Happy *late* Father’s Day to Me

17 Jun

Hey world, I’m confused about something. Yesterday, I saw a million and one posts on Facebook that referred to other men as “the best dad ever.” I saw a lot of “Happy Father’s Day to the best dad in the world!!” Yes, people were generous with their exclamation points.

Come on. Why all the exaggeration? We can’t all be the best. I think you all know that, right? If there’s five million great dads, there’s five million shitty dads. Most fathers are average. And average is fine. Don’t be ashamed of your average father. My father is average. You didn’t see me calling my dad “the best in the whole, wide world” because I would be lying my ass off.

I think I know what you’re up to. Every single father wants to think he’s doing a great job. But let’s get real. What father wants to hear or read the truth? If we were all honest, we’d see some of this:

  • Happy Father’s Day to my solid dad who has always tried really hard to be a good dad. Though he sometimes failed, he’s never stopped trying to improve.
  • Happy Father’s Day to one of the best dads on his street!
  • Happy father’s day to my dad who has improved his fatherly skills every year since 2007. Sure, he was a shitty dad for most of my childhood, but as he’s aged, he’s realized what a f**k-wad he used to be. Now, he’s no longer one of the worst dad’s in the world; he’s a couple of years from reaching the statistical average.
  • I want to wish my father an unhappy father’s day because he basically ruined my life. I’m a stripper because of him, so, yeah, I hope he rots in hell because that’s where he’s going. 

On the other hand, once in awhile you’ll come across a tremendously skilled father. Not very often. It’s like, once in a lifetime. 

Take me, for instance. According to the rankings, I’ve finally cracked the top 100 dads of the world. Don’t believe me? I received a major award by certified mail last week.

I wish you could experience my skills. Someone should make a documentary. Seriously. I father like Tom Brady plays quarterback. (No, that doesn’t work because sometimes Tom Brady has a bad game.) I father like the sun puts off heat. I father so awesomely that it would make you woozy. Some say I “father like God.” Whatever that means.

I overwhelm my daughters with 324 megatons of love every day. I give so many hugs, my arm muscles are huge.

They think (know) I’m hilarious. I’m so much fun that they have rock-solid abdominal muscles from laughing so much.

I allow them to be messy and creative. I allow them to make mistakes. But yet, I know when to rein them in and when to administer the perfect amount of discipline. There’s a fine line between being too permissive and too strict and I have finally found it.

I do not physically spank my daughters, but I subtly alter my voice and face to end unwanted behavior. It’s called a “mental spanking,” which I invented. I have been widely published on the topic in many obscure scholarly journals that you’ll never read.

My daughters don’t even know they’re being mentally spanked. They just automatically do the right thing and think it was their own idea.

I can quell an argument between my daughters with a deft swipe of my pinky finger. Out in public, strangers are like “Hey handsome father, how’d you do that? Are you, like, a Jedi Knight or something?”

I say “Actually, I’m not a Jedi, but I can see how my amazing dad skills would make you ask that.”

Sometimes, I let them hash out their differences by themselves. The ratio between when I intervene and when I lay back is perfect.

I impart wisdom to them every hour of every day.

I have already guaranteed their lifelong happiness.

I would go on, but I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging. It’ll get a little weird.

Just know that I’m on to your games, your “best dad” bull**it.

Your dad is average and you know it.

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I sold my Catrike and I eat Dessert in the Desert

14 Jun

Jeez. How embarrassing. I misspelled dessert, like, nine times in two posts on the other blog. Yes, I left out an “s” so the spell checker was all like “That shit’s fine, bro, no problem here.” I guess a “desert” dish would be glassware that one uses in the Sahara and is, of course, shaped like a cactus. Jesus.

I don’t know how I finally realized the mistake. While thinking about and writing the posts I probably mentally mouthed the word four dozen times, and then I sat down this evening, took one look–desert dish? Holy Hell!–and felt this rush of warmth across my face. Yes, all by myself, I blushed and felt like a dumb-ass.

* * *

Hey, that's not me! Just too lazy to find photos of my own trike.

Hey, that’s not me! I’m simply too lazy to find photos of my own (former) trike.

In other news, I sold my fluorescent green recumbent tadpole trike for $1500 to a cool-cat 85-year-old man from Godfrey, IL. At 65 this guy won his age group in the Lake St. Louis Triathlon. I was amazed to hear he still rides his bicycle, but he’s been falling over lately, which can’t be good for 85-year-old bones. So now he’ll be on three wheels. I hope he rides the wheels off that thing.

I loved that freaky three-wheeled beast, but it mostly sat around, bored, as I rode my common two-wheeler. It also attracted excess attention; people would stare and point and  yell “Nice bike dude!” I guess I should have expected that, but it kind of drove me bananas. I wanted to point out that I wasn’t atop a purple giraffe wearing a clown costume and maybe yell back something like “Why don’t you watch the goddam road . . . dude.”

Anyway, If I’m lucky enough to live another 40+ years, I wouldn’t be surprised if my old, wrinkled ass ends up in another three wheeler. When my ear hair starts growing up and over my head as part of my comb-over, I’ll know it’s time to add another wheel to the mix. And by then I’ll be too senile to notice the rubberneckers. I’ll think I’m in a canoe or something.

That’s it. Really, I just couldn’t go to bed without setting the record straight about how I totally mastered the desert/dessert problem, like, 32 years ago.

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Craigslist is Great Fun

11 Jun

Stuff

Craigslist is hilarious and I’m not even talking about the “casual encounters” section. I’m studying the shit for sale. Have you spent much time on Craigslist? Go there now and check out what people are giving away and then spend some time in “Collectibles.”

You can easily find a hot tub for free, but Perfect Strangers trading cards will cost you $5.

Tool shed, free!

Couches and television are a dime a dozen. Well, I mean zero a dozen; leave your dime at home.

South Park candy jar, $30. Mickey Mouse telephone, $38. Budweiser stein, $85!

Are you fu*!ing kidding me? Or, what I should have said: AYFKM? I would walk right past that “stein” at Goodwill, even if it had a huge FREE sign on it. 

Free cat. Free entertainment stands. Free pianos. Free windows. Free gas grills.

Crappy looking Kansas City Chiefs hat, $10. Huh?

Major League Baseball shot glass collection, $325. OMFG.

So what do these Craigslist ads say about humanity?

  • People love to collect, which is a synonym for hoard.
  • People have a hard time giving up their “collectibles.” After investing tons of time and money on their hoard, they lose interest but would feel stupid throwing it all in the trash or giving it away, so they list their junk on Craigslist for $50 and then $40 and then $30, $20, $10 and eventually find another lunatic to pay a couple of bucks for it. 
  • People hate messing with large, unwieldy items. When they buy a new couch the old one turns into a big turd, something that must be taken away . . . NOW.
  • People love sports memorabilia.

But I shouldn’t make fun of people. I had a modest key chain collection as a kid. My wife seems to be collecting glass bowls and saucers and pitchers and cups.

And I’m collecting Craigslist ads of people selling collections.

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Growing Older & Wiser

9 Jun

If you’re interested in my rants about consumerism and all that jazz, I’ve posted a couple things here. One is about Jennifer buying single-purpose desert bowls, which are still on the dining room table wrapped in newspaper in a plastic sack since she brought them home on Friday. She calls them desert bowls, I call it superfluous clutter. But I shouldn’t get into it here. <sigh>

* * *

grass

Jennifer spent–I don’t even know–like six hours working in the yard yesterday. So that means I spent a little bit of time feeling guilty about not working in the yard. Here’s my contribution: I emptied the electric lawn mower’s grass bag one time and pushed the mower into the garage. And, boy, did that wipe me out! But here are some of the things I did while she gardened.

  • Wrestled with the girls in the yard
  • Played “Monkey in the Middle” with the girls
  • Did yoga while the girls hung out with me on the floor
  • Walked with the girls to the Route 66 Festival.
  • Walked with the girls to pick up our pizzas at Dewey’s
  • Watched half of Rise of the Guardians with the girls
  • Walked the dogs with the girls (3 times)

What do you think: Are my nagging feelings of guilt justified? Am I lazy?

Consider that I normally mow and trim the yard. Consider that she enjoys working in the yard; consider that I generally don’t.

I’m always asking myself: What’s most important in life? What are my values? I think everyone should do this at least once a month. If I were to compare my list to Jennifer’s, we’d probably have a couple shared values, but for the most part they’d differ wildly. Maybe she values conformity, attractiveness, and diligence. You can look at that and understand why she’d want our yard to look as good as or better than our neighbors.

Some of the values that jump out for me are playfulness, nonconformity, and simplicity.

I used to be pretty hard on myself, thinking I was somehow defective for what I believed in. Like I’m different from you so I’m messed up. Living like that is tough. And it’s insane. What I’ve learned is to not compare myself to others (as much).

My dad used to make me feel guilty because I didn’t like (or see the point in) waxing my car. It’s obvious to me now that our values weren’t aligned on car care. Back then I felt defective, like it was a Capital T Truth: your supposed to wax your car every month or you’re irresponsible! Where are all those cars I saw him waxing from, say, 1975 to 1992?

We become the sum of what are priorities are. If you value wealth, abundance, competition, intensity, and ambition, you’re probably climbing the corporate ladder and living in a large house. You’re also nothing like me.

The time has come to stop apologizing for what we are and what we will never be. It’s such a goddam thrill to grow into this understanding. It’s also cool to find something positive about aging.

Youth is wasted on the young; I kind of get that now.

 

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Attack of the Squash Puddle

3 Jun

The post-storm, 48 hour blackout ended last night. The flashlights, after discovering a renewed sense of purpose in their empty “flash lives,” were again ignored. One minute they’re essential; the next, they’re stuffed back into dark, dusty drawers.

But I need to back up and cover a few things about the storm that left us in the dark. I know, I’m reporting out of order.

* * *

Back story

Months ago, we were given a giant squash that I thought I’d need a chainsaw to cut up. I dragged it down to the basement through our storage room and into the little room under our front porch. I’ve talked about how our house is too large and this is a perfect example: Our large storage room has its own walk-in closet.

At some point the large squash, sitting right in the center of this smaller room, began to decompose. To help you visualize, two words–squash puddle. Yeah, I know, gross.

Attack of the Squash Puddle

* * *

I love experiencing severe storms, preferably from a covered outdoor area where you can feel the full force of the wind and hear all the sounds. But that was B.K., or “before kids.”

Now, A.K., my job is to hug, to comfort, to protect, to be responsible. I hear the stories and see the photos of far-away monster tornadoes, tornadoes that kill, and I think about the kids.

So when the psycho storms blew into Edwardsville Friday night, we headed down to the basement where, fortunately, we have several options for hunkering. I decided the little room under the front porch would be perfect to ride out the storm if a tornado were to rip away the rest of the house.

So we’re in this tiny room, under a  bare, flickering light bulb, looking at this horrifying mess on the floor. What’s more frightening, the squash or the storm? Nobody can say. I’m holding our puppy, Coco, in my right arm. I want to put my arms around the girls, pull them close, but I can’t put the stupid dog down because of the squash.

The bulb goes dark. We can’t see the squash or each other. The girls are scared. The puppy is strangely silent and still. Ainsley’s asking me over and over Are we going to have a tornado? I tell her the truth: I don’t know but probably not. I tell her I’ve never seen a live tornado, only on TV. I tell her that even if a tornado comes into our city, it’s unlikely to come to our street, even less likely to touch our house.

From the sounds, it’s obvious that the storm is almost right on us. Jennifer delivers a small flashlight and disappears back up to watch from a window. Now we’re at the point where I should be saying “Okay, girls, get down on the floor, put your head between your knees and cover your head with your arms.” Instead, here are a few things that were uttered at the storm’s peak:

  • Ainsley, your blanket’s almost touching the squash.
  • Let’s all scoot towards the corner away from the squash.
  • Daddy, why did you leave this squash in here so long?
  • Oh my God, that squash is seriously disgusting.
  • Scoot over Chloe, you’re pushing me closer to the squash.
  • Girls, I’m sorry, I really, REALLY wish I had taken care of this squash before tonight.

It was the most disgusting storm experience of my life and I haven’t even mentioned that we keep the litter box in the storage room in front of the squash room entrance. Any time I get near the litter, the cats are like “I think I’m going to take a crap right now.” The smell of cat poo combined with the sight of squash puddle was almost more than I could handle.

We left our hellish, mess-riddled shelter a little sooner than we should have–according to the radio–but we’d had enough.

Of course, it’s too early to know but I’m already worried about how the girls handle future storms. Will thunder and heavy rain forever bring forth visions of menacing squash puddles? Have I unintentionally ruined–for life!–their appreciation and enjoyment of acorn, delicata, butternut, spaghetti–pumpkin even?

Anyone have a hazmat suit I can borrow? Today I’m sopping up the squash puddle.

Wish me luck.

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Oh shit, I broke the dryer . . . like nine months ago.

2 Jun

Many months ago, I washed my running shoes and then tossed them into the dryer. They clanked around in there for thirty seconds and then stopped.

Oh shit, I broke the dryer!

I’m not the type of guy who immediately grabs his tools and digs into the guts of a broken dryer to figure out the problem. I’m the type of guy who shrugs his shoulders, hangs more clotheslines, and buys more clothes pins. Sure, it’s a little extra laundry work (I hang socks for crissakes!), but I’m sure we’ve saved money by decreasing our electricity use.

Hanging laundry to dry outside has been surprisingly pleasant except when dry clothes are left to be rained on, which has happened only once in the month since I constructed this high tech “solar dryer.”

So I can’t explain what drove me to YouTube last week to diagnose our dryer. I watched half of one video before tearing into the big, white box to find a broken drum belt. I felt like an appliance repair technician. I ordered a new belt for four bucks on ebay and felt pretty good about myself. I’m like a freaking handyman or something!

On the same day, I cleaned a clogged gutter down spout, caulked a gutter leak, and replaced a missing shingle. I was so surprised at my ambition that I almost passed out while atop the ladder. I had to run inside to look in the mirror to make sure I was still me. When faced with the choice between, say,  caulking and not caulking, I’ll not caulk 99 times out of 100. 

And then on that rare time I do, I’ll most certainly hand someone the tube and say “Here, hold my caulk,” before spazzing with giggles.

Yeah, you’re lucky you’re not married to me.

 

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No Power, Hella Marshmallows, and Magic Smoothies

2 Jun

I know I sometimes yammer on about simple living, but this is ridiculous: Friday night storms knocked out our electricity leaving me banging around the house with a wind-up flashlight (until I found a head lamp!) and then the next morning, after sleeping with no air circulation or “sound machine,” I had to travel all the way to Troy for WiFi and coffee.

As of Sunday morning, our neighborhood is still dark. And then I read this:

Three tractor-trailers overturned Friday night on interstates in Madison and Bond counties, according to Illinois State Police. One contained 27,000 pounds of marshmallows.

Can you imagine 27,000 pounds of marshmallows? Marshmallows are so light they almost float up to the ceiling.

The neighborhood is quiet but for the hum of generators, which plant thoughts of happy, smiling people with working lights that aren’t strapped to their heads, eating ice cream from running freezers, and watching hilarious new releases on charged laptops.

I’ve paused in front of generators in home improvement stores (Man tries to saw arms off in Home Depot), noticed their cost and size, and then walked on, thinking How often would we need that? Once every five years?  Disaster preparedness is not one of our top skills. We had to use our two tiny candles to locate our two tiny flashlights that are hard to locate when we HAVE power.

Other issues:

  • My pants are probably on backwards right now.
  • Mild temperatures are doing funky things to the lentils in the refrigerator. 
  • The kids get extra creative when the power goes out, but, sadly, this extra mental energy is wasted on trying to get power to any device that will play a movie.

* * *

My wife would be disappointed if I didn’t mention this short conversation from last night as we languished without power.

Note: we normally make smoothies with almond milk, but we’re all out.

Her: Well, I guess we’ll just have to have smoothies tonight.

(I do mental fist pumps at this because I’ve caught her saying something ridiculous, because, you know, we can’t make smoothies by twirling our fingers really fast in a cup of frozen fruit.)

Me: And how are we going to make smoothies?

(She looks at me like I’m the dumbest guy on the planet and says this with actual attitude, like she wanted to add a “DUH” to the end of it.)

Her: Uh, water!

I laugh and make fun of her and then run to tell the girls what mommy just said. They laugh. Then we all make fun of her and I think “I’ll  have to blog about this in the morning.”

And then I do.

 

 

 

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