Frazz by Jef Mallett for October 16, 2020

Growth spurts can be annoyingly rapid.

My growth spurt hit in high school, when I went from 5’3" to 5’11" in about two years. But that was nothing compared to my brother who gained SIX inches during the summer between 8th and 9th grade. The only good thing was that his shorts still fit (well enough) and it was mostly over by the time he needed long pants for school. Of course his feet grew too…

The problem with having too much stuff is that it all becomes nothingness.

The grocery bills….(shudder.) The summer of my son’s biggest growth spurt, we kept the pizza delivery guy on speed dial.

Gets kinda tricky with one leg in the new pants and the other still in the old pants. Keep it straight which way you’re going!

Hey, my youngest grandson wasn’t even conceived when this conversation started.

A friend said his son would have been 6" taller but he turned under too much for feet.

That’s how we buy toilet paper. :-)

At that age it’s outgrow or wear the knees right out in months, while we old fogies have pants from a decade ago!

Which tools should I throw away when I need new ones?

I absolutely refuse to discard a good book because I am buying another one. So there.

When my kids were in High School, I helped out at band camp each summer. Teenagers can morph from looking like kids to closely resembling adults in a year.

“Don’t buy anything until you discard something.”

So if you’re born with nothing, you’re supposed to go naked all your life?

Or maybe you’re supposed to shoplift before your first purchase?

Not buying anything until you discard something probably sounds just great in a materialistic culture like America, where we simply presume that everybody starts out with lots of stuff. Try peddling that crock of shit in Somalia.

“Hey, have you ever eaten Ethiopian food?”

“No”

“Well, neither have they.”

I don’t know anyone whose goal in life is to be tidy. it might be a secondary or tertiary guideline.

If you discard the old pants before you buy the new ones, they’ll throw you out of the store. If you’re my age, they’ll have you arrested!

In the past year, my son has grown almost 5 inches. One morning just before his 16th birthday, he came out of his room and looked at me. He says “did you shrink mom?” Wise guy. I said no, you must have grown. So I stood him against the kitchen wall and measured. Sure enough, 5’11".(same height as me.) Just a few weeks ago I noticed I had to tip my head back more to look up at him. I measured him again, 6’3.5". He keeps growing like this, he will be as tall as my cousin who is 6’8".

LAW: And junk accumulates in direct proportion to the space available to contain it. In my little hooch for example. Too much junk