Toledo Tales

Guest editorial by Nathan Higgins, 4th grade

Yeah, it's the Christmas season, and every kid wants to be extra good so Santa brings him a Wii or PlayStation 3 or blah blah blah.

And you want to earn every penny of your allowance so you can buy your stupid sister a bunch of sparkle markers or a Barbie dress or whatever stupid present she wants that's under five dollars because that's the Grab Bag limit.

But only idiots actually do all of their chores for their allowance.

Here's a few lessons I have learned in my nine years on this God-given planet that I will pass along to you, the poor suckers who actually do their chores. They are arranged by chore, so you can skip any chores you don't have to do. See? I just saved you a couple of seconds, unless you stopped to read this last part.

Or this one. Or this one. Or this one.

On with the list!

Dishwasher: Why waste time finding out where all those stupid clean dishes go? Just stick the clean ones back in the sink, and leave a few on the counter, or in your sister's room, where she'll get blamed for sneaking food into her room. Ha ha!

Laundry: For those of you who have mean moms like mine who make you wash your own clothes, a few pointers. Skip the whole washing machine bit and just throw everything in the dryer with about nine of those scented dryer sheets. Clothes smell good, all the wrinkles are gone, the pork rinds in your pants pocket are fresh, and you just cut your time in half!

Sweep and mop: You can't get out of the sweeping part, at least not totally, but if you spray some of that orange or lemon cleaner after you sweep, it will smell like you mopped. Make sure you do this when your mom is on the phone, and can't stand over you going blah blah blah while you do this chore. She'll come back in, see that all the Cocoa Puffs are off the floor, smell the orange, and be really happy!

When all else fails on any chore, you can always start yelling "I DID that chore already! I swear to the Lord Jesus Christ Son of God Redeemer of the World I did that chore!" Your Mom will give you a bunch of blah blah blah about taking the Lord's name in vain, and will probably forget she told you to take out the trash or whatever it was.

For those of you kids who are Jewish or Muslim, the same rules apply, except that you probably won't be eating pork rinds, on account of the Lord God Almighty told you not to eat pork rinds and hot dogs or those Snausages treats for dogs.

I don't eat Snausages, either, but I used to give them to my sister and tell her they were "pigs in a blanket." What a stupid-head!