Some time ago I was riding in my truck with Tod and Ted and Tod asked me this question “Dad, do you love golf more than you love us?”  It was quite evident Shirley had been not too happy with the amount of golf I had been playing at the time, and that’s just the golf she actually knew about.  Ultimately I questioned her about the propaganda she obviously was hurdling upon the kids in regards to their father, and she denied it completely.  My kids are smart, but there is no way at this age they should come to the realization that I love golf more than I love them.  Eventually they would have figured that out on their own, but for now let them live in complete ignorance Shirley,  ignorance is bliss.

I will admit this, the question caught me off guard, but the appropriate response would have been this.  “That’s an interesting question.  Tod, you and Ted really like ice cream don’t you?  You would eat it three times a day if you could, right?  Now there’s some ice cream that you like better than others and when that ice cream is available it makes you really happy, way happier than eating vanilla ice cream, right?”

“Of course dad, ice cream is the greatest thing ever.  I can’t imagine there being anything I like more than ice cream.”

“Tod, I would love it if ice cream was always your favorite thing in the world, but I have a feeling when you get into your teenage years, if memory serves me correct, there is something out there that is going to blast by ice cream as if it were standing still, there will be an appropriate time and place for me to apprise you of what that is, and right now is not that time and place.  So back to my point, your happiness when it comes to ice cream is probably correlated to how long it has been since you have had ice cream, the type of ice cream you are eating, and the amount, right”

“I’ve always been happy when I have had ice cream, are there different levels of happiness?”

“Of course there are, when we let you watch a half hour of tv your happy right?  But how happy are you when we let you watch an entire two hour movie?”

“Really happy?”

“Exactly, and that’s what I am trying to get at here, wether or not I like something better than something else is contingent on a whole lot of things.  If I’m playing a real nice golf course, it’s a beautiful day, and I’m playing well, golf is my favorite thing to do, even above spending time with you guys.  This is especially true if its the day after I have had to  take care of you guys for three nights in a row because your mom has had to work late and you guys were being dicks the entire time.  I still love you guys, but I don’t like hanging out with you and  I like playing golf way  more than spending time with you guys.  But on the other hand, if it’s a crappy day, I’m slicing the ball and have absolutely no idea where it is going to go, and I haven’t seen you guys in a couple weeks, I would probably, and I’m not saying that I’m 100% sure, but at least 80 percent sure, I would want to be with you guys instead of on the golf course.”

“Besides where did you get the idea that I love golf more than you guys?  Which I don’t by the way, I would just rather golf than hang out with you guys, I’m sure the tables will be turned in 10 years when you figure out how to masturbate and suddenly gain interest in the opposite sex, you’ll begrudgingly talk to me once in a while but that will be about it and it will likely only be for the sole purpose of hitting me up for some money or to use my car”

“Well mom said you spend way too much time golfing and that she never gets to have a Thursday to herself because of your dumb golf league.”

“Well, you guys should probably hear this now, what you have to understand about married women, which includes your mom, is that their entire fulfillment hinges on their husbands.  Married women will pretend to have friends, but they are really just people who  they choose to hang out with who also have kids so that they can sit around and talk about you guys, I know, right, totally boring.  Guys on the other hand engage in activities that allow them to get away from their families and avoid talking about their kids.  We have hobbies such as golf, bowling, and watching sports that allow us to retain some degree of sanity.  Don’t get me wrong, there are women who have hobbies, but they are called lesbians and you probably want to steer clear of them because they will probably be better at most of the so called hobbies than you are, and that can be quite emasculating.  So, the harsh truth is that as much as your mom wants to bad mouth my hobbies and interests, I have encouraged her to do the same as me and find some hobbies and interests. In all reality, I’ve actually encouraged her to engage in hobbies with attractive women, i’ve suggested she start with pillow fights and see where it takes her as well as to make sure to document it via video, unfortunately she hasn’t taken me up on it yet.  Here’s the deal, the problem is she doesn’t want to hang out with other women on a regular basis because women are boring.  Does that all make sense to you?  You guys probably already know this, but there are maybe three women in the entire world who are actually funny, and then there’s a large group of women who have been artificially labeled funny because their women, kind of an affirmative action form of humor labeling for women.  That’s probably the primary reason women don’t’ hang out with other women all that often.  I don’t know about you guys but I like to laugh, and I’m not laughing when I’m with a room full of women I can tell you that much.  Does that make sense?”

“Not really, can we go get some ice cream?”

“Sure.”