Dad Post #214

Megan is the Bobby Rahal of backseat drivers. (To me, Rahal is a racing name as renowned as Andretti, Petty, or Earnhardt, and Bobby is also a longtime friend and business partner of Papa Mike's.) On Chicago's glutted, spaghetti-like highways, Megan will kindly offer, "Dad, you should switch to that lane over there, it's all spread out and nice, and it's going much faster, but don't go too fast, cause it's not safe, but you're going too slow right now, and I won't have enough time with Sophie tonight unless you go faster, Dad." Thanks, Megan. And then if I follow her instructions: "Dad, I think you're speeding now, you know you shouldn't speed too much, you'll get in trouble, Dad." And so on, until I find a song that nine-year-old girls love to lip-sync, which I play loudly even though – unless it's something like early Taylor Swift or Disney – it's inappropriate for nine-year-old girls. But I treat my concerns about this inappropriateness like Chicago drivers do posted speed limits; they're nice but unactionable. Follow them and you'll get runover, and the world will pass you by.

Megan is a slasher like her daddy. With respect to the masterpieces of cinema that comprise the genre, I am not referring to anything in a horror movie. I'm talking about basketball. So far, Megan has a knack for handling and shooting the ball. She has an eagerness to get to the rim and score, and the body control and athleticism to do it prolifically (if she keeps her head on straight, which, of course, is the hard part when people are aggressively trying to stop you). Someday soon we'll see how stubborn and driven she really is. I know she's stubborn. I don't know how well this translates to resilience to discouragement. Girls play stingy, suffocating defense. Girls are catty. Girls are mean. (Have I made my point?) When fussing with me, Megan doesn't give up easy; she gets mad and ornery and spirited and I hope it's the same when some opposing girl on the court starts pushing and bumping and pissing her off. I hope she grinds them to dust and stays with it until she wins at least six championships like that other scoring machine from Chicago who was unstoppable.