Today my youngest spawn turned seven years old. He’s a good kid. Mighty ornery, though. He was not happy about the fact Mom had to work, so he didn’t get to open his presents yet. I made it up to him by taking him (and the girls) to McDonald’s, then to Wal-Mart to spend the gift card Grandma sent him. Cliched as it is … it seems just yesterday we still lived in Ponca City and he was being born. Where does the time go?

Our trip to McDonald’s was interrupted by a call from the older son, who is 17. He had his first automotive wreck today. Nothing serious. No one hurt, and only some scraped paint, but it’s something he’ll have to pay for. Guess where it happened and why. Yup, the post office, as he was mailing his state income tax forms.

I’ve made a couple of novel submission queries over the past couple of days. I haven’t done much of that for a while. I was just letting the files rot on the hard drive. I suppose I was feeling kind of dejected by the whole time-consuming process of submission and waiting and waiting and waiting and … Well, you get the idea.

As I mentioned the other day, almost 50 percent of our school is failing at least one class. Prom is this Saturday. Typically, if you’re on the ineligible list (for failing at least one class), you’re not allowed to attend prom. Because half the school is failing, the restriction has been removed this year. Is that good or bad? Hmm. This is where I’m still all Republican, baby. You can’t make the grades, you can’t grind your classmates at the prom. Of course, no one asked my opinion. At least I don’t have to deal with any girls coming to me crying because they spent hundreds of dollars on dresses and hair and crap but forgot to turn in their English homework. I have not yet become jaded enough to get past the crying girls. In most cases. There are a few I’d laugh at, but mostly I’d try to help them.

Yes, I will go to prom. I think the wife is going with me. No, I will not dance. I do not dance. And they do not play real music at proms these days, anyway. It’s like one long, monotonous synthesized beat with some grunting and spitting thrown over it. And I thought Flock of Seagulls was as bad as it could get 25 years ago …