Say What?

I never really had to do it that often.  I will admit that I am becoming increasingly alarmed at the frequency of which I am having to perform it though.  It’s gotten to the point where it feels a lot like conditioning-through-repetition.  Developing that ability to think three minutes ahead of a conversation in order to foresee and prepare for that disastrous and inevitable result.

Sometimes, when my kids start to speak, my inner censor immediately starts to pucker up simply out of conditioned reflex.   Their occasional, unconscious spewing of whatever erupts from the tops of their pretty little heads.  In short, speaking as if they were born without a social filter.

Of course, both the guilty party and I know that they are merely trying to be outgoing, witty, or funny.  However, not all spectators to these conversations immediately gravitate towards this simple fact.  This often leads to colorful, almost pleading alibis in our defense as parents.  Stammering explanations aimed to either defuse, counter-balance, or merely keep social services from breaking down our front door.

Take, for example, our recent camping trip…

Sitting around the campground’s fire pit one evening, the adults enjoyed some relaxation while the kids ran around spreading their own backwoods brand of rustic hooliganism.  With the decibel levels of a small military offensive encompassing our campsite, no one was particularly worried about any wilderness predators that evening.  Likely, they had all scattered to find the quieter comforts of a local jet way or mine blasting operation.

As is routine on these types of camping trips, the adults were partaking in some fermented beverages while enjoying the warmth of a nice campfire.  Concoctions poured into those notorious, red Solo cups and stuffed conveniently into the drink holders of our folding chairs.  Those same cups, coupled with ping-pong balls, made infamous by nearly every college party over the last 25 years. 

As I walked over to change stations on my nearby satellite radio, our galloping two year old staggered back towards the circle of adults.  Tired and thirsty, she reached for the first drink that she saw.  My red cup filled with a particularly high octane brand of ale. 

Once I realized what she was drinking from, I immediately reached down to swipe the cup from her grasp.  Like clockwork, whenever she gets caught doing something that she knows she is not supposed to do, she immediately released her clutch and turned to run.  Unfortunately for her, in her scampering attempts of liberation back into the dark confines of our campsite, she tripped over one of the tent strings and went spread eagle into the dirt.  Not once, but twice.

She was fine.  In fact, it was one of the few times that one of our gravity-challenged children did not actually require professional medical attention.  However, it’s what took place a couple days later that brought on said pucker factor.  Coming home from school, our son informed us that when his teacher asked about his weekend, he proudly stated that he went camping…and that his two year old sister drank beer and was falling all over the place afterwards.

Best that I can remember, I believe that I commenced a very audible facepalm followed by what may have been some offensive mumblings in inaudible, ancient tongues.  A call was promptly placed to his teacher before social services was able to mobilize a SEAL Team Six extraction mission for our beer-swilling children.  A lengthy lecture followed thereafter.

Thankfully though, we actually do get lucky on occasion.  Those times when, under intense cross-examination, we are able to help stave off a particular diatribe before he is able to go public with it.

While watching the pre-election news one evening, our son spoke up and said that the kids in his class were saying that Mitt Romney was trying to take all of women’s rights away.  Not looking to get into the specifics of Roe vs. Wade discussion with my fourth grader, I simply took the middle ground in order to highlight that he has a mind of his own and the capacities to distinguish fact from schoolyard hearsay.

“Some people will say that about Romney and some people will say that Obama is taking money from people and giving it to his friends.  That’s what people do.  They just want you to think like they do.  You can’t believe everything that you hear or the wild stories that people tell you.  You have to find out the facts for yourself and weigh them against your own beliefs.  That’s how you are supposed to vote.  Not because someone said ‘this’ or ‘that’ about the other guy.  But because of the facts that you know are true and what you believe is best for your country.”

He nodded and seemed to get it.  We always try to instill in him that he had a mind of his own and had the right to his own opinion.  I was actually kind of proud of myself for giving him the opportunity to think of himself in that manner.  The next morning, however, he informed my wife over breakfast that I said “Obama was a thief”.

And just like the feats of “Fearless” Felix Baumgartner, my self-congratulatory pat-on-the-back screamed back to Earth from the stratosphere.  Houston, we have a comprehension problem.

“That whole lecture last night and that’s all you got from it?  Did you go to the Secret Service with that one already, Jabber Jaws?”

That life-long look of confusion again.  I guess references to 30 year old cartoon characters don’t do much to help him navigate through that perennial social fog either.

Although lucky at times, there are also those instances when I am not quick enough to preempt the inevitable.  Again, in conditioning-through-repetition, you can see it coming.  However, you find that you’re just not fast enough to stop that speeding freight train before it sails over the cliff.

One evening, while my wife was out, the kids were carrying out their usual acts of stampeding through the house while I was cleaning up in the kitchen.  As expected in these types of scenarios, there was a very loud thump from the other room followed by an ear-piercing scream.  Arriving onto the scene, I found our youngest in a crumpled pile on the floor with my older two standing over her with their arms in the air.

“I didn’t touch her!”

The best that I could piece together, using the three to four different stories that I received from each of my temporarily-exonerated darlings, was that our youngest had decided to Kerri Strug herself off of the couch.  Always on my watch…

No doubt a truly historic Olympic vault in her own right, she had managed only to twist her ankle this time.  It seemed genuinely sore, but lucky for her (and me), it was not broken.  As I consoled her, the phone rang.  I instructed my son to answer it, and then bring it to me. 

 “Dad, it’s mommy on the phone.” 

My eyes widened as I foresaw that freight train barreling towards the cliff.  However, before I was able to reinforce the male protocols of household secrecy and enact the “Vegas Mandate”, he immediately turned back to the phone.  As the train launched over the cliff, our resident pioneer physician then provided my wife with his expert diagnosis on our wounded gymnast.  “She broke her leg.”

Springing across the room with spider-like reflexes, I’m not entirely sure which hurt worse at that point.  My daughter’s twisted ankle or my son’s hand, from me smacking the phone out of it.  I was quick…but unfortunately not Spidey-sense quick.

All-in-all, it hasn’t been a complete loss though.  At least my unconscious pucker factor has adequately developed through conditioned reflex.   I can now predict traffic accidents seconds in advance through these developed nervous tics.  For my children though, the only developments that they appear to have made to this point are the social filters on their ears instead of their mouths.

At some point, perhaps I will have mastered that ability to think three minutes ahead.  Shortly before Social Services kicks down the front door.

The Politics of Dancing

“When the chairman introduced the guest speaker as a former illegal alien, I got up from my chair and yelled, ‘What's the matter, no jobs on Mars?’ When no one laughed, I was embarrassed. I don't think people should make you feel that way.” – SNL’s “Deep Thoughts” by Jack Handey

I’ve begun noticing a few things coming into perspective as my son creeps ever-closer to the age of adolescence.  His personality has really started coming into its own.  From his choice of mass media right down to his choice of clothes.  I have also noticed that he has started voicing and cementing his personal opinions and preferences with greater frequency.  Same could be said, I guess, for how he wishes to be portrayed in public.

I can remember going through the same with my parents, particularly in the area of my parents’ version of their son’s image versus my own.  They wanted to see me as the neighborhood’s clean-cut boy next door…while I wanted to see myself as the bass player from the hard rock band Motley Crue.  Pressed khakis versus ripped jeans.  Collared dress shirts versus concert tees.  Polar opposite identities with a side order of hormonal adolescent friction.  Yes indeed…clothes shopping was always a riot with my mom.

It all started out small at first, much like the course that my son is currently navigating, but continued to grow and assert itself throughout my teens.  Later discussions with my parents typically revolved around the length of my hair and whether or not leather jackets and high-top sneakers were acceptable church attire.  We got through it though and I now find myself repeating many of those mom and dadisms to my own children, much to my parent’s amusement.

Insult-to-injury, I’m now bald and wear khakis and collared dress shirts to work regularly.  Proof positive once again that life’s tragic irony continues to ridicule me on a daily basis.

My daughter has already started exhibiting some of those same signs of rebellion, oftentimes butting heads with her mother over the clothes that she expects to wear.  Verifying the validity of that “just wait until you have kids” curse, we expect our daughter to wear cute bows and dresses while she expects to dress like Hannah Montana.  Yes, I’m already pricing titanium security bars for her windows.

Unlike our daughter's hard-headed demands though, our son’s personality and life perceptions have suddenly surfaced in an unexpected and rather humorous scenario.  One I expect to take full advantage of for many, many years to come…

Coming home from an evening of miniature golf with my two oldest, a song came on the XM radio.  It was the bouncing tune “Luv Me Luv Me” by everyone’s favorite garbled Jamaican lyricist of the 1990s, Shaggy.  My daughter asked me to turn it up because she liked the beat.  As I did, I started bouncing up and down in my seat and moving my arms to the rhythm.  She immediately laughed and followed suit.

However, in a separate, desperate plea coming from the backseat, my son immediately piped up “Dad, stop it! You’re embarrassing me! Oh my gosh!”

Embarrassing? We were on a dark country road in the middle of nowhere, just the three of us in the car.  Besides his sister, who is happily giggling and bouncing right along with me, who exactly is there to be embarrassed around?  I guess his implied public perception of his dad’s expected geriatric behavior has started to rear its ugly, liver-spotted head.

So, I’m embarrassing you say?  Game on, junior…

There are two types of embarrassment in our house.  There are those choice flashes of brilliance where you feel compelled to take a bow after a devastatingly awkward episode and state proudly “thank you, we will now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.”  Then, there are those instances where you actually embarrass yourself in order to achieve a desired result.  Much to our son’s dismay, the latter has become standard operating procedure for the wife and I these days.

We have found that our embarrassing behavior can actually be used to sway an advantage in disciplining our darling children.  Private setting?  Public?  No matter.  It seems that the boy is extremely motivated to caving on his preferences and demands, once he sees his mom or dad start dancing.  Those times where he starts to pout over not getting his way?  He gets my extremely liberal version of Kid n’ Play’s Funky Charleston. Don’t want to do your homework?  An over-exaggerated Rump Shaker from us.  Complaints over the television shows that we are watching?  Well, now we're just having to make stuff up…

Realistically, I know it can't be a pretty sight.  At my age, it probably resembles more violent seizure or convulsion than actual dance move.  However, it has proven extremely effective in helping to steer our son’s behavior in a desired direction.  In fact, we've used this method so frequently these days that I wouldn’t be shocked to see Don Cornelius himself come strolling through the front door at any given moment.

“Love, peace, and soul…”

Thinking back, I don’t remember too many instances where my parents purposefully went out of their way to embarrass me.  Then again, maybe it was just my mind’s way of hiding severe trauma.  Although, I do recall that one season in my early teens where we had three of our moms coaching our soccer team.  Taking the field, we would always hear “play nice and don’t get dirty” shouted from the sidelines.  Unfortunately, that battle cry seemed to lead to the exact opposite result.

On the flip side though, I can remember a friend of mine who always insisted that his parents drop us off at the back of the parking lot so that no one would see them.  Movies.  School dances.  The mall.  In retrospect, I guess there was also that “coolness” factor attached to arriving onto the scene from the darkness of the parking lot without a chauffeuring mom or dad in sight. Emerging mysteriously like the two guys from those “Twilight” movies…just without the ripped abs.

OK, so maybe your standard zombie flick would have been a more realistic comparison.  Pipe down already.

So this is the type of thing that I get to look forward to in my future?  Driving a quarter mile out of my way so that my son’s friends don’t see the wily, old geezer carting him around in the family minivan?  Come on.  I couldn't possibly be that embarrassing.  But then, of course, there’s always that off-chance that an old song from my youth would come on the XM radio while his friends are within earshot…

“Oh yeah!  Rob Base!  This was my jam!”

OK.  So perhaps he might have a measureable point in that regard…

Obviously, I’m going to save the real doozies for when he’s older though.  That evening when he brings his prom date back to the house for pictures and he finds his dad sitting on the couch, watching old club footage of his days playing in a deafening, over-amplified rock band.  While he’s looking for that hole to crawl into, I will rewind the part over-and-over again where I slide across the stage on my knees while our bass player attempts to jump on my shoulders.

On second thought, any existing evidence of that video would be exponentially more embarrassing to me than it could ever be to him.

“We will now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.”

Mullets optional.

Speechless in Virginia

I have often said that my wife is the social butterfly of the family.  Always the energetic and charismatic force in the room, she’s overwhelmingly friendly and always gives those that she meets the benefit of the doubt.  After being in the room for five minutes with her, everyone knows exactly who she is and what she is about.

Myself, on the other hand…I’m the smart-mouthed introvert standing intently nearby.  The guy quietly observing the mannerisms and dialogue of those around him, so that he can figure out their agenda or self-serving angle.   Quick with the sarcasm, no one gets a free pass from me until they are a proven commodity in my world. 

The irresistible socialite and the irreverent skeptic.  We make a great team.

Unfortunately, sometimes those opposing talents in the social graces can present some unforeseen problems.  For me, talking more than I should used to result in some guy attempting a roundhouse at my face.  For my wife, however, it appears to be more a physical reaction than third party response.  It has resulted in a voice that has gotten steadily more hoarse and weaker by the day. 

After going several weeks with this deteriorating condition, she finally decided to see a doctor.  Diagnosis?  Vocal fold hemorrhage.  That’s basically “badly bruised” vocal cords for those of us that got laughed at by our guidance counselors for articulating medical school aspirations.  The treatment?  No talking for ten days.  No murmuring, no whispering, no nothing.  In short, complete silence. 

“No talking unless you’re getting paid to do it.”

Yikes.  Time to hide the wallet…

The doctor went on further by threatening that if her voice didn’t improve within that ten day timeframe, she was going to send her to a voice pathologist to learn how to talk differently. 

Time to consult our medical deductible as well…

Looking at the plus side of this warning, however, we explained the doctor’s threat in detail to our darling brood.  This, in an effort to help minimize the multiple direction-giving sessions that we are seemingly required to provide to them on an hourly basis.  Following that conversation though, a noticeable confusion appeared across my son’s face. 

“You mean she’s going to talk in a different accent?”

Never one to let such an easy opportunity go to waste, I immediately leapt into character with a terribly over-the-top English accent.  “Blimey…she’ll have to like this from here on out, matey!”

Thinking back, I’m not even entirely sure he realized that I was joking.  Better to tuck that little gem away for future use…

Along those same disconnected lines, I called my parents that evening to alert them of her diagnosis.  My mom asked if she was hoarse from yelling at the meet.  She was obviously referring to us cheering loudly for our children at their swim meets every Wednesday night.  Overhearing this one-way conversation in the background, however, my father instantly drew a fairly warped, far left-field mental picture instead.  Given my wife’s propensity for watching the Food Network and cooking deliciously exotic meals, he later confessed that he had literally pictured her screaming at food.  Yes…yelling at the meat. 

“Stupid bacon…cook faster!  And you’re next, idiot rump roast!”

Shall we just top this macabre vision off with a bloody butcher’s apron and an industrial-sized tenderizing hammer?  Seems fitting.

Yes, while some may be able to trace their family’s ancestry back hundreds of years, I can actually trace my family’s lunacy gene down from one generation to the next.  It’s a lot like the ABC celebrity reality show “Who Do You Think You Are”…just sprinkled with a healthy dose of the SyFy Network’s “Insane or Inspired” for good measure.

Unfortunately though, even with all of the awful Monty Python imitations and grisly PETA night-terrors tucked gently away, it was time to put the doctor’s orders into action.  Ten days without talking.  Ten days for this extremely dedicated, outgoing wife and mother of three?

“You’ve gotta ask yourself one question.  ‘Do I feel lucky?’  Well, do you ya punk?”

Making every attempt to meet doctor’s orders, and with all of the best intentions, what has ensued since could best be described as “charades for the clinically insane”.  Hand signals and body language very much open to interpretation, of which I immediately pounce on and exploit to the sickest extent of my twisted capacities.

One evening, my better half told me to go down to the basement with a shovel and search for Jimmy Hoffa.  “Whoa there…take it easy, Mrs. Corleone.”  Using a variety of exceedingly more colorful hand gestures thereafter though, I was made to understand that she was kindly asking me to get the ice cream out of the freezer downstairs and scoop some out for the kids.

Yet another day, she asked me to make some sandwiches for the kids.  In retrospect, she was actually very creative in miming exactly how to make a sandwich.  Right down to splitting up the bread and spreading the mayo.  For a brief moment there, I actually waited for an encore performance where she would be trapped inside an invisible box.  However, my interpretation ultimately led me to openly quote the 1990s Bell Biv DeVoe song “Poison”.  “Smack it up, flip it, rub it down?  Oh no?“

While I will admit that some of my analyses may wander astray on occasion, I was of the firm belief that we were making some real, measureable progress!

Over the course of time though, our little game of charades had digressed into a puzzling flurry of rudimentary gang signs.  Recently, she asked me several times to get the pretzels out of the pantry by using some new hand gestures that were unfamiliar to me.  Confused, the only reply that came to mind was to reciprocate using my own contorted assembly of hand signals while shouting “Vatos Locos forever!  Blood in, blood out, ese!”

Upon witnessing this bizarre exchange, our two daughters had now officially joined our son in the family’s resident state of confusion.

Let’s be realistic.  Try as she may, it’s virtually impossible to raise three kids and one man-child without using your voice.   Making matters worse is the fact that our kids have been essentially trained from birth to ask mom for anything first-and-foremost.  This due to the fact that mom is practically with them 24 hours a day and the fact that dad typically defers to what mom would “probably” say anyhow.  In essence, I’m really just the used car salesman of the family.  Why would they bother with the middle man when they can just go straight to the source?

I will admit that, being the observational introvert, the role reversal has not been an easy transition for our household.  Recent efforts to quell disputes have led me to resort to widely exaggerated threats of Armageddon, in stances where I would normally remain quiet and let my wife’s matriarchal voice of sanity prevail.  Be it for my own personal amusement or just due to outright confusion, a lot also gets lost in translation.  Follow-up discussions of specific connotation and basic civility with our children have become the norm these days.

To give myself some credit though, I have begun to post some real gains in my long-term memory retention regarding certain hand gestures.  “I’m going to choke the life out of you” is fairly well engrained.  The “knock it off” throat-slash is yet another dandy.  For all intents-and-purposes though, the “you’re not funny” gesture is one that is already pretty widely known.

The Sound of Old

They are moments that are few and far between.  Those rare occasions where I can actually listen to my music in the car with my family.  To be honest, my taste in music isn’t exactly categorized as, shall we say, family-friendly in nature.  However, my son has started to develop a taste for some of the cleaner versions of his dad’s rock music, much to his father’s delight.  He says that he loves the sound of the crunching guitars and pounding drums.  The apprenticed apple apparently doesn’t fall very far from the tree…

Coming home from my son’s karate practice one evening, I started flipping through some stations on my satellite radio.  I came across a song that flooded me with an abundance of great memories.  An essential CD from my days back in college.  My son immediately took note of my reaction to it and sat forward.

“Dad, what song is this?”

“A great song.  It’s called ‘Plush’ by the group Stone Temple Pilots.  My band back in college used to play this song.  I loved playing it.”

“It sounds like old people music.  Can you put some good rock music on?”

I nearly lost control of the car…

“Old people music”?  When did such an influential song from my early twenties gimp along to that geriatric point?  When did a very relevant band from the 1990s suddenly become elevator music to an eight year old?  I must have missed the obituary and their iconic performance on the “Lawrence Welk Show”. 

Now granted, the song was released roughly twenty years ago, but I can still vividly remember rehearsing that song in our dorm room…much to the dismay of our Resident Advisor.  I can also still mentally picture the music video on MTV in my head.

My shoulders slumped as clarity began to rapidly fill the car.  CDs?  Actual music videos on MTV?  In the name of Stevie Ray Vaughn, it is old people music!

Thinking back to high school, I remember listening to certain songs on the radio that were classified as classic rock, merely because they were played on the local classic rock station.  Groups like Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Aerosmith, Queen.  Music that was considered classic rock by the mid-1980s, even though they weren’t more than 10 or 15 years from their original release date.  There was no debating that the sound was a little more antiquated, but I always attributed this more to the technological advances in instrument amplification and digital recording, rather than the songs just being flat-out “old”. 

So where does this leave me with the expiration date of relevance as related to the cherished music of my youth?  The question bothered me throughout the evening, even as I continued to privately sneer spitefully in my son’s direction.  Just when exactly does a rock song get reclassified as classic rock? 

In order to attain any semblance of sleep that night, I did what any respectable academic scholar would have done in a similar moment of encyclopedic crisis.  I searched for the answer online.

Most results pointed to around the 20 year benchmark from original release for any relevant song or album to attain that “classic” status.  If you were to use the definition of a classic car as an example, most insurance companies reference anything 15 years or older.  Most classic car clubs use the 20 year benchmark as well.  The more I read, the more it became painfully evident.  Much like the classic rock being played on the radio to a teenaged version of myself some 20+ years earlier, the era of my college music was now officially shelved under “J”…for Jurassic.

Perhaps, if I had paid more attention to my surroundings, I would have seen this milestone coming a lot earlier.  Probably the most obvious indicator would have been from a TV commercial that has been getting a lot of airplay recently.  A commercial for a family-sized vehicle in which the 40ish parents and a carload of school-age kids are driving downing the road and singing Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train”.  The epic anthem of heavy metal’s original madman, a man once censored by Tipper Gore’s Parental Music Resource Center (PMRC), now the subject of a family car commercial.  How did I not trip over that enormous headstone while wandering through my playlists on iTunes?

Unfortunately, the “old people music” insanity doesn’t just stop at the newly-labeled classic rock that is near-and-dear to the ole PaceMaker.  It seems to be popping up in different areas fairly regularly in my everyday life now as well.

While reading a Berenstain Bears book to my daughter recently, the story referenced the characters listening to a jukebox.  A puzzled look immediately flashed across her face.  Knowing exactly what the next question would be, I tried to put it into a 21^st century perspective for her.

“It plays songs.  It’s like a giant iPod.”

I’m not sure which hurt worse.  The fact that I had compared an archaic, 800-pound piece of acoustic furniture from my youth to an electronic device the size of a binder clip…or the fact that I distinctly remember going to Pizza Hut as a kid and dropping four or five dollars worth of quarters into one so that I could hear my favorite songs played on vinyl 45s.

Vinyl 45s.  Yes, I believe that this is where the old phrase “beating a dead horse” comes into play.  You may now drag my petrified carcass to the glue factory.

Since the vast majority of my beloved music base has obviously ridden the path of the setting sun, I guess it also entitles me to make musical references that only my older colleagues would get.  For me personally, I love the puzzled looks that I receive from my son as I plug in my guitar and explain to him that I’m going to crank my amplifier up to “eleven” in an English accent.  Simply because it’s “one louder than ten”.

It’s the punch-line that keeps giving.  Thank you, Nigel…

I do find myself sometimes holding on to that occasional waning ray of melodic hope though.  Those times where I get to witness my daughter bouncing from room-to-room while humming the tune to the seemingly timeless and multi-generationally acceptable song “Low Rider” by War.  With pride, I get to happily bounce right along beside her and sing “take a little trip, take a little trip, take a little trip with me”.

Unfortunately, it appears as though that “little trip” will now include driving a twenty-foot Cadillac to dinner at 3 o’clock in the afternoon to grab the “Early Bird Special”...all while playing early 90s grunge rock on the cassette deck.

California Dreamin'

Being a born and raised an EastCoaster, there are some things that just become geographically instinctual over the course of time.  Things that you just stop thinking about because you’re always used to seeing them a certain way.  It’s only after you find yourself on the west coast that these instincts get tossed curbside and you wind up having to completely reset your bearings.  Literally…

My family is from New York.  Generations-upon-generations of native New Yorkers.  Even though a good portion of the family has since moved from the Empire state, they all stayed on the east coast.  Like most New York transplants, inevitably winding up in south Florida.  As for myself, I was raised in Virginia.  When my family travelled in my youth, it was always to see family.  Mainly New York, Florida years later.  This travel was always exclusive to the east coast though.  It’s all I’ve ever known.

I have been to the west coast a couple of times in my life, but only recently on business.  No matter how many times that I head out there though, it’s still the slightest differences that continue push me a little off-kilter as soon as I step off of the plane.

For example, as an EastCoaster, if the ocean is on your right side, it essentially means that you’re travelling north.  Travelling from Virginia to Long Island fairly regularly as a kid, that’s what I have been mentally programmed to decipher as common geographical fact.  On the west coast, however, the ocean on your right means that you are travelling south.  It only took this MENSA candidate about 15 minutes and 5 miles in the wrong direction to figure out that notable detail. 

With the complete inability to effectively deprogram myself of this “fact” with any measureable success, my inner compass was completely hosed up for the better part of the week.  To alleviate any possibility of confusion for myself, I literally spent the majority of my wanderings with my map flipped upside-down.  Ocean on the right. 

There.  Now I can navigate.

It really was a pathetic overcompensation of my mental GPS.  For some reason though, a “recalculating, recalculating…you moron” banter kept replaying over and over again in the back of my head.  Better yet, nothing quite says “tourist” better than some idiot sitting at a stoplight in downtown Los Angeles reading his map upside-down.  I probably would have attracted less attention to myself if I had just held my keys and wallet out of the window in my open recruitment of potential carjackers.

With my inverted map and reverse-pole navigation in check, I headed down to the beach one evening to take in some local California culture and to stick my feet in the Pacific for the first time.  Yes, that “tourist” thing again...  As I walked down the main beach road, there was a well-dressed guy standing in the street holding out a sign towards oncoming traffic.  It simply stated “You’re Beautiful”.  Being that quintessential EastCoaster, I studied him for several minutes trying to figure out his angle.  Money?  Publicity stunt?  Political agenda?  Con?

Much to my skeptical surprise, it became clear to me that this guy really had no agenda.  He was simply trying to communicate “positive vibes” during the evening rush.  A foreign concept to an EastCoaster like me, who was notorious for unconsciously bulldozing people over in my attempts at catching the Metro train pulling into the station.

Even more foreign to me was the fact that people were smiling, high-fiving him as they drove past, and yelling back “no man, you’re beautiful”.   I was traumatized.  Why was no one throwing bricks at this guy for impeding traffic?  Why was no one trying to mow him down in their expensive, European sedans for standing in the middle of the road?  Why was no one screaming at him to get out of the way, while calling both he and his mother unspeakable names?

I‘m a stranger in a strange land.

For me, however, the pinnacle of these trips is always the cheap entertainment that I get out of people-watching at LAX prior to my departure.  A vast plethora of gratuitous sights and sounds to help get me through the early morning doldrums of business travel. 

The most recent involved a well-dressed, well-groomed mother and her two young children.  A boy and girl whose outfits likely cost more than the entire contents of my suitcase…as well as the two guys next to me.  They were like a walking advertisement for Louis Vuitton.  Moments later, an older boy walks up next to them wearing black skinny jeans and T-shirt, black flat-bill hat cocked sideways, massive ear gauges, and enough metal in his lips to make me openly question the competency of the TSA screeners that morning.  I recall thinking to myself that this woman looked entirely too young to have a son in his early twenties.  

After a brief kiss between the two, it suddenly dawned on me.  “Wait.  That’s DAD?” 

To quote the late Chris Farley…  ”Awesome”. 

It was like Rodeo Drive meets Blink-182.  I couldn’t just leave it simply at gawking though.  I found myself honestly wondering which of their two kids would finally snap, break out of mom’s Abercrombie & Fitch mold, and take over as lead singer of the next great southern California punk band.  With a smirk on my face and the iconic punk anthem “California Uber Alles” screaming in my head, my view was suddenly obstructed by an extremely elderly bleached blonde in a halter top shrieking into her Bluetooth.

That was my sign.  Time to go…immediately.

Time to get back to the familiar surroundings and those things near-and-dear to my EastCoaster heart.  Being able to read my maps with some directional sanity and enjoying that ever-warming symphony of threats and insults directed to those that impede traffic in any way whatsoever.  Really, nothing says “home” quite like a fellow EastCoaster threatening horrific carnage upon your entire family for taking too long in the crosswalk.  I salute you, fine citizen!

At least I wasn’t totally unprepared for my latest adventure out west.  Dictated by recent events, this wandering stranger now knows exactly what to do in the event of an earthquake.

Immediately call everyone you know to see if they felt it.

Disney Revisited

We pulled it off. 

Ten fast-paced days and nine significantly slower nights at “the happiest place on Earth”.  All without my personal need of illicit, black market sedatives or emergency crowd-phobia counseling interventions.  That may sound a lot like a teaser to an old Jerry Springer Show episode to you, but it spelled unmitigated success in my book.

We managed to fly down there and back, visit all of the parks, ride all of the rides, and weather the infinite, roving wall of human beings without a hitch.  This, while still retaining our sanity.  At least…what little sanity we had prior to leaving.  All kidding aside, we really had an amazing time.  Nothing but ear-to-ear grins from everyone. 

Even with all of this rampant glee and beaming, I found myself taking several mental notes related to the colossal, well-oiled machine that is the House of Mouse.  Some of which included items that I firmly believe are absolute essentials for any future anticipated Disney visits down the road:

1)      Pack a “gullet-horn”.  As one would imagine, a gullet-horn looks exactly like a shoehorn.  You’ll need one of these to help choke you down the amount of food that you will receive at your meals.  This is because you will feel financially compelled to eat every last morsel dropped in front of you…as well as in front of your spouse and each of your children. 

2)      Pack a “Yellow Cab” hat.   This is for your futile attempts at leaving the park during a parade and/or fireworks display.  You’ll be tasked to channel your inner, New York City taxi driver in an effort to successfully navigate a double stroller through the maddening sea of moving human traffic cones.  Coincidentally, much like cabs downtown, I don’t stop after running you down either.

3)      Pack an English-to-French translation reference tool.  Apparently, the entire province of Quebec shuts down during the month of March and relocates to Orlando.  Don’t get me wrong, they were an overwhelmingly nice group of people and I happen to be a huge fan of their beers.  It was just the whole language barrier thing.  I’m of the opinion that if one stands and picks up a folded, double stroller over his head on a crowded bus, it should clearly communicate the international sign for “me and the protruding veins popping out of my neck are attempting to exit this tin can right now and haul this 75-pound, concussion-inducing railcar with me.”  Then again, it could also be the Austrian international sign for “I am Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Please stop and stare.”  Next time, maybe I’ll just point out the window and yell “get to the choppa”.

In addition to these travel essentials, I was also befuddled by a few surprising revelations.  Revelations discovered only after living and breathing the full Disney experience.

Now, I’m not one usually surprised by much.  Surprises don’t usually happen to people who literally expect the most idiotic things to occur at any random instant.  However, these observations led me to some real moments of enlightenment.  Amusing in retrospect, completely astonishing in real time.  These were in the areas of “towing” and “herding”.

Let’s start with “towing”.  Now, I have been guilty of several traffic-related offenses in my lifetime.  Particularly in the realm of illegal parking.  Having grown up in and around the Washington DC area, it basically a rite of passage.  I have been the recipient of parking tickets, even been towed on occasion.  There was also that instance where I was the direct beneficiary of the dreaded iron “Collar of Shame” tire lock from Old Town Alexandria’s finest.  You just have to be aware that if you take advantage of certain liberties, you should also expect to entertain the associated consequences.  When it comes down to it though, sometimes that $60 parking ticket is a whole lot easier to digest than having to walk 10 blocks in the pouring rain.  It’s just the nature of the beast.

Although psychologically immune to the parking repercussions associated with major metropolitan areas, I was not expecting to usher in this mentality at the wonderful world of Disney.  That is, coming to grips with the common practice now affectionately known to my family as “stroller towing”.

Yes, you read that correctly…

Unbeknownst to me, amid the outskirts of the densely clogged pedestrian arteries of the Magic Kingdom, there are actually marked and designated stroller parking areas.  I did notice a few hundred strollers tightly circled together like a convoy of well-defended Conestogas, but I never gave it much thought.  It was only after ditching our stroller next to several others near an alleyway that it became painfully obvious.  We returned from a seemingly timeless attraction to find that our stroller had vanished. 

“It really is a small world ‘cause we just got jacked!”

Our stroller, which was filled with nothing but smile-sustaining, kid-survival rations such as Flavor-Blasted Goldfish and cotton candy, must have been swiped by some kind of highly organized criminal syndicate.

“What kind of sacrilegious, blood-sucking dregs would swipe a kid’s stroller at Disney,” I openly questioned aloud, with little regard to the stares from my immediate audience of roughly five hundred.

In truth, our stroller was moved to one of the designated stroller parking areas by a Disney employee.  Moved to ensure that those same clogged arteries were moving in their customary, controlled-chaos manner.  An employee with a job description much like a grizzled cast member of the show “Operation Repo”…only wearing pastels, mouse ears, and a smile.  Humbled, it was an embarrassing education in Disney etiquette.

The “herding” rationalization was one of those true “light bulb” moments for me.  It suddenly dawned on me while I was standing in line for a particular ride.  A teenaged Line Czar, wearing a cowboy hat and boots, was barking out orders at me like a Special Forces drill instructor. 

“There is no line.  Just push all the way in.  You’ll get on that ride.  Go to your left sir, your left, YOUR LEFT SIR!”

Suddenly, there was a light.  The herding, the yelling, the cowboy attire.  Were we getting on the “Toy Story” ride or being corralled to pasture?  In my mind, the only things missing were the theme song from “Bonanza” and the USDA stamp across my posterior. 

My son suddenly piped up and asked why the workers kept yelling at us to move.  My reply received his trademark smirk and furrowed brow of confusion.  The typical, and only suitable response to one of his pop’s highly veiled, and wildly psychotic, volleys of sarcasm.

“Because we’re cattle, son...  Moo.”

Packing essentials and revelations aside, the trip was an overwhelming success.  We had more fun than we could keep track of.  The atmosphere was stimulating, the food was outstanding, and everyone got to do exactly what they wanted to do.  Ten solid days of galloping wildly through the parks, riding rides until nauseous, and devouring every ounce of food within reach.  And that’s just what was on my agenda. 

The smiles and childhood memories made from this trip will last us a lifetime.  We hope to build further memories with a return visit in another four years or so.  To be honest though, this trip was all about establishing and passing these memories and experiences along to our children, just as our parents had roughly thirty years earlier.  In that regard, mission accomplished.

I do have one additional parting comment.  To the guy that I nearly knocked unconscious as I turned to get on the bus with my backpack filled with granola snacks and fifty pounds of water, I tip my hat and apologize again.  I’m not entirely sure how to say “get along little dogie” in French, but I believe that “moo” needs no official translation.

Reality Never Sleeps In

The sound of the Pack-N-Play rustles to life at 6 am.  A nappy head with sleepy eyes pops up, followed by the cheerful sound from our two-year old moments later.

“Hi Mommy.  Hi Daddy!”

Such a sweet sound to us first thing in the morning.  Her genuine excitement and joyfulness fills the room.  It might have sounded a bit more joyful to us, had we gone to bed earlier than 2 am the night before.

The writing was on the wall.  It was going to be one of those high-octane coffee kinds of mornings.  The kind that you drink with a fork and a knife.  More accurately, it was time to pay up.

We had headed back to my old stomping grounds the night before for an evening out.  Just the wife and I.  There was a benefit planned back in my hometown for a high school friend of mine.  It was something that I had been looking forward to for several weeks.  Not only were we were going to see some of our old friends, but my wife was actually going to meet several people that I had literally grown up with.  Some of which, going all the way back to kindergarten. 

We had tried several times to do things like this in the past.  A night out for the two of us.  These attempts were often stymied by cataclysmic parent-related roadblocks.  Sequences that usually started with us lining up one set of grandparents to watch our beloved offspring for the evening, followed by us packing the car for the eventual overnight road trip to their house.  It may seem like a lot of time and effort for just a couple hours…but if the end result was a much-needed night out for my better half and I, the prep work involved doesn’t matter a whole lot. 

Unfortunately, what typically transpires after this process is nothing short of epidemic plague and pestilence.  Calamities of biblical proportions.  I smite thee!  Ka-blooey.

One instance had us driving to my in-laws for the day.  The goal was to drop off the kids that afternoon and go out to dinner with some of our friends.  About 45 minutes into the trip north, projectile vomiting ensued from the back seat.  After coming to a screeching halt in front of a local police station and an animated, private conversation with my maker, a field-improvised sanitization plan was devised. 

It’s really too bad that we didn’t happen upon a fire station instead.  I probably would have been better off using one of their hoses for that particular decontamination activity.  That, and maybe some of that sawdust stuff that they used for comparable biological disasters on school buses back-in-the-day.  I have to be honest.  Much like the effects that Ginger Ale has on my psychological feelings of queasiness, the smell of that sawdust will forever be engrained in the darkest recesses of my nausea psyche.

The U-turn trip home that afternoon was brutal.  Although I adamantly denied it at the time, I really did intentionally aim for that skunk running across the road.  Anything to provide a scented variety to my nose.

On yet another occasion, we drove north for a friend’s annual summer cookout.  Old friends, good times, and extremely loud guitars.  Same scenario.  This time, we actually made it to my in-laws.  Five minutes after walking in the door, our daughter throws up all over their dining room floor.  After executing yet another Federal Superfund initiative, I immediately repacked the car and we headed home.  Evening thwarted once again.  Although the drive home that time was odor-free, I couldn’t say the same for the quarantined vicinities of my in-law’s house.

You get the idea.  These outings with my wife are few and far between.  They are also apparently subject to clearances and/or waivers by the EPA and the CDC.  On those off-chances where the Gods of Bedlam do overlook the inevitable smiting of our plans and we actually make it out for an evening alone, we are prone to take full advantage of it.  Unfortunately, taking advantage of these instances also tends to give us that “first week college freshman” mindset. 

“Freedom!”  Kilt and blue war paint optional.

It’s a scenario ripe for exploitation and abuse.  Circumstances that often lead to humanly-toxic doses of Pepto-Bismol and caffeine the next morning.

The benefit that Saturday night turned out to be a great success.  All kinds of people turned out from my days in high school.  It was great seeing some of those people that I had literally grown up with too.  Amazing that after all of these years, that handful of us really hadn’t changed that much.  Good, bad, or still pending sentencing.

After the benefit had wrapped up for the evening, the wife and I decided to take advantage of the remainder of our evening by having a nice dinner and a couple of drinks.  Upon sitting down for our meal, it was discovered that several of our friends were also visiting the same establishment.  Our table was consequently abandoned and a respectable corner of the bar was taken hostage for the evening.

I monitored the time pretty frequently over the next couple of hours.  10:00, 11:00, midnight.  We were so busy catching up on good times, that the time didn’t seem relevant.  It had never had previously…at least, before kids.  I kept telling myself that it wasn’t getting “late” because “late” used to equate to “sunrise” a decade or so ago.  I was convinced and determined that my 40 year old carcass could still hang.  At least for another ten or fifteen minutes.  Maybe.

Deep down though, I knew we’d be required to pay up come sunrise.  And that this reality was going to hurt.

Now close to 1 am, my wife suddenly realizes what time it is.  Pumpkin status…officially outed.  The fact remained that we still had to drive 45 minutes back to my in-laws house and get up with the kids at o’dark:30 tomorrow morning.

Correction.  THIS morning.  Duly noted.  It was time to go. 

Although I had the temporary, misguided delusion of being a college freshman for a couple of hours, the reality is that we successfully made it out for the evening and had fun.  We got to spend time together, see old friends, and have grown-up conversations.  Conversations that didn’t end with the catch-all quip “because I said so”.  Of course, while temporarily entrenched in these adolescent delusions, one often doesn’t take into consideration the reality of following day’s responsibilities.

Because reality doesn’t sleep in.