I don’t watch television or have affairs with clerical temps, but in other respects, I engage in typical male behavior. On Sundays, for example, I drink a bottle of wine with a Nyquil chaser so that I might fall asleep by 7:30 in order to be fully refreshed for the commencement of the Monday 9 to 5. I live by the Sally Struthers mantra Think of the Children, you might say. But last night, we passed a milestone of sorts. My two-year-old decided to pass over her entire pre-teen years with a fit for the ages. I awoke at 10:30 (yes, that’s right, I woke up 2 hours before most normal people even go to sleep) to Banshee-like screams. Alex was lying beside me, rolling her eyes and telling Naya to go to bed. Naya screeched, left our bedroom, slammed the bedroom door, screeched again, opened the door, threw a large, breakable object at the bed, slammed the door again, screeched, stomped to her room, screeched, slammed her door, screeched, opened and re-slammed her door and screeched.
With my one barely functioning eye I leered at Alex and asked very calmly, ‘What the fuck was that? And why don’t you do your job and dump some holy water on that shit?’
In an equally calm voice, Alex said, ‘I am too tired to keel zee leetle monster. Do not have sex vith me ever again, you mother fucker.’
At that point, the more mature of our children, Tristan, my pride, my joy, my redemption, my hope for the future…yes, you SEE where this is going, and YES, it’s going to end badly and in an ironically bad way…my best friend, my be all end all, came in crying. I thought perhaps our daughter had pierced him with a wooden stake, but no, he had suddenly remembered that a month ago, Alex had tricked him into behaving with the false promise of a shiny new object.
With some vigor, Tristan pointed to Alex and exclaimed, ‘She lied to me! She said she would buy me a toy!’
At this point, Alex threw down her Sociology book, pointed back at Tristan and yelled, ‘DA! I LIED! AND I VOULD DO EET AGAIN!'
Being the only rational human being in the house (in fact, being the only REAL human being in this house), as well as a former ex-volunteer EMT/Firefighter used to life/death situations, I conducted myself appropriately by pointing at my son and laughing, too, until he fled the room in despair.
After all, if we don’t traumatize our children, what the hell are they going to blog about?
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