Bir-duh!

Ah…Douglas. 

Mr. Douglas has been asking for a pet, any pet, for the last 9 years, or at least it feels that way.  He and I are allergic to the furry creatures, I refuse to have any type of reptile in the house, we are fish killers and are therefore left with one option, a bird.  Aunt Jodi happens to have a parakeet (budgie bird) that she is willing to give us.  But, before we acquire said bird, I want Douglas to be prepared for it (not sure of gender yet) when it comes.  Last night I looked up  the The Brain’s, aka, Wikipedia’s, information on budgie birds and printed it out.  Douglas was a bit shocked by the amount of literature I was giving him but after a serious look on my face, a lift of the eyebrows, and a sentence that started like, “if you want to have a bird…”, he took the papers and read.  A little while later he came in to tell me what he’d leaned, and also pointed out the luck in timing for getting this bird.  “It’s a good thing we’re getting this bird before August because between August and January is breeding season.”  Before I knew what I was saying I told him that we were only getting one bird so breeding season wouldn’t affect our bird.  He simply said, “oh,” after which I started asking him what else he learned about the bird.  The Question once more averted, yes!

Ah…Douglas, once more. 

If you ever want to feel like you are climbing up a rocky slope, barefooted, with a 50 pound pack, and a guy at the top laughing at you and telling you you’re not even close to the top, you may have that same experience by coming over to my house and having an argument with Douglas.  You will never win, even if you think you’ve won and are ready to exhale with relief and walk into another room for a moment of peace, you won’t get the chance because Douglas is never wrong, has a never ending supply of air, and if there is any fault to be laid , it won’t be upon him.

This is the rocky slope, but in this picture, you’ve already fallen to your death.

Yesterday, I asked Douglas to do some sort of chore and added a quick lesson to live by while I was doing it.  Something like, you know, you really should start doing this every day and get used to helping more…After which he said, “well, maybe I’m just lazy.”  As if that was some sort of excuse that would make his plight more understandable and thus acceptable.  I told him that being lazy was not allowed in our house and that he must be of more help, etc…  Finally, he told us that, “Maybe if you’d started teaching me this earlier I wouldn’t be this way now.”  At this point you might imagine me banging my head against a hard surface but I didn’t, I just laughed and laughed, and laughed, and then threatened him with a loss of computer time and that seemed to do it.  After all was done, I still didn’t feel like I’d won that one, but I do know my abdominal muscles were a little bit firmer than they had been before.