Today's post is a veritable cornucopia of random topics and ideas courtesy of the twisted recesses of my brain. Buckle your proverbial seat belts, it may be a bumpy ride.
Transcript from an actual recent conversation at our house
Scene: A lazy Saturday morning--modern-day suburban kitchen. English muffins have been toasted and are about to be consumed. A large spider makes its way across the ceramic tile.
Me: Eek! Look at the size of that spider!
TLS: Yes, he is rather large.
Me: Squish it! Quick, before he goes behind the buffet.
TLS: (rolling eyes and handing me his plate) Can't I just enjoy my muffin without having to kill something around here?
It may not translate well to the written word, but TLS's deadpan, serious delivery of the line about killing something just slayed me. (No pun intended.) I had a serious laugh attack and made him go write down the fateful quote.
Topic Change
Driving in to work yesterday morning, (yes, TLS and I carpool at least two or three days a week - take that Al Gore!) we heard a blurb about a study done by a sociology professor regarding the long-term effects of spanking on children. I'm going to go on record as saying that I was occasionally spanked during my childhood--although I'm pretty sure that it was only once or twice and I'm definitely sure I deserved it. (Interesting side note: The worst punishment I ever received was when I was about 10 or 11. Neither my mom nor I remember what I had done to be punished, but she was trying to determine what would most affect my future behavior. I was really too old to be deterred by a spanking, so no-go on that option. I spent an awful lot of quality fun time alone in my room, so she couldn't send me there. What to do? What to do? And then the light bulb went on over her head. She grounded me from reading (my ultimate favorite pastime then as now). It was horrible! But I did my time in "bookless solitary" and vowed to to transgress no more, I guess it was punishment well given.)
As reported on the radio, a sociologist determined that children that were spanked were more likely to exhibit antisocial behavior later in life--including "risky sexual behavior". (Here's a link to one article about the research, for your reading pleasure.) I'm pretty sure that what they calling spanking and what I call spanking are not quite the same. They've also lumped in hitting and slapping, which to me are two completely different animals, but who I am to say? Anyway, the reason that I'm including this in the ol' blog is to demonstrate how twisted TLS and I really are. Our response to this information was to immediately start framing how people would account for their bad behavior as adults. Case in point, the report directly following the spanking report talked about how a teenager or group of teenagers had set fire to ten cars during the previous night. We looked at each other and said, "Must have been spanked as children." Roger Clemens doing steroids? "Must have been spanked as a child." I think it's officially our new catch phrase. (Watch it sweep the nation...)
Topic Change
I was talking with Youngest last night and ended up telling her a story from a few years ago. The next door neighbors we had at the time owned two dogs. One of the dogs, Ben, would occasionally start some incessant barking in the middle of the night. (The kind of barking that just sounds bored--woof. ... woof ... woof ........... and just when you thought that he was finally done ... woof. Totally irritating.) It was probably about midnight and Ben was doing his thing. Anyone who knows me knows that when I am trying to sleep and being prevented from doing so that I am not a very pleasant person. Whatever you do, don't stand between Inertia Girl and her sleep. I rolled over, punched TLS and said through clenched teeth, "I don't care what you do, just make that barking stop!" Being the loving spouse that he is, TLS got up, got his BB gun and went out the front door in his tightey-whitey underpants. He was merely going to pop Ben with a BB from a safe distance, thereby scaring him into silence. However, things didn't go quite according to plan. Just as TLS rounded the bushes in front of our bedroom windows, he saw headlights coming down the street. He quickly ducked behind the hedges and watched as Johnny Law rolled by in his squad car. In addition to listening to his own pounding heart, he was having visions of the humiliation of being arrested and seeing the headlines from the local paper. "Local Man Arrested at Gunpoint in his Underpants, Story on page 2" He came back, told me the story and said that I'd have to deal with the problem myself or ignore it. Once I stopped laughing, somehow I didn't mind the barking nearly as much anymore.
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