Meh.

They blocked Blogger and other "social networking" sites at work, so my time is limited with you good people to only the time I have at home now. Being that I'm going out of town this weekend with the express purpose of doing as much nothing as I can possibly cram into two and a half days. The plan is very specifically consistent of reading, eating, sleeping, and floating like a hippo in the lake.

Occasionally, if somebody would be so kind as to throw a cabbage into my mouth, I'd be greatly appreciative.

My mom sent me an e-mail the other day that bear sharing, as it breaks down the exact reasons that I want boys when my wife and I decide to infect the world so with our spawn. Well, mostly my part of the spawn will be infectious...hers will be dainty and lovable. I guess that really means when I infect the world with my part of the spawn. Either way, this is used without permission...though I'm sure it doesn't matter. It's also been edited to protect innocent family members.

This was interesting to me – our children didn’t have a lot of excitement provided for them, but they were pretty happy entertaining themselves. Course, half the time it was exciting, dangerous entertainment, but at least it wasn’t provided by external sources. Boys just sort of naturally seek excitement for themselves.

I remember (One of John's aunts) telling me she didn’t like to tell her daughter not to do something because it would stifle her “natural curiosity”. With a passel of boys on the loose “natural curiosity” is the mortal enemy – and it can’t be stifled, no matter how hard you try!! (Another of John's aunts) and I spent all our days trying to do just that.

Boys are fascinated with jumping off tall things, knives, stray dogs, water in any form or location – the dirtier the better, fire, blood, digging for treasure, digging to dig, sticks as sticks, sticks as weapons, bad words, playing war, anything with wheels, putting wheels on things that shouldn’t have them, building forts, explosions, wrecks and a million other things that threaten their limbs and lives and their parent’s nerves.

Boys are wonderful! – Girls have a list all their own – just as long, but not as deadly.

This was one of mom's e-mails (slightly edited) to all of her sons and daughter-in-laws, which I found to be particularly insightful. I can remember pretty specific occasions for each of those examples Mom gave in her e-mail. Jumping from tree-houses because pride was at stake, filling pockets with whatever knives and/or sharp sticks we could find because you never know when the dinosaurs will attack, dogs are never strays...once you find it, it's yours until somebody comes to claim it, hanging out in the creek catching crawdads that would invariably die after three days, setting fire to whatever we thought might burn (there are still burn marks on the side of Mom and Dad's house under their bedroom windows from where I made a flamethrower from a can of WD-40 and the straw that comes with it).

Blood could be taken care of by rubbing dirt in it. Digging holes was fun, because you never knew what sort of treasures you might find...though we never found anything more than a coke can or two. Sticks though, were never just sticks. My Batman-obsessed cousin once found a stick that he called his "Arang." He wasn't Batman, so he couldn't have a Batarang...but dammit, just having a stick to call an "arang" was enough for him. There's a video of that somewhere that needs to resurface.

Bad words were great. My first experience was when a guy in elementary school told me to hold the letter "f" and then say "udge" after it. It came out "ffffffffffudge." Odds are good he heard it in the movie "A Christmas Story" when the lugnuts go flying...the end-all, be-all of curse words. How distasteful and scandalous can you get?

Playing war was an all-day, all-night event. During the day, our bicycles became fighter jets that would zoom up and down the street until somebody would shoot somebody down from the sky. That always sparked a rather good debate on the ins and outs of aircraft gunfire accuracy. Nighttime would find us in handed down BDU camouflage and flashlights with fresh batteries. God bless our neighbors for not coming out and handing down the wrath, what with as often as flashlights got shined in their windows inadvertently.

We had several forts made of tires, discarded plywood with nails all over it (that of course would point outward from the fort to keep the invading Huns from attacking), downed trees, broken bikes, one one occasion we had half an animal carcass, and sheet metal we found in the woods. We never had an attack through the woods, but we DID have a bridge across the creek.

Soda cans were a favorite for blowing up. The proper method is to make a barrel fire in the driveway, and drop a can or two of grape soda on in there, after starting the fire with a baby food jar of gasoline.

Padless tackle football in the street was a favorite that Mom left out, but it's alright. None of my friends (as I can recall) ever broke a bone before we got our driver's licenses...and unless something's gone down in the last few minutes, we're not dead.

When my wife and I have babies, I want boys. I know what they'll get into, how deep they'll get into it, and whether or not it will kill them, because I did it myself...and with a minimum of personal maiming.

There were imaginary snakes, rivers of deadly lava or poison that would kill you without even trying, spikes, drawn mazes full of deathtraps that we swore was how we'd build our houses when we did so, and boobies in movies over at friends houses.

Yeah. Boys are the way to go.

This post was not tested on animals...just electrons.