Advice from a Mini Doc Ali

Advice from a Mini Doc Ali by Roxanne McDonald

Scott meets his girlfriend’s seventeen-year-old daughter, and learns some lessons in the process.

Renee’s daughter is in town, so Scott has to ask for a get out of jail free card. Doc Ali thinks that yes, what a great idea, especially if he is going to marry Renee.

Whoa. Scott may be doing all this life coaching work for that end, but it is clearly too soon to bring that word up again. This also triggers the questions about how much Scott has been around kids [and whether he, in other words, father material]. He hasn’t been around them much at all.Sheila had a kid, he tells his coach, and when she probes further, he of course goes off into how hot Sheila was. Wha? Oh. Yeah. Kids.

Doc Ali has just the thing for THAT: visit Sheila ON A NON-SEXUAL BASIS she glaringly implies. Then, go hang at a daycare. See how long you can handle that one, Mr. I can parent a dog quite well, thank you.

Because Sheila Kennedy has closed the door of her house to Scott, he must do her bidding and meet her at the gym. But he isn’t allowed to meet her IN the gym, either. Okay, we get it, Sheila. You are holding a grudge and since you can’t take control by withholding sex….

Anyway, Scott suffers the slings of her comments about his utter incapability to be a husband, a father, or even a decent boyfriend, she reminds him, as he burned her by hooking up with Pamela Anderson at the same time she was seeing him.

Then it’s on to the daycare center, and notice who is conveniently absent, after riding his pitiful ass along on every other Scott venture? Yeah. Won’t see Johnny V. here. Nothin in it for him.

So Scott is on his own to, er, get really uncomfortable with the little urchins.. Even the arts and crafts session is freaking him out.

More along the lines of preferred adventure, Johnny V. and Jason go with Scott to CostCo to pick put an appropriate gift for Renee’s daughter. Johnny immediately finds an item he hold up and goes all nuts on, as it has bikini-clad babes on a boat on the box. God how draining is this creep?

They keep pondering, and come upon a shopper who is wanting that big old toaster oven. She’s an older woman, and Scott helps her haul down the box. He also gets into a conversation with her about marriage, and the woman says hers ended when her husband cheated. In some Janus moment, Johnny woofs the “once a cheater always a cheater” slogan, and this obviously agrees with the lady but digs hypocritical at Scott. John. Go sit in the car.

Scott makes his choice and gets it wrapped and just barely in his arms as he arrives at Renee’s. The package kind looks like an E-Z-Bake Oven, the way it’s wrapped, so I don’t know if I project my disappointment, but when Kayley [and I apologize, no subtitle so no spelling] opens the box, she just looks at her Mom as if to say, What the hell? Where’s the light-bulb-generated brownie tart mix?

Scott has already made remarks that he was expecting a “kid” (though he knew she was a teen), so it follows, he implies, that when he asks where she wants to go she says shopping. He does the Eyore thing about hoping he brought his credit card, and they are off. Without Renee, who is left with the memory of a really fast private kiss and that mammoth

toaster oven.Get used to it. That is likely the way he sees the “little woman,” Renee.

In the car, she fires the questions at him. [Right there, again, is an indication, with the role reversal of the mature one asking all the questions?]

Does he want kids?
Is he disrespectful to women?
Has he ever cheated?
Is he going to marry her mother?

Yikes. You can just hear the cartoon scream.

Then again, maybe Kayley was coached a bit herself…before meeting her potential step dad.

In one store, age and responsibility and trust and parental concern get all highlighted. Confused, but highlighted. Some kid named Nick has either done a classic Scott instant connect with Kayley, or he is someone Kayley has known awhile. Scott has been recovering in a chair across the way, getting his composure back after that M word, and now spots the courting dance and immediately zooms in.

It is all really uncomfortable, but also makes sense—the one who knows the life of the pick-up artist naturally shows concern for the young potential prey who needs protection from the stud Scott once was.

Foregoing the editorializing, I’ll just set up the dialogue and let you get your kicks from there:

Scott: You want me to walk away, don’t you?
Nick: If you wanna stay…I can teach you a few things.
Scott: [Ooh, you don’t know who I am.]

The Scott makes Nick suffer the experience of sitting and waiting while Kayley tries on clothes.

Satisfied, he lets the kid go and says he will step back so he or they can do his or their thing.

He tells us that the last time he hung out with a teenaged girl was when he was a teenager, but I’m not convinced, and wonder if he isn’t trying to convince himself of that fact.

Then again, let’s give him a break. He does have some values.

So on the ride back to Renee’s, Scott does get in some questions, and Kayley holds her own, even saying something that Scott says he can learn from—how she is not in a serious relationship yet because she believes she needs to be comfortable with herself first. She adds, as they come to a stop, that she is glad to have finally met him, that he is a really great guy, and that she insists he not hurt her mom.

Scott is quite contained by all of this, and tells us that if he did marry Renee, it would be like having Doc Ali as a step daughter…maybe not such a bad thing.

SirLinksAlot Scott Baio is 45 and Single links

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