This is how my family operates.

We were all going on a shopping expedition this afternoon. My wife, my kids and me. All packed into our PAthfinder and toodling down the freeway heading to Richmond to go to Lee Valley Tools. We love that place, you can buy just about anything your heart desires there if you like woodworking or gardening. There is even a fair amount of stuff for kids there, all geared toward building or growing. It's a great place, i never get tired of going there, but I digress.

Humming down the freeway in the winter late afternoon, the four of us were lost in our own thoughts, my youngest (10) staring intently at his gameboy ("Gameboy ADVANCED dad, JEESH!") with muted "bleeps" a nd "bloops" and electric music coming from it, my eldest boy (11) ("11 and a HALF dad, JEESH!") with his nose stuffed in a book (The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree :) and their mother with her face turned toward the window, gazing at the world going by. As for me, I sat there looking at the sun going down, keeping the vehicle between the appropriate lines, cursing the other drivers under my breath, and pretty much doing the usual driving things. Other than the background noises of the engine, tires, gameboy, there was silence in the car. We all listened to the Muzak in our heads.

The sound of my wife's voice brought us all back to reality suddenly.

"Y'know what I don't understand?" she asked out of nowhere.

Now, in most families, this would be met with a polite response, a reply to the obviously rhetorical question. "no dear, what's that?" the attentive, well adjusted, and good-looking husband might say.

"Gee mom, no" might be heard from the back seat.

My wife has been living with me for 19 years, and the kids are blood relations of mine, and raised a goodly portion by me. you'd think she'd know what to expect by now.

"Quantum Physics?" From me.

"Swahili?" from my eldest.

"Monkeys?" from my youngest.

She looked at us then, her mouth open, a look of dumbfounded confusion etching every inch of her countenance.

"What???" was all she could muster.

"Aeronautical engineering?" (me)

"Thermal Dynamics?" (eldest)

"Russian?" (youngest)

She looked at us then, her face flowing from confusion to disgust and back. She returned her gaze back out the window, shook her head and muttered "We must be cousins"

That kind of shit goes on every day around here.
 
 

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