The Da-da Trench Test (or Combat Da-da)

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:

  1. Do you feel exhausted from little or no sleep/being up all night?
  2. Are you perpetually rumpled, dirty, unclean, unshaven, unkempt, perhaps even STINKY? Do you find that you don’t really care?
  3. Do you often find yourself wearing the same things over and over?
  4. Do you often find yourself scarfing cold or lukewarm, greasy food, standing up/walking/running?
  5. Have you found that you now actually LIKE beany weenies?
  6. Do you occasionally scream?
  7. Do you occasionally scream the same thing over and over? And over?
  8. Do you occasionally scream or pontificate about beany weenies?
  9. Has your memory… um, is the… what was the question?
  10. Do the strangest things often come flying in from every direction?
  11. Have the terms, “debris field” and “unholy terror,” become relative?
  12. Do you find yourself schlepping incredibly heavy things, over great distances, back and forth?
  13. Do you find yourself going to the bathroom as quickly as possible while someone is screaming nearby?
  14. Do you bark orders at troops who seem selectively deaf?
  15. Have you become jaded to crying and shouting and fighting?
  16. Are you and/or your troops often sick and cranky?
  17. Are you often strapping people into things, and checking the straps?
  18. On your rare breaks, do you stare into space, numb and insensate? (AKA, the Thousand Yard Stare.)
  19. Have you, for all intents & purposes, become celebate for long periods?
  20. Have you stepped on mines (toys), barefoot, and screamed/cursed in pain?
  21. 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.”)
  22. Do you take the most unspeakable of acts at face-value?
  23. Have you come in contact with blood, vomit, feces, urine, hair, smooshed/uneaten food in the same hour? In the same minute?
  24. Do you start 90% of sentences with, “Awright, you apes/monkeys….”
  25. Have you or your commander gone hopelessly insane, simultaneously giggling and crying?
  26. Have you fallen to calling your commander, “Mommy.”
  27. 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.