Chick Magnet

My son's best friend is a chick magnet. He's six, but he's been a bonafide chick magnet since he was about four. The girls line up to sit next to him at story time and to chase him on the playground at recess. Some have even gone so far as to do his cutting and gluing for him, much to his mother's horror. He is swathed in girls every moment of the day and has been since they could wobble towards him.

And so it begins.

He is bathed in starlight, has been anointed with pixie dust and blown kisses by angels. His eyes-dimples-smile combo with extra cheese is impossible to resist, by even the most hard hearted crossing guards. He is a child of the Gods, although his parents would say he is the illegitimate child of Gods, neither of them claiming, as children, an iota of their son's irrevocable lustre.

"What the hell are we gonna do with a popular kid?" his mother once asked in all earnestness.
"I dunno," answered her equally flummoxed husband.

Apparently neither of them had darkened the doorstep of apex popularity in school. But had Brad Pitt? When he was little Brad Stinky Peach Pit, did the curtains part on the 2nd grade play to reveal a child of the heavens, so brimming with that certain je ne sais quois, that parents and teachers alike nudged each other in their seats, and whispered over their betamax camcorders, "That kid's gonna go far." I know from personal experience that I stayed strapped to my seat in the theater, after Thelma and Louise took the plunge, to wait through the credits so that I might catch a glimpse of That Cowboy's name.

"Wait, just wait a second longer," I pleaded with my cousin who was more than ready to go.
"I just want to see," and then I saw it, "There! Brad Pitt. Huh. Brad Pitt. OK, we can go now."

The next time I did that consciously was when I happened across the Democratic National Convention on TV a thousand years ago. "Wait just a minute longer," I pleaded with my right hand which was twitching on the remote.
"I just want to know," and then I heard it, Barak Obama. Huh. Barak Obama. OK, we can change channels now.

What do you do when your child always gets an extra loop on the pony ride? How do you explain to your son that it's not like this for all children. That not all little boys and girls get an extra scoop on his or her single serving ice cream cone then get to live out the rest of their childhoods like miniature rock stars. But such is the way the world has always worked since Darwin allowed the first caveman with two distinct eyebrows. The fancier the feathers, the more fawning one elicits, the more action one gets, the more doors that swing open. And if handled properly, like kryptonite or radium, the arrangement of those feathers, as he becomes an adult, may bring the world's oyster right to his feet.

I'll always wonder if the charisma of some of our most exquisitely chiseled celebrities, Paul Newman for example, was fully in play as a child. It would have to be to explain how someone might be so comfortable with their own skin, so supremely confident as a man, as to marry his wise crakin', right-back-atchya banterin' muse until death did he part. Or to run for student council president and then President president without looking back or pausing for a second thought. Sure, it may take cahones to run, but, let's face it, it takes charisma to win.

A teacher of mine once defined charisma as, "Not giving a damn." He kept saying over and over, "The truly successful, the ones with charisma, their secret is that they don't give a damn. Stop caring what anyone thinks, for chrissake!" This would explain, in a nutshell, my meteoric rise to stunning obscurity and Angelina Jolie's to Brad Pitt.

And the lucky ones with looks, brains and charisma? Well, let's just say that I'll be registering my son's pal's name as a web domain just to get a leg up on the competition. And I'll teach myself to say, "I knew him when," in seven different languages. Oh, calm down, I'm not out to profit from this genetic jackpot of a super nice and totally delightful child. I'll leave that to his parents-- (just kidding, they're friends of mine.) And I promise to sell his domain name, licensing rights and registered trade mark back to him when he turns eighteen or when his parents say he's old enough to take the reigns, which ever comes first. He can pay me two dollars. One for each dimple.

Haunted

One bright midday this summer, just before lunchtime, a phalanx of hungry neighborhood kids tromped into our house. There was me and my son, my sister and her three kids, my pal and her son, and a local neighborhood boy. To spare you the trouble, that's twelve for lunch, including my parents. My sister set about making grilled cheese sandwiches like a sergeant in a mess hall but with the finesse and panache of a four star chef. These grilled cheeses had hearty slabs of butter, or as we call it in our house, food of the gods, and ample cheese, browned to perfection. The adult version of said same included a soupcon of honeycup mustard, some mayo (also f.o.t.g.), and thinly sliced ham draped lovingly across the warm bed of cheese like a silk duvet on satin sheets. Ahhhh, yessssss, summertime.

As the sandwiches were placed on the kitchen table the troops were called in to lunch. They descended, swarm-like, on the kid's platter with knuckles knocking. Their allotment was signalled by the two perpendicular cuts quartering the sandwiches into the hors d'hoeuvre-like morsels so popular among the under four feet set. The more mature diagonal cuts halved the grown-ups' fare. The air above the stove top waltzed with the heavenly aroma of toasted bread, cheese and butter. There was a brief moment of calm as everyone savored. Yummmmmmy.

It was then that my mother noticed that the neighbor child wasn't eating, but standing quietly on the fringes of our noontime feast. I thought perhaps he was withholding because he did live down the street, after all. His kitchen was a mere stone's throw away-- if you had a good arm-- and perhaps he was considering zipping home for a quick bite then joining us after. And why not? He may have more refined tastes that we can't cater to. There's no reason we can't eat what our individual desires dictate and still be chums, right? But he didn't leave. He just stood there. My mother pointed to the platter of hallowed Americana and said, "Go ahead, dear, there's enough grilled cheese for everyone."

To which our ten year old guest replied, "Cheese haunts me."

I'll wait while you re-read that last sentence. And keep in mind, I'm not making this up. And he wasn't being funny. His face didn't change. There was no grin to come.

Huh, I thought. Really? Haunts you? Like in Poltergeist? Do you open the fridge and snatching your tender arm back from Satin's grip, announce eerily, "They're heee-re," at the sight of the individually vacuum packed mozzarella sticks in the cheese drawer?

Or is it a more aggressive haunting like in the Exorcist. Will you begin talking like a sinister Lou Rawls? Will we end up strapping you to your bedposts and pelting you with fist fulls of lactose pills? Will your head spin fully around on your delicate shoulders and then will you open your mouth and spew cheeze whiz all over the flocked wallpaper?

Actually, this is starting to sound good. I'm due for a little cheese haunting. It's been a while. The last time a kid in my neighborhood was haunted it was by capers and what's the fun in that? Bring it on, I say. Let 'er rip. Feed that local boy a grilled cheese sandwich and let the games begin.

But, no. My mom offered to make him a different sandwich, one tailor-made to his liking. I cracked, "He is ten, Mom, he could make his own sandwich." But that wasn't very nice of me. I guess I just didn't want my mom to put down her sandwich and go to all the trouble of making a custom ordered sandwich for Beelzebub's nephew when he might just as likely throw that one up as well. I mean, who knows what caprice of haunting he may find himself under next? I was perfectly willing to sponge off the wallpaper if need be. Just as soon as Mom and I finished lunch.

Bed Rest

Things I would do if quarantined and confined to my bed for a year :

Learn the ukulele.
Brush up on my French. (For what reason, I can't fathom.)
Learn Spanish.
Learn Chinese.
Learn Morse code.
Finish putting together eight years worth of photo albums.
Re-read all of the saved notes I passed, or was passed, from 6th until 11th grade.
Re-read all my old saved letters. (On actual paper, with envelopes and stamps.)
Read all the classics I'm too embarrassed to tell anyone that I never read.
Memorize all the correct words to The Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful, America (My Country Tis of Thee), This Land is Your Land and Yankee Doodle.
Memorize at least three verses of Silent Night, Deck the Halls and all of Frosty the Snowman.
Quilt something big.
Knit something wearable.
Make a crochet square blanket then give it away to someone I don't necessarily like, but who would certainly appreciate it.
Needlepoint a pillow commemorating the dates of and reason for my confinement with a pithy phrase quoted along the bottom.
Hook a rug.
Quill.
Recite the names of every guy I've ever gone out with starting in 3rd grade and classify into various colorful subsets.
Google every one I ever dated or had a crush on since high school.
Google all the geeks from high school. (I know, can you believe I haven't already done that? I'm saving it.)
Attempt to sing and catalogue every song I've ever known in my entire life, including all WPLJ radio sing-a-long faves, in chronological order.
Write a hit pop song.
Write a schmaltzy ballad.
Write my obituary.
Sleep. Alot.
Get depressed.
Think of all the clever and creative ways I might kill myself without getting out of bed.
Write upbeat letters to the editors of all my favorite magazines.
Write the great American novel.
Learn to play bridge.
Learn the rules of cricket.
Learn to identify the calls of all the birds indigenous to my back yard.
Take another nap.
Wake up feeling refreshed and a little less depressed.
Practice my ukulele.