I am about to go nuts. My wife is in the second week of a trip to another part of the country where she is winding up her parents’ estate. Our college-student daughter is working in Houston this summer, and by coincidence, my office manager is taking the week for vacation.

So it is just our 15-year-old son and I. The house looks like hell, the dogs and the cat are always hungry, and the heat is trying to kill anything growing in the yard (other than weeds and bugs). In addition, our son has developed a social life that is close to filling all waking hours. Guess who the chauffeur is?