‘Ants in the Pants’ is a Struggle and it’s Real

I’m not good at sitting still.

I didn’t dislike school, but I didn’t like being forced to sit for an hour at a time.

Guess who had the sharpest pencil in the class.

This situation hasn’t improved much over the years.

Back when I would have my day job, I couldn’t sit at my desk very long before taking a lap around the building.

My co-workers probably criticized me for that. I probably would have if it would’ve been someone else.

I am currently snowed in. I like snow, but I don’t like being snowed in. It’s the same principle as being chained to a desk but with a longer leash.

Restlessness is real, and I have a chronic case of it.

I can track this back to when I was a child when we would go to visit relatives.

Usually, I would be freed to go wander around outside, but only after an excruciating length of time sitting there listening to the adults drone on about some subject that was of no interest to a child.

I remember my first time sitting at the grown-ups’ table during the annual Decoration Day Sunday lunch at my aunt’s house.

It was horrible.

The kids’ table was a fun place. We could build a tunnel out of our mashed potatoes, construct a fried okra tower and punch a hole in our roll so we could look through it.

Cousins look funny when viewed through a piece of food.

But the grown-ups table was something completely different.

Again, the conversations were of no interest to me.

At some point, every year I sat at that table, someone would bring up this person named Buck Watson.

I guess he was someone who lived in the community. Maybe he ran a store or something. I don’t think I ever knew. Anyway, everyone knew him.

Buck had lots of children.

And every year during Decoration Day Sunday lunch, the adults would try to name them all. They all had names like people on “The Waltons.”

I recall being amazed how the conversation could turn to that subject every year, and it always went the same way.

They would agree on four or five, then they would disagree about whether Jim Bob was a son or a son-in-law.

Then they would start all over again.

Someone should’ve been appointed recording secretary so they could keep up with where they were, but they didn’t.

And after a half dozen Decoration Day Sunday lunches, I realized one thing.

My family had no idea how many children Buck Watson had.

As bad as those conversations were, however, it could always get worse.

Every once in a while, the conversation would hit a lull.

That’s where I came in.

And we all know the first question posed to the 12-year-old boy sitting at the grown-ups’ table.

“Ya got a girlfriend?”

Utter silence.

You could hear a fried okra tower collapsing at the kids’ table in the kitchen.

All eyes were on me until someone remembered the name of another one of Buck’s kids.

Why do adults get so much joy out of torturing the children in the family?

We didn’t do anything.

We just want to go outside.