Opposite Day

Opposite Day

At my daughter's school they have something called opposite day. This entails bratty kids doing the opposite of what they would normally do. An example would be students wearing their shirts inside out, staying inside instead of going out for recess, doing the afternoon's activities in the morning, etc. Other opposites they don't normally engage in would be paying attention, respecting the teacher, eating your own lunch instead of trading it on the black market for skittles and gatorade.

Opposite day is an entirely silly concept, as far as my daughter is concerned anyway.

Why is this entirely silly? Because when she's home it's always opposite day. Flush the toilet, daughter. It goes unflushed. Changes colours. Pick up only three of the many thousands of items that are strewn all over your bedroom floor. They lie there. She has more separate items on her floor then all the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world. But the view sucks. There is no nice breeze and that certainly isn't the smell of the fresh ocean spray. Please do not talk to us like we are fellow rap artists shootin' the breeze. She quotes lines from Family Channel as easily as I do from Talladega Nights or Predator. Mine are funny, hers are rude.

One sort of standing rule we have in the house is…don't burn it down. It's a useful rule if you want somewhere to sleep for the night. Yet when I left the house for 5 minutes one time, the opposite of that rule was almost realized. She and a friend decided they wanted to cook this really yummy macaroni that goes in the microwave. Mmmm, I love nuked food. You would think that the microwave, as far as devices go in the house (iron, furnace, stove, matches, knives, dental floss) isn't too dangerous. Punch a few buttons, cook, and there is no flame. One key ingredient went missing in the microwave - water. I'm not Jamie Oliver but I do know you cook pasta in water. It took 3 minute for the container to melt and burst into flames. This is when they decided to introduce water to the mix, only they had to do it as firewomen putting out a fire. They cleaned it up and then did what any 11-year olds would do who gave incidents like this any thought. They tried it again. What happened next was the most shocking thing of all. They got the same result. That's opposite day at my house.

Somehow, Newman found out about opposite day and now he wants to participate. Last night I dragged myself out of bed at 2:00 a.m. for some aspirin to stifle a beer-driven headache. I probably also got dehydrated tossing and turning as I napped during the day. I try to make these night time jaunts very quick so I can get back to my dream and find out if that young woman really wants me in that way, or if she's just my family doctor putting a rubber glove on. Newman is sitting at the doorway. I was very clear. It was plain English. "Come here, Newman". It's not Shakespeare but it says what it means. Well, it was opposite night for Newman. He passes Go, skips jail, collects $200 and moves directly to lying down in the doorway. My next moves were entirely controlled by my headache. It took over my brain, moved my leg behind Newman, and kicked him into the bedroom. My headache felt better. Newman looked at me as if I was spoiling the fun because I didn't want to play opposite night in the middle of the night.

Then he took opposite day a few steps too far. Alright, a few thousand miles too far. We left Newman in the car to do a bit of craft shopping. Normally when left alone in the car, Newman will bark a few times, let you know he's not happy, then take a break and lie down to lick his groin. This time he was as upset as Donald Trump would be if you locked him in a room and piped in over and over on speakers, "Barak Obama was born in Hawaii". Then he broke the cardinal car rule - no crap in the car. There it was, a steaming pile on the seat and mixing in with the seat belt mechanism. He might as well have put poop in the microwave along with my daughter's pasta.

Now we only play opposite opposite day at our house. And in the car. It could also be called please behave day. But that's no fun.