Mosquitoes and Oatmeal

At the last minute, my buddy and his 6-year-old son invited us to go camping.

Cool ... except that it was 97 degrees.

After both soccer games, I raced home with the sweaty kids, pulled the soccer bags out of the car, and threw all the camping gear in the car. 

Nothing was packed, so it looked like a Boy Scout had exploded in the way-back of the Subaru.

We met up with the two other dads and their boys, and caravanned to the Minotaur Lake trailhead. The trail was steep... not steep like my insurance rate, but steep like a dusty, rocky, tree rooty, crawl-up trail. 

Within a half-mile, both of my children pulled off their shoes and socks. Neither of my children have skin on their feet.  Whatever it is, it’s tougher than duct tape and has the aesthetic quality of cantaloupe rinds. 

Within the next mile, we passed a couple sliding down the trail. The woman (who must have been a mom) saw my barefooted children with their backpacks on, scrambling up the trail, and gave me a stare that made me feel like I had pancreatic cancer.

After the stare-down, I recovered well enough to convince my kids to finish the trudge by using a box of Mike and Ike’s and a quart of Kool-Aid.

At the campsite, the mosquitoes were doing Rock, Paper, Scissors for first blood. They ate the Deet off of us to kill time. We built a little fire and kept throwing green limbs on for the smoke. While convulsing from smoke inhalation, my daughter managed to spit out, “Why do the mosquitoes not bite us when we’re standing in the smoke?” To which I replied, while gasping for air, “They have to breathe too,”

We abandoned the smoke for a swim in the lake, and in a moment, we were standing on chunks of granite a few feet above a crystal clear alpine lake.

• There was no one else swimming – clue #1. 
• There was a snowfield dripping into the lake – clue #2. 
• There was apparently nothing alive in the lake – clue #3. 

I jumped in anyway.

There is a sensation that occurs when your internal organs freeze. Walt Disney probably can relate. I came to the surface and, without a choice, scrambled for the bank. I apparently played it off well enough, because both of my children jumped in afterward. It was so cold, they couldn’t scream… believe me when I say that they would have screamed if it had been possible.

Back at camp we ate a lovely meal, which tasted like campfire smoke, and sat around telling stories and coughing until about 10pm. Oddly enough, it was so cold at bedtime that the mosquitoes were finally gone.

The next morning we looked like survivors of a Chicken Pox epidemic, and with the rising of the sun, came the rising of the mosquitoes. It was a zombie movie except with mosquitoes and daylight. I got out my iPhone and started calculating how many drops of blood I could loose before needing to lie down with a cookie and a juice box.

I packed up the instant oatmeal and rounded up the children who were standing in the renewed campfire. We made it back to the car in one hour, and headed home. My daughter is excited because it looks like she has a bad case of acne, which, according to her, makes her look like she’s a teen-ager.

I suppose every cloud of mosquitoes has a silver lining.

Bird Rebounds

I’m never washing my windows again.

It's not that I'm lazy, I'm just looking out for the birds.
I’m here in the house and there are birds bouncing off the windows like two guys in foam rubber Sumo wrestler suits. The noise makes me cringe every time I hear it.

Thunk.

That was the sound of a little bird who should have had a helmet on. There is no way that doesn’t cause brain damage. I wonder if they fly back to their nests and the other birds have to chirp slower to them.

Today, after a seriously loud thunk, my son picked up a female grosbeak that was wandering around on the lawn. He decided it must be divine province that brought the bird to him, so he put it back down on the grass to go find a suitable prison.

Meanwhile, our little huntress Cockapoo went outside and saw a yellow-feathered Scooby Snack standing on lawn.

When Jay returned with a proper (totally improper) cage, he found Twig (yes, he had already named her) dangling from the mouth of a very cocky Cockapoo. The retrieved bird was not only sporting a fresh slobber glaze, it was also solidly dead, so Jay did what any pet owner would do. He got out a shovel and dug a hole in my septic field to give Twig a proper burial.

I was unaware of all of this until Jay came to me with a request for lumber. After a round of questions and semi-answers, I discovered the purpose of the lumber. A headstone... well, head-plank.

I informed Jay that the septic drainfield was one of the few places that I mow, so he couldn’t put up a head-plank there. He took it in stride and did some grave robbing.

With a new location found, and Twig lying on top of the fence like a dirt covered bird-zombie, I taught my son how to use a router and clamp down the wood properly.

An hour later, the head-plank was ready and the new grave dug. Twig was put to rest and Jay went into the house to play video games. The router, extra wood, paint, and clamps are still scattered outside, but at least he brought in all the wood chips and sawdust that had stuck to his clothing.

By now, I’m sure Tebby, the Cockapoo has dug up the grave and had lunch. I’ll go out in a little while and tamp the dirt back down, and remove the yellow feathers from the corners of her mouth so that no one will be the wiser.

Now it’s time to…. Dern, another thunk. That one sounded like a sparrow.

Father's Day

I made a terrible mistake. I thought that Father’s Day meant Father’s Day Off.

My wife got up this morning at 7:00AM to fly to Chicago. My nine year old daughter was up early and decided to make me a Father’s Day breakfast while I slept late. Her heart was in the right place, however the sound of dishes crashing was not restful.

During the kitchen destruction episode I continued to feign sleep, and before long, my twelve year old son woke me up to tell me they were going to let me sleep in. His heart was in the right place….

After I rolled over and pretended to be dead, he decided to wrestle the dog next to me on the bed. I got the hint and stumbled out of the room. My daughter wisely seated me at the table so that I couldn’t see the kitchen. The eggs and biscuit type thingy turned out pretty good. The kitchen did not turn out pretty good.

The rest of the day turned out much like the kitchen. Amidst the arguing, complaining, daily chores, kitchen triage, demands, and temper tantrums, we biked to the bakery, where my son went mentally insane.

I took a gamble that the insanity was caused by low blood sugar. The police were not called, but I have a hunch that Child Protective Services received a call that a poorly dressed man was trying to force feed a $10 piece of quiche to a screaming child.

On the ride back home, we were attacked by plants that hate bicycle tubes. After pulling the spikes out of the tires and exhausting my patch kit, we sprinted for the car while 3 of the 6 total tires slowly went flat.

At some point in the day I noticed all the charcoal in the oven from the cleaning cycle, so I found myself cleaning out the oven while the children stood behind me thinking up, and saying things that would make me mad.

I held it together for a few seconds before I pulled my head out of the oven and snapped.

“Listen up kids! This is Father’s Day! I’m the father, which makes it MY day. I’m not driving you to Evan’s house. I’m not driving you to Mariah’s house. I’m not cleaning up anything else. I’m not going to strip search your brother to find your missing Ring Pop. I’m not going to build a custom weather proof barn owl habitat. I’m not going to help you find your shorts. I’m not going to smell your flip-flops. I’m not going to look up the name of Selena Gomez’s new boy friend. And I’ll be damned if I am going to watch you shoot 347 Dark Creatures with Lego Warriors on your video game!"

"I AM going to change into my Sesame Street t-shirt, put on my Journey Escape CD, sit on the couch and read last month’s issue of Men’s Journal! Please go away into the woods… and take a box of crackers with you."

It was not my best moment.

The children steered clear for about three and a half minutes, before returning to add insult to injury. My daughter came into the room and turned off my Journey CD so that she could call her friend and arrange a play date.

I was so bamboozled by this brazen action so soon after my tirade, that I had no other choice but to give up.

I reached into my brain, removed all of my expectations of having a lovely special day, and flushed them down the toilet - that needed cleaning. I then walked downstairs, picked up a controller and shot Dark Creatures with my son until it was time to smell my daughter’s flip flops.

I fully intend to remind them of this day when they become parents. I will have my revenge. Oh, yes, I will.

Open a Window

I am not only a SAHD (stay at home dad), I am also a bit of a DIY (do it yourself) guy when it comes to the house.

Today I decided to install the counter-top for the sink in the utility room. The process required that I do something that I have never done before – glue laminate to the top of the counter. This procedure requires glue. The glue in question is very specific to laminate… and probably drug users.

I started reading the glue can, while sitting in the tiny, unventilated room. On the can, there was a warning about tiny unventilated rooms, right next to a paragraph about long term exposure, brain damage, and operating heavy machinery.

Eventually I got around to the instructions for application, popped the lid, and started applying the toxic goop with a brush. Within seconds, the room was filled with an unusually strong odor, and I was unclear what my initial mission was.

I began gluing the lid to the floor, and the can to the drill, and my shoe to the shelf. It was terribly funny to me at the time.

At one point, I came around enough to get back to the task at hand and decided to review the instructions for wait-time to stick the laminate to the wood top. I read something about vomiting, so I double checked to see that I had the can right side up, then reread the step to see where I was supposed to vomit and for how long.

Upon realizing I had been reading the hazard section again, I turned the can to the application instructions and found the drying time – 30 minutes. Oooo, math. I like math.

I looked at the pretty little numbers on my watch, but the numbers didn’t provide much help.

I went back to the can, and it said to wait until the glue was tacky. I imagined the glue wearing socks with sandals – very tacky. I thought it was terribly funny at the time.

The glue was wet still, so I went out to the shed to put away some tools. While in the shed, I went completely blind. Everything was black. I couldn’t help but think that it was odd that I would go blind so quickly.

My eyes started adjusting to the dark, and to my great relief, I discovered that the door had blown shut and the lights were off. I groped to the door and with my newly restored sight, I went back into the house as loopy as ever.

I stopped in my son’s room, which is next to the utility room to see if the vapors had killed his gecko. I looked through the glass at the nocturnal creature, which was now wide awake and licking its eyeballs. It was terribly funny at the time. I wondered if gecko saliva made his eyeballs tacky…ooooh, tacky…TACKY… I’ve got to check the glue!

Back into the utility room, I found the glue to be perfectly tacky and ready for installation. I got the laminate in place and rolled it on and installed the sink…. I think. I don’t remember all of that, but it’s done and I’m the only one who would have done it, so it must have been me. The gecko is not that industrious.

Now, I’ve got an incredible desire to eat Doritos and Little Debbie snack cakes. You know those ones that have the creamy swirl wrapped inside the chocolaty goodness? Man, I need to go get a box of those. I wonder where the kids are?

Adult Slushies

If you give my children caffeine, you’ll be sorry.

Not because I will get mad at you, but because I will politely force you to be responsible for them until their brains return to normal.

It’s safe to say my son has destructive tendencies. With caffeine in his system, he is destructive… faster. My daughter is very social. With caffeine in her system, she is like a cheerleader on speed.

I was in the grocery store today. I told the children they could pick out a drink. They know the rules – no high fructose corn syrup, no artificial-chemical-Frankenstein-sugar, and no caffeine. They perused the juices, vitamin waters, and flavored sparking beverages, before turning to me and asking politely for a slushy.

I flash-backed to my childhood, standing in the 7-11 with a crumpled dollar bill in my pocket trying to decide which slushy would cause maximum tongue discoloration. I proclaimed, “What the heck, kids, knock yourselves out! Get a slushy!”

I went about my business knowing that my children were safely cocooned in my nostalgia and undergoing a right of passage – unsupervised slushy mixing. I looked forward to seeing the familiar foul gray color that occurred when one mixes all the slushy flavors together in an attempt to create a new and groundbreaking slushy flavor.

My daughter ran up to me as I stared at chicken.

“Dad! The slushy has caffeine… and Jay has it!”

“Oh, dear child, slushies don’t have caffeine. Slushies are full of sugar, flavors, and magic neon fairy sprinkles. There’s nothing bad in slushies, so don’t you worry your pretty little head.”

My daughter didn’t go for it, and gave me the You-Are-A-Dumb-Adult look. I strolled back over to the slushy machine to check on Jay.

His eyes were bugged out as he sucked frozen blue/green slushy out of a clear cup. He pointed to the microscopic label that read, “CAFFEINE TAURINE GINSENG” and said, “See, that doesn’t say, ‘caffeine’. It says… well, I can’t read it.”

Apparently, the transformation had begun.

My heart stopped beating for a couple of seconds. My lip twitched. My childhood memories were dashed to the sticky floor. The green slushy has caffeine and taurine in it.

What the hell are they thinking! Who would put caffeine in a slushy? If some psycho wants Red Bull in his slushy, let him buy a dern Red Bull and put it in his own dern slushy! What’s next? A little Ecstasy in the SweetTarts? How about some crack in the Nerds. Heck, cocaine in the Pixie Stix should create a lovely sales spike.

In an effort to restore some of my innocence, I took note that the row of tanks did not have the infamous Icee polar bear hanging on a gargantuan circus colored cup. Instead, they had “Italian Sodas” printed below the unnaturally florescent churning semi-liquids. I guess that makes it marketed for adults.

I think I’ll write the company to see when the “Camel Menthol” flavor is coming out.

Un-Macho Dad

I accidentally referred to myself as a Stay-At-Home-Mom the other day.

It was just a slip, right? I’m a macho Stay-At-Home-Dad, right? It’s not like I gave up my manliness when I started wearing bright orange rubber gloves and a frilly apron… did I?

To be on the safe side, I joined a gym. Gyms are manly places where men get pumped up, and testosterone is in such abundance that it leaks out of the doors and makes passers-by want to grunt, scratch, and watch boxing.

I went at 9:00AM. I had not been notified in advance that at 9:00 AM, the gym had only Stay-At-Home-Moms talking about cleaning supplies, babies, and The View.

I walked in determined to do a manly workout despite the estrogen fueled conversation. However, one lady had the audacity to say that the Shark Steam Mop couldn’t pick up crayon marks off of hard wood floors.

I couldn’t let that one lie.

I informed her that you had to pump up the steam and let the mop head sit on the crayon mark for a few seconds, then it would come right up. Amateurs.

After my workout with the ladies, I was still not feeling the macho vibe, so I decided to get my truck fixed. After all there are not many things more manly than a greasy old 4x4 plow truck.

I put my bike in the back so that I could ride home, and changed into my stretchy Spandex bike shorts. I drove down into town and parked in the repair shop lot next to some very manly 4x4’s.

I swaggered into the shop with my bike tights and sexy little bike shoes on, and told the grease monkey behind the counter that I had a leak in my rear end.

That’s manly.

He looked confused and slightly ill. I explained that my manly truck was dripping oil out of the rear differential. He seemed relieved, and started asking me the typical manly questions, such as, “What kind of rear end do you have?” I stumbled over the questions and used words such as, “thingy” and “pointy-ish” to describe my manly undercarriage.

Eventually, the 250 pound unshaven man realized I was clueless and went into help-the-damsel-in-distress mode. He explained that my posi-traction rear end required fully disassembling to replace the seal which was causing the problem and that they could take care of it and call me when it was done.

I left the keys on the counter, pulled my bike tights out of my crack and walked out.

Back at the house, I cranked up my iTunes. ABBA blared from the speakers. During Dancing Queen, I had an epiphany.

Maybe I should give up and embrace my un-macho self. After a full day of housework, grocery shopping, helping with homework, and cooking dinner; I could settle into a comfy chair and watch the Notebook on DVD.

Okay… not The Notebook. I am still a guy, after all.

Killer Chocolate

My cousin is kind, compassionate, and loving… but if you start talking about vomit, she will beat you into a coma with your own arm.

If you have similar issues with vomit, stop reading, because this will make you unhappy.

This winter, I took my kids into the library after school. My daughter’s school bag, a treasure trove of trinkets, trash, food, and hair clips, was left in the car along with our two dogs.

Upon returning, my little white dog, Tebby, looked up from an empty Nestle’s Semi-sweet Morsels bag, wagging her little nub tail, and sporting a chocolate mustache.

The bag had been nearly full, so considering she only weighed about 14 pounds, that meant my little dog ate 16% of her body weight in delicious milk chocolate.

I seemed to recall that chocolate was bad for dogs in more than a waistline way. I did a quick “chocolate & dogs” search on my phone. On the screen, I saw stories of death, descriptions of death, and time tables of death. Apparently, chocolate is the smack of the dog world, and Tebby had overdosed. If she didn’t throw up, she had a couple of hours to live - tops.

Next, I searched for vomiting recipes for dogs. Hey! What do you know! There’s a bunch of them! I picked an easy one, which involves hydrogen peroxide. I told the kids to sit tight, and I ran across the street to buy H2O2.

Brown bottle in hand, we went looking for a lovely spot to save the dog. The phone said I had less than an hour left before serious nerve damage started, so driving the 15 minutes home was totally out of the question. Riverside Park, though, was close and provided a beautiful backdrop for throwing up.

As we pulled in, I told the kids that making dogs puke requires teamwork. The kids were up to the task, so while I held the dog down and held her mouth up and open, one child poured hydrogen peroxide down her throat, while the other child supervised. Convinced that enough went down her gullet, I let her go. We watched her lick the now-foaming chocolate mustache, and look up at us as if we must have accidentally restrained her and poured nasty liquid down her throat.

Almost a minute passed before I declared, “It’s not working! Round TWO!” I grabbed her again and we poured another batch down her throat.

That time, when I let go of her, she clued in on the pattern and decided she was not interested in Round 3. She bolted toward the swing set, but only made it a few yards before the first heaving lurch.

For the next 30 minutes, we followed our poor little cockapoo around the park while she vomited up nearly a pound of Semi-Sweet Morsels (and a few unidentified things from my daughter’s school bag). The snow in a 100’ radius was splotched with foaming choco-barf.

On the way home, we all kept looking at Tebby, expecting her to either die or throw up again. I called the vet from the driveway. He told me we did the right thing, she would be fine, and the second dose of hydrogen peroxide was unnecessary. Unfortunately, Tebby heard the last part and didn’t speak to me for a few days.

I know she learned her lesson, because she asked for a real bunny to eat for Easter as opposed to a chocolate one.

I’m currently working on a hydrogen peroxide juice box for next Halloween to curb my children’s already startling sugar habit.