Free at last! Free at last! Father Goof is free at last!

The little Goofs are at sleep-away camp and Mama Goof is in Los Angeles on family business. So this 4^th of July Father Goof is celebrating his freedom.

Freedom from carpool, laundry, constant requests to purchase apps, and cries of boredom when electronics are banned.

And what am I doing to celebrate this freedom?

Whatever I want!

• Leaving newspapers on the dining room table!
• Leaving the toilet seat up!
• When I bring stuff into the house, I just put it down in the foyer and put it away when I am good and ready!
• And, best of all, I can eat whenever I want!

Not whatever I want – I’m a grown-up, if I want to go eat chips just before bed or cookies for breakfast, who is going to stop me? Besides of course my own neuroses that said cookies will go straight to my hips.

But to eat when I want, ah now that’s freedom.

I’m a good parent, so when the little Goofs are home, we have family dinner, whether I am hungry or not. But now, a late, late lunch and a super late dinner on the couch watching Family Guy re-runs – if that isn’t pursuit of happiness, I don’t know what is.

Is my use of freedom kind of pathetic? Maybe, who cares? As one ages one learns to set the bar low. What should I be doing? Engaging in picaresque adventures through the Washington suburbs? Going to strange dives, meeting colorful rogues and brawling and carousing with them? Do you know me? I don’t do these things. Even in my youthful adventurous drives cross-country I stayed in Holiday Inns because I liked the breakfast muffins.

What I could be doing is meeting up with old friends for dinner and drinks. But for the most part, their kids haven’t gone away and they continue to labor under the tyrannical yoke of parenthood. 

The revolution has only just begun, no dad is free until we all are free.