FATHER'S DAY

In the thirty or so years since President Lyndon B. Johnson established that the third Sunday in June should be honored as Father's Day, Hallmark, Home Depot and every other retail chain in the country have quickly learned to milk it for all it's worth.

As I grabbed my early morning cup of java from the 7-11 today, the cashier wished me a happy Dather's Day and added she was assuming I am a father. Is it really that obvious?

I wonder what the tell-tale signs are? After several hours of thought, I think I might have cracked this major issue.

1. The simplest clue is the color of my hair. Gray is the sign of surviving years of bouncing from one crisis to the next as a parent.

2. It might have been the way I slowly counted out my coins to give her just the right change. In reality I was just looking to empty all the loose change from my pocket - she probably thought my kids had left me broke.

3. It could have been that I was dressed in a shirt I would never have chosen personally, which gave her the clue that I had crossed the line and was no longer capable of picking my own outfits, instead my children were suggesting clothes more suited to someone from their own era.

4. But it was probably just the fact that I was smiling at 6.30am. She obviously confused me for the father of younger children who had actually escaped the lunacy of his home for an hour on a Sunday morning to enjoy a cup of coffee, read the paper and forget that his life had been taken over years ago by a breed of aliens soon heading for high school and ultimately destined to leave him void of cash, hair and sanity.