Sometimes, in the evenings and as Niko is preparing for bed, he will read thedadspeaks.com (hey, that is me!). He reads them silently, I read them to him, or we have the AI voice read them and he laughs a a lot. Last month, he told me I should I write a new The Dad Speaks book, and although I have considered it in the past, I would rather write something new then bring back older dad blogs from here.

So, no, this is not promoting a new book about me and Niko and rehashing a lot of old stuff.

But, it did give me a fun idea for something and I decided to use Claude AI to help me with it. I gave it some good information as a start. I didn’t edit it and I hope you enjoy it.

I actually do have a book that I am very very very slowly working on, but it’s not about being a dad, it’s about my jobs and is tentatively called The Dad’s Jobs. It may end up being something I share on LinkedIn, but we will see how it comes out in 5 years!

Niko & Dad Weekend Detective Agency Opens for Business

Introduction

My name is Dad.

That is not my only name, but it is the most important one. Monday through Friday, I am self-employed and work from home and help people track down money and assets that they have lost, forgotten, or accidentally left behind. Bank accounts nobody claimed. Safe deposit boxes nobody opened. Stocks nobody knew they owned. It’s a great job, and one of the best parts is I get to do it in slippers, from a desk two rooms away from the kitchen table. I am, professionally speaking, very good at reuniting things and have a 5-star rating on Google!

You would think working from home, surrounded by my own stuff all day, would make me excellent at locating the TV remote.

You would be wrong.

This is where my son Niko comes in.

Niko is ten years old, which means he is at exactly the right age for two things: asking questions that have no good answers, and being absolutely certain he is correct about everything. He has a notebook, a flashlight, and a rotating supply of chocolate and chips that he considers essential detective equipment. I have tried to explain that they are a snack, not a tool. He has tried to explain that I am wrong. We have agreed to disagree.

On weekends, we are detectives.

We did not plan it this way. It started because things kept going missing — remotes, cookies, permission slips, one very specific Lego piece that Niko needed urgently — and at some point it became easier to treat each disappearance as a case rather than a crisis. Niko started keeping files. I started asking better questions. We started solving things. Mostly.

Our agency has no name, yet. Niko has suggested several, including “The Mystery Busters,” “Operation: Find It,” and, for one memorable afternoon, “Dad and Niko’s Extremely Good Detective Company LLC.” We are still in talks.

Our headquarters is the kitchen, because that is where everything happens in this house. It is also where my wife bakes and cook things that smell extraordinary, and sometimes we get to sample the goods during preparation. Nina is the wisest person I know. She almost never tells us this, because she is too busy being right about everything while letting us figure it out ourselves.

And then there is Riley.

Riley is our cat. He is black, which makes him difficult to see in low-light conditions — a fact I have confirmed personally, with my foot, on multiple occasions. Riley desperately wants to be a part of the detective agency. He attends briefings. He observes stakeouts. He positions himself at the center of any active investigation, usually by sitting directly on the evidence.

His contributions, in terms of actual case-solving, are as follows: none.

He can meow. He can sleep. Sometimes he meows and then sleeps. On one occasion he sat very still and stared at the wall for eleven minutes, which Niko believes was a clue and I believe was Riley being a cat.

We love him anyway.

The cases are not glamorous. No one has ever been in serious danger. The crimes are small, the stakes are low, and the culprits are usually someone in this house, including me. But I will tell you what I have learned after years of professional property tracking and months of weekend detective work:

The things that go missing are never really about the things.

The missing remote is about who was last comfortable on the couch. The missing cookie is about who couldn’t wait until after dinner. The dark hallway at eleven at night, the soft mysterious thing under your foot — that is about living in a home full enough that you don’t always know what you’re going to step on.

That is a good problem to have.

Niko is waiting. He has his notebook open and his flashlight on even though it is the middle of the afternoon and all the lights are working. Riley is asleep on the kitchen table, which is against the rules, and Nina has not said anything yet, which means she is giving us exactly enough rope.

There is a case to solve.

Let’s go.