JP Flaim of The Sports Junkies was faced with a devastating truth when picking his youngest daughter up from summer camp over the holiday weekend.
"[My wife] Jess and I go to pick her up," he set the scene on Tuesday morning. "Get out of the car, find a counselor and then they point us in the direction of where Isabella is."
"Isabella sees us. She's all happy," he explained. "She's playing on like some monkey bars with another little girl, and a counselor who's watching the kids in that area says, 'Isabella, your mom and dad are here.'"
"Uh oh," replied Johnny 'Cakes' Auville.
"Isabella's all happy," JP continued. "And then a five-year-old girl next to her — this is a gut punch — she goes, 'Isabella, your mom's here. But I think it's your grandpa.'"
"That's a good joan right there," Cakes said. "That is an honest good joan from a kindergartner."
"Grandpa Flaim," Jason Bishop joaned.
"See, the grays are popping through," Cakes said, twisting the knife.
"I've talked about it for years and people think this is shallow, I might just have to do it," JP said of dying his hair. "I've been kicking it around for like a decade."
JP was unable to escape the gripping reality of the moment, despite the youthful ignorance of the person verbally degrading him.
"Here's the thing," he said. "Hasn't there been shows of like 'Kids Say the Darndest Things' because they're honest?"
"Yeah, they have no filter," Cakes agreed. "They don't care."
JP continued: "So she has an honest appraisal of me and Jess and looks: 'That's Isabella's mom. That's her grandpa.'"
Cakes: You have no filter when you're like five, and then as you get a little bit older, you realize you've got to have a filter about what you say. But then, when you get old, then you're also allowed to have no filter. So like we're about 12 to 15 years away from where we can basically get away with saying whatever we want around family and people will just say, 'Ah, that's old Uncle Jason. He doesn't know what he's saying anymore. He's getting old and senile. He's got no filter!' So we're getting close to that age.
JP: But see, here's the thing. You're not probably in those situations as much. Because look, I got divorced. I got remarried. I had another kid. So I am the older dad, even in, I played golf yesterday — a lot of my friends have kids the same age as Isabella. So I'm always the old man. Like, in that golf group yesterday, they're all mid-30s. I'm 51. It is what it is.
Here's a glimpse of Grandpa Flaim on his recent golf outing with a trio of thirty-somethings:
JP: But then when you have just an innocent little child stick a dagger in you, ah! And there's nothing I can do, other than paint my hair! Paint my bald spot! So inside...
Cakes: Yeah, you know, in the situation, all you can do is you just eat a big fat loss. You're eating a loss right there. You're taking an L.
Jason: You have to laugh it off.
JP: But I started to think about my life, though, is that when Isabella's in high school, which is 10 years away, I guess, I'm gonna be sixty-one!
Jason: And you're gonna be a grandpa then.
JP: They're definitely gonna think I'm the grandpa there!
