I took the kid to computer camp yesterday at Northwestern. He's staying in one of the frat houses. It's all gray stone and ivy and makes we want to kick myself in the ass for dropping out of college and becoming a daredevil. But such is life. We shoot for a better life for the kids and when we score and they get it, there's a certain element of jealousy, a twinge of envy.
This twinge is offset immediately upon check-in. We get there and the people running this camp, an all day computer and game design training camp run by industry experts and professional nerds that will jack my son's blossoming computer savvy arrogance into the mesosphere from whence height he will lob ego shattering duhs onto our plebian queries and induce gravitational shifts with the rolling of his eyes, check us in.
Roon takes his bags, his pillow, and fan and starts walking into this cinematic ivy league frat house and I make for a goodbye hug and he KEEPS WALKING. So, ok, I get it. No PDA. Whatever, so I shift into hi-five mode and he turns to me and says, "I got it, Dad," and disappears into the dorm.
I stood there with my mouth catching flies until I caught the eye of a mom checking in her three newly teened boys. She made a face so clearly sympathetic yet so obviously amused, a look that said "Join the club."
I knew it would happen. I knew a soon as he got taller than me (by three inches now) and soon as the suffix -teen was appended to his age, that he'd dismiss me as irrelevant and possibly retarded and indeed he has.
I suppose I've joined my own fraternity now: Omega Delta Phi, the Order of Dismissed Parents. We know each other by the sad look in our eyes as our children grow up, turn their back on us, and walk bravely into their future as they casually ditch us in their past.
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