STICKY DOORKNOBS

7 Things

With apologies to Janie for taking more than a week to respond to her tag and maybe for not being quite as funny as she flatteringly said I might could be, I offer my "7 Things About Me" list, which Eric says is sweeping the world.

1. When I was 15 I had a total thyroidectomy to remove a cancerous tumor in my neck. Dec. 15, 1975. Parkland Memorial Hospital.
2. I once drove 250 miles to The Summit in Houston to see a repeat performance THE NEXT DAY of the Doobie Brothers' "One Step Closer" tour that I had just seen in Reunion Arena (I do not advise wasting money like that).
3. I met my wife Karen at the Electric Cowboy in College Station Texas. I was working as a DJ; she was drinking water. We were not then nor are we now Aggies. But we do have a few friends who are.
4. One week out of high school, I flew to Los Angeles to perform at The Comedy Store with the notion that I was going to reinvent the comedy world. I was unsuccessful. To the point of having such a bad case of the nerves, I did not even GO INTO The Comedy Store.
5. My childhood best friend is running for U.S. Congress in suburban Denver. We will discuss strategy next week during a visit :)
6. One time when I interviewed Dallas Cowboy Bill Bates when he was on a goodwill tour that brought him to Midland, I was so star struck that when he stuck out his hand and said "Hi, I'm Bill Bates," I stuck out my hand and said "Hi, "I'm Bill Bates" too.
7. My only regret in life is that I did not pursue my full-ride musical scholarship to Baylor University and did not become a symphony conductor. But if I had done that, I would not have the blessed life and beautiful family that I have been given.
8. And finally (since we're for some reason supposed to include 8 and not 7): The Boy, now 13, now has a voice deeper than his father's.

Never send an adult to do a child's job

From "Don't Roll Your Eyes at Me"

   I like spring. I really do. So much happens that signals the beginning of a new season. Trees bloom, flowers grow, grass sprouts. The temperatures grow warmer and in a lot of ways, it seems like we all come out of our hibernation and begin life anew each year.
   Baseball begins, and if you're a Rangers fan or a Cubs fan or a Red Sox fan, it's really the only time of the year when you have half a chance before fall comes and everything dies again.
   And of course there's Easter, which is what life, new and old, is all about.
   But of all these wondrous events that serve as harbingers of new life, there's one other part of the season that's just as exciting: sandals. That's right, if you're a parent the best thing about spring is that you can shove a pair of fake leather sandals on your kids' feet and say goodbye to sock hunting for another eight months. Few things bring wider smiles than not having to worry about socks for months at a time. I can tell you that from experience.
    Unfortunately, sandals do mean one other thing: sandal SHOPPING. And we all know what a pain in the buckle that can be. Taking kids shopping for new clothes or new shoes is a true test of the worth of a mom or a dad. I did it last weekend. It’s a grueling experience.
   Shopping for The Boy is easy. Buy him some cut offs and baseball t-shirts and he's done. They don't even have to fit. If the pants don't fit, he just leaves the snap undone -- something he does anyway – pretty much any time after a meal.
   So, boys are OK when it comes to clothes shopping. In fact the easiest part is sandal buying for boys: just hold a new pair of sandals up next to an old pair of Scooby Doo sneakers and that's a dad’s way of trying on shoes with their sons.
    The REAL pain is taking teenage and pre-teen girls shopping for spring and summer clothes. I did this the other day. Knowing this would be an excruciating experience, I bought a new book, sat in the middle of the mall, and read. The book is called "River Horse." It's a 700-page story about a couple of guys who have nothing better to do with their lives than traverse a series of rivers cross-country in a small boat. They start on the Hudson in New York, and end up in Oregon. Fascinating story. When my kid was done shopping, the guys in the book were sailing by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. AND I'M A SLOW READER!
   Something is wrong in life: I sit for hours waiting for my 12-year-old daughter to pick out the perfect t-shirt: (“Should I get the one that says ‘Foxy’ or the one that says ‘Babe’?” she'll ask herself. She'll also ask ME, like I'm supposed to know -- or care.) As I was saying, something is wrong in life. I wait for interminable lengths of time, my 12-year-old shopping for Foxy shirts while I could be doing something productive. Another pain about spring is the Easter parties the elementary kids have on their last day of school before the long weekend. Exactly why do teachers feel the need to load our children up with candy before sending them home to us for the extended holidays? Our
educators do this to us at Christmas, at Valentines Day, at Easter and on the last day of school. When we get our kids for long periods of time, they come to us with sugar coursing through their veins. Thank you so much ...

WARNING: PAINFUL TRUE STORY AHEAD
   We received a note home from The Boy's first grade teacher. It asked that we send with him to school an empty plastic gallon milk jug and some plastic Easter eggs, each filled with non-chocolate candy. We would need 20 eggs and 20 candies to put inside the eggs so that everyone would exchange candy with everyone else and all students could participate. A big warm and fuzzy was planned for the last day of school before the break, and all we had to do was simply buy some goodies for all the kiddos! No big deal, right?
   I told Mrs. P I'd take care of it. I went to the store, bought 20 medium-sized plastic Easter eggs, and a bag of jelly beans. Simple. Right? Wouldn't YOU think it was simple?
   Then I got home from the store.
   “Are the jelly beans individually wrapped?” Mrs. P asked me.
   I said nothing.
   “Because Mrs. McGregor asked that they be individually wrapped.”
   “Why do they have to be individually wrapped?” I asked.
   “Germs. The kids might get germs.”
   “They've GOT germs. They've got LOTS of germs. In fact, they'll get MORE germs by just sitting next to a snotty-nosed classmate for 10 minutes than if they eat a couple of jelly beans that have been handled by everyone in class. Who cares if they touch candy? These kids eat candy off the bathroom floor! They play on playground equipment that has been touched by hundreds of hands that have gone straight from wiping runny noses to pulling themselves up the slide.”
    “You're absolutely right, honey,” Mrs. P said. “Now go back to the store and get some individually wrapped candy.”
    Of course I had no choice but to do what she asked. The plastic eggs had been bought. All we needed was individually-wrapped candies to go into the eggs so that 20 kids could open their egg, throw away the egg, open the individually-wrapped candy, throw away the wrapper and then ... pass the unwrapped candies among every kid in class.
    I bought the candy -- individually wrapped Gummy Bears -- and brought the bags home, only to find that the little baggies of Gummies were too big for the medium-sized eggs, which LOOKED big enough in the store but were now woefully small and insufficient.
   Mrs. P smiled at me like I had no clue what I was doing and that I was frankly, a hopeless case. And she was right on both counts.
   “Can't we just Scotch tape the little boogers shut? Like the kids will actually spend time caring that the eggs are too little. THEY WON'T CARE! Please don't make me go back to the store again.”
    As I wandered down the candy aisle on trip No. 3, I searched high and low for smaller bags of Gummy Bears, but found nothing. What I did find, though, solved my problem and I knew my evening's mission would finally be complete: bigger eggs.
    I sped home, relieved but still frustrated at the thought of having made three trips to the store in one night for something I thought I had found THE FIRST TIME.
    The Boy and I opened the eggs, stuffed the Gummy Bears inside, shut the eggs and began loading them into his Easter basket. Ten eggs, 11, 12, 13 ... on and on until we painfully discovered that the Easter basket was, you guessed it ... not big enough to hold all 20 eggs.
    Not to worry: With three trips to the store, I was NOT in short supply of plastic bags. But keeping secret from Mrs. P what would undoubtedly be an unacceptable way to transport plastic eggs was another challenge.
    Then the moral of this whole tragic story finally dawned on me: I should've sent The Boy to the store. He's a kid. A pro at hunting for Easter eggs. He would've gotten it right, and he would've gotten it right the FIRST time.
    My new mantra? Never send an adult to do a child's job.

-- April 2001

Hammers, Nails and Attitude

From "Don't Roll Your Eyes at Me"

    It was several months ago when she first came to me and uttered the question, "What do you think about remodeling our house?"

    Truth was I hadn't given it much thought. So, I figured now was as good a time as any to continue remaining thought-free where that topic was concerned. Sure, our house had begun to bulge at the seams nine months after we bought it (thanks to The Boy). But I figured the longer I was able to put off a remodel, the longer I would be able to retain anything left of what had once resembled sanity.

    So I hemmed and I hawed, jigging and jagging around question upon question; I rode the fence as long as a husband could ride a fence, ensuring Mrs. P that, yes, we would eventually have our house remodeled and we'd be awfully proud of it when it was finished. For the last few weeks, I assured her that I'd take care of the necessary paperwork and, before you knew it, there'd be strange guys in our back yard with hammers and nails and attitude.

    About a month ago, I looked up from a baseball game, and there Mrs. P was, with a look that absolutely reeked of attitude. In fact, I thought she just might be on the verge of giving me the hairy eye ball. I was just lucky that she wasn't holding her own hammer and nail, insisting that I get started on the job myself. But then again, she's a lot smarter than that.

    "Are we ever gonna get the house remodeled?" she asked. "Did you call the bank? Have you called for estimates? We haven't sat down and looked at floor samples together. I can't stand the way this house is a day longer."

    It was at that precise moment when I realized my lolly-gaggin' days were behind me. The wheels of the house remodeling, once creaky and mostly motionless, would finally begin to turn.

    Two weeks after a spate of phone calls, signatures on triplicate paperwork and assorted faxes sent and received, several strange guys with the pre-requisite hammers and nails and attitude appeared one day in our backyard. Two weeks into the job, their work at least looked nearly completed. We sat in the house watching them first destroy our existing back porch (something they did with particular zeal) and then we watched some more as they began the process of creating our addition.
    I had thought this was going to be a lot of work. After the phone calls and the faxes and the signatures, things seemed to slow down very much. I was delighted. Everything was going as well as could be expected. I couldn't have hoped for a better remodeling job had I dreamed it. MY work was done.

    "I'll talk to you later ... OK, bye-bye. That was my sister," Mrs. P said, turning to me. "She thinks a powder blue carpet will look good. Y'know, I think I agree. We'll do it."

    I wondered exactly how her sister was capable of determining what sort of flooring we would need while sitting in a living room 450 miles away. Must be some magical sister-in-law thing.

    "So powder blue it is," Mrs. P added, as if she needed -- or even WANTED -- my devalued two cents' worth. "And in the kitchen, a maple laminate flooring. It will be so homey in here."

    "Well, nine out of 10 husbands agree, that's what a house should be: homey."

    "We need to talk about windows," she said, walking into the new addition. "Do we want a single here, then a double here, a double right there, a single over there and a double over on that wall? That's what I was thinking would look really nice, what do you think? And that new hutch we pick up tomorrow ... I think it'll look really good in this space, and the buffet can go right under this window right here, don't you think? What do you think? This is all SO difficult."

    I disagreed.

    "No honey, this isn't difficult at all. This is the easy part."

    “How can you say it's easy? This is NOT easy. The windows have to be in the right place. A window is forever, y'know. How can you even SUGGEST this is easy."

    "Because whatever you say, wherever you say, I agree. See how easy that was?"

    We exchanged what I guess could likely be termed some lively banter for a few minutes, when suddenly I changed the subject. I told her how glad I would be when the men with hats were done and we could go on with our lives. We could kick back, relax and enjoy everything.

    She disagreed.

    "When the workers finally do leave," she was quick to remind me, "that's when WE -- as in YOU -- can really expect some fun. The eaves outside need to painted, the interior family room walls need to be stripped and refinished, the kids all have to be moved into their new rooms, and then the backyard will need to be cleaned so we can start landscaping."

    A look of pain spread slowly across my face.

    "And that's just October. Wait til you see what's on the list in November."

c. August 1999

Kids today don't know what gross is

From "Don't Roll Your Eyes at Me"

    When I was a boy growing up, one of my heroes was David Forbus. A lot of you don't know David, but I wish you would have had the pleasure. Last I heard, he was a principal at a Dallas-area elementary school which, given his talents and past, is just where he needs to be.
    When David and I went to school together, whether it was elementary, junior high or high school, he was always an inspiration. I'll admit there were even times I wanted to be like David. He was personable, smart, friendly ... and he had a trampoline in his backyard.
     He was confident in his abilities no matter what he took on. Everyone liked him because, well, he was a kid's kid. And he could sing really well, too.
     But above all, the one reason David was a great role model had nothing to do with any of those traits. What made David Forbus a hero to me was that he could turn his eyelids inside out. And in so doing, he could do quite an effective job at grossing out all the girls. I often remember sitting in the cafeteria, or maybe waiting for the bus after school; I would be looking away, turn around, and there was Dave with his eyelids flipped inside out.
    Nobody could do that trick as expertly as David Forbus. Girls ran screaming.
    That's the thing about kids today, or at least the kids that I see day in and day out. Nobody can do anything really, meaningfully gross anymore. Today, sadly, it's all about bodily functions or emissions or other strange noises that come from deep within.
    Back then, when we grossed a person out, it had substance. It MEANT something. And David could do it all.
    Today, about the only tradition that has been handed down to our kids is the noise they make when applying a moist palm of their hand to the armpit. Kids still do it today. It's a timeless classic. And it's harmless because it's just a noise and nothing else. There is no odor that accompanies it. Most kids can even do it by licking the palm of their hand, but the really good armpit noises come when a kid has been sweating. Needless to say, Dave could do the armpit noise masterfully.
    What also made him cool was that he was double-jointed. He could stick his thumb out and move it back and forth. Somewhere in the middle of the movement, it would jerk suddenly, and give the appearance of being completely out of socket. That was cool, too, but as gross as it was it didn't match the inside-out eyelid thing. David could also bend his arm back at the elbow in another painful example of his double-jointedness. Again, the girls ran screaming.
    And I must admit, he did teach me the time-honored trick of ear wiggling. My ears are the way they are today because of David Forbus. Thanks, Dave. I'm grateful.
    David could also burp the alphabet WHILE making armpit noises, which, despite being tacky, is really quite impressive, regardless what era you come from.
    Still, it's the eyelid thing that gets me all misty.
    The Patterson kids aren't nearly as hideous as David was. Oh, our middle child can stick the tendons out in her neck and look a lot like a tree stump. That's probably the grossest thing I've seen since the days of David's eyes. Our oldest can swallow and extract an awful lot of air, but mostly she just laughs at OTHER people doing gross things.
    The Boy has somehow escaped the gross phenomenon to this point, but I have every ounce of faith that he'll one day acquire the necessary tools and may even have the potential to out-gross David.
    I saw David a few years ago at our 20th high school reunion. After asking him how he liked being a principal and how many kids he and his high school sweetheart and now wife wound up having, I got down to the important stuff.
    "Dave, can you still turn your eyelids inside out?" It was something I just had to know.
    I turned away for a moment as someone said hello to me. When I looked back at him, sure enough, Dave's eyelids were inside out. I laughed so hard I could've blown milk through my nose -- one gross-out act I was particularly good at as a kid, but why brag? With David as a classmate, milk took frequent trips through several noses.
     Twenty-five years later and the guy STILL cracks me up -- and offers plenty of reminders that kids today just aren't what they used to be.

Mountain Lions and Bobcats and Bears, Oh my!

    Don't get me wrong after you've finished reading: We're an active family. Really. The kids are involved in sports. Mrs. P and I talk all the time about how we're gonna get in better shape. And I HAVE beaten a clear path from the couch to the refrigerator, so we do get our exercise, either through the best of intentions (as with Mrs. P and me), or in actual practice (as with the kids and their sports).
    OK I lied. The kids are active. We, as parental units, are much too busy just being parental units to invest much time in exercise.

    Read more ...Mountain_lions_and_bobcats_and_bears.wps.doc

Whatever You'd Like, Dear ...

  The last time we did it was ... well, I don't think there WAS a last time.

    Mrs. P and I set out recently to re-do our bedroom. She's taken the lead role. It's safer that way. She tells me what to do, I do it. She promises me if I just do what she says, no one will get hurt. And she promises that if I go along with her plan, we'll have us a beautiful bedroom in the end.

    No, she's not auditioning for a new starring role in The Sopranos. She's just directing traffic. I can be directed. The fewer creative plans I have to come up with during the beautifying of our bedroom, the better.

    It's impossible to say just how many rolls of wallpaper have been held up in front of me. And it's really impossible for me to have a strong feeling one way or another about wallpaper.

    "What do you think about this? Do you think this one is pretty? I kinda like this one, don't you? Is it too feminine?"

    It's really handy for guys who are not wallpaper-adept that just one answer works for all four of those questions.
    Read more ...Whatever You'd Like, Dear.doc   

Don't Roll Your Eyes at Me, Chapter 1 ...

13 Rules For Driving, My Teenage Daughter

A lot of really nice people have expressed an interest in reading the family columns that I've written over the last few years, some even saying they hopeI would publish a second book. I guess in a way, with stickydoorknobs.typepad.com, that's what I'm doing.

So welcome to the first installment of the e-version of "Don't Roll Your Eyes at Me," a collection of family humor. There are over 80 columns that I hope to post here in 2005. After all, you can't hope to read boring news about my heart forever, right? So let's laugh a little. And since Karen and I now have TWO daughters driving, we'll start with a story about the first one learning how to drive.

I hope to post 1-2 a week to keep everyone going for a while. And who knows, I hope to surprise everyone with a new one every now and then, like that story about how Karen and I were in line on Christmas Eve at a local drug store. While everyone else was buying last minute Christmas gifts there we were buying suppositories and latex gloves. Such is life with a child and a stomach bug. But more on that later. Now, here's a story about driving rules ...

Go to ... 13_simple_rules_for_driving_my_teenage_daughter.doc