How Long is A Month?

My middle child's 16 year old friend, from the state in which we previously lived, arrived a week ago.

When discussions first began about his visit, I said, "Two weeks would be fine for a visit."

My wife, on the other hand, said to the friend, "We'd love to have you. Stay as long as you want."

To which I would add, speaking to my wife, "As long as it is no more than two weeks."

She would say, "He stayed for a week last time and we were not sick of him."

And I would reply, "First of all, we were somewhat sick of him. The fact that he would not eat anything that we ate ticked you off royally. The tensions between him and the oldest bugged you, too. Second, there is a world of difference between a week and a month. Before the month is out, somebody will have to die."

He is here for a month.

She says, "I didn't think he would really come for a month. I didn't think his family would let him stay that long."

Aaaargh!

I understand that women are required to have faulty long-term memories in order to propogate the species. If my wife remembered all the throwing up and discomfort of pregnancy and the excruciating pain of delivery, we would have only had one child. And couples must have a bit more than two children, to propogate the species.* If women had excellent long-term memories, the species would die.

Adam: The kid is asleep. Let's pick some figs!
Eve: Abel is so nice. We don't need another one.

Ok, I admit that second child did not turn out so well.

The first week of his stay has been about the same as last time--frustrating, but not fatal. But things will probably get worse from here, as the kids get sick of each other.

The kid is bizarrely unreasonable in his picky eating. It is mind boggling. He eats Kraft mac and cheese. When we fix homemade mac and cheese, thinking he would go for that, he gets a panicked expression at seeing bread crumbs on the stuff. Of course, we could serve him some without the bread crumbs. Only 2% of the macs are actually touching bread crumbs. And it has real cheese, that he likes to eat on pizzas, etc. But . . . no. It is as if we served him up Kraft mac and raw sewage.

So he eats a $1 Totino's pizza. Yum.

When we ordered pizza out he said, "Um, you got Papa John's pizza. I don't really like Papa John's."

Here is how bad it is. When we were taking him back to the airport last time around, we did not have time to stop and eat, so we grabbed something at McDonalds. He eats fast food all the time. But, "There's nothing I really like at McDonalds."

Uh . . . as if there is a freaking hairsbreadth difference between McDonalds and all the other fast food havens? Not nuggets? Not chicken strips? Not a hamburger? Not anything?

A kid who does not like McDonalds!

I need to rest now.

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*On average, each man and woman must replace himself/herself. Plus, some will die before they replace themselves, some will be infertile, some will be too lazy to breed, and some will be fans of Brokeback Mountain.