I realized something about myself today that I hadn't noticed before:
I always dump the last cup of milk in a gallon down the drain instead of drinking it.

I think it goes back to when I lived in an apartment with my brother Dante 3 years ago. One time Dante left a gallon of milk on the counter all night, then put it back in the fridge the next morning without telling me. Later that day I was thirsty and since there was so little left in the gallon, I just chugged it. That taste is not one you forget for awhile. I thought for a second I accidentally drank one of Dante's jugs of photo developing fluid (which he also kept in a milk jug in the bathroom). I guess now I just assume that all milk at the bottom of the jugs is spoiled after that.

I was thinking about other times when I was alone with my brothers and the ridiculous situations that resulted and realized... it's amazing what the presence of a mom can do! My brothers' and my ages span 7 years, and I think that we are one of the few families where there has been every combination of children living at home with mom for at least 6 months:
1980-1991: all three kids at home
1991-1995: Davidde and Ciara at home
1995-1998: Ciara at home alone
1998-1999: no kids at home
1999-2000: Dante at home alone
2000-2001: Dante and Davidde at home, Dante and Ciara at home
2001: Davidde at home alone

I think it's pretty rare for, say, only the two oldest kids to be still living at home while the younger one is gone. We may complain a lot about being at home, but somehow we keep ending up back there. I guess what else can you expect from the Stella House of Time Warp? Regardless, at different points during all of these combinations, mom has left and trouble immediately resulted. Let me give a few examples:

1. One summer when I was doing an internship in Chicago and Davidde and Dante were working in downtown Detroit, mom decided to leave town for just a week. I called home one day to check on the dog, and Davidde answered the phone:
"Hey, Davidde, how's Libby, is she eating?"
"She's fine, except all she does is lie on her back when Dante's around."
"Okay, that's normal, how's everything else?"
"Fine, listen, Ciara, everything okay, I don't have time to babble with you about nothing."
"Why?"
"Because I have to get this insurance stuff organized since grandpa's car got stolen from in front of our house. Bye."

2. Every New Year's, my brothers like to throw a rather grand party since my mom goes out of town. One time, I got home on December 31st at about 7:30 and Davidde was panicking saying that the food wasn't ready and I had to make Rice Krispies' Treats. So I did that and went out. When I came back the next morning, I found my brothers' friends passed out everywhere (I even found Leo sleeping on the floor using our rug as a blanket). The place was a mess, as expected, and I asked Davidde how the party was. He replied, "Great, everyone ate all of the Rice Krispies' Treats. Oh, I accidentally put waxed paper on them while they were cooling, and it didn't come off, so I flipped them over, but no one noticed."

3. One of the first times the three of us were left alone in the house, Libby started barking very loudly in the middle of the night. I woke my brothers up and Dante proceeded to check every room in the house with a rifle in his hand, since he assumed she was barking at a burglar. We spent about a half hour searching every corner of the house, and Libby stopped barking. We went into the kitchen and she had peed all over the floor. I guess maybe she was barking because she had to go to the bathroom.

4. Over Christmas break 1998-1999, my mom left to go on a cruise of the Bahamas. About 3 minutes after she left, it began to snow. Dante and I started shoveling the driveway and told Davidde to go to the grocery store (since mom was gone, of course there was no food in the house). Davidde came back with a bag of dogfood, a gallon of milk, and a box of Hostess Cupcakes, then parked his front wheel drive Honda Civic last in the driveway. Well, anyone in the midwest will remember that it snowed 4 feet that night, and then the city of Detroit shoveled another 3 feet from the street into the end of my driveway. We all knew that the Honda was no match against it. We were locked in the house with no food for 3 days together. We would take turns talking on the phone, playing on the computer, and watching tv all in one room of my 12-room house. I managed to find enough random ingredients to make fudge, so we ate fudge and canned corn for every meal (the Cupcakes didn't even last 2 hours). On the 4th day, we couldn't take it anymore, put on snowsuits and carved a tunnel through our driveway so we could drive Davidde's car 4 blocks to get Little Caesar's. Then he car got stuck in their parking lot, too, but that's another story. By the time mom got back, about half of the snow had melted, of course.

Of course, there are always more stories, but they must wait until another day. They all just boil down to one conclusion: never underestimate the disaster averted when mom's around!