I had planned to talk about the newly released movie '2012' here but then I decided a little light-hearted family humor was in order. The movie was pretty decent but we will get to that at another time. I'd rather talk about my kid A. He's pretty phenomenal and the true comedian in the family. You can never stay mad at him...ever...ever.
Case in point, A was 12 or 13 years old and was in middle school. His mother and I co-owned and managed a retail store not far from our home. Being that he was in middle school, we felt he could come home for up to two hours by himself. J would leave the store by 5 p.m. and I would follow and arrive around 7:30. We closed at 7 p.m. and it would give us a chance to shut the store down and run the receipts for the day.
Case in point, A was 12 or 13 years old and was in middle school. His mother and I co-owned and managed a retail store not far from our home. Being that he was in middle school, we felt he could come home for up to two hours by himself. J would leave the store by 5 p.m. and I would follow and arrive around 7:30. We closed at 7 p.m. and it would give us a chance to shut the store down and run the receipts for the day.
A has a speech challenge known as aphasia. He will substitute similar words for words that he cannot say or approximate. For example, for the longest time, he couldn't vocalize the word 'jet'; so he would say 'plane'. The same would go for his sentence structure. The syntax wasn't always complete and a tad bit awkward, but we could get the idea.
When he was in pre-school, he would come and get us and tell us 'Dad, Mom, I have bad news for you' if something wasn't right. For example, if one of his dogs missed the mark and peed on the kitchen floor, this would be 'bad news'. The same went for 'good news'.
Our store was closed on Sundays and as such, allowed us time to run errands for the family, visit other family members, go to church or do something fun with A. One particular Sunday we went to a local home improvement center. We were in the midst of remodeling our home and were looking for new door hardware for all of the interior doors. Finally, we would find something that we all three agreed upon.
Going home, I left the bag containing our purchases in my office at home. Monday morning arrived and we all began our weekly ritual. I left by 6:30 to get to the store and J saw A off to school on the school bus and was at the store by 8:00. This particular morning, nothing of consequence was out of the ordinary.
The day was pretty hectic and J was looking forward to going home and crashing a few minutes before deciding what to do for dinner that evening. Arriving home, she walked in the front door and was greeted with our son beaming and telling her 'Mom, I have good news for you'. Being proud, he walks her into the family room and in the middle of the room's floor laid all of the hinges, doorknobs and other door hardware from every door in the house. Looking around, she noticed a couple of doors propped up against the walls.
Feeling a bit panicked; she raced through the rest of the house only to discover A indeed had good news. All of the rooms’ doors were against a neighboring wall...without the hardware. Needless to say, there was definite news for me. She decided to wait till I got home.
As I pulled into the drive a couple of hours later, the two came outside to greet me. A looks at me with puppy dog eyes and tells me has good news for me. J speaks up and says A 'good news, don't you mean...' and before she could finish, A said 'bad news'. He began to tell he was sorry and then grabbed my hand and led me indoors to the same spot he took his mother.
'What is this, A?' All he could do was cry and point to the doors against the wall. Trying to comfort him, I tried not to get mad. I'm accused all too often of being a cranky-ass old man and this time wouldn't be much better. A proceeds to tell me he helped me. At this point, we all start laughing and I thanked him for his wonderful help. I wasn't quite ready for it but I thanked him none the same.
With that, we all went back out to the van, got in and took off to dinner at a neighborhood Mexican restaurant. This is only one of a million times over the years he has told me that he 'has good news for me'. So, everybody, go out and have a good day and remind yourself there's always more good news then bad news in the world. kG
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