I owe you one

So, I guess if I'm to keep up this daily blogging thing I owe you something for today. Something funny, or full of pathos? A bit of teenage angst, or modern-day travails? A snippet of cosmic wondering, or a fact-filled recitation of my life?

Please, not the last one! Anything but "here's my day" by Tiff. I'm not out to get the "sopophoric entry of the year" award, y'all and that's ALL a recounting of my daily activities would get you. Shoot, I haven't even taken a SHOWER yet today, and that right there is the usual high point.

So, how about a love story? Something from my dating years, maybe? Nah, I'm not in a "dating story" mood, even if I do have a really good one about the night I went home with Charlie Tucker (and no, not the Charlie Tucker from Star Trek Voyager (iteration which?)). That's a good one, allright, and involved me almost getting nabbed for DUI. (Don't try this at home, kids. Only experienced alcohol abusers with 8 years of marching band can blow a 0.1 and still pass the field sobriety tests. It's ALL about balance).

How about an embarrassment story, then? My kids love those, with a passion that I find intriguing. They seem to love it when Mom or Dad fesses up to their youthful shortcomings, most especially when the story involves passing wind in some form or another.

To that end, they love it when a story involves anyone passing wind in some form or another. They also love it when someone falls down, or crashes, or when animals do stupid stuff, or anything along those lines.

Which is why it should come as no surprise to find out that their favorite show is "America's Funniest Home Videos." Please keep in mind they're not in middle school yet, and are both boys. This explains much, though not their love of fart jokes, because toilet humor is the particular provenance of MY side of the family. Oh yes, what great dinner conversations were had.

Matter of fact, even BEFORE dinner started sometimes there were laughs to be had along the bodily function lines. I distinctly recall the time that my Dad came in from the garage after a day at work (we NEVER used the front door, and ALWAYS took off our shoes before entering the house), belching "I'm HOME!" in an absolutely impressive fashion. To the best of my recollection, all of us were already sitting at the dinner table waiting for him to come in the door (must have had one of those nights where we scattered to a billion different activities at 6:30 sharp and had to eat beforehand), and after his borborygmyfied proclamation only half of us were able to keep in our seats.

So, back to the kids - (though I hope you enjoyed that tangential walk through my garden of memories) -

I was settling in last night to watch "Antiques Road Show," a program for which I have a slightly disturbing amount of affection, and the kids were getting ready to do almost anything else. For, while they too enjoy the show, it is not an all-time great attention-getter like GameBoy.

Sadly, I found out that ARS (acronym time!) was not on at its regular hour, but rather the local PBS station had decided to air a program showcasing the awesomely mighty talents of one Mr. Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band (must be pledge time again). I was disappointed, of course, because while I am an appreciator of Mr. Springsteen I was simply not in the mood to rock n' roll all night, and so began flipping through the channels to see what else was on.

And guess what? Guess what the heck WHAT? By golly, America's funniest home videos was on, that's what!

Y'all - you have never seen children's heads snap to attention much more quickly than what happened right when the theme song started to play, I shouldn't think. Instantaneously they were atop me, vying for the vaunted position of "in Mom's lap" and asking me to turn up the sound. I obliged, and settled in for an hour of restful teevee watching with the offspring.

Except, remember the thing about my Dad and the burping and the ejecting out of chairs?

Well, apparently it's been passed down to my kids; because it was 60 minutes of falling on the floor with laughter or rolling around on the futon in laughter or knocking against me with laughter or whatever-elsing with laughter so huge and body-snatching that it was all they could do to keep breathing. At one clip of a little girl singing "it's a small world after all" in words that had NOTHING to do with the real lyrics and manipulating her juicy little mouth in comically exaggerated ways, the younger son and I were in tears, convulsing and gasping. The older one, well he seems to prefer grannies trying to operate lawn equipment and accidentally mowing down swing sets, or when dogs do funny things.

Yep - high times at Casa Teef. High ol' times.

Now, what the heck was it I was going to write about today?

Oh, nevermind - it'll have to wait until tomorrow - I'm outta time (plus which, if I write any more I might get cited for overuse of the parenthetical phrase, a fate I'd like to avoid because then my use privileges might get revoked and it's obvious I can't live without them).