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?

Proper Potty Training for People with Penises

For sending parents into drooling catatonia, nothing compares to potty training. It's first of the classic thresholds of child development and the first time you and your spawn have a shared weird experience. Trust me, there will be more.

All parents will have to teach their kids this simple skill. Every "What to expect when you're Expectorating" book out there has a chapter devoted to the minutiae of merde and most of them try to convince you that potty training is an intricate, delicate, and difficult period, requiring endless couch-time for the parents and their progeny. Most guides imply that improper potty training can lead to lifelong neuroses and Emo music.

My kids were so easy it was almost spontaneous. I sat the boy down on his little chair at exactly the right moment and the resulting efficacy of exporting his effluence sans diaper made an instant impression on him.

My great neglect at that moment was a lack of follow-through. I should have explained immediately that the chamber of reflection has a dual purpose, that one can use it for sitting or for standing. I figured it would come up in the very near future and shelved the whole idea and went back to doing laundry.

[My Attorney] was on deck for the next Number 1 and wasted no time in teaching the boy proper penis procedure: sit, release, wipe.

She told me she was teaching the boy how to pee in the bowl and I didn't think twice about it. I just crossed it off my to-do list. Only later did I wonder about the obvious mechanics and thought to myself, how does she know what to do?

"You taught him to shake, right?"

"What?"

"You know--shake."

"Shake what?"

"His thing."

"Why!?"

"Guys shake."

"Before or after?"

"What did you teach him to do when he's done?"

"Use a tissue, duh."

"Oh my god. Babe, how exactly did you teach my son to pee?"

"I don't know, like everyone pees: you sit down---"

"@#!^%$ ^$##@!"

I want all the new moms and moms to be to please listen up and listen up good: leave proper penile procedural to the papas.

When it comes to penis training, the dad has the upper hand because the dad, presumably, is furnished with the same equipment as the son. He has, in fact, been training his entire life in peni practicalia, and, again, presumably, knows things that, as a mom, you don't know.

Specifically, and this is paramount penis procedure, are two habits unique to the water closet ways of woman-kind: tissues and sitting.

Pay very close attention: men don't sit down to pee. Pay even more attention: when we're done, we S H A K E. We don't W I P E.

I realized [My Attorney] had been teaching the toddler to touch up his tallywacker with a tissue for two weeks before I found out. Then I realize that it is too late--TOO LATE--to change. He's been trained.

Then it really hit me: my son pees like a girl!

His life as a man was finished. Now when other boys make jokes about writing their name in the snow, the Roon will have to ask them what they're talking about. I had a vision of him walking into the urinal bay at school and wondering out loud,  "Dude, where are the wipes?"

He would be an urinary outcast; a pee pariah.

I acted fast. I called him over.

You know you're supposed to pee standing up.

Gross!

And you don't wipe.

What? Well . . .  well . . .what do you do?

You shake.

Shake what?

What do you think?

Oh my god! Dad, that's gross! Gross! It'll go everywhere!

I was too late.

I went out to the garage. I dipped my hands into a bucket of crude oil, lit a cigar, and thought about guns. I had to protect my manhood and for some reason I thought it was at stake. I thought maybe the boy's manhood was at stake too. I remembered great pee moments from my childhood:

• Peeing into the wind off the back of a moving pick-up truck;


• Peeing onto an electric fence;


• Writing my name in the sand at the beach then drinking three whole cokes because my name is 22 letters long and I was trying to write in cursive and I ran out at christopher pa--


• Peeing off the side of a boat


• Peeing off the top of a building under construction


• Peeing into the campfire


• Peeing into the bait-well in our boat


• Peeing on a cow


• Starting a forest fire . . .

Those are cherished memories, the very building blocks of a boy's life. How was my son supposed to ---

Hey dad, you're right. It totally works. I can pee standing up.

Awesome. You made it into the toilet?

Toilet?