My astronaut application form, I didn't pass that though, I failed everything but the date of birth." - Navin, The Jerk

The Boy doesn't wear adult diapers, and hasn't driven a car off to Orlando recently. As far as I know . . .

The week in Houston has proved harrowing. Houston astronaut, Nutsy McHotpants decided to take astronauts from being 53rd childhood dream job to 101,125th, still some 101,100 places behind being a “pimp daddy.” Whatever that is.

Thankfully for Nutsy McHotpants, another tragedy unfolded in Houston, namely, Anna Nicole Smith (born in Houston, married in Houston, etc.) decided that she couldn’t “just say no” and left the mortal realm with an astonishing amount of media coverage. The best part of this coverage? It took Nutsy McHotpants right off the cover of the local papers. My thought? Who would most benefit from this? The Boy.

Oh, sure, you’d say that NASA might benefit the most from the news that took an alleged murder-plotting-tramp off the front page. But in reality, it was The Boy.

Being grounded, The Boy had been living in an existence that had mirrored that of Nutsy, except for the whole media coverage and (soon, I’d bet) divorce papers thing. Oh, and the imminent threat of losing his job. Yes, The Boy had ample motive to see that news that was “way super duper bigger” than his grounding showed up in the local papers to take the heat off of him.

In response to the dual Houston tragedy, The Mrs. took The Boy off his grounding. We were, as a family, crushed.

What, exactly, did The Boy do with this new-found freedom? Well, The Mrs. had him pull weeds in the jungle that surrounds our house. It was a pleasant 50ºF, so it was t-shirt and short weather. I ended up cutting enough hedge to power Wales for a year, if they had hedge-burning power plants. Heck, maybe the Canadians do have hedge-burning power plants, but nobody can read Canadian, so they forgot where to deliver the hedges.

The Boy and I worked, which is to say that I worked, and The Boy frittered the day away, jumping on a tiny trampoline and listening to music by hip new artists like the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac. The Boy is so cutting edge.

Did I mention that he spent the rest of the time glued to the DIY network? His latest passion is bathroom and kitchen renovations (This Old House ranks but a distant third). He’s been wandering about the house, yammering that he’d love to rip the kitchen cabinets down and replace them, plus he’s pretty sure we’re needing new “task lighting,” whatever that is.

So, to answer the question, “What does The Boy do when he’s not grounded?” In this case, The Boy plans to renovate our house.

As long as he doesn’t want to be an astronaut.