Well, your baby who marched into first grade not too awful long ago is poised to walk across a stage, paved with about twelve years of education.  The kid learned a bit in school, too.  As you both grew, there were signs along the way that let you know what might be around the next curve.

On the first part of the race, you hoped to see a look of recognition, maybe even a smile.  As a new parent, you wondered if it was a smile or that other reason for the scrunched up look, but when the first genuine one lit the room up, you knew it.  After that, you couldn't get enough.  Still can't. 

When that boy walked before ten months, buddy, you felt turbocharged.  Not so many months later, after figuring out doorknobs, he found his way out the front one at 6:45 AM.  Without a stitch of clothes on.  Good thing that front door squeaks.

After that, the road signs flew by.  Depending how many babies you produced, you might have found yourself with enough "stuff" to outfit a battalion.  You longed for the day without stuff.  Nothing more pitiful than the look on the faces of two young parents when they realize it's time to leave; time - gasp - to pack up.

One day, a grandma said those magic words.

"They grow up fast, and before you know it, they're gone.  Don't be in such a hurry for them to grow up." 

The first time you heard it, you looked at this woman and wondered, "How can such an intelligent and wise woman make such a ridiculous statement?"  On this evening, her wisdom begins to dawn on you.

If you sit today with young, sniffling kids running around the house, pay attention to what grandma says.  Here’s the best I can compare it to. 

Ever sit and watch a racecar come down a stretch of track?  You may see its posted speed at 205 miles per hour, you may know it's going 205 miles per hour, but before it passes you - when it's at the far end of the track - it doesn't look fast.  When it comes down the straightaway it looks quick, but 205 miles per hour?  Hmmmm.  And then in a split second, it whizzes past you.  Two hundred five miles per hour is blazingly fast. 

You take another split second to contemplate it, and then you look up.  The car is gone, well into the next turn.  All you can do then is hope that the tires hold out, and it has enough gas to finish.  Oh, yeah, one more thing. 

Enjoy the race.

I remember the day the symptoms first manifested their ugly self. 

I used to try and get to a school lunch with my kids once a month.  Big Sis and I would sit with one of her friends, and she would positively beam as she sat with her Dad.

"My Dad's is a writer," she'd say, "and he's a big boss at his job."  (Not and not, but I’m not saying anything to bring her world crashing down.)

Brother loved it because it meant, usually, that he'd be eating McDonald's.  We'd unpack our sacks, throw some fry scraps to his two buddies, and spend the rest of the lunch laughing and cutting up.

Lil' Sis would just giggle, and tell me about everyone that came into the cafeteria.  One day, however...

"Hey, I'm off this Thursday," I mentioned to Big Sis one fine Monday, "how 'bout I come up for lunch?"

"Dad!" my daughter said.  "Be for real."

"What?"

With a soft look of pity and exasperation thrown my way, she patiently explained, “. . . all my friends would be, like, ‘Talk to the hand,' if you even stuck your head in the cafeteria."

"Oh," was all I could say.  Wow.  I coughed a bit, and thought my throat felt a little scratchy.

I decided the thing to do was surprise Brother on that aforementioned Thursday.  Double Quarter with cheese, large fry, and a big drink.  I knew he'll be thrilled when he walked into the cafeteria and saw me sitting in the parents "bullpen," waiting for our feast to begin. 

Not quite.  Went something like this.

He sees me, all right, and the look on his face is one I recognized; it is the look of a boy that's caught.  I can tell he's torn between two somethings.  As all his friends follow him in, I figure out what one of the somethings is.  Melissa will be joining us for lunch today.

She turns out to be a very smart, pleasant girl, and yet I think Brother would rather I was a cow sitting next to him and Melissa than his Dad.  Most of our lunch is wolfed in crooked-smile silence.  Brother watches the clock, and as it rolls towards the magical end-of-lunch time, I'm sure he thinks he's home free.  Until Melissa breaks the silence.

"Do you know that if women stopped having babies, there would be no men, and then women would rule the world?" this fourth grade feminist says.  (This is an exact quote, I’m telling you; I’ll never forget it.  Ever.)

Normally any sentence that begins with, "Do you know," would get Brother's interest immediately.  This offering, however, only makes him shove two thirds of the burger in his mouth and mutter, "Boy that was good."  I know he wants Melissa to do the same, only he wants her to continue well past her PBJ, maybe up to about her elbow. 

Pretty soon Melissa is educating us on how many species procreate without the aid of males, and pretty soon I'm eating faster, wondering how I could politely ask Melissa if she wanted to borrow my arm…about up to the elbow. 

None too soon our lunch is done.  Brother says thanks for coming and scoots off to the playground.  I know as he ran off - as much as he loves his Dad - a perfect day for him would have been to see me waving good-bye to him as I dropped the McDonald's bag off, well before I saw Melissa.

I don't remember if my parents had this horrible thing.  They may have been smarter, realized they had it, and just stayed away.   Know this – if you have kids in the fifth grade or better, you have Parent’s Cooties.  No one may tell you; I feel it my civic duty to let you know.

So what do you do?  Go to the youngest one and ask:

"Hey, Lil' Sis, can I have lunch with you sometime this week?"

If she says, “Sure,” that’s good.  She doesn't realize it yet.  You still have some time left. 

If she stutters and grasps for an answer that’s anything but, ‘yes,’ well…you have my sympathies.

Third page in the magazine (not to be confused with the page numbered three; that’s actually the thirty-sixth page in the magazine) holds this wonder.  There is a young fellow with Colin Farrell eyes - what a life with those eyes.  To do nothing but tilt your head to the side, look up from under your brow, and have every woman in America worship your spit.  When I take a crack at those eyes, my wife asks, “Hey…bad gas again?” 

In the ad, Colin Eyes is carrying a dog on his shoulders.  Yes, a dog on his shoulders, like a fur.  We see a plaid flannel shirt pulled loosely over his right hip.  The ad is for?  A one hundred sixty-six-dollar belt.

A few pages later another young man, with a wispy goatee.  Goatees are still the rage, right?  (When the big paychecks start coming in for me, I’ll never shave again.  I’ll have so much hair I’ll look like the emancipated Howard datgum Hughes, just so you know.)  Picture is from his chest up and is in sharp focus.  The ad?  One hundred sixty-six-dollar jeans.

Ten pages later we see a young woman laying on her back, spread across a black leather couch.  She is buck neck-ed except for a pouty, thoughtful look.  Black and white photo.  Figured it out yet?  It's for a French perfume, probably called, “Oui, Oui, Oui, All Ze Way Home.”   Getting the idea?

It all comes from those people with clipboards you see in the malls.  They compile information you give them and then produce these ads.  When you sneeze, why you sneeze, and the time span between sneezes all come into play on these ads.  Moral of the story: don’t sneeze in the malls.  It’s causing great confusion in our magazines.  But make no mistake; it’s you younger folks, not me.  Anyone over 35 is nonexistent to these information junkies. 

Point is, people give six bucks for the magazine, and they rush out to give one hundred sixty-six-bucks for everything advertised.  I can't figure it out.    

Twenty pages later, an older man.  Finally.  He’s at least twenty-six.  Two fingers touching his temple in a thoughtful pose, and he owns the ultimate scruffy goatee.  Everything is in blue, except his face.  The ad is for?  I have to tell you, I still have no idea.  Couldn’t even read the scribble that was the name of the company on the bottom of the page. 

One of the last advertisements is a close up of a brown paper bag with a pair of sunglasses leaning against it.  German luxury car?  No.  Perfume?  Nope.  Cigarettes?  Sheesh!  Ad is for a pair of one hundred sixty-six-dollar sunglasses. 

The lead ad executive most likely got whacked the next day for that one. 

One of the benefits of age is wisdom and one of the responsibilities of an older, wise guy…er…wiser guy…revolves around the education of a younger generation. 

Over the years I must admit I’ve been generous in sharing the lessons I’ve learned with younger men.  Most often it is mistakes that yield long lasting, fruitful lessons.  Rest assured I have several huge silos of fermenting nuggets to draw from.  Like the other night.

My son was over and asked some trivial question, and I, of course, knew the answer.

"How'd you know that, Dad?" he asked.

"Because I'm a wise man, son, and when you grow up, you'll be a wise man too."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, I think it means men know a little bit about everything."

I could feel a laser gaze from behind.  I felt the heat from it, and should have left well enough alone.  But I couldn't.  Too good to resist.  Right on cue, he asks:

"Well, what about women, Dad, what do they know?"

"Women know a whole lot about . . .”

Whack!

For the rest of the evening, the boy bugged the missus constantly.

"So, how did you know what Dad was going to say?  How did you know?  Dad!  How did she know?"

"Women know a lot about men, Brother; women know a whole lot about men."

"That's what you were going to say?"

Yes'm.

Have I mentioned that we have three children?  Big Sis, Bubba or Brother and Lil’ Sis.  Lil’ Sis is 19 and still at home – bodily function mode, right – and the other two are out making lives for themselves.  Though we miss them, one of the things we like about this nearly empty nest is the following scene is now a thing of the past…

                                                      * * *

"Watch this," the missus says to me.  She waits for a second and then yells, "Hey, Bubba, did you unload the dishwasher?"  Our son is just down a hall in his bedroom.  No response.

"HEY, BUBBA DID YOU UNLOAD THE DISHWASHER?"  Silence.

"And your point?"  I ask her.

"Hey, Bubba," she whispers, "how ‘bout we fill your bedroom with ice cream and let you eat your way out?"

There is a whooshing sound, much like the one Superman makes, and Bubba is standing between our chairs in the living room.

"What?  What did you say, Mom?  Someone left ice cream in the dishwasher?  What’s up with that?”

The other night we called to Lil Sis for something and again, no response.  I yelled, “Hey, my head fell off and it’s rolling around the kitchen floor…could you pick it up for me?  By the ears, please?”  Not a sound. 

I found a pen and wrote, “Let’s get three more dogs,” on a piece of paper and set it on the table. 

“What are you writing?” came the yell from the other room.  Hey, are you guys talking about getting a three headed dog?  What’s up with that?”

We've decided the only sure way to get through this phase is to include subliminal messages.

"Hey, did anyone feed - let's make some chocolate chip cookies - the poor dog today?"

"Did you put your - can we buy a pet snake - dirty clothes in the hamper?"

"Are you done – who wants their curfew to be 3 AM - with your chores?" 

Maybe that way something will actually get done around here.

                                                   * * *

Well, somehow we got through it.  Still haven’t figured out where they got it from, because when they were little, little kids, we’d have so much Saturday fun straightening up and doing things around the house.  Ah, well, that was then. 

Hey, I gotta go.  The missus is yelling something about Kate Beckinsale wanting to take our garbage can and recyclables to the curb.

Wonder what’s up with that?

Ever notice how more and more commercials, advertisements, and pitches for various medicines, preparations, and concoctions contain that laundry list of disclaimers?  You know, “…side effects may include…” 

Never worried about that stuff as a twenty-year-old, but now I’m not so sure.  Is it because it’s on absolutely everything?  Or am I just noticing it more?  I wonder soon if my bag of no-brand whole wheat bread will say:

The information contained on the side of this bag is intended to provide accurate and helpful information, but we make no claim or warranty that it really does.  The information should not be considered complete and does not cover all possible variations in vitamin, calorie, or SUGAR…sorry…sugar content. 

This bread was made in a factory which is within five hundred miles of other factories that may make stuff that contains peanuts, gluten, wheat, milk, soy, beef, chicken, fish, matzo balls, processed cheese product, raw eggs, cooked eggs, soft boiled eggs, hard boiled eggs and…and…let’s just say any possible kind of egg.  Point is, if there’s something in the bread that makes you sick, we will raise our hands approximately shoulder height, turn our palms up, lift our eyebrows, and nod over at this disclaimer.

If you do get sick, you may experience (hold on, need to take a deep breath here) cramps, bloating, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, gagging, dry heaves, upchucking, Buuuuuuicks, Raaaaaalphs, heart palpitations, increased pulse, feelings of dread, and you may break out in Chronicles on your Narnia. 

Additionally, some patients have reported dizziness, drowsiness, respiratory depression, seizures, lethargy, pain in upper back, lower back, middle back and nothing hurts your ears more than Nickelback.  Some others reported sleeping disorders and insomnia, increased appetite, lack of appetite, yawning (yes, we said yawning!), the desire to laugh like a hyena, and rigors.  (Look it up!)  Other studies have shown a proclivity to wear brown shoes with blue or black pants, totally infuriating your wife or gf. 

In case any of the above doesn’t cover some obscure reaction you might have, we’ll toss this in: woman, men, teenagers, children, old people, middle aged folks all have shown various reactions to use of this product.  No telling what could happen to you if you use this, but…well…enjoy!

Finally, consumer, what disclaimer list would be complete without a variety of references to watery and/or loose you-know-what.  Consider yourself stooled.