Misery Poker Variant

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One of my most annoying traits, other than constantly running late, is that I am super good at Misery Poker. Just to get the rules straight, Misery Poker involves one-downmanship.  So for instance, your friend's 'hand' consists of complaints such as, 


"I've got 5 loads of laundry, a dentist appointment, a playdate at my house this afternoon, and my mother-in-law is coming over for dinner."  


To win, you must play something along the lines of  


"Yeah, I totally know how you feel. Last night one of the twins was puking all over their room, and managed to get it all over their dresser drawer.  But I don't know when I'm going to get to that, because my older son decided to release his ball-bearing collection onto the kitchen floor, and the dog has some sort of abscess on his back that keeps oozing stuff all over.  On top of that, the realtor's bringing a possible buyer over for a second look in about 1 1/2 hours."  


I'm not saying I've ever played that hand, since we don't have a dog, and our house isn't for sale, but you get the idea.  I generally get dealt pretty good hands, which is weird considering generally we're pretty happy people. (This is all counter-intuitive logic.  Tell me when you're head stops spinning.)  

People who try to one-down you are more annoying than those who try to one-up you, because it robs you of your self-pity.  They make you realize that things could be a lot worse. And, everyone has the right to a little self-pity now and again. So as I get older and wiser, I try to keep my poker face on and not share my winning hands.  Let other people have a chance to win; it's not all about me.  

Only one child is sitting in his chair, mainly because he is
harnessed in, and hasn't figured out how to get out of either
his chair or his clothes yet. 

Instead, I've been using my Misery Poker talent by focusing on coming up with good, memorable reasons why my kids should and should not do certain things or behave in certain ways. Take, for instance, the seemingly impossibly act of sitting still in the chair and keeping all SIX feet on the ground.  What's the worse that could happen? I'll tell you what's the worse thing that could happen.  You could tip back in that chair, and fall and crack open your skull on the tile.  Your brains would spatter all over the floor, and let me tell you something, you will be sucking your pizza through a straw, young man, so let's see you get all SIX feet on the floor, and eat your dinner!

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I've come up with similar "worst case scenarios" in an effort to get my kids to behave.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes it works a little too well, and I'll have a kid padding into my room late at night and asking in a small voice, "Mommy.... What's an aneurysm?"  It's a double edged sword, you see.  But here's the pay-off.  In another decade or less, I'll be back on top of my Misery Poker game with comments such as, "Yeah, well my husband and I are living on organic dogfood and weeds that we gather in the park because all of our paychecks go to the child therapist who is treating all of our kids for the damage that I did to their fragile psyches while trying to get them to sit still at the dinner table."  I'll totally win with that one. 

A Boy's Observation of the Fairer Sex

Few things will give you mental pause faster than your 8 1/2 year-old son suddenly quipping, "You know what I've noticed about women?"  Any number of sentences could follow, and at least 70% of them are things that have the potential for him to be sent home from school or possibly arrested. I took a deep breath and braced myself.  "What?"



"Well, I've noticed that a lot of times, women will make a list of things that they need, and then they go to the store and get all sorts of things that they don't need, but that they just want, or maybe stuff that was on sale."  I looked down at my hands, which were turning purple from the circulation that was being cut off by the eight Target bags that I was carrying. As I put the bags down, NEVERMIND WHAT WAS OR WASN'T ON MY LIST WHEN I WENT TO TARGET, and rubbed some feeling back into my hands, I said, maybe a little too defensively, "What's your point?" 

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He must have sensed danger, because he casually replied, "Oh, no point really.  It's just an observation that I've made."

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It's just an observation that he's made. I couldn't come up with anything better than, "Ok."  Because what, really, was there to say. That he was an 8 year old boy that had no business making "observations about women," because there's no telling where that will lead? That I knew many grown men who not only can't articulate their observations, but also can't use them to their advantage? That some observations were better kept to himself? (The classic divorce-trap question comes to mind, "Honey, do these jeans make me look fat?")

Eh, he's apparently wily enough that he ought to be able to figure out all these things by himself.  I'll check back in in another year, and see if he's made any more observations about the world. In the meantime, I observed that his room was a bit on the messy side, and perhaps he ought to go clean it while I emptied out my Target bags full of super cute and useful sale items that I probably don't need.

Call of the Wild or Hotel Camping Epilogue

I've stated previously that we are not campers.  Yet, we live in a part of the country where the number of campsites and protected areas of nature are rivalled only by Starbucks.  It seems everyone here either owns a dog, or goes camping regularly. Having had twins instead of a third child, we are less likely to get a dog than the family of cats living down the street.  A coworker of mine told me that he hated camping, but he went yearly with his boys for 7 years (not that he was counting) because they loved it so much.  Inspired by his willingness to be miserable for the sake of his kids, I felt like I couldn't deny my kids both a dog and their right to get to know the Great Outdoors.

We started with just camping in the backyard. My husband was skeptical. My sister and her husband joined us in their own tent. My son asked if it would be okay if he dug a latrine in the backyard. No, because we have several working toilets in the house. We told ghost stories. We learned that it gets extremely cold at night. The kids had a blast. My husband remained skeptical, but was game for real camping.  My son was especially excited about the prospect of digging a latrine. I assured him that there was a restroom at the campsite and we would not need to dig a latrine.

And I should add that when I say "real camping," I mean car camping, and only for one night.  Apparently, if you don't reserve a campsite at least 2 months in advance, they all get booked up by people that know what they're doing. We are not those people.

Figure 1. Eagerly awaiting my geeky friends' suggestions
on how I could make my graph more accurate.

We drove up to a site, amongst many other sites, and carried our gear down a dirt path a short distance. My sister and her husband were already there.  My son wondered if they had already dug the latrine. (FOR THE LOVE OF PETE.  WE DO NOT NEED A LATRINE.  THEY WILL HAVE BATHROOMS.)  We got our tent put up in 22 minutes, which was no small task given all the helpers.  I've done a little research and determined that the time it takes to complete a task is inversely proportional to the average age of your helpers and almost directly proportional to the number of helpers you have.  This is best represented in Figure 1. I am still conducting studies to determine the point of intersection.  After we put the tent up, my son asked if we would be digging a latrine next. We suggested making dinner instead.

We didn't take a lot of pictures of the twins' first camping trip.
Mainly because we were on Campfire Deathwatch,
Campstove Deathwatch, Dirty Shoes in the Tent Patrol,
Food That Fell on the Ground Patrol, and Bug Spray Patrol.

As expected, the twins had some difficulty getting to sleep.  What I mean by this is that they scared all the other campers, ghosts, and wildlife away.  I'm surprised the park ranger didn't pay us a visit, followed by Child Protective Services, quite frankly.  We had them in these peapods, kind of like a tent within a tent, so that instead of wandering around in the middle of the night, they were trapped like little aliens trying to kickbox their way out of the womb.  Having carried them in my womb, I've experienced what that's like, and kind of felt sorry for the little tents.  On the bright side, when we finally went to go soothe them, the little tents were so warm inside (from them being so worked up) that I didn't worry about the toddlers getting hypothermia overnight.

We definitely got dirty, but truth be told, I have four kids and I have definitely gone for much longer without showering. Big deal.  Not to brag, but we were nowhere near our family nadir of disgustingness. I think we'd need to extend our stay for a few more days to even get close.

Before we all went home, my son was able to spend an afternoon fishing with his uncle. He had a lot of questions about latrines, including whether or not you had to bury your poop.  Good camping talk. For his birthday, he told me he wants a camp shovel with a pointed tip so that he can... wait for it... Dig a latrine.

My husband stated that camping was just like being at home,
except that everything was suckier.
Here he is having a terrible time.

Here we are having a terrible time.

I'm pretty sure there's a kid in there, but not 100% positive that
a. there's a kid or b.which one it is. Based on the color of the bag,
probably my daughter.

The only thing more boring than fishing (to me) is
watching someone else fish.
I bet he's thinking about digging latrines.