Have a knuckle-cracking Christmas

"Winter break" provides family units with such a prolonged period of intense togetherness, it's a wonder we don't all kill one another.

The kids are home from school for what seems like 17 weeks. Adults who normally would be busy with work get some free days for relaxing and reveling and gaining weight together. Because it's cold outside, the whole family's under the same roof much of the time.

Everything feels a bit off. Routines are disrupted. Social calendars are full. Thoughts are scattered. The kids are antsy. People keep tripping over the dog. The TV is too loud. What's that smell?

Different energy levels bouncing around in the same space create friction. Some of us are slobs; some want to decorate the Kleenex boxes. Some see a vacation and want to go, go, go, while others see it as time for lying perfectly still. We're like cars on a busy street, all going different speeds. Bound to be a few fender benders.

All the togetherness reminds us that even the nicest people have annoying little habits that could wear on anyone, given enough exposure. Repeated sniffing, say. Clearing one's throat 2,309 times per day. If you're stuck in a house all day with a knuckle-cracker or a gum-snapper or a Twitter user, your thoughts might turn to ho-ho-homicide.

Take something as harmless as a Christmas carol. The song gets stuck in a person's mind, like a jumbo thorn, so he goes around singing it all the time. Except he doesn't really know the words, so it sounds like this: "Joy to the WORLD, la-da, la-DAH." Over and over. For two weeks. Until -- snap! -- someone makes a headline.

Minor vices, such as leaving the cap off the toothpaste or the newspaper in disarray, can be ignored for days, but eventually someone will speak up, and the new year is welcomed with fireworks.

(The Murphy's Law winter break guarantee: Whether you prefer the toilet seat up or down, it will always be the wrong way. Mention this to the others at your peril.)

As the winter days of togetherness wear on, we start to see loved ones' quirks as being intentionally annoying. We start perceiving motives.

"She knows she's doing that," he mutters. "She could stop any time. But no, she keeps doing it, because she knows it drives me crazy. She's just getting even because I--"

From the next room: "What's that, dear?"

"Nothing!"

But it's not nothing. It's the beginning. Pretty soon, the couple is locked in an escalating passive-aggressive loop: If she's going to crack her gum, he thinks, then I can pop my knuckles and sniffle as much as I want. She counters with an impressive symphony of tuneless whistling, trying to drown out his honking nose. Which, naturally, forces him to play Neil Young on the stereo, because she HATES that reedy voice. So she runs the vacuum cleaner. He gets a wrench and removes the toilet seat altogether and--

Whoa, whoa. Take a deep breath there, partner. It's always like this at winter break. It'll be fine once we get out of the house, and we're all exposed to smaller doses of our mutual foibles.

The adults go back to work, where our nervous habits can annoy our colleagues instead of our relatives. The kids go back to school and annoy their teachers. The dog gets some rest.

Soon, we're back in our well-worn ruts. Ready for another year.

Together.

Everybody awake? How about now?

Regular readers may recall that I like to watch DVDs while walking on the Dreadmill in my garage, but this activity is not without its hazards.

Because I'm trying to hear the movie over the thumping Dreadmill, I keep the volume up high, even though I work out in the cool of the morning. My neighbors have been very understanding.

But this week I plugged in the DVD of a movie called "Surveillance," a strange crime drama directed by Jennifer Lynch. The movie opens with an extremely violent attack on a couple in bed; the woman gets away and runs off down the highway, only to be chased by a pickup. The whole time, this woman screams at the top of her lungs.

I'm sure my neighbors thought someone was being slaughtered at the Brewers' house. Again.

After I fumbled for the remote control and got it pointed the right way and the audio turned down, I could only wonder: What was that movie moment like in a theater, in Dolby SurroundSound? Did viewers flee screaming with their hands over their ears?

Building distractions

I was still on my first cup of coffee when I heard men shouting and the grumble of machinery outside.

I went to the front window, and found that the street was lined by trucks and other equipment. Not one, but two backhoes were being unloaded from trailers. Through sheer deductive reasoning (and the company logo on the nearest truck), I surmised that my neighbor across the way was getting a swimming pool.

Which meant my workday here in the old home office had just been shot to hell.

Neighborhood construction brings all work to a halt for office rats like me. It's not just the noise; we've got headphones and "ear buds" to block that out. It's the overall commotion. Things are happening out there, men are doing things and machines are growling and beeping. The very earth itself is being shoveled up and hauled away. How can I focus on my computer screen when real men are doing real work right over there? Shouldn't I go watch?

Yes, I should. And there go the next several hours.

A lot of us guys never got over the sandbox. Give us some Tonka toys and a pile of dirt and pretty soon we're crawling around, sputtering vroom-vroom noises. Show us a construction site, and we’re set for hours, just watching.

The construction process is the magic of something from nothing. A concrete result, so different from the ephemera that most of us generate all day. It's simply fascinating to guys, which is why they cut peepholes in fences around big-city building sites.

Most of the time, I can withstand the siren song of the Caterpillar. But when construction comes right to my own neighborhood, it's too compelling to ignore. Workmen swoop in like the team from "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," bringing bulldozers and dump trucks and concrete pumps. Churning up dust and noise.

And I'm there at the window, staring at the bustle like it was ESPN.

There's the obvious allure of heavy machinery. But there's another dirty little truth at work here, too: Nothing is more satisfying than watching honest, hard, sweaty work being performed by someone else.

At the last house we owned, we paid some guys to build a large covered patio in our back yard. The floor of the patio was brick, and the bricklayers spent days on their knees, under a brutal sun. I felt sympathy for the poor devils, sure, maybe even a little guilt because I was indoors in the air-conditioning while they suffered. But I couldn’t tear myself away from that window.

Then there was the day I looked up from my desk to find a man dangling on ropes in my neighbor's towering elm trees. He swung like Tarzan from limb to limb, lopping off branches with a screaming half-sized chainsaw. Guys on the ground gathered up the fallen limbs and fed them into a big yellow -- grrrzzzzzt! -- shredder. Oh, my.

Grrrzzzzzt! There went my productivity.

Eventually, I was forced to ask: What kind of man was I, sitting all day at a keyboard, peck-peck-peck, while real men were out doing manly jobs like bricklaying and chainsaw trapeze?

What kind of man was I? The air-conditioned kind, that's what. The kind who'd rather remain seated indoors, thanks very much. I'll take cool and safe. Nobody ever cut his arm off, typing.

But I'm always happy to watch the Construction Channel when it happens by. Forget about lost man-hours. Make popcorn.

Yak in the office

For the past two years, my wife and I have shared a home office, and I’m pretty sure she’s heard enough.

I’ve always been something of a blabbermouth, but I spent much of the previous decade working in solitude and silence. Well, not exactly silence. I’d talk all day long, even though there was no one home but me and the dog. Mostly, this steady spiel consisted of cussing at the computer and the various vicissitudes of daily life.

I didn’t recognize that I’d fallen into this habit because there were no humans around to clear their throats and give me disapproving looks. The dog didn’t mind because he was asleep the whole time.

Since my wife started working at home, I've had to tone down the chatter. She kept thinking something was wrong because of all the cussing and muttering, when in fact it was just the usual stuff. (She has the same problem with my reaction to traffic, which is why we often arrive in separate vehicles.)

I’d forgotten what it’s like to have co-workers. People who are trying to get some work done don’t want you nattering at them all the time, even if they are your beloved spouse of 25 years. No, they’d really rather that you shut up and let them concentrate.

In our home office, we sit facing opposite directions. This is the perfect position for tossing wisecracks over one’s shoulder like spilled salt, but it’s not the best position for listening to the other person. Much of our conversation goes like this:

He: Wisecrack.
She: What?
He: Repeated wisecrack.
She: I still can’t hear you.
He turns all the way around, repeats the phrase again, but now it’s lost its verve.
She: Oh. Ha-ha.
He: Never mind.
She: Now what’s wrong?
He: Mumble.
She: What?

It goes on like that until one of us decides it’s time to go to the far end of the house for more coffee or something.

It’s also been more than a decade since I’ve had a boss looking over my shoulder. My wife assures me she doesn’t wish to play that role, yet I feel compelled to report my whereabouts at all times. I tell her when I’m going to the kitchen/shower/garage/yard/store/out to lunch/to take a nap. She keeps saying she doesn’t need to know, but I tell her anyway. This information could come in handy if she found herself in sudden need of a mumbled wisecrack.

Sometimes, my wife leaves our home office to give her ears a rest. She takes her laptop computer to the dining room. That doesn’t deter me, of course. I yell things the length of the house, so she can say “what?” some more.

With the mobility afforded by the laptop, she can leave the house altogether and still get her work done. Sometimes, she even tells me that she’s leaving so I don’t sit around like an idiot, yakking and expecting answers.

You might see her around town, sitting at a coffee shop, pounding away on her tiny keyboard. If you do, please send her home. I’ve got some things I need to tell her.

Grumpy, jumpy and jangled

I’ve got nerves that jingle, jangle, jingle.

Too much daily coffee and a tightly wound nervous system make me jumpy, particularly if I’m in a bad mood or trying to concentrate.

(Funny how often those two things go together. Do bad moods make concentration more difficult? Does concentration put me in a bad mood? Is that why my head hurts? What’s it to you? Grrr.)

Anyway, I’m frequently on edge, and that means a certain amount of wear-and-tear on my family, who must put up with having in their midst a person with the emotional constitution of Don Knotts.

My nerves apparently lie near the surface because it’s so easy to get on them, and my startle response is strong. I often react to everyday events like a skittish kitten. Surprises send me straight up in the air. Bad news can leave me reeling. Even an unexpected phone call can make me grouchy and tense.

Sudden loud noises occur in any household. But in our house, they result in even louder noises as I curse and spume and clutch at my heart. Normal people react to sudden noises with a brief start, perhaps followed by a chuckle. But for us uptight types, the clatter of a dropped pan is a perfectly good excuse for cardiac arrest and/or a phone call to Homeland Security.

The noise doesn’t even have to be sudden to be debilitating. Regular sounds can move from normal to annoying in the twitch of an eye.

Let’s say I’m writing something (which would be, oh, any given day of my life). Now let’s say someone is talking nearby. On the phone, in person, it doesn’t matter. Harmless casual chitchat. To me, the sound might as well be the scream of a power drill against my skull. Pretty soon, I’m typing gibberish. Or, shall I say, even more gibberish-y than usual. (Hah, beat you to it.)

I should be able to tune out noise. For years, I worked in newspaper newsrooms which, in those days, were noisy, smoky, rowdy places, full of practical jokes, clanging phones, loud arguments and the occasional small fire.

(Since computers and political correctness came around, newsrooms tend to be about as rowdy as banks, but that’s a complaint for another day.)

I was still a testy type, and a few newsrooms have dented file cabinets to prove it, but I learned to work through the hubbub. Once, I was on a roll and kept writing after the fire alarms went off. I only left my desk because my superiors demanded that I go outside.

But I got spoiled. Twelve years ago, I left newsrooms behind and started working all by myself. Working at home, I was able to control my environment. If there was a loud noise during the day, it was one I made myself and I usually knew it was coming.

After school hours, I still had the thrill of noisy young men, with their electric guitars and minor emergencies, in my home, but for several hours a day, it was just me and our sleepy dog.
That changed when my wife started working at home, too. She’s much busier than I am, and the phone rings constantly, and people come and go, and pans clatter in the kitchen. She can’t understand why I’m so jumpy and grumpy all the time.

It’s not me, I tell her, it’s my jangled nerves. They’re scaredy-cats.

The noise of summer

Now that warm weather is upon us, we can annoy our neighbors much more than we did in winter.

We spend more time outside. We work in the yard. We throw open our windows to summer breezes. And we share with our neighbors all the ballgame-cheering, door-slamming, music-playing, loud burping and intrahousehold shouting that we'd normally keep to ourselves.

In many neighborhoods, houses are built so close together that residents can reach out their windows and shake hands with people next door. When those windows are open, neighbors hear conversations and spats and other interactions they'd really, really rather not hear.

In such places, you must be careful when you call your children inside for dinner. You can end up feeding every kid on the block.

In my current suburb, there are fences between houses and the facing windows mostly aren't the kind that open. But I remember once, a couple of houses ago, when I thought a neighbor was shouting for help, when she really was hollering at her daughter. Fortunately, I realized my mistake before I dialed 911.

Years ago, when I lived in an apartment, a concerned neighbor knocked on the door while I had friends over.

"Is everything all right over here?" he asked. "I heard screaming."

My answer: "Dude. It's the playoffs."

In such close quarters, you learn which TV shows your neighbors enjoy, what music they like, which teams they root for. Almost always, these tastes will be the direct opposite of your own. If you're considering a relocation, you should ask potential neighbors: "Do you like bagpipe music?" If the answer is yes, immediately look elsewhere.

Those of us who work at home are especially susceptible to these warm-weather disturbances. We're trying to concentrate, trying to conduct business, and all we can hear are the kids down the street shrieking in a swimming pool. Yes, those kids are cute and, yes, that water's cold, but dang, we're trying to work here.

In my neighborhood, many people use lawn services. These services naturally operate during business hours, which is perfect for the residents who go to regular jobs. They never even see their lawn people. They come home from work, and, shazam, their grass is magically shorter and well-groomed.

But we work-at-home types get to hear all the mowers and blowers and weed-whackers. As those old TV commercials used to say, "That's not helping my headache."

Once, I was trying to write when a construction crew showed up down the street to install a swimming pool. The workers spent the day heaving large rocks into the back of a dump truck. Boom, boom, bang. As if that weren't bad enough, one burly worker entertained his colleagues by singing at the top of his lungs all day, and let's just say you won't see him on "American Idol" anytime soon. It was one of those times when I was glad I don't own a gun.

Not that we're guilt-free at my house. My sons crank up the volume when they're playing guitars, and their, um, performances probably aren't to the taste of the neighbors, if you get my drift. We've been known to throw noisy patio parties. And we have the loudest air conditioner in the neighborhood; it apparently wants to be a 747 when it grows up. Fortunately, our neighbors are tolerant types.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go back out to the patio. I'm barbecuing a bagpipe.

Tykes on a plane

The skies are less friendly when you’re flying with children.

Air travel these days is tough enough, what with all the canceled flights and baggage charges and people who insist on barbecuing goats for their in-flight meals. Throw a few screaming children into the mix, and you can soon find your brains leaking out your ears.

Or, you could get thrown off the plane altogether.

That happened to a Seattle family last year. A woman and her four children (including two with disabilities) were flying Southwest Airlines from Detroit to Seattle, changing planes in Phoenix. The mom admitted her children had been unruly on the Detroit-to-Phoenix leg, but she was shocked when Phoenix police told her the family wouldn’t be allowed on the Southwest flight to Seattle.

Wendy Slaughter and her kids were stranded in Phoenix until the children’s grandmother ponied up $2,000 to get them last-minute tickets on Alaska Airlines. After the news media got hold of the story, Southwest Airlines contacted the family and said it would refund the entire cost of their one-way tickets.

Several things about that story reflect the troubling state of air travel:

--The family said they were warned twice about the disruptive children, but were never told they could get booted from their next flight.

--The police were called because of unruly children?

--These people were flying from Detroit to Seattle via Phoenix. That’s approximately 42,000 miles out of the way. No wonder the kids got antsy.

--The airline offered a refund only after the family was safely back home.

Though it probably was no joy to be sitting near them, my sympathies are with the family. I’ve traveled with small children and it’s no picnic even when the kids are on their best behavior.

In fact, air travel presents one of the few occasions where I concede that it’s much easier to be the parents of teens than of smaller children. At least teens can put on their I-Pods and tune everybody out and be their usual inert, surly selves for the duration of the flight.

With little kids, everything about flying goes against the grain:

--They have to sit still.

--They’re supposed to be quiet.

--Pressurized cabins make their ears hurt, resulting in shrieking.

--They’re surrounded by strangers.

--Their parents act weird because they’re worried about the children disturbing others. Kids sense that discomfort, the same way horses sense fear, and react accordingly.

When I fly these days, I usually jam foam noise-suppressors into my ears so the shrieking kids (and chattering adults) don’t bother me. But I’m still reminded occasionally how much easier it is to travel without the little beggars along.

Recently, I was sitting in an airport across from a dad and his five-year-old son. Dad, sensing that something was wrong, patted the kid’s back, asking him if he felt okay. The boy responded by throwing up. A lot.

Dad suddenly had several problems to solve. His day had taken a difficult turn.

Since I was traveling alone, I performed the Business Traveler’s Special: I offered a sympathetic look, then picked up my briefcase and relocated to a different part of the terminal, pausing only to thank my lucky stars that my kids have grown up.

Should call him 'Lucky'

What do you call a guy who's trying to create his own rocket fuel? Ronald Swerlein of Longmont, CO, calls himself a "nerd." But the authorities have another name for him: "inmate."

Swerlein has pleaded innocent to 10 felonies after police found weapons, ammunition and more than 400 chemicals in his home. The cache included half a pound of the main ingredient in dynamite.

Police searched the home after numerous complaints about fireworks, shots or explosions heard in the neighborhood.

Just the kind of guy you want living next door.

Full story here.

Yuck-a-doo, it's a splut

Do you have spluts at your house?

Bet you do. You might not know it. Or, you might know spluts by another name. But you've got 'em.

Go look in the kitchen. Somewhere on that floor, no matter how recently you've mopped, there'll be a little splash-shaped sticky spot. That's a splut.

A splut begins its life as a simple drop. Juice, maybe. Spaghetti sauce. Some other substance produced by pets and/or teen-agers. Because of that old devil gravity, the substance reaches the floor, where it accumulates passing grime. Eventually, the splut becomes a noticeable smudge, growing ever blacker until somebody scrubs it away.

You won't find "splut" in the dictionary, but that's what we call those sticky spots at our house. Maybe you do, too. Or maybe you have your own word for spluts.

Families tend to accumulate made-up words like "splut" over time. Individual incidents inspire them, as do the peculiar behaviors of friends and relatives. If I said somebody "pulled an Uncle Charlie," many of you would smile and nod. Most of you would be thinking about different Charlies (presumably), but something each Charlie did slipped into the family vernacular, and it's been called an Uncle Charlie ever since.

Some families have secret languages of nonsense words, used to identify everything from favorite toys to favorite body parts. "Booboo" might mean "injury" at your house, but to your neighbors it's a bodily function and to the people across the street, it's their sweet immigrant grandma. Put these families together and say, "I gave their Booboo a booboo while she was taking a booboo," and it could mean most anything.

My family adopted "wobblywad" from a magazine. You know when a table wobbles, and you fold up a napkin or a matchbook cover and you put it under one leg to steady the table? That wadded-up leveling device is a "wobblywad."

Years ago, after a small electrical fire in the condo we rented, the landlord hired a cleaning service to get the smoke smell out of everything. The cleaning service owner took one look at our smoky home, threw his hands in the air and exclaimed, "Yuck-a-doo!"

We've used "yuck-a-doo" to respond to every gross or disgusting thing that's happened around our home since. It's gotten used a lot; we have boys.

The strangest one goes back to before we had kids, to when my wife and I lived in San Francisco. Our apartment's kitchen was small, but it was lined with more ceramic tile than the space shuttle. My wife was in the kitchen. I was around the corner, in my traditional spot, sprawled on the living room sofa.

My wife shouted something. I didn't hear her clearly, so I said, "What?" She repeated it. I still couldn't make it out. "What?"

This went on a few more times before she stalked into the living room and said, "What do you THINK I said?"

"I don't know, hon," I said, carefully. "From in here, it sounded like 'Eep-a-deep.'"

Situation defused. She fell out, laughing.

Ever since, when people yell at each other from opposite ends of the house, with resulting miscommunications, we call that "Eep-a-deep."

Only one problem: Neither of us can remember now what the original phrase was. What was she yelling from the kitchen? "Time to eat?" "Need a treat?" "Eat a beet?" "Beep a beef?"

Who knows? But "eep-a-deep" lives on.

Next week: How to clean up spluts with a "footrag."

Break the ice with small talk

If you want to succeed in business or most any other endeavor, you must master the art of small talk.

Most pursuits involve interaction with other human beings, whether they be employers or coworkers or customers, and those humans will judge you on your ability to keep up a conversation about, um, nothing.

Some people think you should only speak when you have something important to say. We call these quiet types “the unemployed.” Others are shy, and it truly pains them to speak up. But they must overcome their reticence unless they intend to work their whole lives as “mimes.”

Speaking of the French, the term “small talk” originated in France, where it’s known as “un petit palaver.” The French are famous for their ability to talk endlessly about nothing at all, but we should remember that they are drunk on red wine, which tends to make people talk too much and wear berets.

You don’t have to be French to become a “maestro” of small talk. Anyone can do it, given practice and the right mental outlook. (Red wine doesn’t hurt, though take care not to overdo it. It’s a fine line between scintillating chat and drunken blather. Ask any waitress.)

The secret to small talk is to ask questions. People love to talk about themselves, and as long as you can stay awake during their answers, they’ll come away thinking you’re a charismatic, intelligent person who sincerely cares about others. As we all know, if you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.

How to get started? Small talk usually begins with “icebreaker” questions that are simple, direct and innocent of underlying intent. Questions as easy as “What’s your name?“ or “Where are you from?” open avenues for small talk. As you become comfortable with those, you can move up to more involved questions, such as “What can I do for you today?” or “How about this weather?” or “Where did you get that nifty beret?”

Once the ice is broken, follow the other person’s lead. This requires “listening.” If you pay attention to what the other person says, it’ll naturally lead to other questions that help maintain the conversation. Questions such as “Anything else?” or “Hot enough for you?” or “Are you French?”

Advanced small-talkers pick up cues from the environment. In an office setting, look for family photos, framed diplomas or evidence of hobbies to find common ground. These cues can lead to questions such as “Are those your children?” or “Oh, so you graduated from technical school?” or “Do you enjoy fishing?” (Caution: Be prepared for hours of tedium if you ask, “Is that a picture of your car?”)

You want to get personal, but not too personal. Inappropriate questions can lead to embarrassment, demotion, even unemployment. Some examples:

“What happened to your hair?”
“How come your children don’t look like you?”
“How about them Cowboys?”
“Can’t you have that removed?”
“What’s that smell? Is that you?”
“Did you vote for that idiot?”
“Is that red wine in your coffee cup? At this hour?”
“How’d you like a kick in the butt, frog-face?”

Remember to keep it simple. Not too deep. You’re not jumping into the conversational ocean here. Small talk is like a spring-swollen stream -- shallow and swift. Steer clear of inappropriate questions and really listen to what others say, and you’ll do fine.

If you find yourself stuck in a conversational corner, try this: “Parlez vous Francais?”

Bulldozer blues

You might assume that one advantage of working at home would be the peace and quiet that comes from having no blustery bosses or loud machinery or gossiping coworkers nearby.

Not so. Even the best-equipped home office can be surrounded by noise and distraction.

I was constantly reminded of this after we moved into our current subdivision. My office may be the house's one quiet refuge -- particularly when the children are home -- but the neighborhood itself was a construction zone.

All day, I was serenaded by the roar of heavy equipment and the woodpecker-chatter of hammers and the beep-beep-beep of trucks backing up.

The large, arched window in my home office seemed one of the new house's best attractions, easy access to long hours of staring outside and goofing off. But the window provides no barricade to the construction noise. Instead, it seems to funnel every grumble and beep straight into my brain.

I should've known it would be this way. When we bought this house, it was clear that several surrounding homes weren't finished yet. Plus, the subdivision is called Bulldozer Heights, which ought to have been a clue.

Not that the new neighborhood should be any different from anywhere else I've ever lived. I was born in the peak year of the Baby Boom, which means I've been hammered by construction noise my whole life as facilities were built or enlarged to accommodate the population bulge.

Every school I attended was in the process of being expanded to cope with the growing number of students. One whole year of high school was spent with a three-story-high piledriver whanging away outside my classroom windows. No wonder I never mastered algebra.

While students at other colleges amused themselves with Frisbees and beer busts, the main activity at my university was dodging front-end loaders.

Every office where I've ever worked -- except one -- was filled with the plaster dust and smelly paint and jackhammer noise of constant renovation.

(The one office that was finished by the time I arrived was a strictly regimented world with dozens of rules aimed at preserving the new carpet from spills. Since the new carpet stank like, well, like new carpet, it was all I could do not to deliberately pour coffee all over my cubicle.)

Each apartment or house where I've lived -- even ones in established neighborhoods -- was the scene of construction or reconstruction or renovation. If all the buildings in the area were finished, then I could count on city workers to come by and start tearing up the streets. Crash, crunch, beep, beep, beep.

Yes, I blame this lifetime of noise on being part of the most populous generation. More people has meant steady construction to make room for all of us. That construction has meant noise. And that, my friends, is the real reason they call it the Baby BOOM.

Alas, you can't stand in the way of progress. Well, you can, but if you hear a beep-beep-beep, you might want to run the other direction.

Someday, all the construction noise will grind to a halt, both nationwide and here in the neighborhood. Smaller succeeding generations mean we'll eventually have all the houses and other buildings we need.

Then, no doubt, it'll be time to tear up the streets.

Rockin' the hood

Draft of a note to be delivered to every household on our block:

Dear neighbors,

We're terribly sorry, but our 14-year-old son has taken up the electric guitar.

We recognize that our quiet neighborhood may never be the same. But we believe music education is important to a child's development, and we more or less forced him to choose an instrument.

Naturally, he selected the electric guitar. It's the weapon of choice in the culture wars exemplified by his favorite music.

This kid rocks around-the-clock to bands so loud and aggressive, his room sounds like a busy afternoon in Baghdad. Not only does he enjoy contemporary acts of thunder-and-screaming, but he's very much into punk music recorded before he was born, acts such as the Dead Kennedys and the Sex Pistols.

He already dressed the part of a punk rocker, complete with studded belts and black sneakers and a jacket covered in safety pins. His room usually looks like the aftermath of a post-concert party. And, rock music is the only way to explain why he wears his hair that way. All he needed to complete the image was a guitar.

So, as an early Christmas gift, he got a gold-colored knock-off of the famed Fender Stratocaster, an amplifier and a year of weekly music lessons.

Along with this bounty, we gave him specific instructions to keep the amp turned down low. We carefully police his in-home performances for high decibel levels, but we're not always here and we won't be surprised if, one day, we come home to find he's blown all the windows out of the house with one overamped power chord.

For this, let us apologize in advance. We only hope this amplified attack doesn't take out your windows, too. Or your ability to hear.

You, our neighbors, have been very understanding in the past. You never said a word when our younger son started playing the piano. You sat mum through those warm summer nights when the windows were open and he played "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" a record 937 times in a row.

But a piano's no electric guitar. While a piano can be loud, particularly in the hands of an excitable 11-year-old, it can't reach down the street and poke out the ears of unwary passers-by like a fully cranked-up guitar.

In our defense, it could've been worse. Our older son could've settled upon a band instrument instead of his golden guitar. The trumpet, say, or a honking saxophone. At least, with an electric guitar, there's always the option of pulling his plug if the noise becomes unbearable. Try that with a trumpet sometime.

Of course, with a budding guitarist and a keyboard player in the house, there's the possibility the boys will put aside their usual differences and form a "garage band." Should this tragedy occur, we will alert you to the rehearsals ahead of time, so you can make plans to go somewhere quieter, such as a monster truck rally.

If the "music" emanating from our house ever becomes too much to tolerate, we ask that you don't call the police. Please contact us instead. Just stop by the house and let us know.

We promise we'll take your objections in the neighborly way they're intended, and we will sheepishly take remedial action.

Assuming we can hear you ringing the doorbell.

With our sincere regrets,

The Brewers

(Editor's note: Nearly five years after this column first appeared, our older son not only still plays the guitar, he's thinking about majoring in music. He's into a more acoustic, Grateful Dead sort of sound now, better for begging spare change.)

Warning: Reading this could be bad for you

The most disturbing thing I've read recently came from a carton of eggs.

Along with the usual hype about the eggs being "Grade AA" and "all natural" and "really, really good for you, despite what your doctor says," was this item, in red letters: "Vegetarian-fed hens."

I can't get this phrase out of my mind. Aren't chickens, by their very nature, vegetarians? Are there packs of carnivorous hens running around, hunting prey? Does it mean the hens are hand-fed by vegetarians? Or, scariest of all, the hens devour actual vegetarians, which raises the carnivore question again.

If "vegetarian-fed hens" is meant as a sale pitch, it fails miserably. It reminds us that eggs come from the nether regions of chickens, which, let's face it, we're trying not to think about when we sit down to breakfast. If it's meant as a warning, then shouldn't it be clearer? Should we be cautioning our vegetarian friends to steer clear of hens?

We've gone crazy with warning labels in this country. Manufacturers are so afraid of being sued, they warn us against ever using their products. Owners' manuals contain page after page cautioning against electric shocks and other potential disasters. Even advertising, the last bastion of institutionalized lying, is chock-full of warnings.

It began with cigarettes -- the "Surgeon General's Warning" on every pack, telling us tobacco smoke causes lung cancer, birth defects, heart disease, bad vibes, etc. At first, those warnings probably helped get the word out. But do they do any good now? Are there any smokers left who don't know cigarettes are bad for you? If so, we'd like the address of the cave they've been living in since 1967. We'll drop them a line.

Warning labels have gone far beyond such obvious health risks. The latest one to trouble me was on our minivan. The very long label begins: "WARNING: Motor vehicles contain chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects . . ."

Oh, so it's not drunk drivers that should worry us. It's the chemicals in the upholstery.

You can't turn on a TV these days without being offered prescription drugs. Drug companies spent $2.7 BILLION on "direct-to-consumer" advertising in 2001, according to the federal General Accounting Office. And we wonder why prescription drugs cost so much.

Yet the commercials contain so many warnings about side-effects, it's a wonder anyone takes the drugs. Yes, the product might help your allergies, but taking it could give you a worse disease or make you grow antlers.

I recently saw an ad for a drug that purports to battle "acid reflux." The side-effects included "headaches, diarrhea and abdominal pain." Now wait a minute: Isn't that what "acid reflux" is? Abdominal pain?

Consumers drive the American economy and, yes, we should be warned when products are dangerous. But nothing's risk-free. Shouldn't we consumers be given credit for a little common sense? Shouldn't we be spared some of these warnings? And, for Pete's sake, shouldn't we stop suing fast-food companies because their grease-dripping hamburgers made us fat?

We need to halt this tidal wave of lawsuits and warning labels, though we might need to post the following in chicken coops nationwide: "Warning -- Eating vegetarians can cause abdominal pain."

Soothing the savage beasts

No matter how much we love our children, all parents need a break now and then.

At times, the kids drive us a little crazy. Too much togetherness, too much chatter, too many demands cause wear-and-tear on the old psyche. If the parent doesn't get a pause in the action, the parent's brain can snap like an overstretched rubber band.

Children know this, of course. They're born with an instinct that tells them when parents are at their wits' end. This instinct compels the children to take action at these times -- they become louder, clingier, needier. They glom onto the parent like barnacles onto a pier, assuming barnacles could shriek at 138 decibels, "He's TOUCHING me!"

(This instinct is the same one that kicks in whenever a parent gets an important phone call. Wondering where your children are? Pick up the phone. They'll swarm you like moths around a porch light. Shrieking moths.)

It's nearly impossible for parents to counteract this native instinct. You can calmly explain to your children that you need a few moments of quiet, but this will cause them to dance around you, screaming. You can threaten them through clenched teeth, but this will only result in unnecessary dental bills. You can try running away, only to find that they're faster than you.

But I've found one way to get a little distance from the kids -- singing. That's right, singing. If you can unclench your jaw long enough to let loose with a song, the children will go find something else to do, at least for a while.

It's not that the kids are soothed by the music. It's not that they grasp that singing is a signal for them to play elsewhere. It's not even a matter of them recognizing that you're about to snap. No, singing chases away the children because they can't stand your music. If you start belting out a golden oldie (which, to kids, is anything recorded before 1997), they'll go find someone else to annoy. Someone who won't annoy them right back by singing.

(This works best if, like me, you are a bad singer who can cause wallpaper to bubble when you try to hit the high notes. But even operatic divas could make use of this technique.)

Here's how it works:

Step 1: Parent, driven to distraction by loud, demanding children, realizes that s/he needs a few moments alone. After trying several approaches, all of which make the kids louder and more demanding, the parent starts to tightly hum a song, something classic like "My Boyfriend's Back" or "Born to be Wild."

Step 2: Children will appear puzzled at first, and smiles will dance about their jelly-stained faces. What is this sound? What could it mean? Is the parent inexplicably happy? Or, does the singing indicate the parent has finally gone insane? Parent, remembering the words now, starts running through the lyrics.

Step 3: Parent sings louder as s/he gets to the chorus. The children aren't smiling anymore. They stop whining about whatever was bugging them before and start whining something along the lines of "OK, parental unit, that's enough. You can stop singing now."

Step 4: Parent sings louder, maybe even dances around the room a little while swinging hips. Children back away, their eyes wide and their mouths hanging open. The horror, the horror.

Step 5: As children beg the parent to stop, the parent sings ever louder, clapping hands rhythmically, snapping fingers, playing "air guitar," generally making a jackass of self. Children are mortified.

Step 6: As the song reaches a crescendo, the children make gagging noises, clap their hands over their ears and sprint from the room.

Step 7: Parent, still singing, peeks around corner to make sure children are gone.

Step 8: Parent, finally alone, stops singing, takes a deep breath and revels in a moment of quiet.

Repeat as necessary. You can always replace the wallpaper.

The noise of summer

At the end of every school year, we who stay home with the kids face one certainty: It's about to get a lot louder around the house.

In summer, homes fill with round-the-clock chatter, along with the shrieks and threats of sibling interaction, soon followed by the crashes and "uh-ohs" of the latest spill. It can be distracting, but we work-at-home parents carefully tune out all these sounds while we concentrate on our calendars, counting the days until school resumes.

Noise radiates off children the way heat waves rise from car roofs. Kids can't help it. They're easily excited, and there's so much to be excited about. To them, the world is a brand-new place, full of wonder and adventure and siblings who'll squeal when you pinch them. All these discoveries mean that kids have a million things to say, and it's the parents' job to listen, no matter how inane the topic.

But what if the parent is distracted by money woes or job humiliations or a persistent itch? Or, God forbid, the parent is trying to work? A rambling lecture on the various super-powers of the characters in "Dragon Ball Z" -- complete with sound effects -- can be difficult to track even when you're paying attention. When you've got a lot on your mind, it's hard to focus on a child's prattle. And, let's face it, we all have a lot on our minds. Always.

We parents learn to pretend to listen, to yawn with our mouths closed, while the children go on and on. And the kids learn this and begin to use it, slipping in outrageous requests while Dad is in his "mm-hmm" mode. Pretty soon, Dad has agreed to send the 13-year-old to Cancun for the next nine spring breaks, if he can only get some quiet around here.

Some parents just give up and buy earplugs for the summer, but others try to manage the sound level of the children. At our house, I enforce a rule called "No random noise." Our two sons know that when I say, "That's random noise," they should stop whatever tapping, rapping, snapping, popping, cracking, shrieking, screaming, stomping, snorting or gibberish-spewing they've been doing for the past 20 minutes. When Dad mentions "random noise," it means the noise is getting to him and he could blow at any time. My sons know they should move a safe distance away and take up some other noise-making activity until the next warning comes.

Funny thing is, when no kids are around, it's too quiet. When they're in school all day, I often make random noise of my own, just to fill up some of the overwhelming silence.

I talk to myself all the time, even though I never listen. I give myself tons of perfectly good advice, then ignore it all in heat-of-the-moment, knee-jerk responses that blow asunder my well-laid plans and make all my self-advice a big waste of air. But I keep talking, trying to get through to myself, leaving a trail of mutter through the house. Sometimes, I address my remarks to the dog, just so I can pretend I'm not crazy.

Other times, I'll catch myself humming or whistling, even singing snatches of songs that have gotten wedged in my head, just to break up the quiet around here. In this manner, home-bound adults can produce entire soundtracks for their workdays, complete with the occasional "ta-da" or "voila" to mark an accomplishment. Sure, it's random noise, but we can get away with it because we're alone.

Now the kids are home for the summer, bringing with them the seasonal Wall of Sound, the random noise and the sibling-pinching, and it won't be silent again until fall. I'll go back to arising before dawn, just to get a quiet hour in which to work. And, through the long summer days with the boys, I'll work a little here and there, whenever one of those momentary silences falls over the house.

I'll still talk to myself, but now I won't have to pretend I'm talking to the dog. Instead, I can pretend to talk to my sons. And they can pretend to listen.

Utility player

Before you call to inquire: Yes, my refrigerator is running.

So is my deep-freeze and my dishwasher and the washer-and-dryer. The furnace roars. The computer fan whirs. Somewhere, a toilet is mysteriously running. That infernal fluorescent light in the kitchen is buzzing again. And I can't get any work done.

With the kids safely imprisoned in school, the home office should be quiet as a tomb. But no, the child-free home turns out to be a lively place, a regular disco full of sounds and smells and lights left on in empty rooms.

I carefully schedule my home-office time to coincide with the hours when my two sons are safely in school. I need absolute quiet when I'm working, and there's no chance of that happening if my children are anywhere within three city blocks of my desk.

In the sudden silence, background noise steps boldly to the foreground.

An example: Various heaters in our house are going around the clock, preserving that greenhouse effect that keeps my wife's plants thriving and the rest of us in "tropical wear." The constant growl of the burners becomes like static over a phone line. We talk over it. We turn up the TV a notch. Pretty soon, we don't even notice the heaters.

But when I sit at my desk and try to wrap myself in silent concentration, the heaters boom like endless thunder. I notice one is making a ticking noise, and I start to worry. I jump up and go examine the heater for any sign of flame or smoke or other malfunction. (It's a given that I know absolutely nothing about how heaters work, but I'm compelled to go check.)

This is how I spend my work-day -- playing "What's That Noise?" Jumping up and running around the house, then returning to my desk with no idea what I was doing originally.

Partly, this is because we've made so many plumbing/furnace/flood repairs to our old house over the years. I always expect the worst when the place makes an unfamiliar creak. Partly, it's because I'm so focused on the quiet, that every noise-- no matter how inobtrusive -- feels like a jolt to my brain.

We recently added to the household din by purchasing a half-size deep-freeze, mostly to store the annual harvest of roasted green chile.

(I'd love to tell you how my wife saved the delivery fee by driving the new freezer home herself -- the huge box jutting from the back seat of her top-down convertible -- but there isn't room here, and you wouldn't believe it anyway.)

The deep-freeze runs just as quiet as any other modern major appliance, which is to say just loud enough to penetrate your subconscious, even when you're at the far end of the house.

My problem: The new freezer has a nervous, high-pitched motor, which sounds like water singing in the pipes. Since it's parked near a bathroom, I trek to that end of the house, oh, 37 times a day to see if someone left the water running or if that long-balky toilet has finally run amok. What I find is the freezer, whining along, doing its job.

The freezer shares a room with the washer and dryer. Our regular refrigerator is right around the corner. When they all get going at once, it's a regular symphony of hissing water and tumbling jeans and humming compressors and the ka-chunk of the icemaker. Listen closely, and you can practically hear the electricity being sucked from the grid by those huddled appliances, a portent of whopping electric bills to come. And that, folks, is why they call it the "utility room."

The music of the appliances eventually starts sounding like the ringing of a cash register at the power company. All that money constantly flowing out of the house, so the house in turn can make enough noise to drive me crazy.

The sounds should be an impetus for me to get busy and make some new money. And I will, just as soon as I can get some quiet around here.