Genetic Strangeness?

To get the proper context to this post, feel free to read my wife’s post earlier today, “Genetic Strangeness.”

There’s no doubt that they’re all my wife’s children. All of ‘em. Down to the last strand of DNA.

This morning, Spencer came running into our bathroom with his clothing in his arms. He’s a smart little turd — he wanted to get dressed in front of the space heater.

He dropped his clothing, made a face like my wife makes often, pinched his nose shut, and ran out of the bathroom yelling “Oooooo it stinks in there.”

“What was that all about?” my wife asked, after 45 minutes of time at the mirror.

I laughed and shook my head. I had no idea what might be coming.

One minute (not four) as previously reported in another well-known blog, Spencer came back with a folded-up paper towel Scotch-taped over his nose and mouth. The tape was attached to his chin, his eyebrows, and the bridge of his nose. He looked a lot like my wife when she was a child. At least like the pictures I have seen.

“I had to put this on so I could breathe,” Spencer explained to his mother. “It really stinks in here. It’s really reeky.”

Yes, reeky. This is a term used frequently in my wife’s hometown.

I was laughing so hard at Spencer’s home-made gas mask as I looked at him through the shower door.

“It smells worse than vomit,” Spencer continued.

Spencer, like my wife has a supersonic sense of smell. So he might have been detecting that bit of mildew in the corner of the shower. Or perhaps he was detecting the ever so vague remains of an offensive…

Well, who knows what prompted the gas mask. It was hilarious.

So I’m just chalking it up to “Schafer genes.” Jill will contest, but she can’t deny her genetic strangeness. Why, just today she was trying to tell me a story and kept repeating her words. “She she she then then then went.. umm she she then… oh went went went. I stopped her cold as I slammed the trunk of the car after taking the last bag of groceries out. We had just returned from shopping at Publix. At Publix, we spent an unusually long time in the frozen food aisle. Jill threw one bag of frozen peas into the cart and then stood in front of the doors staring at the Green Giant section.

“Why is this taking so long?” I asked. She looked into the cart and saw the bag of peas and said, “Why are those in there?” I shrugged my shoulders and didn’t ask another question. I thought she had better work out whatever frozen food disorder (FFD) she was suffering from.

There you have it. My children are weird because my wife is weird.

As for me — I choose to be weird. That’s different than being born that way.