Peter McKay - A few weeks ago, I noticed that our house was being overrun by ants. They were everywhere — running up and down the countertop, marching across the screen of the TV and sometimes climbing in my hair. It might be because of the hot weather outside, or it might be because this is the time of the year when they swarm. But I'm pretty sure it's because of Kool-Aid.

Peter McKay -       Last month, I finally traded in my old convertible for a new(er) car. I had enjoyed having a convertible, tooling around town with the wind in the few strands of what I like to call hair, but it was time to make a change.

Peter McKay - In the past few months, I've taken a second job as a carpet cleaner. I can see readers stopping here, scratching their heads, frowning, and saying to their spouses, "Wow. This guy actually thinks of his humor column as a real job!" But it's true.

Peter McKay - The other week, something happened in our family that shook me to my core. We have twin 15-year-old daughters, and as they were getting older, I knew what to expect. Every father dreads this day. But when it happened with both girls the same evening, it was a double shock.

Peter McKay - This past weekend, my wife and I had to go away with our daughters, leaving our 17-year-old son alone for three days.

Peter McKay - This past weekend, I needed to do some major work on our house's side porch. Like its owner, it had been neglected for decades and was starting to sag a little at the bottom. Unlike its owner, it could be fixed by propping up a few strategic parts and replacing others.

Peter McKay - This past weekend, my wife and went car shopping. I didn't want to do it, but I had to. My car had so many miles on it that the mileage gauge looked like a Social Security number.

Peter McKay - This weekend, I went on an archeological expedition. It wasn't planned that way. Behind our house, we have an area of bushes and plants that consisted of an old azalea and some flowers when we moved in 17 years ago, but over the years, it has turned into a thick little grove of weed/bushes.

Peter McKay - I'd like to say that I'm an optimistic, hopeful person. I can't though, because that would be a big lie.

Peter McKay - It is a well-known biological fact that teenage girls eat like birds, picking away at the edges of their food, often leaving the table with more of their meal on the plate than in their stomachs. Teenage boys, on the other hand, eat like they've been assigned a search-and-destroy mission — eradicating all food in sight.

Peter McKay - For almost my entire life, I have been living with a severe food allergy. I think.

Peter McKay - This coming weekend, the second of our children will graduate from college. We've gotten one son successfully out in the real word and on his own, and within a matter of weeks, another one will have flown the nest.

Peter McKay - When it comes to landscaping, there are all kinds of homeowners in our neighborhood. We have the perfect lawn folks and then families who hire out the job to pros. Once a week, a truckload of swarthy guys shows up armed with industrial-strength tools, including cool mowers where you stand in the back and ride around at high speed. Their edges are trimmed, their mulch is fresh, and their bushes are so nicely shaped that it looks like Disneyland.

Peter McKay - There have been a whole slew of articles in the past few weeks about America's addiction to technology. We're becoming a nation of people who text rather than talk and prefer to interact with a screen rather than a person. This is not a new phenomenon — almost 20 years ago, our oldest son was so hooked playing "Donkey Kong" on Nintendo that we thought we'd have to send him to a 12-step program when we took it away.

Peter McKay - As longtime readers of this column will attest — don't laugh, there are a few (although, to be fair) mostly shut-ins — I generally try to avoid repeating a topic, unless it's my dog, wife, children or my ineptness at home repair. But spring is coming around at our house, and with it has come a return of one of the worst plagues we've ever seen: stink bugs.

Peter McKay - When I was a growing up, I had a lot of older brothers and sisters and listened to their music constantly.

Peter McKay - Last weekend, I started my car and heard an ominous rumbling from underneath.

Peter McKay - If you go up to our third-floor storage room, just off the main hall, you'll see old suitcases, old Halloween costumes and tons and tons of old books, which we keep promising ourselves we'll get around to reading but know we won't.

Peter McKay - This past weekend, my wife and I vowed that we would actually get some things done around this old house. (We didn't pinky swear or put our hands on a Bible, but we swore.) Over the course of the winter, we don't do much work here. But now that spring is around the corner, we started thinking about all the stuff that we'd let go. This past weekend was going to be our big kickoff weekend. (We didn't actually call it that. That would be weird.)

Peter McKay - Last week, there was a major uproar when the SAT — the dreaded test that determines whether your kid will be a doctor, a lawyer or receive an award for being a 30-year employee of a fast-food restaurant — used a question about reality TV as the basis for the essay portion of the test.