How to be an Infuriating Husband, Lesson 1

Be Childlike and Irresponsible

Note to Reader: Please pay attention because I'm only going to write this once.

I began my typical Saturday morning like any other 35 year old married man, by sneaking past the kids’ room with the blankets. The blankets I had delicately removed from the bed where my naked wife still slept. I've found that wearing these blankets over my head while I creep past the kids’ open door makes effective camouflage. I’m just laundry passing by on its way to the washing machine rather than daddy on his way to gracelessly maintain a slightly controlled fall down just enough steps to make me wonder if its a break or a bruise? Choking back profanity within primal, guttural syllables is automatic now with the kids around. The gruntings punctuated with rapid audible inhales aren't nearly as analgesic as a "Mother f#(ker!" would feel, but at least their automatic.

Triage complete, I resumed my foray towards the living room with only one waypoint in between. I veer left into the kitchen for some breakfast juice: vodka and raspberry lemonade. This cocktail is well renown as the pantie removing solution which I applied heavily liberally the night before. Breakfast is the most important drink of the morning, I remind myself as I spill half the tumbler down my forearm in an overly boisterous breakfast toast, or toast to beakfast. Now, it was time to get on about my productive day.

Snuggling down in front of the television with only minor protestation from my ankle, I quickly change the channel from the ceaseless, senseless high-pitched squealing of Nick, Jr. to the delightful, rejuvenating, and comprehensible violence of classic cartoons.  

Speed Racer, Bugs Bunny, and my all time hero, Roadrunner fill me with a sense of completion mixed with the much coveted sensation of getting away with something I should absolutely not be doing as a thirty-five year old married man and father of two easily beguiled children.

Huddled in my goose down feather-filled command post/sniper's nest, after the third reloading of the breakfast juice, I was really digging life in general. This was a wondrous, peaceful place in a serene world with the therapeutic effects of comprehensible classic cartoon violence permeating my essence. Nirvana, without all the extra arms, I imagine.


Then, a tiny white fluffy seal pup is staring me in the face. He looks so uncoordinated and goofy, why he’s just like me. He looks happy, just like me. The camera pans back to include some flannel wearing distant relation of Leif Erickson about to bludgeon my new fluff wearing friend with a baseball bat. What the fuck?

Paradise lost, the horrific imagery destroyed all the accrued joy that rocket propelled roller-skates could provide. This was real violence, incomprehensible violence, and the seal pup couldn’t even utter a “Meep-Meep” and escape at mind boggling speed. What the fuck! The nubile blonde woman with the pert breasts who immediately follows this nightmarish scene begins babbling about some $9.00 a month solution. What the fuck?? (Nice tits.) What the fuck!! My alcohol (over) enhanced sense of moral outrage leads to... (really nice tits) immediate action... Defense! A murmur from my son upstairs reminds me that my moral outrage should be limited to the silent variety. 

What to do? Carpet bomb Norway? Petition the UN to take Bjork or some other high value lefse munching, lutefisk slurping, seal pup smashing target hostage? Embargo the Finns from exporting unpronounceable names? There had to be more that I could do, in addition to sending $9.00 a month to a nubile blonde woman with remarkably outstanding cleavage. These poor, white, fluffy, uncoordinated creatures were bereft of a means of defense. My alcohol lubricated neurons fired into a brilliant Bacardi 151 blue flame... Fangs! That was it, fucking fangs. Nothing could menace a club toting, seal pup mauling, longboat rowing Norseman like a pair of seven-inch, razor sharp canines... with micro-serration.

Like any good seal fang fabrication technician, of which I am the only one, I needed a design. I was properly motivated and adequately inspired as I beamed down at the prototype sketched in purple crayon on a torn Pampers box a scant four minutes later. It was crude, but workable, but mostly crude, very nearly incomprehensible, but workable.

By my fifth revision on the vodka raspberry lemonade the same drawing looked fucking awesome! I was a goddamn seal pup dental Di Vinci. May I point out that I am the only one of those too. It was time to move from the Renaissance into the Age of Technology with the wonders of Adobe Photoshop 5.0. Just a few clicks of the mouse later, conservatively numbered in thousands, my masterpiece was complete. I was satisfied that I had done something positive for Mother Nature and scored points with Miss Cleavage 1999, the fit-titted PETA spokes-chicky all before 8:00 AM.

I settled into a well deserved C₂H₆O meditative state. As I watched Speedracer go, go Speedracer go, I heard the pitter-patter, skid, and pitter-patter of footie panamas approaching. In the doorway appeared a sleepy eyed boy of five... OK, five and a half. His bossy baby sister of three peeked around his shoulder. Robert was content to nestle himself into my lap with over emphasized crash sound that he loved to make and stared out the window. Sierra was having none of that, and apparently none of this, or anything else either. I tried to coax her into my available side.

Nope.

"What baby girl?” I desperately searched her scowling face for some clue. 

Silence surrounded her increasingly stern look of dissatisfaction. Remembering that she was a "show me girl" rather than a "tell me girl" in the morning, I moved Robert aside, stood, and took her hand. She lead me a few steps and then in a surprising burst of speed circled back and sat directly on Robert’s head. Robert protested and struggled to get his petulant sister off of him. This kind of antic was how Sierra typically started her day. The minor melee ended in a victorious big brother dealing out a harsh walking away to the toy box. Sierra defeated, claimed my goose down feather-filled command nest and evicted her brother simultaneously.

Robert pulled out trucks and cars from the toy box and began vvvvroooming them around the living room carpet. I retired to my desktop computer and ink jetted fanged seal creation into 8½” x 11” life. After cutting eye slots and a bit of girding with tape and string, I donned the fanged seal helm over my face. Perfect. I felt much safer and far more attractive. I sat at my desk waiting for the kids to notice. Minutes passed.

Long, slowing minutes passed.  

Creeping, agonizing minutes dragged by me like crippled slugs.

Any minute now, at least one of the kids would look up and see me.

Any minute. 

Any fricken’ minute.

Fine.... I cleared my throat.

Nothing.

I tapped the desk.

Nothing. 

I slammed a drawer. Sierra started crying, then collapsed face forward into her goose down feather-filled princess flower something. Robert ran to her and soothingly said, "See-air-wah, don't cry. It's A-Kay. It's A-kay." I stood up and came to her aid, as well.  Robert and I calmed and cooed Sierra, who continued to sob miserably into the pile of goose down feather-filled flying flower whatever.  Try as I might, Robert would not look my way. He focused on the blubbering baby sister and I was too, kind of. Then, Robert caught a glimpse of my fanged masterpiece's awesomeness and was instantly terrified by the menacing sight. Robert reflexively trembled in hysterical laughter. He laughed, I laughed, and Sierra sobbed less intently. Finally, she couldn't resist looking any longer. She was transfixed in dread and roared her approval, "Rrrrrarrr!" The sound she imagined anything with fangs would make. The living room exploded in fear driven, pull-ups wetting, raucous laughter.

Laughter, that ended quickly when the deafening snarls of the angry mommy dragon echoed through the room, ”What the hell... (mumble, mumble)... knock it off... (more irate, indecipherable syllables)... Where’s the Goddamn blanket?"

This was the real test... Fanged Baby Seal vs. Angry Mommy Dragon.

The kids fell silent and looked anxiously up the stairs where the profanity spewing dragon would emerge from her lair. I crept silently into a good ambush position behind the wall. As the Dragon sleepily, but menacingly, shuffled into the living room, I pounced. The flash of seven-inch micro-serrated baby seal fangs ripped through the suspense filled air with a defiant "Grrrrr!" The sound that I imagined anything with fangs would make. At once, the Angry Mommy Dragon was startled into annoyance and mortally unimpressed. Given the opportunity, she would have surely sat directly on my head. Like mother, like daughter.

                                 

Alas, my first milestone in defensive seal physiology technology had ended in an abject failure, a glorious but abject failure. If fangs could only entertain small children and annoy an angry young mommy dragon, what chance could it stand against a Marmot wearing, snowshoe treading, seal clubbing Viking son of a bitch?

Back to the drinking drawing board.