The How-Not-To Guide to Parenting and Marriage
Page 9
As the song played on, I was compelled to crank the volume up even higher. My wife's odd look grew even odder, and began to take on an air of annoyance.
If she didn't like my head banging, she could just stop looking at me and focus on her dumb show!
Or that's what I was thinking until I happened to look down and see that I had forgotten to plug in the headphones, so the music was blasting at a level that the neighbors across the street could hear.
47. THE TRAUMATIC CHANGES TO ONES LIFE ASSOCIATED WITH GETTING MARRIED.
No one ever warned me of all the changes that take place when one gets married. Just when you think you have it all figured out, along comes a wife who takes your neatly organized bucket of life, and dumps it all over the floor.
My own wife could have warned me about her intentions with my apartment before we were married and she moved in. It's not like she hadn't ever been there before. She never mentioned that there were issues with the way I had things set up........ She just moved in and started changing things.
The first thing she did as she entered our newly shared home, was to walk straight over to my large Pink Floyd wall banner that I had won at the fair, and remove it from the wall.
"What are you doing?" I asked nervously.
"This has to go" she answered as she replaced the banner with two candle holders that were infested with fake floral arrangements and little mirrors.
"Ummm... Can't we talk abou-"
But before I could state my case, she had already moved on to the bathroom. Little did I know, this seemingly small incident would set the tone for the next several days ...... and perhaps our marriage. From that exact point, the household was no longer mine, nor did I have any say in what happened within its walls. Our domestic relationship became one of her running around "doing things" to the apartment, while I followed behind saying things like, "Well, are you sure we should-..... I mean .... I really liked the way it was .... How about we talk about........"
But to no avail.
Immediately following the desecration of the Pink Floyd banner, she went straight to the bathroom carrying a huge box of variously scented hair, skin, body, and face products. There was every type smell and flavor under the sun..... mango, rose petal, pineapple, maple, passionfruit, and many more perfumey smelling ones. And when all these scents were combined and emanating from the large box. It smelled like a wet dog that had been assaulted by a fruit wagon.
Up until this attack on my way of life, my bathroom had been a fairly simple room. It contained toilet paper, a dirty clothes basket, a basket for clothes that were almost, but not quite yet dirty, and a towel. The medicine cabinet contained a toothbrush, my baseball card collection, and the bar of soap that I showered, shampooed, and brushed my teeth with.
But all that was gone now, or buried under the tonnage of her smelly stuff. She had even removed my collection of vintage fake vomit and poop from the shelf above the toilet, and replaced with "precious something-or-other" figurines with creepy huge eyes. The trauma from these changes was a shock to my system, and made it difficult for me to go to the bathroom..... so much so, that I had to relieve myself behind the garage for a week until my psyche was able to adapt to being watched by the mutant figurines while I did my business.
Next in her sights was the kitchen. Once there, she attacked the refrigerator, which was emptied of nightcrawler containers, and all similar matter of live bait. The beer crisper drawer was emptied and filled with various vegetable matter. Flowery curtains were also added to the windows where my dream-catchers once hung.
The changes were not just limited to the objects in the apartment either. Rules were added. Rules that did not seem logical to me. In fact, I had such a difficult time remembering and adjusting to the new rules, that a list was posted on the wall in the dining room that read like this:
1. Clothes must be washed after each wear (instead of waiting until they failed the sniff test)
2. No showering with the dog (my attempt at water conservation).
3. Pizza can only be ordered once a week (I lobbied for cutting back to every third day, but again, was soundly vetoed)
4. Showering is now a daily event (instead of waiting until I failed the sniff test)
5. And finally, I was expected to discuss with my wife prior to deciding to skip work and drive to the Star Trek convention, instead of letting her know from my hotel room in Toledo.
Over the course of the following year, more changes were implemented.... Too many to even list. But I slowly became accustomed to them, and eventually even felt like things were getting back to normal.
That is, until the arrival of two daughters. Where once again, my neatly organized bucket of life was dumped out all over the floor.
48. ON DAUGHTERS AND DATING
I have two daughters. They are now getting to the age where they have noticed boys. I know they will eventually find a guy that they want to marry, but until the day of the wedding, it is my job to keep these little hormone factories in check. Here are a few tricks I've learned.
1. Until your girls are teen agers, you can convince them that kissing boys can cause cancer. To drive the point home, remind them of Aunt Sarah who died of cancer, and suggest (don't state as fact, that would be lying) that perhaps she kissed too many boys.
2. Inform all potential suitors, that anything they intend to do with your daughter, they must first do to you.
3. Spend an afternoon digging and reburying a half dozen graves, but leave one grave open. Make sure they are well within eyeshot of the front porch.
4. When a boy arrives to take your daughter on a date, have two spray bottles ready. In one, have water and rubbing alcohol. In the other, have water and ammonia. Spray down your daughter with one of the concoctions, and the boy with the other. Then tell them that any contact between the two chemicals will cause a violent, fiery explosion.
49. THE PLAYGROUND OF DEATH (“When I was a kid . . . “)
I was at my daughter’s school the other day, and I couldn’t help but notice the playground. It was nothing like the playground at the school I attended as a kid. It was all padded and sanitary. Fluffy woodchips covered all areas where a fall might occur, and there were almost no exposed steel or bolts. In fact, nearly all the equipment was covered in a protective coating of plastic or padding. I tried to imagine how a child might accomplish sustaining an injury on this playground, but I could come up with very few scenarios. While knowing that my daughter had recess on such a safe playground made me feel at ease, I also had to wonder how this new generation of kids would ever develop any character or grit.
In my day, recess was not something that was always enjoyed. Many times, it was something to be survived.
The equipment was hard steel and chain, with bolts sticking out everywhere, and completely void of any hand rails. The surface on which a student’s buttocks sat upon to go down the slide, was often heated to a bun blistering 800 degrees by the sun. After the skin searing trip down the slide, you were spit onto asphalt instead of the nice fluffy woodchips of my daughter’s playground. And so many knees, elbows and rear ends had been cheese gratered by this patch of black top that it had taken on a flesh color . . . . Presumably from all the skin layers that it had claimed.
Worse yet, was the merry go round. Despite its fun appearance and happy sounding name, this playground beast was a veritable death machine. Powered overzealous “pushers”, this monster sent victims flying off at a vision blurring velocity at regular intervals. But not before bouncing them around its spinning round surface that was covered with bars intended to give riders a place to hold on to. Much like a ping pong ball in a clothes dryer.
The surface of the merry go round sat just high enough off the ground that a child (often a pusher who failed to keep up) could fall and be sucked under. Once this occurred, the squeaky, spinning child launcher became a meat grinder, turning helpless victims into crying lumps of ground sausage. There were rumors-a-plenty of kids being sucked into the bell
y of the beast, never to be seen or heard of again.
A see-saw at the far end of the playground served as a spine compactor and tail bone breaker. There was always a fat kid sitting on one side, promising not to get off while you were on the up side. But without fail, the fat kid would break his promise, and with a demonic laugh, jump off when the lighter child was at the highest point, sending him rocketing back to the ground like Wile E Coyote falling off a cliff with an anvil in his arms.
And if you could manage to survive all that, you still had to survive the sadistic sixth-graders. They seemed to feed on the younger, smaller students’ fear and pain. Using the playground equipment as their own instruments of torture. Although I could never prove it, I’m fairly certain that “Playground Bully” was a salaried position at the school.
With each recess came carnage. Dripping blood and broken teeth were common-place. The adult recess attendant was oblivious to all dangers, and if you came to her with an injury, the response was always the same . . . . “Well I don’t see any bone or intestine. I think you’ll be fine.”
Now I’m not saying that I want my daughters to go through the meat grinder, or have to deal with mercenary bullies like I had, but there was something to be said about surviving a semester of recesses. It was cause for celebration amongst friends . . . . amongst brothers. It made us tough.
50. QUESTIONS THAT HAVE NO ANSWERS.
1. Why does candy stolen from my daughters' Easter baskets and Halloween bags taste so much better than any candy I could buy at the store?
2. How can my daughter's hate a pair of jeans, that they loved less than 24 hours ago, when they begged for them at the store?
3. Why do the animals in our house only pee and throw up on the area rugs, instead of the wood floors that are throughout our entire house.
4. Can the microwave rotating tray stay clean for more than a few minutes before someone (someone who didn't spend the last hour chiseling radioactive food concrete off of it) puts a bowl of chili in and over nukes it by 5 minutes?
Actually that question has an answer. The answer is no.
5. Why does my wife call me on her twenty minute ride home, knowing that we will be face to face shortly, and also knowing how much I hate talking on the phone?
51. AS IT SHOULD BE
As I walked in the door after my long day at work, I was met by my two daughters.
"How was your day, dad?" they both asked as they gave me a big hug.
"It wasn't too bad" I replied, "what smells so good?"
"Oh, Natalie and I made nachos, tacos and burritos for dinner . . . . . after we finished cleaning our rooms and doing our homework".
"That's wonderful girls!" I said, giving each a big hug.
After a quick shower, I returned to the dining room where we all sat down to one of the best meals I had eaten in quite some time. In fact, it was so good, that after eating each delicious taco, I would get up and hug my wife and daughters, and they would hug me back, telling me how wonderful my taco breath smelled.
Upon finishing the excellent dinner, the girls cleared the table and washed the dishes, and then the four of us retired to the living room to relax and watch a little TV. My wife brought out a heavenly double chocolate cake that had been made for desert.
"What should we watch?" I asked.
"How about something with rocket launchers and zombies!" replied my daughter Hannah.
"Yes!" added Natalie, "and with fast cars and explosions!”
“Are you sure?” I asked, “Don’t you girls want to watch your teenage drama shows?”
“No father, You have worked hard all day, we want to watch your show.”
"That sounds wonderful" I said as I hugged and kissed both girls.”
As I turned on the TV, my wife brought me a huge piece of the chocolate cake and my slippers.
“Thank you my lov . . . . . . “
Before I could finish my sentence, I was interrupted by a loud crash, and a sharp pain in my nose. I winced in agony.
When I opened my eyes, my wife was gone . . . . and there was no sign of the chocolate cake she was about to hand me before the loud noise and the pain. Instead, I was laying on the couch with my daughter Natalie sitting on my chest. My daughter Hannah was standing at the end of the couch near my head, violently swatting at her sister with a tennis racket. Natalie was kicking back at her with her feet, in an attempt to ward off the blows. And with every second or third kick, her leg would come down with a thump on my face. Hannah’s racket aim left much to be desired as well, in that, every other swat would crack me on the nose with the follow through. There was also a half-eaten piece of pizza lying face down on my forehead.
“WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!!!!” I demanded.
“Hannah stole the last piece of pizza!”
“Well Natalie keeps changing the channel from my show!” Hannah answered.
“I thought you girls wanted me to watch my zombie movie . . . . “ I said, somewhat confused.
Both girls looked at each other as if I had just spoken to them in Latin.
“Where did you get pizza? Aren’t you both full from the dinner you made me after you cleaned your rooms?” I asked.
Again they looked at each other, and then both broke out in loud maniacal laughter.
“Made dinner? Cleaned our rooms? HAHAHAHAHAHA!”
I was more confused, “Remember? You said I had worked hard today, so I could watch my show, and you guys made tacos and nachos and burritos for dinner, and we were hugging, and you said how wonderful my taco breath smelled . . . . “
I stopped talking as my brain began to piece together the facts.
The girls started in with their wild laughter again, “HAHAHAHAHA! You’ve been a dead lump on the couch since you got home! HAHAHAHAH, He said his breath smelled good! HAHAHAHA!”
As the girls walked off, laughing hysterically, I began to realize that it had all been a dream. There was no taco dinner, or hugging, or even chocolate cake.
My wife sat across the room with an amused smile on her face. I tried telling her about my dream, but had to stop when she began laughing as hard as the girls had been.
Being disappointed about not actually having a taco dinner or hugging, I decided that I wasn’t going to miss out on the chocolate cake. I rose from the couch and went to the little diner down the road from us, where I ordered a large piece of double chocolate cake. . . . . . a man can only handle so much disappointment in one evening.
52. THE BEHAVIORIZER
What if I told you that there was a device that you could purchase, that when plugged in and turned on, it would emit and energy field that caused children to calm down. Not just calm down, but actually sit silently and trouble free for as long as you want.
Right now, many of you battle-weary parents are thinking, "That would be WONDERFUL!! If only there were such a device!!!"
Well, there is, it's called a television, and I call it the BEHAVIORIZER!
Now I know that as parents, we are not supposed to let our children watch too much TV. Some of you may not even let your kids watch it at all. But its soooo effective, it's hard not to take advantage of its bluish, hypnotic glow.
HOURS! . . . They will sit for hours, and not move a muscle . . . . . I'm not even sure if they blink. I always keep a spray bottle of water in the living room in case their little eyeballs dry out, and I have to give them a squirt to keep them from squeaking when they move.
I've read and heard all the bad things that television can do to children. I've even heard it said that TV can destroy parts of their developing brain. But sometimes I think that if it’s destroying the part of their brain that makes them run around like savages destroying everything in their path . . . . maybe that was a part of the brain that needed to be destroyed! I mean, I'm sure they never would have performed lobotomies on people if they didn't have a positive outcome.
And besides, look at me. I'm normal, and I grew up with a BEHAVIORIZER as a baby-sitter.
And you can't deny the benefit of being able to watch history unfold before your eyes either. In my life, I have been able to see live, in color, many landmark moments in time, such as Evil Knievel jump over a couple dozen buses, or the mysterious transformation of "Bewitched" husband Darren Stevens, from one person to a completely different person, with no explanation!
And without TV, they couldn't spend hours developing hand eye coordination by playing video games, or learn about the cruelty of war, or alien invasions.
I know as a parent, that I should limit my children's TV watching and video gaming, but once you've experienced the calm and quiet that it can produce as it slowly turns your child's brain into oatmeal, it's hard to go back. It's like I'm Luke being lured over to the Dark Side.
The Dark Side has POWER!
53. VOMIT HOLOCAUST
I was right in the middle of a dream about being a modern day pirate that drove a large RV camper instead of a pirate ship, when my daughter's voice awoke me. I could tell something wasn't right, so I went to her room to investigate. Upon entering her room, I found our dog Pippi already on the scene. My daughter was sitting up in her bed, which happened to be the top bunk of a bunk bed.
In a voice that was half cry, she said, "Daddy, I don't feel-
And in the middle of her sentence, it happened.
Time seemed to go into super slow motion, as the projectile vomit shot from out of her mouth, and came straight at my head. With moves like a daddy ninja, I dodged my head to the left, letting the vomit missile pass over my right shoulder.
I made eye contact with our dog Pippi for a split second, giving her a wink and a look that said, "Only a dad with ninja skills could have avoided that puke bullet that just went over my shoulder, and is about to land somewhere behind me".