The Naugahyde Davenport

Today is Jeff's birthday. He is 22. How time flies.

I can't remember when we started calling him Jeff. We named him Jeffrey when he was born, and the formal name stuck with him almost all the way through high school. Our friend Jeremy even remarked about it at one point. Jeremy moved to Huntington and when he came back to visit, Jeffrey's name had changed to Jeff without us even noticing. That made Jeff the only kid in the family whose name didn't end with Y.

He has always liked being different from everyone else. For example, I think he enjoyed it when they put him in Time Out in Kindergarten for telling the rest of the kids, "There really isn't an Easter Bunny." I blame that teacher for skewing my son’s moral compass. Not long after that, the school's bus driver approached me and asked, “Is Jeffrey really your son?”

“That depends,” I responded. “What has he done?”

“He told me you’re not his real mom. He says his real parents were killed in an accident, so I asked him who’s that lady that brings you here? He says ‘oh that’s my aunt. She and my uncle are my parents now.”

Not knowing how to react to my son’s newfound propensity for fiction, I told his father about it when he got home. Bob called Jeff into the room, sat him down, and explained to him where he really came from…

“Jeffrey, one day, the five of us, your mom, your sisters, your brother and I were all going to shop at Sears. As we passed by the dumpster near the catalog pickup entrance, we heard a sound. We thought someone had abandoned a poor kitten in the dumpster, but as we lifted the lid and looked inside. There was a fat little baby with a big head – it was you. You were lying right next to a discarded Happy Meal and you had a few stale french fries clutched in your little hands. I thought we should call the police, but your mom wanted to keep you, so we took you home.”

Jeff handled the news pretty well.

Later when Jeff was in the second grade, his teacher had all of her students keep a journal. She gave them a subject to write about each day and would periodically read and comment on their writing. Bob and the kids and I all went into school one evening for open house. Jeff had some his best work laid out on his desk. We looked inside and saw his journal. Oh, isn’t this cute – the musings of a second grader. Bob paged through and came to the phrase “I’m sad when my dad beats me up.”

Jeff had his ups and downs as a student. In fourth grade, the school labeled him gifted and creative. In fifth grade, the teacher labeled him hopelessly disorganized. In High School, I realized my youngest son was not normal. He would stay up till the wee hours of the morning finishing a paper and then leave it in his locker when he went to class.

After graduating high school, Jeff came up with a home remedy for his apparent attention deficit problem. He began drinking mass quantities of iced tea and sleeping about three hours a night. He decided to use his new surplus of time to begin writing a 500-page self-help book for people with attention deficit disorder. He never finished it though.

One night, when Jeff was still living in Indianapolis, I took him out to dinner. As the waitress brought his third glass of iced tea he said, “I read somewhere that nicotine is a stimulant.”

I said, “Hey, maybe you should start smoking.”

To which he responded, “No, I was thinking about just wearing the patch.”

Recently I ran across a little note in Jeff’s handwriting. At first I was a little concerned. It says, “Appeared Friday. No hair. About 3/16 inch. Light brown. Slightly raised. Talks to me on occasion.” Then I remembered that I had told him to call the doctor and describe his mole.

Since high school, Jeff has had a serious interest in politics. He listens to political commentary on the radio, frequents political websites, attends political events and reads political books. He even watches C-Span. One of his favorite authors is a slim, attractive blonde named Ann Coulter, who I might add is more abrasive than Comet cleanser. Jeff went to a local book signing and met her in person. After that he was smitten and convinced that he and Ann were destined to be together. He would talk about her as if they were an item. Playing along with the fantasy, one of Jeff’s sisters asked him how things are going with Ann. He said, “Things are going pretty well. We just need to get past this restraining order.”

Jeff has now lived in Phoenix for over a year. He constantly rubs it in that the weather is wonderful out there (except when it's 116 in the shade, if you can find any shade). He is the proud owner of Middle Floor, a multi-dollar web/design/media/whatever-else-makes-money company (middlefloor.com). I'm proud of you son. Happy birthday!