Genetics, Yesterweek and Texting

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

Genetics are an interesting subject. At our Jones family Thanksgiving dinner at my sibling’s house there was a herd of children. Of that herd about half were genetically related to me. Half of the other half I claim as cousins simply because that is something we do in the south.

In any case, even if I’d never seen them before I could have picked out my relatives. Since we are talking about my Grand-brats and my siblings’ Grand-children they only share about 25 percent of their genes. Still there are enough family resemblances to pick them out.

Then a few hours later at Management’s family’s meal you could see family resemblances between the children yet again from another family angle.

The outlier in the Jones mix is our third Grand-brat Dauntless. He is more different (or less similar if you prefer) than the rest of the herd from my family if you only take into account appearance.  However, once you talk to him his heritage is apparent.

Dauntless is three years old, high energy, always happy and always in motion as well as being small for his age.  He’s like one of those Shriner cars following a huge float in a parade.  They may travel the same linear distance but he puts in four times the mileage.

This morning as he was eating his oatmeal I was encouraging him to eat more although why I think he needs more energy is a mystery to me.

I told him I wanted to see the bottom of the bowl. He carefully ate to the bottom in one spot showing about one fourth of the bottom. When I told him I wanted to see ALL of the bottom he moved what was left to the empty spot. I had seen ALL of the bottom which is exactly what I asked.

I’m just glad I didn’t tell him to empty it. I would have had a mess to clean up.

That is Jones all the way. We do exactly what you ask, not what you meant to ask. I’ve been told many times this is annoying although I don’t understand why.

The fact is it is great mental exercise for all concerned. It teaches accuracy and concise thinking and speaking.

For instance, the guy on the street wants a dollar. If he says, “Hey will you give me a dollar?” I give him a dollar.  If he says “Do you have a dollar?” I say “yes” and walk off.

“Can you open the window?”  is a different question from “Will you open the window?”

Yestermonth, my sibling called to laugh at a line in one of our news stories. We wrote, “…turned himself into the State Police.”  We were wrong. He did not become the State Police. “…he turned himself in to the State Police.” That space changes a lot.

Yesternight as I was contemplating the universe and other things I realized Yester is only used with day.  Why should it be yester-day and last night?  As you can see I intend to correct this lack of use.

On another subject, I have been having some difficulty since everyone I know is learning to text message. Keeping in mind that I still have a flip-phone I can’t do what they can with their phones. My phone is so old it has Roman numerals. My number is V  IV VII V IV I V.

I also have full-sized thumbs.  I am just a thumby sort of person so texting is not possible for me.  I can receive texts, I can read texts but I cannot respond to texts. That’s just the way it is.

Yesteryear I received a text late at night. My bride Management asked me who it was from. I replied “probably just some woman who wants me sending me sexy pictures. “ The next morning when I checked the message it WAS a sexy picture of a woman I’ve never seen.

That’s one reason I don’t want to text. There is some guy out there who should have received a sexy picture and didn’t. He may be still waiting. His life (or at least his night) might have been changed if he received it.

With MY phone I know for sure my sexy messages to Management are received by Management and only by Management. I like it that way.