THANK YOU SIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER?

I started spanking Andrew last night.

I just stopped ten minutes ago.

I kid...I kid...

The whole "spanking" thing has been a contention of debate with me and the Mrs ever since the kid was born.

I would go back and forth, wondering if I would ever spank the kid.

When he was a tiny baby, I'd look at him while he slept and thought "There's no way I'll ever spank this kid. He's way too precious of a gift from God."

Last night I looked at him as he climbed onto the top of the couch after I repeatedly told him not to and was about to tumble head first to the floor four feet below him and thought "Goddamn that little fucking brat, I'm spanking his ass until it bleeds."

What a difference two years makes.

"Andrew," I said sternly. "If you climb up the couch one more time, I'm giving you a spanking."

Andrew grinned, stared at me, and climbed up there one more time.

I leaped up out of my chair. Well ... I didn't so much "leap" as I rocked my fat ass out of the chair.

I sauntered over to Andrew.

I gave him a smack on his ass. One smack. Not that hard, but not that soft either.

His smile went away.

He didn't cry.

But he didn't climb up on the back of the couch again and almost kill himself either.

I think I'm going to like this spanking thing.

To prove I'm not a horrible out-of-control parent who needs to be turned in to authorities ... earlier in the evening I felt really bad for Andrew.

We got home from daycare and he immediately ran across the street to where his little three year-old girlfriend lives. She has a big sandbox in her yard which he loves to play in.

I stood in the driveway and watched him as he ran across the street.

A truck came by and mowed him down like a stray dog.

I'm kidding. We live at the end of a cul-de-sac. We get three cars go by our house a day. The street is one of the safest places Andrew can play.

Anyway, he's running over there and then I see him.

Brock the Terror Child.

Brock is the next door neighbor boy who is just a tad bit on the rambunctious side.

Brock has a large blue tube-like thing in his hand that he is pretending is a sword.

Brock sees Andrew and lets out a roar and starts charging Andrew from the side.

Andrew's still running.

Brock, who's four and can run quite a bit faster than Andrew, meets Andrew at the end of the driveway across the street.

Brock stops charging and pokes his "sword" into Andrew's chest and then there's silence.

Andrew stops and looks at Brock.

In my heart, I wanted to scream "LEAVE MY BABY ALONE!" like I was Sally Field in a Made-For-TV movie.

But I stood there quietly in our driveway, waiting to pounce and pummel this little four year-old brat if anything else happened.

Andrew began walking towards the sandbox.

Brock held his "sword" in front of him as if he wasn't going to let Andrew pass.

Once again, I fight the urge to launch into hysterics.

Andrew bypasses the sword without a word and keeps walking to the sandbox.

In a final display of assholiness...Brock takes his sword and pushes Andrew in the back with it.

Brock is four...Andrew is two.

Andrew doesn't fall. He keeps on toddling towards the sandbox.

Brock's bored with the whole thing since Andrew has no idea that Brock is playing "Pirates" or "Star Wars" or "Biggest Asshole Four Year-Old On The Block" and walks away back to the older kids who are a few houses down.

I was pretty proud of Andrew for not crying and not succumbing to this little punk.

But Brock.

If you read this diary...your days are numbered, kid.

So Wendigo and I are walking to the restaurant on the other end of our workplace building yesterday for lunch.

To do this, we have to walk through the city's Visitor Center.

An employee stops me and says "There's a woman in here looking for you."

"Okay," I said. "Who is it?"

"She says she went to school with you," she says.

Wow.

The last time I was in school was 20 years ago.

So the employee says that she thinks the woman is in the gift shop.

I go in the gift shop and there's a ton of women in there. Literally. Twenty 100 lb. women in there.

I tell Wendigo to go on to the restaurant and get us a table and I'll be right up.

I'm scanning the crowd, trying to find a woman my age who I might halfway recognize from 20 years ago.

All of a sudden, I hear a woman's voice say "Uncle Bob!"

I smooth down my cowlick with a saliva-covered hand, put on my most award-winning smile and turn around to face ...

.....a friend of mine from Marketing College which took place three weeks ago.

Kinda anti-climactic, sure.

But it was good to see her.

We talked and reminisced about all the fun we had all those weeks ago.

We laughed.

We cried.

Well, we didn't really cry. We winced when we reminded each other of how drunk we got though. So that's almost crying.

After about 15 minutes of talking I suddenly froze.

Wendigo's waiting on me.

I said goodbye to my college bud and ran to the restaurant.

Well, not so much "ran" as a combination of waddling and lumbering.

I got to the front door and saw Wendigo.

She was glaring at me.

She's not very good at hiding her emotions. The woman has few faults, but that's definitely one of them. She has no poker face at all.

I felt like a kid in the principal's office.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled. "I...it was a friend and ... she kept talking and ... I'm sorry."

Luckily the waitress interupted my pathetic excuse for an apology and saved me from falling to my knees begging for Wendigo's forgiveness in a public setting.

And Wendigo quickly got over it once she got some Thai food in her tummy.

She's a nut for Thai food.