Perhaps you clicked here looking for a distraction because all your kids were crying inconsolably and you couldn't take it anymore. Perhaps you were overwhelmed with December bills, and this wintry economic climate has you up at night, wondering if you'll be living out of a storage garage and an apartment come Spring -so you decided to read some blogs as an escape. Perhaps you were biding your time on the Internet while you were waiting for the pediatrician to call you back because this collicky madness needs some medication, any medication. Or perhaps you're me.

Oh, it's not so bad. It's just cold out. And by "cold", I mean Southern California cold, which is anything below 64 degrees and 85 percent cloud cover. We have nothing to be depressed about. It's little more than a disenfranchisement from a Sunset Magazine photospread, is all.

Truth is, Mrs. Ditchman tapped me on the shoulder in bed this morning with that look in her eye: you're up. I don't blame her, she was up all night. And then she went off to work today and I got a couple of squirts who refuse to nap like it's their right or something to be awake. Look kids: some things are rights, and some things are responsibilities. There's a difference. If you want the full benefits of our modern society, I suggest you learn what that difference is. And take a nap.

Ahhh, but they're too young. And I should be old enough to handle it. Still. A baby could cry all day in the room and I wouldn't notice -but the baby would wake up the other kid, and then they'd both be crying, and then come meal time: madness for mommy, I get the blame.

It's enough to drive a man to drink, and it all makes me wonder if alcohol was invented by men for just this purpose. You know the stereotype of the deaf old man with the flask of whiskey hidden in the garage? Let me clue you in: he's not deaf. There. The secret's out. (Oh, crap. I've just ruined it for old men everywhere.)

Or perhaps I've just been cooped up in the house for too long. Things aren't looking up: tomorrow they're resurfacing the street and we're not allowed to come or go for 24 hours. I think Mrs. Ditchman is going to "go" early, which leaves me here, imprisoned with the banshees in the Oceanside suburbs.

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