Homewrecker

Though I grew up just 50 miles north of Temple town, the climate is dramatically different. A Cedar City sizzler "might" flirt with a hundred, but the same day in Utah's Dixie would make a chicken fly straight up in the air shit and 'die.' The problem is that if it's too hot for a kid to go outside, how are you supposed to get them to do any kind of ‘chores' around the house? For example in Cedar City, a kid's behavior can be easily influenced by the promise of being allowed to go outside and play. Rooms will happily be cleaned, dishes washed and toilets scrubbed - 'anything' for the promise of that endless, green, school-free wonderland and barefoot magic callin' from the back door.

When I was a kid, life was near perfect. JFK had stood them Russkies down, Jonas Salk saved a frightened world from Polio and thousand other things we weren't smart enough to be afraid of yet. Within 5 years the Bogeyman was run off and to mark the occasion my dad got me a brand new purple Schwinn Stingray. Yee ha, and turned me loose on a mission to explore the Brave New World. A program that lasted for 3 magical months a year - commencing from my front porch at 09 hundred hours and drawing to a close when I became ravenously hungry or when I was just physically incapable of enduring another moment of joy.

Those years shine in my mind like rockets and Rickenbackers, Camaros and T-birds and resound with the happy harmonies of the Beatles and the Beach Boys (or as my grandpa called 'em "those damn Beatleboys." "I got no use for those swishy foreigners, and would I feel happy ‘insi-hi-hide' if they got back on their plane and took their girly hairdos and loud music back to Liverpool? Yea yea yea.Yea yea yea." I love my old Grandad but he was from Alabama which I would come to realize was not exactly a hotbed of openmindedness. We saw eye to eye on Bear Bryant and Johnny Cash though and that was plenty.

I hate not being able to treat my kids to the same kind of summers I enjoyed growing up And I feel sorry for myself trying to figure out some way to con them into helping clean the house when there aint know sweet summer days to entice them with. Instead I've decided to undertake a thorough scientific investigation of the fascinating dynamics involved in the sharing of unpleasant household tasks among family, friends y esposas. It's always fascinated me, the outcome. One of societies great mysteries.

With my investigation I was far more fascinated by the dynamics that develop between individuals of more or less equal status. My aim is to answer the ultimate question that has baffled brothers, sisters, roommates, or married couples, from the advent of human cohabitation. The Question, maybe you can puzzle it out, though it remains the most universally prevalent social mystery to plague human kind. The basis is this simple – when it comes to housework and household chores, in situations where these jobs/chores/responsibilities are to be shared as equally as possible it is universally true that everyone thinks that "they" are the ones doing the Lions share of the work. Since everyone firmly believes that they're shouldering an egregiously unfair proportion of the burden, it would also seem true that a pretty large percentage of those concerned are either lying or insane. That's pretty dang mysterious, right? They should have a show.

Not once in the entire time I spent co-habitating with wives or friends, has any one of them come up to me and said, "hey thanks for cleaning up the place, I really need to start doing my fair share." You could build a wing - two new bedrooms, a bathroom, a and a Jacuzzi and you'd be lucky to get, "it's about time you started doing something around here." Every time I start feeling sorry for myself because of the unfair portion of the burden that I might perceive that I'm carrying, I always wish that I could somehow produce the actual stats. Y'know--the number of hours, "I've" put-in working and doing this, that and the other--compared to the number of hours "whoever" is putting-in doin' whatever they're pretending to do. I fantasize that there must be some kind of accounting organization similar to the one keeping track of our ‘sins,' that could occasionally issue a report. What I wouldn't pay to get those figures in front of me.

Such a report might explain how on earth those who poineered this desert community managed to stick it out. Brother Brigham must have picked out some mighty hearty stock for this harsh mission. I often contemplate how on earth our forefathers and twentyforemothers were able to make a go of it in this climate before the Swamp-Coolers? Were I among the early settlers I'm positive I would have washed out right off - wholly unfit for such infernal conditions. While my Brethren labored to eek out sustenance in this harsh land, I'm pretty sure I would have wandered off toward the river wearing a large hat – whittling a long stick to a sharp point as I went. Then I would wade out to my chest in the cool Virgin waters where I would remain until sundown. Should someone pass by or inquire as to the nature of my business, I'd draw down on ‘em lightnin' fast with my deadly stick/spear then grumble in some weird pigeon English, "Houten Bon Dargus? Well Ya Tarpus or Dwicket? I suppose you'll want my entrails with that, you dizzy bitch! Mo Targ (I'd say in a resigned voice, drawing up to a formal attention and saluting the closest tree. Also waiting for my company to pay their due respect) – "So I guess you're sick with it eh? Yar Old Varish Boden leaves her a messy mark, yarshedoo (then I'd get up in his face and examine him close from several angles) good son of a dabbid bastage, you got no idea what ya even did - Do Ya? Did ya? Do Ya? (I'd put something in my mouth, then spit it right back out holding the kid with a hostile glare.} Damnit kid, ya just spooked the biggest Yellow-minded Pike I ever beheld. Had him dead to rights in me kill heart, til the likes of you comes a stumbler bum. If that don't rub the barnacles off your stem? Well? Shitfire. You're one lucky puckydog. If I aint-a had me some Jerky 3 nights apast I'd be field dressin' your sorry arse right wheres you stand. And don't think I'd bother to tie yer carcass to a tree cuz o' some old injun jibber-dee-jab superstigion. I'd be crazy to waste the rope. You callin' me crazy? Y'no-good-for nothing puckybird - waste of socks? Get outta here ‘fore you scare any more my trophy Pikes!

It's miserable all that damn Fahrenheit. For example, my wife's folks are building onto their house, and I was happy to volunteer a few days of free unskilled labor, they've been more than generous to us. So for two consecutive days I fiddled on the hot tin roof and I will say this, "it takes a special breed of cat to bear up under that many degrees." We were lucky to catch a few days that were close to 100 - relatively mild hereabouts to be sure and so, of course, I had to prove I could still hang with the young bucks. I was sportin' a ribbed-white wife-beater - gettin' in a good pump and some killer rays. However toward the end of the second day I think I might've overcooked the casserole a tad. The best I can figure, I most likely had me one of those silly little uh . . . strokes. Just a little bitty one. I probably wouldn't have even noticed but all the sudden my bro-in-law started looking at me funny-like and asking me who I was talking to? A bit confused I told him it was his Eskimo buddy Nantook who'd popped by to drop off the fish-hammer. "According to Nanook here," I explained, "y'gotta smack those guppies down, pretty regular - less you be want'n trouble." Anyway that was pretty much the end of my roof duty, in fact I soon found myself in a nice cool shower. "There's a good old fool."