My son’s dribbling a basketball in the family room, working on some moves. His mom comes in and tells him to knock it off. He responds by posting her up and backing her down . . . Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Parents
Whatever Helps
It was after 11 p.m. last night. I was already in bed but my son was still downstairs doing homework. He’s got a hockey game tonight in Huntington Beach and he wanted to work ahead a little bit. Then I heard: “WOOOOOOO! WAAAAAAAH! BABABABABABABABABABABABABA!” I got up, went out to the stairs and yelled down, “What are you DOING?” “It’s my homework war cry!” he yelled back. Hmmm — having a homework war cry actually sounds like a pretty good idea to me so I let the matter slide and went back to bed . . . Read more →
How to Get an A in Honors History
First semester grades are out. My son missed getting straight A’s by a point and a half. He had an 88.5 in honors history. He got an A in honors English with a 90.14. The honors classes at Northwood are very demanding. Even the best students get low A’s and high B’s. Three kids got A’s in the history class. The high score was a 91.1. “The 91.1 is Ted,” my son says. We know Ted. “Ted is history. He’s bad at math, average in English, but he knows everything there is to know about history.” “Make sure you touch base with the history teacher,” I say. “Let him know you’re really doing your best for him and ask him what you need to do to get that extra point and a half this semester. He’ll tell you.” “He’ll say, ‘Study hard, get a good score on all the assignments,… Read more →
Semester Break
My wife is telling me that because Northwood finals are over today — Thursday — the boy now has a four-day weekend. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I say. It kind of makes sense to have Friday off, but why Monday? “It’s semester break,” the boy says. “Semester break?!” “That’s right. It’s like the off season.” The off season . . . it’s so ridiculous I have to laugh. “Isn’t it nice you have a funny family?” my wife says. “It’s like the all-star break,” the boy says. Read more →
Hockey Moms on the Road
My 15-year-old son and I were at the Embassy Suites happy hour having drinks (me) and snacks (him) with some of the other hockey parents and kids. One of the hockey moms was a really-hot-for-a-45-year-old redhead whose son plays for another team. “I haven’t seen your son in a while,” she whispered to me. “He looks so different.” “Yeah, he’s a lot taller,” I said. “Not just taller. He’s a gorgeous young man.” “Oh. Thanks.” She spent the next hour chatting him up, asking him about features on her iPhone, and so on . . . “Because she was drunk,” the boy said later. She was kinda drunk, but that wasn’t the only thing going on. Her husband was sitting a couple of chairs away the whole time, surfing the web on his Blackberry, and never even looked in her direction. I was talking to my son’s hockey coach… Read more →
My Son Gets a Haircut
That’s my son getting a haircut to start the new year. I told the stylist to make him look like the boy in the photo. He doesn’t know it yet. Shhhhhhh! Read more →
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
My son sees a book I’m reading lying on a table . . . “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” he says. “What kind of a title is that?” I say, “It’s hard to explain.” “Life,” he says in a mystical voice, “is like a motorcycle. You must maintain your motorcyle.” He makes a gong sound . . . I am in an enormous vault, dead, and they are paying their last respects. It’s kind of them to come and do this. They didn’t have to do this. I feel grateful. Now [my son] motions for me to open the glass door of the vault. I see he wants to talk to me. He wants me to tell him, perhaps, what death is like. I feel a desire to do this, to tell him. It was so good of him to come and wave I will tell him… Read more →
These Are My Kids
We’re getting snacks and sodas at AM/PM — me, my son and two of his friends. I know the girl at the register because I stop here for a soda most days on my way to work and she’s always here. “Hi,” I say to her. “These are my kids.” She looks at the kids, who are all the same age and look nothing like each other — a tall Wasian kid, a stocky Asian and an Indian boy. “Different moms,” I explain. Afterward, the group was evenly divided on whether or not she believed me . . . Read more →
The Lunch Coupon
We’re on our way to Black Angus for a family lunch. My wife is driving . . . she pulls a huge stack of coupons out of the glove compartment and hands them to our son in the back seat. “Find the Black Angus coupon in there,” she says. After a while, he says, “Why do we have ten 20% off coupons for Bed, Bath and Beyond?” “Your job is to find the Black Angus coupon,” she says, “not to criticize people.” I say, “If you combine all those coupons, they actually wind up paying you to take the merchandise out of the store.” A while later, he says, “I can’t find a Black Angus coupon.” I say, “Let me take a look.” He hands me the coupon stack, which I look through and find it. “Pwned,” I say. “Why couldn’t you find it?” “It looks just like the Bed,… Read more →
Free Samples
I’ve got my son and one of his friends with me at Trader Joe’s. They start off by grabbing some roast beef and panini at the free sample stand. Later, when I’m in the checkout line, they wander off, I assume to go outside, but it turns out they went back for seconds on the free samples. “You guys are an embarrassment!” I say. “The free samples are supposed to be one to a customer, not all you can eat!” “I don’t think she saw us the first time,” my son says. “So it’s okay.” “Jesus, I can’t take you guys anywhere.” Read more →
Bat Out of Hell
And I ran up the stairs to my parents’ bedroom Mommy and Daddy was sleeping in the moonlight Slowly I opened the door, creeping in the shadows Right up to the foot of their bed I raised the guitar high above my head And just as I was about to bring the guitar Crashing down upon the center of the bed, My father woke up, screaming “Stop! Wait a minute! Stop it boy! What do ya think you’re doin’? That’s no way to treat an expensive musical instrument!” “God Dammit Daddy! You know I love you, But you got a hell of a lot to learn about Rock ‘n Roll” — Meat Loaf, “Wasted Youth” Read more →
Another Way Computers Are Making Life Better for Everyone
His mom took the boy’s laptop computer away because she didn’t like his attitude about something or other, and now he’s trying to involve me in a secret plan to get it back. I ask him, “Why don’t you forget about the computer and do something else tonight? Read a book or something?” He says, “I need the computer so my friends and I can talk to each other.” “Use text messages. Or a phone. There’s an idea.” “We need video.” “Video? What do you need video for?” “Don’t worry about it.” “Exactly. So you don’t really need the computer.” “‘Don’t worry about it’ doesn’t mean I don’t need it. It means don’t worry about it.” “What are you going to do? Have a biggest dick contest?” “Is that what you used to do?” “We didn’t have webcams when I was your age. We had to take ’em out and… Read more →
Christmas Cookies
My wife and son brought home some Pillsbury cookie dough sheets (see photo) but we’ve got a problem. Even though the packaging shows cookies with festive holiday shapes (“I want the ones shaped like Christmas trees,” my son says), the sheets are not pre-cut, and we don’t have cookie cutters. I say, “It looks like what you’re going to get are cookies shaped like rectangles.” Read more →
I Went Deaf on Christmas Eve
I. At home I tell my son I’m going to the urgent care walk-in clinic. “What for?” he asks. “I want to find out why I’ve gone deaf in my left ear.” “You’ve got an ear infection,” he says. “I had one when I came back from Thailand. I was also coughing 24/7 so I had to take this insane cough syrup and ear infection pills.” “I’m not coughing 24/7. I’ve got a lot of congestion though.” “You’ll just get the ear infection pills then.” “When you took them, could you feel your ear canal cracking open? Man, that’s the best! It’s almost worth it to have a clogged passage just to feel it cracking open again.” “Yeah, but it takes a couple of days.” II. At the doctor’s office The nurse takes my blood pressure. “100 over 60,” she says. “Is that good?” I ask. (I already know it’s… Read more →
Drummer Boy
My son had a drum set part in the Northwood Holiday Concert last night . . . Drum set parts are a showcase for high school percussionists because usually they stand at the back of the orchestra, the audience can’t actually see the instruments, and nobody knows what they’re doing. He told me after the concert that was the worst he’d ever played that song but it sounded great to me, maybe because I’m a parent . . . Read more →
A T-Shirt with a Gorilla on It
I took my boy to Souplantation for dinner after his hockey game. An Indian kid in the line across from us was wearing a t-shirt with a gorilla on it. “That Indian guy has a cool shirt,” my son said. “I’d rock that.” “I’d sport that,” he said. “I’d don that,” he said. “I’d . . .” “I get it. Now shut up so I can focus on my salad.” Read more →
I Didn’t Get a Pizza Square
The free sample stand at Trader Joe’s has pizza squares today. They look delicious! Unfortunately, there are only two left and just ahead of me is a woman with a toddler in her shopping cart. I’m thinking Just take one and leave one for me but no, she takes both, hands one to the toddler, who immediately drops it face down on the floor . . . Read more →
An African-American Name
My son needs an African-American name for a character he created in NFL Street. “How about Kareem of Wheat?” I suggest. He decides to go with Delondre McWreck . . . Read more →
Thinking About It
My son is stick-handling a hockey ball on the hardwood floor in the family room, when I notice a skate wrench lying on the table. I say, “Why don’t you put that skate wrench in your hockey bag?” “Okay,” he says. “Why don’t you do it now, while you’re thinking about it?” “Okay,” he says. A couple minutes later, when he’s still stick-handling and the wrench is still lying there, I say, “While you’re thinking about it, why don’t you put that skate wrench in your hockey bag?” “Okay,” he says. “That’s the third time you’ve said okay, and the wrench is still there.” “I’m still thinking about it.” Read more →
The Handsome Men in Our Family
We’ve got plenty of mirrors in the house, but for some reason, our son has come into our room to comb his hair in our mirror . . . “What a handsome boy!” his mom says. I say, “Like his pappy.” “He’s got me in him too,” she says. “My dad was handsome. And my uncles are very handsome. You haven’t seen them.” I can’t resist mentioning that her brother, who I have seen, is anything but handsome. “I don’t know what happened to him,” she says. Read more →