My family refers to me as Noo Noo

I know a lot of people are weirded out by the Teletubbies, that British kids TV show starring Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa Laa and Po. And rightly so. They're creepy, no doubt about that. They're meant to be innocent and fun, but whoever created them was clearly under the influence of a substance of questionable legality.

One of the minor characters on the Teletubbies is a little thing called Noo Noo. Or "The" Noo Noo. I'm not sure which. And I do mean "thing," by the way, because that's what Noo Noo is. It's a little living vacuum cleaner that goes around cleaning up messes. The Teletubbies at least speak, even though it's gibberish. Noo Noo just rolls around making sucking and slurping noises.

Noo Noo's sole purpose in life is to clean, but he/she/it sometimes takes things too far, as in this video:

This, I freely admit, is me. I am Noo Noo, and Noo Noo is me. When I am home, my wife and children think the only purpose of my existence is to clean up anything and everything: Stuff on the floor, the dishes, various messes others make, etc.

You would think they would appreciate this penchant of mine. But I will also freely admit that sometimes I clean up stuff that is not at all intended to be cleaned up. Like for example, there will be a glass of water on the kitchen table, and my instinct is to remove it before one of the cats knocks it over. But the person who owns the glass of water has just stepped out of the room, and their cold beverage has now been dumped in the sink and the glass deposited in the dish washer. All in the space of 17 seconds while they were gone.

My bad. Next time don't leave your water glass there.

On Christmas morning, I have one job and one job only: I walk around with a garbage bag and collect all wrapping paper, discarded bows, tissue, packaging, etc. If you don't proactively give me the paper you tear off a gift, I will come over to you and snatch it. THERE WILL BE NO MESSES ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, DO YOU HEAR ME? NO MESSES!

I don't mean to annoy anyone, but I really, really prefer having a clean house whenever I can. It makes me happier. And if you're someone whose mess-making detracts from the cleanliness of the house, I will rectify the situation post-haste.

Compare me to a Teletubbies character if you must. I proudly wear the Noo Noo badge.

10 things I never realized would make me so happy

(1) The first cup of coffee in the morning

(2) Sitting and contentedly watching your child play a sport or engage in a school activity

(3) Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky

(4) My wife's laugh

(5) The second cup of coffee in the morning

(6) Checking off every item on my weekly to-do list

(7) Having a few hours to myself with no appointments or other commitments

(8) A freshly mowed lawn (I'm talking about when it's MY lawn, of course, not someone else's)

(9) Cleaning out the top dresser drawer where I keep a little bit of everything

(10) You're expecting me to say the third cup of coffee in the morning here, aren't you? Well, I'm not going to say it. Because the FOURTH cup of coffee makes me way happier than the third, so I'm going with that. No, I don't know why, but it's my blog and my list, and therefore I reserve the right to throw logic out the window.

My friends and I used to play Kill the Man all the time

I don't consider myself a particularly violent person, but I do enjoy watching hockey fights, and I'm glad I spent a good chunk of my childhood playing a game that goes by various names, but that my friends and I simply called "Kill the Man."

The game itself was simple, if not downright stupid. One kid had a football. He would run around and around someone's backyard while every other kid – it could have been two or three other kids or a dozen other kids...it always varied – tried to tackle him.

And these were not soft tackles, mind you. The game was Kill the Man, not Gently Dispatch the Man. Once you were tackled, you either gave the football to the guy who tackled you and he would then run around and eventually get smeared, or you threw the ball into the air and the guy who caught it would become The Man.

In either case, I'm so glad I spent hours playing this game because it taught me three things:

(1) How to avoid contact when I could and absorb it when I had to

(2) How to act like I wasn't in pain when in fact it felt like my leg had just been broken

(3) How to diffuse the type of tense situation that always arises when you're playing a contact sport and tempers flare

All of these skills have proven to be valuable in life, in football and otherwise.

Do kids still play Kill the Man? I'm not sure they do. They should.

Americans' strange obsession with their cars

I am not a Car Guy.

And by that I mean I am not interested in cars the way that many guys (and women) are really, really interested in cars. There are car magazines and car shows and car clubs where people talk about cars. Incessantly.

God bless them. Many of us have a borderline-unhealthy interest in something or other. For me it's hockey. And increasingly these days, classical music of the type written by now-dead people many centuries ago.

My interest in cars, though, only goes this far:

(1) Is there a car in the driveway I can take every day to get to work and run errands and ferry kids around as needed?

(2) Yes? OK, then is that car in serviceable condition? That is, does it reliably get you from one place to another in the way that any mechanical form of transport should be expected to?

(3) Yes? Fine. Does it need any repairs?

(4) No? Good, because my car maintenance skills extend only to checking/replenishing fluids and maintaining recommended tire pressures. Oh, and I can also replace air filters and burnt-out light bulbs. Beyond that, I'm lost.

If all of those conditions are met, I no longer think about my car. Or any car, for that matter.

A lot of people have a vision of what they call their "dream car." It's the vehicle they would die to have if money were no object.

I do not have a dream car. I never have. Well, actually, I guess you could say my "dream car" is one that runs and has a freshly vacuumed interior.

That's my vehicular fantasy right there.

I almost don't care what color my car is. I don't care what make or model it is. I do not define myself in any way by the car I drive.

That's not to criticize those who do. There's nothing particularly noble about my approach to cars. I'm just telling you, my interest in cars is intensely practical and nothing more.

Which I realize puts me in a distinct minority in the larger context of American society. Americans love their cars.

We all used to love American-made cars, specifically. Then the foreign automakers started putting factories in the U.S. and we figured, "Well, hey, there's a Honda plant in Marysville, Ohio. How bad could it be to buy a Honda?"

It's actually good to buy a Honda, by the way. That's what I drive, and the darn things last forever. They just keep going and going. My friend Bob Jones, who used to sell Hondas, turned me on to them. Kudos to Bob for that guidance.

There, I've just typed/said more about cars in the space of two minutes than I probably have in the last six months combined. I'm now going to stop thinking about cars again, beginning....

Now.

One time I tried to steal fake vampire blood from Medic

You know what I like best about the title of this post? The fact that I felt compelled to call it "fake" vampire blood. As if, you know, there's REAL vampire blood that you can buy online or something, but I found it important to clarify that what I tried to steal was the fake stuff.

Anyway, yeah, I don't know why I'm thinking about this right now, but one time I tried to steal a tube of FAKE vampire blood from Medic, which for those who aren't familiar is/was a chain of drug stores. Or pharmacies, if you prefer. Or chemists, if you're British. You get the idea.

My friend Mike Ostack and I walked into Medic one day, and I guess it must have been around Halloween because they had vampire blood there. Not an item you're likely to find on sale in, say, April.

I had no money with me because I must have been, I don't know, nine years old at the time? It was before Mike moved away to Georgia, so maybe he'll know. We were very young, in any case.

I saw that vampire blood and I wanted it, but I didn't have a cent to my name. So, in a moment of true genius, it occurred to me that I could just TAKE it. That way I could have it but not pay for it. Problem solved!

I was wearing a sweatshirt, and I believe the high-level expert thievery technique I opted to use was to take the vampire blood – which I think was in a cardboard package – and stuff it under my sweatshirt. And then I attempted to walk out of the store. Quickly. With this huge bulge in what before had been a relatively flat abdominal area.

Amazingly, this display of stealth did not fool the Medic cashier, who saw me as I approached the door and said (very sternly), "Young man! Come here! Come here right now!" Or some such thing. I couldn't believe she had foiled my plan.

With knees trembling and a bladder threatening to expel its contents (I was not a kid who got into trouble often...I wasn't sure how to handle this), I walked over to the cashier and produced the vampire blood from under my sweatshirt. She told me to wait there while she walked to the back of the store to get the manager.

That was bad enough. But things got exponentially worse when one of the customers who was waiting to check out – an older gentleman, as I recall – looked at me and said, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" I was mortified. I will never forget those words or how he said them.

At that moment, I pretty much panicked. There was no way I was waiting for the cashier to return with the store manager, so I made a run for it. I just dashed out the door and ran all the way to Drenik Drive and hid behind some bushes.

Now, you'll recall that I wasn't alone. Mike was with me. I hadn't clued in Mike on my escape plan, and I guess I just assumed that he would take off with me. But only when I jumped behind the bushes did I realize he wasn't there. And that my situation had probably just gone from bad to worse.

I waited a few minutes and then saw Mike coming down the street. I jumped out and asked him what happened. In a trembling voice, he told me he had to give the store manager my name and phone number, Which I totally get. I know he felt bad, but we were nine. What was Mike going to do? You're not smart enough at that age, in that situation, to come up with any sort of elaborate lie.

So that was it. My fate was sealed. I was pretty much dead. No doubt, by the time I got home, the Medic people would have called my mom to tell her what I had done. I honestly don't remember if I went straight home to get it over with or whether I stalled or what.

But I do remember eventually walking in through the back door and seeing my mom sitting at her sewing machine in the living room. And Mom lifting her head and looking at me for a moment. Oh man. That look. It wasn't so much anger as extreme disappointment. That's way, way worse than anger. That's the you-let-me-down-I-thought-you-knew-better face. Agony.

I immediately burst into tears. Mom scolded me for a few minutes. She didn't yell, just...scolded. It was terrible. And then I asked her not to tell my dad, and to my amazement, she said she wouldn't. As far as I know, she may never have told him. I could have hugged her on the spot. And I should have.

Anyway, there is no point to this story other than that I can tell you I never remember trying to steal anything again. The thought of standing there in Medic waiting for the store manager to come, and feeling ashamed just like that old man said, was enough to keep me on the straight and narrow.

And to this day, I've never actually had a tube of vampire blood. I should go out and BUY some, just for the satisfaction of knowing I finally got it the right way.

WHY did you have kids?

No one has ever asked me this, but it only now occurs to me that I have no good answer to the question of why Terry and I had kids in the first place.

Why DID we have kids? And why five? I don't know that there was much conscious thought on either point. There was, frankly, a certain element of, "Well, we're married. We're young. Having kids is what you're supposed to do next."

But who says that's what you're supposed to do next? God, I guess. "Be fruitful and multiply" and all that. But it's certainly not a requirement for living a happy and fulfilling life. Lots and lots of people are childless and perfectly content (or "child-free," as many like to say, as if having kids is some sort of disease...which for them it may well seem to be, and that's fine).

Beyond the "life momentum" thing, though, why have kids? What prompts someone to do that? I think there's a certain level of vanity to it. It's the biological equivalent of saying, "You know what? I'm a pretty good person. The world would be a better place if there were a few more people running around who look and presumably act just like me."

NOTE TO WOULD-BE PARENTS: It doesn't always work that way. Your children may resemble one or both of you, but there's no guarantee they'll act the way you want them to act. I got lucky. Or I should say I was blessed. I happen to have ended up with good kids, due mostly to the tireless efforts of Terry to civilize the little beasts.

There's also probably a degree of curiosity to it. "I wonder what it would be like to have a baby. Or a toddler. Or an adolescent. Or a teenager. Or a young adult. Or all of the above." Unfortunately, the only way to truly answer these questions is actually to experience parenthood. And if you happen to find that you're not particularly good at it, or that it doesn't suit you, you're kind of stuck with the kid. Chalk it up to child protection laws and societal norms and whatnot.

Financially, kids can be a huge drain, though the U.S. tax code is written such that they serve as valuable deductions when you're filling out the ol' Form 1040. In the end, though, you spend far more money on them than you ever get back.

Truly, the payoff to having kids is intangible. I've written about it many times and won't go into it here, but suffice to say that I would never, ever change a thing about the decisions Terry and I have made when it comes to having children. It is an incredible experience that has made me a far better person.

Why did I have kids? I don't know. But the rewards are amazing.

If you have grandparents in your life, you should feel blessed

Sometime in the perhaps-not-too-distant future, I'm going to become a grandfather.

That used to mean that you were irretrievably old. It was partially a result of shorter lifespans, and partially a result of a life spent at hard labor that would age you faster than maybe nature intended.

But nowadays, the most youthful people become grandparents. I know people younger than me who have been grandpas and grandmas for years. Sometimes it's due to a teen pregnancy, while other times it's maybe because you had a child when you were relatively young and now your own child is doing the same.

I only ever had one grandparent in my life, and that was my mom's mom, Grandma Cumberledge. I only saw her a few times a year because she lived four hours from us, but she was always, always extra nice to me. We would go back and visit her, and before we left for home she would slip me a couple of bucks and say, "Now don't you tell your mother I'm giving you this." (But my mom would always know anyway because, you know, moms somehow know absolutely everything you do.)

Both of my father's parents passed away before I was born, and my Grandpa Cumberledge died when I was a year or two old, so I never knew him.

My Grandma Cumberledge, who died in 1984, would have been 116 years old tomorrow, had she somehow managed to stay alive after bearing 10 children and working hard every day for decades. I think of her every January 30th.

Anyway, if you have grandparents still around, or if you at least have positive memories of a grandparent, then consider yourself blessed. They're a lot more valuable than we tend to give them credit for.