There may be a few snags in my new business idea

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

Gentlemen, start your engines. But first, fill out just one more form

Rented my first car last weekend. Since my 16^th birthday, I’ve always had my own wheels, dilapidated though they sometimes were. But a few weeks ago, my Mercury finally cashed in its chips and I have yet to replace it. So when I needed to make a four-day trip out of town, I decided to give the rental place a try.

To paraphrase Jerry Garcia, “What a long, strange trip it was.”

Turns out you can’t just walk into the rental office, say, “Gimme a car,” and drive away, not if you want a decent rate, anyway. To get the best rate, one must go—where else?—online.

There are several “price fixer” sites on the Internet; I tried them all in an effort to save a buck. I finally settled on the one featuring an older, fatter version of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk in their advertising.

I told Captain Kirk what days I would need the car, what type of car I was looking to rent, and how much I wanted to spend.

Now, it’s true that Kirk no longer pilots a starship where no man has gone before, but he still has some pull with car rental companies, apparently, because he was able to find me a fairly decent bargain on a gas-efficient Pontiac not six blocks from my house.

I made my reservation, after which I was taken to a page detailing the items the rental place would need from me. Because I was paying with a debit card, rather than my insanely-high-interest Visa, I would need the following items: 1) a valid driver’s license; 2) proof of insurance; 3) a pay stub showing my current address; 4) a paid receipt from a major utility bill; 5) my birth certificate; 6) my social security card; 7) a pound of my flesh; 8) my first born son; and 9) a quart of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, preferably “Chubby Hubby” or “Cherry Garcia.”

I spent a couple days gathering up all the required documentation, organized it into a loose leaf binder, and then carefully labeled each page according to date, time and subject. After creating an index page, I alphabetized the whole mess for good measure.

When I walked through the doors of the rental place, I was ready. Or so I thought.

Because I moved recently, most of my paperwork still displays my previous address. This frustrated the rental car people no end.

“But my driver’s license has my current address,” I said. “So does…um…this check! And my phone bill!”

“It’s not the same as the address on your insurance information,” the rental guy noted.

“I know,” I said. “That’s my old address.”

“And this ice cream is praline pecan parfait,” said the rental guy. “It’s supposed to be ‘Chubby Hubby’ or ‘Cherry Garcia.’”

“The market was out of those,” I explained.

The exchange continued for about 20 minutes, in more or less this vein. Finally, making it quite clear he strongly suspected I was an illegal alien or terrorist of some kind who would no doubt fill the car with explosives before parking it in front of a Chucky Cheese’s somewhere, the rental guy handed over the keys.

One short retina scan, fingerprinting, and cursory cavity search later, I was driving away.

The rental guy seemed a little surprised when I brought the unexploded car back four days later.

“Now that you have me on file, I guess we won’t have to go through all that next time I rent from you, right?” I asked.

“Oh, no, we’ll still need all the same information every time,” he said, smiling.

I’m going car shopping tomorrow.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.