Kids, kids, kids.

[Bud Cline]

While we're waiting for something to materialize in "Professional's Hangout" here's a topic that surfaced on another board.

Someone asked how fellow installers felt about having a customers kid's present at the immediate worksite.

One response was that they (kids) were welcome to look in and even participate. Another has allowed kids to participate in carrying supplies and goods and even nail carpet tackstrip. Yet another has purchased toy tools and toolbelts that he hands to the kids and invites them to do their own thing alongside his work. He goes on to say that by days end the kid(s) have fallen in love with their new tools (toys) and he then "offers them for sale" to the parents.

What do you think Pro's? Are these worksites a place for kids to hangout and even participate in the activities?

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[LDavis]

In another year I'll have my last kid out of the house and into the real world. I want someones kids in the middle of my job about as much as I want a flare-up of hemorrhoids while sitting on a prickly pear cactus. (Yes, I occasionally intentionally sit on a cactus just to remind myself that things could always be worse.)

[John Bridge]

Hey Latney, Don't know if you're aware of it, but I come from the West Coast. Worked my way through California, Arizona, etc. Became familiar with the various species of cactus. Let me tell you, if you really want a reality check, choose to sit on a Cholla (choy-a). Prickly Pear won't hold a candle to it. While the Prickly Pear has spines that will penetrate, the Cholla has spines that penetrate, but they have barbs on them. When you try to detach yourself, the spines stay in you instead of the cactus. You end up looking like a porcupine. I would definitely wear a jock strap.

[Sonnie Layne]

As far as the Opuntia spp goes, they may not have barbs but instead burrow below the epidermis and cause brief (in days) discomfort. Now if you want to discuss barbs, try this... in the bromeliad family (bromeliacae) there exists a genus that exemplifies the horrific tenacity of the more primitive of the genus, Bromelia balanse (spp?) She, whose hooked barbs are fixed opposing along the outer margins of her leaves (kinda like pinching your index finger and thumb together) are used as barrier fences in Central Am. Grows to about 2m high with a spread of over 4m. I grew one out of incosideration of the local Bromeliad society to enter in the show, shame my dog got curious. The plant showed it's full force when the canine tried to back out of the situation. All surfaces latched and clamped together, worse than the worst childhood rememberance of a crawdad on your fingertip. She ( a beagle) was running, screaming, crying for mercy down the Lakelands roads in New Orleans and the B balanse was just giggling along behind her. So much for the enterence into the plant judging, you'd think, but the plant still earned a blue ribbon. Property barriers, INDEED!!!

Now, as far as kids being present on the jobsite, I'll not go into liabilities and constitutional amendments that constrain our rights as citizens of a broad banded carnival of innocents, but I love kids. I sometimes baby-sit while I'm on the job. Once I remember I donned a boy and his sis with their grubbiest of clothes (which I would have worn with pride as a kid) and had each of them with a brush in hand while we decorated their rooms. Mom and Dad came in about 10 (gotta be a song in there somewhere) and found them asleep on the floor with their "scrubs" on. everyone had fun, M&D had the night off, kids got to get dirty without permission, and I had personal input as to the design of things by the people that would be living with it.

Why just not long ago, the guy was 13, he wanted a RED room, but we ended up spraying bronze powder into the tacky urethane.. what happy times to allow the little folks to attend to their own desires.

Liabilities? Hmmmm, think maybe my karma ran over your dogma. And please, my CPA is a former IRS field agent, so let there be no more of that. Darn, I don't know why you tend to bring this character out in me, maybe I'm just too damned tired. But not sick and tired.

Still in all, I remain

truly
Sonnie Layne