Our car had broken down on our way to the airport, and we were panicking on pueblo land.

The woman at the gas station said the closest taxis were idling 40 miles south in Albuquerque. My daughter Poppy was on hold with Southwest Airlines while my son London sat glumly on a pile of suitcases like a forgotten orphan at a train depot.

In the midst of our pre-vacation madness, I immediately thought of one of our favorite television shows, The Amazing Race, and how the winning contestants never waited for a better offer to come along; they always took the first opportunity, even if that opportunity was unseemly, dangerous or both.

While Lala was busy hustling at the truck stop, I finagled later flights, postponed rental cars and hired a tow truck.

“He said he’d do it for 30 bucks,” Lala said, huffing and puffing and pointing to a pickup truck with its hood open like a gaping mouth. An older man was pouring oil into the engine; this didn’t seem like a good omen.

“Do you trust him?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I offered $20 and we settled on $30.”

I looked at my watch. “Let’s do it,” I said, as if the $10 raise was some kind of sign.

In a flash, we emptied any valuables from our vehicle, left the keys in the glove box for the tow truck guy and rolled our bags over to our soon-to-be-driver, who was moving debris from the back seat to the truck’s bed. When he turned, his unshaven, slightly sunken face reminded me of Walter Brennan, John Wayne’s famous sidekick who uttered things like “Dagnabbit!”— only this man was not as amusing and hopefully more sober.
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“Come on, buckle up,” I said to my terrified kids and threw the bags in the back. Shuddering to think what kind of behavior we were modeling, I chanted, “Amazing Race, Amazing Race,” as I climbed into the unfamiliar vehicle where I’d spend the next 40 white-knuckled minutes.

After Lala thanked him and I’d introduced the family, things got terribly quiet. I knew we all were wondering if this man with his cowboy hat on the dash would leave us stranded in an arroyo somewhere or on the off-ramp to the Sunport like the family of hitchhikers we now were.

“Have you lived in New Mexico long?” I asked.

“Fourth generation,” he said proudly.

“Wow!” seemed like the kind of response that might win over a guy thinking about ditching a family by the side of the frontage road.

“My family owned land from the university all the way up the mountains. I tried to buy it back from the city for $37 million dollars back in the ’70s, but they wouldn’t sell it.”

The mention of currency must have reminded Lala that there ain’t no free rides west of the Mississippi because she said, “Here’s your $30,” and dropped the money in a nearby cup holder. He just nodded, and I wondered why a guy who once had enough dough to buy a good portion of Albuquerque would be shuttling folks for the amount an oil change would cost at Jiffy Lube.

We had miles to go before we breathed, and the kids still seemed like frightened extras in a horror film, so I asked Walter about his current occupation.

“I’m building a water pipeline from Mexico to San Diego,” he said.

“Bullshit,” I coughed into my elbow and turned back to the two limp bills languishing in the cup holder. Lala gave me a steely I-think-I-might-be-a-hostage smile. Our own car was probably back in Santa Fe by now and, with any luck, we could make the next flight out if I kept him talking.

“Tell me more,” I said, my eyes fixed straight ahead.

“No way.” We were still safe in our home in New Mexico, poring over a map of Washington State, our vacation destination. For those of you who have been living in isolation, Forks is a former logging town that serves as the location for Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series—novels about vampires, werewolves and setting back women’s rights approximately 60 years.

The whole Twilight phenomenon makes me crazier than a hair salon infested with bats—the books are overly sentimental, the movies hysterically melodramatic, and Poppy and her friends switching from Team Edward to Team Jacob makes me want to join Team Suicide.

Two weeks later, we were caravanning along the picturesque Olympic Peninsula with my sister-in-law Kate and nephew Layton who live in Seattle. Earlier that day, we’d scampered across logs and collected rocks at Rialto Beach and were on our way to the Hoh, one of the finest temperate rain forests in the country. It was getting late and the kids were ravished, so I told Kate we should probably stop overnight somewhere.

“Well,” she said reluctantly, “the only place to stay is Forks.”

“Forks! Forks! Forks!” Poppy and Layton chanted from the backseat like true brainwashed Twihards. As for me, I could almost hear the morose sound track of my sad little life coming through the rental car speakers as we neared one of the rainiest spots in America. I moped in the car when the kids posed for pictures by the “Welcome to Forks” sign; I scowled at the barista when ordering our Bella Blend and Jacob Java; I gasped when the bagger at the grocery store told us it was a “good day for Twilighting” and handed us a tourist map. And when I caught sight of the Twilight tour bus filled with panting middle-aged women, I longed for the return of clear-cutting, so this town could wipe off the greasepaint and dump its whorish persona.

A kindly policeman driving a modern SUV pointed out the two clean hotels in this one-wolf town. The first only had a room with one queen-sized bed and there were six of us, so I crossed the street and entered the office of the competition. A pale woman sat behind the desk with what I first thought was her manager standing behind her. I then grew close enough to see that her manager was really a life-size cutout of actor Robert Pattinson.

“We have a non-smoking room with two queens,” she said, bored as hell.

“Great, we’ll take it.” By this time I looked and felt (and smelled) like the undead.

“It’s a Twilight-themed room, so it’ll cost ya.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Nope. Someone shoulda told you not to come to Forks without a reservation.”

I scanned the room for hidden cameras. “This can’t be happening.”

“It comes with a free rental of the first movie after you sign a contract saying you won’t steal nothing.” She handed me a pen that bled red ink.

The bedspreads were crushed crimson velvet, the drapes sparkly black and, everywhere you turned, heartthrobs from the films stared right back at you like they wanted to suck way more than your blood. Even the towels and shower curtains looked like they were stolen from Bela Lugosi’s favorite bordello.

I fell asleep to the lip-chewing mumblings of actress Kristen Stewart but was awakened at 3 am to my nephew screaming.

“What’s wrong, Layton?” I asked, trying to remember where we were.

“Edward’s staring at me in the mirror!”

Sure enough, the pouting poser poster was lined up directly with the looking glass.

“Well, at least he can’t talk,” I said. “Now go sleep the sleep of the dead.”

“I think he’s singing, ‘Sign yourself, the deaf don’t go that way,’” Drew said from under a Yankees cap.

“No way, dude, Stipe is far more philosophical,” Russell argued. He was from Georgia so he thought himself a bit of an expert on the Dirty South and its history of crooners. “It’s ‘Mine the shelf, dead gonna lead the way.’”

I just laughed because I had no idea what the hell anyone was talking about, which was true for most of the time I spent in that attic.

Now it’s my 9-year-old son London doing all the guessing about the libretto to Black Sabbath of all bands, and it’s because of Iron Man, the movie, not the guy Drew knew who sold weed that he claimed was fortified with vitamins.

The Marvel film has been clever enough to unite myriad generations through the use of old-school bands like Sabbath and AC/DC on its anthemic soundtrack. While some metalheads love the nostalgic familiarity of arguing whether the midgets Ozzy Osbourne employed onstage were really poking fun at Ronnie James Dio’s height (or lack thereof), nippers like London believe these iconic songs were written just for a smirking Robert Downey Jr. to kick the lumpy ass of Mickey Rourke (in a Russian accent straight out of a Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon). So we’re in the minivan not long after forking over our super bucks to see Iron Man 2, and some classic rock station was doing (surprise!) a Sabbath marathon. They started with “War Pigs,” a song I actually enjoy more, ironically, covered by the band Cake. But who wants to listen to me, a gangster of the minivan variety? Either way, London started to deconstruct straight outta his booster seat.

“When that guy says ‘War Machine keeps turning,’ he’s talking about the machine gun on his left shoulder. You know that, right, Dad?”

“Sure,” I said, with the same level of confidence I had back in the attic when Russell and Drew tried to convince me that the REM song “Perfect Circle” was about competitive cheerleading.

London does not reference the military-industrial complex when he hears the term War Machine; in his mind screen, all he sees is Don Cheadle desperate to return a gunmetal suit to a bloody but still grinning Robert Downey.

When the title track came on, I checked the rearview to see my little Chuck Klosterman racking his brain to apply the darker lyrics of the song to the more heroic fare of the films.

“Let’s see,” London mused, “the part about him being blind is when Tony Stark makes his first suit in that prison. He can’t see so well then.”

“That makes sense.”

“And the whole thing about nobody wanting him.” London’s eyes became distant. I could tell he was applying some intense critical thinking to these two great works of art. “Well, that’s when he gets drunk and everybody’s mad at him, even his friends.”

“I can feel his pain,” I said, and realized I hadn’t spoken to Russell since Michael Stipe shaved his head.

The Sabbath song isn’t exactly complex, either musically or lyrically, so London could really concentrate on his essential text.

“And he has to get his vengeance, you know, Dad, because his victims are really his enemies, the villains. Let’s see, there’s Obadiah, Crimson Dynamo, Whiplash, Doctor Doom and MODOK, which stands for something. Do you remember what it stands for?”

“No, London,” I said, “but if you keep listening, you’ll probably figure it out.”

Instead, the lively discussion was centered around the end of the novel where Tom Sawyer appears almost by magic and changes the thoughtful, morally complex river narrative into a bunch of hijinks reminiscent of the closing credits of The Benny Hill Show. One student fiercely argued that Twain duped us; all the investment we’d made into Huck and Jim’s relationship and Huck’s moral development had been crushed by the realization that Jim had been free all along. The end, he suggested, was like those bad student essays that close with “And then I woke up.” Another student sitting on the opposite end of our seminar table said that the final act of Huck Finn was obvious satire by Twain who was illustrating the poor treatment African-Americans received well after Emancipation and the end of the Civil War. Other students started taking sides and although voices raised louder than some teachers might have felt comfortable with, I was proud that my students had cared enough about the novel to get so spicy.

“Awww,” a normally stoic girl sighed like we’d all turned into fluffy white kittens. Confused, I stared at her, wondering if end-of-the-year stress had caused a mental breakdown. This fiery debate did not deserve that gooey response.

“Awww,” a few more girls echoed. Was this some sort of last day practical joke? Then I looked out the window and saw a boy from another school holding up a dozen roses and a sign that read “Will You Go To Prom With Me?” His sentiments were directed toward his girlfriend whose skin had now turned the color of ripe cherries. The moment reminded me of that iconic scene in Say Anything where Lloyd Dobler (played by John Cusack) holds up his boombox outside of Diane’s (Ione Skye) window trying to woo her with a now dated Peter Gabriel ballad. I felt schizophrenic; the tone was shifting so quickly in class, from an intense war of words to a sentimental puddle to a now stunned silence. All students turned to me. I flashed on a moment in the novel we were supposed to be discussing where Huck decides that since everyone sees him as a sinner, he should just go with the flow and embrace his role. Since this was like a movie scene, I thought of what a teacher in a movie would do.
“Run to him Kathy!” I yelled. “Run to him, hold him, and never let him go!” I pounded the table with my ink-stained fist for emphasis.

Confused at my odd and seemingly bipolar response, she cocked her head.

“Did you hear me? I said go now or you’ll live to regret this moment for the rest of your livelong days!”

Maybe “livelong” was a bit archaic and over-the-top, but my dramatic command worked. She went outside to chat with her romantic beau and was greeted upon her return with a standing ovation from her peers. Even the anti-sentimentalists in the group who favored death metal and avoided any sort of deep literary interpretation had to admit it was all pretty sweet.
I just then had one of those epiphanies that only teachers are cursed with: the dramatic shift in tone in class mirrored the same mood shift in the novel!

“Hey guys!” I chirped. “Guess what I just thought of?”

“Awww,” they sighed and clapped again.

Careful Monitoring of the Ingress and Egress Routes of an Automobile Cleansing Station Including Traffic Count (London had to dodge cars while we power washed the minivan.)

In-Depth Analysis of Recent Hollywood Trend of Padding Sparsely Plotted Children’s Literature in Order to Reach Minimum Acceptable Running Time for American Theatergoers (London viewed Where the Wild Things Are and Fantastic Mr. Fox on the portable DVD player, so my wife Lala and I could have a conversation that lasted more than six minutes.)

Quantifying and Qualifying Roadside Rest Area and Service Plaza Usage Including Cleanliness/Appeal, and Specific Strategies and Actions Therein (We hit a particularly nasty bathroom outside of Trinidad, and I had to show London how to flush a rank toilet using the bottom of his shoe and open the door with just his elbow.)

Discovery of the “Backward Traveling Wave” Through Time Delay of Drivers’ Actions, Otherwise Known as “Jamitons”; Similar to the Equations that Describe Detonation Waves Produced by Explosions (It took us an hour to go 12 miles in goddamn Colorado Springs.)

Use of Profanity by the Modern American Male: When Incivility is Acceptable or Swearing is Employed as a Psychological Phenomenon to Release Stress (It took us an hour to go 12 miles in goddamn Colorado Springs.)

Effectiveness of Cardio-Aerobic Exercise in Burning Calories, Reducing Fat-Muscle Ratio and Increasing Metabolic Rate (Forced the kids do jumping jacks and deep knee bends outside a Subway franchise before getting back into the minivan to jam our $5 Footlongs into our pieholes.)

Semantic Deconstruction and Bridge-Like Design of the Feminine Garment Icon During the Coming of Age of an Average American Female Using Maternal Influences as a Referent in the Measurement of Subjective Norms (London had to listen to his sister Poppy talk incessantly about bra sizing with Lala.)

Rise of Sexually and Racially Safe Teen Idols in the Ebbs and Flows of Moral Panic Associated with the Complex Contemporary Music Scene (Damn you, Justin Bieber! Damn you, Poppy!).

Emergence of Earworm (Involuntary Musical Imagery or INMI) and How INMIs Frequently Exceed Standard Estimates of Auditory Memory Capacity. Active Attempts to Block or Eliminate Earworm are Less Successful than Passive Acceptance, Consistent with Wegener’s Theory of Ironic Mental Control. (Like Baby, Baby, Baby No!)

“Dad, next time we work out, I’m gonna shower,” London said, wiping invisible sweat from his unfurrowed brow.

“Not so sure about that,” I said, warily.

“Why?”

What I didn’t tell London is this: The last time I was in a locker room with a kid close to London’s age was well before he or his 13-year-old sister had turned my life into a baggy-eyed docudrama. I was an assistant teacher at a hippie elementary school and we went on a field trip to the local pool. Since I was the only male on the payroll, I was in charge of about a dozen 5-year-old boys. When we pulled up in front of the rec center, the kids spotted an African-American man locking his car.

“Michael Jordan! Michael Jordan!” they yelled out of the open window loud enough that the man spun around. He fixed his eyes on me as if, during Black History Month, I taught the youngsters that the best way to spread civil rights was to greet any black man they saw as if he were the greatest player in NBA history.

I quickly hurried the gaggle into the locker room to change. I thought if I moved quickly enough, I could be safely underwater before anyone could pick me out of a lineup. Trying to get that many boys unbuttoned, unzipped, unbuckled, untied, and then redressed and re-tied with their gear stowed and locked was like trying to get tougher DWI laws passed in New Mexico. About halfway through my childish costume change, the man miscast as MJ came in and started his own strip routine. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t hustle the kids out of there. Both of Sam’s legs got stuck in one hole of his swimsuit, while Jon had early aspirations as a nudist and ran around shouting, “Nudie! Nudie!”

Then the man dropped his underwear.

“Michael Jordan’s penis is so big!” one kid yelled, and they all turned and started pointing.

“It’s bigger than my dad’s.”

“It’s huge! Bigger than anybody’s!”

I suffered the type of paralysis usually associated with spinal cord injuries or ayahuasca ingestion. “I’m so sorry,” I mouthed to the hardened center of my students’ attention, but his deep frown showed that he wasn’t having any of it, and “it” sadly meant me.

“Michael Jordan! Michael Jordan!” one set of kids screamed while another chose “Penis! Penis!” each chant echoing off the low ceilings and tiled walls.

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” Martin yelled, a little removed from the other racist hooligans. Because he was normally a reticent kid, I figured he had trouble articulating his excitement at the sight of a real live riot. The locker room was spinning now as I looked from the gap-toothed mouths and bowl haircuts to a man yanking on his shorts like he just got caught in bed with his best friend’s wife.

“Ouch. Ouch.” Martin waddled over to me pointing at his groin. Upon further examination, I saw that he had caught a wrinkle of his scrotum in the zipper of his pants. This was in the pre-texting days so I couldn’t say “FML,” though the abbreviation would have captured my sentiment exactly. Even as a trusted teacher with a clean record, I couldn’t march a boy with that type of problem into the light of day.

“Hold on, Martin,” I said, clenching my jaw. “This is gonna hurt.”

The moniker did seem an odd choice given that we were about to walk along the Rio Grande with our two children in tow—two children who had always asked that we fast-forward the tale, performed by storyteller Joe Hayes, of the weeping woman who drowned her children to be with the man she loved who, in Jersey Shore fashion, kicked her to the curb.

The night before, at a dinner party, we were told of a father who was still angry at Hayes for coming into his kids’ classes and scaring them with his rendition of the banshee who would steal young’uns if they didn’t eat their peas or quit filling their siblings’ underwear with sand.

It didn’t matter that this man’s children were now in their late 20s: Mention Hayes and you’d have to endure a mantrum reminiscent of chair-toting Bobby Knight on the losing end of a rout.

Even though the name of the trail was a tad off-putting, the setting was idyllic: 64 degrees, pale blue skies with wisps of clouds layered across the horizon, and plenty of birdlife along the willow-lined river to spot and miscategorize. All four of us had traveled almost 300 miles south to flee the chilling Santa Fe weather and spend time with each other, away from home improvement projects staring at us like the creepy Geico money stack.

“Look! A red-tailed hawk!” my son London said and, although I’m no John James Audubon, I think, given the color and shape of the tail, he got that one right. We watched the bird circle the bosk, looking for mobile groceries, and I felt this calm feeling wash over me. I had nowhere to be, no students to win over for books void of sensational plots, no DSL hassles at home (damn you, Qwest!), no extended family members’ birthdays to remember (damn you, nieces and nephews!).

The light wind scalloped the surface of the water and the winter sun bathed those little ruffles in gold. I started to say to Lala how lovely it all was when I was interrupted by our 13-year-old daughter Poppy.

“Can we turn around now?” she whined. “I think we’ve gone like two miles.”

“How can you tell?”

“Trail is marked.” She pointed down to a white stripe that noted our mileage. While our gaze was fixed on the sky, hers had been anchored to the ground.

“Fifty more steps,” Lala said casually, employing the same mommified tonality as three more bites of your broccoli, one more season with these snow boots, five more minutes in the park before we have to go home.

“One, two, three,” Poppy and London chanted together and, before Lala and I decided whether the angular bird on the bank was a crane or a heron, the step-counters reached 50.

“A little more,” Lala said, wanting to view the stoic bird from a better angle. Since London has yet to enter the cruel car wash of adolescence, he kept going. Poppy is 13 and, eyeing neither security guards nearby nor Wii games for us to take away, she halted her march. London didn’t notice until he hit 100.

“Poppy owes me 50 steps!” he yelled, shaking his fist at a now laughing sister.

“Really 100 since we have to walk back,” I whispered to Lala.

“I want those 50 steps,” London wailed, scaring into flight the birds we couldn’t name.

“We should call Joe Hayes when we get home,” I said to Lala, watching London cry and kick the brambly ground.

“Why?”

“The weeping woman has transformed into an 8-year-old boy.”

The reason I started this relationship has more to do with my back than my gut (though I’m told those two areas are connected) so, while I was travelling recently, I wanted to stay committed to my exercise ball and chain.

I also felt guilty about leaving my family right before Christmas and inflicting physical pain is the sort of penance a recovering Catholic can get his head around.

In New York visiting a sick friend (cliché but true), I told another friend, Drew, I’d be happy to pay to be a guest at his gym.

“Only suckers pay,” he said. “Tell them you moved into the neighborhood and you want to try it out. They’ll wave you right through.”

At Drew’s gym, I was greeted by a perky receptionist who was a dead ringer for Elisabeth Shue when she won Daniel-san’s heart in The Karate Kid. She asked how she could help me and I mentioned that my friend sent me.

“A guest pass will be $15.”

“No no, no,” I said, leaning on the counter. She obviously had me mistaken for a sucker. “My friend told me I could demo the place for free.”

“Have a seat. A supervisor will be with you in a minute.”

That’s exactly what I didn’t want. Time was tight and I knew once I wasn’t waved through, I was in a whole Mr. Universe kind of trouble. I sat on a padded bench across from a vitamin sluice vending machine and called home. They were scheduled to decorate the Christmas tree, which I wasn’t heartbroken about missing since my wife Lala makes Martha Stewart look like a slouch when it comes to manipulating tinsel and ornaments.

My 8-year-old son London answered. “Dad, we have to call you back,” he said. “We have, um, a situation here.” Then he hung up.

I started freaking out. The last time I left on a trip to New York, Lala broke her wrist. As the different hemorrhage and fracture scenarios raced through my head like reindeer on the Tony Montana-type of snow, a youngish guy came up and shook my hand. His name was Riley and he wanted to know what I was looking for.

“Want to try out the gym,” I said far too quickly, dying to hurry through the workout and then call home. “Just moved to the neighborhood.”

“What’s your name?”

“Steve,” I lied, stupidly thinking a new name would streamline the process.

“OK, Steve, let’s go in here where it’s less noisy.”

He led me into one of those sales pitch cubicles you see in car dealerships and the better red-light districts. Still wearing my overcoat, I started to sweat. Goddamn Drew, I thought, should have paid the 15 bucks.

“So, where did you move from?”

“Michigan. Can I just get a pass to try out the gym? I’m kinda in a hurry.”

“Sure, Steve, no problem. Let me just tell you about our rates.”

As he rattled off different payment plans including an offer that was only good for the next seven minutes, my phone rang. Home. “Sorry, I have to get this,” Steve told Riley.

Now it was my daughter Poppy. “Dad, London didn’t tell you but the tree fell on him. He’s making himself a homemade cast now.” Seems that once they had finished adorning, the heavy tree landed on top of the boy and one-armed Lala had to call the neighbors to lift it off of him.

“I need to call you back,” I said and hung up. “Can I just get that pass?”

“Sure, just need to see your license. We have a lot of scammers around here.”

“I bet,” I said, knowing that once I handed him my New Mexico ID, I’d be in for a different kind of workout.

It was early and so was I, but I figured that I’d enjoy a well-needed drink at the empty bar. The bartender handed me a menu and I scanned it. The night before, some other friends had served me a fancy rum and, although I usually choose that spirit only when I’m sunburned and somewhere that pipes in reggae music, I figured—what the hell?—I’d let my freak flag fly. I found a drink that had rum as a major ingredient and before I knew it, I waved the bartender over and said, “I’ll have the Jane Fonda.”

He cocked his head and squinted his eyes slightly as if he misheard. Truth be told, I never in my life would have guessed that one day I’d be sitting in a restaurant with golden drapes ordering a drink named after the star of both Barbarella and her own Pregnancy, Birth and Recovery Workout tape. But I didn’t flinch. I just nodded, trying to appear secure, although I have this sinking feeling that my smirk (and jowls) may have been more reminiscent of Richard Simmons than Richard Gere.

While the bartender was crushing exotic flowers into my tall frosted glass, an attractive young Vietnamese woman danced in wearing a charcoal evening dress and big DJ headphones over her ears. She elegantly slipped off the music cans and draped them over the strap of her leather handbag. As we were the only two at the bar, she glanced over and smiled. As I was summoning my facial muscles to do the same, my bartender said, “Here’s your Jane Fonda!” loud enough that people on the street probably thought the actress was being summoned for her table. Before I had a chance to explain, the bartender slid down and asked the well-dressed hipster what she required.

“Bombay Sapphire, neat.”

Come on. Who drinks gin straight? So here I was sipping a freaking Jane Fonda next to a 100-pound woman with a taste for gin and huge ass headphones while I had just grooved out to my dainty white iPod earbuds. I no longer felt free.

My friend Christopher walked in and I quickly caught him up. “Well then,” he said, “I guess I should follow the man’s lead.” He lowered his voice and demanded Knob Creek bourbon, straight.

“Thanks very little,” I said, sipping my floral concoction.

He laughed. “Did she see you drink from your lithe straw?”

I hadn’t noticed, but he was right. If someone puts a tube in my liquid, I unconsciously suck. And then I remembered something my wife Lala pokes fun at: When I grab the plastic pole stuck in my bev, my pinkie automatically jets out like I’m at an English tea party.

Christopher must have seen me tucking in my little flesh kickstand. “I noticed the sad little pinkie thing too,” he said, “but I thought mentioning that would have been far too cruel.”

It should have come as no surprise that the host led us to the back where, instead of chairs, plush couches awaited. Everywhere around us were couples, including a white-haired foursome gumming their last meal.

“I think they sat us in the love nest,” I told Christopher.

“We can thank you and your Jane Fonda for that,” he said, grabbing his menu.

I had spotted my daughter Poppy mixing a glass of Ovaltine on the kitchen counter. “You’ll spoil this restaurant-quality meal. How many dads make a grilled undercut of pork with a fresh fruit salsa on a school night?” I admit I sounded a little nancy touting my culinary skills, but what’s a modern dad to do when no one notices his tenderloin anymore?

“Jody says that a glass of chocolate milk is the best thing for a runner as long as you drink it within an hour after cool down.” Dressed in warm ups, Poppy shot me a sharp smile that said, ‘I have a new boss now’ in about a dozen different languages.

Earlier this fall, my wife Lala and I had told Poppy she needed to do something active—take hip-hop dance, join a gym, jazzercise, her choice—and surprisingly she went postal on us and up and joined the cross country team. In my family, you only ran if you were chasing a ball or being chased by my dad and his wooden spoon of tough love.

So Lala and I kept our mouths shut, trying not to jinx whatever spell this Coach Jody had put on her. Watching Poppy lope along the arroyo on a Sunday or up steep city streets on a Saturday was akin to viewing Joey Chestnut downing 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes: We felt a mix of pride, shock and slight nausea. But slowly, along with the change in behavior, came the influence of a new guru in our little casa.

After an especially grueling practice, Poppy said that Jody advised a cold plunge. Having played soccer as an extremely out-of-shape adult, I knew the benefits (and the pain) of dropping into a tub of frigid water.

“Capital idea,” I said, trying to bond around the removal of lactic acid. “You know, I could stay in there for a good six minutes after a game.”

“Pfft,” Poppy scoffed. “Jody says optimum time is between 12 and 16 minutes. No more. No less.” She then grabbed her iPod and sweater and surged her way away from this blind spot.

Even though Jody has never been through our starting gate, his presence loomed over every domestic routine I thought we had finally gotten control. One night, I spotted light coming from under Poppy’s bedroom door. I knocked on the face of a pug taped to the center and let myself in. There she was happily reading a novel.

“I thought I told you to go to bed,” I said, thinking of the cranky mess Lala would have to wrestle with in the morning.

“It’s OK, Dad,” she said reassuringly. “Jody says that as long as you’re lying down, that’s an acceptable form of rest for your body.”

“It’s not your body I’m worried about, little Miss Stepford Wife.”

All this “Jody Says” business started giving us brain spurs. According to her new prophet, Poppy could no longer use the trampoline she had so desperately wanted since her feet would be “touching the ground too often.” Until the season was over, we’d have to watch her poor little brother London jump alone like a circus orphan separated from his extended family of acrobats.

Luckily, some of my students also run cross country and one day they let a Jodyism slip that would put me back in lead position. When Poppy got home that night, my pathetic attempt at love was not baby-back ribs but banana splits, arranged like two runner’s legs setting a personal record.

“Dad, banana splits!” Poppy yelled, dropping her team bag.

“Not for you,” I spat like the dessert Nazi.

“Why?”

“Aha! Jody says sugar is bad for a runner!”

“But, he didn’t mean, he just,” she stammered, and I let her sweat as long as it would take for me to run a cross country course.