This is a conversation I had with four of my girls yesterday morning. To set the stage, a typical morning involves feeding and milking the four-legged kids (goats), and feeding the chickens and ducks, and getting breakfast for eleven, and lunches for nine. It generally coincides with my needing to scan the overnight email and rss feeds for important information. You can imagine it gets pretty busy. They have to be at school between 8:15 and 8:30, but it's only about five minutes away. This particular morning, I was digesting information about a possible Internet Explorer 0-day exploit, and simultaneously Skyping with a fellow researcher overseas, when Megghann arrived at my door crying hysterically. "Daddy, can we leave? We'll be late for school." It was exactly 8:00. I speak fluent nine year old, and I knew she was just being dramatic, so I said very sympathetically, "Shoo." At 8:01, the thirteen year old arrived at the door, saying "Dad, can we leave? We'll be late." I said "Shoo." At 8:02, one of the twelve year olds arrived saying "Daddy, can we please leave? We'll be late." I said "Shoo." At 8:03, the fourteen year old arrived saying "Dad, can we please leave? We'll be late." I said "Go away!" (I've learned you have to be firmer with the fourteen year old.) At 8:05, the 0-day and I arrived at an understanding, and I went to the kitchen saying "Ok, hit 'em up, and move 'em out!" (I'm an old Rawhide fan), only to find that at least three of the other kids didn't have their lunch, or hadn't had breakfast, or had "discovered" a bit more homework they had to do. Never the less, a bit of judicious whip-cracking and general prompting, and all was completed, and we were in the car by 8:15-ish, and at school in plenty of time. Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. :-)