by Brad Garrett
Okay, relax, yes, there are good wives. I just think that Sir Elton knew exactly what he was chirping about. “I even miss my wife. ’Cause it’s just that fuckin’ dark and lonely out here in space.”
It pains me to reflect on how rich I’d be if I had said “I don’t” instead of “I do.”
I wouldn’t be writing this book right now, that’s for sure. If you happen to be sporting a penis, or at least the remnants of one after your female counterpart rearranged it into a nice little package, either from divorce or witchcraft, let me save you a bunch of time . . . and money. Women rule the world. As they should. End of story. The sooner you realize this, the sooner your man-sack can begin to heal.
Usually, “the power of the pink” is something that men find difficult to fully understand until they’re middle-aged, if even then. My father was married six times, so he never really grasped it, but he proved time and again that women indeed run the show. That’s why they carry the baby, hire the gardener, and pay the bills. They’re better equipped on every level. Emotionally, spiritually, and strategically.
Learning about women is entirely on-the-job-training, and it takes about half a century to get it half right, assuming you’re paying attention, which men usually are not. So if you’re twenty-five, quit pretending you get women, because you don’t get shit. I do. Somewhat. And I have the canceled checks to prove it.
Most men answer to a higher power, and it ain’t heavenly, though the ladies will get you praying to the heavens quite frequently. Every man who has ever faltered, stumbled, or lost the rule of a country, his senate seat, his money, his identity, his career, his fucking mind, had a woman’s prints all over him. Everything a man does: busting his ass at work, one hundred crunches in the morning, the Ferrari or the Kia he can’t afford, the plugs in his head that make him look like he’s growing corn, the man-girdle (yes, they have them), all that shit is done for the ladies. Why? Because that tiny area (bigger in European women) not only houses the future of the world but also has the strength to alter your mind. It doesn’t help that men are pigs and typically not too instinctive, and that’s why the women hold the keys to the trough.
I love it when guys say, “I wear the pants in the house,” when in reality they only wear the pants that the Mrs. lays out for them on the bed. And when do they start laying out our clothes for us? Right around middle age, my friends. So wear the peach-colored slacks with the turquoise polo and shut the fuck up.
Men are ruled by their penis for the majority of their life, at least until their member starts to do them wrong. That transition usually occurs around midlife as well. And I believe this is all payback for how awfully we have treated our wiener over the years—worse than any other organ. We have neglected it, humiliated it, abused it, put it in peril, and don’t get me started about the places we’ve shoved it or gotten it stuck. Thank goodness it only has one eye or it never would’ve been able to live with itself.
However, even when you’re just under seven feet tall, like I am, if the schmekel is lacking, we must divert the eyes somewhere else, a penile sleight-of-hand, if you will. This could also be the reason I always seemed to date smaller women. Simply for the selfish reason of my penis appearing larger. But that usually backfired. As they say in the medical field, “Big woman, big vagina. Small woman, all vagina.”
I so welcomed the day when I finally came out of the ether and discovered there were other things just as important (or perhaps even more enticing) than rolling over and asking someone, “Did you finish?” Like, for example, the butter cake at Mastro’s, or taking a good dump after Super Bowl Sunday, or maybe finding the one pair of shoes that don’t hurt my hammertoe. These have become the happy places since my dick took the turn.
The nice thing about hitting middle age is it becomes significantly clear that the uneven playing field you and your partner have rallied on for decades is starting to level out, if only by a little. That’s why the second marriage is often the keeper. Not because it’s that much better, but because you have grown up a bit to understand that a good marriage is nothing more than both parties giving up simultaneously. You must quit as a team in order to make the grade. Looking at each other and then yourselves in the mirror with death-defying honesty and admitting, “Where the fuck am I going?” is the only path to true bliss. So you might as well hunker down, learn to say yes, and pray for sudden hearing loss, which statistically and ironically starts around your fifties.
But as you settle into the inevitable, continue to remember that the ladies own it, run it, and invented it. I think it’s called a monopoly. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Just be aware of it and not surprised when it hits you hard in the wallet on anniversaries or in divorce court. Because men will pay for it one way or another time and time again, so it must be worth it, right? You have one gigolo for every hundred thousand hookers, and we all know figures don’t lie.
How many women do you know who pay spousal support? (Ellen or Rosie O’Donnell don’t count, even though they’re technically women.) Alimony? You mean I even have to pay for the person I don’t want anymore because I was generous while trying to keep her happy during better times? And now I’m being penalized for that?
What I noticed after my divorce, while I was forced to keep my ex in the same “lifestyle she was accustomed to,” was that my lifestyle had to come down a notch or two while she continued to live high on the hog without ever contributing financially. My career was far along and successful way before we met, so how does it compute that she (or any ex-wife or ex-husband) gets to reap the benefits without having anything to do with the source? It’s kind of like paying for the lease on a car after turning it in, while someone else is driving it. The game has changed regardless of whose fault it is, though it’s ultimately both or mostly mine, depending on who you ask. The breadwinner is the sole reason the spouse became “accustomed” to anything in the first place. And for the women who financially take care of their men, the same should apply for them, whoever they are.
Please understand I’m only referring to crazy alimony. Any father who bails on child support is a scumbag. Period. I judge a man on the father he is before anything else. If you can’t love and support your kids, keep your dick in the drawer. If you want to help out the Betty after the divorce, good for you, but it’s also okay for her to go out there and get a job. Like she did. Before you met. Please understand, I’m not bitter. I’m better . . . equipped. Or I will be if I come back as a woman.
You want to know what’s fair? Everyone leaves with what they came with. Period. You both have to start over, so start over! Fellas, I beg you, get a prenup. If she doesn’t understand why you want it, then you have the wrong broad. It’s about protection and reality, because at the end of the day, people change. And they really change when they’re pissed, or lied to, or confronted, or bored, or scorned.
I once heard a woman say, “If he wants a prenup, it just shows he doesn’t believe in us or doesn’t trust me.” To that, I say, if you don’t feel you should sign it, then it’s all about the money from the start. Don’t you love your partner enough that you want him or her to feel protected? Where’s the love? For richer or poorer, if you believe in the two of you like you say, then it’s just a gesture of goodwill, right? It’s not a gold rush, ladies. I speak the truth with firsthand knowledge.
A woman will cost you more than any drug addiction, gambling binge, real estate debacle, or frivolous lawsuit. You will lose your mind if she wants you to, along with all your lettuce. That’s why the vagina is shaped like that, so you can swipe your credit card. One-stop shopping for eternity. If she’s Jewish, swipe once and wait for approval. Asian, swipe it sideways, backside up. Mexican, you’ll need two forms of ID. If she’s from the South, make sure it doesn’t eat your card. If it does, do not put your dick in there! That’s right, I said it.
My chickens—Hope (left, one year old) and Max (right, two and a half), 2001. (Shannon Treglia)
12
“Because I Said So.”
I think it’s safe to say that parenting skills are not genetically inherited. Especially in my case. By all means, my parents did the best they could, but some stuff I’m certain was not passed down. I think it’s also safe to say that each generation inherently repeats parts of its own childhood in some ways, and overcompensates for shortcomings in others. My mom would unplug her phone when she went to bed, even with three teenage boys going in and out of the house. I have tracking devices on my kids’ phones so I know where they are at every waking moment. Surely there’s a happy medium.
Here’s a slice of my childhood to give you a point of comparison. My best friend growing up was Jeremy Wallen. He loved fucking with me because I was the perfect kid to play practical jokes on: I already came equipped with a good amount of anxiety. We used to walk home from school together, but one day in October, he didn’t wait for me and purposely beat me home. His dad had just gotten him a gorilla suit for Halloween, and Jeremy had a perfect plan. He ran over to my house dressed in the suit, with the gorilla head under his arm, and rang my doorbell. He caught my mom between naps and asked her if I was home. Mom said, “I don’t think so, darling, not yet. I don’t smell Pop-Tarts.”
Jeremy said, “Great! Mind if I hide in his bedroom closet?”
Mom said, “Sure.”
Try and grasp the dysfunction. After thirty years of therapy, my shrink still comes up dry. Moments later, I walked my lanky ass into my room, threw my books on the bed, examined a zit in my mirror, and BANG, Jeremy bolted from my closet in full gorilla regalia. As my girlish screams turned into wailing, I shoved my mom toward the gorilla and fled the house at a speed never to be equaled by any white man . . . as I was peeing. That’s right. I said it. Fuck you, too. I was eleven! I ran halfway down the block until I collapsed with exhaustion. Jeremy wasn’t far behind, with his elfish laugh coming from under the rubber mask. I could have killed the little prick, but he definitely would have kicked my ass.
In case you’re not quite clear on what a Jewish mother is like, this will help you grasp the mind-set attributed to the breed. What was my mother’s comment when I returned home, seething with anger and smelling of piss? She said, “I can’t believe you would push your own mother into a gorilla.” I didn’t close my closet doors for three months.
* * *
Upon becoming a father for the first time, I quickly learned there is nothing as powerful as the love for your child. But it is without a doubt the toughest gig in the world if you’re doing it right. I think this level of dedication comes from a certain kind of chip that is found more often in females than in males. It’s a caregiving attribute that I truly feel is in the DNA. I will never forget the day my son was born and I cut the cord, uttering the words, “It’s a pound over, shall I wrap it?” Or that day in December 2001, when my daughter took her first step, teetered, fell forward, and then puked on my new Italian slip-ons.
I learned early on that there is nothing as unbridling and forthright as a child’s honesty. Especially compared to a parent’s. Ironically, kids are also the most brilliant liars next to politicians. My son at age five actually once told me, after hitting his sister, that “God told him to.” An unsettling lie that made me rethink the theory of evolution. What if the kid was right? He is known to move in mysterious ways. This was the same kid who told the waitress at IHOP that “Daddy farted in the car on the way to breakfast.” An unfortunate truth that has destroyed my love of pancakes and Sunday drives.
I once caught my four-year-old daughter chasing her big brother with a bat because he put a booger on her Malibu Barbie. Thank goodness I caught her in midswing as I cried bloody hell. When I questioned her intention with saliva propelling from my mouth, her excuse was “I was just seeing how heavy the bat was, Daddy. I’d never hit him.” Uh-huh. As much as we love them, they are most definitely out to kill us.
You will be astonished at how many things your kids can break, lose, throw, and just plain fuck up in a matter of minutes. Remotes in the toilet; tuna in your shoe; ice cream on the dog; a flashlight in the aquarium. All things that make you ponder a vasectomy with the intensity of a jet fighter. An argument between your kids in the backseat of the van after a ten-hour day at Disneyland will make you decide: “I am letting someone take a knife to my testicles and tie the arteries to my balls so I will never have to relive this day.” And I thought it was the happiest place on earth. To quote one of my heroes, Rodney Dangerfield, “Now I know why tigers eat their young.”
I almost gave myself the procedure inadvertently one day when I was putting the Christmas ornaments away in the attic. I was in the farthest part of the attic that I could find, because let’s face it, being a Jew, I wasn’t supposed to be playing with that shit in the first place, right? Being totally unaware how an attic is constructed, I decided I would straddle a large beam to secure my stability. As foot left and foot right stepped onto the ceiling drywall to balance my jumbo frame, well, I guess there’s no other way to say it: my balls broke my fall. I landed squarely with my friggin’ plums on the beam, and as my legs, covered in red sweatpants, shot through the ceiling above where my four-year-old son was playing with his new train set, I vaguely heard him yell, “Santa’s back!” “Vaguely,” I say, because I almost passed out from the impact. If I had been lucky enough to miss the beam, I would have fallen through a different part of the ceiling and encountered a thirty-foot drop. Had that happened, I would be writing this by holding a pencil in my mouth. Tough to erase stuff that way.
The key to parenthood is not only having a great nanny who can’t write English (thus sparing you the possibility of a tell-all book) but also the ability to be a great friend to your kids without being their best friend. You’re a parent first, a friend second, a slave third, a defendant fourth. They are sponges who will illuminate your faults and elevate your talents. They will get the runs at the worst possible times and make you drive them around at three A.M. as if you’ve forgotten where you live, just so they’ll fall asleep. Your life, as you know it, will be over. And you will spend the next twenty years trying to regain what you once had. You will experience a lot less fun but a lot more joy.
Before my seed ever found purchase, whenever I heard about a guy becoming a father at fifty or sixty years of age, I would think, What a selfish bastard. His kid will be ten and he’ll be seventy! After becoming a father, I now think, That guy is a genius. He figured out that by the time his kids are teenagers, he’ll be battling dementia, in a coma, or dead. Sitting shell-shocked in a home, eating pudding with no teeth, unaware that his teenage son put something on Instagram that is unrecognizable unless you turn it upside down and close one eye. “Out of sight if you’re out of your mind,” I always say. Have them late in life and your excuses for bad parenting are endless and validated.
I’m always amazed at the clueless parents who expect random people in public to put up with their kid’s shit. The ones who leave brutal messes under their child’s highchair for the poor restaurant server to deal with after Chucky throws all his uneaten crap on the floor. The relentless screamer with the parents who act like they can’t fuckin’ hear it. Take them outside for a walk until they chill out, Trailer Trash. Pretend you give a shit. The crier on the plane? Shouldn’t be allowed, sorry. I have kids. Bring shit for them to do and to eat. Yes, their ears will sometimes hurt, and I know that’s a bitch, but pull your tit out and make the plane happy. You squirted him out, we didn’t. My earbuds are only so big. And who knows, maybe the consideration for others will eventually rub off on your offspring.
As the saying goes, there’s nothing more fun than seeing the world through the eyes of a child. Yet I believe this phrase was written by a child. It’s not always that fun. It’s at least much better than through the eyes of a guy hitting “the double nickel,” which is where I find myself today. But every stage has its challenges, even though I did my best to prevent my children from all forms of adversity. I was determined to be with my
children through every possible step in their young lives. I tried to predict accidents before they would happen. I wrapped my house in Styrofoam, padding, and duct tape so every slip and fall would be bolstered with a cushy landing. My tendency was to be what many experts refer to as a “helicopter parent,” always checking, fixing, and planning. I wanted their lives to have the structure that my early years lacked. And sometimes, through that desire, I oversteered or unconsciously robbed them of the experience that comes from things not being perfect or easy. I overcompensated because of my feelings of guilt fueled from my divorce. At times I acted like a damn teenager myself.
Being a father was so important to me that I had times when I forgot to breathe. Forgot it the other night, when my kids decided to fry Oreos in hot vegetable oil in a skillet. Not sure why. They didn’t see it on the Food Network; they weren’t even high. Just had a great idea that resulted in a grease fire that was quickly doused with water. Which my teenage kids, both in chemistry, didn’t know could lead to an even worse fire. I took a breath and ended up spurting out more F-bombs than Kanye’s box set. Yes, my heart has been mostly in the right place since that day in October 1998 when I became a dad. And again in February 2000. Learn from me, if you’re a parent or planning to become one when you hit sixty-five, do your best, and also know you can only do so much. There will be times when you will save the day, and also times when you’ll be the biggest dick in the room. In a bad way. But if you can teach your kids two things, aim for compassion and courage, two crucial ingredients that are missing all too often in this world.