Can You Make A Career Out of Being Loud?

I take comfort in the fact that my son will never be able to successfully pull off a burglary. It means that he’s going to have to look elsewhere for his career opportunities, although I’m not sure what those may be. He’s the loudest person I’ve ever encountered. The minute he sits down at the kitchen table, it suddenly sounds as if we’re in a really crowded Applebee’s during the Superbowl. He talks loudly and repeatedly flips the television to Spongebob (completely annoying all by itself), while my husband repeatedly turns it off. This generally escalates until the remote control is shoved under my leg where my children would never dare venture. He also teases his sister as if it’s an important homework assignment that he make her cry, and he likes to interrupt the conversation with strange little comments that make his brother say, “Oh, my gosh—you are so stupid,” at which point a shouting match ensues.


Car rides with him are unbearable. If he’s not doing battle with his army guys (and those army guys love loud bombs), then he’s kicking the armrests down because he knows it with annoy his sister. He likes the music up loud and he’s always trying to get me to pull into a drive up for food.

On my day off, my husband and boys were assigned to put flags in front of all the neighborhood houses for their Boy Scout project. They were planning on sneaking out of the house early in the morning to get the task done while I slept in. So, of course, promptly at 6:30 I hear the banging of the cupboards in the boy’s bathroom followed by my son asking for help with his hair (like anyone is going to see his hair at six in the morning on a holiday.) I hear the mumbles that must be my husband’s reply, but I can hear absolutely every word my son says—two flights up. Finally, after much pounding and a strange bumping sound that must have been when he dropped his shoe and it bounced down the stairs, I hear the doors slam (several times) and I’m left to “sleep in.” Naturally, my daughter crawls into bed with me moments later crying about some loud noises waking her up.

Now that I’m wide awake, I’m wondering what this loud boy will do for a living when he grows up. I know that he won’t be able to work in a lab, office, or airplane or do anything with live TV. I picture an announcer for professional wrestling or monster truck shows, but who knows? It’d be nice to see him make money off being loud because he’s very, very good at it.