My wife and daughter are still sleeping. I thought I’d rise early, pour a bourbon, and set the record straight.
I’m a father?! How did this happen?!
Well, I blame my wife and daughter. Making me a father is the single most irresponsible thing my wife has ever done. I blame my daughter less. She was not the instigator. She has, however, fully embraced the experiment and is now a co-conspirator.
I’ll never forget that moment I became a father, the deafening and unstoppable crying of a child who just entered a world of confusion and uncertainty. My newborn daughter whimpered a little too. But, it was my blood pressure and sobbing that concerned the doctors.
On leaving the hospital with our new beautiful daughter, my wife and I, hurriedly and awkwardly, figured out the puzzle known as “car-seat.” We slammed the doors on the getaway car. My wife yelled, “punch it!” I kept checking the rearview. I was certain the hospital, who’d obviously messed up the paperwork and found us worthy parents, had now identified the error and were in pursuit.
I’m now five years into this father thing. It’s all cosplay. I seriously don’t know what I’m doing. Thank God for my wife. She got this. Thanks to her, our daughter is actually smart, beautiful, and kind. I know they know that I’m faking it. But, it means the world that they still take a day to pretend with me and give me credit. It’s the participation medal I never received as a child.
I wonder about my father, my grandfathers, and their dads. Did they feel this way too? Were they just winging it like I am? Probably so. But, I’m glad they faked it so well.
It’s Father’s Day. My eyes are watering up. I love you May. I love you, Olivia. Thank you for making me a papa.
Her face looked like a hand-tooled leather wallet. She had Lucky Strike breath, James Earl Jones’s voice, and a disposition unburdened by kindness. At least that’s how I remember The Tooth.
Mrs. Toothman (as she called herself) was my fourth-grade teacher. She pulled no punches and punched frequently. Bathroom breaks, crying, water bottles, or any outward expression of happiness were not tolerated in her classroom. Brief laughter was allowed only in response to her public mocking of a classmate whose bladder had failed. Nothing was more satisfying to The Tooth than sending a kid home with leaky eyes, a dry mouth, and wet pants.
One day, after an overly cruel math lesson, The Tooth pulled me aside. “Charlie, you need to know that you have a gift. Some students struggle with math. Others take to it naturally and go on to become Space Engineers. But I’ve never seen a child, try as they might, suck at math as well as you do – and with no effort whatsoever. I want to encourage you to focus on learning how to change tires because you’ll never be a Space Engineer.”
I’d seen a whole new side to The Tooth. I realized that she could actually be encouraging. Of course, I also realized how much smarter I was than her. I mean, even I knew that there were no trains in space. And while I wasn’t yet prepared to give up my career dream of being a frontiersman, I was flattered that she thought I’d be able to one day change tires.
By the time I was a sophomore in college, most of the land in America had been developed and the big frontiersman firms were no longer hiring. Blazing trees and trapping beaver in city parks was deemed unnecessary and even frowned upon. I blame socialism.
The cost of tuition, books, and beer created a need for employment. The Tooth’s early encouragement had sparked a burning fire of self-confidence that led me to believe that I could have any job I wanted. I didn’t want to settle for just any job though. I wanted to get my lifelong career off to an early start. So, I applied at a service station. The manager must have seen the same special gift in me that The Tooth did. He hired me on the spot and immediately made me lead floor-mopper and assistant tire changer. While I’m sure this instant promotion created resentment and jealousy in my coworkers, they did a great job not showing it.
Here I was, only 19 years old and already at the apex of my career. If only The Tooth could see me now. It’s widely held that peaking early is not a good thing. I now see why. It was all downhill from there. It all started when I ran the forklift into the tire balancing machine. At that point, I realized that I needed to learn what a “turning radius” was. I was going to have to compromise my principles and my gift by sucking a little less at math.
As time went on, my gift of sucking at math was eroding. I was, however, comforted by the fact that I had developed the ability to suck at other things. Turns out I was also able to effortlessly suck at reading and spelling. Despite this, I was eventually able to BS my way to a BA.
My gift of sucking at math has diminished to the point that it’s nearly unrecognizable. My career has suffered as well. The more I embraced math, the more my job opportunities narrowed. I’ve been forced to settle for positions like Production Manager, Network Administrator, Winemaker, V.P. of Operations, and IT Director. The gift is gone. Math is unavoidable. I blame socialism.
To add insult to injury, today I watched as a man, named Bezos, launched into space. And, I’ll be damned if that rocket didn’t look just like a bullet train.
Is it possible that The Tooth was smarter than me?! Maybe “Space Engineer” is a thing after all.
