Home Alone

My wife, my daughter and my son were all out of town the week before last, but I had to stay home because I couldn’t get the time off from work because of a major project we’re working on. There are times I enjoy having the house to myself because sometimes I just want a little peace and quiet. I can sit and read a book without being interrupted or having to switch rooms because someone wants to do something in that room that is noisy. There’s nobody there to ask me to do something for them, whether it’s driving someone somewhere or helping move something or helping cook something. I don’t have to do anything for anybody and I can just relax and take it easy. I know that sounds a little selfish but, like a lot of other people I know, I really don’t get a whole lot of down time so it is nice when I do.

I knew I would have to work some extra hours, so I thought it really wouldn’t matter that much that no one else was home. I’d go to work, come home and eat dinner, and then I’d do some more work until it was time for bed. I had dinner planned out for a couple of nights by just eating some leftovers, and I figured I could eat some food at work on Thursday because we have a “Happy Hour” where there is always some kind of food (pizza, a bunch of appetizers, pasta or Chinese food) and multiple beverages. In addition to all that, I had a company party on Saturday afternoon/night where all the food you needed was provided. That covered more than half the nights I would be responsible for my own dinner, so I knew I wouldn’t starve.

The first couple of days went OK and things seemed to be going along well. Two days had flown by pretty quick. As mentioned previously, I was working some extra hours due to a deadline, so it was work, eat dinner, work, and go to bed. Surprisingly, when I woke up on Friday morning it all sort of hit me: I’d been alone all week, the weekend was upon me and I was still going to be alone until late Sunday. I’ve heard of people who love the single life, being on their own, and doing what they want, but I guess I’m not one of them. I hate being alone for more than a couple of days.

In a previous post, I mentioned how much I hated how quiet it was when everyone but my younger brother and I had moved out and we were the only kids left with Mom and Dad. This was even worse, because when I woke up no one was in the house and when I came home no one was in the house. It was just so…empty. Even though I was seeing people at work every day, not seeing my wife and kids made feel extremely lonely. And even though I was speaking to my wife on the phone or by text, it just was not the same. The last couple of days seemed to stretch out forever.  

Though this seems like it was all doom and gloom, something very positive did come out of my week alone. It helped me to remember how much I love my family and how much I love to be with them, both the kids and my wife. My wife is my best friend, and there is no one else I’d rather spend time with. The day she came home just happened to be our 23^rd anniversary, so to say I was happy to see her would be a huge understatement. My parents were married for more than 50 years when my Dad passed away and I look forward to my wife and me reaching that milestone. Spending the week alone gave me a glimpse into what my life would be by myself and it wasn’t good. A little down time and some peace and quiet is good for a day or two, but I really hate being alone for much longer. I’ll take the noise, the driving, and the errands and, most importantly, my family over an empty house any day.

The Ice Cream Man

As we’re coming down to the end of the summer, something I realized I haven’t seen this year is ice cream trucks. We used to have multiple ice cream or frozen lemonade trucks roll though our neighborhood in the summer, but this year I haven’t seen one. I also haven’t seen them driving along the streets in my area. It would be really sad to think that ice cream trucks have gone the way of the dinosaur.

I understand that the selection of music they play as they try to entice you to buy a cold treat is pretty atrocious, and it’s even worse when they have an annoying bell ringing. It’s also annoying when they come to your neighborhood right before dinner, but I suppose they can’t hit every neighborhood just right. However, it’s just not summer without an ice cream truck riding around your streets, calling out to you, telling you that relief and refreshment are right here. Even if you don’t buy any, it’s just not the same.

It was a rare treat when we got anything from the ice cream man when I was a kid. In fairness to my parents, we often had something in the freezer – a couple of flavors of ice cream, Popsicles or Fudgesicles. We often had some ice cream cones, too. Despite all that, when most of your friends were getting something from the ice cream man, getting something from the freezer just wasn’t the same. So it was a grand time when Mom actually gave us the money to get something from the ice cream man, even if it was the cheapest item from the truck.

We had some ways around the no-ice-cream-from-the-ice-cream-man problem. One was having friends who always seemed to have money in their pocket. Not that they would get me an ice cream every day, but they got me one sometimes or they would share theirs with me. A friend willing to share his ice cream on a hot summer day was a good friend indeed. Another was finding some change, either on the street, or under the cushions of the couch, or left lying around on a countertop. Sure, you had to save it up until you had enough, but that made the purchase that much sweeter when you finally could afford a Cannonball. There’s nothing like a rock hard piece of gum after eating an ice cream.

One year, my younger brother, a couple of friends and I asked the ice cream man if we could have an ice cream or two…for free. Of course, he laughed at us, but he held out some hope. He told us if we followed him until the end of his route, he would give us a couple of crushed ice creams to share between us, because he couldn’t sell them anyway. Where was the end of his route? Was a crushed ice cream even eatable? We didn’t know and we didn’t care, we were going to follow him on our bikes and find out. 

Ah, but here’s something we didn’t count on. The ice cream man’s route was actually quite long for kids our age, and on top of that he made a lot of stops, so it took what seemed like hours to reach the end. Looking back, he probably thought that we’d abandon the quest because of a) the heat, b) the distance, c) the time, or d) all of the above. I remember that a couple people dropped out and there were only two of us left at the end, both of us hot, sweaty and tired. For our efforts, we each got a squashed, partially freezer burned – but very cold – Chocolate Eclair ice cream! I do believe that was the best one I ever had, better than the ones I actually paid for over the years. Maybe it was that we took the challenge and actually made it to the end, maybe it was the way the ice cream man laughed at us at first, most likely it was because it was the only way I was going to get something better than a Popsicle, but I savored that ice cream like it was the last one I would ever have.

The ice cream man let us do that a couple more times, but then word got out and there were a bunch of kids following him around. In addition to being a traffic hazard, no one was buying anything from him, so he had to shut down the operation. Once toward the end of the summer, he pulled over and gave us a couple of crushed ice creams to share, telling us not to tell anyone else. One last treat to remember the summer by and he was gone, just like the free ice creams. The next summer, we had a different guy doing the ice cream truck in our neighborhood and he wasn’t the same. There were no freebies for anybody from that guy.  

Hopefully, this is not another childhood ritual that is gone for good. I hope next summer the ice cream man comes through our neighborhood with his annoying music playing and his overpriced treats up for grabs to anybody who has enough spare change. I might just go out there and buy something from him, like a Cannonball or a nice Chocolate Eclair. Who knows, maybe he’ll even have some crushed ones he’d be willing to part with for next to nothing. I’d be willing to take the discount as long as I don’t have to follow him to the end of his route.

Making Some Noise

No one in my house besides me needs to get up early in the morning during the summer so I’m usually the only one up before I leave for work. I have to admit I don't enjoy summer mornings as much as I could because everyone else gets to sleep as late as they want but I still have to get up and go to work. It has recently come to my attention that I make a lot of noise in the morning. Both my daughter and my wife told me that I’m really loud in the morning while I’m getting ready for work.

I must say that I was kind of surprised by this because I try hard to be as quiet as I can in the morning. I don’t think I make too much noise in the bathroom in the morning. About the only thing I do that makes any noise is blowing my nose after I take my shower and I do that with the door shut. Due to allergies, about the only time in the day I can breathe normal is right after taking a shower, so I need that. I also brush my teeth and that’s about it. I haven’t used a blow dryer my whole life and don’t really need to these days with the amount of hair I have left. Not much noise here.

I may make a little noise when I go downstairs. I usually put away any pots, pans, utensils and the like that were hand washed and left to dry. I have to admit that putting away the pots and pans does make some noise, I mean they are metal, but even with those I try to be as quiet as possible. I tend to let the refrigerator door close itself  instead of holding onto it and going slow, but how much noise can that make when you’re upstairs in your room with the door closed? I also use a blender every morning for my protein shake (I need to eat something and regular food makes me tired, so I drink one every morning on the way to work) and that can be a little loud for about a minute. Maybe I make more noise than I think.

My mother has told me that she never had to worry where I was as a kid because she always knew exactly where I was because of how much noise I made. So if I was in the house or out in the yard, Mom knew where I was. I can kind of see that looking back now. I was a little heavy on my feet walking around and I was a bit klutzy, tripping over things or banging into things. I used to try to imitate things I heard, too, like birds, music or voices – irritating to everyone but me. I think I was kind of a yapper, always talking about something, even if no one was listening.

Outside, I would have a running play-by-play when I was playing. It may have looked like I was just throwing a ball up in the air or off the house and catching it, or just taking shots on a hockey net by myself, but there was a whole game going on and I was right in the middle of it. Of course, my team always won whatever game was being played. I guess if you can’t be a star in real life, you can still be a star in your own little world. There were times I realized I wasn’t just saying it in my head, I was actually saying it out loud. It makes me wonder what it sounded like to others in the house or just passing by the yard. I know I found it quite entertaining when my own son did the same thing as he ran around the backyard, participating in some imaginary competition when he was little. 

OK, so I probably do make a lot of noise in the morning getting ready for work. I probably make a lot of noise throughout the whole day. As much as I try, I just can’t seem to help making noise. I guess it’s in my DNA. Maybe I should start a support group, Noisemakers Anonymous (“Hello, I’m Joe and I make a lot of noise.”), so me, and others like me, won’t have to feel bad about our noisiness. There are many things much worse than being loud and making noise. My Mom didn’t seem to mind it. At least she always knew what I was doing.

If Everyone Was Jumping Off A Bridge

Another post in a series on Famous Family Sayings

“If everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you jump off, too?”

I guess it would depend on the circumstances. If you’re talking about Second Bridge on the Vineyard, then the answer would be yes. However, what I’m talking about is the response to the long shouted plea from kids all over the world, “But everyone else is going!” Supposedly, everybody is going somewhere except you. To kids, there really aren’t that many possible reasons why this is happening:

A. Their parents are stupid.

B. Their parents are mean.

C. Their parents just don’t understand how important this is to them.

D. Their parents are so old they forget what it’s like to have fun.

E. All of the above.

I’m not absolutely certain, but I think my kids would have chosen A and/or C when they were a little younger. My son rarely asks us to do things that we think are inappropriate and my daughter is heading into her second year of college, so she really doesn’t need to ask us about going places anymore. However, a few years ago there were times they asked us to do something and we had to say no because we didn’t feel comfortable with it.

Even when they made the last ditch effort to get their way by pulling out the but-everyone-else-is-going card, we explained why they couldn’t go or why they couldn’t do whatever it was they wanted to do. It had nothing to do with any other kids and how they got to do everything, or anyone else’s parents and how they were letting their kids go, or some other random fact like it wasn’t a full moon for another seven days. It all came down to us and them. My wife and I, however, never used the line that parents the world over have been using for generations: “If everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you jump off, too?”

Personally, I usually opted for choice D when I was a kid when my parents used the “If everyone else was jumping off a bridge…” line and I wasn’t allowed to do something or go somewhere. I thought that after seven other kids my parents were just too old to remember what fun was. Looking back now, I’m about the same age they were when I thought that about them. How’s that for a dose of reality?

I was frustrated more than once by the “If everyone else was jumping off a bridge…” line. The biggest reason I hated it was because it was an illogical argument. It was like comparing apples to underwear; totally unrelated. Both were important in my daily life, but not related in any way. Most of the time, I wasn’t asking for anything outrageous, I just wanted to go somewhere that all my friends were going to. It wasn’t dangerous or illegal, but because my parents didn’t like it, they said no. If I told them that everyone else was going and that I wanted to go, too, I got the “If everyone else was jumping off a bridge…” line. Sometimes I tried to inject a bit of logic into the argument by telling my parents there was no bridge at the concert, carnival, game or party, so they didn’t have to worry about me jumping off one. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. In my mind, it proved they were just too old to remember what fun was.

Another reason I hated the “If everyone was jumping off a bridge…” argument was that it only went one way. When most of my friends were doing something my parents thought was good, like going to serve Thanksgiving dinner to a bunch of elderly people or singing Christmas songs at a nursing home, and I didn’t want to do it, they’d say, “But all your friends are going.” In my head I’d be hearing their voice saying, “If everyone was jumping off a bridge…” I even said it out loud once and that did not go over well.

That’s why I don’t think I ever used that kind of line on my own kids. When I was a kid, it frustrated me and made me angry at my parents, and it even made me say things I wouldn’t care to repeat or have someone say about me. I didn’t want to do that to my kids. Before you think I’m patting myself on the back for being such a great guy, let me say that there were too many times I was in the middle of saying something to my kids when I suddenly had a vision of one of my parents saying the same thing to me, and me thinking in my head, “I’ll NEVER say that to my kids!” I still need to catch myself before I get too far into a conversation that starts with, “When I was your age…” Ugh.  

I know I’ve made my share of mistakes, as have all parents (unless they’re totally deceived or in denial), but using the “If everyone was jumping off a bridge…” was not one of them. Even now, I do still remember what it’s like to have fun.