There’s a scene in A Clockwork Orange where Malcolm McDowell’s eyes are pried open, his head is strapped back and he is forced, literally, to watch an unrelenting reel of heinous, violent crimes – rapes and murders and beatings – and it’s all set to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, his favorite. McDowell can’t look away, can’t close his eyes, can’t stop the assault. It’s torture.

That’s how fatherhood feels sometimes. You can’t look away. You can’t close your eyes. And what you see repulses you to your core.

It begins like this: “Guys, please go potty before you get into your beds.”

“What?!” the boy asks, as if you’ve just informed him that his arms will be cut off at dawn.

The girl says nothing. She merely falls to the floor, rendered listless and limp by the audacity of such an oppressing request, and emits a faint, mouse-like squeak.

He can’t look away. He can’t make it stop.

“Guys. Please. Must we go through this nonsense every night? Seriously? How hard is it to take a friggin’ leak?”

The words are inaudible to the children, who have engaged their special Daddy Filter, through which all speech is checked and all communication is funneled to the compost pile unless the sensors identify the words cake, root beer, TV, video games or Disneyland. (I’m told there is an expansion pack for the Daddy Filter, suitable only for teens, that automatically prompts the user with pre-scripted responses to simple parental requests, including the eye roll, the disgusted hair toss, and the term “whatevar…”

But wait. Thy thinkest he hath heard intelligible speech coming from yonder child. (The one on the ground.)

“Dad-deeeeeeee-uh! Why do we always have to go potty before bed?”

He can’t look away. He can’t make it stop.

“Because if you don’t, you’ll pee in your bed. That will happen right around the point in my dream when I’m licking marshmallow cream off of your mother’s, umm, neck – yeah, neck – and we're working our way toward the rest of the "sundae" (if you know what I'm sayin'), which means I will not want to be interrupted by a little girl covered in her own urine and needing to have her Hannah Montana sheets stripped from the bed and burned in the fireplace because they smell like apple juice piss. OK? You got me? Good. Now pee.”

Matter of fact, that exact scenario and dialog are ripped straight from scene four of my new screenplay, A Clockwork Yellow.

I had a habit as young boy of using words before I knew their meanings. I got in trouble for that fairly regularly.

Once, at a friend’s birthday party at Shakey’s Pizza, my buddies and I were climbing all over the mechanical horse – the one that shook and lurched back and forth when you fed it a quarter. There were three of us hanging on for dear life, giggling like crazy, when someone said, “Wheee! We’re humping it!” I liked the sound of that.

When my mom came to pick me up from the party and asked me if I’d had fun, I told her, “It was super fun! We humped the horsie!”

My mother, in her trademark restraint and subtlety, slammed on the breaks of our shit-brown Ford Granada right there in the middle of Cochran Street and said, “Danny, do you know what hump means?”

“Ummmmmm…nope.”

“It means HAVING SEX! OK? It means having sexual intercourse, and nice Jewish boys do not have sexual intercourse with horses!”

“Oh,” I said. “Well what do nice Jewish boys have sexual intercourse with?”

“Nothing! Nothing at all! Unless your father and I say it’s OK – WHICH WE WON’T!”

Another of the words over whose usage I felt the wrath was “frigid”. See, we had one of those fancy cable boxes – the kind my dad told me not to tell anyone we had, because he didn’t want to go to jail – and I once saw some dude in a movie call his wife “a frigid bitch”. I thought it meant she was cold.

It doesn’t.

It means the bitch in question doesn’t like to play “Hide The Salami”.

All of this is a long-winded, roundabout way of telling you that something is wrong with my wife. She’s frigid.

No, the OTHER kind of frigid. Not the kind where she doesn’t like to hump. The kind where she’s cold. Like, all the time. And do you know who has to suffer as a result? Me, that’s who.

I wonder if any other man who’s reading this right now can empathize with the monumental shock of having his significant other’s freezing-ass cold feet attached to his leg (which, for the uninitiated, feels like a big block of ice has been duct-taped to your outer thigh in some sort of twisted fraternity initiation ritual) (which would be pretty sweet if you think about it) (every time you shiver, you drink) (but this isn’t a frat house; it’s my bed) (and as a man whose 40s are only two years down the road, I don’t much care for frat house behavior anymore) (unless those behaviors involve farting on peoples’ pillows or shotgunning a Meister Brau and burping the Greek alphabet).

My wife says I should let her warm her cold feet on my legs because I’m her husband and I love her and when you love someone you should let them inflict pain upon you just so they can feel better. To that I say, “Honey, here is a little baby cactus plant. I would like you to stick it on your face. It will suck pretty badly for you but I need a laugh. So please…begin.”

At that point it occurred to me that the cactus would leave marks on her face, and possibly needles, and the only realistic end to that story would be me getting humped in prison by someone big and mean and covered with tattoos of bare-chested women with enormous tits.

And since nice Jewish boys don’t have sexual intercourse with anything unless their parents say it’s OK – I’m left without recourse. I will spend the rest of my days being victimized by my frigid wife.

No, the OTHER kind of frigid. The kind where she’s cold.

Bless me, World Wide Webernet, for I have sinned. It’s been several days since my last diatribe.

The other night I had a flashback to fourth grade. More specifically, I saw the image of Mrs. Haberman, the bespectacled disciplinarian whom we all called “Habey Baby” when she was out of earshot. Besides being my teacher, Habey Baby was a member of the only Jewish congregation in town. Every time I saw her and my mother chatting after Saturday morning services, I wondered if she’d told my mom that I picked my boogers in class and wiped them on the bottom of my chair and I really needed to stop that because nice Jewish boys don’t store their snot irresponsibly. Amen. Good Shabbos. Gezuntehate. You should live and be well. That’s what my husband Morty used to say, God rest his soul.

What I remember most about Habey Baby was her relentless, infuriating overpronunciation of the English language.

The chalk wasn’t white; it was hwyte.

Don’t ask me why; ask me hwye.

It wasn’t crotch rot; she had croTCH rrrrroTTTTTT

Even as a fourth-grader I knew enough to ask, “Who the fuck talks like that? Put Dick Van Dyke down and join us in the real world, Poppins.”

This was 1980, about the time I was really beginning to grow into the sassy, shit-talking young man you see before you today. I became a back-talker, a clown, a n’er-do-well. Think Dennis the Menace, but taller, thinner and Jewisher.

Habey Baby was the first teacher I’d ever had who came with a system of [finger quotes]discipline.[/finger quotes] On the far right side of the chalkboard, she established a column using a long piece of masking tape. If you screwed around and acted like a douche, she made you write your name in this column. This was a warning. Like, “Cut the crap, hwyte boy.”

If you continued the douchery, she would say, “Mr. Evans, you may have a check.” This meant you had to go up and put a check mark next to your name and stay after class for 15 minutes to help her clean the erasers.

Still feel like being a clown? “You may have another check.” Thirty minutes after class.

No one ever got to three checks, but we all assumed the penalty was staying late to loofah Habey Baby’s old lady stretch marks. Hwicked!

The Jumping Moneys podcast I referenced a couple of weeks ago has been posted.

Be gentle.

CLICK HERE FOR THE CARNAGE.

When my son told me yesterday that he wanted me to take him to the roller-skating rink, I freaked.

“Are you sure you don’t want to do something else?” I asked. “Maybe a movie or the driving range?”

“Why?” he asked. “You scared or something?”

“Scared? Moi?” I said. “Yeah, I’m scared that you won’t able to keep up with me.”

He playfully punched me in the arm. “Very funny, dad.”

I wasn’t scared. I was scarred.

I haven’t been inside a rink like that in over 20 years. Why not? Because the skating rink in my hometown was the scene of some of my greatest adolescent humiliations. Perhaps it’s a bit of a maudlin way to frame it this way, but that rink created a perfect storm of indignity for the 16-year-old version of me:

1) I was an awkward, shy, big-nosed dork with brown corduroys, a headgear, and these long, gangly limbs that seemed to flail and flap with a mind of their own. (Reference my yearbook photo in the masthead.)

2) I couldn’t skate.

3) I wanted to meet a girl. A cute girl. A girl who was more likely to be a cheerleader than president of the chess club.

1 + 2+ 3 = good luck, nerd.

The proper formula was that the cute girls were attracted to the guys who could skate – the guys who didn’t look like a grand mal seizure on wheels. I was not one of those guys, and unless one of the cute girls got bonked on the head and suddenly became horny for 90-pound dorks who stick their tongue out when they were playing Ms. Pac-man, Rosie Palms was going to remain my steady squeeze.

(I imagine this is the reason why I was so often compared to Farmer Ted from “Sixteen Candles”. Quoth he: “I’ve never bagged a babe.”)

I recall having a particularly strong crush on Tina James – a cheerleader and the sophomore class president. Every time the lights were turned down low and the DJ played “Sister Christian” by Night Ranger, I fantasized about inviting Tina to be my partner in the “couples skate.” I never found the guts to ask her, but one time when there was a pile-up in the middle of the rink, I swerved to avoid it and accidentally pushed Tina to the ground, and I’m pretty sure the outside of my right pinkie finger grazed her boob on the way down.

That was as close as I ever came to having a girlfriend in high school.

But I’m 20 years older now.

1) I’m married to a former cheerleader, so I have no need for Tina James or her ilk.

2) I have a son who can skate as though he was born wearing rollerblades, and I can skate, too.

3) Sadly, I still have the big nose and the gangly limbs. But I’ve made peace with them. Or perhaps I just don’t give a shit anymore.

I told Hot Wife that I was taking our son to the rink down the street. She crinkled her nose in disgust. I asked why.

“That place is gross,” she said. “It hasn’t changed one bit since I skated there as a kid. And it smells like feet.”

I took the last part of her comment cautiously because my wife happens to be a wee bit sensitive to undesirable smells (which in my mind makes it a miracle that we’re still married because I have never been accused of smelling like rose) (Nor have my lactose-intolerance-fueled ass bombs) (of either the solid or gaseous variety).

The kid and I packed up our blades and rolled to the rink, where they charge you $6 just to get inside.

The moment I walked in, I made a mental note to apologize to Hot Wife. The place smelled like stale feet (and if you don’t know that smell, go for a long run, then take your socks off and put them in an air-tight box. A month later, open the box and take a big whiff of the sock.). It was such a pungent odor that I could smell it in my throat.

For the first time in my life, I skated onto the rink with confidence. I knew I wasn’t going to fall. As I was flying down the straightaways, admiring the heinous 1970s décor, I began to imagine my wife, the cheerleader, skating there as a teenager. I could picture her wavy hair. Her beautiful blue eyes. That big, gorgeous smile.

And suddenly I was stricken with the urge to go home and graze her boob with my pinkie finger.

I like to curse, and I happen to think I’m pretty good at it. But for as long as I have written in this space, the omnipresence of profanity and innuendo has been one of the most common complaints from new readers. I can respect that. Some people live in a world where the usage of dirty words and potty talk are tantamount to kicking Jesus in the nuts (although they probably wouldn’t say “nuts”) (They’d find a less-offensive term, like “groin” or “where the sun don’t shine.”) (Unless they were English teachers, who know the grammatically correct way to say it is, “where the sun DOESN’T shine.”)

(“Nuts” is faster.)

At last count, I’ve been admonished 16,000,043 times that “profanity is a tool for those who can’t express themselves properly.” To those who like to believe that, I simply say this: the phrase “profanity is a tool for those who can’t express themselves properly” is a tool for those who don’t know how to spell “douchebag.”

Anyway, the issue of filth and those who reject it reared its nuts again today, but in a way I’ve never before encountered.

I was exchanging e-mails this afternoon with Megan Morrone, who by some tragic stroke of poor judgment has seen fit to have me as a guest on her popular weekly podcast, Jumping Monkeys (previous guests have include Asha, Maggie, Mike and Karen, so it’s legit and very worth checking out). As we prepared for the Friday afternoon recording, Megan asked if I’d be interested in reading one of my entries aloud on the podcast. Intriguing. Never done that before. I agreed to do it.

“Any entry in particular?” I asked Megan.

“I didn't have one in mind,” she wrote. “Maybe one without any profanity, since some parents listen with their kids. Is there one without any profanity? :) ”

“Hmmm. Have to do some digging.” I wrote back.

I wasn’t kidding.

In five years of recorded DGM history, I haven't found one clean, PG-rated story. I know there's a message for me hidden somewhere in there, but I'm not seeing it.

Or maybe it's just the "profanity is a tool" people screwing with my mind.

***POST-INTERVIEW UPDATE***

Speaking of douchebags, I doubt I could have sounded like a bigger one during my 20-minute conversation with Leo and Megan. Dullard Gone Mad.

Some lowlights:

1) Leo invited me to curse on his airwaves and I pussed out.

2) We talked a lot about my vasectomy and Leo's vasectomy and your feedback to my post about my vasectomy and there's really nothing quite like getting to know someone by sharing stories about having your sack sliced open.

3) I am to the flow of a conversation what stripper heels are to professional business attire. Awkward pauses everywhere.

4) Have you ever heard your self-respect scream out in agony. I have.

5) I totally came through for my SXSW panelmates by speaking their site names and URLs on the air. You owe me BIG, Asha, Amy and Tracey.

6) I took half of my time on the air trying to find the most clever way to say what I meant. Just say the dumb words, idiot! Who cares about your big-shot vocabulary.

I'm told the podcast will be posted in about 10 days. If, in the event you decide you can no longer read Dad Gone Mad after hearing the interview, well, it's been fun.

I wish someone would have spoken to me about the alternative "family planning" avenues before I went and had that vasectomy.

(Thanks, Adam the Ambulance-Chaser)

I would like to stipulate at the outset that I am not a smart man. I suppose I talk a pretty good game, which counts for something in a world where a smooth line of B.S. can take you a long way. But when the time comes to apply my mind in any practical scenario – such as trying to explain to my kids why they shouldn’t behave like feral little forest creatures who peel bananas with their feet and fling doo-doo at passers-by, I generally come out smelling like a wet dog.

It’s as though our children have contracted some rare, discipline-resistant strain of the brat flu. For the past, oh, three months or so, their behavior has skewed heavily toward the punk-ass shithead side of the ledger, and to say that Hot Wife and I are frustrated with it is akin to saying Big Bird is a bit on the yellow side. They’ve been obstinate, rude, irritating and downright difficult to live with lately.

As I have written here before, when it comes to parenting, Hot Wife is a bejeweled princess in a white gown and I am a caveman with a unibrow and a whole tuft of shit matted to my ass hair. More specifically, I take my parenting cues from her because she is calmer, more patient and light years more creative than I with respect to the kids. She speaks to them on their own level. She sees resistance as an opportunity to teach. I don’t know if I’ve ever just come out and said it like this, but she is a very, very good mother.

Conversely, as I said earlier, I’m not a smart man. My methods of fatherhood generally fall into one of two disciplines – celebration for a job well done or absolute deconstruction of the child’s psyche because he or she did something “bad.” There is no happy medium. You either deserve to live another day or die right here, right now, in front of Pinky Dinky Do and everyone.

It gives me a modicum of pleasure to tell you that our children’s behavior of late has even broken through Hot Wife’s threshold for patience and grace. She calls me at work from time to time with her voice all aflutter and her teeth gritted and says, “I can’t do this anymore, Danny. I want to sell them for parts.”

I believe strongly that this sort of thing is normal. There are volumes and volumes of literature about certain periods in a child development wherein they are especially prone to behave like a complete asshole. But how the parent addresses such behaviors is, to borrow a ridiculous metaphor from the business world, where the rubber meets the road. If the child sees that such behavior will not be tolerated, he will learn to abide by social and behavioral boundaries. If he gets away with it, he will grow up to be an ax murderer. No pressure though, moms and dads.

The question then becomes, “How do we teach our children to behave in such a way that we won’t have to lock them in the basement?”

Hot Wife and I have tried virtually everything. We’ve set them in the “penalty box” for a time out. We’ve taken away privileges and material possessions. We’ve made sticker charts and marble jars to encourage good behavior. Short of sending them to juvenile hall or Siberia, we’re out of ideas.

It happened last night that I was sitting on a couch between the two of them, just chillin’, and it struck me that there was one avenue of behavior coaching I hadn’t yet explored: intellect. I couldn’t recall sitting them down and articulating the concept of crime and punishment. So I decided to give it a try.

“You guys might not know this, but when you misbehave and act like ungrateful little shits, it makes life a lot harder for mommy and me,” I said. “We don’t want to have to punish you. We don’t want to have to raise our voices or take things away from you. But when you don’t do what we ask, we have to let you know that your behavior is unacceptable.”

To my complete astonishment, they were paying attention to me. My son turned his body to face me and was looking me right in the eye. My daughter was leaning into my armpit and shaking her head yes or no when I posed questions to her.

“What I would like from you guys is a promise to try a little bit harder to be good listeners,” I said. “If you can show us that you’re trying to cooperate, trying to behave, trying to help us by doing what we ask of you, I will promise that we will stop getting upset with you and sending you to the penalty box. You might even get some nice surprises if you earn them with your behavior.”

“Surprises?” my daughter said with a cute little inflection in her voice. “Like going to Disneyland?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Depends on how good you are.”

I let them chew on that little carrot for a few seconds, hoping it would somehow trigger compliance.

“Dad?” my son said.

“Yeah, bud?”

“Your breath stinks.”

One week into a 20-day cruise around South America, my in-laws were returning to the ship after a tour of Buenos Aires when my father-in-law began to walk with a strange, uncoordinated gait. He attempted to walk it off, but when it became clear that he could not, he called out to my mother-in-law.

The words came out wrong. He knew what he wanted to say to her, but somewhere between his brain and his mouth, the speech took a detour off into nowhere and all that came out was gibberish.

He was having a stroke.

In Argentina.

There are several funny and terrifying stories about what happened next, but suffice it to say that within 45 minutes my father-in-law was completely fine and symptom-free. (According to him, these things happen to old people all the time and they’re usually not severe.) (And who would know better about the inner-workings of the human brain than a retired electrician?) But by the time he was back on his feet, the cruise ship had sailed away toward the Strait of Magellan and my in-laws were therefore, as they say in Buenos Aires, up shit’s creek. They flew home, and I was assigned to fetch them from L.A. International Airport (LAX) Sunday morning.

Here, according to my father-in-law, are a few simple rules to follow in the event that you ever have a mild stroke in South America:

1) Don’t have a stroke. This is key. If you are in any position to do so, postpone the strokage until you return to the US.

2) Avoid ambulances. Instead of a paramedic and a gurney with clean white linens and lots of machines that go bing!, there is at least one ambulance in Buenos Aires that is equipped only with a military-style cot. It is not in any way attached to the vehicle, which means you are likely to arrive at the hospital with a sucking chest wound AND stroke symptoms. And that pretty much sucks.

3) Don’t let them scan your brain. It has been reported to me that American medical technology has not yet trickled down to all corners of Argentina. And by that I mean they prefer to take your brain out of your skull with a ladle and a catcher’s mitt before they the scanning commences.

4) Learn how to speak the following words in Portuguese or Spanish or whatever language they speak down there: pain, ouch, stroke, no, drugs, more drugs, Jeopardy, and the phrase “please don’t touch me where my bathing suit goes.”

5) When you finally make your triumphant return to the US after flying 17 hours to LA (via Atlanta), make sure you get a ride home from someone who is NOT your damn son-in-law and will NOT tell the entire civilized world that you’ve had a stroke.

When Hot Wife and I decided several years ago to join a Jewish congregation, I assumed our kids would be the primary beneficiaries. I envisioned them building long-standing friendships with other Jewish kids – friends with whom they could have playdates and learn dirty Hebrew words and, when they were old enough, take the Lord’s name in vain while they got drunk on Manashevitz wine and spicy pork rinds from 7-11 in the back seat of our minivan.

[Bumper sticker: “My kid can drink your honor student under the table.”]

Most of that has already come to pass (with the notable exception of the wine and pork), and it has come with an unexpected benefit – grown-up friends for Hot Wife and me. Seeing as how I feel the same way about most aspects of religion as I do about dropping the soap in a prison shower, I presumed our affiliation with this congregation would be entirely painful for me. Fortunately, I was wrong.

In fact, I have developed a number of close friendships with fellow male congregants who have very similar feelings about God and whatnot. We are fathers, husbands, breadwinners and, in most cases, doubters.

Early on in these friendships, when we were competing against one another to see who was the king of the blasphemers, I tried to sink everyone else’s battleship by mentioning that I have a blog (“A what?”) whereupon I publish profane rantings about all manner of godless things – like poop and testicles and the definition of “taint.”

Although the site has gained a moderate but fervent following within certain circles of the congregation, I can’t seem to escape the feeling that I should be ashamed of myself for discussing such topics in a house of worship. God, if you’re out there and you’re reading this on your Google Reader, I hope you have a filthy sense of humor. Besides, I couldn’t be making jokes about shit if you hadn’t invented it in the first place. So, you know, touché.

Oh, and amen.

I revealed here some time ago that our rabbi purchased a Hot Wife t-shirt, which is kosher because she’s a she, but which also moderately unusual because they only context in which clergy people reference “hotness” is when they’re describing where people go when they write about taking a dump the house of worship’s sacred chamber of holy excrement. But Hot Rabbi hasn’t yet accosted me about my godless prose, which may be as much because she thinks I’m beyond saving than that she wants me to cut this shit out before You-Know-Who throws me in front of a runaway train.

Where am I going with this?

(Your guess is as good as mine.)

Once each year the entire congregation of Temple Shpilkis Meshugenah gathers to perform community service and good deeds – visiting senior citizens, cleaning up at parks and zoos, raising money for aid to Darfur and the Cystic Fibrosis foundation, and so on. The whole shebang begins in the sanctuary, right there in front of the Hebrew and everything. This year, the temple’s junior choir, which counts my son as a member, sang the song “Proud”, which was also used as the theme song for The Biggest Loser this season (and the mention of the word “Loser” should be a hint to you that I’m somehow going to bring this story back around to myself).

I’ll give you one guess as to whose child stationed himself right in front of the microphone so everyone could hear him singing. Hint: the same kid who was dancing like Justin Timberlake with a pinecone up his ass.

It was cute at first, but eventually this child, this spastic little boy, became a nuisance and a distraction. In their disgust, people started looking around for the boy’s parents, which they could identify by the smiling mother and the father who had slunk down in his seat and was covering his face with his hand.

They saw us.

“Figures,” someone said. “That kid belongs to the guy with the dirty blob.”

“I know!” said the respondent. “The mouth on that man… tsk-tsk.”

“No wonder the child has no social skills,” the first woman said. “Look at where he comes from.”

Well, in the famous words of Billy Bob Thorton in Sling Blade, “I just seen red.” I retrieved my cell phone from my pocket, and then turned to face the ninnies who had been bad-mouthing my son and me.

I reached the phone out toward them.

“It’s God calling,” I said. “He wants you kiss my ass.”

Hot Wife called me at work yesterday to tell me our son is totally and completely busted.

His crime, if you can call it that, was buying lunch at school six times in one month. His limit is two. Since all it takes nowadays to buy lunch is giving the lunch lady a student ID number of some sort, our son apparently found it quite simple to beat the system. At least temporarily.

It’s important to note here that Hot Wife and I have very clearly defined differences when it comes to money. She’s the saver. I’m the spender. She’s the hard-ass disciplinarian. I’m the one who generally shrugs his shoulders unless the malfeasance puts the child or another human being in peril. In essence, I’m the cool, understanding one and she’s the by-the-letter meany.

I was actually quite stupefied by Hot Wife’s insistence that our son be drawn and quartered as a penalty for having overspent his means. But her position was rather firm, especially because she goes to the trouble of packing him a lunch everyday and he seems not to have much appreciation for it – and God help the child who doesn’t appreciate the peanut-butter-spreading hard work of his mama.

Still and all, I didn’t think the crime warranted a public stoning.

After the news of our son’s irresponsible spending had broken, I found myself at home alone with him while Hot Wife was at the gym.

“Do you understand what you did wrong?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, his head hanging low under the weight of his shame. “I just should have eaten the lunch mommy made for me instead of buying it from the cafeteria.”

“Not only that,” I said. “You need to make smart choices in all parts of your life. Sometimes just wanting to do something isn’t a good enough reason to do it. There are consequences for everything you do – some good, some bad – and you have to consider that when you make decisions.”

“OK, daddy. I’m sorry.”

I hugged him and gave him a playful little noogie on top of his head.

“One more thing,” I said. “Listen. I’ve known mommy for a long time, and I want to give you an important piece of advice that could save you a lot of trouble. OK?”

“OK.”

“You listening?”

“Yeah.”

“If you need money or have a problem with money or want to discuss anything about money, talk to me, not mommy.”

“How come?”

“Well…who’s the one who lets you eat Lucky Charms?”

“You.”

“Right. And who’s the one who let you blow $20 on games at the ESPN Zone last weekend?”

“You.”

“Right. And who’s the one who busted you for buying lunch at school?”

“Mommy.”

“Exactly. Are you picking up what I’m putting down?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Totally.”