“It’s too bad Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name isn’t Hillary Rodman Clinton,” my son says. “Maybe she could rebound from her current situation.”

A co-worker informs me that a Santa Ana elementary school teacher has been charged with child endangerment for keeping a gun in her classroom.

“Well, that’s Santa Ana,” I say. “What do you expect from people? Not a day goes by that you can’t pick up an Orange County Register and read about a gang-related slaying in Santa Ana. If I were a teacher in Santa Ana, you best believe I’d be packing heat too. Thank god this kind of thing doesn’t happen in Irvine where I live.”

“There are Asian gangs in Irvine.”

“Asian gangs in Irvine?! What a racist you are. I’ve lived in Irvine for seven years and I’ve never seen or heard of any Asian gang activity. Unless studying for AP exams counts as a gang activity. Blowing their brains out with mathematical formulas . . .”

His mom and I are trying to get the boy to log off the computer and go to bed.

“Hang on,” he says, “I’m looking at a PC World thing.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“‘10 Cool Gadgets You Can’t Get in the U.S.’”

“If you can’t get them in the U.S., what do you care?”

“They’re cool. Don’t forget about that part.”

His mom is running out of patience. “Oh, am I steaming,” she says.

The boy’s still looking at the computer.

“Mmmm . . . cool,” he says.

My son’s on spring break this week. Today he spent the day with a friend volunteering at the local Boys and Girls Club.

“I was watching kids for seven-and-a-half hours!” he says.

I say, “I’ve been watching a kid for 15 years.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a lot easier.”

1. Give your son a fashionable name like Tanner, Braden or Travis. You can handicap a child for life with a goofy name. You can give him a sorry start from which he’ll never recover. By the way, you know what’s a good name? Paul. Paul is a name that’s stood the test of time. It dates back to the Bible . . .

Tanner is not even a name. Braden is not a name. Travis is a name, but it’s a hillbilly name, like Zeke. If you’re tempted to name your boy Travis, go ahead and name him Zeke.

2. Use up your moral authority on things of no importance. I was in Subway this afternoon and heard a man telling his kids, “No soda. You’ve had too much soda lately.” It turns out by soda, he meant cola, because he let the kids fill up their drinks with a mixture of Sprite and Hi-C.

First of all, cola is not bad for kids, certainly no worse than Sprite or Hi-C. I drank about four colas a day as a kid — still do, although now I occasionally pour some rum or bourbon in them, which I don’t recommend for the kiddies. As for Hi-C, I’d rather drink water from the sewer.

Second point: it’s micromanagement. Nobody, including your own child — especially your own child — wants to listen to you tell them what to do every minute. They’re going to tune you out. So by the time you finish telling them what to drink, what to eat, what to wear, and get around to something important, nobody’s listening anymore . . .

My son made the honor roll his first semester in high school. I’m very proud of him. He’s in a competitive (translation: high percentage of Asian kids) high school and he’s taking honors classes, where every kid thinks they should get an A but there aren’t enough A’s to go around.

An email went out to parents listing the Honor Roll kids. There are a lot of kids on the Honor Roll at this school.

They should send out a list of the kids who didn’t make the Honor Roll. It wouldn’t be much longer and it would teach the kids a good lesson: Work hard or be humiliated.

Another idea: Only kids taking honors classes would be eligible for the Honor Roll. All other kids would be eligible for the “Honor” (insert finger-quotes here) Roll.

“The breakfast was overheated,” my son says to his mom.

The boy is 14 years old. I say, “Thanks, Mr. Old-Enough-To-Fix-His-Own-Breakfast-But-Still-Lets-Others-Do-It-Then-Criticizes-Them.”

“It was constructive criticism,” he says.

According to a billboard I saw today, a child is diagnosed with autism every 20 minutes!

That goes to show how little I know about it. I would have thought that once would be enough.

Is he still autistic, doctor?

I’m afraid so, but I’ll check him again in 20 minutes . . .

We may work more hours at our jobs without realizing that the childhood of our sons and daughters is slipping away. Sometimes these doors close too slowly for us to see them vanishing.

— Dan Ariely

“The boy I started tutoring in algebra a couple weeks ago,” I say, “his mom told me he got a C on his last test.”

“You’re fired,” my son says.

My wife stares at me in disbelief for a few seconds.

Finally she says, “That’s not your fault. You can only do so much in one hour a week.”

“Actually,” I say, “she thought that was great. It all depends on your expectations.”

My 14-year-old son informs me that he is not “wasting his years” the way I am . . .

“Is that what I’m doing?” I ask. “‘Wasting my years’? How am I wasting my years? Taking care of you?”

“My years are fully utilized and non-refundable,” he says.

“You’re a schmo.”

“Meanwhile, you’re wasting your years, calling people schmoes.”

“Look at the color of this banana,” my son says as he takes it out of the refrigerator. “It’s black.”

“I think it’s still okay,” I tell him. “It’s not the color of the skin that’s important . . .”

” . . . it’s the content of its character,” he jumps in.

My wife asks our son, “Why do you have to argue about everything?”

“I’m stubborn,” he says. “It’s all part of puberty.”

“Well, I’m getting old,” she says, “and part of that is I’m not going to put up with a lot of nonsense.”

“Look at those guys,” my son says. “They’re all wearing ponchos and it’s not even raining.”

“Well, it was raining,” I say, “and it may rain again. There’s an old saying in the fruit picking business: It’s better to have a poncho and not need it than to need a poncho and not have it. Think about it.”

“Why do I need to think about it?”

“Because it didn’t seem to make much of an impact on you. Want me to say it again?”

“No.”

A few years ago, my son went to the Rose Parade as a spectator. This year, he worked as a volunteer float decorator with a community service group from his high school.

They worked on the City of St. Louis float, which won the President’s Trophy for most effective floral use and presentation. Yeah, I know pretty much every float wins some kind of trophy, but the President’s Trophy is one of the good trophies.

To give you the flavor of the thing, here’s the list of “suggestions” given to volunteers by the float-building company:

1. PLEASE DO NOT BRING RADIOS, WALKMENS, CAMERAS, HANDBAGS OR JEWELRY. BRING YOUR I.D. AND MONEY ONLY. FANNY PACKS WORK GREAT.

2. WEAR OLD BUT WARM CLOTHING AND STURDY SHOES WITH CLOSED TOE AND HEEL. TIE BACK LONG HAIR.

3. FIRE LANE MUST BE KEPT OPEN AT ALL TIMES AND THE AREA AROUND THE FLOAT SHOULD BE KEPT CLEAN.

4. PLEASE DO NOT EXPECT TO USE THE OFFICE PHONES. THERE ARE PAY PHONES LOCATED OUTSIDE THE NORTH DOOR FOR YOUR USE. INCOMING CALLS WIL NOT BE ACCEPTED FOR WORKERS AND NO PAGING WILL BE ALLOWED FROM THE OFFICE. WE WILL TAKE EMERGENCY CALLS ONLY. [Pay phones . . . how quaint! -- PE]

5. NO ONE IS ALLOWED INSIDE THE BUILDING DURING JUDGING. WHEN YOU ARE ASKED TO STEP OUTSIDE PLEASE DO SO PROMPTLY AND REMEMBER TO TAKE OUT ANY PERSONAL ITEMS WITH YOU.

6. ALL BREAKS ARE TO BE TAKEN OUTSIDE.

7. VOLUNTEERS ARE HERE TO WORK. THERE WILL BE SOME NOT-SO-GLAMOROUS JOBS THAT NEED TO BE DONE BESIDES DECORATING; IT ALL HAS TO BE DONE.

8. NO SMOKING IS ALLOWED IN THE BUILDINGS.

9. NO MORE THAN 3 PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED ON SCAFFOLDING AT A TIME.

10. DO NOT WEAR FLOWERS AT ANY TIME, EVEN AFTER THE FLOATS HAVE LEFT THE BUILDING.

11. PLEASE SIGN-IN WITH YOUR CREW CHIEF WHEN YOU ARRIVE AT YOUR FLOAT AND WHEN YOU LEAVE. SIGN-IN SHEETS ARE COLLECTED DAILY.

12. HAVE FUN!!

My son’s explanation to his mom on why he can’t turn off Madden 2008 like she asked him to:

I can’t stop in the middle of a game. Roger Goodell has not sent me a notice that we can do that. Unless there’s a weather delay or fans throwing things on the field, which there isn’t, so that can’t happen.

One of the cable stations had a 24-hour A Christmas Story marathon. I’ve never understood the mania some people have about this movie. I mean, it’s a nice movie, but 12 consecutive showings?!

Anyway, my son turned on the 10 p.m. showing last night and we all watched it. My wife fell asleep as she often does watching movies, but the boy enjoyed it.

Merry Christmas to everyone who’s taken the time to read this site over the past year.

My wife asks our son, “Would you do me a favor and take the trash out?”

“Wow,” the boy replies in disbelief. “And they called Caesar an absolute ruler.”

As I’m driving my son home from hockey practice, I start the conversation by saying, “So . . . looked like a good practice.”

Silence . . .

“I said, ‘Looked like a good practice.’”

“That wasn’t a question,” the boy replies.

This is screamingly funny in an unfunny way . . .

An Irvine man has started up a greeting card company specializing in father-to-son cards:

Founder, Steve Cunningham, a father of four could not find masculine cards written with the right message for his boys. During his travels, or when away for long periods, he often wanted to send a card conveying “I’m thinking of you” or perhaps express an uplifting word of encouragement, motivation, or proud of you. After endless searches on-line and in countless retail outlets, Steve begged the question… why is so little attention paid to men, particularly fathers who play an invaluable roll in the development of their children?

OK, first of all, Steve is an idiot. He’s got a less-than-rudimentary command of the English language, but like many incompetent people, is unaware of his own incompetence, and thus doesn’t hire a copy editor to clean up his prose.

Second point: You can’t play an invaluable “roll” in your children’s lives if you’re not even there, no matter how many long-distance socks in the arm you send via greeting card.

If you look through the cards, the first thing you notice — no, I take that back. The first thing you notice is that all of the people on the cards seem to be living in a permanent fog bank. But the second thing you notice is that sentiments appropriate for face-to-face conversations or phone calls can be wildly inappropriate for greeting cards.

Here’s a sample:

How did the dad know that his son wanted advice? Is there a line of son-to-father greeting cards? Dad, I’d like your advice . . .

I can’t imagine a more impersonal form of communication. Even an email would be preferable. A telegram would be preferable. At least you’d have to put it your own words.

Sometimes reality is almost indistinguishable from brilliant satire. The idea that a line of greeting cards is actually a fine substitute for human interaction . . . if you read it in The Onion, you wouldn’t be able to stop laughing.

I mean, what kind of arrogant, cold-blooded bastard communicates with his children via greeting cards?!

“Bill Belichick,” my son suggests.