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SALT LAKE CITY — My children are having a sleepover on the front lawn. It’s not a scout thing or a girls camp thing. It’s in case the ailing space station mentioned on the news this weekend happens to fall on, or in the vicinity of, our house.
I will be sleeping in my bed under a roof, such as it is, once removed from falling sky trash. It’s not that I am confidant of the gazillion-to-one odds -- same as the odds of understanding the lyrics at an Aerosmith concert. It’s that I am tired.
To make sure that my children don’t get hit by cascading asteroid garbage, they will be sleeping in a tent — at my suggestion. The compromise we came to is that they will be able to keep the flaps open so that, should any space junk land nearby, they will be able to make quick claim.
Finding space refuse and selling it, or charging admission to see it, has long been my boys' plan for earning money for college.
They will be sleeping on the front lawn all week long, and I can't say that I have done a darn thing to discourage it. After all, some of the most precious memories I have of my childhood are from snoozing on the trampoline with my siblings.
They will be sleeping on the front lawn all week long, and I can’t say that I have done a darn thing to discourage it. After all, some of the most precious memories I have of my childhood are from snoozing on the trampoline with my siblings in a glob of sleeping bags while watching for aliens to land in our corn and leave giant symbols to guide their space buddies to Pocatello.
Aliens love Pocatello. I think it’s their affinity for mobile houses.
Some of the neighbor kids are in on this grand adventure too, it seems — except for Mrs. Mayberry’s kids. She came over to make fun of me because I had to stay up all night out on the lawn with all the kids.
I don’t know where she got the idea that I was supervising the children personally, and I let her know I would be mattress camping in my bedroom with my air conditioner on “stun” as white noise to drown out the sound of giggling kids.
She was as mortified as the time she found out that I sometimes mixed uncomplimentary colors of Kool-Aid.
Slowly, she herded her children back to her perfectly manicured lawn, her eyes as large as flying space saucers. She did this gracefully, never losing her smile or breaking eye contact.
I could hear her children whine, “But we want to sleep on the weird guys lawn!” but she just kept backing up like a Miss South Eastern-y Pageant video on rewind.
Her message was loud and clear — that a "good dad" would sleep out on the lawn and manage his children.
#outside_poll
I think I am a good dad. I just feel that if they are old enough to get squished by Sputnik refuse, they are old enough to ward off feral cats and curfew-defying teens in the middle of the night and let me sleep.
If I had something to prove, I suppose I would have us all spend the week in the root cellar/atomic bomb bunker buried in the backyard that was left to us by whoever owned our house in the seventies. When we inherited the home, the cellar was stocked with two pool chairs, a month’s worth of National Geographics, and what my wife thought was spilled root beer extract that ended up being old potatoes.
In a safe environment — with a solid concrete roof over our heads — I would demonstrate what a good dad I was. I would do this by asking the kids who they were texting, correcting their grammar, and freaking at their choice of music to listen to until the whole space-garbage thing passed us by.
No, I will sleep the sleep of a mediocre dad, right next to my wife who may don a motorcycle helmet and knee pads — just in case. I am not dissuaded by what Miss Flying Saucer Eyes next door thinks of my skills as a parent.
If my kids want to sleep on the lawn in November, on the roof, or in the underground bomb shelter drinking potatoes on pool chairs, I will be as pleased as pinkish-green punch to let them.
I will be in my room with the A.C. roaring, in a parka, reading a few National Geographics.
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Main image: Will space junk pay my sons' way through college? (Photo: inthiseconomy.com)
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*Davison Cheney writes "The Prodigal Dad" series every week on ksl.com. See his other musings at davisoncheneymegadad.blogspot.com.**
