My Daughter and Superman

My wife and daughter and I were hanging out in the living room recently, reading.  Saucy had the latest New Yorker in front of her.  The Mini-Pirate was reading Harry Potter.  I was reading the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, the magazine I go to in our household when I have a thirst for high quality, culturally affecting journalism.  It's basically my Scientific American.  On the cover was a picture of the young upstart actor who's apparently going to play Superman in the next reboot of recent reboot of the franchise.  Some pretty boy I've never heard of.

Superman?  I don't see it.  I'm not judging.

I was halfway through a fascinating article about how Snookie is now dating Liam Neeson, and together they're planning to go feed orphans in Africa this summer with Bono.

My wife noticed the cover of my magazine and said to our daughter, "Hey, look--that's the guy who's going to be Superman in the next movie they make."

"Let me see," said the Mini-Pirate.  I tilted the magazine up for her to see, while still reading about how Snookie, Neeson and Bono are tired of the paparazzi following them around the globe while they're engaging in their philanthropic efforts.

Mini-P gazed upon the picture of the actor on the magazine cover, appraising him for a moment, and then said, "Whoa, he's hot."

And then my head exploded.

Too soon too soon too soon too soon too soon.

I get that kids have childhood crushes.  Believe you me.  Loyal readers might remember the first time Mini-P tried to give me an immediate embolism the first time she informed that she was getting married.  The embolism was avoided, though, when she explained that her intended groom was Aquaman.  I sighed with relief, since that wasn't so much her first engagement as her first crush on a gay guy.  (You know it's true -- embrace yourself, A-Man.)

Her second crush was more intense.  Perhaps you recall?  The time she and I were watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Mini-P screamed in lovesick delight when she realized she was in love with (young) Harrison Ford?  That infatuation lingered for a while.  It's actually still going on.  We're still not allowed to say "Han Solo" around her, because she says it makes her fall in love with him all over again.  (Although sometimes we still tease her by sneaking up behind and whispering, "That's no moon.  That's a space station.")

And of course that crush, albeit way more intense was still pretty cute.  And easy to nip, if necessary -- I'll just show her a recent photo of Indy, circa that horrible, franchise-murdering Crystal Skulls movie.  That oughta put the ol' kibosh on.

This little moment in the living room, however, was different.  First of all, the kid has never called someone "hot" before.  Nary a Jonas brother has provoked that from her.  She has proven so far to be immune to Bieber Fever.  And second all, she never did so while lounging in a chair, one leg dangling over the chair arm, looking for all intents and purposes like a bored, lackadaisical...

...teenager.

See, she wasn't supposed to respond to the new Superman by casually assessing him and calling him "hot."  She was supposed to light up and say, WOW!  There's gonna be another Superman movie?  That's awesome!  Daddy we have to go see it!  I wonder who'll be the bad guy maybe Lex Luthor or General Zod maybe he'll go to the Phantom Zone and maybe there will be Kryptonite I totally want be Supergirl for Halloween next year if I had a dog I'd name him Krypto the Superdog like what I read in my Superman book is there a real city named Metropolis cuz I wanna go there and hey lets play a game where I'm Supergirl and Daddy you can be Superman and Mommy is Lois Lane and blabbity blabbity bloopy blop bleep yaddah yaddah........

Because she's nine.

No one told me "nine" is actually "thirteen."

Seriously, you guys.  Someone should've told me.

The Homework Enforcer

Mini-Pirate and my SaucyWench wife are sitting upstairs in the kid's room, when I get home from my Sunday morning run.  I poke my head in, and see that they're hanging out, doing something creative with little squares of fabric -- something related to Barbie fashion.  I enter the room and and plop down beside them.  It's nice watching them enjoy a little morning leisure time because in a little while, as Saucy and I have previously agreed, Mini-P is going to have to stop playing, go downstairs, sit at the dining room table, and do some actual homework.

She has a Social Studies project to finish, a project about our town's oldest Spanish mission.  All 4th graders in our public school district have to do it.  The project requires the kids, at their various schools, to choose one of California's missions and two do things:  first, they must create a visual replica of it (model made of sugar cubes, photos on posterboard, shoebox diorama, etc.).  That's the fun part.  But the second part of the project requires them to... wait for it...

Write a 2 page report.

I know.  Gasp.  Cry.  Whimper.  Wilt.

My wife has already helped Mini-P do a ton of the work for this, particularly with the report part.  I feel a little bad about that since I am, by trade, a bona fide Writing Teacher.  Complete with a special I.D. badge.  And a decoder ring.  And a cool cape that I wear for when I want to jump across rooftops at night fighting grammar crime.  That makes me a Resource for this sort of thing, no?  Helping with the report part of the project should  be my responsibility.

Saucy and I talked about it earlier this morning and agreed: since the kid has completed an outline of what to say in her report, I can now step in and be the Enforcer gently encourage her to take the steps necessary to cross the finish line by actually writing out the report itself, one painstaking paragraph at a time.

So.  The three of us are sitting there in Mini-P's room, me watching as the girls pin pieces of cloth to a tiny Barbie mannequin.  They're having such a nice time, playing on a square of sunlit carpet together.  I really hate to bring it all crashing down.  But Saucy and I agreed that when I got back from my run, that would be the time to transition into homework mode.  So sad, really.

Oh well.  Screw that.  It's work time.  And I shall make it happen.  For I am The Enforcer.

*

Me:  Hey, kiddo?  In a little when you and Mommy are done, you and I will sit down and get that mission report going, ok?

Mini-P:  (not even bothering to look up from her fabric pieces)  Awww.

Let me stop right here and say that I know that Awww.  I've heard it many times, and not just from her. I hear it from my college students every time I assign a writing task.  Every.  Time.  They're legal adults.  And they still say Awww.  It's like, they're surprised when I assign an actual WRITING assignment in our WRITING class, every time.

I actually spend a lot of time imagining what my daughter will be like as a college student.  Will she be like the people I teach everyday?  Will she be a princess with a bedazzled cell phone that she'll refuse to put away when class starts?  Will she sleep her way through classes and then look irritated when the teacher busts her for it?  Will she email her teacher the night before a big project is due to ask if it's required that she use "paragraph form" in her research paper?  Will she walk into her writing professor's office, having missed an important deadline, and burst into tears in front of him, saying that she's really sorry about not having her paper done on time but, you see, pledging a sorority is just soooooo stressful and time-consuming that she just couldn't concentrate, and couldn't he give her some kind of extra credit to make up for everything?   Please oh please oh please, Professor?


I'll do whatever it takes to keep her from becoming any of those students.  Whatever.  It.  Takes.  And the best way I can think of is to teach responsible habits now through consistent brainwashing.  And that means being firm when it's time to put away the fabric squares and writing Social Studies report.  Trust me, I know how to handle procrastinators.

Me:  Hey, now.  There's no reason to go Awwww.  It'll be easy.  You've already done a ton of the work already, right?  You did your research, you brainstormed what you wanted to say, and you and Mommy even made an outline

Mini-P (looking up from her fabric, brow furrowed): I know, but....

Me:  We don't have to do it right now.  I said in a little while.  We just can't put it off until the last minute.

Mini-P:  I know, that's not what I was--

Me:  Because putting things off until the last minute is called what?

Mini-P (deadpan):  "Procrastinating."

Me:  Right.  Procrastinating.  And who are the people always drive Daddy crazy when they procrastinate after I ask them to do things?

Mini-P:  "College Students."

Me:  And what are college students, again?

Mini-P:  "A plague upon our land."

Me:  Exactly.  So no procrastinating today, ok?  You don't want to be like my students.

(Saucy is lying low, humming gently to herself, working on a fetching barbie ball gown in plaid.  She's enjoying this.)

Mini-P:  I wasn't going to procrastinate.  That's not what's wrong.

Me:  So what's wrong?

Mini-P:  Why can't Mommy help me with the writing part instead of you?

Me:  You don't want my help?  I'm a bonafide Writing Teacher, you know.  You have an actually Someone Who Knows Stuff About Writing Essays right here in your very own house.

Mini-P:  I know.

Me:  I know things about writing reports.  Important things.  Secret things that Mommy doesn't know.

Saucy tries her best not to snort.

Mini-P:  I know, already.

Me:  So what's the problem?

Mini-P:  I know you're a writing teacher.  But Mommy's smart.

Ouch.


Me:  Well, that's true.  Mommy is very smart.

Mini-P: And also she's not mean during homework time.

Yikes.

Me:  Hey.  I'm not mean... I'm just focused on you getting it done correctly.

Mini-P: It's probably because you're a teacher.  Sometimes teachers have to be mean.

Yes.  That is true.  Sometimes, teacher have to be mean.

Mini-P:  It's ok, Daddy.  We're almost done here.  I'll let you know when I'm ready to get started on the report.

Me:  I... you... um...  er...  ok.

Someone just learned a valuable lesson here, but I'm not sure who.

Pirate vs. Thin Mint (Diabolical Cookie of The Beast)

Here's how it always goes.

I come home from a brisk, refreshing morning workout.  Burning those calories, working that core, doing all those things that infomercials tell me to do.  I arrive home from the gym feeling healthy and energized.  And virtuous, and self-congratulatory.  Good job, Pirate.  You can walk by everyone else today and hold your head high and think about how healthy healthy healthy you are, and how sad it is that all those other people are sad, saggy and sloth-like.

I set my gym bag down just inside the front door, and think for a moment.

Hmm.  I'm hungry.

I could use a healthy snack.  Something appropriate for a post-workout situation.  I need to replenish some of those what-do-you-call-em,  electrolytes?  Endorphins?  Dilithium crystals?  I should have an apple.  Or one of those great protein bars that taste like a combination of calcium and ass.

Hey... what's that big box over there on the table?

Well, what do you know.  It's a carton of Girl Scout cookies.  Oh yea, that's right.  My daughter's a scout.  And a few days ago, she and my wife filled a wagon with cookie boxes and peddled them around the neighborhood.  (If you don't have a Girl Scout in your house, the way it works is, before you start selling, you back your car up to the the Super Magic Cookie Warehouse and they fill your trunk with all the cookies you're supposed to sell up front.  The idea is that you'll sell more if you can deliver the product immediately upon purchase, rather than collect orders and deliver them later when the shipment arrives.)

I peek into the open box.  Why, look at that.  I guess Saucy and Mini-Pirate didn't sell all the boxes over the weekend.  There appears to be an unpurchased box of Thin Mints left.

Intriguing.

You know, there's no rule saying parents aren't allowed to eat any of the cookies themselves.  You can -- you just have to pay for them.  And each box can't be that much, right?  A few bucks? Hell, that's no big thang.  What kind of miser would I be if I wasn't willing to donate a few paltry dollars to an organization that helps nurture and mentor young girls to be the Leaders of Tomorrow?

Well.  Clearly, I'd be a selfish ass if I wasn't willing to contribute something.

I open the box of Thin Mints.  For the cause.

Each box of Thin Mints contains two cellophane-wrapped columns of 16 cookies each.

I just worked out.  I lifted heavy things and put them down again -- like a bunch of times in a row.  Do I not deserve one Thin Mint?

Sure I do.  And so I open one column, pluck out one cookie: thin, elegant, savory.  I eat it carefully, and I enjoy it to the fullest: the chocolate coating, the crisp break of the minty cookie that crumbles into my mouth.  Delicious.  And I'm pretty sure there's a hearty helping of electrolytes in a Thin Mint.  I think I read an article about that.

Mm.  Very good.  A good snack.  Well done.  Ok then.

I start to wrap up the tower of cookies and put it back in the box with its twin, when it occurs to me that these individual Thin Mints are really very thin.  Super thin.  Like, they're barely even a whole cookie.  In fact, it would probably take three Thin Mints to equal one regular-sized cookie.  Which means if I eat two more, I'm really only finishing up one cookie, right?

I eat two more.

Delicious.  My fingers have faint chocolately smudges on them.  Which I will wash off.  After I have one more cookie.

Did I say one more?  I meant three more.  That's so funny how that happens.

Within two minutes, half of the first cookie column is gone.  And it occurs to me as I look at the remaining half, that it's just silly to put half a column back in the box.  If you're going to have a snack, have a snack, am I right?  And I ate those first eight Thin Mints so quickly that I probably burned as many calories as I would've gained eating them in the first place.  PLUS, I'm still sort of sweaty from working out, which means my body's metabolism is still clicking at a higher, post-exercise pace for a few more minutes anyway.  That's not an opportunity one should squander.

A few minutes later, I look down at an empty cellophane wrapper and realize I've just eaten one whole column of Thin Mints.  That's 16 of them.  Wow.  That was fast.  How'd that happen?

You know what's lame?  leaving a box of cookies with one remaining column rattling around in it.  Who does that?  I mean, it makes no sense.

Fifteen more minutes pass.  That's when I realize I've just eaten an entire box of Thin Mints.  32 cookies in less time than it takes to watch a sitcom.  32 is 32, even if they're pretty thin.

Urp.  I'm not proud of what just happened.  I definitely just undid whatever good might otherwise have come from my morning workout.  Plus I don't feel so good.  My stomach is too full, and not with a bounty of nutrients and electrolytes.  I'm feeling jittery, weighed down, and my teeth are black with crumbs.  I'm shaking.  I think I might have the Cookie Madness.

But it was for a good cause, I try to remind myself shakily.  I have to remember to put some money in Mini-P's cookie envelope.  I'm paying for her and her fellow scouts to do something awesome someday, I know -- maybe this money will help them go to space camp.  I tell myself I just did a good thing.

I go to fetch some money from my wallet when I pass by that open carton again.

Hey, that wasn't the last box of Thin Mints at all....

God help me.

What It's Like for an Asshole.

It's not easy being an asshole.  If you, like me, tend to be one, you know it's exhausting.  And not as emotional rewarding as others might think.

What a regular person sees:

What an asshole sees:

If you are an asshole, you know that being one takes a lot out of you, with very little payback.  So much so that maybe you might've recently thought, "Say, perhaps life might be easier and less stressful if I didn't spend so much time being such an asshole to the people around me."

Of course, you're a realist.  You know you probably can't just stop being one completely.  After all, you've been an asshole for what, 40 years now?  So it's not like you can just stop.  You've spent decades standing in supermarket lines behind people who choose to pay for groceries with a check but refuse to get out their checkbook until they're standing in front of the cashier, where they write out their payment with slooooooow, painstaking care for their penmanship.  You've tapped your foot at them.

You've gotten snippy and assholish with baristas across the city who take forever to pour you one cup of coffee.  With people who take too much time at the light.  You've actually snapped at McDonald's employees for getting your order wrong.

And let's not talk about what you're like when you drive.  Let's not even try to tug on that thread.

Inevitably, there comes day when every asshole wake up and says, "You know, maybe today could be the day I decide to exhibit a little more patience with the world!  A famous person once said that showing a little bit of grace to one's fellow man costs nothing.  Today could be the day that I take that idea to heart.  I could start putting myself in the shoes of others, and not get so pissy with them just because their world doesn't revolve around me, a person they don't even know.  Today could be a New Leaf Day!  Goodbye Asshole, hello Kinder, Gentler Soul!"

And you feel great!  You have this great plan!  This No More Assholery Plan!  You love this plan!  With this plan, you could experience what all those Up with People people always sing about!

*

That was me earlier today.  I'd had a slightly rough morning rushing around the house as my wife, daughter and I were all getting ready to head out to work/school.  I wasn't being a full-blown asshole, but I could feel myself working my way up to it.  I had that foreboding feeling.  If you're an asshole, you know what I'm talking about -- that feeling that you're about to morph into an asshole at any minute, and you can't do anything about it.  It's like The Hulk, only not awesome.

So as my daughter and I left the house, I checked myself and made the big decision not to be an asshole today.   As the Mini-Pirate and I buckled ourselves into the car, I decided that I didn't have to be an asshole if I didn't want to be.  I didn't have to get all pissed and impatient and jerky with people who might cut me off, or take the last bagel, or show up late for a meeting.  Not if I didn't want to.  I was the boss of me.

It felt good.  I felt empowered.  It was 7:30 a.m., and I'd not only taken command of my day, but I quite possibly kickstarted a Life Change.  Good for me!

We pulled out of the driveway.

At 7:32 a.m., we turned the corner onto a street that's been crowded with some sort of re-construction off and on for the last six months.  Just as I was about to drive down the street, a construction guy set up a Detour sign right in front of us.  He pointed at me, then jerked his thumb towards a left turn he wanted me to take to get, a circuitous path out of the neighborhood.  I've seen him before.  He had the ethos of someone who clearly thinks he's in charge of the neighborhood, a bored king who thinks his subjects are idiots.

I looked him in the eye, revved the engine, zoomed around the sign he was setting up, and drove straight down the street he wanted me to avoid, ignoring his sign and his gestured instruction.  Irritated.

Oh.  And slowed down just enough to make sure he'd see me flipping him off.  For doing his job.

Daughter was in the backseat reading.  She didn't see.  This time.

7:32 a.m.

(Sigh.)