The Moose.

Sure, we're messy. An afternoon with my kids is like getting a first hand look at the destruction that would occur if you locked a moose in your house.

A big moose.

A big radioactive moose.

A big radioactive moose that has a devious hunger for sugar corn pops. And, in this scenario, the moose is smart enough, because he's radioactive, to undo the child proof safety locks on the pantry to get to the sugar pops.

As you'd expect, moose are not that coordinated. They don't have the manual dexterity to get perhaps a bowl and a spoon out. Nor do they understand that that milk is usualy essential to a balanced breakfast. So the only thing that they know how to do is to turn the entire box of cereal, full I might add, right on over and dump the entire contents on the floor. But of course the moose are smart enough to wait until good old dad the hunter is on the crapper taking his morning glory.

Silence in a house is never a good thing when you have children. Which I find very ironic considering that is about the only thing that dad ever wants.

So I was shocked when I got out of the bathroom and saw my two moose squatting perfectly over the carnage of the sugar pops. I'm pretty sure I'm going to stroke out before my daughter reaches the age of 5. I just keep thinking to myself--does she have to destroy everything? What is she, a little mini king kong? Is her little brother Mothra and have they teamed up to beat the helpless civilians?

It should give you a clue on how dirty our house can get with my little critters when you walk and and don't see a vacuum cleaner. No, not in this house. Vacuums are for nice little suburbian folk who's kids dress in tweed and wear knickers. Perhaps they have a scrabble night and come up with amusing anagrams.

Instead you see my shop vac in the corner of the kitchen. This is something that I think only a dad would do. Sure I could get down on my hands and knees and sweep it up. Maybe get the house vacuum out and see what pieces it could suck up. But a better idea is to get my big 20 gallon wet/dry vac out and make this a quick pickup so I can get to the rest of the disaster area. It got to the point where Hazmat was called in. They walked up to the house, took one look inside and said "Fuck no." It's gotta be bad when Hazmat turns you down.

And this time I had a better idea, mostly because I was pissed that I couldn't even take a dookie without the minions raining down hell. This time, they were going to pick every single bit of this crap up.

Little Hoss is 3 so she understands picking up. The plan on this one though was that I was going to be a total dick about it. Every little scrap, every little pebble, every little dust mite of cereal was going to be picked up.

I handed Little Hoss the nozzle to the shop vac and told her to get cleaning. She just kind of looked at me, in those cute little girl eyes that say "Me daddy? I'm to cute to do manual labor."

Suck it kiddo and get to vacuuming.

Of course I didn't see the mistake in my plan. You see, my daughter is being raised daily by her father. We try to keep it sweet and nice but most days we end up rough housing. She's a hoss, no doubt about it.

So it might not have been the best idea to give my daughter free range over a power tool.

I turned it on and she jumped. That's right, this is your punishment. Cleaning up with a big scary machine.

Then she started laughing. Laughing like a little escaped con from the mental asylum. It was like she was just given the power over life and death, over right and wrong, over clean and unclean.

In short, she enjoyed the shit out of it. This not supposed to be enjoyable! This is punishment! I'm teaching a valuable life lesson here, about consequences of your actions. Stop thinking this is great!!!!

She not only cleaned up the cereal but also go the living room before things got out of hand. She started to vacuum her brother, which he thought was funny. Then of course the toy box. She sucked up dominoes. They are gone forever, I'm not going in after them. Next she made a bee line to the curtains, the nice flowing curtains.

Ok, it's time to put a stop to this.

Only I couldn't get there in time. Oh, I tried. I took 2 whole steps before I stepped on a hot wheels little car that oddly appeared. Seriously, it was like something out of Tom and Jerry.

Put sliding toy on hardwood floor right in front of dad. Dad takes giant leap and foot comes down on said toy. Toy scoots forward, dad's knee gives out. Big fat man comes crashing down. This is something that they write in a really bad kids movie, like teenage mutant ninja turtles. This is not supposed to happen in real life. Instead of a hot wheels car, it might be a banana peel. It might be a skateboard. In my case, it was a toy car. Again, this is not supposed to happen in real life.

But it did and my knee did give out. But not before I did a little split action and heard my chode go ouch. Nothing like a self administered episeotomy.

By the time I caught up with my daughter, and her brother who was her number one cheerleader, she had lost control of the shop vac hose. It's quite powerful. It was slowly inching its way up the curtains like an anaconda swallowing a deer.

And both the kids where just laughing manically in the best punishment ever.

The best part: The day was just getting started.

To be continued.........