My family is back from Thailand . . . At 6:30 this morning, I’m awakened by the dog pawing on my bedroom door. I get up to see what’s going on and find my son — who is never up at 6:30 in the morning but is still operating on Thailand time — playing a video game in the family room. “Rise and shine, parental!” he says. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for work?” “I was up till 1 a.m. getting you home from the airport so I was planning to sleep until 7.” Meanwhile, the dog is trying to get someone’s attention by jumping around next to his food bowl. “Why is he jumping around like that?” I ask. “I don’t know,” the boy says. “Has he eaten?” “No.” “Mystery solved, Encyclopedia Brown. I’m going back to bed.” A few minutes later, the boy inexplicably shows up in… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Kids
House of Cards
My son suggests that we buy some red wheels for the SUV to match the color of the vehicle. “How much would that cost?” my wife asks. “I don’t know,” I say. “A lot of money.” “But it’d be the pimpingest pimp sauce thing you could ever do,” the boy replies. That’s what Ed McMahon’s financial adviser used to say when Ed said, “Are you kidding?! The only way I could afford that is to work till I’m 90!” Read more →
Picture Exchange
My wife and I went out for dinner . . . I took our picture with the cell phone and sent it to my son at home. In return, he sent a picture of the dog. Read more →
A 9th Grader Reviews the World Literature Canon
For his English class this year, my son read Antigone, A Doll’s House, Romeo and Juliet, Things Fall Apart, and just finished All Quiet on the Western Front. “Everybody died,” he said. “I knew that was going to happen. All the books we read this year, everybody died. Except A Doll’s House, and that sucked more than kids in a lollipop factory.” Read more →
It’s Not Easy Being Green
“If we shortened our showers by one minute, we’d save $100 a year,” my son informs me, pausing for a moment to let the news sink in. “And if we shortened our showers by two minutes, we’d save $200 a year. If we didn’t take showers at all, we could be rich! “As for the AC, we leave it off and everybody gets one of those personal fans and points it at their face.” “Why don’t we get the old-fashioned fold-out fans and wave them back and forth?” I ask. “Now that’s just stupid,” he says. Read more →
Hockey Practice
I was watching my son’s roller hockey practice last weekend . . . during a scrimmage, he skated the puck up the rink, faked the goalie to the right, then snapped a shot into the top left corner of the net. “Oh my gosh!” I yelled to anyone within earshot. “Just like I taught him!” A few minutes later, he got a pass in front of the net and one-timed it so high and hard that if not for the protective netting around the top of the rink, I don’t know where it would have come down. “I didn’t teach him that,” I said. Read more →
Political Analysis from a 9th Grader
“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.” Read more →
Asian Gang Activities
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 the 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 . . .” Read more →
Cool Gadgets You Can’t Get
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. Read more →
That’s What You Think
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.” Read more →
A Couple of Tips on Bad Parenting
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… Read more →
Honor Roll
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. Read more →
Breakfast at EppsNet
“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. Read more →
Once is Not Enough
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 . . . Read more →
Slipping Away
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 Read more →
Dinner Conversation
“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.” Read more →
Wasted Years
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.” Read more →
I Have a Dream About Bananas
“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. Read more →
Changes of Life
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.” Read more →
Fruit Pickers
“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.” Read more →