My kids went back to school recently, which means we can finally clean the living room. There was really no point cleaning it during the three months of summer. As soon as we picked up the 75 DVD cases (each with the wrong DVD in it) and pushed aside the Wii accessories to clear a spot on the couch, one of our kids would be there with dirty feet and Cheetos crumbs, while Star Wars—the Clone Wars blared out of the big screen for the third time that day. Finally we just gave up and left the living room littered with juice boxes, candy wrappers, and toys. We figured eventually the kids would grow tired of living in a pigsty and clean it up themselves. We figured horribly wrong.
Everybody knows that the school-year calendar was designed with the sole purpose of keeping parents from killing their children. If summer were four months long, we wouldn’t need classrooms because there wouldn’t be any kids to go in them.
I love my kids. I love seeing them go to school in the fall every year. The only flip side to the kids going back to school (besides fighting with other parents over the last Hannah Montana backpack at Wal-Mart) is that within a few days, a little piece of paper comes home announcing Back to School Night.
Back to School Night means two words I’ve always disliked as a parent: parent participation. I know it sounds bad, but I don’t want to participate in my kids’ educations. That’s why I pay teachers’ salaries with my taxes. I enjoy driving down the street, but that doesn’t mean I want to participate in building a street. Back to School Night means I get dragged back to school. I’m supposed to be done with school. I did my time. My life is now one big day of hooky. And it feels great.
Regardless of my feelings, my wife, whom I love, said we would be attending. Apparently she loves our kids more than I do and cares about their education. That’s why it’s good that our kids have two parents. When one of us doesn’t give a hoot about something, hopefully the other one does. This works both ways at my house. When my wife doesn’t care about the newest video game system, I do, and thus the kids benefit (and so do I).
I put a smile on my face and agreed to go to the school if my wife took me to 7-11 first. I grabbed some bubblegum and a Slurpee. I was tempted to throw a little Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum in my Coke Slurpee, but I was pretty sure my wife would call CPS on me if I showed up to school half in the bag. Our little detour to 7-11 made us late to class, which was appropriate, I thought, since I was late to class most of my life.
We opened the door to Room 8 and obviously interrupted the teacher who was giving a lecture about classroom etiquette. I was hoping he already covered tardiness so we didn’t have to go over that in front of the other parents. My wife and I found the last two available seats in the classroom, which happened to be front and center, directly under the teacher (it was coming back to me why you didn’t want to be late to stuff). The teacher gave me the evil eye, which said he recognized me as a slacker and figured I was probably raising a slacker kid. He should see our living room.
The teacher began his lecture again, after he was rudely interrupted by some unpunc-tual people. He went over some class rules. Rule No. 1: no gum. As he said the word “gum,” it hit me that I was actually chewing gum right in front of him. I tried to stop chewing it and casually tuck it under my tongue. I had only been in class 20 seconds, and I had already violated two of the class rules. Next on the hit parade of taking all of the fun out of schools: dress code. They didn’t allow flip-flops. Of course, I was wearing flip-flops. Late, chewing gum, and out of dress code—it was a delinquent trifecta. At this point, instead of being embarrassed, I just gave up and began to chew my gum again, only now with renewed fervor. Send me to the principal’s office. I dare you.
Once he was through listing all of the rules/violations I was committing, the teacher handed out some papers and gave us a short paragraph to read. It was some literary artsy-fartsy thing about the moon. Or kittens. I couldn’t follow it. Suddenly, the teacher asked what I thought of the paragraph. I didn’t reply, because I hoped he was talking to someone else. “What did the paragraph mean to you?” he asked again.
“Uh, to me?”
“Yes, what did it make you think of?”
“Uh, it made me realize I watch TV for a reason.”
This did not get the laughter I was looking for from my peers. Instead, there was a sick silence. Instead of laughing, the other parents just felt sorry for my kids that they had such a donkey hole for a father. Apparently, my class clown skills are way out of practice. I used to kill in junior high.
The teacher just stared at me, and I could tell he was trying to think of the right comeback. He wanted to poignantly get his point across, but had to be careful not to be unprofessional or rude. The silence was pierced by the bell ringing. I stood up, shook the teacher’s hand, and told him my son, Ryan Miller, was really going to enjoy his class. I quickly left before he could figure out whose dad I really was.
Rob may have been saved by the bell, but he wasn’t saved from the wrath of his wife, who lectured him all the way home. Captain Morgan’s, anyone?
This article appears in Sep 17-24, 2009.