I recently added Dad Gone Mad to the blogroll on the right. He's funny. Like, milk-out-the-nose funny. You know, like I am. Anyway, his post today really hits home to those of us work-at-home creative types. I'm especially familiar with #3.
Had a good counseling session today - just me. It was extremely valuable in illuminating the differences in how I process and communicate in contrast to how others do. Good insight there.
Tyler decided to nitpick his way into a fight today. I told him to finish his chore of unloading the dishwasher before going to his room to play games. Now, we've always defined "unloading the dishwasher" to include the step of "putting away the dishes". It's always been that way, and at no time has it ever not been that way. So imagine my surprise when I came in for some water after doing 3/4 of the front yard to find all the clean dishes stacked on the counter next to the dirty ones.
So off Dad marches to yank the plug from his computer in mid-play, to be returned only after the job is complete. Of course, this is now an opportunity for Tyler to poke and prod: "But you never SAID to put the dishes away..." And no amount of my explaining that "putting away the dishes has been included in the chore entitled Unloading the Dishwasher ever since the dawn of the dishwasher" has any effect - he's in Teenager Land. All attitude, all entitlement, no substance.
Now I know why nobody gave me the benefit of the doubt when I was 14. Of course, in my own defense, I was way ahead in social maturity by his age. We each had totally different childhood environments and traumas, so comparing us is like apples and oranges. In two years, he will be the age I was when Sam & I got together. Yeah. How's that for perspective?
So anyway, the net result is a 3/4 finished yard, an empty dishwasher and a pissed off dad smelling like grass and sweat. I need a shower and a beer.
3 comments:
I think that deserves 2 beers.
At least.
Ali (my 13 year old is picky like this, but at this stage it's still funny. I know that this too will change....)
I didn't realize Tyler was 14. I'm sorry, you simply CANNOT have a child who is the age I was when you and I first met at Paly. Uh-uh.
As an aside, this is the second time in three posts that you have used the phrase "milk-out-the-nose funny." I guess I'm surprised that a) you still drink milk often enough to form this expression, and b) that you opt for the sinus-based exit strategy (or "Snarf") rather than the classic vaudeville Spit Take. Not that one way is necessarily better than the other, or anything.
This is just the kind of stupid stuff I notice.
You're so observant. I was using the second "milk-out-the-nose funny" as a reference to the first, as any good comedian will bring the shtick back around.
And, just so's ya know, I don't drink milk anymore. Nor does anyone else have to in order to find me hilarious. I'm just so funny that milk spontaneously erupts from people's noses. Comedy gold.
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