The Main Cage

The blinking red light of doom on my Blackberry cut through the darkened room like a lighthouse. I peeled myself out of bed and trepidatiously checked it. It was from WonderWife™: Call me when you wake up re: your debit card.

These are not the words one wants to read upon first waking up when you’re on a guys’ weekend in Vegas.

I called my wife, who had spent the better part of the morning besieged with calls from the bank. My account had been frozen. She was given a run down of the problem—there were a few withdrawals made in Las Vegas, but the correct pin number was used.

“My husband is in Vegas right now, so I’m sure everything’s okay,” she told the bank rep. “You can unfreeze the account.”

“But there’s some suspicious activity on the account,” the bank rep replied. “An attempt was made to go over the limit and usually customers know the daily limit on the account. The transaction in question was from a machine called ‘the main cage.’”

“That was in a casino!” I interjected as WW™ told me the story.

“Sure it was,” she said slyly.

The bank rep told WW™ the amount I was trying to take out. I imagine her jaw hit the floor.

“Um, you better keep that freeze on the account,” she told him. “I don’t know what the hell is going on out there.”

As she was telling me this, I had already figured out the problem.

“Last night Sam left his ATM card at the hotel, so instead of him having to fight traffic all the way back up the Strip, I was attempting to float him a loan,” I explained.

“Uh huh,” she said.

Then there was a pause.

“I’m glad you’re having a good time.”

Voicemail

The Bean has been known to ramble since he could first talk. Now that he’s getting older and (slightly) more coherent, he’s really taken to talking on the phone. This has been great considering how much time we’ve spent apart these days. He’s also figured out the joys of voicemail. At first he rejected the concept completely, unable to figure out why I wasn’t responding to him. But now he’s become an expert at the random voicemail message.

He left me this first one on my cell phone about 7 days into his 10-day vacation on the east coast. This is transcribed verbatim:

“Um, I love you. Goodnight. But I know I will you see you when I come back. Did you know that? Oh boy! Thank you! I know you’re going to take me out. It’s going to be great. I love you. I love you. Kiss kiss kiss. I love you. I love you. Hey Dad! Goodnight. Goodbye.

(As he’s hanging up he says…)

He will love that message!”


Moments later, this message was left on my work voicemail:

“Hi Dad. Um, I love you. You get two messages. WOW! You want two? Oh great! Yea! You want to hear them? [Something something something] real. All aboard! (shuffles phone). Goodnight. I never know that you were at work. Wow! Cool! Gooooodnight. Goodbye. Good everything. Goodbye.


(As he’s passing phone back to WonderWife™…)


He will loooove that message!”


But this one, left for me at work last night, might be my favorite for it’s complete randomness:


“Okay. Um, Dad? Goodnight. But this is one thing. I didn’t get any stories tonight because I flicked my toothbrush. Um, did you know this message is going to be so long. Oh! And just…I went…Um I sang “Mary” and I’ll have an electric toothbrush someday. Oh! You know that already. Ha ha. Oh well! Um. Mom is having new teeth. And…This is such a nice message. I know but Bloo isn’t really a blue. He is blue blue Bloo! Ha ha ha. (singing) Aw eew eh ah ah ah. Mom’s glasses!


WonderWife™: Can I have the phone please. Say goodnight.

Teeth teeth teeth! Goodnight!


WonderWife™: And what else?


And zoooo long!"

Doo Doo

The Bean and I were talking right before I tucked him into bed. Something I said triggered this response:

"Oh, that's like Karen who puts doo doo in her mouth."

Karen was the pretty little blonde girl in the Bean's pre-school who was rumored to have the attention of very boy in the class.

"What did you say she does?" I asked aghast.

“She puts doo doo in her mouth.”

So this is where it begins. Where the teasing and the name calling starts, I thought. I tried to conjure up the name of the troublemaker in the class who had started this rumor. Or maybe the startling truth is that the girl actually did put feces in her mouth. I bet she wouldn't be so popular after that. I need to investigate further.

“Who told you that?”

“I just know that she does. She puts his ears in her mouth.”

What?

“Wait,” I said. “Who is Doo Doo?”

“He’s the thing that she sleeps with at night.  She puts his ears in her mouth.”

“Oh.  Of course she does.”

What's Your Story?

Twice in the span of one week, I’ve had somebody ask me, “So, what’s your story?” after meeting them for the first time.

That’s exactly how each of them asked it too. “So, what’s your story?”

Both times I was flummoxed. My story? I don’t have a story. I’m in my late thirties, married with two kids. I’m perfectly average in every way. I grew up in the suburbs. I went to college. I graduated and got a job. No run ins with the police. No family tragedies. Hardly the stuff of enticing conversations.

I’m not sure what these people (both women, by the way) were trying to get from me. “What’s your story” is an incredibly broad question that implies that I, in fact, have a story to tell.

I’m sad to say that I did not respond with charm and wit either time. I stammered and repeated the question back to them, “What’s my story?” and gave a short bio of my career. Boring. I’m surprised the women kept talking to me after my lame responses.

It wasn’t until the drive home after the second time that an answer occurred to me. The next time somebody asks me what’s my story I will be ready.

“I was born a poor black child…”*











*It's not offensive, it's a reference.

Elementary My Dear Watson

“Wu is 5 in Spanish,” the Bean said to me as he bounced around on my bed while I changed from my work clothes into my pajamas.

The Bean had been known to make up words and call them Spanish. While I understood his newfound fascination with languages other than his own, we live in Southern California, where a great deal of the population speaks fluent Spanish. I would hate for him to appear insensitive, so I decided to nip this in the bud straight away.

“No buddy, cinco is 5 in Spanish.”

He was very insistent that I was wrong. “My teacher told me,” he bellowed.

The Bean had also been known to misinterpret his teacher’s lessons, which is why it took us three days to convince him that Martin Luther King, Jr. did not in fact want to keep black people and white people separated.

WonderWife™ suggested that I speak with his teacher in the morning, but I wasn’t done interrogating the subject yet. I remembered that the Bean had said something earlier in the week about a dragon. I also recalled that it had just been Chinese New Year.

“Are you learning Chinese?” I asked the Bean.

“Yes.  The good luck dragon.”

“Buddy boy, wu is 5 in Chinese.”

“That’s what I said, ‘wu is 5 in Chinese.’ I told you that, Daddy!”

The next day, the Bean’s teacher confirmed that they had been learning Chinese in class.

And that is how I cracked the case of the mysterious and misguided wu.

Racca

Sprout is developing quite a vocabulary for a girl her age. (Both of my kids started talking early, and have refused to shut up ever since.) In fact Sprout is at that magical time where she seems to learn a new word or two every day. But for as many words as she knows, there are still a lot that she doesn't. Thankfully, Sprout has come up with an all-purpose utility word.

Sprout will sit on my lap as we look through a picture book. I point to animals and ask, "What's that?"

"Lion," she'll say.

"How about that one?"

"But-fly."

"Great! And this one?"

"Racca."

This is a word that comes up a lot. During dinner, Sprout will point to an item on the table and say, "racca." She will ask to read, "racca" or ask about the toy "racca." There are times when her "racca's" become quite pronounced and forceful. "Racca! Racca! Racca! Racca!"

While I'm thrilled she's trying hard to communicate, it's proving to be quite a challenge to tell racca from racca.

Inventing a Bar

One of the questions posed when I posted my recent experiment was: What candy bar or snack food would you invent?

Well, I actually did invent a candy bar.

It was one of those evenings in college. You know the ones where you stumble home after hitting the bars, and sit around getting the munchies and talking about stupid stuff. My buddies and I started a conversation about candy. We named ingredient after ingredient until we happened upon the perfect combination. It was deemed the world's greatest candy bar.

While our enthusiasm for this mythical candy bar was high that night, it faded in the morning along with our buzz. We never followed up on the idea.

Years later, I would stumble upon this:


This was our candy bar.

So That's Why Nobody Made Eye Contact With Me

I was waiting in the return line during my second Target run of the day. The Bean was sitting happily in the shopping cart playing with a toy car when suddenly he stopped and loudly blurted out this piece of information:

"When I was naked my sister touched my penis and it tickled."

He then added:

"I didn't tell her to do it!"

Pudding, Peanut Butter and Whipped Cream

The combination of chocolate pudding, peanut butter and whipped cream is a dessert that was born out of a craving for a sundae, but the lack of proper ingredients to make it. It actually turned out to be a pretty good combination and is a snack I’ve come to enjoy quite often.

A couple of years ago my dad came to visit, and after a couple of cocktails we got hungry and I made him one. Ever since, he has become obsessed with the dessert. Periodically he will call me. I can hear people talking animatedly in the background and I can detect a bubbly nature to my dad’s voice. He is drunk dialing me.

He always begins these calls the same way: "Let me ask you a question,” he says boisterously.

“Sure Dad, what is it?”

“What was in that thing you made me?”

I list the ingredients and he says, “Okay, thanks” and hangs up to return to his party.

A few weeks ago I was at work, in a meeting. My cell phone rings. It’s my dad. I let it go to voicemail, but he immediately calls again. Thinking the worst, I usher myself out of the conference room and answer the call.

“Is everything alright?” I ask.

“Let me ask you a question,” he says.

“Dad, I’m in a meeting. I’ll call you later.”

The next day, he admitted to me that he was seeking the recipe for the dessert.

Two days later, I’m leaving my office and my cell phone rings again. It's him. I hear the chatter in the background and the now familiar tone in my father’s voice.

“Let me ask you a question,” he says.

“Dad, it’s pudding, peanut butter and whipped cream!”

He was amazed. “How did you know that was what I was going to ask?”

“I just had a feeling,” I said.

“Okay, thanks,” he says and hangs up the phone.

A minute later, the phone rings again.

“Now,” my dad begins, “How does this work? Do you put everything in a blender?”

“Dad, you’ve had this before. I made it for you.”

“Ah, I don’t really remember. I just remember that I liked it.”

"If you aren't in a shape to remember it, you're probably not in a shape to eat it," I scold.

Nonetheless, I run him through the recipe.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ve got it now. We're going out for the ingredients right now”

“Good luck,” I tell him and hang up the phone, knowing that this won't be the last time we have this conversation.

The Tough Negotiator

"Can I have fruit?" the Bean asked as he was nearing the end of his dinner.

"Eat four more pieces of chicken," said WonderWife™.

The Bean scrunched his eyebrows and looked up as he pondered this offer.

"Tell you what," he said in the tone of a used car salesman. "I'll eat one carrot aaaaaaand...four pieces of chicken."

"Hmm," I said. "Let me think about this." I waited a moment. "You've got yourself a deal."

The Bean Monologues

The Bean said his first word at 12 months old and he hasn't stopped talking since. I'm not exaggerating. From the moment he wakes up, to the moment he goes to sleep, he is constantly talking. Following his conversations is akin to watching a disc fall through the Plinko machine. He bounces around from topic to topic, saying whatever enters his brain. He could be speaking to me, to WonderWife™, to himself, it doesn't matter. Half the time we have no idea what he's talking about.

The following is one of the Bean's monologues, presented here completely unedited. He begins talking about his caterpillar, which we got from a children's museum, with the intent of watching it transform into a butterfly. After that, you're on your own...

“We don’t touch it, so it flies away. The caterpillar is getting bigger. The big one is already gone it went so fast, that little caterpillar. It got so fast. You say, ‘get out of my way’ when they’re angry. Instead of saying, 'please.' Just, 'get out of my way.' They don’t say, 'please.' Just, ‘get out of my way.' They’re angry. 'Can you please get out of my way?' I don’t want to drink anymore of this juice. I don’t want to drink some more of the apple juice. Stop telling me to drink it. I don’t want to drink it. I’m full of apple juice. I don’t want to drink it any more. I don’t want to drink my juice any more, daddy. I don’t want to drink it. I don’t want to. I don’t need my juice here because I don’t want to taste it any more. I'm all done with it. Tasting it. I don’t want to taste it any more. Daddy, I don’t want to drink it. I don’t want to. Daddy, I don’t want to drink it. I feel better. It’s feel better juice. [takes a big sip of the juice] I ate all of the juice. [Looks at sippy cup] Look, we got red and red. Look at my shadow at the red window. It’s the shadow of my cup. It’s the window of my house. It’s a very red window. It’s the window of our house. It’s the camera of the window. See it? See that shadow? It’s very red. Daddy, why is the sky blue? I like that color, blue. Lighting is Red. Red is my favorite color. He said, 'do you like that color red' and I said, 'Yes, I do like that color red.' My nose stopped running. I feel better in my neck. Do I have adult teeth? I know that my baby teeth are stuck together. They are still not coming out. I’m not getting adult teeth. I think I’m still not getting adult teeth. Because I’m not getting adult. I’m not going to get higher. I’m not going to get taller and taller. It takes a while. In a couple of days, I will. I can’t stop my long, long arm to touch the back of a train. Cause sometimes we can’t ride on them because they are closed. There are some trains we can’t ride. Where we see those horses there is a windmill there. There is a windmill there where we see those donkeys and horses. There is a windmill there. One time I’ll show you that windmill there, with those horses, Daddy. Today we’re going to go to that thing, that place and you’re going to see the windmill. When we get to it, we’re going to see it. I’m going to show it to you."

Unwritten Rules of Etiquette

This morning, as I dug into a bowl of Jumbo Krispies, I told WonderWife™ an amusing anecdote about how a good friend of ours gave the number of our babysitter to another couple who just had a baby. Turns out we’ve already locked in said sitter for the same night so we can go on our first real date since Sprout was born (that’s nearly 9 months for those of you playing at home). As I was telling her this, WW™ got kind of red in the face and angrily spewed at me, “You don’t do that!”

“What?” I said, genuinely confused and wracking my brain for what I had done wrong.

“You don’t just pass out the number of a babysitter that was given to you by somebody else!”

“Well, don’t yell at me. I didn’t do it!”

But the messenger had already been shot. WW™ fumed for the rest of the morning and promised to call our friend and set him straight on the whole matter. Apparently, the number to a good babysitter is a more precious commodity than oil to Mad Max.

I, on the other hand, sat there dumbfounded as my Krispies sogged up. I know that I was not at fault, but the fervor and venom that erupted from WW™ made me feel like I had been. You wouldn’t like her when she’s angry. I’m really glad that I’m not my friend right about now.

So this got me thinking…what other unwritten and unspoken rules of parental etiquette don’t I know? What am I missing or potentially breaking? How do we, the clueless and uninitiated, navigate obstacles that we cannot see?

So It's Come To This

WonderWife™ and I were sharing a rare moment snuggling on the couch watching TV together when we heard something over the baby monitor. We mute the TV and both lean in the direction of the monitor, which is what you’re required to do when you’re listening to something really intently.

“I think he’s meowing,” I say to WW™.

“No,” she replies. “He was a banana today.”

“But he was a kitty cat tonight.”

We both sit silently for a moment, pondering this.

“The scary thing,” I said. “ Is that to us, this is a completely normal conversation.”