GOOD IDEA, BAD IDEA:
AssESSING YOUR CHILDREN’S ABILITIES

October 19, 2003 | 2:10pm

My brothers and I are notorious for creating phrases that stick. We create them, people use them…sometimes way too much. For instance, instead of answering with, "No." Why not use, "Not so much" and scrunch your nose for added disdain. Try it. After a day of "Not so much" one really can’t stop saying it. In fact, one becomes a total bitch. So pass it on, and hey, you heard it here first.

When we were younger, my kin and I had a more devious way of making people seem like bona-fide bitches. We would ask our parents difficult questions in hopes that they’d fuck up and spill the beans. They didn’t want to answer our questions nor did they want us to know how they truly felt about our hypothetical questions.

For example:

"Daddy, if our house floods and you can only save one of us, who would you save?"

"WHAT?"

Of course our father didn’t answer right away, we had to ask him 742 times within a three-day period to find out the answer. He would try to give a non-answer to buy him time as the sweat dripped down his temple. Then, he’d give us some rational crap that we didn’t want hear like, "Well Lonnie, I would save whoever was closest." Bull-shit! And it’s "whom"ever. He would choose Leon, my oldest brother, I thought. He was the favorite in view.

Now don’t think that I got any special treatment because I was the baby. When you’re fifth in line to the shit brown adobe and stucco Latino crown that was Tapia there wasn’t a whole lot of hope. I was bitter then and my view was slightly biased, but because we didn’t have much money, the children of the family got to do things in order of lineage.

Leon got first dibs to play baseball which put us back $300. Carl financed his childhood by staying over at other wealthier kids houses, he was always thinking outside of the box. Ken ran track but had expensive movie-going hobbies. Delfinia broke many stereos and had to get them replaced, plus she liked to shoot pool with her homies. Then came me.

I was allowed to be in gymnastics for a summer. In fact, I was really good at it, I got promoted to the advanced class after my second week with kids twice my height and tax bracket. But then the bill came in and I was pulled out faster than a twenty-dollar bill from the donation plate at our church. But I digress…

My father had an answer. Actually, I think he just slipped up and accidentally answered the question. His answer was, "Leon." And knowing full well that he put his foot in his mouth he continued to list us off in terms of importance.

I fell somewhere between my chola gangster sister and the ellipses mark at the end of his sentence. I was dead last, or first rather. I guess that depends on how ya look at it. Anyway, I became a fat child with bad hair who wore sweat pants 24-7 until sixth grade, despite my flexability and thick curly hair.

And now it’s time for our "Good Idea, Bad Idea" for the day.

Good Idea: Assess your children’s abilities.
Bad Idea: Rank them.