Four Kids Who Live in Your Town

This is the story of four kids who probably live in your town. I know, because they lived in mine. Their names are Al, Darren, Jake, and Emily.

Years ago, a family moved in next door. They looked a little rough, talked a little rough, and smoked a little much. We had no idea how rough they were. They had two little boys, Al and Darren. The kids were cute, and. . . kids. They were just two little kids. At first, they kept  to themselves, but that didn't last long. The yelling and fighting and a drinking soon spilled onto the streets and the sidewalks. Dad had a problem. With alcohol? Yup. With drugs? Probably. With mental health? Definitely. With Violence?

And in it all were those two little boys.

We tried to be good neighbors, but how do you do the white suburbia neighbor thing with a drunken redneck wrestling six cops on the sidewalk? You want to know? You get real honest. While other neighbors ignored Dad, threatened Dad, called the cops about everything Dad did, I looked him straight in the eye and told him the truth. We know what goes on in that house, and every time we hearing the yelling, the screaming, the smashing of objects (of people?) we will call the police. Because of two little boys. You know what? Dad kind of respected that.

Those boys got older. They made friends. Another boy, Jake, started hanging around the house and before long a girl, Emily, too. I only got to know one of them well, Al. The others were too young or busy or whatever, but Al would tell me things. The things he told me. Imagine laying on top of your drunken father, pinning him to the ground, because you thought he was going to kill your mother. You aren't a man, you're a kid, and you are doing this. Al tried to get out of it, but he had no idea how. Maybe he wanted normal, but he'd never seen it. He tried the military. We went running together to get him in shape, but he barely cleared boot camp. He couldn't get out because he didn't know where, or what, out was.

I'm not sure when that ignorant bastard Heroin showed up, but he did.

One night, we were sitting in our kitchen and heard it start next door. It was bad. We were in our house with the windows closed. They were in their house with the windows closed. And we heard her screaming. That's when it all broke. Dad in jail. Mom in the hospital. They all just disappeared.

After that I didn't see them for months, but then Al would pop up now and then. He bumped around in different cities fathering different children. One day, he showed up at my house looking for a place to live. His brain was fried. We didn't want him in the house, so we put him in the backyard and gave him some pizza while I made some calls. He said he forgot something at a friend's house and left.

The next time I saw him was at Darren's funeral. Al's little brother overdosed on Heroin. I went to the memorial service and gave my condolences.

The next time I saw him was at Jake's baptism. While in prison, Jake met a pastor, and Jesus. Upon his release, he wanted to be baptized. I spoke with Al. He read in the Bible about a baptism by the Holy Spirit that can heal. He was praying for one for himself. He knew that only a miracle could save him from his addiction.

Last month, Al died. Almost exactly a year after his brother. Emily is currently fighting for her life in a coma. This week, Jake was arrested with thousands of dollars in cash and several hundred bags of heroin.

Who are these kids? Are they despicable scum bags who you'd avoid on the street? Yes. Have they made terrible choices and bought into foolish lies? Yes. Are they just kids who needed a Mom and Dad and got a nightmare instead? Yes. Are they people who desperately need your prayers and, God forbid, you kindness as well? Yes.

The most haunting thing about these four is that they are literally our neighbors. Yet, I couldn't do a damned thing to save them. What's worse? I don't think I tried very hard either.

How Siri Made Me a Better Dad

Several months back, I was facing a small emergency at my part-time job. At the moment I learned of the issue I was driving and didn’t have any free hands. “Aha!,” I thought, “This is the perfect time for Siri.” For those of you who don’t know, Apple’s Siri is a voice-activated feature on iDevices which acts as something of a personal assistant. You can ask Siri to place phone calls, send messages, even tell you the date of the last Space Shuttle launch (that one comes in handy if you have a Kindergartener). Apple is known for technological advances and ease of usability, right? Imagine my surprise when Siri proved to be completely useless. It could not identify any of the people I was asking it to call, and the entire situation ended with me yelling at my phone and Siri promising, “I’m trying to be helpful.” Seriously, my phone said that to me. The entire situation reaffirmed my suspicion that most claims regarding the ability of technology to actually improve our lives are mere marketing hype. However, there is one very specific situation where technology has improved my life. It’s made me a better father, and it is all thanks to Apple’s Siri.

The Problem

                I’m a Stay-at-Home Dad raising three young boys. Discipline is a big deal in our house. Not that I’m some sort of brutish dictator, but with these three little ones you’ve got to be on top of things. I like to use a variety of disciplinary tools, but by far my favorite is the time out. Our household policy is simple, when you commit an infraction you sit on time out for one minute for every year you’ve been alive. So, our three year-old sits for three minutes, our six year-old for six, etc (I have yet to find a way to earn myself a 36 minute time out, but one can dream). This might seem like a simple policy to execute, but it is harder than it initially appears. I used to use the timer on our microwave to measure these time out minutes, but that only works when you are close to the microwave. It doesn’t work upstairs, in the backyard, or at the park. Additionally, when you are dealing with one child who is screaming because he was hit over the head with a plastic helicopter, one who is screaming because he did the hitting with the plastic helicopter, and a third who is screaming because – well, because everyone else is screaming – that walk across the room to the microwave suddenly becomes a whole lot more difficult.

                Without a reliable way to measure time, the lengths of prescribed time outs became very inconsistent. Maybe you are able to accurately estimate when three minutes had passed in your mind, but I’m not. When someone is screaming in my face, I tend to think the three minutes has passed pretty quickly. When I am upset with someone, I can make that three minutes last forever. In the end, the actual time was based on my mood, and my kids picked up on it. Soon, every time out became a festival of whining and harassment. My boys learned that they could manipulate Dad, and that Dad was the only factor controlling when they could return to whatever they wanted to do. If they could make time out more miserable for me than it was for them I would end time out early. They were completely correct. And life was hell.

The Solution

                I’m not sure when I figured it out, probably while exploring the date of the last Shuttle launch, but I found out that there was a person who would set a timer for my whenever I wanted for as long as I wanted, and she lived in my pocket. With the push of a button and one little phrase, my time out problem was solved. “Siri, set timer three minutes,” changed my life and made me a better Dad. The boys know that time out lasts until the phone chimes. That knowledge alone has reduced the time out whining. Sure, we still have time out battles, but those battles typically focus on real disciplinary issues, not my inability to discipline consistently. Siri goes with my wherever I go, upstairs, outside, in the grocery store. Problem solved and Siri can now claim to actually be helpful.