"Michael, come on." "I let you stay home yesterday, now get up!" "The bus is gonna be here any minute." "You can't miss school again, Michael." "Michael, get up!" "I am sick of this" "Wait a minute!" "Come back here!" "Come back here right now." "Ow!" "You've got to help me." "Michael's not getting up." "All right, all right." "Michael" "Michael, this is your father speaking." "Get up." "All right, what are you gonna do?" "Easy." "Easy!" "All right, all right." "Come on, Michael." "Get up, will you?" "Come on!" "I'm sick!" "Well" " He's not sick." " Let's go, come on." "You're not sick." "Don't try to fool around." "What's the matter with you?" "It's my stomach." "Where does it hurt?" "Point." "Show me where." "It's my head." "Let's go." "Come on." " It's time for school." " I'm sick!" "Yesterday he said he was sick." "Last night he's running around with a cape on, going, "Whoo-whoo!"" "Last night you were running around with a cape on, going "Whoo-whoo."" "He's not gonna get away with it again." "You're not getting away with that again." "Don't just repeat what I say!" "All right." "No, don't go back-- did you do your homework?" "Did he do his homework?" "He said he didn't have any." "And you fell for that?" "Oh boy, I am gonna lie to you more." "Mike." "Michael, did you have homework due?" "Leave me alone!" "You see?" "All right, that's it." "I know this game." "I invented it!" "The bus is coming!" "All right, Michael, the bus is coming." "I'm not fooling around." "You've got to get up." " Michael, listen" " No!" "If you miss that bus," "I'm gonna have to drive you to school and I'm gonna be late." "I don't care!" "You don't care, huh?" "How about I pick you up and I carry you to the bus in your pajamas, huh?" "!" " Maybe you care about that!" " Go away!" " All right, that's it." " That's not a good idea." "You got me into this, we're gonna do it my way." "The bus is here!" "Hold that bus!" " Help me." "Help me." " Ray!" "Bite his hands." "Just let him go." "You asked for my help." "This is how I do it." "The bus is gone!" "If he was wearing feet pajamas, he'd still be in here." " Hey." " Hello." "Hey." "What are you doing here?" " Well, Amy's working late tonight." " So?" "So I thought I'd come by and say hey to my little bro." "What?" "A guy can't stop by and say hey to his little bro?" "There's leftover macaroni and cheese in the fridge." "I'll be in there." "Hey, how's Michael?" "Perfectly fine." "He's reading comics." " Is he going to school tomorrow?" " I don't know." "He stayed home from school again today?" "Yep." "Debra couldn't get him to go." "Neither could you!" "I'll tell you what the problem is, Debra." "I was hoping you would, Marie." "You let the kids play those computer, video-tronic games, and after that, school is just boring to them." "It's just an old lady talking." "Where do you get those video-tronic games?" "Why do I say anything?" "Exactly." "Something wrong with Michael?" "No." "He missed school two days in a row." "Two days?" "Is he sick?" " No." " That's truancy." "Not that I'd report it, but please, don't make me choose between Robert the Uncle and "Robert the Sworn Defender of the Law."" "How about you just stay Robert the Stink-Footed Oaf?" "Ha... oh, that's funny." "I don't know." "I just don't know what to do anymore." "I could show you a couple of techniques" "I used to get these two mutts out of bed." "We're not gonna put ice cubes down his pants, Dad." "I'm not saying you start with that," "I'm saying' you start with what I used to call" "The Dirty-Sock Alarm Clock." "Oh, Frank, that was disgusting." "You reach way down to the bottom of the hamper" "We're not doing that, Frank." "It's called Tough, Smelly Love." "Sometimes he'd use my own sock against me." "How come Michael doesn't want to go to school?" "Nobody wants to go to school." "He didn't do his homework." "You wanna know how to motivate a kid?" "You get him something he really loves, then take it away." " All right, Frank." " He likes trains, right?" "So you get him a nice, new, steam locomotive-- something that makes his face really light up." "Then you get a hammer..." "We're not gonna smash his trains." "Does he have a turtle?" "Well, you have to do something, Debra." "Why is this all on me?" "What about him?" "He lives here." "Hey, I tried." "I had him halfway out the door this morning, but she wouldn't bite his hands." "Yeah, then you run off to work, and I'm stuck." "I had a lot of things to do today, and I couldn't because I had to stay here with Michael." "There's always time to get your hair done, dear." "I wasn't going to do my hair." "Oh." "We should talk about that too." "You want me to go up there and explain the truancy laws in this county?" "Maybe drive him by the dock, show him a couple bums?" "I'll go with you." "Where's the hamper?" "All right, stop it." "Look, we appreciate your medieval advice, but we'll do what needs to be done." "Michael is going to school tomorrow." " But if there's a problem" " There's not gonna be a problem." " But if there is" " There's not gonna be." "But if there is" " Not gonna." " I won't be here, 'cause I'm driving Ally's class to their field trip tomorrow." " Who's gonna get him out of bed?" "!" " I was thinking you." "What about my job?" "This is part of your job." "I mean my real job." "Let's not fight." "Oh, come on, Michael, go to school!" "You're killin' me, man!" " How's it going?" " He's bustin' my hump." "You've got to do this, okay?" "I'm gonna be late!" "I got 10 kids waiting for me, and I'm late." "But I've got to finish two columns and interview George Steinbrenner!" " Sorry, Ray, I got to go." " No no!" "You-- you come back here, young lady!" "Old lady!" "Who reminds me of my mom!" "Agh!" "All right." "I didn't wanna do this, but you leave me no choice." "Oh, great." "The one day she does laundry." "Yes, hi." "Uh, this is Ray Barone." "I was supposed to come down and interview Mr. Steinbrenner this morning, but unfortunately something's come up." "Well, uh, kind of a... family tragedy." "Yeah." "No no, I was just wondering, could we do this on the phone?" "Yes, I'll hold." "Thank you." "Well, look who's up." "I'm hungry." "Well, breakfast time ended when the school bus left." "So congratulations, you get to stay home again today." "A couple of hours with Daddy, and you're gonna be begging to go back to school." "Hello." "Oh hi." "Yeah, hi, Mr. Steinbrenner." "Uh... yeah, tragedy, right." "My... mother." "Yeah, but, uh, she'll pull through." "She's a tough old broad." "Anyway, I know you're a busy man, and I just wanted to start by" "Excuse me." "Excuse me one second, sir." "No TV!" "No TV!" "No!" "No no!" "No no no no no!" "No TV!" "Yeah." "Hello!" "Sorry about that." "No, I can do this." "Sure." "Yeah." "Um, okay well, mainly I wanted to start by getting your feelings on revenue sharing." "Uh-huh." "No!" "Okay well, that's a good point." "Yeah." "Yeah-- right." "And what about the smaller markets?" "Hey!" "You're not eating doughnuts, okay?" "No doughnuts for you!" "I-- yeah, sorry." "It's the kids, yeah." "Kids, I know." "Too bad you can't fire them." "Although you probably have, right?" "Yeah." "Get down from there!" "Stop it!" "Hey-- sit down!" "I will tell you when you are going to eat!" "Hello." "Oh." "We're done?" "Well-- yeah." "Okay." "All right." "Thank you, sir." "Michael!" "Put it down." "Put it down." "You know what you just did?" "Do you know who that was on the phone?" " No." " It doesn't matter." "George Steinbrenner!" "So none of this, okay?" "None of this Captain Sugar's Chocolate-Covered Sugar for you!" "You're hungry?" "All right, if you're hungry, here." "Here's what you're gonna eat." "Fiber 100, all right?" "!" "Yeah, that's right." "No fun stuff, okay?" "No cartoons on the box for you, you're-- you're getting two grandmas on a bike, the kind of crap I have to eat every day." "Yeah." "Yeah." "No maze to Chocolate Land." "Yeah, you can read about colon health." "So dig in!" "Here you go." "Here's some delicious skim milk for you." "Welcome to my world." "All right, listen, here's how it's gonna go today:" "No cartoons, no video games, no computer games, no fun, okay?" "First, you're gonna eat this wood." "Then you're gonna get your homework, and you're gonna come downstairs to my office." "It's study hall." "That's right." "You're gonna work right in front of me where I can keep an eye on you, you got that?" "I don't have any homework." "Whoa whoa whoa whoa." "Who do you think you're dealing with here, huh?" "I may seem stupid, but that's just to get your mother to not ask me to do stuff, okay?" "I know all the angles, pal." "I know all the excuses." "If my dog Shamski had eaten as much homework as I said, he would have pooped the "Encyclopedia Britannica."" "All right?" "So you just eat this, then you're getting your homework and you're coming downstairs." "I don't have any." "You're sticking' with that story, huh?" "All right." "Well, you know what?" "You're just gonna come downstairs and you're gonna watch me work." "You think school is boring and meaningless, wait till you see what I do for a living." "Oh, Captain Sugar." "He's coming with me." "Hey look, a prize!" "This is boring." "That's right." "Bet you wish you were back at school right now, huh?" "No?" "Not yet?" "All right, well... don't worry." "We'll be done here in about... oh, five hours." "Hee hee hee!" " Hey, what are you doing?" " Reading." "No no no." "Comics is not-- what is she wearing?" "They should have ratings on this, 'cause this is totally inappropriate." "All right, pay attention." "I'm gonna read you something that I'm working on." "It's a baseball column." ""Everybody always says the designated hitter has taken the strategy out of the game." "You know, is the manager gonna pinch-hit for the pitcher, or is he gonna leave him in?" "I say, 'What's so exciting about watching some fat manager think?"'" "How's that sound?" "Good." "Yeah?" "What's good about it?" "The fat manager." "It's kind of funny, isn't it?" "All right..." "The kids teased me." "What?" "In my class, all the kids laughed at me." "The kids laughed at you?" "Why?" "I went up to the teacher to ask her a question, and I accidentally said "Mommy."" "You called the teacher "Mommy"?" "Why?" "Was the teacher yelling?" "Then I cried, and everybody called me "crybaby."" "I made you eat the fiber." "Hey... speaking of baseball, did I ever tell you the story about me and Little League?" "It's kind of funny." "It's, uh..." "I was a little older than you, and right before the game," "I had just drank a lot of Kool-Aid." "So I had to go to the bathroom, but I decided to hold it, 'cause when I was a kid" "I didn't like going to the bathroom." "Now I like going to the bathroom." "I like it a lot." "So... it's the third inning, and I'm playing second base, and I've gotta go real bad." "I'm scrunching my legs together." "I'm banging my mitt against my thigh." "I'm trying to keep up the chatter real loud." "I thought if I screamed loud enough, it would distract me." "You know, "Hey batter batter hey batter batter, swing!"" "But... couldn't hold it." "I started to go." "You were on the field?" "Right between first and second." "It-it-it felt so bad... and yet so good." "I still tried to keep up the chatter, but it was more like..." ""Hey batter batter hey hey batter, swing."" "So this... this dark spot is getting bigger and bigger." "But nobody seemed to notice, so I just thought soon as the inning's over" "I'm just gonna run off the field, jump on my bike, and ride home." "Just then I look up, and there's Dave Malloy on our bench." ""Hey!" "Look at Barone!"" "I look up, and all the kids are laughing at me." "My own teammates, they were pounding the fence, they were laughing so hard." "And... there I was, at second base... right in the middle of everything." "What did you do?" "I did exactly what you're supposed to do" "I cried." "I bawled my eyes out." "I should've cried earlier." "Maybe it would have diverted some of the pee into tears." " Really?" " No, the body doesn't work that way." "Anyway, you know how in baseball you want a cool nickname?" "You know, like "Hammerin' Hank" or "The Big Hurt"?" "You know what the kids called me?" ""Pee Pee" Raymond." "That's pretty clever, huh?" ""Pee Pee Raymond!" "Pee Pee Raymond!"" "That was me-- Pee Pee Raymond." "Yeah... that was a bad day." "It was like I had a rain delay in my pants." "So... that's baseball." "Oh, by the way, a couple of days later," "Kevin Saganski is at the blackboard." "He bends down to pick up some chalk, his pants split wide open." "All of a sudden, I'm off the hook, you know?" "Pee Pee Raymond, it's old news now." "The talk of the town?" ""Butt-Crack" Saganski." " That's funny." " Yeah." "Yeah, it's funny." "Daddy?" "Yeah?" "I have to go to the bathroom." "You know what?" "Me too." "And let me tell you something else:" "You know what happened" " to Butt-Crack Saganski?" " What?" "He's now the president of Fruit of the Loom underwear." "Oh, yeah!" "Dad's still got the moves, Mikey!" "I'm goin' off the mat!" "Whoo!" "I am on fire!" "Hi, Mommy." "What are you doing?" "What am I doing?" "I'm getting all funky, baby!" "Take over." "That's hereditary, that funk." "So this is your solution?" "Let him stay home all day and have a dance party?" "He's never gonna go to school again!" " Michael, you going to school tomorrow?" " Yep." "Really?" "You heard the boy." "Oh, and, uh, when you pack his lunch tomorrow, he wants a salami sandwich with chips-- barbecue flavor." "Don't give him the celery with peanut butter." "He's just gonna trade it for a Fruit Roll-Up." "How did you do this?" "Well, let's just say our kids are lucky that their father has led a very embarrassing life." "By the way, I know why he didn't go to school." " Why?" " Some of the kids were teasing him 'cause he called one of the teachers "Mommy."" "He called one of the teachers "Mommy"?" "Why?" "Was the teacher yelling?" "Ooh!" "Ooh!" "Whoo!" "Whoo!" "Daddy!" "Hey, guys." "How was school?" " Great!" " Yeah?" "What'd you do?" "Hey, look!" "It's Pee Pee Raymond!" "Pee Pee Raymond!" "Pee Pee Raymond!"