Sometimes I feel like a nut

Sometimes I don't. One of my all time favorite tunes. Almond Joy has nuts, Mounds don't. Damn, it don't get any better than that. I heard a good one today. "If cow's could laugh, would they squirt milk out their noses, too?" If I had nickel for each of the threats I've made to my sons for making each other laugh at the dinner table while drinking milk, I'd be rich. I mean, seriously, have you ever seen milk spew out of a kids nose? (It is pretty funny but it makes quite a mess) And I'm not cleaning it up, hear me !?! Milk is a staple around our house. We are locally renowned for having at least ten gallons on hand at any given moment. When the boys came home at Christmas, we were all sitting and eating dinner, when one asked, "you know what I like about coming home?
Unlimited milk." I like that.

I've been thinkin'

And when that happens, who knows what might happen? I've have a great wife that I love a whole lot. Sometimes she knows, sometimes she don't. But it's always there. Sometimes I'm a bitch to live with, I've no doubt. Sometimes the opposite is true. And then there are times when I swear, I'm just charming as hell. I like to believe that I'm more charming than not, but that depends on things like work, my sons and their trials and tribulations and such. After all, the buck stops with me. As with a lot of dads, at least the ones that I consider worth their salt, it is my job to handle the dirty work. My lovely wife gets the nice phone calls from college and I get the others. All in all, though, she does much more than I do to raise these guys. My part is just more exciting than washing their clothes and making sure they have the best she can give them to go off to school. Try having three pretty physical guys break out into a full fledged brawl at sixty miles an hour. While I'll admit it has been a while since all three got to travel in close quarters together, I was surprised at the intensity and swinging fists. For maybe the first time, my wife opted against trying to physically intervene. I , on the hand, slammed on the brakes at 60 miles per hour and hit the shoulder skidding in the gravel. Jumping out and yanking the passenger side door open, I start to unravel what appeared to be an octopus made of Cope boys. Arms and legs everywhere with an occasional self flagellation, only to hear one part of the beast telling the other part that his butt was gonna get kicked for that one. Well, mom just paced up and down the roadside while Jacob II, the consummate peacemaker, threatened both of the others into puttin' the chill on. "Are you guys done yet?" I asked as I pried the last hold loose. As they drifted off, I heard one mumble that the other started it.

I thought to myself, "Are we there yet?", only to read a sign that said El Paso - 500 miles. While tranquility returned, and we quietly drove on down the road through the east Texas countryside, I heard Jacob say to his brothers, " I love you."

Family pride

Nothing makes a parent more proud than to have another adult tell you that your kids have great manners or some other nice thing. Last summer, one of my customers, Stewart Title Company, asked me to help round up about ten good guys to help them move their offices across the street to a new building. Judy, their VP said she would pay them well, but they had to finish the job, no matter how long it took. I found the boys and a couple of Ryder trucks and the process began, only to be cornered by Judy. "Jacob, will you please run this job? (blink, blink, eyes a'flutterin') Gasp, I wouldn't wish moving on my worst enemy. Ok, I would. If I could make Howard Dean move all day, everyday, I would. Anyway, I didn't have much choice and she said she'd make it worth my while, too. How do you charge for something that amounts to a favor? In the weekend that followed, we got the bulk of the move done and after cutting everyone else loose, I continued to get a daily order for more things that needed to get done at the new office as well as cleaning out the old. My boys also had to move a ton of stuff to employees houses that was given away, plus deliver things to mini storage that they had already cleaned out. We actually set up a delivery schedule for the different parts of town. When all was finished, the guys made more than they'll ever make working for me, but it helped them get ahead for school. The unseen reward was that each person at Stewart Title got to interact with my sons and I got the same reaction from everyone. "You have got the nicest, well mannered sons that I have ever met. You don't meet kids with manners these days" (believe me, there are a bunch of great kids out there if you know where to look). My personal favorite happened yesterday, six months later. " I couldn't believe your sons could hold a conversation with me just like an adult, and they had such nice manners." A parent's proudest moment, to say the least.

The Family Tree

Ahh, families...we alls gots them for better or worse. I always like to think it's the other side of the family that's not as perfect as my side of the family but we all know that ain't quite the truth. Every family has its own idiosyncracies characterized by the weird uncle or whomever. I'd better be careful, I am an uncle myself. We just went to a wedding and saw folks I had only just forgotten about. Some I'd just as soon not seen again, but one in particular grabbed my arm as I was heading by on an errand to the kitchen. Immediately I recognized the face as a friendly one and said "hold it right there, I'm on a mission, but I shall return. And upon that return I said, "OK, where do I know this face from?" He replies, without intentionally trying to make a complete ass out of me, "Oh, I'm David, you're brother-in-law, you know Tina's husband?" Oh hell, I'm in trouble. So I say, "ohhhh, that's right , my favorite brother-in-law..."

He let me off the hook for being so patronizing and we had a great time the rest of the evening. The only requirement was to keep introducing him to everyone as my favorite brother in law.

I came, I saw, Ipod...

As we all know, sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men can definitely go awry. That's my interpretation of the old addage, which, in this case, is all that matters because I am the author. Ha! Just a little update on the Ipod debacle. I finally picked up my package from my least favorite "overnite my ass" company called FedEx. I mean, their genius driver came by three times while we were up at Lake Livingston for my sister-in-law's wedding to Richard and left three door hangars. We weren't even here. In any case, the last one was marked "final attempt" so I drive all the way to the Fedex facility at the airport and guess what? He's gone again with my package to try for four. Eeeeee. Anyway, I go back last nite before 7:00 p.m., and there's my little Chinese takeout Ipod. Did I mention that Jacob, my son, ordered one for himself and got it before the one I ordered for him for Christmas. OMG!, I give up. On the bright side, since I refuse to pay their ridiculous restocking fee to return it to Apple dba China, I have opted to suffer through owning my own mp3 player with all the bells and whistles. There is some justice in this life.