Read All the Instructions Before You Begin

My son works in the restaurant biz and wasn’t able to come home for Christmas, but the kind family-owned business that employs him told him to come home on New Year’s Eve because of a family emergency (shockingly little information on that later).

Of course, I missed him terribly, but having him back in the house has reminded me that his…quirks don’t really mesh with my…quirks. Nonetheless, it’s been nice to have him back home, even if just for a short time.

Friday night, my son had some friends over and I had a houseful of young adult men sleeping on my couch (yes, all the boys on one couch. I have a big couch and they all [sort of] fit, even though one is nearly seven feet tall). In the past, he would have a few friends stay over, and my daughter would have a couple friends, and my kids are just close enough in age (three years and twelve days) that they all could hang out together, and eventually they all became friends.

Though this time my daughter had to work Friday night and Saturday morning so she didn’t invite any of her friends, the boys still included her and everyone had a good time. For awhile, it almost seemed like things were normal again.

About that family crisis…I don’t want to say much about it except that we are likely to be dealing with it for most of the year, and it’s one of those situations you think only happens to other people. One in which it would be super handy to have an instruction manual.

While he’s been home, my son helped me put together a hall tree for my bedroom. Putting furniture together is one of those odd things I love doing, because of the tangible and often useful result, because the kit comes with a goddamn instruction manual.

Think for a minute—if you will—about how much of life’s situations would be improved upon by the existence of an instruction manual. Buying a house (it would have told me to call the insurance company to buy a homeowner’s policy before closing). Pet ownership (why does the cat do that?). Parenting, for fuck’s sake (though you would need a specifically-tailored manual for each child, but by God if it would have told me whether moving my second-grader from a public school to a charter school was the right choice, I would have revered it [spoiler alert: it was the right choice, but it was another two years before we were sure]).

To be fair, for some things a quick internet search might find the answer you are looking for, but you might have to wade through thousands of results to find the little nugget of information you desperately need right now. Who has time for that?

So instead, we flounder through all these situations, and thus most of our lives, guessing that what we are doing is correct and will get us the results we want or need. I’ve said for twenty-plus years now that ninety percent of parenting is guessing, and the remaining ten percent is the easy stuff, like making sure they eat, go to school (though where they should go is the guess, obviously) and occasionally bathe.

It would be so much easier to have an instruction manual. But then, we probably wouldn’t read it. We never read the one that comes with a car. Anyway, do what makes you happy. I hope it doesn’t require instructions.