In the North American Handbook for Surviving Parenthood, rule #73 states: “Never sit down in a dark room without completing a physical inspection of the seat.”

As an example, I offer you myself.

Birthday season is moving right along in the Kauffman Family Household (version 2.2.2), and yesterday we celebrated birthday #3 of the season, Adam’s third. One of his favorite presents was a loud, stomping, growling, football (American) sized triceratops. Just in case you’re not up on your paleontology, the triceratops was a dinosaur characterized by three large horns sticking out their head. (They might be called something other than horns, in which case it’ll be obvious I’M not really up on my paleontology.) One odd thing about this triceratops is the coloring. It’s mostly red, with blue highlights. Now I’m no expert (as previously established), but red seems like an unlikely color for a dinosaur. What’s the evolutionary advantage of red? Was the triceratops the parrot of the Cretaceous? Maybe their mating season coincided with fall foliage?

In any case, red is a good color for hiding on the futon in the family room, among our red and blue pillows.

I can assure you that was an unpleasant surprise.