LIVING WITH YOUR PARENTS

I have a comfortable little house (above) in the suburbs and all my kids were raised here.

It has the usual amenities: books, TV, etc., etc.

And a well-stocked refrigerator; you gotta have that.

Yes, all in all it's been a good life.

That's why I can't understand what my grown-up kid told me over dinner last night. He said he needed a place to stay for a few months but that he didn't want to live here. I asked why...I mean, the rent here is free, and we like having him around...and he said that he'd never get anything done here. It's way too cozy.

"Too COZY???," I asked. "What's wrong with cozy?" Everything, he said. Everything here is soft and cushy and mushy and quiet...you could spend years here without being aware that time had passed. A house like this could rob you of years of your life.

Yikes! Well, I felt I had to defend the honor of the house so I pushed him to be more specific.

DAD: "Let me see if I understand. You're saying you're suffocating here. The house is dulling your mind."

KID: "Well, yeah, sort of. I don't want to exaggerate."

DAD: "Hmmmm. Come to think of it, when you were a baby you were always trying to escape."

KID: "Well, sure. Freedom. Everybody wants that!"

DAD: "So with ferocious hounds at your feet you escaped the clutches of the evil parents."

KID: "You're taking it all wrong."

DAD: "No, I get it...If you were here you'd be in quicksand. It's a slow death where the mud and the grass fill your lungs (Cough! Cough!) and you can't breathe anymore. That's it, right?

KID: Well....I didn't mean to imply....

DAD: But it's like that, right!? Like the Sargasso Sea???"

KID: "The Sargasso Sea!!!?? What's that got to do with anything?"

DAD: "The Sargasso Sea...a timeless, smelly, weatherless morass of rotting ships mired in decaying seaweed. A sailor caught in that is never seen again. That's what you think this house is like!"

KID: "Not exactly. Look, I don't want to offend. Maybe it's your collection of cats!"

DAD: "Huh? What cats? I don't have any cats!!!"

KID: "Ah, but it's as if you had cats, even if you don't! And your false teeth..."

DAD: "What are you babbling about!!!!??? I don't have false teeth!!!"

KID: "Ah, but it's as if..."

DAD: "I know, I know. It's as if I had false teeth."

KID: "Look, suppose I lived here and I wanted to bring a girl over? I can't do that with you here!"

DAD: "Why not? I wouldn't bother you...oh, wait a minute..."

DAD: "Now I get it! You want make your room into a HIPPIE LOVE NEST! Why didn't you say so? Hey, that's all right with me. I'm a guy myself. You can talk to me about things like that."

KID: "Yuuuuch! Nobody wants to talk to their Dad about sex! "

DAD: "Oh, yeah...right. Well...talk to your Mom about it then."

KID: "Yikes! That's disgusting! Dad, you're not getting what I'm saying."

KID: "I want to take risks! I want to take big risks without carrying a packed lunch and an extra sweater in case the weather turns bad."

KID: "I want to meet the people from the right side of the tracks and from the wrong side of the tracks."

KID: "I want to eat at the finest restaurants..."

KID "...and when my survival depends on it, I want to eat dirty scorpions from the Kalahari Desert."

DAD (REALIZING HE'S BEATEN): "Okay, all this talk is making me hungry. Let's see...I don't have any dirty scorpions..."

DAD: "...but I do have this half-eaten Doritos!"

KID: "Excellent! Let's eat!"