efficiency– “mopped” the floor (read: splashed a dirty mop around) before she had “swept”it (see Rubber Bat; above), thereby giving even more authenticity to the bat cave look by the addition of the long, grey “filthicles” hanging off of every vertical surface the mop had touched. (Which, judging from the vigorous thumping I had heard coming from the bathroom, and the evidence before me, was nearly all of them.)

And this was only in the first hour.

As we went back and forth over the next four hours–me with my uptight insistence that pieces of trash larger than a bread basket actually qualified as “trash,” and her with her equally insistent claims that wet, dirty wash-clothes don’t go in the hamper, but are rather shoved all the way to the back of the bottom drawer–I couldn’t help but wishing that I was paying her. Not because I would then be getting an incredibly hourly value out of whatever set price we had agreed on, but because if I had hired her, I would now be able to fire her. But just as you can’t break up with your children, you can’t fire them either, and so we continued, on and on, until, finally, five long hours later the bathroom floor, while still not clean enough to eat off of (or even, really, walk barefoot over), was clean enough to pass my (ever-lowering) standards. And although, in the time it took her to get to that point Buddhist monks could have collected all the dirt in the bathroom, separated it into individual grains and created a splendid sand painting in the middle of the room, at least it was done. And hopefully something was learned from the effort. Like, when Mom is checking, don’t forget to pick up the freaking bat–she’s funny about things like that.

I am a member of the “almost” family. Somehow, I have come to live in a house with people who think that life is one big game of horseshoes: where bringing your dishes all the way up to the sink without actually putting them inside it still earns you a few points. In other words, just like in horseshoes, they want credit for a “leaner.” Although, really, the horseshoe analogy might make better sense if in the game of horseshoes you not only got credit for getting the shoe close to the peg, but simply for driving to the tournament (while leaving the horseshoes sitting in the trunk of your car, on your front porch, or–better yet–still to be purchased at the local sporting goods store).

In my house we have socks that “almost” made it to the laundry basket, cereal that “almost” got put back into the cupboard, and homework that “almost” got returned to the backpack. It wouldn’t bother me so much if these were things that just didn’t get done at all (ok, yeah: that would bother me, too), but it’s the fact that they are always almost accomplished that pushes me over the edge. Who takes the trouble to carry the cat’s food dish all the way over to the bag, fill it, and then leave it in the closet? Who gets undressed two feet away from the laundry hamper and then piles the dirty clothes on the floor?

Maybe I’ve been watching too many zombie movies, but there is just something unbelievably eery about walking into a house with the TV still on, every light blazing, and a moldering bowl of cereal perched precariously on the edge of the sink. I almost expect some ghoul to come leaping out of the hall closet and try to eat me, or rather, I would expect that if it wasn’t for the fact that all of the “almost” hung up winter coats on the floor would probably catch the ghoul around his rotting ankles and send him crashing to the “almost” swept floor.

Or, if I was at all religious (and wasn’t already all too cognizant of my family’s true nature), the pile of empty clothes and shoes stretched out beseechingly from front door to bathroom might leave me in grim apprehension that the Rapture had occurred while I was out buying vodka and lottery tickets, and somehow mysteriously (and mistakenly) left me behind.

Or I might even think that some terrible tragedy had struck my family; perhaps some debilitating virus that had come along and stricken them in the midst of their morning routines, making their only chances of survival to put the milk jug down right here, on the floor in front of the refrigerator, and, using their last tiny bit of strength, crawl to the hospital.

However, even if I was gullible enough to believe any of those theories, eventually they would all fall by the wayside once it had become obvious that the zombie infestation/imminent Rapture/viral attack did not also cause a subsequent almost finishing of donuts, almost cessation of smacking their little brothers on the backs of their heads, or almost finishing of video games. (Although, now that I think about it, I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen anyone actually finish a video game in my life; instead, they just seem to keep moving on to the next level forever and ever in a never-ending cycle of “war” and “not so much war.” Kind of like a certain “War on Terror.”).

Actually, maybe it’s the “War on Terror” that offers the best explanation. Think about it: to a child that has been raised under the current administration, the idea of hanging a “Mission Accomplished” sign next to a half-made bed might make pretty good sense.

I know that nobody ever really wanted to be the Oscar Meyer Weiner Wagon Guy (or Gal) when they grew up (and, even if that had been their youthful ambition, one too many “between the buns” jokes along the way would have eventually dissuaded them from that career path). Not that it wouldn’t be a lot of fun to drive the big hot dog around town–it would–but to have to do it, day in and day out, for a (probably tiny) paycheck, would undoubtedly suck. Knowing all that, I found the dour demeanors of the Oscar Meyer Weiner Wagon Guy (and Gal) that visited Flagstaff the other week to be completely understandable, along with the fact that they exhibited all the bonhomie and joie de vivre of a couple of Secret Service agents on the Betty Ford detail. I even found it understandable that they were neither joyfully touting their product, nor cheerfully pressing buckets of swag into the arms of every passerby. What wasn’t understandable is why, after they had (grumpily) parted with one tiny little piece of swag, they then refused to honor a mother’s desperate plea of “Can I just have one more–I have two children?”

But that’s exactly what happened to me after I had so eloquently (“Hey! Where’s the free stuff?”) convinced Mr. And Mrs. Weiner Wagon to part with one of their precious Oscar Mayer Weiner Whistles. That’s it; just one. Like a couple of Beefeaters being heckled by a tourist, they were immune to my entreaties to help maintain sibling parity by coughing up one more whistle, calming rebuffing my request with a terse, “One each. Move along.” (Ok, they didn’t say “move along”–but they may as well have).

They weren’t even interested when I tried to explain that an earlier incident involving just one cowbell had already led to sibling wars of a magnitude previously unthinkable over one of the lowest instruments on the musical totem pole ( I guess it’s true what they say about “never having too much cowbell”). Nor did they want to hear about how this earlier contretemps had only been solved by giving the offending cowbell to a passing baby, a reverse Solomon-like decision that could not be repeated in this case without grave consequences; after all, you can’t give an Oscar Mayer Weiner Whistle to a baby–it’s a choking hazard. (And besides which, an Oscar Mayer Weiner Whistle is way cooler than a cowbell.)

Their steadfast refusal to help avert the looming crisis meant that there was only one possible solution: I needed to somehow make the Weiner Whistle so uncool to one child that they would rather wear a Barney backpack on the first day of school than touch the whistle. Clyde was out–he doesn’t know what cool is (which, actually, makes him the coolest of all), but Clementine was still a possibility: her cool-o-meter is so finely attuned that she can tell me I’m dressed like a dork even before she sees what I’m wearing.

At first I considered appealing to her vegetarian side, and telling her that the Weiner whistle came with “genuine hot dog flavor” (which, in a way, it does; it is plastic), but I was afraid that once the truth came out I’d be back in my original position. Luckily for me, I recalled the circumstances under which I had gotten the whistle–and from whom–and suddenly the solution was clear: I would simply tell her that the whistle was under some sort of piggy curse, and that whoever was disrespectful enough to actually blow into it was doomed to drive the Weinermobile for all eternity (or until Starbucks called back–whichever came first). Which, for all I knew, could be true. After all, there has to be some explanation for all that surliness besides just standing around in front of a big weenie all day.

When the poet Robert Frost wrote about “something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” it was obvious that the something he was referring to was not a child: otherwise, the line would have read, “something there is that loves a wall too much;” or, at least, “loves all manner of portable ones.” I am referring, of course, to those instant barricades that banks, amusement parks and night clubs all rely on to funnel their large, mooing masses of humanity into orderly queues; there is just something about them that children can’t resist. It doesn’t matter whether they are literally velvet ropes or simply cheap plastic chains: whenever children are confronted by one of them they are powerless to resist pulling on them, leaning on them, (attempting to) sit down on them, and in general, wreaking havoc upon both the barriers and everyone else around them.

It doesn’t matter how familiar the child is with the barricade either: every house in America could be fronted with a velvet rope and a burly doorman, and still, every child in America would attempt to sit on every one of them, every day, with the result that every child in America would simultaneously end up flailing their arms, knocking down the stanchions, looking shocked, and defensively declaring “But it was an accident!”

I do not know if this is a universal habit, but I suspect that it is. Do Mexican children pull down the barriers at Chichen Ixta? Do French children fall flat on their derrieres when sitting on the ones at the Louvre? Do the children of Alpha Centautri cast all twelve of their eyes upwards in shocked amazement when the proton chain is disrupted by the insertion of one of their 226 knees? Probably.

Perhaps, then, the problem isn’t one of familiarity, but of acclimation. In many cultures it is customary for parents to gradually accustom their children to local traditions and foods; for example, a Thai mother might slowly introduce her child to hotter and hotter peppers, until they, too, can laugh at the silly farang as he attempts to eat a “mild” curry. Or, a British mother might expose her children to racier and racier tabloid stories, until finally they can look at the front page of The News of the World and see David Beckham’s bare bum juxtaposed with the Queen Mum’s face and barely bat an eye.

Perhaps we should do the same with our children and barriers; perhaps we should begin when they are small by putting barriers around their cribs. Something sturdy, like a combination of concrete and rebar (I’m liking the sound of this already), before continuing on with ever longer and more delicate barriers–perhaps stucco and plywood in grade school, and cyclone fencing and concertina wire when they become teenagers (like you haven’t thought of it), until, finally, they reach a point where they are “barrier-proof.” If this plan is followed rigidly I can foresee a future for them in which, even in their late teens, they will be able to stand in line at their cousin’s wedding buffet and resist the urge to rest their weary buttocks on top of the ethereal band of flowers woven into a loopy rope especially for the occasion.

It could happen.

Or not.

Realistically, I have no reason to believe that even constant exposure to various and assorted barriers would result in anything other than various and assorted chaos. After all, isn’t the definition of insanity “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”? Last summer, for instance, I watched both of my children fall through the barriers at Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, Indiana Jones, Space Mountain and Autopia at Disneyland for four days straight–something that clearly qualified as insanity on the part of someone present. I’m just not so sure it wasn’t me.

When I went to see the new Spiderman movie, I was struck, once again, not only by the fact that superheros, as a rule, tend to be some of the morosest people on the planet (maybe Joan Baez is a superhero in disguise), but also by the fact that, just like the heros in Greek tragedy, they all seem to have some fatal flaw. With Superman it is, of course, kryptonite; with Batman it’s having mood swings rivaling a post-partum Britney’s; and with Aquaman it’s–let’s face it–the whole “aqua” thing. (Seriously: how formidable can a guy be if he has to lure you out into the water to defeat you? What’s he going to do about some guy who’s building a bomb in Kansas–send him an anonymous all-expenses paid trip to the Caribbean?). And then of course there’s our hero du jour: Spiderman. Spidey is perhaps the superhero with the most debilitating weakness of all: a really, really whiny girlfriend. (In fact, MJ is such a fatal fatal flaw that I’m surprised Peter Parker isn’t a sub-hero instead. And yes: this was true even before Kirsten Dunst brought her own special brand of whining to the role. For proof, see the “But I don’t want to have spider babies!” episode that ran in the newspapers years ago.)

Anyway, it was the realization that all superheros have their Achilles’ heels that got me to thinking about something that had happened to Clyde that morning at the breakfast table–something that, when viewed through the lenses of my new superhero-awareness glasses, suddenly took on a whole new meaning. What had before appeared to be just another instance of Clyde being a picky eater now seemed likely to have been the dawning awareness of his own superhuman abilities. Maybe, in fact, what he had been dealing with was his own personal kryptonite–the Cheerio.

What happened was this: in an effort to cut down on the towering pile of dishes that seem to erupt, Vesuvius-like, from the bowels of our sink every morning, I had re-used my own cereal bowl for Clyde’s bowl of Batman cereal. (Or maybe it was Superman Returns cereal. Or Hulk. Or Fantastic Four–I think a savvy marketing guy could just slap a picture of the latest movie hero on a box of three-year-old All Bran and it would fly off of the shelves). Unbeknownst to me, however, in my haste to obey rule #2 of the recycling mantra (reuse),I had inadvertently left a single Cheerio behind. What this meant was that just as Clyde started to take his first bite of delicious Sugar-O’s, he was treated instead to a much less welcome sight: a Cheerio. Yes, there it was, staring up at him malevolently from the top of the bowl like the baleful eye of some oaty fiend. Only by quick thinking on Clyde’s part (ferociously scrubbing his tongue with a nearby paper towel) was he was able to escape the deleterious effects of Cheerio poisoning, but it was obvious to all that it had been a near thing.

Like I said, at the time I saw it as just another instance of picky eating, but now–with my eyes opened to the ways of superheros by the new Spiderman movie–I can see that maybe it was actually a case of a troubled hero facing his one true weakness. Or rather, one of his one true weaknesses: there’s also the little problem with socks and underwear (can’t wear them), as well as toothbrushes, bananas, pickles, and sleeping in his own bed. Now that I think about it, it does seem like rather a lot of Achilles’ heels for one superhero–more like Achilles’ heel, knee, elbow, and wiggly thing at the back of your throat.

Still, it’s better than having to come home every day to Mary Jane.

Although the saying “Nero fiddled while Rome burned” has been around for centuries, its veracity has been doubted for centuries as well. Naysayers will cite a variety of reasons for why this particular scenario never could have happened, not the least of which being the fact that at the time Rome burned, the “fiddle” (as we now know it) was still several hundred years away from being invented. Personally, I’ve always thought that the historical accuracy of the saying was irrelevant: it seems more likely that whoever coined the phrase was simply struck by the lyricism of it; in other words, they couldn’t let something as trivial as the facts get in the way of a good story. (Something my daughter Clementine claims happens on a weekly basis right here in this very column.) And, you must admit that, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned” does sound a whole lot better than “Nero tickled the ivories while Rome burned.”

Recently, however, new information has come to light (at least for me) that might make this whole theory moot: perhaps the word that has gone wrong in this phrase is not fiddled at all: it’s while, meaning that the correct phrase is not “Nero fiddled while Rome burned,” but actually “Nero fiddled, so Rome burned.” In other words, Nero wasn’t playing a not-yet-invented violin at all; he was just screwing with stuff.

I developed this new theory after watching Clementine pick up a half-full gallon of milk, tip it upside down over the floor, tilt it back upright again, check the seal on the lid, and then repeat the whole process over again. And again. And again. It only stopped when I couldn’t take it anymore and erupted with a shout of “Quit fiddling with it!” at which point she got up and, with a sigh, moved into the living room, where she no doubt experimented with seeing how close to the edge of a table she could put a glass of grape juice before it spilled onto the carpet, or how many times she could toss a pillow up into the air before it knocked a blade off of the ceiling fan–either of which scenarios would result in howls of anger and disbelief on my part, looks of shocked incredulity on hers, and, of course, the inevitable words, “But it was an accident!”

The “accidental indemnity” clause is a favorite of Clementine’s, even though when it comes to awarding claims I am about as likely to buy the “accident” story after the lid comes flying off the top of the catsup bottle the 53rd time you spin it up into the air as an insurance company is to approve a claim of “accidental death” for someone who has spent his last few hours on Earth playing an extended game of Russian Roulette. Not that this stops her from employing it, even when–especially when–she is standing in the middle of the pile of debris that usually follows her depraved indifference to the laws of probability.

Of course, in her defense, it’s not like she’s the only one living in a state of “accident” denial: if she were, then car insurance premiums for teenage boys wouldn’t be equal to the monthly payments on a new Lexus. Still, that does not stop it from galling me when, after the open bottle of fingernail polish she has just attempted to pick up with her toes flips upside down and spills onto the couch, she is shocked–shocked!–by my “harsh” reaction to what was so clearly an “accident.” Nor does it stop her from taking that reaction as further proof of my unfitness to walk amongst decent human beings. That, and the fact that I took her brother’s side after he broke her scooter trying to ride it down the slide. “Lighten up,” I said. “It was just an accident.”

Although the saying “Nero fiddled while Rome burned” has been around for centuries, its veracity has been doubted for centuries as well. Naysayers will cite a variety of reasons for why this particular scenario never could have happened, not the least of which being the fact that at the time Rome burned, the “fiddle” (as we now know it) was still several hundred years away from being invented. Personally, I’ve always thought that the historical accuracy of the saying was irrelevant: it seems more likely that whoever coined the phrase was simply struck by the lyricism of it; in other words, they couldn’t let something as trivial as the facts get in the way of a good story. (Something my daughter Clementine claims happens on a weekly basis right here in this very column.) And, you must admit that, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned” does sound a whole lot better than “Nero tickled the ivories while Rome burned.”

Recently, however, new information has come to light (at least for me) that might make this whole theory moot: perhaps the word that has gone wrong in this phrase is not fiddled at all: it’s while, meaning that the correct phrase is not “Nero fiddled while Rome burned,” but actually “Nero fiddled, so Rome burned.” In other words, Nero wasn’t playing a not-yet-invented violin at all; he was just screwing with stuff.

I developed this new theory after watching Clementine pick up a half-full gallon of milk, tip it upside down over the floor, tilt it back upright again, check the seal on the lid, and then repeat the whole process over again. And again. And again. It only stopped when I couldn’t take it anymore and erupted with a shout of “Quit fiddling with it!” at which point she got up and, with a sigh, moved into the living room, where she no doubt experimented with seeing how close to the edge of a table she could put a glass of grape juice before it spilled onto the carpet, or how many times she could toss a pillow up into the air before it knocked a blade off of the ceiling fan–either of which scenarios would result in howls of anger and disbelief on my part, looks of shocked incredulity on hers, and, of course, the inevitable words, “But it was an accident!”

The “accidental indemnity” clause is a favorite of Clementine’s, even though when it comes to awarding claims I am about as likely to buy the “accident” story after the lid comes flying off the top of the catsup bottle the 53rd time you spin it up into the air as an insurance company is to approve a claim of “accidental death” for someone who has spent his last few hours on Earth playing an extended game of Russian Roulette. Not that this stops her from employing it, even when–especially when–she is standing in the middle of the pile of debris that usually follows her depraved indifference to the laws of probability.

Of course, in her defense, it’s not like she’s the only one living in a state of “accident” denial: if she were, then car insurance premiums for teenage boys wouldn’t be equal to the monthly payments on a new Lexus. Still, that does not stop it from galling me when, after the open bottle of fingernail polish she has just attempted to pick up with her toes flips upside down and spills onto the couch, she is shocked–shocked!–by my “harsh” reaction to what was so clearly an “accident.” Nor does it stop her from taking that reaction as further proof of my unfitness to walk amongst decent human beings. That, and the fact that I took her brother’s side after he broke her scooter trying to ride it down the slide. “Lighten up,” I said. “It was just an accident.”

Some people have children that are afraid of everything: roller coasters, strangers, lightning, the dark. They don’t know how lucky they are. Take the fear of getting lost, for example. Few are the parents who have never resorted to the old, “Well, Goodbye Timmy (Janey, Mikey, etc.)–we’re leaving now,” in an effort to hurry up their “doddler.” (Dawdle + toddler = “doddler.”)Usually, the fake leaving routine is enough to send all but the most recalcitrant “doddler” into a screaming panic of leg-clutching compliance; not so with my kids, however. With Clementine I can still remember the look of intense relief that flashed across her face after I finally lost my patience and threatened to abandon her in the library when she was two. It was a look that clearly said, “Well it’s about time–I thought you’d never leave.” With Clyde I would be lucky to get even that; in fact, I’m not completely sure he would even be aware that I had left in the first place. (As the library closed for the night he would probably just get in the first car that looked good to him, perhaps thinking briefly back to that other family of his for a moment, before even that little spark of memory was extinguished in the blaze of his new family’s big screen TV. With Clyde, it’s not that he doesn’t like us; it’s just that he also likes everyone–a lot.)

Then there is the fear of water. While other mothers have commented enviously about my children’s enthusiasm at the swimming pool, they would probably be slightly more appreciative of their own child’s hydrophobic hysterics if they knew how many times I’ve had to dive into a pool fully clothed in order to retrieve a blissfully drowning Clyde from the bottom of the deep end. Or if they knew that every trip to the beach involved plucking him out of the deepening water again, and again, and again, until even the lifeguard suggests that it might be time for us to call it a day.

And, of course, there is the whole scary movie thing. Some parents have professed shock that I can take my kids to such “scary” movies as Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. What they don’t realize is that this also means I can no longer play the “no, we can’t go see that; it’ll give you nightmares” card when it comes to getting out of seeing movies that I’m afraid to see. I’m still having nightmares from the last horror movie Clementine dragged me to, which featured not only creatures under the bed, but ones in the closet as well. (She pronounced it “Ok, but a little boring.” Meanwhile, six months later I’m still jumping into bed from four feet away and pulling my coat out of the closet by the very tip of its sleeve.)

Then there’s all the other little fears my children lack, fears which could logically also be classified as survival mechanisms. Fear of cars? Nonexistent. Fear of 400-ton locomotives rushing past at the train station? Nada. Fear of slipping off the edge of the Grand Canyon and falling 500 feet straight down? Zip. (Although it does seem that in this my children are somewhat in sync with nearly every other tourist who visits the Canyon–especially the European ones.)

Maybe that’s the key. Maybe it’s not so much that they are fearless, but rather that they are simply more European than us. That certainly would explain why Clementine is always so eager to see the back of us, as well as why she has steadfastly refused to join us in two family favorites: pork rinds and grits. Of course, it doesn’t much help when it comes to explaining Clyde’s drowning thing–or Clementine’s love of zombie movies. Or does it? Who knows: maybe it’s a British thing.

People used to say that the Inuit had over 400 words for snow. Even though that story is now considered largely apocryphal, (and offensive to boot), it still sounds plausible to me. Let’s see: there’s “stinging little balls of hard snow” snow; “snow that piles up on your car seat when you forget to roll up the window at night” snow; “snow that absolutely dumps the day after they close down Snowbowl for the season” snow–I could come up with 400 just off the top of my head. For that matter, I’m sure I could come up with 400 descriptive titles for lots of things, not the least of which is the 400 things children can find to cry about. And topping that list would have to be “Inconsolable Crying: On the Untimely Death of a Favorite Balloon Animal.”

My son Clyde is especially affected by this particular form of crying, no doubt because, for some reason, he has decided that every balloon he encounters is going to be his new BFF. And, in a way, they are; unfortunately, though, to a balloon “forever” means approximately 45 minutes. Unless, of course, you’re talking about a balloon animal–then it means 45 seconds.

I just have to ask: what genius came up with the idea for balloon animals? Isn’t the trauma of losing a regular balloon bad enough–do we really need to make it worse by fashioning them into the shape of some sort of adorable creature? What’s next? Edible pets?

There is nothing–except perhaps rehab and the substances that get you there–that can give both the high highs and low lows that a balloon can give a child. No one is happier than a child who has just been handed a balloon; conversely, no one is sadder than one who has just seen their balloon pop. It is a sadness so deep, so real, that I would not be surprised to find that Germans (who may not have 400 different words for snow, but do have a word for just about everything else) don’t have a word just for that. (I would also be surprised to find out that word isn’t featured at least once in “99 Luftballoons.”)

Here’s the thing about balloons: they always pop. Always. What this means is that when a child is given a balloon, there is a 100% chance that they will end up miserable: there are no other possible outcomes. Let’s face it: it’s not like the balloon will one day hold an honored spot at their 50th wedding anniversary–it will be gone. Oh, I know–everything dies, everything falls apart, the Universe itself is in a constant state of decay–but, with most things, this all happens at a far enough remove that we can live in denial. Even a goldfish will live long enough to take the sting off of that final flush, but a balloon is nothing more than dharma writ large. Which, if you ask me, is a little much for a five-year old to take. Not that you have to be five to be devastated by the loss of your balloon. Realistically, only single celled amoeba would consider the life span of your average balloon to be sufficient, and even they would still have those moments when amoeba kid #1 inadvertently sits on amoeba kid #2’s balloon poodle mere nanoseconds after it was acquired from the Amoeba Balloon Lady, thereby sending amoeba kid #1 into a funk for the rest (approximately 7 seconds) of his life.

You’d think, knowing all this, that we as parents would give balloon artists the same wide berth we give to boxes marked “free kittens,” but we don’t; we actually encourage our children to go up and get their own shiny blue piece of latex misery.

Maybe that’s because of the 400 different words for “stupid,” word number one is “parent.”