When I was in high school and college, I started drawing really simple comic strips during various classes. I'd draw them in the margins of notebooks, on the backs of notebooks, on spare paper sitting around, anywhere really. In cleaning out boxes in my basement I came across 20-30 of them, torn from notebooks and crumpled up.
Drawing them gave me great joy. And several people who saw them thought they were funny. Maybe not "ha ha" funny, but "good one" funny at least.
I don't want to keep those old notebooks anymore. But I also don't want to lose these silly little things. So I have decided to start transcribing them and putting them on Instagram. Because that's a place where pictures can go.
If you enjoy them, share them. If you do not, I am not surprised.
And who knows, maybe I'll make some new ones in the process. Or at least learn how to use Instagram. 😲
Anyway, here's the first one.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo26q1RFoin/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
Friday, October 12, 2018
Sunday, October 25, 2015
"Daddy Needs a Tampon?"
Small children like to get into everything. If there's a drawer full of knives, they're going to find it and try to open it. That's why when my son was 9-months old and he wanted to open the cabinet under the sink where nothing dangerous resides, I didn't think twice about it.
I went on folding clothes on my bed, while my little crawler rifled through towels and toilet paper. Midway through the last stack of clothes, I heard the rustling of paper and turned to see he had gotten into the tampons. So now we have several pictures of a 9-month old sitting on his butt in our bathroom with a tampon in his mouth.
The pictures actually make a nice flip book. The first frame he's torn the tampon open. The second, he's got the package in one hand and the tampon in the other. The third frame and the wrapper's on the floor, while he's pulling the applicator off. This goes on until the final three pictures I took where he's just staring at me wide-eyed with a string hanging out of his mouth.
Before a young child begins crawling, if you're home alone with the child and you have to take a shit, that child is coming with you. It's fairly harmless for the first year or so of this practice. The child can't speak. The child can't walk. They just lie there and wonder about the lights overhead, "Is that magic? They weren't bright a minute ago..."
The initial harm is only to yourself. Memories from long ago repressed in the back of your mind begin to emerge. They were hiding somewhere between pooping in the bath tub and your older sister giving you a bloody nose, but they're peeking their heads out now.
"Hey, I kind of remember being in the bathroom while my mom was taking a shit. I do. Oh man. Weird." And it makes sense. Every once in a while, everyone had to be in the bathroom while their parents shit. And the first time you take your infant in with you, you begin to remember.
Tracing the pattern in the tiles on the bathroom floor. Pretending they were highways with cars on them. Every now and again looking up to tell your mommy that it was stinky. People say that having children makes you closer to your own parents. And in this way, they're right. I can recall spraying Lysol and laughing to cover the scent of my parents' shit. Brutal.
Surely, these memories don't come from those first nine months, though. Likely, they come from right around the age my son is currently: just over two.
I came home from work last week having to use the bathroom. I entered the house, I said hello to my wife, and my son ran around the sofa to give me a hug. I asked him how his day was, and after some pleasantries, I told him to sit with his mother, because daddy has to go potty.
It's 50/50 what his response is going to be when I tell him that. Half the time it's silence, because he's preoccupied with something else. This time it was, "I'm coming!" And tiny footsteps running after me down the hallway.
I really like taking shits. It's peaceful. I read in there. I find solace in the bathroom. Until my son. He's ruined pooping. The kid wants to chat the whole time. And he asks all kinds of uncomfortable questions.
"That's daddy's wiener?"
"Yes. That's daddy's wiener. We don't talk about other people's wieners."
"You're pooping?"
"Yes, daddy's pooping."
"Why?"
"Because I ate hot dogs for lunch."
It's just a cycle of shame and strangeness.
Then he hands me toilet paper and gets mad if I don't "use" it immediately. The only saving grace to him being in the bathroom with me is when he decides that he wants to poop too.
"I need to poop, daddy." He's got a little potty training toilet in our bathroom. He hasn't successfully used it, but sometimes he likes to sit on it and pretend.
I take his pants off. I take his diaper off. He sits on the training toilet and looks at me. He grimaces and pushes. Is he finally going to poop on the toilet? He's really pushing! And he farts.
So close.
After his fart, he looks at me and tells me he needs toilet paper. And he goes into the cabinet under the sink. He pulls out a roll of toilet paper and hands me a piece, before he tears off some for himself. He touches his butt with the toilet paper and puts it in his training toilet.
Then he goes back under the sink. This time he emerges with a tampon.
"Daddy needs a tamp?"
"No, daddy doesn't need a tampon. Let's put that back, please."
"Daddy has a wiener?"
"That's right. Daddy has a wiener, so daddy doesn't need a tampon. Let's put that back."
"I need a tamp." And then I watch in fascination as my 2-year old removes the tampon from its package, lifts up his balls, and pokes himself in the taint with a tampon. He gives it two or three pokes, then takes the toilet paper out of the training toilet and wraps it around the tampon. Finally, he walks around me and throws the tampon in the garbage can.
My immediate reaction is that my wife and I need to stop bringing this kid into the bathroom with us before things get out of control. Upon further consideration, I have to smile. Because he bit me and broke my glasses today. Someday he's going to bring his child into the bathroom with him. And when he does, that doozy of a memory will be waiting for him.
I went on folding clothes on my bed, while my little crawler rifled through towels and toilet paper. Midway through the last stack of clothes, I heard the rustling of paper and turned to see he had gotten into the tampons. So now we have several pictures of a 9-month old sitting on his butt in our bathroom with a tampon in his mouth.
The pictures actually make a nice flip book. The first frame he's torn the tampon open. The second, he's got the package in one hand and the tampon in the other. The third frame and the wrapper's on the floor, while he's pulling the applicator off. This goes on until the final three pictures I took where he's just staring at me wide-eyed with a string hanging out of his mouth.
Before a young child begins crawling, if you're home alone with the child and you have to take a shit, that child is coming with you. It's fairly harmless for the first year or so of this practice. The child can't speak. The child can't walk. They just lie there and wonder about the lights overhead, "Is that magic? They weren't bright a minute ago..."
The initial harm is only to yourself. Memories from long ago repressed in the back of your mind begin to emerge. They were hiding somewhere between pooping in the bath tub and your older sister giving you a bloody nose, but they're peeking their heads out now.
"Hey, I kind of remember being in the bathroom while my mom was taking a shit. I do. Oh man. Weird." And it makes sense. Every once in a while, everyone had to be in the bathroom while their parents shit. And the first time you take your infant in with you, you begin to remember.
Tracing the pattern in the tiles on the bathroom floor. Pretending they were highways with cars on them. Every now and again looking up to tell your mommy that it was stinky. People say that having children makes you closer to your own parents. And in this way, they're right. I can recall spraying Lysol and laughing to cover the scent of my parents' shit. Brutal.
Surely, these memories don't come from those first nine months, though. Likely, they come from right around the age my son is currently: just over two.
I came home from work last week having to use the bathroom. I entered the house, I said hello to my wife, and my son ran around the sofa to give me a hug. I asked him how his day was, and after some pleasantries, I told him to sit with his mother, because daddy has to go potty.
It's 50/50 what his response is going to be when I tell him that. Half the time it's silence, because he's preoccupied with something else. This time it was, "I'm coming!" And tiny footsteps running after me down the hallway.
I really like taking shits. It's peaceful. I read in there. I find solace in the bathroom. Until my son. He's ruined pooping. The kid wants to chat the whole time. And he asks all kinds of uncomfortable questions.
"That's daddy's wiener?"
"Yes. That's daddy's wiener. We don't talk about other people's wieners."
"You're pooping?"
"Yes, daddy's pooping."
"Why?"
"Because I ate hot dogs for lunch."
It's just a cycle of shame and strangeness.
Then he hands me toilet paper and gets mad if I don't "use" it immediately. The only saving grace to him being in the bathroom with me is when he decides that he wants to poop too.
"I need to poop, daddy." He's got a little potty training toilet in our bathroom. He hasn't successfully used it, but sometimes he likes to sit on it and pretend.
I take his pants off. I take his diaper off. He sits on the training toilet and looks at me. He grimaces and pushes. Is he finally going to poop on the toilet? He's really pushing! And he farts.
So close.
After his fart, he looks at me and tells me he needs toilet paper. And he goes into the cabinet under the sink. He pulls out a roll of toilet paper and hands me a piece, before he tears off some for himself. He touches his butt with the toilet paper and puts it in his training toilet.
Then he goes back under the sink. This time he emerges with a tampon.
"Daddy needs a tamp?"
"No, daddy doesn't need a tampon. Let's put that back, please."
"Daddy has a wiener?"
"That's right. Daddy has a wiener, so daddy doesn't need a tampon. Let's put that back."
"I need a tamp." And then I watch in fascination as my 2-year old removes the tampon from its package, lifts up his balls, and pokes himself in the taint with a tampon. He gives it two or three pokes, then takes the toilet paper out of the training toilet and wraps it around the tampon. Finally, he walks around me and throws the tampon in the garbage can.
My immediate reaction is that my wife and I need to stop bringing this kid into the bathroom with us before things get out of control. Upon further consideration, I have to smile. Because he bit me and broke my glasses today. Someday he's going to bring his child into the bathroom with him. And when he does, that doozy of a memory will be waiting for him.
Friday, October 2, 2015
Portrait of the Artist as a Fucking Asshole
The first time I heard Dillinger Four was when I was 18. I'd just gone to college and was trying to adapt to an anxiety disorder that had started peaking its head out six months earlier. I was at a place in my life where conversations with other people terrified me to the point where I wouldn't call to order pizza, and if my family members or friends asked me to read out loud something as simple as a menu at a restaurant, I would have a panic attack.
Now, that song is mostly about scenes and music, but the only lyrics I could make out were, "Is this the way things should be or just a feast of crumbs?" (And the direct question of "Who the fuck are you?" Like you are inherently right? What the fuck do you know? I see things. I have an opinion. My voice counts.)
I was hooked.
I remember going out to the record store in Madison and buying their second album, Versus God. And for a kid who went to Catholic school and still had my superstitions, fears, and sense of sacrilege, buying an album with that name was not easy. But I bought it. And I listened. And I was sold on every chorus. I was a sucker for every chord. But as addictive as every song was, I found myself challenged by every word. (Which is all the more wild considering that's my least favorite album.)
"We act like we didn't know. Then kids shoot kids a community defies its role. And of course it's everyone's fault except anyone we might know." Holy shit! Someone is writing a song and saying things that I am thinking. But articulating them better than I ever could. "Family values are a value most can't afford"? Wow. I didn't grow up wealthy, but I definitely grew up privileged, loved, and had nothing real to complain about. And now I'm considering how fortunate I have been!
I dig deeper and deeper.
It's like someone saying, "Fuck your bullshit religion." But also somehow telling parables like a modern day Jesus Christ.
And then after a couple years of being hooked, I realize they're not rock stars. These are just dudes who work and happen to play music. And I go to their shows and realize I'm not the only one who's hooked. I'm not the only one singing along to every lyric. And I realize that despite my inability to have a conversation with anyone I haven't known for more than 10 years, I am not alone. I am not crazy. (Well, I may be crazy. But hey, I'm not alone.)
And I know that because of four guys from Minneapolis who challenge me in every song to be a better person, to look closer at the world around me, and to not ever let myself off the hook and go with the crowd.
Towers fall. Rabble is roused. Wars are started. And while everyone is rising up and waving flags with Bruce Springsteen, I'm thinking, "Wait. This President is the same dipshit he was last week. Why does everyone think he's great now?"
I'll say this. For years I probably got over excited about criticizing myself. I probably got a little too hard on myself about not doing enough. A little too combative with people whose opinions I didn't agree with. A little too radical? Maybe. My wife told her parents when we started dating that she didn't think it would go anywhere, because I was too radical. I probably got a little too cynical about work and money. And it's definitely a little embarrassing to say, but I wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for this tiny little band from Minneapolis that no one has heard of.
They haven't played a show in Chicago in some time, but I just finished seeing them at the Double Door. And as I'm sweating on strangers, smiling ear to ear, and singing along with people I've never met to "Minimum Wage Is a Gateway Drug," I am both overjoyed and reminded of my cynicism.
Because in a perfect world, that song doesn't exist. And if there isn't a problem in this country, several hundred people don't show up to celebrate that someone is expressing that point of view in song. In a perfect world, every song is bubblegum. America is the good guy. The actions of corporations and governments are not subject to criticism. In a perfect world, Dillinger Four doesn't exist.
And in that world, I am less happy because of it.
Adjusting to that left me living completely and totally in my head. There were lots and lots of inputs: music, movies, things other people said, but there was no interaction. For those six months (and the next several years), I observed but never commented.
In hindsight, the inputs coming in from the world were pretty wild. Columbine was still on the national consciousness. It had not yet become an every day occurrence that someone went on a shooting spree. And perhaps most formative, 9/11 was either weeks after or weeks before I heard my first Dillinger Four song.
The first song I heard was called "Our Science Is Tight" on a compilation CD. It was track #1 on that CD. Aside from being an incredibly catchy song with three vocalists with three distinct voices singing in some perfect balance of unison sections and trade off lines, it also had clear and provocative lyrics. At least the chorus was easy to understand:
WHO THE FUCK ARE YOUHere I am, living entirely in my head, at an age when most people are trying to make sense of the world. At a time that the world (or at least the country) is unabashedly trying to make sense of itself. And every piece of pop culture, art, music, film, etc., tells me either, "Things are great," or "Things are terrible," And here's a song that isn't just a good song, but is putting the question to me: "Does what you see make sense to you?"
WHERE DID YOU COME FROM
IS THIS THE WAY THINGS SHOULD BE
OR JUST A FEAST OF CRUMBS
Now, that song is mostly about scenes and music, but the only lyrics I could make out were, "Is this the way things should be or just a feast of crumbs?" (And the direct question of "Who the fuck are you?" Like you are inherently right? What the fuck do you know? I see things. I have an opinion. My voice counts.)
I was hooked.
I remember going out to the record store in Madison and buying their second album, Versus God. And for a kid who went to Catholic school and still had my superstitions, fears, and sense of sacrilege, buying an album with that name was not easy. But I bought it. And I listened. And I was sold on every chorus. I was a sucker for every chord. But as addictive as every song was, I found myself challenged by every word. (Which is all the more wild considering that's my least favorite album.)
"We act like we didn't know. Then kids shoot kids a community defies its role. And of course it's everyone's fault except anyone we might know." Holy shit! Someone is writing a song and saying things that I am thinking. But articulating them better than I ever could. "Family values are a value most can't afford"? Wow. I didn't grow up wealthy, but I definitely grew up privileged, loved, and had nothing real to complain about. And now I'm considering how fortunate I have been!
I dig deeper and deeper.
"Ignorance, intolerance abounding, how could this be a part of any greater plan?"
"Sunday school at age 9, I thought I was on the winning team. Because I wanted to see it, I wanted to need it. It was 9 years of holy shit and I believed it."They lambaste Catholicism. They express what's in my head about the conflict between what I was raised to believe and what I feel based on what I see. And then in the next song they paint a picture of someone society might consider a degenerate, but who actually just doesn't have a job.
It's like someone saying, "Fuck your bullshit religion." But also somehow telling parables like a modern day Jesus Christ.
And then after a couple years of being hooked, I realize they're not rock stars. These are just dudes who work and happen to play music. And I go to their shows and realize I'm not the only one who's hooked. I'm not the only one singing along to every lyric. And I realize that despite my inability to have a conversation with anyone I haven't known for more than 10 years, I am not alone. I am not crazy. (Well, I may be crazy. But hey, I'm not alone.)
And I know that because of four guys from Minneapolis who challenge me in every song to be a better person, to look closer at the world around me, and to not ever let myself off the hook and go with the crowd.
Towers fall. Rabble is roused. Wars are started. And while everyone is rising up and waving flags with Bruce Springsteen, I'm thinking, "Wait. This President is the same dipshit he was last week. Why does everyone think he's great now?"
I'll say this. For years I probably got over excited about criticizing myself. I probably got a little too hard on myself about not doing enough. A little too combative with people whose opinions I didn't agree with. A little too radical? Maybe. My wife told her parents when we started dating that she didn't think it would go anywhere, because I was too radical. I probably got a little too cynical about work and money. And it's definitely a little embarrassing to say, but I wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for this tiny little band from Minneapolis that no one has heard of.
They haven't played a show in Chicago in some time, but I just finished seeing them at the Double Door. And as I'm sweating on strangers, smiling ear to ear, and singing along with people I've never met to "Minimum Wage Is a Gateway Drug," I am both overjoyed and reminded of my cynicism.
Because in a perfect world, that song doesn't exist. And if there isn't a problem in this country, several hundred people don't show up to celebrate that someone is expressing that point of view in song. In a perfect world, every song is bubblegum. America is the good guy. The actions of corporations and governments are not subject to criticism. In a perfect world, Dillinger Four doesn't exist.
And in that world, I am less happy because of it.
Friday, January 16, 2015
Things That Go Bump In The Night
My son is now approaching 16 months of life. (The second sentence of any piece of writing is generally not a good place for an aside, but I can't resist. I can't wait for him to hit two years so I can stop referring to his age in months. People always ask, "So when are you gonna stop giving his age in months?" in a really shitty voice. And the answer is two years. Then you get into half years. He's two. Two and a half. Three. Three and a half. Then at five, it's just years. Those are the rules. Because that's kind of how development works. [Based on my observations.])
My son is now approaching 16 months of life. There are a lot of interesting things about 16 months. My son has a way now of pointing to objects or pictures and grunting. He's asking me to tell him the word for what it is. And I'll tell him.
We sit with a book that has four animals on it: one on the top of the left page, one on the bottom of the left page, one on the top right, and one bottom right.
He points and grunts.
"Goat." I say.
"Yup." He points bottom left.
"Sheep."
"Yup." Back to the goat.
"Goat." He points bottom right.
"Lamb." He points top right.
"Pig."
"Yup." Back to the goat.
"Goat."
I know absolutely nothing about childhood development. But I imagine that what's going on over the course of the five minutes where he points at four pictures 10 times is that he's trying to nail these words down.
Imagine you know absolutely nothing about a language. You just hear noises all day from strange beings. One day you realize that some of those sounds the strange beings are making have meaning. You begin to wonder if every sound they make means something. At 16 months, I believe my son has developed some understanding of a trial-and-error scientific method.
"If I make my da-da identify a picture with a sound 10 times, I can be sure that the sound he is saying is the name of the object in that picture." He thinks without words.
This is fascinating simply in that it's fascinating. But it's also fascinating, because I have the power to totally fuck with this child's development. If every time he points to a picture I say a different word, he will be stupid.
He points to the goat.
"Goat." I say.
He points to the pig.
"Pig." I say.
He points to the goat.
"Horse." He points to the goat again.
"Donkey."
What the fuck?! And like that I have thrown off his theory. His theory is based on the assumption that I love him and want him to learn.
But if I'm a sick twist (and to be sure, in some ways I am), I could tell him untrue things, or perpetually shift truths about what I tell him. And in so doing, scar him for life.
(Editorial note: I don't.)
But that's just a way I could, if I were perverted in some way, intentionally scar him for life. The other really interesting thing about fatherhood is that there are myriad ways in which I am probably unintentionally scarring him for life.
For instance, I believe we all develop some amount of fear of the dark in our lives. Maybe this is instinctive. Primal. A fear of being watched. God knows I have it.
I still to this day can be taking a shower, washing my hair, closing my eyes because there's too much soap in them, and all it takes is me picturing someone outside of the shower. I picture that. I picture that I'm being watched. I picture that someone has crept in and is standing on the other side of the shower door ready to pounce.
"This isn't real," I tell myself. But it doesn't matter. It's enough for me to hurriedly rinse the soap out of my eyes and check. I'm 32 years old. Jesus. But it happens. Not all the time. But sometimes.
Or I can remember a time when I was really sick in college. Throwing up. Shitting my brains out. I had a crazy fever. Sweating through the night and waking up freezing, drenched in my bed. Drinking water just to release it minutes later through mouth or asshole. Gross. I know.
At the worst of it, I woke up freezing, soaking wet from a vivid nightmare wherein an evil presence had entered my bedroom. It was standing over me in this nightmare.
I sprang up in bed, my eyes wide open.
I looked across the room. By the door I saw an outline of a figure. I rubbed my eyes.
"I'm imagining things. This isn't real." But then it moves towards me. Scared the shit out of me.
I know now there was nothing there. But I was so tripped out from dehydration, being sick, nightmares, and the Tylenol PM, that I really thought something was there.
It took reaching out and trying to punch it to convince myself there was no presence. And I fell back asleep telling myself that nothing was in my room but me. Terrified.
My son is 16 months old.
Literally every day up until around when he turned one, either my wife, myself, or both of us, have gone into his bedroom before we've gone to bed to look at him.
He's fucking adorable. We're nerds. What can I say.
This practice has lessened of late. But we still do it more often than not.
And every once in a while, when we go in there, he's in a light sleep. He senses our presence. He lifts up his head. And as he's doing it, we hide in his room so he can't see us or we scurry like rats out of his room as he's turning to look.
Last night, we opened his door at 11 PM and took three steps in. After three steps, his head sprung up, and before he could turn to face it, we bolted out the door and closed it.
My son is being watched. There is a presence in the dark. There are things that go bump in the night. Those things are his parents being morons, tripping over blocks and turning off the hallway lights.
This morning my son got out his book.
He pointed to the goat.
"Horse."
My son is now approaching 16 months of life. There are a lot of interesting things about 16 months. My son has a way now of pointing to objects or pictures and grunting. He's asking me to tell him the word for what it is. And I'll tell him.
We sit with a book that has four animals on it: one on the top of the left page, one on the bottom of the left page, one on the top right, and one bottom right.
He points and grunts.
"Goat." I say.
"Yup." He points bottom left.
"Sheep."
"Yup." Back to the goat.
"Goat." He points bottom right.
"Lamb." He points top right.
"Pig."
"Yup." Back to the goat.
"Goat."
I know absolutely nothing about childhood development. But I imagine that what's going on over the course of the five minutes where he points at four pictures 10 times is that he's trying to nail these words down.
Imagine you know absolutely nothing about a language. You just hear noises all day from strange beings. One day you realize that some of those sounds the strange beings are making have meaning. You begin to wonder if every sound they make means something. At 16 months, I believe my son has developed some understanding of a trial-and-error scientific method.
"If I make my da-da identify a picture with a sound 10 times, I can be sure that the sound he is saying is the name of the object in that picture." He thinks without words.
This is fascinating simply in that it's fascinating. But it's also fascinating, because I have the power to totally fuck with this child's development. If every time he points to a picture I say a different word, he will be stupid.
He points to the goat.
"Goat." I say.
He points to the pig.
"Pig." I say.
He points to the goat.
"Horse." He points to the goat again.
"Donkey."
What the fuck?! And like that I have thrown off his theory. His theory is based on the assumption that I love him and want him to learn.
But if I'm a sick twist (and to be sure, in some ways I am), I could tell him untrue things, or perpetually shift truths about what I tell him. And in so doing, scar him for life.
(Editorial note: I don't.)
But that's just a way I could, if I were perverted in some way, intentionally scar him for life. The other really interesting thing about fatherhood is that there are myriad ways in which I am probably unintentionally scarring him for life.
For instance, I believe we all develop some amount of fear of the dark in our lives. Maybe this is instinctive. Primal. A fear of being watched. God knows I have it.
I still to this day can be taking a shower, washing my hair, closing my eyes because there's too much soap in them, and all it takes is me picturing someone outside of the shower. I picture that. I picture that I'm being watched. I picture that someone has crept in and is standing on the other side of the shower door ready to pounce.
"This isn't real," I tell myself. But it doesn't matter. It's enough for me to hurriedly rinse the soap out of my eyes and check. I'm 32 years old. Jesus. But it happens. Not all the time. But sometimes.
Or I can remember a time when I was really sick in college. Throwing up. Shitting my brains out. I had a crazy fever. Sweating through the night and waking up freezing, drenched in my bed. Drinking water just to release it minutes later through mouth or asshole. Gross. I know.
At the worst of it, I woke up freezing, soaking wet from a vivid nightmare wherein an evil presence had entered my bedroom. It was standing over me in this nightmare.
I sprang up in bed, my eyes wide open.
I looked across the room. By the door I saw an outline of a figure. I rubbed my eyes.
"I'm imagining things. This isn't real." But then it moves towards me. Scared the shit out of me.
I know now there was nothing there. But I was so tripped out from dehydration, being sick, nightmares, and the Tylenol PM, that I really thought something was there.
It took reaching out and trying to punch it to convince myself there was no presence. And I fell back asleep telling myself that nothing was in my room but me. Terrified.
My son is 16 months old.
Literally every day up until around when he turned one, either my wife, myself, or both of us, have gone into his bedroom before we've gone to bed to look at him.
He's fucking adorable. We're nerds. What can I say.
This practice has lessened of late. But we still do it more often than not.
And every once in a while, when we go in there, he's in a light sleep. He senses our presence. He lifts up his head. And as he's doing it, we hide in his room so he can't see us or we scurry like rats out of his room as he's turning to look.
Last night, we opened his door at 11 PM and took three steps in. After three steps, his head sprung up, and before he could turn to face it, we bolted out the door and closed it.
My son is being watched. There is a presence in the dark. There are things that go bump in the night. Those things are his parents being morons, tripping over blocks and turning off the hallway lights.
This morning my son got out his book.
He pointed to the goat.
"Horse."
Monday, December 22, 2014
Tom Hanks Movies from the 1980s
Another one of my friends has recently gotten married. This means, of course, that another one of my friends has recently had a bachelor party. Historically, I've viewed bachelor parties as something of an unnecessary oddity. The generic image that comes to mind when I consider a bachelor party is a toned down version of the Tom Hanks film of the same name: Bachelor Party. Must see stuff, if you're into shitty 80s movies.
In that movie, Tom Hanks and his buddies party, nudity happens, someone drugs a mule (and blows it), and there's a crazy guy with a cross bow. This movie is similar to the recent Hangover films, I guess, though I've only ever seen bits and pieces of them because I don't like anyone in them. Digression.
The Bachelor Party (capital 'B', capital 'P') involves a group of men getting shit-faced, surrounding themselves with random naked women, and generally pursuing hi-jinks. For my bachelor party, I was very earnest in that there should be no naked women, because truth be told, I am a prude and feminism and blah, blah, blah.
My bachelor party involved getting up at 6:30 AM on a freezing ass cold day in March and playing paintball with a large group of friends and family. Afterwards, there was supposed to be much drinking and hi-jinks. I wanted to play stupid drinking games one last time. But alas, at 10:30, all of my friends went to bed. Assholes.
And that has more or less been the pattern with all of my friends' bachelor parties except for one. That one, in New Orleans, definitely involved hi-jinks. And there were many naked women. And at least one hilariously unintentional encounter with a prostitute, which could be a story unto itself (and not mine to tell). Moving on.
Other than that, all of my friends' bachelor parties have been the opposite of the Bachelor Party. Tame. Guys drinking. Video games. Dinner. Then me going home and passing out while watching Bachelor Party. Oh man, I wish that were true. But really I've passed out to The Burbs.
This most recent bachelor party, however, finally involved nudity again. But unlike New Orleans, or any typical chauvinistic wet dream Bachelor Party, this one didn't involve anonymous women getting naked for money. This time, the bachelor and all of his friends paid someone money so that we could get naked together.
Yes, I'm talking about the King Spa. My wife has previously tried to get me to go with her to the King Spa, but: (1) the notion of going to a spa seems strange to me, and (2) her description of what the experience involved did not seem like a good time.
"Well, first of all, there's a men's area and a women's area."
"So I'm not going to be with you?"
"Well at first. Yes."
"Then why would I go? I don't want to relax with strangers."
"Well, it's just for a bit. You go, and you get naked. And there are these amazing pools. Hot pools, cold pools. Steam rooms."
"But I'm naked?"
"Yeah, it's a spa. It's great. You'll love it."
"Are there other people?"
"Yes."
"So I'm naked with a bunch of dudes, and we get into a pool together?"
"Yes, and then there are--"
"I'm out."
"But you didn't let me fin--"
"I'm out."
So here I am months and months later. One of my closest friends, who I've known since we were six is getting married, and he wants to go to King Spa. Everyone is backing out. They're all going to meet up later for dinner. I feel like I have to go. I suck up my body image issues and decide to go get naked with my friend and four or five others.
It's an interesting thing being naked in a room full of strange men. I've not often found myself in this scenario, so I don't really know what the rules of engagement are. What is etiquette? I ask this of myself early and often.
First, before I go, I bathe thoroughly. I do not want to be the turd in the punch bowl. Upon arriving, all members of our group assert that they all have done the same. "Yes, yes, I washed first. Don't want to be turd in the punch bowl," says John. "Wouldn't want to carry a stink into the sink," Steve tells us all.
We've all bathed vigorously. And affirmed our cleanliness to the group. We make a couple of tittering jokes about how we're at a bachelor party, how we're not women, and that none of us is too eager for this experience. We're all playing it cautious.
When we get into the locker room, there is dong everywhere. First rule of public nudity, eyes up. This immediately reminds me of conversations I've had with girls in year's past where some female or another has asked me what my friend's penis looks like, because I showered with them in sports.
Ladies, it doesn't work that way. The first thing naked men do when being naked together is not examine each other's cock and balls. It's just not professional. Also, where do you get off asking about my friend's junk, high school girlfriend? That's like me asking my wife, "Hey, so your new friend Margaret, she's kind of cute. Is she seeing anybody? What's her vulva like?" Wrong, wrong, wrong.
All right. So eyes up. What's next? Time to disrobe. There's no backing down now.
Now, when you find yourself within a group of guys who are all getting naked together for the first time in a Korean bathhouse surrounded by 20-30 naked men of all ages, you have to make sure you disrobe properly. Too fast, and you're looking a little too eager. Too slow, and you're looking for a show. Or that's what I'm thinking to myself as I start to undress.
But while I've been thinking, I've unconsciously gotten fully naked while all of my friends are still untying their shoes.
What do you do when you're naked and no one else is? You wait. So there I stand, awkwardly fat and naked, eyes up, waiting for my friends to also be naked. When it's time, we all shower in separate stalls. Each of us has previously bathed, so we're mostly going through the motions. But clearly there are some people here who are making a show of it.
A 50-something bald man in one corner has been soaping and scrubbing his genitals for five minutes. An older Korean gentleman stands by a communal blow-dryer, whisking it back and forth over his pubic region.
This is once in a lifetime behavior. It never would have occurred to me to do that. I am seeing a world I never knew existed, and for which I have no concept of what society deems appropriate. Maybe the genital scrubbing is par for the course. Maybe the weirdos are the ones who don't blow dry their undercarriage. I don't know.
What I do know is that it's strange to me that father-son pairings are coming here. And that I'm extra hard avoiding looking at the 10-, 12-, and 15-year old boys that are in the great big room of naked with me. I definitely notice one man who is not sharing my conceit. Gross.
Regardless, the whole experience is an anthropological wet dream. Not because of the shapes, sizes, etc. of penises and bodies, but because of the human behavior. It's all quite fascinating. And I'll tell you, a hot pool followed by a frigid pool? Quite nice.
After the pools, we each get massages and then head off to a restaurant for BBQ. We eat an entire pig shoulder. And we shun everyone who came just for dinner.
"No food until you show us your weenis!"
We go back to my place, where I have kicked my wife and son out of the house for the evening. Once there, we play board games. Carcassonne. Blokus. Settlers of Catan. We drink beer until 11:30 and the bachelor ducks out.
By midnight, everyone is gone. My wife and child could have stayed home for this one. But hey, I've got a fridge full of beer, had a wicked massage, and found my encounter with public nudity strangely compelling. I will go back, King Spa. I will go back.
But first, Turner and Hooch.
In that movie, Tom Hanks and his buddies party, nudity happens, someone drugs a mule (and blows it), and there's a crazy guy with a cross bow. This movie is similar to the recent Hangover films, I guess, though I've only ever seen bits and pieces of them because I don't like anyone in them. Digression.
The Bachelor Party (capital 'B', capital 'P') involves a group of men getting shit-faced, surrounding themselves with random naked women, and generally pursuing hi-jinks. For my bachelor party, I was very earnest in that there should be no naked women, because truth be told, I am a prude and feminism and blah, blah, blah.
My bachelor party involved getting up at 6:30 AM on a freezing ass cold day in March and playing paintball with a large group of friends and family. Afterwards, there was supposed to be much drinking and hi-jinks. I wanted to play stupid drinking games one last time. But alas, at 10:30, all of my friends went to bed. Assholes.
And that has more or less been the pattern with all of my friends' bachelor parties except for one. That one, in New Orleans, definitely involved hi-jinks. And there were many naked women. And at least one hilariously unintentional encounter with a prostitute, which could be a story unto itself (and not mine to tell). Moving on.
Other than that, all of my friends' bachelor parties have been the opposite of the Bachelor Party. Tame. Guys drinking. Video games. Dinner. Then me going home and passing out while watching Bachelor Party. Oh man, I wish that were true. But really I've passed out to The Burbs.
This most recent bachelor party, however, finally involved nudity again. But unlike New Orleans, or any typical chauvinistic wet dream Bachelor Party, this one didn't involve anonymous women getting naked for money. This time, the bachelor and all of his friends paid someone money so that we could get naked together.
Yes, I'm talking about the King Spa. My wife has previously tried to get me to go with her to the King Spa, but: (1) the notion of going to a spa seems strange to me, and (2) her description of what the experience involved did not seem like a good time.
"Well, first of all, there's a men's area and a women's area."
"So I'm not going to be with you?"
"Well at first. Yes."
"Then why would I go? I don't want to relax with strangers."
"Well, it's just for a bit. You go, and you get naked. And there are these amazing pools. Hot pools, cold pools. Steam rooms."
"But I'm naked?"
"Yeah, it's a spa. It's great. You'll love it."
"Are there other people?"
"Yes."
"So I'm naked with a bunch of dudes, and we get into a pool together?"
"Yes, and then there are--"
"I'm out."
"But you didn't let me fin--"
"I'm out."
So here I am months and months later. One of my closest friends, who I've known since we were six is getting married, and he wants to go to King Spa. Everyone is backing out. They're all going to meet up later for dinner. I feel like I have to go. I suck up my body image issues and decide to go get naked with my friend and four or five others.
It's an interesting thing being naked in a room full of strange men. I've not often found myself in this scenario, so I don't really know what the rules of engagement are. What is etiquette? I ask this of myself early and often.
First, before I go, I bathe thoroughly. I do not want to be the turd in the punch bowl. Upon arriving, all members of our group assert that they all have done the same. "Yes, yes, I washed first. Don't want to be turd in the punch bowl," says John. "Wouldn't want to carry a stink into the sink," Steve tells us all.
We've all bathed vigorously. And affirmed our cleanliness to the group. We make a couple of tittering jokes about how we're at a bachelor party, how we're not women, and that none of us is too eager for this experience. We're all playing it cautious.
When we get into the locker room, there is dong everywhere. First rule of public nudity, eyes up. This immediately reminds me of conversations I've had with girls in year's past where some female or another has asked me what my friend's penis looks like, because I showered with them in sports.
Ladies, it doesn't work that way. The first thing naked men do when being naked together is not examine each other's cock and balls. It's just not professional. Also, where do you get off asking about my friend's junk, high school girlfriend? That's like me asking my wife, "Hey, so your new friend Margaret, she's kind of cute. Is she seeing anybody? What's her vulva like?" Wrong, wrong, wrong.
All right. So eyes up. What's next? Time to disrobe. There's no backing down now.
Now, when you find yourself within a group of guys who are all getting naked together for the first time in a Korean bathhouse surrounded by 20-30 naked men of all ages, you have to make sure you disrobe properly. Too fast, and you're looking a little too eager. Too slow, and you're looking for a show. Or that's what I'm thinking to myself as I start to undress.
But while I've been thinking, I've unconsciously gotten fully naked while all of my friends are still untying their shoes.
What do you do when you're naked and no one else is? You wait. So there I stand, awkwardly fat and naked, eyes up, waiting for my friends to also be naked. When it's time, we all shower in separate stalls. Each of us has previously bathed, so we're mostly going through the motions. But clearly there are some people here who are making a show of it.
A 50-something bald man in one corner has been soaping and scrubbing his genitals for five minutes. An older Korean gentleman stands by a communal blow-dryer, whisking it back and forth over his pubic region.
This is once in a lifetime behavior. It never would have occurred to me to do that. I am seeing a world I never knew existed, and for which I have no concept of what society deems appropriate. Maybe the genital scrubbing is par for the course. Maybe the weirdos are the ones who don't blow dry their undercarriage. I don't know.
What I do know is that it's strange to me that father-son pairings are coming here. And that I'm extra hard avoiding looking at the 10-, 12-, and 15-year old boys that are in the great big room of naked with me. I definitely notice one man who is not sharing my conceit. Gross.
Regardless, the whole experience is an anthropological wet dream. Not because of the shapes, sizes, etc. of penises and bodies, but because of the human behavior. It's all quite fascinating. And I'll tell you, a hot pool followed by a frigid pool? Quite nice.
After the pools, we each get massages and then head off to a restaurant for BBQ. We eat an entire pig shoulder. And we shun everyone who came just for dinner.
"No food until you show us your weenis!"
We go back to my place, where I have kicked my wife and son out of the house for the evening. Once there, we play board games. Carcassonne. Blokus. Settlers of Catan. We drink beer until 11:30 and the bachelor ducks out.
By midnight, everyone is gone. My wife and child could have stayed home for this one. But hey, I've got a fridge full of beer, had a wicked massage, and found my encounter with public nudity strangely compelling. I will go back, King Spa. I will go back.
But first, Turner and Hooch.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
A Trip to the Doctor
I took my son to the doctor the other day for his one year checkup. As an aside, when you tell people you're taking your son to the doctor, they become very concerned. This is odd to me, because there are mandatory checkups every three months for all humans for the first year (or two?) of their lives.
"I'm taking Little Man to the Doctor, I'll be back in two hours."
"Oh no, I hope nothing's wrong."
"Thanks for the concern, but I'm really just going to be told I'm a bad parent."
And that's the second thing that is odd to me about these mandatory young person checkups. My wife came back from Rudy's nine-month checkup convinced we were failing as parents.
"They gave me a questionnaire to fill out about his development, and he's behind!"
"Oh my God. Really?! What? Where? How?"
"There were just a bunch of things that he's supposed to be able to do, but he can't do them." She hands me a three page document with a series of yes or no questions.
Question 1: If you ask your child how big he is, does he raise his arms to show you "Sooooo big"?
Answer: No.
Here's the thing though, no one told us he would be graded on this ability. I had no idea I was supposed to be teaching him this. For the first nine months of his life, I was trying to get my son to sit up, crawl, and walk. I didn't even know "Soooooo big" was a thing.
The questions go on.
Question 27: Does your child call you 'mama' or 'dada'?
Answer: No.
"That can't be indicative of a problem," I say. We've got three nephews, all older than our son, and none of them said shit when they were nine months old. And they're all smart as whips now.
Since I hadn't been at the six- or nine-month appointments, I couldn't really gauge how much my wife was reading into the doctor's tone. Maybe something was just being lost in translation. "For the one-year checkup, I'm going," I decide. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this."
So I go. And it's really hard not to feel like a terrible parent when your doctor is asking you questions where you would be a terrible parent if the answer was no.
"Do you have electrical outlets covered in your home?"
"Do you have smoke alarms?"
"Do you feed your child breakfast?"
Do you have to ask? Jesus. I think the Doctor's office is mostly about making you feel like a bad parent and telling you that your child has an enormous head. Those seem to be the prevailing themes.
"So your son's weight remains in the 90th percentile, while his height remains in the 10th percentile. That's mildly concerning. Also, his head remains off the charts. It is really huge. There's just no science behind the size of this boy's head."
I blame my father.
As the shaming is wrapping up, the doctor starts running through our vaccination options. She's throwing all kinds of shit out there. Hepatitis this. Influenza that. This one we do because of this reason, even though it's not really likely he'll get it, and it's probably not needed.
Call me neglectful, but I don't care. Give him everything. I'm all for being an informed consumer. And I'm pretty cynical of the relationship between doctor's and drug companies. And I think it's more than ridiculous that healthcare is an industry rather than a right. But I also pretty much think that doctors, like teachers, should do what's best in their professional opinions. If he shouldn't get a vaccine, the doctor wouldn't ask.
"Yup," I tell the doctor. And like that, I've signed my son up for four shots.
This is where the doctor's visit becomes really interesting to me. Because as I'm holding down my son while a strange woman sticks a sharp needle an inch into his three-inch thick legs, the ridiculousness of this situation dawns on me. His face goes from oblivious smiling to red-faced full force screaming in an instant. His calm body becomes one giant muscle, contracting and writhing to get away.
Get away from what? He doesn't even know. He has no idea what's going on. All he knows is that something that hurt just happened, with no ability to comprehend why.
And he trusts me. He loves me. He needs me. He is fully dependent on me and my wife, and has been since that first terrifying day when he came out of total warmth and darkness into a bright cold world. Total shock to the senses. And since then, we've fed him. We've clothed him. We've wiped poo off of his ass and genitalia. We've put ointments on his asshole. Not his ass cheeks. Literally, his asshole. We've plugged electrical outlets, provided smoke alarms, AND we feed him breakfast.
He completely trusts us.
And we did this to him.
Trying to understand what this would be like, all I can imagine is a scenario where my dad tells me we're going to go golfing, but then before we get to the golf course, my dad says we've got to make a side stop.
He pulls the car over next to an office building, and tells me in an excited voice that we're going to stop and see one of his old friends.
"Oh, okay," I think. "That's strange. But it seems harmless. I'm actually intrigued by the whole thing. Who is this friend? What is this office building? Why are we stopping right now? Seems like a mild adventure."
We go into the office and are greeted by a receptionist. She tells us to wait. After a few minutes, they call us into a back room.
My dad and I talk about the Blackhawks, the golf we're going to play, and what it's like raising a child. Eventually, a stranger enters the room.
My dad greets the stranger like a friend. He introduces us. The two of them banter back and forth for five or ten minutes. I can hear and understand the words that they're saying, but a lot of the meaning is lost. They're talking about events and places that I don't know. They use people's names as shorthand for whole paragraphs.
"That's a typical Jack McDonald move." One of them says.
"Yes, very Jack McDonald." The other responds.
They laugh. And I smile and kind of laugh with them. I don't know what they're saying, but I'm laughing along because it's uncomfortable not to. Then I start to think about how people do that: laugh when others are laughing. It occurs to me that this is funny as well. And now I'm genuinely laughing about this odd human behavior.
And that's when I am blind-sided with total searing pain. Searing pain and a loud pop.
I clutch my leg, and scream out. "Ah! Jesus, shit. What the fuck!" My eyes are closed tightly shut.
"It's okay. It's okay." My father is telling me calmly, as he rubs my shoulders. I start to open my eyes.
I look down and realize that my father's friend had pulled out a gun and shot me in the leg. I now know what it's like to be shot. It hurts like hell. Just as I'm starting to process this, I register the old friend looking at the barrel of the gun, held up right in his right hand. He's inspecting it kind of. The tip of the barrel.
"Once more," he says matter of factly. Then he points the barrel back at me and--
BANG!
Now the pain is in my other leg. "AHHHHHHHHH!!! What the fuck! You MOTHERFUCKER!!!"
"It's okay. You're okay, little man." My dad continues.
"You motherfucker! Why did you let him do this to me? What do you mean 'you're okay'? I trusted you!"
"Awwww, poor guy. I know. I know."
"You know? You know my ass."
BANG!
"JESUS! He did it again!"
"It's almost over," says the stranger. "You're being so brave."
"Why did it even begin? Why isn't it over already?!"
"Last one..."
BANG
"AAARRRGH!!!"
"Oh, buddy," my dad tells me.
"I'm taking Little Man to the Doctor, I'll be back in two hours."
"Oh no, I hope nothing's wrong."
"Thanks for the concern, but I'm really just going to be told I'm a bad parent."
And that's the second thing that is odd to me about these mandatory young person checkups. My wife came back from Rudy's nine-month checkup convinced we were failing as parents.
"They gave me a questionnaire to fill out about his development, and he's behind!"
"Oh my God. Really?! What? Where? How?"
"There were just a bunch of things that he's supposed to be able to do, but he can't do them." She hands me a three page document with a series of yes or no questions.
Question 1: If you ask your child how big he is, does he raise his arms to show you "Sooooo big"?
Answer: No.
Here's the thing though, no one told us he would be graded on this ability. I had no idea I was supposed to be teaching him this. For the first nine months of his life, I was trying to get my son to sit up, crawl, and walk. I didn't even know "Soooooo big" was a thing.
The questions go on.
Question 27: Does your child call you 'mama' or 'dada'?
Answer: No.
"That can't be indicative of a problem," I say. We've got three nephews, all older than our son, and none of them said shit when they were nine months old. And they're all smart as whips now.
Since I hadn't been at the six- or nine-month appointments, I couldn't really gauge how much my wife was reading into the doctor's tone. Maybe something was just being lost in translation. "For the one-year checkup, I'm going," I decide. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this."
So I go. And it's really hard not to feel like a terrible parent when your doctor is asking you questions where you would be a terrible parent if the answer was no.
"Do you have electrical outlets covered in your home?"
"Do you have smoke alarms?"
"Do you feed your child breakfast?"
Do you have to ask? Jesus. I think the Doctor's office is mostly about making you feel like a bad parent and telling you that your child has an enormous head. Those seem to be the prevailing themes.
"So your son's weight remains in the 90th percentile, while his height remains in the 10th percentile. That's mildly concerning. Also, his head remains off the charts. It is really huge. There's just no science behind the size of this boy's head."
I blame my father.
As the shaming is wrapping up, the doctor starts running through our vaccination options. She's throwing all kinds of shit out there. Hepatitis this. Influenza that. This one we do because of this reason, even though it's not really likely he'll get it, and it's probably not needed.
Call me neglectful, but I don't care. Give him everything. I'm all for being an informed consumer. And I'm pretty cynical of the relationship between doctor's and drug companies. And I think it's more than ridiculous that healthcare is an industry rather than a right. But I also pretty much think that doctors, like teachers, should do what's best in their professional opinions. If he shouldn't get a vaccine, the doctor wouldn't ask.
"Yup," I tell the doctor. And like that, I've signed my son up for four shots.
This is where the doctor's visit becomes really interesting to me. Because as I'm holding down my son while a strange woman sticks a sharp needle an inch into his three-inch thick legs, the ridiculousness of this situation dawns on me. His face goes from oblivious smiling to red-faced full force screaming in an instant. His calm body becomes one giant muscle, contracting and writhing to get away.
Get away from what? He doesn't even know. He has no idea what's going on. All he knows is that something that hurt just happened, with no ability to comprehend why.
And he trusts me. He loves me. He needs me. He is fully dependent on me and my wife, and has been since that first terrifying day when he came out of total warmth and darkness into a bright cold world. Total shock to the senses. And since then, we've fed him. We've clothed him. We've wiped poo off of his ass and genitalia. We've put ointments on his asshole. Not his ass cheeks. Literally, his asshole. We've plugged electrical outlets, provided smoke alarms, AND we feed him breakfast.
He completely trusts us.
And we did this to him.
Trying to understand what this would be like, all I can imagine is a scenario where my dad tells me we're going to go golfing, but then before we get to the golf course, my dad says we've got to make a side stop.
He pulls the car over next to an office building, and tells me in an excited voice that we're going to stop and see one of his old friends.
"Oh, okay," I think. "That's strange. But it seems harmless. I'm actually intrigued by the whole thing. Who is this friend? What is this office building? Why are we stopping right now? Seems like a mild adventure."
We go into the office and are greeted by a receptionist. She tells us to wait. After a few minutes, they call us into a back room.
My dad and I talk about the Blackhawks, the golf we're going to play, and what it's like raising a child. Eventually, a stranger enters the room.
My dad greets the stranger like a friend. He introduces us. The two of them banter back and forth for five or ten minutes. I can hear and understand the words that they're saying, but a lot of the meaning is lost. They're talking about events and places that I don't know. They use people's names as shorthand for whole paragraphs.
"That's a typical Jack McDonald move." One of them says.
"Yes, very Jack McDonald." The other responds.
They laugh. And I smile and kind of laugh with them. I don't know what they're saying, but I'm laughing along because it's uncomfortable not to. Then I start to think about how people do that: laugh when others are laughing. It occurs to me that this is funny as well. And now I'm genuinely laughing about this odd human behavior.
And that's when I am blind-sided with total searing pain. Searing pain and a loud pop.
I clutch my leg, and scream out. "Ah! Jesus, shit. What the fuck!" My eyes are closed tightly shut.
"It's okay. It's okay." My father is telling me calmly, as he rubs my shoulders. I start to open my eyes.
I look down and realize that my father's friend had pulled out a gun and shot me in the leg. I now know what it's like to be shot. It hurts like hell. Just as I'm starting to process this, I register the old friend looking at the barrel of the gun, held up right in his right hand. He's inspecting it kind of. The tip of the barrel.
"Once more," he says matter of factly. Then he points the barrel back at me and--
BANG!
Now the pain is in my other leg. "AHHHHHHHHH!!! What the fuck! You MOTHERFUCKER!!!"
"It's okay. You're okay, little man." My dad continues.
"You motherfucker! Why did you let him do this to me? What do you mean 'you're okay'? I trusted you!"
"Awwww, poor guy. I know. I know."
"You know? You know my ass."
BANG!
"JESUS! He did it again!"
"It's almost over," says the stranger. "You're being so brave."
"Why did it even begin? Why isn't it over already?!"
"Last one..."
BANG
"AAARRRGH!!!"
"Oh, buddy," my dad tells me.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Who Needs Teeth
My four month old son used to be a friendly, happy baby. In the past two weeks he has become a complete asshole. How? Why? What could have brought on this terrible transformation from Happy Angel to Spawn of Satan, you ask? He's teething. After four consecutive nights of three or less total hours of sleep, sleep that is further subdivided by bouts of wild infant screams, I have come to the conclusion that fuck teeth.
Fuck teeth.
That's right, teeth are bullshit. The kid has been totally fine without teeth for four months. His body weight has nearly doubled, so it's not like you need teeth to eat. The doctor keeps telling us he's healthy. She even discouraged us from starting him on solid food. So clearly, there's nothing super important about solid food. Nutrients? Comes in the milk.
"Everything he needs is right there in your breast milk," our doctor told my wife. Then why does he need teeth?! He doesn't. Teeth accomplish nothing.
"Lou, "you may say, "he can't just drink milk his whole life. Besides, if your wife didn't have teeth, the milk wouldn't have very many nutrients."
Bullshit. Adults don't need teeth either. What do spaghetti, peanut butter and jelly, scallops, and raspberries all have in common? You can gum the shit out of any of those foods!
You basically only need teeth for nuts, meat, and raw vegetables. What do nuts, meat, and raw vegetables all have in common? I would gladly not eat any of them ever again if I could get some goddamn sleep!
A couple hundred years ago everybody lost all their teeth anyway and they managed to stay alive long enough for me to know that George Washington had wooden implants. People lived without teeth just fine. And there were no blenders in pre-colonial times. Nowadays, imagine the possibilities. Who doesn't love a good smoothie?
Besides the fact that we as a species don't need teeth to survive, if we didn't have teeth, we wouldn't have to go to the dentist. I've given up on brushing completely in pursuit of this goal. When I lose all my teeth I will never again have to get a cavity drilled and filled.
Braces? Spare everyone the pubescent embarrassment. Just don't have teeth. No one will care if they're not lined up.
Teeth are just so much maintenance. Floss every day. Brush twice a day. Whiten to strengthen your image. You do these things every day for your teeth for 60, 70 years. What do they do for you? You can bite an apple. Whoopity-fucking-doo.
And guess what you have to do after you bite into that apple. Brush because apples have lots of sugar. Floss because the little piece of the apple's skin got caught between two of your teeth and you can't get it out. Mouthwash because there was a little bit of blood on the apple when you bit into it, and it turns out you've got gingivitis. We are slaves to our teeth.
And just when you think you've got it under control. Just when you've got your routine down. You've gotten the braces off. You've had several years of the perfect smile. Just at that moment, those dirty bastards decide to drop a few more on you way in the back. Only there's no more room at the inn. So now your "wisdom" teeth are driving into your molars, which are driving into your incisors, which are now a jangled mess of disaster, criss-crossing the front teeth you tried so hard to remove the gap between. And you drink coffee because your baby keeps waking up because his teeth are coming in, and you can't stay awake without pouring cup after cup of black coffee down your throat, and it stains your teeth, so now they're darker than they were, and you haven't slept for days, and it's all so you can eat a fucking apple and a handful of peanuts?
Fuck. Teeth.
Fuck teeth.
That's right, teeth are bullshit. The kid has been totally fine without teeth for four months. His body weight has nearly doubled, so it's not like you need teeth to eat. The doctor keeps telling us he's healthy. She even discouraged us from starting him on solid food. So clearly, there's nothing super important about solid food. Nutrients? Comes in the milk.
"Everything he needs is right there in your breast milk," our doctor told my wife. Then why does he need teeth?! He doesn't. Teeth accomplish nothing.
"Lou, "you may say, "he can't just drink milk his whole life. Besides, if your wife didn't have teeth, the milk wouldn't have very many nutrients."
Bullshit. Adults don't need teeth either. What do spaghetti, peanut butter and jelly, scallops, and raspberries all have in common? You can gum the shit out of any of those foods!
You basically only need teeth for nuts, meat, and raw vegetables. What do nuts, meat, and raw vegetables all have in common? I would gladly not eat any of them ever again if I could get some goddamn sleep!
A couple hundred years ago everybody lost all their teeth anyway and they managed to stay alive long enough for me to know that George Washington had wooden implants. People lived without teeth just fine. And there were no blenders in pre-colonial times. Nowadays, imagine the possibilities. Who doesn't love a good smoothie?
Besides the fact that we as a species don't need teeth to survive, if we didn't have teeth, we wouldn't have to go to the dentist. I've given up on brushing completely in pursuit of this goal. When I lose all my teeth I will never again have to get a cavity drilled and filled.
Braces? Spare everyone the pubescent embarrassment. Just don't have teeth. No one will care if they're not lined up.
Teeth are just so much maintenance. Floss every day. Brush twice a day. Whiten to strengthen your image. You do these things every day for your teeth for 60, 70 years. What do they do for you? You can bite an apple. Whoopity-fucking-doo.
And guess what you have to do after you bite into that apple. Brush because apples have lots of sugar. Floss because the little piece of the apple's skin got caught between two of your teeth and you can't get it out. Mouthwash because there was a little bit of blood on the apple when you bit into it, and it turns out you've got gingivitis. We are slaves to our teeth.
And just when you think you've got it under control. Just when you've got your routine down. You've gotten the braces off. You've had several years of the perfect smile. Just at that moment, those dirty bastards decide to drop a few more on you way in the back. Only there's no more room at the inn. So now your "wisdom" teeth are driving into your molars, which are driving into your incisors, which are now a jangled mess of disaster, criss-crossing the front teeth you tried so hard to remove the gap between. And you drink coffee because your baby keeps waking up because his teeth are coming in, and you can't stay awake without pouring cup after cup of black coffee down your throat, and it stains your teeth, so now they're darker than they were, and you haven't slept for days, and it's all so you can eat a fucking apple and a handful of peanuts?
Fuck. Teeth.
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