The Cookie

It all began with a plastic replica of a chocolate chip cookie. I believe it came into our home via a Melissa & Doug play-food set. My 11 month-old son has become fond of crawling around the house while toting it in his hand. He was doing just that one particular evening as he made his way into the guest bathroom.

It just so happened that my 3 year-old was completing her business around the time he wandered in. Finding her little brother’s presence disconcerting, she called for our assistance in removing him. Just as my wife grabbed him, he managed to toss the cookie into the bowl mid-flush. In defiance of each and every one of God’s natural laws, the cookie disappeared down the rabbit-hole.

Its journey was short-lived, as the bowl immediately began filling with excessive amounts of water. Thankfully, it stopped just before overrunning the rim. I gave everyone stern instructions not to use the toilet in my absence (I had to run and pick up a grocery order within the next 15 minutes) and I would address it when I returned.

I tucked my firstborn son and daughter into bed while my wife disappeared into the nursery to put our youngest to bed. Quickly grabbing my keys, I ran out the door to get the groceries. On my way home, I received a text from my wife indicating that my daughter had come back to the nursery concerned that there was “lots of water in the toilet.”

Surmising that our daughter was utilizing this unnecessary observation as an excuse to get out of bed, my wife sent her back to her room with a stern warning. I informed my wife that I was on my way home and would make sure that she was still in bed when I arrived.

Three minutes later, my phone rang. When I answered it, I was greeted by my wife shouting “There’s water everywhere! How do I turn this off?” Her questions were in danger of being drowned out by multiple weeping children and someone lamenting, “The cookie! The cookie!”

It appeared that my daughter had been experiencing some intestinal discomfort while I was at the grocery, and had used the toilet again. She then apparently held the flush lever down until she was in danger of being swept into the den by the current.

At the time of my arrival, the hall carpet was soaked and there must have been a half-inch of standing water on the bathroom floor. Quickly grabbing a shop-vac and an adjustable wrench, I waded into the fray. After getting up as much of the standing water as possible, I set about disconnecting the toilet.

If you have never done so, I can assure you that there is no graceful way to solo-lift an installed toilet in a confined space. I closed the door so that my family wouldn’t have to witness me attempt to dead-lift the equivalent of a porcelain birthing-ball.

Once the commode was clear of the bolts and flange, I quickly glanced down the sewer pipe to confirm that the cookie was not lodged. In this brief moment, several of my neighbors must have tandem-flushed the remnants of an ill-advised meal because I felt the air move just before the dry-heaves kicked in. I instantly though of the scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark where the guy’s face melts off. It smelled like weaponized shame launched from a diaper-genie. 

Convinced that the cookie’s journey had ended prior to the pipe, I stuffed some plastic bags into the sewer connection and continued my investigation. I tipped the toilet forward before probing the trap for contraband. Meeting some resistance early on, I continued in this way until the cookie emerged. My victory was to be short lived.

Within a few moments, a reverse suctioning noise emanated from the S-bend as a rather sizable bowel-movement was liberated from its perch and found its way onto my shoes. It was here that I paused, turds still precariously balanced on my feet, and contemplated the interesting places that life takes us. Parenting is a perpetual series of humbling events, and there are few things as humbling as contemplating whether to shake poo off your shoes or abandon them and submit yourselves to a back-flow foot-bath.

Around this time, my daughter emerged and asked if I “saved” the cookie. In exasperation, I told her that the cookie had “seen things” and had to be put down. She would emerge requesting progress reports every quarter hour for the remainder of the process.

I mopped up all of the water left in the bathroom and then proceeded to tackle the carpet with a Hoover Steamvac. It is a wonderful machine to have, but sounds like a jet engine when powered on. I thought about waiting until the next day to tackle the carpet (since everyone in the house appeared to be asleep) but I really wished to avoid subjecting our flooring to an overnight fecal marinade.

So I fired up the carpet cleaner, and after a few moments, my daughter tapped on my shoulder and motioned for me to turn it off. Nearing the end of my patience, I turned off the carpet cleaner and gave her my full attention.

“Daddy?”

“What?”

“I just wanted to tell you that the carpet cleaner is loud.”

I advised her that, in the interest of self-preservation, she should refrain from further commentary and stay in her room.

Melissa and Doug better hope I never gain access to their corporate restroom facilities….

Talking About Mortality With Kids

On a recent gloomy morning, my son and I were sitting in my car waiting to turn left onto a main thoroughfare. Across from us was a large cemetery and, as we waited to turn, we witnessed an elderly couple placing a floral arrangement on a headstone.

We pass this particular cemetery every day, but none of our children had ever asked about its function and we were understandably reluctant to be drawn in to a conversation about the internment of human corpses. However, the couple caught my five-year old son’s attention and, for the first time in his life, he asked “What is that place?’

Taking a deep breath, I replied that it was a cemetery and foolishly hoped that this would be the end of this line of inquiry. It was not. Then came the inevitable follow up question, “What’s a cemetery?” I delicately tried to explain that when people die, they would be buried in a cemetery. He then wanted to know how they died, so I responded that sometimes people get sick and do not get better.

He then wanted to know if the couple we had seen was about to bury someone who was sick. Doing my best to abstain from any references to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I explained that they were probably visiting the grave of someone who had already died. It might have been a relative or friend of theirs and this was how they remembered them.

He then asked about the purpose of the concrete markers coming out of the ground. I explained that these were called headstones and usually contained information about the person who was buried there. At this point, I began to speed up in the hope that we would arrive at his school before our conversation progressed to embalming techniques.

Then, as if processing the weight of this information and the implications of his own mortality, he furrowed his brow and looked out of the window before asking, “Are there kids there?”

I was certainly not prepared for this line of inquiry, but I also did not want to mislead him if he was asking an honest question. So, I hesitantly admitted that it was certainly possible that there were kids there because sometimes (although it is rare) kids get sick and cannot get better. This was met with silence as he looked out the window. Concerned that I had upset him, I tried to gently steer the subject away from kids. I told him that there was even a section for dogs.

Upon hearing this, he turned away from the window and asked, “Why would they have sick kids and dogs at a daycare?”

Confused, I responded that I was not talking about a daycare but rather the graveyard we had passed. He then - visibly taken aback - exclaimed “There are kids in the cemetery!?”

It was at this point, I realized that he had wordlessly changed the subject mid-conversation and I was a varsity-level moron. Furthermore, when I had seen him looking out the window (and assumed that he was pondering the breadth of human frailty) he was looking at a daycare along the same road and simply wanted to know if they were open.

About this time, we pulled up to the school and he jumped out of the car. I immediately called my wife and tried to explain what had transpired (in case he came home from the library with a copy of Pet Cemetery). She listened in silence before responding in her flawless “you had one job to do” voice:

So let me get this straight. While driving our nervous son to school on his second day of Kindergarten, you managed to get into a conversation about dead children buried near our house. Is that correct?

It was a rather damning (though not inaccurate) summation and I feebly replied that it was never my intention to discuss the burial of deceased children; that is just where the conversation went.

Well, when the school sends home a note wondering why our son keeps telling people, “My daddy says that when children do not get better, they bury them by our house” I am going to let you handle that.

You can imagine my trepidation as I went to retrieve my son after school and half-expected Haley Joel Osment to wander out mumbling about “the things none one else could see.”

Fortunately, he seemed no worse for the wear and made no mention of cadavers or graveyards. I am sure this, like many of our conversations, will make valuable therapy fodder later in life.

Toilet-Seat Justice

Several weeks ago, I sat down in our bathroom to conduct some intestinal business. Upon settling in, I felt a rather sharp pain in my dominant buttock and quickly dismounted the toilet. What I found was that the wooden toilet seat had been cracked completely in half. The fissure was almost consistent enough to have been the result of a power tool.

I immediately set about solving this mystery and I knew just where to begin. I went to my five-year-old son and casually asked if he recalled witnessing any structural trauma related to the toilet seat. He got a strange look on his face and categorically denied all responsibility. This, in and of itself, was not unusual; what did surprise me is that he did not immediately suggest his sister as a suspect. He once blamed her for making him fall out of his chair when she was in a different room, so it was odd that he did not wish to speculate upon her culpability.

Undeterred, I found my three-year-old daughter playing in her room and breezily wondered aloud if she knew anything about the broken toilet seat. Assuming the same look of forced nonchalance displayed by my son, she denied any knowledge but also declined to incriminate her brother.

While I found my children hurling around baseless accusations to be annoying, I found their silent collaboration terrifying. Over the next few days, I went back and forth trying to get one of them to cave with no success. I suggested plausible scenarios, “Maybe you guys were trying to get something from the cabinet and it fell….” and even stopped to offering bribes, “there might be some Sour Patch Kids in it for whoever can help daddy solve the mystery….”

After a week I had nothing. Out of sheer stubbornness, I left the seat in place as a reminder that daddy would have his justice. I assumed that it would keep pinching them just as it did me and eventually someone would turn state’s evidence. This was a terrible miscalculation on my part since their tiny little bodies did not separate the halves of the seat enough to cause discomfort. They barely noticed.

Dejected and unwilling to subject myself to further discomfort, I went to Lowes one evening to procure a replacement toilet seat. I was unprepared for how many different colors there were. When I indicated that it was more of a “tan” color I was given options like “biscuit” “bone” sandbar” and “dune”. Kohler even has a color called “Thunder Grey” which might be apropos in some situations we have had in our restroom.

Even narrowing it down to quiet-close hinge models - which are worth the extra price if you have ever been jolted from slumber by a preschooler dropping the entire lid apparatus at 3AM – I was left with too many options. I agonized in the isle for a half-hour trying to take into account environmental variables like the color temperature of the store’s fluorescent lighting system before deciding to go with “biscuit.”

By the time I had paid for my purchase, it was pouring rain and I had forgotten where my car was. After several minutes of running through the parking lot while brandishing a toilet seat, I located my car and stuffed my drenched frame into the front seat.

Soaked and already regretting my decision to choose “biscuit”, I walked into the front bathroom and began the process of swapping out the toilet seat. Midway through this endeavor my daughter wanders in, glances at the broken toilet seat now resting on the floor and – without a hint of irony – asks what happened to the old toilet seat.

If I am fortunate enough to get to Heaven and find myself at the throne of the Almighty, the toilet seat mystery has now surpassed the JFK assassination as my most pressing supplication.

I Believe

I believe immigration laws and enforcement to be necessary, but the cruel or inhumane application of them is beneath us.

I believe that people should not be refused service simply because of who they are or what their political affiliation may be.

I believe that the terms pro-life or pro-choice dramatically oversimplify an issue important enough to merit nuanced consideration.

I believe that the reflexive canonization of every police officer or the suspects they interact with does both groups a disservice and undermines objective justice.

I believe that we should completely exhaust diplomacy before we ever consider sacrificing the lives of those who serve.

I believe we can honor the second amendment while simultaneously refusing to succumb to a self-imposed paralysis when it comes to mitigating acts of senseless violence.

I believe that not everything that is immoral is illegal and not everything that is illegal is immoral.

I believe that the term “pro-family” is one of the most insultingly vague and asinine declarations to ever emerge from a political marketing conglomerate.

I believe that those who insist the Earth and all creatures contained therein were crafted by God should be leading the way to conserve His handiwork.

I believe that legislation rooted in fear tends to be the antithesis of good governance.

I believe that two consenting adults have every right to have their relationship legally recognized by a secular government.

I believe that incarceration without meaningful rehabilitation often becomes hopelessly cyclical.

I believe that God has no political affiliation or nationality.

I believe that depth of character and wisdom are the result of being willing to build relationships with people whose experiences you cannot duplicate.

Genius Children

All parents have had those moments. The moments where, against your better judgement, you come to believe that your child is “extraordinarily gifted.” They say or do something that you convince yourself is unparalleled in the entire history of human development. You are cautious, and even preface your declarations with, “I know I am not entirely unbiased, but…..” and then you proceed to lay out your case for intellectual sainthood.

A week ago, my five-year-old son and I were reading his exhaustive encyclopedia of Marvel Superheroes. We were discussing the origin story of The Incredible Hulk and when we got to the section about anger being the catalyst for transformation, my son seemed to retreat into deep self-reflection. He asked me to re-read the passage again, with special emphasis on the part where Hulk returns to Bruce Banner once his anger subsides.

Without a word, he rose from the couch and disappeared into his room. After several minutes of searching, he emerged with a Little Golden Book about The Avengers. After manically flipping through the pages, he finally stops and turns the book toward me. Pointing accusatorily toward the illustration of The Avengers, he observes that The Hulk is pictured with a smile on his face. How, he demanded, could Hulk’s anger have subsided to the point that he was smiling and yet he still had not returned to Bruce Banner? This book stood in clear defiance of the parameters outlined by the Marvel Encyclopedia.

As he stared at me expectantly, I mumbled something about there probably being a time-delay since The Hulk might be momentarily pleased with something without fully being devoid of anger. This seemed to temporarily pacify him and we were able to move on, but I could tell that he wanted to dig deeper into it.

That evening, as I was relating the scene to my wife, I could barely contain my glee. After all, think of the cognitive horsepower necessary to discover and questions such a seemingly insignificant discrepancy. I began to worry that the specialists may want to start him at Princeton before he is ready. How would he handle being away from home at such a tender age? One of us would have to quit our jobs to accompany him to the inevitable television interviews and TED talks.

When I woke up the next day, I got my future Macarthur Genius Grant recipient a cup of milk and went back to take a shower. Still glowing from the forthcoming accolades from the academic community, I walked back into the living room and heard the sound of laughter.

Following the source, I found myself in our guest bathroom. What I found was my son and his younger sister knelt over the toilet bowl with their heads barely visible. I immediately demanded to know what was going on, but both of them had become incapacitated by giggles. Certainly, given my son’s recently demonstrated cerebral acumen, this was the gleeful conclusion to some sort of breakthrough experiment.

When the laughter finally subsided, he explained to me that when he “went pee-pee really hard” into the toilet it made bubbles. Upon discovering this, he had invited his sister into the restroom to see which one could pop the most “pee-pee bubbles” by blowing on them within a given span of time. He indicated that the “pee-pee bubble game” was already one of his favorite things.

Somewhat dejected, I made a mental note to cancel the calls to Good Morning America. When I rejoined my wife in the bathroom, she asked what the noise was and I barely had the heart to explain that our son had invented a game that revolved around the creation and popping of urine bubbles.

In hindsight, I obviously fell into the trap that all parents are subject to. Certainly there had been warning signs that “Pee-Bubble-Pop” was on the horizon. Just a few weeks prior, I had received a note from his teacher asking us to address the fact that our son had repeatedly referred to another young man as “fart-poop.” I had managed to keep a straight face the following morning while looking a grown woman in the eye and assuring her that we have “addressed the fart-poop.”

I cannot help but think that God had some hand in the juxtaposition of my son’s Hulk revelation and the toilet-bowel incident. Several years ago, he had exhibited a trait (which I cannot recall the exact nature of) that I had interpreted as a sign of his accelerated intellect only to have it canceled out within the hour as I had to implore him to stop licking dried paint from the sidewalk.

The truth is: I am thankful to be his father. He is every ounce a 5-year-old boy, capable of both great leaps of cognition and prodigious use of bodily-function terminology. If he is ultimately categorized as extraordinary, I hope it is for his courage in the face of injustice, his integrity in a world seemingly devoid of it and his kindness to those who have no reason to expect it. In the meantime, I will work tirelessly to perfect my ability to say "fart-poop" with as much gravity as such a situation requires.

The High Chair Fiasco

After the birth of our 3^rd child, my wife and I found ourselves in need of a stand-alone high-chair. She found a well-reviewed model from Amazon and soon it was on its way. I was about 10 minutes into assembly before I realized that a crucial structural component of the item had been damaged in transit.

The prospect of attempting to repackage this monstrosity was daunting to say the least, and it seemed silly for one broken part. Fortunately, the manufacturer had included a flyer meant to address the very conundrum I found myself in. It implored me:

DO NOT RETURN TO THE STORE!!!! PLEASE CALL US FIRST AND WE CAN ASSIST YOU WITH ANY BROKEN OR MISSING PARTS!!!

So I gathered all of the pertinent model information and called the number. At first, things were looking up. I was told that they would get that part out to me and in short order my first-world crisis would be averted. Then, they informed me that they no longer sold that model and could not get me the part, but they were willing to offer me a comparable replacement model.

My wife selected a replacement from the list that they sent me, and I called back in to get the ball rolling. The representative told me that all I would have to do is comply with their warranty destruction policy. It would be easy they said. Just takes a few minutes. They promised to e-mail me the details.

Several days passed without word, so I called back in and it was explained to me that I would need to go to a website to schedule a “video-chat destruction.” This was to ensure that the high-chair was no longer functional and couldn’t be sold. I pointed out that if the item was functional, our entire correspondence would be unnecessary. Be that as it may, they were adamant that I go to this website and schedule a time.

When I got the link, I was presented with an option for a 20-minute session or a 30-minute session. When I clicked the 20-minute session, it was booked out for the next few months; so I backed up and selected the 30-minute. Now I was given an option for a 2:30 PM weekday slot almost two weeks out. Because the exact nature high-chair desecration process could not be revealed ahead of time, I was left with two options:

1.      Take time off work in order to sit at home and further disable an already worthless high chair.

2.      Transport the entire contents of the box to work and explain to my supervisor why I needed a half-hour break to video chat with a complete stranger while defacing children’s furniture.

Furthermore, I did not understand why this process would take 30 minutes. Was there a sacred blood-oath involved? Would the company provide a proctor? I countered that if they wanted complete and total obliteration, I could simply write “fragile” on it and give it back to UPS. This comment did not play well with the home office.

I asked if there was a fast-pass option for people whose children were being forced to sit on the floor like an animal while the rest of their biological family dined at the table like civilized humans. (There was not.) Finally, they agreed that at a predetermined time they would text me and I could immediately send back detailed photos. While the process was still shrouded in mystery, they did tell me that I would need the seat cushion, the safety straps, and the chair-back. I was also asked to have a sharpie and scissors on hand. My inquiry as to whether or not explosives would be used went unremarked upon.

So, on the fateful day, I was contacted by an unidentified number via text and asked to cut a 1-inch square hole into the seat cushion and submit a photo. Then, I was instructed to take the sharpie and “draw over” the sticker with the model number and submit that picture. Finally, I was asked to cut the straps so that they could no longer properly restrain an infant. I placed a Michael Bolton CD jewel case in each of these photos for scale.

It should be noted that none of these actions would render the high-chair unusable, just less safe for a child unfortunate enough to be placed into it. The entire ordeal wreaked of spycraft. It was as if John Le Carre had been hired as a warranty compliance manager.

Then I got to wondering; who was supervising these people on the other end of the video chat? What if one of them goes broken arrow and starts making outrageous or inappropriate demands?

Customer – I guess I do not understand why I would need to remove my shirt and refer to you as “Big Daddy Cornbread” for the remainder of this process……

Warranty Rep – Look, I have two crib annihilations and a sit-n-spin bonfire after you so do you want a functional high-chair or do you want to spend the rest of our allocated time together arguing about semantics?

Once I had provided proof-of-death, I was told that they would begin processing my order and I should expect the new high chair next month. Trying to be as diplomatic as possible, I explained that one of the compelling reasons that I ordered the item from Amazon in the first place was that I would receive it within two business days. I lamented that by the time I got the replacement high-chair, there was a good chance that it would no longer be developmentally appropriate for my child. They placed me on hold to confer with their “team.” In my mind, this involved the president of the company being choppered in from his summer home for an emergency meeting.

In the end, they relented and agreed to “put a rush on it” and my child was able to join us at the table. In hindsight, I suppose I owe “Big Daddy Cornbread” an apology.

Random Thoughts 14

I have come up with a number of indie band names for free use:

Sneeze-guard Attrition

Redacted Betrayal Fellowship

2Faced Triathletes

Hamstrung Collateral Veganism

Freudian Video-Gamesmanship

Love Triangle Squared

Serpentine Axis Theory

Neverthejest

Intimacy Subpoena

Cookie CRISPR

Relational Foghorn Collective

LifeChoate

Handlebar Balderdash

Bruce’s Waning

Point-of-Sale Hedonism

Snark Week

Solitary Consignment

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I have always suspected that the wide discrepancy in my Netflix DVD return times is attributable to the postal employee that services my mailbox. Perhaps they open the red-envelope to see what I watched, and based on the synopsis, take it by the house and watch it before allowing it to continue its journey.
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This was the first item I encountered upon opening the box of infant furniture for my son. I knew that if the grammar was reflective of the overall craftsmanship, I was in for a real treat.

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My wife recently purchased a jar of ranch salad dressing that touted the new formula only included “real ingredients.” Legally speaking, any non-metaphorical element or component of a consumable product qualifies as a “real ingredient.” Artificial colors, toenail clippings and anthrax would all fall under this umbrella. I can’t wait until their “Now Completely Edible” Thousand Island makes its debut.

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The true measure of a polite society is how long a complete stranger will observe you trying to insert a credit card into the Redbox disc-return slot before intervening.

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My son attends a wonderful Christian Pre-K program and, in addition to the secular curriculum, they complete scriptural worksheets. Most of these are fairly straightforward, but he recently came home with one that presented quite a challenge. It was based upon Mathew 21:12-13 in which Jesus overturned the tables of the money-changers in the temple.

The students were asked to read this passage and then decide (in the context of the verse) if the scenes illustrated on the worksheet would “make Jesus happy or sad.” The first row of illustration was easy to decipher (the forlorn look of the children holding the Bible non-withstanding) However, the second row raises the stakes.

The very last image depicts what appears to be the same young lady from the Bible illustration except she seems to be happy. She is staffing an innocuous-looking Bake Sale table and, as any good Protestant knows, the bake sale / chili supper is the fiscal cornerstone of all youth activities. Mission trips and outreach all depend somewhat on the revenue from these events. With that in mind, this scene of a joyful young disciple selflessly raising money would clearly get a thumbs-up from JC.

Or would it?

Let’s look again. Suzie’s innocent little “bake sale” is not positioned in the fellowship hall or recreational center, but right in the front of the pulpit in the sanctuary. Not only is she standing on “holy ground”; her very presence could pose an altar-call safety hazard. Furthermore, the conspicuous absence of a cash box would indicate that Bake-Sale Suze is pocketing the proceeds (why else do you think that her left hand is outside of our view?) Even worse, there is no evidence of fiscal oversight to balance the books.

So which is it? My interpretation of the original verse is that Jesus is not against temple commerce in principle, but rather he is denouncing those who would knowingly prey upon worshipers to dishonestly enrich themselves. Under this assumption, the only way to determine Christ’s approval of the image is to be privy to whether or not Suzie is pricing her wares at fair market value and not cutting the product. I felt it would at least to be necessary to ascertain whether or not the bear-claw icing is 100% pure. My son chose to leave it blank. I hope it does not affect his GPA.

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When a movie touts that it was helmed by a “visionary director” this is code for “we are giving them one last chance to produce a commercially viable film before we move on”

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Just a few days ago, I was ordering a Marpac White Noise Machine for my son’s room. These are the wonderful cylindrical devices that emit the sound of a fan to block out other noises to promote sleeping or privacy of conversation. As is Amazon’s custom, their algorithm suggested “related” items that other customers bought along with their Marpac White Noise Machines. I was not prepared for the suggested companion items.

Perhaps I am reading too much into things, but if the apparently substantial number of people acquiring the noise machine / cooking spray / “Do You Have A Secret?” trifecta aren’t planning a surprise dinner for mommy; this might be worth law enforcement looking into.

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I have been seeing a lot of marketing for the horror / thriller “A Quiet Place” which follows a family forced to exist in silence because they are being hunted by creatures drawn by noise. One trailer even shows the parents and children sitting around in a living room in silence as the parents read and the children play a board game. As a parent of multiple young children, I can tell you that watching that scene evoked as much longing as it did dread.

Sure, the idea of being constantly threatened by malevolent creatures is not best case scenario, but the absence of one child loudly accusing the other one of being a “big doo-doo baby head” is not the most disproportionate trade-off I can imagine.

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There is no better irony to be found on the Internet than being forced to watch a YouTube Ad purporting to show me how to theoretically build my wealth while coming to the realization that by watching their promo, I am actually building theirs.

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We exist in a world where commercially-available smartphones can instantly recognize the unique facial contours of a human-being, but the grocery self-checkout kiosk still requires my assistance to identify fruit.

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I got the following letter in the mail. I simply wrote them a response that I was turning them in for violation of Child Labor Laws.