The How-Not-To Guide to Parenting and Marriage (11 page)

48. ON DAUGHTERS AND DATING

I have two daughters. They are now getting to the age where they have noticed boys. I know they will eventually find a guy that they want to marry, but until the day of the wedding, it is my job to keep these little hormone factories in check. Here are a few tricks I've learned.

1. Until your girls are teen agers, you can convince them that kissing boys can cause cancer. To drive the point home, remind them of Aunt Sarah who died of cancer, and suggest (don't state as fact, that would be lying) that perhaps she kissed too many boys.

2. Inform all potential suitors, that anything they intend to do with your daughter, they must first do to you.

3. Spend an afternoon digging and reburying a half dozen graves, but leave one grave open. Make sure they are well within eyeshot of the front porch.

4. When a boy arrives to take your daughter on a date, have two spray bottles ready. In one, have water and rubbing alcohol. In the other, have water and ammonia. Spray down your daughter with one of the concoctions, and the boy with the other. Then tell them that any contact between the two chemicals will cause a violent, fiery explosion.

49. THE PLAYGROUND OF DEATH (“When I was a kid . . . “)

I was at my daughter’s school the other day, and I couldn’t help but notice the playground. It was nothing like the playground at the school I attended as a kid. It was all padded and sanitary. Fluffy woodchips covered all areas where a fall might occur, and there were almost no exposed steel or bolts. In fact, nearly all the equipment was covered in a protective coating of plastic or padding. I tried to imagine how a child might accomplish sustaining an injury on this playground, but I could come up with very few scenarios. While knowing that my daughter had recess on such a safe playground made me feel at ease, I also had to wonder how this new generation of kids would ever develop any character or grit.

In my day, recess was not something that was always enjoyed. Many times, it was something to be survived.

The equipment was hard steel and chain, with bolts sticking out everywhere, and completely void of any hand rails. The surface on which a student’s buttocks sat upon to go down the slide, was often heated to a bun blistering 800 degrees by the sun. After the skin searing trip down the slide, you were spit onto asphalt instead of the nice fluffy woodchips of my daughter’s playground. And so many knees, elbows and rear ends had been cheese gratered by this patch of black top that it had taken on a flesh color . . . . Presumably from all the skin layers that it had claimed.

Worse yet, was the merry go round. Despite its fun appearance and happy sounding name, this playground beast was a veritable death machine. Powered overzealous “pushers”, this monster sent victims flying off at a vision blurring velocity at regular intervals. But not before bouncing them around its spinning round surface that was covered with bars intended to give riders a place to hold on to. Much like a ping pong ball in a clothes dryer.

The surface of the merry go round sat just high enough off the ground that a child (often a pusher who failed to keep up) could fall and be sucked under. Once this occurred, the squeaky, spinning child launcher became a meat grinder, turning helpless victims into crying lumps of
ground sausage. There were rumors-a-plenty of kids being sucked into the belly of the beast, never to be seen or heard of again.

A see-saw at the far end of the playground served as a spine compactor and tail bone breaker. There was always a fat kid sitting on one side
, promising not to get off while you were on the up side. But without fail, the fat kid would break his promise, and with a demonic laugh, jump off when the lighter child was at the highest point, sending him rocketing back to the ground like Wile E Coyote falling off a cliff with an anvil in his arms.

And if you could manage to survive all that, you still had to survive the sadistic sixth-graders. They seemed to feed on the younger, smaller students
’ fear and pain. Using the playground equipment as their own instruments of torture. Although I could never prove it, I’m fairly certain that “Playground Bully” was a salaried position at the school.

With each recess came carnage. Dripping blood and broken teeth were common-place. The adult recess attendant was oblivious to all dangers, and if you came to her with an injury, the response was always the same . . . . “Well I don’t see any bone or intestine. I think you’ll be fine.”

Now I’m not saying that I want my daughters to go through the meat grinder, or have to deal with mercenary bullies like I had, but there was something to be said about surviving a semester of recesses. It was cause for celebration amongst friends . . . . amongst brothers. It made us tough.

50.
QUESTIONS THAT HAVE NO ANSWERS.

1. Why does candy stolen from my daughters' Easter baskets and Halloween bags taste so much better than any candy I could buy at the store?

2. How can my daughter's hate a pair
of jeans, that they loved less than 24 hours ago, when they begged for them at the store?

3. Why do the animals in our house only pee and throw up on the area rugs, instead of the wood floors that are throughout our entire house.

4. Can the microwave rotating tray stay clean for more than a few minutes before someone (someone who didn't spend the last hour chiseling radioactive food concrete off of it) puts a bowl of chili in and over nukes it by 5 minutes?

Actually that question has an answer. The answer is no.

5. Why does my wife call me on her twenty minute ride home, knowing that we will be face to face shortly, and also knowing how much I hate talking on the phone?

51.
AS IT SHOULD BE

As I walked in the door after my long day at work, I was met by my two daughters.

"How was your day, dad?" they both asked as they gave me a big hug.

  "It wasn't too bad" I replied, "what smells so good?"

"Oh, Natalie and I made nachos, tacos and burritos for dinner . . . . . after we finished cleaning our rooms and doing our homework".

"That's wonderful girls!" I said, giving each a big hug.

After a quick shower, I returned to the dining room where we all sat down to one of the best meals I had eaten in quite some time. In fact, it was so good, that after eating each delicious taco, I would get up and hug my wife and daughters, and they would hug me back, telling me how wonderful my taco breath smelled.

Upon finishing the excellent dinner, the girls cleared the table and washed the dishes, and then the four of us retired to the living room to relax and watch a little TV. My wife brought out a heavenly double chocolate cake that had been made for desert.

"What should we watch?" I asked.

"How about something with rocket launchers and zombies!" replied my daughter Hannah.

"Yes!" added Natalie, "and with fast cars and explosions!”

“Are you sure?” I asked, “Don’t you girls want to watch your teenage drama shows?”

“No father, You have worked hard all day, we want to watch your show.”

"That sounds wonderful" I said as I hugged and kissed both girls.”

As I turned on the TV, my wife brought me a huge piece of the chocolate cake and my slippers.

“Thank you my lov . . . . . . “

Before I could finish my sentence, I was interrupted by a loud crash, and a sharp pain in my nose. I winced in agony.

When I opened my eyes, my wife was gone . . . . and there was no sign of the chocolate cake she was about to hand me before the loud noise and the pain. Instead, I was laying on the couch with my daughter Natalie sitting on my chest. My daughter Hannah was standing at the end of the couch near my head, violently swatting at her sister with a tennis racket. Natalie was kicking back at her with her feet
, in an attempt to ward off the blows. And with every second or third kick, her leg would come down with a thump on my face. Hannah’s racket aim left much to be desired as well, in that, every other swat would crack me on the nose with the follow through. There was also a half-eaten piece of pizza lying face down on my forehead.

“WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!!!!” I demanded.

“Hannah stole the last piece of pizza!”

“Well Natalie keeps changing the channel from my show!” Hannah answered.

“I thought you girls wanted me to watch my zombie movie . . . . “ I said, somewhat confused.

Both girls looked at each other as if I had just spoken to them in Latin.

“Where did you get pizza? Aren’t you both full from the dinner you made me after you cleaned your rooms?” I asked.

Again they looked at each other, and then both broke out in loud maniacal laughter.

“Made dinner? Cleaned our rooms? HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

I was more confused, “Remember? You said I had worked hard today
, so I could watch my show, and you guys made tacos and nachos and burritos for dinner, and we were hugging, and you said how wonderful my taco breath smelled . . . . “

I stopped talking as my brain began to piece together the facts.

The girls started in with their wild laughter again, “HAHAHAHAHA! You’ve been a dead lump on the couch since you got home! HAHAHAHAH, He said his breath smelled good! HAHAHAHA!”

As the girls walked off, laughing hysterically, I began to realize that it had all been a dream. There was no taco dinner, or hugging, or even chocolate cake.

My wife sat across the room with an amused smile on her face. I tried telling her about my dream, but had to stop when she began laughing as hard as the girls had been.

Being disappointed about not actually having a taco dinner or hugging, I decided that I wasn’t going to miss out on the chocolate cake. I rose from the couch and went to the little diner down the road from us, where I ordered a large piece of double chocolate cake. . . . . . a man can only handle so much disappointment in one evening.

52. THE BEHAVIORIZER

What if I told you that there was a device that you could purchase, that when plugged in and turned on, it would emit and energy field that caused children to calm down. Not just calm down, but actually sit silently and trouble free for as long as you want.

Right now, many of you battle-weary parents are thinking, "That would be WONDERFUL!! If only there were such a device!!!"

Well, there is, it's called a television, and I call it the BEHAVIORIZER!

Now I know that as parents, we are not supposed to let our children watch too much TV. Some of you may not even let your kids watch it at all. But its soooo effective, it's hard not to take advantage of its bluish, hypnotic glow.

HOURS! . . . They will sit for hours, and not move a muscle . . . . . I'm not even sure if they blink. I always keep a spray bottle of water in the living room in case their little eyeballs dry out, and I have to give them a squirt to keep them from squeaking when they move.

I've read and heard all the bad things that television can do to children. I've even heard it said that TV can destroy parts of their developing brain. But sometimes I think that if it’s destroying the part of their brain that makes them run around like savages destroying everything in their path . . . . maybe that was a part of the brain that needed to be destroyed! I mean, I'm sure they never would have performed lobotomies on people if they didn't have a positive outcome.

And besides, look at me. I'm normal, and I grew up with a BEHAVIORIZER as a baby-sitter.

There are many positive sides to television as well. It has made me aware of products that I need to buy. Some of these products, I didn't even know existed until TV showed them to me, and I realized that I couldn't live without them.

And you can't deny the benefit of being able to watch history unfold before your eyes either. In my life, I have been able to see live, in color, many landmark moments in time, such as Evil
Knievel jump over a couple dozen buses, or the mysterious transformation of "Bewitched" husband Darren Stevens, from one person to a completely different person, with no explanation!

And without TV, they couldn't spend hours developing hand eye coordination by playing video games, or learn about the cruelty of war, or alien invasions.

I know as a parent, that I should limit my children's TV watching and video gaming, but once you've experienced the calm and quiet that it can produce as it slowly turns your child's brain into oatmeal, it's hard to go back. It's like I'm Luke being lured over to the Dark Side.

The Dark Side has POWER!

53. VOMIT HOLOCAUST

I was right in the middle of a dream about being a modern day pirate that drove a large RV camper instead of a pirate ship, when my daughter's voice awoke me. I could tell something wasn't right, so I went to her room to investigate. Upon entering her room, I found our dog Pippi already on the scene. My daughter was sitting up in her bed, which happened to be the top bunk of a bunk bed.

In a voice that was half cry, she said, "Daddy, I don't feel-

And in the middle of her sentence, it happened.

Time seemed to go into super slow motion, as the projectile vomit shot from out of her mouth
, and came straight at my head. With moves like a daddy ninja, I dodged my head to the left, letting the vomit missile pass over my right shoulder.

I made eye contact with our dog Pippi for a split second, giving her a wink and a look that said, "Only a dad with ninja skills could have avoided that puke bullet that just went over my shoulder, and is about to land somewhere behind me".

In that same fraction of a second, still before the vomit had landed, Pippi returned my look with a sarcastic doggy grin that almost seemed to say, "You are celebrating a little too early, karate dad".

The vomit that I had been so proud of avoiding, had gone from the child's mouth on the top bunk, over
my shoulder and behind me. . . . . only to land squarely on the large fan that always ran in my daughter's room to help her sleep.

SPAAAFLOOOOSH!!!! The room exploded.

I stood motionless, unsure of how much carnage the fan-vomit bomb had created. The wall in front of me was covered in a fine vomit splatter, except for the still spotless silhouettes of one dog and one leaning-to-the-left daddy ninja.

Pippi was motionless as well, looking up at me as if to say, "Do something you idiot!”

Not only were I and the dog both covered in barf, but three walls of the room, part of the ceiling, and all of the clothes in the child's open closet, as well. Nearly everything in the room except for the child from which it originated was glistening. The smell was overwhelming.

Having sent my child to go find her mother, I began to contemplate the cleanup process, and how to even begin it. For a few moments, I seriously thought about just shutting the door and drywalling over it, never entering the room again.

Unfortunately, my wife was not going for my idea, so I spent the rest of the night showering with the dog, washing clothes, and scrubbing walls and carpet.

The fan now sits on the dresser, a safe distance from the bunk bed.