If you've been thinking about applying for a new job, you've got one more day before the maximum possible score on the SAT jumps from 1600 to 2400, rendering many of us idiots.

Of course if you have a family, this has already happened. Entire days go by during which I cannot utter a coherent sentence inside my house.

"Isaac, uh, Eli, uh, Caleb, get that uh, uh, uh thing up off the, the, the thing."

"What, Daddy?"

"The thing, the thing! Get it up before it gets wet!"

"What thing?"

(Snapping my fingers, gesticulating wildly) "The uh, uh, cup! The cup! Pick it up off the uh, uh, uh. . ."

"This cup?"

"No, no, no! That one, on the uh, uh..."

"This one on the couch?"

"Yes! That's it! The couch!"

I can give speeches to crowds, I can wax eloquent in a debate, but put me at home with three boys and a wife for half an hour and I become like Porky Pig on Ritalin. Sometimes in desperation I burst out with a "Stop! Stop! Stop!" -- the parental equivalent of "Broken Arrow." I usually do this while putting my hands in the air, an effort to convey the fiction that I am a man in charge.

My family, bless them, usually humors me by obeying. Then I deal with their complaints/stories/requests one at a time, triage style.

"Eli, stop poking Isaac's head. Caleb, save that story until bedtime. Isaac, stop your caterwauling. Celeste . . ."

Cut.

At this point, it's a good idea to pause, collect one's thoughts, and consider the consequences of one's actions. Something I'm learning the hard way is that it's far better to think about one's words before they come out of the mouth than after.

And, action.

". . . Celeste, you are smoking hot. Have I told you that lately?"

I am an idiot, about this there is no dispute. But I'm no fool.