Suburgatory (14 page)

At
Totally, Completely Not-Creepy Chimney Sweep,
our serviceman will not size you up and down and think about all the dirty things he wants to do to you.
The Totally, Completely Not-Creepy Chimney Sweep
will never ask to use the bathroom just to look in your medicine cabinet in hopes of learning more about you.

The
Totally, Completely Not-Creepy Chimney Sweep
will not find an excuse to “check something with the chimney upstairs,” slip into your bedroom, slowly open the dresser drawer next to your bed, and look for something naughty that will give him days of material for self-pleasuring. He will not go to his buddies back at
Totally, Completely Not-Creepy Chimney Sweep
headquarters and say, “You need to get a load of the rack on that lady down on Milford Street.” And it should go without saying that your
Totally, Completely Not-Creepy Chimney Sweep
will not then look you up on the Internet and try to friend you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter.

That will never happen. Why? Because we are not men. We are
professionals.
Wear that thong all you want, we're not looking! Trust in us, and we'll treat your chimney like the Queen you are. Call us today!

Dad Confirms Child's
Worst Fears in Life

Suburgatory, USA—A dad who works as an actuary can't resist ghoulishly confirming his child's worst fears in life, in what's been described as perhaps the worst bedtime tuck-in talk ever captured on video.

Joe Gardner's wife Cherie surreptitiously recorded the incident with the couple's ten-year-old son, Andrew, and is about to post it on YouTube.

“Why would I put this horror show with the two people I love most in the world up for all to see? I'll tell you why. Joe is the greatest, most wonderful dad, but he doesn't believe me when I tell him that he is surely scaring the living shit out of our child, not to mention destroying his dreams and ambitions. And I need the rest of the world to tell him he's out of his mind and needs to stop,” said Cherie.

Joe tried to defend himself. “What can I say? I've always had a weird talent for doom even as a child. Lady Gaga's right: I was born this way. I'm not ashamed! Then when I kicked ass in math, well, doom + math = boom! I'm an actuary! I love my job and yes, I do want my kid to know what disasters he really has to fear in life and what he doesn't.”

“But honey, you're also a
dad,
and you should be saying to him, these terrible things will
never happen,
” Cherie said.

“Actuaries never say never. You should know that by now, Cherie,” Joe responded.

Exasperated, Cherie loaded the YouTube clip and played it. Then she pointed her finger at this reporter. “
You
tell me how crazy this is.”

Joe:
Bedtime, Polar Bear [Andrew's nickname]! How was your day?

Andrew:
Great, Dad! We did a unit on space in school. It was soooo cool; I think I want to be an astronaut. My teacher thought that was great.

Joe:
Well, it's a really cool field that's for sure, but you should know the odds of becoming an astronaut are 13,000,200 to 1. The odds are better at becoming President. But you know, that's a real long shot, too. That's 10 million to 1! Probably better to think a little more practically about things to do with your life.

Andrew:
Oh.

Joe:
Hey, Mom said you looked a little freaked when that thunderstorm came through this afternoon.

Andrew:
Well . . . a little.

Joe:
Listen, Polar Bear. Daddy knows more than anyone about whether you should worry—it's what I do all day long at work. I'll tell you whether you really have to worry a lot about lightning. Compared to other stuff that can kill you, the answer is no. I mean, you have a way way higher chance of dying in the car on the way to school! Or in the bathtub right there [pointing to the bathroom]! And not by drowning, but by falling; so try to keep your feet steady in there, buddy! Ha ha ha. Heck, even the lawnmower's way more deadly than lightning. You know what's weird?

Andrew:
What, Dad?

Joe:
You'd
think
your risk of dying by chainsaw would be higher than dying by the lawnmower but, well, you'd be wrong—lawnmower wins! Maybe we shouldn't talk about all this.

Andrew:
No, tell me, Daddy.

Joe:
Well you always hear that the most dangerous thing you do is get in the car every day and that's true, no doubt about it. But while the chances are very high that you will be in an accident at some point, the chances you'll
die
in that accident are pretty low. Lower, in fact, than the chances of being murdered! Lower even than the chances that a catastrophic asteroid will hit the Earth! Which sounds crazy, but boy when you crunch the numbers, it doesn't start looking so unlikely. Those big scary Hollywood movies? Well, they may not be so far off.

Within just a half hour of the YouTube clip being up, comments began to appear: “Douchebag.” “You are one sick and scary bastard.” “So, I can't get pregnant and this psycho gets to be a parent?” “Paging protective services!”

With that last comment, Cherie quickly took the clip down, but not before saying to Joe, accusingly, “You see?????” Joe, looking deflated, said he would go check in on Andrew to see if he was OK.

Joe:
Bear, I'm so sorry for our little talk tonight. So, so sorry.

Andrew:
Why, Daddy?

Joe:
Well I guess I sort of told you to forget about being an astronaut and then I talked about all that awful stuff that can happen.

Andrew:
It's OK, Dad! I wasn't scared at all. I thought it was so cool! I can't wait to tell the boys all that cool stuff at school!
Especially
that death by chainsaw part!

Joe:
Well, don't scare them too much. And you can be an astronaut if you want to be. You're my best boy. You can be anything you want to be.

Andrew:
I don't want to be an astronaut anymore. Dad?

Joe:
Yes, Andrew?

Andrew:
What are my chances of becoming an actuary?

In a flash, Joe went from looking chastened to elated. He gave Andrew a bear hug and said, “Chances are sky-high.”

SHOUT OUT

Message to Husband:
Stop Getting Boners When I Cook

Beatrice Mathers is a mom and corporate lawyer who lives on Thomas Street.

I take to the Shout Out today, as a proud feminist married to a husband who I
thought
was a proud feminist, too. Except now the only time—and I'm not exaggerating—the
only
time he gets a boner for me is when I'm in the kitchen.

When I was a girl, I remember watching the classic '70s horror movie
The Stepford Wives,
and being disgusted that the men were massively turned on by the fantastic cooking of the sexy domestic robots they had created. “She cooks as good as she looks” is the line I remember best.

But I don't have one of those suburban body-snatcher husbands, right? Or do I? My husband Bill is my own private Dennis Kucinich. Most of his friends are women, half of which are lesbians, and there is the guy from high school who got a sex change but still likes women so she's now a lesbian, too. All are welcomed in the warm embrace of our anything-goes, super-liberal home. We've been together for nearly twenty years but didn't get married until I was eight months pregnant, and when we did it was at the Justice of the Peace and I wore a stained chambray maternity jumper (gay men everywhere are weeping at this). My husband got really sad when feminist Bella Abzug died, cried during the Harvey Milk movie, and once told me he didn't care if I ever shaved.

And yet as soon as our son was safely swaddled in our first suburban home, he seemed to forget that I used a microwave almost exclusively when we lived together for the three or so meals a week I ate at home. Back then, “cooking” meant using the stove top to boil water. Now, I quickly saw that it was here, in the kitchen, that he was most attracted to me. Those times when he remembered when I was a real professional kicking ass on the job? Oh, that's nice, honey. But put me in front of the stove endlessly stirring some chocolate pudding? Watch out, Daddy's zooming in like a predator drone to sex me up! “Woman, why don't you go in the kitchen and make me a sandwich.” That was now my life, not a joke. (OK, apology break here to Bill for serving up my own steaming pile of hyperbole. He would never, ever say that to me, and not because I would lacerate his genitals, which I
would,
but because he's not a caveman. That said, you can damn well bet that he'd still love that sandwich, and love me a little more because I made it for him.)

The problem for wives, of course, is that a woman who achieves at work can be an absolute flop at homemaking. Not me, of course (cough, splutter). And we are often blindsided, left to wonder if we really knew our husbands and whether they ever valued us for what we are truly good at: Working in a goddamn office, dumbass! What do you think I went to an Ivy League school for? To flip your fucking pancakes? The fact that it isn't intentional makes it even more insidious, as if even an enlightened man like my own can't resist the siren song of sexist expectations. Bill said it feels completely natural and instinctual that he has this attraction to my domestic side. Yeah, well, my talents in the domestic arts feel about as natural to me as a pair of silicone double-Ds. Oops, gotta go, almost dinnertime. Now, let's see, was that bean burrito supposed to be nuked for a minute thirty or two minutes?

Asperger's Dad Unlikely
Sex Symbol at School Pickup

Suburgatory, USA—A dad with undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome has become an unlikely sex symbol for the moms in the Walker School pickup line, because of his candor, weight-lifting regimen, and “special interest” that is unusually appropriate for socializing with other moms.

“How do we know he has Asperger's?” said Lindsay Cooper. “Gee, I don't know, maybe because these days every one of us either knows a kid with Asperger's or has one ourselves? Trust me. We know it when we see it. And with Mark, we like what we see.”

Mark Toomey works from home as a computer programmer and so is more available than his wife to pick up their children from school.

Beth Barton describes him this way:

“He's hot, he's blunt, he's emotionally unavailable, and, well that's like a triple whammy turn-on. Oh, and you heard about his awesome ‘special interest,' right? And don't forget those rock-hard abs,” said Barton.

Part of Toomey's never-changing routine is intensive weight-lifting. “Ladies, guess who was at the pond last week. Oh. My. God,” said Melissa Bandar to the other moms, while smiling and nodding. They joined her, smiling and nodding.