Even though we had phoned my son London’s school to let them know he would be missing three days, we were repeatedly informed (twice on the home phone, once on the cell) that, upon his return, the little scholar would need a letter explaining how his absence was educational. Never one to question the validity of requests from the school district, I have gathered here some of the pedagogical highlights from day one of our trip to Denver:
Careful Monitoring of the Ingress and Egress Routes of an Automobile Cleansing Station Including Traffic Count (London had to dodge cars while we power washed the minivan.)
In-Depth Analysis of Recent Hollywood Trend of Padding Sparsely Plotted Children’s Literature in Order to Reach Minimum Acceptable Running Time for American Theatergoers (London viewed Where the Wild Things Are and Fantastic Mr. Fox on the portable DVD player, so my wife Lala and I could have a conversation that lasted more than six minutes.)
Quantifying and Qualifying Roadside Rest Area and Service Plaza Usage Including Cleanliness/Appeal, and Specific Strategies and Actions Therein (We hit a particularly nasty bathroom outside of Trinidad, and I had to show London how to flush a rank toilet using the bottom of his shoe and open the door with just his elbow.)
Discovery of the “Backward Traveling Wave” Through Time Delay of Drivers’ Actions, Otherwise Known as “Jamitons”; Similar to the Equations that Describe Detonation Waves Produced by Explosions (It took us an hour to go 12 miles in goddamn Colorado Springs.)
Use of Profanity by the Modern American Male: When Incivility is Acceptable or Swearing is Employed as a Psychological Phenomenon to Release Stress (It took us an hour to go 12 miles in goddamn Colorado Springs.)
Effectiveness of Cardio-Aerobic Exercise in Burning Calories, Reducing Fat-Muscle Ratio and Increasing Metabolic Rate (Forced the kids do jumping jacks and deep knee bends outside a Subway franchise before getting back into the minivan to jam our $5 Footlongs into our pieholes.)
Semantic Deconstruction and Bridge-Like Design of the Feminine Garment Icon During the Coming of Age of an Average American Female Using Maternal Influences as a Referent in the Measurement of Subjective Norms (London had to listen to his sister Poppy talk incessantly about bra sizing with Lala.)
Rise of Sexually and Racially Safe Teen Idols in the Ebbs and Flows of Moral Panic Associated with the Complex Contemporary Music Scene(Damn you, Justin Bieber! Damn you, Poppy!).
Emergence of Earworm (Involuntary Musical Imagery or INMI) and How INMIs Frequently Exceed Standard Estimates of Auditory Memory Capacity. Active Attempts to Block or Eliminate Earworm are Less Successful than Passive Acceptance, Consistent with Wegener’s Theory of Ironic Mental Control. (Like Baby, Baby, Baby No!)