Friday, March 11, 2011

Spring Broke

The Live Acorn and I were on the freeway the other day, engaged in some light banter about her views on the developments in Libya, and she posed the following question:

“Dad, what are you doing for Spring Break?”

A pall was cast over the car* (the Zuke Of Earle’s first pall! Woohoo!), and, as a tear rolled slowly down my cheek, I said, in a quivering voice, “Li … Live Acorn … I don’t get a Spring Break.”

“Oh, right. Bummer.”

Why would she ask that? Why would she summon to consciousness the knowledge that my carefree days of childlike exuberance were long past, a knowledge that I prefer to be kept stowed away in the dark recesses of my psyche? Why would she remind me that gone forever are the irresponsible debaucheries that came with the annual respite from the burdens of classwork during my 6 ½ years of undergraduate study? Why would she force upon me the recognition and acknowledgement that I am but an old man, worn by the years, no longer party to the trappings of youth, no longer marking time in terms of holidays and vacations and breaks, but instead trudging onward, week by identical week, toward a nondescript and likely unregarded end? Why?

I’ll tell you why, dadgummit. It’s one of two things: either 1) she really didn’t realize (or simply forgot momentarily) that the grown-up worker bees don’t get spring break, indicating an innocent and even endearing lack of knowledge about what it’s like to be an adult, which is, to be honest, something of an enviable way of thinking, or 2) she knew exactly what she was asking, and asked simply to be mean, to drive home my sad lot in life, to cut my heart out with her rapier-like words and revel in the misery of her own father.

I’m pretty sure it’s the first one. I can certainly understand how she could have inherited the personality type that would account for the former from me, as I have been known at times to be blissfully unaware of what the hell is going on in the world around me. If it’s the second, well, that doesn’t reflect very keenly on her mot …

Ok, you know what? This is getting a little long-winded, and I need to get back to whatever I was doing, so just, ummm, nevermind.

* I leave it to you, dear reader, to come up with your own “car-pall tunnel syndrome” joke.

2 comments:

Domestic Oub said...

Whooo-hooooo spring break! Acorns gone wild!!!!


(have some pity here, there is no 'spring break' as such on this side of the atlantic, we Irish students had to do our partying in smaller chunks... On Monday nights. On Tuesday nights. On Wednesday nights...)

The Dead Acorn said...

"Acorns gone wild" ... I might be giggling all day on that one.

And while I have absolutely no idea of my heritage, the party schedule you outlined makes me think that a branch or two of my family tree may cast its shade on the Emerald Isle.