Kids Do The %&!@!-est Things

Welcome to the Weekend Gene Pool, your source of mirth and my source of your stories. Win-win.

Today’s subject matter is kids. The first story was sent in by a reader named April. It was about her daughter, who has repeatedly delivered moments of humiliation to her ma.

“As a toddler,” writes April, “she could not pronounce the word ‘truck’ properly. She had the -uck part down but insisted it should start with an F.”

Alas, April’s daughter liked trucks and often enthused over them, loudly.

One day, April was getting her out of the car when, in the adjacent space, a sturdily built person of color was exiting one of those huge, dark, jacked-up pickup trucks. The cute little tyke pointed and deafeningly yelled “Mom, look at that big, black fuck!”

Years passed uneventfully. Daughter’s speech became perfect. Toilet-trained and everything. She was a proper young lady.

We are now in the present. She is eight. A fine companion, perfectly safe to travel with. So April took her along when she went to a UPS store, where April was going to obtain a mailbox to use as her mailing address. For a project she was working on, April needed to try to communicate with a man in federal prison to get his side of the story, but didn’t want to give an incarcerated felon her home address; hence, the UPS box. On the way over, her daughter asked where they were going, and April gave her an abbreviated version of all that.

Daughter mulled this over in silence. Remained silent about this for the remainder of the ride. Silent as they left the car. Silent as they entered the UPS store. Silent until they were waiting in line, and April was filling out forms, beside dozens of other people waiting in line to mail their packages. Only then did daughter speak. It was not in a whisper.

“MOM, WHY DO YOU SEND MAIL TO GUYS IN PRISON?”

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Today’s first challenge is: What is a time that a child of yours — or you, as a child — did something to thoroughly embarrass his or her parents? As always, please send your answers and observations to the hideous orange button:

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Second challenge is also about kids.

When Rachel Manteuffel was about ten years old, she found herself one day fighting what can only be called a … compulsion. There was this beautiful old wooden end table beside a sofa in the living room. Young Rachel decided that it was too perfect, and needed some graffito — a name, perhaps — scratched into its surface. That would give this objet d’ art a sort of lived-in, grunge feeling. She was confident of her judgment in home decor, but less confident that such a thing would go unpunished, so she devised a Foolproof Plan.

She would scratch in a name, but not her name. She would use her big brother’s name! If there was punishment to be meted out, it would be his punishment! So she scratched onto the top of the table “Chris M.”

(“I used the M because I didn’t want to get some other Chris in trouble.”)

It took Rachel’s parents only a milli-moment to suss out what had happened. They knew the character, personalities and proclivities of both of their children quite well. Plus the handwriting was too good to be Chris’s.

Punishment was administered appropriately. Postscript: The table is still there, at the end of the couch. The graffito is still there. Everyone is kind of proud of it, apparently. Especially Rachel.

Corollary: When my former brother in law was a little boy, he decided it would be a good idea to get furtively into his parents’ car, push in the cigarette lighter, get it red hot, and then make little circular burn holes in the faux leather driver’s bench seat. Make a compelling polka-dot pattern! He was wrong about it being a good idea, it turns out, given the sorry state of his whupped behind for the next day or two.

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Today’s challenge number two: What is something you (as a kid) or your kid might have thought was a good idea, but turned out not to be? Same hideous orange button:

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And finally, a public service announcement, with a funny twist.

Ever since the birth of the Gene Pool in December 2022, we have wrestled with a minor logistical problem: How to get people who are reading the Gene Pool on an email to easily transition to the real-time live question-and-answer portion. (This is an extremely rare feature for Substacks. I actually don’t know of another. So there was no precedent and few protocols.)

It was never THAT hard to do, but it was always a two- or three- step process, and we felt that discouraged readers. Eventually, Substack included a “read in browser” link on the top of the email, which made it an easy one-step process. But recently that “read-in-browser” link just … disappeared. Poof. Substack had no idea why.

At my request, they mobilized their IT team to investigate the situation. Time has been spent in emergency analysis.

And then, last week, a reader named Wendy wrote into the Comments section to say that she had discovered that if you simply click on the headline in the Gene Pool email, it opens the Gene Pool in a new tab, in the browser.

She is right! That is all you have to do. When I notified Substack, they seemed flabbergasted.

“It works!” the IT guy marveled.

This option had evidently been available all along. It took a year, and Wendy, to find it.

Third challenge: Tell us something that you initially thought was hard, but that turned out to be pathetically simple.

Finally, today’s two Gene Pool Gene Polls:

See you on Tuesday.