Riddle Me This Spider Dad

The biggest question yet to be answered about the recent adventure of Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, pops Christopher Robinson is whether or not he would have blown himself up if he were not a two-time father and one-time husband. He says he was just trying to kill the spider that frightened his wife and children when he took hairspray to flame. Based on the evidence collected by emergency personnel and firefighters he was successful as there was no spider to be found after he apparently hit a bit of gas leek and exploded a fireball in the bathroom.

So Robinson did successfully defend his family from the arachnid and should get props for that. Still, did he have to create the homemade flamethrower to do so? Would he have just used a newspaper if his children were not under threat? No way to replicate the experiment. Perhaps the answer can be found in Louann Brizendine's The Male Brain, which purports to be a long-awaited owners manual to being a guy.

Common Sense (Repeat As Necessary)

Today's lesson is to be kind and understanding as a dad, but use common sense ... and then use it again. No doubt, Orlando's Jerome Broughten made the right call when he said his 14-year-old son could not drive his sister and brother to a local bodega. Good on you Jerome.

HOWEVER, while girls do grow up and mature faster (usually) than boys, it was still a poor choice to say if anyone was going to drive the siblings it would be the 13-year-old daughter. She crashed the SUV into a tree in the store's parking lot, injuring her brother (leaving the 8-year-old sister unscathed) and earning both herself and her father state charges.

Don't kids ride bicycles anymore?

Smashing Success

It could be a Jane Austen novel, if the prime mover of chick lit wrote today about fathers and sons and baseball (and basically was a completely different author writing completely differently than she did). Actually, that's just a twisted way of talking up the story that could be titled "Pride and Vexation."

Hudsonville (Mich.) Junior Shane Trevino hit the first home run of his high school baseball career, a game winner, smack through the window of the car his father parked outside the stadium. Was papa Tony ecstatic? Obviously. Was he taken aback to realize that he had to go in to his boss and explain how the (estimated) 67,000 to one occurrence will cost his company some change? A bit, but only before he went back to celebrating his son's success.

Bad Jokes

Have you heard the one about the Hoosier dad who walks into a bar. Bartender says, "what'll you have?" Man says, "what you got?" Bartender says, "I have a tire iron for your head, you idiot. You left three kids in the car at 1:45 a.m. to come in here and get drunk."

What about the Maine EMT so desperate for business that he accidentally dropped a tree on one son and then ran over another with his pickup truck?

** Why again do we let people parent without a license when you need one in most places to paint nails? **