Tidy Husband

Eligible for the seniors discount and the Happy Meal deal at the same time.

  1. The Snack Pantry

    We don’t have chips in the house very often for a very good reason.

    a piece of food that is on a blue surface

    Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

    Me.

    I am the reason. To be precise - it’s my willpower - or lack thereof - which is the real problem.

    I just can’t be trusted around a bag of chips. For the child it’s candy - so we all have our vices here - but the trouble with having chips is that I eat them. At an accelerated rate.

    At one point there a while back I was stress eating a family pack of chips at a embarrassing rate. It would start out innocently enough: “just a handful”, I would tell myself.

    I would grab the bag and my phone and instead of going to bed sit down and pull out the phone and doom scroll and eat chips. Turns out time goes by real fast when you’re eating chips mindlessly in some dopamine overdose with salt, fat and the glow of the phone display turning your brain into an pink glob of pleasure. A fair bit of time goes by before realize that your brain has been concentrating on the dope and not on the time - and you’ve hoovered over half the bag.

    Then comes the shame.

    “Tomorrow will better”, you tell yourself, but then the next night comes along and it’s “I’ll just have a handful while I skim the news….” and now we have a habit forming.

    The solution? BW stopped buying chips. Problem solved.

    Now? I open the pantry door - hopeful like a kid on Christmas morning, only to not find a bag of chips. I am torn about this - in some ways I was so hoping that there would be the magic chips in the pantry. But it’s just as well - and I go to bed 1000 calories lighter. (that estimate might be on the lower end)

    All this to say that something magical happened tonight.

    We have chips in the pantry again!

    You see, the Amazon man came just as dinner was being served. Of course, all things Amazon must be inspected and opened by the child, but we told her to cool her jets until after dinner. Then we can open the Amazon box as our entertainment of the evening.

    Dinner, Dessert and then it’s AMAZON box time! woo hoo!

    The child and I rip it open and we both GASP IN UNISON:

    CHIPS! WE HAVE CHIPS. WE HAVE CHIPS IN THE HOUSE!!!!

    The child grabs a bag, but I grab the BOX of chips and guard it with my life. I look at the child and give her the stink-eye and tell her “these are all mine!” ( just kidding - sharing is caring.)

    And we all have a good laugh and then ask BW why did she buy us chips?

    She told us because she loves us.

    Also, they were on sale - the chips in the house are a limited time offer.

    Our love? (of chips) It never expires.

    Until Next Time,
    TH and Co.

    PS> We hid them on the top shelf because both the child and I have the willpower you would expect of a chip addict. BW will dole them out as she sees fit and it’s probably best that way. :)

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  2. Tiny Hands of Destruction

    See that little hand in the photo?

    That little hand - and the body connected to it, can be so sweet and yet leave behind her such a path of destruction in such little time.

    Tonight I picked up, repaired and mopped the following:

    1. I knew this was coming.-The park is still under construction, and with construction comes mud, and water. Mud and water and rocks and kids = wet and muddy back to school shoes. Shoes are now washed, and dried - ready for another day of mud an fun tomorrow.
    2. “My water bottle spilled”, she told me as she pointed to the puddle on her bedroom floor. “I almost wiped out”, she told me. God forbid you get a towel and I dunno…mop it up.
    3. My favorite of the night: “Hey Dad, look at this in the bathroom”.. She then proceeded to show me that if you yank on the entire faucet it becomes loose enough to rock back and forth. I told her that maybe we could just use the handle to turn the tap on and off instead of hanging off it like a monkey. She agreed that would be a good idea.

    But! It’s all worth it because she was a joy today from start to finish and that makes every load of laundry and late night plumbing repairs worth it.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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  3. The Coke Float

    This doesn’t happen often.

    clear drinking glass with ice and red straw

    Photo by Edge2Edge Media on Unsplash

    At the same time we had both vanilla ice cream and Coke in the house.

    Dessert rolls around, and the question that gets asked every night:
    ”What’s for dessert?”

    The choice was either chocolate or vanilla. At first the child wanted chocolate and I suggested coke floats because we had the ingredients.

    The child did not know what it was and then it blew her mind that you could mix coke and ice cream together!

    So, I make her one. She tries it, declares she doesn’t like it and so I take hers away, and get her the replacement: chocolate ice cream.

    We all have ice cream and as I am cleaning up she decides to reconsider the coke float idea and finds the half-melted reject. Now it’s found a new life and is the bet thing ever

    “I like the melted float better than the fizzy float”, she states.

    Then she asked why sugar was bad for you.

    A little late don’t ya think?

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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  4. Read a Book and Win a Shark

    This morning when I woke up I was still a little miffed about the reading challenge win we had yesterday that had terms and conditions in the small print. It really burned my britches that adult bullshit came between kids and reading books.

    So I made my own book club for kids. It’s called Shark Club at www.sharkclub.win

    I had this idea in the car at 11am, and the site is done by this evening. I have about an hour an a half of my time, and about five bucks a month in server costs for this to run. No counters, tracking, or other bullshit.

    KID READS BOOK > KID GETS A SHARK that can be printed as a sticker and is added to their shark collection.

    That’s it. No trackers, ads, or other bullshit.

    I want to make the reading experience enjoyable for all and if a printable sticker of a shark makes this happen, that’s great!

    Currently there are 12 sharks to choose from. Here’s a few:

    When you report your book, you get a page created of all the sharks you have collected to date. Here’s MY test data for my reading list.

    Like the footer says: READ A BOOK. WIN A SHARK.

    What book are you going to read next?

    Until next time,

    TH and Co.

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  5. The Reading Challenge

    The form came home on Friday.

    She’s good with the reading. I have found her fast asleep in bed with a book on her chest so reading isn’t a problem at all here really. Athletic ability is another topic…

    The form was for “Summer 2026 Reading Challenge” and if you did 6 of the 12 options you could take the form to the local outlets for a free prize: a few tokens at the arcade, an ice cream cone, some candy at the candy store.

    She chose candy, because she aced the form.

    But, - and there’s a but. The form says “expires August 2026”. First of all, this is not a cash grab. It’s not like the child is printing out copies and visiting all the spots for a tiny freaking ice cream.

    This program is designed to support READING first and foremost. The local businesses get a free ad sent home to a lot of households for the price of a tiny ice cream cone. This is not a ponzi scheme, it’s a reinforcement of good behavior:

    1. KID READS
    2. KID GETS TREAT
    3. KID ASSOCIATES READING WITH ICE CREAM
    4. ICE CREAM IS DELICIOUS
    5. KID READS MORE

    That’s it. Jim’s five-step program on how to get the kid to read. patent pending

    It’s my opinion that there should not be an expiration on this deal at all. In fact, this should be the SOP for every kid: READ all summer - get 3 sharks. The end.

    Maybe I will start a read and get 3 sharks reading club. I don’t need a form.

    We go up the road to the candy store to cash in our prize and the lady at the counter gives some push back because the form and the stupid expiration date. She tells us she will “honor the form” but that all the other places might not.

    A few things here: The prize is 1/4 lb of candy. candy is heavy. Want to know what the child ended with? THREE GUMMY SHARKS

    I did some research and asked Google about what the sharks cost at the wholesale rate:

    The wholesale cost for exactly 3 individual blue gummy sharks would be roughly $0.13 to $0.19 total.

    Because wholesale orders are priced strictly by weight rather than by individual piece, this breakdown shows how that tiny cost is calculated:

    • Average Weight: A standard gummy shark weighs about 8 grams (0.0176 lbs). Three sharks weigh roughly 0.053 lbs total.
    • Wholesale Value: At a bulk rate of $2.40 to $3.50 per pound, the raw cost of those three candies is less than twenty cents.

    20 cents, folks. TWENTY CENTS WORTH OF CANDY.

    That’s a lot of push back for 20 cents of candy because the form was a week past due. - for a form that should not have had an expiration date in the first place. Instead of reinforcing the reading - we’re reinforcing the stupid rules instead.

    Adults do really ruin all the fun sometimes.

    Oh! the BLUE SHARK REVIEW from the child:

    “They are blue on the top and white on the bottom and REALLY thick”

    Are they delicious?, I asked.

    “YES,” she replied

    CHALLENGE COMPLETED.

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