WHAT'S WITH OUR KIDS?

What's with our kids today? Their ghetto talk. Their adult aversion. Their materialism. It's like we're raising little aliens.

Call me old fashioned, but I'm not used to picking up the phone and hearing, "Sup ho."

Even if I was a "ho" (whore) and overlooked the rhetorical question, sup ("what's up?"), I wouldn't want to be greeted by my daughter's boy friends in that way.

I remember one day last summer it was hotter than hell, so I awoke my 14-year old daughter (at 12 noon) and asked her if she wanted to go kayaking. We would paddle up an estuary to where it met a set of rapids split in two by an island. On the Island, we would have a picnic lunch and later swim in the pool formed by the rapids. Nice offer, I thought.

She wouldn't go. I knew she wouldn't walk within 50 feet of me in town, but in the wilderness? No, she refused to go.

Using all my alliterative language skills, I painted a wonderful picture of the destination, even embellishing it with two non-existent waterfalls cascading into whooshing, whirring whirlpools.

It didn't work. I asked her what it would take to get her to go. "Money," she snapped. "How much?" I asked, thinking a five spot would do it. "Thirty," she said.

"Thirty dollars?" I coughed. I had to shine all my father's shoes for 35 cents. Alright, inflation. "Ten bucks," I said.

She came back with 25. I countered with 15. 24 she said, incrementally. I sensed I was fighting for every dollar now. $20 I said. She repeated 24. Damn. Are we all through at 24?

$22, I threw out, desperately.

Alright, $23 she replied, reluctantly. Momentarily, I felt a surge of adrenaline, like I had just won the Triple at Yonkers Raceway. Then it occurred to me that I had just been extorted $23 for the privilege of taking her kayaking.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. Last year my daughter wanted a Gatorade, and my wife refused to give her the sugary drink. Next thing my wife knew, our then 13-year old daughter had called 911. The kid had called 911 for chrissake!

From the upstairs phone my wife overheard, "Like I said, officer, my Mom won't give me any Gatorade. Would you talk to her?"

Ballistic, my wife screamed up the stairs she would not talk with the police and to "hang up the phone immediately, young lady, or you will be grounded for the rest of your natural life."

The police called back to ask my wife if everything was okay. "For now," she told them. "Call back in an hour, though."

Anyway, we did go kayaking, (I had to go to the bank to get my daughter her ill-begotten $23), and afterwards, she wanted to go for ice cream. Thinking this a prime opportunity to teach a lesson, I ordered two triple-scoop ice cream banana barges and suggested she pay for them out of her "earnings."

"Nice try Dad," she replied. "That money, which I hid at home, is going directly into my candy fund."

"$11.43 please!" demanded the adolescent ice cream clerk.

BOOKING ASTRONAUTS

No sooner had I started watching the Ali G interview with Buzz Aldrin (who was first to land on the Moon with Neil Armstrong), than I got a call from Captain Alan Bean, the 4th person to walk on the Moon. Alan wanted to talk, but I didn't want to miss the Ali G. interview, so I lied and told him I was on the toilet and would call him back. More about astronaut Bean later.

In the interview (in which the astronaut is unaware his interviewer is a fake), Ali G calls Buzz Aldrin "Buzz Lightyear," and asks him if he was bothered by the fact that Louis Armstrong stepped onto the moon before him.

After being corrected, Ali G then asks the pioneering moonwalker if he saw any people on the Moon, and while Buzz is trying to explain how there is no life of any kind there, let alone people, Ali G is firing off his next question: "You think people will ever land on the Sun?"

Again, while Buzz is explaining that the Sun is too hot to ever land on, Ali G inquires, "What if they land in winter?" Buzz assured him the Sun was hot in winter too. Apparently even the Sun is experiencing global warming.

Anyway, I had booked astronaut Alan Bean to speak at one of my client's dinners and he had called me back with the background info I'd need to introduce him in Washington DC. Somewhere between his first Piper Cub solo and joining NASA , I couldn't resist asking Moonwalker Bean what it was like strolling on another orb.

"You bounce," he said. Hmm, you bounce, I thought. Okay then. There you have it. Glad I asked!

"You bounced!" I repeated. "Anything special about it?," I asked, with special emphasis on "special."

"It was fun bouncing around," he clarified. Now I'm thinking this is going to be the shortest 40-minute speech in history. I pressed on:

"Yes, but there you are, Captain Bean," I said, "on another world, looking back at all of human history, and for all intents and purposes, you are all alone, except for two others in a similar predicament to your own --and one of those is up in a little tin can orbiting above you; all three of you frail, lonely visitors, whose whole experience is back on that distant blue marble floating off in a vacuum of eternal darkness." I gulped for air, and pleaded, " What--must--have--that--been--like?"

There was a significant pause, and Astronaut Bean said, "It was like bouncing."

I wish there was more to say, but that was it. I guess that's why NASA sent him and not me. I would have peed in my spacesuit. So imagine my surprise when I read the Associated Press February 6 headline:

ASTRONAUT CHARGED WITH KIDNAP AND ATTEMPTED MURDER
Nowak raced from Houston to Orlando wearing diapers in the car so she wouldn't have to stop to go to the bathroom, authorities said. Astronauts wear diapers during launch and re-entry.

Holy smokes, that sounds like something I would do. You mean, I could do NASA?

Turns out the 43-year old robotics specialist, Lisa Marie Nowak, who flew on the July space shuttle Discovery mission, was charged with attempting to kidnap a romantic rival, one Ms. Shipman, in a love triangle with another astronaut. Nowak, a married mother of three, stood in a jail uniform, wearing a tracking device, as her charges were read: attempted kidnapping, attempted vehicle burglary with battery, destruction of evidence and battery. The attempted murder charge was added later as more evidence came to light.

According to police, Nowak had driven 900 miles in diapers in order to meet her love rival's plane without having to stop to pee. Disguised in a blonde wig and trench coat, Nowak met Ms. Shipman's plane, then boarded the same airport shuttle bus Ms. Shipman took and followed her to her car.

Ms. Shipman had stolen the affections of Navy Cmdr. William Oefelein, the pilot of the space shuttle Discovery last December. Though Ms. Nowak and Mr. Oefelien had shared earthly pleasures, the relationship had never gotten off the ground.

Now, armed with a BB gun and pepper spray, Ms. Nowak rapped on the car window, but Ms. Shipman refused to roll it down more than a few inches. Nowak then peppered Shipman through the opening.

The responding officer found a steel mallet, a 4-inch folding knife, rubber tubing, $600 and garbage bags inside Ms. Nowak's bag. NASA said that Nowak's status with the astronaut corps remained unchanged.

"It is unlikely Ms. Shipman will ever be in space to distract astronaut Nowak," a NASA spokesperson later confirmed.