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Show It's tough being a dad on Fatherfs Day the editor's column By MARC HADDOCK It's tough being a father especially espe-cially when you already know everything eve-rything you're going to get for Father's Day. My kids say it's tough being a kid, when Dad is a snooper who can't let well enough along, and wait for his Father's Day presents, like every other father. But I take exception to that. Can I help it if my five-year-old daughter spills the beans about a present? I only badger the kid about it a little, because I know she loves her father, and I know she's the most likely to tell me with the least amount of badgering. But this year I didn't even have to try. When my boy and I came back from the Fathers-and-Sons outing, we knew the rest of the family had been shopping. After all, almost everyone was sporting new shoes. "Do you like my new hera-chees?" hera-chees?" asked my oldest daughter? I winced. I'd seen the shoes. I like them. I had coveted a pair of similar footwear for men only two days before in a sales catalogue. I was annoyed that she didn't say the word correctly. I was annoyed that she had a pair when I didn't. Tour new whats?" I asked with the appropriate amount of adult scorn. She repeated the word with the same anglo pronounciation, and I winced again. "Look," I said in my most scholarly schol-arly tones. "If you're going to wear those things, you'd better learn how to say them." Now I was hitting my stride. Here, at last, was a meaningful shoes for Seth, and told me, "Everybody "Every-body got new shoes except Lauren." Lauren, who is three, looked appropriately appro-priately indignant, but Meghan explained there simply were no shoes Lauren's size. "I hate Mommy," Lauren said, and rushed to her room. I would have followed, but I was putting two and two together, and coming up with four. See, if everybody got new shoes except Lauren, somewhere in that house was a pair of huarachis just for me. And, I reasoned, they were probably being saved for father's day. So I got Meghan alone, and asked innocently what kind of shoes they had gotten for me. "I can't tell you," she said. "They're for Father's Day." "Thanks, Meg. That's all I needed to know." Once again reunited with the entire family, I started in. It was actually fun. "So everybody got new shoes except me, huh?" I said in my best imitation of Lauren. "Sounds like I'd better go to the store and buy me a pair before the sale ends." "You don't want to do that." "Why don't you wait until they go on sale?" "What makes you think you need a new pair of shoes?" You'd think this crew would know by now that an editor just loves to be begged, but I let them go on, continuing to express my determination deter-mination to acquire my own pair of huarachis. Somewhere in that house was a pair with my name on them, and I had no intenuon 01 waiting until Father's Day to wear them. Finally, a new shoe box was produced, and I put them on with the satisfaction that comes from outsmarting the family. But now Father's Day has lost some of its shine. Erin, my 11-year-old, didn't help things either when she came from Merry Misses bearing a mug full of jelly beans and unceremoniously unceremoni-ously handed them over. "Here, this is for Father's Day." "But Father's Day is two weeks away!" I protested. "Don't you want to wrap them up and save them or something?" "No," she said. "If I do that, I'll just eat them." So, there was my Father's Day present, sitting on the bedroom dresser as the number of jelly beans got sm aller and sm aller each day, although no one would admit to eating a single bean, not even me. Finally, I left the last jelly bean, a purple one, in the bottom of the mug, just to see how soon it would dissappear. It didn't take long. The next time I looked, the mug was empty. "Who ate the last Jelly Bean?" "Was it purple?" asked the daughter with new huarachis on her feet and a grin on her face. "Don't worry, I'll buy you some more for Father's Day." So now I know everything I'm getting. Like I said, sometimes it's tough being a father. chance to use that foreign language minor in Spanish I had earned in college. After all, if a dad can't use his knowledge to teach his own kids, who can? "It's huarachis," I said carefully, pronouncing the word "wah-RAH-chees," just like I'd heard it said many times by people who really wore them. "Try to say it right," I urged. "Everybody else says herachees, and that's fine with me," the smart alec replied. For some reason, the rest of the kids seemed less anxious to show me their purchases except of course for 5-year-old Meghan, who always wants to show me everything. every-thing. She even produced a new pair of |