The Dog Days

The Spring is such a wonderful time of year. It brings the people-folk out of their houses. The runners start training in mass for races, bikers create that cloud-like blob along early-morning road sides, and dogs with their owners begin making longer journeys around the neighborhood.

I was on a run yesterday when I passed a number of people walking their beloved furry animals. I couldn’t help but remember just over a year ago when the wifey and I made the collective decision to bring a dog into the family.

And….scene:

It was late fall, the family had just moved from Virginia to Chicago to be with me after waiting months to sell the house. We had already bought a cat and everyone was settling into a good mid-western big city routine.

I’d just finished reading the amazing book The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (yeah it’s an Oprah Book Club book but I didn’t read it because of that…you wanna fight about it?!!!). I suddenly got a hankering to bring a dog into the family thinking in my head, the kids would love growing up with a furry bastard around the house.

It was like being a teenager all over again…I wanted something that I knew was no good. I wanted to bring a dog into a three bedroom, one bathroom house, already equipped with one brand new cat, a backyard no larger than a postage stamp, long winters hovering around 0 degrees, and a wife I knew damn good and well would not walk this beast.

We went to the SPCA as a family. We met dogs. We walked dogs. We played with them on shit-covered sheets of ice. We finally found the “perfect” one! Five minutes later the SPCA worker was quickly removing him from us after he tried to eat my daughter’s face off.

Two days later we brought home a large doggie. We loved that bastard. But holy shit no one in his short life had even begun to train him. And when he stood up on his hind legs, he was the same height as my beloved wife at 5’1”.

This is the same wife who for the first time since she was 14 years old, wasn’t working a job. She was staying home with our children, in a new city, hundreds of miles from any family and friends while her husband was gone from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. during the work-week.

We named him “Odie.” Most of his short life in our home he spent chasing the cat, leaping on counters, tackling our children, trying to eat my wife, and sparking calls from the wife to me at work that sounded a lot like “I can’t handle the two kids, this winter, and this damn dog!!!”

I took him on walks. I read up on training and implemented the tips as best I could. I set up an appointment with a trainer but had to wait a month for a new class to start. But every day I came home it was the same. House trashed, the dog crated, wife frazzled and crying, and kids swinging from the ceiling.

A few days later I came home to the wife in tears again and mumbling, “I just can’t handle it!”

I asked her to put the kids to bed, I grabbed the dog, put him in the car and headed back to the SPCA. It was the worst feeling I’d had in years. I knew I was taking him back to prison after experiencing our wonderful family. A lot of other people would have made a different decision, but I knew we were not the ideal family for this dog that had lived in our house for four days.

Later we explained to the kids that I took Odie to a farm to be with tons of other dogs where they could run around and have so much fun.

We kept track of Odie on the SPCA website and a week later he was adopted and never returned. Looking back at those pictures the wife and I miss him. We wished he had found him at a better time in our lives.

But…we’re confident he’s enjoying his life on that farm with all those dogs…

I Am My Wife's Lil-Bitch

I’m a schmuck and my wife knows it.

Her favorite past-time? Watching me jibber jabber my way into a spike-filled corner only to realize too late that I’m bleeding from 30 different places and crying for mercy.

Now that I’ve tipped you off as to how this is going to end, let me begin my story…

I used to commute on the Metra train into the city for my last jobby job. I enjoyed the mile-long walk except days when my nose hairs froze solid or old-lady Gertrude’s teenage snow shovel-boy decided to take the day off. Other than that, it was my time to listen to damn good tunes, people-watch, and occasionally “accidentally” miss a train so I could squeeze-in a quick beer at the Union Station bar.

Now, I drive three days a week along the paved toll-road pathway to the west filling my mornings and afternoons with NPR, good tunes, and views of ladies putting on make-up, guys picking boogers, and the occasional douche camped out in the left lane going the speed limit.

But the most important thing about that last paragraph was the word "toll-road."

Yeah, I have to stop to pay a toll two times each way every time I go into work. Now, they do make this amazing little magic box called an “IPass” that attaches to your windshield and automatically deducts the toll amount from your bank account so you never have to slow down or stop at a toll booth.

When we first moved to Illinois the wife didn’t work at a job…instead, she had the lowest-paying, most difficult job there is—stay-at-home-mom. One weekend after going through a toll road with her I said, “hey, I heard you can buy an IPass at the grocery store. Next time you go you think you can snag us one?”

I did all I could with that sentence…I used positive words…words like “snag,” “us,” “next time”—seemed harmless.

But what the wife heard was, “hey wife that I own and tell what to do all the time. Go fetch us a toll booth thingy now…and take the kids and fucking like it! And while you’re there, wrestle us some food and beer woman!!!”

Months passed and the IPass never came to fruition. Weekends passed where we’d roll-up to toll booths with no change or cash. We’d blow through them only to frantically go online days later hoping we hadn’t missed the deadline to pay them.

The “fuck you, you do it” dance had begun.

The wife didn’t want to feel like she was being “told” to go do something. I wasn’t going to give in and go buy it myself because…well, because I’m a guy and I never give in.

Except for that time I painted every wall in our entire house…all 1,700 square feet of it and asked the wife if she’d just toss some paint on the spindles going upstairs. Four years later we go to sell the house and who was on HIS hands and knees along the stairs holding a paint brush?

And this was no different. This past week I filled out the paperwork online for an IPass, pressed the “submit” button, all the while knowing damn well what the true meaning of the “submit” button meant in this case.

Twelve years and you’d think I would have learned my lesson by now. You’d think I’d know not to fight battles I know damn well I’m going to lose. You’d think I’d know when to give in because at the end of the day…I’m just slowly backing myself into a corner filled with pointy, sharpy things while the wife kicks back, Shiraz in hand, pointing, laughing, and patting herself on the back and saying, “you silly silly man.”

To My Wife On Our Anniversary

Twelve,

Who’d have thought?

I still remember each laugh.

I still remember each tear…and why.

On the pier we laid, vulnerable, ignorant, surrounded by nature and the love we now raise our children in.

I knew then what I know now,

Your strength is envious.

Contagious.

Our lives are far from perfect.

Our beliefs stray from the norm.

Our love has been more than challenged.

You’re undying kindness and devotion,

Is humbling and heart-warming.

The mornings we laid dreaming of years from now,

In the place we’ll call home,

Returning back to nature,

Together,

The two of us.

The journey getting there will be ours, remarkable, painful, revealing…

You are my hero.

You are my best friend.

You are my children’s mother.

You are my wife.

You are…everything I wish I was…

Burn Bieber Burn!!! The Wife & I Discuss Justin Bieber

So yesterday I was minding my own business…trying to come up with a new “fantasy slam” for my Twitter bud @IeatMyKizSnack when all of a sudden I read a tweet from her saying she’s become a fan of Justin Bieber’s bullshit, musical foulness.

I’d laughed so many times at her anti-Bieber tweets -- her bashing of the young, innocent buck in his juvenile journey through stardom. And now, a mere 48 hours after one shit-stained performance on SNL and the lady I looked-up to as a refreshing rogue Twitter-gal had turned into a Bieber-lover. I was heartbroken.

I came home, slammed the door shut, threw my stuff on the ground like a spoiled teenage brat and said to the wife, “This Bieber shit’s gone too far!!”

Wife: “What the hell is a ‘Bieber’?”

Me: “Justin Bieber!!! That two-bit hack of a human who’s this year’s poster-child for how incredibly horrific the music industry has become!”

Wife: “OK there geek music boy. Slow down, let me get you some beer and start over.”

Me: “No seriously, this prepubescent shit rolls up, makes some really horrific music on YouTube, wears his hat tilted to the left just so, and BAM! he’s got Simon Cowell wearing knee-pads and writing home to “mummy” about how he feels something “all tingly in me bits-n-pieces at night!”

Wife: “Wow…Oh shit, American Idol’s on right now. Hand me the remote!”

Me: “SEE!!! OK look, you know I love music more than anything, right?! Well…I mean, second to you…oh, and the kids…”

Wife: “Dear lord just finish…”

Me: “Just promise me you’ll never…NEVER play Justin Bieber or anything remotely shitty to our children without first running it by me? His lyrics are written for him, his ‘look’ is managed by an agent, his beats are produced by focus groups, and MTV probably owns 98% of everything he is. He represents everything that is wrong with music today!!”

Wife: “You really need to funnel your musical passion into something a bit more constructive!”

Me: “Just promise you’ll never play Justin Bieber or any other pop-bullshit to our children!”

Wife: “Your children may or may not have heard La Bouche the other day while I was taking them to school… I’m just sayin’!”

Me: “A piece of me just died.”

Wife: “I just want you to ‘Be My Lover.’”

Me: “I have to go see my therapist now. Just know that I’ll be talking about you.”

Wife: “OK honey. I’ll be asleep…so when you get home…have ‘Sweet Dreams!’”

Me: “Jackass…”

Scared Shitless

So the boy won tickets to the Chicago Wolves hockey team game this past Saturday for raising the most money in his elementary school

for Jump Rope for Heart. We were stoked because we’d been wanting to take the kids to a hockey game for a while.

So Saturday comes and we’re on our way…the wife, daughter, boy and me. We grab a bite to eat, hit the arena, find our seats, and the kids are pumped! The wife hooks them up with a bag of cotton candy while I go and wrestle-us down a couple of beers.

Then, the lights drop down, the spot-lights roam around the ice, the announcer and his douchey announcer voice blast over the speakers and then…the fireworks begin.

During this extremely rookie introduction I look over and my daughter is literally shaking, crying and sitting in my wife’s lap trying her best to climb inside her coat pocket.

I look at the boy and he’s in a crouched position on his chair, wide-eyed, hands in his mouth, and it’s like I can watch the fear slowly grab him by the balls.

When it’s all done I turn trying to act all cool and I say, “that was awesome huh?!”

“Daddy, I have to poop.”

“What?! You…all right…let’s do this.”

So I take the boy to poop in the piss-covered public restroom--every dad’s worst nightmare. Standing in a men’s room, during a manly-man hockey game, leaned-up against a stall door, I try not to make eye-contact with the legions of dudes standing in line drinking beer, spitting, cussing, and waiting their turn at the urinal.

So I stand there, on my Blackberry, staring at the back of the stall door and listening to my boy squat a grumpy like a champ.

Ten minutes later we’re on our way back to our seats. Fifteen minutes later the Wolves score and what happens?! Yeah, fireworks go off. I immediately look at the boy and he’s in his crouching tiger position again. Literally five minutes later they score again…more fireworks. And the boy…all I smell is poop and see the look of fear on his face.

“Dude, you OK?”

“Daddy, my tummy hurts. Are there going to be anymore fireworks?”

“You dropped a third leg in the toilet less than a half-hour ago. You feeling OK chief?”

“I don’t like the fireworks daddy.”

At the end of the night, we drove home, boy crying his head off…”daddy, I was so excited when I won this prize because I knew you’d love to go see a live hockey game and I wanted to see it with you. I’m so sorry daddy!!” My heart broke for the little guy and I immediately felt the weight of the world on me.

I love this little bastard. He’s such a damn good kid. I won’t lie, the weight I bear from his idolization is unmerciful at times. It bites me in the ass when I least expect it and forces me to remember I’m his father and not his best friend. But I won’t lie, it’s every father’s dream.

So, for now, I just continually tell myself the same five words which the talented and skilled Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny made so famous, “just don’t fuck it up!”