"My dog ate my homework." That's the classic excuse for schoolwork being unfinished. But how about, "my brother ripped up my homework"? Our daughter was privileged to use that one recently.

Anthony is going through a stretch of shredding most any paper or cardboard he finds. Unfortunately, his room has contained several items that fall into that category. It is one thing to try to rid the area of stacks of unwanted telephone books, but another to replace cardboard boxes storing various items. Even more aggravating has been discovering old videotape boxes--that we did not know existed--torn to pieces and lying all over the bed and floor.

In addition to this compulsion, he also lately takes articles of clothing off the hangers in the closet and drops both clothing and hanger to the floor. I never knew how much was actually in one closet until I tried picking everything back up.

I imagine neither of these activities, either by themselves or combined, sound particularly distressing, and, certainly, picking paper off the floor or re-hanging clothing do not of themselves really test our patience. We are probably just tired--tired of one more thing he does that depletes our time and energy, tired of seeing him doing it several days in a row, and tired of knowing we will likely be cleaning up again and again until we can find resolutions to prevent him from doing it.