When Children Misbehave: Parenting 45


Image Source: ANDREW HARNIK / AP

When you’re a kid and your mom catches you doing something wrong, you can ask her not to tell your dad, but she’s gonna tell him. Because your parents are a team and their job is to keep you in check and make sure you stay on the straight and narrow. They’re responsible for you and you represent them when you step out in these streets.

In this same way, 45 can go ahead and be mad at the leaks coming from his administration–that someone keeps telling on him and the judicial branch is waiting for him by the front door with a switch. But it’s their job to let us know what he’s up to, keep him in check and make sure he stays on the straight and narrow. He’s responsible for us and he represents us when he steps out in these streets.

“Why did you tell Dad?” is the sleight of hand all children attempt when facing discipline. But as any good parent, concerned about the well-being of their family, knows the only questions that matter are:

“Why did you do that?”
“Did you think we wouldn’t find out?”
“You know if you do it again, that’s yo ass, right?”

Good on whomever is leaking. Jesus be a sieve. Because the fact that we know about all this chaos is the best part of it all. If everyone was corrupt, we might never know about it and wouldn’t that be worse?

A chronological–yet not exhaustive–history of how Starbucks stays failing me

I’m not the first person to lament Starbucks’ spelling of her name. We’ve all laughed at the memes:
abux2

But I am consistently impressed—and equally perplexed—by the myriad ways Starbucks baristas manage to *&%$ up this simple four-letter word. E-R-I-N. My name is so basic. In fact, I was always jealous of my friends with prettier, cooler, longer names. To this day, my bestie, Michelle still rocks her high school-era nameplate necklace. And it still looks awesome, eight beautiful letters to balance out the chain. My name always looked like crap on jewelry. Too short to anchor a necklace, I’d catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and the name part would be somewhere up around my shoulder…

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I tried different types of chains, different lengths. I can’t tell you how much cheap, gold-plated “jewelry” I copped at U.S. 1 back in the day trying to be fly. I probably spent like a whole $30 total. Shout to my Franklin/Brunswick fam! Also, the 90’s.

erinfeature

A friend gifted me this necklace for my birthday in 2014 after I told him of my nameplate struggle. He could have spent a million dollars on it and it still would have looked this sad. Thanks anyway, boo. xo

But back to Starbucks. As the majority of the baristas I encounter are white, I often wonder 1) whether they’re not familiar with the name Erin (which I’ve always found difficult to believe), 2) if they figured they misheard me because: black, or 3) if they heard me correctly and just expect that my Erin is spelled more creatively??? Over the past 30+ years of life, I’ve grown accustomed to people spelling my name A-A-R-O-N. I rarely, if ever, roll my eyes anymore when I receive letter addressed to “Mr. Aaron Jackson.” And if that is how these baristas were spelling it, fine. It’s still ridiculous, but it’s a ridiculous I’ve come to accept. But alas, here are a few of the variations I’ve gotten:

May 14, 2015

November 2, 2013

This one is super Key & Peele-esque. A-Aron…?

April 25, 2015

April 25, 2015

This one was was actually spelled correctly, but my friend Kelly and I were at a Starbucks in Boston, where misspelling our names is akin to blasphemy.

July 3, 2015

July 3, 2015

I am almost positive no one in the history of Erins has ever spelled it this way.

September 16, 2016

September 16, 2016

Heron. Like the bird. Or Gil Scott. Or the drug.

September 18, 2016

September 18, 2016

The hell??? Arren? I give up.

I could never have imagined there were this many ways to get it wrong. Do you have any crazy Starbucks fails you can share? Fellow Erins out there–have you felt my pain? Please leave me a message below.

The nerve of some ni**as

Of course I remember you!

I remember that time you asked me out on a date and after I’d been waiting for you for 20 minutes, you called and told me you were having car trouble but would be there soon, but after an hour, still never showed up or called to apologize or reached out to me at all until today.

You need what, now? And how many ways can I not help you?

#AndIKnowYouFromWhere
#ElementarySchool #GoThatWay
#TheNerveOfNiggas

Baby, let’s cruise

Away from here…

I trust you read that in Smokey Robinson falsetto. Yesterday, we cruised thru Glacier Bay National Park and saw the Margarie Glacier. This is her/it—I’m not sure which pronoun glaciers prefer. Look how blue that ice is! I’ve seen the Portage Glacier from Anchorage, but this was a completely different experience because we cruised so much closer than I’ve ever been to Portage. I took a gang of glacier selfies, trying to get this photo, when I could have just asked someone to do take it for me. But these other cruisers don’t know my good angles…

Man.

Amazing.

“Outside” be so pretty, sometimes.