Wednesday, January 4, 2017

How to be non-compliant

I was once whining to the Coach about how hard some of my kids seemed compared to other kids in our extended family.  He looked at me and said, "Their kids?  Compliant.  Your kids? Non-compliant."

This was not said critically at all.  In fact, there was more than a little non-compliance in that man's soul, as I remembered today when talking to one of my boys.

Shortly after the Coach had a major skin graft on the bottom of his foot (Melanoma!  Weird!) TRQ was eager for him to a) heal by b) not doing anything stupid.  So when the Coach wanted to plant flowers that spring, she called up my son, who was living in Provo at the time, to assist.

Mostly my son remembers his grandfather getting annoyed with him for not digging the holes in the right places.  Meanwhile, TRQ took off with these instructions, "DON'T LET YOUR GRANDFATHER PLANT THE FLOWERS!"

As soon as she backed out of the driveway, the Coach grabbed the shovel away from my son and started digging.

With his bad foot.

Non-compliance at its finest.


5 comments:

Louise Plummer said...

Because he was non-compliant. (You will understand when you read my blog today).

Dr Write said...

Non-compliants are the best, if the most difficult. I have one myself. I am one.
A nice memory, and a good story.

Lisa B. said...

Non-compliance is a better quality for, you know, life--it makes you enterprising and cagey. I love and treasure this quality in my kids, frankly. What a great story about your dad.

Becky Thatcher Nielsen said...

I have read your columns, and loved every word you have written since I discovered your Deseret News posts. Then I followed you to the Tribune, and was thrilled to stumble onto your blog. You will never know how much I've appreciated your thoughts, and how many times I've laughed out loud while reading your posts. I am so sorry for the loss of your sweet Dad, and I have tucked you and your family into my prayers. What an amazing man he is, and how proud he surely is of you as you handled it with such strength and faith. Please keep writing down your thoughts about stuff, and I will keep looking forward to reading every word of it.

Geeoff said...

Melanoma! Sad!