Apples

I love our cabin. It’s beautiful, peaceful and allows us to watch TV in a completely different state. TV feels so naughty when surrounded by countless things to do outside. Even Grover, who by all accounts is an animal, prefers to spend his cabin time watching us watch TV from the comfort of our big couch.

Occasionally, though, we do like to at least attempt to visit the surrounding area to justify the drive.

Diana and Luca selected apple picking as opposed to our usual activity: admiring the junk people throw into the creek.

I had never been apple picking, so I was rather excited to get dressed up in my best Autumn Man outfit and do Autumn things. I was a little confused about the whole process. Do they let you just grab apples off the bushes or trees or wherever apples come from? What about worms? Do you get to keep those? Would there be a charming fire? And what about the whole hayride business?

Diana selected an orchard near a town with a restaurant she hoped was worthy of us leaving our TV (it was not). It seemed charming enough. Lots of barns and cinnamon smells and people wearing plaid. However, the entrance featured a giant “for sale” sign. Did that mean seasonal fruit picking isn’t a Fortune 500 business?

We skipped down the road, arm in arm, and were met at the entrance by a man in a gigantic, bushy white walrus mustache. He gave us the basics. Buy a two cent bag for three dollars, pick some apples, take your Christmas card photo and be on your way. Cool. Seemed simple enough.

Before we left him, he smiled brightly. “Now. I want to make a few things clear.” He bent down to Luca and said, “I noticed you threw a rock on your way down here. If I see you throw another rock, I’ll kick you out. If you throw an apple, I’ll throw you out. If you climb a tree, I’ll throw you out. If you do anything I don’t like, I’ll throw you out.”

Was he joking? His smile was so bright. But his words were so dickish. The “For Sale” sign was starting to make sense.

We shuffled past him, confused. It definitely darkened out picking. I, ever the rule follower, spent the entire time agitated. I barked at Eli and Luca not to touch that. Don’t eat that! You’re gonna get us kicked out! Stop that.

Luckily, the family ignored me and had a great time. They picked many apples, took many photos. We even visited the big barn to explore their antique rest rooms.

All in all, it was a successful trip outside our cabin’s walls. As a bonus, we saw a couple doing a naked photo shoot just off I-94 on our way home.

Competition

When my brother and I used to play tennis, our games would last hours and hours. We’re both so anti-competitive that we’d each try to let the other twin win. All lobs. No kill shots. I mean, what if there were hurt feelings? How could we survive?

In fact, I’ve gone most of my life not really caring if I won or lost. I’m a people pleaser. I get more joy out of Diana’s brother destroying me at Trivial Pursuit than if I had collected all the little pie thingies myself.

Which brings me to football. Digital football. As you recall, Luca and I negotiated the purchase of the Madden 2020 game a few weeks ago. Luca held up his side of the bargain: picking up Grover’s yard leavings. I’ll admit, I’ve secretly picked up some poop here and there because Luca likes to wait until the yard is brimming with doo doo before he does his job. But it’s working out.

However, I’ve found that this game has released a demon in me. A competitive, obnoxious, jerkface who wants nothing more than to destroy his children.

At the beginning, it was pretty easy. The boys were a little slow on the strategic side of the game, so I would beat them handily. During one game, Elijah accidentally used all his time outs and I let time expire while never losing eye contact. When Luca raged at his losses, I would lecture him about sportsmanship and dared him to get good enough to beat the old man.

Which took about six hours.

Luca now absolutely demolishes me in the game. The scores are embarrassing. 14-48. 7-602. And because I am an adult who knows losing a video game is meaningless, I act like a total baby. I throw controllers. I scream at the screen. I accuse Luca of cheating. I threaten to never play the game again and throw the X-box into the Lake Michigan.

At first, this used to scare/bum Luca out. After my rages, I explained to him that I’m not mad at him, I am mad at myself. And Carson Wentz’s terrible accuracy when scrambling.

Now Luca takes sick pleasure in making his mild mannered, placid father into a raving lunatic. He taunts me. He screams, “Let’s GO!” when he scores, which he knows I hate because it’s what Tom Brady shouts. And worst of all, he patronizingly pats me on the head and murmurs, “Good job, Daddy” when he runs up a 0-364 final.

In order to keep me from having a heart attack, we’ve agreed to adjust our match ups. I always play the best teams in the league and Luca happily chooses the Dolphins to disembowel his old man. But at least the games are close.

I can still beat Eli, though. And that makes me half happy.

F

When I was a kid, my dad used to say, “I don’t care what grades you get, just so long as you try your hardest.” I took this as instruction to stress myself into a decades long panic attack. With the boys, Diana and I are attempting to reduce the Hamann inclination to make mountains out of scholastic mole hills.

We may have been a bit too successful with Elijah.

The other night, he and I were playing video games and Eli casually said, “So, Dad. I’m doing pretty well in my classes. All A’s and B’s. But I missed one measly assignment in LA (Language Arts) and I have an F. But I’m turning it in tomorrow, so I’ll be fine.”

This was genius, because he knew I wouldn’t have the brain power to pay attention while I was trying to destroy him in the digital Super Bowl.

I believe my response was, “Yeah yeah yeah. I don’t care something something just so long as you try hard or something. Damn it! What button is for tackling?”

The next day, when my brain was firing on all cylinders, I received an email from his LA teacher that said Eli was, in fact, getting an F because he had “several” missing assignments. Several? Several? What does “several” mean?

At the same moment, Diana texted me, “Ooh. Eli is in trouuuuuuble.”

I emailed the teacher back in my best Dad Voice. I used words like “unacceptable” and “post haste.”  

When I arrived home later, I simply held out my hand for Eli’s phone. He knew he was busted. No screens until I had written confirmation from his teacher that all his assignments were in. Plus, a punishment to be determined once I conferred with his mother.

Eli is such a sweet kid. I felt bad for being so hard on him. But I worried if we didn’t discipline him, he won’t eventually become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (Ref: “The Simpsons” season 4, ep 6).

Eli went to his room to sulk, not even coming down for delicious calzones made by our amazing babysitter, Vince.

He later showed me electronic evidence that all his assignments were in, but I held to my demand that his teacher confirm everything in writing. Apparently, his teacher isn’t addicted to her phone like the other 99.999999% of the planet, because we didn’t hear back from her most of the weekend.

Non-screen hands are the devil’s workshop. Eli spent the weekend requiring our undivided attention. But not in a cute “I wuv you” kind of way. His attentions were more punitive. And poor Luca was on the receiving end of almost constant brotherly abuse. At one point, Eli ran up from the basement demanding as many towels as he could carry.

Eventually, his teacher emailed me back assuring me that Eli was back in her good graces, with the subtext that maybe I should lighten up a bit. He got his phone back and gobbled it up like a man who hadn’t eaten in months.

His other, longer punishment is to clean the dishes every night for the foreseeable future. He does this with much clanging and banging, disturbing Diana and my obsession with the show “Succession.” So, I usually end up telling him to leave the dishes for me.