The Poltergeist Phenomena

It’s really amazing to look my kids’ toys today as opposed to those of my generation in the late 1970s and early 80s.  On the plus side, today’s toys are so much more incredibly intricate and portable.  However, they also require an endless amount of batteries or require a power source or charging of some kind.  An overload of lights, LED screens, and noises.  Actually reading the instruction manual has become a navigational necessity for use rather than an afterthought for reference purposes.

I did have some toys that had lights and made a multitude of noises, but you didn’t have to be a certified IT specialist in order to play with them.  I can remember getting a Hess truck from my parents every year for Christmas.  You revved it forward to make it go and headlights lit up as it plodded forward.  Other than my Dukes of Hazzard slot car racing set, that was essentially the coolest thing that I had ever seen in my life up to that point.

I did, however, have a set of Star Wars toys that provided a whole host of flashing lights and laser sounds as well.  Snow speeders, X-Wing fighters, and Millennium Falcons… oh my.  Then, there was the Starbird.  A toy that my dad still admires and reminisces about to this day.  It made ascending and descending sounds as you pointed the spaceship up towards the ceiling or down towards the ground.  That was pretty mind-blowing stuff for the time in my personal, eight year old opinion.

As cool as all of those toys were though, they were nothing like the technological equivalents of today.  Even my youngest daughter’s toys put those of my adolescence to shame.  I honestly believe that her LeapFrog LeapReader pen has literally more memory embedded in it than the boat anchor that I called a computer back in college.

As intricate as these modern toys are though, there always seems to be the opportunity for those choice, short-circuit scenarios that commonly occur at my expense.  Scenarios that I have affectionately coined as the “poltergeist phenomena”.  You know, when your kids’ battery-operated toys decide to awaken themselves in the middle of the night or scream at you from the dark confines of a poorly lit basement.  It’s gotten to the point where I need to keep a change of underwear downstairs in order to combat such startling encounters. 

Personally, I blame my skittishness of the supernatural squarely on growing up in the horror movie heyday of those same 1970s and 80s.  Movies like Friday the 13^th, Halloween, The Amityville Horror, The Omen, The Exorcist, and The Shining that provided many sleepless nights of imagining shadows dancing back and forth across my room or of possessed inanimate objects coming to life to wreak paranormal havoc on me after I fell asleep. 

When my son was younger, he had a toy piano that would go off by itself in the middle of the night.  Upon hearing those ghostly keys play their toe-tapping jigs all by their lonesome, I would quietly creep slowly down the stairs to investigate.  Seemingly for paranormal turds and giggles, it would tease me by starting and stopping its spectral song whenever I took a step into the room.  Surely it had to be a loose wire short-circuiting itself with the vibrations of my steps.   Right?  However, spooked by the prospect that it could possibly sense my presence, I literally punted the piano across the darkened room and made a run for it back up the stairs.

Apparently, in my mind, ghosts can’t chase you up stairs while they're playing a flying piano.

Looking back, my son could never figure out how the legs on that piano always got bent and broken.  The upward velocity achieved by a spooked, former soccer player’s foot could have possibly contributed a minor role to its premature demise…

Most recently, I was startled by the kids’ play kitchen “boiling water” as I walked down the stairs for work early one morning.  It took me a couple of minutes to figure out what it was and find the source of that particular poltergeist.  I couldn’t find the location of the batteries, so I violently shook it until the noise stopped.  As I started out the door, I heard boiling water again.  More mocking, more teasing.

Perhaps my personal favorite “heebie-jeebie” moment occurred one evening while taking out the trash.  It was close to 11 pm and I had forgotten to put the can by the road for the next day’s collection.  I grabbed the can and started to roll it down the driveway.  That was when I heard it.  A satanic voice erupted from deep within the trash can.  I hurriedly dropped it and took several steps backwards.  Then, I heard it moving around inside.

The hair on my arms shot up as I continued to stumble backwards towards the garage door.  More evil voices, more rustling.  Then, suddenly…nothing.  It had apparently settled back into the slumber of its own personal inner circle of Hell.

My mind raced.  What could it be?  A rat…a bat…a raccoon?  Why not just throw a demonically-possessed Oscar the Grouch into the mix?   Whatever it was, it was restless and angry.  

Minutes later, armed with a flashlight and my son’s aluminum baseball bat, I cautiously approached the can again.  I threw the top of the trash can off with the bat and immediately crouched low and hard to the ground.  Subconsciously, I must have expected something to just sit up and make a lunge for me.  With that bat pulled back and assuming the stance of a steroid-fueled, major league batter, I was ready to send whatever popped out into the upper decks of Yankee Stadium.

“Wendy…darling.  Light of my life.  I’m not gonna hurt ya.  You didn’t let me finish my sentence.  I said I’m not gonna hurt ya.”

Unfortunately, there would be no such luck.  I was only greeted with more agitated movements and the same low, wicked voice from the trash can.  Then it settled once more.

After a couple of minutes, I continued my investigation.  I poked the trash bags with the bat and was greeted this time by a high-pitched whine.  At that point, I proceeded to unload on the trash bags with the bat in a desperate attempt to bludgeon the evil spirit back into the afterlife.

“Cross over children.  All are welcome.  All are welcome.  Go into the Light.  There is peace and serenity in the light.”

Taking a step back to admire the vicious efficiency of my work, I heard the growl yet again.  Not thinking of my neighbors likely fast asleep next-door, I yelled directly into the trash can.  “Why won’t you die?  Just die already!”

“Mr. Torrance!  I see you have hardly taken care of the business we discussed.”
 

“No need to rub it in, Mr. Grady.”

The beatings continued…

Frustrated and nearly exhausted, I finally mustered up enough courage to move some of the trash bags back with the bat in order to perform a visual inspection of this indestructible fiend.  Assuming the worst, I held the flashlight in one hand and pulled the bat back in the other like a Zulu warrior readying his spear.

I peered long and hard.  Was that..it was!  It was!  It was the kids’ Tickle-Me-Elmo toy. 

It hadn’t worked right in weeks.  My wife must have tossed it into the trash with half-dead batteries still in it.  For whatever reason, it stormed back to life with a low-powered growl as I rolled the can down the driveway.  A small sense of relief and humiliation washed over me after replaying the entire episode in my head.

Much like his animated friends of Toy Story 3 fame, he too already had a one-way ticket punched to the local incinerator.  However with my heart still racing, ten years effectively erased from my life, and that aluminum bat still raised squarely over my head, I decided to take my jittery frustrations out on that cuddly little, red-headed rascal.

“Does this tickle, {insert favorite Samuel L. Jackson profanity-laced tirade here}?”

Picture the macabre scene.  A bald, shadowy lunatic wildly beating a giggling voice with a baseball bat in the dark recesses of a dimly lit driveway.  This turned into a horror flick after all…written and produced by yours truly.  True to the genre, use of a chainsaw had also crossed my twisted mind.  But at that late hour, it likely would have led to a prospective court appearance and a state-mandated psych evaluation or two.

It may have taken twenty minutes and the assistance of metal batting equipment, but the trash did finally make it to the curb that evening.  I can also say that, without a doubt, I personally witnessed Elmo go into the light.

"This house...is clean."

Shapes and Angles

Math was never my strong suit.  That’s putting it politely.  Seeing a long equation on a chalkboard registers roughly the same in my mind as one of those speed-reading pharmaceutical announcers reciting their drug’s horrendous side effects in Mandarin Chinese.  My mind’s wired to simply shut itself down and looks for the closest escape route.  The classic flight response.

In elementary school, I remember spending what seemed like entire summers going through multiplication flash cards with my mom.  Most time, it came down to either dumb luck or just repetitive, rote memory.  I can still vividly remember the pain, anguish and frustration of seeing those cards flipped over and seeing my answer not even remotely in the same ball park. 

“What is the answer to eight times nine?”

“Umm, Milwaukee.”

This may also, in fact, explain why I still have a genuine phobia involving any games that require cards in order to play.

“Come on, it’s a simple card game called ‘Go Fish’.”

“No.  That’s just shortened title for ‘Go Fish for Another Flash Card Because You’re Answer is Wrong Again’!”

Not that I’m scarred or anything…

It didn’t get any better with time.  I got through high school taking basic algebra in two, one-year increments.  I also had the distinct pleasure of taking geometry not once, but twice.  Much like famed blues guitarist Robert Johnson, it was widely rumored that I had also sold my soul to the devil for that hard-earned “D” the second time around.  Only difference was that Johnson supposedly sold his soul at the crossroads in order to play a blistering guitar and be an idol to modern R&B musicians worldwide…whereas I received the super-advanced mathematical prowess that allowed me to score the academic equivalent of “conscious” on my geometry final so that I could walk at graduation.

Apparently, I’m the Dollar General of discount soul negotiations.

Rounding out my senior year, I wound up taking computer programming courses, typing, even a semester in a Model UN class in order to steer clear of any additional, graduation-threatening math curricula.  My presence in math classes that year equated to the Sasquatch sightings of my high school transcripts.  There were reports that a few had been spotted prior to graduation, but were ultimately dismissed by several institutes of higher learning as hearsay or the result of delusional hallucinations.

College was no different.  I remember flipping through my college’s coursework catalog trying to pick a major based on the amount of math classes that it required.  A Journalism major with a concentration in Public Relations was elected the winner with a paltry three.  Even picking those three classes was an exercise in absolute futility.  Much like Geometry in high school, I also took Statistics twice.  I lasted eight days the first time before I realized that treading water and simply riding out a prayer-induced surge wasn’t going to cut it in college.  I lasted only three days the second time around, before dropping it yet again.

Think about that mindset as a talent for one moment.  I dropped the same class twice, with eleven combined days in the classroom, for the exact same reason.  By that point, even the devil realized the hopelessness of this soul’s ill-fated voyage and demanded a full refund.

After graduating with that degree, I came to find that jobs in the field of public relations, in-and-around the Washington DC area, were ultra-competitive.  My first job offer was a six month, unpaid internship for a lobbying firm on K Street.

“Wait, unpaid?  That means like no income for six months, right?”  I may have possessed the mathematical cunning of a sleeping Golden Retriever, but even I knew that those numbers didn’t really add up in my favor. 

As my available funds began to dry out though, I grew desperate for a job.  A paying job.

Because my reality typically allies itself with the oft-magical world of irony and satire, I wound up taking the first paying job that was offered to me.  And of course it was in finance.  Knowing nothing about finance, I thought I had suckered them into hiring me.  In hindsight though, I’m fairly certain it was I who was said sucker.

Allow me entertain you with a visual.  Imagine a speeding freight train barreling towards the canyon…and the bridge is out.  Yes.  For me, a job in finance was a lot like that.  The screams of the train engineer could be heard each-and-every morning, echoing off of the canyon walls, as his alarm clock woke him up for yet another day in the enchanting world of government finance.  Echoes reverberating loudly as his train plunged off of that bridge and performed a blazing death spiral into the barren gorge below.

Over-dramatic, you say?  Not for a second.  It was the psychological equivalent of “Groundhog Day” on a three year bender.

Eventually, irony and satire righted themselves and I now find myself in the world of regulatory compliance.  Words, laws, reading comprehension.  Although all was professionally right with the world again, I never truly foresaw the steamy pile that Murphy’s Law would serve up next.

I can still see myself.  Sitting in geometry class thinking “what an utter waste of my time” and “when I am I ever going to use this garbage”.  I had an idea of what I wanted to do in life and it certainly didn’t have anything to do with equations, angles, or those geometry theorems that left me rocking in the fetal position. 

Years now passed, I am now suddenly being reminded just how blissfully ignorant all of those fleeting thoughts were.  Nowhere, in the back on my 1980s mullet-laden head, did I anticipate what would follow some 25 years later.  That my very own children would be going to school and need help with that exact same math homework that I butchered and deliberately avoided my whole life.

It’s “Groundhog Day” again…and it was that same freight train.  Only this time, the train was weighted down with the dreams and educational futures of my children as well as my own self-loathing guilt of being a worthless facilitator to those dreams and educational futures.

Me?  I could go on all day about the important things…like the differences between rock bands, muscle cars, and beer.  Useful facts and trivia, should ever find yourself being quizzed at a concert, NASCAR event, or keg party.  But the differences between acute and obtuse angles?  Parallelograms, rhombuses, and rhomboids?  Remember…Golden Retriever…fast asleep.

Now I find myself assuming that same blank, ape-like expression from high school as I attempt to help my son with his 5^th grade geometry homework.    The glistening beads of panic and confusion now even more obvious as they cascade freely down my mullet-less, bald nugget of a head.

We desperately tried to help him.  My wife tried.  I tried.  It was literally like the blind leading the blind though.  As the hours passed, there were instances where we found some semblances of success.  However, we were routinely able to find animated episodes of all-out, 5th grade mutiny as well.  His mind would simply shut itself down and look for the closest escape route.  I wonder where he acquired that trait?

For hours every evening, the three of us would sit at the kitchen table staring at his books and notes.  Little surfaced from our efforts outside of mind-numbing frustration coupled with the swirling, pungent funk of mental fatigue.  Our body language strangely reminiscent of the famed “Three (Un)Wise Monkeys”.

“See no answers, hear no answers, speak no answers.”

It had already been a long year for me personally in trying to grasp some of these mystifying, new-aged mathematical concepts that he was required to know.  Take this “lattice math” concept as an example.  Why do I not remember math concepts from my youth named after a decorative porch dressing?  Is there a “floor joist math” or “railing baluster math” that will sneak up on us in high school? 

Ultimately, it became evident that if genetics played any part in this, the boy was doomed.

“Paging Mr. Beelzebub…  Discount souls now clearanced on aisle five!”

Unlike his father though, the boy pulled through and passed his class as well as all of his standards assessments the first time around.  It may have taken some long evenings in the books, a couple hundred practice tests, and a few magical sprinkles of insanity-laced, parental tyranny, but the boy made it through unscathed.  Soul and all.

Now that summer vacation has finally descended upon us, there is a temporary lull in the storm.  Those endlessly delightful evenings of mathematical looting and rioting at the kitchen table have subsided for a few months.  Alas, anarchy sleeps.  The dark clouds remain just on the horizon though, knowing that his math classes will only get harder for him (and us) as he continues his march towards high school.

“So, son…how familiar are you with the stories of the Sasquatch?”

I Guess This is Growing Up

My wife and I have always made it a point to raise our children around an environment filled with music.  Be it having a variety of instruments lying around the house for them to experiment on or simply just having the TV off and the radio on for the better part of the day. Some days it may be a little country, others a little Christian or Top 40.  However, on the days when I am able to commandeer the radio, it’s pure rock.

As a child, my parents always had a variety of their music playing in-and-around the house as well.  Being children of the late 50s and 60s, there was always an abundance of “oldies” doo wop and a cappella as well as the early rock and roll essentials echoing throughout our home.  I, however, grew up gravitating towards a more bombastic flavor of that rock-and-roll music.

It started early on with the sinisterly painted faces of KISS and gradually worked their way through the Queen, AC/DC, and Van Halen of the late 1970s.  Throughout the 1980s, it got progressively louder and more flamboyant from there.  Deafening arena concerts, overly-dramatic stage shows, and blinding pyrotechnics…oh my.  The bigger, louder, and more elaborate the stage show, the more captivating it was to my pre-pubescent inner-rockstar. 

Thinking back all those years ago, some of the best times of my teens were centered in or around music in some capacity.  Whether it was that unforgettable three-hour concert that I still gush about seeing back in high school, all of those Friday nights cruising the local strip with a carful of buddies and the stereo on “11”, or that wild house party where the music didn’t seem to stop until the sun came up.  All those years of glorious reminiscence aside though, it was always the memories of playing in a band with friends that provided the highlight of my youth.

Oh the humanity!


Most days, it was endless hours of song rehearsals and social degeneracy in our drummer’s garage-turned-studio.  Off-color jokes and pranks, heated bickering and in-fighting, juvenile rowdiness and horse-play.  Other days, it was our shameless self-promotion and brainstorming of just how we were going to become the first local band to “make it”.  Coupled with our love of playing music though, it was simply just a genuine camaraderie that girlfriends could never understand nor could school possibly compare.

Perhaps one of my most amusing recollections was the night that we were up late practicing at a friend’s place the night before a gig.  I mean stupid late.  It was well after 2:30 am on a Friday night (Saturday morning) and we were still busy rehearsing.  To the apparent dumbfounded shock of all present that night, there was suddenly a heavy knock at the door.  Upon answering, two of the county’s finest constables stood in the doorway waving their flashlights in our faces.  Near verbatim, the conversation went essentially like this:

“We got a bunch of noise complaints.  What are you guys doing in there?”

“Rehearsing.  You know, band practice.”

“Band practice???  You guys realize that it’s nearly 3:00 in the morning, right?”

“Yea.  We suck.”

 Finally, there were the clubs.  Playing live at the local dive bars…

Jaxx Nightclub; Springfield, VA (circa 1991)



Blinding stage lights, choking fog machines, and a PA system that ran 12,000 watts in a club only slated for 5,000.  It was the most over-the-top stage set-up that could be purchased on 17 year-old kids’ mall salaries.  Honestly, it was all for nothing other than our own adrenaline rush though.  Living the juvenile embodiment of being as loud and obnoxious as humanly possible without the fear of judgment or public reprimand.  In short, embracing the spirit of unbridled bedlam and social deviance wholly inspired by years of watching mindless MTV hair-metal videos.  

As with everything else though, time and life in general moves faster than you’d ever expect.  After playing in a number of bands throughout college, graduation and the nine-to-five of making ends meet became the necessary evil and inevitably took precedence over any dreams of rock-and-roll stardom. 

Now, with the cheers and jeers of those dive bar crowds long since dead, my guitar performances had, until recently, been relegated to the family room for my kids.  No more dropping to the knees during a guitar solo or kicking over the tables of unruly barroom hecklers.  Just my three kids intently sitting…watching dear old dad strum away on the acoustic guitar.

“Hellooooooooo, Family Room!  Are you guys ready to rock?!?  I said…are you guys ready to ROCK?!?  Oh...and I’m also getting the signal from the back of the room for last call.  Last call, everyone!  Get your apple juice now because your mother is closing the kitchen at 7:30.”

Recently, however, our church had started putting together a praise band.  They there were looking for a guitarist and I was asked if I would be interested in joining in.  That old fire suddenly got re-lit.

A chance to plug in and play my dusty old six-strings?  Out loud?  In front of actual adults that I’m not directly related to?  As excitement started to build though, I found myself with a legitimate problem.  I had never really listened to nor paid all that much attention to the fundamentals of contemporary Christian music.  For some odd reason, there was this inkling of doubt that some of the old reliables like Motley Crue’s “Shout at the Devil” or Danzig’s “Mother” would go over particularly well early on a tranquil Sunday morning.

Not knowing the genre all that well, I decided to search online for some examples in order to gauge the overall guitar styles and chord progressions associated.  The first song that we had discussed playing was called “Revelation Song” by a group called Hillsong United.  I got on YouTube to search for it.  Instead, Iron Maiden’s “Revelations” popped up. 

Wow…irony much?  Can I get a Christian contemporary rimshot, please?

More than six months with this new band and genre though, I have to say for the record that I thoroughly enjoy playing all of these songs.  For where I am now in my life, they offer their own adrenaline-rush and sense of accomplishment for me after performing them.  I have also found that same genuine camaraderie, excitement, and love of music with this band as I had with all those throughout my youth.  Just without all the vulgar name-calling and off-colored shenanigans…

Although I can’t help it, I also still find myself amused at some of the other rather obvious differences from playing years past as well.  The whole positive message and inspirational song structure thing over social shock value and earth-shattering decibel levels immediately come to mind.  A seated, captive audience over the violent anarchy of the mosh-pit is yet another.  The lack of metal detectors and mandatory weapons frisking at the door is another priceless paradox.

I will admit that there are still many, many times that I find myself getting that undeniable itch to satisfy the desires of my amplifier’s guttural distortion channel.  However, I can also rest assured that I don’t have any concerns over the local police showing up and ticketing us for noise violations during one of our rehearsal sessions.

Capt. Obscurity


So, gone are the days of my magnificently untamed mullet, ripped jeans with spandex, and gaudy stage jewelry.  Today’s pulpit version marks an much older and more restrained version…complete with shaved head, pressed khakis, and that mind-numbingly, irreverent polo shirt.  Yes…from unkempt, Sunset Strip wannabe to a middle-aged poster-child of suburban obscurity.

To quote the band Blink-182…  “Well, I guess this is growing up.”

Self-deprivation aside, the re-emergence of live music in the house has also channeled the inner-rockstars of my son and oldest daughter as well.  Both asked Santa for instruments this past Christmas and, both of which, he was more than willing to comply.  A full-size drum set for my son and an acoustic guitar for my daughter.

Now, I find myself with bigger and better endeavors to pursue.  Aside from getting my own music fix playing on Sunday mornings, I am now able to pass along that same live music addiction to my son and daughter as well.  My kids enjoy seeing us play on those Sunday mornings and both of the older ones have happily jumped in with both feet.

Whether it’s teaching my daughter her guitar chords or playing my electric alongside my son in one of his increasingly intricate drum practice sessions…it’s really an emotion within me that I have found second-to-none.  No stage theatrics, pyrotechnics, or amount of applause could possibly compare with that feeling and the joy of passing this gift on to them.

Although not currently in our church’s playlist, maybe it is the timeless lyrics of another Iron Maiden song that had me pegged this whole time. 

“So understand; Don’t waste your time always searching for those wasted years; Face up, make your stand...and realize your living in the golden years.”

The Parenting Cycle

I recently experienced a revelation concerning how my wife and I have altered our parenting approaches with our three children over the years.  Specifically how lax we have gotten in some of the most basic areas as our hands-on experiences have accumulated over time.  I chalk much of it up to experience, but there is also a small contribution from the relaxation factor.  You know, since we didn’t break or maim the first one, we had the opportunity to streamline and relax parts of the child-rearing process for the next one.

Take, for example, the extreme precautions that most parents take with their first born.  Here you find yourself as a new parent, entrusted with the care and well-being of this helpless little mini-me.  Unfortunately, this also typically occurs at a time when you are still having a hard enough time figuring out just how to take care of yourself.  Your parenting methodology at the onset is approached in a very deliberate and safely-organized environment.  Strictly by the “Science of Parenting” book.  My wife and I were no different.

Our first born was basically raised in bubble-wrap.  Child locks on every cabinet, protective bumpers on every exposed corner, baby monitor systems that would have made NSA blush, electrical outlet covers, child-proof door locks, and baby gates galore.  Honestly, you had to be an experienced international art thief to get into a kitchen cabinet and the den area of our house looked like the inmate stockyard at San Quentin.  I fully expected to see the boy raking his bottle across a couple of those gates.  “Attica!  Attica!”

These gates weren’t merely confined to the den and stairway areas though.  We even had them on his bedroom doorway.  I found myself having nightmares of him crawling out of his “big boy bed” in the middle of the night, wandering out of his room, and accidentally falling down the darkened staircase while we slept.  The bedroom gate might have seemed a bit overenthusiastic since we had a second gate on the staircase as well, but it wasn’t really “imprisonment” if we were really “protecting” him.  Right?  Safety in numbers.  That was the theory that this warden went with anyway…

I will state for the record that we weren’t far off on his jailbreak capacities though.  The boy apparently had a plan.  We came out of our room one morning to find his door open and him sound asleep on his bedroom floor in front of the Evenflo baby gate prison wall.  To our amusement, all of his little Home Depot play tools were lying around him and his stuffed animals were thrown over the gate and into the hallway.  It looked like the first dawning moments of tranquility the morning after a mass jail break.  Apparently, after realizing the invincibility of his baby gate penitentiary and futility of his attempted escape, he sent his stuffed comrades over the wall for a shot at freedom on the lam.

“I’m not gonna make it!  Go on without me!  Live free and avenge my memory!”

As time and life experiences progressed, we found that our by-the-book mentalities had relaxed a great deal.  Although she too received the maximum security lockdown treatment on her bedroom door, our second child was able to get away with a lot more stuff than her older brother could ever dream at the same age. 

“Cake and ice cream at 9 am?  I don’t see why not.”

“Drive your grandparent’s golf cart?  I have a better idea.  Let’s race!”

All things considered though, she also got a more relaxed protocol on injuries from us.

“Come on.  You’ll be fine.  The tree isn’t even dented.”

“Seriously, it’s just a scrape.  I can’t even see the bone!”

By the time we had our third, she basically supervised her own cell block.  She ran with scissors, sat too close to the TV, jumped on the bed, talked with her mouth full, crossed her eyes for long periods of time, spoiled her appetite, and played outside without a jacket on.  You get the idea.

Probably one of the best examples of this ever-evolving “parenting cycle“ is related to my own personal preparedness for our kids’ seasonal colds over the years.  Those times in your car when your baby or toddler had a head cold and you hear that dreaded wet sneeze from the back seat.  You turn around to witness what can best be described as mucus detonation and a very visible blast radius around the nose…and mouth…and eyes.  My reaction is always the same.  “Mother of all creatures!  Someone call an exorcist!”

Back when my oldest was a baby, I had tissues in my car specifically for such occasions.  As a new father, I really had no idea what I was doing.  All that I knew was that I had to have tissues in my car for him and that those tissues had to be the best.  Parents Magazine stamped and approved “Puffs Plus” infused with aloe.  Baby’s nose was sensitive, after all, and regular tissues could possibly scrape, deface, or disfigure his delicate little sniffer.

As the years progressed, however, Puffs Plus became a distant afterthought.  Our second child typically got the business from some extra Chick-Fil-A napkins jammed into my glove box.  Although not infused with aloe, it apparently didn’t mangle her appearance in any way and it performed an outstanding job of exorcising the booger demons on short notice.  Though I had conducted extensive research on the topic, I was never able to find anything in Parents Magazine concerning the pros and cons of wipes inadvertently infused with chicken grease.  All the same though, with more than one kid in the car, it was a true triage moment and accomplished the job at hand.

More recently, running late to my daughter’s soccer game with her and our youngest in the back seat, I heard the horrific sound of a mucus detonation from our third child.  I peered back only to witness a full, out-of-body facial possession.  In fact, I had to do a double-take to make sure which child it was because I couldn’t even make out a recognizable face at that point.

I looked around the car for something to wipe her face with.  Being that this was our third child, I obviously didn’t have any expert-approved tissues or wipes lying around.  Madly scrambling to the car that morning, I’m lucky that I remembered both kids.  I quickly turned my attention to the glove box.  No napkins either.  About that moment, my older daughter decided to join in the festivities by adding a shriek and a graphic play-by-play of the drippy proceedings.  I quickly scanned the car again, yet saw nothing that could serve up that makeshift exorcism.

As panic set in, I started quizzing myself on the appropriateness and effectivity of some very unique and very desperate solutions that were popping into my twisted head at that particular moment.

“Hmmm, one of those floor mats might work.”  “She doesn’t need both socks, does she?”  “A couple of really big oak leaves might get the majority of it.”

As all appeared lost, I suddenly spotted something under the passenger seat.  A neatly folded piece of paper.  An auto repair receipt.

You know…in times of crises, the world looks to the innovators.  The pioneers.  The leaders.  People that step up to the plate and physically will events to unfold in their favor.  I am that leader.  So yes…I wiped my child’s face with that auto repair receipt.  And you know something?  I’m not ashamed to admit that.  As a matter of fact, I proudly wear that executive decision as a paternal badge of honor.  I stepped up…and I delivered in that time of crisis!

Lotion infused tissues to auto repair receipts.  This is what successful parenting has digressed into...

For a gratuitous visual though, let’s take a quick step back to allow you to entertain my immediate surroundings at the soccer field that morning.  I’m standing in the parking lot with my daughters, surrounded on all sides by overly-attentive soccer moms.  In one hand, I hold my youngest daughter’s delicate little hand.  In the other, an auto receipt full of said child’s snot.

Judge not fair ladies, with your $6 lattes and neatly groomed children!  Because this veteran protagonist prefers to operate wholly within his “adapt and overcome” mantra.  That’s how this dad rolls.

Just kindly ignore the black printer ink streaks plastered across my daughter’s nose…and mouth…and eyes.

Dante's Vacation

It was the time that I look forward to every year.  The week where the grinding, grueling juggling act known as work/life balance gets neatly tucked away and where I am finally able to pretend like I don’t have a care in the world.  Our yearly trip to Myrtle Beach for a full week of sun, surf, and siesta.

Yes, nothing but long days on the beach with my family and quiet nights overlooking the moonlit ocean with my better half.  Work crises, over-inflated bills from the utility cartels, and verbal sparrings with local politicians all a distant memory.  A basic requirement for my mental health as well as the physical well-being of those who wish to test my patience on a regular basis.  In short, a complete psychological recalibration activity so I don’t wind up the lead story on the 6 o’clock news.

Although in complete Zen-mode once we get down there, actually setting course for the week away with three kids can be a task in its own right.  The shopping and preparation, packing of half dozen suitcases, organizing toys and games for the pre-teen to post-toddler age groups, the logistical brain-teaser of jamming it all into one car, and finally the actual drive down there.  It’s all enough to test anyone’s threshold of insanity.

Once on the road, however, I aim to ditch all remaining semblances of sanity and aim to achieve my maximum “Road Renaissance”.  Better defined as the genetic re-awakening of the male driver’s innate ability to filter out screaming, fighting kids from the backseat of the van.  An alternate universal plane of consciousness located within the deepest recesses of our minds.  I’m pretty sure that it’s in the same vicinity of the brain as all of the body’s other autonomic functions…respiration, heart-rate, and “the football game is on so I cannot hear a single word you are saying”.  It’s the primordial gift that is really something to behold.  A true marvel of the male physiology.

Once we arrive though and the unpacking gets finished, my body immediately begins to reset itself.  Add a “Mexican cocktail”, a little Bob Marley, and lungs filled with warm ocean breezes, and all is suddenly right with the world again.  Real world responsibility becomes a comedic afterthought to our provisional salt life.

Later that evening, with tired kids long in bed and promising hopes of long, restful days on the beach for the week ahead dancing in my naïve little head, I finally mellow out enough to drift off to the conscience-free world of placid coastal slumber…

However, at 4:00am, we were awoken to a noise.  A rather loud and obnoxious noise.  I reached over to turn off the alarm, but quickly realized that it wasn’t my clock.  It wasn’t the soothing early morning sounds of the Carolina surf and certainly wasn’t Marley’s “three little birds…singing sweet songs of melodies pure and true”.  It was DEFCON 5…it was the Armageddon…and it was in our condo.

I looked over at my stunned wife as I hastily jumped out of bed.  “Man the boats, we’re under attack!”

I ran into the hallway to try and assess what was happening.  With one eye open, four hours of sleep, and the residuals of the previous evening’s nightcap still swirling through my foggy capacities, I wandered through the darkness of the condo in an effort to seek out the location of the siren…and systematically destroy it by any means necessary.  Like clockwork, I was also met in the hallway by terrified children screaming at me to make it the siren stop.

Just to recap, there were deafening sirens, utter confusion, and screaming kids.  Complete sensory overload.  If I had a hammer, I would have pounded every inch of wall until I found the source of the siren in order to make it stop.  Better yet…I might have just simply knocked myself unconscious with it.  Really, it was a coin-flip at that moment.

Eventually, we found the culprit though.  It was the fire alarm for the entire building.  Someone on the street must have yanked it and there was no way to make it stop.  As I stood amongst the pandemonium, and with my head on a full 360 degree surveillance swivel, a realization suddenly dawned on me.  My inner-madman even giggled a bit.  This was nothing more than a single episode in a long line of Griswold moments that constantly seems to stalk our family outings. 

“Why don’t we just forget the itinerary and play it by ear, like normal people?”

“Honey, we’re not ‘normal people’.  We’re the Griswolds.”

Insult to injury, a building evacuation and two fire companies soon followed…

Honestly, I couldn’t think of a better way to start our vacation.  I’ll neatly gloss over the part where the kids were deathly afraid to fall asleep for the remainder of the week and how I more-or-less laid awake every night playing fire-watch commander readying for the alarms to sound again.  Amidst the mayhem that morning though, there was one awe-inspiring ray of splendor.  It may have only been through one semi-open, bloodshot eye, but at least I got to watch the sun rise with my family.  Or maybe that was the flashing lights of the fire engines reflecting off of the glass building across the street?  No, no.  I’ll go with the whole sunrise thing.  It sounds much more Norman Rockwell.

The weather that first day on the beach was perfect.  Hot and sunny with a three-foot surf.  I went without sunblock for the morning in order to get a better base for the week’s tanning.  Being out at our pool back home on a regular basis and kayaking our community lake, I figured that I already had a pretty decent base.  No way that I would burn in three hours playing with the kids.  The morning, however, was all that it took.

Even though I had applied and re-applied SPF 30 throughout the rest of that afternoon, I woke up the next day with a brutal sunburn.  I mean like pork rinds bad.  The heat energy coming off of my chest alone could have powered greater Long Island for a week.  Everyone was instructed to stay clear of me unless they wanted me to scream like a three year old girl…and dish out an unconsciously spontaneous round-house like Mike Tyson.

“It's [lu-da-criss] these mortals even attempt to enter my realm!”

Although in agony, I was determined not to let it ruin the rest of my week.  I wound up buying one of those UV protective “surf” shirts to help shield my chest for the next day’s beach outing.  I bought an XL, but it really would have fit my 9 year old son better.  It was skin-tight and bright white to the point where it literally hurt your eyes.  I looked a lot like a big eggroll.

As I threw the football with my son on the beach that morning, I began to have disturbing visuals of being that accidental photo bomb.  The middle-aged guy dressed like a Dim Sum delicacy in the background of some kid’s beach picture.  That one that shows up on somebody’s Facebook page, winds up going viral, and orchestrates the laughter of millions on the Jimmy Fallon Show.

After enduring about two hours of this self-administered ego abuse, I decided that the excruciating pain of having the sun hit my crispy, scorched flesh hurt much less than the humiliation of wearing white sausage casing as a shirt for the next couple of days.  It would SPF 1500 the remainder of the week, applied liberally every four and a half seconds.  Rotisserie-style.

Rounding out the week though, my sunburn did get a reprieve with a couple of rainy days.   Rainy days that came in the form of Tropical Storm Andrea.  By no mere coincidence, the weather forecast stated that the storm was scheduled to bulls-eye right over North Myrtle Beach by the end of the week.

Of course it was. 

This time, however, I did awake to the early morning sounds of the Carolina surf.  An angry surf that better resembled a speeding 6000 pound Cadillac driving into a brick wall.  Coupled with this auditory delight were the sustained sounds of 60 mph winds beating on the window screens all night long.  Every once in a while, you could also catch the distinct sounds of some building’s metal roof flashing rolling down the street.  Lying in bed, I’d raise the occasional eyebrow and give a respective nod of approval at the crashing aluminum as providing variety to the storm’s howling repertoire.

Oh yes, the distant, Reggae sounds of dear old Bob were merely an optimistic afterthought in my own little head by that point.

“Don’t worry (crash); ‘Bout a thing (crash); Cause every little thing (crash); Gonna be alright (crash).”

The final days of our relaxing vacation weren’t a total loss though.  Our two oldest children and I did manage to get a round of miniature golf in between the storm’s departing squalls.  The intermittent, sideways downpours didn’t really hurt any of our golf games all that much.  We did take some liberties on keeping score though.  Gone was the prospect of getting that celebratory “in-yo-face” hole in one.  With the majority of the course thoroughly underwater, we adopted the “horseshoes and hand grenades” decree and deemed it close enough if the ball merely floated over the hole.  It was all about getting them out of the condo at that point.

Although I may have lost a few battles that week, we managed to win the war.  We weren’t greeted by any more early morning fire alarms.  According to The Art of Griswold, that is victory personified.

“Fighting on arrival; Fighting for survival; Singing woy-yo-yo; Woy-yo-yo-yo.”

Heavy Irony

While trolling along on Facebook a few weeks ago, I came across a picture that hit pretty close to home.  I wound up “sharing” it to my Facebook page knowing that some of my closest friends and family would appreciate it not only for its personal irony, but also for the shameless truth to it as well. 

It was one of those “e-cards” that has the old-fashioned advertising images of yesteryear coupled with a snarky remark from the current millennium.  This one simply stated “Successful parenting is finding 80s hair band music on your kid’s iPod”. 

Funny, because it’s true.  Disturbingly so. 

As with many youngsters, the music that we started our son off with at an early age was the fun kiddie stuff.  You know, some lady with an acoustic guitar singing about Eddie Spaghetti, songs in their tummies, and other annoying material that toddlers would find amusing and catchy.  Songs that also often caused parents and grandparents alike to scramble madly for the exits…viciously pushing and shoving each other out of the way on their fanatical quest of auditory refuge and relief.

But really, who could blame them?  When it got to the point where I found myself waltzing into work humming the Wiggles instead of the Deftones, I decided it was time for a full-up genre upheaval.  Consider it an intervention of the boy’s musical tastes.  Better yet…let’s call it a parent/child bonding moment that doubled as a preservation of the sanctity of my rock music integrity.    

Over-amplified guitars instead of polka accordions.  Thundering twenty piece drum sets instead of Casio percussion samples.  Like I said…integrity.

Thinking back roughly eight years though, I do recall one particular collection of songs that we copied for him that I found both mildly amusing and wildly disturbing at the same time.  It was a collection of songs by a group of innocent-sounding kids.  Upon closer examination of the lyrics though, I found one kid crooning about his little brown jug filled with rum.  And no, he wasn’t a pirate.  Apparently, he was just a six year old lush.  Another equally charming ditty was about a kid that fell, broke his leg, and lost it to infection.  What kind of sick little scamps were these?  These songs were like lullabies for the Manson family…and we were playing them for our year-old son.

It wasn’t just the lyrics that I found disturbing for our impressionable young son though.  It was also the trippy, psychedelic beats that were sampled on top of it.  All-in-all, an entire collection that could more accurately be described as Mother Goose’s hallucinogenic bad trip, as documented by Lindsay Lohan after a two week bender.  Terrified by that prospect and the image emblazoned upon it, I made the executive decision to pull that particular selection from his rotation.  This, in an effort to steer the boy away from growing up a sadistically disturbed vagabond “living in a van down by the river”.  (Thank you, Chris Farley.)

Back to the topic at hand, I had started playing some of the cleaner versions of my music in the car for him over the last couple of years in order to navigate his tastes to more palatable type of music.  Nothing too intense.  Just catchy, note-worthy rock/alt-rock selections from the 1980s and 90s.  He immediately took interest in it and begged for more.  OK, check one off of the list.  The Demons of Lohan had been exorcised!

Not only had my son been converted though, but apparently these playlists had struck a chord with my youngest daughter as well.  One morning, she piped up from the backseat wondering if the song playing on the radio was “Back in Black”.  It wasn’t, but the sentiment was noted and much-appreciated.  The fact that we were on our way to church simply added to the comic relief.

My son and I continued along this path of intervention until this past Christmas.  That was when he had finally gotten an iPod as a gift.  Foaming at the mouth, the first thing that he wanted to do was to go through my CDs and digital files to grab whatever he could get his hands on.  I had to use caution though.  There is a reason why my digital music is kept under its own, separate “Mike’s R-Rated Music” folder. 

We eventually sat down for a couple of hours and picked through my entire catalogue of music.  I found that I had to sing several songs in my head prior to transferring them to his iPod.  I wanted to avoid corrupting his young mind with some of the storied “excesses” embedded within song lyrics of the 1980s LA rock scene.

“Dad.  What’s this song about?  ‘Lady Red Light’?”

“Wow, um…  It’s about a lady that didn’t follow traffic signals and ran stoplights.  Let’s look at a different band now!”

“Did she go to jail?”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure she did at some point…  Let’s move on, shall we?”

Typically, I relate a lot of these songs to particular events that were occurring in my life around the time that they were popular.  I’ll hear a sappy song and instantly start laughing out loud, simply because it reminds me of a funny situation from that time.  Inevitably, I found considerable humor in many of my son’s selections.  One in particular brought back some pretty vivid recollections of a vacation drive with my then-girlfriend/now-wife. 

We were driving to the Florida Keys to visit our families and take in a little sun.  I had decided to get in half a day’s work before we hit the road.  The plans were to leave early that afternoon and make the initial drive from northern Virginia to Daytona that evening.  Keep in mind, this leg alone was an 800 mile trek.  Once in Daytona, we were going to stay with one of her friend’s sisters for a couple of hours, before closing out that last leg to the Keys.

Young, invincible, and unbelievably stupid, I was positive that I could easily make that first initial stretch to Daytona…even though I had been up since 4:30 that morning for work.

We switched off driving every couple of hours and made pretty good time.  Eventually, midnight came and went in the state of Georgia and I wound up pulling the last shift on through to Daytona.  My future better half had eventually nodded off to sleep and the headlights on the road had started to blur together.  That’s when I realized that I had hit my invincibility wall.  It had gotten to the point where I was so incredibly tired, that I decided that we had to get to Daytona.  Right now!

This mental battle-cry eventually led me to barrel through the city of Jacksonville, Florida at very jail-able rates of speed.  Crossing over the St. Johns River bridge at roughly 2 am that morning, I’m fairly certain that I caught a yardstick-measureable amount of air in my Nissan Pathfinder. 

While airborne, and with delirium obviously setting in, the theme song from the 1970s TV show “The Dukes of Hazzard” began to stream through my head.  As amused as I had made myself though, Waylon Jennings’ rebellious anthem about “two good ol’ boys never meaning no harm” simply wasn’t going to cut it.  I needed something to raise my heart-rate and blood pressure.  Right now!

I flipped through my folder of CDs, put in a progressive metal band, Dream Theater, and cranked the knob.  My startled wife-to-be suddenly awoke to the pounding drums and blistering guitars of the album’s opening track.  In a disoriented panic, she quickly looked at the stereo, then at the buried needle of my Pathfinder’s speedometer, and finally at the bloodshot eyes and possessed smile of the crazed madman behind the wheel.

And yet, she still married me.

Who would have thought that the same song that helped keep me awake in the wee hours of a Florida morning and scare the bajeezus out of my wife would one day be a staple on our 9 year old son’s iPod?

By the way, we made it to Daytona in one piece.  By the time we got to our destination, I looked a lot like had gone a couple rounds with Mike Tyson.  Power-slapping yourself in the face in order to stay awake has tendency to do that.  As demented as it may sound though, I’ll take self-inflicted physical abuse over jail time as a clear measurement of success any day of the week. 

Speaking of success, my son has gotten to the point now where he is actually downloading some of the classics that I don’t even have.  He’s recently fallen in love with Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper”.  I’m thrilled to see him taking sole ownership of the essentials that he hears on the radio and not merely what dear old dad picks out for him.  Unfortunately though, he still fails to see the humor of his bald father standing in his doorway and air-picking that song’s iconic opening guitar riff on my imaginary “flying V” guitar.

He can shake his head at me all he wants, but the joke is on him.  That’s because in my head, I can still actually hear the stadium’s thundering applause and chants for an encore.  Oh, and I have hair.  Lots and lots of hair.

“Thank you, Virginiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!  Until next time, keep on rocking…and goodnight!”