The Uniform

Per my promise to my mom I cornered eldest after school today. Today is Thursday and on Thursday he has to wear his uniform for JROTC. She wanted a picture of him in uniform. It so happens that today the girlfriend rode the bus home with him, therefore, I have a picture of him in uniform. With the girlfriend, not in uniform. Not quite sure what she is wearing, it appears I’m out of the loop. Maybe I haven’t watched enough tv to know what’s in anymore. Though, actually, I feel, and the dad feels, I do watch quite a bit of tv. Even commercials.

Watching commercials with your kids, like driving in a car from A to B while listening to your kids and not your cell phone, can be a very enlightening experience. Tonight I learned that daughter has learned that boys must buy big girls jewelry on Valentines day. The guy shooting the arrow into his wife’s butt had not learned this lesson. Daughter sighed & rolled her eyes and stated that he should’ve bought her jewelry… before the announcer had his say. When she started in on Roman, the boyfriend, buying her jewelry when she is big I started in on how she could get a job and buy herself jewelry. She was quiet for a minute, big deal for daughter, and I thought “Aha!” I’d finally broken through. But no, she said;

“Yes, I could. But it would be better if Roman buyed it for me.” No more tv. Really.

Television is just bad. Take American Idol, there are people on American Idol who can’t sing. They don’t seem to know they can’t sing. I know they can’t sing, 99.99% of America knows they can’t sing, but somehow nobody in that 99.99% ever bothered to tell them they can’t sing. So they are on national, bad, tv being utterly ridiculous. Embarrassingly ridiculous. Now I know I can’t sing, 99.98% of America has told me so.

You will never catch me on American Idol. However, I love to sing and I feel, in the sanctity of my home, I should be allowed to sing. The dad, while under protest, supports my love of singing. The daughter, tonight, during the theme song to CSI (an old favorite by The Who), told me;

“You get to sing once a year. This is not your once a year. Maybe next year you can have another turn.” I think she would make Simon Cowell proud.