Daddy's Night Off

As a full time parent it’s important to to find time for yourself. Time to reflect on who you are, what your goals are, how you are going to get that shit stain from an explosive diaper out of your pillow. Suffice to say I find it difficult to separate myself from home life.

Fact: Pillows can hold twenty times their own weight in bodily fluids. Don't believe me, try it at home, or better yet a Motel.

I try hard to find small moments in the day for myself. The 45 minutes between bedtime and the first wake up, in the shower (cut out masturbation and I gain a good three minutes of thinking time), or after being knocked unconscious from banging my head on the changing table while picking up a feces filled diaper that’s fallen poop side down on the floor.

Injuries like this should occur only when picking up awesome things like gold or jelly rolls.

My wife is very good about urging me to, as she puts it, “get the fuck out of the house.” I suspect I get tedious to listen to. My wife will ask my daughter questions about her day, which I will answer like it’s some sort of sick game show where adults are pitted against small children. Imagine how much an adult of average intelligent would dominate over a five-year old at Jeopardy, let alone a hylee intelleigent persun like me.

"Seriously kid, you are an Troglobite."

Every few weeks I take a night to go out on my own. I normally try to go see a movie, but have recently become super focussed and worried about how bad a night will be with children waking up. The youngest has recently had a few weeks of bad nights which means my wife and I have bad nights, which means we have bad days, which will eventually lead to a bad divorce.

So a movie has to be close to the house so that travel won’t take much time and it has to be close to an hour and a half, so I can get back home to bed for a snooze before the festivities of waking children begin. Quentin Tarantino obviously does not care enough for his audiences who have children.

Hates children and silence.

On Thursday I decided to skip a movie and do some window shopping. Before kids I was able to wander the streets of Toronto for hours on my own, window shopping at used book and record stores with no issues. The first sign that this was not going to be a satisfying evening out was noticing that I was standing on the subway platform rocking back and forth as though I had a child in a sling attached to me.

Next I was walking the streets and started to miss being asked a million questions about everything around us, “How do all those lights work,” or “Tell me about the olden days, when you were a kid,” or “Why is that man sleeping in the alley with a belt around his arm?”

"His sleeves are too loose sweetie."

I don’t care for eating at restaurants by myself. This stems from years ago, where I went into a sit down restaurant by myself and they sat me directly in front of the entrance and ceremoniously removed all the plates and cutlery from the opposite side of the table. I was left trying to avoid eye contact of people entering the restaurant for the entire meal. If I was in a speed eating contest I would have won that night.

So instead I opt for fast food, that I can either eat while walking, or sit in silence with numerous other people sitting in silence. All of us judging each other while wishing someone would start a conversation. Fast food joints are a gathering place for the introvert who wishes to be an extrovert.

On this day out went to a fast food place that I had never been to before, let’s call it Hero Certified Burger, because that’s it’s name. Also, if they wish to sue me, they won’t get much unless they are interested in my vault of cloth diapers and Penaten riches. This place has been around a while so I imagine most people in the city are familiar with it. I was not. The cashier asked if I wanted “Hero Certified Sauce”, this meant nothing to me. She might as well have asked me if I wanted “Monkey Doodle Frazenbutt” on my burger.

Monkey Doodle Frazenbutt

I asked what exactly the sauce was. She looked at me like I was the one speaking another language and answered “a sauce”.  Good enough for me! Shoot some of that undescribeable goo on my food please. It tasted like undescribeable goo too.

With goo in my belly and boredom in my heart I headed for home. Knowing my wife would be concerned (read: annoyed) that I had returned home within an hour and a half, I was smart and brought home a magnum of the finest wine a twenty dollar bill can buy.