Bang!

Listen to: Live from the Hovel on the hill, No.17

(apostrophes and quotes removed for clarity)
Bang!

What is the best, most splendid, graduation gift ever? Is it an all expense paid trip around the world?
- Look, look the Timbuktu Mc Donalds! Quick get a picture! -
What about an unlimited credit card whose bills go to a forgetful billionaire?
- My, my, a dozen matched surfboards? Now, I wonder what I have done with those?
No. Sorry. All good guesses, but wrong. Its a car; A car from your grandfather. A car that has been so well cared for its entire life, that if I died I would be thrilled to come back as this car.
As soon as I heard the plan, my *Parenty* senses began to tingle. The kind of tingle that comes while you are standing on the train tracks, and from behind, comes the sound of a very loud air horn.

- I just want to take it to the body shop and get it cleaned up first, so its really nice for him.
- Don’t do that Dad. It is fine. It is beautiful. It is too nice as it is.
I am sure it took at least two whole handkerchiefs to get it into shape. At Body shop prices thats probably around $1200.
How does a Dad follow a gift like that? I still dont know but I gave my son an Ipod for graduation. It was very expensive, and thoughtful! As a matter of fact when I bought it, I was very thoughtful about how little affect it would have on my insurance rates.

Bang. It happened. I had been waiting for it. The statistics said it was going to. It was just a matter of time. 50% of drivers under the age of 24 will have an accident. If it is night time, the probability goes up another 20%. For each extra person in the car the odds rise 20% more. Add an additional 20% for each passenger whose underwear is 3 days old. Lets see, that puts him somewhere in the 210% bracket.
I was proud of myself though, I asked the right question first, before all others.
- Was anyone hurt?
- No, I think everyone is ok
- Ok, thats lucky. Now, tell me the truth; How is the Ipod?
Most people ask the right question, first. Then after they find out that no one was hurt, the conversation moves on. Right past the harder questions, like:
- Did you re-register the car before the accident?
Which is a good thing, because the only answer I have for that one is:
- Nah, I was too busy sitting around like the big dirt-bag son I really am!

In all the excitement of getting a car, graduation, parties and end of school trips, we never got around to re-registering the car or changing over the insurance.
Surprise Dad! Think of it as a kind of endless graduation gift. If he survives long enough to graduate from college, would you consider giving him Gum, as a present next time?
I really did not want the accident driving up my 86 year-old fathers rates. However, it turns out no-fault insurance does not quite cover being an idiot, even after begging at the insurance agency.
-Well, I re-registered the car this morning, couldnt we just pretend?
-This is New Jersey. If you try that kind of thing here, the insurance company has the legal right to eat your children.
-Can I pick which one?
To complete this Trifecta of disaster, my son also got a ticket. I am hoping the judge will be reasonable but not too lenient. Driving is a serious responsibility and any accident is a major problem. Besides, I have always hoped to see my own life flashing before my eyes before I see my sons.

The Dining Room Conspiracy

Listen to: Live from the Hovel on the hill, No.16

The Dining Room conspiracy
We are on the front lines here at bunker Gray. Down in the trenches with all the mud and blood of constant rebellion. Every day we do battle with convention and tradition, willing ourselves forward in the cause. We wear shorts in the winter. We wear two different colored socks, sometimes on purpose. There is nothing sacred to us.
Today I am looking at the dining room and wondering, what’s it for? Tradition tells us it’s for special occasions, Sunday dinners, and entertaining guests. The nerve of those guests, can’t eat at the kitchen table like the rest of us?
Right now our dining room is filled with keyboards, drums and recording equipment. If we could figure out how to store that giant table somewhere we could really spread out.
This is very like what happened to the living room. My wife was a dogged defender of the living room. She insisted that the living room always be spotless and was reserved for entertaining. Consequently the family never felt comfortable in there. Unfortunately, when guests did come over they always stood around in the kitchen, which left the living room, unlived.
It took a while, but after my wife died, I started to question the wisdom of having one of the largest rooms in the house being the least used. So we changed it. Now it is a game and gathering room. The kids spend most of their down time in there and I can be near them while working in the kitchen. It’s very handy for togetherness and parental mentoring. I am always passing on little tidbits of hard earned wisdom. Things like:
-Turn that down, I’m trying to watch the news here!-
And
-Whose socks are these and what are they doing in the microwave?-
It looks like the dining room is going the same way, racing down the path to usefulness. There is a bigger problem than we had with the living room though. The dining room is chock-a-block full of heirlooms. Big heavy ones.
The table for instance, while it is the perfect place for a train set, it also weighs about 5,000 pounds. It does not come apart. Two men and a mule can push it around but not far enough out of the way to end the menace of breaking your arm during a really expressive “air guitar” session.
Then there are the massive and equally heavy lowboy and highboy. Packed with silver, champagne glasses and special plates that are not allowed in the dish washer. Together they are probably responsible for my house’s nasty heirloom tilt.
I believe that since I was married, those plates have seen the light of day 4 times. The last time, due to a fit of “being in charge”, I decided that it was up to me whether I could actually look at them or not. I drew the shutters, took a quick peek and then put them back immediately, before I got into trouble. It’s probably on my permanent record though.
There is some sense to not using the good glasses and Sunday china willy-nilly, I suppose. Some might even site the example of the time we broke three champagne glasses during an informal High-C soiree.
-Look Dad, I‘m a Viking, Arghhh! Oh sorry! Sorry! Sorry!-
Which just makes me see the sense of drinking out of horns and wooden bowls. If you decide to clop your brother on the head with one, his head may hurt but you still have a working bowl.
This still leaves us with the problem of things we rarely use, taking up more than their fair share of our house. It will not be as easy as the living room. These fine dining things are protected from rebellion by impenetrable force fields of guilt.
Being prisoners of our own paraphernalia, we will have to find a way to coexist. Discover some way to protect and preserve them and still be able to utilize the space for more useful pursuits, like Lego city.
That way when the Queen comes over for a spot of tea, we can say:
-Let’s get out the good things guys! They are over there behind the Star Wars diorama, right next to the Photon torpedoes.-

Please visit my website at www.prentissgray.com

The Dad of Dissapointment

Listen to: Live from the Hovel on the hill, No.15

The Dad of disappointment

Every once in a while I get to really stand out as a parent. Meaning that, I use all my critical timing skills, all my years of hard earned experience and artfully seize the opportunity to disappoint my entire family and a few unprotected friends as well. I have just had one of those glorious moments, and I have no doubt it will be talked about on analyst’s couches for generations to come.
It started with my oldest’s vacation idea. He envisioned an impromptu spring vacation trip to go camping in the woods and then sightseeing in Boston. After three whole trips to that fair city, he feels it is firmly in his masterful grasp. After all, that is probably where he will spend his college years, so obviously he is ready to command an expedition.
As I heard it, the original plan for his trip was to get in the car, fill it up with other adventurous kids and then ask me for gas money. I might have seemed a little ‘cool’ on the original plot. In my doubting parent way, I felt it lacked some of the finer points of preparation necessary to have a fulfilling spring break, like knowing how to get where you are going.
Beyond other minor details like eating and sleeping, I saw two troubling weaknesses in his itinerary. First his “camping” plan involved driving up north and stepping out of the car right into the waiting arms of “mud season”. “Mud season” happens just after the time it’s so cold that your coffee freezes over in mid sip and just before you run screaming through the pines trying to escape the annual spring return of 40 billion tiny, dark and very hungry Black flies.
During “Mud season”, ground that was as hard as granite all winter suddenly has the consistency of tapioca pudding. For locals in the area, it means about a month of trudging through shin deep goo while being rained on. I know, I know, what a wet blanket I am!
My second issue with this happy holiday, was that some of the kids were far younger than 18. Would hotel managers all over Boston greet five very muddy kids with open arms and offer them the presidential suite? Jeez, talk about a doubting daddy!
However, parentally I felt this was one of those times when dropping a cement truck on the whole idea was not the right thing to do.
Instead of playing the part of Snidely Whiplash, I made a suggestion. I wasn’t going to Boston with them but I could “help” with the camping part. We have a house in the north woods, which is know for camping excellence. What if his brothers and I provided a place of refuge for the first part of this soiree? I promised not to be a lead weight around the neck of fun. I swore that if they wanted to camp, they could. I would be nearby, in case someone needed a shower, or stitches or something. Just to provide a friendly face in the event of an encounter with 5 or 6 very hungry bears, fresh from a long winter’s snooze.
My son, being the soul of patience and forbearance, begrudgingly allowed as how the idea might not completely stink. The other parents thought this was a capital plan. If someone else wanted to be trapped in a house with 8 hungry boys for three days in the rain, surrounded by brown goo, they were all for it.
Sounds like a good plan, right? It was, and then the dice started to roll. First, it wasn’t going to be three fun filled days in the woods with actual showers. After I refused to “help” by keeping the rest of his family upstairs, except during designated bathroom times, my son shrank the stay to one night.
Second, a call to a knowledgeable local revealed that the 8 mile road into the house was not just soft and muddy, it was gone. “Might be back by May though….” he added, helpfully.
Faced with taking one son out of school, trucking dogs, cat, gear and food on a 5 hour road tip that ended with a 4 mile walk, for an overnight, I balked. I just didn’t feel that helpful. I told my son it was not worth it, and thereby sealed my doom. He told me he was going to do the Boston part anyway, and my “help” was no longer required.
All my sons are radiating disappointment like lighthouses now. The one who thought he was getting out of three days of school went catatonic midway through my fatherly explanation. Even the dogs are morose and the cat looks at me with suspicion now.
If anyone needs anything, I’ll be hiding in the basement “helping” myself.

Please visit my website at www.prentissgray.com

Where does my time go?

Listen to: Live from the Hovel on the hill, No.14

Useless; my children feel nothing is too good for them and I’m actually holding them back from the childhood they ‘really’ deserve.

Please visit my website at www.prentissgray.com