Playing The Fievel Card

BobLee
January16/ 2000

….. That last column Men & Work “went platinum” as predicted.  Those who shied away from it because it was not about Dick Baddour, Butch Davis or Lee Fowler really missed “a good’un”.  Lucky for you you can still read it.  ……. Moving right along ….. Our family had one of those moments recently that ended with “I’m 21 and can do whatever I want …..”  Uh oh ….. every parent who’s been thru “one of those” give an understanding smile. ……. Moochie Update –

This weekend there will be a humdinger of a baseball series at The Bosh.  Mike Fox’s Moochies are zeroing in on an Incredible 4-Peat To Omaha.  All that stands twixt them and their annual visit to Rosenblatt is East Carolina’s Pirates.  ECU is very good.  Mike’s Moochies are very good.  Should be a humdinger on the field itself.
In the stands it’s another matter of course.   Every time UNC is visited by a team from “east of Orange County” for “a big game” major huffin’ and puffin’ begins about An “Invasion of real fans” to wine & cheese country.  Yawn.
There WAS such an invasion ONCE at The Legend’s Lair during the depths of The Matt Era.  Matt is gone and C-Blue is again the dominant color round the arboreal campus.  It will be so this weekend.
The Moochies are back in synch after a brief hiatus.  It should be great baseball and will be televised on assorted ESPN channels.
97% of visiting Pirate fans will be very fine folks.  A small number will be jackasses.  About the same %s will apply to the Home team’s fans.  If you’re going to be there, don’t be a 3%er, OK.

*********

  I am going to relate a personal story today because I bet it rings familiar to so many of you.   A little background here ….. I watch a lot of crime shows including Criminal Minds about sadistic serial killers including one last week about an insane asylum escapee who cannibalized young single women.  Missus reads 2-3 audio-books each week of the James Patterson gendre.  We both surf the Internet a lot in what we do each day saving western civilization.  The Internet does not do much to glorify mankind’s goodness, mercy and overall decency.  The anniversary of Eve Carson was a month ago. …… you getting the picture here?

Our dear sweet wonderful daughter is pretty much “Eve Carson – before” …… skipping thru endless fields of daisies chasing butterflies and enjoying “the oyster” known as her darn near perfect life.   Me and Missus would not want it any other way.  Kid has always made excellent decisions when it comes to the hot stoves and wet paint issues of a young girl’s life circa 2009.  She is as careful and as “aware” as we could expect her to be without being paranoid and curled up in a fetal position in a closet.

She’s a normal 21 y/o college coed (Dean’s List six straight semesters so far !!!) and we are reasonably normal parents 1,400 miles away with our Criminal Minds and James Patterson novels ……. Everyone who “been there – done that” give another understanding smile.

Kid also has an IPhone capable of IMing, twittering, texting, voice mailing and who knows what else.  I think it can field dress a moose if she downloads the proper “app”.   Her monthly cell phone charges once included 5,000 text messages.  She DOES know how to use it.

On our end we have multiple cell phones, a land line, and FOUR freakin’ computers capable of receiving intergalactic transmissions.  “Back in the day” I had access to one pay phone in the lobby of Ehringhaus Dorm and my Mom/Dad had a black rotary phone.

So Sunday Mom got a bit “anxious” after not hearing from Kid into the late afternoon.  She had “a premonition” …. uh oh.  She texts Kid …. No response.  She texts Kid again. ……. SIXTEEN freakin’ unacknowledged text messages later and I hear “I’m calling the Columbia police ….”  Mizzou is in Columbia MO.   I leave Kid a voice mail (I don’t text!) advising “Ya better call your mother REALLY SOON or we’re talking MAJOR TROUBLE”.

Six minutes later (10:45 PM) we hear Kid’s voice.  It ain’t a happy voice.  She and her mom have a spirited albeit short conversation that ends abruptly with “I’m 21 and can do what I want to do ….”  Uh oh.

Kid had been with her chums all day doing the aforementioned daisy skipping and butterfly chasing while mom stewed, fretted and looked for Kid’s dental records in case we needed to identify a mangled body lying in a Missouri ditch.  Kid had indeed seen mom’s texts but figured she’d respond “later”.   In retrospect there were 5-6 decisions made over the course of 36 hours that coulda gone another way leading to a different conclusion.

Monday Kid e-mailed me info about her car that let me know she was likely OK.  We have a secret code word in the event she ever is “under duress”.   Do you have a secret code word with your kids?  Late Monday night I sent Kid an e-mail that contained the words “disown” and “cut off all $$$” ….. but I included a bunch of smiley faces. I’m pretty sure I included the smileys ….

Tuesday AM as I’m getting coffee from our wonderful Keurig machine I hear “we just got a very long e-mail from Kid”.  Uh oh.  To Kid’s credit it was not written from a chicken bus rumbling across the Yucatan having decided to “find herself” among the indigenous peoples of Old Mexico.  She got her point of view off her chest without hyper hyperbole or crossing that line that ya jest don’t wanna ever cross.  The phrase “I’m just fine and I will always be fine” got close to the hyperbole line.

Missus responded in a succinct manner that was rather “tough talk” from a recently distraught Mommy who’s tears of worry had shorted out her keyboard.

   I chose to take my dear daughter on a literary Mr Toad’s Wild Ride.  I “played the Fievel card”.   Fievel Mousekewitz was the little mouse in American Tale who sings “Somewhere Out There …… someone is thinking of you ….”.   I printed out the lyrics.  When Kid saw “Fievel” she knew ol’ Dad had her.   It is a submission hold more effective than The Figure-Four Cobra Sleeper.

In an e-mail throwdown you bring your best stuff…… it’s Dad vs Daughter.  Hellfire …. I even brought in the Air France jet that crashed in the Atlantic from Rio to Paris.  “Were the last words a parent of a doomed passenger heard “I’m 21 and can do what I want” CLICK?  Darn right, I fight dirty.

Did it work?  Not sure yet.  Excuse me, I have a call ….. it’s from a bus station in Guadalajara ….. uh oh.

>>><<<

Before Mike Fox, there was _______ .

>>><<<

TRUE STORY ….. the death-gurgling N&O had its weekly Courageous Ms Elizabeth story on Tuesday.  Fighting so bravely against cancer, a philandering husband, crabgrass, mildew, cellulite, Reille’s “it”, a sluggish economy, and Kim Jung Ill’s nukes – Ms Elizabeth is opening a furniture store on Rosemary Street.  Next week she will write yet another book called “Upholstered”:  A Media Whore Opens A Furniture Store….  Elizabeth Edwards is human kudzu.

Proud Mary keeps on working …… and Tom Fetzer still swears he’s not gay.  

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