Don't Forget to Flush

It was a typical Sunday morning for AJ and I. We sat on the couch, him with residual maple syrup smeared on his face, me downing my fourth or fifth cup of coffee. The NFL was on the big screen, the laptop was open to my various fantasy teams. We were screaming at the TV, as is our wont, basking in the pure spectacle of glorious gladiatorial mayhem.



Also, we were still in our underwear.

Emet emerged from the back room (which… Continue

We opened the door and the four of us were greeted with a glare approximating the surface of the sun. The wood floor was beautiful actually, top of the line stuff, but it reflected the horrendous yellow of the walls--two shades of yellow, to be precise, above and below a strip of moulding--to a harrowing degree.



"We can always paint," said my girlfriend (Emet, meet Offsprung; Offsprung, Emet), just before her corneas combusted.



Sure, we could always paint, but we'd also… Continue

I remember AJ's first joke. He was two-and-a-half and whenever I came home from work, he would run up to me with his hands out wanting the change in my pockets. Shiny things, you know. This particular evening, his Mother did the same. I gave AJ the coins, 38 cents or so, and told him to share with his Mommy. He looked down at his treasure-filled hand for a moment, selected a single penny, and pressed it to his mother's palm. The mischievous glint in his eye left no doubt he knew exactly what he… Continue

AJ’s summer vacation has been packed. He started school on Monday, meaning we jammed a surplus of events into seven short weeks, weeks filled with apprehension and anticipation in equal measure. Our trek began shortly after he demolished the 2nd grade—highly efficient academically, coupled with his energy, like that of a tropical storm wiping out decorum and structure in the classroom—and embarked on a crowded To Do List that had him careening around the state, facing new family challenges,… Continue

One of my son's big projects toward the end of the last school year was to create a timeline of his life. It was my turn to assist the Big Project, which is scary, since I lack an iota of artistic design or sensibility, having peaked at age 17 with my forced metaphor/reproduction of the characters in Graham Greene's "Heart of the Matter" as members of a fictional baseball team, complete with stadium. It was so impressive that my teacher decided to hang it on the wall, where it inspired for a… Continue