I can remember the look. Not quite disappointment as much as it was disbelief. It usually involved me coming home to find my Dad there three hours early. A police car, with one or more of Port Saint Lucie's finest, was either in our driveway or curbside. The Officer would usually look amused or (in one memorable case) furious. The circumstances didn't matter. I was about to have a logical conversation with one of the smartest people I would ever have the pleasure/displeasure of knowing, in my life. He had a method of outlining the latest adventure in terms that really didn't require any input from me, and yet he had the audacity to ask me rhetorical questions.
"So when you decided to set the Porta-Let on fire, did the phrase (this is a dangerous and bad idea) ever enter your pea sized brain?"
"I dunno."
"There's a lot you don't know apparently, and we are going to take some steps to remedy that situation."
Then the next few weeks would be strictly scheduled in a manner that would make a military strategist recoil, in a combination of abject envy, and morbid fascination.
It was this little photo album I was leafing through in my mind, as I spotted my 5'1" thirteen year old, behind the wheel of a late nineties Chevy Camaro. He was warming up for his hot qualifying lap around the back yard. The sound of my skidding wheels and the transmission groaning into reverse, probably tipped them off. Like magic, when I backed up, they were all gone. Had David Copperfield been riding shotgun, he would have been unable to stop himself from blurting out:
"How the F*^# did they do that?"
Thank God for cell phones. When my son arrived at my drivers side window he was a shadow of his former self. So clearly busted was he, that he didn't even put up a fight. He quietly got in my car and spilled the beans like a waitress at Sonny's. I dropped him into the protective custody of his Mother. When I arrived back from my road ride, the house was ready for a Dwell photo layout and my doe eyed Daytona 500 pole sitter was waiting, in all his angelic glory.
If there is a heaven, my Dad certainly has sore ribs from laughing at the karmic freight train that t-boned my ass last night. I wonder how many more boomerangs are out there in the abyss. It's funny, they sound kind of like a helicopter... right before you lose consciousness.
W.B.Z.N.
9 comments:
"If there is a heaven, my Dad certainly has sore ribs from laughing at the karmic freight train that t-boned my ass last night. I wonder how many more boomerangs are out there in the abyss. It's funny, they sound kind of like a helicopter... right before you lose consciousness."
That completely made me laugh out loud!!! My brothers and I rained holy terror on my parents, from beginning to end. Those karmic boomerangs are just one more reason I am afraid to have a kid.
How did you get the port-a-let to actually catch?
Accelerants were involved.
Most importantly, how's your kid's time compare to the other lap times?
You didn't bust him before he got a lap in did ya?
They were parking the car and trying to hide damage as I rode up.
I never got the splites but he looked pretty happy with his performance until he saw my car.
wow! can you just imagine the extremes? all the way up to all the way down in...
3...2...1... dad showed up!
Sorry, but this is pretty hilarious. I could picture the whole scene, all the way down to the doe eyes when you got home. Ha!
I think part of the reason it was so hard for me to discipline my kids was that no matter what trouble they got themselves into, I had done worse. And I remembered....
We should all remember and proceed from there.
BUT- if we are honest, we know we cheated death a time or two (at least) growing up, doing stupid things and I think that's why we freak when our kids do stupid things.
How anyone manages to make it alive through teenage-hood is beyond me.
Good post, Brother B.
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