The Unbearable Lateness of Being: OR Why I Know My Work Here Isn't Done

Just when I thought it was safe to re-enter the real world and participate in activities/a career which utilize(s) the portions of my brain NOT overly monopolized by grocery lists made up entirely of things that other people need plus the ancient words to the "Beverly Hillbillies" theme song that I used to sing to all of my kids when I ran out of bedtime lullabies, I found that my presence is still required for a few important things here at Half House. To wit:

1) After a golf lesson that the middle son took where he was required to develop a swing technique using his upper torso and neck for about two hours, the next day dawned, and with all memories of golf behind him, he found himself tormented by chest pains so severe that Advil could not provide relief.  He began to panic. Without waking us the next night because he was unable to sleep from worry and...you know...the agony... and because he couldn't connect the dots between what was happening to him and the new activity he had introduced into his regimen, he arose from his bed of pain and Googled "signs of a heart attack". This boy is so much like me it is scary because, when I was slightly younger than him I was plagued with headaches and, after reading John Gunther's Death Be Not Proud (about his son's death from a brain tumor), I became convinced that I, too, would suffer a similar fate.  I've cursed him for sure.

2) The youngest boy, not yet 13, has to be threatened/bribed/coaxed/cajoled/dragged into the shower to remove the adolescent "funk" from his body each day. I know this comes as no huge shock to those of you who are also raising male offspring, but imagine my surprise and dismay when I discovered he was just putting on the same dirty boxer shorts after the aforementioned shower. Awesome! I can see I've got years of nagging left to do on this boy.

3) The oldest son, like his brothers, has many fine qualities. However, he is the slowest-moving human in the universe. Aside from "I love you", the phrase I've uttered most frequently following his name is: "hurry". Okay, he's not built like a speed demon in the first place. To watch him run is akin to seeing a giraffe move its long and slender legs in a loping kind of gallop and my son looks just like this...but only if I've successfully inspired him to locomote any faster than usual and only food, a phone call from a girl or a movie made from a Tolkien book have made that happen thus far. The rest of the time, I've seen sap from a tree move faster than my son. And as pokey as he is, my nagging him to get the lead out only turns his bones into soup so that he moves even more slowly than before I started screaming.

I blame his father who, unlike me--a person raised by a half-German/half-Russian father whose obsession with timeliness made a huge imprint on me and my sisters--has a very relaxed attitude about just how important time is. Mr. Half goes through life as though he were on a permanent Caribbean vacation. You know...a happy person. He's a hard worker and his hours of labor are usually longer than those of your average human, but he has failed to acquire the agitated mentality that goes along with the traditional busy person. In short, he has refused to develop an ulcer which, in my family, is the best way to show just how much you care.

So, in the morning he likes to peruse the paper in an unhurried fashion and drink his cranberry juice. I'm running around the house half-dressed yelling "30 minutes unil we leave! Get your pants on! Where are your pants? OhMyGod get in the shower NOW!" like the Town Crier on crack. That's when Mr. Half decides it's time to yawn and stretch and amble to the shower to WASH HIS VERY LONG HAIR WHICH TAKES FOREVER!!!...but first a stop to the (*cough*) WC for a "quick" visit. 

(Hold me)

And he hasn't even stopped to wonder if his pants are back from the cleaners or even if he has anything clean or pressed to wear to wherever we're going. He's not worried and you know why? Because he won't start worrying about it until FIVE MINUTES before we're scheduled to leave and I begin running amok and yelling. First the yelling and then the crying. Then yelling and crying at the same time, which--in my case--turns out to be neither pretty nor effective.

So you can imagine just how upset I am when we're verging on lateness on a day we're going to the home of my father (whom my siblings and I have--in the past--lovingly referred to as "Captain Von Trapp") and my mother, a more relaxed person than her husband.

I'm not a gin drinker, but I've heard it's never too late to become one.

If I were to leave this house now and enter Corporate America or return to teaching or find a job at a newspaper I know that the males with whom I live could not survive. First, they would run out of deodorant and lactaid pills and Tyson Frozen Popcorn Chicken and, because no one apparently knows where the store is except for me, they would be stinky and starving. The youngest would develop a rash from crusty underwear, the middle one would spend all of his time taking his temperature and checking his breathing with a stethescope and the oldest would just be late because he Just. Can't. Move. Any. Faster.

And Mr. Half would have no clean pants.

I do aspire to a higher calling than this...I promise...but for now it's clear these guys are helpless without me.  In the meantime, I'd love to get paid for what I do all day, but something tells me there's a thin line between that and being someone's maid/housekeeper/nanny and....good lord...I just don't think I could go there. Nope, not me. After all, it's just SO MUCH more meaningful  to do all this stuff for free.

Uh...Right?

Comments

[Nicole]

Tip from an old boy friend - his mom always told he and his brother that the more you changed your underware, washed (enter whatever works for you here) the bigger your manhood would be. It worked for them, they changed their clothes multiple times a day as well as were always in the shower! Good luck!

[anna]

Right.

I'm so glad to hear that my son isn't the only one who moves slower when you ask him to hurry. My hopes that it was just a phase have been dashed.

[Gina]

I am so sorry for your son that he actually googled that in a panic. Imagine being that young and thinking you are having a heart attack! The poor child!

I too, have the importance of time in my DNA, and Hubba-hubba, not so much. It drives me nuts.

Hang in there, babe.

[Rock]

This was pretty good.

[Mary]

Good stuff, this.

[Mrs. Chicken]

Mr. Chicken wears the same boxers for a week. You can't break 'em of it.

[Mrs. Harridan]

Your boys (both kids and adult) and my husband sound a lot alike.

I often say that Booby would be content to live in a nest of dirt, clothing and bank receipts. He is well-known for showering and then re-donning the dirty clothes. Must be a guy thing. Savages, the lot of them.

[mamatulip]

Right.

And it's never too late to become a gin drinker.

[Ortizzle]

Same underwear, eh? Reminds me of my students. They have competitions to see how many days they can go *without taking a shower.* I am not kidding. In an all-girls school!!! (Although that's probably the reason right there: there aren't any boys around to catch the whiff.)

[Oh, The Joys]

Hilarious!

[Annie]

This is what my future holds? Pass the gin!

I lived two years with three male flight students, one of whom I married. I cannot tell you the piles that collected in our house. If you eat at the coffee table, it is, evidently, a fine place to leave your dishes.

I have a great book to suggest to you called "A Sideways Look At Time", by Jay Griffiths. Might help you appreciate Mr. Half's take on things.

[Mignon]

I was reading along, going "yeah, yeah, boys! and their lateness and stinkiness!" And then my sloth of a daughter came in with yogurt in her hair screaming because her dad wanted her to bathe. Geez.

(Rock. Your comments rock.)

[Ian]

Sometimes I literally have to DRAG my wife out of the house to get her to leave. We've been trying to go see a movie, and I'll find her reorganizing her candles or something equally as pointless that could be done ANY OTHER TIME.

And worst of all, my kids seem to have inherited this pattern.

Ian

[V-Grrrl]

Ian,

Send your wife to Wordgirl's. Tell her to bring the candles to cover the Boy Stink and light a fire under certain slowpokes.

[Spamboy]

Amazingly enough, I had to Google "signs of a heart attack" also when I heard that your other son is wearing the same drawers each day! Ugh.

[Cover Your Mouth]

That was hilarious.

[lildb]

this post is nearly perfect. only, it's not. and do you want to know *why* it isn't perfect?

*taps fingers*

it isn't perfect because you published it today. if you'd done so yesterday, I could've nominated it for a hyper-(because nobody says "uber" anymore -- well, nobody except gamers; ex: "uberpwned")distinguished ROFL award. And you could have a new, shiny, super-fun button to add to your sidebar. And we could have danced. And laughed. And consumed draughts (yes! draughts!!) of wine. no. make that flagons. yes. flagons.

anyway.

guess I have to wait until next month to nominate you, now. *shakes fist at wordgirl*

[ewe_are_here]

Great post!

Although I have to admit, it scares me, too. Because I'm about to be seriously outnumbered by boys as well, and I see some of these signs already....

[TB]

Poor sweet boy. I've thought more than once it's a good thing the internet didn't exist when I was his age. I would have been googling all manner of strange maladies.

As for the rest, this post is so right on, I think this will be one you look back on in six months with pride.

[Chris]

I'm not going to get the Beverly Hillbillies theme out of my head tonight, am I?

[DebbieDoesLife]

I swear Stace, that was one of your best EVER! Is it because I have three boys and can totally relate? Maybe. But that was good. Especially this line. Made me laugh and tinkle a little (hey, I've had three kids)

"In short, he has refused to develop an ulcer which, in my family, is the best way to show just how much you care." That's funny.

I am lucky and get to office from home. Because if I didn't the middle one would starve. He sits on the sofa each morning and then with puppy dog eyes asks if I am fixing breakfast. The youngest I have to have "pit checks" to see if he is wearing deodorant. The oldest is so wrapped up in himself that it doesn't matter what I am doing, if he calls and wants to "discuss his life" then I must stop everything and listen.

I hired a housekeeper, bought lots of cereal, still have to do pit checks and text message. There's my answers.

[Rhonda]

This post cracked me up!

[jen]

brilliant, as usual.

however, i suggest leaving out a tip jar, at the very least. a girl's gotta eat.

[Her Bad Mother]

I had something profound to say but then Nicole's comment caused me to spit coffee out of my mouth and now I'm all scattered. It was going to be something funny and deep (of course) about the nature of fulfillment, but I've forgotten ENTIRELY.

[J]

I think they need to pay to send you on a two week vacation somewhere warm and relaxing, where you get massages and sit at the seaside, drinking lovely drinks. While you're gone, they can suffer all of the things you mention, and realize that they are in fact capable of taking care of themselves. If two weeks doesn't do it, go to Paris next. Whatever it takes, hon, whatever it takes.