Rued Awakening

By Tony Kornheiser

Sunday, May 25 1997; Page F01
The Washington Post 

If you have children of middle school age, now is definitely not the time to move to
Minneapolis. Because starting in the fall, the Minneapolis middle schools are going to
open at 9:45 a.m. Apparently, kids are falling asleep in class. The thinking behind this is
that a later school day will rectify the problem.

What problem? Listen, kids have been falling asleep in class forever. I used to fall
asleep in class all the time, and I turned out okay. I didn't turn into some stupid clown. 

Er. 

Maybe the problem is not time of day. Maybe the Minneapolis school board should
consider hiring more interesting teachers, people who have grown up somewhere other
than Minnesota. The most interesting thing that ever happens in Minnesota involves
escalating ethnic tensions between Swedes and Norwegians. Everyone who is not
named Sorensen is named Sorenson. They all say "You betcha." It's probably the only
state in the union that celebrates Thor Heyerdahl's birthday.

Regardless, starting the school day at 9:45 is insane. At 9:45, most parents have left the
house to go to work. 

It so happens that I have children of middle school age. My daughter is 14, my son is
11. They have reached that age when the only things they ever say to me are "Huh?"
and "Shh." For those of you without teenage children, let me translate: Huh means "Go
away." Shh means "Go away, you made me miss what Mrs. Howell just said to the
Professor."

The last thing in the world I want is for their schools to open at 9:45. The only way I can
get my kids to bed at a reasonable hour now -- and by "reasonable hour" I mean before
the cable stations start showing "Nude Chicks in Prison" -- is by convincing them that
they have to get up for school by 7. Have you any idea when they would go to bed if
they didn't have to go to school until 9:45? Let me put it this way: The only two words
anybody hears at that hour are "Last call."

I want my kids' school opening early, Katie Couric early -- maybe even Linda Vester
early. (And if you know who she is, like me, you have no life and you're up way too
early.) Do you think I want to leave the house before my kids? Who do I look like,
Ward Cleaver?

"Oh, hey, kids, lock up after I'm gone, and have a great day at school, okay?"

Yeah. Sure.

Maybe this is no big deal in Minneapolis. Maybe kids there are apple-cheeked, and
when they're off from school they volunteer at hospitals and wash cars to raise money
for people to get heart transplants. But let's just visualize what life would be like in a
Washington household if the parents left to go to work with the kids still there. What are
the chances that your children would actually get up for school without somebody in the
house to wake them? 

The only reason my kids get up for school now is because I shake them like snow
globes -- and I have to go in three and four times before they actually get up. When the
sun explodes in a thunderous fireball and sends billions of tons of searing magma
slamming into the Earth, my kids will sleep through it. Then they will wake up and
wonder aloud why it is so dark. This will be expressed as follows: 

"Huh?"

(My friend Gino has an excellent system for waking his teenage daughter, Molly. He has
two dogs, Clementine and Harry S Truman. They weigh a total of 201 pounds. Gino
explains: "What I do is I throw some greatly desired dog item onto Molly's bed, such as
a rawhide bone or a lamb chop, and have them fight for it. It's effective, though my
daughter wants me dead.")

What would your kids eat for breakfast if nobody were there to feed them? I mean,
besides the leftover pizza from the night before that your kids ordered at 3 a.m.,
because they didn't have to go to school until 9:45.

Who ever heard of starting school at 9:45?

What do they serve in the cafeteria, brunch?

If your kids actually went to school, as opposed to staying at home trying to download
dirty pictures from the Internet, here's what they'll wear with no parent to supervise their
sartorial selections: Four out of five 14-year-old girls will apply enough cosmetics to
plaster the foyer. (The fifth will get a tattoo.) 

I don't worry about what my son will wear, since it's always exactly what he wore the
day before. He simply bends down, picks it up off the floor and puts it on again. I guess
it's like breaking in a baseball glove; once you get it right, you stay with it. 

There isn't an 11-year-old boy in America who needs more than one outfit. And when it
gets too dirty -- and by that I mean when even they have no idea what the original color
was -- they will simply stand there naked for an hour while you run it through the
washer and dryer. 

Eleven-year-old boys don't care about clothes. The other day I saw my son wearing a
pair of boxer shorts that could fit a Ken doll. It turned out he hadn't gotten any new
underpants in three years, and he didn't care. I now realize that what he was wearing
last week weren't stylishly long shorts -- those were his pants. 

If we moved to Minneapolis, with that cold weather, he would be in a lot of trouble. 

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company

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