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!”

Caveat Emptor

For Christmas this past year, my youngest daughter received a kid’s easel as a gift.  It was the perfect gift that allowed her to do two of her most favorite things in the world, draw and paint.  When she unwrapped it though, she made a face and seemed as though she didn’t like it.  Thinking that she didn’t quite understand what it was, I tried to open the box to show her.  These attempts were met with an ear-piercing and animated resistance.

Personally, I figured that she would be thrilled by something like this.  If anything, it would keep the gang-inspired Crayola graffiti off of our kitchen table…  Strangely though, she wanted absolutely no part of it. 

Throughout the remainder of the morning, we noticed that she kept looking over her shoulder every so often in order to check on the status of the box.  Once content with its position, she went back to her other presents.  We even noticed that when she left the room, she walked well clear of the box, watching it carefully as she passed.  I was baffled.

Several hours had passed before my wife was finally able end the mystery and decipher the issue.  On the box was a picture of the easel…and a little girl playing with it.  Yes.  Apparently, she thought that the little girl was in the box as well. 

After a couple minutes, it made complete sense.  Once I understood where her apprehension rested, the kid on the box really started to creep me out as well.  It was those eyes.  Like the paintings in all of those Scooby-Doo episodes, the eyes observed you and followed you around the room.

I had to wait until she went down for a nap that afternoon before I was finally able to open it and put it together for her.  I’ll stand by my story that I used the knife simply to open the box.  However, there may have been a slight personal protection element to it as well.  Just in case something decided to pop out of the box when I opened it.

“Red rum!  Red rum!”

Upon waking up from her nap, the box had been physically exorcised and the easel was set up for her use.  This time, she happily embraced her new art center.  Happiness probably solely based on the fact that she didn’t have to share it with the disturbing “Chuckie” kid from the front of the box.  The box, now safely and discreetly disposed of in a black lawn-and-leaf bag, was left at the curb.  A sprinkling of holy water and ten “Hail Marys” added as safeguard.

“This house…is clean.”

Although we all got a good laugh out of the episode that morning, it was these types of advertising miscalculations by kids in-general that got me thinking.  How a box containing the picture of a sweet little girl playing with an easel turned into an Amityville Jack-in-the-Box in the mind of a three year old. 

On the opposite side of the spectrum, there was a commercial on TV the very next day for some new product that the kids were all clamoring for.  The advertisement was for a personal ice cream maker, coincidentally shaped like…you guessed it…an ice cream cone.  As the commercial built up to the inevitable climax, the announcer spun his tangled web of treachery and deceit. 

“Just pour in the ingredients and shake for three minutes.  Instant ice cream!”

Judging from the appealing visual of picture-perfect ice cream at the end of this process, you would have thought that Ben and Jerry themselves were somehow crammed into that thing.  A more appealing thought than the satanic easel kid being jammed into a box?  Eh…not so much.  However, I could already see the sugar plums dancing in their heads.  The wheels were spinning. 

“The ability for them to make ice cream for themselves, by themselves, whenever they wanted?”  Of course they were going to go bat guano for it! 

Unfortunately for my children, their dad is a battle-worn skeptic when it comes to these advertisements.  I have personally been fooled more than one to three dozen times.  From experience, I tried to explain that the product most likely didn’t work that well.  Further, I explained that advertiser’s often used mashed potatoes instead of real ice cream in their commercials because it can be molded into more appealing “shapes” and it doesn’t melt while shooting.  They didn’t want to hear any of it. 

“The commercial said that you can make your own ice cream.  Not mash potatoes, dad.  Ice cream.”  They certainly wouldn’t “lie” about such things on TV!

We’ve all been on the receiving end of those inevitable disappointments though.  Ordering that product that you expected to be extraordinary.  Amazing.  Over the top.  Only to be scammed.  Shafted.  Hoodwinked.

One childhood instance that immediately came to mind was those memories of the “Scrubbing Bubbles” bathroom cleaner advertisements of the late 1970s.  The claymation scrubbing bubbles in the commercial emerging from the can and into the bathtub revving their deafening high-performance engines.  They would then proceed to tear around the bathtub like a chase sequence from “The Dukes of Hazzard” until it shined like freshly waxed porcelain.

Suddenly, in jaw-dropping awe of this commercial, a question occurred to me.  Why had I been excluded from this exhilarating, chaotic madness for the whole five years that I had staggered around this meaningless planet?  My mom must have been hogging all of the tub cleaning fun for herself!  If cleaning the bathtub was that awesome, I wanted in…and I wanted in now.

But alas, standing over the bathtub several days later, I saw no animated scrubbing bubbles.  No thundering sounds of high octane V-8 engines.  No chase sequences.  Just foam.  Stupid, stagnant foam sitting there and doing absolutely nothing.  I also remember the horror as I watched my mom reach down into the tub with the sponge.  Wait…not only do the scrubbing bubbles obviously suck at doing any cleaning, but those scrubbing bubbles don’t actually scrub anything?  At all?  Apparently, the only bubble that would be doing any scrubbing that afternoon was the big empty one between my ears.  Swindled!

Although I still remain vastly disenchanted with our current selection of underachieving cleaning supplies to this day, perhaps the biggest scam job of my childhood was the infamous novelty known as the Sea Monkeys.  Those wily and playful creatures from my comic book advertisements.  I remember those cheerful characters being portrayed as happily swimming around a sea castle, lounging with pals, or simply just enjoying one of their swanky Sea Monkey disco parties.  How awesome were these aquatic little freeloaders?  I could sit and watch their busy little lives for hours!

For what seemed like an eternity, I begged and pleaded my parents to order these playful little critters for me.  Finally defeated by my daily incessant barrage, they reluctantly caved.  Within the suggested six to eight weeks shipping and handling time, they finally arrived.  I filled the container with water and added the eggs.  Impatient by nature, the anticipation of their arrival was really more than I could bear.  I don’t think that I slept for days.  Finally, they hatched…and mass confusion immediately set in.

They didn’t smile.  They didn’t lounge around with their buddies.  They didn’t even throw upscale cocktail parties.  They swam…and then they died.  Hmm, I don’t remember that in the ad.  Worse yet, these Sea Monkeys weren’t even fun-loving monkeys from the sea at all.  They were nothing more than brine shrimp.  Fish food.  I basically purchased chum and waited two months for it to be delivered.  Bamboozled!

I could go on for hours.  My comic books were filled with them.  The build-it-yourself hovercraft plans.  The Spiderman webslinger that you attached to your wrist and shot “webs” at your enemies.  Those X-ray glasses.  The pocket binoculars that enabled you to see 20 miles away.  Instructionals to hypnotize your friends. 

However, I’d be remiss to leave out a personal favorite of mine though.  Yes…  ”The insult that made a man out of ‘Mac’”.  Achieving that “Atlas body” (and revenge) in just 7 days, after getting sand kicked in your face by the bully at the beach.

And my wife wonders why I’m such a hardened cynic…

Much to my kids’ dismay, we never did order those personal ice cream makers.  Deep down, they probably figured that it was easier to let it go than to endure another one of their father’s wildly disconnected rants.  For my youngest, however, it was more likely that she just didn’t want any more boxes delivered to the house with demonic children inside. 

“They’re here!”

Exorcisms sold separately.

The More Things Change...

Coming back from a family vacation a few weeks back, our route home took us past my alma mater.  Although I have tried on many occasions to make it back with my family for one of the alumni weekends over the years, the opportunities always seemed to be trumped by one of our kid’s numerous weekend activities.  In fact, I hadn’t been back since 1995, a year after my graduation.  So, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to make a quick stop to see just how much both the town and school had progressed over the last 18 years.

Although it would be a quick review of my old stomping grounds, I felt that this could also serve as a beneficial and inspirational teaching opportunity for our children.  A symbolic visualization on the importance of hard work and education. 

Over the years, they have continually listened to me preach about my years in college.  The focus, determination, and hard work that it took to not only get to college, but also to graduate.  Now they would actually be able to put images to all of those stories and life lessons.  They could now physically see my old dorm, the library, the bookstore…maybe even soak in a little of that everyday college environment.

As we drove around the campus, I pointed out all of the places of interest.  New and updated buildings and restaurants and the remnants of those no longer around.  The sports arena and various surrounding landmarks.  Yes, fond memories of the cultural atmosphere of my day.  Eventually, we stopped for a few pictures of our kids next to the university sign.  After the requisite family photo ops, I found my son continually snapping his own pictures as he spun wildly around in 360s...all while taking in the beauty of the campus.  Inside, I was beaming.  Both he and our oldest daughter seemed genuinely in awe of their surroundings.  I was subtly demanding that this impression be engrained in their psyches as something that they would aspire to.

Unfortunately though, I also subtly demanded that everyone get back to the car as quickly as possible, as I was illegally parked without that Get-Out-of-Jail parking sticker hanging from my mirror.  Thinking back over my years there, I disdainfully remember the school’s parking enforcement to be a lot like a pack of circling hyenas.  I would run into the post office for 30 seconds and return to a ticket on my windshield.  They were frighteningly swift and efficient.  Relentless carnivores.

Relieved by the lack of decoration under my windshield wiper this time, we piled back into the car once more to explore the campus further.  I thought that maybe, if there was an open parking spot, we could stop and walk into the bookstore.  Maybe pick some shirts for the kids.

As I made the right turn into the bookstore lot, however, blue lights suddenly appeared in my rearview mirror. 

Seriously?  Literally back for fifteen minutes and already getting harassed by campus police again.  Guess some things really haven’t changed that much over those 18 years.

I have to admit that I couldn’t have made a better target.  A minivan slowly cruising the old ‘hood with the family-tested and approved stick figure decals on the back.    Coupled with luggage and toys piled to the ceiling?  I probably would have been less conspicuous if I were driving mommy and daddy’s BMW with a big Bob Marley fathead covering the back window.

In my head, I went over exactly what I may have done to prompt this guy to pull me over.  I stopped at all of the stop signs, drove well under the speed limit in order to give my kids a chance to look around.  Drawing a blank, I started to have a hard time in suppressing my aggravation.  As the cop approached the car though, I smiled with some amusement.  He looked about as old as my college diploma.  I’m pretty sure that I had more hair on my bald, time-eroded head than he had on his wee-tender face.

With my sudden amusement taming my simmering irritation, I started to plan out my story.  I was finally visiting the campus after all of these years to show my three impressionable young children where their dad went to school, importance of higher education, proud alum, blah, blah, blah.  The whole wide-eyed, idealistic dog-and-pony show.

After the usual “howdy, beautiful day” pleasantries, Officer Doogie Hauser immediately cut to the chase and was nice enough to point out the expired car inspection sticker on my windshield.  A full two and a half months expired.  My mind raced to conjure up a secondary, fall-back rebuttal, but came up empty.  The only thing that tumbled from my idiot lips was a resounding and earth-shattering “wow…it sure is”.

Truthfully, I’d only been looking through that windshield for a better part of the weekend.  Why would I bother to notice that bright yellow sticker directly in front of me?  Personally, I chalk it up to living in a predominantly rural county for the last eight years.  My highly evolved powers of perception have been specifically trained to spot and avoid deer darting across the road, not minding that screaming yellow sticker directly under my oblivious nose.

But alas, I was guilty as charged.  After he took my license and registration, the back of the car erupted with nervous chatter.  My daughter wanted to know if I was in trouble.  My son demanded to know what I did to make the police stop me.  My dear wife, obviously choosing a worthy selection from my extensive bibliography of unabashed sarcasm, informed the kids that I would probably only go to jail for five years.

Drowning out the panicked commotion coming from the back of the van though, her sentiment honestly made me stop and think.  Surely I couldn’t have any unpaid parking tickets from 20 years ago, right?  I looked around, but saw no circling hyenas.  It was my inner Buddha that suddenly spoke up and reassured me.

“No, you don’t have any unpaid parking tickets…and don’t call me Shirley.”

While my license and registration were being run, my wife must have read my mind and asked, with amusement, whether or not this was my first encounter with the local law enforcement.  Although it took me a couple minutes to file through my outstanding parking ticket situation, it didn’t take me long to sift through a couple of those foggy memories.

There was that time with the open container in my jacket.  While not amusing then, it certainly was amusing now.  There were also those occasional post-“last call” townie-mountie shake downs while walking back to campus from a favored establishment.  More often than not, however, it was the direct result of playing in a college rock band that ultimately seemed to embrace more Richter Scale amplification levels than actual musical substance.

In every instance though, and for cosmic reasons that I still do not fully understand, I was always let off of the hook.  A simple warning with a promise to never do “something” again.  Perhaps it was my obvious personal charm or powers of persuasion.  Or perhaps it’s my symphonic eloquence with the spoken word…

“You’re too loud.” 

“Wow, we sure are.”

Regardless, this time would be no exception.  Doogie let us off with a warning and a promise to get the car inspected immediately upon returning home.  I thanked him and agreed to do so wholeheartedly.  Meanwhile, the kids seemed relieved that I wasn’t going to do a five year bid in San Quentin.

“They” say cats have nine lives.  If that’s the case, I think that I would probably be the scary hairless kind that likely just used up his last one on this campus.  So, with that in mind, it was time to quickly get out of that town yet again.  Quickly, yet well under the respective speed limit…

Reflecting back, I’m not entirely sure just how deep those impressions of educational determination and hard work were entrenched in our kids’ minds that afternoon.  However, I do believe that they will always remember the campus police and the importance of renewing your car’s inspection sticker.

The Color of Consequence

There are a few distinct differences in life that one should be fully aware.  The difference between hot and cold.  The difference between on and off.  Obvious differences.  You learn early on by scalding yourself or pulverizing your toes upon walking into a dark room.  Then there are the differences between raising boys and girls.  These differences are discovered entirely by trial-and-error and are completely independent experiences of one-another.  For me as a father, it’s a comedy of errors that leads to a lot of hand-to-forehead welts and extended reflections of basic psychology. 

Our son was our first born.  He possesses that happy-go-lucky attitude and is always looking for a new thrill.  For the most part, things just seem to roll off of his back.  One minute, he’s enduring a red-faced tirade from yours truly.  The next, all is forgotten and he’s back to his adventure-seeking agenda at hand.  He has his moments, but even the major issues are eventually pushed aside in most cases.

Case in point, the knife debacle.

Back in the Fall, he discovered a “knife” that he wanted to buy for himself at Busch Gardens.  My wife had some uneasiness with the idea, but I simply smiled and agreed to take a look at it.  I figured that it was going to be some cheap souvenir.  A blunt piece of tin with a handle, or something as equally benign.  Something like the dull “butterfly” knives that I used to buy and play with as a kid.  This was an amusement park after all.  They wouldn’t sell anything inherently dangerous.  Walking into the shop, however, what I found was a 12-inch dagger.  A razor-sharp, double-edged dagger.

A quote from the 1980s movie Crocodile Dundee instantly popped into my subconscious.  “That’s not a knife.  THAT’S a knife.”  And yes, my subconscious does have an Australian accent.

To say that he was destroyed by my unsettled laugh and the words “absolutely not” would be an understatement.  As the reflection of his red, teary eyes bounced off of the polished steel blade, I concluded that this was not a souvenir.  This was a weapon.  My paternal instincts wanted to believe that he was mature enough not to be stupid with such a dangerous object.  That he would have enough respect of its potential to not swing it around like a possessed samurai.  However, there was just no shaking the mental images of him accidentally shanking himself, as William Wallace charged the Scottish hills of Falkirk with his trusty sword in hand.

“FREEDOM!”

Still, the boy inside me understood his fascination and the devastation that had followed my only responsible reply.  Deep down, I felt horrible for providing him with that encouraging smile and enchanting, stainless steel glimmer of false hope.  So, a compromise was struck…or maybe it was more guilt-ridden cop-out.  Regardless…  A pocket knife.  The traditional rite of passage and symbolic gesture of maturity between a father and his son.  A young man’s tool of the trade throughout the richest histories of Americana.  Not a 12-inch dagger, the convicted felon’s tool of the trade throughout the violent throes of a maximum-security prison riot.

There was a lengthy man-to-man discussion on maturity, responsibility, and rules of use before presentation of said hallowed blade.  It was made crystal clear that any indiscretions of my ground rules would warrant immediate seizure until his next birthday.  The next symbolic stage of his supposed maturation. 

The very next morning, however, I found him happily swinging his open knife around his room with his sisters playing nearby. 

Well, that didn’t take long…

Although I expected a severe backlash, and much to my surprise, he hasn’t said a word about it since it was taken away.  As is seemingly customary with the boy, it simply rolled right off of his back.  So, in summary, good call on the dagger, bad call on the pocketknife.  I guess we’ll try again in another six months for that nostalgic “Father-Son” Norman Rockwell illustration…

Although our son can manage to shake these types of things off, our oldest daughter is considerably more sensitive.  Although just as happy in her day-to-day, her father’s amplified diatribes and fanatical hand-waving seem to cut a little deeper with her.  I typically realize this about ten seconds too late.  Well after my antics of lunacy have been set in motion.  Well after her waterworks and the dramatic “flopping to the floor” have fully commenced. 

While I’m painfully aware that I need to speed up my situational assessment of her feelings and tourniquet my blood let of unabashed sarcasm that seems to flow ever so freely, I just haven’t properly honed my sense of timing and awareness yet.

Of course, finding that happy medium can also prove difficult as well, as this sensitivity is not strictly limited to my role as paternal judge, jury, and executioner.  Words of advice or encouragement must also be navigated with carefully chosen words in order to avoid being mistaken for a lecture. 

And finally, there are those moments in everyday life that make you laugh at something that your kids do or say.  Those unintended instances of comedy that also serve as grounds for embarrassment.  Those moments that we, as parents, truly live for.  They do, however, come with a price.

Case in point, the flute debacle.

Although we’re still unsure of the premise behind the desire, my daughter recently asked for a flute for Christmas.  Now, I haven’t been playing any Jethro Tull songs around the house and I certainly don’t recall seeing any Zamfir – Master of the Pan Flute commercials in the last twenty years or so.  But OK, Santa brought a flute. 

Unfortunately though, it didn’t take her long to get frustrated by not being able to pick it up and play songs at will.  Although I have the ability to play a few instruments with some semblance of musical ability, I certainly couldn’t help her with a flute.  I am not a Master of the Plastic Starter Flute.

In expressing her frustrations to my parents, wife, and I in the kitchen one morning, we decided to offer her a bit of carefully-worded advice.  A suggestion for her to ask her music teacher at school for a quick lesson and some practice pointers.  My mom continued on, “I would say to him ‘I got a flute for Christmas and I want to learn how to play it’.”

Obviously digesting only the latter half of this guidance, her eyes suddenly lit up.  “You got a flute for Christmas too?”

What we really need is a drummer in the family, because we could have used a rim-shot right about then.

Although we all knew the end result, it was impossible to hold it back.  The room erupted with laughter.  I nearly fell out of my chair.  However, that amazing look of curiosity that had happily lit up our daughter’s face had suddenly changed to the deep red hue of embarrassment.  Her eyes narrowed and lips pursed as the storm clouds gathered.  Take cover.

Although we attempted to soften the mood and explain further, things deteriorated quickly.  She furiously stomped out of the room.  It was decided best to proceed cautiously, only after the floodwaters of humiliation had receded.  Wisely, I started to make the joke about the eggshells from our breakfast casserole not being the only eggshells in the kitchen that morning, but thought better of it.  Why pour napalm on that fire?  In my defense though, it was one of the few times that I have been successful in muffling my cynical impulses.

Hey!  Maybe my situational awareness was improving after all!

Eventually, things returned to normal and, on occasion, I still hear her persistent attempts of flute mastery…followed by the frustrated grunt or seven.  However, I haven’t spoken of the flute since that day.  Honestly, I’m still kind of afraid to make eye contact with it.

While it appears as though my personality management skills more closely resemble the successful navigation of a certain early 20^th century passenger ship in the north Atlantic, I have learned a few things.  First, Busch Gardens is an arms dealer.  Someone needs to check their connections to the Mexican drug cartels.  Second, Santa would be wise to throw in some complimentary lessons for those musical instruments that dad can’t play.  Lastly, and most important… never, ever let them see you smile or laugh at their expense.  In fact, do like I do.  Cover your face with your hands and run in the opposite direction like a drunken zombie.   

Short of that last pointer, you’re simply left playing roulette with your kids’ personalities.  To be on the safe side though, I’m betting the house on “red” from here-on-out.  Solely because that’s the consequential shade of embarrassment and teary-eyed disappointment.

From Europe...With Love

With corporate budgets steadily decreasing over the past several years, business travel seems to have become more of a personal opportunity, in some senses, than an actual business requirement.  So, when the opportunity arose for me to travel to Europe on business, I seized it.  It was a quick trip to three different countries, but I was positive that I could hack the brutal toll of the compressed travel schedule.  I was to fly to the UK, then on to the Netherlands, Germany, and finally home over the course of six days. 

Like I said, “compressed”.

Having never travelled internationally before, let alone overseas by myself, I was a bit skeptical at first.  In speaking with my co-workers abroad though, I was assured that everything would be taken care of prior to my arrival.  I would have a driver meet me at the airport and an early check-in at my hotel immediately upon arrival.  Theoretically, the first leg of my trip to the UK would be as easy as Shepherd’s pie.

I will admit that deep down, getting off of the plane at 6 am that morning, I felt a sense of empowerment.  Yes, I would finally get to be one of “those guys”.  One of those executive-types that gets off of the plane and has their own personal driver standing by, holding a sign with their name on it.  I imagined strolling through Border Security and having a sharply dressed driver greet me, take my bags, and carelessly whisk me off to my hotel just outside of London. 

But alas, there would be no driver waiting there for me as I walked through “Arrivals”.  My thunder consequently stolen, I sulked in a corner and waited patiently for my ride to arrive.  After nearly 45 minutes of waiting not-so-patiently, as well as several aggravated phone calls placed to our local office which had not yet opened at that hour, I made the executive decision to hail a black cab.

Greeted by what locals described as “traditional British weather”, I stood in the cold rain for another 45 minutes trying to find a cab that would actually take me out to my hotel.  Problem was, however, that my hotel was on the other side of London.  From what I was made to understand, in no uncertain terms, was that the fare was “a solid hour one-way in the morning rush” and that “no one in their right mind would take me all the way out there”.  One cabbie even suggested that I take a cab downtown and try and catch another from there in order to get to where I needed to be. 

This begged a few questions.  First, what stop would I request in downtown London?  Not being that internationally-renowned world traveler, my basic knowledge of the greater London metropolitan area was essentially confined to punch lines that I had memorized from National Lampoon’s “European Vacation”.

“Look kids.  Big Ben, Parliament.”

Second, with exhaustion kicking down my front door, I couldn’t really envision any enticing motivations for standing on some random street corner in the rain, with all of my luggage in tow, and trying to hail yet another cab. 

After some begging, pleading, and the promise of a fat tip, I finally convinced someone not obviously in their right frame of mind to cart my tired American carcass all the way to my hotel.  So much for that “whisking me off to my hotel” garbage… 

Yes indeed, this trip was off to a glorious start!  However, relieved to have that fiasco behind me, I remained positive that things couldn’t possibly get any worse.  Right?

As my cab swerved vicariously through the narrow streets London at break-neck speeds, I tirelessly fired off a barrage of pointed emails to my European counterparts on my Blackberry.  I had been awake close to 24 hours at that point and was thoroughly spent, but my mind was sharp with the fury and frustration of mismanaged priorities. 

Finally, after a truly hour-long ride, we arrived at my hotel.  Taking a second from my email carpet-bombing campaign, I paid the cabbie a king’s ransom and started towards my hotel for some much needed rest.  Stumbling groggily towards the lobby, I reached for my Blackberry one last time to check for any apologetic responses from our local office.  My Blackberry, the only device in my possession that had any kind of international service back to the US, was not there. 

In a moment of sheer terror, my mind swirled back to life.  Bloody hell!  I must have left it sitting next to me on the seat after I had paid the fare!

I ran back out to the road to where the cab had dropped me off, but it too was gone.  Vanished back into the murky fog of that traditionally British Tuesday morning.  And with it, my Blackberry.  My only connection to home.  Gone.  Cheerio, old boy!

I had been overseas for a mere three hours and my trip had already gone the way of the Titanic.  And yet the band played on…

As the panic, frustration, and exhaustion trifecta came to a bubbling head, I subsequently snapped.  It was later reported via the BBC that the British Geological Survey detected a large tremor somewhere near Kingston upon Thames.  That tremor was my head exploding.  I won’t go into detail about the snarling grunts and growls that I performed into the echoing nothingness of the fog that morning, but it could have easily been mistaken for a remake of John Landis’ “An American Werewolf in London”.

After desperately imploring the hotel concierge to assist this stupid American in his futile search for his Blackberry, I was essentially told that airport black cabs were virtually untraceable.  Hundreds of cab companies make up the airport’s black cab network.  In short, it was forever lost in the Heathrow Matrix.  

“I didn’t say it would be easy, Neo.  I just said that it would be the truth.”

After several incoherent, and rather expensive, phone calls were placed from my hotel room in an attempt to explain my misfortune, I managed to lie down in order to attempt some semblance of sleep.  I was about an hour into my tortured slumber when I was on the receiving end of one final insult-to-injury moment.  The fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building. 

Luckily, it was only a drill and the hotel staff light-heartedly apologized.  However, it was at that point that I found myself fresh out of emotion and understanding for the day.  Standing stone-faced and speechless in the rain-soaked parking lot, I imagined that I would have made an excellent sentry for the Queen’s Palace Guard. 

The gods finally took pity on me though, and things eventually made a turn for the better.  Again, if it wasn’t for “dumb luck”, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.  The cabbie happened to spot my phone several hours later, remembered me, and was nice enough to return it to me at my hotel.  After handing over yet another king’s ransom as reward for his timely discovery, I was re-connected with the world.  Though working on only one hour of sleep and several Honey Dew ales by that point, I was back in business.

In all honesty though, the rest of the trip went brilliantly.  I remained unscathed through the Netherlands and had only a few “stupid American” moments in Germany.  Fortunately, they were nowhere near the epic calamities that I had experienced in the UK though. 

There was that one episode, when I realized three quarters of the way through my lunch that all Germans eat their pizza with forks and knives instead of with their filthy, savage hands.  There was also that continuous humiliation of being ridiculed everywhere that I went for having the surname Kraft and not speaking a word of German.  At least no words that I could repeat in public…and certainly not to any German Border Security officers.

Although the beginning of this trip strangely resembled the start of the Mayan apocalypse, this stupid American wound up thoroughly enjoying the sights and cultures of Europe, even if it was only for six days.  I’m left wondering the over/under odds on the number of international incidents that I could achieve on a return trip.  Next time though, I’m bringing my own bloody driver.

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.