Big Daddy Paul

Our car window. Our Honda Accord is almost ten years old, and it is starting to show signs of wear, most notably the fact that the driver’s side window is broken. Whenever I need to roll down the window and talk to someone on the street, I instinctively push the button to make the window go down before realizing that I now drive a hooptie and am one step away from having a car whose door handle is an old piece of rope. If you think it easy communicating with a parking lot attendant through a tiny crack in an open door it’s not. It’s embarrassing, and makes me mad. Sure, I could spend the small fortune it would take to fix the stupid thing, but if I did, the terrorists would win. Surely.

Pretend baseball. Everyone’s kid does something all the time that at first is kinda cute, but then starts to annoy you to the point where you wish you never stopped contracepting. For us, that is now pretend baseball. About thirty times a day, Malcolm asks who we are rooting for, and then names two teams (the most popular being the Floridelphia Marlins and the Cinfernatti Reds.) He then proceeds to run around the house pretending he is playing and then invariably tells you that the team you were “rooting” for lost by some large margin (last night the Giants lost to the Dodgers 130 to 0 and I am still pissed about it.) Eventually, he suckers you into playing catch and then actually playing the game itself, where you have to be the catcher, the umpire, and all of the other team. About the time you realize you are doing most of the work, you tell Malcolm you don’t want to play anymore, which leads him to start whining and forces you to look into a full time nanny.

The stuff in our house. Our house is in a state of disarray which leads guests to the conclusion that we are about to be featured on an episode of Cops. There are piles of shit everywhere and I fear there may be small rodents lurking about in them. I would get rid of the piles except for the fact that I have no idea where to put anything. So, most of the stuff in our house eventually makes its way to our office, which has the same role as the dead pile on a farm. Every year or so, I clean the office and promise that it will never get that bad, making Amy roll her eyes before turning her head at the rustling from the pile of papers in the corner. Most of the time, she utters, “Damn Varmints!”, and I am not sure if she is referring to the rodents or me.

I can't even see my feet anymore!

My boobs. I have the boobs of a perky high school freshman and if I don’t make any changes soon, I will one day be the prom queen. (I should also be quite upset at my muffin top of a belly that allows entire knit sweaters to lurk in my belly button instead of mere clumps of lint, but I can’t get past looking at my rack in the mirror. Yowza!) There are some people who “work out” by going to a place called a “gym,” but those are the kind of people who having working car windows, love playing with their kid, and don’t live in mortal fear of the accumulated stuff in their house. I am not that kind of person, but one day I hope to be. Until then, when you see me constantly moving so that you never get a profile shot of  my “Heavage,” you’ll know why.

What’s annoying you?

I used to be prepared. I had a backpack full of diapers, wipes, snacks, small toys and a buck knife sharp enough to gut a camel. Sure, I forgot the backpack about half of the time, but back then I was at least occasionally prepared for life in the world as a parent.

Once Malcolm joined the world of the potty trained, though, the backpack took its rightful place in the corner, next to the Elmo DVD’s and my once wicked cool pair of ’90’s era MC Hammer parachute pants. I gladly reveled in the fact that Malcolm no longer needed extra disposable underpants with us, and took it to mean that also didn’t need any food, drink or emergency entertainment. (I still keep the buck knife strapped to my leg, just in case I run into a rabid camel awkwardly galloping through the streets of Oakland. You never know.)

I have recently been surprised to learn that other parents still do some preparation before leaving the house with their kids. Shocking, to say the least. I have been on play dates with these seemingly obsessive/compulsive parents, who still bring snacks for their kids, and, even worse, things for their kids to drink. When Malcolm and I are in the world, it’s like Ramadan. He gets nothing to snack on and can occasionally have some water if we are able to locate a drinking fountain that isn’t completely disgusting (a rarity in Oakland.)

When confronted with the reality of these other parents caring for their children, Malcolm and I look longingly at the fruits of their preparation, like the Amish teens who stare jealously at all the zippers on my parachute pants. Malcolm has recently begun asking the parents if they have brought him any snacks, causing the other adult to sneer at me and silently question, “Why am I the bad guy here? You’re the one who doesn’t look after your child!” For a while, I would plead ignorance, like I had no idea that I was supposed to bring supplies with us. Once you go on a few play dates though, that excuse doesn’t hold water anymore. Malcolm’s friends must either bring him an extra treat or endure the unwelcome humiliation of asking their kid to share a snack with Malcolm. (I wouldn’t share a tasty granola bar, but I sure don’t mind looking scornfully at another kid who declares that he won’t share with Malcolm!)

I know that I should just stick an emergency box of snacks in the car, but that requires preparation, a talent that I am severely lacking. I feel a certain sense of entitlement since Malcolm doesn’t wear diapers and I don’t need to bring a diaper bag with us, and I am going to hold fast to it. Sure, other parents must be annoyed by me, but I am fairly certain that they are going to be annoyed with me anyways, so why not pile on while I can. I’ll be the one laughing, though, when I save everyone by the marauding camels. Then who’ll seem prepared…

For those of you who don’t know who that is, shame on you! She is the adoptive mother of a seven-year-old Russian psychopath who tried to kill Torry’s family members and threatened to burn down the house. Torry’s response? She stuck him on a plane back to Russia with a “thanks, but no thanks” letter to the Russian authorities. There are so many interesting angles to this story (How awkward was THAT ride to the airport?) but I will only look at one. The sheer genius of it all.

Excuse me, I'd like to return this pumpkin. It just bit me!

There are times when I wish I could send Malcolm back. Why would I do such a thing? Well, the Russian boy allegedly hit, screamed at and spit at the mom, usually in response to not getting what he wanted.  Let’s see: check, check, check, and double check. Malcolm has done almost everything the Russian boy did (even threatening to kill Amy and I from the back seat of the car once.)  Logistically, though, sending back your own kid back is a lot harder than buying an airline ticket, and involves the horrific mental imagery of shoving a forty two inch person up and through my wife’s lady business. As it turns out, returning Malcolm just isn’t going to work.

That doesn’t mean we can’t all learn from Torry’s example. From now on, I will meet all of life’s little disappointments by returning the disappointing item to its place of origin. The raspberries that go fuzzy the day after coming home with me are not going into the trash. They’re going back to the display at the store, with a note that says “This is what the rest of these berries will look like tomorrow.” When I read a book I don’t particularly care for, I will mail it back to the publisher explaining, “This book sucks. I am returning it to you that you may rearrange the words into something more intriguing.” My dream, though, is to one day have the courage to walk into a restaurant, throw up in a bucket and say, “Here’s last night’s dinner back. I think the recipe needs a little tinkering.”

Now that I think of it, if Malcolm comes home tomorrow and starts acting up, I will just bring him back to school with a note: “To whom it may concern: this child is still not right. Please return him when you are done teaching him.”

At least it beats the other two options.

My friend Tracy and I used to sit around a bowling alley drinking beer and coming up with ingenious ideas. This was particularly intruiging considering that, at the time, Tracy was on her way towards revolutionizing the world of women’s health and I was studying to become the next great champion of worker’s rights. Yet, there we were, throwing back Rolling Rocks and figuring out how to design an adult flotation device that would allow people to stay afloat on Lake Shasta while conveniently and safely storing a margarita. Sadly, many of our best ideas were forgotten the next day, ironically the casualty of the very beer that aided in our sudden bursts of creative thinking. I have stopped drinking to excess (at bowling alleys!) and so am more readily available to catalogue some of the ideas that could change the world, if I would only get off my ass and make them a reality. Today, I will share a few with you:

Contrarian Underpants. Who wouldn’t want a pair of skivvies that would cool you down when you are hot, or warm you up when get chilly? Have you ever heard the expression “I nearly froze my balls off?” or “My lady business is hotter than a half-bred fox in a forest fire?” I have, and contrarian underpants would ensure that you never have to hear them again. How would such amazing undergarments work? Simple, use similar technology to that found in a thermos. A thermos keeps hot liquid hot and cold liquid cold. Just invert to thermos process in your undies, and Bam! A billion dollars, easy. The diaper version would not only give your small one comfort, but also make their various excretions smell like movie theater butter. Maybe a billion is a conservative estimate.

Modeling software to show your kids what they will be like in 20 years. If you are tired of reminding your kids to eat their veggies, say “please” and “thank you” and abstain from random acts of aggression against their peers, then this software could be a gift from heaven. It would be so much easier to show them a picture of what they would look like in 20 years if they don’t change their ways. I’m sure Malcolm would change is behavior if I told him that this was the path he was headed down:

Mind you, the software would obviously be customizable, so if you were worried that your daughter was getting too into body building and sticking forks into electrical sockets, it would spit out this:

Who wouldn’t buy that software?

Lastly, the Iphone needs an application that can sense what you’re feeling like and automatically suggest what it is you should be doing. Consider it a mood ring with kick-ass features. Simply hold the phone, and boom: it will sense that you have cabin fever and suggest an adventure (perhaps a treasure hunt to visit all of the Krispy Kreme’s within 25 miles of you!)  Or maybe you are feeling a little fat, and it will suggest a bike route for you to follow to get to a nearby Krispy Kreme. Perhaps you have recently been dumped, and are in need of some comfort. It could sense this and bring up the phone number for a brand new service that delivers Krispy Kremes, straight to your door! Whatever your mood, it has a solution.

It’s really hard for me to have all these great ideas and lack the time to follow through on them. I am sure that someone who has more of an entrepreneurial spirit will read this and then crush my soul as they become a zillionaire capitalizing on my ideas. If there was only some way I could drown my sorrows when this happens…