New Father's Survival Kit: Item #4 An escape hatch

Pack lightly

Every father needs a way out... A secret tunnel through which he can duck the smothering, tentacular embrace of parenthood... You know it's true. But let me be clear: By "escape hatch," I don't mean some namby-pamby MAN ROOM in the basement--no, I don't mean anything so prosaic and so STRAIGHT OUT OF A SITCOM like that.

...What the hey-hey do you mean, Unit?

Let me explain. A worthwhile escape hatch must be in the massive, life-altering scale of the following:

1. A one-way plane ticket to Brazil
2. A secret inheritence
3. An acceptance letter to the Cordon Bleu, which is tucked away in that suitcase in your JFK lockbox.
4. Or, if you are really freaking delusional, your ex-girl friend from high school with the MAD SKILLZ... That girl who is, you are 99.88888% sure, willing to drop the life she has built up over the last fifteen years for you, her one and only true love. All you have to do is send her one Facebook private message, and love is reborn...

Nothing less than the above examples will do. No Man Room! No yearly golfing trip with your shitty buddies. None of this I-wanna-be-in-a-Seth-Rogen-movie-because-I-am-pathetic type of crap. Because, for God's sake, you are a Brooklyn hipster parent, and any such moronic crap is beneath you. Got it? Understand? Okay... Now, BRACE THYSELF. Because here comes the hard part: Just because you have this escape hatch, it doesn't mean you should or will use it. Just because you have squirreled away a little money, or just because you friended her the other day... it does not mean you should ABANDON YOUR FAMILY. I mean, really, do you want to make your kid a victim of divorce just like you? No, I didn't think so. You want to do better. You want to raise your child with less irreparable soul-crushing DAMAGE than was done onto you. You believe in progress. You are an optimist.

They love you not

In this case, then, you must think of your escape hatch as a parental pressure release valve. It is enough to know it is there. Take, for example, that ticket to Brazil. When, at the end of a bad day, in which you have performed whatever menial and intellectually degrading task you have to perform in order to put FOOD ON THE TABLE (like a circus animal)... When you arrive home dreaming your small fatherly dreams--of MAULING your half of the Fairway rotisserie chicken, and chasing it down with a Guinness--when you come home with your lowly expectations... And all that greets you is a messy Brooklyn apartment and a spouse (who perhaps works, who perhaps does not, whatever) who is equally as tired as you... When you get home and the baby is eating ice cream and watching TV and you think to yourself, I am raising a fat, indulged TV-addled child, and I'm too tired to do anything about... When you reach that hopeless point in your day, just stick a hand into your breast pocket, where that plane ticket is. Yes, it's right there, next to your heart and within easy reach, like a new lover. Pat it, feel its papery surface, worry its corners. My precious... But for God's sake. Do not use it, man.

So you see, this escape hatch is really a deterrent, like the nuclear stockpiles of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and today. Rattle the sabers, but keep your fingers off the button.

Amen.

New Father's Survival Kit

If you prospective fathers out there have been paying attention to me, you now realize that fatherhood will change your life like nothing else that has come before... The carefree existence you take for granted today (like the wormy ingrate that you are) will seem like a distant memory...

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.

You deserve a new toy...

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?