I have this theory about Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and it goes like this: there was only one dwarf but he had seven personalities. And they manifested themselves because they were trying to keep up with the demands of a girl. That is, they were not unlike a father whose wife had gone on a business trip for a week and a half leaving him to care for their seven-year-old daughter who is learning how to play her dad a lot faster than she's learning math.

The missus has been gone the last four days and will be off gallavanting for the next six. I know she's gallavanting and having all kinds of fun because at the moment, I'm not and it helps me keep a bitter mood if I imagine she's in a better temper than I am. (If Realistic Hillbilly were here, he'd say she's currently in the first hour of helping with a week-long seminar in oil and gas economics so she's probably having a worse time than I am but let's assume for the sake of argument, that she's out partyin'.)

My own temperament has gone through a few dwarves before settling on Grumpy for the evening. The young'un and I tend to chill out a bit too much when left to our own devices. Started on Happy and hit Dopey and Sleepy before I landed on that most surly of little people after she threw a Donald Trump-like fit during a heated real estate deal in a game of Spongebob-opoly. (To be fair to Syd, she did behave much better than Trump and Rosie O'Donnell did during their little spat. But that's not hard. After all, she *is* seven years old already.)

Anyway, it's times like this that I think back to my own childhood. I've often felt I'll never be famous because my childhood was too happy. My parents always seemed to have it together. But then I think of my recent stabs at fatherhood (or as I call it: parenting by Sybil) and take comfort in the fact that they probably just learned to fake it the same way I have.

Earlier, I was taken aback at just how conspiratorial her smile had become when she came bouncing around asking if she could have a Fruit Roll-up for dinner. (My response: "Ya, whatever...and what are you grinning at?").

But other than a recently-renewed vendetta against Nestle's Quik (I swear on the grave of someone I moderately care about, I *will* get that crap to dissolve completely in liquid before I die), I think I'm coping. If only I can get the voices in my head to stop &*%$-ing *whistling* already!