The Collector

I realized something today while I was at 7-11. I collect receipts.

I buy something and, no matter how small the cost, if the harried cashier offers me a receipt, I take it. If the harried cashier doesn’t offer me a receipt, I stand there (adding to her, er, harriness) until she does offer me a crisp white receipt.

I’m not sure why I do this. At the store, it makes complete sense to me. I’m going to take this receipt home and put it in some sort of filing system so that I can access it at the end of year and use it for tax purposes.

I feel really grown up when I think thoughts like this.

And then I take that slip home, put it on top of this black armoire that we have and never, ever look at it or touch it again. At some point in time, someone (possibly my wife) does something (possibly involving the garbage can) and the area on the armoire is magically ready to accept new receipts.

I make it a point to never ask myself questions about the filing system that doesn’t exist and the tax purposes that I don’t personally understand. Most importantly, I never ask where those receipts go. That would be like asking why Harry Potter uses owls instead of e-mail. It lacks imagination.

Gas receipts, food receipts, magazine receipts. I’m gonna keep on collecting them – and not just for myself. I keep putting them on the black armoire and someone keeps picking them up. What if that person looks forward to them? What if that person has an actual filing system and actual tax purposes? Who am I to deprive them of the receipts?

I feel really grown up when I think thoughts like this.

They Called Him Whitebeard

Every Thursday, I pick up a box of donuts for my kids’ breakfast. As a family, we prefer the box o’ donuts to the bag o’ donuts.

This is not because the box of donuts tastes better than the bag of donuts. In fact, I’m not sure if the donuts taste good at all. I’ve noticed, for instance, as we chomp down on the white powdered donuts, that the box (and the bag, for that matter) refer to the donuts as “powdered donuts” – and not “powdered sugar donuts.”

I find it curious that the manufacturers don’t mention sugar, but my curiosity stops there. If that’s not sugar, I’m not sure I want to know what it is. I also eat Cheez Whiz although I don’t know what “cheez” is and am reasonably sure that I won’t like hearing what “whiz” contains.

We buy the box of donuts (as opposed to the bag of donuts) for one reason only: my kids think the box looks like a pirate treasure chest.

As an American parent, I’m naturally proud that my kids have already learned to consume products on the basis of packaging rather than actual quality. It’s nice to see that the Hummer truck commercials are having an effect.

But I think there’s more to this. When I bring in the box of donuts on Thursday morning, my kids’ faces spark up and glow. The kids sometimes actually clap. It’s like the Publisher’s Clearinghouse van has pulled up to their house and instead of bringing a lame million dollar check, the announcer has brought something really cool – a chest full of doubloon-shaped donuts.

While I watch my kids feast, I like to think about the fierce pirates of yore who must have plundered the seven seas and then converted their booty into donuts. I think about the bloodiest buccaneer of them all, who stalked the decks of his ship with the entire front of his body covered with something that looked like powdered sugar but tasted nothing like it.

They called him Whitebeard.

The Penultimate Command of English

Longtime readers know that my family famously mangles the English language. That’s not meant to be self-deprecating in any way. We know some stunningly big damn words. We can sling polysyllabics (see?) with the best of them.

We just don’t find it necessary to use them in the correct context.

I, for instance, famously used the word “penultimate” instead “paramount” many, many times until a woman I wanted to date stopped me in the middle of a crowded room and said, “You do realize that the word “penultimate” means “next to last”, don’t you? It doesn’t mean “ultimate” or “paramount”.”

“Wow,” I said. “So, if I described this as my paramount moment of embarrassment…”

“Exactly,” she said.

Ultimately, she and I did not go out.

My aphasia seems to be genetic. My son Gabriel spent a week pointing towards our roof and mentioning the “plants on the alchemy” before I realized that he was talking about the plants on our balcony.

Gabriel is also fond of announcing to everyone that he’s bored. Apparently, my younger son Julian felt that this would be an excellent arrow to add to his relatively new language quiver. Julian came downstairs this morning, put an apathetic look on his face and announced, “Dad, I’m boring.”

“You’re what?” I asked, even though I had heard him clearly.

“I’m boring.”

“You’re what?’

“I’m boring.”

“You’re what?”

There’s nothing boring about that kid. He’s the exact opposite of boring – whatever that word is.

White Like Movie Star Teeth

We live near the beach, so the end of May is a time to perform sacred rituals. Pools are topped off, beach chairs are dusted off and barbecue grills are scrubbed roughly with stiff wire brushes.

I have my own ritual. I wait for the first Saturday with a temperature that rises above 80 degrees. I peek out the windows until I see the street filled with the right mix of neighbors washing their cars and playing with their children. Then, with a jumble of confidence and trepidation, I march outside, doff my shirt and expose my white winter belly for the first time in the season.

I believe my neighbors look forward to this annual event, the same way that other people anticipate Groundhog Day. I have no evidence of this, but I like to think it anyway.

Later, before I’ve achieved my inevitable Flounder look – fierce, bubbly red on my back and titanium white on my front – I’ll march down the neighborhood streets in shorts and flip flops. Children will gasp in amazement when they see legs so white that they look like movie star teeth.

Summer, my friends, has officially begun.

Coming Clean about Golf and Cockroaches

I’ve been spending a great deal of time hitting golf balls at the driving range lately.

It embarrasses me to even write that sentence, actually, because I’ve never respected golf on any level. I’ve dismissed televised golf as boring. I’ve chided people who referred to golf as a sport. I’ve unfairly adjudged golfers as well-off snobs with too much money.

Then I played a round. I learned two things from that afternoon. First off, I really, truly suck at golf. Second, despite my nearly divine suckiness, I had to play again.

This is difficult for me to admit, even to my friends. Remember that Kafka story where Gregor Samsa wakes up to discover he’s a cockroach? I feel like that, but even worse. I feel like a Republican who wakes up and realizes he’s a Democratic cockroach – a gay, Democratic cockroach that lives in San Francisco.

Actually, given the price of actually playing golf, it’s more like a gay, Democratic, San Franciscan cockroach waking up to discover he’s a Republican.

Yeah. That about sums it up.

While I’m at the driving range, I watch other, more experienced golfers to improve my swing. Here’s what I’ve learned:

• Before you swing, spend time selecting the proper club. This will help you forget that there’s only one other demographic that thinks that wearing a single glove is cool – and that’s the Michael Jackson demographic.
• After completely hosing a shot, look around to see if anyone saw your shot. If someone did, hold up your club vertically and examine it as if to say, “Who put this piece of crap in my hand?’

If you think I’m kidding about this last one, keep your eyes open the next time you’re at a driving range. Also, if you see a guy in a t-shirt and shorts desperately trying to pretend he’s not playing golf, say hello. That’s probably me.

The Dinosaur Button

I got a nasty surprise while driving with my three kids this morning. Out of nowhere, Julian, the three-year old, busts out the question:

“Dad, where do babies come from?”

Naturally, I was taken aback. Like most parents I assumed that television was teaching my kids about sex and I could avoid having this uncomfortable conversation. I mean, what’s the point of letting my small, impressionable children watch “The OC”, if it’s not going to be educational?

Once I got over the shock of hearing the question, I think I handled the situation with aplomb. First, I steered off the sidewalk and back onto the road. Not only was this, strictly speaking, the “legal” thing to do, but the screams of the pedestrians were making it hard to formulate a good answer to my son’s question.

Inspiration hit me and without turning around (because, strictly speaking, facing the rear while driving forward is not “legal”), I said this to Julian:

“Julian, what’s your favorite dinosaur?"

In the rear-view mirror, I could see Julian doing something that can only be described as rebooting. I think I actually saw his eyes counting RAM.

“I like raptors!” he blurted out.

“Me, too.” I said. We talked about dinosaurs for an hour, but the subject of babies did not come up again. I had lucked into an amazing, new child rearing method. Potentially, I could avoid the baby discussion indefinitely.

I called Bridget to tell her about my amazing new breakthrough but she was not impressed.

“It’s called the Dinosaur Button,” she said. “All males have it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

“What’s your favorite dinosaur?

“Nice try,” I laughed. “I’m not a three year-old.”

Bridget waited.

“I like raptors!” I blurted out.

I don’t remember the rest of the conversation.

The Cosmo Wife Fu Test

Last week, we discussed my wife’s use of something called “Wife Fu”. Essentially, Wife Fu is a series of techniques designed to render men incapable of attracting other women when out of the wife’s visual range. Does your wife or significant other practice Wife Fu? Take this test and find out:

Does your wife encourage you to over-eat before you go out?

Think it’s a coincidence that chili night always falls on night you’re going out with the guys? Before you have that fifth bowl, consider this; studies show that only 20% of unmarried women are attracted to men who look like they’re pregnant. That number drops to nearly zero if the guy with the swollen stomach is actually farting.

Does your wife buy your clothes?

My dad once came to a family cookout wearing a tiny Garfield the Cat shirt stretched tight over his stomach. My brother and I knew instinctively that he did not buy that shirt. Poor, ignorant bastard. It made us want to grab him by his rainbow-colored suspenders and yell, “Wake up!”

Does your wife insist that you take the mini-van when you go out?

Forcing you to drive the mini-van is like forcing you to wear a second wedding ring – a 20 foot wedding ring. Look behind you. Is there a child’s car seat? Congratulations, your “mac” game has been completely neutralized.

Does your wife insist that you take your child with you when you go out?

I find this to be one of the toughest Wife Fu techniques to deal with. Some of the finer strip clubs simply won’t let you bring in a toddler. But this Wife Fu can backfire on your significant other if you actually seem to be a good father. This is called the “Baby Daddy” principle. It means that you can actually be in a strip club with your kid and, as long as you seem to like your kid, you will actually be attractive to women – because you’re a good father.

I don’t make this stuff up, I just report it.

Extra Credit

Does your wife insist that you take blood pressure medicine – even though you don’t have a heart problem?

Are you rich? If so, this has nothing to do with Wife Fu and everything to do with Life Insurance Fu.

The Marital Arts of Wife Fu

So my friend Matt and I went to a movie the other night. While we waited for the movie to begin, we discussed the kind of things grown men usually discuss – quantum physics and Sharon Stone.

My wife encourages me to hang out with Matt, who I’ve known since I was a kid, for exactly this reason. Left to our own devices, we usually end up loudly discussing something like comic books or video games.

My wife says that this effectively neuters me and diminishes the chances that other women might talk to me while I’m out. This, in turn, prevents these women from seducing me and breaking up my marriage. And this is just one of the many techniques my wife employs in her combination of science and mysticism that I call Wife Fu.

I’d scoff, but I’m just not getting seduced out there. It’s either Wife Fu or that fact that I’m thirty-nine now, sporting some grey hair and regularly need to shave my ears.

It’s gotta be the Wife Fu.

Let’s get back to Sharon Stone and quantum physics. Some quantum theories posit that the universe is filled with infinite alternate realities where all possible outcomes occur. There is, for instance, another reality where I don’t have ear hair. There is yet another reality where I have the ear hair but don’t shave it. I call this the “Reingold Reality” in honor of an art teacher I had in junior high.

It occurred to me the other night that if quantum theory is true, there is some reality where I actually saw “Basic Instinct 2” – and liked it.

Matt visibly shuddered and said something even more chilling.

“If quantum theory is true, then there’s an alternate reality where you spend your entire life doing nothing but watching “Basic Instinct 2”.

While we walked, I swear I saw women actually repelled away from us, like positive particles fleeing the orbits of positive electrons.

Next Week: The Top Signs That Your Wife is a Master of the Marital Arts of Wife Fu

The Dilla

I went for my annual battery of medical physicals recently. It usually takes me about a month to cycle through all the various medical, dental and dermatological appointments. It’s an odd way to spend your time because these appointments usually consist of hours and hours of magazine reading punctuated by brief bursts where you have to get naked in front of strangers.

And that’s just the dentist.

I try to be positive about this process, but it’s not like the news is getting better. This year I learned that I have high cholesterol levels. This means that not only do I have to change my diet, but I have to acclimate to the new kinds of conversations I’ll be having.

For example, there’s the conversation that I had with my mother.

Mom: What are you having for dinner?

Me: Well, Bridget and the kids are having cheese quesadillas.

Mom: Why aren’t you having cheese quesadillas?

Me: I’m trying to watch my cholesterol. Cheese is bad for your cholesterol.

Mom: You could always have a quesadilla without the cheese.

Me: ?

I believe I actually said “?”, which I’ve never done before. Then again, I’ve never considered eating only the outside of a quesadilla – the “dilla” – before.

Still, I have to ask, has my mother stumbled on to something? Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers have been trying in vain to make tasty diet food by substituting new-fangled but bland ingredients for the unhealthy but deliciously dangerous ingredients. What if your line of diet food just left out the bad stuff completely?

I’d write more about it, but I just ordered a Supreme pizza from Pizza hut – hold the meat, hold the cheese and hold the crust. I’m paying $15 bucks for a layer of peppers, onions and olives in box. Yes, I’m on a low cholesterol diet. But on the bright side, I still get to eat pizza.

I think my mom may be a genius.

King Kong and the Alan Thicke Incident

di•dac•tic adj.

1. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively

I love to know stuff. I love knowing stuff so much that I went to school an extra four years just to know more stuff. I even have a special plaque on my wall just to let other people know I did go to school for those four extra years and because of that I have mad skillz when it comes to knowing stuff.

You better recognize.

My brother Roger has the same skills. Many times at parties, we’ve discussed and debated a subject for hours, each of us elaborately offering up bits of stuff we know, until someone points out that a) we’re both saying exactly the same thing, and b) the party is over and everyone else has gone home. That’s how important knowing stuff is to me.

At the moment, Bridget is recovering from surgery. Since she’s stuck on the couch, we decided it would be nice to make some snacks and watch the new King Kong movie with the kids. At about an hour into the movie, the cast of adventurers had just been captured by skull-wearing islanders when Gabriel asked me an unusual question:

“Dad, why do Canadians hate us?”

Wow, I thought. What an odd question from a six year-old. It certainly deserved a thoughtful answer.

“Gabriel, the Canadians don’t hate us. And we don’t hate them. In fact, Canada is one of our largest trading partners.”

Bridget spoke up. “Gabriel isn’t interested in hearing about Canada, Richard.”

Obviously, the pain medication was affecting her. Gabriel wouldn’t have asked about Canada if he wasn’t curious, so I continued.

“Canadians are just a bitter than we have both the NFL and the NBA, while they only have hockey. Plus, there’s the infamous Alan Thicke incident.”

“He doesn’t mean “Canadians”, Richard,” said Bridget. “He means “Cannibals.””

“Cannibals?” I looked at the television where skull-wearing natives were industriously killing off the cast members of King Kong.

“Oh,” I said and turned bright red. It seemed that the teacher had been taught a lesson. This was a turning point, a moment when I could re-evaluate my need to overwhelm people with facts.

Or not. Knowing stuff is always better than self-awareness.

“Cannibals don’t really hate us, Gabriel. Their dietary choices are often a result of limited food resources or superstition.”

Gabriel looked at me. “Are they mad about that Alan Thicke thing, too?”

“Who isn’t?”

Lost in Transition

My grandmother has Alzheimer’s. I saw her recently at a get-together celebrating her fiftieth wedding anniversary. She looked exactly the same as I’ve always remembered her, a short woman with the kind of silver, curled hair only weekly visits to the beauty parlor can give you. I think she called me Mike or some other name, but that didn’t bother me; I knew what she meant.

Usually, I avoid thinking about my grandmother’s illness. I have this feeling that I should be doing or saying something more. Until this morning, though, I had no idea what that might be.

As I do almost every Thursday morning, I buckled all of the kids into the car and headed toward Gabriel’s school. We had twenty minutes to kill, so I decided to explore the old Thoroughgood neighborhood around the school.

Our detour bothered Gabriel. The further we drove away from our established route, the more bothered he got.

“Dad, we can’t be late for school,” he said. “Let’s go to the school like we’re supposed to. You’re getting us lost.”

Gabriel was right, actually. We were lost at one point, but I didn’t tell him that.

“We’re not lost,” I replied. “There’s more than one way to get there.”

Sure enough, I eventually guessed at the correct turn and we threaded our way back to more familiar streets. We made it to the school with minutes to spare and Gabriel relaxed instantly when he saw the brick building.

The second Gabriel relaxed, I thought of my grandmother and her fiftieth wedding anniversary. I wished I had taken Gabriel up to my grandmother and said:

“Gabriel, this is my grandmother. Sometimes, she doesn’t remember me, but I remember her. She used to be a school teacher. When I was a kid, she told me that it was okay that I liked books more than I liked sports. She told me that being smart was way better than being popular. She told me one day I would do something important, right and good. She told me who I was, back when I didn’t even know. She doesn’t remember, but I remember enough for both of us.”

And even though I don’t think it would make a difference, I should have said, “Grandma, I know you’re lost. I know you’re confused. I know you can’t remember how you got here. But try not to be scared; I think we’re all going to the same, good place and there’s more than one way to get there.

Desperate Onions

My wife is so serious about marriage and monogamy that we’ve actually come to the following understanding:

If she dies before I do, I am not allowed to re-marry.

And it gets worse. Not only is re-marriage out of the question; so is sex of any kind – for the rest of my life.

“What happens in heaven if you get re-married?” Bridget asks me. “Which wife would you be with?”

Bridget has given much thought to the issue, apparently. And now, so have I.

“If it’s heaven, then I doubt I’m married,” I say.

This is both a really, really funny thing to say – and really, really the wrong thing to say to Bridget.

Bridget woke up one morning recently and announced very seriously that she had dreamed that I had adulterous sex with Teri Hatcher from “Desperate Housewives.” My wife seemed to want an explanation.

Whoah. A husband should not be held accountable for his wife’s dreams. More importantly, my wife is clearly having the dreams I’m supposed to be having. This is amazingly unfair to me – and Teri (We’re having dream sex, what do you want me to call her? Ms. Hatcher?).

A week later, Bridget dreamed that I had sex with three female ghosts which, unfortunately, is only slightly less likely than me sleeping with Teri Hatcher. That same night, I think I dreamed about…onions. Again, this was unfair. But her dream did give me an idea.

“Bridget, if you die before I do, I think I can promise not to re-marry or have sex with anyone else…” I said. “…on one condition.”

“What’s the condition?” she asked.

“You have to have ghost sex with me.”

Laugh all you want. We have a deal.

Somewhere in California, Teri Hatcher is meeting with her therapist and saying, “I keep having these dreams that I’m having sex with a strange man while his wife is watching.”

“Do you recognize the man?” asks the therapist.

“No,” says Teri Hatcher. “But he smells like onions.”

Insane in the Membranes

My wife is near insane with hypochondria – for my children. If six year old Gabriel develops a cough, I usually think, “Hmm. Gabriel’s getting a cold.” If my wife hears the same rough hacking, she automatically escalates the diagnosis to pneumonia or pleurisy. This is important because:

Yesterday, Gabriel kneed his younger brother in the, ahem, testicles.

I apologize for the bluntness. I know the official Southern Family rulebook demands that my family come up with cute euphemisms for body parts i.e. “kiki”, “tatas”, “cha chas” or my personal favorite, “tallywhacker.” I, however, enjoy the horrified look that neighbors get when one of my kids busts out the word “vagina”, so we stick with the classics.

So, anyway…yesterday, accidentally or not, Gabriel hit three year old Julian way, way uncomfortably low in the stomach. Julian told his mother, “Mom, my testicles hurt.”

I’m sure it did. Heck, my testicles hurt just typing the sentence. But it’s one of those things that every boy learns the hard way. Bridget, though, was worried. First, she called me. When she couldn’t reach me, she did what any rational mother would do – she called her stepfather in Florida….to ask about my son’s testicles.

Now, whenever I’m bored, I like to imagine that awkward conversation.

This morning, though, my smugness was tested when Bridget rushed Julian over to me. She was frantic.

“Julian says there’s something wrong with his penis.”

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked. Panic rose in me. What if Julian’s testicles had really been hurt yesterday? What if, God help me, something was broken and I had just smugly blown it off?

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it. I can’t understand him,” she said.

“What’s wrong, Julian?” I asked.

He said something about his penis, but I couldn’t hear it clearly. I leaned in closer.

“Dad, my penis…”

“Yes, Julian?”

And then he said, I swear to God…

“Dad, my penis is big….”

Instantly, Bridget’s face went from anxiety to irritation and she stood up. I looked Julian in the eye with as much commiseration as I could muster.

“So is Dad’s, Julian. So is Dad’s.”

My Other Niece Proves Me Wrong

A few months after the humiliating AIDS/ice cream incident detailed in my previous post, I sat at my brother’s house with his family and my new girlfriend.

I liked this particular girlfriend and she wanted to meet my family, so I willingly ran the risk that my brother’s kids would embarrass me again. Plus, I had naively hypothesized that my eldest niece had humiliation-proofed me.

My previous post laid out this hypothesis of mine- namely, that kids can only humiliate you so much. There was, I thought, an absolute bottom to an adult’s humiliation that no mere child could take you below. My eldest niece had taken me to that limit and now I was safe.

There were two things wrong with that hypothesis. First, it was postulated at a Ben and Jerry’s under the influence of Chunky Monkey ice cream. Most serious scientists know that chunks of anything can retard the scientific process; there’s no telling what actual chunks of monkey will do to it.

Secondly, I assumed that kids have some sort of control over what they say. I understand now that there is a hidden force that moves kids to embarrass adults. This same force, I believe, also forces kids to spill red juice on white carpets.

I sat next to my girlfriend on the couch and my youngest niece jumped into my lap and hugged me. I knew I was safe with this niece. There would be no talk about immunity-suppressing diseases and skin rashes. She was four years-old. She would spend most of her time talking about colors, numbers and cartoon characters.

As it turns out, I was right.

She looked at me lovingly and intently for a few seconds and asked me this:

“Uncle, why are your teeth yellow?”

I stopped smiling immediately so that my yellow teeth would not clash with my bright red face.

“Are they dirty?” she asked.

“It’s the coffee,” I cried out, but she had already moved on to counting the number of pimples on my face.

I was at the dentist the next day.

Amazing But True Stories, Part 3

While we’re on the subject of my hapless conversations with kids, I’m reminded of an incident that occurred before I had kids of my own. This conversation involved my brother’s eldest daughter. She was, I think, about seven years-old at the time.

Looking back, it seems like a kind of warning.

Back then, my brother would invite me (his wayward, bachelor brother) to vicariously experience family life by tagging along when his family went to, say, Ben and Jerry’s to get ice cream.

While standing in line for ice cream one humid night, I decided to show my eldest niece the case of Poison Ivy I had on the back of my right hand. I am still a little fuzzy on why I made that decision, but I think it went like this:

“Hmmm. Kids like gross stuff. The Poison Ivy outbreak on the back of my hand is definitely gross. I think I’ll show my niece my Poison Ivy rash.”

Seeing my mistake in retrospect is easy. I had used the very same reasoning that has launched a billion pull-my-finger jokes. I had aimed squarely for cool uncle territory and instead doddered into embarrassing granpa territory. This could end in only one way.

Humiliation.

My niece did not disappoint me. She looked at the bubbly rash on the back of my hands for a few seconds. I waited for her mouth to form a kind of fascinated smile, but it didn’t. Instead, her entire face screwed up into, well, a horrified look. And then she yelled at the top of her lungs:

“Ooooooooh. My Uncle has AIDS!”

Did I mention how loud she said this? Have I mentioned how quiet the Ben and Jerry’s store got? You could hear nothing but crickets outside and the ice cream coolers inside. To this day, I have never seen people staring as intently at their bowls of ice cream as the people in this store did.

While I calmly, noisily and repeatedly explained to my niece that I did not have AIDS, part of me was happy. Once you’ve been that intensely embarrassed, I hypothesized, nothing can ever embarrass you again.

Next: My Other Niece Proves Me Wrong

We Are Bald-Headed Robots

I know that five year-old kids ask a lot of questions. As a parent, I’m prepared for that much. Prior to getting into this parenting gig, though, I imagined that my child and I would have, well, Socratic conversations. I imagined that occasionally my darling naïf, full of wonder at the world, would ask questions and I would gently hand down wisdom accumulated from my world travels.

I wasn’t prepared for the interrogations. And, to be honest, I wasn’t prepared for the stupid crap we’d be discussing. Don’t get me wrong. I like discussing stupid crap; I’d just rather be inflicting it than enduring it.

A recent conversation in our car went like this:

Gabriel: Dad, are we bald-headed robots?

Dad: What?

Gabriel: Dad, are we bald-headed robots?

Dad: No.

Gabriel: Dad, are we bald-headed robots?

Dad: No.

Gabriel: Dad, are we bald-headed robots?

Dad: No!

Gabriel: Dad, are we bald-headed robots?

Dad (exasperated) Yes, Gabriel, we are bald-headed robots.

A few moments of silence:

Gabriel: Dad, why are we bald-headed robots?

Clearly, my kid has future in Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency or some other bureaucratic hell agency where they prize circular, painful conversations – perhaps the customer service line at my cell phone company, for instance.

It's Not You, Dude, It's Me

My friend Lindsay is going through one of those slow-motion breakups that everyone has to go through at one time or another. Naturally, she’s reading the new bible for confused women – “He’s Just Not That IntoYou” by Greg Behrendt. Essentially, the book explains that if a guy is sending you mixed messages, he’s probably not that “in” to you.

“Duh,” I said, when Lindsay explained the premise of the book to me. I said this because I’m a guy, and when guys are given the chance to display actual compassion, we’ll opt for ridicule every time.

“You needed a $20 book to tell you that if your boyfriend won’t spend time with you then he’s probably not into you?”

Lindsay didn’t take my sarcasm well. “Maybe the book is stupid, but I’ve put two years into this relationship. I don’t want to just throw it away.’

Not Long After…

I was talking to my friend Kieth about a mutual friend of ours named Matt.

“Hey,” said Kieth, “Did Matt call you yesterday to tell you that we’re all going bowling tonight?”

This took me by surprise. I didn’t realize that we were bowling kind of guys. I’ve known these two guys for twenty years and never once have we bowled. So this was similar to Kieth casually mentioning that we were Buddhists – only that’s not weird enough. It was more like Kieth mentioning that we were Buddhist German Shepherds.

“Nope,” I said looking at my caller ID box. “I don’t think he’s called.”

“Hmmm,” said Kieth, “That’s strange.”

Only that’s not strange for Matt.

“Usually,” I explained, “Matt doesn’t call me unless I call him.”

“Really?”

“Really,” I replied. “It makes me feel kind of stupid. Even worse, I called him last Friday to see if wanted to come over to a little dinner party my wife and I were throwing. You wanna know why he didn’t come over?”

“Why?”

“He said he was gonna watch some television.”

“Oh,” said Kieth understandingly. “Well, he does watch “Enterprise” on Friday nights.”

“C’mon, Kieth! Why would he ditch our dinner party for “Enterprise”? It’s not like he’s missing “Next Generation” or even “Voyager”. And why do I have to call him first every…holy crap.”

Holy crap, indeed.

I had just realized something. Matt was just not that into me.

Duh.

So, I may just buy a copy of that Behrendt book. I have, after all, put twenty years into this relationship. I’d hate to just throw it away.

Star Trek and Sparkly Sashes

It’s a basic tenet of science fiction dogma that there is a universe parallel to ours. This universe is a replica of ours in every way except that it contains evil, negative versions of us regular humans.

In the Star Trek universe, these negative versions are easy to spot. They wear sparkly sashes and goatees and incorrigibly try to seduce anyone who moves. Ironically, this is very similar to the way conservatives view gays – as negative people who wear sparkly sashes and goatees and incorrigibly try to marry anyone who moves.

But I digress.

Regular readers know that in my last post I joked the hell out of my wife’s bad moods. I took great pains to portray myself as a hapless and bemused victim who anticipates the storms and rides them using only my plucky wit and resolve. I even coyly inferred that maybe my wife’s menses had something to do with it.

Heh. I’m a stitch.

Today, though, I did something embarrassing. I yelled at my wife on the phone. Real loud. It had to do with money and absolutely none of it was her fault. Exactly two seconds after I hung up the phone, I had a few epiphanies.

Yelling at my wife is bad, for instance. Also, I’m pretty sure I’m not having a period. It is, I deduced, possible that being an ass is unrelated to whether you’re having cramps or not.

But it also made me think about evil, parallel Star Trek universes and the evil, negative people who live in them. At any point, does one of the negative people look down and have a moment of self-awareness? Does he look down and say, “Oh, great. I’m wearing a sparkly sash. I’m an evil guy!?”

I think it probably does happen. And it’s probably a jarring moment. But it’s reversible. All the evil guy has to do is apologize to his wife.

Oh, yeah. And take off the sparkly sash. They may be completely wrong about the gay thing, but conservatives are definitely right about sash wearing.

Grim Richard's First Contest Ever...

Every now and again, I get into real trouble with my wife. Peculiarly enough, this trouble usually lasts exactly 48 hours, starting promptly on Saturday mornings and ending suddenly on Monday mornings.

It reminds me of an episode of “24”, the television show where each hour-long episode equates to exactly one hour in anti-terrorist Jack Bauer’s day. My personal television show, however, is called “48”, and each minute feels like an entire day.

That Jack Bauer is a lucky bastard.

If he was working with my wife during one of these “episodes”, here’s how life would go at the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU):

Jack (on phone to CTU): I’m gonna need you to cross-index the phone records of our plutonium-theft suspect with the phone records of the possible double agent secreted in our group.

Wife (at CTU): Do it yourself. I’m tired of cleaning up the database after you.

Jack: But I’m currently undercover with a Columbian cartel in another country. The CIA, unaware that I’m only pretending to be a double agent, has pinned us down with heavy weapons fire. Plus, my cell phone is down to, like, half a bar. And I’m pretty sure I’m running over my minutes.

Wife: That’s not my problem. Maybe if you showed me a little respect, things would be different.

Jack: Listen, for the sake of America and rest of the world, you and I need to work together on this. We can’t get into fights every couple of weeks.

Wife: Now you’re blaming this on my period?

Jack: What?

Wife: You said this happens every couple of weeks. You think I’m irrational because of my period.

Jack: Huh? Are you on your period?

Wife: You know I am, Jack. See, that’s the first thing a man assumes when a woman’s legitimately angry.

Jack: Omigod! I’ve been shot. The bullet pierced the thermos full of radioactive plutonium I’ve been hiding in my underwear. I need CTU backup, now!

Wife: Now you’re yelling at me? (She hangs up on Jack)

Like I said, Jack Bauer is a lucky bastard. This season, he’s even found a new love interest. I wish I’d seen that first date…”I’m currently widowed because I had an adulterous affair when I was separated from my wife. My adulterous lover turned out to be a vicious psychopath and she murdered my wife. But don’t worry, I’ve already killed her.”....

The Lenny Kravitz T-Shirt Conspiracy

Every morning at 6 a.m., my wife and I roust our three kids from their warm beds and dress them.

Mostly, this is not fun. Julian, our two year-old boy, starts to cry from the second he’s awakened and continues until we leave for the babysitters. Roughly, that means that he cries without cessation for an entire hour – every day.

His talent at nursing a whine would be amazing if it weren’t so irritating. My wife and I have dubbed Julian’s voice a frustrato – a high male voice incapable of shattering glass but fully adept at busting your last freaking nerve.

To combat this, we like to use a dash of Spock and a pinch of “The Super Nanny”, which means that mostly we’ve just begged Julian to stop and attempted to bribe him with Pop-Tarts. None of this works.

All of the preceding explains why my five year-old son, Gabriel, has been dressing himself lately. Often, Gabriel will mistakenly put on his younger brother’s smaller clothes. I will walk into Gabriel’s room to find the following scene - a really thin kid wearing tight pants that barely button and a tiny, two-sizes-too-small shirt that comes down to just above the kid’s navel.

In other words, my son looks like a really pale Lenny Kravitz.

Except Lenny Kravitz would probably be wearing his younger sister’s clothes, too.

I think a lot about Lenny Kravitz on those mornings while I dress myself. Why won’t anyone buy Lenny a shirt that fits? Is it some kind of shirt conspiracy? After America finishes freeing Iraq, should we consider a mission to free Lenny’s pectorals?

Usually, my thoughts of concern are broken by Julian’s amazing unstoppable whine and I look down to see that I’m getting ready to put on one of my wife’s t-shirts. She walks by in a pair of my boxers.

Lenny’s probably okay, I think.