The things you will do for a little kid because he insists you do them ...
... or that you get to do only because you have a little kid.
You don't know the power of the Dark Side -- it's very dry and, as we're so often told, full of carcinogens.
The break of day never was the most-reassuring time for you, was it son?
You called "Da-DEE" over and over and over from your crib as your lazy, undisciplined father resisted the waking world with impunity.
You drooled into your applesauce as you watched PBS strapped into a high chair while your father slept on the couch.
You crawled on the hardwood floor to pat your father on the chest as he lay sprawled on the carpet with back spasms for days.
You had barely learned to speak when you were dribbling a basketball and dunking it on the little goal, while your father halfway opened his eyes to say "good job, son."
When your baby brother came along, there you were to set up the Playstation 2 so he could watch "Thomas The Tank Engine" as you politely told him to stop screaming at you.
And you put his shoes and socks on him.
After you finally elbow dropped your father and punched him in the face, he'd wake up, hand you a lukewarm waffle and get you to preschool 15 minutes late.
Tomorrow, on your first day of kindergarten and every work day that follows, you won't be here to be a crutch.
Your clothes are set out next to a baby picture in your room and tomorrow you will wake up with your Mom, at a decidedly earlier hour, as you will do every school day.
Tomorrow, you walk into the halls of the education branch of the Ministry of Truth and take your place on the grid and the kindergarten midday nap mat.
In the days to come, as you meander past this slumbering slab of meat each morning and wonder how your brother will survive without you, don't worry.
He will.
Promise that.
Really.
P.S. Just remember: I am your father, and I'm so very proud of you. 
---
A reluctant, yet ultimately willing, kindergartner ... 
Hmmm ... you don't say?
Add this as an exhibit in the Museum of Intense Irony.
Cur-sed Earrrrrrrth!
I was looking for the light/
To bring you out/
From the shadows/
Redefine you now for only me/
And honey I'm sure/
That you've been in love before/
Plenty of men/
Have held high places in your eyes/
And jealousy/
Has got no use for me/
The past is beautiful/
Like the darkness between the fireflies.
-- Mason Jennings
Two fireflies flash by in the mid-August evening.
Their kind emerge in June in a frenzy of ecstasy, sparkling yellow at twilight for a fleeting matter of weeks, desperate to find a woman who will reciprocate their call and ensure that their short lives will mean something when they end.
She flashes back. The lovers meet. They die. Life goes on.
Not for these two belated suitors of desperation and futility.
What was once a galaxy of pulsing light in the humid dusk is an early-summer relic now.
These two are torch-bearers for a time that passed before it ever seemed to begin, when summer was new and pregnant with the promise that has now fulfilled itself.
They are the bathing suit 75 percent off.
The "Star Wars" movie still playing in the cineplex.
The empty book bags thrown into the closet.
The swimming pool lamp still burning in the deserted pool.
The song that was to be the song of summer before summer decided on a better song.
If only you two could come inside: watch the yellow lights of the school buses flash by instead, then see the leaves turn flaming gold and red, then stay warm by the fireplace, then catch a glimpse of the first petal of the new warm season and then meet your destiny like you should have ...
How do we let them get away with this?
When we were children, we accepted it as a universal truth of the way things just had to be.
If we were going to eat cereal with marshmallows, we were going to have to eat a disproportionate amount of bland fiber along the way. If we could get away with it, we might just filter out all the marshmellows and conveniently disappear the rest of the bag.
Today, in light of "Limited Edition Double Shooting Stars! Lucky Charms," we realize it didn't always have to be this way. We could have had more marshmallows all along (and these extra marshmallows do indeed reset the bar of how Lucky Charms cereal should taste).
But even more egregious is that they plan on reducing the number of marshmallows to previous levels at some point in the future -- unless, of course, "Limited Edition" in cereal terms means just about as much as "Going Out Of Business" does for a bargain beachwear store sale in July.
Why hasn't there been a mass revolt? Three things come to mind: 1.) The kids who eat it are too young to have their voices heard, 2.) The stoners who eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner aren't motivated enough, or 3.) The parents who buy it are just trying to find a way to trick their kids into eating more fiber.
It's curious why market forces haven't dictated that there be a cereal made solely of marshmallows (technically, it might not be cereal then, but then again they make those pixie stix filled with nothing but pure sugar).
It's a mystery why these types of cereals don't have, at the least, more marshmallows than they have putrid -- and now whole grain -- cereal rings.
Yes, we are always after those Lucky Charms ... and we should get them, because this is capitalism, you whiny little leprachaun martyr!
The power is with the people. We must demand more marshmallows for ourselves and our children -- not in limited edition, but all the time.
We have nothing to lose but our chains. We have a world to win. Marshmallow lovers of all countries, unite!
When a kindergartner learns how to turn on a camera:
---
When a kindergartner goes to work with you ... and draws a picture of you in a tie, and you tell him, "Good, but let's make it a little 'louder'" and he draws fireworks, and then a basketball that you have obviously just dunked into a goal, with him looking on in his favorite #8 basketball shirt:
Can't you just hear all the noise?
After all, fireworks can be pretty loud.
Whenever people want to describe a particularly passive, meek person -- an all-around nice guy -- they often use the phrase "he wouldn't hurt a fly."
But the real question is ... would he hurt a mosquito?
Sure, a fly does that thing where it hangs out on a log of feces, then flies onto your food and rubs its shit-covered legs together and ultimately regurgitates onto your meal for some evolutionary pragmatic reason.
Still, generally they don't get the smackdown unless they keep sitting on your food or make a bunch of noise or roll with more than, say, two friends.
But who thinks twice about killing those blood-sucking mosquito bastards on first sight?
There was a bumper sticker the other day. It said, "I Brake For Snakes." And, let's face it, snakes can be quite controversial in the sense that not everyone will brake for them and, in fact, quite a few actually accelerate over them.
But at least some people brake for them.
If Noah actually did stick all those animals on that boat, and he corralled the mosquitos together, he deserves a wedgy of apocalyptic proportions.
There's this guy I know.
He's a journalist. He sometimes talks to interesting people. People not necessarily important or anything. Just interesting.
He told me this story recently about these two goat farmers he talked to.
One, a lady, was real big on milking goats and selling the milk.
The other, a guy, spent all his time killing goats and selling the meat.
This guy I know was doing a story -- a small story, small because that's the way they told him it was meant to be -- about goat farming up in the mountains. It was mostly about the milking aspect, because apparently this was one of the few places you could find a certain kind of "certified" goat milk.
The way he found the lady who milked goats was through the guy who slaughtered goats.
It was interesting to see how these two interacted -- seeing as how she had this small farm in the country where she named goats and kept them in a little barn with portrait pictures of them hanging on the wall.
She did it as she cared for her quadriplegic husband, who was the victim of a horrible car accident. She would wake up at 5 a.m. and milk the goats. Then, she'd go to work as a nurse, and when she got off work, she'd come home and milk them again.
In between, she'd pasteurize it, package it and sell it. This was a woman who loved her husband, her land and her goats.
So idyllic.
Not so much so for the goat meat guy.
He was pushing this thing he called a "Goat Field Day," which was going to feature numerous flavors of goat meat. He wanted publicity. He was pretty convinced that it was worth publicity.
In fact, he was so convinced, he proclaimed with much confidence that the barbequed goat meat at his "Goat Field Day" would be so good that it would "make you want to slap your Momma."
This little phrase -- "so good it will make you want to slap your Momma" -- sounded all but inspired by the ghetto comedy sequel a few years back starring Ice Cube called "Next Friday."
("Next Friday" as in after "Friday," the original, and before "Friday After Next," the third movie, after which they decided to stop making movies based on Friday.)
The line is used in a TV ad in "Next Friday." One of numerous gag jokes. A restaurant so good, the joke goes, that it's food "makes you want to slap your Momma!"
So, this guy I know who's talking to this goat meat guy tells me that, when he heard the goat-meat guy say this, he nodded his head knowingly and told the goat meat guy, "Ahh yeah, 'Next Friday.'"
To which the goat-meat guy said, "No, Saturday, Aug. 16."
