From many years ago . . .
Sons Cailan and Ches were outside playing the other day. I was just cleaning up from setting some new bathroom shower doors into place when the two young scalawags came to me, and Cailan asked, “Can I borrow some work gloves, Dad?”
“Work gloves!!” My son is not known for his conspicuous industry. I dropped my hammer and put a parental hand to my son’s forehead, suspecting a febrile illness of childhood since he had used the words `I’ and `work’ in the same sentence.
“Please, Dad,” he persisted. Then, embarrassed by this outburst of civility, he brought it quickly under control. “I really need them!”
Were I a more open-minded man, I might have assumed that my son had rather abruptly developed a work ethic. But history instructs that Cailan traditionally defers reform in the interest of self-gratification.
My son the voluptuary.
This is not truly hypocrisy; not like storing your stack of Playboys in the same drawer as your Bible. It’s just a little kid trying to get by… without working.
I gave them the gloves; he turned to leave, and then said over his shoulder, “Hey, Dad? You know those old glass shower doors you set out for the trash men? Could Chester and I throw rocks at them?”
This next I report with shame….
I said, “Son, have you by any chance already thrown rocks at it?”
And in a rare concession to full disclosure, my son mumbled, “Them.”
“Them?”
“Both doors,” he faltered. “They’re a little…”
“Destroyed?” I offered.
“Chester threw the rock!”
“Did not! And you threw one too!” Chester turned state’s evidence at the drop of a hat.
“Little rocks, Dad.” My son herewith painstakingly demonstrated the size of a rock which was no larger than a medium-sized virus.
I began thoughtfully, “You wouldn’t have thought a rock…”
“Pebble….,” Honest Abe Garvin, sparing no effort, sought to refine my understanding of the event.
“Pebble… that something so small could have done that much damage…”
“That’s what I told Chester, Dad!”
And Chester, nodding vigorously, sensing a narrow escape, confirmed, “He did!”
Despite my bearded dignity, I’m too old for this Solomon bit.
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