… but I did write this piece “When Husbands Go to the Ends of the Earth for Their Pregnant Wives” for the WhatToExpect.com website about My Love and her completely absurd demands on me, the man who knocked her up.
And, if you clicked that link and read the intro – yes, I am the blog editor for the NYC Dads Group these days. Even though I live in Connecticut. Hey, everybody is outsourcing these days.
On this 16th anniversary of my marriage to My Love, I’m happy to report our wedded bliss is still unspoiled.
We have been told the same is true of our marital can of Spam.
Our friends gave us Mork (named so by me as it is a “meat like pork”), leaving it along with hundreds of unpopped popcorn kernels on our honeymoon bed.
The popcorn, I know, was an homage to my bride’s Cornhusker State upbringing. But Spam? I can be a ham, but did I forget some greater symbolism behind this gift?
So I called the U.S. Library of Congress. That’s where Justin, one of the purchasers of Mork, earns a living.
ME?! The modern day Jack Benny of household and personal thrift? Let’s explore this in the next few posts.
+ + +
One night in the not-too-distant past, I sought the seclusion of my home office to finish some odds and ends on my computer. This immediately raised suspicions in my wife.
MY LOVE (decloaking from ninja mode): What are you doing?
UNCOOL (wetting pants) (because I spilled my beer): GAH! Jesus Alou, honey! I was sending an email to our neighbors.
MY LOVE: About what?
Despite my pleas to be their sex slave, they have instead chained me to a Dell and demanded I give them the day off.
Hence, I’m filling in today as their guest advice columnist.
The only way for me to be released so I can return here with a real blog post is for you to read my words on their site about husbands who give lame gifts and their needy spouses.
Hurry! Before they make me do windows, too!
Just took some nude photos of myself … with my new Canon PowerShot.
Valuable life lesson: What happens with a blonde tramp in the hot tub, doesn’t stay in either.
Yo @justinbieber! My invitation stands.
@aplusk The million $$ Redford gave me is not part of the pre-nup. It was a movie, moron.
Counseling with rabbi at Kabbalah Centre. Hope I properly used the words “schtup” and “schmuck.”
About last night … the tub shower is warm, wet and waiting for you once again, @RobLowe.
Finally! I can stop explaining how I survived growing up without social media.
Kids, while I’m finishing up these Sea Breezes and Elmore Leonard novels at Blogger Rehab today, your dear Aunt Becky from Mommy Wants Vodka will be looking after you.
Aunt Becky is the wisest person I know. In fact, just a few weeks ago she shared with me the most profound statement I believe has ever been uttered, or in this case – texted, in the history of mankind:
“Dude. Amazaballs!”
Write hard, Aunt Becky; write hard.
* * *
Last night after my husband, The Daver, and I watched a very nail-biting episode of whatever reality show is currently making me wish I was instead beating myself about the face with a bag of lemons, I sat down nearish to him.
(pat pat pat) "The back of your head is entirely flat at the top."
The Daver (ignoring me entirely)(duh): "Yeah?"
Aunt Becky: "Yeah. And the top kinda makes you look like Predator."
The Daver (still absentmindedly pecking away on his Blackberry): "Yeah?"
Aunt Becky: "I bet your mom dropped you on your head a lot."
The Daver: "That explains a lot."
Aunt Becky (giggles): "You know, we could get you one of those helmets they put kids in now to reshape your skull! Those kids look so CUTE!"
The Daver: "NO."
Aunt Becky (laughing): "Can you IMAGINE walking around with one of those helmets as an adult? I'd decorate it for you! I could write your NAME in glitter! Or put some CHICAGO FIRE emblems on it! You'd look so FANCY going to your Big Boy Job in the Financial District with a helmet on!"
Aunt Becky: *bwahahahahahaha*
The Daver: "I think my skull is done being molded."
Aunt Becky: "Oh."
The Daver: "So don't get any ideas."
Aunt Becky (small voice): "Oh."
The Daver: "Becky? You didn't buy me a helmet, did you?"
Aunt Becky: "....Define BUY."
The Daver: (buries LUMPY head in hands)
Aunt Becky: "It's okay, I'll love you and your misshapen head no matter what! Because THAT'S WHAT I LOVE YOU MEANS. TO HAVE, HOLD, AND OBEY...
(pauses)
....Your lumpy head!"
The Daver: "You made the priest take out the 'obey' part. Remember?"
Aunt Becky: "That's because I never obey you."
The Daver: "That's for DAMN sure."
Now that he's remembered that I never obey him, he won't be as mad when he finds out that I ordered him a plagiocephaly helmet for his birthday.
I think the "I love my wife" decals and hearts will make him change him mind and he'll decide that wearing a helmet 23 hours a day is a very good idea indeed.
* * *
TWO DAYS OF VOTING, LITTLE OF MY SANITY LEFT
We’re Number 1!
No, Number 2.
No, no. We’re Number 1
Wait. We’re back at 2.
That’s how it’s been since Friday in Cure JM’s effort to win a $250,000 Pepsi Refresh grant. Either spot will win the money providing we don’t get lazy and get overtaken by another group come Sept. 1. That’s why we’re not taking chances.
My Love has been working the phones nonstop horse-trading votes.
I gave out voting cards to poop-bag toting patrons at a dog show yesterday.
Father and Sister of the Uncool stuffed random mailboxes around our town.
Even The Mother of All Uncoolness – she who only plugs in the microwave when she needs to defrost green beans and still has me program her answering machine for her -- learned to text message! It’s PANDAMONIUM!!
Please continue to vote today and Tuesday then convince a friend or eight dozen to do the same. Here are the three magic ways to help us each day:
1. Text 100850 to Pepsi (73774) via a cell phone Your cell phone, your kids’, that pony-tailed faux hipster at the coffe shop. Just grab a cell and text.
2. Use the Facebook app: http://tinyurl.com/25ls7f8
3. Vote directly from the Pepsi site for our entire Kids to Win team. You will need to set up a Pepsi Refresh account -- takes a minute and allows you to vote for many great organizations we are partnering with: http://tinyurl.com/27o7239
And to those of you voting, Tweeting, reTweeting, Facebooking, blogging and selling your vital organs for our cause, thank you for holding on to your big kind hearts.
While I’m knocking back mojitos and Carl Hiaasen novels in Blogger Rehab this week, a few friends will stopping by to keep you entertained.
Today welcome The Holmes, a colleague from DadCentric and one of my true favorites in the blogosphere. He has illustrated chats with his testicles about his vasectomy, even stranger human encounters when he has to provide a follow up sperm sample and, as you shall read, a chicken fetish that would make Gonzo from The Muppet Show blush.
* * *
“Those two are Spanish, that one is British, that one is American, and those three, I think, are Australian.”
I listened a little closer, but I couldn’t detect any accents.
“Like, that’s where they all came from?” I asked.
“Like, that’s where they’re all descended from. I’m pretty sure they all came from here.”
“Ah, so that’s why all their clucks sound the same.”
My wife knows a lot more about all this chicken stuff than I do. She should. I’m just the insanely handsome muscle. This whole chicken-and-egg project was her idea. Which came first? Who gives a flying cluck, they’re both plenty tasty if prepared properly.
Ever grilled something dead while the live version of it was clucking around at your feet? That’s a weird feeling.
Does anyone remember that cartoon Chicken Boo? It was one of the features on Animaniacs. It portrayed this human-size chicken that people kept mistaking for a real person in spite of the fact that the only sounds to come out of his beak were clucks and ba-goks.
Anyone remember this? Anyone?
My wife doesn’t believe me that this show ever actually existed. I sing the theme song at her and she just looks at me like I laid an egg:
“You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you’re not a man, you’re a chicken, Boo.”
Dude, I couldn’t have made that up! Look, here’s a picture even:
We don’t live on a farm or anything. This is chicken husbandry of the urban variety. Step out our back door, and right there off of the end of our deck is a real live honest-to-hen chicken coop. The enclosed house portion stands eight feet tall, is painted bright green, and is topped with a slanted metal roof that I imagine sounds plenty hellacious when it rains. Chickens are sound sleepers, my wife tells me. Good for them.
Because they could, you know?
Aside from being sources of fresh eggs and free entertainment, these chickens that we’ve taken under our wings are in possession of full-blown personalities. They’ve got swagger. Attitude. Sass. In fact, as they’ve grown out of their chickhood into full-fledged chickens, the ladies have become much sassier toward us, their human protectors.
For example, time was, herding them back into their coop was as simple as walking up behind them and just keeping on walking in the direction you wanted them to go. These days, they scatter in five, six, seven different directions. You get one in the coop only to have it come right back out again. Every other cluck sounds like a “f**k you, buddy.” They’re like children in that way, except they pop out an egg every so often. Children only pop out non-edible items.
So the image of a chicken sashaying about in say, some designer silks wrapped around its neck like some sort of anti-chopping block talisman, maybe a jaunty little hat over its comb, yes, it all seems rather plausible. True, their vocabulary is limited, but since when do we let limited vocabulary act as a barrier to becoming a full-fledged human being?
And we didn’t go to all the trouble of raising these chickens only to have them escape, cause a commotion, and then get run out of town. I don’t care where these chickens came from. We want our free eggs, dammit.
* * *
Don’t forget to vote today and every day through the end of the month to help Cure JM win a $250,000 Pepsi Refresh grant. We need to be No. 1 or No. 2 by Sept. 1 to win the grant. If you can, also vote for these other great kids’ causes we are supporting.
Happy 13th anniversary, My Love. You’re still smoking, but only in a totally Surgeon General-approved kind of way.
For more of the story, read:
Since it is far better to give than receive, this Father's Day I shall bestow a special gift to my children: a divorce from their mother.
Don't worry about my soon-to-be ex-wife as she'll will make out, too, so to speak. I'll be finding her a lesbian partner.
Before you start thinking that this is some dirty 
In her article "Are Fathers Necessary?" appearing in the July/August issue of The Atlantic magazine, Paul cites a single scientific journal article that compiled data from several other studies to determine that my fellow fathers and I bring nothing special to the parenting table. She reaches this conclusion because the study she uses found that children of single moms do better in school and in life than those of single dads. The data she uses also finds that lesbian parents tend to be more emotionally involved with their children than those of traditional husband-and-wife couples, who tend to raise little ones who have more behavior problems, less interest in school and, as adults, give less credibility to the findings of questionable scientific studies.
"The bad news for Dad is that despite common perception, there's nothing objectively essential about his contribution (to parenting)," Paul writes. "The good news is, we've gotten used to him."
This pronouncement came as a relief to Ms. Paul's husband. Meanwhile, their children have been spotted pleading for asylum outside the home of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi.
With me soon to be out of the fathering game, the question is what am I going to do with myself. With my services apparently no longer needed to teach my offspring how to use proper breath control while burping the alphabet or how to correctly position their hands to maximize the volume of armpit flatulence sounds, I'll have a load of free time.
The Atlantic doesn't offer me or other fathers any help here. The same issue has another article, titled "The End of Men," that says that we males are losing ground everywhere: in the classroom, in the workplace, in possession time of the TV remote. We don't fit in anywhere anymore because, out of the goodness and/or laziness of our saturated-fat clogged hearts, women now are setting the rules. They are apparently breaking them as well, as the article notes rising rates of violent crimes committed by women. In essence, they're acting like men when men were men and women were known as the fairer, gentler sex.
Maybe that was their gender's whole ploy from the beginning. Women's suffrage, feminism, ABC Afterschool Specials like Free to be … You and Me -- on the surface, they were a call for equality among the sexes, but bubbling underneath, they may have been a nefarious scheme to take over traditional male dominance in vital categories such as having a shorter life span and more cell space on death row. If nothing else, this approach has certainly led to women kicking our tails in the competition to write more outrageous articles for major media publications. Well played, ladies, very well played.
That's it! Once I become free from my chains of fatherhood, I'll be able to fully pursue my next full-time role – editor of a once credible, now irrelevant magazine.
Anyone know if there's an opening over at Ms.?
Video: “I Wish I Was a Lesbian,” Loudon Wainwright III
If you are a lesbian or thinking of becoming one and you would like to replace a father in an otherwise heterosexual family, please send your applications to pamela@pamelapaul.com. Tell her I sent you.
Today’s post is brought to by Fatherhood Fridays at Dad-Blogs.com.
Click the logo and check out some other fatherly words.
UNCOOL: Do you need anything from the store?Just before that first time we reached the mountain, we drove past two cemeteries. That's some potentially heavy-handed foreshadowing when your family has just decided to take up skiing.
Turns out, I misinterpreted this sign. The burial grounds we skirted en route to Ski Sundown (there it was again!) in New Hartford, a year ago weren't a harbinger of physical demise to come on the slopes. They were a warning that this hobby could lead to a pauper's grave.
The near-fatal fiscal buildup came gradually. The previous summer, we wisely invested in helmets, goggles and arctic wear at mega-low online, off-season rates. Our family of four, still sporting shorts and sandals at the time, visited a local ski shop to be fit for a long winter's rental of skis, boots and poles – all at a pre-snowflake discount.
When December finally came, we hit the slopes. The slopes hit back at our bank account.
Gas. Lift tickets, which resorts upsell with movie-theater concession ingenuity ("Only $5 more for the all-day versus the half-day even though in reality I'll only ski an extra 45 minutes? What a deal!"). Lunch and post-run adult beverages to revive numb feet and soothe sore thighs. Repeated every few weekends and we're talking credit card bills of Swiss Alps proportion.
However, I figured that as long as My Love stayed employed, Wall Street didn't tank again and I avoided hospital expenses by managing to continue to weave around the snowboarders who randomly chill in the middle of every flippin' trail I take, we'd survive.
Then my wife started visiting real estate Web sites.
Although she grew up in the eastern Great Plains where the closest one comes to skiing is sliding down the stadium steps at a Nebraska Cornhuskers game after one too many tomato juice tainted Budweisers, My Love spent many hours swooshing down the Colorado Rockies while on road trips in college and even more so after shed moved to Denver the day she graduated. She gave this up when the company she worked for shipped her East and she meet me, a man committed to always avoiding situations that could land me in a full-body cast. This winter, though, she was in her glory because not only me but also the Things reveled in one of her former passions.
"We're going to be near there when we stay at my friend's house this weekend," she said last Thursday, sounding even more upbeat than usual. "Let's check it out."
We had talked for years about investing in a property we could use as an occasional getaway and rental unit, but it never happened for several reasons. The biggest, as far as I was concerned, was a poor Schlep Ratio.
Schlep Ratio (SR) is expense and travel time multiplied by the weight and square footage of your luggage added to onsite, non-relaxation time (cleaning your vacation home, waiting in a lift line, etc.) divided by time spent actually enjoying the destination minus sleep but excluding naps. Weekend ski trips to central Vermont from southwestern Connecticut (it’s that little tail part that wags the rest of the state) have very high SR. This means acceptability on an infrequent basis and only if you're staying at someone's place for free.
However, I’ve learned over our 17 years together to never express these kinds of Doubting Thomas opinions directly to My Love. She’s the can-do dreamer; I’m the cynic who tries to disguise his fears as practicality. My negativity only makes her want to work harder to prove me wrong and she succeeds far too much at this for what remains of my ego.
Luckily for me, by the time we reached this mountainside dream home she was drooling over online, it was nearly four hours and a minivan full of kids, a kenneled dog and a ton of ski equipment later, My Love had already done some mental calculations of the Schlep Ratio on her own.
We looked through the car windows, nodded and left.
Somewhere safely down the highway, she started talking aloud – more to herself, really, than me. We’d need to get a third car, a 4x4, because the minivan only has front wheel drive. We’d have to hire someone to maintain the yard during the summer and plow the quarter-mile long driveway in the winter. She didn’t want to spend the weekend’s there cleaning so someone would need to come in at least monthly to do that. And four hours, even without traffic, now that’s a schlep.
It went on and on. I sat there and tried not to agree too enthusiastically.
"Looks like we'll be putting our money in the kids' college fund this spring," she said once we were many many mile down the highway.
For her sake, though, I'm going to start seeding the Things’ little minds about the importance of winning a ski team scholarship.
When my best friend from college had her first baby a few months ago, My Love squealed in giddy delight.
“If you ever need any advice, call me!” she chirped like an over-caffeinated canary to my friend several times during the call.
Leaving out her innate areas of expertise (breastfeeding, hormone fluctuations, creative excuses for avoiding non-procreative relations), the following are baby-rearing niches My Love is most qualified to consult on:
Read more about those latter skills in Baby Unnecessities: The Diaper Genie, only on DadCentric.
What’s your spouse’s area of baby expertise?
(Cartoon: Shoeboxblog.com)
I first met Anna and her hubby, Jon Bon Jovi (not his real name), a while back on what My Love and I thought was a Carnival Cruise to Cozumel and other tropical destinations where the main breakfast food is a delicacy known as “tequila.”
Little did we know.
+ + +
Dear Kevin,
Hi, there! Long time no talk, huh? Ha!
We didn't even get to give you the conch-shell cell phone holders we bought for you in the last port, but no worries. We'll just mail them. I know Maude will be excited when they arrive - you should have seen her face when I told her about them!
Anyway, we had a blast with you both these past two weeks. Who would have thought we'd end up crossing paths on a marriage workshop cruise, of all places? I must have said it to Jon Bon Jovi (there I go with my nicknames again) a dozen times, just like that. "JB," I'd say, "Who would have thought?"
And then to be assigned to the same breakout group every single day – wow! Talk about meant to be!
So, tell us, what did you guys think of the workshop? We thought it was fan-fargin'-tastic! We've been on these relationship workshop cruises before (Floating Encounters '04, Smooth Sailing 2006 and - after a brief separation in 2008 – last year's Hurricane of Harmony), but we both agree that this one was by far the best. You saw for yourself the breakthroughs we had in session, right?
I've got a feeling the results are going to stick this time, too. I'm happy to report that Jon Bon Jovi and I are continuing to honor our on-board "contract of courtesy." I know you know our issues, so I'll just tell you flat out: in the four days since we've been back, I have not used my Neti Pot during "SportsCenter" and he has not referred to my ceramics class as the "crockery coven." Talk about progress!
The thing is, Kevin, Jon Bon Jovi and I are kind of concerned about you and Maude. We couldn't help but notice that Maude started developing "headaches" that would cause her to miss our communal meals, even though she knew we saved her a seat right next to us. We also picked up on the fact that, during your hushed talks at the ship's rail, Maude would often gesture toward us when she wasn't wiping her nose with a soggy tissue.
We just want you to know that we get it. It's hard to be the rookies on the cruise and get paired up with a couple already so far down the road toward their Ultimate Togetherness Destination. In looking back now, we see that what Maude was saying when she was pointing at us was, "Why can't we be like them? How long must we wait before our Marital Feeling Flowers are as perky as theirs?"
Not to worry! Sometimes it takes more than one cruise to shake out all the kinks. Just look at us – four tours under our belts and I still sometimes wonder how it all would have turned out if I'd just slipped out of the Radisson that night and gone on to actuarial school like I'd planned.
So here's what we're thinking: there's another relationship cruise coming up next month out of San Pedro. It's called "Us-ward Bound" and it looks great! A week of counseling during the day, unlimited karaoke at night (see our song below!) and, while we're in Mexico, we can stock up on cheap prescriptions. They even have a rock-climbing wall right on the ship. Talk about trust-building! I've enclosed the brochure, but you should get in there right away while they're still giving the early-bird discount.
This is going to be great! We can't wait to hit the high seas with you two again. Oh, and Jon Bon Jovi wanted me to tell you he hasn't forgotten it's his turn to whale on you in the dead-arm contest.
Sugar all around,
Anna
P.S. Now I'm thinking that your wife's name isn't Maude after all. It starts with an "M" though, right? Sorry about that.
My Love funds the bulk of my At-Home Dadness, bless her cold capitalist instincts. Now and then, though, I feel a strange twinge. Then it becomes an itch. An itch to contribute something more to the Uncool Household than my mastery of reusing plastic bags to pick up doggie landmines, locating misplaced video game cartridges and shuttling forgotten lunches to the kids' school.As for salary requirements, I’m looking for the minimum equivalent of $40 an hour. I’m sure you’ll agree that this is a reasonable price given my experience (see attached resume). Also, I’m sure your outfit is more reputable than the zillions of companies that think they can pay telecommuters and online writers a pittance and a bag of Circus Peanuts for their craft. I have that kind of faith in YOU!
Attached with my resume are some writing samples. Please contact me if you are interested in my services or at least if you found this e-mail entertaining.
As for their reply, well, I'm still waiting ... along the interstate on-ramp with the rest of the day laborers.
* * *
Speaking of people who need real jobs, please read "Jon & Kate Plus 8" Must Die -- my thoughts on the most annoying of reality show couples who are seemingly headed for divorce while the TV nation and their eight kids look on. It's only on DadCentric!
