the gift of mondays

when people are jerks i'd like to tell them to take a flying leap. off the nearest bridge. into deep water. that's freezing cold. and filled with sharks. when people are jerks i'd like to make them peel a hundred onions. without taking a break. or stopping to wipe their nose. and then push them into a vat of tunafish. that smells like it rotted last year. when people are jerks i'd like to tell them to hold their breath. until they're blue in the face. and their neck muscles bulge out. so they look uglier than they're already acting. when people are jerks i'd like to kick them in the butt. hard enough for them to fly across the room. and crash into the wall. and spill their large and sticky drink down the front of their shirts. when people are jerks i'd like the world to stop. and a hall monitor to whistle. and write them a detention slip. that puts them in time out. for like a million years. when people are jerks i wish the boogie

i saw your face when you walked away and it broke my heart. i know you're disappointed. i know you're upset. i know you think it's not right. but it has to be this way. in your mind, we're overreacting. you probably think we've forgotten what it's like to be your age. that we don't trust you. that nothing could go wrong.  but this is a crazy world. one in which unimaginable things happen. one in which "it could never happen to me" just happened in our own family. and so we overprotect. we keep you close. we put limits on your freedom. and now that you're thirteen you hate that. because you think your friends can do what they want. and you think that everyone else is doing it. and you think that our rules are stupid, and crazy and not fair.  i remember being like you when i was growing up. thinking there were too many restrictions. wondering why i had a father so unlike all the others. wondering why these parenting rules ap