Pacifism is for sissies.

Last year Donna took a trip to Georgia to visit some friends. While she was away I took Jack and Joe over to a local park. It was midweek and school was in session at the time so we had the whole place to ourselves. The boys went on the swings, we dug in the sand, flew a kite. It was a great fun. Toward the end of our time while Jack and Joe were playing on the jungle gym, a pair of Hispanic nannies showed up at the park, each with two white kids. Each of the kids was 3 or 4 years old and they jumped right onto the play equipment while the nannies sat on a bench talking. Jack was delighted at the arrival of the other kids because there’s no such thing as a stranger to him, just a future friend. The kids rode down the slide and then climbed to the top of the structure for another ride in rapid succession. The new arrivers weren’t well versed in the whole “taking turns” concept, pushing their way in front of my sons as they pleased. But Jack and Joe weren’t too put off because at least they had some new playmates. Things proceeded relatively smoothly until one of the boys (I’ll call him, “The Creep”) decided he didn’t want Jack and Joe on his slide. With arms outstretched and blocking the slide, he let out a deep and loud, “AUUUGGGHHH!!” each time they attempted to make it past him. At first Jack and Joe simply ignored him but then the boy pinched Jack on the arm. Jack looked at him and said, “Hey, that’s not berry nice. Please don’t do that.” The Creep responded by “AUUUGGGHH!”ing in his face again. Jack slipped by him and made his ride down the slide. Next, The Creep took a swipe at Joe. My sons gathered around me.

“Daddy, that boy is being mean to us. He’s yelling at us and he pinched me and he tried to hit Joe-Joe.”

“Yeah, I saw that. Did you tell him to knock it off?”

“Yeah, but he keeps doing it.”

“Well, maybe you should go place on something else… like the swings.”

“What if he hits us when we’re swinging?”

I pondered that for a moment. The kid had a point. We moved in close for a huddle.

“Alright, you tried being nice, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you told him to stop, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And he still tries to hurt you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then you’ve done all you can do. You gotta stand up for yourself.”

“Yeah,” they nodded in emphatic agreement. “What does that mean?”

“Well, it means that if he pushes you around you have to push back and show him that he’s not the boss of you. Can you do that?”

With a frightened look on his face, Joe gave a slow and uneasy nod.
Jack broke into a wide grin.

“Yeah, daddy, I can do that.”

“Alright, get back up on that jungle gym and have some fun!”

Somewhere in the future, a therapist is profiting from my parental failure.

The boys raced for the ladder to the jungle gym, Joe arriving first. After climbing the first rung, he paused for a moment and then climbed down.

“You can go first, Jacky.”

Jack made a mad dash up the ladder and headed for the slide. I sat on the park bench, my heart racing and palms sweating. The Creep jumped in front of the slide and let out a bellowing, “AUUUGGGHHH!” in Jack’s face. Before he could even complete his howl, Jack let fly a hard right, catching him squarely on the end of his nose. The Creep wailed satisfyingly and fell backward down the slide. When he sailed off the bottom of the slide and landed in the sand his nose was bleeding like a stuck hog. Jack then hollered at him to, “get out of the way so I can go down.” Now emboldened, Joe chimed in, “Yeah, get outta the way! We wanna go down!” I sat on the bench, my mouth agape in shock. The other playmates stood in stunned silence. The Creep, bloody and wailing, sought comfort from one of the nannies.

On the drive home from the park, Jack spoke.

“Daddy, after I punched that mean boy in the nose the other boys were nicer to me and Joe-Joe.”

“Yeah, I noticed that too. Why do you suppose that is?”

“I think it’s because I showed them that the mean boy isn’t the boss of me. I’m gonna tell mommy all about what happened when she gets home from Georgia!”

“Daddy, did anyone ever punch you in the nose?”

“Not since I was a little boy… but I have a feeling that’s going to change when Mommy finds out how I handled this.”

I don't care

In case you haven’t filed yet, October 17 (two weeks from today) is the final filing deadline for your 2004 individual tax return. This is the worst deadline (far uglier than April 15) for me because there’s no more delaying, it’s gotta be done. These are always the most complex returns and they’re required by the most derelict clients. My patience for these wankers ran out about two weeks ago.

“Listen, there is no depreciation recapture on the sale of your rental property but depreciation taken in past years does reduce your basis in that property. Accordingly, you have a capital gain of $1,118,000 and there is a total balance due with your return of $257,000.”

“blah, blah, blah…”

“I don’t care that you won’t be able to visit your father’s final resting place in France next summer. I don’t care that your daughter has to continue driving the 2002 Saab convertible instead of getting a new BMW. And I don’t care that the big “art purchase” your wife has her heart set on will have to wait another year. I don’t care. I really don’t care. Is there anything, ANYTHING I can do to even begin to make you understand how much I. Do. NOT. CARE.?”

I’m not sure I can take much more of this. Deer season opens this Saturday and, like the past several Saturdays, I’ll be sitting in this office, banging away on this computer, doing tax returns and auditing pension plans for the same whiner clients that have been engaging me for the past 12 years. I wonder if they know what low esteem I hold them in? They probably don’t care either.