"Parental Heart Stoppers" original parenting humor by Steve Wingate

By Steve Wingate

One of the many joys of being a parent is knowing that, at any time, your children can give you a good excuse to buy new furniture or electronics. My wife and I finally wised up a few years ago and invested in what we call "training furniture". No more leather couches, glass bookcases, hifi systems or antique dining room sets for us. No, we now furnish our home in "post modern American thrift shop" fashions, pieces that cost no more than a new paperback. That way, when our children ruin something, we can simply drag it out to the curb to be picked up by the garbage truck, or more often burn it to prevent further contamination. We're hoping that some day, (probably during the first quarter of their sophomore year in college) our children will learn that you sit on furniture with your butt rather than your knees and that Oreos do not fit in the CD player. Then, and only then, we will consider buying nice furniture just in time for our grandchildren to do the same thing to it.

We have learned that there are certain phrases that precede the destruction or irreversible staining of our home furnishings, phrases that should strike terror into the heart of any parent. Here are just a few:

WARNING! If you are or have ever been a parent of small children, please read these next few lines with extreme caution. Prolonged exposure to the following type of material has been know to cause involuntary twitching, weeping, cursing and an uncontrollable urge to put children up for adoption.

"Eww! The couch is wet!"

"Mama, the cat got sick."

"Daddy, how much does a new car cost?"

"OH NO! Where do we keep the clean towels?"

"Mama? You know that glass ballerina you like so much….well…"

"Daddy, does super glue work on windows?"

"Is it okay of this gets wet?"

"Hey Daddy…. Well, umm… I was on the Internet and I accidentally downloaded something and now the computer says "BRAIN DEAD" on the screen. Is that bad?

"Mama, Isaac took the chocolate syrup in his room."

"Oh no! I need the plunger!"

"Daddy, does CPR work on dogs? No? Oh. (shouting) Isaac, you better stop, Daddy says it won't work!"

"Hey Daddy? Well okay… ummm… well you see, we were like gonna watch Clueless and I put the tape in you know just like I always do I didn't push it too hard or nothing, but it made this real funny grinding noise like "rrrrr-cr-rrrr" 'n stuff and then the tape won't come back out and I kinda pulled it a little and it you know came out and I think part of it's still in there so I got your pliers out the toolbox and……

"Does that fire extinguisher in the garage work?"

"Mama, this chair smells funny."

We have also learned that no matter how much you scrub and scrub and scrub, you will never ever get an entire bottle of shampoo out of the carpet, and that ketchup on sofa cushions eventually fades from brownish red to gray. Did you know that once macaroni has been on the ceiling for twelve hours it becomes permanent? Or how about the fact that children exude paper giblets from their pores? Really…. My children can go in a perfectly swept and vacuumed room with no paper or scissors in site, and within fifteen minutes, the floor will be covered in tiny scraps of paper and/or broken crayon tips. I bet you also didn't know that you can burglar proof your house by throwing a handful of Lego blocks under all the windows and doors, and if a burglar steps on one, it will immediately pierce his footwear and impale his foot, causing him to hop on the other foot and say ugly words. That's what happens when I step on one, anyway.

My point is that children are all little mess mongers bent on total annihilation of cleanliness and order. Their motto: "Mess and Destroy". You might as well resign yourself to using training furniture for the next few years. Visit your local thrift store to stock up.

Or just check out at the curb by my house.