The Smartest

I am sure you never doubted this, but I am the smartest person on the planet. Clearly, no one can be smarter than me, as I know - EVERYTHING.

How do I know this? (I mean other than because I know everything.) Because a 3-year-old said I did.

My sister called me the other day to tell me that my nephew had a question that she could not answer. He said to call me. "Mike knows everything," Nicholas said.

So wise, the children.

His question was regarding Robin of Batman fame. Nicholas wanted to know where he came from. My sister called me not so much to ask the question but, as she said, to give me a little ego boost. But I was not going to leave it as an ego boost. "He was a child acrobat," I said.

My sister laughed and said that I was just making stuff up so that I could keep my title of World's Smartest Human as Decided By Someone Who Wears Spider-Man Shoes. "No, seriously. He was an acrobat."

There was a silence on the other end of the line. My sister then commented that it appeared I did, in fact, know everything, or at least everything important to a 3-year-old.

I became the Sage One several weeks ago when Nicholas asked me this question: "Why did Darth Vader become bad?"

I looked at my sister and brother-in-law, who both shrugged. "We told him to ask you," my sister said.

At that point, I took Nicholas upon my knee and told him a story about bad influences and peer pressure and doing things that are not right but ultimately meaning you cross paths with Boba Fett. Seemed to suffice, and he anointed me as brilliant.

I guess it's just that I am full up on information that's important to kids. Among some of the amazing facts that I keep handy that thus make me an Einstein to the under 4-foot crowd:

* I know the best technique for the most effective double bounce on a trampoline.

* I can submerge something under water and manage to keep it dry using nothing but an ordinary household bucket.

* I know why Transformers are here.

* I can juggle (requires more brains than you think).

* I can spin a basketball on my finger (much like juggling, more of a thinking-man's game than you realize).

* I can quickly and correctly identify Smurfs, droids, Fraggles and most any animal.

* I rule at Wii.

Sadly, though, the ability to detect my brilliance does seem to diminish with age. For example, my daughter, who is 9, now routinely questions things that I say, which as you well know implies that somehow I might not be correct, which, as Nicholas will tell you, is not even in the realm of possibility.

One way I can certainly illustrate that for you: Onion cutting.

You see, my daughter likes to help me cook, and I certainly enjoy putting her through the rigors of the Mike Gibbons Cooking School (Motto: "Please do not cook Mike Gibbons"). One of her favorite things to do is help me chop the vegetables. Being the responsible dad I am, I plug in the electric carving knife and say, "Ten dollars says you can't cut the tomato in five seconds!!!"

Ha, I kid! Because that's what the unsettlingly brilliant do. (For what it's worth, one of the big parts of my cooking school is knife safety: How to properly slice without cutting yourself, how to make sure you hit the spinning wheel, but not the lady attached to said wheel. That kind of thing.)

So I have a very distinct way of slicing an onion. It involves removing the skin, slicing in half, turning it over, slicing into sections and then dicing it. My daughter had the audacity to slice it a different way. I told her that's not how you slice an onion. Her response, "But it ended up the way you wanted it, right?"

THAT'S NOT THE POINT!

So who knows. Maybe in a few years, Nicholas will begin to question some of my brilliance. But I'll know, deep in my heart, that I still know everything. And I can juggle.

All growing well

So once again this year, the kids told me they wanted to do a garden.

They've wanted to do gardens before, and we've had mixed results. And by mixed I mean bad. The last one was an ill-fated herb garden attempt.

The only remnants we have of that are an out-of-control rosemary bush, which is apparently just shy of kudzu in its spreading ability.

But this year I vowed it would different. First off, we were planting fruits and vegetables. We will harvest our crops and live off the land. Granted, I know that unless we harvest chicken nuggets, I will not supply the bulk of my kids' diets. But this is a start, nonetheless.

We decided to do a raised bed this time, mainly because the soil at my house is a combination of rocks, clay and titanium, I think, based on the few times I have tried to dig in it.

I bought a few garden timbers (two I had to cut in half, which means I had to use a power saw. Fingers? Still 10, baby!) and a bunch of soil. The last thing to get was the seeds for our crops.

I took the kids to the seed section and told them they could each pick out one.

Parker told me he wanted to grow cherries. I told him we'd have to get a tree. "So let's get tree seeds," he said.

I explained to him that it would take a while for a tree to grow. "OK, oranges." Back to the cherry tale. "Fine," he said. "Broccoli."

"Broccoli?" I asked. What kid asks to grow broccoli? Mine, I guess.

Next up was my daughter's turn. She thought for a moment. "Dad, what are you going to pick?"

I was pretty sure I knew where this was going. Children are pretty simple when it comes down to picking between two choices.

The main goal: Figure out how to get both. "Hmmm. Well, I guess I was going back and forth between watermelons and cucumbers," I said, making a pretty safe bet that I had her choices covered.

"Fine. You take watermelon. I'll take cucumbers. And I'm pretty sure Mom wants green beans." Triple score. Well played, Allie. Well played.

We got home and it was time to roll up our sleeves and do the hard work. Sweat equity, I told them. They stared at me.

We hauled all of the stuff to the backyard and set the lumber out. We then hauled all of the soil to the backyard. (Oh as for the hauling: little red wagon, is there anything you CAN'T do? I mean, besides be successfully or legally towed behind a car.)

At that point, I could see the kids were working up a sweat and getting into the project.

After helping with the first couple of bags of soil, they both retreated inside. Probably going for a nice tall glass of refreshing water, I thought. Probably bringing one for the foreman. Those kids...

And the next thing out of my mouth was, "Why are you wearing bathing suits?"

"Can we go swimming now?"

"I thought we were going to do the garden!?!?!?"

They stared at me. "Can we go swimming now?" Always a good ploy: Just pretend I didn't say anything and I will just assume I went into a time vortex.

I was about to put my foot down. Time to earn your keep. Get to tilling. They asked, "Can we go swimming now?"

Truth of the matter, it's an 8-foot by 4-foot garden. I think I can swing it from here. "Hop in."

When they were done swimming, they planted the four rows of produce, and we dutifully watered our new garden.

The kids have been checking most every day, and I am pleased to report that each of the rows has shown some sprouts of green.

We'll be filling our table with our own food in no time. Well, that and some chicken nuggets.

Dry, Dry, my darling

I killed my dryer.

I didn't mean to. I thought I was helping it out. I thought I was easing the burden on the old gal, who had logged nearly 15 years of service. Apparently, though, my actions drove her off the deep end.

For years, I've wanted a clothes line. Mainly, I wanted one for sheets. I love the smell of sheets fresh off a clothes line, and there is also the added chance that, as your sheets are flowing in the wind, a company shooting laundry commercials might happen by and ask to use your clothes line.

I finally got around to getting one, a retractable thingee that stretches out about 20 feet when in use, but does not serve as a hazard to oblivious sprinting children in the backyard when not in use. After I put my first set of sheets on the line, I came upstairs to where my wife and the dryer were. "I got the clothes line set up!"

"YOU WHAT?" screamed the dryer and jumped out the window. Either that or it just stopped heating the next time I fired it up. But I think we all know it felt cheated on.

I went online and starting doing some research on repairing dryers. I then said, "Oh, who am I kidding?" and told my wife we needed to go get a new dryer.

This had the potential of a conflict, as my wife and I have slightly different shopping styles. Her style involves research and price shopping and comparisons and speaking to people. Mine involves entering the store, picking out something in less time it takes to put on socks and hoping that, when they deliver it, the item (a) fits (b) works and (c) is a dryer and not, say, a table saw.

So needless to say, we did research, price shopped, talked to people. The first thing we found in the research is that you can spend a whole heaping helping of money on a dryer, and it can have some super-fancy things on it, including 56 - 56!!! - cycles, menu options in three languages and "theater lighting," whatever that is.

OK, here's my criteria for a dryer:

1. White

2. Kinda cube shaped.

3. Dries clothes

That's about as complicated as I wanted that stage of my laundry to get. I don't even need one language. I've pretty much mastered the two basic knobs that get it cranked up.

The one area we had to discuss somewhat was the size. Our old dryer was 5.8 cubic feet, which meant absolutely nothing to me until I saw a little conversion chart at the store that showed a 5.8 cubic foot dryer could dry four towels at a time, which explains why 10-12 towels often took several cycles to dry. Turns out, we needed to upgrade to the 7.0 cubic foot, which the chart said can dry 12 towels at a time, which means I can now try to dry 36 towels at once.

So we now have the new dryer installed and working like a champ. I have joined the refrain of others who have upgraded from an old dryer, having realized what an actual, effective dryer is like. One cycle? Really? That's all it takes? I had no idea how small and ineffective our old dryer was until now. The new one - so roomy. So warm. So ... effective. Hopefully, we'll get a good 15 years from this one as well. Just don't tell it I have a clothes line.