The OC has something to say about tomorrow too:
All I wanted was a little undivided Dad time with The Kid. Just an hour or two of sitting on the couch together, chilling out, and watching something harmless and mindless on the tube. For just — oh, two hours — I would have been really happy to not think about work, or the election, or terrorism, or the local political crapstorm currently swirling around my gun club, or anything else except sharing a few innocent laughs with my 9-year-old son. The broadcast showing of “Monsters Inc.” last night looked like just the ticket.I can hear you snickering already. Yeah. Right. Dream on.
His innocence survived the first few political commercial barrages, but about half an hour into the show, after one particularly nasty exchange of ads and counter-ads, The Kid finally turned to me with a question.
“Dad? What’s abortion?”
My wife, who has been after me for some weeks now to give him The Talk, immediately got out one of her medical dictionaries and started explaining fertilization and conception in explicit anatomical detail. This, as usual, just confused the little guy even further, so I interrupted and gave him a somewhat simpler answer.
“An abortion is when a woman who is pregnant decides that she doesn’t want to be a mommy, so they kill the baby and take it out of her.”
His eyes went wide. “That’s disgusting! There should be a law against that!” He considered it a few moments further, then climbed into my lap and sat there, shuddering, for the next half-hour, while his mother and I worked to convince him that we would never, ever, even think of doing something like that. But as he settled down, I got to thinking: a 9-year-old gets it.
I won’t be voting for George Bush tomorrow. I rather expect the OC will. I hope that some of the more rabid Republicans, Democrats, and yes, libertarians (all seven of us who haven’t caved to the GOP scare tactics) will note that it’s not only possible to have reasonable and civilized differences of opinion with others, it’s a lot more pleasant for everyone involved.
An inability to listen to someone disagree with you is a testimony to the weakness of YOUR position. Keep that in mind the next time you can feel the steam building between your ears.