I don’t get many days off from children. Who am I kidding? The days-off count has been dialed to zero for the last several years.
But every now and then, my responsibilities as an author call me away for a night or two. When I’m called away, I celebrate—I mean, I miss them a ton. One thing I never do, though, is worry about Husband’s capabilities as a parent.
Husband is a great father. He romps with his children and rubs courage into their chests every night and talks to them about their kid concerns and always has something wise and profound to say to them.
However. There are some things that even he has trouble with when I’m gone. I chalk it up to Being a Man. Things like turning off lights, flushing toilets, putting clothes in the laundry hamper, staying safe—they’re all reasons why boys and men need a woman in their lives. I’m glad for that, mostly. Actually, no I’m not. Turn off the lights. Flush the toilets. Pick up your own clothes. And for God’s sake, if you think something would be cool, don’t try it. It’s probably not, and you’ll just end up with a cracked femur.
So for the days that I’m gone, I have a small stack of stapled papers, titled, “How to survive when Mama is away,” populating a file folder that sits on our kitchen counter. The guide begins with “Dear Boys” and contains tips like:
1. This is how you turn out a light.
I know there seems to be a magic fairy who flies around flicking the light switches in all those empty rooms to the “off” position, but don’t you worry. This isn’t a hard trick, by any means. It just takes a little practice.
Do you see the white miniature lever surrounded by what looks like a white rectangle? That’s called a light switch. When the lever is up, that means the light is on and our electricity meter is, minute by minute, climbing higher and the earth is slowly dying because of your negligence. When you leave a room and there is no one else in the room, the lever should move to the down position. That would be “off.” If, on the other hand, you’ve just finished brushing your teeth and your little brother is still peeing, the lever should remain “up.” I know you sometimes get these two confused, and I totally understand. It’s fun to hear, “Hey, turn the light back on!” But it’s definitely not funny. Trust me. One of these days you’ll get your due, and then you won’t be laughing.
I’m sure that once you practice a little (and you’ll have several opportunities, now that the magic fairy is gone for a couple of days), the muscle memory will kick in. After all, you used to turn lights off all the time when you were a baby. Up, down, up, down. On, off, on, off. You’ll remember the joy you used to get out of actually making a room go dark when you weren’t inside it.
And if you don’t, there’s an easy solution to that, too. Your allowance.
2. This is how you flush a toilet.
I appreciate that you want to save water and energy, but I can assure you that the environment will not be terribly harmed by a couple of flushes a day. The aroma of our house, on the other hand? It could be called The Dead Swamp.
When you’ve done your business, stand up (if you’re not standing already). Turn around to face the toilet (if you’re not already facing it). Put the seat and, preferably, the lid down. On the left side, near the top of the porcelain is a silver lever. That’s the flusher. All you have to do is push it down. You don’t even have to hold it down, just a quick flick and you’re done. So easy.
And now no one has to lift the lid and find an unwelcome present that shoots stink bombs toward their nose.
3. This is where your dirty clothes go.
We have what is called a hamper for all of your dirty clothes. It’s a tall, dark basket sitting in the hallway between your rooms. There’s also a basket downstairs if you happen to strip down in the living room. And there’s another in Mama and Daddy’s bathroom. In it you’ll likely only see Mama’s clothes, but that’s a conversation for another day.
The hamper is where your dirty laundry goes. Your dirty laundry does not belong in your closet. It does not belong in rolled-up wads under your bed. It does not belong in my bed, because if I wanted my pillow to smell like Dirty Sock, I would use my own stinky ones.
All you have to do to make sure clothes get in this thing called the hamper is bend over, pick your sweaty shirt up off the floor and drop it in the hamper. You don’t even have to walk anywhere, because you were so close when you threw it on the floor.
4. This is how you take a bath.
Unfortunately, while I’m gone, I won’t be standing over you to make sure you soap up your hair and clean under your neck and wash between your toes. So this is how it’s done: Take a squirt of soap and lather your hair. Take another squirt and lather it all over your body. Take another for your lower half. And another for your feet, because they need it.
Fill the cup sitting on the side of the bathtub with water and then dump it on your head to wash the soap out of your hair. Do it as many times as it takes to get all the soap off your body. It might take longer than you’d like, but, trust me, a few more minutes of rinsing is better than waking up in the morning looking like Donald Trump.
5. This is how you drain bath water.
I can’t tell you how many times I have walked into your bathroom to see yesterday’s murky bath water still stagnating in the tub. I usually stick my hand in that grainy, cloudy, slimy water, trying not to gag at the grossness, and drain it before it’s time for your bath. I know this is probably why you think the water magically disappears, but I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t really. And now that I’ll be gone for a few days, it’s a perfect opportunity for you to practice the Art of Draining Bathwater. There is a small amount of work required to successfully execute this task.
When you’re finished washing (per my instructions), stand. Dry off BEFORE getting out of the bath, turn around, bend over, and pull the silver or bronze plug at the foot of the tub, directly underneath the faucet. Listen to the water slowly sucking out, and imagine something is coming up out of the drain to get you. Run away screaming.
(You don’t have to do that last part.)
6. This is how you close a door.
Do you see the handle sticking out from the door? It’s called a doorknob, and it’s what you use to open the door. Funny thing is, you can also use it to close the door. Grab it on your way out and swing it the opposite way required for opening. It’s easy to remember, because close is the opposite of open. So it stands to reason that to close a door, you’ll have to use the opposite motion you used to open the door. Make sense?
The door will make a satisfying “click” when it’s truly closed. Listen for the click, and you’ll be well on your way to closing a door.
Other ways you can accomplish this same feat are using a hip bump when you walk in the door, aiming a back kick on your way out or executing a full-body lean in whichever direction you need. I don’t really care what method you use, so long as it shuts.
Now that you know how to do all of these things, it’s time for the most important one of all.
7. This is how not to die.
Do not jump from a swing when you’ve reached twenty feet in the air.
Do not climb on a glass-top table that’s only held in place by (inefficiently spaced) suction cups.
Do not turn out a light when your brother is still peeing.
Do not play dodgeball with a baseball.
Do not try to jump over the backyard fence when you’re jumping on the trampoline and someone double dog dares you to.
If fact, do not go through with any double dog dare. Being called a coward is better than being called dead.
Do not leap from the top bunk to the bottom one when the beds are perpendicular and the ceiling fan is on.
Do not try to ride a fan when it’s turned on.
Do not ride your bike blindfolded.
I’m sure I’ve missed something. There are a million ways to die when you’re a boy, but that’s why I’m leaving you to the meticulous care of your daddy.
(On second thought, maybe I should brainstorm a bit longer.)
This is an excerpt from This Life With Boys, the third book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
