Tired of the sock battle

I know this just MIGHT cause some of you to pass out so please take a seat (if, by some chance, you were standing at your computer or maybe using a public internet kiosk at a mall just to access my blog.) I'm actually going to write something of USE.

So here's the thing. I married into a family of 4. Three of those are children. Children apparently have some odd flaws. They are incapable of certain acts pertaining to footwear. They can't seem to sort socks, they can't seem to distinguish between their socks and those belonging to others and when they are GIVEN a PAIR of their OWN socks they can't seem to get them BOTH into the laundry basket for the same wash cycle.

All these things borne in mind and realizing that I really hate dealing with a huge basket of socks (ours has pretty much become a perpetual basket that stays in the kids room and they pull socks out as needed)I have come up with an idea.

Now this is not an entirely new idea. I've seen part of it employed before. The first part is easy. Use a laundry marker to put your child's initial on their socks. If it makes the kid feel better you can agree on a shape, smiley face, colored X or whatever. Now this helps to keep their own socks on their own feet. But it really doesn't help when it comes to them trying to find a pair that matches. So I have decided that when new socks are purchased not only will their initial go onto the sock but it will be followed by a number.

Zach will have two Z-1 socks and two Z-2 socks etc. This will solve a number of issues. Firstly, it will make sorting a breeze. You sort the letters and match the numbers and you're done. It also helps to eliminate orphan socks. When a sock becomes torn or stretched or blood stained you dispose of it and it's numeric pair. It can also be used as a pre wash incentive. You can line up the socks and tell at a glance which have a mate missing somewhere in the house and send your children on a search for just the missing ones.

So that's my future plan in a nut shell. I figure that I won't have to go much higher than a 24 on the numbering. That's a few packs of socks and by the time you've had to purchase a third or fourth pack of socks for your kid they had better have a good reason for needing them (meaning that the lower numbers will have been thrown out and can then be reused.)

Texting Addiction

So I got a wild hair and looked up texting addiction. This is because of viewing the usage history for my 14 year old since we allowed him to spend his allowance on unlimited texting. I found one article where the addicted person being interviewed said that they sometimes reached 5000 messages a month. Another article complained of a child running up a $600+ bill with texting (equaling over 12,000 messages).

Well here is a sad look into my child's life.

Between the 22nd of May and the 13th of June he has sent or received 14,066 text messages. That's in only 22 days. As I'm sure you're figuring out I'm obsessed with numbers. He's averaged 639 messages a day. I'll assume he sleeps 9 hours a night (I'm using yesterday as a gauge: he got up (started texting) at 9:10 and went to bed (stopped texting) at 11:48 so that is around 15 waking hour.) So 15 hours a day waking time for 22 days is 330 hours. That is 42.6 texts per waking hour.

Oh, and using yesterday as a guide I found that 47% of those are sent by him.

It is kind of scary to hear someone calling out that they are a texting addict with only 5000 texts per month (though I will admit they don't specify if that was total texts or only sent texts) when my child has SENT approximately 6,653 in only 22 days.

Now there is one ray of hope here. One tidbit that may indicate that he's not QUITE as addicted as he may seem. You see, many of his friends pay for their own cell plans and they have figured out that they can get an absolutely minimal minute plan with unlimited texting. That allows them to have conversations with multiple persons at one time and also allows them to converse in an unlimited fashion without using thousands of talking minutes and therefore having to pay massive amounts for a voice plan to cover those minutes.

Still, I think it's an addiction...but maybe that's just me.

UPDATE: As of the end of the billing cycle (5/22/09 to 6/22/09) he sent and received a total of 20953 text messages (677 per day average) Oh, and for any pot / kettle types out there...my total messaging for that month was 715 and my wife's was 235 and we both use instant messaging on our phones.

2 days of my life

It seems that the people in my house are incapable of operating the spring loaded toilet paper roller. At least none of them seem to want to. I have realized that living in a house with five people we go through a roll of toilet paper a day. And I have noticed that I am the only one who puts it on the roller. I have also registered the fact that it takes me 6 to 10 seconds to complete this task.

So assuming that this task takes 10 seconds every time (sometimes I drop the toilet paper and sometimes I have to go into the hall for a new roll so a high estimate isn't uncalled for). Now let's assume I'll live to be 80 years old. Having started this routine of mine at about 30 years of age when I married into my family we'll say I'll do this for 50 years. Now I know that the kids will eventually move out (probably) but at that point we'll probably change over to a more comfortable if slightly more expensive toilet paper and will use the smaller rolls. We will also probably use the bathroom more often as we will be getting older. As such I'll assume that I will continue to change the roll once a day.

In 50 years there will be 18,250 days. Ten seconds per day is 182,500 seconds spent changing toilet paper. That works out to 2 days 2 hours 41 minutes 40 seconds. So I'm going to spend over 2 full days of my life putting toilet paper on the roller.

Now if that's not a crappy deal I don't know what is. ;-)