It’s 7 a.m. and I’m walking to Walgreens in the rain to buy blank DVDs.

Not for me, but for my 12-year-old son. He had made a short movie to fulfill a language arts class assignment and the film was due. But he couldn’t find a disc to burn the movie onto the night before, so he went to bed.

I shouldn’t be out here, dodging puddles, crossing busy streets.

I should be in the kitchen, reading the paper, having a cup of coffee and preparing to deliver the classic “Let This Be a Lesson to You …” speech when my son realizes that the DVD fairy didn’t come overnight to save him from the penalty associated with turning in an assignment a day late.

Yet instead I’m playing DVD fairy and preparing the feeble “Don’t Let This Happen Again” speech.

It’s the next morning.

I’m supposed to be working.

Instead I’m engaged in a complex e-mail negotiation involving my son’s teacher and his principal over the way a portion of a recent exam was graded. I’m building the case that he deserved five more points (and one higher letter) than he got.

And even though my appeal is successful, I have enough self-awareness to be dismayed that I’ve become an archetypal pushy, enabling father.

My excuse: