I need a kid. Were I not older than most Mayan temples, I’d just have another one of my own. That’s assuming I could find a willing (and biologically viable) partner to join me in the endeavor.
I have three kids already, or rather, I used to. These days they’re adults with jobs and lives of their own.
I see them often enough, my sons at least. My daughter lives in Detroit, runs a business and has four munchkins of her own. She’s busy.
And even when I do see them, it’s not the same as when they were children. Because they’re not kids anymore. They’re old, like me.
My grandkids are great, but again, I only get to see them a half-dozen times a year, usually during family events when everyone’s trying to horn in on the grandkid action.
What I need is a kid of my own. Why? Well, put simply, I miss having a playmate.
I miss having someone handy to take fishing, hunting, jogging, bicycling, out to dinner. Speaking of dinner, I even miss the lunatic asylum that is Chuck E. Cheese. I haven’t eaten there in years.
If you’re a middle-aged man you cannot go by yourself to Chuck E. Cheese without attracting a lot of unfriendly stares. Thank you, media, for painting every American white guy over the age of 35 as a potential pedophile.
Not that it matters; Chuck E. Cheese is no fun without a couple toddlers of your own in tow anyway.
I was a single parent during most of my own kids’ childhoods and much of what I miss is the little stuff; frying up Mickey-shaped pancakes in the morning, checking homework, braiding my daughter’s hair at bedtime … dumb stuff like that.
Yeah, I know I’m seeing all this through time’s rose-colored granny glasses. I haven’t entirely forgotten the bouts of flu, the temper tantrums, the shock of a Hot Wheels car crunching beneath my bare feet in the middle of the night.
But the good far outweighed the bad. I thought so even at the time.
I was a dad and I was pretty good at it. Then, just about the time I was really getting the hang of the job, everybody grew up and moved out. I was forced into parental retirement! With no severance package!
I can’t believe I’m the only empty nester to feel this way.
With that in mind, I’ve come up with a great new business idea (yes, yet another of my get rich without working plans).
I call it Rent-a-Kid.
That’s right, for a small fee — thirty bucks, maybe — a kid between the ages of five and nine will accompanying you on hayrides at the apple orchard in the fall, or drop by your house to open presents Christmas morning, or maybe play in the lake while you sit on shore hollering at him or her not to wade out too far.
Or maybe not. Now that I actually put the idea down on paper, I gotta admit it sounds a little creepy. That’s not how it was in my head.
I blame the media for sending me back to the drawing board.
Catch Mike Taylor’s Reality Check radio program every weekday at 5:30 p.m. on WGLM, m106.3 on your FM dial.
mtaylor@staffordgroup.com
(616) 548-8273
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