Carpool Tales

For various reasons Father Goof sends his son to a private school. This requires carpooling, which creates an odd kind of extended family.

Because Father Goof is both the least gainfully employed and least useful adult member of this extended family, he gets the toughest carpool duty - afternoon pickup. Every afternoon I ask my son and his carpool buddy what they learned today. And every afternoon they reply in desultory fashion, "Nothing."

I keep thinking, for what I pay in tuition, I should get more than "Nothing." I should be amused, entertained. They should be regular Scheherazades back there regaling me with a 1001 Carpool Afternoons.

Better still, to really see my tuition dollars at work, I'd like the school to pick the Little Goof up by helicopter.

Henny for the Young Man

On my continuing theme of teaching my children comic timing, I’ve introduced my son to the comedy stylings of Henny Youngman. One of my son’s favorite jokes is:

Did you hear about the man who was killed by a weasel?

He was lying on the railroad tracks and he didn’t hear the weasel.

My son, to his credit, improved the joke:

Did you hear about the weasel who was killed by a person?

He was lying on the railroad track and he didn’t hear the person coming.

Today, it all paid off. My son’s kindergarten teacher had been sick. My wife asked, “How’s your teacher?”

My son deadpanned, “Compared to what?”

My wife, who grew up in a deprived environment and had never heard of Henny Youngman before meeting me, spit diet Coke through her nose. Then she had to go to the bathroom.

It was the best day ever.

My son turned to me and said, in his little Darth Vader voice, “The circle is now complete. When I met you I was but the learner. Now, I am the master.”

“Only a master of weasel, Darth.”

If you tell a kid a fart joke...

If you tell a kid a fart joke, he'll start to laugh. He'll laugh so hard that he toots. Then, that reminds him of what made him laugh in the first place and it makes him laugh all over again, until he toots, which makes will make him laugh...

I've discovered the secret to perpetual motion. Nothing kills with an audience of five year olds like fart jokes. Nothing.

Harry Truman's Vice President, Alben Barkley once said that the best audience is, intelligence, well-educated, and a little drunk."

For five year olds, the key is gassy. If that's your crowd, ply them with beans.

Walk for the Clueless

In carpool I always ask my son and his carpool buddy, "What did you do in kindergarten today?"

Earlier this week my son told me he had gone on a walk to "find the homeless."

"Do you mean, help the homeless?" I asked.

"Yeah, and I found a lot of homeless. Like seven!"

His buddy interjected, "That's not a lot. I found a super-lot, like forty homeless."

Delicious Dragons

One night after he went to bed I put my son's Li'l Dragons karate belt on my head like a bandana. It fit me perfectly. My wife says this means my hat size is bigger than his waist size.

That also means that in a pinch, if I really stretch my jaw - I could swallow him whole like an anaconda. Good to know.

Conference on Columbo's Day

My wife and I were asked by my son's teacher to come in for a conference. My first parent-teacher conference (as a parent that is) - it will, I expect, be the first of many.

The kindergarten teacher reported that my son disrupted the Columbus Day lesson. Apparently, when the teacher started telling the students about a man named Columbus my son jumped up and yelled:

I know about Columbo! He has a glass eye. He wears a rumpled raincoat. He has an old dog and an old car. And he always says, "Just one more thing."

When the teacher told him to settle down he said, "Wait, just one more thing. He smokes a cigar."

The teacher restored order but when she started telling the class how Columbus set sail my son resumed lecturing:

They set sail on a three hour tour. But the weather got rough and they were stranded on an island. And the skipper was fat, and when he got mad he yelled, "Gilligan!" But when he was nice he'd say, "Come here little Buddy." And the Professor could make anything out of a coconut - even a computer. And one more thing. They had a bamboo car, and..."

My son's teacher suggested that I might consider reducing his TV team and better monitor what he watched.

I grinned sheepishly and explained that he didn't really watch very much TV. He learned about the great TV sleuth when I started calling him Columbo because whenever he told me anything he was always saying, "One more thing Daddy. One more thing."

He knew about "Gilligan's Island" because sometimes I couldn't think of a bedtime story so I would tell him the plot of an episode. Then, even if I couldn't remember how that episode went, I could make something up and end it with Gilligan ruining their plan to get off the island and skipper chasing him and yelling, "Gilligan!"

The teacher patted my wife gently on the shoulder and gave her a cookie.