New on Mothers with Attitude

Ken Swarner's latest entry in his Family Man column deals with those summertime marauders, the "Pirates of the Cabinet." If your kids and their friends have ever moved through your kitchen like locusts, eating everything in their path, then you can relate. We've not had too much problem in this area yet, although my daughter did have one friend I had to keep an eye on. She would help herself to whatever was in the refrigerator, and a few times I had to convince her that really, those leftovers had been in there a long time, they probably were no longer good to eat. I will say, though, she was useful when it came to getting rid of Halloween candy that had overstayed its welcome. You could usually count on her to sneak into the living room and fill up her pockets when she thought nobody was looking. I finally started giving her a bag. If this was an episode of "Full House" or "7th Heaven," my daughter's favorite shows at the moment, this girl would turn out to have a family that was homeless or so poverty stricken they could not afford bad leftovers and Halloween candy themselves. I thought for a while that her parents had her on a diet and maybe I should be telling them that she was treating our home as her personal smorgasbord. But since we're not in a sensitive family sitcom or drama, I think she was probably just an omniverous growing girl. And we should invest in fridge locks.