our bathroom door doesn't lock. come to think of it, our bathroom door doesn't even latch. it stands wide open much of the time, occupied or not. casting a glance that way while walking down the hall often results with spying bella sitting on the john chin resting on her bracing arm and her legs dangling from the seat.

you may think that given the state of our door hardware, people would respect that when the door is swung closed, the room is occupied. we're not quite there yet. five minutes before the writing of this thought i was attending to my late afternoon constitution when the door pushed open enough for bella's head to pop through. "oh!" she exclaimed. "sorry dad, i just need one of these." her arm reached to the back of the door and pulled a bath towel off a hook and she and it disappeared. she called a "thank you dad" out as she quickly ran down the hall.

i'm not a math guy but this equation is one which i'm all over. that is, if bella is hurriedly after a full size bath towel, something pretty bad just went down. there was a time i'd try to figure out if it was one of my valuables or another's but parental experience has shown me that it is always my stuff. the kids have yet to be employed and therefore haven't acquired anything of merit or value. the last thing marty voluntarily purchased out of need or desire was back in 98 and that item fell when bella was just three. so what is left is a house chock full of dad-stuff. and it's not like i prefer delicate and costly electronics or anything. and certainly not stuff that couldn't withstand being doused with a bowl full of milk that got upended during a scuffle between bella and alex for the remote while yelling "my show, no my show, no my show, NO, MY SHOW".

many more of those sorts of battles and that argument will become a moot point because marty and i are in agreement that we're not replacing any more broken household items until the children leave for college. if you could see some of the antics that go on in our miniscule tv room, you'd know the tele is already living on some serious borrowed time.