rocky adopts a child

When I turned 16 my father called me into his study for a talk. This talk was more serious than most. It was a moment that colored my view of the world for the rest of my life. In this talk, at a time when I was two or three steps from the gate of adulthood and forming a secure sense of who I was, my father revealed to me that he had bought me for two dollars from a baby-seller on the black market. You can guess how devastating this news was to me, more devastating than any article that could have been in the issue of U.S. News and World Report that my father turned to after he dropped the bomb on me. Apparently he wasn’t taking any questions.

I returned to my room, flopped on the bed and stared at the ceiling, which was how I spent most of my teenage years. But instead of the usual thoughts of the meaning of Fleetwood Mac lyrics swimming through my head, I was swamped by feelings of bitterness and worthlessness. When I calmed down and started to digest the news in a more-or-less rational way, I thought to myself, two dollars was a lot of money back then, a lot more than what two dollars is worth now. Immediately, my self-esteem started to return.

Fast forward several years. Now as a man I adopted my own child. I found him homeless and living in a shop in a sketchy part of town. I convinced the shopkeeper, his de-facto guardian, to sell him to me for two dollars. It’s been the best two dollars I’ve ever spent. (I hope my parents felt the same way about me.) The child’s name is Trent, but I’ve decided to call him Ricky. I feel closer to him by calling him Ricky. When he reaches five-foot, five inches in height, I’ll start calling him Rick. Ricky just doesn’t sound like a name for someone who’s taller than 5’-5”.

When I found Ricky, he was wearing a black football jersey. In fact, he’s always wearing that jersey. Football is his passion. So the first thing I did was sign him up to play in the local Pee Wee League. He seemed so happy playing in his first game. Never mind that he fumbled the ball twice and ran the wrong way on the field about half the time. In fact, Ricky was the single biggest reason his team lost the game. I wanted to point this out to him. I don’t believe in all this everybody-is-a-winner lie that parents tell their kids. It doesn’t really prepare kids for the real world, which, face it, ruthlessly divides people into winners and losers. So I was prepared to point out everything he did wrong to Ricky after the game so he could learn from this experience. But when I saw his beaming smile, I didn’t have the heart to tell him about all his mistakes. I just patted him on the head and said, “Way to go, tiger!” The cold truth will have to wait.

(Note: The label Serious Fun is a pending trademark of rocky dennis, llc.)