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A Hard Father’s Day’s Night
“Oh, crap!” I heard my wife laugh.
That morning, my son had capitalized on my wife’s just-slightly-ajar shirt drawer and had cordially unpacked it for her, so she was now reorganizing while I played zone defense in the living room as two tiny wide receivers ran circles around me.
“What’s up?” I called.
She joined us, waving a book in the air. “So I bought you this for your birthday months ago and hid it at the bottom of my drawer, but I forgot it was there until just now.”
It only took a glance for me to recognize it–Steve Turner’s A Hard Day’s Write, a book detailing the stories behind every single Beatles song. As an obsessive Beatles fan, I’ve have been salivating over it for years, as it is counted among the finest of Fab Four lore. But that’s not the only reason I recognized it.
Not So Fast
“Stupid rental car,” my wife growled.
“Huh?” I bumbled, snapping out of an exhausted daze. “I thought we liked the rental car.”
Having ventured to Maui with my parents, we’d rented a minivan that would comfortably fit the six of us and our fleet of Traveling Toddler Circus props. Even with the two extra adults there was still plenty of room. Compared to the 4-door sedan we usually cart the kids around in and into which certain strollers only fit one way (when inserted with ninja precision), it was a veritable vehicular vacation on top of our location vacation. In fact, it had inspired us to seek out a van of our own once we returned to Phoenix. Or so I thought as my wife suddenly slandered our steed’s good name.
“We do like it, except for this stupid speedometer. I have no idea how fast I’m going.”
Straightening up on the passenger side, I leaned towards my wife at the wheel to survey the dash. The numbers and gauges shone brightly up at us as we traversed the dark, sans-streetlight coastal road. On this particular night my parents were out on a date and my wife and I were headed back to the hotel with our passed-out munchkins. When it’s just the four of us, my wife usually opts to drive due to her propensity for motion sickness and a particularly vocal flair for back-seat driving. While many of my male peers might see this as gender-role sacrilege, I assure you, this is the optimal driving arrangement.
Trust me.
Examining the dashboard, I saw exactly what my wife was talking about. A digital gauge displayed her speed in kilometers per hour rather than miles per hour.
Yeah, I know it’s hard to see. I think my phone was tired, too.
The Pirate Pedicure
Avast, ye scurvy lubbers! As ye know, me crew set sail a fortnight ago in search of the Lost Treasure of a Freaking Break from Reality, rumored to be buried in the waters of the Hawaiian Isles.
Alas, while on this voyage, me crew and I be staying at a pirate timeshare on the island of Maui, and a loud plight fell upon the crew’s youngest male while his sister be napping, so I, as Captain, had to stifle this mutiny before it spread.
“Aarrrrgh you kidding me?” I growled softly, so as not to rouse the sleeping maiden. “Here be pirate stickers, Lad. Make your Captain a treasure map.”
The boy accepted the stickers with a toothy grin, as if to say, “Aye, Captain.”
“Aarrrrgh,” I muttered, this time victoriously. He be a good lad, methinks.
Returning to me swashbuckling practice (it be important to stay sharp, me hearties), I quickly be interrupted again.
Opa!
Unbeknownst to us, our daughter seems to have started a new activist group–Daughters Against Mothers Drinking (DAMD).
Claiming this glass is half-empty would be optimistic.
Her reasons for this are a mystery to us, as my wife does not even remotely have a drinking problem. She does enjoy an alcoholic beverage from time to time, but so do a majority of adults over 21. In fact, since the pregnancy (when she didn’t drink and I did my best not to make her jealous), breastfeeding, and the unending sleep deprivation of having twin babies (which does not AT ALL jive with a hangover), both of us have become lightweights who feel superfine after two.
However, when my wife does decide she would fancy a drink, she is most certainly entitled, as she is our household’s primary breadwinner at an oftentimes intense job that spreads her thinly and leaves her toasted by the end of the day.
It was with this fervor that she asked for a glass of wine while at Nani and Abuelito’s (my wife’s mother and stepfather’s) house for dinner last night, and I was happy to oblige, pouring her the finest chardonnay Nani’s entire counter had to offer.
Let’s Get Sh!tfaced, Part Deux Deux
There’s no gentle way to say this–I can smell the difference between my son and daughter’s fecal matter.
I could describe their distinct aromas for you in gag-reflex-inducing detail, but have chosen not to in case you are currently eating, or plan to ever again. (After all, you should never bite the hand that reads you.)
Not sure how many of you know this, but I am a world class dishwasher. This is not due to any concerted effort on my part–I’ve just wound up logging my 10,000 hours since the Twins’ birth, conquering mountains of soiled bottles, Sippy Cups, and high-chair trays on a tri-daily basis.
Every once in a while, I try to fish some of those hours out of here. This one time, I came really close.
Thus, on the morning of the Twincident in question, I had stealthily ducked into the kitchen to knock out the breakfast dishes. Despite both having nasty colds and ear infections, the Twins were in excellent spirits having just been fed, and babbled baby limericks at each other while surveying the playroom toyscape. Since the Twins made their outside-of-Mommy debut, we rarely have more than two minutes to eat human-style at a proper table anyway, so we chose to convert our house’s “dining room” to a playroom, which has worked swimmingly at moments like this, when I can watch them in the next room while still actively pursuing 20,000 hours.
Having successfully sanitized the load’s umpteenth and umptieth items, I Deion-Sanders-High-Stepped from the sink to the playroom threshold.
And that’s when it hit me.
The Wall of Stank.
