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.