This Sunday is Father’s Day.  Knowing this, I’m going to step out off my pretentious box in the pretentious corner, (P.D.  you ass) and run through a few subjects that I never want to discuss with my kids.

Little kids are awkward.  Seriously they’re just fucking awkward.  I can’t.

I can get behind the whole “get eye-level with them when you talk to them” thing, but I never really know what to talk with them about.  What possible knowledge am I going to impart on this child?  Why the holy hell would a child give a damn about what I have to say?  I have nothing to offer you, kids…so leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone.  Fair?

Shut the front door.

Without this becoming personal #1: Do any of us want kids right now?  No…right?  Not here.  Not now.  I certainly don’t — not with the current state of the world.

But this may happen one day for you (hopefully planned).  By this time in your life all your Facebooks and Twitters and Paltalks will all be merged into one.  TV won’t exist anymore, but rather there will be a two big screens:  one with the stream of everyone’s feed, and the other with NetfiRedCableLu service, home to everything instead of having to market exclusives — it’s better than a torrent!  Avatar 4 will have bombed in the theaters NetfiRedCableLu service projections.  On menus prices will be replaced with calorie counts.  The second avenue subway in NYC will still be under construction.  Kids will speak in hashtags, and as a result my conversations will all be one-sided.

So here are some conversations I look forward to never having with any of my children.  I hope to be drunk for all of them:

BULLIES:  “Kids get picked on.  It’s a way of life.  Maybe it’s because kids need attention — maybe it’s because kids are overcompensating for their own insecurities.  It’s never the latter.  Deal with that shit.  If someone engages you physically then you throw a punch.  Stand it like a man.  If you’re getting picked on, and you show your hand that you’re upset then they will persist.  Grow some thicker skin.  Laugh it off.  Endure, because eventually that shit stops and everyone grows up.  Life is a weird seesaw, but you’ll come out fine, and you don’t need to go to extremes to make a point or to pay someone back.”

DATING:  “Girls love to be chased and play games.  Games are fucking stupid.  Play along until it feels like homework.  When it feels like homework, RUN.  They grow out of it and become simpler, just like you.  Then you click.  It’s going to take a whole lot of you’s before you can decide who the hell you are, and what you want out of a person.

“Also, get your ass to a gym.  If you want to get a girlfriend you’re going to look like a Ryan Gosling.  Who’s Ryan Gosling??  Go to your room.  I don’t care if you’re only six.”

If it’s a girl…

“Don’t trust boys.  Don’t get in cars with boys.  Don’t touch boys until you’re 25 and on your own.”

“And that goddamn door better stay open.”

DEATH:  “Sometimes people get old and die. bro.  Sometimes people die when they’re young.  No one knows what happens after, but people like to think that they do.  That’s called religion.  I’ll cover that in a moment, be patient. No one lives forever and eventually your time is up. It happens.  It’s sad for a little bit, but then you just get over it.  Sometimes people cause other people to die.   But it won’t happen to you.  Not as long as I’m around.    Here, go play some violent video games.”

RELIGION:  “Human beings all try to make sense of the world.  We all do that unconsciously, because when everything is a story the world makes sense.  It’s cool if it works for them, but when they have an issue with other people who don’t feel the same way, and they can’t accept people who don’t see things exactly as they do there is a problem.  Religion is like your hands: keep them to yourself.  Never bring it up in conversation.”

POLITICS:  “Remember what I told you about religion?”

AMBITION:  “You’re probably not going to become the President of anything, ever, just saying.  If you do, I will be impressed.  In my defense,  you only did learn your multiplication tables last week.  And yeah, the “9 Trick” is pretty cool, right?  Focus that shit!”

Full disclosure:  these “conversations” have no reflection on anything my father ever told me.  Frankly, I don’t know how the hell he did it.  At the same time, I don’t remember having all of these conversations with him.  Chances are I never asked.  And sure hope my kids don’t either.  Oh, I hope they ask their mother…

Without this becoming personal #2:  When it comes to dads mine did a pretty okay job.  You have been a first generation American sports-lover, but not exactly the world’s greatest coach.  Thanks anyway, Dad:

“It’s called a stock photo, Mom! GOD!” *slams bedroom door*