Time Out.

I have been on both sides of a time out; I have been the receiver and the mean parent. What always amazes me are the amount of tears and pleading on behalf of the receiver (aka kids) and how the mean parent wishes they were the ones being told to take a time out. It ranks right up there with my being told it's time for me to go to bed---I would be more than happy to follow these instructions.

The ultimate time out was given out recently by White House Spokesperson, Robert Gibbs to reporter April Ryan; she kept pressing him on a number of topics surrounding the "party crashers." He finally said, "April, calm down...take a deep breath...this happens to my son when he has a time out." Needless to say this was not well received by Ms. Ryan. I guess no matter how composed you try to be, when you are getting grilled over a question, and it is not as important as national and international matters, the human aspect comes out. This banter made it all the way to Yahoo and other sites and is now on YouTube. More than 50,000 people have viewed it.

When we give our kids a time out we usually gauge the time by age. So, in my case, if I am really bad, I get to have a 51 minute time out. Yes! (But that never happens. Darn.)

I am not sure how many time outs I received when I was a kid, but I suspect a good portion of my waking hours when added up were spent in my room. Honestly I don't remember. But knowing how mischievous I was---I am sure I knew my room very well.

The photo above was taken at Brookfield Zoo. This is a baby orangutan that looks like he is spending a time out over by the rocks. At the zoo they don't have bed rooms, stairs or chairs, so a rope near the rocks is the next best thing when Mom in this case says, "It's time for a Time Out." I am really hoping I get one later so I can watch the football game.

Thanks for stopping by.