A little gloom to groom a room, the voice of doom, and boom, boom, boom

Surfing around to bloggy friends, I see that almost everyone else is sweltering miserably in a nationwide heatwave. High temp records shattered in the US and Europe with all the resulting brownouts, rolling-blackouts and old folks croaking over their cans of rancid catfood seem to indicate this summer's the shit when it comes to baking brains. Smarter folks than me say the ungodly temperatures are linked to global warming and although I have the luxury of cool, wet weather to play devil's advocate, I think handing the explanation of the ya'll's beastly heat over to global warming is a bit premature. Oh, I am convinced the planet is heating up and humanity is the agent of that change but I reserve judgement until next summer. Ask me then, since I'm a big adherant of "twice is a coincidence, thrice is a trend."

A meandering and prolix path to say that, mm-hmmm, the clouds bared down on the mountains hereabouts and pelted us with cold, Colorado rain. Not meaning to rub it in your collective faces but this is paradise to an extent (an extent it gets fuggin-fuggin cold in the wintertime) and maybe God will throw a glacier down on my grinning skull. I don't think it works that way but hey, the Apocalypse is heading our way for like the 5,614th time anyway, right?

Well, God has other ways to punish me.

We'd planned to head up the pass and feed ducks but the thunderheads had other plans for us. Considering the circumstances, a reverse Cat in the Hat seemed in order to succor the effects of our last shared rainy day. Girls were set to the task of eliminating the knee-deep detritus carpeting their room while dad had dirty laundry, dirty floors and a pungent commode to clean (two males - one a mere three-years old - leads to... well, you know the reek). The boy was set in front of a Star Wars marathon being still too young to comprehend the extent of the "get that crap put away" concept. Not a great plan (there are no "great plans" devised by a dad) but servicable enough to keep the chaos from claiming victims outside our little house.

While yours truly duly provided a good role-model, the girls ostensibly cleaned their room while blasting The Dixie Cups "Iko-Iko" (from a mixed disk I made for Marni's 3rd birthday) over and over again. Mostly they lined up dolls and stuffed animals in such a way that only added to the destruction while

Talk-in' 'bout, Hey now ! Hey now ! I-KO, I-KO, un-day, Jock-a-mo fee-no ai na-né. - Jock-a-mo fee na-né,

taunted me endlessly, "Daddy, we got MARDI GRAS goin' up in here!"

What is it about young children and their penchant for perseveration? Yes, as someone trained in Psychology I know it's some security issue (i.e. a 'blankie' or a stained stuffed toy tattered beyond recognition) but at the 27th repeat of The Dixie Cups, dad had to stick his head in the room and scream, "Enough!"

X says I have "the voice of doom" (she even calls to get that effect when the kids won't listen to her) and it must have worked because the young ckicks went back to work but more impotantly, no more chk-a-chk-a-chk-chk-chk chugging from their cheap boom-box. Not that much else got done but Good God it was nice to hear something besides Iko-frikkin-Iko.

No, the doomvoice only really worked after I walked in the room and used it with the effect of the rolling thunder in the background, as if God was backing me up, bass and drums booming behind my resonant, growling threats. Hell, I didn't even need to rely on the old Jack Handy chestnut:

If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is "Probably because of something you did."

In the end, the girls got busy (with dad's glad hand) and there's even carpet visible in their room. Enough carpet visible to lower the doom level in my voice and give the princesses a little love, to read them a story and even allow them some mors Iko-Iko.

I've learned to choose my battles carefully. The boy's abed and the girls chatting madly while having voted to listen to La Traviata (instead of Yhe Dixie Cups) in a half-cleaned room. Having given kisses and a night-night story, I have this time - my time - to tell you all about this.

Not that you care two shits about my report but the internet is forever and one day and one day, my kids can read about this even if their room isn't clean and I'm not around to read it at bedtime.

That and they'll always have thunder.