For a long time, I have restrained myself from writing about the art of fatherly child-rearing. As a man who is simultaneously creeped out by and afraid of accidentally breaking babies, I felt that I had no right to criticize or make suggestions about the beautiful act of raising your children in such a way that they don't turn out to be stupid assholes.
That all changed earlier this week when I read the Bible.
I'm just fucking with you. No, actually, I read “Fatherhood” by Bill Cosby. I was stuck in the waiting room of a Toyota dealership in Downeastern Maine for four and a half hours, and it was the only thing to read that wasn't an AARP pamphlet or Golfer's Digest. He's not just funny. He's very wise.
Anyway, this life changing event has now given me carte blanche to delve into the world of child rearing essays, as I am now clearly an expert on the matter. So here goes:
My horrible, hypothetical child, Rasputin Caligula Von Hateful, was refusing to eat anything other than hot dogs the other night. I would offer him some broccoli and he would say “No Daddy! I want a hot dog!”.
“Broccoli is expensive, My Boy.” I would say. “I provide this for you instead of blowing all our money on Rogaine and issues of Swank.”
“I want hot dogs!!” replied my little ingrate.
“And I want a child who isn't wearing adult diapers at twelve because he is afraid of being sucked down the drain when he flushes.”
“That was cold blooded, Daddy.”
“EAT YOUR FUCKING BROCCOLI!!”
“I WANT HOT DOGS!!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”
“SNUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHH!!”
“BAGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”
This exchange further degraded into noises I cannot even begin to replicate in text for several hours. Needless to say, Li'l Raspy did not get his hot dogs and I spent the evening screaming into a pillow until blood from my lungs had created a nice Shroud of Turin-ish image of Vin Diesel. Nestling on a bloody Vin Diesel put me into a nice, deep to sleep, which allowed me to think of a solution to my ungrateful son's desire to only consume tubular hog anus.
The next morning I dressed Rasputin in his Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit, strapped him into his young adult car seat (I just don't trust him) and took him on a road trip, promising him that it would end in hot dogs if he behaved. I am by no means a tyrant. My definition of behaving when it came to my hypothetical child was that he couldn't make eye contact with me, he couldn't refer to me as Filthy Uncle Farty Ass, his pants had to stay on when he was in the company of other human beings and he couldn't eat things he finds on the floor of my car. Rasputin, being a horrible, insolent child failed spectacularly on every single rule.
The joke was on him, however. As he sat there writhing in his intentionally demeaning, oversized car seat, trying to get his pants completely off while stuffing stale floor jerky into his mouth, staring and calling me Filthy Uncle Farty Ass, I just smirked.
“You're a good boy, Raspy.” I said. “Don't worry. You may be a horrible failure... at everything, I may have already written you out of my will in favor of a random derelict I met in the restroom at that rest stop, you may have been told never to come back to multiple Presbyterian Churches, you may have been born with a set of genitals never before documented in the annals of medicine that required countless expensive reconstructive surgeries before we could broadly apply a gender to you which in turned doomed you to attending a shitty day care with knock off Winnie the Pooh characters on the wall instead of the elite and therefore expensive Feshington Acres Child Care, thus dooming you to moving your lips while you read your Betty and Veronica comics, but dammit, you are getting hot dogs!”
I drove all morning, zipping down I-95 and I-93 until we reached a decrepit looking street in the middle of Manchester, NH lined with porno arcades, tobacconists and the world's filthiest Laura Ashley outlet.
“Daddy, it smells like kitty's pee-pee, throw up and shame.”
“Yes. Yes it does. Welcome to Libertarian Country.”
We strolled into a charming little rats nest called Manchester Chaw and Porno. The balding nineteen year-old at the counter with three fingers on either hand and a rather disconcerting neck tattoo of Styx guitarist Tommy Shaw took one look at my son and said “Dude. That better be a fuckin' dwarf dude, and even if it fuckin' is, I ain't selling him any granny homo porn. Because we're all out.”
“Please just look at the floor, son.”
I went up to the counter, quickly purchased three items and led my son back out to the car.
“Da-da what are Barely Legal Ginch Lickers and why do they deserve an entire magazine devoted to them?”
“Ah ha ha ha! Seriously, don't call me Dada! You're twelve and it makes me drink.”
I opened the brown paper bag and pulled out a pair of snacks.
“What are those, father?”
“This,” I said, dangling the item in my left had closer to his face, “is a Sonora Firecracker.”
Rasputin stared at the squishy, small, red, wrinkled sausage inside the plastic sleeve.
“And this,” I said, switching up my display, “is a Daisy Pickled Sausage.”
Again, my unwholesome child regarded the discolored, waterlogged processed meat inside the clear plastic tube.
“They look like hot dogs, daddy.”
“They are hot dogs, oh my unfortunate son. Pickled hot dogs. You are going to have yourself a good old fashioned Tijuana Sword Fight.”
“What's a Tijuana Sword Fight?”
“I'm glad you asked, Son. You are going to eat both of these pickled sausages. You are going to take a bite of one, and then the other. Back and forth. Back and forth. Pausing between each bite, you are going to evaluate the subtle differences between each one. If you can eat them all, you get the special prize that is still in the bag.”
I don't think it had fully dawned on my doddering simpleton son what he was about to consume, because he tore into the packages with gusto. Immediately, my car was filled with an aroma very fitting of Manchester, New Hampshire, and Rasputin's hands were dripping with hot dog juices and vinegar. Despite the bitterly cold, January weather, I was forced to roll down the window to avoid being overpowered by the pickle-eggy-assy stench emanating from the questionable meat clutched in my child's hands.
Just as my son was about to put the Sonora Firecracker in his mouth, a look of terror and revulsion filled his eyes. He made a groaning noise, flung the sausages onto the dashboard, rolled down his window and proceeded to vomit his breakfast all over Manchester's unfortunate, cracked and filthy tax free sidewalks. Amazingly, the undigested Alphabits landed in just such a way that they formed an incredibly well-written and insightful synopsis of the Dudley Moore and Daryl Hannah movie “Crazy People”.
Rasputin immediately declared himself a vegetarian and I called him a pantywaist then made him walk the 95 or so miles back to Portland.
In case you were wondering, the third thing I purchased was a strip of firecrackers which I used to terrify him into no longer playing with his American Girl dolls in the cat box.
Ah, fatherhood!
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