Sep 28 2009
When A Smart Alec Procrastinates
Kids grow up. Fathers are ignorant of this until the day they look around and discover the house is empty and all their children have moved out. Mothers are aware of their children growing up and attempt to train their children to be responsible for themselves. Yet, there is a part of a mother which does not want to see her children fail in their responsibilities. This part of the Mother reminds her children of their responsibilities. My children would most likely replace the word “reminds” with “nags” in the previous sentence.
To illustrate the difficulty of this training, I give you the following example:
1530 hrs: Josiah has a lot of homework. Josiah has trouble keeping track of his homework. Josiah waits until the last possible moment to do his homework. Josiah’s mother reminds Josiah to do his homework.
1600 hrs: Josiah’s mother watches the Bears game on T.V. and forgets about Josiah. Josiah reads a book instead of doing his homework.
1915 hrs: The Bears win football game and Josiah’s mother is in a good mood until she goes to find Josiah reading a book instead of doing homework. Josiah’s mother is now in a bad mood. Josiah becomes aware of this. Josiah’s mother gives yet another speech about responsibility.
1930 hrs: Josiah is suddenly inspired and writes an excellent conjugating verb essay using complaining, procrastinating, and falling asleep as examples.
2130 hrs: Josiah hands essay to his mother for proofreading. Josiah’s mother tries hard not to laugh while reading the essay. Josiah’s father laughs heartily while reading the essay. Smart Alec son laughs to himself.
