Kelly Poe Wilson

When I was growing up, one of my favorite TV shows was The Carol Burnett Show; I especially liked the sketches where Vicki Lawrence portrayed the obnoxious matriarch of an equally obnoxious family. (Yes, I know that they eventually developed those sketches into a truly dreadful sitcom–Mama’s Family–but, in it’s purest form, it was pretty funny.)

One of the running jokes on the sketches was the argument the family would always have whenever they played Monopoly, with the tag line being, “Can you buy houses when it’s not your turn?” I was thinking of that line the other day when I was playing Monopoly with my own family, and I realized that if we could be said to have our own tag line, it would be this: “How much rent do I owe if there are three pieces of lint and a button on Baltic?” Of course, in our family, tag lines aren’t just limited to Monopoly. There’s also the Sorry version: “Is the champagne cork part of the red team, or the yellow?”; and The Game of Life one: “If all of the broken toothpicks fall out of your car, does that mean that everybody just died and you have to start over?”

Every board game we own contains approximately 0% of the original pieces. Wait, I take that back: they each still contain the actual board. Other than that, we might as well be playing with cavemen. (Yes, I know that you can get replacement parts for games, but really: if I was the type of person who was organized enough to do that, I wouldn’t have lost the pieces in the first place.)

The worst part of it is that, as much as I’d like to blame this whole situation on my dreadful children, the truth is that it’s probably all my fault; after all, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. (Unless, of course, you’re playing that “Hi-Ho-the-Cherry-O” game, in which case the little tiny piece of fruit will roll as far away from the tree as possible, most likely to come to rest under the couch).

No, I know that this particular problem is my own personal comeuppance. While my memory might be fuzzy on some things, I have very clear memories of the way I treated our games when I was a child: chewing up the Monopoly money and spitting it at my sister when I landed on Park Place (“What? I paid the rent–if you don’t want to pick it up, that’s your problem.”); covering over the rooms on the Clue board in order to turn it into a Mystery Date/Clue hybrid (“I’m going to guess in the helicopter, with Jan Michael Vincent?” “Nope–it was Ernest Borgnine.” “Ugh!”); and stealing all of the Sorry pieces to use as Oscar statuettes for our Barbie Academy awards ceremony.

Still, knowing it’s my fault doesn’t mean I don’t wish we could play a game of Scrabble without having to rely on a knowledge of Welsh (or other consonant heavy languages).

Of course, at least with board games there is the advantage that, even when the game is in a less than pristine state, you can still play it. You can’t say that about a lot of the more modern games–there is no lintball/broken toothpick fix for a Wii. (Or, if there is, I’m not clever enough to know it.)

Over the years I’ve heard a lot about how great video games are at developing hand/eye coordination. Board games, however (at least the way they’re played in my house), develop resourcefulness, which, in the long run, is a much handier skill. After all, what’s the point of being able to make the kill if some guy with a handful of toothpicks and a ball of lint is just going to be able to trick you out of it?

There is nothing in this world that I loathe quite so much as answering the phone only to hear a child’s voice on the other end saying, “May I please speak to Clyde?”

Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I begrudge my children–or anybody else, for that matter–the use of the phone. I’m not one of those parents who sets up an egg timer next to the phone so that I can limit all calls to two minutes or less, nor am I one of those who pace nervously around while the phone is in use, all the while muttering things under my breath like, “If you have so much to say then why don’t you just write them a letter?” and “This phone needs to be free in case there is an emergency.” Hey, I was a teenage girl–once. I understand needing to use the phone. I know what it’s like to spend all day in school, only to have to spend another hour on the phone afterwards dissecting what, exactly, happened during the preceding seven.

In fact, as far as I’m concerned they can talk on the phone all they want. The more they’re on it the less I have to deal with all the calls for donations, surveys, and offers to save me “tons” of money on my car insurance. (How long do you think it was after Alexander Graham Bell first invented the telephone that he got a call from a telemarketer? I’m guessing it was almost instantaneous; the first phone call probably went “Watson! Come quick, I need (click click)–hang on, there’s someone on the other line.”)

No, it’s not the fact Clyde is using the phone that bothers me, it’s that his use of the phone always leads to my having to use it too. ( I must have used up my ability to talk on the phone for hours in high school, because as an adult I’m never happy when the phone rings. It’s probably the number one reason–next to cheapness–why I have never gotten a cell phone).

Whenever Clyde’s friends call him, I always end up on the phone. This is because, invariably, the last few words I hear Clyde say before he hangs up always are, “OK: see you there.”

“See you where?” I’ll ask.

“The pool (park, movies, Pay ‘n Take, etc.)” he’ll reply.

“What? When?”

“In a few minutes.”

“But what about violin (Cub Scouts, soccer, etc.)?”
“Oh.”

“Arghh.”

And then I’ll end up calling the child in question, asking to speak to the parent, and trying to untangle the mess of commitments that our children have just made together. (“Oh, Clyde can’t go to the two o’clock show? Well, how about….”) The next thing I know (because it’s already been promised, see?) is that somehow I’m the one stuck with taking four kids to see Mall Cop.
All because the other parent didn’t just call me in the first place. If they had, it would have been a different story:
“Can Clyde come see Mall Cop with us at two?”
“Sorry, he’s got violin.”
“Oh. Well, can you take them at four?”
“Sorry, I’d rather stick needles into my eyes until they fall out and then pour bleach into the empty sockets.”
“What?”
“(click click) Sorry–gotta go. Someone’s on the other line.”
See? Problem solved.

First off, let me say that I am a fan of the Twilight books; while I probably won’t be putting them on my bookshelf next to Jane Austen any time soon, they were by no means difficult to read. In fact, I sucked all four of them down like Jell-O shots.

Part of the initial appeal–at least for me–was the story of the author: a young mother with three boys under the age of ten manages to crank out a 500 page novel in three months. And no, she wasn’t helping herself to her children’s Ritalin–she doesn’t even drink coffee. Naturally, as a fellow writer with young children, this piqued my curiosity–as well as made me insanely jealous. And so I internet-stalked her, hoping to find interviews where she might reveal the secrets behind her “writing with children” success.

Does she put NyQuil on their pancakes instead of Mrs. Butterworth’s? Do the kids have a playroom that is so well sound-proofed that it makes the gun shop basement in Pulp Fiction seem amateurish by comparison? Is there, perhaps, a nanny?

The answer to all of these questions was, surprisingly, “no.” In fact, in one interview she talked about how she “liked to write out in the middle of the house, so she could keep an eye on what was going on.” That’s when I realized that, unfortunately, I was never going to be able to glean any useful “writing with children” tips from her, because apparently she and I were of two completely different species.

First: who wants to “keep an eye on their kids”? If you know what they’re doing, then you are obligated to get up and stop them. If there is one thing that I have learned from my kids, it is that “I didn’t know” is an almost foolproof excuse.

Secondly, though, there is the fact that if you are somewhere where you can keep an eye on them, then that means that they can keep an eye on you. This totally negates a parent’s greatest weapon: the illusion of omnipotence, also known as The Wizard of Oz ploy. Letting your kids know that you found out about their transgressions using traditional methods (“I saw you hit your brother”) is the same as having the curtain pulled back on the Great and Powerful Oz. It’s so much better to cast the illusion of being at the center of an extensive network of spies, all of them willing to sell out your child at any time. (“My sources tell me that you were hitting your brother today. On the head. With your right fist. Repeatedly.”)

Of course, perhaps Ms. Meyers doesn’t have to be quite as sneaky as the rest of us; after all, she does have three boys, and, as everyone knows, even the brightest of boys displays a Homer Simpson-like oblivion about the powers of direct observation. Take, for instance, the fact that windows are see-through: while a girl will usually at least glance up at the house to see if she is being watched before wacking her little brother on the head, a boy will stand in front of a plate glass window big enough to drive a Hummer through and wack away with abandon, thinking that, just because they are outside and you are inside, you don’t know what’s going on.

“I wasn’t hitting him!”

“Yes you were–I saw you through the window.”

“D’oh!”

Come to think of it, if you take the “female sneak gene” out of play, maybe it is feasible that Stephenie Meyers regularly keeps tabs on her children while sitting out in the middle of the house. But writing from there? No way.

I’m still going with the NyQuil on the pancakes for that one.

Probably one of the greatest arguments against having more than one child is that it by doing so it becomes increasingly difficult for parents to lie–especially to the younger children. Try telling a five year old that you’re calling the North Pole to report his naughty behavior to Santa Claus while there is a twelve year old in the room who is not only rolling her eyes so hard she looks like a slot machine, and but also muttering under her breath, “Oh yeah? What’s the area code for the North Pole, anyway?” Or try keeping the tooth fairy myth alive when, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the older child insists on pointing out to the younger one how one of their friends with divorced parents got two visits from the tooth fairy: one at their mom’s house, and one at their dad’s.

And forget about maintaining the charade of “parental infallibility;” you know, the one that depends on that old chestnut “I can always tell when you’re lying?” There’s no way you’re going to maintain that fiction when the younger child sees the older one run circles around your detective abilities nightly.

However, having said all of this, I must add one caveat: that the increased difficulty in lying also provides one of the greatest arguments for having more than one child, because by doing so you’re also making it increasingly difficult for the children to lie, as well. This is called the “I Know What You Did Last Night” factor.

Children are the ultimate stoolies. They’ll tell on each other even when to do so implicates themselves (there is no 5th Amendment in childhood). Example:

“I saw Clyde sitting in his playfort eating a bag of marshmallows he stole from the kitchen.”

“How could you see that?”

“I was on the roof.”

Busted.

Or:

“Clementine lost her jacket again! I know, because I saw her going through the ‘lost and found’ pile at school.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Looking for my gloves.”

“Uh-huh.”

It’s true: a bitter sibling is a parent’s best hope for finding out what’s really going on in their household–I don’t know how parents of only children manage to find out anything.

Of course, eventually, even for parents with several children, this information stream comes to an end–eventually all children figure out that they each have so much dirt on the other ones that if anyone were ever to start spilling, the others could retaliate, and then the first could re-retaliate, over and over again, ad infinitum, until it ends up with all of them being grounded for so long that by the time they get out your 401k might actually be worth something again.

When governments reach this level we say that they have reached MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). When children reach it we just say that they are growing up. (Go figure.)

However, until that fateful day comes, it is in a parent’s best interest to try and milk their live-in narcs for all they’re worth.

Because, when all else fails, parents can always fall back on that other old chestnut: “You might as well tell me what happened–your sister already told me everything anyway.”

There are two kinds of people who live in my house: those who are old enough to drive, but can’t find their car keys, and those who are old enough to walk, but can’t find their shoes.

And then there’s me: the only time I can’t find my car keys or shoes is when someone–presumably someone who has misplaced their own–takes my keys and shoes for themselves. So I guess that means that there are three kinds of people who live in my house. Whatever.

Here’s what I don’t understand about this scenario: why me? Not “why me?” in the sense of “woe is me–someone has stolen my shoes again”–although there is plenty of that–but “why me?” in the sense that, evolutionarily speaking, it just doesn’t make sense.

Look: I’m a throwback. Everything about me screams “recessive genes,” from my blue eyes, to my inability to roll my tongue (yep, that’s genetic), to the fact that I have an actual, honest-to-God real toenail on my little toe (all the better to climb trees and escape Sabre-tooth tigers with). And yet, even though I live in a house filled with brown-eyed, tongue-rolling, freaky little vestigial toenail-having, dominant-gene possessing humans–as dominant a tribe as any you could imagine–I’m the only one who ever seems to be able to find my shoes.

I wonder what Darwin would have to say about that? I mean, if poor little recessive me is the only one in the house who is able to hold on to a pair of shoes, then it must be a recessive trait, right? I mean, why else would I have it? And that’s when it all stops making sense.

It makes no sense at all to have a trait that actually inhibits your ability to flee from danger; logic would tell you that, over the course of a few millennia, the cave man who is stuck in the cave searching for his sandals when it’s time to go on the mammoth hunt isn’t going to get fed that night. (Same goes for the caveman who was supposed to drive everyone to the hunt, but couldn’t find the keys to his cave SUV).

And yet, these are the very people who have flourished. Why?

I’ll give you one guess: intelligent design.

That’s right: the only possible explanation is that everything you thought you knew about evolution must be wrong: Darwin was wrong, Stephen Jay Gould was wrong, your high school biology teacher was wrong. All of them. And who was right?

Ben Stein.

Only intelligent design could explain the proliferation of a group of people who have become less capable of surviving as time has passed, because only the sort of “intelligent designer” who finds it amusing to make out butts get bigger as we get older would design a creature that spends a good part of everyday looking for its shoe. Not shoes mind you, but shoe, singular. It is the loss of one shoe that is especially vexing for me, because, unlike when both shoes are lost, when only one is gone it is hard to give up looking.

“It must be here somewhere” you find yourself thinking, “because the other one is right here.” Logically, it just seems that, unless one is attached to a prosthetic foot, both shoes should always be right next to each other.

But no: I have been searching for one of Clementine’s missing shoes since 2005, even though she has long since outgrown the remaining one. Which means, I guess, that there is actually only one kind of person living in my house: those who are foolish enough to lose their shoes, and those who are foolish enough to keep looking for those shoes for the next four years.

And, as everybody knows, there is no trait more dominant than foolishness.

Thank God for the British.

Worried that you might be drinking too much? Well, you can always take comfort in the fact that you’re no Amy Winehouse. The same goes for swearing, and Chef Gordon Ramsay. And let’s not even get started on the whole teeth thing.

Lately, however, the British have come through for me yet again, this time on the subject of childhood nutrition. It seems that there was a fifteen year old boy somewhere in Britain who had gotten to be that age while living on a steady diet of Pop Tarts, jam sandwiches, and…well, apparently, that was it.

Doctors, hoping to perform some kind of an intervention, gave this boy a complete nutritional work-up, and came to the conclusion that he was completely, utterly, 100%…fine. (Except for a slight iron deficiency, which seems to suggest to me that he should be eating more Pop Tarts.)

Just like with Amy Winehouse and Gordon Ramsay before him, hearing about this unnamed British boy (or rather his parents) gave me one of those temporary bursts of smugness that are so rare in my typical parenting day. Finally, I thought to myself, a child I can look at and say, “Well, at least my kids aren’t that bad.”

Not that they aren’t close. But somehow, allowing a child to subsist on a diet of nearly nothing but ramen noodles (as Clyde does), or cheese crisps (as Clementine does) just doesn’t seem nearly as irresponsible as allowing a child to eat hundreds of Pop Tarts, if only because Pop Tarts seem sort of trashy. (We can thank Toaster Strudels–the epitome of class–for that).

Still, on some level I realize that it is only luck on my part, and not good parenting, that has made Clyde fixate on noodles and not Pop Tarts, and that we are only one grocery store aisle (and about eight years) away from being the subject of our own nutritional intervention.

How did this happen? I know that there are lots of parents out there (henceforth referred to as type “G” parents–“G” for “good”)who manage to get their kids to eat nutritionally balanced meals every day. Their kids eat a variety of foods–they eat fruits, they eat vegetables–they even, sometimes, eat sushi, for cryin’ out loud.

These children, not surprisingly, are usually referred to as “good eaters,” as in when the pediatrician asks you about your child’s diet and prefaces the question with “Is she a good eater?” (I never quite know how to respond to this, mostly because I am always reminded me of the scene in Airplane! when Robert Hay’s character announces “I have a drinking problem,” right before he pours a glass of water all over himself; or the Steven Wright joke where somebody asks him, “Did you sleep well?” and he replies, “No: I made a few mistakes.”)

Part of the problem, I guess, is that you never hear the term “good eater” applied to adults, even though there are plenty of adults out there who are just as picky as the most particular child. If you don’t believe me, try getting a group of more than four adults to agree on which restaurant they’re going to eat at that night–bonus points if you throw in the words “Ethiopian food” and “father-in-law.”

Still, there’s a difference between not wanting to eat food you can’t pronounce (although who can pronounce the ingredients listed on a box of Pop Tarts?) and not wanting to eat something that just came from a different shelf on the refrigerator.

I mean, even Amy Winehouse drinks more than one kind of alcohol.

Which means that, I guess on some things, the British still have me–and my kids–beat.

When I was ten years old, my family got “Pong” for Christmas. Pong was a video game in the loosest sense of the word; remember, this was before Nintendo–before Atari, even. Pong was a game where two players batted a blip of light back and forth across the TV screen to each other, using longer blips of light as paddles; the joystick was about the same size as the one you might find in the cockpit of an F-16. There were sound effects (bleep, bleep), and a speed setting (bleeep, bleeep; bleep, bleep; or, bleepbleepbleep). And that was it. I think it probably cost $400. (My stepfather was the King of the Early Adaptors–he bought a “pocket” calculator back in the 1960s that would take twenty years–until the advent of parachute pants–for there to exist a pocket large enough to put it in.)

My sister and I played Pong that Christmas morning, and maybe for a few days afterwards, but that was it. As far as games went , it was pretty dull; despite the fact that back then we only had four channels to choose from, it was still far from being the most interesting thing on the TV screen. (I guess we should have expected as much when the company’s PR department, who presumably named it, called it “ Pong,” a not-so-subtle acknowledgment of the fact that the game was only half as exciting as “Ping Pong.” When consummate liars are giving you hints, you should probably pay attention.)

In fact, for years now I have assumed that it was only Pong’s inherent dullness–the fact that it was only marginally more interesting than watching paint dry–that caused us to stop playing it. What I have come to realize now, however–after having my son Clyde–is that we just stopped playing it because we were girls.

I should have realized all of this sooner; after all, I remember back in the late eighties when guys would spend fifteen minutes playing the “monkey throwing the can of Coke” video game they put on soda machines back then. The one with graphics only slightly more advanced than Pong. The one where you didn’t win anything, not even, strangely enough, a can of Coke. The one that–did I mention?–had to be played while standing in front of a Coke machine?

Yeah, that one.

Guys would be lined up three deep.

It’s a good thing those machines went out of fashion before my son, Clyde, came along, because Clyde–who is nothing if not a guy–will play any video game anytime. Or, at least he would if he were allowed to. Here’s a typical afternoon at my house: I tell Clyde to “give the video games a rest,” so he turns off the TV and moves to the computer. When I say, “really, no more games,” he retreats to his room where he hides under the covers to play his Gameboy. When I take even that away from him he starts to look like he is suffering from oxygen deprivation.

I know, there’s a lot to be said for video games: they teach hand/eye coordination, reading skills, cooperation. And there’s also a lot to be said against video games: they contribute to childhood obesity, poor socialization skills, GAD Syndrome (Girlfriend Acquisitional Deficiency). But, really, my main objection to video games is that, from a woman’s point of view at least, they are just so damn boring.

In a world filled with interesting things, why would someone want to spend seven hours pretending to kill the same Nazis over and over again, just so they can eventually get into another room and kill another set of Nazis?

Watching Clyde do it, I can only assume that it’s a guy thing. Which means that it’s a mystery to me. Just like Pong.

I have a confession to make: I am a sleepover curmudgeon. Although, maybe curmudgeon isn’t the right word; it’s too mild. The truth is I loathe sleepovers, no matter whose house they take place at, (although, obviously, I most especially hate it when they take place at mine).

I hate how they encourage my children’s toothbrushes to be scattered about the cosmos (is mine the only house where the nightly tooth brushing struggle is always preceded by the search for a toothbrush?). I hate how they always seem to involve me driving a carload of children from Point A to Point B (and often Points C, D, and E, as well). And I hate how, whenever they involve more than two children, they become nests of intrigue and alliance building that make a late season episode of Survivor look like a tea party.

But most of all I hate how they have come to be expected–a weekend does not go by when I do not receive multiple requests both for and from my children involving the dreaded S-word.

When I was a child (here my kids roll their eyes), a sleepover was a special occasion: as I remember, we only had one or two sleepovers a year, if that. Like I said: they were special occasions–we got to sleep in sleeping bags in the living room or back yard, eat popcorn by the bucketful, and stay up as late as we wanted. Not that that part of the sleepover regimen has changed (the only difference now is that nobody fights over who gets to shake the Jiffy Pop)–it’s just that these days, instead of happening once or twice a year, it’s every weekend.

I’ll tell you what it is: it’s binge sleepovering–and it’s starting to negatively impact my life, to the point where I feel like there needs to be some kind of a sleepover intervention.

Maybe it’s because we have such a small house, but I really don’t want to have to give up my living room once a week so that people can come and lose their toothbrushes in the couch cushions. Nor do I want to see those same people lolling about on my couch until noon the next day. (Because, really, when has a sleepover ever been “sleeping” and then it’s “over”? Everyone knows that sleepovers stretch far into the next day, until they become a “sleepover” + “brunch”–or, as I like to think of it, a “bucket and one” for the opposing parents. If I was smart the first thing I would have taught my children how to say wouldn’t have been “Mommy” or “Daddy,” but rather “Hey baby, I got to get up early tomorrow.”)

In my children’s circle of friends (and their parents), my sleepover antipathy is well-known, which means that most sleepover requests involve people taking, rather than adding to, my supply of children. You would think that that would appease me, but it does not.

For one thing, this means that every time my kids spend the night at someone else’s house I go even deeper into “sleepover debt;” a condition whereby you owe another set of parents so much free reciprocal child care that you literally cannot say no to them when they ask you to watch their kids. As it is now, I am so far in debt to most of the parents I know that if they were the World Bank, I would be Liberia. To even it up, I’ll probably have to babysit their grandchildren.

Or, worse yet, one day all of the parents I owe sleepovers to will show up on my doorstep at once, and I’ll be stuck with a houseful of kids for an entire weekend.

I guess that’s one way to restock my couch’s toothbrush collection.

I am cheap.

Very cheap.

So cheap, in fact, that one of the first phrases my son, Clyde, learned to say was “Is it on sale?” (Usually uttered as I whipped the grocery cart down the cookie aisle at lightening speed.) Still, even Clyde’s long-standing familiarity with my tightwad nature could not have prepared him for this year’s Christmas presents.

First off, let me say this: I like Christmas. I really do. I like the lights, the cookies, the cards, the caroling (not that anyone does that anymore, but if they did, I would like it). I hate it when people start in on the whole “it starts earlier every year” spiel. I hate it when they complain about the “commercialization” of Christmas. (I’m young enough that Christmas has been commercialized my whole life–the image of Santa riding an electric razor through the snow has the exact same emotional punch for me as a live Nativity scene.) But this year, for whatever reason, when Christmas came around I just said, “eh.”

Which meant that I put off doing my shopping until the last minute.

Now, two things that definitely don’t go together are last minute Christmas shopping and being cheap. (Unless you can convince your kids that your family has converted to Russian Orthodox–where they don’t celebrate Christmas until sometime in mid-January–and buy all your presents at the after-Christmas sales.)

This isn’t a problem as far as my daughter, Clementine, is concerned: a Hot Topic gift card costs the same whether you buy it the day or the month before Christmas (although there is some concern that they might possibly run out of the “hipper” ones, and you will end up being stuck with one of the less popular members of the Cullen vampire clan–Uncle Jesse Cullen, the moonshine swilling vampire, perhaps).

Clyde, on the other hand, likes stuff. Which meant that I had two choices in the two days before Christmas I had left myself to shop: I could go online and pay outrageous shipping costs (and contribute to global warming in the process), or I could slide over to Kaybee’s and look through the few toys they had remaining at the end of their “Going-out-of-Business” sale. (I had to go to the Mall anyway for the Hot Topic card).

Can you guess which option I chose? (Because, that’s right, I’m all about the global warming). And so, it came to pass, that on Christmas morning we were gathered ‘round the Danish modern glass coffee table to open our presents. (Did I mention that I was so far out of touch with Christmas this year that I bought tickets for a Suns game on Christmas day, thus necessitating our family’s removal from our own home–where we had a Christmas tree–to a hip loft in downtown Phoenix, complete with exposed brick and duct work?) This seemed like an excellent idea when I had first made the arrangements–back in October. After all: what says “Christmas” more than shouting tu craints! (you suck) at Tony Parker, the Spurs’ hated French point guard?

Clementine, as predicted, was happy with her last minute Twilight gear–the Twilight hat, the Twilight soundtrack, the Twilight gift card–as far as she was concerned, it was a Twifecta. Clyde, on the other hand, was slightly nonplused as he opened up his collection of bottom, bottom, bottom of the barrel action figures from Kaybee’s.

I think that if I live to be as old as Ebenezer Scrooge, I will never forget the look on his face as he opened up the last one, read the packaging, and said, “Who’s Apollo Creed?”

Next year, I swear, I’ll do better.

Next year we really will convert to Russian Orthodox.

Sometimes I find myself wondering what my children will be like when they grow up. Will they end up being essentially the same as they are now, only taller, and with more hair? For the sake of everyone else in the world, especially those who may have to share an office or an apartment with them, I certainly hope not.

Take my daughter, Clementine, for example: if she grows up to treat other people the same way she treats her little brother, Clyde, then I pity her future office-mates.

Just imagine what reading her blog will be like. (In the future, keeping blogs will be mandatory.)

January 29, 2024: You know, sometimes, while on a business trip, when I’m in the middle of a really long and boring plane ride, I like to mix things up a bit by turning to the guy in the seat next to me and saying, in a completely conversational tone, “You suck.”

You’d be surprised at the reaction this gets. Sometimes he starts crying right away (how was I supposed to know that he already had “issues”?), sometimes he says something equally nasty back to me, and sometimes he tries to ignore me. The ignoring is the best, because then I can really put on my devil horns and get to work.

“Nobody here likes you, you know,” I’ll whisper in his ear. “They all feel the same way I do–that life got a tiny bit harder the day you were born. Which, by the way, your birth? It was all one great big giant mistake.”

When the flight attendants come back to see what the problem is, I of course deny everything.

January 30, 2024: Today I played the “lay-off game;” it’s a great way to liven things up at the office. Here’s how you play it: let’s say that you’re sitting in some boring meeting, where they’re discussing yet again how important it is to be on time, and how much it hurts the company’s bottom line when people steal office supplies, blahblahblah. (Neither of which applies to me; after all, I’m on time at least half the week, and as for the sharpies–what, like I’m supposed to go out and buy my own? I don’t think so.) Anyway, to play, all you have to do is write a note saying “You’re going to be the next one laid off,” and then hand it to the guy next to you.

Again, just like in the airplane, he’ll either react by crying, saying something nasty (both of which will get him in trouble), or by trying to ignore you, which just means that the game is on.

Sometimes I get asked why I do these things. Sometimes (a lot of the time, really), the person asking me seems genuinely interested–or at least genuinely vexed. They’ll run their fingers through their hair like they’re trying to pull it out (they should be careful with that–it’s getting a little thin on top already), and ask me in an exasperated tone, “Why? Why do you always have to start something? Why can’t you ever just sit there? To which I’ll give them the classic answer: I dunno.

February 20, 2024: Guess what? I was walking down the hall at work yesterday, following some guy from accounting and saying, “lame-o, lame-o, lame-o” under my breath–every time he turned to look at me I would stop and say, “What?”–you know, just a typical day, when suddenly this guy from personnel pulled me into his office and gave me a promotion. Can you believe it? I forget what my new job title is; it’s like “Vice President in Charge of Terminations”, or something.

Whatever. I have to get to the break room before anybody else; I’m going to lick all of their sandwiches and then tell them about it after they’re finished eating them.