My Luminous Millennial.

"If I had a superpower, it would be to be able to fill things whenever I want. Like, to fill people's refrigerators or water tanks or bank accounts or whatever. Just fill things."

In 2000, William Strauss and Neil Howe released the first book devoted to this generation, titled Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. Defined as anyone born between 1982 and 2004, it's something I never realized I had in common with my fifteen-year-old daughter—we're both tail-enders, she being born in 2000 and I with about a minute to go in the fourth quarter of the Baby Boom.

According to Wikipedia, academic opinions vary on the Millennial mindset—anywhere from civic minded and tolerant to narcissistic and entitled (Just between you and me, that's a check-check-check-check for my kid, plus a few more).

She and I talk about lots of things, but always in small, concentrated blocks, and usually sandwiched around dinner. The remainder of her time she spends either in her room or with friends. In a few short months she'll have her driver's license and be ever scarcer around these digs.

Over the years, I've enjoyed interviewing people, especially my kids. Inevitably, a nugget will surface that I hadn't anticipated, a view of the world I hadn't known or appreciated. Well, it's been a while, six years in fact. since I got her feedback down in pixels, so I thought I'd check back in.

I sat down with my daughter on a recent Wednesday evening, following a nearly-satisfying dinner of Costco Asian chicken salad and a zealous negotiation culminating in the eight-dollar interview fee. Clad in her post-shower garb of t-shirt, sweats and fuzzy socks, she reclined on the couch two cushions down as I opened my notebook.

How do you feel when you hear an adult say something like, "Oh, she's just a teenager. You know how they can be. Their brains are completely offline, raging with hormones and they're incapable of perceiving consequences?

Honestly? It pisses me off. It's totally degrading to us, calling what we say and think invalid.

Interesting. What about the consequences part? 

Adults like to put kids into stereotypes: these kids go here, those kids go there. I'm not this person or that person.

Knowing what you do now, what advice would your almost-sixteen-year-old self have for the nine-year-old I talked to six years ago?

Oh, Geez. Um, even though you don't have any friends now, you're going to have friends who are really cool. Everything turns out a lot better for you. And... try to like your sister more.

That makes me sad.

You can't do that. You're supposed to be the interviewer.

Right. So I have to ask—is dating something you're interested in right now?

Not really. I don't want to talk about this stuff. I don't want this stuff on your blog.

Fair enough. How do you visualize yourself as an adult? In other words, at what age do you imagine your established adult self? In your 20s? 30s?

I picture myself around 30. I've got a really good job and I'm hella rich. I've probably been married for five years already and have one kid. I'll have another one later.

What's this job you've got that makes you hella rich?

No idea. I'd really like something to do with marketing. I'm good at pretending to have confidence when I really don't. I guess I'm really good at bullshitting.

Yes, it is a very special skill. Good luck with that. Okay, so just to get a better idea about your attitudes, we're going to play a game called "You can only have one." First off, you can only have one: Eating lunch in the school cafeteria every day for six months with just your parents, or not talking to your friends for six months?

Really? Oh. .. I'm going to go with sitting with my parents. Oh, my God, I can't believe I said that. But losing all my friends for six months? I can't even imagine... oh, that would be so bad. Yes, parents.

Hey, thanks!

Um, I don't think you should feel good about that.

Okay, one more. You can either give up bread forever or lose all your friends and have to start from scratch.

I guess it has to be bread. I do love bread though... that's okay. There's a lot of people out there who are gluten free.

Who do you like for president?

I'm feeling the Bern. He stands for everything I like.

Everything?

Pretty much.

What about Hillary?

I think she has made several mistakes. I saw something on Twitter from the 60s or 70s and she said some racist and anti-gay stuff. I don't know if it's true, but I do trust Twitter.

Are you serious? You trust Twitter?

Yes.

How do you feel about Mr. Trump?

Oh, my God. I don't want to waste the energy I have on him. He's the exact definition of a joke.

Along those lines, what qualities do you admire in a person?

Let's see... honesty, loyalty and... having a good sense of humor. Yes, all three.

Do you see those traits in yourself?

Yes, I do.

Okay, last question: who's your favorite guy over 50?

I guess... my dad?

Correct!

You weirdo.

And with that, she stood and dropped the pillow onto the cushion and walked away, "I'm going to go chill and watch some Gossip Girl.  Oh, and don't forget," she yelled just as her bedroom door closed behind her, "you owe me eight dollars."

Hey, no problem. She won't let me forget.

If You Go, Don't Forget Your Louis Valentins.

Family vacations can be a lot like watching a last-place baseball team: You come home sunburned and pissed off, wondering why you spent all that time and money on such selfish bastards.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

So simple. My wife, ever the brains of the organization, proposed letting our older daughter have the house to herself while her younger sister brought a friend with us down to San Diego over the July Fourth weekend.

It was the magic of addition by subtraction, like segregating an oxidizing agent from a reducing compound to stave off explosive polymerization.

Sorry, I just started watching Breaking Bad again. 

Sure, there were a few Griswoldian hitches in our get-along. My first couple of forays behind the wheel of our sporty Kia Soul proved a little dicey, but that’s what happens when a high performance motor car is piloted by a dude in flip flops who constantly has to pee a little. 

Did I drive over a few curbs? Sure. Did my ham-footed braking illicit a smattering of spirited “JC Tim!"s from my lovely bride after exerting forced flexion on her delicate neck tissue? Maybe.

But on the whole, this was our best trip in a long time. I won’t bore you with my watered down Rick Stevesishness, but I will say this: check out San Diego. It’s a beautiful, manageable place to spend a few days. And as if there aren’t a Brazilian other reasons to visit, everything takes about twenty minutes to reach. Whether it’s Pacific Beach, Mission Bay, Coronado or Balboa Park, your inner thighs will be chaffing from the salty beach air faster than you can say fish taco.

And speaking of Balboa Park, it’s ground zero for Dr. Suess enthusiasts. Theodore Geisel, having lived in La Jolla for nearly fifty years, surely drew inspiration for his illustrations strolling through and around this locale. Here's what I mean:

I couldn't believe it! I half expected the Lorax to peek his head around the trunk and scream at us for supporting Monsanto. Many of us will line up to see where Mozart was born or where Hemingway drank, but no waiting is necessary to catch the splendor of my personal Mecca, the Suessian forest at Balboa Park.

Of course, traveling and living in close quarters with a couple of fourteen-year-old girls poses its own challenges. They were often so occupied with posting photos of themselves in San Diego that they spent about forty percent of the time actually being in San Diego as the adults did. Oh well, at least they supplied a few verbal gems:

Teenaager: “Dad, these sunglasses were only $10. They’re Louis Valentin. I got a great deal.”

Me: “Are you thinking of Louis Vuitton?"

Teenager: “Whatever."

Teenager: “Dad, this place is too small. Can we just stay in a hotel?”

Me: “No.”

Teenager: “Whatever."

Teenager: “Dad, I want to go to college in San Diego.”

Me: “Okay. How will you pay for it?”

Teenager: “Dad, Stop it.”

I did.

We returned refreshed and, let’s just say, slightly secretly sandy. Our older daughter picked us up at the airport and returned us to a house that was nearly as cleanish as she’s ever cleaned it.

And next time we’re thinking about trying the whole San Diego thing with no kids. I'm confident our delicate family chemistry will survive intact.

A Few Words About the Mispronunciationism Epidemic.

“Dad, you’re such a hypocrite.”

My younger daughter hurls that knuckleball at me quite a bit. Ever since she learned it back in sixth grade, it’s her go-to accusation. The other day she called me out again, this time for mispronouncing words.

“You’re always correcting people’s words, but you don’t say words right all the time.” 

Most mature parents, like my wife, would just let a provocative statement from their hormone-soaked adolescent vaporize harmlessly through an ozone crack. 

Not this petty simpleton. “I don’t say any words wrong,” I said. “Name one.” Bam, take that, teenager.

“You say ‘girl SCOUT' cookies. It’s supposed to be ‘GIRL scout' cookies.”

She had no idea how on top of my game I felt. “That’s not mispronunciation, that’s just putting the accent on a different word.” 

“Whatever. You’re still a hypocrite.”

Curses. I had nothing. My only recourse would have been to initiate the feared “am-not, are-too” exchange, and I probably would have if my bride weren’t within easy earshot.

Hypocrite or not, I’m not a fan of mispronunciation. I blame my mom. Whenever I’d butcher a word or not know its definition, she made me look it up in our twelve-pound dictionary sitting next to the phone.

Ever since then, my hackles have saluted at the sound of a misspoken word. The George W. Bush years proved to be the most prolific reign of lexiconic butchery since Archie Bunker told Edith that “you can’t squeeze blood out of a tulip.” 

Our Yale- and Harvard-educated Commander-in-Chief, the man who held the keys to America’s doomsday arsenal, couldn’t pronounce “nuclear.” During a 2004 presidential debate with John Kerry, Bush said, “I hear there’s rumors on the Internets that we’re going to have a draft.”

Even Cheney must have made disapproving buzzard noises when he heard that.

I won’t drone on about our ex-Prez who paints puppy pictures. It’s like calling your old girlfriend and asking for that VHS copy of “Purple Rain” that she never gave back. What’s the point?

But as long as we eat our sherbert acrossed from the libary after supposably prespiring about our prostrate, we must abide these wordroids. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Expecially—I have a good friend who’s mispronounced “especially” since I’ve known him, but what am I gonna do—stop him mid-sentence or wait for a more opportune moment to humiliate him? Nah. There’s already a glut of dickishness on our big blue marble.

Disorientated—Frequently spoken by those who actually are disorientated.

Irregardless—Actually, simply add two letters to the beginning, and “unirregardless” returns to meaning what it should.

Expresso—Yes, I’ve heard this from actual Seattle natives. This should be added to our citizenship test right after the dog CPR section.

Sometimes, however, it can get personal. A few years ago at a company meeting, my group was recognized for working on a successful campaign. The speaker read our names from a slide and I could tell she was a mispronouncer after messing up two of the first five names. 

I still felt safe. The worst I’ve ever been called is “Hayward,” even though my name is phonetically the easiest word to pronounce in the English language. Seriously, I’ve heard that “Haywood” was one of the first caveman last names, since it can be grunted.

She reached my name on the list—Sherry Jones, Mark Johnson, Tim Hayway…”

Hayway? What the hell? This woman was a freaking vice president and she couldn’t pronounce a word that even my cat accidentally says a couple of times a week?

Spontaneous barks of laughter erupted from random spots throughout the room. Everyone in my vicinity shoved me and choked back fits of laughter.

That was five years ago. Just take a guess at what I’m still called around the old water cooler.

Besides that.

Help Me Pick Up the Pieces.

Your time is valuable. I understand this.

But I need your advice regarding something that happened today. Seriously, I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t need you to unleash your hounds of wisdom upon my tender pink meat of ineptitude. 

Here’s what happened: 

Every morning, I drive my fourteen-year-old daughter to middle school. Usually, by the time we've come within a couple blocks of our destination, the roads have already become clogged with cranky chauffeurs and their pubescent offspring. 

You know how school zones are supposed to work, where the speed limit is twenty when children are present? We’re implored to gingerly maneuver our vehicles through the clouds of Axe body spray and foggy-eyed adolescence as America’s future shuffles into the building with neon Cheeto fingers and the raw funk of pituitary promise. 

Yeah, not at this school. It’s an all-out “I’ve-got-six-minutes-to-get-to-work-if-you-get-out-while-we’re-moving” mentality. Cars stop in the middle of the street; kids dart in front of you, brushing your hood with scuffed clarinet cases. This three-minute taste of the Apocalypse is overwhelmingly the most dangerous part of my day. 

This morning, we’d just entered the hot zone and had elevated to alert level Orange, similar to the Bush-era system, yet not stupid and ineffective. 

I wasn’t driving fast, which is probably why we didn’t collide. The Honda minivan was pulled over, its front wheels pointing toward the street. As I juked slightly to the left to pass, the vehicle abruptly accelerated into my path. 

I leaned on the horn and stomped the brakes, our rusty minivans jerking to a stop and forming a “V” in the middle of the street. The driver’s eyes locked onto me. She scowled and pulled away, exhibiting a gesture possibly only recognizable to the indigenous herders of Lapland.

Oh yeah, plus we knew this person.

“Oh, my God, Dad. That was Chrysanthemum (not her actual name).”

“Sure is,” I said. “Chrysanthemum needs to look before she pulls out.”

I wasn't sure how to feel. I was embarrassed yet certain the mishap was her creation. My daughter and I have known her and her daughter for five or six years, yet until this morning hadn’t been on the viewing end of her axe murdering face. Regrettably, that one wasn't on the old bucket list.

So what the hell do I do now, get her a freaking Starbucks card? Nah. 

After pondering my choices, after jotting out T-charts and crunching numerous cost/benefit analyses, I’ve whittled my options down to the following:

1) Apologize. Maybe I was driving a tad bit aggressively, and therefore am partly responsible for the near miss (Or, as George Carlin once said: “That’s not a f—-ing near miss. That’s a f—-ing near hit.”).

2) Do nothing. Act as if it never happened and distract Chrysanthemum with a smothering bear hug next time I see her. People love my hugs, you know.

3) Egg her house.

I’m leaning toward a combination of 1) and 3), but I’ll hold off until I hear your suggestions.

Get Over Yourself, Ponytail Boy.

My older daughter turned nineteen yesterday.

It was her first birthday away from home and the beginning of her last year as a teenager. 

Holy shit.

Lately I’ve been trying to hoard my “holy shit”s a little…

…but since this is about me and not her—holy shit, next year, a twenty-year-old will call me Dad. 

But you know, not the same way Johnny Depp’s twenty-year-old does.

Last night, we Facetimed as she rode back from dinner. Her face, illuminated in the iLight, glowed in the darkness as she and a friend sped up I-5 back to campus. Gazing at us were those beautiful, big brown eyes she inherited from her mom.

My wife spoke first. "Hi Honey. Happy birthday! How was Olive Garden?”

“Great, like always. But we missed the exit so the next one wasn’t until Tullalip.”

At this point, my wife asked the question so obvious to everyone in the world except her and apparently, her friend: “Why didn’t you turn around?” 

“I don’t know. Dad, I tried to call you today. Russell Wilson is getting a divorce.”

“Yeah, I heard.” 

“Best birthday present ever.”

Nice. Her infatuation the Seahawk quarterback is about as subtle as a ball peen to the shin bone. She’s got a couple of “Russ” posters up in her dorm room, plus a phone case and “Hustle like Russell” t-shirt. 

“You don’t need to be happy when someone gets divorced,” said my wife.

“I’m not happy for his wife at all, but I’m happy for me.” Touching. 

Her head whipped back. “Oh, no.”

“What?” we both said. 

“I left my keys at Olive Garden. Aaagh! And we’re almost back at school.”

“How long have you been driving?” I asked her.

“I don’t know, about an hour.”

Silence. My wife and I looked at each other, our faces tilted at similar "not my problem" angles.

“You should call Olive Garden to make sure they’ve got them,” said  my wife.

“Yeah, I guess so. Okay, well, bye, I guess.”

“Happy birthday!” we said. “We love you.”

“I love you too. Bye.”

You know, you can only do so much to supply the tools. When she was an infant, due to earthquake risk, we avoided driving on the rickety Alaska Way Viaduct to and from her daycare. During the forty-five-minute trip, only classical music soothed the confines of our ’95 Kia. I’d read that classical scales stimulate the synapses in a baby’s rapidly forming brain, thereby enhancing math and musical prowess. 

Hey, for all I knew, the future inventor of corn dog trees sat back there, her damp fingers grinding goldfish into the stained seat of her Fisher Price.

Yeah, get over yourself, ponytail boy.

Nineteen years later, It’s a little painful to watch others pay the price for her miscues. Last year, we would have accompanied her on the two-hour detour back to Olive Garden. Fortunately at least, kids tend to suffer one another’s discombobulation with a socialist bent.

And definitely some money for gas.

We Both Like the Same Band from Iceland.

She’s fourteen today. 

My baby is fourteen. How did this happen? It seems like a few days ago she was asking me when she had to give her shoes back because they were “Mary Jane’s.” 

It feels like yesterday that a wigged, wacky Hannah Montana ruled the house, Billy Ray cracking wise in his soul patch and hair helmet. Did you see the one where a smoothie got spilled on his head? It stuck to his face but it was like his hair had been treated with Rainex. Rolled raught oufff.

Can my younger kid be a little mouthy? Does she provide a daily, unsolicited “state-of-Dad’s-eyebrows” briefing? Can she get a little frosty when I cop a couple of her Lindt chocolates? 

I don't know, does Bruce Jenner have a special closet for his Jimmy Choos?

Sometimes it’s like she’s the coach and we’re the refs and we’re T’ing her up continuously for insolent remarks to the officials. And in this game, the coach doesn’t get ejected after the second technical—she loses her phone. 

The rest of the time, she’s kind, funny, creative and…let’s just say she inherited her dad’s OCDNA. Most evenings, while I stand in the kitchen making dinner, she sits at the computer doing her homework and listening to music and watching videos and texting and talking to me, in that order. She’ll call out a song if she thinks I might like it. Not a lot of conversation but a nice daily appointment nonetheless.

She had a bowling party and sleep(?)over Saturday with nine of her friends and one of these satanic cakes from Costco:

They ate half at the bowling alley and the remainder sometime between one and two in the morning. I'll tell you, nothing pushes control alt delete on a party like that fudgy prince of dark chocolateness. I’m not proud to admit that the next morning I scraped clean the cardboard plate it came on, like a buzzard pecking the bleached pelvis of a wildebeest.

Anyway, I’m not going to blather on. I love this girl.

Letter From an Eighth Grader: Why I Should Get an iPhone.

I don't own a smart phone. In fact, my cell phone is so old, I have to connect with Clara the operator before placing a call ("Clara, I need you to get me Hank at the slaughterhouse. This can't be beef.").

While my wife also has, for lack of a better term, a dumb phone, college freshman daughter number one is the first member to benefit from perpetual Internet availability. And ever since she received an iPhone for high school graduation, thirteen-year-old daughter number two has pined for one, dropping enough hints to put Ralphie to shame. At least every two weeks for the last nine months she's been trying to grease the parental wheels with well-placed selling points about the benefits to her—and of course us—of buying her a smart phone.

And now this— actual documentation. For the record, I received her permission to publish, but you know, I didn't confirm:

Why I should get an Iphone

An essay by L. H.

Hello there. So your probably very hesitant to read this, but I’m telling you, keep pushing through. I know your whole thing with an Iphone is that I don’t need it, I need to pay for it, etc. Your probably looking at each other with a skeptical look right now. Again please push through. In this I will convince you why I should get an Iphone.

Ok the first reason why I should get an Iphone is for school. At school I’m always faced with the issue of not having a smartphone to research something. The teachers always say “Ok if you have a smart phone you can pull it out and use it for the ___” The reason they say this is because they have the problem of not having enough computers for kids. This is due to budgets that Seattle Schools gives them. (Stupid Seattle Schools.) So if I had an Iphone, I could just whip it out and save the day. Just kidding it wouldn’t actually save the day, but it would be a lot more convient for everyone.

The second reason why I should get an Iphone is for the actual phone part. My phone that I currently have now doesn’t really work. It doesn’t receive all calls or texts. When I do answer calls they the sound quality isn’t the best. Iphones are known for the outstanding quality in service. They also are known for amazing picture quality as well. So when you need me to I could take my phone out and take an amazing picture that could be in our family for generations; for example our Christmas card picture. Z took our beautiful candid shot with her handy dandy Iphone.

Now getting down to the nitty gritty. I don’t think I spelled that right but whateves. The cost. Yes for Iphone you do have to pay a fee of $30 a month. As you know I get an allowance of $40 a month. I could pay for my data with my allowance and have balance of $10, but for the amount of food I need to buy each month I don’t think that would be the most preferred method. But I also would be willing to work as many chores as you like, no questions asked. Not even one. Not a single one. Ok I think you get the point .So that was my essay on why I should get an Iphone. I hope you guys enjoyed this because I honestly put a lot of thought and effort into making this. PLEASE take this into consideration. If you don’t I will respect the decision as mature adults.

         Thanks! Love,

         Your daughter L. H.

Hmm. Pretty convincing. We received her proposal Saturday night and slept on it. Sunday morning, following further negotiations and a few tweaks regarding exactly what housework would be required and how much of a dent the purchase would make in her coming birthday present, the two parties reached a settlement. 

Did we cave as some parents do for their second children? Are we too worn out to rekindle battles of yore? Maybe.

It could simply be a decision made by mature adults.

Crap. Does This Mean I'm an Old Man?

Today, I'm asking for your assistance.

You, the loyal reader, the benevolent soul who has kindly carved out a smidge of his or her busy docket to read my anemic diatribes.

You, the compassionate peruser, who has chosen to ingest my drivel while sitting on the porcelain perch after finally growing weary of studying the contents of every Tylenol PM and Kleenex box within reach.

Yeah, you.

I need you to help me decide whether my recent behavior is the direct result of aging, or merely a by product of a changing familial dynamic.

For as long I can remember, I've been  driving my thirteen-year-old daughter to school every Friday morning, stopping on the way to hook her up with a breakfast of questionable integrity. While, for many school years, her meal of choice was an Assiago cheese bagel and chocolate milk, she's now elevated her tastes to more processed fare. 

That's why we now stop at 7-Eleven instead of Safeway.

This morning, I looked over at her as she eased herself into the Hyundai. Carefully avoiding any oil puddles or gum wads on the convenience store's well-trodden asphalt, she gingerly clutched her meal of choice—a protein bar with a side of hot chocolate with a side of mini marshmallows.

Engulfed within the car's dull interior, she sparkled. Her hair fell in loose ringlets over a white sweater, a sky blue tank top peaking out to closely match her glittery blue TOMS flats and compliment her indigo skinny jeans. As I merged the dirty sedan onto West Seattle's main drag, she looked over at me, betraying lines of sparkly something-or-other across her eyelids. 

She was freaking impeccable.

She sipped her cocoa. "I forgot to brush my teeth today."

"How can you forget to brush your teeth? That's a basic morning thing," I said.

"Okay, just kidding. I decided not to brush my teeth."

"Gross. Why?"

"Because my toothpaste has a slight orange taste and I didn't want it to interfere with the hot chocolate or the mint of the protein bar."

"Interfere?" I asked. "Doesn't the flavor wear off after a few minutes? Now your going to school with a nasty mouth."

"I don't care."

I believed her.

"Aren't you worried that someone will notice?"

"No."

Again, I believed her.

"Okay, I'm just curious, though," I said. "How can you spend forty-five minutes and be so meticulous with your outfit and hair and everything, but not practice basic hygiene?"

"Brushing teeth isn't basic hygiene, Dad."

She argues with everything my wife and I say. Seriously, everything. My newly–minted teenage daughter has even debated the year my wife was born—with my wife. 

We finally just decided to nod our heads, say "Hmmm" and allow her egregious misstatements to evaporate into the ozone like a rusty can of old Aquanet. Not worth it.

And that leads to the question about my own behavior. With all the pregnant silences that have resulted from my kid's cockamamie outbursts, I've been trying to fill in the gaps. The problem is, I sound like a crusty old man. I'll bring up the weather, or the traffic, or how those cherry tomatoes we ate last night were closer to plums than cherries and I think I slept weird on my neck because its really stiff.

Not only have I been boring my family silly with idle idioms and mundane musings, I've been boring myself. Is this as good as it's going to get? Should I just resign myself, when in the presence of my family, to discuss nothing more interesting than the kid I saw littering at the bus stop or how or how expensive Scott's Turf Builder is?

Maybe it's time to buy a Corvette…

She's Thirteen Now.

Such a strange animal, indeed.

Then again, my wife says she's just like me, so does that make me a deviant curio as well?

Um, apparently yes, it does.

The thing is, being compared to a thirteen-year-old girl is a little strange when you happen to reside in the meat suit of a fifty-year-old dude. I'd like to think that any trace elements of testosterone still floundering through my varicose veins would nonetheless stand in profound contrast to the murky estrogen bloom staging in her pituitary region.

But, you know, I've been wrong before.

She turned thirteen today. Well, technically, she'll reach that age tonight around 11:46, the moment her slimy little body wriggled free and lay center stage in the doctor's nurturing palms, the stark klieg lights casting down upon my beautiful new burden.

A daughter; a second one, in fact. Holy shit.

When a man sees his baby girl for the first time, he doesn't think of all that stuff he's heard for the past nine months:

"Oh, boys are so much easier, especially as teenagers."

"Better get a membership to a rifle range. Then you'll be ready when the boys come a callin'. Heh, heh!"

"I hope she's not like I was. I had such low self esteem and, oh, did I make some bad choices."

Nope , he doesn't think of any of it—because he melts.

Every girl he's ever known...his girlfriends, his mom, his sisters and aunts and grandma...combine into a single conscious entity, delivering a singular message:

Don't screw this up, mister.

Throughout this thirteen-year odyssey, has she pissed me off? Hell, yes. I would say she's incited emotions which had previously been exclusively reserved for either Rush Limbaugh or historically inept football referees.

Have I occasionally yearned for at least one day where I wasn't challenged on even the most mundane of statements?

Absofreakinglutely. But I'm in deep, and I'll be treading water in this pool for the rest of my life.

She celebrated last night with a sleepover. Twelve girls, all of the early teenage persuasion, gathered in our smallish house for a nineteen-hour festival of giggly giddiness. Once the agreed-upon time arrived, they poured in quickly, attacking the pillow-sized bag of candy which Webster's Teen Dictionary apparently classifies as appetizers.

Oh, yeah, and my wife wasn't around. She and our older daughter had other business to address, so I stood alone among the savages, sweatily rotating one Costco pizza after another onto the smorgasbord as the prepubescent amoeba mainlined Dr. Pepper and spoke in tones barely below dog whistle pitch.

And while a nice beer or six may have smoothed out the evening's jagged edge, I needed to maintain a Lindsay Lohan defying sobriety, since I alone had to shuttle the dirty dozen to the bowling alley for the night's main event.

My bride joined the fracas soon after, tag teaming with me on cake and ice cream duty.

Incidentally, we purchased one of those foot-tall Costco chocolate cakes—you know what I'm talking about? It's got about twelve layers, any one of which could cause even Tim Tebow's virgin bloodstream to throw a lard-laced heart clot.

After bowling and sugar, we returned to our bungalow with the mob, my wife and I finally leaving them to their own devices. Dancing, according to our birthday princess, was next on the agenda, so I plugged someone's iPod into our family room stereo and retreated with bids of goodnight and sleep tight and don't be too loud or I'll be pissed as shite.

Two ear plugs and eight hours later, I arose to survey the damage. One girl lay asleep on a recliner, while the remainder formed an interlocking tangle of toxicity, occupying every inch of the floor that wasn't already covered in candy wrappers and dusty Dorito mole hills.

I asked my daughter if they'd left the heat on all night. They hadn't; all through this sleepless night, their bodies had generated every kilowatt of the room's oppressive bouquet.

Naturally, I thought. She's thirteen now.

The Enchanting Kiss of My First Girfriend.

"So, what's the deal, man? Did you kiss her yet?"

"Yeah, of course I did," I lied.

"Where?"

I lied again. "You know...over there...behind the portables."

"When?"

"Um, like...last Wednesday...maybe before that." Lie number three.

"Decent. Good deal, bud."

It was the autumn of 1976, I was fourteen years old and she was my first girlfriend.

Everything happened so quickly. I saw her at a high school football game or in the hallway or something and told my friend Jeff that I thought she was cute. Actually, I probably said something like, "See that girl over there? Her name's Stacy (not her real name). She's such a fox."

Before I could say "bubbling hormones," word had gotten back to me that yes, Stacy liked me, too. Angela, a girl in my social studies class, had reached back and grabbed the PeeChee off my desk and returned it with the words, "Tim + Stacy = Luv4Ever" scrawled right between the three white dudes running track, the two white dudes playing football and the one white girl playing tennis.

As Angela slid it across my desk, she whispered, "She'd totally go with you."

"Go with me where?"

"Ha, you're so funny. Here's her phone number. She wants you to call her tonight." Angela turned back around and started playing with her hair.

But I wasn't joking. I hadn't spoken a word to this girl and now we were going together. And I had to call her—tonight.

In those days, "couples" enjoyed a status that soloists did not. In the parfait that was junior high society, securing a girlfriend meant rising from the chunky, lifeless depths of the Jello-O parfait to the wispy clouds of full-fat Cool Whip which laid claim to the top stratum and enjoyed a panoramic view of its world.

Couples were invited to skate parties and special cafeteria tables. They held hands and walked through the pungent straw-covered mud of the Fall fair, eating corndogs and slurping down cotton candy with a faint FFA show pig aftertaste.

I liked that idea. But Lord have mercy, this boy was terrified.

When I called her later that evening from our lone phone which offered slightly less privacy than O.J.'s Bronco, I had to censor each statement to align with the protocol of both this strange girl and my mom, who pretended to be watching All in the Family.

From the moment Stacy's and my arranged marriage ensued, I became fully incapacitated. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. Before each nightly call, I would examine myself in the bathroom mirror to ensure that my hair was nicely parted and feathered. Come on, now, you have to look good on the phone, right?

After a week spent adapting to a humming bird's heart rate and splotches of stomach acid which leaked out of my ears and onto the pillow each night, I resolved to up the stakes.

I would kiss Stacy, goddamn it.

My friends had been pestering me into further detail of our couplings, and I was weary of constant fabrications. So I planned.

I would do it when she walked me to a pre-season basketball meeting after school, which fortunately was to be held in one of the portables, nestled on a semi-private area of the school's periphery.

Had I kissed a girl before? Absolutely. But this was different because she was my girlfriend—we were an item—this had to be passionate.

I'd seen some of the other, more experienced boyfriend/girlfriend combos kissing before they parted ways and it was no Ward Cleaver peck on the cheek. This was full-on, twenty-second Hollywood-style tonsil tango.

And I was scared shitless.

Nonetheless, I was determined to freaking kiss Stacy by the freaking portable before the freaking pre-season basketball meeting. I felt warning signs of cardiac arrest as we slowly made our way toward Coach Hofeditz's classroom—clamminess, dry mouth, a heart which now simply heaved like a huge giblet stewing in a crockpot of adrenaline gravy—but I slogged on.

Ironically, I chose a moment when we were actually speaking to each other to make my move. Most of our conversations were sparse, but this one was actually gathering steam when I cut it off like scissors to a skin tag.

My head lunged at hers, similar to JFK's head after the second gunshot, clumsily jerking and angling. Her alarm apparent, I nevertheless smothered her mouth with mine like a honey badger to a mound of termites.

No other body parts touched except our mouths. I eventually disengaged with an unnatural glitch slurp sound, trailed by a string of ropey saliva which eventually severed and slapped against my chin.

We separated and spoke a few words to each other, none of which I remember since our bodies had each entered a protective state of shock. I slunk into the portable, dazed and highly traumatized, yet finally cognizant of the legal term, "temporary insanity."

She broke up with me the next day, so I threw away the PeeChee.

Stacy, wherever you are, I have but one wish. Years later, on your wedding day, when you married the man of your dreams, my greatest desire is that the minister did not lean forward and announce to your new husband:

"You may hug your bride."

Dare you take the love quiz?

I'm home sick today.

No, not homesick, like when your parents make you stay with Grandma and Grandpa while they go to Vegas for a week, and Grandma thinks, for whatever reason, that you love tomato juice and salted green pepper chunks with every meal, and you pray silently and tearfully every night for your parents to eschew any more 9 AM  cocktails and liberate you from your well-intended, yet life-shortening geriatric confinement.

No, I'm at home, sick. I've got a cold—the kind where you can't breathe through your nose, so when you wake up in the morning, your mouth, having been the sole receptor of oxygen for the past eight hours, feels like a sheet of caribou jerky that's been flapping in a windy desert and ultimately coated with a sticky, salty, furry, gelatinous dew.

And that first cough of the day feels like it blew a couple of JFK-sized holes through your temples. That's the kind of sick I am today.

To distract myself from this self-pity, I came up with an idea while listening to my teenage daughter's radio playing this morning. A song by L'il Wayne was playing, entitled, "How to Love." Upon listening to its lyrics, I thought smugly, "Yeah, like you know how to love, Mr. Little Wayne. Don't think for a second that you can pound out nineteen recordings about all the money and chicks and drugs you enjoy, and then on the twentieth, teach me...me, how to love."

I know how to love, little shirtless, tattooed guy. I am a lover of love.

Then I wondered if. just maybe, today's kids hold an entirely different definition of what love is. Maybe it's evolved to where, what was once a feeling of giddiness, anxiety and wonder has morphed into conquest and short-term gratification. So I decided to put it to the test.

I looked up Billboard's top ten songs for this week, both currently and during my senior year of high school. I hypothesized that the lyrics may shed a bit of light upon the mindset of our youth through the artists to which they listen. And to make it more interesting, I'm going to structure it as a quiz for you, the unwitting reader.

Of the following songs, try to surmise which set of lyrics are from 2011 and which are from 1980.

Billboard Song Number Three—

Choice A:
Instinctively you give to me
The love that I need
I cherish the moments with you
Respectfully I say to thee
"I'm aware that you're cheating
When no one makes me feel like you do."

Choice B:

Shine a light through an open door

Love and life I will divide

Turn away cause I need you more

Feel the heartbeat in my mind

If you selected Choice B as lyrics from a gentler, more innocent time, you'd be wrong. It's "We Found Love," released in 2011 by Rihanna. Choice A is "Upside Down" by Dianna Ross from October, 1980. 

Okay, my theory isn't off to a good start.

Billboard Song Number 2—

Choice A:

Maybe it's hard

When you feel like you're broken and scarred

Nothing feels right

But when you're with me 

I make you believe

That I've got the key

Choice B
I am a woman in love
And I'd do anything
To get you into my world
And hold you within
It's a right I defend
Over and over again
What do I do?

I've got to call this one a tie. Each song basically says that it's up to the dude to make everything right. Choice A is 2011's "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5, while Choice B is "Woman in Love" by Barbara Streisand in 1980. Okay, one more.

Billboard Song Number 1—

Choice A:

I heard that you're settled down

That you found a girl and you're married now 

I heard that your dreams came true 

Guess she gave you things I didn't give you

I hat to turn up out of the blue, uninvited

But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it

I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded

That for me, it isn't over

Choice B:

Another one bites the dust

Another one bites the dust

And another one gone, and another one gone

Another one bites the dust

Hey, I'm gonna get you, too

Another one bites the dust

Unless you've just crawled out from under a rock or have been listening to continuous Christmas favorites for the past thirty-one years, you know that Choice B is Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" from 1980. Adele cranks up those smokey pipes for Choice A, "Someone Like You."

This hasn't gone well. Maybe young folks do understand love. After all, I nearly tear up just typing out the lyrics to "Someone Like You," while "Another One Bites the Dust" isn't exactly penned by Freddie Mercury to see us through a tough break-up.

I suppose I feel better about kids after performing this study. I'm apparently underestimating our youth, repeating the same mistake countless other older generations have. Well, it's never too late to change.

I wonder if the YMCA offers hot freak dancing.

My teenager: a post-dance interview.

This is the third one of these we've had, and I think I've written about the other two. Let's see, first there was this one in the fall of 2009, then this one last autumn, so, yeah, this one's definitely number three.

The ritual hasn't varied, other than the fact that each successive episode includes a few additional gussied up teenagers squeezing into our brick bungalow for a high school dance pre-function.

Last night, twenty-five sixteen- and seventeen-year-old children congregated for some Safeway Select frozen pizza, Caesar salad and root beer, electrifying our living room with more giddy energy than a twelve-ounce can of Welch's frozen Robin Williams Concentrate.

They were a fantastic group of kids, at least as far as I could tell, since I couldn't understand them. They spoke a dialect of inside joke humor and abbreviations; curling irons were referred to as "c.i.'s" and the term "for sure" was pronounced "fowsh." Frozen pizza? "Frope."

I realize now that my house is divided between those who speak English and one who claims "Eng" as her primary language.

At nine o'clock, our house instantaneously purged itself of the four inch heels, the short, shiny dresses and the basketball shoes worn with slacks. The time had arrived to hit the 2011 Chief Sealth International High School Homecoming Dance.

The kids retreated to their cars, and the newly silent house rang my ears with a piercing din, reminding me of searching for the Ford Grenada in the quiet night air after watching the Scorpions.

For the next few hours, to the best of my knowledge, the evening proceeded successfully. No police activity, anyway.

I asked my daughter this morning for permission to interview her about the dance while it was still fresh in her mind. She consented, provided I performed the interview while she showered. The following conversation took place as I sat on the toilet seat, talking to a shower curtain.

My words will be in italics; hers in normal case.

So, you've been to a few of these now. Are they still as fun?

Yeah, I guess. They always go the same way. No one dances and then, suddenly it's a huge mosh pit.

Do you ask each other to dance?

No. You just start dancing and usually, you just end up next to someone.

So two people don't walk out together?

No. Dad, no. What the heck? Why would they do that?

What if you end up dancing next to someone you don't want to be with?

If they're a jerk or a bad dancer, you just walk away and circle back. It's really easy.

Who was the best looking guy there?

No one stood out. Most of the guys wear ties whenever they have football or basketball games, so I'm used to seeing them look nice.

What about the other guys? The non-athletes? What about the bad boys?

No. They're not hot at all. Eww. They're gross. They do nothing with their time except pierce themselves and get tattoos.

Lots of tattoos at your school?

Oh, my god, Dad. Of course. Did lots of kids have tattoos when you were in high school?

No.

None?

None.

That's weird. At least one person in each of my classes has a tattoo. Is that right? Let's see. First period? Yes. Second period? Yes. Third period? Yes. Fourth period? Yes. Fifth period? Yes. Sixth period? Yes.

Was anyone at the dance highly obnoxious?

Well, one guy tried to do a back flip but couldn't, and he hit his head on the floor. I'm sure he got a concussion. And then, the DJ didn't get paid at the end of the night because he had signed an agreement to bleep out any swear words in the music and I must have heard the "F" word six or seven times. So he didn't get paid.

Anything else you want to add?

Well, it was really fun, but strange to dance in the lunchroom. The theme was "A Night in Gotham City," but it was really a night in the lunchroom with a sign that said "Gotham City."

I love this face wash. It makes my face feel really nice.

Would you be interested in having your mom and I chaperon the next one?

No.

Okay, how about just me? I can be cool.

Dad, who wants a fifty year old man standing in a dark corner by himself watching everyone? That's even creepier than both of you being there.

Good point.

Teenage behavior: What could possibly go wrong?

This piece isn't solely intended to make my fellow parents of teenagers feel a little better.

But it may.

It also isn't meant to encourage society at large to feel a little more comfortable about our future.

But it might.

I'm currently experiencing a lot of "back to the future" moments, since I'm simultaneously being dad to a fifteen-year-old sophomore and working up a flyer for my class of 1981, thirty year high school reunion. That's us up there—the mighty Auburn High School senior class of thirty years previous.

Can you spot me? I'm the white kid with the feathered hair, parted in the center.

We looked so happy-go-lucky, so innocent and so...thin. Perish the thought that this wholesome crew would be perilously at risk for sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancy and alcohol-related death.

But we were, and apparently a lot more at risk than today's teenagers. In a feature entitled "The kids truly are all right," written for cnn.com by Laura Sessions Stepp, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist specializing in adolescent issues, she states that nearly every high-risk teen behavior has witnessed declines since 1990.

Smoking, drinking, pregnancies and suicides have all dropped substantially. So have fighting and firearm-related deaths. The only problem which has worsened is that more teens are getting fatter.

If forced to pick my teen risk poison, I'll take fat any day.

We parents complain about our teenager constantly clutching her cell phone, monitoring her texts with the vigor of a marine guarding the American embassy in Tripoli. That phone, however, is more of a parent's ally than our kids can imagine.

It's our property, and it's not their birthright, but a privilege which we parents administer.

Sure, our kid has instant access to which socks her BFF has decided to wear and how long it took to find them next to the cat box. But for every hundred messages which comprise the Ocean of Teen Text Minutiae, one buoy of alarm may prove a lifeline toward keeping our child and her friends safe. GPS devices can be activated on most cell phones, which implies an inherent mistrust. But I don't care.

I really love being the cool dad, but I can't be cool to a daughter who no longer exists.

Teen prefrontal lobes experience a perfect storm of rebelliousness and an inability to comprehend consequences. These aren't bad kids; they're just kids, so our job is to educate them, to prepare them and to give them a safety net, even if we're jackbooted Nazis in their eyes.

When we were teenagers, our parents either trusted our word or locked us down. They often sat on a Friday or Saturday night, wondering and hoping about our whereabouts and our condition. It no longer has to be that way, and technology offers the perfect excuse for our children to remove themselves from a dicey situation.

After having read the article, I'm encouraged, yet still apprehensive.

I'm so glad to hear that more of them will be around to change my diaper one day.

Now, if they'd just listen to some better music.

This time, she's going to a dance with a boy.

It's happening again. This Saturday.

Another heapin' helpin' of hormone stew, another melding of primitive frontal lobes encased within adult bodies.

And these bodies won't be wearing much.

It's time for my teenage daughter to attend another dance, but this time, it's with a...um...boy.

Usually, I report back after the fact, since the whole pre-function comprises a story unto itself. This time, however, I'd prefer to talk about the buildup alone, since it's been an odyssey.

High school dances are different than they were in my day. Back in the Seventies, unless the event was a 'tolo' or 'Sadie Hawkins' dance, the guy bore the responsibility of asking the girl, period. I can recall being so nervous that I could feel pimples on my face completing an entire lifespan, from red giant to white dwarf, during the course of asking the object of my affections for the privilege of her company.

These days, either gender can ask the other to any dance, which is terrific for both parties. The old system seems so Victorian when you consider that an adolescent male could simply prioritize his choices and work his way down the list, like some sort of seasonal babe draft. In addition, couples are now not mandatory for attending; one girl can accompany two guys, two girls can attend with one guy or any other imaginable combination. I guess you'd call this system either "hippie commune" or "Utah friendly."

Now, if you snooze, you lose, which is why my baby girl asked her date to the Winter Ball back in November. Soon after he accepted, she proudly showed me a picture, taken with her phone of course, of the two of them together. Maybe this is the way kids show that the deal is sealed, or possibly it was just one of the thousands of phone photos taken during the course of one day, but they gave the appearance of a happy couple.

After I acknowledged the look of contentment on their faces,  she replied, "Of course, Dad. It's obvious that we're in love."

The girl has a dry sense of humor, but I'm still not convinced she wasn't being serious.

With the dirty work out of the way, the next checklist item for my woman child was the dress. I'm not sure when this happened, or why I wasn't consulted, but last Sunday, my teenager appeared in our living room, holding an article of clothing which apparently is considered a dress in her culture.

I quickly performed some rudimentary math, and deduced that the fabric would barely cover her torso.

"It looks really short," I understated.

"Dad, don't worry. I'm wearing spandex underneath, so even if it gets hiked up, no one can see anything." So not comforting to me, yet she looked so very confident with that statement.

"You only need to touch your nose to hike that thing up," I countered.

"Dad, just wait until you see me with it on. You'll feel much better." Fair enough.

Five minutes later, she emerged from her room, not only wearing the dress, but also a pair of black pumps which would put Gene Simmons to shame. Again, I used my right brain to assess some basic spatial relationships and concluded that she now stood six feet, two inches tall.

I quickly veered toward a less confrontational manner. "Are you going to want to be taller than (I'll call him) Matt when you guys get your picture taken?"

"Good point, Dad. Hmm...I'll look for some shorter heels tomorrow."

She turned and retreated back to her room to change. I felt good, actually really good, after having talked her out of shoes which only look appropriate in Whitesnake videos. Chalk one up for Dad.

"Oh, and about that dress..." Too late. The door to her bedroom slowly closed, slightly muffling the sounds of Lady Gaga emanating from within.

She had pulled it off. The old bait and switch.

John Lennon would have turned seventy yesterday.

I walked through the door around 9:30 that night. Band practice had gone late, and I was glad to finally be home after a another long day during a busy senior year.

"Did you hear what happened?" My mom's face wore a grave expression.

"What?"

"John Lennon died. He was shot."

When something profound happens in our lives, we take mental snapshots which allow us to easily access that memory for the rest of our lives. We remember time, place, even what we were wearing. And since yesterday would have been John Lennon's seventieth birthday, that Polaroid in my mind has surfaced again with vivid clarity.

I had just begun to explore The Beatles that fall of 1980. During a typical youth filled with exciting discoveries and subsequent journeys, this was one of the grandest. I dove in head first, decorating my locker with Beatle paraphernalia, attending a show in Seattle called "Beatlemania," where the performers looked and sounded like the Fab Four through each phase of their odyssey.

John had just released an album entitled "Double Fantasy," so the planets were aligned for my obsession with all things Beatle, past and present. I had already decided that he was my favorite; his edginess and his rebelliousness appealed to the region of my personality which never dared question authority. Sure, Paul was no slouch, but in my eyes, John represented the band's essence.

As a teenager, the news of his death hit hard, yet my adolescent brain couldn't quite grasp its permanence. "Forever" is an abstract concept to an eighteen-year-old, but the older I got, and the more I became acclimated outside my universe of instant gratification, the worse I felt about a world without John.

October 9 is his birthday, not the day of his death. We should celebrate his life and his music, his causes and even his struggles, and try not to dwell on his abrupt departure. Since he's been gone, however, I can't get past what thirty more years would have been like with John Lennon in our lives.

You probably shouldn't read this if you're under forty.

September...we hardly knew ye, and now you're a soon-to-be hologram of a summer left behind. Every fall, as school begins and the mornings grow a little crispier, I tend to wax about autumns past.... and nothing harkens to autumns past more than music.

This morning, as I listened to my pseudo-stodgy, adult contemporary radio station, I heard my teenager in the adjoining bedroom, singing and bopping along to every tune that sprang onto the airwaves of her teenage contemporary, a.k.a. hip hop, station.

I thought, When did I lose my passion for top forty radio? When did I pull out my tent and drive stakes into the pop music campground?  


I'll tell you when—when the seventies ended and I outgrew the demographic. So, rather than fight the tide, I've decided to revisit some of my favorite music from the Seventies.

Cheesy? Sure, some these songs are, but I love all of them. People sometimes criticize this era for its lack of variety, its emphasis on guitar rock and disco. But you be the judge.

And since we're saying goodbye to September, let's say hello to "September," by Earth, Wind and Fire:


In my opinion, E, W &; F defines 1970s-style R&B. K? And since we're on the subject of groundbreakers, here's one of the decade's definitive pop songs:


After the Jackson Five, it seemed like everyone wanted to throw their bell-bottomed leg onto the cool wagon, and here's the Brady Bunch's attempt:


I still wish my mom had agreed to buy me one of those fringy leather jackets like Greg had. It wouldn't have matched my horn-rimmed glasses very well, but whatever.

I'm not quite ready to leave the pop category yet, since I haven't mentioned the world's most popular group at the time:


Do I love these Swedish seductresses? Guilty. I also love the women in the group.

Time to move on to another genre, defined by a band which continues to be universally loved. I remember hearing this song shortly after getting my first FM radio:


No one will ever match Freddie.

This next tune can induce puberty in a TV tray, it's so chock full of teen angst. To me, it's the poster child for power ballads:

Excuse me for a second. I need to pop a couple of Sucrets after listening to that guy.

Even though I wasn't much of a disco aficionado, I can't leave out the kings of bearded, Australian camel toe beats:


I'm sure lots of run-down, 1970s-era neighborhoods had roving bands of skinny thugs with their white jackets slung over their shoulders.

The times were a-changin', even though we weren't quite ready for these guys yet:


It's funny how tame they look now.

Here's one of my favorite melodies from the emerging new wave movement which set the stage for the next decade:


And last but not least, we've got my favorite example of the arena rock we loved so dearly. I swear if I had David Lee Roth's stomach, I'd wear this outfit to work tomorrow:


Viva la 1970s!

Just remember: Someday they'll be taking care of us

They're so young. They're so thin. They're so...not smart.

I drove my fifteen-year-old daughter to school this morning. As we travelled up the narrow corridor known as 35th Avenue, one of West Seattle's main thoroughfares, I steered gently around a young cyclist. He pedaled a too-small bike, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans on this fifty-degree morning, while wearing headphones and no helmet.

"Hey, it's Justin," blurted my daughter as we came even with the wobbly rider. "He goes to my school."

"Is he smart?" I asked rhetorically.

"Yeah, I think so."

"Okay, let me change your answer," I snapped back. "He's not smart. I can count four stupid things he's doing right now. He's wearing a t-shirt in the cold weather, he's not wearing a helmet, he's listening to music and he's riding on a really narrow, busy street. Justin is stupid. Stupid Justin."

"Geez, Dad, calm down."

"Sorry, I just see these kids, and they're your age, and they make me crazy. Most of you guys are learning how to operate cars. Maybe your friend Justin needs to learn how to safely ride a bike before he can even think about driving."

"Dad, get angry much?"

"Okay, I'm done."

We picked up Zoe's friend and continued on to the high school. I don't normally converge on her academic facility at this time of morning, when all the inmates are gathered outside or entering the building.

I stopped at a crosswalk in front of the school to let a group of kids pass. They performed this task admirably, with the exception of one young man who stopped three steps into the street, after realizing he hadn't finished his cigarette yet, and couldn't bring it onto school grounds. He stayed there, blocking my way, until his frontal lobe finally engaged and sent him retreating to his original curbside locale.

We proceeded through the crosswalk as I watched him suck down the last fumes of his smoke. I found it ironic how he wore expensive basketball shoes, basketball shorts and a Jordan t-shirt, yet he'd probably struggle to sprint the length of a hoop court.

Small gaggles of kids assembled in the drop-off area, where I stopped the van to let the girls off. One young woman split off from her group and approached our car to meet my passengers, her hands clutching a two-liter bottle of Grape Crush and large bag of Lays Potato Chips.

Hmm.. well, they may not be bright, but teenagers are definitely tough. If I ate that for breakfast, I'd need the defibrillator paddles.

Tomorrow, she's taking the school bus.

I'm worried that I'm worrying about worrying

Worry, anguish, uneasiness, torment, fret, anxiety. Pick your poison, but no matter which term you choose, they all express feelings we share, some of us constantly.

I'm a worrier— always have been. My earliest distressing episode occurred at age four. Upon learning that I would be a ring bearer in my cousin's wedding, I grew quite concerned about wearing a bear costume. "What kind of ears am I going to have?" I wondered out loud. Everyone in the room laughed heartily, which layered an element of confusion on top of my apprehension. I was quickly told that no costume was necessary, but I still wasn't informed as to why I would be branded a bear at someone's wedding.

The list of worries accumulated as I grew into adolescence. What if I got drafted and sent to Vietnam? What if my mom and dad drop my sister and me off at my grandparents and leave us there forever and I'm doomed to a life of country music and Sears Toughskins? What if I forget how to swallow? What if my chubby, dimpled knuckles are forever inverted and never rise up to become regular knuckles?

Our worries evolve as we become adults and parents. That doesn't mean they're legitimate, just different. For example:

Oh, no. I wore brown shoes with a black watch. I'll be ostracized and exiled by my peers permanently.

I hope the Mercedes dealer remembered that I can't read Celsius, so my heated floor mats better have a Fahrenheit gauge.

My $350 authentic Roman Gabriel throwback football jersey was supposed to arrive yesterday. It's not here yet. This has to be the worst thing that's ever happened to me, so I'll stay home from work and call FedEx every 45 minutes.

I can now boast of some legitimate concerns, not those bred out of the irrational, obsessive compulsiveness of my childhood, but actual food for fret. For instance:

She said her friend's mom was bringing her home at 10:30. It's now 11:00, and she isn't answering her phone.

Her fever's been 102 degrees for three days now.

That cute mole on my neck that used to resemble a speck of milk chocolate now looks more like a double scoop of triple fudge chunk—with a beard.

The waitress says she recommends the pork chop—rare.

When I ask her new boyfriend where he got his "Proud to be Level Three" neck tattoo, he said his cellmate gave it to him in exchange for four-and-a-half packs of Camels and a thirty-second French kiss.

Those are just a few of them, because as a parent, you can really freak yourself out with "what ifs." I think that's why, while waiting up for my teenager to come home, I don't tune into the Teen Serial Killer Network. I think it's Channel 387.

A letter from my teenager...sort of

The following is a letter from my fifteen-year-old daughter to me, written by...me.

Dad,
I'm really glad we just had the chance to spend the whole weekend together, even though I haven't told you. It's been really nice to go away someplace and remind you of the person I really am and always have been.

Remember yesterday morning, when Mom asked me to do my homework, just to get it over with, and I replied, "Mom. I just woke up. My brain's not fully developed"? These statements were each completely true. The only thing is, it's not like I just needed to be awake for a while in order for my brain to kick in. The fact is, this will not happen for a few years, so please be patient... really, really, really patient.

I'm a good kid. You tell me this all the time, but then you yell at me for doing things I don't mean to do, like leaving the front door wide open when I leave for school, or swinging my tennis racket in the house and knocking stuff over, or not refilling the toilet paper.

I'm still naive about a lot. Sure, I'm the size of a larger-than-average woman, but there's tons of stuff I still don't know. That's why, when I took the eye exam at Department of Licensing for my permit, I closed one eye and only read half the letters when I looked into that box. Dad, I'm not stupid; that's the way I've always done it at the doctor. I also wasn't previously aware that you have to be dead for them to use your organs. Come on, otherwise that would've been sick and wrong. I am now an organ donor.

It's nice that you tell me you understand what it's like to be a teenager, and I'm sure you truly believe you do—but you don't. If you did, you would comprehend the fact that texting is of utmost importance to my friends and me. I wish you could fathom the absolute necessity of my being available to provide feedback to my peers, 24/7.

I don't realize it yet, but I'm carefully observing the way you interact with Mom, my sister and me. It's a really good way for me to assess what a healthy male-female relationship involves when I'm ready for it. Oh, I've seen you screw up, many times. But I judge you by how you learn from your mistakes and how you deal with those whom you've hurt in the process. So keep trying, because I'm watching.

Remember, five years ago I was ten, and ten years ago I was five. I'm still a kid, and your more important to me now than you've ever been. I love you.

Some advice for my teenage driver

My daughter just turned fifteen, but for the past six months, the predominant request emanating from her mouth (other than "What's for dinner?") is "Can I drive?"

Our response, naturally, has been a consistent, "No, you don't have your permit yet." Well, now she's about to get one, so let the games begin. I've been mulling over any type of driving advice I could give her, as gleaned from my thirty-one years of operating a motor vehicle. Naturally, she'll have to become physically proficient at driving an automobile, but this list is more about mental preparedness and the utilization of common driving sense, which I'm fairly sure most teenagers don't have a handle on just yet.

Here's what I came up with. Zoe, listen closely.

1) We all know about how dangerous it is to text or talk on a cell phone while driving. What isn't really discussed is eating. Never eat a large burger or burrito while negotiating a vehicle. Your car will travel at least 500 feet while peeling back the foil wrapper on a Mondo from Taco Del Mar or a Zippy Burger, and it's very difficult to take in the brilliance of a tangy chipotle sauce while driving with your knees.

2) Try not to drive to work in the morning—take the bus. I understand that this can be inconvenient, and crowded public transportation can smell like the sleeping quarters on The Deadliest Catch, but morning and evening commutes are when drivers are stressed and on their worst behavior.

3) If a car's turn signal stays on for over a mile, they're probably not going to turn. Chances are that they've cranked up Iron Maiden so high that they can't hear the doink, doinking of the signal.

4) Beware drivers who cut you off abruptly. Usually, it's because they've finally spotted an Arby's, they need to exit, and can only get there from your lane. Back off immediately or you'll be eating their brake lights.

5) People who tailgate you are passive-aggressively reprimanding you for not moving at what they consider to be the appropriate speed.  These are some of the drivers whom I've fantasized about—in evil ways. My devious plots have included tapping into their radios and yelling at them in the voice of their dead grandmother or using my mental powers to render certain muscles in their body "uncontrollable," if you understand what I'm saying.

6) As the great George Carlin once said, "Anyone driving faster than us is a 'maniac,' and anyone driving slower than us is an 'idiot.'" When encountering one of these types, rather than churning with hot, piercing anger, my advice is to go out of your way to establish eye contact. This is a technique for acknowledging each other's humanity. Remember, that slow driver may be someone's great uncle who defended your freedom in the trenches of Gallipoli during World War I.

7) If you decide to use the tool of last resort, the "Digit of No Return," make sure you don't know the person you're flipping off. I've done this. It's bad.

I guess that's about it for now. We'll practice this weekend out on the Bonneville Salt Flats.