The Family Braap

I didn't marry my wife because she can burp the alphabet but it was right up there with "hot" and "wicked smart". However, when my kids asked me why I married her (with a little too much of a 'what the hell were you thinking' in their voice . . .) I gave them the alphaburp spiel.

She can do it, too. My wife's ability to brap alphabetically is impressive and worthy of video (we have not--yet) but lately she won't do it. She won't pony up. My son will get down on his knees but she won't crack. She's a lawyer now and that kind of behavior won't hunt.

But the two or three times she broke it out for the kids forever changed their idea of burping. For most kids, a good fricative FRAAAP will do. But not ours. Our kids have goals.

The princess gave up early. It doesn't please the court. She gets to about J then loses focus. But the kid, he's committed.

My wife taught him how to fake burp in order to get through all 26 letters. She neglected to explain the physics involved: when you sallow a lot of air, it kind of makes you a human balloon and the air, it needs to come out.

So one day Connor is working it. He's horfing air like a Hoover and pumping out magnificently phlegmatic ligatures but he can't get past M without cracking up. So he's working on his game face when he fades. Just peters out. He wanders into the bathroom and sits down on the edge of the tub.

I'm on the phone (I don't recall the conversation but given the sheer idiotic guyness of coaching my son to better burping, more than likely there were a lot of "dudes" and air-fives) when I notice Connor is gripping the edge of the sink and staring at the floor with a look that either meant 'I'm giving birth' or 'this happened in Alien'. Then he screams.

My son is scared of spiders and there's one chick on his basketball team that railroads him to the hoop like a freaking bulldozer and he just stands there blinking so I'm not saying he's tough. But when it comes to puking, diarrhea, and any other ungainly expectorations, he's a pro. No prob. If he has to puke, he pauses the DVR, says 'Pardon, methinks I must hurl, forthwith’, hits the can, cleans up, and returns to Spongebob like nothing happened.

If you didn't read it in my previous, I don't freak out. I don't call 911. I don't scare easily. So when homme started wailing and wouldn't stop, when his screaming started getting louder, harder, more urgent, I grabbed the phone.

I've never felt so useless and stupid. Staring at Connor, patting him on the back, the arms, not knowing what the hell is going on, thinking his stomach is knotted, or his heart is decavitating, or his spleen's exploding, and he's looking at me like I'm supposed to know what's going on. I ask him what’s wrong and he nails me, his face contorted with horror and surprise: ‘Don’t you know?’ The paramedics burst through the door and the street fills up with sirens and red lights and they hit the hallway, all radios, faceplates and gear, and Connor looks up, astonished, revelation dawning, and he burps.

For 38 seconds.

It is a luxurious, arresting, and august irruption. It is a venting of such sepulchural weirdness it seems to disrupt the natural order: birds fall from the sky, wolves howl, republicans forgive someone, time stops yet the burp just keeps coming, just keeps unraveling like a magic act and even Connor, in the middle of it, starts to laugh while he's belching. I'm laughing. The paramedics sitting at my kitchen table are cracking up. Connor, giggling, continues to erupt: short echoing bursts of FRAAAP and CRARRRG and BLAAAAGH--like Batman for blind people.

The paramedics advise us to administer a folk remedy: coke. Burp boy keeps up his vaporous ellipses. The bleats get further apart and stop catching him by surprise and before the paramedics leave, he manages one last massive BLAAAAP!

He uses it to say thank you.