A NEW FEATURE: THINGS NOT TO BRING INTO THE HOUSE

This new blog segment will be devoted to those items which you allow your children to bring into the house reasoning that oh, they're harmless enough. And then you find out the truth.

We begin with a seasonal item: the humble acorn.

No, not the ACORN we heard so much hollering about during the campaign season, merely the ones that fall from oaks and their relatives this time of year. And are collected by youngsters around the nation, especially certain five year old princesses who shall go nameless here.

And are brought into the house and kept in an old coffee can until such time comes as Daddy can dig a hole or two in the yard and plant them.

Except for one.

Which will roll into a quiet nook or corner of your home, there to rest until the cats find it at two in the morning, at which point a hockey game breaks out. Old time hockey. Lily in particular was doing a credible impersonation of Joe Kocur at Herman's expense, and that's what dragged yours truly out of bed to locate the acorn at the root of all this. Good luck finding a dark-brown object less than a centimeter in diameter at two in the morning. I had no shot at success, and so went back to bed after separating the combatants.

CRUUUNCH. NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM.

Looks like Herman found the acorn, and is eating it.

HURRRRRRRRK. FTOOEY.

And is sending it back up. Joy. Oh sweet sweet joy, to be cleaning acorn-studded cat-barf at 2:15 in the morning.

(with apologies, sound-effect-wise, to the late Don Martin of Mad Magazine)

THE FLOOR WAS CLEAN FOR FIVE WHOLE MINUTES

The clock read 4:28 when I put away the swiffers and the vacuum cleaner and explained to Noodle and Beast please! don't trash things tonight...

Which they didn't, not at first.

4:33, from somewhere in the kitchen: hurrrrrrk. hurk hurk hurk GACK splat.

Thanks, Herman.

THE MANLY ARTS, PASSED FROM FATHER TO SON

Herman's dietary routine, translated into pidgin BASIC, which I haven't used since 1982 so forgive the lapses:

1 REM V=the amount of semidigested cat food that'll be coming up Herman's esophagus if he keeps eating stuff that is obviously NOT a food any other cat on the planet would eat
2 REM B=our budget for nice things
5 LET V=0
7 LET B=50
10 INPUT "Has Herman eaten his insanely expensive veterinary cat food?", F$
20 IF F$="Y" THEN GOTO 40
30 IF F$="N" THEN GOTO 10
40 INPUT "What else has Herman eaten?", E$
50 IF E$="DEAD LEAF" THEN LET V=V+10
60 IF E$="KETCHUP" THEN LET V=V+15
70 IF E$="TOENAIL CLIPPING" THEN LET V=V+20
80 IF E$="SHOELACE" THEN LET V=V+35
90 IF V<20 THEN GOTO 40
100 PRINT "GAAAAAAAAACK"
110 LET B=B-10
120 GOTO 10
130 END

Next week I'll get to work on a subroutine to calculate the free time lost to cleaning up the copious by-products of Herman's reverse peristalsis. Which brings me to the meaning of the title of this post.

Like many three-year-olds, Beast is a most observant little tyke and is absorbing information every waking moment. Her Awesomeness and I are aware of this when it comes to things like obviously blue language and behave accordingly, but when it comes to descriptions of digestive matters we revert to collegiate form.

Result: Beast now knows several synonyms for "vomit", including gack, puke, hurl, barf, boof, and toss cookies. Which I maintain is as it should be for the lad, because a young fellow is not considered eligible for a Guy Card unless he knows at least 50 synonyms for praying to the porcelain god, and at six Beast is well on his way.

Heck, I just added "Cantar Oaxaca" to my extensive synonyms list this very evening.