Kirk Robinson's show Auto Experts will be live at 8pm...tune in and watch me field questions about leaking gaskets and things. Just kidding. He has David Gerson on hand for that stuff. It's on Cogeco, which means about ten of you might be able to get it. Assuming ten of you want to.

It's a fun show - Kirk's a great host.

Labels: auto experts, cogeco, kirk robinson

A study out of Cornell University is awesome. Incompetent people are too incompetent to know they're incompetent.

Well, duh. I could have told them that. Geez.

Apparently, it's an all encompassing level of stoopid. They tested all kinds of things, and found that everyone taking the test believe they are above average, even if they sucked. Basically, people refuse to admit there is nothing they don't know.

This is the line I like best from the article: "It doesn’t matter what the test is about – logical reasoning, how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases, grammar, the funniness of jokes." For crying out loud: I still have to call my high school English teacher to help me with my grammar, and I'm a writer. This study is just depressing on so many levels.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I've been listening to a different version of this same song for years now: everything thinks they're a great driver. Everyone. Which makes me wonder about all those excellent drivers that drive into buildings, head into the ditch and drive over pedestrians. How anyone could possibly think they don't have room for improvement is shocking. How can anyone believe they are 100% on, 100% of the time?

The study actually has a point, beyond being able to finally ridicule your moronic whatever-in-law with assurance: incompetence leads to people being unable to measure the abilities of anyone else, thus making it easier for people to deny things like global warming. Or the divine nuttiness of Sarah Palin. Or the need for an affordable transit system.

I, for instance, am totally aware of what I don't know. And if I stray from the mark, I have Christopher to help guide me back. Working side by side with him at the dining room table the past few weeks has revealed this to me. Just today, I glanced over at his computer, and with the sun at the right angle, I could see his screen was covered in crud.

"You need to clean your monitor," I told him.
"I don't have the stuff," he replied.
"Just get some Windex and a paper towel clean it up," I told his horrified face.
"You do not use Windex on a computer monitor. Are you nuts?" he asked.
"I do it all the time. I just put a little on a paper towel, and mop it right up. Looks way better."
"You will destroy your monitor. Are you crazy?" I did not like the tone of this conversation.
"You just do it really quickly. It's not like you spray it on like a window. You just spritz a little on the paper towel, and take a really quick little swipe at it," I finished.
"You really believe that doing it quickly will make it better? Like your monitor won't know it's still Windex?"
"When you were little and I had to clean your face, I used to just sneak up on you and grab you and do it. It was over before you knew it, and your face was clean." I considered this an apt comparison.
"It's not a bandaid. You are crazy. And I finally know why we have to keep buying you new monitors."

I'm not even going to tell him how I clean my keyboard. Except the Lysol wipes are sitting right here. He might guess.

It's Friday, so we can cast all seriousness aside. As if me describing my home renovation has been serious for even a moment.

Ahem. Go look at this pic, and tell me that is not the most adorable baby you have ever seen.

And her papa is not so shabby either...

Ah. Just in time. I swear, every time I run a winter driving or winter tire piece, we get a storm. And this year, that's no small feat.

I took Ari a couple of weeks back for a terrific day with Bridgestone at Mosport. Read here.

Labels: bridgestone, winter driving, winter tires

Now my main bathroom is hanging in tatters. Demo is very fast. Like, minutes-fast. The rebuilding and installing takes considerably longer. Like, weeks-long. I help my contractors by trotting bits of stuff out to the dumpster, and making Christopher get up so he can lift the heavy pieces. I am sitting, still, at the dining room table to work. Christopher is sitting beside me, which I do not like very much at all.

He jiggles his leg when he sits at his computer. This makes my monitor wiggle, and then it makes me car sick. So I smack him, and he never sees it coming because he has his headset on. That element of surprise is about the only joy I get out of all of this. Just now, in the spirit of companionship, I offered to sing Adele for him. He asked that I not do that.

When the noise got really bad this morning, and I was on a deadline that wasn't happening, Christer offered me his headphones. I put them on, and told him to dial me up something soothing to listen to. He clicked a button (I couldn't see what, but I'm pretty sure it said Old Fart Music), and before you know it, I had blocked out the saws and was rocking out to Coldplay. Christer asked me to stop yelling when I spoke. He then asked me stop singing. He then told me to just be quiet all together.

By yesterday, the toilet that worked was in the new basement bathroom. The shower that worked was in the upstairs bathroom. The kitchen sink was working in between. We were sitting at the table last night, and Christer got up to use the bathroom. Christer's girlfriend Pam and I both sat here as quiet as little bugs as we watched him go all the way upstairs, groan when he realized there was no toilet, then have to go all the way to the basement. I like Pam because she is as evil as I am.

You may not know this, but when people do plumbing type work, they have to touch nasty things. I stand there with a look on my face - you know the look - and they just carry on, and give me a glance that says 'well, what did you think, Princess, this stuff just did itself?'. This morning at the foot of the stairs in the basement, Maggie had snarked up a hairball. When Steve got here, he started going down the stairs, stopped and told me I might want to clean that up, because it was really gross. The man who has been snaking out 40 years of poop pipes jumps at a hairball.

Maggie said she didn't do it; she pointed to JoJo.

Update: I noticed that Christer has taken off his headset. Believing very much in seize the day (though carp diem makes me think more of ten cent goldfish), I again offered to sing Adele. He again said no. "I know most of the words, even," I assured him. Again he said no. "And the bits I can't remember, I just do 'nah, nah, nah, nah'...." Sorry Adele. Have to murder your songs another day.

I appreciate that my Microsoft Outlook (or whatever it is; ask the boys) tries to take care of me. Really. It helpfully throws letters from readers into the trash, all because they have a little cartoony thing attached. Or sometimes for no reason at all. I used to wonder if my email would simply decide 'wow, we've never seen that name before, let's turn it away at the pass like those people who knock on the door selling religion and she always wishes would go away'. Maybe it really is trying to be helpful. And yet, every press release makes it through. Even ones where I've patiently ticked the 'unsubscribe' box. Even the ones I've blocked. Guess what? I'm not going to write about your product. You all write and offer me free samples of things to test and try out. I don't do that. The only time I ever replied and said 'we should talk' was a vodka company. They didn't answer.

Outlook helps me decide which of my friends I should be ignoring, by suddenly, inexplicably, sending an ongoing conversation into the bin. I guess it gets bored; usually the result is that I figure I've said something insulting, and the conversation has been hung out to dry.

I shrug and pretend I am not madly, deeply hurt. Then the next day, I discover their answer, and no doubt discover they thought the same thing, though the hurt is usually not quite so mad, nor so deep. Others get over this more easily than I do, it seems.

I try to use all the little things that come with the program. I set up folders, put stuff in them, then I can't find them. The folders. Or the stuff. I read on tech sites about people trying to find out how to hide emails so that nobody can find them. I think they should just make a folder in Outlook: it will never be found again.

I try to tidy up my inbox, because I spend a disproportionate amount of time searching for things. Just this morning I was cussing away that I couldn't find an email I needed from December, then realized I was trolling through December, 2010. It took me far too long to realize this. Sometimes, someone will tell me I am witty, or quick, or even quick-witted. I invite them to watch me search for an email.

Quite often, I will send myself an email, especially from my iPad in bed at night when I am struck with a fabulous idea. I've discovered that morning often blows the fabulous off most ideas, but you never know. I tell myself I can just send a few key words, and the entire idea will come back to me. I have dozens of 3 word emails from the past few years that are apparently embryonic columns; if there is actually a nugget of brilliance in any of them, it's the world's longest gestation.

Just now, I was on a site and had to send myself a bunch of links so I could put them in a folder. So I can never find them again, as you know. Got it all tidy, got it all labeled, hit send. And watched as the email sent from my email address on my computer landed in the junk box.

My own computer is declaring that I am junk.

I read about this elusive emu. Oh, how I love alliteration. Especially 'e's. Did it again. Anyhoo. A guy in Vermont bought 3 emus for his grandkids, and one took off and has been on the lam for 5 weeks. He's resorted to an ad in the local paper declaring 'free emu if you can capture it'. I don't know why, but this cracked me up. I'm picturing an emu running all over, and people chasing it. Which of course means I want to go to Vermont right now and try to catch it myself. Grandpa admits they 'don't make great pets.' I'm sure there's much more to this story. It's probably an emu love triangle, and the elusive emu, let's call him Elmo, knew when he wasn't wanted. Of course the other two, let's call them Eleanor and Ernest, were glad to see the back of him. I need a hobby.

Someone came up to me the other day and started ragging on me for a headline that had run over one of my columns. I listened patiently, then explained for the 4,000th time that I don't write my headlines. Sometimes I'm as surprised as you are at them. Sometimes it takes me a minute to realize it is even a piece I wrote, and I have been lassoed in with a headline like Family Found Living Under Rock, only to realize it is my family, and there is no rock. But headlines are supposed to be attention grabbers.

In the sports section of the Star today, I hesitated over the above- the- fold main headline: 'Spike in head injuries alarming'. Hmm. Who didn't say that out loud?

While I have a hard time texting just to get my point across, my son Ari is able to perform a standup routine with his thumbs. These are random, over the past few months:

Me: You need to be home now
Ari: KK walking home
Me: From where, Mars? Your brother can probably get you. Text me...no, he won't so you have to walk I'm too tired. Don't get eaten by monsters.
Ari: Brb getting eaten

(I'm in bed messing with my phone)
Me: I need help
Ari: Please leave a message after the beep. Beep.
Me: You little sh*t, I need help with mean birds

(Midnight, rec room full of boys)
Me: Are you little buggers sleeping in the rec room? There are pillows and blankets in the rec room get your fiver....diver....duvet, piss off auto correct.
Ari: KLkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkhbyuyyutthhhhgghghghghhgjfy
Me: Awesome.

(I'm away on a trip, doing my remote control parenting, as usual)
Me: I'll be in thursday am mske sure your brother reads the text I sent him love you mom....WHY DID YOU CUT CLASS TODAY????
Ari: I cut last period cause it was raining
Me: You were absent for second as well. Rain is not a reason to stay home. There are children learning under trees in the desert who have dirt sandwiches for lunch. On a good day. Go to school. Tell your brother to answer my text to him.

(The next day)
Me: Hiya you guys okay?
Ari: Ive lost both my arms and my left big toe
Me: You brat. I just showed that text to people.
Ari: But seriously I need to get this checked out by someone. It stings.
Me: I'm gonna kill you hahaha
Ari: Not much left of me for you to kill

(I was away for one night; this is 9:30 that night)
Ari: Where do you keep the cake beaters?
Me: (an hour later) Lazy Susan
Ari: Yea thanks anyway got em took me 20 minutes

(I was Christmas shopping. Ari asked for a certain game. I was at the mall.)
Me: Marioheadcart for nintendo dsw?
Ari: mario kart 7 3DS

(Now I'm in the car and Ari is in Best Buy getting me a cover for my iPad.)
Ari: The brown one is $90 I hope you like white....And the line grows by 40 when I went to change the colour lol

(When he's late getting home one night)
Me: R r you?
Ari: I have been kidnapped
Me: That is not funny. Besides, who'd want you?
Ari: Good mothers want me
Me: Go find one who can cook. Tell her to kidnap me.
Ari: Terrible mother. what if I was actually home?
Me: Are you??? And you didn't come see me? Where are you?
Ari: Mexico
Me: If you're home get up here or I'll kill you
Ari: I'm in Mexico the janitors stole me
Me: If you were home you'd be on your computer. JoJo just farted.
Ari: I'm not coming up there now

I don't have my speakers on because my computer is teetering on the dining room table amid the rubble. I did Mary Ito's CBC Radio One Fresh Air show that ran this morning (no, of course I didn't get up to hear it; the show starts at 6am), but I went to the site to give it a listen.

With no speakers.

So, I trundled upstairs to get my iPad. I can't make it work on that. So I reached over and grabbed Christopher's headphones (he's at work, other wise it would be like removing a doughnut from a hungry bear) and couldn't figure out which little holes to plug the thingees into. I tried a few various spots on my tower, but they obviously weren't the right ones. I ran out of little spots. So I gave up.

Someone tell me how it sounds...here.

Labels: cbc radio one, fresh air, mary ito, teen drivers

This will be a rumbly post, because that is the mood I'm in. I had to get up at 6am. Make that '6 fricking am' because that is the way I think of it. I had a fun breakfast meeting downtown that started at 8:30, so that meant stumbling out in the dark, joining an insanely long lineup at Tim's for a giant tea, then onto the highway. I should have made it a smaller tea. Stuff goes right through you.

Starting my day out on its head meant restarting it at noon, when I got home. I'd driven in that ugly kind of weather that keeps your windshield perpetually covered in crud. I'm not driving my car, which I keep topped up with squirter stuff at all times, but the Porsche. I was worried about running out, and I knew if I called and asked Mr. Bye if it was full, he'd only call me names. See: my last blog entry.

I have a piece in the Globe that I'd forgotten about. My editor asked for a Valentines rant a month ago, and I wrote a piece and promptly forgot. It wasn't ranty, but he accepted it anyway. I don't think you need to be ranty on Valentines Day. Instead I wrote about cars in my teens, what the guys drove, and what impressed me. Of course some commenters have decided I was some kind of wanton hussy, which made me giggle madly. Guess they haven't figured out my father used to sit on the front step with a shotgun across his lap.

I would like our dear Mr. Harper to read this. Well, he can also read about my dating years, if he likes, but this is the one that matters. Two business execs have been sentenced to 16 years in prison and millions in fines over asbestos. An Italian court found them liable for causing the deaths of over 2,000 people, due to asbestos fibres. You know. Asbestos. That cancer causing weapon we insist on mining, and this Conservative government insists on exporting. Go, Italy, and thank you.

A current favourite of mine, Tim Dowling, has a lovely bit today. He writes in the Guardian, but he lives in Denver. That's easy to forget, until he mentions snow. Writing about a spontaneous family moment, he notes this:

These rare outbreaks of harmony invariably coincide with one of the children being missing – it doesn't matter which one. This might lead you to conclude that three children is too many and two the perfect number, but it doesn't work like that. You have to have the extra one to get the benefit of its absence.

I dunno. I just liked it. It's just a lovely observance, and a true one. And no, I don't have a third kid I've been keeping from you.

Ah, well. Off to finish some work up, see who's bashing me for being a tramp, and deciding if I really need to go do some cardio at the Y. My training is going well, if by well I mean a weird overall pain in parts of my body that apparently have muscle in them. Somewhere. Oh, and I bought sporty new shoes. I decided that every 15 years, I get new sneakers. I took Ari because he needed shoes, and before I knew it I was holding a pair and yoohooing him from across the store. He loves it when I do that.

Labels: asbestos, eternit, Tim Dowling, valentines

For something entirely different, I am sitting here in a silent house. Ari is at robot camp and Christer is at work. Maggie is on my lap. The street is - finally - blanketed in snow. We had to move my computer onto the dining room table because stuff in toilet stacks was raining down. We are not going to discuss how that went. My contractor, seeing my horrified face, assured me that what I was seeing was mostly rust and soap and stuff. Stuff. The toilet stack hasn't been in use for 40 years, but I knew what I was really seeing.

I thought I wouldn't be able to work in the dining room. I've always worked in my little tucked away alcove in the kitchen, and as we all know, writing requires magic. And superstition. And all manner of OCD things. Instead, I am liking it. And so is Maggie. We can look out the window, though we've agreed the keyboard is a little awkward. I tried to put in on my lap, but Maggie said 'I'm sorry, but that is where I sit." So that was that.

I have that lovely Panamera Turbo S back in the driveway. I woke up to see it covered in snow, and Christopher had left for work. My garage is stacked to the top with crap, and I didn't know if I could find another snowbrush. Oh, that Porsche? It's parked behind a dumpster. It's really classing up the joint.

I texted Rick Bye, the Porsche fleet guy. I said 'is there a snowbrush in the car?'. He texted back, 'it hasn't snowed. How should I know?' Then he called me a name. I texted back and called him the same name, but twice. He texted back and said 'if you want, drive out here and I'll give you a snowbrush'. Then he called me a name. I texted back and said 'I'm fine, I found one in the garage.' So he texted me and said 'you need me to show you how to work it?' I texted back 'you actually believe I'm a real blonde?' I'll tell you what he says when he gets it. But I'm going to call him some more names. Edit: Mr. Bye answered my text. He said 'no, an 'automotive journalist''. In quotes like that. I think he's taking the mickey out of me for being both blonde, and a journo. I'm thinking up some new names.

In spite of the shambles that my home is in, with everything piled on everything else and all of it covered with a thickening layer of dust, I'm remembering how nice it is to hear nothing. I'm doing laundry, but that's about it. There are so many things to clean I don't know where to start. Steve, my construction dude, was pulling things out of a high cabinet they had to take down. As he handed down bottle after bottle, tin after tin, I carefully put items I hadn't seen in years into a box. "Wow. This is all cleaning stuff," he noted. "Vintage," he added. I smacked him.

I really shouldn't be just sitting here loving the silence. But I'm worried if I go to do errands and shopping, some knob will hit $180K worth of car in the No Frills parking lot. And to tell you the truth, that is one text I do not want to send Mr. Bye.

Today's topic is noise.

My house is noisy. I work in the kitchen, and I have construction lads working in the basement. They must eventually migrate to the upstairs bathroom, and lo and behold, they must go right beside the wall beside my computer to do so. Actually, right through the wall beside my computer. The original toilet stack is there. Some replacing must take place, so some cutting and sawing and prying and banging must take place. It is noisy.

I was working yesterday afternoon, and Steve started crowbarring beside my head. "Too noisy?" he asked. He is a cheeky monkey. I explained that I just needed 150 more words and I would be done. He started hammering. I said some words, but not the 150 I needed.

But today I read a very cool article about the noise in your head. Well, if you're trapped in a coma. Remember that episode of House, where that rapper guy I like (Ice Tea? Ice Cube? Coolio? Snoopy? Tea Cube? I dunno - someone will know and tell me) was locked in, and only House believed he could communicate? Because House is magic? Oh, and I just read that House is quitting House, so, so much for magic. Anyway. They - 'they' being 'science', which we all take credit for with a collective 'they', which will soon morph into 'we' as in, 'we' went to the moon in 196something', because that is how 'we' are - have discovered a way to interpret brain waves in coma patients so they can understand what they are saying, if they could say it. I, frankly, find this very cool.

Of course the *very* next thing someone decided to ask is if they could apply this to torturing someone, and figure out the truth. Why do all cool ideas end up like this? As a friend of mine once said, the second thing invented after the internet was how to use the internet to look at boobs.

But on the noise path...more interesting findings. I love science. Apparently, they've (there it is again. I might as well just go straight to 'I') discovered that whales are peeved at all the noise made by ships. They accidentally discovered this by doing studies of whale poop in the Bay of Fundy (I've been there; I saw whales there) after 9/11. When everything ground to a halt, and no ships were allowed to sail, the whales were happier. Far less stressed with far less noise. I do not find this earth shattering. I have had jackhammers in my house, and you don't have to check my poop to know that I was less stressed when the jackhammering stopped. I'll tell you that for free.

I like quiet, myself. I had an invite to what appeared to be a great car launch the other day, but I ducked it because they were having live music. 'Oh,' I thought to myself, 'noise'. What can I say; I'm old. I appreciate the quieter things in life. When I see ads for seniors homes, I kind of wince when I hear someone yell 'hurry up, Sheila, you'll miss the bingo bus!'. This would not make me want to live out my golden years there. Actually, I'll be selecting which boy to live with when the times comes. The one who won't take me, I'll haunt after the fact.

Ads for resorts and cruises cause me anguish, as well. I like the ones that look deserted. I totally love that. But the ones that show conga lines and crap like that? Shudder. I went to one resortish place once, and they wanted people up on stage to embarrass themselves stuffing a rope down each other's pants. I obviously have no problem with embarrassing myself (see: dance competition), but I'm not big on join-y things where I am being prodded by people who are being paid to make sure I have fun. My husband hopped up and did it; my ex-husband.

I wonder what the whales thought of that terrifying cruise ship disaster in Italy recently. Captain Stupidpants trying to do a flyover (or whatever the equivalent is called in naval terms) and destroys what is for all intents and purposes, a floating city. That's why I won't do cruises; floating buffets, and I don't even like buffets that are not floating.

I've complained a lot today. I just did my second work out, and my legs aren't working. That, and I'm waiting for the right moment to go clear two men out of my bathroom so I can take a shower. Geez. I remember the days when I would have paid to be able to say that.

Oh. I am.

Oh boy. We're off.

"The Spring Tulip Classic (formerly Spring Dancesport Challenge), has grown to become one of North America’s largest dance festivals. The event runs May 18th-20th 2012. The Saturday evening we have a glamorous Red Carpet and Black Tie Gala, among the performances of the night is the North American Show Dance Championships. This is a televised event that is attended by politicians and dance celebrities."

To raise money to bring dance to elementary school kids in Hamilton, they ask 6 local, erm, celebrities to take part. I accepted before I understood that I would have to actually dance at that Black Tie Gala. In front of people. At the Hamilton Convention Centre. With politicans and dance celebrities in attendance.

I last worked out in April, 2011. Then I slammed my hand in the garage door. Then I broke my baby toe. Then I just started inventing reasons to become a sloth. For anyone who's been playing along at home for some time, you might remember my last foray into the world of sport: Boxing.

I swore then I was going to stay in shape. That was back in 2006. It pains me to even write that. But here we go again: I'm back at All Canadian Fitness where Adam Higson is once again attempting to get me into shape. I just came back from my first session. I think he is still laughing. Dance practice starts in about 6 weeks, and I knew I couldn't just throw myself into the arms of a professional dancer. I am totally unable to dance, but I figure the least I can do is show up with the ability to 'dance' for five minutes without throwing up or passing out.

I'll be keeping The Dance Diaries. Check in to laugh and point. There will be pics at some point. But not now. No, not now.

His Dad. Read his column here. I love the old man. Well, both old men.

Labels: Tim Dowling, Tim Dowling's Dad

That is the email I just got. The lovin' seestor would be Roz. The other loving seestor, Gilly, never checks in. Good thing; she'd probably point out how often Roz and I lie to you.

I was planning on blogging today anyway. I read this letter to the editor in The Star and started going a little crazy. Er. Read this:

So Vedran Saciragic thinks medicating hyperactive boys is abhorrent. But medications offer almost instant relief. That’s why so many women depend on antidepressant prescriptions instead of alternative therapies.

Obviously, Saciragic has never had to deal with a disruptive child impeding the education of other pupils, or one so unfocused that even starting an assignment is a major hurdle.

In my day, it was much simpler. The nuns beat us into submission. We wince at the memory now, but it worked.

Garry Burke, Coldwater

Oh, Mr. Burke. Where to begin?

I'm sure the Star printed this to troll, but it worked. I'm taking the bait. He wants to medicate children (who are usually just acting as, you know, children) into submission because he at least understands that the alternative method used on him - being beaten into submission - while effective, would probably raise a few eyebrows. Points for introspection, there.

I'm wondering who he thinks these medications provide 'instant relief' for. But as I was pondering that nugget, I stepped into his next sentence. About women. And the fact we chase after anti-depressants. Unlike men, who....don't. So, let me follow the trail of breadcrumbs that is Mr. Burke's thought process: children should be medicated more, though women are medicated too much - mostly out of laziness. But ultimately, perhaps we should all just be beaten because hell, look how good he turned out.

I'm going to leave this alone now.

Moving right along...my basement reno is coming along nicely. I've discovered I can work away even with jackhammers and planers and saws blazing away beneath me. I have spectacular tile going up. It makes me happy. The lads reconnect my washer and dryer every Friday so I can do marathon laundry every weekend. Maggie the Cat is starting to make friends, though she greets them with a decided Stink Eye every time. They do not believe we have a second cat; JoJo hides in someone's dresser drawer all day.

Mousecapades happened again this morning. Just yesterday, Roz called to say apparently there is no snow at the cottage (a friend has a place close by ours) and it will probably be a terrible year for mice. As I was considering the nasty cleanout this will entail come spring, my girls decided to do a little preview. Someone ushered a mouse into my room this morning. As it was JoJo wailing at the top of her little lungs, I'm guessing it was Maggie who had it firmly stuffed in her mouth. In fact, when I peered beneath my bed, there she was, peering back at me, caught with a mouthful of fur that wasn't her own. And a tail. Gross.

I started hollering for her to drop it, which of course led her to this thought process: "I am right under Mom's bed. It is a king sized bed, and she can't reach me if I go right *here*... scooches over a bit...perfect. She doesn't have her glasses on yet, so she's not even sure if I have this mouse or not. And she's yelling at Ari to get a flashlight, but we all know Ari went to bed about 2 hours ago because he's off on exams and probably stayed up half the night on that damned computer. We won't even pretend Christopher will hear. We could light him on fire and he wouldn't get up. I don't think Mom would actually do that. Would she? She's still yelling at me to drop it. But if I drop it, JoJo might get a shot at it. Stupid mouse is still wiggling a little. I'd bite down harder to stop it, but why break a perfectly good toy? Oh crap. She's poking me with something. A hanger. And she's put her glasses on. Damn. Now Ari is looking under here, though he's still blinking half asleep, so I doubt he's a threat. Good thing; Mom is useless at this, but Ari might give me a run for my money. Ow. Dammit. She reached me. Wait! Mouse! Don't take off! Dammit. It went back under the bench. Have to wait till Mom goes down to make tea. I'll leave it somewhere real special for her later."

For anyone still tuned in, I do not want to go into my bedroom.