The truck was running

Gary Dean Madison II

Good idea: spending quality time with your kid.

Bad idea: spending quality time in a strip club while your kid waits in the truck.

So Gary Dean Madison II isn’t going to win the Father of the Year award from me. He’ll probably will it from the strippers guild.

Madison, 34, has been charged with child neglect. Police say he left his 5-year-old son alone in the pickup while he went into Fancy’s, a strip club that’s probably as classy as it’s name.

“(My son) was asleep,” he said, according to the police report, “and I thought it would be OK to go in there and have a beer.”

Madison reportedly told police he hadn’t finished his pitcher of beer, so his boy hadn’t been left alone for that long. And the truck was on and the air conditioning was running. Thank goodness. Next time maybe he should leave the window cracked.

If you’re wondering how on earth a dad – any dad, even a horrible dad - could do this, here’s a possible explanation: Madison was also charged with cocaine possession.