Sunday, June 21, 2009

Those Without Children Will NOT Fully Understand

Those of you without children might have an inkling of an understanding of this comic, but until you do have children of your own and you've seen their "stuff seep[ing] inexorably into every corner of the house . . . overwhelming all that are not Alice," you really have no clue.

Example: We took a trip to Oregon a few weeks ago. The entire trip, mixed in with the loose change in my wife's pockets, she had a hat for a Lego man.

Another example: I have gone to work on at least three occasions with a Barbie doll or some article of Barbie clothing in my work bag. These kinds of things are hard to explain, especially when you work at a pretty rough-and-tumble industrial plant where the guys like to chuckle alot about things like this.

I find my son's underwear in my underwear drawer. Legos, Polly Pockets, anything wee and/or twee, ends up in coat pockets, pants pockets, shoes, the little zippered pouches on camera bags, everywhere. Our kids are inexorably in our food chain. When I want a late-night snack I have to swim through fruit snacks, granola bars, cheesy crackers and miniature bags of cookies to find that they're the only things in the house. So I go to get a piece of fruit and I can't penetrate the thick layer of discarded banana stickers to get through to the produce drawer in the refrigerator. Don't think of hiding in a vehicle, either, bvecause the Lego men and little cars and dolly parts follow you there, too.

It's not that we buy the kids a lot of stuff, so don't think this is an example of rampant consumerism. There is just enough in the house, however, and the kids are lazy enough with picking up, that these things just spread around.

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