Board, check. Sunglasses, check. Ipod loaded with gangsta rap, check. Helmet, don’t need it. Shoes, this is the South are you kidding me? Buddy to create major distraction while I grab the bumper of a car going by at thirty miles an hour, check.

The above is the thought process of a ten year old boy who actually believes that he will live forever as long as there are buckets of Neo-Sporin laying around for him to bath in after all major mishaps. He also lives in my cottage.

Back in my House Parenting greenhorn days, I use to think that kids I saw limping around on crutches or big bandaged heads were caused by a lack of proper supervision from the House Parents. Now I see a kid on crutches and think to myself that it’s just a stupid kid. Sometimes I even ask them what they did before I call them an idiot. 99.9% of the time I hear stuff like:

“I crawled out my window with a trash bag as a parachute. Jimmy said it would work”.

“He said something about my mom. What? Oh yeah, I knew he was way bigger than me, in a gang, four years older and 65 pounds heavier than me. But you know I gotta represent my hood”. (Actual quote from a boy living in Garrett County, Maryland. The hood he refers to was a mostly Mennonite community and the gang was an active hunting club, which I suppose could be considered a gang with strong Anabaptist traditions?).

The point is this, young males are morons. They have a sense of immortality mixed with just enough knowledge to kill themselves or at the very least brag about how many stitches they have had to endure. If you feel like a failure because one of the kids in your charge got hurt- don’t. It happens to all of us. Of course there is neglect. If your watching TV while Johnny is in the backyard doing donuts with the new cottage van that you left the keys in, chances are your getting a butt chewing, at the very least.

Many facilities that have state placement kids live in almost constant fear of a lawsuit and do every thing they can to restrict the shear stupidity that testosterone does to a young mans mind. They do not allow sports, rough play or any physical group activity. I have seen and unfortunately, worked for such a facility. The kids became caged animals and reacted as such. With no creative outlet for frustration or aggression they became extremely violent. It was a case of the supposed therapeutic environment actually creating a behavior that was much worse than when the kid checked into the program.

Sports, physical play and work all play a part in helping to keep a check on adolescent behavior. Keep a kid inside all day watching Sponge Bob and you will surely have a mad man on your hands. I try to find at least one outdoor event to do every day of the week, even when it’s raining. For all intents and purposes it has worked, the only one with a weight problem in the cottage is me. Ironically I’m also the only person who struggles with pent up aggression, TV and Internet addiction and insomnia (It might be time for Daddy to start taking his happy pills). Yep, outdoor living will cure what ails you, unless your dealing with some kinda clinical depression brought on by dealing with adolescent behavior.

Boys are going to be boys, its been that way since the beginning and it will be that way till the end. Get use to it……. and the ER. -Launch

I realize that the vast majority of people reading this blog would never even consider riding a bike, but this video has a great song and I gotta give some love to the bros out there doing ministry in many different capacities, including residential childcare.

There is a saying among many Christian Bikers that can just as easily be applied to all House Parents:
Some wish to live within the sound of church or chapel bells, we want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell!

Jesus the Biker- He was a lot like you and me. The government didn’t like him. The church thought he was weird. His friends were few. What friends he had, denied him. He was persecuted by hypocrites. He hung around people like you and me, not the goody-two-shoes Pharisees.

Yes, if Jesus were on this earth in the flesh he would be next to you on his Harley telling you he loved you……. enough to die for you.

BIKER’S PRAYER
God, I know you are real. Thank you for being in the wind with me even before I ask. Thank you for your son, JESUS that died for me. Forgive me of my sins; for I truly repent and turn to you.

JESUS, I ask you now to come in my heart that we might ride together daily.
I dedicate myself and my scoot to serving you. Thank you LORD for my salvation!

Thank you, for I am now “in HIS Wind”. Amen
Much love and peace to all the brothers and sisters out there representing the living God with their knees in the wind. -Launch

Working in residential child care has many challenges. Aggressive children, killer loads of paper work, nasty demeaning case workers, parents on crack (Literally), staff miscommunication and nails driven into your bike tires (Long story).

But nothing makes a mess of life in general than an elicit affair on campus. Stick around this industry long enough and you will run into the rumors, innuendos and eventual expose of a little dirty love on the down low. Unfortunately, most rumors about an affair on campus that go through the grapevine turn out to be true.

Most facilities that insist on hiring singles as House Parents, are fairly use to the drama associated with staff relationships. The facility I got my start in was such a place and was constantly dealing with relationship issues. They discouraged couples from working together and would place them in separate cottages to work with the opposite sex as a partner. When I asked why they did this they said “Married couples do not work well together”.

The problem becomes when you have a grown man and a grown woman, modeling family style living in a cottage to highly disturbed children that want both of you dead. Day in and day out you work side by side living in some kind of weird, pseudo, pretend marriage. Your doing everything a married couple does with the exception of sharing a bed, which starts becoming more and more imaginable as time goes on. It’s simply a mixture of stress, hormones, a little easy rock and a bad day. Pretty soon the kids are talking and the two of you are doing a lot of justifying.

Facilities that are promoting “Family Style” living without there being a family are deceiving themselves and the kids. No facility should ever try to run a residential child care program with live in staff that are not married. If hiring or finding couples is that much of an issue, a facility needs to seriously consider hiring individuals for shift work. And for the sweet love of God, do not call yourself a Christian facility and force your staff to work as a couple with other people of the opposite sex.

All of this may seem to be a no-brainer, but I know of quite a few people who have taken a fall because of some weak moments and a bad work set up.

Just a piece of advice to my homies caught in a dysfunctional group home setting- save the Pina Coladas and moon lit strolls for the wife. It’s not worth being homeless for…. -Launch

Morning routines are hard enough without having to deal with the drama of fighting over what the kids wear to school. I gave up long ago with trying to power struggle over trying to reason with a kid over a more appropriate shirt or pair of pants. So what do I do now? They either wear appropriate attire or they go nowhere, not even school.

Over the years the boys would “conveniently” lose belts, socks and shoe strings, with the intention of “If I ain’t got it, I can’t wear it”. They soon learned that My wife had ultimate control over their allowance account and they got real upset over buying the exact same belt, three times a month.

Anyone that knows me will tell you I’m all about personal expression and being yourself. My wardrobe consists of leather, flannel, a suit and one red crushed velvet shirt (everyone should own at least one). I have tattoos and a shaved head, I’m fairly certain a modeling contract is not in my future unless there’s a trailer park out there looking to put out a calendar. But this is who I am and unfortunately for my wife, this is who she married. Having said that, there is also a time and place for my personal wardrobe expression.

When conducting a meeting, doing tours of the cottage and especially intake meetings, I dress business casual. Every time I am in a position to represent my facility, I will dress for the occasion. Just as when I am wearing my biker colors I represent my club. Likewise every time a kid steps out of your house and onto the school bus they are representing you and your facility. If you don’t take the time to teach them the appropriate boundaries when it comes to proper attire, you will be embarrassed. Nothing says “Skank” like a G-String poking out the back of a pair of jeans worn by your fourteen year old little girl. Let your boys go to school busting a sag with a T-shirt that’s four times larger than them and they will hang with the gangsta wannabe’s. Don’t believe me? Think back to your own high school career. What did the stoners look and act like? What about the red necks and all the other cliques? That’s my point, at this stage kids will act according to what clique they style themselves after.

There is little you can do if a kid chooses that lifestyle, but you still have control over the wardrobe, even if the kid is a state placement. I have threatened on more than one occasion to replace a kids wardrobe with Amish apparel.

I understand it is a battle, but teaching a child that you dress for the occasion will go a long way in helping them to succeed in social settings, long after they have left your care. -Launch

Finally, the day has come. I have yearned and dreamt of this most glorious day all summer, the first day of school. 

Events leading up to this day have been frantic to say the least. Clothes shopping, school supplies, open house registration and nervous kids. All have taken their toll on the emotional and physical well being of the wife and I. While shopping at Wal-Mart for clothes one kid tried to sneak a few extras into the cart only to find out that when we were checking out he went over his authorized limit. I then made him put all the other stuff back, at which point the young man decided to tell me how his Grandma was going to set me straight. He became further enraged when I started laughing. I may be out of shape, but I think I may still be able to hold my own in a fair one-on-one match with a 75 year old woman with emphysema.

Open house went as usual. The teachers sized us up and wondered what kind of buffoons they would be dealing with this year while we wondered if they actually learned anything in college between the beer bongs and Monster Truck rallies. We toured the class rooms, talked with all the office admin and gave my business card to the school cop for future reference. Pretty typical start to school around here.

To be truthful, most teachers we deal with are great. They are professional, caring and dedicated. But we seem to get one particular teacher every year that works on a different wave length then the rest of us earthlings and we got her again this year. But even that could not take away the anticipation of the first day of school for us.

Yesterday morning I jumped out of bed whistling and walking a little lighter than usual. I woke the boys up and stepped on some plastic model that cut my foot. I didn’t even grumble, just kept whistling. We got the boys pushed through morning routine and then we walked to the bus stop. 

I wanted to celebrate the occasion with something like a cigar or champagne, but I thought I might have a lot of explaining to do as my supervisor passed the bus stop on the way into the office. So I went with a cup of coffee and Irish cream loaded with sugar. Time seemed to stop as I kept looking for the bus to round the corner. After 15 minutes I was getting very…. frustrated. The kids, who were very somber, were starting to get very happy and seemed to think they dodged the bullet of the first day of school.

Then I heard it. There is no mistaking the whine of a big Detroit Diesel engine being driven by a very irritated and underpaid county employee. That yellow- that beautiful, bright, tacky yellow bus, gleamed like the halo of an angel as it rounded the corner. I started getting all misty eyed at the thought of being able to catch up on paperwork, work on the blog, clean the house and all of the other wonderful things I could do without having the boys home all day and chasing them around. This was my moment, a moment that I worked and slaved all summer to make it to. Oh how sweet this victory.

I hugged the boys, wished them the best of luck and sent them onto the bus. For a moment I caught the drivers eye. He had the same look I did when he dropped them off for the last time before Summer vacation. I guess I looked like he did that day, all happy and bubbly. As he closed the door I gave him a salute and then lifted my coffee cup in a toast to him as he rolled his eyes and hit the gas. 

Happy back to school!!! -Launch

School is back in session which is something I thought I would be very thankful for, however the new dynamics of the kids in my cottage has totally changed the routine of the school year and made it into a very physical challenge.  Let me explain.

We are going through a lot of transition here at the facility my wife and I work at.  Like virtually every other charity in the country, the tanking of the economy and the spike in fuel costs has had an effect on donations.  As a result we have had cutbacks and have had to close a cottage, which resulted in the other cottages having a higher census.  We also had two boys go to live with their birth mother right after school got out.  Boys that had lived with us for 6 years, that were familiar with us and were very capable of doing many things for themselves like bathing, dressing, etc.  In their place we got a 3 and a 4 year old, one of which we have had to potty train.  I have lost count of the number of children we have had to potty train, but I can tell you I am very tired of doing it.  To make things more difficult we also got two older boys (15 and 18) one of which is a senior that plays football and does other things till all hours of the night.

That should be enough introductory material, let me describe my Friday and part of Saturday:

• 5:30 AM - Wake up, make coffee, shower, dress.
• 5:50 AM - Start breakfast (made Sausage Biscuits and Gravy)
• 6:20 AM - Wake up children so they can start getting ready for school.
• 6:30 AM - Wake up children again.
• 6:40 AM - Serve Breakfast.
• 7:00 AM - End Breakfast and encourage children to get ready for school.
• 7:10 AM - Wife leaves with daughter to taker her to school.
• 7:20 AM - Herd all the children out the door and take two youngest with me on my school run.
• 8:15 AM - Return from school run, clean up from breakfast and help the two little kids get dressed.
• 8:45 AM - Go to the office and get computers I need to finish setting up for the college kids that start school on Monday.  Return back to the cottage so I can watch little kids while wife goes to the business office.
• 10:00 AM - Finish Computers, wife returns from business office and takes over little kid detail.  I go to my office to work on a cottage computer that has been severely infected with a virus.
• 11:05 AM - Return to the cottage to make lunch for myself, wife and little kids.
• 11: 35 AM - Serve Lunch.
• 12:05 PM - End Lunch, Clean up and Wash Dishes.
• 12:30 PM - Return to office to work on Computer some more.
• 2:00 PM - Leave office and prepare for my PM School run.  Check Mail, go to bank, stop and get a drink (Diet Pepsi, though I considered something else).
• 2:45 PM - Arrive at School to wait in line for children to be released.
• 2:55 PM - School lets out, children start loading.
• 3:05 PM - Finally get to the front of the line to load children.
• 3:25 PM - Arrive back at the cottage and unload children.
• 3:30 PM - Depart for second PM school run.
• 3:45 PM - Arrive at school to pick up child. Depart 5 minutes later.
• 4:05 PM - Arrive back at cottage with child. Visit with wife and children.
• 4:20 PM - Begin preparing supper.
• 5:30 PM - Serve Supper
• 6:00 PM - End Supper, supervise children do evening chores.
• 7:00 PM - Sit down at computer to check e-mail and website, post job listing while supervising the children while they watch TV.
• 8:00 PM - Send children to prepare for bed under the threat that they will be sent to bed if they don’t stop wrestling in the TV room.
• 8:20 PM - Go and check on children that have not returned from getting ready. Find them bouncing on the bed.
• 8:30 PM - Send first child to bed
• 9:00 PM - Send the remainder of the younger children to bed.  It doesn’t matter if I send them to bed at 7:00 PM or Midnight, they will still be awake at 7:00 AM Saturday wanting to watch cartoons.
• 9:10 PM - tuck in all the children and encourage them to go to sleep.
• 9:20 PM - check on children, again encourage them to go to sleep.
• 9:25 PM - Again check on children and again encourage them to go to sleep.
• 9:30 PM - Again check on children and again encourage them to go to sleep. 
• 9:45 PM - Young children are finally quiet and wife arrives back at cottage with young man that had evening activities.
• 10:05 PM - Send middle aged children to bed.
• 10:15 PM - Check on middle aged children all is quiet.
• 10:20 PM - Sit down to watch TV and visit with my wife.  I would normally put on PJs at this time, but day is not nearly over.
• 11:00 PM - Send older kids to bed.  Lay down for a nap only to be awoken 5 minutes later by call from senior at away football game.
• 11:15 PM - Lay back down for nap.  Doze in and out.
• 11:45 PM - Receive another call from senior saying he will be back at the school in 40 minutes.  Doze for a few more minutes.
• 11:55 PM - Try to wake myself up and drive to his school that is 20 minutes away.
• 12:20 AM - Arrive at his school and sit in parking lot with other parents waiting for bus to return.
• 12:35 AM - School bus arrives.
• 12:45 AM - Boys finish unloading bus and load up in van.  I have to drive a second boy to the ranch which is 12 miles past our campus, because his houseparents are on relief and the single relief staff can’t load up the whole cottage to go get him.
• 1:10 AM - Arrive at Ranch to drop off boy.
• 1:15 AM - Depart ranch en-route to my cottage with my football playing senior.
• 1:35 AM - Arrive back at my cottage and finally go to bed.
• Approx 1:55 AM - Fall to sleep only to be woken up at 7:20 AM by the young children I sent to bed at 9:00 the night before.  Only Nine more games to go until Basketball season.

I’m not sure I am going to like the routine of this school year.

I was really looking forward to the Houseparent Network retreat this past week, partly to socialize a little bit, but mostly to see how Mike was doing with his diet. The last I had seen Mike he had already dropped a lot of weight, this time he looked like a different person. Standing next to him I felt like a fat girl at a beauty pageant. It was down-right disparaging to be standing next to a guy that was as fat as me less than a year ago. 

Not being one to sulk to long, I figured he would party like a rock star during the retreat and suck down enough smores and soda to plump back up by the end of the weekend. No man can live off of tofu, and yogurt for long, at least not a real man. But all my hopes were dashed at dinner that night. 

Old Mike fixed steak. Good bloody, hair on your chest steak. Apparently that’s what he eats all the time. No green grass and dandelion shakes, no yo-plait or organic dill-weed. This is the kind of diet I could do if I can convince my wife it’s actually not going to kill me in a year of a heart attack. Whatever he is doing, I need to do it. 

I listened to him talk about having more energy to keep up with the kids, how he felt better and just how much less stressful he feels. To say I felt convicted is an understatement. A big part of long term survival in residential childcare is decent health and lets face it, most of us haven’t missed a meal in a long time. 

I am determined to drop 70 pounds. Using Mike as my inspiration and convincing my wife I need to eat steak three times a day, I will make it happen (Well, maybe after I get a second job to pay for the steak). One way or the other, this big old gut has got to go. 

I think the real change in any behavior such as eating, drinking, substance abuse and gambling starts when you are just sick and tired of doing the things that are hurting you. I’m at the point that my own gluttony is making me sick, I am more than ready for that change. 

Mike- You are definitely a role model for the rest of us heavy weight lovers living the dream in residential childcare facilities across the nation. Just please don’t post any pics of you flexing in a speedo…. -Launch

I started out last Thursday by loading the bike down and heading to Waleska, GA to start work on the Facility Review that will be posted in the members area. It was a great trip to Waleska with the exception of a certain Waffle House along I-85 that was serving E-coli bacteria with their Texas Bacon Melt sandwich. So about 15 miles down the road I was in a ditch hurling and praying the impromptu toilet paper I was using was not Poision Ivy. I spent the next two hours grumbling about the Waffle House chain until I hit the Georgia state line.

I spent lots of quality time sitting on Highway 285 around Atlanta. For anyone familiar with Atlanta, you know that 285 is a parking lot between the hours of 5am and noon. It’s also the only place in the South where people act exactly like they do on the Jersey Turnpike. A true lesson in the subtlety of expressive sign language.

Finally I hit Waleska and headed up to Goshen Valley Boys Ranch. It was great to be back and to see all the exciting things the Ranch has going on. The staff was very accommodating and patient with a lot of questions, pictures and me poking around. Hopefully the review reflects what an amazing bunch of people they really are.

Around noon I was finished up at the ranch and headed towards Huntsville. About three miles down the road, it rained. It rained non-stop for three hours, two and a half of which I spent standing at a gas station listening to every person walking in say “Is it wet enough fer ya”. After hearing that comment for about the three hundredth time I started to feel pretty mean and decided I should get back on the bike and keep heading towards Alabama.

Then it happened. The sun came out, birds were singing and the scent of honeysuckles drifted through the air just as I crossed into Alabama. Suddenly my whole outlook on life was changing. At one fuel stop I talked with a couple of bikers who filled me on the local area and gave a lead for another Children’s home in the area and gave me some advice on short cuts to Huntsville.

I finally rolled into my buddies house in Harvest, Alabama wearing 40 pounds of wet leather and feeling like someone dragged me behind a truck for the last 200 miles. After a hot meal and a hose down, I slept like a baby until 11:00 the next day. Ollies wife fixed a big breakfast and I was starting to feel human again. Ollie took me on a tour of his stomping grounds and showed me some great areas around Huntsville, one of those being the skate park he ministers at. (Another blog coming soon).

Then it was off to Monte Sano State Park. I envisioned big crowds, fighting over a campsite and possible water shortages due it being the first annual Houseparent Network retreat. Luckily, I beat the masses and was the only tent in the primitive camping area. Mike AKA Webmaster, showed up as me and Ollie were setting up and started bragging about his air conditioned cabin. He then offered us a steak dinner, so I decided to let all the elitist comments slide….

After awhile, it began to dawn on us that we were probably going to be the only ones showing up for this shin-dig, so we kicked back in the cabin and relaxed. It was great to talk with someone else that lived a life that we all understood. When Mike and his wife talk about a kid that is cute as a button but is driving them crazy, I nod my head in agreement. I may never have met this particular child, but we have all had a kid like her. That’s whats so great about getting together like this, you start to realize your not alone, there are other people out there like you that believe this is ministry. It’s a connection with kindred souls that understand.

We also had time to talk about the web site and some developmental stuff that hopefully will make the site even more appealing to other house parents out there. We even talked about the future of Residential Childcare and where it will possibly be in the next twenty years. All in all it was a great time and I loved meeting with the webmasters family and the man himself.

I got some other topics to blog about that came out of the meeting, but for now we are just getting the ball rolling again.

One more thing…. For all you posers out there that called and said you were coming, the steak (Above) was awesome. And yes we talked about you….. -Launch

A common complaint among most house parents is the lack of sleep. Truth be told I only average four or five hours of sleep a night. Most doctors recommend between six and eight hours to keep from going psycho and running naked through the local car wash.

A huge part of the problem is stress and the emotional roller coaster we deal with everyday in our environment. To help ease the stress, many of us consume empty carbs, sodas and other comfort foods to feel a little better. Heck, I have lived off of coffee and Twinkies for the last five years. Or there’s the other half of the crowd that have to sneak off on a van run to town so they can slam a couple of cigarettes before going back into the line of fire. 

Many people that have never been a House Parent have a difficult time imagining how it could possibly be so stressful. After all, all we do is watch a bunch of kids and keep them from killing each other or burning the place down, right? It’s a lifestyle you can’t possibly know about until you live it, bottom line. People and in some facilities, the administration, belive that you have massive amounts of free time and get to be with your spouse everyday. The truth? There are very few moments in my waking hours that I am not working, doing or hustling something for our cottage or facility. That is true in about 98% of the facilities you will find yourself in. As for working with your spouse? Man, I tell you the truth, if it were not for Christ we would have tried to kill each other long ago. I can’t imagine doing anything else with anyone else, but when your spouse is also your work team mate and you spend 24 hours a day with each other it can, and will get a little funky at times.

Between the caffiene, nicotine, crack or whatever your poison is; mixed with the daily grind of breaking up fights, teachers and paperwork, by the end of the day you just want to turn on the tv and numb your mind with shows about dead people. But on one particular night I had already seen this episode of CSI about ten times.

So I decide to pour the last of the soda into my coffee cup and sit on the front porch of the cottage. I was only out there about five minutes when I noticed a leg sticking out of the window over at the teen boys cottage. I decided to walk over and say hi. I was half way across the street, at 1 am, when the rest of the kid jumped out the window. As soon as he saw me, it looked like he was going to start bawling. I asked him where he was going and he said he dropped something out his window. I noticed the still burning cigarette butt on the ground and asked if that was what he was looking for. Figuring he was beyond screwed at this point, he picked it up and took a drag. We walked over to the porch and sat down for a minute and he started telling me about how he couldn’t sleep. 

He talked about missing some people in his family and some of the stuff he thought was his fault for ending up in our facility. It seems he was having a difficult time dealing with some of the other kids in the house and trying to find some space for himself. Without telling him, I knew what he was feeling. We all tend to forget that the kids suffer more than what we tend to give them credit for. Sure they whine, think only about themselves and how the “Now” is affecting them, not anyone else. Pretty much everything I still do when I start feeling sorry for myself or want something that I can’t have at the moment. Like money to pay bills or a new Harley. The one big difference between me and this kid was I go on respite, he doesn’t. He went to bed that night wondering what his Mom was doing and he will go to bed every-night wondering what ever happened to her. 

We talked a few more minutes, then I called the House Parents and briefly listened to him losing his freedom for the next week. I then walked back to my own cottage and thought to myself that life is pretty good as I checked to make sure my daughter was asleep in her crib. I can’t think of any other way I would love to spend my life than what I’m doing now, even if I can’t sleep. -Launch 

One of the first things I did when I moved from Yankee territory was to go poking at one of those big ant mounds that are found throughout the south. I got stung about fifty times while the boys I was with at the time fell all over themselves at my stupidity. An ant that stings was completely unimaginable where I was raised. Ants were good for squashing, that was about it. They could crawl on you and you wouldn’t blink an eye.

In the south, fire ants are everywhere. I have come to believe they are the minions of Satan himself. I can’t stand more than five minutes on any piece of grass in South Carolina without dancing around like a fool because fire ants are covering my sandals and chewing on my ankles. It looks like I tried to kick a field goal with a cactus.

My pain and suffering is of course a never ending source of entertainment for the boys. Which is why when they get stung by a fire ant or two I secretly say to myself “About time”. The boys have of course grown up with fire ants. Like any group of bored kids I have seen them invent all kinds of games that have made me shake my head and wonder where they come up with some of the stuff they do.

One day we were playing soccer and during a water break I noticed a group of boys huddled in group at one end of the field. My House Parent senses told me that something was up, so I walked down to them and asked what they we were doing. They were all laughing and taking turns putting their hands into a fire ant mound and seeing how long they could keep it there. The record was ten seconds at that point, and probably one of the stupidest things I have witnessed as a human being.

I have also seen the boys on occasion kick ant mounds on each other and run around laughing while getting stung on the arms and face. If the south ever did rise again, this is the kinda mentality the North would have to face. I know some tough Northerners, but not one of them would take a fire ant mound to the face and run around laughing. They grow em tough down here.

One of my favorite pastimes is the eradication of fire ants. I hate them like I hate cancer. The kids and my wife just stand back and say a prayer every time I head out the door with a gas can and matches. I forget they probably crawled out of hell anyway and the fire probably just makes it a little more cozy for them, while my lawn looks like it barely survived a Napalm bombing run.

Trying to kill them isn’t helping my ulcer any. I’m starting to think that maybe I should adapt the kids outlook on the dreaded fire ants and learn to adapt, using them as a natural resource, a way of separating the men from the boys by plunging my hand into an ant mound. Amazing what a group of boys can teach you…. -Launch