The day after word came down that all schools were going to be shut down indefinitely (not permanently) Aiden was sitting on the can as he does every morning in preparation to get his day kick started.  He typically takes twenty minutes to pinch a loaf, it’s unfortunate he’s not a fan of coffee and that newspapers have become obsolete because he could really use both to not only speed things up but also entertain him while he does his business.  While our kids have their own bathroom, Aiden prefers shitting in ours, and that morning he was crying on the toilet.  Constipation can be a bitch (or so I have been told, never really had an issue with regularity) but tearing up about it seemed a bit much to me, even in light of the fact that he is a bit of a delicate flower.  It turned out he was crying about the fact that Shirley was ranting and raving about how things were going to go in the Jansma house moving forward during the hiatus from school.  “Mom is going to teach us and she doesn’t know anything!”  were his exact words.  Shirley told them no devices amongst some of the other threats that would be nearly impossible for her to actually follow through on since she was going to be working full time.  Once Shirley left the room I had a heart to heart with Aiden, I said to Aiden “you know your mom, when has she ever actually followed through on any of the stuff she claims she is going to do? you have nothing to worry about, everything will be just fine, no way mom is going to teach you and you know I would never let her teach you math, right?”  Aiden immediately rallied, his demeanor was as if he dropped a 5 pound turd into the toilet.  “You’re right dad, and theres no way I want her teaching me math, she thought 3 times 0 was 3” (true story).

That morning I went into my office, it seems like years ago, in light of all of the things that have been taken away from me since that Friday morning.  Shirley called me mid morning to let me know she had bought I pads for both of the kids, I almost asked her to put Aiden on the phone just so I could tell him that I told him so.  When you have been with someone for 13 years, regardless of how much you pay attention to them, you are going to be able to predict most of their behaviors merely through osmosis.  Fast forward to now and it’s me who is responsible for “teaching” them.  Shirley actually asked me today before dinner if I thought she wanted to work 11 hours a day, my response was yes, yes you do because it gets you out of having to do what I do every day.  Parker and Aiden agreed with me, and they, mainly through osmosis, have realized what I have known for years, Shirley fucking loves her job.  I”m not faulting her for it, but I will admit I am a bit jealous, I hate my job and can’t imagine getting that much satisfaction and enjoyment out of my job.

So, basically I have turned into a stay at home parent with one draw back, my kids never fucking leave the house so I can watch soap operas and have an affair with the mail carrier (preferably a hot blonde with big cans, though I have never seen anyone resembling that description delivering mail or Amazon packages for that matter).  So, I cook, I clean, I painted the entire downstairs this weekend, and I am responsible for teaching the kids, or at the very least trying to keep them on task.  That’s why I also almost completely lost my shit this morning when Shirley criticized me for a purchase I had made.  You see, after watching Blackwater a couple weeks ago Shirley purged our house of all of our teflon pans because it turns out teflon causes just about every imaginable cancer and health malady possible, granted the pan has to reach the heat of the center of the sun to release the harmful chemicals that cause such cancer, but just to be on the safe side she threw out those pans almost as fast as I threw out all of her granny panties when I had the opportunity to do so.  So, yesterday I was at Walmarts (that what her grandma calls it) to see if they had any golf pull carts (I will probably address the need for that at some point down the road) and immediately regretted my decision to enter the store, the only time I go to Walmarts is if I am somewhere that doesn’t have a Meijer.  Regardless, striking out on the golf pull cart should have been my indication that it wasn’t meant to be but I decided to buy a set of ceramic pans that said they were PFAS free to replace our pans that were now leaking PFAS all over some land fill in Kent county.

This morning I was unpacking the pans when Shirley came down from her home office and immediately criticized the pans for being ugly.  To be honest, I thought they were benign but they offended Shirley’s sophisticated tastes.  Immediately I wanted to snap back and tell her she didn’t have any say in the matter due to the fact that she never cooks, however Parker beat me to it asking her why she was so upset about it since she never does any of the cooking?  He was my favorite before but now the only way Aiden surpasses him is if he comes up with the Coronavirus vaccine.

Admittedly, before I had been forced into the task of home schooling my kids I had no idea where they were at academically nor did I really care.  They are in Spanish immersion so for the most part I am like a guy forced to run into the store to buy feminine hygiene products for his significant other, totally lost and entirely clueless.  Unfortunately, whoever came up with the phrase ignorance is bliss was spot on, I didn’t need to know where my kids were at scholastically just like I didn’t need to know that there were different types of feminine hygiene products.  While I have an incredible amount of solid genetic material to pass along to my kids, spelling is not one of those things.  I am a terrible speller and one of my tasks is to go over Aiden’s spelling words every day.  The aple has not falen too far from the tree (I use to think Gym was spelled Gymn).  He’s on my trajectory when it comes to spelling.  However, he really has no need to sweat it for the most part, spell check will solve most of his deficiencies.  But, I am going to let you in on a dirty secret of mine, I am such a bad speller that sometimes the spell check software can’t even come up with a suggestion due to the fact that  I am so far off on the spelling on my intended word, so I have to come up with a different word with a similar meaning to replace the word I wanted to use.

While things have been going along as well as can be expected for someone who has no patience or background in education, there have been a couple bumps in the road.  Both last week and today I had anxiety/panic attacks when I was trying to teach both kids at the same time.  I hate legos, always have always will.  The reason I hate them is it’s almost impossible to put them away in an organized fashion and when I see them spilled out all over the floor or a kitchen table it causes me severe angst.  Well, trying to come up with an organized way to attack my kids lesson plans and keep all of their work organized so they could be submitted to their respective teachers was as if someone had dropped 150 lbs of random legos in my living room.  Last week I was so paralyzed by the attack that I had to call an impromptu recess (about the only time my kids actually listen to me in my role as their teacher) but today I powered through and kept teaching Aiden about the civil war as Parker finished up his math homework.

After a brief overview of the civil war and a recitation of the history of Michigan I called it for the day and retreated to the couch to try and nap off the anxiety attack.   Unfortunately that didn’t get the job done (I’ve been routinely sleeping until 8 am with no real reason to get out of bed) so I headed to the Kentwood high school track to exercise off the anxiety.  This was just what the doctor ordered resulting in a game of Stratego (Aiden beat me so maybe there is hope for him after all) upon my return home followed by tater tot casserole and a game of Azul with Aiden and Shirley.  I highly recommend Azul for those of you who enjoy strategy games, it’s a ton of fun and fairly easy to play.   While I can handle 3 more weeks of this without having to resort to recreational marijuana or some type of violence against an inanimate object, if it goes any further than that I’m going to either need a punching bag or some high octane brownies.

Yesterday was suppose to be my first day on the job teaching my kids.  With the courts basically shut down and the cops tasked with merely keeping the uprising of the citizenry at bay, there isn’t a whole lot for the West Michigan Defense Team to do at this point.  I did have a court hearing scheduled for tomorrow that I was hoping would remain on the docket but was adjourned indefinitely.  I wasn’t sure who to feel more sorry for in this teacher pupil scenario, me or my kids.  That being said I was awoken to find out from Shirley that Whitmer was shutting down the state at 9am.  Holy shit I thought to myself, I only have until 9am to shop for everything I need to keep myself from going insane.  What those items were primarily revolved around me painting our entire downstairs.  I sped off to Repco Lite (they carry Benjamin Moore products) and picked up 6 gallons of paint and a pair of 18 inch rollers.  Midway through my paint purchasing trip Shirley informed me that that press conference was actually at 11am my thought was good that will buy the businesses that have not completely shuttered yet a couple more hours to remain open.  I like to think of myself as a free thinker, and I like to think of all the governors who followed one another into implementing this remain home policy as the opposite of free thinkers.  Granted, maybe it is necessary in some states, but for the most part Michigan, from what I can tell is taking this seriously and there really isn’t a need for an executive order requiring everyone to remain home unless you are essential (pool cleaners are deemed essential).

Part of me wanted to go to the grocery store because we were out of milk and a few essentials, but I thought better of it due to the fact that word had probably gotten out to the hoarding community (I”m pretty sure they have their own message board) and they were all likely at the store making sure they had 8 weeks worth of fresh chicken and a 3 month supply of kitty litter. The reality was hitting me hard, I needed to go home and teach my kids, and by teach I mean yell at them.   Upon my return home they were already on their first recess and playing on electronics.  I made a few phone calls and quickly realized the only word that comes out of my mouth that my kids pay attention to is fuck.  I dropped an F bomb on the phone and Parker immediately proclaimed to Aiden that I had dropped an F bomb.  A few minutes later another one came spewing out of my mouth garnering an identical reaction by Parker.  This has led me to believe that when I want them to do something I need to get their attention by first dropping  the F bomb “Listen here you Fucking maggots…..”

Will there be a day where I end up telling them I just like to say the F word and I say it a lot?  Of course that day will come, but until then I am quite apologetic about it when they overhear me cussing like a sailor.  The first problem I encountered in my new role as teacher was that my kids have no respect for me as a teacher, look they have little respect for me as a parent either, but at least they have some, I was telling them what they needed to do and they flat out told me they weren’t doing that, I don’t even think throwing a few f bombs in would have helped to get them to obey my commands.  Both kids have lesson plans that they need to get through and then when these are completed it is my job to fill in the blanks for them and teach them about science (I know nothing) Language Arts (I’m learning on the fly) and one that was not on Shirley’s schedule (she actually made a schedule for them) Social Studies (I was a history major in college).

The schedule is in half hour blocks and a bit aggressive if you ask me, it has them in school from 9 to 4, which is easy for Shirley because she is busy all day running Spectrum Hospital (it’s the impression I get when I over hear her on the phone, there is no way we could ever work together).  Aiden was good about picking up where he left off after recess was over but Parker claimed he had nothing to do, turns out he was full of shit and that he had a slate of lesson plans the he hadn’t even touched.  With Aiden working away on his own, Bible was the only thing that I could free style and that was our subject to tackle before lunch.  I read the story of David and Goliath and asked Parker how many stones David pulled out of the river in anticipation of his take down of Goliath with his sling shot.  Parker responded with the number 5.  Teaching was obviously becoming second nature to me and I was really starting to get through to my most problematic student.

Five Tacitos and an hour of screen time later it was time to reconvene.   Aiden had completed all of his online work so it was up to me to create the curriculum for the afternoon session.   Language arts was on the calendar from 1pm to 1:30.   Unfortunately my kids are in Spanish immersion leaving me at even more of a disadvantage than parents trying to teach their kids who are in an English speaking curriculum.  So, instead of pulling out Rosetta Stone (Shirley was going to learn Spanish once upon a time) I decided language arts was going to be taught in English.  I took two years of Spanish in high school and the only thing I remember is my Spanish teacher having the hot girls in my class (I think there were one and a half) Salta Alta (jump up and down).  Parts of speech were on the table, initially I thought there were four parts of speech but there are actually 8, possibly 10 depending on who you ask.  However, there are a couple that could easily be done away with if you ask me.  I went over all 8 of them and discussed them with the kids until I felt like they had a firm grasp on verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.  Pronouns were fairly easy to explain but prepositions were akin to what Spanish is to me.

One of the tricks to this whole teaching thing is attempting to determine where the kids are when it comes to learning.  Parts of speech and diagraming sentences may be a bit beyond a 9 year old and are definitely out of the reach for a 7 year old but I need to start somewhere.  With language arts out of the way the remaining schedule looked like this:

• 1:30-2:00 Art
• 2:00-2:30 Science
• 2:30-3:00 Recess
• 3:00-3:30 Gym (aren’t recess and gym basically the same thing?)
• 3:30-4:00 Music

One thing was obvious to me, art and music aren’t real subjects so the kids and I could turn our backs on art and music for the time being.  So, I decided to fill the void created by those two items on the calendar with a social studies lesson covering early explorers.  Parker refused to engage in a social studies lesson so it was just me and Aiden learning about the Silk Road and Marco Polo, this lead to questions about Christopher Columbus due to the fact that the Silk Road was eventually shut down by the Chinese (as if there wren’t enough reasons to hate the Chinese right now) leading to explorers seeking alternative routes to the Far East.  Columbus thought the Bahamas and eventually Latin America were actually China, hard to believe we have an annual holiday for that guy that in some areas of the world actually entails parade.

After we concluded social studies I decided it was time for gym class so we loaded up and headed to Cascade Township park.  I told the kids to head over to the playground while I shot hoops by myself trying to keep my game tight so that I would be ready to play again in August when they reopen everything.  Eventually my kids grew tired of the playground (after roughly three minutes) so I let them take my phone and watch it in the car, I still had to work on my left handed layups and corner 3″s.  Initially we were going to play tennis but there was water on the court and the windchill made it feel like it was still early February.  Instead I went to D n W to finally get some of the essentials we were out of (including beer) followed by a trip to Home Depot to get a quart of paint and check out their electric chainsaws.  I know, electric chainsaws?  However, the reviews are quite stellar and I had my eye on a Milwaukee due to the fact that I already had two batteries for it.  Not only would it come in handy for cutting up firewood it would also be great for the impending and inevitable  zombie apocalypse, instead of struggling to start my gas chainsaw to ward off would be pursuers I could get right to dismembering the attackers by just hitting the throttle.

I assumed the executive order put in place would shut down every retail business but grocery stores and pharmacies.  However, reading my email when I returned home from gym class told me otherwise.  Greenwell sent an email to it’s subscribers indicating they were still open for delivery and take out with the email also laying out some of this upcoming week’s specials.  That morning I had hustled out to get paint under the assumption the stores would be shut down for 3 weeks but I was probably wrong about that.   I had glanced over the executive order, but didn’t actually go in depth enough to determine what the consequences were for disregarding the executive order.  My second read through revealed that willful disobedience of the executive order will result in a misdemeanor.  So, for those of you who wish to keep a clean record but also maintain some level of sanity here are some helpful hints:

• One can leave one’s home to exercise, I’m paraphrasing, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep a tennis racket or a pair of running shoes in your vehicle and claim that you were going to go exercise should you be pulled over by law enforcement or the National Guard.  It wouldn’t hurt to be wearing sweat pants either, I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t wearing sweat pants, one of the few benefits of this pandemic and the resulting quarantine.
• You can also leave home to acquire essential supplies.  Always have a bag of groceries in your car containing eggs, bread, toilet paper (if you have some) and a fifth of liquor.  If you are pulled over point to that and tell whoever pulled you over that you are returning from the store.
• There is also a clause about leaving home for the welfare of others.  This seems to be what we in the legal business would call a catch all.  If you really get into a pinch just tell whoever pulls you over that you were 30 seconds from dismembering your family and that you had to leave home to clear your head.

Typically, I take the approach that what is good for me is good for everyone. Unfortunately, the powers that be have not taken that approach in handling the Corona Virus and I have no choice but to step in line in the hopes that this will all be over in the three week time frame laid out by the Governor.  I realize that the there will still be cases of the Corona Virus, but my hope is that this quarantine will allow the medical industry to catch up and be prepared for whatever happens once things open back up in three weeks(Yeah right).   While this will likely be the longest three weeks of my life, the one good thing is that it didn’t happen in the middle of January because in all likelihood my kids would have stumbled upon me with my car running and the garage doors shut.

Let me first start off by saying this Corona thing has been great.  That may come as startling news to some of you, but the kids have been quarantined in Fremont with Shirley’s aunt since Sunday night and the last few days have been amazing.  Monday night Shirley and I played a game of Quirkle, followed by the movie Ford v. Ferrari (solid I would recommend to both boys and girls, Shirley even enjoyed it), followed by Shirley and I disregarding the call for social distancing.  (the social distancing thing does have me concerned that wives are going to play that card as yet another excuse to avoid their wifely duties). Last night we watched Black Waters, a movie about a corporate attorney who flips to the other side and represents a wronged farmer in West Virginia who Dow chemical company bent over and shoved a bunch of harmful chemicals up his ass both literally and figuratively.  This movie is a slow burn but really good, however it is frightening that such a disregard for public safety can go unabated and unregulated for decades.  The unfortunate thing is that all good things eventually come to an end.  Today I have to pick the kids up, and while in theory I miss them, in actuality I don’t and I have grown quite accustom to my kidless lifestyle.

One more thing, I also am in charge of bringing their cousin Maddy back home with me.  However, I do not have a booster seat for her.  The exact text I received from her dad was “Do you need to come get a booster?  Thanks for getting Maddy too”. Now being a D, which I will get into later probably played into my interpretation of the text.  However, it seems that even though I am doing the favor I’m the one who needs to go out of my way to get the booster seat.  The appropriate text would have been “Do you need a booster seat for Maddy? I can bring one over or we can meet up on your way.  I still think you’re a dick” (he thinks I’m a dick, and is probably right).  Normally I would respond with a text putting him in his place and beginning a family feud likely to put a chasm between the two of us more insurmountable than the national debt.  Fortunately, I learned my lesson the last time I did such a thing and I merely responded “I don’t have booster with me and I am down at my office and was planning on heading to Fremont from here.”  What I really wanted to do is fuck with him.  I wanted to text him that I was already on the way back with the kids and that I put a phone book under Maddy to compensate for the lack of a booster seat.  This would have sent him into a frenzy and its likely his head would have likely exploded on the spot.

As far as me being a D, it was something I suspected all along and was confirmed a couple weeks ago after taking a test.  My mother in law has a program that she offers where you can take DiSC profile workplace test.  The test is meant to determine what type of work personality that you have by having you answer a series of questions.  You can strongly agree, agree, be neutral, disagree or strongly disagree with each question/statement.  A couple questions that stuck out:

Q: You have no patience for people who waste your time

A: Strongly agree (fuck yes!)

Q: You care for others feelings

A: Strongly disagree (fuck no!)

This is what the test determined about me:

Even me, the most optimistic of people is having a hard time keeping my head up and pushing forward through this pandemic.  The most problematic thing is that every time I think of something I don’t want canceled or delayed five minutes later it’s shut down:

• March Madness- Canceled
• NBA season- Postponed
• Schools- Shut down
• MVP- Shut Down
• Bowling Alley’s- Shut Down
• Restaurant’s- Shut Down (but you can get carry out as long as there are only five customers at a time waiting for their food and they remain six feet apart as they wait)

This entire thing feels somewhat arbitrary and capricious.  Here’s an idea, instead of putting everyone into quarantine, how about putting those who are high risk into quarantine and let everyone else go about their normal business so this thing spreads and runs its course?  Basic math would tell you that this is not as dire as the media and the government want the citizenry to believe:

3,487 known cases in the United States out of 370 million people.  That is .0009% of the population that has been inflicted with corona.

56 known cases in Michigan out of roughly 9,800,000 people.  That is .0006% infection rate in the Great Lakes state.

I get that there are plenty of cases out there that have not been diagnosed due to a lack of symptoms or people thinking they have something else.  However, Fox News interviewed a high risk person who contracted the virus on a cruise and ended up being tested because they were on the cruise not because they were symptamatic.  Neither he or his wife became sick even though they had the virus.

I have kept quiet all season long about my coaching exploits in the YMCA Mary Free Bed boy’s basketball league but now that the season is winding down it’s time to hit some of the highlights of the season.  First of all I need to divide it into two segments, I was head coach for Parker’s team and assistant coach on Aiden’s team so I will cover Parker’s team first and then discuss Aiden’s and his team’s progression through what has been a trying season primarily due to the wide gap between 3rd and 4th grade boys.

Going into the final game prior to Christmas break I was on the fence about a second session, but that game, which in hindsight was a complete anomaly, was akin to Hickory High when they finally listened to Gene Hackman and put it all together.  They were passing, they were scoring, they were playing D.  So, I got the band back together for the second session.  However we had a few casualties to ski season and picked up four new players to take the place of the two we lost.  With a full roster and the team gelling I was ready to start kicking some first grade butt.  However, the Y threw a curve ball my way.  At our first practice with the new squad one of the parents was there to introduce himself and tell me his son was EI (emotionally impaired).  Part of me wanted to respond “aren’t we all?”  But I remained stone faced and empathetic.  EI went on to make one kid almost twice his size cry during our initial practice along with attacking a number of the other players on his team.

The first and second game of new half of the season saw me handing the reigns over to my assistant coaches while I vacationed in Costa Rica.  When I returned I found out EI attacked our point guard when the point guard didn’t pass him the ball.  Guess what?  Other than the anomaly game heading into Christmas Break our point guards have passed the ball a total of zero times.  If passing the ball was a criteria for point guard attacks our squad would be the WWF of the Y league.  Fortunately my assistant saw the attack coming and was able to intervene.  Also, fortunately for our point guard I wasn’t there because I would have probably let it play out for a couple of reason.  First of all, I could have told all of the aspiring point guards on my team (every single kid on my team because they ask me after every break;  “Can I be point guard! Can I be point guard!) that that is what happens when you don’t pass the ball, EI attacks you.  Secondly, EI would probably be suspended for at least one game if not the season.  While I don’t think the Y has implemented a policy regarding fighting your own teammates I would assume the policy about fighting opponents would still apply and the punishment for taking out your own point guard would be the same as taking out the opposing point guard.  I found out later on that EI is also enrolled in karate due to the fact that his dad informed me he wouldn’t be at a game because he was getting his black belt in karate.  Good to know EI will be able to karate chop his way to a special place in his point guard’s heart.

Upon my return I ran up against a total bro who was probably in the Forest Hills system. He was wearing bedazzled jeans and came up to me before the game and said “can we try to keep the teams on the floor even?”  What I think he meant was I am going to play my best players as much as possible but you should play all your players equally even if they suck.  It was like Ground Hog’s day once play began, one kid on my team who always gets hurt every practice and every game got hurt and EI mauled friend and foe.  While they don’t keep score in first grade, we were getting curb stomped and I was thankful that the clock was winding down and then out of no where Broseph called a time out with a minute left in the fourth quarter.  I didn’t even know we had timeouts nor had  I witnessed anyone call a timeout the entire season.  We don’t keep score why the hell would you call a timeout?  I tried to keep it together and gave Broseph the benefit of the doubt and waited to see if he called the timeout to get a different player in, possibly his son, so his son could get a garbage time bucket.  No such luck, he didn’t sub in a new player I think the timeout was to run particular play (my teams only play is to have the point guard pick up his dribble 40 feet from the basket and for all four other players to continually yell his name).  I’ll be honest, while it was rewarding to see my team put it all together for one game, the 32 minutes a week I coach Parker’s team (4 eight minute quarters) are the longest 32 minutes of my week.

Aiden’s team was a different kind of frustrating, most of the season we played fourth grade teams.  This would have been fine if we had a few fourth graders but we don’t and the difference between fourth graders and third graders is the difference between a major league DH that uses HGH and one that doesn’t.  Most of the games we lost were by thirty points or more and we only had one game where we even sniffed a victory, ultimately losing by 6.  One particular game was more demoralizing than finishing last place at the special olympics with a team of unspecial players.  This game involved a team with a player whose dad plays regularly at MVP, we call him injury Tim because he has been the cause of a number of catastrophic injuries at MVP.  His son hit a 3 and did the 3 finger gesture on the side of his head (what a dick).

However, I had never seen a kid even attempt a 3 let alone make one so I was caught off guard by the attempt and corresponding make so I didn’t offer a response to his dad who was standing by the gym exit roughly 40 feet from me.  He hit another one and did the feed me gesture (what an asshole)

Did I kind of wish he was my kid? Of course I did, but mainly because I would punish him severely for showing other kids up and being a raging asshole.  This time his father and I locked eyes and I made sure his dad realized how inappropriate I thought this was.  His dad just started laughing and appeared to think it was great.  After the game I went over and spoke to injury Tim and said to him he should probably advise his son not to continue showing up opponents because someday he will run into the YMCA version of me on the court and his opponent will take him out.  In hindsight I wish I would have used a timeout so that I could have instructed one of our least important players to teach the kid a lesson.

This morning when I got back from hoops Shirley asked me if I would take the kids into school because they had specifically requested that I do so.  It’s not because I am a better driver, which I am, it’s not because we stop for doughnuts on the way to school, no it’s because I typically let them have my phone so that I can listen to the Free Beer and Hot Wings show on the way in.  However, Shirley knowing this said “you know I never let them have devices on the way in and we have some great conversations.”  Well, wouldn’t you know it, once we made it into my car Parker immediately asked “Dad, can we have your phone?”  I’ll be honest a part of me almost handed it over but I thought to myself “screw that!”  I”m going to make sure they don’t want me taking them to school anymore, I am going to converse with them.  I told them no and said let’s just talk.  “THERE’S NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT!” was their immediate response.  Well, we have been watching the Mandelorian, a series on Disney and we started it on Sunday night.  I’ll be honest, I dodged a bullet by turning my kids on to that show because we were quite close to watching Frozen 2 until I suggested the Mandelorian.  Now we are all hooked primarily because of baby Yoda.  The Madelorian is totally bad ass but baby Yoda is what keeps you coming back.  The funny thing is, even though I have assured Parker that baby Yoda eventually becomes adolescent Yoda (it’s gotta be awkward) and then adult Yoda and that he lives to 900, he still is concerned every episode that baby Yoda is going to be terminated.

Ultimately the Mandelorian conversation went no where and I was close to handing over my phone and admitting defeat.  However, I decided to give it one last shot and asked the kids what they talk about with Shirley on the way in to school.  Aiden said politics and immediately I thought to myself that Shirley lied to me when she said her conversations with them are interesting.  However, it probably wasn’t a lie, she listens to NPR so she may actually think politics are interesting.  The mention of politics elicited a question from Aiden that made me come to the realization that I am really old.  He asked who the presidents have been in my lifetime.  At first I thought Nixon, but I was pretty sure he resigned due to the Watergate scandal before I was born leading to our one and only President who was never elected as Vice President or president, Grand Rapid’s one and only Gerald Ford.  Jimmy Carter was next and I explained to the kids that the most significant event that occurred during his watch was the Iran hostage situation.  That involved trying to explain what a diplomat is as well as why every country in the Middle East hates us except Israel.

This conversation began to bore Parker and he said “when do I get to talk?”  Followed by “how old to you have to be to get a credit card?”  I responded that you had to be 18 and he replied I’m getting one when I am 13, he is his mother’s son just like Aiden trying to steer the conversation back to U.S. history is following in my footsteps since I ended up being a history major in college (it was a long and winding road).  Parker had somehow wrestled the floor away from his brother and had a question/statement about credit cards; “you can get a car with a credit card”.  I said not typically, it would be a huge no no in Dave Ramsey’s book, basically breaking everyone of his rules, but it is conceivable that you could do this I guess likely plummeting your credit score but on the bright side the credit card company is going to try and repossess your car if you stop making your monthly minimum payments.

I managed to refocus and told Aiden that Regan was president for 8 years but didn’t get into trickle down economics even though both my kids would instantly see how flawed such an economic philosophy would be.  I also didn’t get into Iran Contra either because I wanted them to think Republicans are the more moral of the two parties.  Moving on to George H. Bush there was little to say about his presidency and Bill Clinton there was little I could say.  Even though it wasn’t that long ago I still had to check myself and make sure that George W was in the White House for two terms, he was, proving that anything is possible and likely paved the way for the unimaginable, Donald Trump as our president.  I mentioned Barrack Obama but didn’t go into detail about him knowing that Shirley probably covered everything on his presidency with the boys.

Having hit all of the presidents and some of their highlights/lowlights Parker now piped in wondering what he could bring to college.  My response was pretty much anything as long as it is legal.  The reason he asked is because he wanted to make sure he could bring his X-box, the X-box he plans on owning in the future and that Shirley will eventually buy him because she loves video games almost as much as the kids do.  Both of them wondered if they could take pets to college and I indicated that the only pets they would likely be able to bring were either hermit crabs (ours may somehow still be alive when the kids leave for college) or fish.  What do you know, we somehow managed to make it all the way to school without a single second of screen time, what a relief, now I could just turn my brain off and get back to the Free Beer and Hot Wings show.