Thursday, March 18, 2010

Was Your Day This Bad? - A Writing Proposal

I can’t possibly be the only parent who has children who tape underwear to the front door of his house. There are more of you out there. I know there are. I know there are because I know that I am not the only parent who had a three year old son decide to drop his pants to his ankles and water the grass near the traveling Vietnam Wall Memorial in front of dozens of people including many faculty members of the history department at the high school where I taught.


I was so proud.

I know that I am not the only parent who has had a child loudly ask, “Is it time to go home yet?” during that one moment of silence in the middle of our pastor’s sermon.

I know that I am not the only parent who has had a child wondering why he didn’t have a younger brother, which led him to ask at the top of his lungs, “Dad, have you given mom any of your sperm yet?” on a crowded Southwest Airlines flight to Chicago.

I can’t be the only one.

Can I?

I ask because of Charles. Charles is the father of a scout in General Mayhem’s Boy Scout Troop. Charles walked up to me with a big grin at a scout meeting last month. “I almost called you today,” he told me.

“Why?” I asked. Charles never calls me.

“Because I thought I was having a bad day,” he explained. “I knew that if I talked to you my day would get a whole lot better.”

Charles went on to explain that after listening to me share the details of the day my sewer line backed up into my basement while I was teaching a homeschool writing class to a visiting student and simultaneously fighting with my plumber in an effort get him to honor his warranty and re-snake my lateral line, he realized that his tough day wasn’t as bad as he thought it was. That was an appropriate day to teach descriptive writing using words that end in “y,” such as “nasty” and “sh…” The more Charles thought about it he realized that he rarely has a day worse than some of the stories that I have shared with him. Now, every time Charles sees me he asks, “Is my day getting better or worse?” It’s rather annoying, really. He smiles in anticipation as he asks the question, certain that my pain will bring him great pleasure.

The sadist.

This came to mind when I read Papa Bear’s response to my underwear blog. Papa Bear sent me a message telling me that his autistic thirteen year old son decided to drop trou in his front yard and share a full moon with the entire neighborhood. Papa Bear lives on a corner lot, so his son’s lunar adventures were visible in every direction. If you have not read Papa Bear’s blog you should. He writes at Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  The link is on my side bar. (And yes, I share this with his permission.)

I sympathize with good humor and genuine understanding. While reading Papa Bear’s e-mail I realized that we have the making of a very good regular feature titled “Was Your Day This Bad?” Alliteratively, Wednesday would be a good day for this feature, although any day of the week will work. I wrote “we” because it takes a community of readers and writers to make it work. On “Was Your Day This Bad?” we each write a post about the hardest, funniest, most challenging and stress filled day that we’ve had during the previous two weeks, and share/vent on our blogs in the most humorous manner possible. I'm thinking of one post every other week. Maybe if we share the pain we can all laugh with each other rather than at one another.

Oh, who am I kidding? We’ll all be laughing at one another.

Any takers?

9 comments:

Oklahoma Granny said...

Since my kids are grown I'll have to decline but believe you me, we had some of those days. That's probably the reason I get such a kick out of your blog. Now I'm going to check out Papa Bear's blog.

svenelson said...

During the St. Patrick's Day parade downtown yesterday Matthew started hitting Sam in the back because he got candy thrown from a float and Matthew did not. This was very embarrassing since we were on the corner of Delaware and 3rd for everyone to see, including a nun.

twisted said...

I can definitely go down the Bad Day road with you. That's if I can remember to write it down before chemo brain flushes it out the ears.

Junosmom said...

Oh, yes, I've had some very bad days like you describe. We must have a similar septic/sewer system. If you set something up, I'll join in. I don't have a day in mind right now, but if you wait awhile, I'm sure one will happen.

Mama Bear said...

You know you will be hearing from our family.

Kathleen said...

I'm in. If I can get past this Writer's Block of late.

40winkzzz said...

given that i have such a hard time getting blog posts out lately, i can't promise i'd participate-- in fact, it's highly unlikely that i would do so with any sort of regularity. i might join in on occasion, though, and i would probably at least READ what everyone else wrote! it sounds like a winner of an idea.

GingerB said...

I am in, with a vengeance.

Anonymous said...

Try being at a school function and your daughter shouts, "Mummy, you need to shave under your arms"!!