Me again.  Back to school 12-step recovery program.  I feel like I’m on the step ‘square root of negative one’—and to think I used to know what that meant.  It’s like herding cats.  Heard of cats?  Sure, a bunch just got on the school bus.  Sorry, sometimes I have trouble getting all of the synapses to fire in order.

This is dedicated to those moms and dads who spent more years in school that America has been a country.  Each year the start of school sort of hits me in the face, like the ice swimmers in Vladivostok—how could I possibly have spelled that correctly—during their New Year ’s Day plunge in to whatever sea is nearby. My gang often looks at me like I am dumber than a box of hair.

They do not care that when the airlines finally decide to board planes by IQ, that I will be in the front of the line—don’t get pithy with me, for you frequent fliers, don’t tell me you haven’t thought of this.  That I regularly advise—albeit recently a little less regularly that I’d like—industry stalwarts they are uniquely unimpressed.  They have other issues; why do I have to wear socks; a bag of Oreos and a bag of Doritos are two different things for lunch.  And so on.  Sometimes they think I am an idiot.  Sometimes I find myself agreeing with them.

The mind is a terrible thing.  The children look to us provide direction.  Some days we have difficulty just providing matching socks.  Is it that we lost control or that we never had it, control, that is?  My nine-year-old daughter winks, says “Oh daddy” to anything I say, and I melt.  That is sooooooooo unfair.

The great thing is the ability to realize how ill-equipped, how unprepared I am to deal with these short people who moved in when my wife and I didn’t understand the consequences of deciding to stay home that rainy night.  Still with me?  I’m not sure I am either, but perhaps we can find comfort in that I really am working to a point.  My children listen to me in the same way I read email—provide me with a summary statement because the rest is superfluous.

I believe that’s what is missing in the ‘reform debate’.  That’s what they call it on TV, but we all know, there is no debate.  To debate, one must define the issues.  They have failed to do that, and I argue their failure is deliberate.

Next Wednesday should be fun.  Mark my words, they still won’t be able to present it on a single PowerPoint slide.