“Dang,” I said. “I really thought we were going to ‘whoop it up!’”
Definition of “whoop it up!”: To enjoy oneself and have a very noisy celebration. You know … to party. To cut loose. To go out drinking all night. And to drink things that are lit on fire. Maybe get in a bar fight. Definitely get arrested. But not like major-crime arrested. More like, “Sir, reciting Shakespeare in the middle of the road is definitely frowned upon. I mean, who even reads Shakespeare anymore?”
To cut loose. To run free. To live.
Whoop … it … up!
Because … that’s what you’re supposed to do when your kid goes away on a summer retreat for a week, right? Your 15-year-old daughter. Your only child. Which really means you’re only ever alone when she goes on a youth retreat to North Carolina. And once when she took a middle school trip to Washington D.C. And before that? That 5 minutes she was sleeping in the womb, right before she woke up with a startle and kicked your wife so hard she swears there’s still a bruise on her stomach.
“We are going to ‘whoop it up!’” I remember saying before she left. “We might even cash in your college fund and fly to Vegas. Because we are free, sucker!” (I’m not exactly the greatest parent.)
But there my wife and I were, sitting at the dining room table. It was a Friday night. The night before she was coming home. We were eating asparagus and lemon risotto. I had made it. We talked about how refreshing it was to have a meal without meat for dinner, and how important that right bit of “chew” is for perfect risotto.
Wait a minute! “Whoopin’ up” risotto is not what I had in mind!!! I should have been in jail by now.
Children going out of town is supposed to be a time-honored tradition for parents to go a little wild. But we spent most of our time binge-watching “The Kominsky Method,” which didn’t bode well for us. It’s a show about getting older. Or really, coming to terms with getting older. Or really, how getting older means certain body parts breaking down. Which we seemed to relate FAR too much to considering the main characters are well north of their 70s and we’re not. And despite their ages, not one of them ever recited a line like, “Doesn’t a bit of ‘chew’ make the perfect risotto?”
I mean in one episode, Alan Arkin is even in jail!
But there was something remarkably pleasant about taking it easy for a week. I’m not saying I didn’t miss my daughter. I mean, she does read this column and has an alarming amount of access to my bank account passwords. So, what am I going to say?
It’s just that it was liberating to be free of the parental responsibilities that come with having a kid.
There was already a complete communication blackout. Part of the retreat meant their phones were rounded up and put in a basket. The phones almost spontaneously combusted after continuous teenager use for 24 hours a day to nothing in the snap of the finger. I expected our cell phone company to contact us, concerned that our daughter had been abducted by bandits due to her long stretch of digital inactivity.
But we knew she was on a secure campus, that food was readily available, that she was surrounded by friends, that the people charged with overseeing her had at least even odds of doing a better job than we do (or at least me!) and that as a 15-year-old who was smart and independent and quick on her feet (and unlikely to feed a bear) could be trusted to get along just fine. Which, in-and-of-itself, was a strange and unnerving feeling. But something we realized we better start getting used to.
So, we went with it. And took long walks at night along the bayfront. Sat on the porch reading books together. Talked about future vacations. Strolled through IKEA in search of something for the cat, and God only knows why. Because none of us ever wanted a cat. And certainly not to keep dropping money on him.
We started seeing a future that was more like this than what we had spent the last 15 years doing. And we realized something important: It isn’t all bad. We might even be able to do it.
She came home late on a Saturday night. Got back to the house and asked how we had been. How we had done without her. Seemed like she had been a little worried about us. How we would do alone together. Who knows? Maybe she even checked the jail records on the ride home.
But we did OK. No whoopin’ it up. Trying to achieve the perfect al dente rice made sure of that. And too many episodes of “The Kominsky Method.” Eh, I wouldn’t do well in jail anyway. Probably too noisy for a guy who just wants to read some books and shop for kitty toys at IKEA.