To his surprise, Bill's discovered the empty nest isn't all that bad
As Debbie and I have discovered - ironically, on the eve of Mother's Day - there are certain fringe benefits to not having any children around.
Oh, behave, as Austin Powers used to say. I mean, there is that too. But behave.
No, with one kid in Calgary - he's fine, thanks - one in the Dominican Republic with her boyfriend and another couple, and the other kid raising children of his own, we've discovered the following:
1.) You can go to bed earlier at night (behave!) and don't have to sleep with one eye and one ear open. They won't be home.
2.) Doors actually lock.
3.) Dishes that have been done stay done. You don't come down in the morning and discover pots and pans you could swear you had done at supper piled in the sink and ready for their morning bath.
4.) We own bath towels. I used to see them fleetingly - three of them wrapped around Shannon as she scooted up the stairs, a big one around Kenny; a couple around Debbie even. I wouldn't see them again until they came out of the dryer. But I was watching the hockey game the other night when Debbie called out suddenly: "Come here dear! Look at this!" She opened the drawer in the bathroom cabinet: "Towels." Closed the bathroom door and pointed to the rack on the back of the door. "Towels." And on the rack on the back of the bathroom door.
5.) And speaking of bathrooms - one is enough. Not once have I heard a knock at the door and "I need to get in there!" And if you do happen to be reading in there ... so what? Finish the chapter.
6.) You can check your hotmail or your Facebook or whatever without anyone wondering, "Can I get on there for a minute?-" even though she has her own laptop.
7.) Groceries last week: $117. And there's plenty. Not sure how we managed to spend $250 a week and the kids could open the cupboards and the fridge and say "There's nothing to eat in this house."
8.) You can (a) buy Cracker Barrel cheese and (b) eat as much as you want without your disapproving daughter pointing out that you eat too much junk and she'll be around to collect that 50 bucks at Christmastime when you lose the bet and not the 20 pounds you promised, thank you very much.
9.) The shoe fairy, and her cousin, the laundry fairy, don't actually exist. It's true. The bride confessed one day last week, she's the one who's been moving those six pairs of shoes Shannon wears daily from the back door into the nearby closet. She's also the one who keeps the laundry circulating. Who knew?
The countertop on the cabinet in the bathroom and the hardwood floors in Shannon's bedroom, both installed in renovations several years ago, are still there. The cabinet counter has been cluttered with beauty products and hair dryers and such; her bedroom floor with clothes and towels (See #4).
There is such thing as suppertime. You can set a time around 5 p.m. or 5:30 and be reasonably confident that you'll eat around that time and there will be (a) someone there to eat it and (b) nobody complaining that we're having it again and is that all we ever have around here.
You don't need to look for a deal on glasses or plates at the Wal-Mart after all. Check the bedrooms first.
You can wear your jeans and the St. Louis Cardinals top that has the stains on it and not have to worry about kids dropping by and what they might think.
It's OK to hang unmentionables on the clothes line on a nice sunny day - as long as you're home and your wife isn't and you don't mention it to anybody.
Oh, and there's that too.
I'm sure I'll be able to add to this list in time. But I hope I don't have to for a while yet.
Bill Hunt is a sportswriter for The Daily Gleaner. He can be reached at huntsie@hotmail.com
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