I’m talking about when you’re standing in line, waiting to be issued your dad gear as a new father.

Everything is great so far as you go through your orientation. You learn the safest technique for sterilizing bottle nipples is to wipe it quickly across your shirt.

They teach you your responsibilities on family trips, to yell dire threats from the driver’s seat and roll down your window while passing through Siberia.

But they forget to tell you one thing.

There will be no guarantees, it seems.

You can teach your heart out, set an example (most of the time), make them laugh, attend their grade school concerts, teach them about God and loving their fellow man.

You can eat late-night sandwiches with them, play cops and robbers in the produce section and kiss mom long enough to make them throw up.

And it still might not be enough. Despite all your efforts, there are no assurances they will go the way they want you to go.

They may not believe what you believe. If you pedal, they may apply the brakes. They’ll go left when you want to go right.

But you never give up. Because something tells you to keep a light on.

Just in case they come home again.