He Looks Normal. . .

But, he's really not. We just love, love, love, our son and are immensely proud of his decision to be a Marine. But, I need to love him from afar. Living in our house, he's driving me crazy!! He looks normal. But, he's goofy as hell!

The scary thing is, he's not unique! Strangers and friends, alike, have related stories about their crazy kids -- mostly boys. One guy, to his wife's displeasure, told us he thought someone had beat their kid with a stupid stick when he turned 18! I still LOL whenever I think about that!

What is it about boys that makes them forego reasoning skills? Admittedly, I've been described as 'high strung', but here are a few things that make me bonkers:

• He complained the shower in the bathroom wasn't getting hot. It was ice cold (his words). I turned the knob to the 'hot' position and watched the shower steam up with the heat generated by the hot water.


• Why do you, routinely, put (1) article of clothing in the dryer?


• Could you please, for the love of good housekeeping, plug my Swiffer back in when you're done?! And don't make me look all over the house for it, only to find it (with batteries dead) propped against the wall behind your bedroom door!


• How do you make red Kool-Aid, spill some of it on the white counter tops, on the tan floor , or in the bottom of the white refrigerator, and not see it until one of us points it out to you?


• If you drink all but the last two ounces of milk, shouldn't you just finish it off and throw the empty container away, instead of putting it back in the refrigerator?

When we point out these things, we get the look from him. Any parent of teenagers knows this look. The one that begs the question, Why are you inferior mortals bothering me?

Sadly, no one I've spoken to knows how to "fix" him. Everyone says, He'll grow out of it. It's just a phase all boys go through. In a word, we should just wait. Wait. Dr. M. L. King wrote an essay from jail about waiting. Like us, he was tired of it.

Well, I'm going through a phase, too. It's the phase in my life where I thought I'd be visiting my son, in his unkempt apartment across town. Maybe I'd wash a few dishes because the kitchen was a mess, then leave to go home to my house -- where there's nothing spilled on the floor, my Swiffer is fully charged and stored exactly where it should be, and there's actually milk in the carton in the refrigerator.