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Cry Me a River
My wife and I have five kids. We started with three boys and then, once we'd officially learned the basics, went on to have twin girls. I thought I knew how to parent, but going from males to females was like going from basic math to trigonometry.
I …Read more.
Cat Craze
I have a confession to make. I am afraid of cats.
I'm not afraid that they'll attack me or sneak up in the middle of the night and suffocate me (as they have been known to do to babies for centuries — look it up on the Internet).
I'm afraid …Read more.
Money to Burn
Yesterday, over my morning coffee, I read in my paper that parents in New York City are all atwitter because tuitions at most private schools are just about to creep up past the $40,000 mark. I stared at the story for a full minute before it hit me: …Read more.
Tweenage Dream
Like almost every other American household this year, our home ended up after the holidays with a lot of new electronic items. I got an iPad. It was one of those gifts you don't know you want until you have it. Suddenly, I could check my email and …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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