Sex?

I have a to do list.  This is most commonly known as the "honey do list".  This is a sweet way of saying this is the shit my wife wishes that I would get accomplished each day.  She's a ball breaker and the pay is for crap. 

Normally though, I do not allow Hossmom to write on the to do list.  I have a good reason for this.  It's because, god love her, she has no idea what's important to get done around the house first and her mind often results in tangents.  I like linear thinking, straight forward directions with clear goals.  Hossmom is more of the "take out the garbage and also, while you are at it, go ahead and solve world peace.  Thanks honey!"  As you can see, that  makes no sense.  It works better if on one day I take out the garbage, then clean the garage.  See, I'm out there already, it just makes sense.  The solving world peace thing is a complicated issue that is going to take at least a whole other day and therefore, is not related.  So I won't do it and I won't allow it to go onto the list that I already made.  It's my sneaky way of preventing her from ever putting anything on the list and therefore allowing me more time to nap and play video games while the kids run around naked flinging peanut butter at each other.  I am an awesome parent. 

There is another reason why I don't allow Hossmom to write on my list.  I can't read her writing.  When she's in a hurry she writes in some sort of bubble code that only her and mermaids can read.  Most times I have no idea what it says.  It works much better if she leaves her Mayan Pictograph writing off my list and just tell me what she would like done.  This allows me to pretend that I heard her and therefore, once again ignore it.  I have a very complicated system. 

However, there are times when she gets the list without my knowledge and writes her gibberish down.  I will then spend the entire morning trying to decipher what it means before finally just doing a random chore and hope that it was the one she wanted done.  Though "cleaning gutters" sometimes gets done before "boss coming to dinner" which allows for many hilarious blogs to be written when I fuck it up. 

And that's what I'm doing right now, I'm looking at my list and her alien cryptography that she left on it.  It's throwing me for a loop which is good because that matches her writing.  I think, and I'm really not sure, but I think I can make out an S.  It could be an 8 though.  And I'm thinking that there is an E right after the S, it's that or some weird bridge doodle because she does that to.  Finally, it ends with an X.  Maybe an X.  Possibly but that just could be wishful thinking on my part. 

I could be mistaken, but it appears that my wife might, maybe, have put sex on my to do list. 

There are many complications to this and with my wife, there is always a deeper meaning that totally passes me by.  Is she sending me a message?  Do I.......do I get to have some sex soon?  Or is it only after I finish my other chores on the to do list?  Is it even sex that she had written down for me?  It could be "soup" just as easily.  There is another word in front of it and I'm not really sure what it says.  It looks just like scribbles to me.  Is it more of the message?

Is she saying we need to have more sex?  Have we gotten to the point in our marriage where we have to schedule such a thing?  Well, we are parents to two kids.  This week I have 2 soccer practices, one of which I coach, 2 soccer games at complete different times, a girl scout meeting, a build a bear meeting, play group and our normal Friday adventures.  I have a lot of shit going on.  If you have kids, you know that it's not necessarily unheard of to schedule sexy times.  Passion?  Passion is when the house is clean and the only one smacking me around is a good looking lady with a broom.  Sometimes I think I should write porn. 

"John went into the room.  All the bills were paid and he still had money left over for his hobby.  The kids put themselves to bed but only after insisting on cleaning their rooms.  His flip flops made the flip flop sound as he walked to the couch.  His flops were covered in duck tape and he was happy that it was holding and he didn't have to buy another pair.  She was on the couch, sleeping.  Before she went to sleep though she gave him the remote and demanded that he watch all of the football game so that he could tell her about it when she woke up early tomorrow.  John had never been so turned on in his entire life."

Good stuff.

However, not knowing the first word of what she put on the to do list has got me a little worried, especially since now my hopes are starting to get up (ha!).  It could say "No sex for you ever unless you clean the gutters and get dinner ready for my boss who is coming over early today.  Entertain him for 4 hours until I get home at which point I will be to tired and you will get NO SEX". 

That could be it. 

She put two other things on my list but honestly, I haven't paid them much attention in the 4 hours I have been looking at it.  It would appear, and I don't speak bubble, to say that I need to mail Zippos to Peter.  Hmmm, that's interesting.  We have no Zippos and I know no Peter.  I promise you I'm not making that part up, the pun that time was unintentional.  Or is this more code though??  If so, it kind of sucks (ha again) because I would expect her to be more creative than "Peter". 

The next one below that says "Call a;dlkfjads;jiuothertheworhowejfr;qwejfrl;asdjkf  @ adoifasdhfgpohft"  Your guess is as good as mine on that one.  Am I supposed to call Peter to ask if it's ok to have sex?  Is Peter cool with this?  Does he have to sign off on it? 

Well fuck Peter.  I don't care what he thinks.  I'm just going to do what I think is best and interpret it the best I can.  What I'm going to do is to mail Zippos to some random Peter guy in the phone book, then I'm going to call him to let him know that they have been mailed, and if I do those things there is a possibility I can have some Prom Sex(?).  Sometimes, you've just got to take a shot in the dark and hope that it all works out, regardless if Peter gets his Zippos. 

Nothing

Our day is a blank page and we have not filled it, it remains as white as the moment it arrived with the sunrise.  There is nothing on the schedule, there are no activities planned, there is not a place to be or a thing to do.  Nothing.  That is what we are doing today.  Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkk.  I'm bored. 

School starts tomorrow for the Hossman Family.  We have seized the summer, we have conquered it, made it quiver as we rode through it.  We have seen the country, we have taken the road less traveled, we have explored.  From the first of June until this week, we were nonstop.  We seized the day and throttled it.  Now we sit here, my two children and I, and we have nothing. 

"Daddy!" they scream in unison.  "What adventure are we doing today?!" they ask. 

Nothing I tell them, absolutely nothing.

They are confused and I don't blame them. 

I am sure that nothing sounds pretty great to many of you out there.  That you would love to do nothing, to sit at home and contemplate nothing, to have nothing as your greatest goal and achievement. 

Try it for a week.  It blows.  Nothing is not fun, it is not exciting and pretty soon nothing rots your brain.  I have been there, I have taken that train ride.  Eventually, nothing turns your mind into nothing. 

We saw a big ball of twine and gave a back country boy a hug.  We saw a missile silo.  We have gone camping, swam in lakes and seen a dead body.  We have wandered through museums, we have gone fishing, we have danced with worms.  We have held guns, we have yelled in nature, we have drawn pictures.  We have seen the sun come up and light the clouds with pink splashes, we have seen the sun come down and mark still waters with yellow tint.  We have done all of this in the short summer that we had.  Now, now it's time for school and the day before school is rest, preparation, contemplation.  And nothing.  A whole lot of nothing. 

It turns out that I don't do nothing well.  And neither do my children, which doesn't surprise me.  In the absence of the challenge of a giant water slide to conquer or a sun burn to make, nothing does not seem to entertain my children.  And on days like this, when nothing is the only thing on the family calendar that hangs on the fridge, I am reminded of why we don't do nothing very often.  Because my kids, and probably most kids, decide nothing is not very fun.  So they take nothing, stare it down, and turn it into something.

And that something usually involves destruction or me getting kneecapped.  Something is always better than nothing.  Nothing means sitting in a chair all day or when that tires us out, laying on the floor with the dogs.  Nothing means that there is a place out there that isn't being appreciated or a drywall that isn't getting holes in it.  And that, my friends, we just can't have.  That is what my children's philosophy is.  If nothing is the challenge, they will rise to it and decide to make it something and that something usually comes with me having to fix it with tools and money. 

Halfway into our nothing day I am called upstairs, the kids left me on the chair to go create something from nothing.  I decided that I need to walk before my legs cramp up from sitting to long.  And it's been too quite, a sure sign that nothing is getting the shit beat out of it.  I walk into my son's room.  He and his sister are in giggles, they are almost crying with laughter.  I do a quick inventory of the room.  Everything seems to be in place.  I don't see anything broken, smashed or on fire.  I count our animals: 1 skinny dog, 1 fat dog, 1 cat, and the memory of another cat from long ago.  Check, we seem to be fine.  But I am mistaken.  Because I have allowed nothing to cloud my mind, weaken my reasoning, and forget who my children are. 

They point to the ceiling.  I look up. 

It appears that we are no longer doing nothing.  Today we are doing something. 

Bucket Pee

"I peed in a bucket!" my son screamed.  He was very excited.  He then decided to pick up the bucket to show my wife and I.  Except it wasn't a bucket, it was an empty flower pot because I always have great expectations when I buy the flower pots but they never seem to remain filled with dirt and flowers.  Perhaps because my son likes to pee in them all of a sudden. 

"Mom, Dad," he said very calmly.  "This is my pee bucket."  His junk was still out of his pants.  Pretty soon I sure someone in this family is going to be arrested for exposure.  Now he was showing us his pee bucket.  But as a flower pot, as you all know, have holes in the bottom.  Good times.  Good times. 

My wife shot me a look and it wasn't the "aw, look at how cute that is" look that she sometimes gives me when the kids do something unexpected.  It was the look that told me that somehow I was to blame for all of this.

"This isn't my fault!" I said as pee dribbled out of the pee bucket.  The look had immediately put me on the defensive. 

"Who else is going to teach him to pee in a bucket!" She said.  "This is totally your fault, this is something you would do!"

Granted, this does sound like something I would teach my kid, but this time, he's using only his imagination and getting no help from me. 

I've taught my son to pee on trees, flowers, car tires, inside bottles, on Cheerios and we have begun snow peeing as well.  It's an art form and you can only master after years of practice and eventually with the help of beer. 

But I've never taught him to pee in a bucket.  It's never even crossed my mind although in hindsight, it probably should have. 

"This wasn't me!  I didn't teach him this!" 

When it comes to boys, sometimes my wife thinks we are all the same.  That if one has done something, then another boy has done something.  And if I didn't teach him to pee in a bucket, then it is my DNA that is to blame for him peeing in a bucket and then picking it up to bring it to us, dripping and all.  It's all of manhood she blames and I'm the one that gets the brunt of the accusations.  I take the punishment for all men, you all owe me.  My wife blames me, you, everyone with a penis.  Why on earth would anyone want to pee in a bucket? 

Well, to be honest, it is kind of fun.  I'm not sure why but I can understand it from the prospective of a 4 year old boy.  Filling a bucket up, pouring the bucket out, putting stuff in the bucket, peeing on the stuff in the bucket.  I can totally get that and I know that the ladies out there are getting grossed out.  But the guys, they know that for some reason, it's cool to pee on stuff.  It's primordial, like marking your territory.  It just feels right.  I don't know why, but I get it.  And because I get it and because my son did it, I am to blame.  It's not me honey, it's all of mankind.  100 bucks says that if Neil Armstrong could have peed on a moon rock without damaging his junk, he would have done it.  And I guarantee there is a NASA engineer out there somewhere that has worked on this national problem. 

"Go dump that out!" my wife says. 

"Good job boy!" I say right after her.  Then I get the look again.  I couldn't help it.  He peed in a bucket, he had good aim.  In my book, that's a win. 

My wife walks away while shaking her head, disgusted by all things boy.  I go back to reading my book on the porch.  Life is good. 

Five minutes later, I hear my daughter.......

"Dad, Bubba Hoss peed in a bucket!" she screams, excited. 

Yup, she gets it.