By Rick Kaempfer
My son Tommy (age 12) and I have always had a Wile E. Coyote/Roadrunner relationship in the morning.
I tried absolutely everything to wake him up for school, but instead of actually accomplishing this impossible feat, I fell off a cliff, got hit in the head with an anvil, and had a stick of dynamite blow up in my face. The entire Acme catalog didn’t help rouse him at all. I was a complete and utter wake up failure…until last week.
That’s when I just gave up.
Instead of subjecting him to the tickling machine (wow, does he hate that), the karaoke dad (I’ve performed entire Broadway shows), or the parade of lights (my personal favorite), I simply walked into his bedroom, and announced that it was time to get up. While he was grumbling and moaning, I added: “This is your only warning. If you don’t get up soon, you’ll miss your bus, and you’ll have to figure out another way to get to school. I’m counting on you to make the right choice.”
Of course, I suspected he would make the wrong choice.
I was right. Twenty minutes passed. Then thirty minutes. Finally, about ten minutes before the bus was scheduled to arrive, Tommy finally made it to the breakfast table.
“You have ten minutes until the bus gets here,” I said.
“WHAT??” he squealed.
I was totally unemotional about it. “Yup, sorry. You’ve still got to get eat breakfast, get dressed, make your lunch, and brush your teeth. Good luck with that.”
That led to a flurry of flailing arms and legs, loud thumping up and down the stairs, and frenzied questions about the time: “How many more minutes?”
“Four minutes.”
“AAAAAAARRRGGGH!”
Cabinets slammed as he prepared lunch. Water splashed as he brushed his teeth. His shoes were barely on his feet when he barreled through the front door on the way to the bus stop…just in time.
The next morning when I told him to make the right choice, he made it twenty minutes earlier.
This morning he came down only thirty seconds after I opened the shades.
Memo to Wile E. Coyote: You’ve just been trying too hard.
