Two things made this event even worse. First, for tipoff of that game the ref called time out and sent Sonny back to the bench and to me, Coach Carolla. He had forgotten to take off his friendship necklace from Jensen. Nothing fills a Dad’s heart with pride like your son taking a timeout from his basketball game to remove a necklace from his boyfriend.

Second, the following week I went back to assistant coaching, and a woman of color who was a parent of two of the black kids on the team walked up to me. At first, I thought, good, I’m finally going to get my thanks for handling the team when the regular coach was out of town. How naïve! It turns out someone had sent her the clip of me talking about this on my weekly appearance on the Kevin and Bean morning show where I used the term half-breed. She said, “I don’t appreciate you referring to my kids as half-breed.” I was confused. I said, “First off, half-breed is an Indian thing. Haven’t you heard the Cher song?” I even started singing it. She hadn’t.

Then she did something that drives me nuts. She said, “Listen, I’m in comedy. So I know humor.” That’s always a clear sign that the person has absolutely no sense of humor. She worked for TBS or something. I love when people start telling you what a fantastic sense of humor they have before they continue to prove they are humorless twats.

I told her I had said “Jew-fro” and “half-breed” intentionally because there weren’t any on the team. I had no idea that her kids were mixed. I thought they were just black. Even if I did know they were mixed I still would have used it. I didn’t say mulatto. No one refers to President Obama or Tiger Woods as half-breed. She was so narcissistic she had to make my Cher reference about herself and her kids.

And to all you do-gooders out there who practice the “I thought you should know” bullshit, you’re just a grown-up version of the tattletale from sixth grade that we all hated. That person who gives a friend bad news under the guise of “If I were you, I’d want to know” is a special kind of asshole. This is a power trip, a way for you to have dominion over other people’s feelings. You get to control them for a minute. Why not knock them down a wrung on the emotional ladder, so they can be as miserable as you are inside? At the same time, you get to elevate yourself by being holier than thou about me, a comedian who’s simply trying to get a laugh and actually made efforts to make sure no one’s feelings got hurt.

And, by the way, mission accomplished. I no longer coach her kids.

Another thing about all the parents at these events that drives me insane is that they’re always taking video of the kids.

In today’s culture kids can’t go three days without being photographed. I don’t know how good it’s going to be to have every event captured on iPhones. Family photos used to be an event in and of themselves, dragging the kids down to the Sears portrait studio in ill-fitting shirts and clip-on ties. Taking the photograph was a memory. I see parents now at every one of my kids’ events holding iPhones and iPads in front of their faces. It might be fun to look at those videos years down the road. Then again it might be used as “what-happened” footage in the 20/20 episode about them when they kill a bunch of nursing students. But it’s definitely bad for the parents. Just be there in the moment, instead of missing it by trying to capture it. That’s what your kid really wants. They want you to be paying attention.

Ironically, here’s a picture of the team getting a pep talk with Coach Carolla.

And last but never least, the government…

Like all things they get involved in, the government fucked this one up, too. Here I was simply trying to spend some time with my boy by coaching his basketball team, and here comes The Man looking over my shoulder.

On the day of Sonny’s first practice I signed into the Y, ready to coach like I’ve never coached before. Because I literally had never coached before. But, I assumed, they’re six, they’ll figure it out.

Before practice was about to start the woman who worked at the YMCA came up and asked me, “Did you get fingerprinted?” I didn’t know what she was talking about, so I said no. She replied, “Well, then you can’t coach. You need to be registered and fingerprinted.” I started arguing about how that’s unnecessary and took one of my many stands in the name of sanity.

This is not a star-trip thing. I just hate that we’re removing the part of us that has evolved to have common sense and make decisions. To distinguish between the guy who showed up with his whole family and the guy who showed up solo in the shitty box van. There needs to be some probable cause. If I were a molester or kidnapper, would I bring my wife and other kid with me to the practice? I’m not a pedophile, I’ve never been a pedophile and thus I don’t think I should be treated like a pedophile.

I went back and forth a couple of times until the chick got persnickety and said, “No prints, no coach,” and walked away. Sonny was excited all day for his first practice. He had literally been counting down the minutes. But I needed to make my point. I walked away, too. And when I turned, I got three looks: anger from Lynette, disappointment from Sonny and desperation that said “Don’t make me do this alone!” from Coach Mike.

I’d love to say I had a moment of clarity and softened my stubbornness, but that just ain’t me. I thought it was more important to make the point. Lynette took matters into her own hands, went over to the bitch with the clipboard and smoothed it over. I managed to assistant coach that day, but then avoided it for weeks in a principled protest against their bullshit policy.

Eventually, I couldn’t continue to fight the war on two fronts: against The Man at the Y and against Sonny and Lynette at home; family came first. I caved, drove over to the passport photo/notary public place and got the fingerprints done. And, as expected, it was a colossal pain in the ass.

Because when I say fingerprints, I mean all of them. I still have no idea why they needed all five fingers. Is it like I’m going to take a belt sander to my thumb, just so I can sneak into the Y and molest kids? Can’t it just be one finger, so you can connect me to my son? And I say five fingers, but I really mean ten because they need both hands. Because that’s what I do, I cut off my arm and rent it out to pedophiles.

I had to press my fingers on this glass-plate scanner, which, like all technology in my life, didn’t work properly. We started with the left thumb. But that one didn’t take. The Asian chick behind the counter said, “Are you sweaty?” I immediately got defensive, held out my hand and said, “No, touch them.” My left ring finger wouldn’t take either. I was incensed when the chick said, “We’ll get back to it.” Yeah, because God forbid we skip one out of ten. It got intimate at a certain point, when she had to hold my hand and roll my thumb. In many countries, we’d be engaged.

At the end of the whole ordeal she printed two copies of the report, one for me to supply to the YMCA and one for me to keep. As I turned to walk out, she said, “Wait, here’s your copy.” I told her I didn’t want it and walked away. I only wanted one for the pussy at the Y who’s afraid of getting sued. I don’t need pictures of my hands. I’m familiar with them. I know the back of my hands like the back of my hands. What could I possibly discover?

Not to mention, have we started to live for two hundred years? When did time stop mattering? Why do you think I have the time to sit at a fingerprint office, rolling my thumbs and mashing my palms onto glass plates? I resent the loss of time because the government is assuming that we’re all pedophiles who just haven’t been caught yet.