Ahhhhhh, WIPEOUT with Jack!

No matter how much you wait, and anticipate, and wait, and anticipate, and wait for the first word to babble from a tot's lips, you soon learn to dread the day when their sentences send shivers up your spine.
And I don't even mean statements such as this:
· Uh, Dad, I think the engine blew on my car.
· Uh, Pops, I think I'm pregnant.
· DAD! Howcum I can't get a pager yet, when everybody ELSE has one? (And doesn't that question date me as a technological dinosaur? Hell, kids are twittering now who are so young they’ve never even HEARD of a pager.)
But I'm beyond the days of such questions — and I stress that I didn't hear the middle one.
But some sentences still can scare the bejabbers out of me, though. Such as when Jack asks me, "Papa Mike, where are the wipes?"
You see, it's never a GOOD thing when he asks me where the baby wipes are, because I know he’s not volunteering to change a diaper or to clean the furniture.
Rather, it’s because the little lad has SPILLED something. He’s a great kid but, well, he has this clumsy streak in which he sometimes seems to trip on air, even.
After all, he’s no Michael Jackson, rest his soul, who could WALK on air, or the MOON.

That conjures up memories of the early days of MTV, when Michael Jackson’s videos MADE the franchise for a network that doesn’t even seem to know what a video is these days. Indeed, whenever “Thriller” came on, my oldest, Annie, would scream so loud the neighbors could hear her: “DAD! MICHAEL’S ON!!!”
Of course, I’d drop whatever was at hand — unless it was a bowl of ice cream, of course — and run to watch it with her. Our lives stopped for that 13-plus minutes as we watched the genius of that video and its groundbreaking choreography. (And, although you haven’t asked, I’ll acknowledge: I DID buy one of those red jackets.)
Back to the subject at hand: Jack asking for wipes. Very often, that means chocolate is involved, as in spilled chocolate ice cream, or milk, or candy.
I’m going to rat myself out here, before my kids do, and admit that — well, let’s just say I haven’t always treated spills with the calmness of a monk. Truth be told, whenever they wanted to see fireworks, all they needed to do was spill something.
I’ll be getting up there in years some day, and I’m developing a sense of calm in anticipation of those years. So when Jack asks where the wipes are, I pat him on the head and tell him I’ll help clean up the mess.
After all, such spills are accidents, right? And he HAS graduated from the days when he couldn’t figure out why I would get a tad upset when he couldn’t seem to hit his mouth with the spoon and he would get chocolate ice cream EVERYWHERE.
These days, we calmly clean up whatever is spilled.
I guess you could say it's a wipeout of a different sort from the old Surfin' Safaris hit.

Boys' 'Helping' Me Paint Could Have Been Brush With Disaster

If only I could bottle my little lads' energy and optimism, I could make a ton of money selling the magic potion to parents whose offspring have entered the teen malaise dazed phase.
For example, a couple of weeks back, Melissa told three of the four boys of the Apocalypse that their overnight visit with me pivoted on when (or whether) I painted a bedroom.
They couldn't understand why they would have to stay away while I painted, because they couldn't IMAGINE that I wouldn't want/need their help. They clamored to know why they couldn't.
I will acknowledge that they — even 3-year-old Luke — do a great job staying in the lines when they pull out their crayons to color and/or draw trains and Transformers and SpongeBobs.
I may be a Mike, but I’m no Michelangelo, and I have enough trouble staying in the lines myself when it comes to painting, especially when the wall is bumping up into a popcorn ceiling. I venture to say that the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel would look MUCH different if Michelangelo had had to contend with that nightmarish surface.

Anyway, I knew having them under foot would just rattle my nerves further and increase the shakiness of my unsteady hand. And there was no way I was even tempted to let them try to paint "just a little bit."
In their minds' eyes, you see, they see the walls as canvasses awaiting their talented hands. They don't know how hard it is to paint, especially when one of your main goals is to cover the wall with just one coat.
(And THAT brings up a parenthetical aside: Time was — and it wasn't all that long ago because a sprout like me remembers it — when you could find paint that WOULD cover with just one coat. Now, all paint companies do is prime you with false promises that end up looking more bleached out than Tom Sawyer's whitewash.
(Such as the brand I will leave unnamed as I bare my soul about its claim of being a miracle potion because it includes not only the paint but also the primer.
(I also will not name the chain that sells it because even bad publicity is good — and that chain with the orange sign doesn't deserve any for being the depot of deception with this primed paint, which it implies STRONGLY that it will cover miraculously.
(I'm not one who subscribes to conspiracy theories — I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and that ballplayers never would use steroids — but I believe that paint companies have conspired not only to make paint that won't cover but also to jack up the prices for it just to sell paint. [I’ve seen political cover-ups with more sticking power than paint these days.]
(Indeed, some companies used to tout one-coat-covers-all as a selling point, and their paint did cover. Now, all of a sudden, even premium brands admit right on the can [not in the commercials though, because those aim to suck you into the store] that you might need four coats. They charge more to cover less to sell more. It's a vicious cycle.
(That ends my parenthetical rant: Just don't believe everything TV commercials say about paint with primer in it. You’ll end up paraphrasing and echoing Roy Scheider in “Jaws,” in one of my all-time favorite movie lines. Instead of "You're gonna need a bigger boat," the mantra should be: "You're gonna need another coat.")

So the boys were going to help. Well, I’ve seen their work, and even though I think their drawings are quite advanced for kids their age, I’ve also seen some very colorful, but errant, jabs at walls, cushions, carpets, etc. Here’s an example of what can happen, although it’s not from my family archives:

Their willingness, though, is a prime example of the difference between the unbridled confidence of youngsters, who believe they can do anything, and we adults, who often feel so beaten down that we can’t do anything.
Such as Vincent’s first experience at a professional baseball game. He was probably around 4 when he went with his mom and dad. He dutifully, and reverently took his baseball glove in case a fly came his way.
As it turned out, he thought that also meant he would be playing in the game.
After sitting patiently through a couple of innings, he turned to his parents and said, “Mommy and Daddy, when am I going in?”
I can identify with that, as I used to imagine being a ballplayer and snagging every grounder and fly hit my way.
Reality set in the day when I was about 10, playing shortstop and a ball scooted through my legs. Imagine my embarrassment when my stepmother’s shout echoed across the field, “MICHAEL JOSEPH TIGHE.”
That pivotal moment changed my fielding skills from being a Hoover to being a sieve.
Of course, Vincent’s epiphany wasn’t as brutal, as his parents gently explained to him that it takes a long time to become a ballplayer, and a team has to hire you. But he quickly lost interest and asked to go home.
So he’ll put off that career decision until another day.
Speaking of kids and decisions, here’s an old joke from an old friend that bears repeating. (She’s not an old friend in the sense of being longtime, but in the sense of being OLD. Her most recent missive to me was how ga-ga she was over Opie making the cover of AARP.)
As kids grow to adulthood, they face the inevitable decision on the facts of life: when to start cussing.
For example, a 7-year-old and a 5-year-old (NOT Vincent and Jack, by the way) are discussing their next step to adulthood.
"You know what?" says the 7-year-old. "I think it's about time we started cussing."
The 5-year-old nods his head in approval, and the 7-year-old continues, "When we go downstairs for breakfast, I'm gonna say something with hell and you say something with ass."
The 5-year-old agrees with enthusiasm.
When the mother (NOT Melissa, by the way) walks into the kitchen and asks the 7-year-old what he wants for breakfast, he replies, "Aw, hell, Mom, I guess I'll have some Cheerios."
WHACK! He flies out of his chair, tumbles across the kitchen floor, gets up, and runs upstairs crying his eyes out, with his mother in hot pursuit, slapping his rear with every step. (That’s PROOF it’s not Melissa, because theirs is a no-spanking household.)
His mom locks him in his room and shouts, "You can stay there until I let you out!"
She then comes back downstairs, looks at the 5-year-old and asks with a stern voice, "And what do YOU want for breakfast, young man?"
"I don't know," he blubbers, "but you can bet your fat ass it won't be Cheerios!"
Ba-da-BUMP!

Jack the Pack Rat — Ain't That a Kick in the Head

In another era, Jack would have fit right in with the popular Rat Pack.
Well, granted, I’m letting words out of the dictionary to play with themselves because of course I mean packrat. And there isn't anything the 5-year-old packrat won't try to squirrel away.
Jack the Rat (if he adopted a nickname like some other Italians have done over the years) latches onto anything that catches his fancy. And I assure you that everything catches his fancy — from worthless pieces of paper to some of my own prized toys he tries to finagle. (Ain't that a kick in the head?)

Surely I hyperbolize, you say? Jack can't be THAT much of a scrounger.
Consider this: The other day, he asked me to hold a gum wrapper for him.
"Why:" I said, intending to throw it away.
"Because I like the color," he replied, so I tucked it in my pocket because I know from experience that if I didn't, he'd ask for it four hours later, or the next day, and read me the riot act if I didn't have it.
I have seen him pick up plain old rocks and fancy ones; in fact, he stayed with me last night and took home a slug of rocks he pilfered from under my mulch. He also has stowed paperclips, big and small; pieces of wire, straight and tangled; sticks, gnarled and smooth; and on and on and on.
His fascination with saving things hardly stops there, though: When the family celebrated birthdays at a restaurant a couple of weeks back, he insisted — insisted, I tell ya — on taking his leftover ice cream home.
The other day, I was busy elsewhere in the house when he tired of eating his ice cream. Next thing I heard was a crash in the kitchen. I ran to see what caused the clatter and there he was, looking up sheepishly from the pool of melting ice cream as he said, "I was trying to put it in the freezer to save it, Papa Mike."
So I tossed in what little was left with the ice cream he had secreted in the freezer the previous week.
He insists on saving half-eaten sandwiches — sometimes even when all that is left is a pile of crusts – "to finish later." I learned the hard way to heed his wishes because the first time I polished off one of his sandwiches as an ABC lunch for ME, he asked me two hours later where it was — and pitched a fit when I had told him I had eaten it.
Jack doesn't mind biting the hand that feeds him, when the hand that fed him is the same hand that grabbed his sandwich later.
Of course, this food habit will pass before we know it, when he reaches the higher metabolism level at which he will eat everything on his plate and then some.
His 7-year-old brother Vincent already is there; I’m afraid his ears are going to fall off from having his head stuck in the refrigerator foraging for food so often.
Speaking of Vincent and foraging, time was, back when he and I used to run to the tracks to watch trains snake by, we also would walk along the right-of-way and pick up parts that had fallen off the trains (it’s amazing what we found, and I sure hope that many parts don’t fall off of planes). Eventually, I noticed the sign that said I was trespassing on private train property, so we never reached our goal of having enough train parts to make our own engine.
Vincent isn’t such a bone collector as I am, but I have a feeling that Jack’s tendency to save junk is just a hint of things to come. He’ll join me in the Dumpster Diver Hall of Fame in which I am ensconced for, for instance, retrieving a boom box 15 years ago that still plays today, cobbling together a workbench from salvaged wood, claiming as a workbench a really cool table that a store had tossed into the alley, snagging a little cabinet that looked ugly, with its red and black enamel paint job (behold, when I stripped it, I found a beautiful oak piece of furniture I have treasured for these three-plus decades).
I don’t think he’ll follow in my footsteps in not being able to eat food beyond its expiration date though. Just this morning, he turned up his nose at the cereal I proffered him, saying the milk “tasted funny.” Well, the milk HADN’T expired, and it didn’t taste funny to me.
But once he said that, it was like a runaway train, with brother Luke spurning the cereal, too.
I guess some packrats have standards.
But there’ll NEVER be another Rat Pack.

Something else you’ll never see again: All the guests on a TV talk show smoking butts (along with the host, Johnny Carson). George Gobel is a HOOT on this:

If Your Toilet's Running, You Better Catch It!

Believe it or ELSE, I'm old enough to recall when auto-flush urinals FIRST arrived on the scene.
At first, we were puzzled about one tiny aspect of the expensive remodeling project at the newspaper where I worked (those where the days, eh?). The conundrum arose when we couldn't find the flush handle.
Well, the men couldn't, anyway, because only urinals had the heat sensors to signal to the flushers that the depositor had just stepped away from the "window." No such luck for the women (and the men who opted for the sitting position), who still had to flush manually (or, if you prefer the feminine form, womanually).
So we men — chivalrous to a fault, then as now — would give our female colleagues tours of the men's restrooms in G-rated demonstrations of how the automatic urinals worked. We would put our hand up to the machine above the urinal, then take it away, with the change in temperature telling the machine to flush away.
Then we all would watch, amazed, as the water roared down the alabaster walls of the urinals. Then we would repeat the process: Hand up, hand down; hand up and down; up, and down.
Sometimes, one of the women would be brave enough to try it. But I often detected a feeling of resentment on the women’s parts, although it never rose to the level of urinal envy, so I dismissed it as a natural human tendency that we had something they didn’t. (Just like we men wish soooooooo much that we could, f’rinstance, experience menopause. And I'll always wonder why that isn't called womenopause.)
I realize now that, perhaps, we should have been fearful instead of flabbergasted at the new machine. And we might have been, if we had only known then what we know now.
Indeed, I am not afraid to state flat-out that automatic toilets have spoiled us to no end. (I speak only as a man in this case, as I have no idea what goes on behind closed doors of women's johns.)
You see, those automatic flushers — now ubiquitous in both men's and women's facilities (I've heard) — have spoiled us. We've become so accustomed to the electronic eyes' being our bathroom butlers that we forget how to flush ourselves.
Oh, not at home. That's not a matter of forgetting so much as a battle of the sexes; personally, I fail to see the need to flush EVERY time.
But out in the rare public facilities that still us manual flushers for one reason or another, many of us men just forget to flush as we zip up to zip off about our business. So the next guy thinks we're rude when we're not; we're actually just spoiled.
Same thing with automatic doors. I learned THAT lesson the day I walked full-tilt into the glass door of a store that didn't have the robotic door openers. I couldn't stop myself in time after I realized the door wasn't opening, and I left a greasy imprint of my face on the window.
So what's all this got to do with grandkids, you say?
For ONE thing, it wasn't all that long ago that, when I was out with Vincent and he needed to go to the can, we had to look far and wide to find one that didn't flush automatically. The autopilots scared him him so much he wouldn’t go NEAR them. (Same thing with the automatic hand dryers.) I think he was afraid of being sucked in.
Of course, now that the lads can flush on their own, they have to learn the art of the appropriate amount of Charmin to pamper their buns.
I was reminded of this the other day when Jack screeched from the bathroom: “Papa MIKE! The toilet is LEAKING.”
I ran in, cursing under my breath (and OVER it), because my concept of a leaky toilet is that either a tank connection is leaking or, even worse, the base is leaking and will require a major fix-it job, including pulling the throne out of the floor.
I was relieved, though, when I turned the corner and saw that the floor was only slightly damp.
The relief grew when Jack said, "OH! Now it's going down."
Of course, we know what that probably means: Some little lad — and I won't name names — had squeezed off more much Charmin than the toilet could chew.
In this case, the toilet fixed itself. And I learned that Jack's definition of leaking is different from mine. So my cup of knowledge runneth over, with his.

P.S.: The following video proves that SOME people have too much time, and toilet paper, on their hands.