Speak the Truth and Shame the Devil

My 3 year old hasn't been saddled with life's censor filter yet, so she's liable to say anything. She doesn't differentiate between an adult and a child and either she likes you, or you're "stinky, nasty and terrible."

"I don't like that boy," she'll say well within earshot of a 50-something year old Asian man in the vegetable aisle at BJs one recent Saturday morning, pointing directly at him less I mistake exactly who she's talking about.

"Why not, Amaya?" I ask while lowering her arm and removing her index finger from practically off of the man's nose.

"Because he's stinky, nasty & terrible."

With adults, the truth tends to be fuzzy. "I never had sexual relations with that woman," or "I never took steroids, er...knowingly..."

Brutal honesty, sadly, is reserved for children under 5, old people and crazies.

It’s said that children and old people are more truthful because they are closer coming from and going back to the Lord.

Okay, I just made that up.

My grandmother, some 2 or 3 years before her death did away completely with her censor filter. At a cousin’s wedding, she beckoned me from across the room. I went to her table, sat down and she said “Ooh, Askia. Don’t head-butt me.”

I wondered how long she wanted to tell me that. For how long exactly did she fear my noggin?

We now live in a debilitating politically correct, everyone-makes-the-team-whether they-suck-or-not, generation.

In the 1950’s through the early 70s, the happy meal kid-sized portion was the regular adult sized meal in fast food places. Now we’re supersized and soft.

When we were kids there was always the one fat kid. If there were two of them, they’d naturally gravitate toward each other and be friends. Now there are whole classes of chubbies; fat and delusional children.

“You made the team chubby, you’re good!”

No! Put down the Playstation and Xbox remote; take the pizza and soft drink out your mouth. Here’s an apple and a basketball. Go outside and play!

Parents lie to their children all the time. You think I’m lying?

I only watch the first 2 or 3 weeks of American Idol. In those brutal first episodes of the new season, you’ll always see someone saying my family/mother/father says I sound like Brian McKnight…Celine Dione…Luther Vandross…Whitney Houston then proceed to give the most crackheaded, bizarre performance imaginable. I love seeing people being told the truth for the first time in their lives. That pained expression etched in their face is so…honest. Why would their family let that happen to them? It turns out the judges are the first people in their life to tell them the truth.

Just telling them the truth in the first place would have avoided all that. Even if you have to chain the front door and fight them; ending up with them on the floor with you on top of them with your knee in their back while their flailing and crying for Paula and Randy, so be it.

I could imagine the conversation with my mother if I told her I was going on American Idol.

First time: “You sound real stupid. Come over here and let me feel your head.”
Second time: “Shut it right now, boy!”
Third time: “Boy, I will kill you where you stand you embarrass me like that!”

Thanks, ma. Seriously.

Side note: You ever catch yourself lying for no apparent reason? You have absolutely nothing to gain from your lie. You’re like “Why did I just say that? Now every time I see this person I have to remember I told them I’ve been to Indonesia…”

Having a censor filter should be optional. I like to treat mine as if it has an on and off switch. If you have it off all the time and you’re not under 5 or over 70 then you are a crazy person and it’s not going to be good for you. So you have to remember to put it back in the “on” position every so often lest you be wrestled to the ground and straitjacketed. Having your censor filter in the “off” position is especially good when dealing with over-preachy people, solicitors and idiots. It also serves another practical benefit. Stress develops when you say “yes” to something when you should have said “no”. It’s also timesaving.

“Wanna come hang out with us?”
“No.” No explanation necessary. But if they want to know why and press you for an explanation, just tell them that they’re stinky, nasty and terrible. I promise you you’ll be rid of that person.

That guy that literally stinks on your job? The one that, when he walks past, living things like plants, flowers and small animals start wilting and dying in his wake? While it’s very difficult broaching the conversation with someone about their personal hygiene, it’s a lot more humane and less embarrassing then say, giving him a soap-on-a-rope as a Christmas gift as his Secret Santa in front of the whole company. Seen it done.

But that’s just me thinking out loud.

A healthy, confident ego is not the same thing as being an arrogant egomaniac with a false sense of entitlement.

The mother who cuts the line in the Scholastic store in SOHO and starts berating the young woman behind the counter who is the only person working in the store at the time because she -the mother- can’t find the new Clifford the Big Red Dog doll for her 3 year old Timmy and wants her to stop helping the other customers and come from behind the counter and help her now! is a lot different from the father who goes to Sears after work and is expected to patiently wait while these 2 male chicken head dudes behind the counter discuss their weekend in explicit details, finally gets to him and gives him the wrong information and sends him through the store on some wild goose chase and pushes him to the limit of grabbing them by the collar and threaten to put his foot up their ass if they don’t pay more attention to their job and his preteen daughter melts in embarrassment of the scene he’s creating and…

But I digress…

Imagine how different things would be if society deemed it perfectly acceptable if you hauled off and punched someone in the face for any over the line infraction? Not talking about the simple day-to-day mistakes like stepping on someone’s shoe on the train; but for doing something really stupid or egregious. Like when you’re driving behind someone and you can’t get around them and they’re driving like they have absolutely nowhere to go and the light’s about to change and they slow down at the yellow making you sit and have to wait for another light to change? It should be totally acceptable to get out of your car, politely tap on their window and just deck them in the temple area.

Again, just me thinking out loud.

A punch in the temple region, in my world, has been whittled down to the “Hey?!” pop, a more realistic, less painful, more accepted version; a second tier - if you will.

Sometimes you have to give your kids a quick “Hey?!” pop to get them back to their senses real quick. That’s when they’re doing something crazy and you’re trying to talk them off the ledge and they’re just not understanding the whole vocal thing.

That’s when you get up on them and say “Hey?!” and just pop them in the back of the head one time for emphasis.

No one’s above a good “Hey?!” pop.

Most athletes are pampered their whole life and never hear the truth from their family members and friends looking to ride their fame to their own financial freedom.

Imagine if Latrell “I can’t feed my family off $5 million dollars a year” Sprewell had someone in his life that loved him enough to tell him the truth?

“Hey Latrell?!” Pop! “You’re being a real jerk. Smarten up! You’re about to lose EVERYTHING.”

Always keep in mind life’s circle: first, you’re children to your parents. Then you’re parents to your children. Then you’re parents to your parents. Then you’re children to your children.

So keep your “Hey?!” pops to a minimum with your kids; for those absolutely necessary moments. One day, you will be in the ‘children to your children’ phase of your life and your now adult children might return the favor with a new version they call the “Hey, Pop?!” pops!

And that wouldn’t be good.

In fact, it would be quite stinky, nasty and terrible.

Dust in the Wind

We were all skinny, active kids living in the projects with no frame of reference to let us know we were considered poor; loving life in blissful naïveté. When me and the boys weren’t playing baseball, football or basketball and long before Atari and Playstation came along to steal our imagination, we created games on the block with cans and made do playing manhunt in bushes.
In the days before texting…when we’d actually go outside and knock on a friend’s door to see if they could come outside and play.

If I had money, we had money - even if it meant splitting a 20 cents Twin Pop three ways.
Before bike helmuts and child seats we’d pile in the back of our uncle’s station wagon unrestrained - at times with the back window pushed all the way out for air circulation - bouncing to and fro, landing on each other and squealing in delight.

Before BCW, when parents were allowed to whip you with anything within arms distance we’d hear each others wailing through paper thin walls; we'd step over each others drunken fathers in the hallway - the rare few of us who had our fathers around.

We had our secrets and each others backs but were never ashamed of them.

Today I’m quick to tell my kids to never judge a school mate. You never know what life is like in their home.

Looking back on those days, our parents were children themselves. Indeed, in most of my childhood memories, I’m now older than my mother was.

We grew up in a 3 story brick building. There were 3 apartments on each floor, A, B and C. Living in the middle B apartment, our windows were in the middle of the A apartment where Lisa lived and the C apartment where Lily lived. Rocky lived above me in B.
When our mother’s called us inside at night, me and Rocky and sometimes Lily would hang out our windows and talk; if one of us was on punishment that day we’d relay to them the days activities. One of us, it seems, was always on punishment.

In the A apartment I spoke to Lisa. Lisa was my first crush. She was also, at times, my personal cheerleader. When I told her in the first month of the ninth grade that it was my intention that year to win the Jeff Petrak Memorial Award trophy for best athlete at graduation, she reacted with her usual Lisa-ness "Yeah, maybe in the next life." I knew though it was her way of spurring me on.

When I created an account on Facebook earlier this year, Lisa and Rocky were the reasons I did so. I was excited to find Rocky after some time. We caught up, she’s doing well and I was happy to hear that. There was absolutely no love loss; we both agreed that life gets in the way.

There would be no such luck with Lisa.

I found a mutual friend on Facebook who told me that Lisa had died two years earlier from brain tumors. It was like a sucker-punch to the gut; like smashing my Big Wheel into that concrete wall all over again.

I remember we had a picture together, me with Lisa and Rocky, from 9th grade graduation. I won that trophy and Lisa seemed more excited than I was. I remember her hand being on my shoulder in the picture. I had my mother send me a copy.

There was so much catching up to do. I hadn't seen you in 20 years, how did your life turn out? Were you happy?

I wanted to ask you if you remembered when I was going to fight Kendall from our 7th grade class. Kendall was new to our school. One day in first period I did or said something to egg him on and he just looked at me and said “three o’clock.”

My day in school was miserable from that point. I had gotten in plenty of fights, but Kendall was one of those country kids that was big for no other reason than just to be big for bigs sake. And country strong.

How long does a broken jaw take to heal? Does a raw t-bone steak on a black eye really help like it does on the Flinstones?

I remember you looking at me with your patented “good job” smirk and shaking your head. I showed up at three o’clock - with about 30 other school mates who were apparently anxious to see my blood on the outside of my body - because getting a beat down is a lot less painful than running home. Then for some miraculous reason Kendall's mother picked him up from school and we were friends from that day on. God protects babies and fools, so they say.

You and I walked home that day and didn't say a word to each other. You punched me in the arm halfway home and we both knew exactly what that meant so we just laughed.

Would you remember that?

I wanted to ask you to put on your thinking cap and see if you’d remember way back, back when we were three years old. I was in daycare and your mother would pick me up and I’d stay at your house until my mother came home from work. One day at daycare I had escaped and was hiding in some bushes, found a straw, stuck it in the ground and in my infinite wisdom started to suck up the dirt. I started throwing up immediately and was sent to the nurse’s station. There I was in the nurse’s station, belly down on a table with a thermometer sticking in my butt when your mother walked in with you holding her hand. I was mortified. I remember you folding your arms and giving me that patented, sarcastic, Lisa “good job” smirk. Even at three.

Would you remember that?

It’s crushing to hear of a friends’ death; even more when you didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. But I never loved you any less. Sometimes life gets in the way.

And I want you to know that I’m still looking forward to getting together and catching up with you.

But it’ll have to wait until the next life.