If I, the Unit Parental, can wax poetic for a second, your former life will seem like the following: A faraway forbidden planet whose orbit and mass, whose very atmospheric makeup, you can only deduce through inference and convoluted calculations!
This being the case, I have put together a list of things you will need to survive physically and mentally. Start saving up for them now... Sanity ain't cheap.
Here it goes.
Number 1: Speyburn Single Malt Whiskey
There are the extremes: The Slutkaya Kranberry Vodka your Manhattan friends are drinking... And then there's the Pabst Blue Ribbon your fellow Brooklynites sip as they lounge about in some dive bar, dressed, of course, in their ironic Carthartts.Somewhere between these extremes of self reinvention is, well, REALITY. And these days, REALITY comes bottled as Speyburn Single Malt Whiskey.
I, the Unit Parental, can vouch for Speyburn's effectiveness. Ever since the Life Force Sucker was born, I have tried other drinks--gin, wine, beer, even other brands of whiskey. But this is the only brand that is capable of filling the hole in my man-soul.
Plus, Speyburn is reasonably priced. And it will get you crocked faster than a case of PBR. You're a dad; you're on a tight schedule; you don't have time to fool around.
Directions: Keep close at hand at all times. Apply liberally.
Number 2: A new boy's toy
Disclaimer: Girl definitely not included.I mean, sure, it was your wife and not you who performed BLINDING FEATS OF HEROISM in the delivery room. But as a father, you are still required to make considerable contributions to this whole parenthood thing.
For example, one of your tasks involves, ironically, "life taking." Specifically, I mean the following: Now that you have the UNBEARABLE HEAVINESS OF HAVING TO TAKE CARE OF A HUMAN LIFE on your shoulders, you must wrap your fingers around the neck of your own inner child and throttle the living bejesus out of him. You have to, in other words, grow the fuck up. So before you choke the life out of this vital part of your CORE BEING, buy him one last
thrill.
Disclaimer 2: You will have no time to use your new toy.
Number 3: MMA Training
May I suggest mixed martial arts.
I myself am not an ULTIMATE FIGHTER, but I enjoy watching it on TV. Mrs. Unit says ultimate fighting is "so totally gay." Looking at the picture above, she may have a point.
But still, just because entering the Octagon seems a little gay doesn't mean you are necessarily gay. It just means that the sleep deprivation of fatherhood is making you doubt you actually exist. This is because there is a cold numbness to your face all the time--a symptom of lack of sleep. And this cold numbness is making you doubt that you are actually alive.
In short, you want to feel THE BLOOD PUMPING. And your life--of crowded subway cars during weekdays, of Fairway runs on the weekend--isn't doing it. So, in order to achieve this "alive feeling," you are willing to go toe-to-toe with some missing-chromosome nut job who spends eight hours a day in the gym practicing how to gut a human being with his index finger.
The gist of it:
I can't feel my face. Am I alive? ... POW! Roundhouse kick to the temple...
Can you feel your face now?
As a parent, I have my doubts about the value of increased drinking, motorcycle riding and fighting in cages. Parenting is a lot safer than each of the three activities and far far safer than the combination of any two.
ReplyDeleteSleep deprivation is temporary. It does, as you seem to know, induce a temporary and powerful insanity, which makes it a remarkable thing that so many children survive their early years.
Kind sir,
ReplyDeleteI, the Unit Parental, appreciate your point of view. Like Michael Kors of Project Runway fame, I relish a POINT OF VIEW that is strong, clear, and well articulated. And yours is definitely all three of these things.
That said, I must disagree with you. I appreciate your concern for safety. But what I am speaking of is more tied to the well-being of your parental soul. I am speaking to issues that are visceral and might reside in our lizard brains, not in the superego that tells us to watch out, to be careful, to be mindful.
I am speaking about the need to be in touch with our brute/animal selves. And oddly, parenthood asks us to stifle our brute/animal selves. I say "oddly" because, if you have witnessed birth FIRSTHAND (I.E., not just in that grainy video in high school), it is one of the most visceral, animalistic and yes, beautiful, human moments we have.
Yes, I understand that tenderness and caring and the unending fugue-like love you feel for your Life Force Sucker... I understand that all that is part of the human-animal experience as well.
But what about the other half? What about our capacity to be raw, to be a little cruel and brutal? What about our more Dionysian and Pan-like urges? They do not simply go away do they?
And yet, and yet, this is the myth we are forced to live.
To that, I say, POW! Here's a roundhouse kick to the temple...
Sincerely,
Unit