Clean up on Child Three

The hardest part about going on vacation is coming home. That’s probably mostly because of the stress of smuggling five suitcases full of tequila, illegal Mexican fireworks, and my cool new switchblade past the customs agents at the airport. But also because we had to come back to the reality of having kids.

We were only in Mexico for five days, but, apparently, God thought we were getting a little too comfortable in our south-of-the-border kid-less bliss So, He smacked us straight in the face - mostly the nose, really – with reality. Literally the first thing we had to do when we saw the kids was clean up vomit.

My wife and I flew back from Mexico into the San Francisco Bay Area and stayed the night, and Grandma drove the boys to us the next morning so we could all continue on a family vacation for a week. Grandma has apparently lost the ability to say no, or the ability to make good decisions, or both, because on her way she said yes to cherry-red Slurpees for breakfast on the road. Son Number Three’s body rejected the eight A.M. overload of high-fructose corn syrup and red dye #40 about a block from our hotel.

Welcome back. There’s red puke all over the inside of your car. And your son. And one of your other sons. Road trip!

There’s not too many things that can make me miss the unpleasant wafting aroma of the under-engineered Mexican sewer system, but cleaning bright red Slurpee vomit off the back seats of the car with a baby wipe at a gas station is one of them. It’s great to be back with the kids. Thanks for watching them, Grandma. I guess we forgot to mention it, but “No” is an acceptable word to use with the children when inside a 7-Eleven.

(Please don’t misunderstand – even though Grandma seems to be losing it, we will still gladly use her babysitting services in the future. It takes a lot more than projectile Slurpee to get fired from that job!)

Our destination was San Diego to stay with relatives for a few days in their beautiful, upscale, clean, well-appointed home. We arrived and promptly took over their laundry room to de-puke-ify the contents of our quarantined trash bag. After the laundry was finished we went to bed happy that the clean-up was behind us.

I guess God thought we hadn’t quite paid for all the time off.

The next morning, I woke up to Son Number Two in the kitchen with bright blue hands and ten dismantled ball-point pens on the granite countertop, trying to wash off the blue ink that had spread everywhere inside his backpack. He was busy trying to wash the pens. The pens! Because to my eleven-year-old, saving the twenty-four cents’ worth of crappy pens was the main concern.

I traced the ink spill back to his bed on their living room couch, where he first discovered the Bic-xon Valdez had run aground. There I found the backpack, and various items from within, all a vibrant fresh blue ink color, many of which, in his haste to save the precious disposable plastic pens, had found their way onto the sheets, the staircase next to the couch, and the large area rug.

After I collected all the little pieces of my head that exploded all over the room, I spent the next hour perfecting the technique of using rubbing alcohol to get ink out of a carpet. Given enough time and excruciatingly-manufactured patience, rubbing alcohol and an endless supply of clean rags removes bright blue ink from carpet fibers amazingly well, which is the only reason Son Number Two is still with us here on Earth.

It was starting to look like penance for a week off from parenting was going to involve a crazy mess from each child. We’d had bright red and bright blue, so it was looking like a patriotic theme was developing.

We kept Son Number One away from marshmallows and milk for the rest of the trip.

It’s great to be back.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

The Four-Way Stop

I always thought operating a car was fairly simple. You have a steering wheel, a gas pedal, a brake pedal, and if you’re really sporty or from a third-world country, a clutch. Go early and easy on the brakes, unless you are from a third-world country, or a city like Los Angeles, then you drive seventy-five miles per hour toward the stop sign and decide when you are twenty feet away whether you will stop or just blow through it.

Keep a safe following distance when at highway speeds, which is a three-second gap for most of us, barring again, third-world countries and cities like Los Angeles. In those places, safe following distances have been replaced by simply connecting all the cars at highway speeds, bumper-to-bumper, with only an imperceptible air gap between them.

If the weather is wet or icy, you should slow down and remember that brakes only work when the tires are in contact with the actual road. If you accidentally go too fast in inclement weather and end up sliding, remember to maintain positive acceleration and steer into the skid. In practical terms, this means to scream, “HOLY CRAP WE’RE GOING TO DIE!” at the top of your lungs while using both feet to attempt to push the brake pedal all the way to the front bumper, and allowing the highway guard rail and adjacent cars to act on behalf of your steering wheel.

Yield to oncoming traffic, stop on red, go on green. It all seems simple enough, but there is one traffic control situation that tends to cause a lot of people grief: Four-way stop signs.

The four-way stop need not be difficult, since the rules are quite simple. The entire concept of the four-way stop has to do with Right of Way. This literally means that when two cars arrive at adjacent stops signs at the same time, the car on the right has priority. The driver of the car on the left must hang his or her head in shame and meekly wave for the other driver to proceed. Driving statutes vary, but in most states, the driver with the Right of Way is required to give a friendly wave, and a visibly smug smile.

If the two vehicles have arrived simultaneously at opposing stop signs, the car going straight has priority, and the other car needs to wait for them to pass and turn around them. It is not always easy to know the other driver’s intended path, however, since the turn signals on most cars operated by drivers under the age of twenty-five have apparently been disabled, while many of the over-seventy crowd’s turn signals have been cleverly rigged to remain on constantly.

In either case you will need to be cautious as you approach the center of the intersection. It helps to notice where the other driver’s eyes are focused. If the driver is young, their gaze will invariably be directed downward, into their lap, where their phone is. These drivers often do not even realize they are in an intersection. The older drivers often have a dazed look, similar to a deer in headlights. They may realize they are in an intersection, but they are likely terrified to be there. In either case, the other driver may do something unexpected. Be prepared. Many times it is best to just remain at your stop sign, ignoring Right of Way, and wait these people out. The young drivers will proceed on their way after they get done typing “OMG LOL,” making the decision to turn or go straight in the half-second they are able to devote to driving the vehicle before they receive their next text message. The older drivers often fall asleep, and after their car has rolled harmlessly onto someone’s lawn or slowly through the front window of the corner store, you may proceed on your way.

In the unlikely event that four cars arrive at each of the four stop signs at exactly the same time and Right of Way cannot be traditionally established, Standard American Rules apply, and the largest vehicle wins. (Note: If any of the vehicles are electric or those silly little Smart Cars, they are obviously automatically disqualified from any consideration.)

In the even more unlikely event that four similar-sized cars have arrived simultaneously at the four stop signs, we default to Majority Rules, and the vehicle with the most passengers wins.

In the even, even more unlikely event that all the similar-sized cars contain the same amount of people (or people and livestock in some rural counties), all drivers must exit their vehicles and meet in the middle of the intersection. They will pair up into their respective east/west and north/south teams, and play a single-elimination, sudden-death Ro Sham Bo tournament (also known as Rock Paper Scissors, or Reaux Sham Beaux if the four-way stop is located in New Orleans).

If the final Ro Sham Bo round ends in three or more tie games, Right of Way is determined by total combined height and weight of each team.

Pretty simple, really.

However, as easy as the four-way stop rules should be to follow, many Americans just cannot seem to grasp them. As a result, some towns are following Europe’s lead and going with roundabouts instead.

This is a mistake. A huge mistake. I beg you, impressionable traffic engineers of America, don’t give in to the hype. Roundabouts will only make the problem worse. All the case studies speak for themselves. Any driver who is even slightly confused about the rules at a four-way stop will be utterly mystified by a roundabout.

Let’s not make the problem worse. Instead, let’s spend all that wasted re-engineering time and energy on re-educating the public on the four-way stop rules. That will be a better use of our money, because it seems that for some of the population, if four-way stops are long division, roundabouts are Chinese algebra.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!