I often wonder what my column will be about from week to week, and at times am stumped even as I sit at the keyboard. Not so this week. No sir, not at all.
It hit me yesterday as I was walking around the mall in Abilene with a friend who is about 10 years younger than I am. He wanted to check out a few things in Hot Topic. If you are unaware of this store, it sells edgy, trendy things to teenagers and twenty-somethings who are into the alternative side of life.
I wandered around and recalled visiting that same store with my daughter the other day when we were there with some other friends. Watching her look through the funky things for sale, it reminded me of when I discovered those types of things myself at a young age.
And there it was, that tickle of a realization that I refused to allow purchase in my psyche.
I waved it away, thinking “Nah, that can’t be true”, and we moved on.
As we continued through the mall, my cohort decided he needed to visit Spencers. This store is like that last store, but sells to the crowd that has graduated from the Hot Topic style stores, and has discovered Bob Marley and the Grateful Dead. (You get my drift.)I simply said I’d wait outside, because I felt too old to be in that store without looking like a creepy old guy. And in that moment it hit me: I am the old guy.
The Dad.
I have effectively become the “Ride to the mall, guy who stands in the hall while his little girl shops, person who used to be with it” guy.
I may as well buy a fanny pack, wear sandals with socks, and start telling Dad-Joke puns.
Now, I would rail against this dying of the light that was my youth, but then I would become the “guy who can’t let it go”. No, I will go gracefully into this new role. However, I shall remain as cool as I can muster, and relish the new opportunities that await me.
I hear, and remember from my own youth, the joy that fathers get when embarrassing their children. My own father took a special type of delight in it, and he was well versed in various forms of offspring torturing. I may have to give him a call…
This is gonna be fun!
Ben Cox is the host of “Ben Cox in the Morning” weekday mornings from 6 to 9 on KQBZ, 96.9 FM in Brownwood Texas. He is the new in-stadium voice of the Howard Payne Yellow Jackets football team, & Ben is also an event DJ for weddings, parties and the like, and can be contacted through the Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce.
The thoughts and comments reflected in this column are those of the writer alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of Wendlee Broadcasting, or its affiliates.
