No More Eating Out for Me!!

I’m absolutely done with taking the family out for dinner. Done! Can’t stand it any longer…

It always begins with deciding where we’re going to go. The boy wants pizza and the girl wants chicken strips.

The boy wants sushi and the girl wants chicken strips.

The boy wants Subway and the girl wants macaroni and cheese…with chicken strips.

During this riveting debate is when we’re eagerly shepherding the little demons to get shoes on. This is essentially the equivalent of trying to teach a cat to sit while someone’s using a laser-beam to play with it.

After a spirited race to the car, always won by the boy because he elbows the girl sending her cart wheeling to yet another scabbed knee, we wait while the daughter spends 10 minutes gathering every essential toy scattered throughout the vehicle before getting buckled.

I’ll spare you the drive because it’s just too damn painful to recount.

Then alas we arrive and make our grand entrance. This is always the best part of the night. The second they walk in, they quiet down, put their hands by their sides and take in the scenery.

Diners gaze upon their young innocent faces, smile, and nudge their loved ones usually saying, “oh look…he looks just like Opie and she’s just a princess.”

Little do they know that in the time they’ve uttered those words, both kids have managed to figure out the first 12 ways they’ll make us both cry, pay-off the cooks to spit in my food, and waged a bet on who can make me say, “guys, stop it!” the most.

Then the menus come and they want nothing that’s on it.

Then I order three beers at once which gets the typical waitress response of, “Oh, will someone else be joining you?” as she reaches for more menus.

“No, it’s just us. So again, we'll take water for the kids, margarita for the wife, and I’ll have three beers. Thanks!” This is when the waitress either tells me that’s illegal or slowly backs away from the table.

Almost immediately the daughter hands me the little piece of paper holding the napkin and silverware together and says, “daddy!! Paper airplane.”

“Say please sweetie.”

“Yes ma’am!” And that’s always followed by giggling from both kids and it goes from there until dinner is served.

This is when both kids begin an intellectual discussion about life, the names of all the presidents, whether Barbie poops at night while they’re sleeping, what we should name the daughter’s first tooth she loses, and why daddy wants to do serious harm to Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Twenty minutes later the wife and I have finished and the kids haven’t even taken a bite of their food.

All and all it could be significantly worse. And there are occasionally good eating experiences.

But after last night’s escapade of my daughter mimicking the Italian busboy to the point where he’s contemplating shoving a spork in my jugular. I’m done…

Now I’ve moved on to the phase of just throwing a pile of sushi and chicken strips on the floor, turning the TV on, and slowly escaping with the wife to the back porch to drink beer and chill in silence.

The Wifey & I Have a Talk

Wifey: “I did this for an entire freakin’ summer you douche!”

Me: “I don’t know how in the hell you pulled this off. Were you on crack the whole time or what? I mean, I’m two minutes from jumping off a bridge.”

Wifey: “That’s why men could NEVER birth children.”

Me: “Fuck yeah we couldn’t!!! The world as we know it wouldn’t exist. Humans would have died out centuries ago. We wouldn’t be having this conversation cause I’d be a tiny worthless sperm cell sitting in front of the egg all: “screw that dude, you go ahead…I’m good. I’ll just take pictures of you being all bad-ass and put it on your Facebook page!”

Wifey: “Speaking of Facebook, you seriously need to be more careful about what you put on there. People there know who you are. It’s not Twitter jackass.”

Me: “Say that shit on Twitter…people will cut you woman.”

Wifey: “If Grayson ever calls me ‘woman’ cause he over-hears you saying that to me I swear you’ll need to wear a cup around me for a year.”

Me: “Look – you’re getting off the point. Three days!! Three day’s I’ve taken the kids sledding. And today I added a third child. And there was crying…anger…crying…ambulances…more crying. But it’s only been three days. How the hell did you do it for three months?”

Wifey: “Seriously – snow and ice and you want a medal?”

Me: “And when I got home I made snacks. The children loved the peanut buttery snacks. And TV was on. And all was good. Serenity rained down upon the land. And then Grayson came down stairs crying like a baby cause your freakin’ “mini-me” daughter socked him in the eye for trying to teach her how to say “the!” The simplest word on the planet – “the!!!” Well, next to “a.”

Wifey: “She hit him in the eye? What did you do?!”

Me: “I Googled ‘daughter hits brother in eye’ and a ton of videos came up. And they were so awesome. So then I Skyped my brother to show him some of these videos so I could see his reaction. It was hilarious. Actually – get the lap-top you HAVE to see this one...”

Wifey: “You seriously need medication you ADD bastard! What’s wrong with you?”

Me: “Oh, no…it’s cool. The kids made up and were making art projects by the time I got off Skype! In fact, they made you a Valentines card!”

Wifey: “For the record – when I leave in the morning for work…I leave scared for my children’s lives!”

Me: “You’re taking me all wrong. I just wanted to say that I appreciate everything you did as a stay-at-home-mom for a year. I’ve been doing it for not even two weeks and I hurt. I hurt everywhere. And I appreciate you.”

Wifey: “No!”

Me: “No what?”

Wifey: “No. No we cannot have sex tonight. I still have to write like 30 thank you notes from Christmas.”

Me: “Damn you and your ninja mind-tricks. How in the hell did you know?!”

Wifey: “You’re like the cat, dumb-ass. You only come around all happy and caring and stuff when you want to be fed. In your case, when you want some action. Back off dude!”

Me: “No, seriously. I appre-ci-ate you!!!”

Wifey: “It….ain’t….happ-en-ing!!!”

Me: “I took your children to see the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie woman! Baby Jesus…that should get me sex for 6 weeks straight!”

Wifey: “’Your children?’ Really…you just dropped the ‘your’ word in talking about ‘our’ children? And also – idiot-boy - I was there, too! We shared the pain together!”

Me: “Holy shit you saw that movie too?! I swear to god…if I ever see anything as awful as that again…I told you I appreciate you right?”

Wife: “You seriously scare me. And, No!!!”

Me: “Fine! The appreciative train has left the station. You’re gonna have to work for it now!”

Wifey: “Damn. That sucks. And you said we weren’t doing Christmas gifts this year. Hey – can you toss me that pillow before you leave the room? That’d be great!”