Pied Piper

School is out today, which means my house is filling up with extra children. This afternoon I answered the door to add the fifth neighborhood child to my house. As he bounded up the stairs to join the other kids, Parker suddenly seemed to notice that his bedroom was a little more crowded than usual.

"Hey, why does everyone always want to play at my house?" he asked his friends.

"I don't know," one of them answered, "maybe because your house is always a mess."

If you want to be the Pied Piper of your neighborhood, you might want to give the messy house thing a try. It may backfire on you, though. A few years ago I was in the kitchen, when I overheard Parker ask his friend (an only child), "Why do you never want to play at my house?"

He replied, "There's always Cheerios on your floor. Your refrigerator is covered in papers, and your toaster oven is a piece of crap."

He's got a point.