8 Year Olds Crack Me Up

It's Thanksgiving break here at our house. That means at least 5 days of "Mom, can I play on the PS3?" Which will probably get a "yes" response unless there's something good on tv. (Good is a relative term.)

Yesterday, the 8 year old (previously referred to as "Nuke") is having his fill of PS3. He likes the Star Wars games and the Lego games, but when it comes right down to it...the game he appears to get the biggest kick out of is "Call of Duty - Modern Warfare." (For you grammatical folks, I'm not sure if that should be in quotes or underlined. I could ask my geek student husband or my geek student 7th grader, but I'm not going to...you're just going to have to live with it!)

Yes, CoD is rated "M" for Mature. Probably because of all the shooting!? There's no flying blood splatter or guts or anything like that though, so...that a "good" thing, right?! Most of the time he doesn't even have the sound of the game on. He leaves the audio set on whatever cartoon channel he was previously watching...usually it's Spongebob or Drake and Josh. (Grammar fiends, I apologize again for just leaving those titles naked altogether.)

This idea came to him when I was watching him play "online" one day. There were a lot of people apparently playing with those bluetooth headsets/microphones. I heard quite a bit of profanity - not from the 8 year old - not from the game - but from the online gamers who get pretty peeved when their dude gets shot! So, anyway, I asked him to turn down the sound so I didn't have to listen to that. I guess he decided that "tv" audio was better than no audio.

But, I stray from the reason for this post...

Back to yesterday...Nuke asked his dear ol' dad to play CoD with him. This is not new. They frequently play against each other; some two-player mode, probably called "team deathmatch" or something like that, I'm not really sure. He agrees and the fun begins.

There are few things that bring endless giggles to Nuke like shooting the crap out of his father! (Not for real people...video game!)

It doesn't matter the scenario, good guy or bad guy, which gun he's using...none of it matters...he can beat his dad almost every time. If he gets him 3 times in a row, he gets to call in an airstrike! That apparently rocks! Every time his father loses, his father says "NO WAY!? HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!" (Yes, every time!) I'd say it was probably after about an hour of this when after one of those "NO WAY" comments, I heard the jewel from the 8 year old's mouth... (No it wasn't profanity!)

"Yeah, well...that's the way the W-man rolls."

Yeah, you read that right! From the 8 year old! It's not like we speak that way around the house. I'm really not sure where he came up with it. But, I think it might be one of the funniest things I've every heard!

So, from now on, "the 8 year old formerly known as Nuke", shall now be "W-man!"

Third Grade Science Projects...

Last week I got a notice from my third grader's teacher asking for each student to bring in a 2-liter of Diet Coke and a package of Mentos. Yeah, I was scared too. Well, today's the day!! I'm pretty sure I saw the outcome of this on Mythbusters or YouTube.



Thinking about 20 third graders doing this reminds me why I'm not a teacher.

Note: My third grader shall be known from now on as 'Nuke'. (His initials are WMD!)

Some People Just Don't Get It

Today was the dreaded "gotta go to the commissary" day. I thought maybe it wouldn't be too bad since it's been a couple days since payday and Thanksgiving isn't until next week, but, I was wrong. There were the usual folks there with their carts in the middle of the aisle, the ones standing around talking to their friends (yes, I've done that too...feeling guilty and awkward the entire time), but today there was one particular lady (heretofor referred to as "crazy lady") who came off as if this were her personal shopping day and the rest of us there were encroaching in her shopping experience.

We had "met" in a few aisles already - you know, when you're headed in opposite directions and end up crossing paths in every aisle. So, the last "aisle meeting" happened in the bread/frozen chimichanga aisle. Of course, it's near the holidays so there's a bunch of displays down the center of the aisle. This means you have to pick one side or the other and hope that no one comes "down" your side while your headed "up". Somehow I've ended up on the same side as "crazy lady"...in front of the frozen chimis. She's on the other side picking up some bread product, but her cart is on the frozen side...and of course, there's no room to pass. I too need some bread products, so since I can't move my cart, I just run over to the other side and get my bagels...quickly. Now she wants to shop for the chimis and I'm stuck behind her...waiting.

I managed to miss "crazy lady" in the remaining frozen/fridge sections, but run into her again when we head toward the checkout lane. There are about 15 other people waiting in line to check out at this point. I fall in line behind the other sheep and "crazy lady" falls in behind me. Not 30 seconds after getting in line, she says, "I forgot something. Can you watch my cart?" (This means, "Can you pull my cart along behind you since I'm too lazy to get out of line to go get what I need?!) Reluctantly, I smile and say "Sure." She comes back about 5 minutes later with both arms full of bags of noodles and something else - I tried not to pay attention. (Note: It takes anywhere from 10-30 minutes to get through a commissary checkout line!)

I think I'm home free at this point, but NO! About 5 minutes later, she decides she needs to go check out the sushi section. I let the poor lady behind her take care of her cart this time...I was close to being "NEXT!" to checkout.

Finally, a lane is clear and I get to move away from the herd. I didn't see "crazy lady" after that. Problem is...there's always a "crazy lady" at the commissary....I just hope it's not me!

But I Went To The Doctor Instead.

Ok, so I "sprained" my wrist (of course it's the right one - and I'm not ambidexterous) a couple of weeks ago doing taekwondo. Well, since it still kinda hurts when I move it, I went back to my doctor today. She now wants to MRI it and has put me in a highly immobilizing splint! (I know, a splint is supposed to be immobilizing.) I'm finding out how many things are harder to do with a wrist splint....like TYPING, and various other daily routine things that I won't mention. Now I'm off to see how hard it is to vacuum...perhaps hubby will have to take on that duty!!

But I Have To Go Pick Up Popcorn

Another one of those opportunities I had to say "NO" but went ahead and said "YES." This year, I finally got roped into being (I mean, I volunteered to be) our Pack's Popcorn Colonel/Kernel. I know, I know, it's a catchy title! Who doesn't want to have that kind of authority? With the job came a special t-shirt, some great posters, some cheesy prizes and the responsibility of making sure our Pack earns enough money to run a year-long program. No pressure.

Today I Should Be...Doing Anything Other Than Setting Up A New Blog!

Every day I have more important things to do than check email, log on facebook, or start writing a blog, but I think blogging may be mildly cathartic. Stay tuned.