Wait Till Your Kids Make a Diss Track

I had another topic in mind today, and I will get to it. But first, we have to deal with another salvo in the Infamous Battle of the Towels. I got out of the shower this morning, dried off, opened the bathroom door, and behold, the laundry basket. But what do you see this time, readers?

Why, yes, that IS A TOWEL ON TOP AND IT IS WEDNESDAY NOT THURSDAY (I write a day or two ahead of posting). Lauren was nearby, so I said, “Are you doing towels today?”

“No,” she said. As if that were all there was to it and I should know better.

“But that’s a towel on top of the laundry,” I said.

“That’s a hand towel on top of the laundry. And it was on the tub, so I’m washing it.”

Wow, what a loaded statement. First of all, a hand towel is, in fact, still a towel. Second, what does its position on the tub have to do with washing it? There’s never been a stated rule in the house that goes, “I wash all bathtub amenities on Wednesday.”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“I’m doing bath mats today. Today is Wednesday. Thursdays are for towels.”

Which does nothing at all to explain why the hand towels on the tub were in the laundry. But this is sorcery and genius too profound to challenge. I let it drop.

On a similar but separate note, Brayden reads my dispatches from the boat when he’s able and replies to me, sometimes, and other times gives his thoughts to Lucia. Lucia texted after my last dispatch about the towels, Dad, Brayden says your towel is not dirty since you are just drying your clean body with it.

Why, yes, Brayden. That’s exactly what I said too. Brayden, of course, is a fine young man with sharp intelligence, keen vision, and wise judgment. A gentleman and a scholar and there are just two of us left.

Okay, so back to what else I was going to talk about. I was scrolling Instagram the other night when I saw a post from this guy saying, “I told my stepson to go clean his room. I went to check on him a half hour later, and I found him making a diss track aimed at me (‘You Ain’t My Real Dad’).”

Sir, I am here to tell you that you do not have to be a step-parent to be the target of a diss track. Lauren was searching for something in her photo archive the other day and recovered this gem from Lucia.

That’s a Church program, and the issue was probably that I let Lindsay sit next to me first in Church. Or maybe it was that I told Lucia it was Lindsay’s turn—either could be the reason to write a rage letter or diss track. To be clear, I divided the time in sacrament meeting equally between the two girls, but in this case, Lindsay clearly got something preferential, like “going first” or “her turn.” (And to all this, you say, “Gordon, you have two sides. Just put a girl on each side.” I served as a bishop and high councilor for eight years and didn’t sit next to my wife at all during that time, so she gets a side for the whole time.)

As you can see, Lucia has overcome a lot in her life, which makes us triply proud that she is this semester’s BYU Hawaii Accounting Department Scholarship Winner! Super awesome. And so great that she did it all on her own since she suffered a childhood of deprivation and desperation.

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