Thursday, January 07, 2010

Yesterday around 3:45, I got a call from my son while I was still at work. I'll admit I was a bit alarmed, because we normally talk around 7 or 8 in the evening, not when he gets home from school. I dropped everything I was doing and proceeded to listen what the little man had on his mind.

The first thing he asked me (along with 400 other people) is if I had heard about what happened to Gilbert Arenas. I told him that I had just heard about IT, and I planned to write about it later, and he asked if he could see what I wrote and I said yes. Then he asked me why Arenas would bring a gun to the arena, and I did my best to explain that people (athletes, actors, politicians, teachers, parents) make dumb decisions sometimes, and they don't always have the best explanation to accompany their actions. He ended this part of the conversation by asking me if Arenas (who is my son's third favorite player behind Dwyane Wade and LeBron James)would go to jail and I said I did not know. He said Daddy I don't know if I can still root for Arenas, and I told him I understood, but I cautioned that he should wait until all the facts and details emerged before he made a final decision.

The second, and more uplifting item on my son's agenda, involves an upcoming field trip. My son informed me that his 7th grade social studies class will be coming to the Smithsonian in early February for a day trip. He called me because a)he wanted to see me while he's up here and b)his mother told him to call me for money for the trip, which I have no problems giving up. But I am going to take it a step further, and try to lobby his school to let me be a chaperon for the day. I've never had the pleasure of being a parental chaperon, and I think it would be great for many reasons..

1)I could see my son and embarrass the sh*t out of him the way my parents did to me
2) I could size up the boys and girls in his class (not like that Chris Hansen) and figure out who the bullies are, who the fast girls are, and who my son needs to be hanging out with. I can't do that from long distance, but this trip would allow it to happen
3)I could terrorize the kids, which is always a beautiful thing
4) I could make nice with all my son's teachers, so picking up the phone and telling me all about his good and bad exploits will be no problem for them at all. I need that option as a long distance parent

Can you tell I'm excited? Now if his teacher would just return my email, we could get this party rolling.

Oh, and don't forget to read my take on this Gilbert Arenas situation

And now, my favorite Loose Ends song EVER

2 comments:

Kawana Cohen-Hopkins said...

Sounds like a good and embarrasing time will be had by all!

a said...

It sounds like you had a good talk with your son about Arenas. (Good job, Dad!) The trip should make for a good time with your son, too!

Nice article too. It was a good read and explained your position well.