A couple months ago Aiden won entrance into the school wide spelling bee by beating his classmates. I think that says a lot about his classmates and very little about Aiden. Regardless, Shirley decided that she would attend the spelling bee which was held in the Caledonia High School auditorium. About 45 seconds in to the practice round she texted me “A girl just got out on “studied” would have been ironic if Aiden got that word” (received that word would have been the proper way to communicate that, I suck at spelling but am just ok at grammar).

I asked her how many kids are in the thing and she responded with probably 50 and followed it by indicting “this is so painful.”

The spelling bee came up later in the day on the Nieboer text string and started with a facebook video from my mother in law from October 19 2013 when Aiden was just about to turn 3 and appeared to be his birthday party even though he was born on November 13. Regardless Sue followed the posting of the video with “And now he is winning spelling bees!” To which Aiden responded “but I didn’t win, only the class one”

I then asked “How did you do today”

“good”

“great”

“I got to the third round”

“Witch is good”

Shirley responded with a “Wow!!!” (apparently she has very low expectations for Aiden)

“Witch”

“Which” from Shirley

“sorry autocorrect” (in the history of autocorrect it is batting around a .324 success rate)

“That’s awesome! (Shirley is really into exclamation points unless she is referring to any of my accomplishments) Aiden what word did you lose on?”

“I don’t even remember, some fancy word for coat, the others got easy ones”

“Tunic?” asked Shirley

“way harder it starts with a c”

“Kaftan? inquired Shirley. (I don’t even know what that is)

“Chiton?” asked Shirley again (she must have had a fucking thesaurus near by)

“Cloak?” chimed in my mother in law.

“No, I said it was hard I can spell cloak”

“of coarse” Sue incorrectly came back with but no one gave her shit for it.

“Great Job” from Aunt Amy.

“Cape?” I asked

“No, I can spell cape”

“Cardigan?”

In my defense cardigan is not really a jacket and it’s not really a sweater but it’s way more of a sweater than it is a jacket. Regardless, I would probably blow my brains out if my kid was a tier 1 speller and I was forced to go the the regional version of this thing. Fortunately Shirley and I, but especially Shirley, realize Aiden could be tier 1 at some type of electronics type of activity so we have allowed him to explore his potential for greatness in that realm. It’s actually more Shirley’s fault, or possibly even Spectrum Health. Aiden gets home around 3 and hops on a device immediately. Typically I am not home and Shirley wouldn’t even realize someone was home if the entire cast of Cats came in and performed the first number from the musical. She is so deeply entrenched in her home office that the kids could, and almost did, burn the house down while she was in it, although I am quite confident Max is smart enough and likes her enough that he would alert her to her potential peril before it befell her. Parker on the other hand gets home and typically goes over to the neighbors to play. I’m not saying he doesn’t love electronics but he at least has some other interests.

My two sons also are on different spectrums when it comes to athletics. Saturday I took them to MVP to play tennis and broke out the ball machine. Parker was up first and did a pretty good job returning balls. However, Aiden missed almost everything that came his way and when he did make contact it typically went on to another court, where people were playing. Eventually, I had to slow the machine down for him. On top of that, it didn’t take him long to ask when we were leaving because he had already spent 45 minutes away form his electronics, I could actually see him quivering and shaking, a mini withdrawal was beginning to rear its ugly head. Parker on the other hand wanted to keep playing. They both took another round on the ball machine, I took one round as well, as they watched my phone. The burst of electronics gave Aiden a little more pep to his step and I played the two of them up to 15. Aiden continually botched things for Parker and there were a number of times Parker chased after him with his racket in anger. I beat them and we played again, and then one more time. Parker ended up throwing his racket twice, if I had any doubt about his paternity, I no longer do. In addition, he told me he needed a better racket. He is my son!

On Wednesday I took the kids to get their final Covid shots, it’s good, it was really a pain putting them in a haz mat suit every time I wanted to take them somewhere. After the doctor’s appointment we headed to the mall per Parker’s request because he wanted to look at Air Jordan’s even though Aiden is the one growing out of his shoes. It had been a minute since I had been to Woodland mall and there are a lot of new stores, and based on the traffic in those malls those stores will be replaced by other stores in a matter of months. Parker could not find any Jordan’s that he liked at the mall. I asked Aiden if he wanted to get some new shoes since he was outgrowing his and he said “no dad”. (he may not be my son) We decided to hit Cheescake factory and Shirley ended up meeting up with us. At the table Aiden had my phone for some reason and he stumbled on a screen shot of one of the girls on the booby calendar. He didn’t know she was on the booby calendar, (The booby calendar is an advent calendar where each day you can open a new video clip, but you can’t skip ahead, which is kind of the beauty of the booby calendar, I felt like a kid again actually having something to look forward to every day around the holidays instead of a lot of stuff to dread) and fortunately she was wearing underwear in the screen shot, but he immediately questioned the screen shot and brought it to Shirley’s attention. I somewhat explained the booby calendar and told them one of my partners had sent it to me. Shirley mentioned one of my partners by name but I did not admit nor deny, besides she had it wrong anyway. Eventually Shirley left with Parker and Aiden hung back so he could get a piece of salted caramel cheesecake. As he ate his dessert I scrolled through my photos and wiped my phone clean. There wasn’t a lot that needed to be erased but I did have some instagram photos of a former Thornapple cartgirl that would be nearly possible to explain and would come off as extremely creepy in my possession if my kids or Shirley were to have happened upon them.

On the way home Aiden started grilling me about the screen shot and asking why I would have such a thing. Part of me wanted to just tell him how it actually is, men are visual creatures who enjoy seeing the beauty that God has created in women and we prefer to see women, but only attractive skinny women, in their most basic form, naked. However, I kind of hemmed and hawed and danced around the subject. When I was a kid my neighbor friends and I stumbled upon 5 penthouse magazines when we were kids. That was the 80’s and those were the biggest beavers I had ever seen, and I watched Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom almost every week. Eventually, when my parents had a brush fire we put the pornos (precious gold) into a paper bag and discreetly threw them on the fire. Not sure what we were thinking. Regardless, had I had the internet when I was growing up there is no telling what type of sexual deviant I would have become. Sadly, there will be a day, and I don’t think it is that far off, where my kids will use the internet for something besides gaming with their friends.

Most of the time I have a feeling of superiority over the rest of society. Being Dutch allows one to legitimately feel better than everyone you come across, other than fellow Dutchmen and women. That being said, when we experience weather in West Michigan like we have the past two days I feel even more superior than everyone else except those in four wheel drive trucks. My vehicle prior to getting a Ram Longhorn was a Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit, it’s called a summit because you can’t get much higher than it. However, while the Summit did an admirable job in snowy conditions, the only thing holding my Ram Truck from treating what are impassible roads for some, like business as usual, are people in shitty cars. Yesterday there was some poor sap in some small Hyundai SUV trying to get up the hill on Michigan and doing such a poor job of it that someone with no arms or legs could have rolled up the hill past her. To her credit though, she did have her hazards on. That is something that has always boggled my mind, I am going below the posted minimum speed limit or driving like an imbecile but I have my hazards on so it’s ok and completely legal. Similar to someone who is petrified of Covid, people with shitty vehicles need to stay home when the going gets tough on the roads.

On the other hand, I never feel superior to Shirley, she holds the ultimate card, the sex card. This morning when we were getting up she said to me “we need to take care of the trampoline and get the snow off of it”. Typically “we” meaning me, takes the trampoline down in the winter so that it doesn’t accumulate snow on it. However, I left it up this year and somehow, despite all Shirley has to worry and perseverate over, she found one more thing. Some times I ignore her and don’t accomplish the things “we” meaning me, have been tasked to accomplish. However, business time did not take place as I had hoped last night so in order to secure its occurrence I begrudgingly grabbed a shovel and climbed into the netting of the tramp. I resembled someone wearing a straight jacket trying to climb a ladder in my attempt to make my way onto the tramp. Once I was on it I quickly realized it was slippery as fuck, and fuck is quite slippery. I began heaving snow shovel fulls of snow over the netting and quickly began to sweat my balls off. I had miscalculated how many layers were required for me to stay warm while also failing to factor in I sweat just getting up and walking to the fridge for a glass of water. The entire time I was shoveling off snow Max was under the tramp barking and nipping at me. I have no idea why he does this the only explanation would be that he is attempting to get me on level ground where he can more effectively manipulate me into hitting tennis balls for him. As I shoveled the snow off the tramp, and nearly pulled my hamstring due to the slippery nature of the tramp, I realized that Shirley wouldn’t be out here shoveling off the tramp to have sex with me, nor would any other women in their right mind, she’d be shoveling it off to not have to have sex with me.

While my truck and my Dutch heritage give me an irrational amount of confidence and empower me to be an asshole on the road and a valuable member of society off the roads, Aiden has a device that enables him to do things I would never have dreamed of doing as a kid. This week the kids were back to school and Shirley gave him a cell phone this year so he has something to do on the bus. He texted me the following on Monday:

“Dad, call mom and tell her to freaking turn the limit off she’s not freaking listening to me or picking up my calls (welcome to the club)”

“Please”

“Lord Please”

“God please”

“I need you to answer”

“Now”

“Answer now”

When I finally looked at my phone I was worried it was a text from a client who was in a pinch, I don’t have his phone saved into my contacts but probably should add him considering what had just transpired. My lack of a response and his need for data resulted in him taking it to an entirely new level. There is a Neiboer thread that has all of my in-laws on the thread. Aiden texted “I hate mom” to everyone on it. My mother in law responded “you do not!” Aiden responded by indicating that he didn’t he was just looking to get a response to see if the string works. Obviously he knew it works, he was just hoping the group text would get Shirley’s attention since the individual texts to her did nothing. My response to him on the group text was “testing? testing? would have been a better way to go” To which he replied “Oh well with that I’ll get a slow response” I texted him that “I love you mom would have garnered the quickest response time.”

A couple more text messages one from my mother in law where she tells Aiden positive is always better than negative (I strongly disagree with that but didn’t voice my opinion) and one from my sister in law where she basically said Aiden is routinely an asshole on the text string (I agreed with that) when suddenly out of nowhere my mother in law texts “grandma has Covid”. Aiden’s response was “it’s ok your vaccinated”. What I was trying to type was that Grandma wasn’t talking in third person like she normally does but was actually telling everyone that Great Grandma has Covid. However, Aiden texted “oh grandma Stadt” before I could reply. He then asked if Grandma Stadt was vaccinated, and thankfully she is, because if she wasn’t she might not only just have a runny nose but also a sore throat. Regardless, Shirley’s grandma is to the point where I am certain she won’t even remember she has Covid. On top of all this my mother in law threw in this classic tidbit “Aunt Nancy is sick too and waiting for her test to come in the mail” then she added an extra, quite important text, “she ordered a home test from Amazon.”

Unfortunately, even though I am Dutch and have a super sweet Ram Truck (Motor Trend Truck of the year 3 years running) this time of the year really brings me down. The parties and festivities, even though I tend to hate people, are something to somewhat look forward to. I had a happy hour set up with a couple attorneys and my super awesome truck was getting some body work done so I had to take Lyft to the location for the happy hour. My driver was black but strangely had LAV playing. As he began to drive me towards my location I started conversing with him and received no response. I quickly realized he had air pods, or some off brand equivalent in his ears. The guy put it on LAV because I am white and middle aged. How offensive! LAV is ok, but give me something that plays Maroon 5 or the Jonas Brothers regularly. Even though mentally this is the worst time of year for me we have somehow managed to plan a number of activities in January that will hopefully make it fly by and allow me to get to spring without having to engage in significant counseling or be prescribed a powerful antidepressant.