I'd just throw a tablecloth over 'em and be done with it.

Okay! Funny story.

I have this microwave that my parents bought me. It's one of those under the cabinet dealios. I've never had it installed because it needs a special electrical line and the electrician I had come in wanted a grand to install it. So I have this enormous box in the middle of my room.

For Allyson's birthday, like, two years ago? I was having people over and I needed to do something with the box. I put a leftover piece of plywood on top of it and covered the whole thing with an extra curtain I had and used it as a little sideboard.

At some point late in the evening, after the top had been all cleared off, one of my guests sat down on it. I spent the rest of the party eyeing him closely and praying the box didn't collapse.

Heh. My SIL likes to decorate things just so. First christmas season we went to spend with them, one of the things she did was to disguise my brother's Big Box O'CarCrap by covering it in fabric and putting a lightweight creche on top of it.

So who decided to try to use it as a chair and got stabbed by a bunch of bolts and wrenches and sockets? My dear brother, who didn't even notice the absence of his BBOCC until he fell in it.

LMAO. See, that was my fear.

Now, if Allyson or Polgara had fallen through the box, we would have all just laughed. But if this particular person had landed on his ass?

Well, we would have still laughed. But I would have been mortified for years to come.

I explained to that person after he took a bit of a stumble in a parking lot the other day that the way it would work if he fell was:

1) I point and laugh

2a) I help him up, or

2b) call an ambulance if needed

When it comes to my brother & SIL, it's always a toss up who is going to end up the butt of some joke or happenstance. Though flakiness induced? That will ALWAYS be my brother.

Somebody stop me before I Queer Eye the poor lad.

JZ, you would not believe the number of times Megan Walker, Kat Perez, and I have threatened The Scola with that very fate.

he took a bit of a stumble in a parking lot the other day

See, THAT I could laugh at. It wasn't my parking lot.

hee

Though flakiness induced? That will ALWAYS be my brother.

It's like a contest between the men in my family as to who is going to be the flakiest.

I was at a Pirate party, SO much grog,. So much johnny DEPP. There was a prolonged concversation about bpoys wearing makepu.

I think I should go to bed now.

It's an open secret that my dad is the stereotypical absentminded professor. What my brother is still denying is that he's following in his footsteps, just with a greater need for speed and a different subject.

What I can't figure out is how much is the women in their lives actually enabling this, or just acting defensively for our sake. I DO know that to some degree, mom and SIL allow it, as I now have very little patience with lazy helplessness, and when alone with me, they are slightly better at the whole life skills thing. And lord knows, they have been able to survive on their own before, so I know it isn't fatal. While at times it is funny, it can also be annoying.

I think ita and Kat (and who knows who else) will be pleased with the teasers for the next Alias.

I DO know that to some degree, mom and SIL allow it, as I now have very little patience with lazy helplessness, and when alone with me, they are slightly better at the whole life skills thing.

I don't know that any of us allow it exactly. But I do think we've all reached a place where we accept it because it ain't ever gonna change. So we just roll our eyes.