Daddy!!! I Really Gotta Go!

My time on the big white throne is exactly how you’ve seen it portrayed in movies about families.

Man grabs newspaper, closes door, finds comfort on the throne, and just as his business is about to begin a knock comes at the door followed by thumping from a little kid jumping up and down and saying, “daddy, I REALLY gotta go!”

There’s four of us in this happy little perfect family and only one toilet in our delightful estate.

The boy never lifts the seat.

The daughter never, NEVER flushes. Even when it’s brown she doesn’t flush it down.

The wifey…well, she’s the smart one in the family. She’s managed to get herself on a cycle that fits perfectly into the times of the day when the kids’ bowels and bladders are empty.

The rest of us are like teenage girls in a dorm suite – we’re all on the exact same cycle.

And me, well…I’ve learned to poop at mach speed.

I can pee, brush my teeth and put deodorant on at the same time.

Nine out of ten times that I leave the bathroom the first thing my kids say before running in is “did you spray daddy?!?”

“My shit doesn’t stink!!!” is what I want to yell, but instead I chalk up another interrupted bathroom moment and just mutter, “yes child-of-mine, I did,” as I hang my head low and stumble away.

Then I think to the future, when the boy becomes…well, not a boy. I think of how the bathroom was my safe-haven, as a teenager, for taking care of “personal deeds.”

There’s something to be said for going into the bathroom in your own home and knowing if there’s anything that shows-up on a blacklight it’s because you put it there, not someone else.

But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

In the meantime, all I ask for is:

• Enough time to poop and play a game of Sudoku (easy mode) without being interrupted.
• To pull the curtain back on the shower and actually have my towel be there instead of wrapped around my wife’s head in the other room.
• To not view my daughter’s “boom boom” floating happily in my toilet.
• And to brush my teeth early in the morning without having to see my son come racing into the bathroom with his miniature morning wood and witness him hose down every square inch of my toilet while screaming, “don’t look daddy I need privacy!!!!”

That’s it…nothing more.



Shotgunned By 20 Questions From A 7-Year-Old

A few days ago the boy came down with a 102 fever.

Typically he man-handles the fever, throws it on the floor and tells it that “your mom’s so fat she wears a VCR as a beeper.”

But this time, the fever got the better of him and stuck around for a while.

So, the next day we call the doctor, set an appointment, and a couple hours later I’m on my way to get the boy looked over.

It was upon this journey that the he unleashed a fury questions that almost had me comatose, crying, and begging to just be put out of my misery.

Hell Hath No Fury Like 20 Questions Shotgunned From A 7-Year-Old

“What are they going to do to me daddy?”

“Take your temperature, listen to you breathe, listen to your heart, and probably…”

“Will I have to take my shirt off?”

“I don’t know buddy, probably.”

“And my pants?”

“I doubt it. You’re sick around your throat so I doubt they’ll…”

“I remember going to the doctor one time and I got down to my undies and then the doctor pulled them out and looked down at my pee-pee. And she was A WOMAN!!! Will I get a shot?”

“Yes, probably in the neck.”

“DADDY ARE YOU SERIOUS?!!!”

“No dude…I’m kidding. No, you probably won’t get a shot.”

“Will I ever get a shot again in my life?”

“Yes, we’ll be getting one as a family in the next few months before flu season.”

“REALLY? Will they do it in the arm or in the leg?”

“Probably in the leg, Grayson.”

“Will it bruise me?”

“I don’t know, but if you ask me another…”

“What causes bruising?”

“Well, the shot breaks the skin which injures it and causes it to bruise on some people. I think.”

“Do I have the flu right now?”

“No Grayson, I seriously doubt you have the flu. It’s not…”

“How do you know? You’re not a doctor?”

“Why did you ask me then?”

“Do you think mommy bruises?”

“I know she bruises dude. That’s why she’s always running away from me?”

“Because you bruise her? That’s mean daddy.”

“No…no…not like that. I meant…just, you know what, let’s listen to some music and just relax for a bit dude.”

“Will they have bathrooms there?”

“Seriously? You seriously want to know if they have…”

“What if I have to go boom boom while she’s taking my temperature?”

“Ok, now you’re just being ridiculous. Do you want me to stop and get you a diaper?”

“DADDY!!! NO!!! But…can we stop and make Macy wear one?”

“Want to play the quiet game with me?”

“Will my doctor be a woman?”

“Yes, all the doctors here are women.”

“Will they take my pants down?”

(I mumble) “No, but daddy might take his pants down if…”

“What daddy?”

“Nothing, I was just thinking out-loud.”

“About the doctor?”

“Yes Grayson…about the doctor…hey look…something shiny out the window!!!”

We arrived a short time later. This, my dear readers is one of many reasons why I sometimes fall asleep crying almost every night.

My Wife Was Right, But I'll Never Tell

I like to wake up with a game-plan for the day.

I like to know that around 10:30 a.m. I should be hurling the kids into the car, yelling at the wife to hurry the hell up, and giving the neighbor the evil eye because he has no kids.

This is completely opposite from the wife who enjoys sleeping until the kids are on the brink of burning the joint down. Then, she’ll suddenly wake-up and spontaneously want to climb a mountain, start a 12-acre farm, make “something awesome out of bamboo,” and feed a small country.

If you ask her “how are we going to do that honey?”

The first response will always be, “See!!!! That’s what I’m talking about! You never want to do shit unless you planned it two months ago!!!”

So, I decided not to fight it this past Saturday.

We woke up, the wife immediately said, “We shall go to the hoity toity Farmer’s Market, get judged, and buy some kick-ass donuts!”

I said, “Yes dear.” And we went.

Near the end of our judged and be-judged fest, we came across a half-pint of blueberries for $5. Knowing the kids love blueberries I said, “hey sweet precious wife of mine. Shall we purchase said berries for our amazing offspring?”

Her eyes lit-up, the skies parted, angles sang “whaaaaaaaaa” as the wife proclaimed, “We shall go blueberry picking right now!!!”

I said, “Yes dear.” And we went.

A quick Android search and five minutes later and we were joyfully headed to Michigan City, Indiana…just over an hour away.

Eighteen kid fights later we arrive at the blueberry farm and start picking like champs.

Half-way through our molestation of rows of blueberry bushes I realized, “holy shit I’m actually having fun. And…and I didn’t plan any of this.”  But how was I going to keep it from the wife that she’s right – sometimes just doing shit on a whim really can be fun.

Six pounds of blueberries later and we’re piling back in the mobile. Pulling out on the road to head home we pass by sign pointing to all kinds of stuff around the area, one of which said, “Beach.”

“We shall totally go a beach along Lake Michigan!,” my darling wife proclaimed.

I said, “Yes dear.” And we went.

An Android search later and we were headed to find Mount Baldy in Indiana!

A climb to the top of a huge dune, a few tumbles down it, and a mass amounts of memories caught on still photos and our day was complete.

One hour later we’re home, kids tired, in bed, and wife nodding her head with approval at the fact we had a kick-ass time without a single damn plan of how the day would go.

And I’ll give her props. If I’d planned the day, we would have left by 6 a.m., cooler packed, MapQuested the hell out of everything within a 4 hour radius and a schedule would be firmly implanted in my head.

But I’ve got to admit…not having a plan and just enjoying the day was mighty damn nice. But I’ll never tell the wife that.

My 2012 Bucket List

Yesterday I had a guy come up to me and ask, “are you ready for 2012?”

Looking around to make sure someone was witnessing this insanity, I quickly said, “Ummm…yeah, I guess so. I mean, I’ve saved-up a few bucks so I can afford to see the flick.”

“No…the REAL 2012. We’re all gonna die. You know that you will die in 2012, right? We all will. You, your family, your neighbors, all the countries…literally millions will die. Humankind will be nothing but documents and badly done museum exhibitions.”

Then it clicked…you know, I COULD actually take a dirt nap in 2012. Maybe the Mayans had a little something something going on with their magical mystery calendar.

Twenty minutes later my man finished shoving my brain into the depths of depression and allowed me to frantically sit down, digest all that was said, and conclude: “I need a fucking 2012 Bucket List!!!”

So…without further adieu:

Yo…It’s My 2012 Bucket List!

1) I’ve got to spend at least one day wearing adult diapers. I mean come on…those things were engineered by wizards from another world. Un-cloth-like thingies that wrap themselves around your entire torso allowing you to wiz all day long without having to stand, lift lids, or aim for urinal cakes. AND they’re disposable!!

2) Huge fan of the Kinks. I won’t lie. I’d like Jager, a keg, and a karaoke machine rigged to place me on stage in front of 20,000 rowdy friends all singing “Lola” at the top of their lungs.

3) Is there really a place on this planet where you’re asked if you’d “like a happy ending?” I’d love to lie on a massage table just once and be asked “you want happy ending?”

4) Take Sarah Palin on the Maury Show and do a paternity test to reveal who the real “baby daddy” is for Trig. We all know how that’s going to turn out…

5) Drink a beer with Bobcat Goldthwait. But only if he uses his old-school “Police Academy” voice the whole time.

6) Start making love to a Porn Star, then get all Gordon Ramsay on her ass and scream, “it’s like crap, served up with crap, with a side of crap. SHUT IT DOWN!!!”

7) Walk through Grand Central Station singing “come on ride the train…hey ride it! Whoo woo” until I get at least a 100-person train going.

8) Find Erno Rubik (inventor of the Rubik’s Cube) and beat his ass to death with his puzzle.

9) Hear Super Nanny tell me to “get on my naughty step.”

And the final, most amazing feat I’d like to pull off before all human life as we know it rots into this sweet sweet rock in space in 2012…..

10) To go on a shopping spree in Victoria’s Secret with Jennifer Aniston then have her do yoga in front of me while wearing that Cheerleader outfit she wore in that one episode on Friends.

The-to-the-End

All I Can Do Is Cut Grass

It’s true…I’m anything but a man’s man.

Actually let’s clarify that a bit. I’m not metrosexual by any stretch. In fact, I’ve had the same wardrobe for probably two decades now and when I smell Axe body spray it makes me want to throw bricks at the dude’s head.

No, I just mean that I can’t do a single handy-man thing to save my life.

I could sit and talk soccer, biking, running, and beer with the best of them. But anything beyond that…I’m struggling.

Plumbing

A few years ago I rip my shirt off one Saturday morning, beat the hell out of my chest, and claim “today I will change out the garbage disposal.”

I grab a couple wrenches, place myself in precarious positions, and smile occasionally at the wife who’s standing there just shaking her head. Ten minutes later, I’m holding two pipes together as best I can to keep water from flooding our entire house while my wife frantically calls a plumber who says, “you know it’s a Saturday and I’m gonna charge you triple over time to come out there?”

For one damn hour I held those pipes together before paying some dude $150 to turn a shut-off valve that was less than 30 yards from where I laid. We then paid him another $300 to fix what I clearly fucked up.

Cars

The worst is when I take my car in to be worked on. Inevitably I’m asked, “what make, model, and year is your car?”

I’m always “…uhh…it’s a….ummm…”

Then I immediately act like I’m getting a phone call on my cell phone and I’m all, “oh..hold on, I’ve got a call” which I fake while I walk outside and fumble through the glove box to find anything that will tell me what in the hell I’m driving.

Tools

When my wife moved in with me back in 1997 (holy shit I’m old) she brought with her a phenomenal collection of really “cute” tools. They are all sized to fit perfectly in your tiny purse so that no one could ever know you were wielding a Phillips head or flat nosed. (I had to Google those to know what I was talking about.)

I’ve bought some tools over the years, but the cutesy, very very tiny screw drivers still dominate the tool collection. And yes, there’s been many a time when friends have come to my rescue to help with a job and said, “throw me a Phillips head” and I embarrassingly drop my head in shame as I hand them this tiny, itsy bitsy tool that could only help if your model trains broke down in your basement.

So in short…if you need serious work done on your house, car….or well shit, anything…don’t call me.

But if you want someone to stand idly by drinking beer, making you laugh, and referring to shitting as “going boom boom” – well then I’m your guy!!

Oh, and I can cut the living hell out of some grass.