Compared to parenthood, dropping my daughter off at LAX is a breeze. So long, kid

Her visit home ends with a typically adventurous ride to LAX.

By Chris Erskine

Aug. 10, 2016 7 AM PT

This will probably go down as the summer of enlightened parenting. First we tried the anti-puberty wall paint, which didn’t work so well and gummed up all our best brushes.

Next we started keeping our teenager in a doggy crate at night, which is working very well. Behaviorly, he has made great strides, and by sleeping in a crate at night our teen son — evidently, some sort of shepherd mix — won’t grow to be as big.

My latest Great Parenting Idea is to rank our children, as you would a college football team, one through four, with new rankings released each Monday. What sabermetrics has done for baseball, saber-parenting will do for raising good and thoughtful children.

Too harsh? You must not have kids.

In the first ranking, the lovely and patient older daughter came in No. 1, the two boys finished 2 and 3, and the youngest daughter finished 4^th.

It’s not just that the younger daughter moved to Cincinnati — obviously, I’m fine with that. As a parent, I know better than to get too attached. It’s that she’s a little sassy sometimes, and drinks more than her share of the morning coffee.

And the other day, she made me drive her to the airport.

I was explaining the glories of SoCal traffic to a newcomer from New York recently. I told her that drivers here approach it two ways: some death-grip the steering wheel and grind their teeth over missed appointments and late dinners, while others sit back and revel in how humanity has reached such an odd but beautiful level of togetherness.

When you approach horrible L.A. traffic this way — as abstract art, as a metallic peek at the human condition — then you stand a real chance at personal growth.

To get our daughter to LAX in time, we left on a Tuesday for her Thursday flight — which is cutting it a little close. She first had to drop a borrowed car in Manhattan Beach, so we probably should’ve added at least another day.

We screamed through downtown, at the confluence of several major concrete rivers. By screamed, I mean we literally screamed. Like kids on a roller-coaster. Like drunks stumbling down stadium stairs.

Still, we made good time. A mattress fire briefly slowed traffic on the 110, and a body dangled from an overpass. A llama was loose near USC, and they had closed a portion of roadway for a movie shoot, or maybe it was an armed robbery. Grim men with guns stood around everywhere. As with any public gathering, there were food trucks.

By the 105, things started to get a little dicey. The exit to LAX was backed up for decades. Fortunately, we were going south, not north, because to be honest no one was going north.

So we dropped the car off in a quiet section of Manhattan Beach. I never knew there were any quiet sections in Manhattan Beach, which helped turn this routine airport trip into what I crave most in life: joyous discovery.

Now we’re all in the mini-van together — me, the little guy and the fugitive daughter, the one with my heart in her carry-on luggage.

“Wow, I forgot how bad LAX gets in the summer,” she chirps.

“Yeah, it can get a little backed up,” I say.

They had closed a portion of roadway for a movie shoot, or maybe it was an armed robbery. Grim men with guns stood around everywhere.

Meanwhile, there is some sort of police presence on the opposite side of Sepulveda going north. Hard to see exactly, but trapeze artists in leotards seem to be involved, leaping from car top to car top.

“Tourists, obviously,” I tell the kids.

In the airport tunnel we grind to a halt, breathing bus fumes, getting a little stoned.

“Did you know we’re right under the south runway,” I say as we sit frozen in traffic.

“Dad, you tell us that every time,” the little guy says.

“Well, we are,” I say.

“Daddy, I really think you want to be in the other lane,” the younger daughter says.

Which is the point where I reveal they are now being ranked, one through four, against each other, in the ultimate showdown of being a little nice to me and their mother.

“What do we win?” my daughter asks.

“I hope money,” says her little brother.

“I hope shoes,” says my daughter.

“Where am I ranked?” the little guy asks.

“Right now, you’re fifth,” I tell him.

”Fifth out of four?”

“Exactly.”

“Ouch,” he says.

I can tell he’s thinking, because his teenage brain waves are starting to interfere with the satellite radio.

“Hey, Dad,” he finally asks. “What can I do to move up?”

See? It’s working already.

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