My son has this newfound interest in philosophy, one that I’d like to encourage as long, of course, as it doesn’t require too very much of me. I mean, really, shouldn’t my daily parental responsibilities end about the time I kick the foot of his bed to wake him up in the morning? That said, I e-mailed my favorite professor from long ago, explained the problem, and, within a few days, he responded with a book suggestion for my son.

Now I’ll admit that I can be fairly adamant about some things, drawing a line in the sand over absurdities, and such was the case with this book: I insisted that we order it from an independent bookseller. And how very, very fortunate we were to be able to find one who had a slew of personal problems, a pocketful of ready-made excuses that she doled out to us almost daily, each of them serving as an explanation for yet another delay in sending out the book. (I would like to say, however, lest you think me less than generous, that, in the end, I do hope that the judge did not decide to send her husband to prison, that her baby—I think it was her baby—hell, maybe it was her sister’s—or the neighbor’s—is now out of ICU, and that her aunt is, um, well, still dead.)

But last week, my son called at 3:45, just as he does almost every day.

“I’m home.”

“Do you have any homework how was your day what did you have for lunch don’t forget to walk the dog oh and the trash please please take out the trash,” I said, having learned long ago that, to get in the entirety of After School Mom-rant, you can’t stop to breathe and/or get answers.

And he’s learned to ignore the whole thing.

“Hey, you know that book that professor guy told you to order for me? It’s in.”

“Nice. You’ll have to let me read it once you’ve finished…hey, have you gotten your mid-term grades yet? Seems like they’re due…”

There was a pause then, which, given the question, was not a good sign. “I’m pulling a C in English right now, Mom, but I’m going to pull it up before report cards come out.”

I wish I could say that I responded appropriately, or perhaps even with cynical disbelief, saying something like, “You’ve got a what in which class?” Instead, however, I responded without thinking, my mouth seemingly acting on its very own and from it came sounds in an octave heretofore considered unattainable by human vocal chords and at a decibel level not uncommon near an airport runway.

Whatever it was that I said, my son fully understood. “Ok, Mom, ok. But part of it is because I haven’t turned in enough book reports yet. We’ve got all semester to read ten books and I’ve only turned in two.”

“Well, that settles that—we’re doing nothing but reading this weekend. And you, you’re reading nothing but books for your English class…you hear me? You can forget about reading that book that just came in…” I gasped once I’d said it, of course, recognizing that, with that simple utterance, I’d begun to treat a book of philosophical essays like…like…contraband. But once I’d said it, having learned much from daytime tv, from all those seemingly alien folks who act like they still love their kids after five or ten years of parenting and who, for some reason, think that consistency and rules and nurturing and communication and all that shit is somehow important to raising a healthy kid, yeah, those folks, they taught me that once I banished the philosophy book in favor of the English books, I had to live up to it. So…I said it again. “Let me make this clear: there will be no reading of that philosophy book this weekend.”

On Saturday afternoon, he flopped face first onto my bed beside me. I closed my book around my finger to save my place and looked at him.

“I need a break for a while, Mom. I can’t read any more.”

“I don’t want a break, though,” I said, hoping he’d leave. “I’m at this really exciting part of the book, D…”

“What are you reading?”

“The same thing I’ve been reading for a week,” I said, flipping the book over to show him the cover.

“What’s it about?”

Bingo, I thought. Once I tell him, he’ll leap from the bed in horror, run screaming back to his room, and then, then I can finish. So I paused, loaded my response on my tongue…and fired. “It’s about a hermaphrodite.”

And you know what I got as a response? Do you know how my 14 year old son reacted to hearing that I was knee-deep in a 500 page book about a person with a mixed bag of parts? Nothing. He just kept looking at me, awashed in a fresh-faced curiosity. Not moving. Not leaving. So I tried again.

“And I’ve just gotten to the part where these folks realize that their little girl is much, much more than just a little girl,” I said, trying to hint that, if he stayed, I was going to provide him with more and more details. “You see, there’s this accident, and she’s lying there…nekkid…” I let my voice trail off, thinking the effect would be…

But again, nothing. Or at least I didn’t get the response I expected. Instead, he leaned closer and said, “How old is she?”

“Fourteen.”

“Fourteen?! How in the world…didn’t anyone change her diaper when she was a baby?”

“Yesss…” I hissed, forewarning him…”but things were tee-tiny then…but now…they’re…more…developed.”

Surprisingly unfazed, he took the book from my hands and started thumbing through the pages. “But what about puberty? I mean, didn’t she start changing? Didn’t she start growing facial hair?”

Damn, I felt control of the conversation slipping away. We’d gone from a conversation right at the edge of some naughty bits, the very subject known to send pubescent boys racing from conversations with their mother, to something as innocuous as…as…. facial hair. I’d lost my chance to rid myself of my son, my chance to finish the book.

“Yes, but they’re Mediterranean, D.”

“So? What does that mean?”

“Well, her family didn’t pay much attention to it because women from that region are known to be somewhat hairy.”

And then, that’s when he jumped off the bed in a full-blown panic, when his eyes grew wide with horror, when his mouth dropped open in disbelief, when the air came up from his lungs in a gasp of terror and when his shoulders shuddered and quaked, all of this in an attempt to dispel from his entire being the idea of something so very, very awful, to gain some distance from a book that would proffer such notions…as…facial hair…on…on…a woman!

“Really? Really?” I stared at my son, his face still frozen in horror. “Let me get this straight, son….a mélange of genitalia doesn’t bother you, no, not at all, but a little upper lip hair, that’s what makes you flail about like you ran out of refills three weeks ago?”

His face grew stern, serious, and when he spoke, his voice dropped. Everything about him let me know that he was about to say something of great import. “Mom, let me tell you something…a woman…she’s not supposed to have a moustache. Period. It ain’t right.”

I started laughing. Hard. And when I finally caught my breath, I looked at him, his arms folded, his pronouncement having been made, and I tried my best to break it to him gently. “Dylan, if that’s what you really think, the world has many, many cruelties in store for you.”

Strangely, he smiled, and then stroked his chin. “I just can’t help but think though, Mom, that if she’d had a goatee like this, there wouldn’t have been any question about her gender…”

I started laughing again. “Goatee? Goatee? Dylan, that’s not a goatee you’ve got there; that’s three little hairs left stranded on your chin. And if you get too close to the cat, there’s a good chance she’ll try to reclaim them.”

And that is exactly what it took to get him to leave the room: an insult directed at that which he considers his, um, beard. And when I went to check on him later? He was sleeping soundly, his face, his, um, beard, tented beneath his new philosophy book.