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Revenge of the Baby Geniuses
This past week, I read that Disney, the company that owns the "Baby Einstein" video series, was offering refunds to any parents who had purchased the products in the last five years and were dissatisfied. "Baby Einstein" videos, …Read more.
Get R' Done Day
Last Saturday, I was out running errands while my wife stayed at home to catch up on some long-delayed house cleaning. I called her between stops to see how it was going.
"Not good," she said into the phone. "One, the washing machine …Read more.
Mom's Best Friend
For the past week, my wife has been out of town for work. The kids and I have fared fairly well. I can sort of cook, and the kids have learned over the years to have low expectations when Dad's in charge. The dog, however, is another matter.
Harry, …Read more.
There's Gold in That Thar Freezer!
Every once in a while, you get a chance to find out how much you're worth. I'm not talking bank accounts because I'm ashamed of mine, and these days, I'll bet you are, too. I'm talking instead about how much you're valued around the house, what you'…Read more.
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Dinner's (Almost) Ready!The other week, something happened that shocked me to my core. We have a standard pattern of doing things around our house. It's a finely tuned system, and it works. My wife and I get home from work at exactly the same time every night, because we "carpool" together. (Here, "carpool" means I give her a ride from the front door of our house to the front door of her office, leaving about the time she wants and picking her up again about the time she wants to leave, which is, come to think about it, better defined as a "chauffer service" than a car pool.) When we do get home in the evening, I look at the mail, cringing at the sight of bills and student loan letters, and then say hello to the kids, who are invariably on the couch watching TV. (Here, TV really means they're just watching the same episode, over and over, of that show about those blond little twin boys who live in a hotel.) Then, my wife goes to start getting dinner ready while I go upstairs to "change out of my suit." I say, "change out of my suit," but it really means that I go upstairs to our bedroom, loosen my tie and turn on the TV. If there's something good on, I watch it. If there's nothing good on TV, I stare at the screen for a few moments, and sometimes I doze off. (Here, "sometimes" means "almost every single day.") Soon, however, I start to smell dinner cooking, and I think about getting up, but in reality do absolutely nothing. Once, I jumped the gun and came downstairs when I just smelled something, and had to go all the way back up the stairs because it was going to be a while. When dinner is closer to being ready, my wife will call up the stairs, at the top of her lungs, "Peter! Dinner's almost ready!" (Here, "Dinner's almost ready!" has always meant, to me at least, "Dinner's not actually ready yet, so see if you can get a little more shuteye!") Then, when dinner is about to be served, one of the girls will come all the way up the stairs, stand in the doorway of my bedroom, and say, so sternly that I actually feel sorry for her future husband, "Dad! Mom says 'NOW!'" (That actually does mean dinner's ready.) When that happens, I get changed real quickly and get downstairs. Last Wednesday, however, everything went horribly wrong. I came home, looked at the bills and then went upstairs to change out of my suit. Once in the bedroom, I loosened my tie, stretched out on the bed and turned on the TV. Nothing good was on, so I switched to a fishing show (the perfect sedative — if it's bass fishing on a lake, I could fall into a temporary coma). It was, and I began to feel woozy. Dinner started to smell pretty good, but I'm experienced enough at this point that I just waited it out. Another 15 minutes passed, and my wife yelled from the bottom of the steps, "Peter! Dinner's almost ready!" So far, so good. About 15 minutes after that, I started to get concerned. There was no angry little girl at the door. I started to wonder if some emergency had occurred. Just to be on the safe side, I waited another 10 minutes, then struggled to my feet and trudged down the steps. When I got to the kitchen, I found the entire family (minus me) finishing up dinner. "You ATE." I said (here, "said" means "bellowed"). "Without ME!" My wife shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "I called for you," she said. "I told you dinner was ready." "You said," I yelled, "Dinner's 'almost ready'! Not 'dinner's ready'! Dinner's 'almost ready'! That's not how it works! You said, 'almost'!" My kids looked at me with concern. My wife just smiled sweetly and said, "Next time, maybe you'll come when I call you!" (Here, "concern" means "slight fear," and "sweetly" means … trust me, not "sweetly.") I would have argued further, but I noticed my 15-year-old son was going for seconds, and I'd have to move quick if I didn't want to go hungry. I only got leftovers, but I learned a valuable lesson: Women just don't understand how to communicate very well. To find out more about Peter McKay, please visit www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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