My son asks for help with a homework problem in math. The main point of contention with math homework is that when he asks for help, he’d like me to just do the problem for him, while I prefer to try and steer his thinking in the right direction, even though it takes a lot longer. “This is like the problem you helped me with last night,” he says. “Let’s try not to have a one-hour conversation about it this time.” Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Kids
California Adventure
Why I Don’t Own a Cadillac Escalade
Smush Parker of the L.A. Lakers has a custom Cadillac Escalade that says SMUSHCALADE on the tailgate where it usually says ESCALADE. I say to my son, “I wonder if I could get an Escalade with EPPSCALADE on the back.” “You can’t even afford an Escalade and still have a good financial condition,” he says. “I can’t?” “No, ’cause you ain’t representin’.” “I’m not representin’?” “No, you ain’t wheelin’ and dealin’. You sittin’ on the block while others are out gettin’ their bling.” Read more →
Zero-Tolerance Watch
My son informs me that we have to buy one of those old-fashioned telescoping pointers because he needs it for a presentation at school. “Can you use a laser pointer?” I ask. “Because we actually have one of those.” “They’re not allowed at school,” he says. Read more →
Meet my New Stockbroker
I’m looking at my brokerage account on the laptop, with my son, age 12, watching over my shoulder. “I know your account number,” he says, reading it off the screen. “I’m not sure how that’s going to help you,” I say. “I can hack in and trade stocks,” he says. “‘It’s going up! SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL! Now it’s going down! BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY! It’s going down some more! SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL!’ It’s a trading frenzy! . . .” Read more →
I Made a Mistake on the Hockey Jerseys
OK, I made a mistake on the hockey jerseys . . . My son’s playing on a new team this season so I had to order new jerseys for him. They asked me what name I wanted to put on the back and I don’t know why, but I gave his first name instead of his last name. It’s the only thing he talked about all weekend. “I had my first name on my jersey in second grade!” he said. (He’s in seventh now.) “Does Steve Yzerman have ‘Steve’” — he draws out the “e” sound to make it sound extra ridiculous — “on the back of his jersey? NO! ‘GOAL, NUMBER 19! STEEEEVE!’” Every time I tried to talk to him about something else, he’d look at me with a goofy blank stare on his face. “Did you understand what I just said?” I’d ask. “Does Teemu Selanne have… Read more →
Why God Builds Gated Communities
I’m looking over this flyer for a church group meeting that my son’s going to next week. It’s being held at a member’s house in a gated community, so the flyer has directions, as well as an entry code for the security gate. “Jesus wouldn’t like gated communities,” I say. “He was very welcoming to all people. This is racist. They’re trying to keep out blacks and Mexicans.” Read more →
The World of Make-Believe
I take my cell phone out of my pocket and notice that the battery’s gone dead. “Way to plan ahead,” my son says, without looking up from his GameBoy. Read more →
How Homework Gets Done at My House
My son’s reading Catherine, Called Birdy for his 7th grade Language Arts class. The book is set in medieval England and written in the form of a 14-year-old girl’s diary. “It’s got no theme, no plot, no flow, no fun, no nothing!” the boy says. “It’s gay!” I sympathize with him — it reads like a 13th century MySpace blog — but that doesn’t change the fact that he has to read it. “I refuse to read this book!” he says. “You can’t,” his mom replies. “I have a restraining order! Catherine has to stay 10 feet away from me.” And he tosses the book into the middle of the living room. I look over at my wife . . . her eyes are now closed and she’s biting on her lower lip, accompanied by a slow, dramatic intake of breath, all of which suggests that clowntime is just about… Read more →
Notes from the Asylum
My son’s on spring break and my wife — a moderately functional paranoid schizophrenic — is taking a day off to spend some time with him. Read more →
World of Warcraft
My kid’s explaining World of Warcraft to me . . . if I understand it correctly, it’s like an old-fashioned game of Capture the Flag, but with some killing. And yet as I’m watching him play it, it looks more like World of Running Pointlessly Through a Forest. There’s no warcraft, no nothing. “Dude,” he says, “that’s because I’m at Level 6. When you get to, like, Level 19, there’s more warfare.” “Maybe it should be called World of Jogging Aimlessly Through the Fields Picking Flowers Like a Girl Until You Get to Level 19,” I suggest. “You don’t pick flowers, stupid. You quest.” Read more →
Card Games You Can Play With One Card
My kid had a deck of cards in my car last night and lost the king of hearts. Today, he searched the car and found it, but in the meantime, he’s lost the rest of the deck. “Know any card games you can play with one card?” he asks. “How about Go Fish? ‘Got any kings?’ ‘Crap!’” Read more →
Kids Say the Darnedest Things
One of my son’s friends is over and all of a sudden he says out of nowhere, to no one in particular: “Kids say the darnedest things!” “They certainly do!” I say. “I wish they’d knock that off. In fact, at the top of my list of kids who say the darndest things and should really just shut up is you.” Read more →
Talking Calumny
“I pity the fool who talks calumny about me,” my son informs me. I question his pronunciation of the word “calumny.” “I pronounced it right,” he says, “but I’m down wid it either way. I’m apathetic about it.” OK . . . call me Kreskin, but I’m predicting that a new list of vocabulary words just came out at school. Read more →
Between the Two of Us, We Know a Lot of Stuff
My boy repeats something he just heard on the Angels-Twins telecast: “The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.” Sensing a teaching moment, I ask him, “Do you know who Hubert H. Humphrey is?” “No,” he says. “But you do, so it’s all right.” Read more →
It’s a Guy!
My son’s looking over a Guy Kawasaki blog post that I printed out . . . “What’s this gay Kawasaki stuff?” he asks. “It’s Guy Kawasaki,” I say. “It’s somebody’s name.” “Guy Kawasaki is someone’s name?! What a loser! Hey, Guy! How’s it going, Guy? That guy over there is a pretty cool guy, don’t you think so, Guy? His parents must be losers too. Who names a kid Guy? Congratulations, it’s a guy!” Read more →
101 Ways to Say No
My son’s got a seemingly endless number of ways to answer no to the question “Are you done with your homework yet?” Some recent examples: — Pretty much all done, yeah. — Yes I am! (Long pause) Except for a little reading… — What? Read more →
We Are Not Responsible
We’re having dinner at the Irvine Souplantation when my kid notices a posted sign: We Cannot be Responsible for Lost or Stolen Items. “Oh really?” he says. “What if they’re your items? Can I walk out of here with this cup? How about some plates and silverware?” “I see your point,” I say. “That soft-serve yogurt machine would look great in our kitchen . . .” Read more →
My Kid Asks for Money
“Give me money or give me death! And if you give me death, I’m going to give you death, so I recommend giving me money. “And if you kill me, when Mom gets home you’re going to have to make up some lame excuse like ‘Somebody broke into the house and killed him.’ So again, I recommend just giving me the money.” Read more →