Crime and punishment

Two things.

It's getting harder and harder to be a parent these days. All the good forms of punishment have been taken away.

There are times I'd love to reach for my belt, form a leather loop and smack my daughters on the behind (just as my father did to me) but I'm told that is no longer acceptable.

I can't take away TV. They don't watch much TV. And even if I did pull the plug, they'd only resort to their bedrooms and sign on to their Hulu or Netflix accounts and watch whatever it is they watch on their computer.

And I can't take away their computer since that's where all their homework is done.

I have fewer options than the Green Bay Packers have viable quarterbacks.

Thing #2.

Every time I pick up my iPhone or my iPad there a dozen new selfies of my youngest daughter. The collection is mammoth. Abby is to selfies, what Kim Jung Un is to poorly staged press releases.

Well, I didn't spend decades in the Creative Department without being able to put two disparate items together to form a solution.

Allow me to elaborate.

Last week, I got a phone call at midnight. My daughter was spending the night at one of her friends house in Pacific Palisades, a good half hour from Culver City. Abby was in tears and asked if I could pick her up.

Immediately.

She wouldn't explain and she didn't have to. A father knows when it's time to halt the Bible study, throw on the flip flops and get in the car.

When I arrived at her friend's house, I was greeted by a burly beat cop standing at the front door.

"Is one of these kids (pointing at a dozen or so teens) yours?", he asked.

"That one's mine," I replied.

"Have a nice night," he said motioning for us to simply go.

Later, I was to find out there was alcohol, pot and fireworks -- the triumvirate of teenage stupidity -- involved.

In the pantheon of teenager offenses, it was all kind of laughable. But, I have a blog and I know how to use it. And as of yet, I haven't heard my wife rule out the use of public shaming.

So next time my daughter decides to 'paint outside the lines', as it were, you, the Round Seventeen reader will be treated to one of the less flattering Abby selfies I have in my possession.

And believe me, I have plenty of them.