By Rick Kaempfer
Every day at home with my boys brings another “Darndest Things” moment, and makes me appreciate the genius of Art Linkletter even more. He was the first one to harness this unpredictable free entertainment of childhood logic, expose it to the masses, and make himself quite rich in the process.
Alas, he also owns the copyright.
But that doesn’t mean the concept itself isn’t still wildly entertaining. Two months ago I provided examples of “darndest things” from my own children, and you responded in large numbers. Last month I printed some of your responses (which I found even more entertaining.) I guess this means that this month, it’s my turn again. Next month—it’s back to you.
Here are a handful of recent “Darndest Things” moments from my own brood...
*On Easter Sunday, 3-year-old Sean was just about to eat another Hershey’s Kiss. “I think you’ve had enough chocolate,” I said.
He looked up at me and replied: “But my butt said I could have just one more kiss.”
*10-year-old Tommy joined me on the deck for a chat.
“Dad, can I ask you a question?”
"Sure"
"You've met a lot of celebrities, right?"
"Yeah"
"Even really big stars?"
"Yeah."
"Did you ever meet Hillary Duff?"
"No, sorry, I never met her."
"Darn"
He started walking away, when I called out to him.
"Why did you want to know?"
"Oh," he said. "The girls at school would have been so impressed."
*I asked 8-year-old Johnny what he wanted to be when he grows up. He thought about this long and hard, and said in all earnestness...”I think I’ll be a wrestler in outer space.”
*I don’t want to say that Sean is spending too much time with my German mother, but he’s constantly telling me to “Vait!” and asking if we can go for a “Valk.”*Tommy stabbed a dagger in my heart last fall during the World Series. It was time to go to school and he told me he didn’t have any shirts left in his drawer. I looked in his shirt drawer and found two Cubs T-shirts.
“What about these?” I asked.
“Dad,” he said, “I can’t wear those. The kids at school will make fun of me.”
*Johnny was turning into a one-trick pony with the stories he was writing at school. All of them were about video game characters (real or imaginary) and most of them were getting a little violent—his characters tended to die fiery deaths in a furnace. Knowing the hypersensitive school system, I gently urged him to stay away from violence before he got in trouble. “Why don’t you write about something else?” I suggested. “What else interests you?”
“Geckos,” he said.
“Great,” I said. “Write about geckos.”
The next evening I got a phone call from his teacher.
“Mr. Kaempfer,” she said. “I’m a little worried about Johnny’s stories.”
“I know,” I said. “I already talked to him about it. I told him no more video game stories.”
“Those are fine,” she said. “This one he wrote today about geckos isn’t fine. It begins like this...
‘Once upon a time a boy gecko got into bed with a girl gecko and they made nine gecko babies...”
(The moral of the story is—never tell a writer what to write.)
*Actual conversation on the teeter-totter in the park.
Dad: What do you want to be when you grow up?
Sean: A doctor. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Dad: (chuckle) Good question.
Sean: Do you want to be a mom so you can go to work?
OK—your turn.
If you have any you’d like to share, please send them in by clicking on the word “Comments” below. (It e-mails your responses to me). We won’t make any money on it (damn you Art Linkletter!), but at least we’ll provide someone with a smile to help through another grownup day.
If you'd like to read previous Suburban Man columns, click here: http://suburbanmanarchive.blogspot.com
