Facebook as a validation of human worth

I just checked how many "friends" I have on Facebook. The number was 751.  The average number of friends for a Facebook user, according to Facebook itself, is 190. Does this mean I'm four times more likable than the average Facebook user?

Obviously not. My wife will tell you it just shows I'm a sucker who can't say no to any Facebook friend request. I like to think I'm more discriminating than that, but I suspect she's probably right.

I put "friends" in quotes because not all of these people are my friends, in the best sense of the word. They're all people with whom I'm acquainted in one way or another, of course, and I would genuinely enjoy having conversations with 99% of them. But "friends?" Not really.

With the advent of social media has come a variety of ways to measure one's "influence" in the online world. I put that in quotes, too, because there are so few people whose online personas are truly influential, in that they drive others to buy certain things or make particular changes in behavior.

I think measures of online influence exist solely to cater to our collective egos. The most obvious ones are the number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers you collect. But there's also this service called Klout that aims to measure "social influence" by tracking your activity on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, etc.) and assigning you scores in "True Reach," "Amplification," and "Network Impact."

I think Klout is silly. I also log on to Klout virtually every day to check my score.

I am embarrassed even to admit this, because I really do think Klout is silly. But it actually matters to me when my Klout score falls from 55 to 54. What did I do wrong? How come it dropped? Maybe I need to make my blog posts funnier. Or maybe I need to Tweet more...even though I really don't have anything all that interesting to say.

It IS a lot more satisfying to blog when I write something that gets a lot of page views the day it's posted. I can log on to Blogger.com and find out instantly how many people have read a particular post or looked at the blog in general. Sometimes it seems random to me which posts will get read and which ones won't.

I did one recently on my interest in military history that didn't get a lot of readers. Seventy-five people looked directly at the post itself, while another 150 or so people went to www.theystillcallmedaddy.com that day. Typically, a new post will get 90-120 visitors the day it's posted, and the website will see additional traffic of 200-300 people.

The headline I assign to a post obviously has a lot to do with whether viewers will click through and take a few minutes to read it, especially among those I don't know. People that come to the blog via The News-Herald Community Media Lab are generally the ones who will make or break the relative success of a post, since they're not clicking through as a favor to me but rather because they're really interested in the topic du jour.

Still, there are some widely read posts that have caught me by surprise. The most successful post in the not-even-five-month history of this blog was one I did called "The Art of Dadness." Nearly 400 people have clicked directly to the post itself, while several hundred others went to the main blog page the day it was put up.

"The Art of Dadness" was a heartfelt expression of my views on modern fatherhood and how it can improve, but I didn't think that much of it when it was written. And the thing is, I still have no idea why it has nearly quadruple the readership of other posts I've done.

Another popular post was about our experience hosting two Brazilian students for 12 days in January. That one sort of went "mini-viral" among the Brazilian ex-pat community and employees of the Council on World Affairs. So yeah, I know why those numbers were high. But other posts? It's a shot in the dark sometimes.

By the way, let's keep all of these numbers in context: I'm thrilled when 400 people read something I wrote. There are hundreds and hundreds of bloggers to whom a post that only drew 400 readers would be cause for despair. A lot of people can draw 1,000 readers simply by posting 50 random names from the phone book. I am not one of these bloggers, nor will I ever be.

The point is, there is almost no reason to derive any sort of self-satisfaction from how many online "friends" you have or how many people click on your half-hearted attempts at blogging. Regardless of how far technology advances, it's your relationships in the real, physical world that really matter and that help create a fulfilling existence.

Not that I'm going to stop checking my Klout score. Maybe if I just write about my tiny hands a few more times, I can push it as high as 56...

(SEMI-RELATED NOTE: Since we're being self-referential here, you may have noticed over the last couple of months that ads have begun appearing on the blog. This was by choice. Google will pay you to post ads on your blog based on how many people view and/or click on them. Want to know how much money I've made in two months of doing this? $2.92. That's right, not quite three bucks. Not that it matters much to you, nor should it. But if any of the ads you see are the least bit appealing or touch on something in which you're interested, a click-through to add a few pennies to my kids' college fund would be appreciated. Thanks!)

This > That

Cabbage > Lettuce
Browns > Steelers
Stalactites > Stalagmites
Fall > Spring
Butter pecan > Mint chocolate chip (but not by much)
Fred Flintstone > Bugs Bunny (same)
Scotland > Ireland
Hockey > Any other sport
Analog clocks > Digital clocks
No tattoos > Tattoos (sorry)
80s music > 90s music
Push mower > Riding mower, BUT...
Snow blowing > Snow shoveling
White cats > Black cats
Showers > Baths
Vonnegut > Faulkner
Scratch-off lottery tickets > Casino games
Commodore 64 > Atari 400
Match Game > Joker's Wild
Thin Elvis > Fat Elvis
Paul > George > John > Ringo
My wife's beef stroganoff > Any other food item in the history of the universe
Coltrane > Your favorite musician
Clouds > No clouds
NHL playoffs > March Madness
Gold Circle > Zayre's
Sleeping with clothes on > Sleeping with clothes off
Pencils > Pens
Daphne > Velma (just as Veronica > Betty)
Canadian money > All other money
Coffee > No coffee
Pepsi > Coke
Mapledale > Worden > Lincoln (obscure Wickliffe reference alert!)
World Book Encyclopedia > Encyclopedia Brittanica
South Pole > North Pole
Washing > Drying > Putting away
Days when the mail is delivered > Days when the mail is not delivered
Skullet > Mullet
Clubber Lang > Ivan Drago
Scarecrow > Cowardly Lion > Tin Man
5,000-mile oil change > 3,000-mile oil change
Letterman > Leno
Facebook the old way > Facebook timeline
VH1 > MTV
Having daughters = Having sons

I have half a mind...

Today is my half-birthday. I am exactly 42 1/2. No one in the world besides me cares in any way about this, but I think it's cool.

We mark half-birthdays in our house, or at least I do. And Chloe, too. Last week Chloe turned 15 1/2, which is significant in that it's the age in Ohio at which you are allowed to obtain your temporary driver's license. Chloe doesn't have her temps yet, but you can be sure it won't be long.

Because I have a head for dates, I'm generally the one who remembers that it's someone's half-birthday. Like Terry's is on September 18th because her actual birthday is March 18th. Every September 18th I remind Terry that it's her half-birthday, and every September 18th she tells me I'm a weirdo and openly wonders why she married me.

I can't help it, I just think there's something kind of cool about the concept of being half an age. On that particular day, you're exactly as far from your last birthday as you are from the next one. It's why I've always liked June 25th, too – it's the halfway point between Christmases. You probably don't think that's significant. I do.


You want to know what's even weirder? I remember details about specific half-birthdays. Not birthdays, mind you – half-birthdays. Like, for example, I'm pretty sure I remember what I did on May 2nd, 1987 (25 years ago today). It was a Saturday, and I drove to Brush High School in the morning to take the SATs, then to Solon High School in the afternoon to run in the Solon Relays track meet.


Why do I remember this? Why?!? I don't know, but I'm sure I will never forget it. I did OK on the SAT that day, and I remember having a fairly mediocre performance at the track meet, so there's no real reason to remember that day other than it was my 17 1/2th birthday and the details stick with me.

(NOTE: I realize "17 1/2th" isn't the way to render that, but I have no idea what the ordinal form of 17 1/2 is. I probably should have restructured the sentence to avoid the problem, but I thought I might figure out the answer by the time I finished typing it. I didn't.)

Anyway, I'm 42 1/2 today, which means I'm exactly six months away from being 43. The only significance I attach to 43 is that it's the first age I remember my mom being. She turned 43 in April 1975. I would have been 5 years old at the time, so I guess that's about when you become aware of your parents' age and the fact that it's a lot higher than yours.

Now, suddenly, I'm what my mom was in 1975. Minus the semi-bouffant hairdo and mad rush to menopause. OK, I made that last part up. I have no idea when my mom went through menopause, but I thought it sounded good. She's 80 now, so I can only assume that, yes, The Change did come upon her at some point. I should ask her.

Speaking of my mom, we spent a couple of hours at her house tonight, and it was great. Melanie and Jack stayed in the living room and watched TV while Mom and I sat in the kitchen eating dinner and talking. That doesn't happen very often anymore. It used to happen all the time when I was little and Dad was working a night job.

Oh, and speaking of Dad and night jobs, the best one he ever had was as a manager at a Convenient Food Mart. One time he took me to work with him and I was allowed to eat and drink pretty much anything they had in the store. And he would always bring home piles of snacks and junk food that had passed their expiration dates but were still perfectly good to eat. That job only lasted a year or so, but we never lacked for cookies and chips the entire time.

I just realized: You know what else is interesting about 42 1/2? It means that today I'm officially a quarter of the way through my 40s. It has been 2 1/2 years since my 40th birthday, and 2 1/2 years from today I'll be talking about how I'm now undeniably in my mid-40s. I wonder how I'll celebrate that fact?

Probably with some rambling, incoherent blog post...

Thoughts on childbirth from someone who has never had to do it

I know several women who either recently have or very soon will be giving birth. This is extremely impressive to me. As I've mentioned before, I've had a front-row seat to this event five times, and the whole thing is mind-boggling.

I often say that the sheer physics of the process alone is puzzling. You can talk all you want about how a woman's hips widen and her body adapts in order to accommodate the exiting child, but it still doesn't change the basic fact of large-baby-passing-through-small-opening.

I don't get it. I really don't. I've seen it happen, but it seems like an elaborate magic trick or something. Like after the child emerges, David Copperfield should walk into the delivery room and explain how the whole thing was just an illusion and the baby was actually grown in a laboratory somewhere. That would be far more plausible than what really occurs in childbirth.

My wife had four conventional deliveries (as if there's anything "conventional" about it) and one Cesarean section. The C-section was with baby #5, and Terry still says she wished it would have come the normal way.

(NOTE: In that one paragraph alone, I referred to the commonly accepted method of delivery as "conventional" and "normal." I did this because I can't bring myself to type the V-initialed medical term for these sorts of births. I know it's no big deal and all, and we're (mostly) adults here, but my fingers just won't do it. I'm eating lunch as I write this, and typing that word would very likely ruin the experience for me. Just so you know.)

Anyway, the C-section was a real trip. We had planned to have Jack the, uh, regular way, but at some point during labor he decided to flip upside down, and the doctor pretty much said it was either a C-section or else the baby was going to stay in there forever. Terry opted for the C-section.

Once that decision was made, they whisked her away to do whatever it is they do to women who are about to undergo this procedure. A nurse came in and gave me a set of scrubs to change into, so I did that and then waited around for someone to come and get me so I could be there when my son came out.

This took a long time. Or at least it seemed like a long time. I waited and paced for something like 45 minutes, when I guess someone in the O.R. with Terry looked around and said, "Wait, is the dad here? Someone needs to go and get the dad." So someone came and retrieved the dad and I walked into the delivery room, where my wife was laid out helplessly on a table with a surgical curtain draped across her chest.

The curtain was there so that she didn't have to view all the messiness associated with an operation in which they cut you open and lift a child from your womb. I, on the other hand, had been in operating rooms several times during my years at the Cleveland Clinic, and I tend not to mind blood and gore. As they were working on her, Terry asked me to peek over the curtain and let her know what I saw. So I did.

"Organs and goo," is what I reported back. Because that's really all I saw. They had taken various bodily organs out of her abdominal cavity, as far as I could tell, and laid them off to the side like jigsaw puzzle pieces. I made a mental note to ask later if they remembered exactly how everything fit back in there, because I'm terrible at puzzles and would be of no help.

Anyway, after a few minutes they hoisted Jack out of his mother's belly and held him up to allow me to announce his gender to the room. We never found out the sex of any of our babies ahead of time, instead preferring the very cool surprise you get when you discover the answer at the moment of birth. But they held him up at a strange angle, and it took me several seconds to get a clear view of the goods. It was pretty clear he was a boy at that point, and as if to confirm the verdict, Jack peed all over his mother right then and there. I was so proud.

It may have been messy and required several stitches afterward, but the C-section was a far more enjoyable experience for me -- not that I obviously counted for much, but still -- than the four clearly-physically-impossible births had been. Watching my first four kids being born was a lot like being in a car accident: I was dazed and confused afterward, I wasn't quite sure what I had seen, and there was a heck of a mess that I was willing to pay someone else to clean up.

Because honestly, there's a lot going on when a child is born. They show you the video in biology class or Lamaze, but nothing at all can prepare you for the reality of it. Things came out of my wife that I didn't even know existed. Medical personnel whom I hadn't seen all day suddenly came out of nowhere to fulfill whatever small role they were assigned in the birth of my child. People started speaking in urgent tones, telling my wife to PUSH PUSH PUSH, though I'm quite sure she didn't need any prodding from them.

And I wasn't even the one giving birth! I was just a clueless bystander. My wife, the star of this whole show until the moment the baby came out, displayed a quiet confidence and ability I had no idea she possessed until she gave birth the first time. I may have been freaking out, but she was pretty clearly in control. There was always this look on her face that said, "Seriously, don't worry, I've got this." And she did, too.

A lot of women like to say that men could never have babies. And I don't know that I fully agree. I mean, I could do it. If you put a growing baby inside of me, I would eventually find a way to pass the thing. But there's no way I would ever do it as well as Terry did. God just didn't give me the same capacity for this that He gave her, and as far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing.

It's not so much the actual birth that would throw me off. It's the nine months or so leading up to it. In addition to your body getting larger, there are all sorts of physical discomforts associated with pregnancy that would seriously wear me out. Especially in the summer. Two of our kids were born in August and September, which means Terry spent the last trimester of two pregnancies during the warm, humid summer months. Not good.

But she bore up well under the burden of it. I, on the other hand, would have whined about it 24 hours a day. Seriously, I would have complained constantly. One baby would have been enough for me. But she somehow made it through five. God bless her.

What's not to like about libraries?

I have never stopped being amazed by the concept of libraries.

You walk into the building, and there are stacks upon stacks of books, magazines, CDs, DVDs and other materials, all of them available for you to browse through. And computers, too. They have computers for you to use.

If you want, you can sit there all day and just read. Anything they have there, you can sit down and read it. For free.

And then there's the best part of all: YOU CAN TAKE VIRTUALLY ANY OF IT HOME WITH YOU. AGAIN, FOR FREE! They don't really care what you do with it, just so long as you bring it back on time and in good condition.

There's no way I'm the only person who thinks this is one of the coolest things ever, right? I mean, why aren't libraries overflowing with people taking advantage of this set-up?

Well, actually, our local library IS sometimes pretty crowded, but that's usually with people who don't have Internet access at home and are using the (FREE) broadband connections there, or with students researching papers, finishing homework, or else doing something wildly inappropriate.

I know this last part is true because my daughter Elissa has worked as a page at our local library for almost two years (NOTE: I think it's funny that they have a position called a "page" at a library. Because, you know, books have pages? That's kind of funny, isn't it? OK, moving on...)

Elissa spends a good deal of her time telling middle school-aged library patrons to be quiet or to stop fooling around. She has some great stories of things she has seen. Who knew the library was such a den of iniquity?

Because of this, and because she spends 10 to 15 mind-numbing hours per week reshelving books and DVDs, I'm afraid that Elissa does not share my passionate love of libraries. When she first got the job, I thought what a perfect fit it was. Elissa has always been a pretty voracious reader. What better job for her?

But I suppose there can be too much of a good thing. Understandably, whenever we take family trips to the library, Elissa doesn't come along with us anymore. I don't blame her, I guess.

Anyway, getting back to the wonder of libraries, I've always wanted to burn a day of vacation at the library. Like, the entire day. Just sitting there reading whatever I wanted. Or walking up and down the aisles looking at book titles I wouldn't normally notice during our 30-minute family excursions. That sounds like a serious amount of fun.

But I never do it because, you know, vacation time is precious and there are always things to do with Terry and the kids, or jobs to accomplish around the house or whatever. But one day, maybe when/if I'm ever retired, I'm going to do that.

I'm obviously not in the library business and thus I'm not familiar with the statistics, but my feeling is that libraries have way more amenities and resources available than most people ever use. These poor reference librarians, most of whom slogged through years of school to get their master's degree in library science to enter a profession in which they're chronically underpaid, are ready and waiting to help you with even the most arcane request for information. And most of the time the only thing that ever happens is that some unshaven guy in a dirty trench coat comes up and asks them where they keep the back issues of Maxim.

Still, it makes me feel good that they're there. If I ever want two paragraphs of Herodotus' description of the Greco-Persian Wars or to know the flying speed of the lesser striped swallow, they would be glad to help me. I'll never need either of these things, of course, but the fact that I COULD readily access that information with their assistance is somehow comforting.

And other than the overdue book fees, it's all free. Amazing.

Is it weird that I have good memories of high school?

I'm stunned by how bitter some people are about their high school experience. I mean, some are just seething with anger and resentment over the way they spent those last few years of secondary education. And I guess they have their reasons.

Not me, though. I loved high school. Really, it was a lot of fun. Would I go back to it? Not for a million dollars. But it was a good ride while it lasted.

I went to the same high school my two oldest kids now attend: Wickliffe High School in the thriving metropolis that is Wickliffe, Ohio. I was and still am a very proud Blue Devil. Not that I was ever really a fan of that nickname, though. I would have preferred being represented by something other than the Prince of Darkness. Unless they actually go to your school, no one roots for Beelzebub.

I graduated in 1988 in a class of 162 very different kids. We had all kinds, as evidenced by the fact that our homecoming song was by Poison, I think, while our prom song was "I Melt With You" by Modern English. Enough to satisfy the hair metal fans and the New Wave types. Good times.

Everyone has a certain image of where they fit in during high school. I was kind of a hybrid, I guess, as were most of the kids I knew. Not many were just jocks or just brains or just stoners (well, OK, the stoners -- or "burnouts," as we called them -- pretty much stuck to just the one demographic, I suppose). Most people were a mix.

I, for example, took classes with the smart kids, played football and ran track, and also played in the wind ensemble and jazz band. That was a nice blend, and it exposed me to many different kinds of kids, virtually all of whom I liked.

(By the way, depending on your point of view, that's either the best or worst thing about me: I like pretty much everyone I meet. It doesn't take much to impress me, so therefore I'm impressed by almost everyone. I think everyone has an interesting story to tell and I like hearing their stories. Unfortunately, you can't feel all that great if I consider you a friend because it's not an especially exclusive club.)

My oldest daughter, Elissa, is 18 and smack dab in the middle of the Senior Year Experience: Homecoming court, prom, student government, college tours, scholarships, etc. And I can clearly see that she's beginning to run out of gas. I'm not sure she would admit it, but I think the disease known commonly as "Senior-itis" is beginning to hit her. Not to worry, though, as she graduates just five short weeks from today, then it's on to the not-so-real life of college.

Speaking of "not-so-real life," that's also true of high school: So many look back on it with a jaded eye because it seems to have had so little to do with their lives as adults. College isn't really a reflection of real life, either, but high school is even farther removed from it. Sure, you'll always run into cliques, social pressures, petty people and politics, but generally not to the same degree as you experience them in high school.

Knowing me, all of that stuff was probably there when I was a teenager, but I was far too oblivious to notice it. Consequently, my high school memories are almost all very positive. The moral of the story being, if you live your life in ignorance, eternal bliss can be yours, kids!

Plus, I met my wife-to-be in high school. What a deal that turned out to be! I realize high school sweethearts don't marry very often anymore, so I'm extremely thankful that the same woman I loved when I was 16 years old is the woman I still love now that I'm 42. Terry is yet another great thing that came out of my high school experience.

One of the worst decisions I made during that time of my life was to run for a class officer position. I did this, admittedly, not out of any desire to serve or to give back to the school, but because I thought it would look good on a college application. And maybe it did.

But you pay for being a class officer for the rest of your life. Why? Seven letters: R-E-U-N-I-O-N. When it comes time for class reunions, you as a class officer are rightfully expected to step up and take a leadership role in organizing these shindigs. This is a huge pain.

Every five years or so, someone will ask me what we're planning to do for our upcoming XXth reunion (fill in your round number here). And so I call up Jodi, our class president, and we decide that, yes, something needs to be done. Then we wait a few months to see if anyone else will do it. No one ever does. So then I call her up again and we resign ourselves to our self-imposed fates.

I'm exaggerating, of course. When we had our 20th reunion a few years ago, a lot of classmates stepped up to the plate and did a great job pulling the event together. And I thought it was excellent. Everyone looked good, they were generally in good health, and as a whole we all appeared to be living fairly normal, productive lives -- something you may not have predicted had you seen us, say, back in 7th grade.

Just recently I got my first Facebook message asking whether we're having our 25th reunion next year. And my answer is...I don't know. I gotta get in touch with Jodi first, and we have to go through the obligatory procrastination period before any decisions are made. I'm sure we'll do something, though.

But I'm telling you kids: Unless you want to spend large chunks of your adult life looking through party center catering menus and researching potential DJs, do NOT succumb to the temptation of being a class officer. You'll thank me later.

Here are the new rules...please follow them

You're probably not aware of this, but I have been elected Household Living Czar of the United States. You don't need to concern yourself with how this came to pass. Suffice it to say that I have been invested with the power to dictate certain rules and regulations governing the way Americans should live their daily lives.

Henceforth, the following decrees shall be in effect for all citizens of this great nation (NOTE TO KERRI JONES: Please feel free to adopt these in Australia as you see fit):

1. Toilet paper shall be hung OVER, not under: There will be no exceptions to this rule. How this "under" nonsense even got started is beyond me. Violators will be sentenced to watching a three-day, nonstop "Jersey Shore" marathon.

2. Fathers will cast the tiebreaking vote when the family reaches an impasse in movie selection: Family Movie Nights are ruined when you can't come to some agreement on which movie to watch. Much like the Vice President in the Senate, the father now has authority to break the tie and make the final choice. End of story. If you don't like what Dad picks, your only other option is to go and clean one of the bathrooms in the house (Mom will select which bathroom).

3. If something doesn't fit into the cupboard, take the time to make it fit: We keep our cereal in a cabinet over the stove. The way we have this cabinet set up, you can comfortably store three, maybe four boxes of cereal. Oftentimes, some denizens of the house who shall remain nameless but are NOT me or my wife will try to jam in a fifth or even sixth box of cereal. They are satisfied if the extra box stays up there without falling back out, even if it means that it's protruding six inches out of the cabinet and the door won't close. This is unacceptable. It is beyond unacceptable. Either rearrange the contents of the cabinet such that your cereal will fit in there, or take the unnecessary box out and put it back into the basement. One or the other. Penalty for failure to comply is that we'll stuff YOU into the cereal cabinet.

4. Water stays in the shower or gets cleaned up: This isn't difficult. If you take a shower and water somehow gets onto the bathroom floor, clean it up. And then pick the wet towels up off the floor and dispose of them properly. That's it. That's all you have to do. I can draw you a diagram with detailed instructions, if it will help.

5. Turn the lights off. Turn the lights off! TURN THE LIGHTS OFF!: My children are quite clearly aware that light switches can be used to illuminate a room. Just flip the switch up and, presto, you have light! It's really quite the invention. But I have failed to teach them that the switch is, in fact, bidirectional. If you push it down, the lights go off. Amazing, I know! As far as my kids know, a light switch only needs to be used once, and then you should keep it on forever.

6. All family members must learn the function of coat hooks: When we added a mud room onto our house, we had these really nice cubbies and coat hooks installed to store everyone's jackets, shoes, school supplies, etc. In an attempt not to wear the coat hooks out, apparently, certain members of my family elect not to use them, opting instead for the increasingly popular Throw It On the Floor method of garment storage. No. Just, no.

7. Everyone is to gain an understanding of how refrigerators work: Two important things to remember - (a) The refrigerator does not spontaneously produce food every time you open the door. What was in there five minutes ago is what's in there now. No need to check again. (b) The refrigerator refrigerates food. That means it keeps it cold. It operates much more efficiently when the refrigerator door is in the closed position and the cold air inside is not allowed to escape. A minor and perhaps obvious point, but one that still clearly needs to be made in 95% of American households.

8. Practice the basic elements of HVAC economics: Why yes, I suppose we COULD turn on the central air since you're feeling a touch warm. OR....and I know this is crazy....you could simply open a window, which as it turns out is free. Or change into a short-sleeved shirt (also free). The air conditioning system, sadly, is not free. "Free" always trumps "not free."

9. I don't need to see your used toothpaste: You're brushing your teeth. That's good. Over the years I think we've managed to buy our kids' dentist a boat and two summer homes on Cape Cod. But when you're finished brushing, the idea is to spit the toothpaste into the sink and make sure every molecule of it goes down the drain. If you simply spit randomly into the sink and walk away, the next morning there will be a wall of disgusting dried toothpaste in the sink. And nobody wants to see that. Not even me, the guy who cleaned a variety of horrible bodily emissions off of you for the first 2-3 years of your life.

10. If you ask for it, eat it: "Mommy, can I have some pancakes?" "Sure, honey. I'll get you some." Mommy fixes the pancakes and serves them to the requesting child. "There you go, three pancakes just the way you like them!" "Oh. Uh, I don't think I really want them. I guess I'm not as hungry as I thought." Five minutes later, Mommy is flipping through the Yellow Pages looking for an attorney to represent her in her upcoming trial for assault and battery on a minor.