President Me (31 page)

As I've often said, this is the biggest problem we have in our society—unwanted kids. If we solve this problem we solve all the other problems. So we have to start judging. As I said before, we judge smokers more harshly than we judge deadbeat dads in our current society. Seriously, how many antismoking PSAs have you seen this week vs. ones saying raise your kids, or don't have kids if you can't afford them? And what's hurting our society more? People need to see that asshole and call him an asshole so maybe other people thinking about being assholes wouldn't become assholes. We stopped judging people a long time ago because the idiots on the left told us everyone is the same and that we couldn't do that. We need to bring back judging. So let's start with this dick. Here's your grade. As far as life goes, you get an F. But then again, what would you expect from a guy named after a city in Florida.

Until you get the family unit back together, we have no hope and we'll never dig ourselves out of this hole. No matter how great the school is, how excellent the teachers are, how many computers, field trips, or other window dressing there is, until you have intact families that give a shit, we're doomed. If you have chalk, pencils, and a roof that doesn't leak, you've got a school. Back in the day people would do stuff by candlelight on the prairie and are a fuckload smarter than kids now despite all the iPads and online homework. Why? Because if they didn't read their assignment, their parents would take the ruler they were supposed to be using for that assignment and smack them with it. We don't need to keep throwing money at the problem, we need to throw parents at the problem.

That said, the focus is on the wrong parents. It's the previously mentioned deadbeat dads and absentee moms that you need to get involved. Me and Lynette are fine. Lynette is at the kids' goddamn school volunteering four days a week. And they schedule all these events at noon on Tuesday. How about the fact that I work? Every week there is some unimpressive event that I have to attend or my wife will think I'm a monster. It's a total mixed message. The only way to be a good dad is to show up at all these events, but the only way you can do it is to be an unemployed loser. How about Daddy goes out and works while Mommy attends the events the kids aren't going to fucking remember anyway? I'm sorry but I've got to go and earn money to feed everyone and put a roof over their head and get life insurance for when I die of hypertension from working every weekend to provide said food and roof. I'd like to invite all those “hero” teachers to come by my house on Saturday to sit on miniature chairs, drink punch, and eat shitty square pizza and see how many of them show up. Where are you, teachers? Don't you care about the children? That's why this shit is always in the afternoon. It has to happen when they're on the clock. These events can never happen at five on Friday because these so-called heroes punch out at three. Unless it's the summer, in which case they're not working at all.

This has caused major strain in my marriage. The wife was pissed when I didn't give a shit about my kid's graduation from kindergarten to first grade. When I was a kid it was sixth-grade graduation, then ninth, then high school graduation, then you were eighteen and your parents kicked you out. Sprinkled throughout were some baseball games and maybe a parent-teacher conference and that was it. Now there is a school event every 2.5 days.

I would love to see my kids' calendar of events for one month and compare it to the entire calendar of my childhood. There wasn't one event that caused my father to cross the threshold of North Hollywood High. Once a year there was an open house, but my parents had a Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. They didn't want the dirty looks from the teacher. They also didn't want to leave the house. That was a lose, lose, lose. So they just skipped it. They had the same approach to parenting as passing a motorcycle accident. They didn't get out of the car and kick the guy, but they didn't perform CPR either, they just turned up the stereo and kept driving.

Here are a couple examples of important events I had to attend and how horribly awry they went for me.

Natalia had a singing recital. So I hustled down to the school in between meetings and podcasts and other shit that pays for that school. I pulled up and could only find a spot in twenty-minute parking. I thought I'd dash in, make an appearance, slide out as soon as she saw me, and be back in the car before the twenty was expired.

I rushed to Natalia's class but there was no one there. Confused, I found someone who said the recital was in 3B. So I hustled over there. I had my hand on the doorknob when Sonny's teacher turned the corner, saw me, and said, “Are you looking for Natalia? She's in 3F.” So I headed toward my third attempt at seeing my daughter. Knowing I was late, I flung open the door to 3F. Ten teachers who were eating lunch whipped their heads around to awkwardly stare at me. If there had been a record playing it would have scratched. I apologized and slunk back into the hallway. I thought, “Fuck it, I'm in twenty-minute parking, I've spent the last eight trying to find this fucking room, I'm going to outtie to my Audi. I later found out Natalia
was
in 3B, the room I was attempting to enter when I was headed off at the pass by Sonny's teacher.

When I got home later I was greeted with a hearty stink eye from Lynette. She told me that Natalia was disappointed I didn't show up. I explained what happened and Lynette did something that drives me crazy. She did a second lap of “Well, Natalia is disappointed.” What should I have done different? When Sonny's teacher, someone who spends the majority of her time in that building, someone we know and trust, said that the event was in 3F, should I have said, “Fuck you, you lying cunt,” and then snapped her neck and kicked down the door?

This mandatory parent-attended event shit really goes into overdrive around Christmas (or whatever we're calling it now because we're too PC). I feel like I lived at that school starting a week before Halloween until Valentine's Day.

When Natalia had her Thanksgiving party I got stuck parking in the same twenty-minute-only spot. And since parking tickets are the only thing L.A. does well, I ran in, supported her for nineteen and a half minutes, and then beat it like I robbed a bank and had a wheelman waiting for me.

Then there was the first-grade Christmas pageant. I hung out for over an hour on that one because Natalia's class went last. I showed up at eight
A
.
M
. and waited for an hour outside the auditorium in the cold. When her class finally got up there, they performed “The Dreidel Song.” It's fucking Christmas. I want a song about chestnuts and figgy pudding, not Jew dice. (Another time I did the same mad dash to the school for a different Natalia talent show. It was supposed to start at 8:15. I walked in at 8:17 to find that Natalia's class went first and I had missed it.) When I thought they were done I turned to walk out and Lynette stopped me. I was informed that we had to go to Natalia's class and watch the kids eat muffins, otherwise I was a bad parent.

I hate the part where it's required. It's like going to the funeral of a coworker you didn't like. You have to show up so the other people don't think you're an asshole. I don't want Lynette pissed off and I don't want the teachers blaming every time the kids do something wrong on me, the absentee dad who didn't show up for their Arbor Day tree-planting pageant.

Plus every second of these events is being documented anyway. Everyone has the cell-phone camera out. So why do I have to be there? I'll catch it on YouTube.

Then there was the walkathon to promote physical fitness. This one took place at nine thirty
A
.
M
. on a Friday and consisted of watching six-year-olds just walking on grass in a big circle. It was a fund-raiser because at a certain point I asked Lynette, “What's the end game here?” She said, “They're trying to raise a hundred dollars for each kid.” I said, “Why can't we give them a hundred dollars and just get out of here?”

This event was not only a waste of my time but a waste of my kids' time too. At least the pageants and plays are fun for them. In the middle of this field where the kids were walking in a circle was a coach shouting, “No running. Safety first.” These aren't morbidly obese women in their seventies who just had a hip replacement. To a six-year-old, being told not to run is a punishment. It peaked when the guy shouted, “Thirty seconds left!” followed immediately by another blast of “No running.” You can't tell a first grader they have thirty seconds left in a contest to see who can cover the most ground and expect them to not start running

I was also annoyed that there were plenty of parents holding up signs encouraging their kids. This was a fund-raiser and they were actively telling them to slow down. Why the encouraging signs? I'm surprised one of the other parents didn't file a bullying complaint.

The worst school event was the time I went to Sonny's second-grade play about the Constitution. The whole thing happened in that monotone kids do when they're reciting things they don't give a shit about but have been forced to memorize. It's an awesome way to learn, holding something in your brain just long enough to regurgitate it in front of your parents and then never recall it again. I actually gave him a quiz on the way home and he didn't remember shit. All the parents were there and were forced to sit on those minichairs where your knees are so high you can practically blow yourself. As if that didn't suck enough, the teacher then called on us and said, “Okay, parents. Now it's your turn. We need to see what you know about the Constitution.” I was thinking, “I came here to see my kid make an ass of himself, not to do so myself.” I turned to Lynette because between the two of us we have half a GED. We were both wearing a fearful “oh shit” look because Sonny was onstage with a hopeful “don't embarrass me” look. There should be something in the Constitution about pop quizzes on the Constitution.

So the parent quiz began and hands were flying up left and right while Lynette and I sat there like stooges. Finally my opportunity came. I don't know anything about the Constitution, but I do know math. The teacher asked, “There were twelve states but they only needed two-thirds to ratify. How many states did they need?” My hand flew up and I said a confident “Eight.” The teacher replied in a snippy tone, “Nope, It's nine.” My son snapped a pencil and his eyes welled up while my wife was looking at me like, “What have you done?!” Meanwhile I was thrust through a humiliation vortex back to Colfax Elementary. A shame-filled eight-year-old Adam Carolla sitting in a miniature chair not learning to read. Back in 2013, a parent in front of me who—despite having a shitload of tattoos—was getting every question right, had my back, jumped in, and said, “No, it
is
eight.” The teacher laughed it off and said, “Moving on.” I was so confused at that point she could have told me my name was Alan and I would have bought it. So I did what I never do: decided not to be a dick. She had worked on this play, and was trying to teach my kid. I let it go. But then as we were leaving she said to me, “You, young man, need to work on your fractions.” I was about to grab a miniature chair and use it to divide her skull into two halves. Then she got singsongy, “Three plus three, plus . . . ​oh, you
were
right.”

Was there a lesson learned? Yes, and it wasn't about the Founding Fathers, or fractions, it was about functions and to never attend another one at that school again.

An infuriating epilogue to this tale: I told this story on the
Kevin and Bean
morning show as part of my recurring “This Week in Rage” segment. Well, a concerned parent—and by that I mean miserable cunt—decided that Sonny's teacher needed to hear the segment. She actually downloaded it and gave it to the teacher. By the way, I just assume this is a she, but far too many dudes are now getting into this “I just thought you should know” schadenfreude shit. What's your motivation? Are you really concerned about the teacher's well-being or the sensitivities of the second graders who weren't listening to the show? No, you just needed to cause trouble. Sonny's teacher would have been fine not hearing that segment. It was a fucking bit on a fucking morning radio show. It's not like I wrote a manifesto in blood threatening her life and nailed it to the schoolhouse door. I also complained about frozen yogurt that morning, are you going to head to Pinkberry headquarters and warn the CEO of the ranting madman who's out to get him? When did everyone become a humorless twat?

Well, congratulations, bitch, trouble you did indeed cause. Mission accomplished. A few days after the segment I received a handwritten note from Sonny's teacher. I could practically see the tearstains on the stationery. She said she prided herself on being an educator, and while she could never forget my hurtful words, she would not let it affect the way she taught my children, who, despite our conflict, were still the priority.

Of course Lynette ate this up with a fork and spoon and then wanted to stab me with that fork. She took me to task for ruining my kids' education because I can't keep my mouth shut. A halfhearted e-mail later, this all went away and we moved on with our lives, which only goes to prove that this was a molehill of nothing turned into a mountain of shit.

That being said, if anybody reading this book knows the miserable cunt who dropped a dime on me, please present her this page and say, “I just thought you should know.”

As a side note, I have to say that I hate when the Wyclef Jeans and Rob Reiners of the world talk about the arts and music education as if it's a cure-all. They always preach about how kids who play instruments and engage in the arts have higher test scores and are more likely to go on to college. Of course, but it's not like playing the flute makes you smarter. It's the parents who bought the damn flute. If you have the time to make your kid practice the bassoon, and can afford a bassoon, that's the reason your kid is going to be fine. You're a parent who has time, money, and cares.