No father of teenagers wants to be the hopelessly out-of-touch geezer dad, which is why most of my day so far has been spent on the Internet, for tickets to Justin Beaver.

It has not gone well, just as I was warned. Justin Beaver is the hottest concert act in North America, fellow parents cautioned, and with one show only in Regina, a quick sell-out is certain.

Fine for other moms and dads. Me, I have reputation to uphold, a status under my own roof, throughout the neighbourhood and among all of my kids’ friends as the cool dad. I was the father who rewound Barney the Dinosaur 18 times on the VCR every Saturday for our triplets’ repetitive amusement, and who presented them on their third birthday with a gigantic plush Dudley the Dragon. If this Justin Beaver character is the latest big critter sing-along sensation, some tail-slappin’, totally gnawsome good time, the Petrie kids and their little pals shall be front-row centre.

 I just hope the kids aren’t reading this, only to have the surprise spoiled. They probably are, however, because nothing is cooler than when you’re 14 years old and your columnist dad writes about you all the time in his newspaper. “I’m too sick for school today (cough-cough),” the kids will often tell me at breakfast, after reading a public account about how they typewrite on their portable telephones with only their thumbs, or an essay-type analysis of the old yawn manoeuvre as deployed last Saturday afternoon at the Cineplex for putting an arm around Madison Kowalchyn’s shoulders during the “big date.” Yet another school day of nothing but incessant admiration — dare I say envy? —from classmates is surely too much at times for them to bear.

 My own dad would have done the same for me, I’m sure, had he been cool. My father was the greatest man I have ever known, and I love and miss him dearly. Dad was a product of his era, however, a time of world-wide adult hep deficiency. Not once do I recall, from rides to bantam hockey practice or trips back from Grade 8 sock hops, my own father leading all of us teenagers in a rousing rendition of “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.” Had I the opportunity, at 14, to take in Magilla Gorilla live or Huckleberry Hound in concert, I doubt my father would have been on the phone at exact moment the box office opened, as I’ve been on the computer all morning for Justin Beaver tickets.

You’d think the most popular show on tour this year would have an Internet site dedicated for ticket sales, wouldn’t you?

Nothing I can find.

I do a Google search for “justin beaver” and it comes up empty. Web search, blog search, news search, “justin beaver,” “justin+beaver,” “justin,” “beaver” —all nothing, or at least no hint of a show in Regina. When I click an image search for simply “beaver” — whoa! — you would not believe the sort of photographs that come up on the screen, and by the hundreds, as if I have the next two hours to waste.

Actually, one picture does look like it could be Justin Beaver. But no, turns out it’s Benny Beaver, college mascot of Oregon State. That’s the kind of Internet false leads I’ve been chasing all morning, one mouse click leading to the next link, and so on, web-surfing eventually to a musical performance that’s only vaguely aquatic rodent-related, a YouTube video from 1980 of Captain and Tenille performing “Muskrat Love,” which, believe me, is a tune that, once implanted, is more difficult to stop from playing over and over in your brain than . . . well, “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.”

So I’m guessing there are no advance ticket sales.

No problem. Even better, actually. With gate sales only, I can spring my big surprise on the night of show, telling the triplets to round a few of their friends and hop in the mini-van for a very special evening that’s, like, totally cool. Maybe I’ll even cut up some stryofoam cups and fashion fake buck teeth for the whole gang to wear in the front row at the big beaver show. How sick would that be?

(“Sick” is the new “groovy.”)

 (Just for the benefit of you uncool dads.)

Ron Petrie is a humour columnist with the Regina Leader-Post