Oh, Brother Where Fart Thou?

I've been seeing this e-mail circulating lately that was supposedly written by a woman in Texas called "Facts About Raising Boys" in which she tells several "true" stories about the agony and comedy of parenting. Since I grew up with two brothers of my own both of which often had their friends living with us in a neighborhood filled only with boys, I thought I'd share my own observations. And you can bet your sweet bippy mine are true (because some of you have probably already heard all of these stories):

* You can make a small bomb with a couple of firecrackers and a pair of pliers

* Never sleep on the bottom bunk

* Umbrellas do absolutely NOTHING to break your fall when jumping from a fifteen foot balcony

* Little brothers (age 5 or 6) will do ANYTHING to fly; even jumping from a fifteen foot balcony with an umbrella

* A ’79 Ford Fairmont can go 100MPH when it has to reach the emergency room

* Fart igniting is good rainy day entertainment; as is squirting hairspray on the bathroom wall and lighting it on fire

* Permanent marker requires multiple showers to completly wash off of your face

* Making that "whoosh" sound when you fight (like they do in Kung-Fu movies) somehow helps deliver kicks and punches

* Also in a fight, a swift kick to the balls really IS your best defense; run away while they’re down

* There is no loyalty among brothers; NEVER tell them your secrets because they will blab to Mom as soon as it is to their advantage (like when they get in trouble for something)

On Multi-Tasking

As I recall the pile of clothes heaping up on top of the pool table, I remind myself again that I need to fold laundry when I get home. The problem is, when I get home, the last thing I want to do is fold laundry.

Why is it that at work I can do ten things at once but once I plop down in front of the TV, I can’t do anything other than zone out to the latest re-run of Friends? For instance, at this very moment, I am waiting for a file to down, writing this blog and checking my voice mail all at the same time. Call it a sickness but I like to be busy. I brush my teeth in the shower while I let my conditioner set. I use the idle time during my commute to eat breakfast and put on my make up. When I have to stand in line at the bank, I will rid my wallet of garbage and old receipts. This morning, I even tried to iron my shirt while I was wearing it.

So why can’t fold socks and watch TV? I bring the basket of clothes in to the living room but as soon as a commercial flashes that I haven’t seen before, I unconsciously drop the laundry to give Geico my full attention. I thought I had some backwards form of A.D.D. but now, I think I am a victim of technology. The “pause live TV“ feature on my TiVo remote and my DVD player equipped with six different speeds of “rewind” are all set up to make me want to give the boob tube my undivided attention. We record all of our favorite shows so that we can skip the commercials or rewind any time we miss a single second of action. Or rent an entire season at a time on DVD and power through episode after episode without interruption. I hit a new low in attention deficit-ness when I decided that the intro to Lost was too lengthy not to fast forward through and it’s probably all of ten seconds long!

Which brings me to this logical conclusion; why not start bringing clean clothes to work in a duffle bag and fold them during phone calls or when the system goes down? Heck, if that works, why not start taking the laundry to meetings? It’s not as rude as it sounds… it wouldn’t be any more disruptive than those people who are constantly late or who talk excessively. I think I’m on to something here…