Conundra

Rain? Chu wanna talk about rain?

A month ago, I posted a picture taken out the window of my office, intended to highlight how welcoming and bucolic my existence was feeling. The same picture now serves as a welcome reminder (via contrast) that the world was welcoming, bucolic and dry.

The world, 14 March:







The same world, 16 April:






When I called Her to tell her what I was seeing, the message that I left concluded with the words: "On balance, it looks as though we suddenly live a quarter mile from a good-sized lake. ...Which, I guess, we do." A neighbor across the way mentions that whatever portion of the crop was already in the ground is likely lost – drowned. Too Much Of A Good Thing Will Kill You always seemed to me a somewhat abstract maxim, but it seems there is a lot of stunted non-corn out there that would agree with it (and yes, I know, at least one stunted non-person who would agree as well).

The doctor confirms, on the occasion of the Second-Birthday Doctor's Visit (timed within a day or two of the party, as if to make sure they learn Into Each Life A Little Rain Must Fall – eat cake, but then get a shot!) that The Kid is in the fiftieth percentile for height (34 in), fiftieth percentile for weight (27 lbs), and fiftieth percentile forhead size (didn't ask). His superhero identity is Median Lad. His hip-hop name is C-Midd. But particularly after a doctor's visit, it kills me that it's the fifth consecutive day that it's too wet to go to a playground. Not that he even needs it that much – The Kid's favorite playground game is Hang From Daddy – but both of them have been penned up for enough of the last six months that it seems cruel and unusual to explain that though the sky is blue and full of puffy accumulated cumulus, it's too sodden to do anything but sit with noses pressed against the window. So we went to McDonald's, which stinkt.

I want to make clear that it didn't stink because of the food. McDonald's food (and I'm talking, by extension, about Burger King, Wendy's et c. – the McD's terminology comes most naturally because the Chain Burger Hut With Indoor Playground near me is an actual McDonald's) is junk food, but unless this is your first day in the Northern Hemisphere, you knew that already. (And yes, I know that you can order a salad there. Why would you? Why didn't you go over to Salad King?) At least at the McDonald's where I ate today, they've gotten pretty straightforward about the nutritional information. I thought I recalled that if you wanted to know what the food was made from, you could ask for, and the irritated staff personnel would spend three minutes producing the card on which was printed (in four-point type) that your Big Mac was made of a quarter-pound of beef and one cow's worth of fat. Not no longer! My plastic tray had a paper coverlet, and the paper coverlet had nutritional information (which we should, fairly, call "nutritional" information) printed on it. Clear, legible, and plain. It reminded me of a column (Frank Rich? Ben Stein? Malcolm Gladwell) a few months ago pointing out that whatever Enron did that was illegal, whatever they did that was unethical, the one thing they really didn't do was obfuscate; the people who eventually found them out, starting with Bethany McLean right down to the prosecutors, did it by reading their unreadable reports, and the footers, and footers to footers, that no one reads because who can read that stuff? That's what still appeals to my inner libertarian about McDonald's: sure, they sell you a pound of crap, but it comes in a paper wrapper on which is printed, in ten-point sans-serif, A Pound Of Crap. My French fries, and everybody's, had a box on the side with the total fat grams printed on it. Know what I did while I read it? Finished my French fries.

And yet still, it stinkt, and this is why: it stinkt because I'm what you call a worst-case-scenario thinker; this is a type of pessimist distinctly different from a glass-half-empty thinker (we go to the same conventions, but attend different panels). To understand what my brain puts me through, think of me as an Advanced Worrywart. If you ever come out to the house and find you're running fifteen minutes late, know that as sure as I know that gravity works and water's wet, I know that you're wrapped around a tree, drifting in and out of consciousness as you use your last breaths to sing along with "Do Ya," still blaring from the speakers of your wrecked vehicle. Typical voicemail I once left Her, just because I couldn't reach her (not even late, right, just didn't pick up the cell): "You're still buckled lifelessly into your seat, head dangling from your snapped neck, as the upside-down car spins slowly in place on the center lane of the [NYS] throughway; the boys are crying and traffic is flying around you in every direction. Call me."

Why, no, I don't get invited to parties.

So that's why it stinkt. Because if you were an aspiring pederast and kidnaper (and I'm not saying you are, or even that I think that they're around every corner; mentally, I don't live in a 1950s America, but I probably live in the late-70s America where I grew up, where kids can walk unescorted to each other's houses [well, not my kids, I'm a WCST. Just, you know, theoretical kids]), wouldn't you end up at a McDonald's Playplace? I've only been to Chuck E. Fargin' Cheese once, and the exit-door sentry there bends over to ask a three-year-old, "Is this Mommy?" At McDonald's, as you might expect, the rule of egress seems to be You Can Only Take as Many Kids As Fit In Your Trunk.

And I don't expect any different! It's not Ronald's responsibility to act in loco parentis. But the largish hamster tubes that my sons crawl through at McDonald's are extensive and opaque, which means that while I am smiling, waving and encouraging my happy sons, I am aging one hour per minute, enjoying the dry mouth and erratic heartbeat that accompany, for me, a family visit to the Playplace. If these greasy entrepreneurs sold beta-blockers over the counter to stabilize blood pressure, they could have an extra few bucks from me (along with the Lipitor that will be sold in packets along with French fries once Pfizer loses the patent).

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El Perro Negro was adopted from the North Shore Animal League, but El Perro Blanco was adopted, two years earlier, from the ASPCA on the Upper East Side. I assume the following practice is national (though I don't know): he has an RFID chip implanted subdermally, somewhere between his shoulder blades. When the right person waves the right wand over it, it reads, let's say, 2-9-7-4-21-13-2-4-15-7, just like your work ID does. And when the right person at the ASPCA types 2-9-7-4-21-13-2-4-15-7 into the Poochifier™ database, they get my name and address. So if the worst (dog) thing occurs – if I manage to be in Fresno when I lose the dog, and his tags come off of him, and he forgets how to bark our phone number – there's still a chance that he'll get back to me, so long as the ASPCA (or someone who knows them) is involved. This is a good use of technology. So here's the interesting question, the question that no one has never really answered for me:

Why don't I have a subdermal chip implanted in The Boy's wrist? A passive call-and-response chip, that spits out 2-9-7-4-21-13-2-2-15-25 when scanned? And it goes into his wrist (if my insurance plan covers it, or I want to pay for it) at his 6-month pediatrician's visit, and he has the legal right to have it removed without my consent when he turns, what, fifteen? And for the intervening time, if the worst (boy) thing occurs, the cops stopping cars on Amber Alert have scanners, and no response (or wrong response) means thanks, drive on. And if some pervert is doing an Elizabeth Smart, it surely makes it much less likely that it'll work, with the irregular pardon-me-sir-won't-take-a-moment sidewalk scans – nu? I know that the ACLU would get this kicked into all kinds of positions, and I know that he causeth all, both small and great, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, and I even get the slippery-slope aspects that say that it's part of a world we don't want. But as an isolated ethical question – as an actual discussion about causing my kid some pain, of violating his civil liberties (and skin), and the statistical likelihood of his kidnap and recovery – I still don't know what I think. What do you think?

That's the one I've been carrying around for a long time. The one that just occurred to me today was also pup-related. Both in our last Manhattan apartment and here in Toad Hall, our home security has been provided by Woof, Inc. Both of our dogs were rescues, and bark like professionals, but I always wanted to know what they would do to an actual intruder. They aren't trained at this, after all, and nothing assures me that they wouldn't bark while he approached the house, then snarl and bark as he jimmied the lock, then howl, snarl and bark ferociously while he opened the door, then like back for belly rubs. This is the kind of thing you can't test, however, without a person they don't know who's willing to be the intruder, and everyone I know is made of meat. And if all goes well, of course, there should be damage, so I can understand not volunteering for that duty.

I found myself wondering today, though, as I actually had the moment – as I checked the restroom, then checked the side exits, then called more loudly and more sternly, then he finally emerged from the enclosed twisty slide (is there a more adult word for a twisty slide? I've never called it anything but a twisty slide) and explained that he was crawling up it and got stuck – I found myself wondering, has any of our instruction stuck with him? When the stranger offered him candy, would he say "You aren't my mommy or daddy," or would he say "Do you have Twizzlers?" I found myself wondering, why not find an adult I trust implicitly, like a brother, have Robin or Jason come out from the city, no association with me at all, then have me go off and chase The Kid for a moment so that said adult can offer The Boy a lollipop and a ride in his car? (But then stop short of, you know, the actual ride in his car. I don't think Jason or Robin has a car. They could offer a ride on a bike.) Ethically, I'd be in the pink. The only person who got misled is The Boy, and it's because I want to measure his survival skills. But doesn't it feel sort of scummy? I mean, doesn't it? To hire a child abuser impersonator to lure your kid away from a playground? Does this happen?