Drink Deep, My Children, For I Am a Font of Great and Timeless Wisdom

One of the things about having kids is that you're supposed to teach 'em stuff. It's a real pain in the ass, and often gets in the way of drinking beer and lying around. But the fact of the matter is that kids - especially the young'uns - will pick stuff up from you whether you're actively trying to teach them or not. It's like osmosis: they draw wisdom and information out of the air like thirsty little brain sponges.

It's with this in mind that the good people of DadCentric hereby offer you a primer on passing the baton of wisdom from generation to generation -- or, if your house is like mine and any baton is far more likely to be used as a bludgeoning implement than a tool to be passed from hand to hand, you can consider it the rhythm stick of knowledge, and thereby feel empowered to crack it into the skulls of any and all wee folk who populate your home.

1. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
Children, this was one of the profound mysteries of my own childhood. Men and women of great wisdom searched the far corners of the earth to discover how many gentle flicks of the tongue it would take to whittle away the infinite generations of sedimentary hard candy layers to unleash the forbidden Tootsie treasure - dark, sweet, unknowable - at the center of each glistening microverse on a stick. But no answer was ever found, for it is an immutable truth that temptation is a great and terrible thing, and no human as presently constituted is capable of resisting the siren call of "just bite it. One hard, crunchy, sweet and impossibly satisfying bite, and you will find your way back to the core." Science fails us here. Faith offers suggestions and conjecture, but no certainty. Asking how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop is tantamount to asking what is the nature of God; the question is important. The contemplation enriching. And the answer, ultimately, beyond our capacity for understanding.

2. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?
Children, to ask this question is to miss the point entirely. The amount of wood is immaterial; what holds far more import is the question of why the woodchuck is chucking the wood in the first place. Is it a matter of genetic compulsion? The satisfaction of a job well done? Killing time before it's time to get busy with Mrs. Woodchuck? Or is there something deeper -- some fundamental, twisted sense of malice that drives the woodchuck beyond all reason to the point that he is compelled to chuck any and all wood he sees with the unbound fury and naked aggression of a rabid lioness defending her cubs against a vicious horde of club-wielding Yankees fans?

Understand woodchuck malice, my children, and you will understand the nature of chucking.

3. Why is there hair on your bum?
Children, first off, let me thank you for waiting until we are in a crowded locker room at the local Y - frantically trying to get changed after yet another spectacular swimming lesson in which you refused to actually enter the water - to announce this question at the top of your lungs while pointing at my groin. You are both kind and observant. Secondly, allow me to clarify: the butt goes in the back. This is something you will figure out for yourselves a bit later in life, but it's a major distinction that may come to take on rather significant importance when you start to date. When you're, like, 35 years old and I'm dead.

Third, the hair is there because I am your progenitor. Basic Darwinism teaches us that evolution is a gradual process punctuated by sudden and remarkable adaptations that allow new generations to adapt to their environment and thrive. As such, I am genetically closer to the homunculi and homo habilis than to you, oh bright and shining gateways to the blinding brightness of future tense. I am but a reminder of your simian past. Pay me no mind. As you have told me in the past - glimpsing the wisdom that one day will be your own - I live in a zoo. I look like a monkey; and I smell like one, too.

4.What would you do for a Klondike Bar?
Children, the Klondike Bar is the symbol of human greed. It is a great, thick, glittering slab of silver - dense with promised riches - cradling a singularly intense and rewarding sensory experience within. It is a thing worthy of wonder and envy, best left to the dreams of avarice. Human history is stained crimson with blood spilled in the name of the Klondike. And there's a reason people faint at the sight of blood, children. It's because it's supposed to be hiding deep inside of you, not splashing around out in the open air for everyone to see. What would you do for a Klondike Bar? The answer, oh fruits of my loins, is take your lives in your hands. Ice cream = almost certain doom.

5. Who wrote the book of love?
Your mother, children. She is a heaven-sent creature of angelic kindness and courage, who brought light and hope to a world of infinite grays. As far as you or I or anyone we know is concerned, she is the sole author of the book of love — the singular source of brightness and beauty and peace and comfort in this or any world. Also, she will kick your hairless little bums if you say anything different. This is a point of fact, not conjecture. Consider yourselves forewarned.