Big Business--A Retrospective

My son, Donald Trump, is to big business what Bill Gates is to electronic solitaire. He exploits the common good to create a formerly free product that people stand in line to pay money for. If Omarosa had taken lessons from this kid, she would have a corner office at Trump Tower and the Main with the Ugly Hair would be matching up accessories for her.

My son “The Don” maintains a network of dedicated employees that work hard to support his extravagant lifestyle. The fact that he’s in the seventh grade is a bonus. Money made under the school desk is not easily tracked by results-oriented Internal Revenue officers. I’m nourishing hopes that he’ll support me during retirement in case of undesirable Social Security trends.

One morning as The Don was leaving the car for Algebra class, enough change fell out of his pockets to finance gumballs for a middle school chewathon.

“It’s okay,” he shrugged, nonchalantly sweeping the pile into a mini dustpan and dumping the lot into his jacket pocket where it ripped through the lining and crashed to the sidewalk, chipping out a divot in the concrete the size of a gold bar. “I’m rolling in it.”

“That’s preferable to stepping in it,” as my Old Man, an old hand at Black Jack used to say.

Normally this sort of statement from a twelve-year-old is alarming to a parent. But, having lived with this particular twelve-year-old for about forty years, I was as cool as Frosty’s button nose—on the outside. The turmoil inside could have caused his corncob pipe to spontaneously combust. I couldn’t help but remember The Kid’s past forays into Big Business.

Taking a lesson from his older brother, who cleaned out the pockets and lunchboxes of all the kids at Daycare playing draw poker until I discovered the trend and made him repay the winnings—nickels, drink boxes, and all, he stuck to value-added enterprises that ensured customer satisfaction. During the last fad faze, The Kid bartered his lunch for highly collectable trading cards and took advantage of an established market of eager ten year olds who readily traded their allowance—and their lunch—for hard-to-come-by cards. He scored his first card for a Twinkie, invested in a carton of Ho-Ho’s, and by the time The Kid graduates from high school, he will either be a multi-millionaire or a convicted felon. Either way, I’m not liable for college tuition.

I’m not saying this kid is different, but last year he listed an underground laboratory, strength of a gorilla, and stock options as the main items on his Christmas wish list. In a fit of sudden inspiration, he invested his birthday money in a metal detector and now he collects treasures on the playground the way other kids collect bubble gum wrappers in their jacket pockets. He’s gathered enough jewelry at recess to open his own pawn shop.

Other kids have dressers to hold their clothes. This one uses his bureau like a cash register: tens and twenties in one side; fives, ones, and loose change in the other. I borrowed spare change for coffee from him until I realized he was charging ten and a half percent interest. I stopped giving him ice cream money when he offered to change a fifty.

His latest venture is pure genius. In an age where instant gratification is as close as your Blackberry, today’s tykes spend their pocket money on cheat guides for video games that are obsolete before the clerk hands them their receipt. My young entrepreneur launched a line of energetic young players with well-conditioned thumbs, who beat the games for their less talented or motivationally challenged friends. For a price, of course.

When I discovered this enterprise, I didn’t know whether to pat him on the back, send him to his room, or sign him up for political office. “Kids PAY you to play their video games?” My mind couldn’t grasp the concept.

“Technically, that’s not the exact truth,” he explained, as serious as Dan Rather under intense questioning. This kid knows more about technicalities that Johnnie Cochran knows about loopholes. “I created the concept, so I don’t actually do the physical labor. I assign a customer service representative to handle the problem, and he pays me out of the money he earns.”

“You’re getting paid for playing games you’re not even playing?”

“Ummmm. Yes.”

“Any chance I could get in on the action?”

“Mom, this may be a family business, but I’ve got to be realistic. You’re lousy at video games. You always die. But you can give me a ride to Jake’s house. I have to make a pick-up.”

“Okay,” I said, grabbing my keys. “But it’ll cost you.”

What can I say? A girl’s got to get ahead the best way she can. And unless The Don cleans his room pretty soon, he’s looking at a hostile takeover.

The O's Have It

The New Yorker recently got in big fat trouble for splashing a picture on the magazine's cover displaying a dashing Barack Obama decked out in the loose robes of an Arab, rapping knuckles with tough-love-Barbie Mrs. Obama who’s rocking haute terrorist couture.

Now I don’t keep up with the goings on of men generally, since I have basically no interest in how many channels I can watch simultaneously on television, but if dressing my husband in matching hat and gown will get me a tank of gas I can afford, I’ll be fighting the crowds in the Stout Ladies Department at Wal-Mart to find Bill Dear a suitable outfit.

Other than that, I’m not going to comment on B-Ob’s little ensemble, because my attention is on his Rambo-ready wife. As far as I’m concerned Michelle Obama is the one to watch. Anybody who has a child that's thrown a DEFCON 3 rated temper tantrum in the cereal aisle at the grocery store because you won't buy the Twinkly Sugar Bombs with the free Hannah Montanna microphone inside knows that Mrs. O has got the go-ahead gear for the modern Mom.

As a mother of teenagers, I know there’s not a day goes by that couldn’t be improved by a round of ammo unloaded in the PlayStation and the business end of my AK47 leveled low and steady at anybody hanging on the refrigerator door asking me what’s for supper. Fire off a warning round, and I might even get somebody to start at their bedroom door and shovel a path to freedom, or failing that the closet, through the piles of dirty laundry and borrowed electronics that presently restrict room to room travel. But that’s probably pushing my luck.

The next time I have enough teenaged boys hanging on the furniture in my living room to start my own alternative school, I’m going to break out the camo pants, sling on the Sure Shot and growl, “Somebody take out the Hefty Bag or your little electronic army men are gonna be missing some pixels.”

Of course, the only weapons allowed in the house are some foam rubber swords from the circus and an aging Super Soaker, which was an awesome example of water firepower before it sprang a determined leak in the back. These days, anybody that tries to take out a crowd of defenders either looks like the last place finisher in a wet T-Shirt contest or a likely candidate for a Depends commercial. Either way, I’m going to get the guys attention long enough to ask them to take the trash out.

So go ahead. Make my day.

Jammin' with Jimi

I’m standing ankle deep in the living room shag, legs spread apart, guitar hanging from a strap that crosses my chest like a shoulder bag I’m stowing away from purse thieves. I feel like a Freedom Shopper.

Santa in his jolly elven wisdom brought the children a video game that uses miniature plastic guitars as controllers. That’s like bringing Stephen Hawking a Playskool computer. Personally, I'm having trouble working up to technology that advanced.

Five colored buttons on the guitar correspond to notes on the televison screen. I can type 85 words a minute without so much as a peek at the space bar. So why can’t I play Slow Ride in easy mode without holding the guitar up to my bifocals to help me distinguish the red button from the green?

As the colored numbers disappear down the yellow brick road onscreen, I’m wildly pressing buttons at random, humming “If I only had a brain,” at chipmunk speed in my head.

I press the yellow button in time to score a point and figure I’m in the zone. “Jimi Hendrix, eat your heart out!” I squeal, sinking to one knee and head banging with enough gusto to take the curl out of my perm.

“You know Jimi Hendrix?”

Apparently I’m earning Mom points with my specialized history knowledge.

“Who doesn’t know Jimi?” I’m in the zone. I feel the music.

I also feel pain in my old roller skating injury. “Help me up. My knees are locked.”

I’m just getting into the rhythm of the thing when the song ends. The virtual rock star onscreen shoots me a disgusted look and the audience jeers.

“Gee Mom,” says Son One, ever the encourager. “You got booed by a fake crowd.”

Son Two, heaven’s answer to Eric Clapton, picks up the guitar. “Like this, Mom.”

By the time he’s through playing Freebird, we’ve all linked arms and are swaying back and forth. The dog is holding a lighter aloft and wiping a tear from one eye.

Oh sure, kids today have video games that have more moves than the real people we actually knew. But my generation had Jimi before he was an electronic rendition. We had the Beatles live. We had Elvis in his prime. You can’t duplicate that. Not with a plastic guitar and a six inch cartoon figure whose pixels won’t swivel.

Camping's Out

Several years ago, Bill and I agreed to take our two boys on a camping trip. The boys, who owned more electronic equipment by the age of two than I have in my entire life, felt that they had been rudely neglected and possibly abused because they had never been camping. They’ve never skinned a chicken either, but that’s beside the point.
“And don’t argue the whole way.”
Bill and I exchanged a knowing look. “Okay,” we agreed. The last time they caught us in a discussion of escalating proportions, they locked us in the bathroom together overnight.
Early one summer morning, we arose in peace and harmony, swallowed our body weight in coffee, threw ourselves into the car and drove in silence and numbed goodwill for several minutes.
“Hand me the map,” my husband said, extending one open hand while juggling his travel mug, aspirin bottle, and steering wheel in the other.
“Map?” I asked, eyeing him quizzically.
“You didn’t pack a map?”
“If I wanted to pack something I couldn’t read, I would have just brought along War and Peace in the original Russian.”
He looked at me as if I had just suggested lining the bed of his truck with dotted swiss, jammed his foot down on the brake, and squealed into a gas station.
“Never mind. I’ll be right back.”
“Mom, is this an argument?” A puffy face blinked sleepily at me over the back seat. His mouth was ringed with chocolate milk and PopTart crumbs, and his hair looked like a weeping willow in a windstorm.
“Of course not, sweetheart. Pop just needs a map to find difficult locations like Asia or our mailbox.”
The boys exchanged knowing looks. “It’s a fight.”
Coffee in hand and map accordianed across the dashboard, we resumed our trip. “How much farther?” he asked, guiding the car steadily around a mountain curve. Some people just can’t be taught. I consulted the map and lifted my gaze.
“According to this, about a quarter of an inch.”
“Never mind,” he answered steadily, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. “Where do we go at the junction?”
“The Shady Rest Hotel?”
Snarling, he lunged abruptly for the map, drowning any final shreds of civility in a flood of hot coffee.
“Don’t overreact,” I said soothingly, blotting up caffeine with the Northeast section of Macon County. “I was kidding.”
My husband regarded me with the same intense stare I’ve observed on the faces of cheetahs watching sickly gazelle stragglers on Wild Kingdom. If he had one, I would swear I could see his tail twitching.
“Look,” I purred, wringing out the map. This chocolate drip is the campground. That potato chip grease is where we are now. All we have to do is follow this dotted line across those squiggles and we’re there!”
I don’t understand how some people can live with themselves the way they speak to other people who are trying to help.
“How was I supposed to know those squiggles were the Blue Ridge Mountains?”
“As long as you have the entire map of the United States unfolded in the front seat, try reading the legend.”
“Okay, but you know I get sick if I read in the car.”
“One quick peek won’t hurt anything.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
Later, when we finally found a service station with equipment to clean the upholstery, I heard the boys talking behind the gas pumps.
“Do you think we’ll get there alive?” one voice asked.
“I don’t know, but if we do, we’re gonna lock ‘em in the bath-house.”