“Ma?”

“What?”

“Um, are you watching American Idol?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it with you moms?”

“Huh?”

“All the moms in Tosa. They’re watching American Idol. Matt’s mom’s watching American Idol. Berto’s mom’s watching it. You guys are strange. Is that Sanjaya dude still on?”

Apparently my son does not like American Idol. Instead, he likes to blast to blithereens, a word I’m inventing for the occasion, big hulky bad guys (I assume they are bad guys) who race incessantly along stone ramparts planting bombs, blowing people up and being blown up, and such. I ask him the name of the game: he refuses to fess up.

“You’ll just make a fool of yourself, Mom.”

Well, dur. “I do that every day, George. It’s my job.”

“Why do you like it?” The question is sincere.

I like American Idol because it’s about hope and striving, getting better, and there’s a triumph at the end. The American Dream. Never mind all the tears along the way: that’s life.

There's lots of silliness too, of course, and not very believable intrigue, and really bad singing along with the good. And there's the compelling puzzle of the odd taste of American voters.

I like it because of three amazing young women, all in two digit dress sizes, with voices to raise you to heaven. And a handful of forgettable but sort of sweet guys who’d never show up in video games.

“Why do you like that?” I ask of the video game violence.

“Cause I’m an American boy,” he replied, on his way out the door to the Y.

“But you’re grounded,” I yell. There's a mountain of clothing in his bedroom to be climbed--or an entrepreneurial sister to be bribed to do it for him--before he can have a life again.

“You won’t keep me from getting exercise, though,” said Geo. “You’re an American mom.”

He had me there.