Watch, son. I sit here and people just hand over money. They call that respect where I'm from.
There was a time when people used to look at you with a mix of envy, awe and desire to make out in the bathroom at Big Willie’s Bar & Notary.
But you were younger and infinitely more ambitious then. Your life was a canvas framed in the gilded trappings of potential.
That’s the word people used about you—potential. “He has the potential to do big things that don’t involve wearing a smock or a hair net,” they’d say. But then, sometime in the past 15 years, they sort of stopped saying that about you.
Which means your career has either flat-lined or you’ve delayed the success that will inevitably come your way just as soon as you lose a limb or get violently maimed on the job and collect long-term disability.
Until that time, you have to lie to your children about how important you are, because every kid wants to brag on the playground about his parents’ success.
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Stop looking at me like that. If you hate it so much just look at your other arm. You've got two, don't you?
Children pretty much all look the same.
Oh, sure, some possess characteristics that keep demographers employed and allow companies like Benetton to perpetuate the myth of rainbow love, but when it really comes right down to it, after you’d pounded a few cans of Schlitz, you’re often confused about which child is yours when all those screaming mini-souls come galloping out of school.
That’s why tattooing is such a viable identifier.
It clearly sets apart your child and says, “Hey, dad, it’s me, remember? I’m the one with the iCarly tattoo on my neck and your ATM pin on my arm.”
Then, of course, you’ll squint, look temporarily confused, and say to yourself, “Right. Right. Yes, that’s right. The tattoos! That is my kid. We had those done for little Matthew at the county fair for half price, because the artist said Matthew’s arm was so small and skinny he didn’t have to use as much ink. Plus, I bought the dude a funnel cake.”
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Jimmy, put that trash away. Don't you know that crap will rot your already tiny brain?
Remember that time in junior high when you were so enthralled by Moby Dick that you read deep into the night and barely slept an hour?
And the other times—too numerous to count—that you slept through your high-school morning alarm because you fell madly, passionately in love with the melodious phrasing of Joyce and the intellectual bravado of Bellow?
Oh, wait. That never happened.
It never happened because reading sort of hurts your head (the temporal lobe, if you’re looking for a specific area) and, despite what the well-meaning, NPR-listening crowd says, reading is just a bunch of words and stories that aren’t nearly as interesting as the shit going down in your neighborhood or on TV. [Click to continue...]
Rule #56: Join Forces With the Monster Under the Bed
Rule #55: Scare Away Your Children’s Friends
Rule #54: Demand Special Treatment For Your Child
Rule #53: Stunt Your Child’s Growth
Rule #52: Give Your Child False Hope
Rule #51: Ignore Swine Flu Warnings
Rule #50: Tell Your Child How She Was Conceived
Rule #49: Steal Your Kid’s Money
Rule #48: Never Change a Diaper
Rule #47: Hire a Bully to Toughen Up Your Kid