Have you ever wanted to let out a cathartic scream, but didn’t? Futility over comes you instead, and you do nothing – hopelessly wallowing in the absurdity of the moment.

A phrase comes to mind, “if it’s not one thing it’s,”

One minute Cheryl is guilting me into riding my bike to work. She’s browbeating her parents into accepting my exercising needs. The next moment she’s asking me to drive to work so Beth will have enough time to finish her homework. Between my chronically sore ankle (IT’S BACK!), my wife being sent all over creation to cover for other supervisors in her department, and all of these crap homework assignments,

In theory, I could do something about my ankle. I could take a turn on the wheel of medical fortune and see where it stops. I could do something about Beth’s homework situation. I could raise a stink with the school. I could find someone with a single syllable name that specializes in “talking to people.” I could help Cheryl with her work issues. I could run for public office, cash in on my charm, work my way up the rungs of political power, and parlay that power into a cushy job for my wife. Or, I could ice down my ankle, drive to work tomorrow, and try to help Beth get that assignment done tomorrow.

And what about that assignment? It’s the “winter journal.” Second graders in Florida are asked to write about their favorite aspects of snow, their favorite winter activities, Am I the only one that finds this funny? Your average Florida second grader knows about as much about snow as I know about biochemistry. Winter activities in Florida? How are they different from summer activities in Florida? This isn’t a journal so much as a creative writing exercise. Or better yet, it’s an exercise in embellishing the truth, making things up, LYING.

O.k., so it’s not that bad. I’m allowed to vent, aren’t’ I?

Twice this week I’ve packed up my bike, expecting to ride to work, only to dress for work from my packed bags at home and hop in the car. It’s not the 2004 elections, but it’s still disappointing. Woe is me.

“Mom, why is Ms (censored) giving me so much to do? I work in the morning, I work at night, I never get to watch TV. I feel like a homework slave.” Imagine it was your daughter, and she said this to you. Imagine you felt it wasn’t too far from the truth. How would you respond?

My daughter is in second grade, and she has spent more time on homework these last couple days than I spent my entire senior year of high school. Now before you say something snide about my senior year of high school, remember that I got into a decent college – even after my senior year. However, I will admit I was something less than your model high school student (unless your model was something of a slacker, who specialized in “fitting in” assignments somewhere other than home, preferably between classes).

There’s a line I draw, which represents a reasonable amount of homework for a second grader; and Beth crossed it two hours ago. In fact, I’m tempted to do some of it for her. The only thing stopping me is that Beth will learn the wrong lesson from this experience, not to mention her teacher will probably be able to tell the difference.

I’m sure there’s another side to this story; that the teacher would have something to say about all of this. Ah, hell. Let her get her own blog!

After doing a search through my blog (I’m always paranoid that I’ve said the exact same thing before), I came across a completely unrelated entry. During the course of my quick scan, I wandered across the phrase, “stripping away the extra layers of bullshit.” What a wonderful phrase, one that has a number of appropriate applications this evening. Let’s see, there’s a layer that represents coloring, a layer that represents printing your full name and date, another layer that represents nonsensical repetitive tasks, I could go on and on.

Do you think Beth is too young for colorful metaphors? Perhaps she’s smart enough to have already figured out the concept, without the added color.