Apple Versus Android and the Gridiron of Life

Recently, over the dinner table, Thing #1 filled me in on a schoolyard conversation she had with a friend about smartphones. It went something like this:

Thing#1: Hey, what kind of phone is that?

Mean little boy who doesn't worship my daughter like he should: It's a Samsung running Android. Something you wouldn't know anything about, Apple Fangirl.

This left my daughter flustered and confused. Did she do something wrong? Did she somehow show off a lack of basic human knowledge? Did she just get bullied and not even realize it?

As she told me about this, I realized that she'd fallen into the same trap that I, as a kid, constantly fell into - just a trap with different subject matter. Stay with me here.

In my humble opinion, young sports fans are made, not born. And they are made through the careful cultivation, marination, and indoctrination by adult sports fans bringing their offspring into the fold. A kid is introduced to the Red Sox because his dad is a Sox fan, as was his dad before him. It's a rare occurrence that a kid will be born into a Sox family and have a thing for the Mariners. I suppose it
happens, but it's rare. It's really all about the parents' influence. A non-sports fan myself, I often found myself, as a kid, being somewhat picked on for my lack of sports-related current events. "Dude, did you see Dwight Evans last night? Oh wait, I forgot, you were probably working on some science project last night while the rest of us were watching the game. Too bad, so sad." (books promptly thrown into mud).

Well, times have changed. Apple, Google, and the like have created armies of fans and scores of opposing forces. Do a web search for "Apple versus Android" and get over 5.4 million hits. Look at the comments of any tech site, and trolls will be everywhere, inciting verbal violence between like-minded individuals.

So perhaps I'm making an assumption here, but I picture that this kid who confronted my daughter on her poor lack of smartphone knowledge at one time or another had "the talk" with his dad, which went something like this:

Kid: Dad, can I get an iphone?

Dad: Son, you can have any phone you want. But if you're going to live in this house, it's gotta be Android. In this house, we're all about the Green and White.

Kid: Dad, what's Android?

Dad: Only the best freaking OS in the big leagues.

Kid: Why? What makes it better than Apple?

Dad: Cuz Android's got the experience and the power to get things done. It's got the best development team in the industry, and they move the goal line forward constantly. Oh sure, Apple makes a pretty phone. but you don't win games by being pretty. You want your phone to look pretty and have a pretty little case with sparkles on it, get yourself a girly little iPhone. But if you wanna be a real man, you have to get Android.

Kid: Why?

Dad: Cuz you can do whatever you want with it. Root the OS. multitask. Download stuff from wherever you want.

Kid: I like the iPhone. It's got cool black and gray colors.

Dad: Son, I don't even know who you are anymore. Listen kid....if you want to be a sheep like the rest of them, get yourself an iPhone, but no son of MINE will be doing that.

Kid: Dad, it's just a phone. I just need it to text.

Dad: JUST A PHONE? Is Google Maps just a map? Is HTTPS just a protocol? The Android team has sweated their life away to bring you this thing of beauty. Come on son...get your game face on, we're headed to the stadium..er...Verizon store. Time for you to be indoctrinated.

So, apparently some of this rubbed off on the kid. Once happy with whatever shiny object was put in front of him, he now developed a finely tuned opinion, forced upon him by the intense pressure and fandom of his forefathers.

So, this is where we are as a society. Ebola is spreading. ISIS is attacking. The weather is getting more and more freakish on a daily basis. But at least we have our beloved teams to worship, every first Tuesday of the third month before the next tech industry financial results announcements come out, that time when new products are released. We can grab a beer, sit back in our easy chair, and watch the latest keynote presentation by an ubernerd who was never really trained to perform in from of a live audience as he demonstrates the latest in tech positioned to save the world from real productivity. And somewhere, out there, like-minded fans are rejoicing, because the latest Samsung now has a curved screen.

Wolverines are dangerous creatures, after all.

As the token male of the family, It would appear that I am responsible for a number of key tasks around the house. One might say too many tasks. I'm sure that my fellow dads have the same issue in their own household. Here, I'm the grill master. The bug squasher. The closet purger. The handyman. The only one who will go within ten feet of a drain so clogged by toothpaste and hair gunk that it actually laughs at you if you dare threaten it with a dose of Draino and a drain snake.

We've gotten into a pattern around this house. It sounds something like this. Note that "her" pretty much refers to any member of the family that isn't me:

Her: Dad! Spider!
Me: Yeah? So?
Her: Kill it!
Me: You kill it!
Her: Uh uh. That's your job. I'm not going near no scary spider nuh uh.
(dad begrudgingly gets up from couch, squishes spider, and returns to couch)
Her: Did you wash your hands?
Me: Why would I do that? I used a tissue to squish it.
Her: You HAVE to wash your hands! Please dad, for god's sake, you're touching the couch after squishing an ooky spider!
Me: You don't seem to have a problem lying right where Daisy spent the last hour licking her own crotch.
Her: DAD!!!!!!
Me: Sigh...fine....if it will make you go away....

Basically, any time I hear someone in the house yell something that starts with "Dad!", I immediately cringe, realizing it means more work for me.

I started giving this a little thought and, frankly, I'm doing my children a great disservice by taking care of many of the tasks around the house that they could should be doing themselves. Tasks that they will need to know how to do in their later years if only to avoid blowing up the house or getting attacked by hungry wolverines. I mean, when will my kids learn to change their own batteries, for goodness sake?

So, I've decided it's time for a little survival boot camp.

After a modicum of consideration and perhaps a Sam Adams or two, I've come up with a list of practical, everyday tasks that Things #1 and #2 need to learn if they are ever to avoid that wolverine attack. Here's what I've come up with so far. Please feel free to suggest others.

• How to run the lawn mower without losing a toe
• How to use the leaf blower AND get the leaves to successfully form a pile
• How to run the dishwasher. Wait - how to LOAD and run the dishwasher. There's an art to it properly, so you don't end up with bowls full of water and that one fork with the rice stuck in it, after all.
• How to push that little red button on the GFCI outlet after attempting to run the hair dryer at the same time as the hair straightener and tripping the breaker.
• How to stop the toilet from overflowing
• How to use the plunger on a clogged toilet
• How to clean the plunger after use
• How to use a shovel
• How to sweep the floor and not make it look worse than when you started
• How to get dad another Sam Adams. Wait - how to get a Sam Adams AND pop the top
• How to light the gas stove without blowing up the house.
• How to turn off the gas stove so as not to blow up the house
• How to call the fire department after you've blown up the house
• How to use the vacuum cleaner
• How to unclog the hair from the vacuum cleaner
• How to unclog the hair from the drain
• How to untangle the hair from the ceiling fan (don't ask...it's a thing)
• How to clean that backside of the hairdryer, where all the dust collects
• Yeah, there's issues with hair around this place.
• How hanging a 5 lb. picture on a wall should involve a nail, not an entire roll of scotch tape.
• How to hammer a nail
• How to change a light bulb
• How to close the freaking door behind you, what do you live in a barn?
• How to put the vegetable drawer back on it's track in the fridge after you've pulled it out too far, rather than just jamming it in there with the refrigerator door half closed.
• How to read an error message on the computer screen and remember what it said just before the computer ignited, rather than just telling me, "dad, something's wrong with the computer".
• How to squish your own damned spider.

It seems I have a lot of work ahead of me. I'd better get another beer first.

I've made a huge mistake.

Back in my formative years, back before pudding was handed to you in a disposal plastic cup and its only protection from the elements was that deliciously rubbery skin, I had a bike.

This bike had a banana seat, sparkly green paint (it was a MANLY sparkly green), and a three-speed shifter on the down-tube that looked like it was cribbed from an Iroc-Z.

Back in those days, bikes were tough and made for abuse.  Like the other boys in my neighborhood with their banana-seat bikes, I would grab a scrap of plywood from dad's workshop to use as a makeshift ramp for jumping curbs. No helmets. No parents following closely behind. This led to my eventual enjoyment of single-track mountain biking as a young adult, something I still like to do when I'm not at the chiropractors office nursing a slipped disk. But rarely was there a day during the summer where I didn't just take the bike out on the street and ride back and forth for hours with little supervision and dreams that the banana seat was actually the driver's seat of that Iroc-Z, and Iroc-Z with one badass suspension made for jumping over curbs.

The mistake I've made is to teach my children how to ride a bike using current 21st century methods.

I remember getting them started on their little "Foxy" bike. 

Things #1 and #2 were taught how to coast and pedal carefully back and forth in the cul de sac. When a daughter fell off, dad was there to give her moral support and nurse the bleeding. They were taught to be so paranoid about helmets that they would refuse to be within ten feet of the bike without one. They were never taught what it was like to jump a curb. To build a ramp. To even stand up on the pedals. 

Now that the kids are 10 and 13, they should just want to pull their bikes out and disappear down the street, enjoying the sunshine. Instead a typical bike ride involves dad getting up early to strap everything to the car, fill water bottles, and pump up tires, then driving to the nearest rail trail, unstrapping everything, and leading the family in a ride. A STRAIGHT ride. No hills, no curbs, no crazy flying down a grassy hill only to flip over the handlebars, suck up the pain, and try it again. That's not biking. That's riding a monorail. 

I sense now that the kids view biking as a means to an end - dad means to get everyone outdoors and away from screens, and the kids mean to ride just long enough to make it to the nearest lunch place halfway down the rail trail. And in the end, dad drives home, the kids disappear into the house, and dad's stuck unstrapping those bikes again and storing them in the garage, to remain there until he, and only he, demands the next family bike ride.

I've made a huge mistake.

The Child De-griming process

I recall one morning, a few years ago, when thing #1 woke up and announced that she still had shampoo in her hair, left over from the previous night's shower. She also announced that this was entirely her father's fault, because said father should have checked her hair before she got out of the shower.


Okay, let's back up a moment.


Thing #1 is ten years old at the time. For the previous three years before that, kid-degriming process in this household was as follows:


1. Parent tells child to get undressed for shower.
2. Parent turns on water and adjusts temperature.
3. Child takes off socks, but gets distracted by dog/ipod/dust bunny during undressing period.
4. Parents investigates whereabouts of child, and finds child mostly dressed, on floor playing with dog/ipod/dust bunny.
5. Parent announces child is wasting water, and to get butt undressed and into the bathroom.
6. Child finishes undressing, runs into bathroom, and decides she needs to pee.
7. Child accidentally flushes, causing shower to be too hot to use for next two minutes.
8. Parent adjusts water again.
9. Child enters shower, proceeds to slowly and gently soap various areas of body for next 18 minutes, eventually entering a hot-water induced zombie-like trance.
10. Parent asks, "Are you done yet?"
11. Child returns to reality, announces, "not yet!" and puts head partially under water.
12. Child shampoos partially wet hair, missing three quarters of it.
13. Child moves head partially under water again, re-entering trance and failing to remove 90% of shampoo, standing there for another 18 minutes. Front of hair remains dry.
14. Parent asks, "what in gods name is taking so long," opens curtain, grabs shower nozzle, and hoses off child's head while child ducks for cover and screams due to the possible risk of getting water in her ear or eyes. Parent switches shower massage output to "shotgun mode" in hopes of getting more shampoo out and distracting child from her fears through silliness of water spray. Water collects on floor and leaks to ceiling below, causing stain on kitchen ceiling to become ever-larger.
15. Parent shuts water, removes child from shower, and dries floor with available hand towels.
16. Parent complains to spouse, asking why, in ten years, child hasn't figured out how to shower herself yet.
17. Spouse says "see above."


Now let's fast-forward three years. Thing #1 is well entrenched in her early teen years, and as a result of a home renovation now has her own shower. At this age and in this situation, the kid-degriming process seems to be as follows:


1. Child announces she's going up for a shower.
2. Parents see child disappear upstairs, and hear shower turn on
3. A half hour elapses, and sound of shower is still heard. Parent trudges up the steps and opens bathroom door, hearing the distinctive sound of a child sitting in a tub filled several inches with water, swishing her body back and forth to create a small wave pool.
4. Parent startles the bejeebers out of kid by exclaiming, "why the heck are you still in the shower???"
5. Child finishes shower, then spends next half hour in parents' bathroom with the flatiron, getting her hair as Marcia Brady-flat as possible.
6. A few hours elapse, and parent enters master bathroom as part of bedtime ritual, promptly burning his or her hand upon discovery that child never unplugged the flatiron.
7. Repeat daily.

One Male....In the House...

Every once in a while Thing#1, who is now 12 years old, will venture down the stairs well after bedtime with that solemn look of "I have an issue" on her face. It used to be the most common cause of this was a stinkbug crawling across the bedroom ceiling. Nowadays, her issues are different. Very different. Lately when I see her descend the stairs with her face in a frowny position and I ask, "what's wrong honey?" the most common response is,"I need mom."

This means the dreaded Female Issues have begun. I have no role here. I'm fine with this. I will be in the workshop.

I don't know what my daughter and wife discuss anymore. I don't want to know. My daughter is changing from a cute little toddler and plaything to an actual human, with opinions, issues, and bumps where there were no bumps before. Suddenly she wants to shower with the door closed. Suddenly dad is no longer allowed to voice an opinion on dress code, except when she's dressed in something too small to cover up a chocolate bar. Suddenly, the subject of "boys" enters the conversation (or so I'm told). Before too long there will be a drawer in her bathroom that is completely off limits to all male residents of the house.

I'm entering uncharted territory here. I have no place in this new world, one where estrogen sets the rules and slowly seeps from the walls like so much Amityville blood. Heck, I'm not even sure what I'm able to write about here, without unleashing the wrath of the womenfolk telling me to delete on threat of divorce and beheading. I'm thinking I need to change the subject of my blog to something safer, something about as far away from the subject of Female Issues as possible. Maybe a blog about iPad apps, men's shoes or perhaps fruit salad recipes.

But where's the challenge in that, really?

Here's what I'm thinking. I have several friends who have been blessed with a gaggle of women in their household, Not an ounce of testosterone to be found in the place outside of dad's own, rapidly shriveling masculinity. They all need help. WE all need help. There's no "Dads With Daughters" support club out there that we can go to for advice, resources, or escape from the madness of femininity. Well, it's time we created one.

Meetings will be once a month, held in a local machine shop, lawn mower repair facility, or auto detailer. Some place where men can return to their base natural instincts and fart hearing only a reply of "dude, nice one!" rather than the usual, "auugghh Dad, you're embarrasing!".

Each meeting will begin with a reminder that all children, boys or girls, healthy or sick, are a true blessing. We need to get that out of the way quickly and move to new business. New business will include such topics as what to do when your daughter clogs the tub drain with her long flowing hair, how to pair her iPhone (the one with the hot pink case with the photo of the guy from Hunger Games on it) to the bluetooth on your car stereo so she can listen to One Direction while you drive her to school, and how to most effectively embarrass her in front of boys she secretly likes. 

Each meeting will of course begin with a pledge of allegiance:

I pledge allegiance

To the flag

Of the Dads With Daughters Support Group

And to the escape

For which it stands

One male

In the house

Where estrogen

And issues

abound.

If you would like to become a member of the Dads with Daughters support club, Feel free to contact me any time, day or night. You can find me down in the workshop, door locked, hearing protection on, shop vac running. Just come in through the back door...you don't want to know what's going on upstairs.

Jumping the Shark, and other Happy Days References

Cosmic Lattice of Coincidence

This evening, the dinner table discussion somehow led my wife and me to explaining the show Happy Days to our young children. This, in turn led me to explain the term "Jump The Shark". I said to my ten year old, "Natalie, some day you will hear the term 'Jump The Shark', and you'll be able to impress your friends by telling them exactly what it means and where it comes from.

My wife then decided to see if, by chance, TVLand had a few episodes of Happy Days that we could Tivo. When she turned on the TV it was tuned to some random kids show on NickJr, and, in a frighteningly odd cosmic lattice of coincidence, the very first thing out of the actor's mouth was "Don't ya think that's jumping the shark a little bit?"

Dad IS all-knowing.

Auto Repair

Speaking of all-knowing dads, I scored a point for all the guys out there recently. Okay, so you can imagine the scene...a couple of guys standing around the front of a car with the hood open, staring intently at the engine block and plotting their next move to get this baby running again. Really, we all know it's just an excuse to enjoy a refreshing beverage out of earshot of the usual household din. Then one of the wives leans out of the front door and cracks wise by saying something like, "why dontcha stare at it a little more, maybe you'll just CONVINCE it to work!" Well, darling, I proved yesterday that staring at an automobile's engine is, in fact, an effective tool for driveway automotive repair.

You see, the other day we had to have a cracked windshield replaced on the minivan. The auto glass company came to the house during the day while I was at work. They fixed the glass, and my wife then pulled the car into the garage. The next day, after attempting to head out of the house on an errand, she came up the basement steps and reported to me that the car was dead.

Not interested in removing my butt from its comfy position on the couch, I told her to take mine, and I'd jump start it later, figuring the interior light was probably left on again and the battery was toast.

Now, let me say, right here and now, that I am NOT a car guy. Other than knowing where the engine IS on the car, my automotive repair abilities pretty much end with "hmm, that doesn't sound right", and buying a new car. But three days later, when I remembered to investigate the problem, I discovered the battery in fact wasn't dead, but rather the ignition would churn but the engine wouldn't turn over. I tried it several times, then thought perhaps the repair guys had forgotten to reconnect something after they finished. So, I opened the hood.



After staring at the engine for a solid two minutes and seeing nothing out of place, I began to run through scenarios in my head. Call AAA? Call Honda? Ask the guy next door to stare at it with me for a few minutes? Finally I closed the hood and decided it was definitely time to buy a new car. I got back into the driver's seat, and decided to try it once more. And wouldn't you know it, she started right up. Another successful automotive repair.

Shrinkage

On a final note for the day, I would like to express my sympathies to all you dads out there who somehow were conned into getting a Shih-tsu or other similarly dropkick-sized dog as a family pet. I know it wasn't your decision. You really wanted that black lab. You had it all planned out...you were going to name him Johnny Wonder, give him a red bandanna and a collar with spikes, and drive to the town dump every weekend with him hanging his head out the side window of your Dodge Ram. But instead, your 6-year-old girl fell in love with little Fifi and begged and pleaded until you realized you had no recourse but to begrudgingly say yes. Suddenly you're sharing the house with a creature that resembled the main character from the movie Gremlins, wears knit sweaters, and gets carried everywhere in a pink faux Gucci bag. Really I feel for you.

I say this because for the past week I've shared your pain. As part of a holiday trade-off, this week we are watching Muffin, our babysitter's Shih-tsu. Really, there's nothing wrong with the dog, but every time I have to take it for a walk my testicles shrink just a little more.

Room Empurgement Day

Once every few months (or, once every other day according to my lovely wife), I get a burr in my saddle about the state of clutter in the house. Usually I get stirred up after my wallet becomes submerged under a ream of kids' artwork that's collected on the kitchen counter, or when I need to reach something in the back corner of the playroom and realize the only way I'm going to get to it is with a pound of C-4, a Hazmat suit and a roll of paper towels. And when I get stirred up, that's when the soonest available Saturday becomes Room Empurgement Day.

Sometimes I get smart, and provide some incentive to my daughters to join in Room Empurgement Day. "Come on girls! Let's find the floor of the basement so we have a place we can put a new Foozball table!" Other times I just use threats. "I'm walking into that room with a plastic garbage bag, and I ain't leaving until it's too full to tie closed. If your collection of broken Harry Potter wands ends up in my path, so be it."

I recall recently where I happened to strike just the right cord (don't ask me how) to get the girls excited about the prospects of a clean playroom. The elder child, showing off a few drops from her dad's anal retentive gene pool, was extremely enthusiastic about organizing, sorting, and purging. Her younger sibling just nodded her head in agreement and confirmed that, whatever she was going to be doing, mommy would need to be no more than three feet away at all times.

It was a great start to Room Empurgement Day. In theory. We were going to be like one of those families you see on the DIY channel who hire the professional organizer and sort their entire collection of belongings into eight color-coded storage boxes, an alphabetized file cabinet, and a wall-hanging photo montage containing the pictorial story of their family's life events through the ages. I could just picture myself in our spotless home, relaxing in the cushy leather chair by the fire, reading the latest issue of The New Yorker with my faithful labrador at my feet while my wife cooks up a fresh batch of scones with homemade marmalade and my children built me an ottoman made entirely of popsicle sticks. Wait...where was I? Oh, right...reality.

Here's what actually happened. Saturday morning breakfast, 5 episodes of Hannah Montana, and a Spongebob later, I finally managed to peel the kids away from the TV and announce it was time for Room Empurgement Day to begin.

"WAIT!" yelled Jessica. Now, 99.98% of the time you ask Jessica to do something, that's the answer you get. "WAIT! I'm not done putting my squishies to bed!" Okay, so I'm not quite sure what squishies are, and I don't know why they need to hit the sack in the middle of the day, but we certainly weren't going to get any effort out of Jessica until the little varmints were tucked away for their nighttime slumber. So while Mom bought some time putting the dishes away so Jessica could put her squishies to bed within tugging distance from her mother, I took Thing #1 upstairs to tackle the mess in the playroom.

Once upstairs, it wasn't long before distraction set in. I asked her to sort through a pile of stuff in the middle of the floor. As soon as a long lost plastic bathtub from her Barbie dollhouse was discovered, Natalie left the pile intact and migrated to the Dream Home. I pulled her back in by asking her to return her collection of fancy scarves draped across the playroom TV back to her bedroom closet, and found her ten minutes later sitting on her bed revisiting a book on how to draw cartoon puppy faces. That's when the moaning and complaining started. Then the crying. Then the tantrums. And Natalie really, REALLY hates when I tantrum.

Soon Thing #2 came upstairs with her mother, and I put them to work sorting books. This of course led to the realization that, no matter how destroyed a book was, no matter that the pages of the book were stuck together with 5-year-old dried up baby formula, it was not going to be leaving the house without a fight.

It's about this point where my lovely wife and I realize, yet again, what every parent already knows. Clean the room when the kids are gone, throw everything out, and hope to god that the kids never think to ask what ever happened to that old Dora The Explorer backpack that's now sitting in the bottom of the garbage bag. Another successful Room Epurgement Day complete.

Incentives

At last, I have her where I want her.

When my older child wants something, she's very clear about it. Her latest "thing" is dogs. Everything about dogs. Her room is decorated with thousands of stuffed puppies, ceramic puppies, pictures of puppies...there's even paw prints neatly painted on her bookshelves (very tastefully, I must say). This week, she's going to "camp" at Animal Friends, the local no-kill shelter. There, she's being immersed in puppydom. And it's getting to be a dangerous thing.

If you've been following my rants, you know we already have a dog. A crazy nutbag, neurotic, chew-up-everything-in-sight-if-you-leave-me-alone-for-more-than-38-seconds dog. So, naturally, she wants a second dog.

Each day she's come home not only telling us what she's learned about dogs that day (today we learned the term "hybrid dog!") but also about the latest little cutie that she absolutely must have. Trouble is, it's not just her saying, "oh, she's so cute, I MUST have her!". No, instead, she comes with justification, explaining the numerous reasons why it would really be beneficial to have a second dog:

1. It would help with Daisy's anxiety and attachment issues.
2. Daisy would have a buddy.
3. It's not like it would be TWICE as expensive to have two dogs (really?).
4. Daisy would play with the dog while we were gone and stop chewing things.

Hmm, well, frankly a couple of those items DO make sense. However, as the person who does 90% of the walking, feeding, mess cleanup and paying for, as well as 100% of the poop cleanup in the yard, I ain't too interested in doubling my efforts.

Naturally, my almost-ten-year-old declared she would step up to the plate and help with all that. I asked, "even poop cleanup?"


Of course, she replied with "eww...gross!"

I told her that's what it's going to take for me to even CONSIDER a second dog. She then declared that, yes, she'd help.

I tried to make her feel better about it by explaining that if you leave the poop in the yard a couple of days, it hardens like a rock and is easier to pick up. For some reason that didn't make her feel better.

This evening she and I walked Daisy together, and she continued to spout out facts about why it would be good to have another dog, a boy dog, one Daisy could be buddies with, one that would distract her, keep her busy, and she would certainly help more with the feeding and care, and yes, she'd even help clean the poop....

And right then and there, Daisy left a deposit in the neighbor's yard. So with a wide smile, I handed my daughter the little plastic bag.

She replied with, "what, now?"

"Yup, if you even want me to CONSIDER IT..."

"Ew."

But she did it. Arms extended, holding her nose the entire way back. But she did it.

Upon our return, we walked into the basement and was reminded of the massive pile of cardboard boxes, destined for recycling, that Daisy turned into confetti all over the basement floor. The pile that's been sitting there for two weeks.

She's downstairs cleaning it now, as I write this.

Ah, a classic parenting moment. I wonder how long I can milk this?