Official Book of BS - Going Italian

Like every mom on the planet (particularly overachieving New York Italians), there are days when my wife has more to do than can possibly be done in a day. In fact there are days she has more to do than a normal person could do in a week. She gets understandably irritable when one of those days is full of commitments to people outside the family, and the rest of week offers little hope of a respite.

Unlike his siblings, Brian wasn't able to identify when mom was stressed and would invariably complain about his chores, or ask his mom for that one ... more ... thing...that was the straw that broke the camel's back. So not only would my wife be stressed but Brian would be in trouble, and absolutely miserable.

With the approach of a week that included out of town company, massive church responsibilities, and numerous school events I knew my wife was going to be stressed. I pulled Brian aside and used the following analogy:

I asked him, “If you were walking down a road in Africa and saw a lion standing on the side of the road ahead would you just casually walk down the road, right in front of the lion where he might reach out and pull you in for lunch?” Of course Brain responded that he would not. We agreed that it would be best to give such a lion a wide berth so it wouldn't attack us. I listed all the upcoming events and explained to him that whenever mom had that much to do she was just like the lion. We needed to make sure we gave her a wide berth by doing our chores, and anything else she asked us without complaining or she might "eat us."

From that day on, whenever either I or my wife would have a bad day Brian would notify the rest of the family that we were a lion that day. Several months later I was having a particularly bad day he asked me if I was a lion. I said, "No, I'm much worse than a lion." He suggested maybe I was a tiger. I said I was more like a chimera (yes I had to tap the realm of mythical creatures to find something nasty enough) but he didn't know what that was. So we agreed that I was a hydra for the day.

The other day I was out both attending to church duties and having some fun. When I came home it was clear I should have come straight home and not gone to the planned "fun" events. The conversation with Brian went something like this:

Brian - Mom's having a bad day
Me - Was she a lion?
Brian - No
Me - Was she a tiger?
Brian -No
Me(in a conspiratorial whisper)- She wasn't a hydra was she?
Brian - No, worse. She went Italian on us.