As I ate my cold k-ration beany weenies last night (hey, I LIKE beany weenies), I ruminated on my last post. All told, what's it really like to be A Man Called Da-da, or a parent in general? It's like being in combat, that's what. Take this little test...
As I ate my cold k-ration beany weenies last night (hey, I LIKE beany weenies), I ruminated on my last post. All told, what’s it really like to be A Man Called Da-da, or a parent in general? It’s like being in combat, that’s what. Take this little test:
- Do you feel exhausted from little or no sleep/being up all night?
- Are you perpetually rumpled, dirty, unclean, unshaven, unkempt, perhaps even STINKY? Do you find that you don’t really care?
- Do you often find yourself wearing the same things over and over?
- Do you often find yourself scarfing cold or lukewarm, greasy food, standing up/walking/running?
- Have you found that you now actually LIKE beany weenies?
- Do you occasionally scream?
- Do you occasionally scream the same thing over and over? And over?
- Do you occasionally scream or pontificate about beany weenies?
- Has your memory… um, is the… what was the question?
- Do the strangest things often come flying in from every direction?
- Have the terms, “debris field” and “unholy terror,” become relative?
- Do you find yourself schlepping incredibly heavy things, over great distances, back and forth?
- Do you find yourself going to the bathroom as quickly as possible while someone is screaming nearby?
- Do you bark orders at troops who seem selectively deaf?
- Have you become jaded to crying and shouting and fighting?
- Are you and/or your troops often sick and cranky?
- Are you often strapping people into things, and checking the straps?
- On your rare breaks, do you stare into space, numb and insensate? (AKA, the Thousand Yard Stare.)
- Have you, for all intents & purposes, become celebate for long periods?
- Have you stepped on mines (toys), barefoot, and screamed/cursed in pain?
- When out running errands at lightspeed, have you found that you instinctively KNOW what every crying baby/toddler wants, even when it’s not your kid? Have you, the VETERAN, muttered the answer to the clueless parents of the child? (“He’s HUNGRY, you idiot.”)
- Do you take the most unspeakable of acts at face-value?
- Have you come in contact with blood, vomit, feces, urine, hair, smooshed/uneaten food in the same hour? In the same minute?
- Do you start 90% of sentences with, “Awright, you apes/monkeys….”
- Have you or your commander gone hopelessly insane, simultaneously giggling and crying?
- Have you fallen to calling your commander, “Mommy.”
- Do you often feel like you’d be happier if you were blown to bits by a 80 mm shell?
If you answered YES to the majority of the above questions, CONGRATULATIONS! You’re a parent. Or perhaps a teenager.
