The Force

Molding boys into presentable young men has its challenges. There are times when I whole heartily believe that the amount of effort it takes to rid them of their tendencies to revert to a simpler form of ape man is not only insurmountable, but a flipping waste of time.

It's as if they are surrounded by a fabulously large invisible force field that allows the initial instruction to filter through (hence the ability to "get it right the first time", but then that information is immediately reversely purged back out in to the cosmos. And strangely, it is as if that force field does not allow any part of those instructions to be permanently stored in long term memory or (even more frustratingly) even semi-permanently in short term memory. It just up and disappears. I often find myself standing there, head tipped to the side in the huh-what-confused-dog-way, wondering where am I going wrong. Most of the stuff just isn't that difficult. I don't often use big words to explain stuff. It should be sticking. It honestly should be....

Here are some select examples of things that are unable to be retained as a result of the super magnificent force field surrounding my boys:

• Urine, if left in the toilet for several days without flushing becomes putrid, disgusting and has the uncanny ability to make my gag reflex unstoppable. Please, for the love of PETE, flush. Urine will not evaporate and leave fresh toilet water in its place. It is scientifically impossible.

• If you do not wash the BACKS of the dishes, the food that was on the FRONT of the dish from when it was stacked before washing does NOT come off. Putting it in the dish drainer with the dirty side towards the wall does not make it go away either. It just dries on like cement.

• When you use the last of something, putting the empty cereal box, milk carton, or OJ container back in the fridge or cupboard empty is NOT effective. Not for you. Not for me. Not at 6:00 when dinner is being prepared and I nearly hit myself in the face with the milk carton because I am expecting to pick it up full and not e.m.p.t.y. (It's a similar movement to using too much force to pick up a realistically looking "glass full of beer" and realizing only a moment too late that it's really a "plastic glass full of beer" - - never a good scenario).

• If you do not rinse your toothpaste laden spit out of your sink when you are done brushing your teeth, it will harden in to barnacles that no Clorox pop-up cleaning product can touch. A chisel is required.

• Your shoes in piles in front of the front door are NOT a fun obstacle course for me. This is especially true while I am carrying full bags of groceries in the door and my vision is impaired. Yeah, right. Laugh it up smarty pants. Wait until I put little Lego's and jacks in front of your bed in the dark. Let's see how funny it is then.

• Your dirty socks and underwear will not supernaturally move themselves from the floor to the laundry basket no matter how much you wish it to happen. If you could move that crap off the floor in to the laundry basket with just your mind, I would absolutely take you out of school immediately and have you do all sorts of other magical things with your amazing powers - like cook dinner while I read People and eat chocolate covered pretzels.

• If you do not put the lid back on your Axe-clean-cut-pomade it does make the bathroom smell better. However, it will also harden in to a product that looks strikingly similar to that of the water holes of the Serengeti after rainy season is looooong gone.

And these, my kind readers, are ONLY things that I noticed between school drop off this morning and - well, exactly three hours later.

I have to believe that they can be taught. If I lose my faith I know that they will go to college and be those boys who's rooms smell like socks and jock straps. And all the other boys' mom's will walk by their rooms on parent visiting days silently tsk-tsking how those boys must have not had a mom to teach them applicable life skills.

And I will continue to wonder how the hell those other mom's were able to defeat the dastardly force field that keeps my boys from embracing the truth about urine evaporation. Argggh.