Even at the age of 44, I still grapple with the concept of feeling comfortable with public interaction. It isn't so much that I am shy, bashful or afraid to speak to people in public, its just that I am mildly selfish and I really don't think I can be as honest as I'd like to be when these public interactions invariably go south.

For example, if I see a friend of mine in public while I'm walking down the street with headphones, I'd rather we just wave or head nod, and follow it up with a text, email or phone call later. That way we aren't totally ignoring each other and killing our respective vibes. But if I have to speak to you, remove an earbud or two, say "What's been up?" 20 times, and then listen to you blabber about some inane topic, it tends to be burdensome. Which brings me to yesterday at work...

I am friendly and affable at work, but I tend not to reveal too much about my life because that leads to nosy behavior, small talk and other things that feel slightly invasive to me. It is quite the delicate line to straddle, but I've done so with great aplomb in my 3 months of employment here. No one knows too much, I haven't been inconvenienced, and no one has been offended by my behavior. But yesterday, I decided to get fancy and compliment this woman on her hair.

She's about 50-55 years old, and up until this point, she opted to wear her hair pinned up or in a pony tail, which of course is well within her right. But this past weekend--maybe for Mother's Day--she went all out and it was quite evident that she was pleased with the results, because when she strolled into work yesterday, she was confident and wearing a fancy outfit. I noticed this, and I reflexively gave her a compliment about her hair. I thought she would say thank you and keep it moving, but I was mistaken.

She sat on my desk, got comfortable, and proceeded to tell me why she wears it up more than she wears it down, how long it took to get done, how it threw off her day, and how she was determined to look good and sexy when she came to work. I appreciated her candor, but her volume was way louder than I'm comfortable with and her five-minutes soliloquy lasted about four minutes too long for my liking. To make matters worse, when she saw me the rest of the day, she kept saying hi, or asking me what was for lunch, blah blah blah.

As I told my wife, this is the dirty underbelly of giving a woman a compliment. 80 percent of the time, she'll say thank you and keep it moving. But man when that 20 percent comes down...

So one of my sister-in-law's co-workers bought my son a soccer foosball game last Christmas, along with an air hockey game. The air hockey game was easier to construct, so that got put together and played early and often, while the soccer game collected dust.

But last Sunday, the weather was rainy as hell, and the wife and I had no intentions of leaving the house, so she put the soccer game together, while I watched basketball. My son, who didn't care that I was watching basketball, immediately ran up to me, and asked if I would play soccer with him. I made him wait until halftime, and then I very reluctantly made my way into his room for some games.

My brother and I had a foosball soccer game when we were younger, and although I hadn't played in years (30 years to be exact), it didn't take long for me to once again reclaim that level of mastery. My son and I played for about 90 minutes straight, and I was taxing his ass. He won one game and I was victorious in approximately 95% of the games. My son got frustrated, but I was impressed by his resilience and his willingness to take "L" after "L" in search of consistent wins against his dad.

In fact, since that rainy Sunday, we have played 20-30 games, and he was starting to win a bit more, but I was still winning 70 percent of the time. That all changed this evening...


Granted, I didn't even want to play that f**king soccer game, because my son got in trouble not, once, twice but three times for failing to be silent when the teacher asked him too. He isn't normally that recalcitrant, but that's no excuse. I took away some toys, banned the iPad, and basically told him to read and do homework drills all night before and after dinner. But when he sheepishly asked if we could play three soccer games before bed, I said yes---mainly because I wanted to tax that ass three times and somehow tie my victories into the overall lesson of being obedient at school. Pretty ambitious of me right?

Well my son defeated me not once, twice but three times in that damn soccer game, and only the last game was close (9-8). The first two he beat me 9-5 and 9-4, and he did so with glee and an innocent joy. He didn't notice how angry I was getting, and he didn't even realize that his confidence was directly related to his success. He taxed my ass, and I cannot even properly describe how angry I was getting. After he won the third game, I angrily told him to pick a book out for bedtime, and he tried to shake my hand to say good game, and reiterated that I wanted him to pick out a book for bed.

Five minutes later, I realized how small and childish I had been acting, and I shook my son's hand, and he smiled and said, "Thank you Daddy", which almost made me cry...but not really, I was and still am angry about taking 3 "L's" to my 7-year old son.....