Curriculum Nights

The summer tends to be pretty brutal at my ad agency, and the last three months I've been particularly swamped. Imagine my delight when last week turned out to be pretty light. Like, sneak out at 4:30 light.

So how did I spend my stolen free time? Curriculum Night baby! Sittin’ still. Listening. Trying not to look bored. Everything an overworked man could want.

My first stop, Elijah’s school. I was particularly interested in this one because it’s his new middle school and, quite frankly, Eli refuses to give us any details. He won’t allow us to even drop him off at school. I’m fairly sure he just jumps on a boxcar the minute he leaves the house and has non racist Huckleberry Finn style adventures every day.

The Curriculum Night was opened by Eli’s massive Principal, Mr. Gigantor. Principal Gigantor is not a man you’d want catching you sneaking smokes in the boys’ bathroom. Huge. Intimidating. The minute he started speaking, I sat ramrod straight, with my hands folded in my lap. My friend Lexa, who sat next to me, tried to offer me a snack and raised my hand to tell on her. Luckily for Lexa, Principal G. didn’t see me.

His presentation included things he expects from us, as parents. I vigorously took notes on my iPhone, but then I was afraid Principal G. might think I was messing around, so I just tried to memorize everything he said.

The best news was Principal Gigantor doesn’t want parents helping kids with homework. Homework is meant to be a challenge and a way for kids to learn how to problem solve and rely on themselves.

Yes! I was already totally outmatched for Eli’s math homework and had fallen into awful sitcom dad clichés. “New math? What’s wrong with old math?” From now on, he’s on his own.

Luca’s Curriculum was a few days later. Eli had the same teacher years ago and we loved her, so I was crestfallen when she totally didn’t recognize me. But I managed not to pout through her presentation.

She gave us a well thought out Powerpoint, but the entire time my mind was screaming, “Go to presentation mode! You’re in slide sorter. SLIDE SORTER!”

She ended her talk by asking us to write a little note for our kid, which we could put in their desk. I wrote to Luca how proud I was of him and how much I loved him. And then debated writing “I farted in your chair” for a very long time.

In the end, I decided not to write the fart joke and it haunted me. After polling all my friends, they unanimously supported not writing the fart joke. It was inappropriate and could have gotten Luca into trouble.

I should have written the fart joke.

Rats and Texts

Last Sunday, Elijah had the choice between spending an hour in the beautiful sunshine attending Luca’s soccer game and coming to the office with me to sit quietly in a darkened, airless room while I rehearsed a new business pitch.

He chose the airless room with zero hesitation.

I was secretly pleased. I can feel my special little boy sliding away from me, with school and friends and other junior high obsessions. I relished the chance to spend a little forced quality time with him. Plus, I wanted to show off his insane hair to my co-workers.

The trip to the office was uneventful, except for our ongoing battle of whose music is worse. Kids today. You can’t tell the boys from the girls, I tells ya (shakes rolled up newspaper in the air).

Eli loves to visit my office. He loves the huge glass buildings, the fancy cars, the exotic animals. Like the giant dead rat oozing blood from every orifice we almost stepped on. This thing was gnarly. Even I, a seasoned dead rat observer, was grossed out.

I plopped Eli down at my desk with directions to the bathroom, snack area and the conference room downstairs where me and seven of my co-workers were interpreting “Sunday office wear.” I preferred a sweatshirt and jeans. My CEO wore a beautiful sport coat and loafers to spite me.

While I didn’t threaten Eli, I told him to think hard about how urgently he would need to barge into our rehearsal. Interrupting with an anecdote about something funny a Youtuber did on Fortnite was not good for my career.

Midway through our meeting, I got a mystery text from Diana that read, “Dadcomeupstairsrightnow.”

My first thought was Luca was texting me from our home, wanting to tell me an anecdote about something funny a Youtuber did on Fortnite. But then it quickly dawned on me it was Eli, who had hacked Diana’s text app with his iPad to send me a message. Was he being attacked? Was he lost? Did he find my secret whisky?

I excused myself from the meeting with a smooth excuse like, “I have to poop!” and raced upstairs. I immediately saw Eli had locked himself out of the floor and was pacing around the elevators. I thought about leaving him out there as a practical joke, but he was doing that little hand shaking thing that signifies a rapidly coming panic attack.

I let him in and he told me a harrowing tale of cutting through glass doors on his way to the snack area. I returned him to my desk and finished my meeting. Afterwards, we ate al fresco at a restaurant under the Trump building.

On our way back to my car, where the dead bloody rat was mysteriously gone, I tricked Eli into standing under the Trump sign and snapped his picture. I now have liberal Evanston blackmail in case he ever wants to refuse hanging out with me.

Baby’s First Rainout

I skipped the weepy first day of school post this year because there wasn’t any HamannEggs worthy tomfoolery. Eli walked to school. Luca repeated “I’m nervous” over and over and I died inside a little.

I had an especially busy week, so I was reduced to sitting on each boy before and demanding they tell me something about school. They would squirm out of my grasp and yell “Math!” before running off.

Around Wednesday, Luca started to realize he could use my work situation to his advantage. As he gave me the bare minimum information about school, he would pepper in information about Friday’s White Sox game. “I did reading. Did you know you can get tickets for $8?”

I was not above purchasing their affection and snatched up three seats in the outfield. If we  grabbed a home run ball, I could work late for the rest of the year.

We arrived early (Hamanns rule!) and found our seats among the cheerful, tattooed, working class south siders. We bought hot dogs and waters and I had one glorious beer and we irritated our row mates by going to the bathroom six times in the first three innings.

Elijah looked up in the sky and said, “Those clouds look really dark.” I looked at my phone’s weather app, which was reporting 20 miles north in Evanston and said, “There’s a zero percent chance of rain. Those clouds are just being jerks.”

Totally bored, Eli asked if he could go to the bathroom again. I told him to go by himself. Right when he got to the top of the stairs it started raining. As he finished his business, it started pouring. As he exited the men’s room, lightening flashed and 5,000 fans raced for shelter.

Luca and I made our way up the stairs to covered concourse in our overly polite Hamann way. After a good 10 soaking minutes, we made our way to the top and found Eli standing near a bar (he knows his father), looking petrified.

We tried to find a little pocket in the streams of soaking, drunk fans. Both Eli and Luca suggested we wait out the storm in the bathroom. I suggested we go to the ice cream stand where there was slightly less pee.

We walked to the ice cream stand and a gust of wind picked up and turned one of the umbrellas into a weapon, impaling a guy in a tank top (I think).

I knelt down and broke it to the boys that we were gonna have to leave. Eli looked absolutely relieved. Luca fought back tears. I promised him we would come back before the season ends. I also promised him he could play Fortnite when he got home.

Eventually made it back to Evanston, where the skies were clear. And the skies are always blue in Fortnite.