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For those of you who know me well, and even more so for those who have never met me, let me get this out of the way before we go any further: I will never be mistaken for Liam Neeson.
Here's why: I am not heroic. I don't act like a hero, and physically and mentally, I do not do heroic things.
Scott Franco would make a lousy "Avenger" … or a Liam Neeson, the charismatic Hollywood tough guy.
I tell you this because my daughter, Julianna, has decided she wants to go to Poland for spring break in 2019 with two friends. Poland. Europe. In 2019.
In the political climate that we live in, three Americans going overseas, and one of them is my daughter. Do I not have a right to go nuts right now?
What if something happens? I do not have a particular set of skills to save her, which is what Neeson did in the movie trilogy "Taken," "Taken 2" and "Taken 3."
I can't save her. You know what I can do? I could edit the ransom note from the kidnappers. That's what I could do. And that's only if there is a ransom note!
I would have trouble just getting a plane ticket to get there, let alone tracking her down with a GPS, which I don't even own because as far as I know, flip phones do not have a GPS. At least that's what my wife and kids tell me.
A hero would not have a flip phone. He would have one of the five cellphones that my wife and four kids have. My phone is equipped to receive calls to go get milk on my way home from work at 2 o'clock in the morning.
You know what dad I am like? The dad on the ABC sitcom, "The Goldbergs."
That's right: Comedian Jeff Garlin could be my doppleganger. He couldn't save the lives of his kids if they got sold into slavery in Europe.
He loves his kids. I love my kids. I would pull them out of the way of a speeding car. I cannot fight off five bad guys with guns. And unless walking on a treadmill for an hour, five days a week, can get a guy like me in that kind of shape, then my daughter is in trouble.
My wife tells me -- once again -- I am worrying too much. If stuff like that didn't happen, why did Neeson make three "Taken" films? Not one. Not two. He made three.
Have you ever seen this movie called "Hostel?" They made three of them, too, and it's basically about bad things that happen to young Americans traveling in Europe.
Why am I the only one noticing a trend here?
What am I hoping for? Well, considering my daughter is a biology major who carries a really impressive GPA, maybe this is her way of getting me to allow her to go to Florida for spring break. Maybe she thought she would ask for some place so outrageous that I would consider Florida instead.
Of course, have you ever seen some of those R-rated spring-break movies in Florida that Hollywood makes?
I think I'm going to faint.
Scott Franco writes a monthly column for the Mirror.