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    Year of the Dad
    Year of the Dad
    Year of the Dad
    Ebook110 pages1 hour

    Year of the Dad

    By Steve Morgenstern

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    About this ebook

    According to the phone company, Mother’s Day has the highest phone call volume of the year. And Father’s Day? The highest number of collect calls. What more can we say? You’re going to need a sense of humor to make it through the year as a Dad. And Steve Morgenstern is here to help, with the advice you need to make it through the toughest challenges as a husband and a dad with a smile on your face.

    For Valentine’s Day, he counsels “Never buy a woman an electrical gift, even if it’s delivered in a package festooned with roses and adorable cupid tushies. Remember that even after years of close personal contact, Black and Decker were still just good friends.”

    For party-going survival, he explains the fine points of etiquette – or rather, “synthetiquette – artificial rules created for the sole purpose of making guys feel apologetic.”

    He recalls with no special fondness having to buy products for his kids’ fundraising drives. “Do you want to order the Quilted Blender Cozy, the Garfield Lasagna-Flavored Dental Floss or the Battery-Powered Nose Wiper, Dad?”

    He feels grown-ups stealing Halloween is a crime, and says so in verse: “Candy? Who needs it! Cause Mom and Dad choose / To skip past the “boos” and head straight for the booze.”

    On the joys of mall life: “Going shopping with children is like shaving with a kitchen knife. You’ll probably get the job done, but there’s going to be some damage along the way.”

    He has the perfect way to avoid changing diapers: adopt a Don’t Ask, Don’t Smell policy. “It takes mental discipline to shrug off the sometimes pungent evidence that confronts you. If all else fails, try making believe you’re a handsomely bribed health inspector at a particularly ripe greasy spoon.”

    From spring Little League to summer at the beach, back-to-school in the fall and a shiny Death Scream 2000 RoboVoice Action Figure for Christmas, The Year of the Dad provides a cranky, crafty, comical approach to surviving fatherhood.

    About the Author
    Steve Morgenstern is best known as a tech journalist, whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, Playboy, Popular Science and elsewhere, but he’s also proven his comedy chops as a writer for the Muppets, and creator of the online version of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSteve Morgenstern
    Release dateAug 9, 2011
    ISBN9781466124486
    Year of the Dad
    Author

    Steve Morgenstern

    Steve Morgenstern is best known as a tech journalist, whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, Playboy, Popular Science and elsewhere, but he’s also proven his comedy chops as a writer for the Muppets, and creator of the online version of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

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      Book preview

      Year of the Dad - Steve Morgenstern

      Brawls and Strikes

      Ah, the sharp crack of bat meeting ball. The satisfying smack as horsehide sphere is embraced by leather-gloved fingers. The cry of a raspy-throated Mom screaming, Whatsa matter with you! Are you blind or just stupid? He was safe by a mile!

      Yes, Little League season is upon us. Don’t get me wrong – I think Little League is a fine educational experience for growing boys and girls. It’s just that the lessons they learn have practically nothing to do with baseball.

      Baseball is played on a diamond and, as we all remember from our Superman comics, diamonds are created under great pressure. That explains why Little League takes what is basically a fun kid’s game and ratchets up the stress to a 9 on a scale from 0 (the womb) to 10 (your son found the candid snapshots from your honeymoon and posted them on Facebook). We surround the field with loud, anxious parents. Have an adult in a coach’s uniform record every strike-out and fielding error in a permanent written record with the anal retentive glee of an IRS auditor. And tell the kids to have a good time.

      Granted, there are other childhood activities undertaken in front of an audience full of parents. But kids rarely feel they’ve failed at a school play or concert. I’ve been to plenty of performances where the final score was Earplugs 3, Mozart 0, but the violin victimizers and soprano-no-no-for-pity-sake-nos walked off the stage feeling good about themselves. If they miss a note it pretty much gets lost in the general cacophony. On the other hand, miss a low hanging curve in the bottom of the ninth when the count is 3 and 2, your team’s down by one and the tying run’s on third, and they might as well put your picture on a giant FailureVision screen over the scoreboard.

      What’s worse, we’ve built an institution that’s supposed to make kids feel good about themselves around a game based on constant failure. Seven out of ten times, even the best baseball players get up to bat and walk away defeated. Who in their right mind would want to do anything where you screw up that often? OK, there’s Elmer Fudd, Lindsay Lohan and the Casey Anthony prosecutors. And even they didn’t have jurors in the courtroom chanting, Stand up, sit down, shout, shout, shout — we all have a reasonable doubt!

      Can Little League be saved? Absolutely! I haven’t sweated the details yet, but I have the first step all figured out. The program where Moms take their daughters to the office has been a big success, right? I think we need a Take Your Little Leaguer to Work Day.

      When Dad pitches a new account and strikes out, Junior can step right up and argue with the potential client.

      Each time Mom tries to make a sale and fails, her kid can mark it down in an official-looking binder with just the slightest disappointed headshake.

      And if there are several Little Leaguers watching their parents at work, they can generously console each other when one of their parents screws up. Don’t feel bad, Timmy. I remember when my Dad couldn’t configure a VPN for remote access to a corporate network’s Oracle database either. It’s just a phase they go through – I’m sure he’ll grow out of it.

      Seems to me this experience might lead to some worthwhile changes in the Little League establishment.

      Anyone who admitted watching The Bad News Bears movie more than once would be banned forever from coaching.

      Team sponsors’ names would be tastefully sewn onto uniform shirtsleeves. Abner Doubleday did not invent our great national pastime so America’s fine, upstanding young people could suffer the indignity of rounding the bases with SAL’S CESSPOOLS emblazoned in 6-inch-high red letters on their backs.

      Finally, spectators would be allowed to applaud for a good play, but anyone caught shouting out demands (Strike him out, pitcher! Get a hit, Johnny!) would automatically be sentenced to ten laps around the ballfield, regardless of age, gender, waistline or cost of designer footwear.

      And that, as they say, would be a whole new ballgame.

      * * *

      Pitfalls on the Road to Romance

      What’s the first story that springs to mind when you think of romance? Romeo and Juliet, of course. And how did this cherished tale, the very definition of romance, work out for the tender young lovers? Romeo – dead. Juliet – also dead. Juliet’s cousin? Six feet under. The guy her Dad wants Juliet to marry? Pushing up the daisies. Romeo’s best friend? Arrividerci!

      Whoa! Compared to romance, a 90 mph drive down a twisty snow-covered mountain road with a fifth of Jim Beam under your belt and an armed thermonuclear device on the back seat is starting to sound like a pretty good bet.

      Still, even with a safety record that makes hydrochloric acid juggling seem tame, romance is an inescapable part of the human experience, a mating ritual that ensures the continuity of the human species while providing innumerable fertile opportunities for looking like a complete jerk. In honor of St. Valentine, who in the fine romantic tradition was clubbed, stoned and beheaded for his troubles, I’d like to share some handy tips for surviving the holiday with both your romantic affiliations and your bodily functions intact.

      Avoid Pet Names. I’m not talking about nicknames here, I’m talking about literal pet names. I still remember spending a tender evening with my girlfriend, snuggled up on the couch to watch a romantic movie on TV. She called me Sweetie, and Darling, and Sugar, and I loved it. Then the cat jumped up on her lap, and she called it Sweetie and Darling and Sugar. I’m telling you, it was enough to give a grown man a hairball.

      Don’t Whisper Sweet Nothings. Your sweetheart leans over, lips scant inches from your tender earlobes, and murmurs, Bzz whuzzle farkle harpen flart. What the heck was that? Unless you’re selling hearing aids door-to-door, speak in a loud, clear voice and enunciate your words when you’re dishing up the mushy stuff.

      Never

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