The Forever Pile: Solution for Adolescent Sloth

I think I have found the answer to adolescent sloth. Possibly for all frustrated parents, but definetly for this frustrated parent. My 14 y/o son, you see, will slog through his summer days doing absolutely nothing if left to his own special devices. No sense of industry leaks out of his presentation of laziness. My goal is to not 'act out' my frustration by doing or saying something stupid like "when I was your age I use to multi-task before multi-tasking was even a verb", or some other such inanity.

He does not listen to that stuff.

Yesterday, while pruning trees and bushes and other things that grow prolifically in the yard, the idea came to me. As I was planning where to put all the remnants of my toil, I needed to find a central location on this acre so that the rubbish could easily transfer into the green waste can once chopped into little teeny bits.

And that is when the forever pile was born. I call it the forever pile because it is freaking huge. It will take months to break all this down and have it taken incrementally away by the garbage company. And, it will be added to, because this stuff grows like there is no tomorrow.

My lucky son will no longer have to worry about having nothing to do. He, in all of his luck and good fortune, has his very own forever pile!

Now, I don't expect him to spend hours a day at the pile of green rubbish. No. It is there for him when he has sooo nothing to do that he can go out and chip away at the forever pile.

You may think this sounds harsh. You may think that he should be able to enjoy the summer being carefree and easy and happy and all those other things that are the stuff of modern, urban myth. Well, the protocols of the forever pile do not work in a punitive way.

If my son has something to do, be it recreational or industrious, that will always trump work on the forever pile. In fact, it is hoped that the very sight of this huge, rotting mound will spur him into a creativity previously unknown to even him. He will likely find something ELSE to do.

That is good. If this is the case, I will gladly do my time at the forever pile. After all, this is all in the spirit of providing lessons in life for this fine young man.

DO YOU HAVE A FOREVER PILE?

deorre

HAVE YOU HAD MAN LESSONS?

STRESSALIVE!!