You bet your halibut

Word here in Santa Cruz, CA, is that the halibut migration that results in hauls of the yummy fish has arrived early this year. I'm no fisherman, but this news did remind me of one of my favorite Home Front columns from a few years ago. Read it here.

Re-reading it made me miss my sons. Hope it makes you laugh.

Boyspeak

Two 17-year-olds, slumping past on their way to my son's bedroom:

My son: "We're gonna go play 'Halo.'"
His friend: "I am the lord of all things 'Halo.'"

Ho-ho-ho, Merry August

Back-to-school shopping always seems like a summertime taste of Christmas.

Such a haul. New clothes, new sneakers, new backpack, new lunchbox. Bright yellow pencils and crisp white paper.

For the kids, it's as if Santa came to visit in his vacation clothes. For the parents, though, it can be a nail-biting, heartburn-inducing exercise in breaking the bank.

Small kids demand that all clothes and school supplies come decorated with trademarked characters from Marvel or Mattel or Disney or Nintendo. No matter which character your child loves best, all the goods bearing that likeness sold out last February.

If parents try to inflict anything else -- plain T-shirts, for example, or a notebook decorated with Barney instead of Pikachu -- the children will roll on the floor and howl and kick their little feet.
It's easy to spot those kids' parents. They're the nomads wandering from store to store, weeping and clutching handfuls of their own hair.

If you're lucky enough to stumble upon a hoard of the correct goods, the sticker shock will make your eyes jump out of your head and roll around the floor. Ten bucks for a binder? Thirty bucks for little bitty jeans? Sixty dollars for sneakers?

Holy slide rule, Batman. Before you know it, you've racked up a credit card debt that won't be paid off until the little beggars are off to college.

And for what? Clothes the children will ruin or outgrow by winter break. School supplies that will be lost or destroyed. (Has any kid, anywhere, ever made it through the school year with an intact protractor?) A backpack that produces an odd, musty smell you can't eradicate. And, of course, after a month or two, the kids will decide Pokemon is passe (or so all the parents pray).

By the time Christmas does roll around, it's time to replace everything. And it's hard to fit a new NASCAR lunchbox in a stocking.

I'd like to say it gets easier as kids get older, but that would be lying. Fashions change, but the demands are much the same. Instead of screaming for a pink Barbie lunchbox, your daughter will insist on a pink Paris Hilton crop top. Your son will object to any pants that aren't large enough to house a family of six.

And the sneakers just keep getting pricier.

Some parents of teens simply hand over a credit card and lie down in a dimly lit room until it's over. Others participate in the shopping, but must budget for stress remedies such as bourbon.

There is hope. Eventually, the kids' growth slows, so they might wear a garment more than, say, twice. The household fills up with so many backpacks and lunchboxes and binders, a child might actually re-use one, assuming it doesn't smell too funky.

Our two teen-age sons show little interest in back-to-school shopping. The older one, who's in the seventh year of his ratty rock-and-roller phase, refuses to wear clothes unless they have more holes than a screen door. The younger one never throws anything out, so his closet is overflowing. They both own relatively new, stink-free backpacks.

So I left the boys at home when I did the back-to-school shopping. I returned with a sackful of composition books and pens and said, "Here you go. You're all set."

I know it's not over. Teachers will demand specialized goods. Backpacks will be lost. Tattered clothing will turn to dust.

But I'm hoping we can hold out until Christmas.

B.T. phone home

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me. I’m at the airport in (insert city here). Thought I’d call and see how things are around the house.”

“Oh, everybody’s fine. Just the usual around here.”

“Yeah? No major disasters? Haha.”

“Oh, you know, the usual. A small grease fire when (insert teen-ager’s name here) was cooking, but everything’s fine now. A little smoke damage.”

“Yipes.”

“We needed to paint the kitchen anyway.”

“Was (teen’s name) traumatized by the fire?”

“Nah. (S/he) seemed to think the whole thing was funny.”

“We’ll see how funny (s/he) thinks it is when (s/he) gets to paint the kitchen.”

“I’m just glad no one was hurt. Although the fire did affect the dog.”

“How so?”

“He yarked up all over the carpet. I guess it was the smoke. Might’ve been something he ate. One of my rubber gloves is missing.”

“Better keep an eye on him.”

“I will.”

“I’m afraid to ask about the cat.”

“Missing for three days now.”

“But the kids are OK?”

“Well, we did hear from the school.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Hate to bother you with this when you’re traveling. I’ll take care of it.”

“No, go ahead and tell me.”

“Well, (insert student’s name here) got detention. We have to meet with the principal.”

“What did (s/he) do this time?”

“It’s no big deal. Just the usual. (His/her) hair.”

“Now what?”

“It’s (purple/pink/magenta/green/some other color not found in nature).”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake--”

“And it’s shaved off on one side of (his/her) head.”

“Are you kid--”

“And the other side is dreadlocks.”

Pause.

“Well, that’s different.”

“The usual teen-aged attempt to get attention, but the principal says it’s distracting the other students.”

“Oh, well. It’s only hair. It can be (fixed/shorn/burned).”

“Also, the principal said (his/her) clothes are inappropriate.”

“What kind of puritanical operation are they running--”

“I think it was the fuzzy chaps that did it.”

“Oh.”

“Another fashion statement. The usual.”

“What about (insert older child’s name here)?”

“Some progress there. (S/he) called the other day and (s/he) is not riding with those bikers anymore. Had a little dustup in (insert city name), but I sent bail money and it’s all fine now.”

“Sounds like you’ve got everything under control.”

“Oh, sure. But hey, I was going to ask you: Have you noticed a funny noise in the bathroom?”

“What kind of a noise?”

“Kind of a rumbling? After flushing?”

“Uh-oh.”

“The plumber said it was a sewer line problem.”

“Oh, no.”

“It’s OK. He fixed it. Only a thousand bucks. And the sinkhole isn’t even that big.”

“Aaugh.”

“You’ll see, when you get home from your trip. I think we can fix it ourselves. Rent a dump truck. Buy some sod. How hard can it be?”

“Right. How about you? Have you been able to work amidst all this mayhem?”

“Oh, sure. Though I did have to redo a bunch of stuff after the computer died.”

“The computer?”

“And my boss wants a meeting. Something about our ‘place in the community.’”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know exactly. But he does play golf with the high school principal. No telling what he’s heard.”

“Great.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just have a good trip. It’ll all be waiting for you when you get home.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. Maybe I’ll go to Vermont instead.”

“Vermont?”

“That’s where my luggage went.”

“Oh, my.”

“That’s business travel for you.”

“The usual.”

“Right.”

Tied up on the phone

What follows is a recent conversation at our house.

Teen-aged son: “It’s not like you have to keep me on a leash!”
Mom: “What do you think that cell phone is?”
Dad (on the inside): “Oh, SNAP!”

While I have many misgivings about the proliferation of cell phones, I recognize that we parents have come to rely on them as electronic child monitors. Want to know what your teen is up to? Give him a call. The kid might lie or evade, but at least you’ll know he is still alive, probably safe, and at least sober enough to answer the phone. Also, you can listen for party noises in the background.

Thanks to a law that took effect last year, teens in California aren't allowed to use phones while driving. Older motorists can talk on cell phones only if they use hands-free devices. Instead of juggling a phone, a cup of coffee, a McBreakfast and a bottle of nail polish, motorists now juggle all those things and a wired-up earphone, too. Or, they use one of those Bluetooth devices that screw directly into the ear, which always remind me of The Borg, that humanoid/robotic species on “Star Trek: The Next Generation on Babylon 5 After Kirk Got So Fat.”

It would be safer if everyone simply stopped talking on the phone behind the wheel. Driving is tricky enough all by itself (especially in Redding, where the city motto should be: “We Will Pull Out Right in Front of You”). Phoning while driving is too complicated, especially for those of us who aren’t comfortable with new technology and mostly use our cells as pocket watches.

My wife got me one of the hands-free devices, but I haven’t learned how to use it yet. When my phone rings, I either let voicemail handle it or I pull over.

Better that I miss an important call than become one of those motorists who weave all over the road, randomly speeding up and slowing down, while trying to dial and talk and thumb-type text messages. I hate those drivers so much that I’ll endure all kinds of inconvenience to avoid joining their ranks.

With the new law in place, those motorists now have a degree of anonymity. Before, if I saw someone driving stupidly, I always got smug satisfaction in confirming that he had a phone to his ear.

“Aha,” I’d think. “Talking on his cell. I knew it!”

Now, I can’t tell unless I pass the motorist and see his lips moving. Even then, maybe he’s singing along with the radio. Maybe he’s talking to himself. Maybe I don’t want to honk at a person who’s ranting to himself like a madman, no matter how badly he’s driving. Maybe he’s packing a bazooka.

Whenever I’m in traffic with cell chatterers, I always wish my own phone had another feature: A “Star Trek”-style ray gun that could disable other vehicles. Not permanently. Just long enough to get those motorists off the road so they could finish their conversations and pay attention to their driving.

“Gentlemen,” I could say in my best Capt. Kirk voice, “set your phones on ‘stun.’”

Zap! More yakkers stranded beside the road. Bwahahahaha!

They’d have to call for tow trucks. Hands-free, of course.

Quaran-teen

We parents wear many hats and dutifully accept the chores assigned to each, but the one I enjoy least is labeled “jailer.”

Sometimes, the only way to get a child’s attention is to place him/her under house arrest. Grounded. All privileges suspended. Cut off from the world.

Grounding is an onerous punishment, particularly for teen-agers, whose whole world revolves around social scenes and questionable friends. But it’s also pretty onerous for the parents because we’re required to enforce it. Which means we’re stuck in jail, too.

Usually, I have no problem with hanging around the house. It’s where I work, as well as where I do all my important lifestyle activities, such as reading and eating chocolate. But when staying at home is required, I get as itchy as the grounded offspring.

Last year, my wife and I played jailer for two full months, following several school transgressions by our then-16-year-old son. To make sure he understood the gravity of the situation, we went to full-scale house arrest. No social contacts, no leaving the property, no fun. We took away his cell phone. We disconnected his Internet. We found many, many work projects to keep him busy.

To his credit, he was a model prisoner, doing chores without complaint and only occasionally trying to wheedle out of his long sentence. But there were antsy periods, when being cooped up was nearly more than he could bear. (Three oblique animal references in one sentence; I believe that is a trifecta.)

I could tell when confinement was getting to him because he would play a mournful harmonica and drag his metal cup on the bars. (Kidding!) Instead, he’d start pestering me, joking around, poking and prodding, until I’d hit him with my nightstick. (Kidding again!) Usually, I’d play along, in our traditional Three Stooges-slapfight-dishtowel-popping mode, because I was going stir-crazy, too.

Unlike him, I could get away occasionally. Run some errands. Go to the library. Catch a matinee. But one or the other parent had to stay close, so our inmate wouldn’t start hatching escape plans or tunneling under the yard.

The one exception to his confinement was driving lessons. I don’t even try to wear the hat that says “driving instructor.” My wife is in charge of teaching the kids to drive. I’m too nervous. Even with an experienced driver, I’m a terrible passenger, gasping and stomping the floorboard until I’m ordered out of the car on the side of the road.

Ours son’s transgressions also required me to spend many hours in my “senior lecturer” hat, one I’m particularly well-equipped to wear. No one can outtalk me. I gab on and on, slowly wearing down the children, until they can hear my voice in their sleep. If that’s not a deterrent, I don’t know what is.

I’ve retired my “chef” hat during the warm weather, but there are still plenty of parental hats to wear: chauffeur, repairman, laundryman, nurse, pool boy, sunscreen enforcer and TV remote operator.

And let’s not forget “probation officer.” That hat's still hanging around, in case somebody decides to try on “repeat offender.”

Rubik's rube

Erno Rubik’s got nothing on me.

Rubik is the Hungarian sculptor and architect who invented the Rubik’s Cube and other games. It takes a special sort of mind to devise such clever, addictive puzzles.

I have two teen-aged sons, so naturally we have Rubik’s Cubes lying around the house. My sons busily work the puzzles while simultaneously watching TV, texting on their phones, scratching, playing video games, listening to music and eating. Such are the nimble minds of multi-tasking youths.

My experience with Rubik’s Cube has been less casual. I sit down and give the cube my full attention, and after turning the colorful tiles every which way for 24 seconds, I say, “That was fun,” and toss it aside. Because that’s enough for me. It would take me hours of concentrated effort to even sort of figure out how the danged thing works, to get some type of system going, much less solve the puzzle, and it’s not worth it. The payoff’s not big enough for the time wasted. Unlike, say, a crossword puzzle, which only takes me a few minutes to work and the solution of which makes angels sing.

Scientists call the ability to see and manipulate objects in two and three dimensions “spatial visualization.” The term comes from the Latin roots “spatia” (or “shoulder”) and “visuali” (“door jamb”).

Several experiments have found that men tend to be better at spatial visualization. Yay, men! No offense to women, but we men don’t get many wins in our column these days. Along with spatial visualization, scientists have found that men tend to be better at lifting furniture, stealing elections and competitive eating. That’s about it.

Men’s special adaptation for spatial visualization, which may go all the way back to the days of prehistoric hunters, certainly explains teen-aged boys’ affinity for video games. I’m no better at video games than I am at Rubik’s Cube, and my failures led me to doubt my spatial visualization manhood. I felt intimidated. My sons mocked me, saying within my earshot: “Imagine the hefty Hungarian brain of Erno Rubik!”

Just as I was wondering whether there was a cure for my spatial visualization shortcomings, a mental Viagra, if you will, I had a breakthrough. I saw that non-Hungarians such as myself face spatial visualization puzzles all the time in everyday life and manage to solve them just fine.

Take, for example, our laundry room. We have two (usually full) laundry baskets. We have a washer and dryer, the tops of which serve as the work surface. The washer’s a top loader. The dryer’s a front loader. No problem, the baskets sit on the dryer, right? Except the lint trap is on top of the dryer. So I have to move baskets to put clothes in or out of the washer and to start each new load in the dryer. Back and forth, open and close. I’m so accustomed to this routine, I do it without thinking. My movements are polished by repetition. The baskets slide back and forth and lids slam and, ba-da-bing, new loads of laundry are under way.

Take that, Erno.

Don’t even get me started on the proper way to load a dishwasher. Oh baby, we could be here all day. Nothing arouses my manly spatial visualization skills like a sink full of dirty dishes. The geometry of loading the big stuff and filling in with the smaller items. The proper tilt to catch the best spray. The ups and downs of silverware.

Whew.

Maybe I’ll try that Rubik’s Cube again.

Guitar Heroes and tin ears

Here’s what the future of music sounds like: Clackity-clackity-clack. Clack-clack. Clackclackclackclackclack.

That’s the sound of Guitar Hero, a video game that lets any nimrod pretend to be a rock star. Guitar Hero and its many evolutions and variations have taken the nation by storm.

For those of you blessed enough to be unfamiliar with Guitar Hero, here’s how it works: The player uses a “controller” shaped like an electric guitar to “play” along with a cartoon band on the video screen. The screen shows different colors for different notes. The colors match five colored buttons up in the fret area of the controller guitar. At the other end of the guitar is a little plastic lever that must be clacked up and down, as if it were the pick used by the player to pluck the strings.

See, there aren’t any actual strings. “Playing” the “guitar” is a matter of pushing the correct buttons with one hand and clacking that lever with the other, as fast as the rock song blaring from the game requires.

Guitar Hero is huge at our house. Our teen-age sons both enjoy the game, and their friends come over to our house to “jam.”

Our sons know to keep the volume turned down on the songs, especially if Crazy Dad is trying to “work,” but there’s no volume control for that clacking noise. What I get -- through closed doors, through walls -- is the merest mumble of some familiar rock song and the clackity-clack-clack-clack of teen-age frenzy. Around the clacking clock.

It reminds me of those laboratory tests where mice or chimps repeatedly push a lever to get a treat. A teen-age boy apparently will clack a lever for hours on end, even if the only treat is being able to call his best friend “loser.”

The irony at our house is that both our sons actually play musical instruments. They can read music and pick out songs by ear and all that jazz. But, for amusement, they’d rather clack away at Guitar Hero.

I’m sure it takes skill and determination to succeed at the games, but clacking that lever is not the same as playing the song on a real guitar. I fear we’re creating an entire generation of youngsters who think they’re musicians because they can play Guitar Hero.

Eye-hand coordination is not the same as musical talent. I can type fast as a fiend, but that doesn’t mean I can play the piano.

Given the speed of technological advance, how long before real guitars come with buttons and clackers rather than strings? You’ll no longer need talent to be a rock musician; all you’ll need are fingers.

Virtual music by virtual musicians, virtually all the time until parents virtually tear off their own ears. That’s the future of rock ‘n’ roll.

Roll over, Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky to clack.

Sleepless at the sleepover

Ah, to bed. At last. Another long day, made all the longer by a teen-age son’s sleepover party.

I can still hear the boys in there, snickering and whispering. Winding down from their video-game/sugar buzzes and the random hormone surges that make them howl and punch each other. They seemed to have a great time this evening. Eventually, they’ll fall asleep.

I lay awake, listening, and thinking how sleepover parties are different now.

When they were little, sleepovers were high adventure, full of separation anxiety, trepidation and tears. We needed mule trains to haul the emotional baggage from one household to another. Not to mention changes of clothes, special treats, a blankie, a stuffed toy and one favorite plastic action figure doomed to never turn up again.

We parents regularly delivered all this stuff to another household and handed our children over to strange adults who, for all we knew, were members of a blood cult. But, hey, it’s good for the kids to socialize. And we parents always were desperate for a night off.

Not that it’s ever the whole night off. Because the host parents call at 2 a.m., saying the visiting child is scared, sick or otherwise sleepless and needs a ride home. Guaranteed.

It gets easier in the middle-school years. The kids can pack their own bags, for one thing. And they stay busy with electronic gizmos: video games, CDs, DVDs, I-Pods, cell phones, the microwave oven. The job of the host parents becomes a long night of “Turn that off and go to bed,” but that’s better than cleaning up barf.

Now that they’re older, my boys have friends sleep over all the time, mostly so they can stay up very late on weekends, playing Guitar Hero II. These days, preparation for the sleepover is virtually zero. The guests show up without so much as a toothbrush. They eat whatever they can forage in the fridge. They sleep on the carpet like dogs, if they sleep at all. Sometimes, I wonder if their parents even know where they are. And if other homeowners regularly find unfamiliar 16-year-olds eating Cocoa Puffs in their kitchens at 3 a.m.

Our sleepover visitors always seem polite enough. Sloppy and hyperactive and endlessly hungry, but polite. Hmm. Maybe they’re covering up something with those good manners.

As I lie awake, I start thinking how I don’t really know these teen-agers that well. Maybe the good manners are a ruse. Maybe they’re really felons or firebugs. Maybe they’re “casing the joint,” trying to determine where we hide our valuables. Haha, fooled them, we don’t have any valuables. But still.

Charles Manson probably attended sleepovers at other kids’ homes. Did those host parents wonder about him? Maybe they recognized him later on the news, and said, “Look, it’s Charlie. I always knew that kid was a little helter-skelter.”

The more I think about the potential danger of teen-aged strangers in my home, the more restless I become. By the time I put on my bathrobe and tiptoe down the hall, I’m expecting to find anything, up to and including the sacrificing of a goat.

I peek into my son’s room, and the boys are sound asleep. At peace. Like angels from heaven, if angels slept on the floor and wore baggy jeans and had funny haircuts. Teen angels.

I go back to bed, smiling over my silly anxieties. And lay awake until dawn.

Pillage people

Here’s the leading cause of obesity in America: Grocery Day.

All across this great country, we citizens waddle into gigantic supermarkets once a week and spend way more than we should on way more groceries than we should buy. We cart these goods home, then immediately pig out on them, sampling all the richest, sweetest, highest-calorie foods.

We’re bloated after this unofficial feast day. About the time we recover, the cupboards are bare because the kids and their friends have eaten everything, and we do it all over again.

Once upon a time, when people still walked places, they picked up only a few groceries at a time from corner markets. Enough for tonight’s meal, tomorrow’s breakfast. They ate less and they walked more and, guess what, fewer of them were fat.

Before widespread refrigeration and international food transport, shoppers were limited to what was available from surrounding farms, to what was in season. Not a lot of choice, but people also didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about whether their tofu or their mango should be kept in the fridge.

As SUVs and suburbs and side-by-side Frigidaires took over the landscape, people started treated Grocery Day less like a safari and more like a stockpiling raid. No longer hunter-gatherers, we became swooping hordes of shoppers, repeatedly pillaging the small village of Safeway, amassing so much loot we need large wheeled carts to haul it all away.

At least that’s the way I like to think of it, when I’m picking over the artichokes with the snowbirds on a Thursday afternoon. I lead a rich fantasy life.

Because we have two strapping teen-aged boys at our house, I buy lots of groceries every week, so many I barely can fit them all into one cart. The groceries fill the cargo hold and back seat of my Ford Lemonstar minivan.

When I get home, my sons help me haul the booty into the house, oohing and aahing over the Oreos and Cocoa Puffs they find in the bags. We work as team, putting away the groceries, then we launch into an individual competition to see who can eat the most the fastest.

It’s not intentional. But all that sudden variety is irresistible. Even if we try to avoid a pig-out, there are usually some treats lying about, simply because there’s not enough cabinet/fridge space to store everything, and it’s hard not to graze.

If there are teen-agers around, the snacks and sweets are the first things to go. So if we parents want a crack at an Oreo ourselves, we’d better pounce on Grocery Day. After that, good luck.

Of course, we can’t eat all the groceries in one day, no matter how we try. Not a whole minivan load of them. So the second day, we’re hard at it again, trying to consume all the grapes before they go bad and the last few marshmallows before someone else eats them. By bedtime, we can barely walk.

Consumption tapers off as the week wears on and choices diminish. Everything that’s left is either good for you or requires preparation more elaborate than a zap in the microwave. We survive on frozen food and random sandwiches.

The boys wander away in search of sweets and fast food pilfered from friends. Mom and Dad find themselves nibbling plain saltines in front of the TV because that’s all that’s available.

Time to go pillaging again. It’s Grocery Day.

Egging 'em on

Across America, the "morning scramble" is not a breakfast dish. It's the mad dash to get the kids out the door to school.

In a fit of blind optimism, parents start each day with the notion that everyone in the family will be on schedule, and we won't have to race around crazily at the last minute. Each school day, we hopeful parents watch those expectations dashed.

As is the case with so many things, the children hold an opposing viewpoint. The children do not care if they are late. They're not thrilled about spending the day in school anyway. They maintain that they would happily live forever as uneducated goatherds if they could be allowed to sleep for only five more minutes. Thus it begins. Every day.

Once they're up, younger children tend to wander off. Teens are too busy text-messaging their friends to actually get ready for school. Sleepy kids of any age seem to have difficulty with the question, "Where are your shoes?"

When our two sons were small, the culprit was distraction. They'd forget they were supposed to be, say, rounding up socks that weren't crunchy. Instead, I would find them watching cartoons, or barefoot in the yard with the dog. Or dressing in a ninja costume, "just to try it out," five minutes before departure to school.

And there was always a last-second disaster of some sort. I spilled my milk. I can't find my homework. The dog won't give me my shoe. We'd scramble about, solving crises, until the last possible moment, then zoom out the door, trying to reach school before the final bell, weaving through traffic like an ambulance on Saturday night.

Now that they're older, our boys require only minimal overseeing. The struggle is at the front end -- getting them out of bed -- rather than forcing breakfast down their gullets or locating their missing science project. It goes like this:

5:45 a.m.
Mom: "Good morning! Time to get up. Here comes the light! Get up!"
5:55 a.m.
Dad: "Good morning! Rise and shine there, boys!"
6 a.m.
Mom: "You guys must get up now. You're going to be late."
6:10 a.m.
Dad: "Hey, come on. What's the matter with you? Did you stay up all night?"
6:15 a.m.
Dad: "Get. Up. Now."
6:20 a.m.
Mom: "I'm coming back here in two minutes with a pitcher of ice water. Whoever's still in bed gets it."
6:30 a.m.
Boys reel around house, yawning and sniffling, wolfing food and throwing on the rags that pass for their clothes. Mom and Dad nervously hound them with questions -- "Did you brush your teeth?" or "You call that breakfast?" or "Is that the way you WANT your hair to look?" -- all the way out the door.

One day, as younger son sprinted to his room to fetch something he'd forgotten, the older one waited by the front door. A veteran of years of racing off to school, he gave his parents a wry smile and said, "We were almost on time today."

As a hopeful parent, I thought: There's always tomorrow.

Tattoo phew

Reason No. 237 to be self-employed: You can wear as many tattoos as you like.

Number of tattoos worn by this self-employed writer: Zero.

Number of tattoos planned for the future: What's less than zero?

Tattoos have been on my mind lately, partly because a friend (who's a year older than me) announced he was getting one. He even invited his pals to make suggestions as to what the tattoo should say or depict. My proposal: "I've lost my mind. If you find it, please call (his number)."

I know tattoos are "body art" and a valuable tool for self-expression and completely safe (hah!) and a matter of personal choice and blah, blah, blah. I never would criticize your decision to get a tattoo. But they're not for me.

The popularity of tattoos exploded in the 1990s, and these days it seems they're sported by everybody and his sister. A survey by the "Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology" found that 24 percent of Americans between 18 and 50 have at least one tattoo. That's up from two 2003 surveys that found between 15 and 16 percent tattooed.

Among those aged 18 to 29, a whopping 36 percent had a tattoo, the new survey found.

This, despite the fact that some employers hate them. A recent study by Marketwatch.com found that job interviewers rate tattoos as the fifth biggest turnoff, after poor grooming, inappropriate attire, a weak handshake and piercings. If you get a tattoo that can't easily be hidden by clothing, you're taking the risk of inking yourself out of the job market.

Which brings me back to self-employment. People like me, who work at home and rarely meet customers in person, can decorate themselves from head to toe, if they like. But you won't catch me with a tattooed menagerie or a bone through my nose.

Why? Because I'm a big chicken.

I have many, many fears -- snakes, crowds, prison, public humiliation, teen-agers, guys named Floyd, all things medical -- but no phobia's bigger than my fear of needles. I'm a full grown man, but I must close my eyes and bite my lip to take a shot at the doctor's office. At the movies, I can watch people get blown up all day long, but show a needle injecting skin and I have to put my hands over my eyes.

The ultimate scary movie for me would be: "Snakes on a Plane Full of Teen-Aged Doctors With Hypodermics."

But even we chickens think about tattoos and what ours would say or show, if we could get one while, say, unconscious or dead. So I've got some ideas. Feel free to have these slogans inked on your own body, but if you work outside the home, put them where your employer won't see. (I have suggestions for where, but I'll leave that to your imagination.)

Some Possible Tattoos:

--This Side Up
--Born to be Mild
--Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Decorated Corpse
--If you can read this, you're too close.
--I'm With Stupid (with arrow)
--No Lawn Mowers (with hula girl)
--Paid in Full
--My parents went to Europe, and all I got was this lousy tattoo.
--Open Other End
--No Riders
--Out of Order
--Wet Paint
--Please Attend Your Baggage
--Continued on Other Side
--Death to the Infidel!
--Mission Accomplished!
--Read It and Weep
--I'd Rather Be Flinching
--Insert Hepatitis Virus Here
--Kiss me, I'm Boorish.
--Please ignore this tattoo and hire me. Please.
--Ouch!

Out with the old (back)

Yesterday was the day after our holiday company went home, so we put away the Christmas stuff and rearranged all the furniture. I threw my back out pushing a table around, so our sons did most of the heavy lifting. When you need furniture moved, it's nice to have a couple of well-muscled young men hanging around your house. You just have to catch them during the 45 minutes a day when they're both home and awake.

Speaking of back pain, guess who's planning a quiet New Year's Eve?

Showing off their smarts

We were sitting around the dinner table as our two teen-aged sons discussed their annual federally mandated math tests, and up jumped the subject of quadratic equations.

One son says to the other, "You don't know that formula? That's an easy one. It's--" And he proceeded to spew a series of letters and numbers that, to my untrained ears, sounded like "booga-booga-booga-googly-moogly."

Yes, my sons were showing off. Yes, they know Dad barely passed algebra in high school and that was more than 30 years ago. And, yes, they like to rub his nose in it occasionally.

Being a mature adult, I threw food on them.

Kidding! Instead, I subtly cocked an eyebrow at my wife, in the international parenting signal for: "They're doing it again." She gave me her usual saintly smile, and we went back to chewing while the boys vigorously debated coefficients.

This incident illustrates one of the Basic Facts of Parenting. Children learn things their parents a) don't know, b) have forgotten, or c) never wanted to know in the first place, and the kids can't keep this knowledge to themselves. When they realize they know something we adults don't, they're compelled to share it, so we'll feel a) stupid, b) annoyed or c) homicidal, depending upon how much smirking is involved.

With our sons (and maybe with all kids), it started at an early age. When they were mere toddlers, they were enthralled by an inane TV show called "The Power Rangers," and they lorded it over me that I couldn't remember which Ranger wore which color Lycra costume.

"No, Dad!" they'd say, shaking their heads in disgust. "Jason was the green Ranger. Then he morphed into the white Ranger. Everybody knows that."

Once, when our younger son was around four, he raised his tiny fists at the breakfast table and loudly declared, "I am made of unstable molecules!" This, apparently, was a line from a superhero cartoon, but I didn't recognize it and couldn't hear the explanation over the hacking that followed ejecting coffee out my nose. The kids rolled their eyes at the idiot in their midst.

These days, their knowledge tends to be more esoteric (algebra) or picayune (rock band trivia) or absolutely useless (computer game cheats), but they still enjoy showing it off, especially if dumb old Dad will be left in the dark.

We were driving home from music lessons (one son plays guitar, the other plays the bass; Dad plays the radio), and I overheard a conversation that centered around "pickups" and "humbuckers." Had my sons acquired a sudden interest in rodeo? Monster trucks? Prostitutes? No, those terms refer to parts of the electric guitar, as the boys were delighted to inform me after I calmly interjected, "Say what?"

The trick for parents is to channel the children's interests into areas that might do the family some good, such as computer repair.

When I'm having computer problems, I summon our older son. He knows more about computers than I do, and he's only too happy to stand around, making suggestions and spouting jargon.
I gladly pretend to listen, smiling blankly, while in my head, I'm hearing, "Boogity-boogity-boo." He might as well be talking algebra or unstable molecules.

Whatever. If he can save my hard drive, the little humbucker can show off all he wants.

How can we miss them if they won't go away?

I know it seems that the news media are in the business of alarming statistics, but no set of numbers has alarmed me more than this tidbit from the U.S. Census Bureau: One-third of all American men between the ages of 22 and 34 live with their parents, an increase of 100 percent in the last two decades.

Chilling, no?

Just when you think you've survived parenthood, the kids come back home. The whistle has blown, but your shift isn't over. You've completed the marathon, only to find they've moved the finish line. The light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a locomotive.

You thought you'd finally have your house all to yourself only to discover, living in your basement, an unshaven, unkempt, unmarried, Nintendo-playing, beer-swilling troglodyte who smells of Fritos.

It's simply not fair. There's a progression to parenting that's being violated here. You have the baby, you nurture the adorable toddler, you support the brave first-grader, you oversee homework and moral development through the formative years, you argue with the smart-aleck, rebellious teen, then -- poof! -- the kid is gone, off to college or marriage or some other institution.

The nest is empty. Our golden years arrive and we slow down and putter at our hobbies and enjoy visits from our grandchildren and smile our way into the grave.

That's the way it's supposed to work, dammit. That's the natural order. You don't kick the baby bird out the nest only to have him fly in a circle and land right behind you.

But apparently that's what's happening these days, at least with one-third of the young men out there. They flap their wings in the real world for a while, and find they like it better in the nest. Or, they never leave at all. They sit on their feathered rumps, waiting for Mama Bird to rustle up another batch of home-cooked worms.

Social scientists studying this phenomenon find many reasons behind it. Entry-level jobs don't pay enough to cover the cost of housing. More students live at home while they go to college. People are waiting longer to get married. The social stigma of "living with my folks" has decreased.

(Here's one they rarely mention: Spare bedrooms. We tend to live in houses that are bigger than truly necessary these days, so there's plenty of room for the kids. Why should they move away when they have all the space and privacy they need?)

We've got two teen-aged boys at our house, and I love them very much. But they've been told since they were small how much I look forward to the day they can live on their own. I've made a special point of teaching them simple cooking and basic laundry and other life skills so they can survive out there. Times may be hard, but children of privilege should suffer a little poverty, working their way through school. It makes them appreciate subsequent success.

I tell my sons that, as soon as they leave, Mom and I will downsize to a condo with no extra bedrooms, just to thwart any notions about "boomeranging" back home. They laugh. Haha, Dad's such a joker. Only Dad's not kidding.

If they're lucky, I might give them our forwarding address.

Teen terrors trigger toothlessness

Several months ago, I was at the dentist, complaining about pain in my jaw, and my dentist asked, "Do you grind your teeth?"

"Of course I do," I said. "I have teen-agers at home."

Oh, he and his assistant had a good laugh about that, until they realized I was serious.

Parenting teens is an exercise in jaw-grinding, tongue-biting, hair-pulling, brain-busting frustration. Even if you have the most responsible, scholarly, polite kids in the world, they'll still drive you crazy. It's nature's way of preparing the parents for the children's departure from the nest; by the time they're out of high school, we can't wait for them to leave home.

The dynamics of the parent-child relationship center on the struggle for autonomy. The child wants the freedom to do whatever he wants whenever he wants with whomever he wants. The parent, on the other hand, wants the child to stay in his room, quietly doing his homework, until he's 40.

The most difficult task for parents is "letting go." If teens are to learn about life, they must be free to make their own mistakes, but we parents know it's a dangerous world out there, full of hazards and stupidity, and it's hard for us to let the kids out of our sight. We've invested all these years in keeping our children safe and healthy. Now that they've reached adolescence, we balk at letting them spend the evening "just riding around" in a bald-tired van with someone named Crazy Jake. Call us paranoid.

We parents try to build safeguards into our teens' behavior. We say "no" a lot. We set curfews. We require adult supervision. We ask for references. We use cell phones like leashes, maintaining contact. We wait up. We constantly worry.

Why? Because we remember what we were up to when we were that age. The trouble we got into (or narrowly avoided), the near-misses and the almost-wrecks and the passing scrapes with The Law. We'd like to believe that our children are smarter than we were at that age. We'd like to believe that we've taught them so well that they'll avoid the pitfalls of youth. But hahaha on that.

Each generation must get into the same trouble all over again. Adolescence is about experimenting and taking risks and acting a fool. Some behaviors (and I'm thinking here of sex or wild driving or mouthing off to authority figures) are just too tantalizing to avoid, no matter how well-trained the child may be. We parents know this, and that's why we stress out over our kids.

Once children reach high school (and certainly once they start driving), they're determined to do things on their own. Nine kinds of parental rules and restraints won't keep them from going out into the world and screwing up. We can wheedle and lecture and preach, and they'll ignore all that and do what they want. We can absolutely forbid certain behaviors, and they'll sneak around and do them anyway. We can lock the kids in their rooms, and they'll climb out the windows.

Just like we did when we were their age.

Teens see it as their job to drive their parents nuts by staying out half the night doing who-knows-what and coming home disheveled and suspiciously bleary. And it's the parents' job to fret and stew and grind our teeth.

This tension between parents and teens has always existed. It's the way of the world. It's the natural order.

And it's why your parents wear dentures.

Holy scramboli, it's dinnertime

Parenting experts universally praise the traditional "family dinner" -- everyone gathered around the table to share the evening meal and news of the day.

Such dinners help families stay close despite their busy lives, the experts say, and help parents keep tabs on their children's day-to-day travails without the direct intervention of the authorities.

Unlike much parenting advice, which at our house is met with hooting derision and thoughts of "they've never met our kids," we've always embraced the family dinner concept.

Throughout our two sons' lives, one thing they could count on was that at dinnertime, the whole family would gather around the table to share food and fellowship.

It was at the family dinner that the boys learned some semblance of table manners. Dinner was where they told us of the Shakespearean conspiring and backbiting of the playground. It was where they saw that adults could gossip and carp, too. It was at dinner where plans were made and plots were hatched and the beans were spilled.

We kept up the family dinner tradition against great odds. Work schedules sometimes threatened to tear it apart. When ours sons were very small, they tended to throw and spill so much food, we parents wanted to be nowhere nearby. (We eventually had to get a dog to do clean-up duty.) Even dining styles conspired against us: one son eats so fast, he's done before the rest of us are finished passing the salt; the other ate so slowly that we all ended up drumming our fingers and forcing smiles while he finished. Still, we stuck with it because we recognized the value of that time with our kids.

Those days, I'm sad to say, are over. Our sons are teen-agers now, and they're constantly on the go. Now, we're lucky to dine together a couple of times a week.

The main culprit is something all modern families can understand -- the microwave oven. Why wait around for the whole family to share the traditional meat-and-potatoes meal when a pizza can be had in mere minutes? Why make something fresh when you can reheat leftovers? Surely, warmed-up Chinese food will taste better than whatever Dad has planned.

Now, at our house, most dinners are a sort of kitchen dance, with each of us taking our turn at the zapper, hovering and crinkling and beeping, then wolfing our food and hurrying away to our respective destinations.

We've even coined a name for such haphazard evening meals. We call it "scramboli," as in, "Are we all sitting down to the dinner tonight, or is it scramboli?"

"Scramboli" means "eat whatever you can scavenge." One person will reheat leftover spaghetti, another will nuke a pot pie, and yet another (usually Dad) will settle for a hot sandwich with melted cheese.

We parents rationalize that "scramboli" will, in the long run, be as beneficial as the family dinner. We're teaching the boys to fend for themselves. We're teaching them how to heat and eat. When they go off on their own, the one thing that won't worry us is whether they're starving.

As long as they have microwaves.

Full frontal

If teen-agers live in your house, then at times you probably find yourself thinking: How can any human with a functioning brain act that way?

For example, you might catch your teen-ager teetering on the roof or "surfing" on the hood of a speeding car or "chugging" soda pop until it spurts out his nose.

If you are of the parental persuasion, you will not be able to help yourself. You will ask, "What the heck do you think you're doing?"

And the answer will be, "I dunno."

That answer, no matter how unsatisfactory, is the truth. Teens truly don't know why they do the things they do. Because they don't have fully functioning brains.

Researchers using magnetic resonance imaging have found that the human brain isn't fully developed until the person reaches his or her early 20s. (If then.) Teens engage in risky behavior and emotional upheaval and impulsive soda-chugging because their brains don't warn them of the potential consequences.

"We found that the frontal lobes were the last to develop," UCLA brain researcher Paul Thompson said in a recent news article. "These brain regions control inhibition, rash actions, rage and anger."

(So not only will your teens do incredibly stupid things, they'll get really mad when you point that out. It's the perfect combination, really, to drive a parent insane.)

While they're waiting for their minds to mature, teens use a primitive part of the brain called the amygdala, researchers said. The amygdala -- from the Latin "amyg," meaning "wild apes" and "dala," or "under your roof" -- controls aggressive behavior and the well-known "fight or flight" response in teens and other beasts.

These new discoveries explain many of the puzzles of modern society, such as the popularity of skateboards and "monster" trucks.

The lack of inhibition in the primitive teen brain accounts for such look-at-me phenomena as "streaking," tattoos, mall loitering, nose rings and thundering auto exhaust systems. Impulse control problems include binge drinking, temper tantrums, text messaging and watching "That '70s Show" on TV. Underdeveloped frontal lobes might even explain why young males insist on wearing their baseball caps backward; it might truly be more comfortable for them that way.

Parents can make use of this new research. When our teens start acting crazy, we can remind ourselves that they can't help it; they're not playing with a full deck. We can stop asking them for explanations of their bizarre behavior. When they wheedle and whine, demanding that we let them stay out late or arguing for more freedom, we can say: "Hey, you're not ready yet. We'll talk about it when you've got a full set of frontal lobes."

The researchers haven't gone far enough. The next area to explore: Where do teens' fresh frontal lobes come from?

I have a theory: Teens are brain-sucking vampires, feeding on the gray matter of their parents. During adolescence, the kids slowly get smarter and more responsible, but we parents get more stressed-out, disconnected and stupid. Worrying over our teen-agers, we literally "lose our minds."

If I'm right about this shift in brain power, then it would explain the "mid-life crisis," when adults (especially males) start acting like irresponsible teens -- driving fast cars, acquiring younger spouses, taking up "extreme" sports and wearing their caps backward on their bald heads.

Often, when we see some so-called adult acting this way, we think, "It's as if he got a lobotomy."
Now we know why. His teens have stolen his brain. And they won't give it back until Geritol spurts out his nose.

Today's rap: 2 Cool 4 Chores

Dear Parents:

I found the following on the Internet. We'd always suspected a conspiracy. Here's the proof:

TEENAGERS' GUIDE TO CHORE AVOIDANCE

By "2 Lay-Z"

Yo, dude. If your parents are like mine, they're always laying some trip on you about doing "chores."

Man, they just don't get it. We teens can't be bothered by stuff like dishes and laundry and yard work. We've got more important things to do: Kickin' back. Hangin'. Setting a new high score on our Playstation 2 (and, yeah, yeah, the parents paid for the PS2, like we haven't heard that a million times).

Parents think they've gotta teach us "responsibility" and "pulling our weight" and stuff. Like we're gonna learn anything from doing laundry. All we learn is that work is never really done. You wash the clothes, you wear the clothes, you gotta wash 'em again. How's that gonna prepare us for the Real World? Ain't like we're gonna have a job where we do the same thing over and over, every damned day, right?

Teens across the nation gotta share the 411. Here are some time-tested ways to dodge chores:

1. The Maynard G. Krebs Memorial Panic Response

Named after that beatnik dude on the old "Dobie Gillis" TV show, this reaction involves screaming "Work!" and fleeing the room. Not only allows you to escape, but also alerts your siblings.

2. Amnesia

An old favorite. "I forgot" is like a miracle cure, man. There's no argument for it. Your parents get in your face about why you didn't do some chore, and you say, "I forgot," and they lose all their steam.

3. A Matter of Taste

No matter how slagged your room is, say, "I like it this way." Even if there's so much stuff on your floor, you can only walk around on stilts, the parents will hesitate. They're thinking: Well, if the kid likes his room this way, who am I to insist? While they're dithering, you can escape out the window.

4. Denial

"What work? I don't see any work."

5. Defiance

Outright refusal is sometimes effective, especially if the parent is too tired to argue. Caution: Can result in loss of Playstation privileges, injury or even death.

6. The "Gaslight" Defense

Make the parents think they're losing their minds. Here's how it works: Parent tells you to do a chore. You ignore command. Parent comes around later, asking why it wasn't done. You say: "What? You never told me to do that." Shake your head sadly. Say something like, "Man, you're losing it."

7. Not Mine

This one works on any chore that doesn't involve your immediate room. Say a parent wants you to pick up stuff scattered around the house. You say, "That's not my stuff. Why should I have to pick it up?" This forces the parent to explain about "helping the whole family" and "the common good" and blah, blah, blah. Eventually, they'll forget the whole thing.

8. The Stall

All of these responses are variations on our main theme: The Stall. You're just buying time, dude. The longer you put off doing a chore, the better the odds that the parents will give up and do it themselves.

Remember: You're younger than them. You can afford to wait them out. Eventually, you'll go off to college or marriage or the Army, and you won't ever have to pick up after yourself again.
After you're gone, your parents will keep your room just the way you left it. Because they don't know how to walk on stilts.

Bargain buys = big bucks

I went to the supermarket for a gallon of milk and spent $90.

How does this happen? Why does every trip to the market result in huge expenditures of money and time?

Here's how it went that day: I announced to my family that I was headed to the store for milk. I asked (and here was my first mistake) whether anybody needed anything while I was there.

Everyone shouted at once. They needed ice cream. They needed toiletries. We were out of the favorite brand of sugary cereal. We had syrup, but no waffles. Mom needed items (olive oil!) that Dad never remembers.

It was too much too fast. I had to make a list. But I sternly kept it short. This wasn't the weekly shopping trip that always results in an overflowing shopping cart and exultant cheers from the checkout clerks. No, this was a quickie store run. Just milk. And a few other items. But mostly milk.

One look at the list told me I'd need a shopping cart (my second mistake). Soon I was rolling up and down the aisles, searching for the items on the list.

Which is exactly what the supermarkets want us to do. Go up and down each aisle. Take our time. Browse. See something omitted from the list. Spot a special on strawberries. Discover that a favorite brand of coffee is on sale.

Pretty soon, my cart was full. Not piled-up full, not so full that I'm leaving a trail of dropped Pop-Tarts in my wake. But pretty danged full. Ninety dollars full.

All because we were running out of milk.

What is it about supermarkets that cause this behavior? The impulse buys. The stockpiling. Something about all that brightly packaged bounty prompts us to spend, spend, spend.

We wouldn’t do other shopping this way. For instance, you wouldn't go out shopping for a new car and bring home a yacht and a Sherman tank. (Picture telling your spouse: "Sure, hon, we don't really need a tank, but they never spoil, and they were on sale.")

When it comes to food, we feel entitled to stock up, particularly if there are teens in the household. It'll all get eaten eventually, we tell ourselves, and you can never have too much microwave popcorn at hand.

This stockpiling mentality is the fuel behind the success of giant warehouse stores like Costco. Buy in bulk, this philosophy goes, and save money. Sure, you've got enough toilet paper to last until 2037, but what the heck, it's on sale.

I refuse to shop at Costco and its imitators. My feeling is: You should never go impulse shopping in a place where there are forklifts. If you find yourself buying a "bargain" that's so large it won't fit in a standard shopping cart, then you should reconsider.

Who's got that kind of storage space? Every Costco shopper I know has stuff stacked to the rafters in their homes. Yes, you can save money by buying 200 rolls of paper towels at once, but if you have to rent a warehouse to hold them, you've reached the point of diminishing returns.

To buy nothing more than a gallon of milk, it might be safest to the take the opposite route -- go to a convenience store. Run in, run out, avoid the temptations of the supermarket.

But have you seen how much they're charging for milk at convenience stores? (Not $90, but too much.) And there's still the problem of impulse buys.

How much beef jerky does one family need?