Deb and Miriam are in Germany. Which means that the house is ruled by men. Undainty men. Men who like to eat and to watch sports on TV. Men who feel no compulsion to get fully dressed when walking around the house. In other words, men in their natural state.
Adam, John and I reached a pact after Deb and Miriam left for Deutschland. I was the initiator of the agreement, but they heartily went along with it. Rule No. 1: No smoke in the house; rule No. 2: No food left sitting out. Rule No. 3: The house returns to its usual status on or before June 17, when Deb and Miriam return. So far, so good. Actually, John cleaned up his room since the female's departure, and, Adam cleaned out the back of the car he drives. I am not sure what this means, but I'll take it.
We are subsisting on cereal, milk, cut-up fruit, meat (in various forms, including prepackaged hard salami, hamburgers, spaghetti) and gatorade. I ate some leftover broccoli that Deb had prepared before her departure, but I'm not seeing many more vegetables on the horizon....although the boys each ate lettuce on their burgers at yesterday's agreed-upon once-per-week guys' outing at a restaurant.
Conversation at the restaurant included: how long can you go before somebody notices you haven't been shaving (I can go the longest, what with my nearly invisible facial hair); what incidents in your ancestors' lives were crucial in guaranteeing that you actually were conceived (other than the actual event, of course); the nature of fate; the insurgence of motivational/inspirational songs in the hip-hop music world, despite the continued presence of mysogenistic crap; the overall decline in offense in major-league baseball this season; strategies and tactics in getting a summer job; the redeeming qualities of certain cable TV shows, including "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Breaking Bad"; debate over the best view in St. Louis....
and all this, while working on 3 bottomless mugs of root beer....
talk concerning females was noticeably limited, but I think this is because I'm their dad, and they didn't want to hear my views and didn't want to share theirs with me....and I was pretty much of the same mind....x chromosomers (that is, females) can have those conversations, because I think they focus primarily on the relationship stuff, but we y chromosomers are thinking other things, and it just ain't a good conversation to have with your dad....
A certain amount of watching sports on TV has been a touchstone for we guys: NBA playoffs, soccer, baseball, SportsCenter. These guys know more about this stuff than I do, except when it comes to baseball trivia. For instance, here's what I thought about yesterday while swimming my 70 laps: How long has it been since each major-league team last won a World Series? And the scary thing is, I know this stuff! Too many days as a youth, lying on my bed looking at sports books. Well, at least I can read. I also read Huckleberry Finn on my own, as a kid, before high school, just because I was interested. But that's about as far as I got with the classics, unless you consider "The Stan Musial Story" a classic.
That is life in Maplewood (St. Louis) without my girls, Deb and Miriam, to mold me into the cultured being that I am in their presence.
I am,
Michael, in natural state
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