Los Cuatro Ojos

Not ME!

Resistance was futile… I’ve been assimilated… I am my father! For the thousandth time over the past two months I’ve yelled… “Who left this (pick one) light, tv, computer, video game, fan, on?!”… As I walk through the house flipping switches and muttering about the electric bill. In fact… the inspiration for this rant sprang from my yelling about five minutes ago… “Who left the front door open?!” … “Do you people think I’m paying to air condition the whole town?!”

So… Hearing the echos of my dear departed stepdad’s rants in my own voice made me listen for the echoes of me and my siblings in the responses of my own brood… And guess what?.. There is definitely truth to the old saw that “he who forgets history is doomed to repeat it.” Of course… as a kid… I never learned from past experience to turn off lights and close doors… I had “Not Me!” living at my house… He was the invisible kid who gladly accepted the blame for any and every transgression we could think of. Well… at least he never protested about being blamed.

Well… “Not Me!” has moved into my house with the tenacity of a ner’ do well brother in law. He’s entrenched and he’s apparently here until the last non invisible kid leaves. Seems to be the same person too… His habits haven’t changed… Still does the same old dumb stuff he used to do. Seems to spend most of his time with the kids… must have some kind of Peter Pan non aging thing going on. Although he does hang out with the wife a lot too.

As I write this… a strange… slightly disturbing… yet satisfying feeling comes over me that my little hellions will most likely have to endure a stay by this strange little relative at some point in their lives. I suspect I’ll have an evil little smirk on my face the next time I yell “”Who left the door open?!”