The Pumpkin Man Hates Madison Avenue

"I asked Mrs. Lingone if she believes commercials." The Pumpkin Man lisped this report of the interrogation of his pre-school teacher and it was a little-not completely, but a little-out of the blue.

"What?" I replied.

"I asked Mrs. Lingone if she believes in commercials because commercials lie."

"You did? What'd she say?"

 "She said sometimes."

He's earnest, worried.

"Well, that's ok. I know we say never to trust commercials because they lie, and that's true. But it's ok that Mrs. Lingone trusts them sometimes. People have their own beliefs and that's ok."

"Daddy. I thought something bad."

What, buddy?"

"I don't want to tell you."

"It's ok buddy, I won't be mad. I promise."

"Daddy, I thought that because she believes in commercials Mrs. Langone is stupid."

He said with his lisp.

We worked hard to instill that belief. That commercials lie and are stupid and icky and we hate stupid commercials.  Oops.

"Well, it's ok to have private thoughts about people. I'm not mad. But Mrs. Lingone is not stupid. She is an adult and your teacher. It took her many years of school to be a teacher and it will be a very very long time until you know as much as Mrs Lingone."

Except the part about believing in commercials sometimes. It's a dilemma, me raising kids. I have beliefs, I pass on those beliefs, not everyone (mostly no one) shares those beliefs thus I raise weird kids.

We had parent/teacher night with Mrs. Lingone last week. She really is a pleasant, alert, on the ball pre-school teacher. Despite her occasional zombie-like stumble into the miasma of American capitalism, we're happy to have her as the P-Man's teacher this year.

In the meeting, she said we have a "very smart little guy on your hands there." Was that because he's smart, or because he intimidated her with his anti-marketing social humanist bullshit? Perhaps we'll never know.

What we do know is that despite hitting all his developmental marks and possessing an "incredible vocabulary" he still can't remember to enter the classroom and hang his backpack and jacket up in the mornings before he sits on the rug for morning meetings.

"He comes in and chats for five minutes and then comes over to the rug and I look-up and his backpack is on the floor over there and his jacket is here . . ." said Mrs. Lingone.

Take that Pman. You disorganized hippy.

Maybe he's an anarchist?

HM