5-9-5-3

Hey Mom. I never told you this before, but I need to confess something.

As you know, I lived at your place for a bit, we’ll call it eighteen years. For the first twelve or so, there was a rule that was not to be broken: Do NOT watch any adult TV shows. This rule was created after the great “Degrassi Incident” where the ten-year-old version of Kyle was watching his weekly teen melodrama and accidentally inquired as to what Marijuana was. Yes, it was an accident, and no I didn’t actually know what marijuana was until several years later, which I’m sure will be covered in another story. The point is, you had to do something. Honestly, I get it. You didn’t want to be the only one at parent-teacher conferences having to explain why at recess your 4th grader was the one rolling joints out of Crayon paper or singing Bob Marley on the play structure. No harm no foul, but I digress.

After I made the mistake of asking Dad (who was a police officer at the time) what a marijuana joint was, I was sent to my room. Which I didn’t mind because that’s where my Transformers and Bionicles were, but for the sake of this letter we will say I was “thinking about what I had done.” Naturally you and Dad had to take action to prevent me from watching Degrassi, That 70’s Show, or anything of the sort until I was of the proper age. So the parental code was born. A simple, four-digit code that must be typed into the remote before anything TV-14 or higher could be enjoyed for my viewing pleasure. Now that I look back at it, the code you went with was genius. It was hiding in plain sight and it couldn’t have been more obvious. So obvious in fact, that I never would have guessed it on my own. Cue cousin Jon!

It was a fateful summer evening in Bend, Oregon and you and Dad were going out with friends. Coincidentally, my older cousin Jon was visiting town and also old enough to babysit. I sat in the dining room placing sprinkles on my kid’s cuisine chocolate pudding while you and Dad were briefing Jon on the night ahead. You told him bed time was at 8, no sugar after 7:30, and above all, no adult shows or movies. You then told him not to worry though because there is a parental lock on the TV. You and Dad got into your friend’s 2004 Charcoal Gray Ford Excursion, Jon came to the living room and the night began.

We enjoyed several riveting rounds of carpet football, followed by an intense game of Nerf-dart hide and seek, and hydrated with some Kool-Aid Jammers after. However, all that physical activity wore us out! We wanted to relax and turn on a movie, but by this point it was well past 8 (sorry Jon, not trying to be a whistleblower just keeping the facts straight) and there was nothing on TV for me to watch. The normal response would be to do something quiet like play a board game or read a book or watch the stars as I drifted off to sleep. However, we both know I’m an innovator. That adapt and overcome mentality would greatly benefit me later as a cop, but I believe this was the genesis of that.

Jon turned on the usual Teen-Nick and wouldn’t you know? Degrassi was on! I hadn’t seen the current episodes for the last three weeks since you enabled the lock, so I needed to catch up. I took the remote and when the four-digit screen asked me to put in the parental code, I froze. Uh-oh. It appeared the quiet transformer time in my room wasn’t the only consequence of asking my cop-dad what drugs were. I sat there long and hard before doing what any 10-year old would do; tried to crack the code. 1-2-3-4 didn’t work, so I tried it backwards as 4-3-2-1. No cigar. As I continued to work at cracking this pin like a Navajo code talker in World War 2, cousin Jon heard my frustration. He came to ask what was wrong and I briefed him on the situation. He asked to see the remote, punched in a quick four-digit code and bam! The screen came to life with my favorite fictional group of high school students! I was in. I enjoyed a good two hours of watching Emma and Sean’s star-crossed love develop, all while a very young Drake shot hoops in the opening sequence. Then, I heard the gravel crunch as your friend’s Ford Excursion pulled into our front drive. I quickly turned off the TV, tossed the remote to hide the evidence and sprinted up to bed just before your key unlocked the deadbolt.

5-9-5-3. The elusive code I was chasing was actually my name spelt out on the remote’s number pad! It was clever on your part, using my own name against me like that. I couldn’t believe it was so simple, yet I couldn’t think of the obvious solution as it stared me in the face. I’ll admit I don’t know how many times over the next eight years I used that code, whether to watch sucker free Sunday on MTV2, The Office on NBC or Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. What I do know though is that I am glad to have this off my chest, and I’m grateful to have had a Mom like you who loved me enough to protect my innocence. At least until cousin Jon helped me beat the system. Someday I will definitely use that same code on my own parental lock (if cable TV is still a thing). Thanks, Mom. Mission accomplished, and also sorry.