As any parent knows the nanosecond puberty hits the most embarrassing thing one can do to a child is to be with them publicly.
In fact it is the first sign of those impossible years that the very presence of a parent is grounds to avoid any and all places where they might show up unexpected.
As former children and current parents we understand.
A boy or a girl at that certain age wants to take on the world their own way. They want to show that their identity is indeed their own and not an extension of an older and incredibly not cool couple they happen to live with.
And as parents we did our best to back off as much as possible so our kids did not die of embarrassment. We were there once ourselves so we sympathized.
Strangely enough we felt the same sympathy for Emily Carter, Roy Briggs and Saul Andrade as the played at city government while their bosses watched from the back row.
They were after all elected grown ups trying to do grown up things like governing a small city.
But as we watched them looking toward the men who hold the power of their pay checks it was kind of hard to take those politicians seriously.
Yes we know they are also 9-5 employees but Tuesday night they were putting in overtime and were under scrutiny doing it.
But their bosses were not the only ones doing the scrutiny, there were others at that meeting too. Carter’s, Gorum’s, Brigg’s and Andrade’s Christmas bonus might be a little heftier this year that is the price of loss dignity.
Our kids eventually grew up enough to be comfortable in their own identities to be comfortable with us hanging around.
For our poor elected officials there is no growing out of this.
We wonder if they have enough shame left to feel ashamed?
Life is funny sometimes.
Two weeks ago we weren’t sleeping because we had a son poised to go into a land war in Gaza.
The purpose would have been to destroy as many Hamas missiles as possible so none of them land on our grandson.
Land wars are messy and deadly, we know we were in one.
But now in our back yard there is a new anti-weapon. A new wonderful thing that will make the threats of Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas just noise.
Just noise and unamplified noise at that. Instead of building a better bomb, the old bombs will be simply turned off.
No nuclear holocaust, no mutually assured destruction, no collateral damage.
The axis of evil has an off switch.