This was in my email today, and it (naturally) strikes a chord. I say naturally because, well, it’s Calvin:

Read on to see why this is timely…

Last night I regressed back to my inner five year old (while arguing with a ten year old, of course). We were having one of our too-frequent shouting matches, which lately seem to come up over the littlest thing, and I was doing a really shitty job of controlling my temper. The boys had been playing for a couple of hours in their room, and doing OK with it, but somehow my younger son was suddenly screaming bloody murder and clutching his eye. I went to investigate, and he said his older brother had thrown something at him.

(now, the details, aren’t really important. There is plenty of finger pointing when a couple of kids get too excited, of course, and this is nothing new at our house, I’m just sorta setting the stage here)

I asked him to apologize for hurting his brothers eye, and of course he said that he had been called names, or kicked or something – it was a long list of grievances.

I blew up. I said something along the lines “I’m sick of y’all screaming at each other and fighting all the time!” Or, I may have screamed it. Lead by example, much? One thing leads to another, and I soon have a boy throwing Playstation games around like frisbees (careful not to throw any of his favorite games, only others). The PS2, by the way, is a frequent point of conflict with me, this isn’t the first time we’ve fought over the toy.

So, I decide to be the grown up and grab the game console itself, and stomp out of the room saying “you won’t get to play this for a while!”

Ha! I showed him. Neener, neener.

Then, to show I meant business, I threw the thing onto the tile floor and watched little official Sony pieces fly all over the place.

Such. the. fucking. grown. up.

Things got quiet after this. I sat there, brooding, on the couch, rationalizing that they really do spend too much time playing games, and any time I try and limit it it blows up in my face, and how my wife has pretty much hated the damn thing since she bought it for me years ago, etc. etc.

Then a little later I did the math on just how big an investment we have, if games average $30 each we’re talking easily $2,000 in games, plus controllers and memory cards and a Guitar Hero guitar and – and – and – and…

Well, fuck.

Anyway, this is a long and rambling bit to show just how childish I can be, and just how far I’ll go to have My Way, and so y’all will understand when you hear my son scream that he wants to kill me. He’s learning from the best how to throw a temper tantrum.