Digital Cowboy

Tonight on the way home from the grocery store I had the following conversation with my daughters:

“I wish Mommy was here.”

“Why, honey?”

“Because then you could do your work and she could take care of us.”

(The child is only five years old and understands better than her mother does.)

“Yeah, that would be nice, dear. But that’s not how it is right now. Remember what I taught you about poker? You have to play the hand you’re dealt.”

“I know. (long pause) I wish we had a step-mommy.”

“WHAT?!?! You want a step-mother?!?”

“Yeah. At least there would be somebody to help you. She could take care of us while you did your work.” (Judging by her tone, I think she was more concerned about me than herself.)

(Other daughter) “But I wouldn’t want a step mother unless she was really nice, like Carol.” (Carol is the woman next door.) “I mean, we have a step-daddy in Georgia and he’s just mean. I like it here better.”

“I really just wish mommy would come back.”

Me, too, dear. Me, too.

If anybody knows what I’m supposed to say to that, please enlighten me. My daughters are priority number one to me and I often find myself in these situations where I’m left speechless because everything I want to say is inappropriate.

What I want to say is, “Tell your mother! She did this and it’s entirely up to her. If you’re suffering, it’s her fault!”

I give up.

Today we got a box from grampa that contained $20 worth of junk food and cost nearly $15 to send.

Among the mess was a can of spray cheese.

Enough said.

(Except that I’m not really giving up. The only fight that I will never quit is the one to protect my daughters.)

I’m long over due for a haircut and the last one I got was so bad that I can’t imagine anyone could do worse. So tonight, as I was putting my daughters to bed, I asked them if they wanted to give me a haircut tomorrow.

Initially I was joking, but they were so excited that they could barely go to sleep. So now I’m stuck.

That’s OK. As I said, no one could do worse than the last one and I would rather see their smiles than pay someone that’s not even more skilled than them.

I’m willing to live with whatever they end up with. Worst case, I might have to shave it all. That’s fine with me, too. If that’s what it comes to. They’re bound to have fun regardless.

My children’s mother sent them a link to a silly video yesterday. It was cute but took forever to load and was WMP, which I despise. The page was covered with links to “Women seeking men,” “Hot Girls,” “Swingers sites,” “Cheat at online poker.” etc.

They can both read anything you put in front of them now, so that’s a problem. “Daddy, what’s a Hot Girl?” “Why did Mommy send us to this page with all these a-dult per-so-nals links?” “Go play in the other room while this downloads.”

The day before that, we got an envelope from her “dad” with $5 in it. The note enclosed was to let us know that it was “tooth fairy money.”

She’s seven years old, has already lost 5 teeth before this one and never believed in the tooth fairy. I saw to that.

We’ve also gotten promises of kittens that grampa is keeping for them (and will be cats long before they get back there to visit again), trampolines (that have never been assembled – “Did you play on the trampoline, honey? “No, but we saw the box. He really has one.”) new bikes and the list goes on.

You ruined your own daughter very badly with very bad parenting and you think that the same tactics will make you a good grandparent? Children cannot be bought.

Let me give you something to think about…. “By the time I was eight years old I had figured out that they didn’t love me and didn’t know any way to show love except with money. So I decided to get as much stuff as I could from them!” That’s a pretty close approximation of a statement my children’s mother once made to me about her parents.

I see the same damage already being inflicted on my children. I don’t allow it. So many of grampa’s phone calls go to the machine until he learns how to love without money.

By contrast, we got a package in the mail today from the wife of a friend of mine that contained, primarily, a very nice hard back children’s dictionary. The kids won’t lay it down. They would rather look up things in it than watch TV.

That makes me very happy and also does not surprise me.

I wonder why the folks I know in Georgia are so completely ignorant about raising kids? I try hard to assume the entire state isn’t this stupid. But I haven’t seen evidence yet.

It sure appears that I was foolish when I picked a mother for my kids. I really have no regrets because I wouldn’t give them up for the world. I just wish she would get it together and get back to what she’s supposed to do. Every day she spends in Georgia makes her dumber. She’s surrounded by morons. One of ‘em even came from England to teach her how to abandon her children. He may not be good at it, but at least he’s experienced.

Katie loves it when the NASCAR guys on Fox do the “Crank it up!” thing. She was pestering me about it when I was watching qualifying last week. (That’s on Speed Channel and they don’t do “Crank it up!”)

On Saturday, I was watching the Busch race and she asked me about it. I said, “No, Honey. This still isn’t Fox. This is FX.”

A few minutes later, they made a fool out of me. They did “Crank it up!” Being a good, loving daddy, I called Katie in from the other room and rewound it so she could “crank it up!”

I practically leaped off the couch. I have a 600 watt receiver and Bose speakers powering the surround. The volume knob is electronic and gauged to the speed with which you turn it. The right rear surround speaker was about 10 inches from my head when she spun the big knob hard and blasted 600 watts right into my ear.

The worst part is that it was so loud she couldn’t even hear me yelling at her to turn it down.

I wonder what the neighbors thought.

Then Emily said, “You were wrong, Dad. You said they didn’t do this.”

Perfect.

“Revenuer man wanted Granddaddy bad. Headed up the mountain with everything he had. He never came back from Copperhead Road.”