The How-Not-To Guide to Parenting and Marriage

by Jon Ziegler

  In that same fraction of a second, still before the vomit had landed, Pippi returned my look with a sarcastic doggy grin that almost seemed to say, "You are celebrating a little too early, karate dad".

  The vomit that I had been so proud of avoiding, had gone from the child's mouth on the top bunk, over my shoulder and behind me. . . . . only to land squarely on the large fan that always ran in my daughter's room to help her sleep.

  SPAAAFLOOOOSH!!!! The room exploded.

  I stood motionless, unsure of how much carnage the fan-vomit bomb had created. The wall in front of me was covered in a fine vomit splatter, except for the still spotless silhouettes of one dog and one leaning-to-the-left daddy ninja.

  Pippi was motionless as well, looking up at me as if to say, "Do something you idiot!”

  Not only were I and the dog both covered in barf, but three walls of the room, part of the ceiling, and all of the clothes in the child's open closet, as well. Nearly everything in the room except for the child from which it originated was glistening. The smell was overwhelming.

  Having sent my child to go find her mother, I began to contemplate the cleanup process, and how to even begin it. For a few moments, I seriously thought about just shutting the door and drywalling over it, never entering the room again.

  Unfortunately, my wife was not going for my idea, so I spent the rest of the night showering with the dog, washing clothes, and scrubbing walls and carpet.

  The fan now sits on the dresser, a safe distance from the bunk bed.

  54. ANTI-OCD

  A friend once said my wife was a bit OCD. I, not knowing much about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, said that I was worried that maybe I had it as well. Everyone who heard me express my concern, seemed to find it quite comical, and assured me that I was not even remotely OCD. When I then asked them how they could be so sure that I wasn't, I was bombarded with examples that supposedly prove that I am anything but. Here were a few of the examples given:

  1. I not only rarely have matching socks on, but have been occasionally lost track of how many of my feet I had installed socks on, leaving me one-socked for the day. I have also left the house twice with mis-matched shoes.

  2. I don't see why changing the cat litter, while in the middle of cooking lasagna is a problem.

  3. I wear clothes until I feel that they don't pass the sniff test . . . . . or someone else tells me that they are not passing the sniff test.

  4. I have been known to eat cereal out of the dog's water dish instead of spending the time to wash a bowl.

  5. My clothes organization system consists of a large pile in the closet, with clean clothes primarily on the left of the pile, dirty clothes on the right half of the pile, and "cleanish" clothes in the middle.

  6. In the seven years we have lived in our house, I don't believe I've ever mowed the lawn the same way twice. I usually spend the first hour mowing while pretending I'm running from the cops in a '72 Chevelle. The second hour I spend mowing all the places left that the cops didn't chase me.

  55. LAWN MANAGEMENT

  I'm not a lawn guy. To some guys, the lawn and its care, is a labor of love, a passion. To me, it’s time that I spend on a loud mower that I will never get back. I constantly look for ways to reduce my time spent working on the lawn.

  My wife is a fan of nice lawns, so any mow-time reducing ideas must meet her approval, which is not always easy.

  I've found that pine trees are extremely effective in reducing my mowing time, and I can plant them under the guise of being a lover of pine trees. Pines are extremely acidic, and kill any lawn that grows under them.

  Fortunately for me, there is a patch of woods at the back of our property, which produces a steady supply of small pine trees. So, every year, I transplant more and more of them around the lawn. I figure I have already reduced my mowing time by 4%....... and this will only increase with the pine trees growing.

  Weed whacking takes up a lot of my total mowing time, and my wife was not very supportive of my boycotting it. But I have mastered the art of just weed whacking around trees and objects on the side that my wife can see from the porch or the windows of our house. This can reduce weed whacking time by 28%.

  Objects can also take up space where lawn used to grow as well. I have 3 kiddy pools in the back yard, "just in case our younger nieces and nephews come over". Things like large sheets of plywood can be stored on the lawn lying flat, rather than stacked on edge in the back of the garage. I have four sheets of plywood stored on the lawn...... That's 128 square feet less of mowing.

  And finally, there is a large area where "our garden is eventually going to go, so there's really no point in mowing it". This has worked for three years now, but I can tell that my wife's growing annoyance at the un-mowed future garden, will eventually force me to actually plant something there. I'm thinking of growing pine trees in my garden.

  56. WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT TO ME?

  Some nights when I get home from work, and go to take my shower, I have trouble finding a pair of clean underwear. So I begin rummaging through clean clothes baskets.

  "What are you looking for?" my wife always asks (because she hates me rummaging)

  "A clean pair of buttwear" I answer.

  She gives me a frown for using the term "buttwear" and then says, "Did you check in your underwear drawer?"

  "No" I say, as I run upstairs to look in the drawer.

  Upon reaching my dresser and searching the underwear drawer, I find out that there is no clean underwear in the underwear drawer.

  Back downstairs I trot, and begin rummaging through the clean clothes basket once again, until I find a clean pair of underwear.

  The next day, I get home from work and begin rummaging through the clean clothes basket for a clean pair of underwear so I can take my shower.

  "What are you looking for?" my wife asks (because she hates me rummaging)

  "A clean pair of buttwear" I answer.

  She gives me a frown for using the term "buttwear" and then asks "did you look in your underwear drawer?"

  "No" I say, thinking that she must have reloaded the drawer since sending me up to an empty drawer yesterday. But after I run upstairs and open my underwear drawer........ there is still no underwear in it.

  Now I'm not a mathematical genius, but when I add up zero pairs of underwear in the underwear drawer yesterday, plus zero pairs of underwear added to the underwear drawer today......... It equals zero pairs of underwear in the underwear drawer!

  I can't figure out what would possess her to send me all the way back upstairs to look in the underwear drawer for underwear, when some simple math would lead her to conclude that there is still NO underwear in the underwear drawer!

  WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT TO ME?

  57. HAPPY BIRTHDAY?

  I'm not very good at the whole birthday and anniversary thing, and I never have been. For one thing, I am not a numbers person. Some people remember every number they hear. I can't even dial a phone number without looking at it three times. Another factor against me, is rarely knowing what the current date or year actually is. Unless I need to sign a document, I just don't see the need to keep up with the current date.

  I feel bad, in light of the fact that birthdays, anniversaries, and other such holidays are important to my wife. I can usually tell when I've forgotten one by the look on her face, the morning of such a day.

  I have even tried to compensate for my overlooking these birthdays and holidays. When a local florist was going out of business a couple years ago, I thought I could cover for past and future mistakes by purchasing their entire stock of flowers at a discount, and give them to my wife all at once, to cover myself for the next twenty years. Unfortunately, she did not appreciate my genius, and set them all out to the curb for the garbage man.

  A few years after that, I was determined to reform my forgetful ways, and give her an awesome surprise on the morning of her birthday. I had bought the largest bouquet of flowers I could find, and had
a huge cake made that said, "Happy Birthday to the woman I love!”

  I then woke up extra early on the birthday morning, and had the cake and flowers sitting on the dining room table along with balloons and streamers...... Then I waited.

  When she finally came downstairs and I yelled "happy birthday!", the look in her face was ...... Confused.

  "It's uhhhh...... Not my birthday" she finally said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Its uhhhh...... Not my birthday...."

  The confusion her statement caused in my brain was immense. How could I have the wrong date? I know I'm bad about dates, but this date stuck out in my mind. It had to be right.

  Scratching my head, I grabbed a piece of cake in my hand and wandered into the living room. I was still pondering how I could have the wrong date while I pulled up Facebook.

  The first thing to pop up on my timeline, was a post from a friend, Anna, thanking everyone for the happy birthday wishes.

  This was a problem.

  This was a big problem.

  Anna was actually a friend of my wife's, who I had dated before my wife and I got together. She had remained a mutual friend to us over the years. But somehow, in the time that we dated, her birthdate had stuck in my head. The ONLY birthdate that had ever stuck in my head...... And my wife was eating a cake that I had bought on Anna's birthday ........and the cake read "happy birthday to the woman I love". I was paralyzed by fear. My wife would surely divorce me over this.

  Thinking quickly, I ran over and unplugged our internet router, rendering all manner of getting on Facebook useless. I just had to make it a day or two without her getting on the computer.

  I had scarcely disabled the internet when she called from the computer desk in our den.

  "Why can't I get on line?"

  "I don't know, my love, I will call the cable company immediately." I answered.

  "I'm already calling them" she yelled.

  my heart sank...... Now what?

  "They're sending someone right out" she added.

  "Uhhhh, ok, I'll go out and meet them."

  I paced nervously in the driveway for the entire hour it took the cable guy to get to our house, but finally he arrived.

  "What seems to be the trouble?" he asked in a way too cheerful voice.

  "SSSSHHHHH!" I said, waving him over to the corner of the house. "I unplugged the router"

  "Well that was dumb" he answered, "I'll just go pluggg-"

  "NOOO! I can't let my wife get on Facebook, or I'll get divorced!" I said frantically, "just tell her an animal chewed through the line or something, and it will take a day or two to fix it...... Please!!!"

  He stood there looking at me with a look that said, "You are a ridiculous man".

  "I'll give you twenty bucks!"

  "Ok, I guess" he finally said, and then into the house we went to give my wife the falsely bad news.

  "I'm afraid a critter has chewed through the line, mam. It'll probably take a few days to fix....... and cost about $150" he said, smiling at me because he knew I couldn't protest his adding the repair costs.

  "Really?" She exclaimed, "show me where"

  My mind was once again thrown into a state of panicked chaos.

  "Ummm, ahhh.... He said it looked like snake chew marks" my voice was quivering, but my wife hates snakes and I knew she would not want to go near one, or even where one had been chewing on a cable line.

  "Ewwww, really? I didn't know snakes chewed through things"

  "Uhh, welllll, usually it’s a rattle snake that chews through things...... Really mean rattle snakes"

  "Well, I guess we'll just have to go without for a day or two" my wife finally said.

  With a grin on his face, the cable guy turned and headed toward the door. Just before he went out, he paused and looked at the birthday cake sitting on the table.

  "Who's birthday?" he asked.

  "Well, I thought it was my wife's, but I guess it wasn't" I said, still sighing a breath of relief over the internet being down.

  "Oh, well I was gonna say, it’s also a friend of mine's birthday, Anna Schaefer....."

  My heart stopped. I stared at the man in my doorway, not actually believing that he knew Anna, or that he had just said that in front of my wife. I tried with all my might to shoot lasers at him from my eye sockets, but nothing came out.

  Maybe my wife hadn't heard. Or maybe she hadn't added it all up. Slowly I turned to get a read on her facial expression, but before I could see her, my vision was blocked by the cake I had bought smacking me in the face...... I ran.

  After a long afternoon, and spending a night in my shed, I was able to finally talk her out of divorcing me, via texting.

  I now have created "The Book of Important Dates and Birthdays" which I have compiled, and triple checked for accuracy. I check it at least every other day to keep up on any date coming up that requires my attention. I don't think I would survive a repeat performance.

  58. FEAST OF BURDEN

  Although she tries quite hard, my wife is not what you would call a four star chef. Neither am I, for that matter. But unlike my wife, I know my culinary limitations. I stick with the basics, like grilled cheese, hot dogs, spaghettio's and anything from the freezer that can be microwaved. I tend to avoid recipes that have words like "reduce", "blanch" or "sauté", and any recipe with more than six ingredients.

  My wife is more of a kitchen maverick. That is to say, she fears no recipe. She will take on the most complicated recipes she can find, in the interest of variety. But often times, the end result leaves the girls and I preferring the mundane.

  Some of her exploits have involved pioneering new cooking methods, that I take upon myself to come up with names for..... Such as "bloached salmon".

  Bloached salmon starts out as blackened salmon, but is then finished more in the tradition of poaching, due to being dowsed with water to put out the fire caused by the blackening process. Bloached.

  And "egg rolls" in our house, have nothing to do with Asian cuisine. To us, egg rolls are the result of my wife over baking the dinner rolls, so that you have to crack open the hard outer shell to get into the more edible bread "yolk".

  Her cooking can be dangerous, as well. There has been a pot melted on our stove top, and there have been several fires in our kitchen. The smoke detector barely gets noticed any more, other than one of the girls sarcastically saying, "Dinner was ready ...... five minutes ago."

  But the girls and I love her for her willingness to try and make us happy with her new recipes, soooo..... we eat it, which requires its own set of special considerations.

  The first thing we do whenever we realize that there is some sort of alchemy being performed in the kitchen, is to try and determine what it is. Often times, it’s too hard to make a guess based on how the meal looks and tastes.

  I can usually tell if the dish is predominantly plant or animal, but beyond that, things can get confusing. She has experimented with all kinds of different meats, like goat, octopus and manatee ..... I'm not sure it's even legal to eat manatees. And she has garnished entrees with everything from lifesavers to dental wax.

  So now, I try to investigate before coming face-to-face with something like "lamb casserole encrusted with Fritos" to determine exactly what it is I'm eating. One trick is to check the computer, and see if she has recently saved any new recipes.

  Once the meal has been served, I first stab my fork into whatever part of the roasted beast seems to be a vital area, like a head, or chest. This is to ensure that it is, in fact, dead. This ritual is the direct result of her "freshness is the key to good lobster" phase (which left me with an extremely painful pinch to the nose and lip).

  Our table settings now include a potato peeler, as well as spoon, fork and knife. This is to allow us to peel off any burnt outer layers with ease. A battery of powerful taste-masking condiments are also a fixture at our dinner table.

  It's not like she has actually killed anyone with her cooking ..... w
ell, we did have a dog suspiciously die after eating leftovers, but no humans that I know of. And I feel terrible complaining about her cooking. I love my wife and I honestly couldn't live without her. Her cooking however, is a different story.

  59. THE BACON FESTIVAL

  In our house, bacon is a commodity, much like gold or crude oil. And also, like gold and oil, there is a limit to the bacon supply. This is due to the strict limitations on the smokey, hogilicious morsels, enforced by the Bacon Czar (my wife).

  For some unknown reason, the Bacon Czar only allows one pound of bacon to be made per meal. This leaves the consumer with a measly four slices on average, which is just a cruel and inhumane teaser of what the proper amount of a bacon serving should be.

  Well, in all honesty, I must admit that I do have some idea why the bacon regulations were put in place. One weekend when the Bacon Czar was out of town, I decided that I had had enough of the bacon tyranny and oppression, and I bought six pounds of bacon...... Two pounds each for myself and two daughters.

  I fired up all four burners on the stove, and began kicking out cooked bacon at a rate that would shame any factory's production. The fan above the stove was sucking as much grease as it was smoke. I was slinging bacon slices like a hibachi restaurant chef.

  And then finally, after an hour of cooking, our food drug of choice was ready, and piled high on a tray. It beckoned to be eaten as the three of us stood gazing at the bovine pile, in silent adoration.

  At first, the bacon feast was like a festival in honor of cured, fried pork products. There was laughing, and the singing of impromptu songs about the wonderfulness of bacon. We waved slices of bacon in the air, we made bacon moustaches and put multiple pieces in our mouths at one time. We were in hog heaven.