And so it begins.  The boys’ Winter Break, 2014-style.  Only one of my sons is currently awake as my fingers pop the keys of this keyboard.  Hunched over a Santa-sized bag of Legos, clawing away at them, since I rebuffed his first attempt at turning on the television.  Coughing loudly every 3 or 4 minutes, wearing T-Rex and Skull and Crossbones-print pajama bottoms and a blue and grey “Duke” beanie.  No shirt, of course.  The shirtlessness likely explains the coughing, at least in part.  But I don’t demand a shirt.  I’ve long-since learned to pick my battles.  And I don’t pick this one.  Cough Cough.

This is a busy time of the year for my wife (and my sons’ mom) at work, as people suddenly realize they need her to do a bunch of important stuff for them.  Like now.  So that means that at least until Wednesday afternoon, I’m mostly solo.  I like solo.  I like my wife, too, of course.  But I also like solo. 

I’ve already got today and Tuesday accounted for:  I’ll finish this blog post in the next 30 minutes, accompanied by Everett raking through his thousands of Lego pieces and by our dog staring at me from her bed.  The dog won’t become a priority until her staring becomes so persistent that other recipients of said stare would anticipate an imminent attack on the jugular.  To me, that just translates into “take me outside or I will for sure poop and/or pee right here and right now.”  No such stare at the moment; I just checked.

I aspire to fire up some eggs (fried or scrambled depending upon which son’s preference is the morning’s squeakiest wheel), hash browns and bacon on the stove top grill.  The grill’s surface is scratched from heavy use, and I harbor some concern that I will be feeding my kids a dose of non-stick chemicals.  That’s an ongoing risk that will have to be addressed another day.  Because after breakfast, we are headed to the Academy.

The California Academy of Sciences, that is.  When the boys were younger, the Cal Academy was a go-to.  One of the few places where a parent could lower a toddler’s feet to the ground and, more or less, let the toddler explore on his or her own, while the parent trailed behind.  On a crowded day, this admittedly made for some nervous moments.  I have run-walked some shallow-breathed loops around the trippy blue underwater rooms downstairs, picking up my pace as my eyes scan the dark corners for my progeny, calculating the odds that he could drown in a starfish pool, crack his head on the stairs near the Gar tank, wind up in some stranger’s stroller, or topple into Claude’s den.  Did I mention that Claude is an albino alligator? None of those things have ever come to fruition, though in retrospect, I always sort of admire my creativity in terms of all the incredibly terrible things I conjure up before I find Max or Everett at a water fountain.

Fortunately (or maybe, unfortunately), those days are over now.  My kids only disappear if they choose to.  And they know my cell phone number, combined with absolutely zero fear of asking a surprised stranger to borrow the stranger’s cell phone.  “Just real quick, if you don’t mind, so I can call my dad.”  I’ve grown accustomed to seeing incoming calls bearing completely bizarre, I-don’t-know-anyone-in-Alaska area codes.  That just means Max or Ev is calling from some bemused person’s iPhone.  Fun for the kid.  Strange mixture of pride and mortification for me.  Pride for their resourcefulness.  Mortification if the owner of the cell phone is the type that will admonish me or give me that look when I show up to claim my offspring. A similar scene plays out if there is no stranger’s cell phone readily available.  Both of my kids are adept at commandeering the public address announcement system at grocery stores, museums, even airports.  In those situations, the mortification is magnified by the hundreds of disapproving eyeballs.

I so dread the mortification part, I sometimes catch myself considering ways to avoid or diminish the shunning.  Maybe I should wear a suit.  Or a tuxedo.  I have a tuxedo, it’s the one in which I was married.  Still fits, pretty much.  And I’m always looking for an excuse to wear it.  I imagine there are peer-reviewed, double-blind scientific studies supporting the notion that a man wearing a tuxedo is less likely to be admonished for delinquent parenting than a man wearing fleece sweats, a striped beanie, and goofy green running shoes.  If there is no such study, there ought to be.  Perhaps I’ll roll the study out this morning.  Given what I’m wearing at the moment, I’m thinking the beanie and green running shoes should probably be the control group.  The tux may have to wait until next time.  It’s been awhile since I’ve tied a bow-tie, and I don’t think I’ve allotted enough time for that this particular morning.  

On the other hand, a tux today might just be the perfect choice.  I imagine the scene:  Responding promptly to the fully-expected page using my first and last name (combined with the delinquent parenting part).  Mock surprise on my face, eye brows raised phonily, maybe even mouthing a “who, me?” I glide gracefully, with purpose, towards the Customer Service kiosk.  The spotlights normally trained on the enormous Blue Whale hanging from the ceiling — they snap onto my me, illuminating my path towards the kiosk, allowing me to cut through the admiring throngs.  (Slowly, the mortification begins to transfer from me over to my sons.  I can see it on their faces.)  Somewhere, a drum roll pounded out on a timpani reaches a crescendo.  I reach for (read: yank from the grip of the nervously-smiling Customer Service representative) the mic.  With the entire place holding it’s breath now, I scan the crowd.  Take it all in.  I smooth down a slight cowlick with one hand, pinch a corner of my black bow tie with the other.  Then maybe a quick flattening of the cummerbund.  I clear my throat, “First, I’d like to thank the Academy.”  I don’t get the rest of my speech out, though, due to the heavyset security guards clutching my elbows.

So on second thought, I think I’ll just go with the beanie and green sneakers. 

Thanks for reading.

One December night maybe six or seven years ago, we vaguely heard a thud in the front of our flat whilst we slept. I don’t remember it all that well, truth be told, so maybe my subconscious managed to weave the real-world sound into whatever I was dreaming about that night. Could’ve been the muffled slam of my high school locker door, for example. The one for which I can never remember the combination, as I struggle in a frenzied panic to loose a text book critical to the Calculus final exam I am missing while I fiddle with the numbered dial. That might have been the one.

The relief I would feel upon waking up and realizing I didn’t really need the locker combo after all? (And please, Late-for-Calculus-Final-Exam Dream, release me from your grip.) That morning, the relief was replaced with dread as we discovered our over-sized Christmas tree (do I have the capitalization scheme right on this?) had toppled over in the night. Smashing to smithereens a number of ornaments we had slowly gathered thusfar during our early years together, my wife and I.

The facade of the Heritage House, a great little bed and breakfast in Mendocino to which we’d escaped one weekend early in Hilary’s first pregnancy for our now-teenager. (Yes I know I am not using one of those little sickle marks on the c in “facade.” I took French. But I can’t find the mark as a choice on my iPhone keypad.). Broken into 3 pieces, the bright red front door split from the yellow trimmed windows.

A medicine man of some sort. Green face, black and white striped horns, yellow teeth, bulging eyes circled in black eye liner. Maybe wearing pants made of buffalo hide or something. A little terrifying, actually. Think we picked him up in Sedona or Sante Fe on our move out here from the east coast in 1999. I’d guess he is supposed to be some sort of ceremonial figure. Probably my favorite tree decoration. Well, he survived the trip west unscathed, but lost a horn on our carpet, thrown down unceremoniously by our own strange ceremony involving a chopped down pine tree propped up in our living room for a month.

Well, last week it happened again.

No more than 30 seconds after I snapped the above photo of the newly-clamped and ornament-strung tree next to our fireplace, that bad boy came down.

Moments earlier, the five of us (including our dog) were, for once, actually quiet. The boys were drawing up their (ridiculous) Christmas wish lists. I was engrossed in the final pages of a book about exploring the ocean’s depths. Hilary was maybe catching up on emails. The dog was lying at my side, tongue lolling out, probably fantasizing about licking our dinner plates clean once we’d all gone to bed. The fire crackled.

Suddenly, Hilary let out a primal scream. As I jolted my head up, the tree began to fall in slow motion, the dog bolted upright and got the hell out of Dodge, and our youngest was suddenly under the 8-foot tree.

Me: “Everett, are you OK in there?”

Everett (presumably still clutching his pen, scribbling madly to ensure every possible aspiration is included on his list, possibly not even noticing the tree covering his upper torso): “Yep.”

The only damage, really, was the thin (too-thin) glass ornament we’d picked up at Zion National Park last spring. That was a once-in-a-lifetime trip filled with memories we’ll be reliving for years, likely even years after the actual participants are long gone. That hand-painted orb was fairly shattered, its sharp pieces set delicately on our dining room table even now, nearly a week later. As if we’re mourning the ornament.

The Heritage House also broke again, along the same fractures as last time, apparently not glued together as well as we thought. I think I can fix this one, though. Hopefully without Crazy-Gluing my thumb and forefinger together.

And the Sante Fe Medicine Man?

Where is he? Where is he? I may even have said those words aloud as I combed through the debris. His medicine must be good. Somehow, he survived this calamity without a scratch. He still only has the one horn, but his medicine is good.

Until the next time.

Thanks for reading.

We need to hire a hit man. Or a hit woman. We need to get someone, er, something six feet under. Dead. Kilt. Gone.

We need a Fruit Fly Assassin.

I have had it with these sonsabitchin’ Drosophiladae. I’m cool with an occasional little fella carving his little squares in the air above out compost container. That’s actually helpful — a sign that it’s time to bring the compost tin’s fermented contents down to the big compost bin in the garage. Thanks, little fella. I would even give him a gentle pat on the head if I could.

But we are way past the cute, living in concert with nature, we are all God’s creatures phase. We are officially in the Rod Steiger in the Amityville Horror Attic Attack Besieged by Flies stage.

Yesterday I lifted the fancy cardboard box top containing a leftover fancy chocolate cake from dinner this weekend. I was salivating, even, at the prospect of topping off a bland lunch with a slice or 3 of said cake. Apparently, fruit flies are attracted to leftover chocolate cakes. And human saliva. When I cracked open the lid no more than half an inch, a couple flew straight into my mouth. Which was open, because I guess I was making the “oh man I can’t wait to eat this” face.

I staggered backwards, cursing, coughing, and causing my dog to run downstairs to hide in her crate. I was a little shell-shocked by the sudden ambush, and the part of my hypothalamus that controls hunger had yet to be overcome by the part of my brain that manifests a proper response to disgust. And so, still trying to call up the intruders clinging to my epiglottis, I lunged back at the fancy cake. I guess I was trying to evaluate, in my compromised state, whether the cake was still edible. I don’t really know, it was like an out-of-body experience for a few desperate moments.

I regained my senses, calculated the embarrassment factor if quizzed by the emergency room doctor as to whether I had “eaten anything unusual recently,” and slammed the lid shut. To the extent that you can “slam” a fancy cardboard cake box shut.

Then the part of my brain that conjures up bloodlust, vengeance, murderous inclinations, vaulted to the fore. Through the tunnel vision of my blind rage, I saw that the Mini Dyson was within arm’s reach. So I spent the next several minutes jumping around the kitchen, sucking the little bastards into the plastic nozzle. With the “MAXIMUM” button pushed in. I wasn’t messing around. Typically, under calmer circumstances, I cannot reach the flies clinging near the tops of the cupboards or hanging upside down from the ceiling. Like the old ladies who lift Volkswagens off pinned children, my adrenaline fueled superhuman leaps. I could have put my head through the ceiling if I wanted to. I mean, I got up.

My flyocide didn’t do squat. This morning they’re right back there. Laughing at me, most likely. Damned things reproduce at such a prolific rate, they probably multiplied even while I was foolishly trying to decimate their ranks with my plastic vacuum.

I’m man enough to admit when I am beyond my depth. I’m officially there. So we’re calling in the big guns. I’ll be publishing a Craigslist post, titled “Need Fruit Fly Assassin to Murder Chocolate Cake-Eating Flies Who Flew In My Mouth, Rod Steiger-Style,” forthwith. Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading.

I had an epiphany at 75 miles per hour this afternoon. 

I was hurtling back home to San Francisco after a couple travel baseball tournament games in Manteca.  About a 90-minute drive, depending upon how willing you are to risk a speeding ticket.  My eldest son, Max, has been playing on this particular baseball team for about a year.  The spring season was all-in, culminating in a family trip to a very cool tournament last summer in Cooperstown.  For this fall season, we decided (Max included) that he would focus principally on soccer.  Fall is generally and rightly regarded as THE time of year for soccer.  That meant Max had to sort of demote himself to a “practice player” on his baseball team.  The team stocked up on several new players, many of which I know nothing about.  Except that they all elected to put baseball first this fall season. 

Max chose to put it second. 

He worked so hard to make the baseball team in the first place — think hitting balls off the tee for weeks, at night, in the backyard after dinner, with a headlamp on, until his calloused hands bled.  That experience alone, make the team or no, was worth the price of admission.  I never worked hard for anything until I was probably already in my 20s.  If then.  So to see Max out back last fall in the pitch black, ping ping ping the sound of his bat in the throw of his headlamp’s light?  Pretty cool. 

But there are consequences to choosing one thing or another.  As a practice player, Max would not be playing in tournaments.  He would regularly miss practices.  And the practices he could attend, he typically showed up 30-60 minutes late, arriving on the heels of a soccer practice down the 101.  Other players would make every practice.  And they would be there early.  And they would show up at every game, hungry to play every single inning. 

Max’s voice would be conspicuously absent from the dugout, as he basically left vacant the spot he worked for — harder than anything he’d ever worked for before.

Interesting choice.

Today marked the first time Max was available to play in one of his baseball team’s fall tournaments and his coach invited him to come.  Hence the drive to Manteca this morning.  The morning after Halloween.  After cutting himself off at a fistful of Halloween candy and getting to bed earlier than he otherwise would.  Max was fired up, warpaint on his cheekbones, ready to go.

Only it didn’t happen.  As much as I had tried to manage our expectations — Max is the only practice player; everybody else has put in their time and worked hard — neither of us was prepared for the consequences today.  Max never played so little as he did in his team’s two games today.  The times when he would generally be popping out of the dugout racing to his spot on the infield?  Those times never happened.  The times when he would step up to the plate, ready to get on base anyway he could?  None of those times happened either. 

He was crushed.  I was crushed.  I tried desperately not to let my bubbling anger show on my face.  I refused to catch his eyes when he looked for me, peeking out of the dugout.  I didn’t trust myself enough; I was afraid he would see my strong emotions and adopt them as his own, uncertain as he was as to how he should deal with this unfamiliar dynamic. 

In the aftermath of the second game, I found myself melodramatically hurling my large cup of Coke into the trash can.  I muttered (probably louder than just “muttered”) a number of F-Bombs I couldn’t help but sprinkle into my neck vein-bulging rants.  Directed at no one in particular, just expressing my frustration.  I don’t know that any of the other parents heard me.  I hope not.  But at the time, I didn’t care.  I was angry, disappointed, embarrassed, confused.  My adrenals were squeezing and it took everything I could muster not to say something stupid to someone who would not forget what I said and which I could not take back later.

There are times when a 90-minute drive is the best medicine. 

After Max vented in an age-appropriate way (fewer F-Bombs), he suddenly fell asleep.  Warpainted cheek pressed against the window.  And was snoring out loud within only a couple minutes.  He had never played less than he played today, but he was exhausted.  Drained.  From his little jelly head trying to figure out what to do with this.

Then it dawned on me. 

His coach had given Max a gift.  The Gift of Adversity.  I don’t know whether he intended to bequeath this gift or not.  But that doesn’t matter.  The best thing about sports, about travel baseball and soccer, about the daily existence both of our kids are currently navigating, is the innumerable opportunities to handle and manage adversity.  Everyone gets knocked on their ass, over and over again.  Everyone gets knocked onto the canvas.  And with your saliva-dripping cheek on the threadbare canvas, you have just two choices.  It’s simple, really–

(1) Stay down. 

(2) Get back up.  Now.

I think Number Two is probably one of those key things in life. 

Max got punched in the gut today, effectively.  And I’m actually thankful for that now.  I get to stand over his prone body, put my hand on his back, and ask him:  “You have two choices, my boy.  You can stay down.  Or you can get back up.  Now I’m going to walk back over to our corner, step through the ropes, and watch.  I’m here for you either way.  But it is your choice.  Not mine.”

Here’s hoping he chooses well.

Thanks for reading.

Three World Series Championships in the last five years.  A dynasty, they say.  My kids have no idea how lucky they are to be living in this Land of Giants.  Their maternal grandfather — a lifelong, long-suffering Red Sox fan (still) — waited nearly 70 years to witness his hometown team win a World Series.  My kids have experienced three, count ’em three!  

And it’s not just the being a fan part.  Forty-thousand fans turn the turnstiles at AT&T Park for every home game.  We go to our fair share of games.  The four of us happened to be on-hand at the ballpark when Cain threw his perfect game.  And we watch or listen to just about all of them that we don’t attend.  Hanging on Kruk & Kuip’s every word while crammed into our Prius or piled on the floor at the foot of the television scratching our family dog’s belly.  We have shelled out our fair share of shekels, too, for the merch:  Orange panda hat, Giants flannel pajamas, “Always October” hoodies.  The whole sh-bang.  Our fandom bona fides are for real.

But the best part is the “hometown team” part.  We and our kids regularly bump into Giants players.  A couple years ago, I passed Brian Wilson walking on Sansome Street.  At the time, he lived around the corner from us, so I lamely offered up a quick, “Hey, you’re a long way from your neighborhood.”  Weezy dryly responded, “Everyplace is my neighborhood” without breaking stride.  Later that same year, he gamely signed autographs for my son Max’s San Francisco Little League All-Star team.  We had spotted him having dinner next to our team’s dinner one night, and after some cajoling, he came outside and made the kids’ day.  He even laughed aloud with Max when Max explained to Weezy that his broken wrist in a cast was caused by falling on the treadmill in our garage.  

A few years back, Everett was invited to say hello to Pat Burrell seated in the rear of the now-defunct Grove on Chestnut.  A quick conversation, but it left an impression:  Everett’s family drawing around Christmas-time that year included Pat the Bat.  And I’m OK with that.  We would regularly see Aubrey Huff at Max’s swim lessons in the Presidio.  I’d leave him alone, giving him his space.  But I couldn’t help myself on the morning after a particularly hard-fought post season win.  Striding out to the pool deck, Aubrey caught my eyes, and we both raised our arms and shook our fists at each other triumphantly.  It was genuine; I felt as if I had played a role in the win.  

A couple months ago, I was working at home and fully-engaged in a conference call.  Max stuck a piece of paper in my face with something about Jeremy Affeldt and coffee written on it.  I waved my hand, annoyed with the distraction.  Max disappeared, texting me this photo a few minutes later —

So net net, we’re pretty thrilled with the Giants’ success of-late, for sure.  But it’s the unexpected moments when our kids stumble into the players here and there that we appreciate the most.  We feel like we’re a part of something, rather than just witnessing something.  And we know we’re damned lucky to be living here in the Land of Giants.

Thanks for reading.

Yes, Crisco. 

My 8 year-old was up to his usual tricks with his line of questioning during the walk to the bus stop this morning.  First, he asked, “Dad, what is Crisco?”  Trust me, this question was out of the blue.  I can’t even imagine how that question would ever not be out of the blue.  I don’t cook with it.  I don’t know anyone else who does.  I don’t put it in my hair.  If someone else chooses to, that is their business.  And I don’t believe Everett has developed a taste for I Love Lucy, the Honeymooners or other TV shows of that era in which the word “Crisco” might be included in the script.  In fact, I wasn’t even sure how to answer the Crisco Question.  I caught myself wiggling my lips a bit to try to form a word, having a tough time pushing air up from my lungs to my mouth.  My brisk pace cut in half as I struggled for something sensible to say.  Fortunately, my wife Hilary jumped headlong into the breach.  As my head swirled in my moment of vulnerability, I vaguely heard her say the word “shortening,” and I knew that we would survive this.  Nevermind that my inner Rainman was now wrestling with the different meanings of “shortening,” and how they don’t seem to have anything to do with each other.  Or do they?

Regardless, I picked my pace back up, relieved that Hilary knew how to trot out the word “shortening” without skipping a beat, such that Everett did not likely see me staggering from his Crisco body blow.  Equilibrium now restored.

Once we arrived at the bus stop proper, however, the second shoe dropped.  Everett asked, “Dad, what is a finder’s fee?”  Now, I know what a “finder’s fee” is.  That wasn’t the issue here.  The issue was the close proximity in time between the Crisco Question and the Finder’s Fee Question.  Under a minute.  Maybe less.  So that meant that Everett somehow was connecting the two words.  This was not out of the blue.  Nothing out of the blue about this. 

But what was the connection?  Where in the hell did he hear this? Read this?  Get offered this?  Was he tipping his hand to some God-awful school playground prank to which he was privy?  I don’t recall seeing any substance on any of his clothes or in his hair that, upon reflection, could have been Crisco-esque in origin.  Then again, I don’t take a hard look.  And most stains are good news — suggesting that he actually did brush his teeth, did wash his hands this week, or did eat what he was supposed to eat from the school lunch.   So I have to concede that he could have walked into our house with a Crisco mohawk, and I may not have noticed. 

And I’m not sure, but isn’t this type of “shortening” frowned upon in cooking nowadays due to some mouse studies?  Our kids’ school is all about organic gardens, composting, and sourcing food locally.  So I can’t fathom that Everett would pay or be paid a finder’s fee for delivering up a barrel of Crisco to the school kitchen.  That would be scandalous.  Not the finder’s fee part, but the idea that someone at school was cooking with Crisco.  There would need to be a school-wide email from the head of school with a heartfelt apology and firm reassurance that our kids are safe.  That someone was fired.  And that a thorough search of the area found that NO CRISCO ever made it onto school grounds. 

As all this ran through my head, the school bus rolled up silently.  The kids were all sucked on board as if by some sort of powerful vacuum, scrambling up the stairs.  I managed a weak — and basically rhetorical under the circumstances — “Ev, um, are those two questions somehow connected??”  But by then he had been sucked up into the bus, halfway to his seat, and I could not decipher his facial expression through the tinted windows.  Why are the windows tinted?  As far as I knew, as the bus squeaked away from the curb, Ev was now passing a huge vat of the shortening around to his fellow students, who slathered themselves up with it, crazed.  And slapped dollar bills into my 8 year-old’s outstretched palm.

I expect a call from school any minute now.  Is that the phone ringing??

Thanks for reading.

San Francisco turns orange about this time of year, every year, it seems. I don’t mean the Fall leaves. Fall doesn’t turn the leaves orange in these parts, for the most part. I satisfy that east coast craving by cruising foliage photos on Facebook. Apologies for the alliteration. Absolutely awful.

I associate all this annual orange with two things: The San Francisco Giants’ postseason success, and Halloween.

The former whips this town into a frenzy. I marvel as some of our more iconic pieces of architecture turn orange — City Hall, Coit Tower, the Embarcadero Buildings, the Ferry Building. The entire city loses its collective mind.

Case in point: My wife Hilary and I were drawing straws late last night over who would go investigate a loud banging in our garage. This morning’s Chronicle told me the clamor was due to fireworks set off on the waterfront at the end of a gala held last night for 2,000 Giants VIPs. Could’ve used a heads up, Mr. Baer. That way, I could’ve strode chest-puffed into my dark garage ready to take on the “intruder” with my bare hands and a half-chewed number 2 pencil, as my wife sat admiring her protector. “My hero.” Sigh.

Instead, I practically stuck my cold foot in Hilary’s low-back pushing her out of bed to go investigate. Think I also glowered at Wailea: “What the hell kind of watchdog are you? Don’t you hear that banging? Someone is out there! Sic ’em! Sic ’em!”

Alas, not a burglar. Nope. Just a couple thousand muckety-mucks getting their orange on. Tonight is game 3 of the 2014 World Series, after all. If the Giants win, I suppose I will gladly accept the ignominy of last night’s emasculation brought on by the fireworks masquerading as a neighborhood madman rummaging through our garage. Fair trade. No apology or reparations will be necessary, Mr. Baer.

The other thing I associate with all this orange is the season of Halloween. Man, I love it. I got it bad. After our family’s 3rd or 4th trip to one or another store, we finally had all the gear I needed to transform our postage-stamp sized front “lawn” into a terrifying graveyard: Three bags of spider webs stretched thinly. A dozen spiders scattered in threatening poses. Three spotlights (2 green). Three strobe lights, including one that blasts a looped sound recording imploring someone to “help me help me” every ten seconds or so. Three styrofoam headstones, one chiseled with a small skull, another with “RIP” and another in the shape of a medieval cross. A couple life-sized skulls, the deep-set eyes and broad foreheads a perfect surface on which to bounce the strobes’ blinking lights. And then the coup de grâce: Three black-hooded, hanging ghouls with blinking red eyes and upturned skeleton hands.

Used to be four ghouls, but one was stolen last Halloween. Cost of doing business; city living. And frankly, given that I deliberately affix and ensnare the ghouls deep into our prickly rose bushes, using a step ladder, no less, I have to tip my cap to the high-jumping bloody-handed thief who somehow managed to pilfer my ghoul. He must’ve wanted that red-eyed heebie jeebie pretty badly.

Just as I wanted that fog machine pretty badly. The one I stood before at the local Halloween City store yesterday afternoon, covetous. Practically drooling. Ignoring my 8 year-old’s plaintive half-whispers: “Dad, can we puuuleeeeazze get outta here? That clown is creeping me out.” I heard Everett, faintly, in the recesses of my mind. But I heard the word “clown” and figured Ev was overreacting. Or at least figured that he would not be permanently scarred by an encounter with a grinning clown. Not by the couple extra minutes I would need to do the math, weighing exactly how pissed Hilary would be by my introduction of an over-the-top fog machine against how ecstatic I would be to fire that bad boy up.

Everett’s increasingly-urgent tugs on my wrist snapped me back to reality. Reluctantly, I gave in to the sad fact that I would end up on the wrong side of the “greater than” sign as far as the fog machine calculus would go. So I satisfied myself by impulse-purchasing a couple black light spotlight bulbs. (The same ones that would later burn off my fingerprints in my ill-advised attempt to install the bulbs in our backyard.)

On the way out the front door, I followed Everett’s bugged out eyes and snuck a look at the creepy clown. I was wrong. Ev will definitely be scarred.

Thanks for reading.

The Wasco Clown is right in my wheelhouse. I rush to Instagram every morning hoping against hope that he or she has or they have posted something creepy from his or her or their overnight exploits. This spooky clown is in my head; it’s as if the clown is looking directly and only at me in these quietly disturbing photos.

I have long been a huge fan of Halloween and all that it entails. In grade school, my dad and I used to rig up a pumpkin-headed dummy on our front porch, raising the dummy’s skeleton hand via a fishing line pulley system when an unsuspecting trick-or-treater approached. Great results.

As I got a bit older, I would dress as a dummy myself, oversized shirt and pants stuffed with pillow innards, a nondescript mask covering my face. I would position myself limbs akimbo on the stairs leading to the skeleton-handed pumpkin. They would assess me on the way up the stairs, deciding I was indeed not real as they moved along up to the main attraction. They breathed a sigh of relief, maybe a small chuckle at the pedestrian skeleton hand with fishing line act on the porch. Their guard officially down, I would jump out at them on their way back down the stairs. Scared the bejesus out of them, without fail.

I made the annual pilgrimage to Syracuse’s JCC Haunted House with my wide-eyed school chums. The haunted house antics were only slightly more effective than my own, popping out at my buddies in one pitch black hallway or another.

I would never go to a haunted house with me. To this day, I don’t know why my friends agreed to go every year. And I’m surprised no one’s heart exploded along the way. Also surprised these friends of mine are still friends of mine, unfairly and repeatedly terrorized as they were.

As an “adult,” I’ve passed the Halloween Bug on to my boys, I think. They strategize about their costumes year-round. With a sense of pride, I rebuff their first choices — invariably one movie sequel horror killer guy or another. I don’t even know how they know who Freddy Kruger is.

We set up a green spotlit graveyard on our front walk. Three hanging ghouls have blinking red lights for eyeballs. Yesterday I bought some upside down hanging bat lanterns for our little inside patio. They look good surrounded by the dark purple string lights. That patio comes alive when the sun goes down.

Over the years, the boys have assembled piece-by-piece a little, automated Halloween Town on a table in our dining room. An overhead witch chasing a WW II-era girl around and around a circular graveyard. The Witches Brew Pub with its faux-neon sign and red-eyed monster waiting under the porch. A merry go ’round carnival swing chocked full of seated skeletons clutching the swing’s chains in their bony fingers.

It’s all very mesmerizing. At least to me.

Which is why I am agog at the Wasco Clown phenomenon. The clown apparently wanders around a Bakersfield-area town in the middle of the night, taking vaguely menacing photos of himself in familiar locales, posting them on Instagram later. He doesn’t bother with dramatic or threatening poses, he is just…there. Dead-eyed. Flat.

Allowing you, me, to project our own innermost fears onto him. He’s even added the brilliant stroke of clutching a gaggle of balloons in his right hand. So many things in these photos that appeal to a Halloween-ophile such as I. I stare at the photos as if I were examining a painterly van Gogh. Admiring this element or that one — the choice of mask or face paint, the odd contrapposto standing in the dewey grass of a children’s playground. The Michael Myers tilt of the head.

Masterful.

So touché, Wasco Clown. My Halloween karma has come home to roost. You have officially scared the bejesus out of me. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for reading.