That guy

According to the Urban Dictionary the term “that guy” is slang for the person that everyone knows but no one wants to be.

No matter where I work, I have noticed that at the office, there is always that guy, and in this case I mean that guy who seems really nice but who absolutely exudes the creepy vibe from every pore of his body – not necessarily because he is creepy (although he may be) but because he just seems to have missed out on social interaction 101.

Currently, that guy at my office’s, MO goes something like this:

1.  He will use your name as many times as possible in a given conversation, consistently making you aware of how rarely your name is used to refer to you in 2nd person dialogue

2. He will come by your office just to ‘hi’ but will refuse to leave until you have had a lengthy, but stilted conversation

3.  He will walk in just to talk to you as you are writing a post about him (kid you not)

4. He will make you ridiculously uncomfortable while simultaneously making you feel guilty for feeling uncomfortable because he hasn’t actually done anything wrong

5. You will find yourself making any excuse to leave your own office to escape, only to run into him again in the hall five minutes later as you try to sneak back in

6. He will happily capitalize on any miniscule amount of decorum you show him to create the mirage that you have had some friendship-building connection

You will debate whether or not to just freeze him out, but again will find yourself unable to be that mean because of a lack of actual evidence of creepiness so you will waste at least ten minutes of your life each work day trying to be polite which may eventually compound to nearly equivocate the amount of time you will spend on the toilet in a lifetime.  At least there you can read a magazine in peace.

Happy Thursday.

Why?

This is the question every parent dreads to hear from the mouth of three-year old . . .

Now I must admit I am a little more excited about this question than most.  I get a sort of giddy, “well didn’t you just set yourself up for this life lesson?” feeling every time I hear that syllable . . . but recently I have realized that the question has taken a rather adaptive turn.

Now instead of being used as the general marker of requesting additional information, it is used as a sort of torture technique by my budding Freudian. 

For when the soap makes bubbles, does he ask why? – no

Or when the we mix blue and yellow together to make green, does he ask why? – no

Or when we are talking about the seasons does he ask why spring follows winter? – no

Instead, the question why is reserved for key situations.

1.  You really screwed up Mom and I am SO going to call you on it –

i.e. Why did you just totally lose your temper in the bookstore when I resembled a whirling dervish and now everyone is staring at us? I am being perfectly good now and you look like a lunatic.

2.  There is actually no good reason why –

As in, why is the word why spelled with three letters when one letter with the same sound would do just fine (I’m just saying mom)?

3.  I don’t like your first response you are going to have to try again.

 This is a sneaky attempt to wrangle the hated “because I said so” out of me, which annoys me more than it annoys him because I know darn well that that’s not really a reason other than the exact same reason that makes me have to say that in the first place (see irony).

And my favorite:

4.  Because I want to see how much you REALLY love me.

“Lucas, you need to tell me when you need to go potty before you have an accident.”

“Why?”

Translation, “Clean up my feces, woman!

Because I said so . . .”

New Blog

Here is the link to my new blog.  Although, sad to say it is neither about Lucas nor funny . . . but I figured I might get some cross audience.

www.peckishandsearching.wordpress.com

Fancy Pants

As someone who has always been in love . . . with the perfect color, the perfect turn of phrase, the perfect rapier retort, the perfect outfit . . . I know the intense excitement my son experiences when he feels he has found the perfect whatever, because, in many ways I have never really lost this feeling.

Last week it was the perfect shoes.  Being a fan of light and color myself since infancy, it was with great excitement that I bought Lucas a pair of light up sneakers.  He loves them, but I must admit the motive was purely selfish because I love them too. 

I will never forget the pride expressed in his voice as the daycare greeter opened the door to the car to take him out and he jumped to the ground beaming even brighter than the green lights on his shoes and said “Look at my NEW shoes!”

She grinned and they spoke about his shoes asshe walked him into the building. 

Yesterday, after a fight with a cup of juice – a fight which the juice won, I took Lucas upstairs to change his clothes.  Rifling through the underwear drawer he produced a pair adorned with baseballs. 

“I want these.”

“Sure.”

“I want to wear them to school tomorrow too.”

“Well then you have to save them.”

“I want to save them.” he replied, and in uncharacteristic three-year old fashion, he did exactly that.

The next morning I dropped my son off.  The greeter opened the car door and we said our goodbyes.  Then after closing the door, I see her dissolve into hysteria.

Noticing my quizzical stare she opens the car door to the front seat and there is my son, shorts to his knees, beaming with pride as he shows her his baseball underwear.

Perhaps we should stick with white.

Rationalization

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  Well then I would personally love to meet the jerk in the glass house who made this remark . . .  

oh wait it was Einstein

Ironically then, I believe he did discover a unified theory – for the only thing I think that binds absolutely every member of humanity is the fact that we are ALL guilty of this – just some of us more than others.

My particular breed of insanity seems to revolve around the fact that – despite numerous examples to the contrary – I believe I can rationalize with my three year old.

Never having been much of a fan of ‘because I say so’ in childhood or beyond, I made the decision early on that I was going to avoid the phrase at all costs. 

However, I have discovered that, in my attempt to be a ‘better’ parent, I have undertaken a particularly Sisyphusian task – something akin to trying to translate Eygptian hieroglyphs before the discovery of the Rosetta stone.  There is a chance it might be done – but the chance is so small its like matching all 20 numbers in game of Keno . . . multiple times in a row.

For instance: I have many times explained that the only end game of whining is a ticked off mom and a pervasive state of absence of whatever it was the whining was meant to produce.

The standard answers are as follows:

“But I want to!”

“But I want it!”

“But I NEED it!”

and, “WAHHHHH”

Which leaves me wondering exactly what was lost in the translation.  However, I am learning that absolutely nothing was lost in the translation and rather, that the act of whining – has very little to do with procuring something one wants and is more like a game of mercy – you know the one where pain intensifies until someone balks first. After many attempts my son has realized that I am unlikely to give in and that, indeed, the situation will only frustrate me, but yet he persists because this the prime playing field of the toddler ego struggle and . . . in trying to explain the absurdity of the situation in simplified, toddler terms am actually bringing upon myself the full extent of the absurdity of the situation.

Irony is a bitch.