The Great Orange Grove Miniature Cliffside Village Urine Fire Disaster

A lot of people have, in the process of becoming my friend, had a moment where they felt the need to ask me, a man of leisure and refinement, why I had not used my obvious intelligence to make millions, end world hunger, or improve the World Wrestling Federation, and I always have to chuckle and tell them "I wasn't always this smart."

Here's proof.

The bulk of my childhood occurred in rural Florida, only a stone's throw from Walt Disney World, during the time when Central Florida was just beginning to boom. Old Floridians were selling off their land as fast as they could. Entire counties worth of Orange groves were leveled, paved over, and subdivided into curbed, storm-drained, cookie cutter neighborhoods with names as compelling and imaginative as Brookglenn, Glennbrook, Brentwood, Glenbrent, Woodglen, even Oakwood. Each one had a dramatic entrance flanked by swooping stucco buttresses with the name painted across them in big loopy cursive.

The idyllic, pastoral fugue these names were supposed to invoke didn't affect the population much except when they were buying the home. I suspect my father got a glazed look in his eye when he looked at the brochure for Whistling Pines, never suspecting that as raging, bored, highly literate pre-teens, my friends and I would discover late one night the letters on our entrance were easily removed with a Philips head screwdriver. He lived in Whistling Penis subdivision for 14 hours before anyone noticed. If only we'd had YouTube then.

Without the narcotic effect of cable or video games, our minds were free and quickly turned to the detailed and somewhat destructive exploration of our new home.

As my pop was the plumbing super, we got a discount on a house. We visited it nearly every day from slab to roof beams and moved into it's gleaming vinyl interior in 1975. The subdivision had space for 400 homes. Only half were started. For the next three years, I lived in a construction site.

Which makes a lot of waste. Which has to go somewhere. Which is expensive. So to cut costs, they'd drive a bulldozer at a 30 degree angle into the ground, digging a long sloping ditch. Over the next year they'd fill it up with trash, cover it with dirt, then build a house over it.

Of course, as 10 year olds, we didn't know anything about all that. All we know is one day we're taking a shortcut home from school. We stop at the bait shop and buy nickle cigars and we're smoking them in the dark shadows of the abandoned orange groves when we come across a huge hole in the ground.

It started at our toes and sloped gently down until the rim of the hole was several feet over our heads. You could see striated clay in the walls, citrus roots dangling like severed limbs, a little water seeping into the very bottom of it. And there was a tiny pile of trash way down there. We walked all the way in, amazed at the tufts of dill weed and long grass poking over the edge of it over our heads.

No one else knew about it. It was ours.

We immediately set out to create thrones. I found a big brass plate in the trash and used it to carve a hole out of the wall. My buddy, Tim McDonald, dug his throne with a board and we stuffed ourselves into them. Then we used the trash to build a tiny village. We got into it, carving roads and garages and using twigs and pieces of cardboard from the trash pile to create huts and corrals and a ramp. Eventually, we had to step back and admire out work, a miniature primitive encampment a good yard wide, several levels with connecting roads. It was a marvel of imagination. It was the Anasazi ruins. It was Rome.

Naturally, we had to set it on fire. And just as naturally, it only made sense that, in order to put out the fire (which was getting pretty big pretty fast) we should use our pee.

Our pee.

Now, if we had really thought about it, even in our wildest imagination, we would never have considered that in Florida, where it rains almost every day, where the tangle of weeds is so pregnant with moisture that even on a dry summer day in the afternoon if you walk across a field you'll be soaking wet, we would never have believed that trees might be dried out.

But apparently they were, because the orange tree hanging directly over our miniature inferno promptly burst into flames the very second we ran out of pee. We stood there in the bottom of this pit, horrified, as the next tree exploded, then the next, then--

We ran like hell. We dove between house rows and crept around garages and took another short cut through the little woods behind my house and snuck in through the sliding glass doors and were sitting in the living room watching Gilligan's Island when my dad burst into the house.

Sirens were wailing and smoke was drifting over the subdivision. Dad came in and told us half the orange grove just burned down. We acted rather astonished. Thirty years later, I gave it up and told him and he didn't believe me.

Did You Say Penis? I Thought You Said Penis! Penis!

I wish I'd never studied psychology. I wish I didn't know about Freudian slips or marker locution, or any of that psycholinguistic, semiotic mumbo jumbo because if I didn't, then I wouldn't know my daughter's got procreation on the mind 24/7. I used to live in a disabused state of blissful ignorance. Now, I get this.

Dad: Hey, can somebody get this bag of dog food off the table?
Sarah: What!? Dad, did you say penis?!

Dad: You want a glass of orange juice?
Sarah: OMG! Dad said penis!

or

Dad: . . . so you have to divide the quadratic dividend into the coefficient of fourteen to get zero for a.
Sarah: Did you say penis?

I know I'm supposed to realize she's grown up, that she'sa woman now. I know I'm supposed to realize her hormones are raging through her like the Niagra filling a teacup. I know. But I don't want to know. I want to remain the blissful inebriate king I was when she thought she was Pochahantas, when she said she was going to grow up and marry a cartoon.

By definition I am a Dad because I am the sole male progenitor of my own spawn. But by habit, I'm fairly certain I am a mom as I spend most of my day doing laundry and cleaning floors. I am the limo. I am the grocer. And I am he who obtains pads. I've learned to deal with a lot of womanstuff and I think I do it with all the aplomb such trans-traditional-parenting requires. Once you find yourself standing in the HYGIENE aisle on your cell asking your daughter if she needs heavy or regular flow kotex, your manhood's pretty much a wash.

But the sex line is one I will approach fully Gandalphed. I'll wag my beard, staff stabbed into stone, and thunderously proclaim YOU SHALL NOT PASS! And my daughter will poke her head around the kitchen door and ask: "Did you say penis?"

As a boy, I had sex on the brain with the same drooly retardation as any other kid. I just didn't know girls did that too. I really didn't. Like my father before me, I found it hard to believe girls even pooped, much less thought about peen. But having replicated into the opposite gender, I have had all my girl illusions shattered like porcelain princess dolls run over by a van full of girls-gone-wild videos. When I was a kid, I didn't know:

• Girls fart.


• Girls name their boobs.


• Girls think about sex.


• All the time.


• God help me.

This illusion, I think, serves some evolutionary purpose. I don't know if it's Darwinian or Lemarkian evolution, but it came out of a desire for fathers to ensure their girls marry someone who is as smitten and retarded about them as their father, because that narcoleptic effect allows the girls to remain in control for years, giving them time to establish their man as something just above the level of pack mule.

I like the illusion. I like being ignorant. I like it enough that I'm inches away from stabbing my eardrums with an ice-pik so I can remain deaf and stupid and not hear my daughter say the word penis. I don't care if she grows up to be a fluid dynamics scientist and wins a Nobel prize for her invention of a urinary canal replacement device, I don't want to hear the P word come out of her mouth ever again.

As I've remarked before, my girl was born deep into the aftermath of the sexual revolution. She has the exact plans for herself as any Victorian railroad tycoon's first born son: that she will receive an alarmingly expensive quality education at a college built during the age of steam; that she will walk out of that college into a job in science or law, promptly receiving a salary slightly smaller than a wrongful death payoff; that she will rock a sweet convertible from day one, vacation in luxurious leisure villas on exclusive island mountain resorts; that she will marry a man just as smart and witty as she is who will immediately give birth to and raise her nine children.

I said as much recently as the family frequented the best new sushi joint in Chicago, Makisu, which is actually in Skokie. We were all sitting around the table sinking our teeth into a plate of White Dragon maki when the wine and the joise d' vive washed over me and I said I was so happy, that my kids seemed destined to do well, that I was really proud of my daughter's acceptance into a summer Arabic language program.

Dad: I'm so proud of you.
Daughter: [snorting Rame cola through her nose] Did you say penis?

I'm Not Crazy—I'm Listening to Louis C.K.

Roon's school is a quick walk from our house to his home room. Of course, he sleeps until the last minute each day so he can't make it there if he walks so I have to drive him to school which means I have to make it through the Gauntlet of Stupidity each morning without cursing into cardiac arrest.

For the first couple of weeks I did what all the other parents did. I hung my shaggy dome out the window and screamed phrases banned from use in the British Navy. And prisons. Some mornings I found myself dangerously close to leaping out of my car and eating the living crap out of some petit, double cell phone wrangling soccer mom and her impossible inability to use a blinker. I mean, I don't—I wouldn't. Those bitches are armed.

But man, the cranky is deep. You know the news footage where someone is trapped on top of their car while muddy water and ugly sofas swirl around their mini hummer? Imagine that but it's not water, it's pure unadulterated anger.

And everyone hates everyone else. They're all beady eyeing each other through the windshield and waiting to pounce on the tiniest infraction of morning drop off traffic jam etiquette and unload all the pent up anger left over from yesterday when they did EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

Bear in mind, this school is located at a three way intersection that entertains nearly 20,000 cars on each artery every day. Most of them are trying to drop off their kids.

Here're examples of the pure stupid:

• Just stopping in front of the school to wait


• Parking in the right hand lane for whatever reason


• Switching drivers in traffic


• Parking in front of the entrance to switch drivers, unload eight slow children, replace their engine


• Parking on the train tracks


• Causing me to park on the train tracks


• Blocking the intersection


• Re-blocking the same intersection


• Turning left from the right hand lane into the other right hand lane

And these are all the same car.

After a stint in anger management, I realized I merely needed to accept that I drive among the retarded—and that by changing my environment, I can change how I react to them. I wasn't sure what to do. Until Pandora added comedy to their stream.

Now I turn on my Louis C.K. channel and laugh my way through the tard fest. While everyone else's face is clenched into a fist of pure rage, mine is loose and relaxed, scrunched up into an insane grin or split ear-to-ear from full on guffawing.

However, I caught someone's eye today (we all try to avoid this) and realized that while inside my car, I'm simply being super entertained, jolly, and relaxed, from the outside, I look like a terrorist. My hair is attempting to escape. My face is a post-pillow, drool crusted wedge, my eyes are wide, and I'm laughing hysterically. They don't know I'm listening to Louis C.K. They think I'm stewing in angry silence just like them. Only I'm laughing.

The Death of Death by Children

Well, here we are. Death by Children will cease to exist by the end of the summer. Dylan told us: "You gotta serve somebody;" and I am starting a new project which will take up all of my time not devoted to publicizing the book, Beat Cops Guide, which is out now.

The new project is Eating Vincent Price, an amateur cook's journey through the legendary Treasury of Great Recipes, by Vincent and Mary Price, circa 1965.

You can continue reading about my misadventures as a father by picking up Chicago Parent magazine which has picked me up as a columnist/contributor/funny guy, delivering a well illustrated column each month.

I want to thank everyone who has ever read this blog. It's been a delight writing for you.

Toodles;

Christopher Garlington

The Overnight Camp Sagas: Day 1

I took the kid to computer camp yesterday at Northwestern. He's staying in one of the frat houses. It's all gray stone and ivy and makes we want to kick myself in the ass for dropping out of college and becoming a daredevil. But such is life. We shoot for a better life for the kids and when we score and they get it, there's a certain element of jealousy, a twinge of envy.

This twinge is offset immediately upon check-in. We get there and the people running this camp, an all day computer and game design training camp run by industry experts and professional nerds that will jack my son's blossoming computer savvy arrogance into the mesosphere from whence height he will lob ego shattering duhs onto our plebian queries and induce gravitational shifts with the rolling of his eyes, check us in.

Roon takes his bags, his pillow, and fan and starts walking into this cinematic ivy league frat house and I make for a goodbye hug and he KEEPS WALKING. So, ok, I get it. No PDA. Whatever, so I shift into hi-five mode and he turns to me and says, "I got it, Dad," and disappears into the dorm.

I stood there with my mouth catching flies until I caught the eye of a mom checking in her three newly teened boys. She made a face so clearly sympathetic yet so obviously amused, a look that said "Join the club."

I knew it would happen. I knew a soon as he got taller than me (by three inches now) and soon as the suffix -teen was appended to his age, that he'd dismiss me as irrelevant and possibly retarded and indeed he has.

I suppose I've joined my own fraternity now: Omega Delta Phi, the Order of Dismissed Parents. We know each other by the sad look in our eyes as our children grow up, turn their back on us, and walk bravely into their future as they casually ditch us in their past.

I hope the boy turns out good

I love practical jokes. I think a well executed PJ says as much about the mental faculties of a person as a well crafted essay.

My high school supported some legendary pranks:

• On of the Ag class superstars smuggled a fetal pig out of class and onto the salad bar. He nestled it gently around the giant plastic bowl of lettuce and like 13 people went through the line before someone screamed.
• This same guy instigated a food fight on a day when the school had decided to serve mashed potatoes. I remember him towering over everyone and (always with the lettuce) grabbing the huge salad bowl and slinging the lettuce out over the entire lunch room so that nearly everyone got some. Pure ninja.
• The rednecks were more theatrical than the drama club. One of them came to lunch dressed as a doctor. He sat all the way across the lunch room from his pals and quietly ate his lunch. Suddenly, one of them has a dramatic coronary, spilling his food, falling across someone's table. His friends lay him out and perform CPR, full drama, people freaking out. One of them stands up and yells out: IS there a Doctor in the house?! And this guy stands up and says "Why yes, I'm a doctor" rushes over and does CPR with full frontal face plants and everything.
• My friends and I started a secret society called the Red Guard Baptist Youth then refused to admit we were in it. One guy actually came up to us and ask how he could join and we swore it was fake, that there wasn't really a Red Guard Baptist Youth and he got pissed off at us for being such elitists. I'm surprised we didn't get called to the principals office.
• I healed someone during our televised morning announcements.
• We filmed a "drug deal" and "accidentally" broadcast it between classes.
• I filmed the Ag class when they butchered a cow and I broadcast it just before lunch.
  

But nothing compares to the brilliant and perfectly executed mastery of Kyle Garcher who tricked the opposing team into spelling out WE SUCK! over three tiers of fans. Brilliant!

Naturally, Mr. Garcher was suspended, which is entirely appropriate. You can't break the rules without paying the price. I'm sure Mr. Garcher knew he'd get busted and was prepared for it. Here's the video and please visit Mr. Garcher's blog.

I do hope Mr. Garcher learns a lesson or two from this brilliantly executed prank. A) never stop, never surrender B) always work with plausible deniability in mind.

Chestnut from the Nut Chest

Getting into the Holiday Spirit, I offer you a gift, this handsomely wrapped BEST OF post from last year. I swear it's worth your time. Don't believe me? Check out this handy quote . . .

But I don't blog for myself--I do it for you, dear readers, and to give up merely because there were risks, discomforts, or potential blindness would be cowardly. I pressed on. I pressed the blunted pik into my left nostril, tilted my head 45 degrees to the right, flipped the switch, and blew the top of my skull off.

The Water Pik Netti Pot Listerine Don't Try This At Home Sinus Irrigation Disaster

Introduction to Death By Children

y name is Christopher Garlington and I write these stories so that when my head finally explodes, the authorities will have a ready explanation.

You’re probably a parent. If you aren’t then FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST DON’T READ THIS BLOG . . . if you intend to breed. The stories I’m going to tell will change your mind.

In that respect, this site is not really about the crazy stuff my kids do to try to fling me into cardiac arrest. It’s about parenting. It’s about how we really don’t grow up until we have kids-then we lord over them with our vast experience and wit until we finally feel superior to another seven year old and can get on with our truncated development.

My own childhood was fraught with ridiculous and harrowing acts of stupidity and I am lucky to be alive. There are countless moments when I unknowingly stared into death’s jaws; countless times when the probability of gaining the nickname “stumpy” was improbably high. There were concussions, live burials, forest fires, demolitions, and public nudity. I was morbidly obsessed with fire, electricity, poisonous snakes, fire, BB guns, power tools, wind-powered home-made go karts, and fire.

Yet I managed to make it into adulthood intact, trick a brilliant, hot scientist to marry me, and impregnate her.

When my daughter was born I sighed with relief: surely a girl won’t get into the tortuous predicaments I embraced as a boy.

What an idiot.

Shortly after that, my son showed up and I set out to mold him into a better version of myself.

What an idiot.

There are two mistakes I’ve made with my children. First, I’ve always told them the truth. No matter how uncomfortable, I vowed to always answer any question as honestly and fully as possible. In hindsight, I can see where I went wrong there.

a) Kids do not care what you think. If the words coming out of your mouth don't add up to food or television, their eyes will glaze over and they’ll start daydreaming about setting the curtains on fire.

b) Children are malicious, mean-spirited, cocky, impatient, and more often than not, smarter than their parents; they will see through your little hippy manifesto the third or fourth time you answer some dingbat question in detail; they will then confer with friends, abuse the library, and watch R rated movies when you aren’t looking; and they will lie in wait until the preacher comes over for a cup of coffee whereupon they will march into kitchen and announce, “My dad told me how to masturbate,” grab a cookie and leave.

Secondly, I told my children true stories about my childhood instead of making stuff up. I should’ve lied. I should’ve told them stories exemplifying courage, character, and leadership. Instead, I told them the truth. I told them stories about catching snakes, building swamp boats, chasing wild boars, setting things on fire, complex and nearly fatal pranks involving farm machinery, learning to drive, electric urine disasters, sneaking into government facilities, and smoking. And drinking. There might’ve been a few brief tales about carousing--I can’t remember them all.

Apparently, and someone could’ve told me this beforehand, kids take a lot of cues in their moral and critical thought development from—-this will blow your mind—their parents’ stories!

Consequently, Malcolm, down at poison control, knows me by name; there are paramedics who can point my son out in a crowd; and the guys at the bowling alley cheerfully (in unison) greet him as ‘Cheesefry!’

I’ve tried to fix it. The kids will say “tell me a story about your childhood, Dad” and I’ll launch into a hilarious tale about school safety preparation or emergency exits and they’ll throw the scissors at me and beat me with implements until I break down. Then I tell them.

I tell them everything.

So welcome. Welcome to my parenting disaster. As my son is still pretty young, I imagine I’ll have plenty to write about and, as I lived a totally immature life well into my 30s, there’s plenty of backstory to fill in on boring weeks when the kids make it through without breaking anything, getting arrested, or blowing themselves up.

In regards to the apparent vested interest I have in my children engaging in highly dangerous and potentially lethal activities:

a) My wife’s a lawyer;
b) Please see “Disclaimers.”

Yours truly

F-Bombing as a Second Language

It’s finally summer. I can enjoy the warm embrace of June days. I can throw the windows open to fill the house with the sharp perfume of fresh cut grass. I can enjoy my morning coffee to the symphony of birdsong and the rustle of leaves. I will wake leisurely to drag my fully Lebowskied carcass out onto the porch and chat with the neighbors as they pass by. I can’t wait.

4:25 am: I’m enjoying a spectacular dream when I’m interrupted by:

“F-BOMB”

I recognize the voice of my son, but the words are perfectly articulated inmate.

“—YOU F-BOMBING JERK! PUT THE F-BOMBING! GUN DOWN! DO. NOT. F-BOMBING. SHOOT. ME!”

I race downstairs ready to throw myself in the path of a bullet to save the fruit of my loins.

I kick his door open and behold a scene so vile, so perverse, so saturated with horror, I hesitate to describe it. My son, still in his school uniform, wearing nine-million dollar noise cancelling headphones, is furiously pounding his controller, eyes bugged out, bleary and bloodshot, glaring into his monitor, screaming into his microphone.

“I WILL F-BOMB YOU UP YOU F-BOMBING—”

“Roon!”

“—I’M GONNA SKULL F-BOMB YOU, YOU F-BOMBING—”

“ROON!”

“—DROP A GRENADE! DROP A GRENADE! OH MY GOD YOU’RE A F-BOMBING IDIOT!—“

I touch him on the shoulder. It’s like I tased him. He rips his headphones out of their jack, unleashing the booming cacophony of online gamers from three continents through his desktop speakers at a level I would judiciously describe as “earthquake”.

Roon is yelling something, I can see his lips moving, but I can’t hear the sound over the  conflagration of f-bombs and vile slang pouring out of his game. I scramble to find the volume button, finally get the thing shut off as bedroom lights flicker on up and down our street, only to have the sudden silence filled with:

“DAD! WHAT THE F-BOMB?!”

My glare snakes up from somewhere deep in the animal part of my spine, grabs my cheek bones, and hauls itself out into the air between us dripping with ruthless malice and dangerous intent.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“FOUR THIRTY IN THE F-BOMBING MORNING!”

“Stop saying F-BOMB”

“You say it.”

“Not at 4:30 in the f-bombing morning.”

“Are you f-bombing kidding me?”

I reach down and slowly wrap my fingers around his power chord like I’m gripping the handle of an axe, fixing him with a neolithic glare.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said you f-bombing—”

I tense up like I’m gonna pull.

“I’ll shut up.”

A few hours later I’m on the patio with my coffee when my neighbor Bob walks by.

“Morning, Bob.”

“Top of the f-bombing morning, Garlington.”

Oh summer. Oh joy.

---- ----- -------

A fan of DBC who had a similar problem and wishes to remain anonymous sent this in. She put a note up in front of her son's computer instead of telling him to stop swearing because . . . .

. . . the kid was skyping a raid and I didn't want to embarrass him in front of his guild.

That is a super cool mom. Here's to you, anonymous person!

How to Stop Yelling at Your Kids

I yell at my kids.

I used to think this was normal. I used to think that, as father, I was entitled to a wider margin for volume, that I was allowed to turn it up to 11, that yelling at my kids was my right.

But one day, one of my kids rolled their eyes while I was yelling something like WHERE IS THE REMOTE! I SWEAR TO GOD I'M PUTTING IT ON A CHAIN! and my daughter asks me the following: how would you react if one of your friends yelled at us like that?

Well, that floored me. Shut me up tight. How would I react? I'd stop them in their tracks. I'd tell them my kids aren't there for them to yell at. I'd ask them, you don't yell at adults like that do you? I'd tell them they'd better behave themselves or . . .

Oh.

She was right. I'd never let another adult yell at them like that. In fact, I'd had to square off with a couple of grown-ups for that very reason, and I told them in no uncertain terms they could yell at my kids or pick up their teeth. So why in the hell do I think it's ok for me?

Well, it's not. It's not ok to yell at your kids. Words are mighty powerful things. To believe they are invisible, puffs of air, and without physical force is to misunderstand language. You don't yell only with words, you yell with your entire body. [pullquote]Imagine a person twice your size leaning over you with a face twisted in anger and threat, body bent with fury, telling you you're an idiot and you'd better not do it again (whatever it was you did, which may not be clear).[/pullquote]You yell with the look on your face. You yell with the words you choose. You yell with your size. You yell with the power of your authority. All of these things come into to play when you yell at your kids. Your yelling is a blunt force that does real, measurable harm.

Imagine a person twice your size leaning over you with a face twisted in anger and threat, body bent with fury, telling you you're an idiot and you'd better not do it again (whatever it was you did, which may not be clear). It's scary.

Of course, not every yell is so dramatic or terrifying. Most times, a parent is yelling as a matter of course and doesn't even think of what they're doing as out of line. They don't think of it as abuse.

But it is.

Think about your job. You're boss doesn't yell at you (much), you don't yell at the copy guy or the UPS guy or your fellow wage slaves. Why? Well, because it's considered unacceptable. You can get fired. And because human resources science has determined that it is an abuse of power and equality.

But here's the thing. People at work are watching you There's a reporting chain. You can get in trouble. But there's no HR at home. There's no one to look at you like you've lost your mind. There's no one to write you up.

This all became suddenly and embarrassingly clear to me when my girl pointed out that I was being a titanic asshole and a hypocrite when I yelled. And it stung me when she called me on it with such precision. I made a promise to stop, right there.

I have not been perfect. I've slipped. I've backslid. But I am on the road to recovery, I am yelling 99 percent less than I ever did before by employing the absurd.

I decided that every time anyone yelled in this house, the person they yelled at gets to call them on it once. If the person yells again, the yellee gets to wet willy them for 5 full seconds. If they yell a third time (in the same day) they get 20 seconds.

This sounds ridiculous, but if you commit to it, it works like magic. If you don't know what a wet willy is, you don't have kids. For your edification:

willy, wet, n, wet wil' li, UK; the action of placing one's index finger into one's mouth then placing it into another person's ear.

It works for a couple of reasons:

1. Because you have decided that you MUST stop yelling at your kids.


2. Because your kids WANT you to stop.


3. Because it defeats self-importance with absurdity and mild embarrassment


4. Because your kids think it's HILARIOUS and will be just waiting for it.


5. Because having your kids stick his spit slick finger in your ear is disgusting and you WILL NOT WANT IT TO HAPPEN TWICE.


6. It teaches you humility.

I promise you it works.  This principal of defeating stupid asshat parenting habits with absurdity is highly effective and can be applied to other bad parenting habits as well. It is, in fact, the founding principal of my own new parenting philosophy, the Wet Willy Way, a new advice series beginning here at Death By Children.

And it's important for another reason: your kids love you. This is true. They want so much for you to be the greatest, most amazing parent ever. By eroding the facade of self-importance and false authority some parents build for themselves, you allow your kids to love you more, to trust you more, to fear you less or, hopefully, not at all. You remove threat from the relationship and trust me, you don't need it. Most importantly, as silly as it sounds, the Wet Willy Way is an invaluable tool—humor—in developing a real, joyous relationship based on trust.

Learn THE WET WILLY WAY

FINALLY! Someone important recognizes my genius!

Occasionally, I make weak and poorly assembled efforts to publish stories off-blog. Recently, Chicago Parent magazine finally caved and told me they'd publish a story if I'd stop standing in front of their offices with a sign reading "will work for Facebook friends". You can read this story here.

Be sure to visit the site, comment in the comments, and when you write the editor, the following words or phrases are encouraged: genius, brilliant, changed-my-life, here's $20 bucks, and makes-Dave-Barry-look-like-an-illiterate-baboon.

Thanks.

Rapping Rhapsodic on Bohemian Rhapsody with my Bonne Homme

Roon switched schools this week, moving from a parochial school to public, thereby losing his uniform, meaning I had to buy him new clothes.

I thought it was telling that when we went to the store, he didn't care about what pants we bought as long as they were jeans. But he took a long time to pick out three t-shirts. See if you can detect a theme here. The shirts displayed the following pop memes: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. He topped them off with an AC/DC cap.

I have to say he's starting off well in his musical snobbery. Those are all good bands and he really does listen to them. He recently started paying attention to my iTunes and put together a playlist labeled "Good Music" (to distinguish it from the baffling crap I usually listen to). I pulled some songs off of it to make him a morning mix tape. Check it out:

1. "Mr. Blue Sky," by Electric Light Orchestra


2. "Park & Beans," by Weezer


3. "Bohemian Rhapsody," by Queen


4. "Dracula from Houston," by the Butthole Surfers


5. "Storm in a Teacup," by the Red Hot Chili Peppers


6. "Science Fiction Double Feature," punked out by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes


7. "Death of a Martian," by Red Hot Chili Peppers


8. "Black Times Bad Times," by Led Zeppelin


9. "More Than a Feeling," by Boston

At first I thought this was a further extension of his newfound rock snobbery but I realized it wasn't really about the music so much as it was about self definition. Roon wanted to define himself to his new school as a rocker, and he wanted to establish his musical taste right off the bat not to lord his 1970s playlist cred over anyone else, but to let them know where his head is at.

This may seem like over intellectualizing t-shirts but it's a completely valid effort on his part to adopt a new uniform: the cobbled-together non-uniform of the Boheme. I don't know how much of that need to define himself played into his decision to switch schools, but it mattered a lot that on his first day in the cradle of public knowledge he was representing Pink Floyd, a band he equates with stellar musicianship, individuality, and intellectualism.

Pink Floyd is his second choice, however, after Queen. If he'd had a Queen shirt, he'd probably never take it off, hoping that their operatic falsetto rock cred would somehow seep into his skin along with dirt, taco sauce, and diet coke stains.

His transition to public school marks a loss for me in one regard--quality time.

I get to spend a lot of time with my spawn because I work at home. But driving them to school has always been important to me because for the eight minutes we had together in the car, remarkable conversations would occur.

The other day we rocked to school under the auspicious and noble refrains of Bohemian Rhapsody, singing at top volume, until Roon killed the song to ask questions about it, to talk about complex rock & roll, Freddy Mercury, gay rock stars, and the song itself.

It's easy to think that the tent-pole conversations are what matters--the sex talk, the dope talk, the Bischon Frieze talk. But I don't buy it. I think it's the sum total of all these little seemingly inconsequential talks--the argument about what 'scaramouch' actually means--that ultimately make up a longer, broader, and permanent body of discussion in the mind of our children that transmits the concepts we truly believe. It teaches them our real philosophy and assists them in building their own.

Now that my daughter is gone so much, I hardly ever get to talk to her except to ask her to please stop singing in the shower at midnight. We quip in passing and she's obviously witty as hell and, like her mom, [My Attorney], a brain on legs. But I don't get much conversation time.

Now that Roon will be walking to school I'm losing face time with him as well. Of course, he'll be walking in the door every day at 3:30 demanding food. It's not like I won't see him. But there's something about the drive time. All you have is driving and talking. At home there's laundry, living room, lunch, dishes, dog walking, laundry, homework, house cleaning, laundry and sometimes laundry. I won't have that brief break where I have nothing to do but drive, that time when we talk about those things that matter. Like gay rock stars.

Thanks for [Mental] Flossing!

Miss Cellania mentioned my new D.I.Y. series in her excellent, perfect, you-must-subscribe-to-this series, Morning Cup o' Links, over at Mental Floss. Thanks, Miss C!!!

First Day of School/First Day of Freedom Epic Fail

Look, what can I say? I had a bunch of people over last night and we had really strong coffee at 8:30 and then about midnight I had a great idea and then I couldn't find that one pen I like and then it was 6:30 in the morning and I hadn't slept.

I had a meeting with a principal I'd never met, a guy with a reputation for piercing intelligence and a take-no-prisoners attitude and my eyes looked like ball gags.

I could barely walk, I could barely think, I could barely complain.

Yet everything went swimmingly except when I got hom I could not fall asleep.

I tried. I laid in bed. I murdered sheep. But no zees obtained.

Finally, around 10, I fell asleep. At 10:05, my yard guys landed their converted 747 on my front lawn. At 10: 30, I fell asleep again. At 11, the phone rang. I leapt out of bed and burrowed through the magazines and overdue bills to find the phone only to have a brief but (I am certain) memorable conversation with a salesperson. From 11:02 to 11:45 I discovered just how many slats of simulated wood are printed on the fake paneling over my bed. At 12:01 my wife called. At 12:45 my alarm went off. At 1:30 my other alarm went off. Between 1:31 and 4pm my phone rang 38 times, my Facebook chime dinged 14, and I was informed I have mail in an even dozen instances. At 5:45 my family collapsed on the kitchen floor with a note pinned to their carcasses demanding food. I served them the remainders of yesterday's repast. They were not impressed. I did dishes. I detailed the dogs. I argued with [my attorney] about the politics of sleepy time and finally, I went upstairs to fall into bed.

And here I am. 32 hours without sleep. Wide awake, poking people on Facebook and Stumbling through UFO websites.

Thankstaking Day

It's my fault. Mine and [My Attorney]'s. We had to go see Rah at Doctor Funacular's

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="283" caption="Music is my life, man."][/caption]

University for Advanced Sneering and Home for Wayward Girls in North Carolina. Like all highly intelligent people, we tried to buy plane tickets the day before we left—you know, the day before Thanksgiving—when the tickets were the cost of a small house in Chicago made entirely of Adamantium. Instead, we drove.

I drove.

And drove. And drove. And. . .where the hell is North Carolina anyway?  I visited every state that seceded and still couldn't find it. Only after we'd gotten a speeding ticket and paid bridge tolls exceeding the GNP of Bolivia did we finally enter the magical world of North Carolina.

As a former Alabamian, I am reluctant to cast aspirations on those with the good sense to be born in the south, but seriously, everyone in North Carolina, West Virginia, and Kentucky, allow me to introduce you to the Garlingtonian Theory of  Motion: The Faster You Go, the Sooner I Get There!

I attempted to explain this to West Virginia but they couldn't hear me over the sound of their state trooper writing me a ticket for going 14 miles an hour over the speed limit. Kudos to Officer Glare for only writing 69 on the ticket, thus avoiding a mountain of paper work and putting me in jail with all the people who stopped at any rest stop within 50 miles of Point Pleasant while displaying the egregious audacity of declining their expensive handcrafted native Mothman DVDs.

It only took us 342 hours of tailgating to get there and back. Had a wonderful time. More on that later. We arrived back in Chicago to find our son, Squatch, had decided to make a controversial decision to turn our house into a participatory exhibit on the cave-keeping habits of unmarried neanderthals.

We were careful to let him know he was being left at home at the tender age of 14 because he had proven his remarkable maturity in the past. We should have been more specific about a few things. The house was  . . . Askew? Tilted? Pukey? Phlegmatic? Words fail me.

But bulleted lists do not:

• Feed the dogs




• Every. Day.




• When we say feed the dogs, we mean the cat too.




• But not on the stairs and maybe throw the cans away. And the lids. Oh my God I just threw up.




• Let the dogs out to pee.




• Every. Day.




• Check the cat sand.




• But remember to leave the door to the bathroom open or the cat will relieve himself on my favorite—JESUS OH MY GOD!




• If the dogs pee in the house, please clean it up.




• As soon as you see i—  At least the same d— Before we get h—Sweet Jesus!




• Please go to school.




• Every. Day.




• Eat the food we left for you.




• A little at a time. Not all in the first hour.




• Here's $100 for emergencies.




• Call of Duty Three is not an emergency.

Bras Cause Cancer!

The daily argument between the teen-manga-rock star and myself went martian today when I gave her her daily admonishment to strap on a brazier.

"You mean put on a straight jacket for my boobs?"

"Yeah. Please?"

"I can't believe you want me to restrain my womanhood!"

"I'm not--your what?"

"Bras cause breast cancer, dad!"

"WHAT!?"

"Everybody knows that."

"No they--"

"Leave me alone! Let my boobs run free!"

I gave up. Sometimes all a parent can do is stare, mouth agape,
high speed electric drill poised over their forehead, and hope that guy from Scrubs doesn't play you in the movie.

----------------------------------

Steaming Zucchini--A Tale of Adventure!

our humble author may be many things, a passable radio talk show host, a halfway decent speller, a pathetic and disappointing dog trainer, but I am not considered to be particularly clumsy. I'm not saying I'm graceful by any measure, but I can walk and chew gum at the same time and when I was skinny, I had fairly rigorous yoga workout¹. But I'm a guy and guys sometimes do stupid things and these stupid things sometimes cause them an undue amount of injury and pain. Granted, they usually deserve it, like when they peer into a gas tank to see if it's topped off--using a zippo. That's just idiotic and the dumbass that does it deserves a few days in a burn ward. However, at least he gets a good story out of it. Not like me.

In order to keep my guy license (which is on tenuous grounds already) I'm going to write the rest of this piece, my injury story, in true GUY form, adventure writing, Hemmingway style, because I don't know how else I can manage to admit that I gave myself whiplash. In my own kitchen.

Steaming Zucchini

A Tale of Adventure!

By
Lt. Dadd Masterson, Bush Pilot

"I laid my spatula on the ground. I wouldn't need it for what I was going to do. I wouldn't need it again ever. I turned with a heavy gaze toward the stove, that massive fiery furnace. Flames licked the bottom of my heavy braising pan like blue tongues. I squared my shoulders. Had it all come to this? To steaming zucchini? Ah, so is the will of God. I am but a man. I raised my trusty tongs, faced the steaming zucchini and ---"

As I lay now in my comfortable hospital bed, I read these words from my diary and wonder what I was thinking at the time. What capricious imp of the perverse conduced me to square off with a pot of steaming zucchini with just my tongs? It must have been the heat. The humidity in the Kitchen can reach unprecedented levels. Stamps won't stick to envelopes. Flies fall to the ground, unable to swim through the dank, jungly atmosphere of the Kitchen. I had been there so long, so much--sweltering over chili mac Hamburger Helper for the boy and bowl after bowl of Smak Ramen for my pre-veggie teen daughter, that I may have lost touch with reality. The strain and dreary automation of working in the Kitchen. Worse, as I created and unboxed wonderous creations for my keepers, I was left to make do on a meager ration of frozen Jenny Craig meals and steamed zucchini. I remember that day, as I mopped my brow and hitched up my pants, I realized I was a slave, I was losing weight, I was wasting away.

17 pounds lighter, I veered in the Kitchen's steamy heat and for a moment came to myself. Is this what it means to be a man? Is this the rigorous, adventurous life I'd set out to have? What's wrong with me!

There was a time when I drove a tricked out fire-engine red 66 Impala. I parked it long ways at Daytona beach and kicked back with my woman in the sun as visiting tourista fathers slowed down to drink in the car, the coolness of it far outstripping their pathetic rented sedans. I remember the look in their eyes as they feasted on the deep shine of Carnuba wax and made that delicious connection between the arc of the fender well and my indifferent, curvaceous girlfriend. I remember dipping my head to peer into their over-air conditioned station wagons as they looked past their wives who were reading Anne Rice and ignoring the screaming sunburnt houligans in the back seat. I remember locking eyes and nodding nearly imperceptibly, knowing it communicated so clearly to them: that's right, buddy, take it all in, awesome car, awesome girl, kicking back on the beach with a couple of brewskies and living the life. There but for the ravages of time go thou.

So many years later, an indentured servant, laying in my recovery. I remember clearly now, the shame I felt, standing there, red spatula in hand (it's good on the non-stick pans), staring at my reflection in the glass-like obsidian finish of the oven--who was this gaunt spectre, this rickety servant? Why was I debasing myself for these miscreant natives who had me under their control, ordering me from the comfort of their comfy couches, lying like insouciant Romans before their 52 inch plasma TV, gorging themselves on my efforts and loudly insulting contestants on American Idol. As I'm thinking these thoughts, one of their reedy voices cuts through the fog like a lash: "Dad, get me a coke."

Resolve burned in my veins. The audacity, the criminal nerve, to keep a man down like this, to enslave him to their indolence. I glared at the gaunt reflection. The heat on the oven door flashed a moment of clarity as the steam evaporated--just for a moment--and the gaunt creature reflected before me resolved into a proper reflection. I spoke to it, perhaps crazed with exhaustion and anger: "Remember the Impala."

A coke. It wants a coke. Well, I'd love to get it a coke but it made me steam zucchini first and it will have to wait. But I know, I know. I've been enslaved for so long, my life of adventure cut short nearly as it began, the Impala lost to time, and I am become that minivan dad, staring out the Kitchen window as some freeman on a Harley charges past, oblivious to demanding teen Overlords. There but for the ravages of . . .

So I laid down my spatula. I faced the hellish steaming pot of Zucchini. If this is my lot, this is then, my lot. I shall embrace it with the courage God gave me. I am a man of the realm, after all. I am a man of courage. I squared my shoulders and raised my tongs. I closed them slightly.

Pain shot through my body. These tongs, cheap replacements for my favorite pair, lost to damage, had bitten into the flesh of my hand between my thumb and forefinger, a pain, perhaps not that different from having your arm bitten off by a wild Tiger--but my reaction, odd and poorly timed, I am shamed to say--was to simultaneously scream, extend my neck, and hunch my shoulders. The muscles in my neck, already weakened by the sad diet of wilted vegetables and that damnable Jenny Craig paste could not relax in pace with my hyper extended head. I actually felt them tear--the same trembling vibration you might feel when tearing towels into rags.

Mortally wounded (it seemed), I stumbled into my keepers' den of luxury and begged them to pause their televised entertainment spectacle and give me relief, massage my neck, for the love of all things holy!

"You look ok to me, Dad."
"Yeah, what are you talking about? Would somebody PLEASE unpause the tv?"

Eventually the oler one, the eldest of my c
aptors, reluctantly, and with dramatic sighing, heaved her reptilian hulk off the couch and slouched toward me. Even in my great pain, the horror of her indifferent approach made me recoil. She laid a single claw against my neck and wiggled it as if attempting to dislodge petrified mucus from her nostril. She continued to stare fixedly at the great televisor, all but ignoring me, causing more damage than relief. I discharged her and sunk into my small chair, which I am forced to share with the dog--whose sexual proclivities cause me no dearth of discomfit--and tried to imagine a better place where self-inflicted whiplash-cum-tong chomping is unknown, where shiny red Impalas lounge insouciantly in the surf and I am, as I once was, a man, indolent and proud.

^{Listen to the Ongoing Adventures of Dadd Masterson!}

¹You don't think Yoga is rigorous? Read "Real Men Do Yoga" and try their beginner set. Call me from the ER.

RADIO RADIO

It appears that Death By Children WILL be a part of the show.

13 Reasons Why Dads Go Crazy

1. Daughters.
2. Sons.
3. Boobs.
4. The thing at the end of this sentence.
5. THE THING AT THE END OF THIS SENTENCE .
6. The elegant and complex curse combinations issuing from my daughter's lips.
   
7. A DVR schedule so replete with Simpson reruns and Dirty Jobs instances that I can't watch Manimal. Again.
8. 9 large trees in my yard, 17 large trees in the adjoining yards=127 bags of leaves each fall.
9. Dog poop. . .
   
10. . . . in the laundry.
11. Finding out the only shaver left in the house before a meeting is a used pink, women's, bikini razor.
12. Remembering it's Columbus day--as you pull up to the closed School at 7:45 am.
    
13. 4 people in a house that can't drive to get:
• toilet paper
• maxi pads
  
• tampons
• poster board
• printer ink (but the store is closed)
  
• Kinkos homework printouts
• twice
  

Google: denied!

Google-centric as I am, I had to take the test related ads off the site because even my fondness for irony won't let me post stories about my kids with ads for "Man Pantie Wearing" bobbling in the ether right next to them. I just don't get it. Do they . . . do they think I'm a porn site?

13 Things About Ten Year Old Boys that Suck

1. Punch Buggy.
2. Jackass (should've never let him watch that).
3. Excellent Vocabulary + Impromptu Parody Songs = Long Talks about Boundaries.
4. Still young enough to hop into my lap without thinking about it even though he's 4'11".
5. Family Guy references ad infinitum.
6. "Look at this," preceding anything.
7. Fart fights.
8. Punch Buggy.
9. Won't. Shut. Up.
10. Ever.
11. Thinks "Dude" is the new "Sir."
12. Can, and will, check everything I tell him on Google.
13. Punch buggy.
    

Picture Day: Jedi Martial Arts School Opens in Chile

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="512" caption="The kid with the Mohawk is wearing a "Dark Side" t-shirt . . ."][/caption]

Death By I Write Like A Girl Syndrome

I stumbled onto this site, which offers a test of text to determine the gender of the author.

The categories are fiction, non-fiction, and blog entry.

I entered an entire blog entry (Dances with Squirrels), an excerpt, and a few sentences randomly generated from my own head. My kids shouted things to type in and even [My Attorney] played.

Our results? Ok, first of all this test is surely flawed. Despite the rigorous science behind its generation, it's just wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrongity wrong wrong.

[My Attorney] -- Female.

The Girl -- Female.

The Boy -- Male.

Me. The Dad. Your bloggist. A manly man type man of a man. -- Female.

Stanley is 7!

My Bio For Indie Bloggers dot Org

Despite their obvious wisdom and intelligence, the witty women running Indie Blogger have entrusted me to mediate their soon-to-be wildly famous WEEKLY CHALLENGE. I have to give them a picture and a bio and this is my FOURTH attempt. The picture is from one of those days when me and the boy were taking self-portraits of ourselves violently shaking our heads with our toungues hanging out because we're obviously GENIUSES. Enjoy.


Christopher "G" Garlington, 43, Chicago.

Author of the universally acclaimed blog, Death By Children, numerous letters to the editor regarding the incomparable stupidity of American politics, the Bonoprah affair, and the Important Relationship between Opera and Monster Truck Rallies, Mr. Garlington is an unrepentant and relentless smartass of the highest caliber.

Born in Birmingham, AL., to a union plumber and a one of those gorgeous farmer daughter types, Mr. Garlington was raised in the wilds of backwater Florida on a steady diet of country music, hands in the air snake handlin' Jesus freakism, corn festival pig-outs, open pit gun range all night barbecues, and bass fishing.

Mr. Garlington is old enough to have witnessed the public antics of actual hippies . . .

You know what, read the rest of the bio by visiting Weekly Challenge.

Out Loud

At dinner, I actually said the following, out loud:

'Dude! It was BEFORE there was an internet so, it was real.'

The Water Pik Netti Pot Listerine Don't Try This At Home Sinus Irrigation Disaster

(((I selected this post to be featured on Dad Blogs. Please visit the site and vote for my blog!)))

I'm probably not sane. I haven't just come to this conclusion--it's been growing on me for years, a sneaky, furtive suspicion that I ain't raht. It worries me a little, not because I'm afraid of being crazy, but because I don't want to infect the children.

Case in point: Do you believe I found the YouTube video of the guy rinsing his nasal cavity with a teapot:

1. Disgusting


2. Totally hilarious


3. Inspirational

If you picked three, welcome to your favorite blog.

I rarely try things I see on the internet. I don't drop Mentos into diet coke. I don't drift my car. I don't cycle-sleep. But when I saw the Netti pot, I had to give it a shot. How could I avoid it? It hits all the 10 year old entertainment points: boogers, semi-inappropriate irrigation, sticking something up your nose, and laughing hard enough to blow coke through your nose while you're blowing salty water through your nose. Through your nose.

As soon as I saw the video I ransacked the house looking for some device that could stand in for a netti pot--a tea pot, a water bottle, a baby's nose cleaner--anything. But I had nothing.

Then I remembered my water pik.

If necessity is the mother of invention, YouTube is the mother of emergency rooms. I'd like to say I stared long and hard at the Water Pik before I gave in to the imp of the perverse, but I never lie. As soon as I saw the Water Pik, I shoved it up my nose and turned it on. Ok, there was a moment of practical modification--I removed the actual pik--not because I found it indelicate to nostrilize something I often stick into my mouth, but because I only wanted to squirt some water through my sinus canal, not drill a hole through my frontal lobe. And I did rinse the tank out. Once. In hindsight, there are some other practical points I might've added to my pre-hydro-encephaliticizing check-list. I might've:

• considered that my sinuses were blocked


• turned the damn thing down from "Saw Through A Diamond" to "Gentle"


• rinsed the tank THOROUGHLY given that I often fill it with straight Listerine


• used water that was WARM, not BOILING


• Not. Frikken. Done. It.

But I don't blog for myself--I do it for you, dear readers, and to give up merely because there were risks, discomforts, or potential blindness would be cowardly. I pressed on. I pressed the blunted pik into my left nostril, tilted my head 45 degrees to the right, flipped the switch, and blew the top of my skull off.

To say that the initial sensation was one of hot, sharp, piercing agony would be like saying a firecracker is a lot like a nuclear bomb.

A jet of boiling Listerine shot into my sinuses, was rebuffed by a mucal plug like a steel door, then proceeded to abrade the delicate lining of my cranium like a pressure-washer filled with bleach.

I realized right away that this novel use of a Water Pik wasn't going as well as my last attempt and, flailing blindly, as water was shooting out of my nose and spraying all over the mirror, I managed to grab the electrical cord and disconnect.

Now, there are many reasonable people out there who now are saying to themselves, "well, surely he'll give up after that ridiculous stunt." You'd be wrong. Failure is not an option. It's genetic.

I rinse out the tank, turn down the pump, adjust the temperature and try again. Where the trial run felt like I was being stabbed through the brain with a light saber, the second try felt like getting punched in the nose by a very angry, very accurate, dwarf. Clearly I was getting somewhere.

I checked the power and saw I'd not turned it down as far as I could. I tried again and finally reached an acceptable level where it felt merely painful, like when you're at the beach and you come up for air the fourth time you've been nailed and driven under and as soon as your head clears the surface you get punched in the face by a nine foot wave that drives four hundred gallons of salty water into the upper reaches of your sinus cavity with all the grace and consideration of a nail bomb. Like that. Only less gentle.

Unlike in the YouTube video, the water ran out of my nose like I'd left the garden hose on and instead of a gentle cleansing, instead of feeling like all the stuff in my nasal caverns--sand, dog hair, chunks of discarded Maduro cigars, old furniture, and a 38 Chevy--was being sluiced out into the sink, I realized with growing fear that I was packing it all up into the furthest reaches of my skull where it would grow into some kind of mushrooming alien podsack and I knew with terrifying clarity that in a few days, my head was going to give birth to E.T.

And it hurt. Like hell. So I stopped. So, take it from me, the water pik is not a durable substitute for a netti pot. That's my public service announcement for the week. Never say I didn't give you considered advice.

Here's the video:


- - -

Father! Please Refrain From Feeling the Family Jewels!

It’s a man thing. It’s unavoidable. We can’t help it: God designed us so that our hands fall in our lap and, well, since they’re there, we figure we ought to use them for something cause we’re all about practicality and getting her done and, so, sphericum ergo, we scratch.

Sometimes we don’t even itch. In fact, I’d have to say in this day and age of soap and instant hot showers and excellent laundry services and all the other things that separate us from the Amish and the 18th century, we rarely have any real reason to claw the baubles save one: it reasserts our manhood.

My daughter doesn’t buy it, however. In fact, if I scratch myself in front of her one more time she might stab me with her iPod.

It’s not like I plan this. I don’t have an Outlook reminder that says “8:47am Scratch Balls.” It’s unconscious. It’s a tic. But tell that to my daughter. This morning I walked out into the living room where she’s waiting for the limo to take her to school and it’s picture day so she’s dressed like a rock star. I mean she looks stunning: black silk dress, choker, diamond earrings, and an unnaturally prominent display of boobage.

I’m wearing a modified wife-beater T-shirt, Jack Daniels jams, and my head looks like it’s being humped by a drug-addled squirrel. Then I hustle the boys.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaad! God! GOD! What’s your PROBLEM! Do you have to do that in front of me EVERY TIME?!”

“IT’S A REFLEX!”

“I don’t care! Stop it!”

“Ok,” scritch scritch.

“DAD!”

“Doh!”

“Don’t be such a man!”

“Sorry.”

“Now get me my black strapless bra.”

I swear this is verbatim.

My kids are TRYING to be the death of me.

Message to my new readers from [the nest] and Expressive Parents

Howdy and welcome! In case you're wondering, the title of my blog, "Death By Children," refers to the fact that parenting is killing me and my kids are in on it. Proactively.

I won't in the least bit be offended if you email every single person in your contacts list and demand that they subscribe to Death By Children instantly. They really should show the same kind of class and good taste you have displayed in choosing to subscribe to my humble scribblage.

Explore the morgue! Click on the "more . . ." links under the Exhumed heading there on the left. Enjoy!

I Love You, Stinky Oversleeping Teen Sasquatch!

He overslept again. Then he over-showered. I knocked on the door. I yelled. He missed first period.

So I'm pulling up to the school and there's a bunch of kids sitting on the gym steps and he opens the door to get out. I tell him I love him. He slams the door shut.

"Dad, shut up."

"Oh no—are you embarrassed?"

"Look, man. That was funny in grade school but I'm in high school now."

"Who's your favorite possum?"

"Dad, seriously."

"I loooooove you."

"Dad, I will beat you up. You know I can."

He cracks the door a little, then cuts a look. I think, he was daring me. I decided to be the bigger man and I let him go.

Laundry as a Form of Self Discovery

Laundry sucks. In the two years I've been on house arrest, I've just now started to get the tiniest little purchase on Mt. Dirtyclothes and that's just towels. I can keep up with towels. Everything else is chance.

Being the knight-like, selfless, humble servant I am to my family, I often reserve my own clothing to be washed last which means, if I'm lucky, I'll get to it before Kehjouteck shows up. However, I manage to get a shirt or a pair of pants cleaned enough to not run naked through WalMart. Sometimes, I don't. recently, I found myself wearing a t-shirt that had been on me so long it was taking phone calls and ordering lunch. I had to meet someone, pick up something at an office, and I figured I ought not look like I'd been abducted and dragged through a hayfield. So I put on my vegas suit.

You know the suit. I'm sure you have one too. For a guy, it's a bad ass black suit with killer cufflinks, shoes like small italian lapdogs laquered to a fine black veneer; a white linen shirt with a thread count approaching infinite, and a tie that can only be compared with the "girl in the red dress" in The Matrix. Even my socks are cool. Fully Sinatra. The Vegas suit.

I drive to the appointment listening to, no kidding, Sinatra, and feeling pretty swank. I swagger into the office and the girl behind the desk smiles at me. She grins actgually, a full on ear to ear and I just assume she's digging the Vegas suit. So I stand there, hands in my pockets, swinging my tie, being cool. I'm Joey Bishop. I'm Dean Martin.

The girl is still grinning. She picks up her receiver and whispers something into it and I scan the room and decide whether I'll pick up the USAToday or gaze cooly out the window when the grinning receptionist buzzes a friend through, another woman, who breezes into the room, takes in the Vegas suit, and lays a smile on me that makes me hear music. For a married man, this is a good day.

Another office worker walks through from the opposite door and grins at me and shares a look with the receptionist and I start to get a feeling, a kind of gnawing question, the idea that maybe it ain't my suit they're digging. That maybe a middle aged portly married man in a 400 dollar suit is still not much different from Capt. Kangaroo in black. I snap back into reality. Nobody over 22 smiles at middle aged portly men no matter how much they work out unless they actually drop wads of money in their path like crumbs--and that's not even a smile. Its a precursor of rictus. Nobody over 22--unless their pants are unzipped.

I spin around and do the "I-think-I-forgot-something-in-my-pocket--no-no-the-other pocket--shit!" check which delivers a positive YES YOUR ZIPPER IS DOWN YOU REGARDLESS JACKASS report.

See, I recently started wearing suspenders. This is NOT proof that I am an ancient old dork but finally cool enough to take off my jacket and roll up my sleeves, which I do on the rare occasion, like a really distressingly hard game of boggle. I just figired it was time. I needed that 1940s detective sobriety in my appearance. It's part of growing up. Besides, my damn stomach kept rolling over my belt letting my pants slip down and I looked a little too bubbalistic. What I didn't think about is how we are creatures of habit. Whenever I buckled by belt, I zipped. It was like punctuation. My suspenders suspended that habit leaving me frozen in the middle of an office with my hatch open below decks.

If I had only kept the laundry up. I'd've been standing there in a belted pair of shorts with a Hawaiin shirt and my zipper welded tight.

However, I manned up. In full view I casually closed the barn doors and picked up that USAToday I'd been considering and went about my business, horrified by the idea that I'd worn this suit six times already since I got the suspenders and people smile at me all the time. How many fundraisers had I unwittingly been the main attraction? I'd given a very popular lecture recently in this very suit with these very suspenders. Very popular. Lots of applause.

I'm Giving My Son Eyes in the Back of His Ass

I'm taking Roon to the plastic surgeon and get him eyes in the back of his ass.

The kid will sit on anything. He sits on the remote, on game controllers, on entire stacks of folded laundry, on my laptop--if it's on the ottoman even for a second there's a near certainty it will end up as a permanent imprint on his dimpled butt. Like a rebus of uh-oh.

I'm particularly upset about him sitting on the phone since they all look alike and I'm running low on Lysol.

Thinking about this makes me wonder what other specializations might be worthy of parental plastic surgery fantasies . . .

A nose in back. Faster fart detection.

Extra wide nostrils. Better booger access.

Night vision. So they can sleep with the lights off.

Prehensile probyscis. So they can hoarf their food and play video games simultaneously.

Eyes in the back of their ass. So they can see things before they sit on them.

The Reward for Most Boring Post Ever Award Goes To ...

Ok, I agree. The most recent post was weird, out of character, and didn't belong here. But it's a great example of what writers do when they're stuck. I wanted to write something for my blog and, truth be told., my kids aren't very interesting lately. The boy hasn't blown himself up and seems to be leaning away from such dangerous proclivities , and the girl is being entirely well behaved. The future of this blog is in serious question if they don't start going crazy again soon.

So I'm siting there realizing I have to my Manday post, knowing I don't really care that baseball season just started (though I'm excited about upcoming grill sales . . . ), I had nothing Manly to talk about so I tried to tie together the beginning of movies, the dictionary, and the dust bowl.

In the hands of a capable speculative essayist this might've turned out either a) spectacular or b) hilarious but in the hands of a desperate bloggist, it turned to be a) what the hell? ad b) huh?

So I swear to you, my capable readers, I'll stick to the subject in the future.

Quickie: My Doppleganger in Deustchland

BERLIN (Reuters) - A 43-year-old German man was taken to hospital in critical condition after he fell off a second storey balcony during a spitting contest with his 12-year-old son, police said Friday.

A spokesman for the police in the eastern town of Cottbus said the man in Forst had apparently lost his balance after thrusting too far forward in his attempt to outspit his son.

He tumbled over the ledge and landed on a balcony of the ground floor apartment, police said. He was taken to hospital in a rescue helicopter.

We're Getting Bigger! So Sign Up to Be Part of the Change!

Subscribe to our mailing list

Insomnia et futilitia! es cafe, cafe, el simplifico!

As I type these words it is a quarter to six in the morning and I haven't been to bed yet. Well, I've been to bed but I didn't sleep. I don't have insomnia, per se, I have futile sleeplessness. It's involuntary sleep deprivation based solely on the fact that I had a nagging feeling I'd forgotten something.

All night.

I tried to go to sleep. I dutifully got under the covers, I turned out the lamp, ad I laid there. Part of the problem is that a woman's work is never done. I spent the day cleaning and washing and feeding and running errands ad I discovered, around 4 am, that there is a routine, a proclivity, a jones that underscores my day: caffeine.

It starts off immediately upon being terrified out of bed by my egregiously explosive alarm clock which employs a frequency that can double as a sonic rust remover for aircraft carriers. It can move planets out of their orbit. I leap out of bed, race downstairs, and start the joe.

The recommended level is one lumpy tabledspoon of ground coffee per 6 oz. of water. I exceed this recommendation by an order of magnitude, using the recommended grounds ground for a crowd on the grounds that touching the ground slows me down, I'd rather bound around---See that? The shameless and blunt repetition and rhyming? Signs of a hallucinatory state.

I drop the kid off at the Church then head over to the dry cleaners which is located next to the Starbucks they built inside our neighborhood Starbucks. A doppio and a quick run through the Sun Times then race back home to take the medicine I take for a wee lil' problemo I developed, medicine that is essentially Doctor prescribed speed, make a new pot of coffee, and get crackin on the rigorous and erudite refutation of the latest swiftoboatian screes against Obama or Hilary stuffed into my email box overnight by rage-crazed GOP black-op clerks--SEE THAT!? That's unfounded paranoia [no it isn't--Agent K], the 'they're out to get us-ism [seriously, we're not--Agent K] symptomatic of a mind unhinged by stress or S L E E P D E P R I V A T I O N.

But tonight I don't think it was the industrial levels of caffeine or the medicine, tonight it was something at the back of my mind, one of those furtive, irritating hmmmms, like 'hmmmm--did I leave the stove on?' or 'hmmmmm--just how DO you load a self-firing bazooka?' or 'hmmmm--I wonder what THIS does?'

I clean, I prep for school, I have an early breakfast of diet yogurt and what looks like dried contact lenses. Anther cup of coffee. . .just brush the masticated contact lens off my t-shirt and--THAT'S IT: LAUNDRY! I left the kid's uniform in the wash.

But I can't find it. It's not in the washer like I thought. I remember at the last second that I was following a load of bleached whites with a load of NOT EVEN ON THE SAME CONTINENT AS BLEACH black business clothes for my Attorney, dove into the washing machine, and heaved them out over the side. I race down the stairs into the basement and land on--and sink into--an ice cold mound of wet clothes.

There's plenty of time to get them washed and dried. But now that I've discovered what it was that keeping me up, I can barely type. I can barely even sk'cj[s[n ]z. ............ ...... ...............

I'm Ready for my Close Up

During Halloween I was stuck in the back of Party City waiting for my daughter to try on her "Shame Daddy" costume. They make room for all the costumes by shoving everything unhalloweenic into the back aisle which is how I discovered my newest parenting tool: the air horn.

This is a father's dream toy and I don't know how I've gone so long without one.

Having trouble waking your little princess? FRONK!

Everybody talking at once during Robot Chicken? FRONK!

Skimpy shirt violation by girlteen? FRONK!

[My Attorney] may shoot me any day now as she does not see the intrinsic humor in quietly opening the bathroom door and FRONKING! her shower.

Still, all the FRONKING! in the world won't make my daughter move out of mosey mode. She could shuffle down hill. On skates. So we found ourselves stuck in the Chicago rush hour traffic we usually just barely miss. She has her make up kit in her hand and she's clicking it like a nervous Lehman Brothers loan officer. I keep suggesting she go ahead and put on her make-up but she declines with a mumble, staring out the window like a thorazine test dummy.

I'm scanning through FM looking for music that doesn't make me want to stab myself in the eyes from exhausted hope for good radio in Chicago. Every station is playing suck: bad ardent 80s synth pop, bad 80s repetitive Irish pop, easy listening, polka. Each three seconds of sampled music makes my daughter roll her eyes so hard I think she's going to affect the rotation of the earth itself. Finally something with the correct alchemy of beat and lyrics pops out of the speakers and it's like awakenings, she snaps out of it and starts putting on her makeup and I realize, she was just waiting for her theme music.

And I want to FRONK! so bad because I think this is a violation of her path to total cooldom. I think it should go the other way around and she should apply her makeup according to whatever music is playing, not wait for her current sonic obsession. So if country comes up, she should lay it on thick and blue with ruby red nautical level red hull plaster on her lips. Or if it's classical then just some burnt sienna and no sun for a week. Or if its goth, then bury your head in a vat of chalk.

While she's applying her lip lacquer, "No One Knows," by Queens of the Stone Age, comes on and together we lunge for the volume knob to crank it to a level you can use to mine cadmium, and I realize we share a musical helix of considerable worth. We rocket down North Ave hair rocking to Queens with all the gleeful pomp and indignity of Garth and Wayne. Then "Take Me to Funky Town," comes on and the ironic perfection of it's just too much for us and we go robot disco at the stop light in full view of beautiful people in Escalades on their cellphones. We don't care. It's "Funky Town," for the love of Christ: ironic retro disco fealty must be paid.

I realize that we share distressingly similar sick limits. We both laugh--hysterically--at that robot chicken promo when the gummy bear gets its foot stuck in a bear trap. I mean, H Y S T E R I C A L L Y.  And that's great. I know that for the rest of our life, our intrinsic taste in psychotic twisted humor and heavy metal will keep us from going nuts all at the same time. In the long run, it'll be cheaper.

DIY: Repairing an Antique Doorknob in Five Easy Steps!

Death By Children is about more than the nefarious and deadly machinations of our spawn or their efforts to render us twitching and pale from their ongoing appropriation of internet porn slang. It's about a lifestyle, a way of going about your day with a kind of Zen focus, a way of being ever more self sufficient and capable. To that end, we present our ongoing series of Do It Yourself projects.

DIY #014: The Doorknob.

Materials:
Doorknob.
Door.
Toolbox.
The Internet.
CNN.
Cognac, Cointreau, fresh lemon juice, ice.
73 years

Installation

1. Buy a cute Tudor style Chicago bungalow built in 1937.


2. Give that killer first floor bedroom with the double windows that would make a most enviable office to your son, the ingrate.


3. Make sure the kid develops into a sasquatchian freak of nature who can palm a watermelon at 13 and turns his doorknob with the same delicate grace with which the Titanic rammed that cheeky berg.


4. React with thinly veiled debilitating laughter when Sasquatch calls repeatedly "Dad? Dad? DAAAAAAAD? I'M LOCKED IN MY ROOM!"


5. Don't worry that answering "What? What was that? I can't hear you, open the door!" is not as funny to him as it is to you.


6. Let him out.


7. Using a screwdriver and jeweler's hammer, repair doorknob by tightening the 73 year old brass screw  holding it together by stripping the threads as if they were cast from old play dough.


8. Wait four hours then repeat.


9. Wait six hours then repeat.


10. Wait nine hours then repeat.


11. Using a carpenter's pencil and a torn envelope, write the following excuse for your son's tardiness:



To whom it may concern;
Please excuse Connor's tardiness for [date] as he was locked in his room due to a faulty doorknob and my inability to find the pair of pinking shears I've been using for the last three weeks to open his door and let him out.



12. Using the internet, look up ANTIQUE DOORKNOBS


13. Email a link to this alarming porn site to all your bros and, accidentally, your mom.


14. Get caught up in the rescue of those Chilean miners.


15. Over the span of three days, try to write a really good joke using "chili" "mine shaft" and "mistress"


16. Using a meat thermometer and a shoe, rattle the locking mechanism for your son's bedroom door as he yells "I'M GOING TO BE LATE AGAIN!" over and over.


17. Repeat #11 and #12.


18. Using Duct tape, seal the locking mechanism on your son's bedroom door.


19. Watch CNN for six hours.


20. Scream at your son to turn down the music or shut the &^%$#@! door!


21. Accept his impeccable logic when he screams back, "I WOULD IF YOU'D FIX IT!"


22. Using the ingredients listed above, make an absolutely killer Sidecar. Drink.


23. Write article about repairing the doorknob.


24. Don't repair the doorknob.

Recipe # 9,356. Dirty Martini Grenata and Admiral Byrd Popscicles

Summer is here and summer means it's time to try again to make the world's greatest Popsicle. I had a mango and chili Popsicle two years ago that I'm still smacking my lips over. I've been trying to find that mysterious Mexican Bicycle Ice Cream guy ever since. And last year's nearly world famous pickle juice Popsicle was so bizarre and delicious I'm still getting emails about it. So today I moved forward. I'm making Popsicles for grownups. Why should I be forced to endure cherry bomb sugar blast rainbow pops and frozen Spongebob on a stick when I can make my own spectacular sub zero masterpieces? My first two attempts are in the freezer: a Frozen Dirty Martini and what I'm going to call an Admiral Byrd: Earl Grey tea and raw sugar. I can't wait.

Here's the recipes: Admiral Byrd Popsicles. First, get a popsicle mold. Don't be cheap and use Dixie cups--what's the matter with you? Get a cool mold. Second take some raw sugar and mix it with equal parts warm water. I used a heaping tablespoon of unprocessed sugar. Big spankin' brown grains. Third, make some earl grey tea. Use the good stuff, loose leaf, let it steep THREE MINUTES, dammit. THREE MINUTES! Strain, mix in the melted sugar, MIX IT WELL and pour it into a couple of molds. Freeze (duh).



Now--make a dirty martini. Don't be cheap and use crap Vodka. Be a man. Use Belvedere.

Here's how you make a good martini: two shots vodka, half a shot of Vermouth, a generous shot of olive juice. Pour it over ice, put on a good song. Shake the shaker like a mofo. Shake it through half the song. Shake it until a thick layer of ice forms on the outside of the shaker. Shake it until your fingers turn blue. Shake it until your arms are paralyzed. Now strain it into a chilled martini glass with three big fat olives--oh, wait. I mean pour it into a Popsicle mold with a couple of olives. Big fat ass olives that barely fit into the mold.

Rigorous testing in our secret underground testing kitchen reveals that Belvedere vodka is very monkey corvette dance routine (hic!) and even slightly hot redhead psycho Disney movie (hic!) (Hic!). Sorry. (You should've been there when we tested the tequila pops . . .)

The Dirty Martini does not freeze well because of all the vodka. It will be more like an Italian ice: a grenata. So run som hot water over the mold and pop it out into a bowl. It tastes like a fnorkin dirty martini. I wish it would freeze because it tasted awesome. I had nine of them and I love you man. Sheriushly. I luuuuuuv you maaaaaan. I .... I think of us more like brothersh (hic) than . . .

[three hours later]

The Admiral Byrd does freeze and is, in my humble opinion, the greatest Popsicle ever. I highly recommend it and you should send me money now.

Next, maybe a bloody mary pop (on a celery stick). With aspirin.

Thirteen Things to Consider Before Swimming in the Atlantic During Hurricane Season

1. Those red flags waving furiously in a strong wind from the lifeguard towers that say "DANGEROUS WATERS" on them? Those are for you, fat man.


2. Another word for undertow is water-based shorts removal system.


3. There is no international signal for 'I-Lost-My-Shorts-In-The-Undertow'


4. JELLY FISH! JELLY FISH! JELLY FI—


5. Found my shorts.


6. When re-dressing yourself in the ocean during Hurricane Season, one should, as one drags one's tangled shorts up one's fat torso, check for the next wav–


7. OH GOD! OH GOD! OH BLURB! MAMBLE BRK GURGLE GURGLE GURGLE!!!!!


8. Thank the kind old man walking his dog down the beach for helping you up.


9. Thank the kind old man for pointing out the DANGEROUS WATERS FLAGS.


10. Use a three-fold looped knot to cinch up your shorts again so a wave doesn't–


11. GLURGE!


12. That wasn't so bad. Maybe you should look for waves before you stand u–GLURGE! GLURGE! GLURGE!


13. Order room service, sit in the tub, play Jimmy Buffet songs on your iPod.
    
    

 

Driving school

e finally crawled out from under the debris of our kitchen, marvelled at the sunlight, and decided to go to the movies.

We like to park in the secret lot next to the theater. Most people just drive right by it but we've found that it's exactly the same distance from the front doors as the best handicapped space. I think we actually rubbed our hands together in evil glee the first time we parked there and there's a little spark of joy every time we turn that corner into a nearly empty lot. Much like we did the other day, parking, against all odds, directly next to the only visible vehicle, a green minivan. That was rocking. Side to side. Rhythmically.

Now it's been a long time since the 70s. But I seem to recall a certain bumper sticker popular on customized vans, Ford pintos, and AMC Pacers:

If this van's a'rockin'--don't bother knockin'!

The 70s were a more innocent time. For one thing, we didn't have Google or the Simpsons. If I wanted to learn something I had to walk to the library. Hence, when faced with the mysterious applique de bumper, it took me ten years to figure out they were talking about the horizontal mambo.

However, the other day, as I'm getting out of the car, I noticed the familiar rhythm of the van next to us and that bumper sticker came back asap. As I got out of the car, the sun shown through from the other side and I saw the silhouette of two, dainty, sandal-clad feet, heels to Jesus, flailing along with the back-n-forth of the Chrysler.

I turned to grin at My Attorney, who had yet to see the dancing van and remembered my daughter. You remember her. She stood there, mouth agape, hand to her chest, face paralyzed in the apoplectic realization that was within just a few feet of actual people actually, um, putting me in a position whereupon I should refrain from knocking.

Her cousin, only 13, but gifted, highly observant, and cool as a cucumber, was trying to stifle a perfectly ridiculous 13 year old girly response to the van, which was nearly tipping over as it wanged side to side. Both girls' eyes were so wide you could've parked a . . . a um, minivan, um, in them.

And it was too late. Nothing I could do. And I couldn't stop laughing. I hustled everyone away, as My Attorney was busy talking about how close we'd parked and Roon was still talking excitedly about some microscopic detail in a video game. Me and the aghast teens were the only ones who'd seen it.

I tried to put it aside. I mean, these things happen. To the Simpsons. But every fourteen seconds my Daughter would blurt out minivan and they'd erupt into riotous, lusty laughter which pretty much eroded all confidence in their immediate future as innocent school girls.

What I'm really mad about, however, is that in the once moment in my life when I was confronted by a van that was, asssuredly, a'rockin' I completely forgot to bother knockin'. That would've been hilarious.

Almost 13 Pictures that make no sense

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please save me: my children are trying to kill

me.