“You owe me fifty, Dildo, and don’t make me start adding it up because you wouldn’t have a pot to piss in if it wasn’t for me. I don’t know too many kids that get brand new drums for their birthday. My old man never bought that for me.”

“Pop, come on, they were bongos, and that was eight years ago.”

“So what? I didn’t charge you nothing then, did I? You know what those things would be worth today?”

“Listen,” I said, “didn’t you ever have no fun when you were my age?”

“Ah fongoo. Don’t tell me what I was doing at your age, buddy. When I was your age, I was working seven days a week from sunup to sundown at the Old Brown Millinery trying to earn enough frogpelts so that I could afford the privilege of going to a trade school. That’s right, privilege.”

When he continued with this line of bullshit, I couldn’t help but tune out. I wondered if in the year 2000 I would be giving my kid this kind of lecture. Would I brag about saving my pennies to buy a nickel of weed and frugally scraping my bongs to smoke the resin? Would I call him a spoiled brat for throwing away roaches?

Finally, I said, “Well good, you went, didn’t you?”

The old man paused, baffled. “Went where?”

“To trade school. You should be happy; you got what you wanted.”

The old man’s nostrils shivered. He gave me his Jackie-Gleason-pissed-off look. To the moon, Dildo! “You know,” he said, “sometimes you’re about as sharp as a bowling ball. All you think about is having a good time. Well, the good times is over, Dildo. It’s time you stopped being an underachiever and start working to your potential.” He spread his arms, and his lips puckered up like a tuba. “PRODUCE!!!”

I leaned back.

“You’re going to have to get your grades way up this year,” the old man said, “because if you want to live a comfortable life, you’re going to have to get into a good college and then get a good job where you can make good money. Capisce?”

“That all that matters to you? Money? What, you think you’ve got to have money to be happy?”

“Absolutely! If you don’t remember no other advice I ever gave you, remember this, Dildo …” Suddenly, tires screeched out at the intersection. The old man jerked his head to the window but there was no crack-up. He lowered his voice and leaned toward me. “Life,” he said, “is like a shit sandwich: The more bread you got, the less shit you eat.”

In a burst of boldness, I said, “Then let me ask you this: Why is it that it’s the big rich execs who are always diving off the fourteenth floor head first?”