Burning Down the House

I just sat outside and watched my son make a paper boat and then set it on fire in the pool.

He was highly amused.

He used aerosol glue to make it flame up even more.

What is it with boys and fire?

He likes to try and set things on fire all the time...once he put glue in a shovel and set it on fire (yes, I was outside holding a hose and witnessing it).

He likes to light things up and burn them.

I often am afraid that my house is going to burn down as a result of all this "fun with fire".

Like I said...what is it with boys and fire?

There are soooooo many things about the male species that confound me.

It would be so much easier if I was a lesbian...I "get" women (but NOT teenage girls).

But alas, I like men...just men...as far as a partner in life goes.  I like men...

But I don't "get" them...and the strange things they do and like...

Like...take the show "Jackass" for example.  Men like that show. I will admit to being amused more than once or twice by it.  But only the "stupid" things they do...not the "gross" things they do (like eating "yellow snow" or...no, I just can't go there...yellow snow is gross enough).

Once I saw the Jackass guys fill a hotel hallway with beach balls and they tried to "surf" on the beach balls...body surf...

Now THAT was funny...and I watched it with a male friend and we laughed so hard we were wiping tears from our eyes and we were tempted right then and there to go to Walmart and buy every beach ball we could get and throw them in a hall just to try it.  Of course some idiot on the show managed to bang his head into the corner of part of the hallway and knocked himself silly...and that ALMOST stopped us from grabbing the keys and heading to Walmart.  What DID finally keep us from that fateful Walmart trip was that we just didn't have a proper hallway to do it in...and maybe a lick of sense hit us.

But boy it was funny...and it DID look fun.

I discussed this with KuteKaren the other night...she saw the same thing...and agreed it did look like an awesome thing to do...and thankfully she and I did not head to Walmart for the beach balls.

But next time I go to Palm Beach with her we just might...the Hampton Inn had a great hallway for it.

But I digress...

Men like shows like "Jackass"...and although I do not think that much of it is THAT funny I will admit to finding some of it funny...just not like most men and teenage boys do.

Men also like video games.

Call of Duty

NBA something or other...

Madden football...

Assassin's Creed

How do I know the names of these games...because I have a teenage boy who practically LIVES on Xbox when he is not at school or playing sports.

I think I once mentioned that my ex spent an entire Sunday playing "Tetris" on the Nintendo.

My son tried to teach me to play a few games on the Xbox.

I was, as he put it, a total failure at it.  A total and complete and utter failure at it.  He tried several games and each time I got confused as to what button to push or when to push it.  He finally switched the game off and found us a video to watch.

The other day he tried to teach me how to throw and catch a lacrosse ball with a lacrosse stick.  I did manage to throw the ball and he would catch it.  But 9 times out of 10 I would miss when he would hurl it at me.  I was thinking I was pretty good at "throwing" it but I think all it really was is that my son is pretty darn good at catching that ball in the net of his stick.

For safety he was teaching me while we were in the pool.  I was afraid there was one of those funny video shows filming us because a mom learning to catch a lax ball while wearing a bikini in a pool would make for a pretty good funny video...especially if that mom was me.

I had a lacrosse coach once try to teach me how to throw the ball (with the stick) into a net.  After a few attempts he gently took the stick from my hand and informed me that I was a very pretty woman who obviously had many skills...and I smelled really good...but that he was afraid if I kept trying I was going to hurt one or both of us...and I think he valued all of his body parts...and once or twice that ball shot out and almost maimed some body parts I am pretty sure that man was very fond of.

I was wearing a skirt and heels at the time...so I asked him another time to show me how to do it (when I was dressed in shorts and had sneakers on so I could move easily) and one of the other coaches warned him not to...that coach knew me pretty well and knew that yes, I had skills and that throwing a lax ball into a net was not one of them.

But men will stand and do silly things like continually throwing a ball into a lax net.  My son did it today...against the side of my house.  He managed to hit me in the head a few times with the ball...but he kept at it despite my reminding him that he was going to be doing it from 6:00-8:30 tonight at his lacrosse camp.

Men will shoot baskets endlessly...throw footballs endlessly...putt golf palls endlessly...etc.

And they are amused by it.

But they won't pick their underwear up off the floor.

They will sit in a deer blind in the freezing cold and still not get a deer and yet say they had fun.

They will sit in a freezing stadium and watch their team lose and still say they had fun.

But ask them to go outside and put up Xmas lights when it is 40 degrees out and they will tell you it is too cold.

I know this is another "whining about men" blog...but today as I watched my son light a paper boat on fire I just thought....

"Why are guys so weird?"

I'm living with one...and he is the cutest and best thing in the world...and he totally confuses me about 90% of the time.

How the hell do I expect to live with a grown-up one?

I failed at it once...

Maybe I just need a questionnaire that says "do you light things on fire?  Do you think farts are funny? Does the show Jackass amuse you?"

and if he says yes to any of the above I might just have to make a run for it...but then again I live with one who would say "yes" to all of the above and I love him more than anything in this world.

Sigh...

Just one more thing I will have to deal with if a really good looking man who drives a big-ass truck ever comes my way...

He probably will like to set things on fire...

But maybe, just maybe, he will go to Walmart and get a bunch of beach balls we can body surf on in a hallway...

after all, he would have room in that truck bed for all those balls...

Inspiration Song: "Burning Down the House" by the Talking Heads...there are other versions of the song but in my opinion this is the only one that counts...

Bye Darlings...do NOT let your teenage son burn down the house by trying to recreate the scene from "St. Elmo's Fire" where Rob Lowe sets hairspray on fire for Demi Moore...mine wants to so very badly...not burn down the house...just light the hairspray on fire...