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The role of children is to steal everything from the parents.  Eventually everything must be turned over to them one way or other, whether we like it or not.  That’s why the idea of inheritance was invented - a half-assed attempt to lessen the parental pain of being replaced.

I bump out my parents, my son bumps out his, and so forth and so on.  The only way to avoid the whole process is to not have any children, but then guess what?  You still get bumped!

My own son stole my biggest bookshelf from my office on Christmas Day.  Or maybe it was the day after, I forget, which is of course ridiculous since it’s only been one day, or two, depending on what really happened, but like I said, I’ve already forgotten.  Memory, you know, is also one of the things the kids steal, but we tend to think of that as one of the good things that comes from all the thieving.  We want the kids to steal our stories and traditions.  It’s really our only hope of being remembered, after all. 

Anyway, like I was saying, the boy stole my biggest bookshelf the other day, but - and I’m almost ashamed to admit this, especially about my own son, no matter if he is a thief or not - like so many kids these days, he’s just downright picky when it comes right down to it.  I don’t know what’s happening, but I’ve been looking around lately and I swear we’re getting bumped aside by what has to be the biggest bunch of finicky kids I’ve ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on.  But I won’t attack your kids, because, well, that’s your job, but my own son, he’s fair game.  The shelves, for example.  The boy stole my shelves but left all the junk!  Just piled it all up, right there in a big heap in the middle of the room! 

But I have high hopes for the day, don’t get me wrong.  I haven’t been completely replaced, not yet at least, so yesterday I started sorting through all that junk that the boy left behind and got most of it put away, even better then it was before, I think.  I shoved around the remaining bookshelves and reorganized most of my books by topic and if I do say so myself, got the place looking downright productive.  Like I said, I have high hopes.

The best part though (and this is sort of my little secret to you) is that I did such a good job of organizing all that old junk I’m almost positive the boy will want to finally steal every bit it on his next pass through.  Get it all out of my hair, once and for all, and I can get on with things.  Important things, I suppose.  Important things that don’t involve junk.  Whatever that is.

For at least two years now I’ve been trying to buy corn starch when I go to the grocery store, so that I can make gravy.  I don’t really know how to make gravy, but if there’s some sort of meat juice left after the crockpot is finished with a roast, I know I can add corn starch and it’ll turn into something thicker that my son and I can pretend is gravy.

So yesterday, after two years of trying, I finally remembered to buy corn starch.  There would be gravy!  I bragged about it to the boy.

“You bought another box of corn starch?” the boy said.  “How many do we need?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just bought one when we went shopping on Wednesday.  Dad, it’s only been a couple of days.  I think you’re losing your mind.”

“Maybe.  But at least we’ll have gravy.”

“I don’t even like gravy.”

“That’s because you’ve never actually ever had it.  Hey look!” I said, opening the cupboard.  “Cornstarch!”

I was kidding, of course.  I knew there were two boxes in there.  I suppose next week, though, the third box will take me completely by surprise.

Sundays I treat myself to some heat.  It’s one of the new rituals of my day to day living that’s come along with running out of money.  There was a time, not so long ago, when I’d treat myself to things other than heat.  There was that electronic period, where I’d wander around in stores and find something interesting to buy just because I could.  I even bought a car like that.  But somewhere along the line those days slipped away, becoming too expensive to continue, but found themselves replaced by another passion, another Sunday treat - eating breakfast out. 

I love breakfast.  I love it even more when someone else does the cooking.  So for awhile, Sunday breakfast at one of the greasy little diners was my ritual, and I gobbled down fried potatoes and omelets of just about every kind imaginable until one day I could see there just wasn’t enough money left for eating out.  Now I know what you’re going to say.  A person should see this sort of thing coming.  I mean, running out money is a big deal, like a train barreling down the tracks, heading straight for you.  But passion has a way of blinding everyone to the truth, you’ve got to give me that one, and I’m telling you, I was passionate about breakfast.  I still think running out of breakfast money is a shame because, frankly, having a big ‘ol breakfast cooked up for you might just be life’s most under-appreciated luxury.

But it’s been a bleak couple of years, and from the looks of things, not getting much better anytime soon.  Here’s a question you might not have asked yourself lately: do you know why dead people don’t crawl out of their graves?  You might think it’s because they’re dead, or that they just don’t want to, or that it has something to do with things being better on the other side.  You’d think that, but the truth of the thing is, it’s just not that easy to crawl up out of a hole, and that’s what keeps people in them.  It has nothing to do with being dead.  That’s right, you don’t even have to be dead these days to find yourself at the bottom of one of these holes, wondering what to do next as you stare up at your small patch of sky, realizing just how small your world’s become.

So Sunday mornings I treat myself to some heat.  I sit in my chair and type and watch the thermostat slowly rise away from 50 degrees, which is where it sits most of the time these days.  It’s cold, sure, but not too bad.  I mean, I still have to keep the milk in the refrigerator.  I’ve endured worse.  I’m lucky enough to live in a place where the winters are generally mild, and I still have a little electric heater that I can retreat into the back room with when the mercury dips too low.  The body adjusts to change better than the mind.  I think that might be another reason that dead people stay in their graves.  While the mind is racing, trying desperately to keep passion alive, the body just finds a way to get comfortable.

I’m not much of a shopper, so other than the nonstop squinting I’ve been forced to do for the last year to keep the sun off of my baby blues, not replacing my lost sunglasses wasn’t all that hard.  I’m good at squinting, which I suppose accounts for all those cracks and crevasses along the corners of my eyes, and besides, finding sunglasses is never fun.  Over-priced plastic, a tag always placed to either dig into your nose when you try them on or make it impossible to actually tell what they look like, a little, narrow, warped mirror to look at yourself in, and then the worst part, my big wide head.  Unlike blue jeans, sunglasses aren’t something you want to squeeze yourself into.  There’s nothing sexy about tight sunglasses.

But I broke down and bought a pair the other day, and not only did they fit, but they came with several pairs of interchangeable lenses and a lifetime warranty, both of which sound great when the words first come out of the clerk’s mouth, but after a bit of thought, prove worthless.  A lifetime warranty?  I can’t ever remember owning a pair of sunglasses longer than two years before I left them sitting someplace I could never remember.  The warranty, unfortunately, doesn’t cover poor memory.  Oh well.  What about the interchangeable lenses, I ask the clerk.  That sounds pretty good.

Call me old-fashioned, but I kind of like my sunglasses dark and black, you know, to keep the sun out, and I was imagining several pair of dark lenses waiting there in the case on standby, ready to jump in at a moment’s notice to replace one of their lost or scratched comrades.  The interchangeable lenses, it turns out, came in yellow, orange, and one that I still haven’t figured out, clear.  Clear sunglasses?  The only thing I’ve come up with is that they’re for pulling pranks on all your blind friends.

But the boy sure likes those colored lenses, and takes every opportunity to sneak behind my back and change out the dark lenses for the colored ones.  He seems to prefer the orange, which I have to say, certainly does brighten up the world, almost to the point of being surreal.  Driving around in them kind of gives me the feeling I’ve taken a wrong turn and ended up on Mars.  As for the rest of the world, I’m not sure what they see when they look over and see me drive by in those things.  For all I know, they probably think they’ve just spotted an overweight Bono driving around town in an old mini-van.  I think of it as a low-grade Elvis sighting.  Too bad Bono isn’t famous for jumpsuits.  If he was, I think I’d buy a couple, just to complete the illusion.