Big Daddy Paul

I have always enjoyed watching the superbowl. Check that, I have always enjoyed superbowl sunday. Despite the great games in the past few years, the games are mostly lame. I do, however, enjoy hanging out with my best friends, eating super awesome food and, while I hate to admit it, I like to watch the superbowl ads. Don’t tell anyone, because the stay at home parent just watching the Superbowl for the commercials is so cliche. This year was no exception, although the game has certainly changed.

This year, the kids were there. We had about ten adults and six kids over, meaning you couldn’t swing a dead chicken wing without knocking over a child (and then wiping off the wing sauce.) Instead of getting drunk, betting on every play, yelling at the screen and eating myself into a partial coma, this year I got drunk, broke up fights, stopped one-year-olds from eating chalk and falling off the couch, and ate myself into a partial coma. Having kids at any event changes the essential nature of the event, but it doesn’t mean that the event is no longer any fun.

Sure, the days of wet tee shirt contests and jello shots at our house are gone, but in its place something oddly alluring has sprouted: parenting. During the game I got to teach Malcolm. I taught him how to check raise before the flop during the annual pre-superbowl poker game. I taught him how to read the score off the TV screen. I told him sad the people of New Orleans have been and how happy this football game was going to make them. I taught him what “squares” were and how if the Colts didn’t throw that last interception he was going to win $40. Then, I had to tell him that when you gamble you lose money most of the time. I taught him that you get to eat whatever you want on Superbowl sunday, even if that means your dinner consists entirely of chocolate chip cookies. (Thanks for the awesome batch Diedre!)

If you offered me the chance to, for one day, be childless again, I am not sure what my answer would be. Of course, I like jello shots and wet tee shirt contests. I like to watch football games without any distractions and swearing loudly whenever anything truly exciting happens. I like talking to my friends about things other than new teeth, first steps and who’s kid hit who. Seeing Malcolm actually watching the game, though, was pretty cool. Answering his questions about what was going on made the game fun in a brand new way.  I guess I’m actually glad we had kids there and I was able to share some experiences with Malcolm.

Oh wait, I’m not that guy. Give me a shot, a chair at the judging table and some chicken wings. Let someone else have fun with the kids.

Malcolm and I had a tough week. We had a number of knock down, drag ‘em out fights, and we yelled at each other more than we talked. By thursday, we looked at each other with scorn like two boxers before a bout. I was at or near the bottom and needed a day where we could focus on having a good time together and not worry about routines, rules and polite society. So, I designed the perfect date.

We set off after swim class on Friday to engage in some father and son shenanigans.  Our first stop was to go bowling. It was amusing, (chucking big rocks at stuff usually is) but since neither one of us had any beer, we didn’t last very long. We left the bowling alley and made a bee line for Nation’s, a chain who’s byline is “Giant Hamburgers.” I love local organic food, but there is definitely a place in my heart for a thick juicy cheeseburger. We feasted and told each other knock knock jokes. It was pure bliss.

After lunch, we decided to hit up the local horse track. Malcolm loves horse tracks, and I love him for it. It combines my two favorite things, short mexican men and gambling. Malcolm and I spied the horses as they came out from the stables and picked our favorites. I usually chose the horse that I thought was the best looking and Malcolm shouted out the first number he saw, or any horse that went to the bathroom while we were watching. We then bet according to our expert research.  While waiting for the race to start, Malcolm and I had our own little races and proceeded to run along the grandstands, parallel to the tracks. This delighted the degenerate gamblers in attendance who smiled at us from behind their racing forms and dirty magazines. We raced back and forth enough that I think the degenerates were actually taking action on us.  I could have sworn I heard a giant, “Shit!” when I crossed the finish line before Malcolm in one of our races. We hit a big race ($23 on a $2 bet,) and called it a day. The day was completely as I wanted it to be.  We hugged and talked, smiled at each other, and took time off from our adversarial relationship to enjoy each other’s company. Malcolm could not stop talking about all the fun we had and was quick to tell mommy all about how we won $23 on the 7 and 1 horses. I didn’t need to tell mommy anything, she could see the happiness on my face. That look of happiness is probably why she didn’t chew me out for feeding my kid crap to eat, taking him gambling, and let him hang around degenerates who hang out at horse races and read dirty magazines.Win win!

I am going to Reno this weekend.  My friend, Derek, is an avid University of Missouri fan, and I, along with some of his other friends, are going up to watch the Tigers play the University of Nevada, Reno at football.  This sounds like a perfect opportunity to blow off steam with a weekend with the boys, but I am a bit worried.

The guys I am going with are quite successful in the business world.  They are all upper level executives at successful companies, with nice houses and cars that probably don’t smell like old sandwiches.  They wear clean clothes, shower every day, and are polite to one another.  That is what has me worried. 
When I go to Reno with my normal crew, I tend to get just a tad out of control.  When there, you will normally find me with a beer in my dirty little hands, a cigarette dangling out of my mouth, and I am constantly making up reasons to take the next shot.  And that is all before breakfast.  I like to yell at the dealers, do squats around the tables, and if you see me order food that doesn’t start with “chicken fried” then something is wrong.  One time, I got an entire blackjack table to rub their nipples every time the dealer busted.  I am concerned that I will not be able to control the beast within, and the others will have to ask Derek, “Why is your friend doing shots at the bar with that old Chinese woman?”  It’s gonna be tough.

The other potential pratfall will be the blackjack tables.  The tables, along with AC Transit buses, are one of the last few places where you can see democracy in action.  When sitting at the tables for hours with random strangers, you tend to talk about who you are and what you do.  I can foresee going around the table with everyone else talking about their impressive responsibilities and the movers and shakers they have in their contact list.  And then all eyes will fall on me.  Being a stay at home dad is great, but it is not the kind of awe inspiring profession that lends itself to impressing the general public.  In anticipation of the blank stares that I normally get, I will tell people, “I’m in derivatives.”  If forced to, I will eventually disclose that this means that I wipe Malcolm’s constantly running nose and that I sponge off of my wife, but I am hoping that I won’t have to.

I am going to approach the weekend like this: I am going to ignore my initial inclination.  I will not be going to the strip club with a bag of cocaine and $1,000.  I will think about it more closely and go to dinner with the boys.  My pants and shirt will stay on at all times in the casino.  I will channel my proclivity for taking off my clothes by simply leaving my fly unzipped.  If someone makes fun of me for being a stay at home parent, I will buy them a drink instead of spilling one on them.  It’s gonna be hard, because when I start drinking, it takes me approximately 1 second between when I think of something and when I start doing it.  Wich me luck!

I have a problem. It’s not the problem you might think, considering the title of this post, but it is a problem nonetheless. I can’t put anything away. Long time readers already know about the various things lying around the house that have never been put away, but my problem extends into other aspects of my world.

My wallet is a disaster. In it, is every receipt that I have been given in the last two years. In addition, I have loyalty cards for cheesesteak restaurants, membership cards from video stores (in Reno and Davis), and betting slips from the horsetrack and sportsbooks. The sad thing looks like a worn out old sofa, with stuff sticking out in every direction trying to make an escape.

This is particularly dangerous development when I hang out with my softball team, for we spend a lot of time betting on things, and the size of the bet is always a dollar. Wondering who will get more hits that game? Bet someone a dollar. Think you know the name of the obscure band who’s song is singing on the jukebox? Put a dollar on it. One time I bet a guy as to how many times one of the boys would look at his cards during our weekly poker game before he either bet or folded. (The answer was 7, and I won).

The end result of these dollars flying all around is that I come home with many, many dollar bills in pocket. At the end of a long night of drinking and gambling, I usually am quite put out after the laborious task of taking my wallet out of my pocket. So, the dollar bills get left behind, and only see the light of day when I prepare my monthly task of washing my pants. Since I am a complete train wreck, I typically leave the dollars wherever I am when I check the pockets. That is why we have dollar bills on the top of my dresser, the floor of the closet, the top of Amy’s dresser, the foot of the washing machine, the desk in the kitchen, all over the office, and on top of the entertainment center. (I wanted to call it a credenza, but only old people have credenzas and I don’t want to be an old person yet.)

So, every Thursday morning, our cleaning lady, Rosie, scurries about the house, making us look like we are not complete slobs. In the process, she gathers up all the little wads of cash, and places them nicely in a pile on top of the “not-a-credenza.” I can only assume what she thinks I use them for, but honestly it is not that. Amy if you are reading this, it is not that. I swear. This whole convoluted story is the real reason.