Kelly Poe Wilson

So far, the worst day of my summer has been the day the Eagle died, and by that I mean the day Sam in the Morning went off the air. Sam and the Eagle were great for two reasons: one was that the station played good music (it wasn’t college radio station awesome, but it was definitely soft rock free—it never once gave me a “peaceful, easy feeling”), and the other was that, with the exception of the “Flagstaff Insurance” jingle, nothing on it ever really annoyed me.

Sadly, however, that is something I can no longer say about the Flagstaff radio scene.

In fact, now I am annoyed almost hourly. Part of this is because the station that once was the Eagle has switched to an all talk (or rather, “all vent”) format. This means that when I want to hear music (which is almost every time I am in the car—I like “Car Talk” and “Fresh Air” as much as the next person, but when I’m driving I prefer something with a beat) I have to flip around from station to station to find something to listen to. And because I am not listening to just one station, but rather five or six, that means that I have to listen to the same annoying Pink song over and over again. I’m not sure if they all have it in constant rotation, or if I am just really unlucky, but I would estimate that in the last two weeks I have heard “Glitter in the Air” about five thousand times. Which, in my opinion, is about four thousand nine-hundred ninety-nine and a half times too many.

Hey, I like Pink. I like her look, her voice, the fact that she drinks red wine while riding her skateboard—I even like her professional dirt biker husband. I wasn’t rooting for her to fall off of her swing at the MTV movie awards, and I didn’t laugh (much) when her giant sling shot smacked her into the ground in Germany this summer. But, my god, that new song of hers.

First of all, the music is crap: it sounds like it should be on a “Love Metal” compilation along with the Scorpions’ “All My Love” and Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorns.” But, amazingly, even worse than the music itself, are the lyrics.

Have you ever tossed a fist full of glitter in the air? Are you crazy?

No, I have never tossed a fist full of glitter in the air, but I’ve lived with people who have, and let me tell you, it’s not pretty. It gets everywhere: inside the couch, on the walls, deep in the carpet, on the dog, the cat, the fish—everywhere. And then it comes back out, a little at a time, so that months after the glitter tossing incident has passed it will make an appearance on your clothes at the most inopportune of times, like a job interview, or at a DUI checkpoint. (Yeah, try explaining that you weren’t coming from a party when you have a hair full of glitter.) In fact, glitter is so insidious that I know of teachers who would like to install glitter detectors in the entrance of every school.

Have you ever thrown a fist full of glitter in the air? Have you ever been attacked by a roomful of angry mothers?

I can’t believe that stations can ban a song like Ice-T’s “Cop Killer” on the grounds that it encourages violence, but are completely willing to play a song like “Glitter in the Air” every five minutes—and during summer break, no less.

It’s incredible. It’s unconscionable. It’s immoral.

And I am sure that if Sam in the Morning were still on the air, it would most certainly not be happening.

First off, let me just say that I understand the whole purpose of slang. I get that it exists not just to annoy me, but also to confuse me, because it is there not only to allow members of a group to feel included, but also so that people outside of the group—like me—feel excluded. It is a linguistic gateway, and whether or not you are able to pass through it often depends on whether or not you are hip, or hopelessly out of date. (Again, like me. Fo’ shizzle.)

So yeah, I get it. And I get that I am not supposed to understand what the words my children are using actually mean. But still, as a moderately intelligent, and at one time even slightly cool person, what I don’t get is why I am unable to figure out at least some of it. Or rather, I don’t get that while I am able to understand the words, the meaning eludes me. At least, I think it eludes me; again, even on this point I am unsure—that’s how out of the loop I am.

Let me give you an example: let’s say I ask one of my kids to stop stepping on my throw pillows with their muddy shoes. The answer I’ll get is “All right! (awl-RITE), which, judging from body language and tone, means “shut up.” Okay, that’s easy enough.

But then, let’s say I ask them not only to not step on my pillows, but also to pick them up from off of the floor. The response I’ll then get is “In a minute!” (inna-MEN-ut), which, again judging from posture and tone, is apparently slang for “shut up” as well.

To continue, let’s say I then go into the living room and point out that the pillows, which have now been trampled mercilessly for the preceding hour, are all ripped and losing their stuffing. The response then will be “It was an accident!” (et-wuz-an-AK-si-dent), which, bizarrely, also seems to be slang for “shut up.”

There are other examples as well. “I’m coming!” (ahm-KUM-ing), “Just a second!” (jest-a-SEK-ent), and “Okay!” (oh-KAY) also all seem to mean the exact same thing—you guessed it—“shut up.” (In an even odder twist—and contrary to all laws of slang—“shut up” also seems to mean “shut up,” although, being the one-way ticket to exile that it is, this phrase tends to be used much less frequently.)

Frankly, I’m not sure what this all means. On the one hand, it could signal, if not the death of slang, then at least the death of all slang dictionaries. (In the future, linguists will be able to keep track of all new words and phrases with a single three by five notebook card, upon the front of which is written “What is the meaning of ___,” and on the back, simply “shut up.”) On the other hand, though, it could mean that our language is entering a new and exciting phase, one where, like the Inuit who supposedly have over two-hundred words for “snow,” we start to develop lots and lots of new ways to say, “Stop talking to me now.”

Maybe that’s the secret to this new slang: all of the various and assorted “shut ups” are just like different types of snow, with “All right!” being the hard little stinging balls that hit you in the face, while “Fine!” is the big soft flakes that stick to your eyelashes.

No, scratch that: I’ve heard “Fine!” and it, too, is the hard stinging balls in your face. Come to think of it, I can’t imagine any way to be told to shut up that isn’t. But then again, like I said before, I don’t really understand this new slang at all.

When I first landed in Europe last month with my family, I had lots of goals. I wanted to drink wine in France, beer in England, and whisky in Scotland. (I had a few cultural goals as well, like having a glass of champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower, hoisting a pint at the Globe, and enjoying a “wee dram” in the shadows of Edinburgh Castle. That sort of thing.) By the time I left, however, I only had one goal: to somehow make it back home in one piece. As it turned out, this was the hardest goal of all to achieve. Or, at least it was for me.

As soon as we arrived in London, I had lectured both Clyde and Clementine about the importance of realizing that, in the U.K., cars drive on the “wrong” side of the road, and how it was therefore vitally important for them to look both ways every time they stepped into a street. I think my exact words were, “In the U.K., you never know where the next car is coming from.”

And then I stepped in front of a bus that was being driven on the sidewalk.

Luckily for me the deafening horn inches from my face propelled me out of harm’s way (literally—I don’t think I actually moved; I think the horn itself knocked me back a few paces), but still, it was a valuable lesson for all of us. ( As it turned out, this was a section of “road” that, in the interest of traffic flow, allowed cars—and trucks and buses—to “sneak” across a small section of sidewalk. With no warning. In a Latin American country such a dangerous piece of sidewalk would probably be marked by the collection of crosses and floral offerings left for the souls of the departed pedestrians. In London, where it rains almost every day, there was not even a trail of blood.)

Still, even though I could plausibly blame that close encounter on the bus driver’s lack of sidewalk etiquette (according to Emily Post, it is bad form to speed up on the sidewalk), my other near death experiences were not so easily explained away. Let’s see: after the bus in the center of London there was the black taxi cab outside of Wembley Stadium, the tractor in Glastonbury, an antique Citroen in the heart of Paris, and a Land Rover being driven by a man in a kilt in Edinburgh. It got so bad that the only time I felt completely safe was when I was either in my bed or on the toilet, and even then I had a sneaking suspicion that my sangfroid was slightly misplaced.

The truth was that even after a month overseas I had no idea how to cross a street safely: I could neither figure out which direction cars would be coming from, or where they were allowed to drive, so that, in the end, I was reduced to waiting on street corners and hoping that someone would come along and cross first so that I could follow. (Although even that was no guarantee—unless I literally inserted myself into their back pocket I was still a goner: that one step behind them was sometimes all it took for me to be left out in traffic like the proverbial deer in the headlights.)

In fact, it got to the point that eventually the only way I really felt safe crossing the street was when I was with my son, Clyde; even though he’s only nine he somehow seemed to have the traffic situation figured out about five minutes after we got there. Some people might think that’s because his top three goals didn’t involve drinking, but I know the truth.

It was simply a case of beginner’s (sober) luck.

Whenever I travel, one of my prime concerns is how to locate a “good” toilet. This hasn’t always been as easy as you might think, because the “American Standard” toilet is just that: the American standard. In many other parts of the world the porcelain throne is still a yet to be achieved ideal. (To give you an idea of how much of an ideal, picture this: we once went to a bar in Chang Mai, Thailand where, in the spot most people reserve for pictures of Jesus, or the Buddha, or Elvis, there was instead a life-size photo of an American Standard toilet, complete with votive candles and floral offerings.)

It’s not that I’m terribly squeamish about such things (when you gotta go, you gotta go)—it’s just that when you’re already dealing with a different culture and their different bathroom habits, adding a language barrier into the mix can cause things to quickly get awkward. Forget peeing in the bidet: there have been times when the room to which I was directed to was so dark and fetid, the hole in the ground so small, and the assortment of random objects thrown into the corner so eclectic that I was seventy percent sure I was probably peeing (or worse) in the mop closet. But what could I have done? Like I said: when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Still, despite all of my different encounters with toilets in various parts of the world, I never thought that the place I would have the strangest, and the most awkward bathroom experience ever, would be in Paris, France.

I should have known what I was in for when Clementine, who had gone in ahead of me, came out with a horrified look on on her face and said, “These people are so weird,” but by that point I was so used to hearing that from her on a regular basis that I didn’t give it much thought. After all: this was France. How weird could it really be?

As it turns out: REALLY weird.

Because, the thing is, this wasn’t just a bathroom—it was a bathroom store. Everything, including the model you eventually got to use, had a price tag on it. And when I say eventually, I mean eventually, because before you even got close to their number one (and two) seller, you first had to pass racks and racks of “specialty” toilet paper: Sudoku TP, crossword TP, flowered TP, and TP in every color of the rainbow, including black. (If you’re old, like me, you probably remember when this was the fad in the US as well—colored toilet paper to match your colored toilet, sink, and tub. Well, apparently, like roller-blading and Jerry Lewis, in France it never went out of style.)

And yet, even though all that fancy toilet paper provided dozens of chances for “customers” to stop and shop, that wasn’t what was causing the hold up. No, the real slow down—the “blockage,” as it were—was the guy in charge: you couldn’t just grab a stall when it came open; you had to wait for the “Maitre d’” of toilets to personally personally escort you to your “seat.” And of course, like any good French maitre d’, he liked to make you wait.

By the time I was finally out of there I was of the same opinion as Clementine: these people were really weird. It was only later, upon reflection, that I considered whether or not I had been the victim of some sort of a hoax. After all, we were right next to the Louvre—maybe the whole thing was just some kind of performance art.

All I know is that if that visit ever shows up on youtube I want my euro back.

This is an open letter to the Happy Family attending the Glastonbury Music Festival the other week—the one whose glacial speed nearly made me miss getting to the front in time to see Kate Nash throw up; hopefully, you will read it before we attend any more festivals together. I’m sure you know who you are: the family of five who were moving at a snail’s pace in a crowd of approximately fifteen thousand people, all the while holding hands in a long, drawn out snake; the family that was acting like you were playing “Red Rover” with the crowd; the family that got offended whenever someone tried to cut through your daisy chain of happy family-ness.

Yeah, you. So tell me: what’s up with that? Were you under the impression that you were the Von Trapp family and the Nazis were just behind you? Did you believe that the only way to make it over the Alps/through the crowds without leaving someone behind was to cling to each other for all you were worth? Or maybe it wasn’t anything so interesting as all that: maybe one of you dropped a contact lens, and the rest of you decided to do one last sweep for it—together, of course, because that’s what Happy Families do.

Anyway, my point is this: we get that you are a Happy Family. We get that you are all together (how could we not, with your matching t-shirts and equally matching sunburns?). But do you think that maybe, just maybe, you could save your show of familial solidarity until after the big crowd?

Don’t get me wrong: I like happy families. Really. Occasionally, I’m even a member of one of them myself. So, yeah: I understand. After all, I have kids, too—kids who, for the most part, I don’t want to lose in a crowd either (well, not the boy). But, even so, I have somehow managed to bring my children to the far reaches of the world—and back—without once having to resort to forming a human scythe to do it.

I know, Happy Family, that you may be reading this and saying Well, so what? What difference does it make to you how we choose to keep our family together in a crowd? Here’s the thing: when you do things like play “crack the whip” with an unwilling crowd, or ram into people’s ankles with your Ford Explorer of a stroller, or, worst of all, deposit your “bum bombs” in any place other than a trash can, it does make a difference to me, because you are making things harder for the rest of us who are trying to take our families to non-standard family events. Trust me: when we show up at something like a music festival we already get the eye rolls and the “well, there goes my good time” looks—we don’t need your help. We don’t need for you to have made a pass through the crowd before us, sweeping away all good will in your wake. We can establish enmity all on our own.

And, the thing is, like I mentioned before, I understand why you do the things you do. I understand how tiresome it can be to have to endure the nasty looks every time you walk into a restaurant that isn’t decorated in primary colors, and I understand how that frustration can lead to the belief that in return for raising the next generation of nurses, and soldiers, and video game designers, you deserve to take a few liberties with other peoples’ ankles and time.

And, you know, you may have a point. But, next time, it’d be nice if you could make your point someplace where getting to the next stage doesn’t matter quite so much. Or at least someplace where Kate Nash is going to be sober.

We always talk about how we want our children to surpass us: if we have a high school diploma, then we want them to go to college. If we have a college degree, then we want them to get their doctorate. And if we get our doctorate—well, then we probably want them to quit wasting their time in academia and learn something really useful, like plumbing. But the point is, we always want them to do us one better, no matter how well (or poorly) we may have done in the first place.

At least, that’s the theory.

The truth is, we only want them to do better than us after we’ve already stopped trying: sure, we want them to beat our highest score, but not not while we’re still playing the game. Think about it: would Michael Jordan appreciate being dunked on by his own son while he was still playing for the Bulls? Would J.S Bach be happy to have J.C. Bach sell more CDs than him while he was still composing? By the same token, would I be happy to have Clementine outlast me in a mosh pit while I was still within moshing age? The answer to all of these questions, is, of course, a resounding no.

And yet, that’s exactly what happened. Just a few weeks ago, Clementine was able to hang all night in the mosh pit at a Green Day show in London, while I . . . well . . .I had to be carried out. What? You couldn’t read that? Well, I don’t know, the cost of ink and all, and there is a recession, and, um, well . . . Okay. Fine. I had to be carried out. I HAD TO BE CARRIED OUT. There, are you happy? It’s true: when the mosh pit went crazy, I bailed. And since I was too close to the front to move back, that meant I had to beg for help from the burly stewards in front of the stage, who dragged me over the railing and out of harm’s way. To add insult to injury, as I went I swore I could hear someone shout, “There’s somebody’s mum!” And the sad part is, they were right.

And so I went and stood in the back, with the other mums and dads, where there was room to move, and breathe, and drink, and dance, and waited for Clementine to come find me. When she did, nearly three hours later, she was completely squashed, and sweaty, and happy.

“That was the BEST SHOW EVER,” she gushed. “Billie Joe LOOKED at me. Where were you?”

“Here,” I mumbled. “In the back. With the mums.”

“Oh,” she said. “Why?”

And what could I say? That when the bodies started to pile on me all I could think of was Altamont, and then the 1979 Who concert in Cincinnati, and then every concert everywhere where something had gone wrong? That I could imagine all too easily a booted foot coming down and breaking my ankle, and what a financial nightmare being injured in a foreign country would be? That neither I nor my bra had the oomph to pogo up and down for the next three hours? Or, worst of all, that mentally I had left the mosh pit a few years back?

In the end, I didn’t say any of that. I muttered something about “the douchebag behind me” (which there was—I have the bruises to prove it), and she let it go at that. But really, the reason Clementine danced all night underneath Billie Joe’s nose, and I sat back with the mums, is because, much as I hate to admit it, when it comes to moshing at least, this Queen is dead.

Long live the new Queen.

So there I was, sitting at Sky Harbor Airport, and, miracle of miracles, both of my children were still alive.

Of course, this probably had more to do with the fact that the food vouchers issued by British Airways were also good for alcohol than due to any acts of grace on the part of my children, but still.

We were there.

Our bags were there.

And I still had two (living) children.

That this could ever have come to pass had been under considerable doubt as little as two days earlier, when we had first taken our suitcases on a trial run down to the Pay ‘n’ Take. (The point of this trip being to determine whether or not we could manage our luggage, not whether or not we could manage a pint.) As it turned out though, we could manage both—although some of us also “managed” to annoy the hell out of the rest of us during the half mile trek.

Why? I dunno: maybe it had something to do with the fact that the people who weren’t carrying fifty pounds of luggage kept telling the people who were to hurry up. Or maybe it was how those same annoying little people insisted on getting in the way of the aforementioned Sherpas, dancing in front of us in mockery while chanting “So slow, so slow, you are so slow.”

If we hadn’t been so loaded down we would have chased after them; unfortunately, that would probably just have led to a “Homer chases Bart” type spectacle, which would not have helped alleviate the undignified feelings we were experiencing at all. And so we let them go: our (supposedly) thrifty packers.

Don’t get me wrong: in any other circumstances I would have been proud that my children had turned out to be such light packers; so unburdened with the need for heavy frivolities like make-up and game boys that they could dance around mockingly in front of us. However, the reality of the situation demanded that I feel otherwise.

The truth is my children are not some kind of “packing idiot savants;” they are just idiots.

Consider the following: despite the fact that we were traveling to a music festival that is legendary for its mud—this festival is one of the only places where non-combat doctors can study real, live, trenchfoot—if given the choice, my children would have left their rubber boots (wellies) at home. And despite the fact that after this festival we were traveling to a city—Paris—that is equally legendary for how the locals look down on the slovenly dressed tourists, they also would have traveled with only a collection of t-shirts, cargo shorts, and flip-flops.

And then there’s the little matter of hygiene. Toothbrushes? Who needs ’em? Spare socks and underwear? It’s only a month, right?

I will admit, though, that traveling with my kids now is much easier than it was when they were infants, when even a trip to the park meant packing a bag for every contingency, from mild fevers to a suitcase bomb. (Really. Ever since 9/11 my first aid kit has included radiation sickness pills). But despite the fact that I’ve slowly insisted they become more and more responsible for their own comfort, there’s a part of me that will never stop worrying that they are, actually, comfortable, the same way my sixty-five year old mother still asks me if I’m warm enough when we go out.

And so, I pack; they pack; and then I pack some more. And somehow we always manage to have almost everything. But still: I could do without the dancing.

(Update: as it happens, this has been the sunniest week in England in a decade. Sigh. Once again, Kids:1, Mom:0).

The other day, I read that they are planning on having some kind of “Guitar Hero” competition at Heritage Square. To be honest, I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. I mean, on the one hand it’s kind of nice to think about all of those pale gamers getting outside for a change—the infusion of a little vitamin D-laden sunlight might be just what they need to stave off a bad case of rickets. And then there’s the fact that an introduction to the outside world might be what it finally takes to let them know that the whole “bald + pony tail” thing is over.

But there are downsides as well. For one thing, getting them all together like that might encourage cross-pollination of the worst sort—the sort that leads to the patter of tiny little fingers across controllers—thereby extending the problem of gamers into yet another generation. And then of course, there’s the delusion factor. At some point, somebody will probably have to explain to them the painful truth: Dude—you’re not playing a guitar.

Not at all. Not even a little bit. Sure, you’re keeping time with the music, but then again, so is the guy who’s tapping his foot, and no one has ever suggested there be a “Foot Tapping Hero” (or even its counterpart: “Finger Drumming Saviour.”) So yeah, basically, “Guitar Hero” has nothing whatsoever to do with playing a guitar. And why? Because learning to play a guitar is hard.

At least it’s a lot harder than learning to play a video game. (Yeah, I know: “But what about all of the hand/eye coordination it takes to play video games?” Let’s be honest: that’s not hand/eye coordination—that’s thumb/eye. And really, unless you plan on someday getting a job as a professional channel surfer, excellent thumb/eye coordination is not the most useful skill to have.) But, as usual, I digress. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s a lot harder to learn to play a guitar than it is to learn to play a “guitar-like” video game—and there’s a pissy little part of me (okay, a pissy large part of me) that insists on people recognizing that.

This is because both of my kids play musical instruments. Clyde plays violin, and Clementine, who has to take the most difficult, circuitous route to get anywhere, plays violin, viola, and double bass (that’s right: she plays instruments in three different clefs). This was by no means an easy feat: on Clementine’s part there were temper tantrums, death threats (both to me and to the violin), and extended bouts of sobbing and screaming, “I hate the violin.” On Clyde’s part there was a small little protest of “I don’t remember signing up for violin,” but for Clyde, any protest at all says a lot.

We kept on through all of the tantrums, though, because I believe that playing a musical instrument can teach you one of life’s most important lessons: how to deal with sucking. When you are first learning to play a real musical instrument, you suck at it for a long time. A really long time. And if you ever hope to to move past that stage, and become a real musician, then you have to learn to deal with that sucking and just move on.

Got that? Suck; work; get better; move on. When you think about it, those are some of the most useful skills you could ever have in this life.

Which is why I think it would be be nice if, instead of having a Guitar Hero competition—with fake guitars—there was one instead that featured real guitars, and real guitarists.

And if you need to justify it, remember this: there’s a lot of guitarists who could benefit from a dose of Vitamin D, too.

Recently overheard: “When I have children, I’m going to implant one of those microchips in them, like they put in dogs, so that I’ll be able to tell where they are at all times.” Since, technically, I wasn’t in the above conversation—I was eavesdropping—I couldn’t point out to the person speaking that those microchips are really only good for identifying your pet, not tracking it like a migrating caribou. Of course, even if I could’ve, I probably still wouldn’t have said anything; deep down I’m afraid that that particular technology might not be too far away. Think about it: they already have an app to turn on your phone’s GPS and find out where your phone has been; I know this because when we got Clementine her cellphone (yes, we finally caved), the man at the phone store was halfway through the process of enabling her phone with this particular feature (all for the low, low price of $4.95 a month) when we stopped him.

“But why?” he asked. “With this feature you’ll always be able to tell where she is.”

Thanks—but no thanks. There are lots of reasons I feel this way. The first one is this: isn’t the whole point of giving your child a cell phone (besides, of course, to put an end to the nagging) so that she can call you and tell you where she is? I mean, I know modern cellphones come with all sorts of bells and whistles these days: they take photos, shoot video, store music, even surf the web, but don’t they also still function as a telephone? (I had the same argument about paying five bucks a month for roadside assistance. “But what if you need a tire changed in the middle of the night?” Well, if for some reason I couldn’t change the tire myself—say, for instance, I didn’t want to get my princess clothes dirty—I would then simply call someone. On the phone.)

My second problem with this service is that it doesn’t really promise to tell me where my child is at all: it only promises to tell me where my child’s phone is, and these are often two very different things. (After nagging us for a cell phone for a solid year, Clementine now typically leaves it sitting on the kitchen counter. Right next to our home phone. Who knows—maybe she thinks the old phone is lonely.)

My third problem with the whole idea of tracking my daughter is that I really don’t think that I want to know where she’s been. I might think I do, but I don’t. I know this to be true because I was thirteen once myself, and I am completely, absolutely, 100% sure that my mom was much, much happier not knowing where I was most of the time. In fact, not knowing has probably added at least ten years to her life.

My fourth problem with tracking my children is that I think it gives a false sense of security to both parties. It’s like putting those little arm floaties on a kid who can’t swim: the parents think it’s okay to run inside the house for a minute, and the child thinks its okay to go out “just a little bit further, and further, and further.” When it comes to kids, there’s never an answer quite as good as vigilance. And sometimes, there’s no answer at all.

The truth is, when it comes to kids there’s only one kind of chip that can ever put your mind at ease, and that’s the “common sense” chip. Unfortunately, these chips are very tricky to install: they can’t just be inserted under the the skin, but instead have to be planted as seeds and allowed to flourish on their own.

And I just don’t think there’s an app for that.

We were watching the last quarter of what would turn out to be the last game of the 2009-2010 Phoenix Suns season (although we didn’t know that yet). The Suns were putting up a good fight, but it just wasn’t their night. Still, they kept on trying, and with thirty-four seconds left to play Phoenix starter Grant Hill made a valiant effort to stop the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant from scoring. He failed, but as he ran by the Phoenix bench Coach Gentry commended him anyway, saying “Good defense.” That was when Kobe, overhearing the remark, shouted out a comment of his own.

“Not quite good enough.”

And then it was all over, and the Suns were out of the playoffs. And yet, as I watched Steve Nash turn and applaud the crowd before he left the court—commending them for their effort—the loss didn’t seem quite so traumatic. Because I knew that, no matter how the game, or the season, ended, there was still one thing I would always have going for me: at least I didn’t have to worry about my kids growing up to become Lakers fans.

Look, I know that Kobe Bryant is a great basketball player. I, too, am in awe of some of the shots he makes, the seemingly effortless three-pointers from eight feet behind the line. And I know that he’s worked hard to get where he is. But while he may currently be the greatest player in the NBA, no one is talking about nominating him for greatest teammate, because, as far as teammates go, he’s pretty damn lame. And why would I want my kids looking up to that?

Charles Barkley (another Sun) once famously said, “I am not a role model,” and although I think what he really meant to say was, “I don’t want to be a role model,” the truth is he was. (And maybe even still is: after all, at least he told the truth about why he was in such a hurry to get home when he was pulled over for that DUI a few years back.) Like it or not, the fact is that no matter what Charles or anybody else says, kids are always going to look up to sports stars.

And I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing. After all, something in our psyche must clearly be drawn to the idea that sports—especially team sports—parallel life, because the urge to use sports metaphors to describe real life problems is a universal phenomenon. And this isn’t only true in America, where we grow up on metaphors like “don’t be a Monday morning quarterback,” “down for the count” and “full court press.” In other countries (and sports) people talk about giving an extra effort in terms of “having a captain’s innings” or making a stupid mistake in terms of committing an “own goal.”

In my house, we use team sport metaphors as well. In fact, whenever I ask my kids to make any sort of a sacrifice (whether it’s going to the movie their brother picked out or sitting through one of their sister’s orchestra concerts), I tell them they need to “take one for the team.” And they do. Because we are a team.

Realistically, my son Clyde has about an .0001% chance of ever playing in the NBA. However, he has an almost 100% chance of someday being a part of some kind of a team. Maybe even a great one. Maybe even one of those rare teams where the players are so unselfish that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. A team like this year’s Phoenix Suns.

Why is why, even though Phoenix lost the Western Conference Final to the Lakers, they’ll always be role models in our house.

In other words: Go Suns.