Does spanking deserve jail time?

A foster mother in Connecticut is facing 100 days in jail after she admitted spanking a four year old with a wooden spoon according to a report.

The women told officials that she had spanked the child because the child had hit the woman’s granddaughter, spat at her, and used a racial slur toward her. The biological mother noticed bruises on her daughter during a supervised visit.

Let me tell you, if my mother had to spend 100 days in jail for every time she spanked me with a wooden spoon, she would have easily been serving 20 to life.

You see, the wooden spoon was my mother’s spanking instrument of choice. She brandished that kitchen utensil like a magician wields his wand. And it had the power to work its magic, too. The mere mention of the wooden spoon could stave off defiant acts such as deliberately disobeying, sassing back, “borrowing” your older brother’s pocket change, or singeing your own eyebrow off while playing with your father’s matches.

On more than one occasion, my mother would ask the utterly ridiculous rhetorical question: “Do I need to get the wooden spoon?”

She would even take the instrument of discipline and cookery on road trips. Even when concealed, its presence was felt. I remember one time we were on a day trip to place my father had to go for an hour’s worth of business. While my dad was in some office, my brother and I played in an adjacent field. At one point I found the wooden spoon tucked up near the front seat of the car. I pulled it out and starting pretending it was a sword. As I swashbuckled toward a patch of woods, the wooden spoon leapt out of my hand and flew deep into a patch of briers beyond reach.

Although I had repeatedly insisted that it was only an accident, but my mom wasn’t buying any of it. I had to spend the rest of the time in the backseat, perseverating over what would happen when my dad got back. When nothing did, I had to sweat it out the long ride home, wondering how bad my punishment would be, regretting I had ever touched something that wasn’t mine.

If I had done anything bad, I was lucky to only get the wooden spoon. For serious offences, it was Dad and the belt. Those castigatory moments happened after my mom would utter the oft cited albeit cliché phrase, “What ‘till your father gets home.”

After the arduous wait, the grip of fear as he walked in, the dead-man-walking moment hearing the mumbling that was mom telling dad all that I had done, Dad would call me into his room.

There he would ask me what I had done. I would tell him all. There was no point of lying at this point. He already knew. In fact, as I would later find out, he knew a lot more than I had realized. We lived in a pretty small town where no one person was separated by more than one or two degrees from each other. Dad would then talk to me, very calmly, about what I had done, why it was wrong and such. Then came the consequence out from around his waist punctuating a lesson that would be soon learned and long remembered.

Whether with a wooden spoon, belt, or bare hand, spanking was a part of my childhood, of my friends’ childhoods. It’s what our parents did. It’s how we learned. When we got it, we deserved it. We didn’t like it at the time, but, let me tell you something, we did learn.

While I would never think of using an object to spank my kids, I don’t hold it against my parents at all. They were good, dedicated parents. Perhaps if they had spared the wooden spoon, I might not be who I am today.

http://www.nj.com/parenting/index.ssf/2013/05/does_spanking_deserve_jail_tim.html

Summer Family Depression

I’m not sure if anyone else has noticed, but reruns of the 1970s family drama, “The Waltons” has been showing up on more than one cable channel.

The resurgence – albeit modest – of the Great Depression family throwback hit couldn’t come at a better time because my family is in the throes an economic depression of our own, so with the retro-runs I can show my kids just how fun a depression can be. 

While summer gives my kids more time to ride their bikes, play at the park, swim in the lake, hang out with their friends, it also affords them more time to ask for things.  I can’t imagine how they make it from breakfast to lunch during the school year without grazing a kitchen every half hour.

Just the other night my wife and I were sitting on our front porch swing when my daughter opened the front door and asked if she could have some leftover chili.  My wife said no because they would be having it for lunch the next day.  Two minutes later my son steps out and asks if he could have a few slices of cold cuts.  No, my wife said, the cold cuts are for lunches.  Not five minutes later, my daughter, who obviously lost the toss, opened the door, told us how much she loved us and asked if we could order a pizza.

It’s not as though we don’t feed our children, we do.  Only three hours earlier we were sitting at the table scoffing down bowls of chili and rice.  My son had three helpings to my one. 

And it’s not just food.  Apparently parental greetings now begin with Can I get...?  Can I have…?  Can we buy…? 

  

The problem is we can’t just spend money that way during the summer.  You see, I am a teacher and just about midsummer my family hits a depression.

Early in June we hit an economic slowdown and eventual recession where any fiscal growth slows, spending comes to a near halt, and employment opportunities are reduced greatly. 

Sure, we tuck some money under the mattress throughout the school year for the rainy day that is June, July and August, but that little cushion has a funny way of losing its stuffing every time we change the sheets.  Wouldn’t it be nice if…? begins the conversation.  We’ll just take a little…it continues.  We’ll make sure to replace it…we vow.  The cushion ends up being a flimsy sheet.

Once September hits we enter into a period of recovery when the demands for goods and services (new clothes, school supplies, activities, fundraisers, etc.) are able to be met with the supply of income (Dad working a couple of after school activities and teaching a couple of courses at the local university). 

However, the recovery is short lived and almost immediately falls into another recession with the onset of the holiday season.

About a month into the new year an economic boon occurs.  With summer impossible to imagine with all that snow and ice, spending becomes a remedy for cabin fever:  Some clothing for us or perhaps a new piece of furniture, a new video game for them because the poor little darlings are stuck inside.  Wouldn’t be nice if…we’ll just take a little…we’ll make sure to replace it. 

The household economy cycles back to the June slowdown followed by the summer depression where there is no room for eating leftovers as a snack, and no room for pizza.

There is room, however, for some fresh air-popped popcorn in front of penny-pinching, purse-string-tightening entertainment and a hopeful lesson for my kids that one does not need a lot of possessions to be happy episodes of “The Waltons,” and, though they may not believe it, they could be much worse off:  They could have even more brothers and sisters.

Deodorant Identity Crisis

According to a 2010 report by Global Industries Analysis, Inc., by the year 2015, the market for men’s grooming products will exceed $33.2 billion. Although many male and female oriented personal grooming products have basically the same ingredients, marketers seem to have successfully convinced us that women perspire while real men, like me, sweat.  Does this marketing further divide the sexes or simply highlight the already seeded inequalities?

One morning in the not too distant past, I involuntarily and quite innocently grabbed deodorant and began gliding it under my left arm.  As I switched hands to give the other side a swipe, I noticed that I had mistakenly grabbed my wife's deodorant.  I looked at my brand still sitting there on the shelf.  I looked at my wife's in my hand and then back at the shelf.  I had applied my wife's deodorant, women's deodorant.  pH balanced deodorant.  Instead of smelling of sport musk, I'd be lilac fresh all day long. 

I had options.  I could simply apply hers to the other side; I could put my deodorant on the other side; I could step back in the shower, scrub it off, and apply anew. 

I glanced back at my deodorant on the shelf and then back to hers in my hand.  Oh, the heck with it, I thought, and evened up the other side with her stick.  I told myself if anything out of the ordinary happens this day, I'd know why.

I stood halfway inside my closet trying to decide what to wear.  With my deodorant identity crisis now full blown, I was cautious about every move I made.  Why had I just pulled out a silk shirt?  It wasn't what I usually wore to work.  Plain, breathable cotton is what is called for, certainly not silk.  Was it that I now wanted something softer against my skin?

After pouring a cup of coffee, I turned on the television to one of those morning news shows.  There, during the station breaks, I was told how a mother can comfort a sick child with liquid pain relief; that women who work can come home and pour a complete meal out of a plastic bag from your grocer's freezer; and if I had decided to go strapless today, I had used the right deodorant because even though it was a solid, it goes on clear.

I wondered if I would be more or less aggressive on the commute.  Would I be more or less tolerant of sexist slurs in the professional workplace?  Would I listen far more carefully to what people say without thinking more of what I'm going to say when they are done speaking?  Would I take off one of my shoes in a meeting?  Would I clean the office microwave? 

I contemplated calling in sick and watching Sports Center all day.

Enough, enough, enough!  What was I doing?  I have always considered myself an enlightened, forward-thinking individual.  I have prided myself at being above the lure of advertising.  It doesn't affect me.  I don't need Madison Avenue to tell me what to think or how to smell.  How could I have been so wrong?

Is it that I had been fooling myself for years, or is it that advertising seeps into our collective subconscious far more than we'd like to admit?  Are we far more duped than we realize or does it go deeper?

Perhaps what we fear most is that part of us we don’t want to admit is there.  Does the liberal tolerate so much diversity because he or she is afraid of the conservative within, a suppressed trust, perhaps, in a father's words?  Does the civil rights activist commit so strongly because deep down inside there is suppressed hints of bigotry placed there by an environment in which he or she was raised?  Does the conservative demand fewer social programs so adamantly because he or she those programs just might work and level the playing field?

My wife met me in the kitchen just as I was about to leave.  She asked me why I had used her deodorant.  How did she know?  Did it show?  And here I was, thinking I had just gotten over the whole thing.  No, she told me.  Tell tale hair stuck to her stick.  Relieved, I explained to her my mishap.  She sighed and said she didn't know why we couldn't just always use the same one.

I shrugged my shoulders.  A faint whiff of lilac drifted to my nose.  I really didn't know why either.

Icycle Light Plea (A Form Letter)

The following is a draft of a proposal on an idea of a concept.  Readers are urged to clip, copy, sign and send it along to their local town representatives.  Remember, the more of these they receive, the more likely something will be done about this most heinous problem.

Dear Representatives:

My name is (your name here), and I live at (your address here).  I would like to bring to your attention a serious problem that is not only plaguing our little corner of the universe, but most other places as well.  In fact, the problem is so out of hand that we are in danger of it’s becoming an epidemic.  You must take serious action now before it is too late and there will be no turning back.

Let me start by saying that I am not a killjoy in any way.  I like having fun as much as the next person and in a festive spirit, I’ve been known to make rather merry.  Let me also start out by making it clear that I believe in the rights of all private property owners and that there ought to be limits to the powers of local government.

That being said, however, I sincerely demand that you, (insert local form of government here:  township committee, town council), draft, pass and strictly enforce an ordinance that forces homeowners and renters to take down their icicle lights within a reasonable time after the winter holidays.

There was a time when people ridiculed those who left their holiday lights up past the Super Bowl.  That behavior was once reserved for those who also thought that a broken down car made an excellent lawn ornament.  Alas, no more. 

Today, unfortunately, it seems that leaving the lights up year round is in vogue.  I challenge you to drive through a neighborhood without passing a home sporting the glistening tentacles dangling from rooftops.  Even those developments with “executive homes” – you know, those slash-and-build neighborhoods that was a orchard just last week – have a few families who must think that icicle lights are permanent lighting fixtures just because they come with nifty plastic clips.

Perhaps these perpetrators believe that no one can really see the lights dripping from their rain gutters.  Perhaps they think that they are attractive and add to the aesthetics of the block.  Perhaps they feel that if everyone left their holiday lights up, it will become the norm.  Whatever these people may believe, I must strongly state that they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

Not only are they a safety hazard because they are not designed permanent outdoor use, but these lights are just plain ugly.  They make your house look like an Appalachian smile. By keeping them up, residents are showing a lack of respect for themselves or their neighbors but also for (insert name of town, borough, city, berg or township) itself.

It is time for our (insert town type here:  town, borough, city, berg or township) to stand up and take swift and decisive action.  It is time for all (insert name of town, borough, city, berg or township) residents to tell their fellow community members that these lights are an eyesore, that at night, during the holidays, they are a delightful adornment, but now, during daylight saving hours, they look not unlike an albino millipede racing across a roof.

Even though there are most likely ordinances already in the books dealing with temporary and permanent outdoor electrical wiring and lighting that can and ought to be used to control this ever-growing problem, a specific ordinance may help many people to realize that the appearance of their homes are as much of a reflection on me as it is on them.

Thank your for your quick attention to this problem.

Sincerely,

(Insert name here)

Refinishing Your Inner End Table

When Michelangelo brushed his last stroke on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, I imagine he must have stood back to take in his work as a whole:  one part admiration, three parts relief at the work’s being complete.  As I hammered the last finishing nail in the window trim of my bathroom, I stood back to take in the work as a whole:  one part relief at the work’s being complete, three parts amazement that the nail went in straight.

After several jump starts, mishaps and do-overs, it is finished.  The total bathroom renovation that began with a burned out light bulb in 1998 is finally done.  From gutted room to new towels, my leviathan of a lavatory has been conquered. 

When I had put the last of the tools back down in the basement, I stood at the bathroom door, staring, noticing a couple minor imperfections that few others would perceive.  I like to believe those little imperfections, like the bumps and wrinkles of life, are what make a place, a life, our own.  Perfection, after all, is in the eye of the cynic.

Still standing in the doorway, I tried to picture what the room had looked like before I started.  I wondered what it had looked like before that and then even before that.  Our house is around a hundred years old, so I figure it must have gone through many renovations.  All those minor imperfections painted, papered and paneled over to lay a claim, to mark a territory, to discover a land anew over and over again. 

And then a thought occurred to me:  Aren’t we all constantly renovating our inner rooms?

It’s like Deepak Chopra meets Bob Villa.  A person needs to tear down a facade put up years ago, perhaps in another lifetime, before rebuilding.  A healthy individual needs to know the dimensions of his own door jam in order to put up new trim.  The sub floor must be flat, smooth and clean before laying the new, improved vinyl flooring.  Seams between sheets of dry wall must be tapped and spackled well so the wall can be one flowing wall in itself and of itself.  Paint looks best over a coat of fine primer, that is, our outside is only as beautiful as what lies beneath because if you can’t get at what’s really underneath, at least keep it from bleeding though.

Furniture refinishing is much the same thing.  When I got my first apartment, I raided my parents’ attic.  Along with an old set of plates I don’t ever remember using; forks, knives, and spoons; a few pots and magazine rack, I was able to confiscate two matching end tables.  They had been the end tables of my youth, permanent fixtures in our living room until my brothers and I were out of the jump-on-the-furniture-with-your-dirty-shoes phase when my parents bought new furniture that wasn’t akin to burlap.

When I set up my living room that also played the role of dining room, office, guest room, and hamper, the end tables gave me a familiar, homey comfort feeling.  Seconds later I made the decision to refinish them.  It wasn’t that they were in bad shape; it wasn’t that I didn’t particularly like the style.  It was that I was not living at home anymore, I was on my own and I needed to strip off the fine, natural wood finish of my parents and paint them with the good black semi-gloss of my independence.

It’s not just the big jobs that help us renovate our inner rooms.  The smallest jobs around the house are just as important.  Touching up paint on a baseboard, fixing a leaking faucet, even simply Spring cleaning can be as insightful and meaningful toward a more fulfilling sense of self as a Wayne Dyer marathon during PBS fundraising.

For those who believe that it’s best to leave such major improvement projects to the professionals, I’d reply that people must be their own contractors, sub-contracting only surrenders one’s power to another – although having a good plumber really helps.

With the desire, patience, and the proper tools, any inner room can be improved upon.  Just don’t forget to wear your safety glasses.

True Confessions of a Fruitcake Convert

Here's a holiday piece that I resuscitated.  It appeared in a slightly different form in the Christian Science Monitor in December, 2003.  Long live the fruitcake!

I used to be one of those people - the kind of person who repeatedly dusted off old jokes from that guy who preceded Jay Leno -- the first time -- on the "Tonight Show," chortling and pointing at stacks of fruitcake tins in the grocery store, ridiculing anyone who would actually admit to ingesting one.

Ten years ago, I would have applauded the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority's recent ban on fruitcake in the interest of safety - fruitcakes are so dense they could hide not just a knife, but an entire kitchen drawer full of cutlery. I would have quipped that humanity had long known about other fruitcake-related risks such as chipped teeth, broken toes, and severed friendships.

But all that has changed. I have eaten my words.

Ten years ago, my wife announced one December morning that she wanted to make that cumbrous Christmas classic. Ignoring my litany of one-liners (one doesn't make fruitcake, darling, one mines it), she told me that every year her grandmother, an English immigrant, made traditional Victorian Christmas "goodies" that included plum pudding, figgy pudding, mincemeat pies, and fruitcake.

She confessed having fruitcake in the house every yuletide and actually enjoying it. My wife described the cake her grandmother made in terms I had never fully associated with the dessert before: spicy, sweet, nutty, and fruity. Alas, her grandmother, who measured ingredients by the palm of her hand and the arc of the pour, never wrote down any recipes. And ever since her grandmother's passing, my wife had been feeling a holiday culinary void. Thus began her quest for the perfect recipe.

She researched and gathered recipes from books, magazines, websites, and newspapers. Then came the experiments. With the somber seriousness of biochemist, she tested this recipe and that recipe, taking ingredients from some and adding to others.

As she performed her empirical lab work, I reviewed some of her findings. Roman soldiers apparently carried cakes made of raisins, pine nuts, and pomegranate seeds mixed in a barley mash (tasty). Some food scholars dated fruitcake all the way back to the ancient Egyptians, who considered it essential sustenance for the dead in the next life (hardly surprising).

"Hey, honey," I called from the dining room, "now I know how the pyramids have lasted thousands of years." A green candied maraschino projectile sailed from the kitchen in response.

But one night a few weeks later, while I was engrossed in the evening news, my wife entered the living room and handed me a round, deep brown cake. The top had a glossy sheen and was decorated with colorful bubbles of candied red and green cherries. It was weighty.

She handed me a knife and tentatively, I cut a slice. The knife passed through without effort. I took a bite. And then another. Before I knew it, I was helping myself to another piece. Some may say that it was the systematic deadening of my taste buds from unremitting subjections to one failed experiment after another, while others may argue it was simply fatigue, but the fruitcake tasted good. In fact, it was delicious. It was moist and chewy and laden with spice that lifted the corners of my mouth into an unavoidable smile. She had done it.

Ever since, I have been an advocate, eagerly explaining to unbelievers that fruitcakes are sort of like people: Some are dry and dense while others are packed with fruit and spice. And some just need a little extra holiday care to help them turn out just right.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1222/p09s01-coop.html

Holly Jolly Holiday Final

This time of year always reminds me of that great feeling of finishing that last fall semester final.  Regardless of the outcome, the cessation of academic stress is gratefully replaced by the sensation of holiday stress and a few weeks of time found.

I’m thinking about finals because I’ve just heard on the radio Burl Ives’ rendition of “Holly Jolly Christmas."  Whenever I hear that song, I cannot help but think about my biology final at Atlantic Cape Community College in southern New Jersey because the professor looked just like Burl Ives, though, to tell the truth, he resembled more the snowman on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

I dreaded my biology final.  Every time I’d try to study for it, I would easily find more a more pressing activity like cutting my toenails.  It wasn’t that I disliked the course; I just wasn’t into it.  What made it even worse for me was the professor seemed to take the approach that everyone in the class was destined for a career in medicine or some sort of scientific hodge-podge which couldn’t have been further from my own aspirations.  Science has never been a favorite subject of mine.  I would much rather dissect fiction than frogs. 

The morning of my biology final I woke up with a high fever.  I had two finals scheduled for that day:  Psychology of Adolescence/Adulthood and Biology of Our World, and I thought I would have been fine if I could only stop shivering.  I popped a couple of Tylenol and drove to campus.

Midway through my Psych final my chest began burning with every inhale, I struggled to hold back coughs, and the little dots on the Scan-Tron form started moving around in dizzying swirling patterns.  I randomly filled in the last five questions to put an end to the misery.  But I still had a second exam in a half an hour.  When I broke into uncontrollable fits of coughing, I realized I had little choice.

I walked into my professor’s office and explained to him my situation.  Keeping to the other side of his desk, he jotted down his home phone number and told me to call him as soon as I felt better.

Four days later, two days before Christmas, I called him expecting to schedule a make-up exam for sometime during the first week of the spring semester.  Instead he asked me what I was doing that afternoon and gave me directions to his home.

At his front door, I held out a doctor’s note, written evidence of my bronchitis, but he only smiled, bid me entrance and led me into his kitchen.  The house was decorated for the holiday for both sight and smell.  Hints of cinnamon and nutmeg lingered about boughs of garland, laurel and holly.

The professor offered me a seat at the table and asked if I liked mulled cider.  I confessed that I had never tasted it.  Cider was only served cold in my house, I told him.  He smiled again, walked over to the counter and lifted the lid off of a crock-pot.  What I had taken for a scented candle when I entered the house was actually the aroma emanating from this potion.  He placed an oversized coffee mug in front of me and then handed me a stapled packet of papers.  Enjoy, he said and then left the room.

I reached maybe the third question when his wife walked into the kitchen, placed a plate of holiday cookies and some napkins on the table, said she had some last minute shopping to do, wished me luck, and left the room.  For the next hour and a half I worked on the exam interrupted only once when my professor refilled my cup and told me to help myself to more if I so desired.

When I was done, I took my test into his living room.  The professor was sitting in an easy chair reading a book next to a Franklin Stove with doors ajar enough to show a glowing flame.  The whole scene seemed almost too cliché to me, and yet there it was. 

I thanked my professor for his trouble.  He insisted that it was his pleasure, and he wished me a merry Christmas. 

On my drive home “Holly Jolly Christmas” came on the radio. 

Maybe it was the fact that what I presumed as a stogy science professor treated an undergrad in a gen-ed class with empathy and genuine kindness that had made a life-long impression on me, or maybe it was the image of the snowman that told me the story of Rudolph every year of my life sipping a mug of mulled cider, nibbling on a Christmas cookie and grading my exam because without any degree of certainty, I couldn’t name one thing that was on that test. 

Ghosts of Christmas Future

I am sitting watching the six o’clock news while my youngest son plays on the floor in front of the TV.

Yet another story comes on about some towns and cities across the nation referring to Christmas trees as Holiday trees.  I look at my son and wonder how far all this will go.  I think about how it will be when he’s in his golden years; I imagine ghosts of Christmas future:  an aged grandfather and a bright little boy:

“Will you tell me about what Winter Holiday was like when you were a little boy?”

“Sure.  Come here and sit by me.  Way back in the early part of this century, things were very different from the way they are today.  First of all, when I was small, the holiday was still called Christmas and, even though there were many people trying to bleach Christmas out of our social fabric, the holiday was still pretty much widely accepted.”

“You mean people didn’t have to hide in their basements with blackened windows and celebrate in secret?”

“No, not at all.  We’d decorate the house while listening to Christmas carols on the radio.”

“What, did you have to buy a special channel or something?”

“No.  As Christmastime approached, you would just start hearing Christmas songs.  Of course this was back when radio was free.  I remember my father telling me about when television was actually free.  There may have been fewer channels to choose from, I remember him telling me, but with less of a selection came greater quality.”

“Christmas songs on the open airwaves?  Wow.”

“Talk about putting things out there, I remember my father hanging Christmas lights outside on our house. We even had a nativity scene.”

“Outside?  Where everyone could see it?  Wasn’t he afraid of offending a passer-by and being arrested for religious intimidation or even being sued?”

“Back then things like that didn’t happen.  Well, it did, but not to individuals.  Only municipalities were being sued for openly acknowledging Christmas for was it really is.”

 

“For what it really was?”

“Mmm hmm.  Christmas was the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.”

“Giggle giggle, giggle.”

“What?”

“You said a bad word.  Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

“I appreciate that.  It wasn’t until the late Twenties when even Christmas displays on private property were being outlawed.  There was this idea called tolerance that meant you were supposed to accept and celebrate differences in people.  And that idea seemed to work well unless your own particular difference happened to be in the majority; then it was view upon as politically incorrect and culturally insensitive.  So the tolerance movement became a front for erasing any differences among all people.”

“Mommy says ‘we must oppose the tendency towards selfish departmentalism by which the interests of one’s own unit are looked after to the exclusion of those of others.’”

“Yes, and so did Mao Tsetung.  But I suppose the roots to the change go back to when I was only two years old, right after a huge hurricane called Katrina had hit.  You see, the government realized that private industry could do a better job at providing support services for natural disasters and people in need, so the government began taking over corporations.  It wasn’t too long after that when the Electoral College was dissolved and all elected officials were voted in office by people living in places like Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Washington.  That’s why we’ve had nothing but democrats in office since 2008.”

“What’s a democrat?”

“Oh, that’s the name of the People’s Party before they changed it, back before people were forbidden to cross boarders of certain towns unless they were driving a particular type of car with a specified mileage and had an x number of passengers, before cameras watched our every move, before the tobacco speakeasies, before keeping Christ in Christmas was considered an inexcusable offense.”

“Aren’t you glad we live in times like these now, Comrade Grandfather.”

“I supposed I’d have to say yes, now wouldn’t I, or you’d report me to Comrade General, wouldn’t you, you little scamp?”

“Oh, Comrade Grandfather, you’re so silly.”

I am Merging my Family

Company mergers are nothing new, but I have recently become convinced that merging must be more than a mere mercantile roll in the corporate hay.  There really must be something to this merger thing or industrial giants would never consider it.  So, I figure, if it’s good enough for corporate America, it must be good enough for me.  That’s why I’ve decided it’s time to follow their lead.  I’ve decided to merge my family with the family down the street.

Merging is nothing new to my family.  We’ve already managed to merge the dining room with the living room so breakfast, cartoons, kids and mom may coexist peacefully and the bathroom and the family room must have merged because every time I’m up there, a sudden family run on the plumbing arises.

Now, as to the merger -- first of all, the family down the street has a far larger house, that is, physical plant, than I have.  Their two and a half baths combined with my one will improve employee as well as customer satisfaction by a whopping 250%! 

As one large single-family unit, I can drop my health insurance coverage and accept a generous buy-out check (adding fuel to the tax-your-benefits debate) resulting in an increase of liquid assets while utilizing the family down the street’s insurance more efficiently.  Even though the family down the street’s insurance may not be as good, it’s cheaper.

We will file our taxes jointly giving us a total of seven children and two stay-at-home moms guaranteeing us virtually tax-free status for at least the next 21 years.  That’s better than any old tax moratorium or shelter.

Instead of being a two-car family, we will now boast a fleet of four vehicles which, even though we may never actually need them all, must be a good thing because we’re bigger and have more stuff and can buy car wax by the bulk. 

Of course, as in any merger, there is bound to be a duplication of services that, as difficult as it may be, must be dwelt with.  Although years of devoted, faithful, loyal, productive service have been provided, it is with sincere and deepest regret that, in order to maintain an even greater profit margin, certain family members’ positions must be dissolved.  The position of father will be named by the family with the most assets brought to the table.  A position will be created for the other father with the job title of great uncle visiting from a Midwestern state to be named at a later date.  The position of mother will be maintained by the mothers from both families.  The said mothers will create their own job descriptions.  At first, an early retirement option was proposed for one of the mothers, but after realizing both mothers wanted it, the offer was quickly withdrawn.  Some children may have to be let go.  If there weight as a tax deduction is less than their benefit to the family, they can and will be pink slipped.  Please note that it is not the responsibility of the family to place them elsewhere.  It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been with the family.  They’ve picked up skills.  They’ll land on their feet.  We’ll give them a right jolly letter of recommendation.  Besides, there are plenty of programs out there to retrain them as adorable orphans.

As for any family pets:  any and all will be stored in a warehouse in Piscataway, New Jersey for no longer than five years and, if no use is found for them, they can and will be sold at auction along with any unused furniture, fixture or appliance.  What is not sold at auction will be abandoned.

When we are one large, functioning family, we will begin to eye up other families on the block for hostile takeovers.  Since we can now buy higher, sell lower, work faster and more efficiently; other small families haven’t a chance at survival.  After we’ve acquired the block, we’ll market an aggressive expansion program into the next block and then the next until anti-trust laws stop us or our competition is merely a handful of other larger-than-life families who will work with us to keep everyone’s prices and wages even and “fair.”

As businesses begin to meld into larger and larger institutions, the smaller, middle-of-the-road businesses have less of a chance of success let alone survival.  If this trend continues, society will be split into two classes:  the laboring class and the executive class.  History tells us what happens next.

Small World, Small House

We live in a small world; I live in a small house.

The recent earthing of a bus-sized satellite has me thinking about just how to clean up the orbiting rummage in the space around our small world.  This celestial scrap problem has me engrossed because the rummage from the little satellites around my small house has become exorbitant, too.

It wasn’t always that way, though.  Clutter has a way of appearing seemingly out of nowhere.  When it does, it spreads, and tolerance for muddle has a way of creeping up on you like middle age or the Jonas Brothers.

Shortly after we were married, my wife and I were invited to a coworker of hers for dinner.  I was taken by all the kid stuff scattered about their living room. 

Growing up my brothers and I rarely played in the living room.  Our indoor play was relegated to our bedroom, and when it became untidy, my mother would make us clean it under the threat of the wooden spoon.  As a teenager with a proclivity to disarray, she would simply keep my bedroom door shut.

If I recall correctly, my wife’s coworker referred to the mess as a medley child-dom or some such rubbish.  I called it chaos.  On the way home, my wife and I both vowed if we ever had kids – and after that visit with the screeching, yelping, slobbering, and biting we were a bit doubtful – we would never, ever let our living room become a playroom.

Today, five children later, I expertly slalom the living room like an Olympian.

Since we’ve been outnumbered, and our once pristine territory conquered by our satellites, my wife and I realized the only option was retreat.  So we decided to turn part of the basement into a wine cellar. 

I took some lattice, a few two by fours, and some molding and, along with my meager carpentering skills, crafted a wall where we could store our wine.  I illuminated it with track lighting and hung some vines and plastic bunches of grapes I got at a craft shop.  We rehabbed an old workbench we found left out on someone’s curb to store three different types of corkscrews.  I installed hangers for glassware.  We set up a couple of café style tables, hung poster sized reproductions of paintings, and wired up the room for sound. 

It was such a lovely space that my wife and I would eat late night dinners down there, just the two of us, after the little ones were tucked in bed and the older ones were transfixed to the television.

One day, while sitting in the living room, I heard a crash.  When I reached the bottom step to the basement, I saw shattered glass.  Apparently a glass had fallen from the ceiling rack.  I constantly tell the kids not to run and jump in the house, but, I resolve myself, it’s only one little glass.  Then I looked up and noticed that there were boxes on the floor:  hand-me-downs in waiting.  There were plastic tubs in which we keep holiday decorations piled three high in front of my wall.  Boots.  Piles of boots.  There had to be at least 23 pair.  There were crates overflowing with toys.  Old toys, new toys, toys I don’t remember ever seeing before. 

What had happened?  Had it been that long since I’d been down there?  No, of course not.  I am regularly down there.  I keep my tools under the basement stairs, and I recently had to snake out the toilet – again.

Perplexed, I came up from the basement and into the dining room.  There on the table were – what was that? – Transformers?  I looked over at the bookshelf:  Cars?  Action figures?  A baseball mitt?

Do we become so acclimated to the gradual derangement of our surroundings that it takes a collision to recognize the problem?

Calling my wife, I ran up to our bedroom, the final refuge, only to be greeted by R2D2 sitting on my desk, mocking me.

Not here as well, I said to my wife who was folding clothes.  Our eight year old was at the computer earlier and must have left it there, she told me.  She picked up the synthetic cyborg, placed it on top of one of the several piles of clothes, and left the room.

If the experts at NASA ever figure out how to clean up the space junk orbiting our small planet, I’d like them to let me know exactly how they did it because I’d like to get a little bit of my own space back, too.