You apologize to your mother, I'm gonna shut down this machine, go downstairs
and give that boy of mine a hug.  Sort of a preemptive apology for what I'm
gonna do to him when he causes me to remember reading this one.

-jc

Ken Follett wrote:

> In a message dated 4/20/00 6:48:40 AM Central Daylight Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> << Sean's growing up is as much an experience for me as it is for him. >>
>
> Son David busy visiting w/ the Prez, no joke, has no time, rightly so and
> with my begrudging support for the command to succeed at school first, for
> the left behind PU truck that his father paid $500 for, then invested another
> $400 secretly in electrical wiring the last time it stopped in mid-course,
> and is now giving away for FREE simply to get off the insurance bill since
> the head blew in Manhattan and two months later it is still sitting in
> mechanic's lot, but now sitting in Apple lot waiting to be hauled away. So,
> this AM I am extricating the wooden box son built and chained to bed of truck
> in order to store his gear and as I pull the box off the tailgate the bottom
> falls out, four short screws just don't make it, and behold a collection of
> empty and broken CD jewel cases, who knows where the CDs went, odd clothes,
> one half of a pair of my missing warmer socks, some of my tools (been there,
> done that), some odd wood carvings that look like aborted attempts at maple
> whale fins, a wet and dysfunctional box of galvanized sheetrock screws spewed
> around, I love picking these things up, and several plastic quarts of oil.
> The oil leaks and I manage to get it all over my pantsleg before I realize I
> am being attacked. Quick revenge, I wrap the quarts in one of his T shirts.
> As I am picking up the collection I keep saying to myself, "And now I
> understand my mother, and now I understand my mother. God, I'd better giver
> her a call and apologize."
>
> ][<en