Shotgun Daddy

All I got is a red guitar, three chords, and the truth

If you're one of our loyal readers -- I'm fairly sure there are at least two of you -- you'll remember more than a few posts about Kate and her temper tantrums.  The stories would change, but they all shared a common general theme: Isn't it funny that Kate is so out of control?

Well, now it's time to tell the true story, as honestly as possible.  If you're looking for sarcasm, you won't find it.  If you've come seeking humor or pithy observations about fatherhood, move along.  Today, all I got is the truth.

I don't know what to do about my daughter.  She will be five years old in a month, but she shows no signs of leaving her tantrums behind.  If there's one thing that fatherhood has taught me, and continues to teach me every day, it's that each child is different and has different needs.  On the one hand, that's a blessing, but on the other it's a cruel trick.  After you've had a child or two, you find yourself thinking that you're an expert.  You wake up early one Saturday morning and smile smugly at the young couple who wanders into your garage sale to pay fifty cents a piece for a stack of parenting books you're certain you'll never need again.  After all, you've raised two toddlers without incident; why should the third be different?

Now, to be fair, Kate is not a monster or a bad seed.  Most of the time she is cute, intelligent, bubbly, and engaging.  She is the little girl with the curl -- when she is good, she is very, very good, but when she is bad she is awful.  Tonight was awful.

She cried when it was time to put the bikes away, she cried when I wouldn't replace her dinner with something better, she cried when it was time to get her pajamas, she cried when it was time to go to bed, and she cried when I turned out her light.  When she is in a mood like she was tonight, there is simply no winning.  She will scream at the top of her lungs until she either gets what she wants, forgets what she wants, or falls asleep while screaming for it.

Her tantrums are emotionally devastating to me because I feel like I'm handcuffed to her as she falls down that rabbit hole.  I become an awful father as I raise my voice to compete with her screams, and sometimes I take my frustration out on the rest of the family.  And the most maddening part is that she can turn off the drama as quickly as it starts.  One moment her head's spinning around, and the next she's gently kissing me on the cheek.  Sometimes I can steal these moments of sanity and have a quick conversation about how she makes me feel when she screams, but other times my heart is still beating too fast to talk to her.  I'm sure that a child psychologist could explain what's going on in her head, but I just need it to stop.

And then there is a practical concern.  When I turned her light out after putting her to bed tonight, she immediately started crying again and demanding that I keep her light on.  When I walked down the hall, leaving her in the dark, she yelled after me, "Noooo! Noooooo! Nooooooo!"

I'm not sure what I would do if I were sitting at home on a Tuesday night and heard a young child screaming No! over and over again.  Would I go knock on the door?  Would I call the police?  I don't know.  I know that the neighbors hear her, but I don't know what they think.

After listening to her for a few minutes, Leslie went back to her room and told Kate that if she kept screaming like that, someone might call the police.  She told her that if the police were to come, they might arrest me and take me to jail.  She stopped screaming.

This is what it's come to.  The only way to stop my daughter's tantrum is to threaten her with the arrest of her father.  

When I tucked Alison into bed a bit later, she told me that she didn't like it when Kate cried like that.  I agree with her, and promised her that one day her sister would stop.  Alison's lip quivered a bit as she looked up at me and said, "Daddy, I don't want the police to come.  I don't want you to go to jail..."

My heart broke just a little, and I answered her: "Don't worry, Alison.  I'll always be right here."

The One Where I Drop Out of the Running for Father of the Year

I woke up Saturday morning and the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the roses were blooming. The children were awake, but still too sleepy to bicker with each other or demand breakfast. In all ways, it was a beautiful day. 

As I looked out the kitchen window I saw several strange men walking up to the front door -- two with video cameras, one with a giant boom mike, another with a trophy and an oversized cardboard check, and someone who looked suspiciously like the late Ed McMahon. A glance back at the driveway told me everything I already knew. Emblazoned across the side of the van were four simple words: Father of the Year.

I should probably make something up about how surprised I was, but that would be a lie.  Afterall, I thought, who else deserves to be Father of the Year more than me?  As I was tossing around ideas for my acceptance speech, a tiny voice in my Father of the Year head told me to check on Alison's frogs.

We keep the frogs (there are two of them now) in a small tank on the kitchen counter, where they're relatively out of the way but still convenient enough to be fed and fawned over.  The first thing I noticed was that the lid of the tank was wide open, and I immediately realized what had happened.  Just before going to bed on Friday night I had gone out to the kitchen to give the frogs a few crickets.  I had opened the lid of the tank, but when I discovered that we were out of crickets, I must've forgotten to close the lid.

This was one of those moments when your life stands still, when everyone around you stops what they're doing and stares directly at you, waiting to see how you'll respond.  I froze in the middle of the kitchen floor, only long enough for this thought to pass from one synapse to the next: "Wouldn't that suck if one of the frogs had gotten out?"

Now keep in mind, even though these are North American bullfrogs, the very frogs which inspired Mark Twain to write The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, we're still talking about two creatures which could each sit on a quarter and give you back about ten cents in change.  Escape would mean a jump of about eight inches straight up, a truly Olympian feat.

But even so, what if they had jumped out?  I quickly saw that the smaller of the two frogs was still there, which was a huge relief.  I didn't see his larger friend right away, but that wasn't unusual.  I peeked in the corners and behind the filter but still didn't see him.  I desperately plunged my hand into the tank, swishing my fingers through the gravel, overturning their sunning rock, lifting out the filter.  He was gone, and it was my fault.  I looked out the window just in time to see the Father of the Year van backing out of the driveway.

My first thought, of course, was for Alison.  I called to her and told her what had happened; the tears were flowing before she got to the kitchen.  We searched the counter tops, pulled dishes from the sink, scoured the floor, and pointed a flashlight deep beneath the stove, dishwasher, and refrigerator.  No luck.

It was difficult for Alison to help me look because she was sobbing almost the entire time.  She had learned enough about frogs to know that he would die if he dried out, but what we didn't know was how long he could last.  Hours?  Days?  My heart ached for Alison and hoped that we would find him soon, but my head knew better.  The house was big, and the frog was small.

What struck me the most was how Alison handled the whole situation.  Her sadness was completely pure and never wavered towards anger.  I had admitted my responsibility, but she never once blamed me and didn't even ask me why I hadn't closed the tank.  She wasn't looking for justice, she was just looking for her frog.  At one point during the search, she stopped and looked up at me, her eyes overflowing with tears, and asked, "Daddy, if you were a froggy, where would you go?"  I think that was the moment when my heart broke.

She remained positive throughout Saturday and into Sunday as we continued to search the house, but I realized that each passing hour made a positive outcome less likely.  We kept looking in the same places and getting the same results until we returned to the family room couch for a more thorough search.  We had looked beneath the couch on Saturday morning as soon as we spread our focus from the kitchen, but on Sunday night I suggested that we take everything out from underneath it, just to be sure he wasn't there.  

I pulled out a few boxes and bags of things stored beneath the couch, all the while crossing my fingers that the frog would come hopping out from behind the next item I picked up.  I found him soon enough, but it wasn't the happy ending I had been hoping for.  I slid out a rolled up yoga mat and suddenly there he was, completely dried out and almost flat.

I looked at Alison on the opposite side of the couch and chose my words carefully, so as not to instill false hope, even for a second.

"Alison, I have bad news."

The tears came instantly as she ran around to where I sat on the floor.  She took one look at her frog before collapsing into my arms, her body shaking with sobs.  I won't soon forget how small and powerless I felt, slowly rocking her back and forth and feeling her tears against my skin.

Why hadn't I just closed the tank on Friday night?  What if I had searched beneath the couch on Saturday morning instead of Sunday evening?  There were no answers to these questions, and as Alison continued to cry, going from my arms to Leslie's and back again, there was nothing I wouldn't have done for her.  A puppy?  No problem.  A pony?  Let me build a pasture in the backyard.

But to Alison's credit, she asked for nothing.  When Leslie offered to buy some more tadpoles, she refused, probably not ready yet to think about replacing her missing frog.  Instead, she found a small cardboard jewelry box in her room, gently placed her frog atop the bed of cotton inside, and set him in a place of honor.

I took her to bed and she pulled out one of her library books, All About Frogs.  As we laid side by side reading about frog croaks and metamorphosis, the tears finally stopped.  She even laughed a little when we learned that frogs can pull their eyeballs into their heads to help push food down their throats.  As it turned out, I hadn't scarred my daughter for life.  She was still sad, but she was getting better, and I was relieved beyond belief.

We finished the book, I tucked her in with a kiss on the forehead, and I turned out the lights.  Through her bedroom window I saw another van pulling up into the driveway.  This one, though, said "Daughter of the Year" on the side.

Honey, we're FINALLY out of honey...

Almost two years ago, I wrote about how my love for honey combined with my poor grocery list memory to result in a considerable stockpile of the sweet stuff. (For deeper context, here's the full story.) Anyway, I thought I'd let everyone know that earlier this week we finished the last bottle of honey. I can't wait for the next Costco trip. We need honey.

Honey, We're Out of Honey

As a husband and father, there are lots of things that I do well. Sadly, none of those things make for entertaining reading. Fortunately for me (and my loyal readers), I’ve got a lot of material on the other side of the coin.

In most cases, my memory is flawless. Need a quote from Seinfeld? Give me a ring. Wonder how many home runs Mickey Mantle hit? I’m your man. And if that’s not enough, birthdays and anniversaries seem to stick in my head like post-it notes.

All that being said, my mind sometimes wanders in crucial situations. Just last week, for example, we packed all the kids into the Odyssey to ready for a trip to grandma and grandpa’s. Realizing I had forgotten Baby Kate’s bottle, I got out of the car, unlocked the house, turned off the alarm, went in the house, closed the door behind me, reset the alarm, went back outside, locked the door, got in the car, and drove the family to Culver City. It wasn’t until we had driven about twenty miles that I remembered why I had gone back in the house -- I had forgotten the baby’s bottle.

Ah, but we’re just scratching the surface here. Perhaps the biggest hole in my Swiss cheese brain reveals itself when we’re shopping. When I cross the threshold into Costco, it’s as if I leave all sense at the door. Do we need toilet paper? Laundry detergent? Napkins? I have no idea.

I hear what you’re saying. Everyone has these issues, right? We’re all lost without a grocery list, aren’t we? Maybe. But let me tell you about our honey situation; I’ll let you decide.

I love honey. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Honey on a biscuit is nice, but if you’ve never had a peanut butter and honey sandwich, you’re missing out on the sweetest lunch imaginable. (Here’s a story about bees and the best PB and H sandwich I’ve ever had.)

But back to our story. As we walked down the condiments aisle in Costco a few weeks ago, I assured Leslie that we were out of honey. We needed more. The problem with Costco, of course, is that you can’t buy just one of anything, and so it is with honey. I set a three-pack into the cart and we turned into the next aisle.

When we got home with our honey and the rest of our groceries, guess what? Three more bottles of honey waiting in the cupboard. Like any loving wife, Leslie was incredibly understanding. Or at least she seemed so while she was mocking me mercilessly. “We need honey,” she mocked. And when we passed the honey on subsequent Costco trips, she never failed to ask me if we needed any more. If I heard it once, I heard it 536 times. She’s thoughtful like that.

Cut to this morning. I’m getting breakfast for the kids when I look into a deep corner of the cupboard in search of some syrup for Henry’s waffles. And what do you suppose I find? Two more bottles of honey! Obviously, I need to be stopped. Or at the very least, I need to start making grocery lists.

(Click the picture for the full-sized image.)

Father of the Year

The sad truth is that not every day is a good day. Some days are like today, a day when you start pining for nap time at nine in the morning and praying for bedtime as soon as the nap is over. Summer vacation is mercifully coming to end, and I think it will be good for Alison and Henry to have some time apart once school starts, but for now there are times when I feel like I'm part father and part referee.

Most of the time life is beautiful, but sometimes you worry that if you look away, your four-year-old boy's head might start spinning around. You take him into his room to get him ready for bed, and you discover a disaster that's been building all afternoon -- toys, shoes, and clothes all over the floor. Even though he's cranky, and you're cranky, you still make him clean his room -- by himself -- before he gets ready for bed. He argues the whole time, but you forget that you are an adult and you argue right back. When he struggles to pull off a shirt that's too small, you don't help, you scold him. It's at this point when a small voice in your head tells you that the time you've spent crafting that clever acceptance speech for your Father of the Year Award has probably been a waste of time.

And when your boy runs down the hall just so he can turn out the light in the bathroom where your daughter is taking a shower, you've had enough. This boy is going straight to bed.

But then you realize that it's at least a little bit funny that he's turned the light off on your daughter, even though she's screaming at the top of her lungs, so you decide that he won't go straight to bed. Wouldn't it be fun to play a game of cards?

As you flip through the deck of vocabulary flash cards, you think to yourself, wow, I really am a good father. All I want is to put this boy to bed so I can relax, but I'm playing a game with him instead. And you wonder if maybe you should work on that speech a little more. Surely you are the best dad in the world.

But then your boy starts to test your patience. You show him the picture of a bluebird, and he says it's a fish. You ask him what color it is, and he says it's yellow. You go to the next card, a picture of a sun, and he says it's a rainbow. He finds this whole thing to be absolutely hilarious, so hilarious that he can hardly speak, but it will be at least three hours before you get the joke. In a huff, you stuff the cards back in their box, say goodnight to the now-crying boy, and click out the light.

Father of the year, indeed.

Unattended Baggage

A family of five can accumulate an awful lot of junk, enough junk to overwhelm even the most diligent efforts at organization. The problem, of course, is the exact opposite of our nation's economy: there is always more coming in than going out. If this imbalance continues unchecked, you will drown in the sea of your family's debris.

Does this problem sound familiar? If so, here are a few tips:

1. Purge
Have you been to an airport recently? Everywhere you look there are warnings against leaving your baggage unattended lest it be swept away by guard dogs and SWAT teams. You must adopt this zero tolerance policy towards the toys in your home immediately. Unattended or forgotten toys are quickly recycled, especially the cheap ones. Fast food kids meal prizes are usually out the door before the accompanying meals are even digested. But you can't stop with the Happy Meals, because toys (and the well-meaning people who give them) are your enemy.

2. Like a Band-Aid, Quick is Better than Slow
You can't go half-way, something we've learned the hard way. The things we recycle, like newspapers and alumimun cans, usually sit on our counter until I take them out at the end of the day. More than once we've made the mistake of putting a plastic toy or two in this pile only to have it discovered by curious eyes. At this point the toy is suddenly interesting again and it returns to the toy supply without any discussion. A few times, though, Alison has discovered one of her toys in the trash can. The conversation invariably goes like this: "Hey, who put this in the trash?!!?" Me: "Oh, my gosh, how did that get in there? Henry must've put it in there. It sure is a good thing you found it!" The moral of the story: if you're throwing out toys, throw them away outside.

3. Goodwill is Good
I don't want you to think we're wasteful people. We've take bags and bags of toys to Goodwill, completely without the knowledge or consent of our children.

4. Share the Wealth
If at all possible, convince the grandparents to keep some of the toys at their place. A while ago my parents told us about a nice table train set that was on sale at Costco. We said no. My parents then bought the set anyway, then asked again if we wanted it. We said no. The train has been on the floor of their living room ever since, and the kids love playing with it every time we visit. Everybody wins, especially us.

5. Beware of Party Favors
Last week Leslie and Alison came home from a baby shower with three helium balloons. Helium balloons are nice, because they usually only last for a day or so, but the damage they can do to your family in that short time cannot be ignored. Even if each child has one, there will still be arguments about which one is bigger, which one floats the longest, which one has the prettiest string attached, etc. These particular balloons raised the bar. The morning after the balloons arrived, Henry woke up and asked for his immediately. I had seen it in the hallway the night before, but he assured me that it wasn't there. We searched the entire house, but it was no where to be found. Just when I thought that maybe it had somehow floated out of the house, I spotted its true escape route. We're in the middle of painting our hallway, and the screen covering the cold air intake for our heater had been temporarily removed, leaving a two-foot wide hole in the ceiling. Evidently the heater had inhaled Henry's balloon (and Kate's, we'd realize later) during the night. Since the heater didn't explode, I figure everything's okay.

6. Do as I Say, Not as I Do
I wish we did a better job following these rules. We're drowning in toys right now, with no relief in sight. In fact, you'll have to excuse me -- I see an unattended toy right now, and trash day is tomorrow...

The Ghost of Christmas Past

So where was I? I had promised to tell the tale of our Christmas past, and I left off just as things were getting good...

In the days leading up to Christmas, Henry had developed a deep, congested cough which had at least one of his parents concerned. A quick word here about how I tend to deal with stressful events. If the roof of our house were on fire, I might decide to wait to see if it started to rain before calling the fire department. Why worry? Leslie, on the other hand, is much more sensible. She would dial 911.

So here's what happened on Christmas Day. A few hours after we had finished opening presents, Henry's cough seemed to worsen and his breathing became wheezy. Leslie was concerned. My response? Don't worry, he's fine. Yeah, he's got a cough, but kids get coughs all the time. Nothing to worry about.

After about half an hour of discussion and wheezing, we took him to the Emergency Room where he was diagnosed with PNEUMONIA. There was a television playing "A Christmas Story" in the exam room, and when the nurse came and gave us the results of the x-ray, Miss Shields was talking in the background and warning Ralphie Parker that if he got his Red Ryder BB gun, he'd probably shoot his eye out. So in that moment two timeless maternal warnings were intersecting; all that was missing was a reminder not to play ball in the house...

Long story short. We took Henry home with an antibiotic prescription, then returned the next day with Kate, who would be diagnosed with bronchitis. Over the next few days we only ventured out of the house once, on the 27th for a trip to the doctor's office -- where the nurse actually shook her head and laughed at us for bringing our sick children for medical attention. "There won't be any change in only two days," she said. (We scolded her, then ratted her out to the doctor.)

All of this brings me to my point. Because of the pneumonia and the bronchitis in the early part of the week, and then a few rainstorms towards the end, our entire family has been cooped up together with very few opportunities for relief. We were able to have short visits with both sets of grandparents, but that was about it.

And here's my confession: even as the last days of my vacation have been slipping away like sand through my fingers, in many ways this has been the longest week of my life. On the one hand, I know that I should be grateful, that I should be happy to spend my entire day with my three dear children, but on the other hand...

The bickering between Alison and Henry begins about two minutes after they wake up. Perhaps Henry has the blue plate that Alison wants, or maybe Alison makes the mistake of looking at Henry through the steam of her oatmeal. Whatever the cause, the result is the same. One screaming at the other, the other screaming back, and all I can think about are two things: the possibility of naptime, the certainty of bedtime.

The worst part is that I know I haven't been a good father over the past seven days. Those who know me would probably describe me as patient, but my patience has deserted me recently. I've raised my voice at Alison and Henry each day during our self-imposed quarantine, even though I know that loud words are easily ignored, and I haven't given my youngest daughter the time she deserves.

The rain will eventually stop falling, the illnesses will fade, and life will return to normal soon enough. I'm positive that when I go back to work on Tuesday I'll wish that I were home in the middle of the chaos, part father and part referee, but until then I have no choice but to search for the silver lining in all of this coughing, wheezing, and pouring rain. At least I know the roof isn't on fire.

This Too Shall Pass (I Hope)

"This is my son, and I love him."

It's a mantra I've taken to reciting recently when things get difficult with our dear, sweet Henry. What's the problem, you ask? Nothing much, it's just that he's three years old.

Before we had children we knew all about the Terrible Two's -- that dark age between the innocence of infancy and the enlightenment of pre-school -- but there was nothing terrible about it in our house. For some reason neither Alison nor Henry ever gave us any trouble at age two, but both of them took a turn for the worse almost immediately upon turning three, as if responding to some genetic alarm embedded in their brainstems.

Alison blessed us with tantrums -- steel-cage death match tantrums that stopped our entire world. They would start in the afternoon -- always in the afternoon -- at the end of a long day when our patience was thin and her resistance was thinner. The spark could be something as innocent as a denied request for milk, but the fire would burn with unmatched fury: kicking feet, pounding fists, screaming lungs, the whole bit. It would happen at least two or three times a week, and no matter what the books say, we were powerless to prevent them. Like tsunamis or hurricanes or earthquakes, she was a force of nature, and it was best to just ride out the storm and take inventory later.

The good news, though, is that it passed. It turns out that all those boarding school brochures we collected back then won't be necessary, and we longer live in fear of the tantrum.

The bad news, though, is that Henry is following in his sister's footsteps. He's not a tantrum guy, though, preferring the slow burn over the explosion. His latest nickname, Henry Fussy, has been earned by countless days filled with whining, whining, and more whining. Sometimes it's just a steady crankiness and discontent that lasts from late afternoon to bedtime, but when we're lucky -- and we're about the luckiest fucking family in the world -- he spices it up with his absolute most favoritest word:

No.

When kids first start to talk meaningfully, "no" is usually high on the word frequency chart. It's a word they hear often, it's easy to say, and it helps them to assert their personality. I get all that, but Henry's long past that. What he's doing is taking his pain and spreading it around the entire family, and it sucks.

Something will be bothering him, or there will be something that he wants or doesn't want, and he'll jump into an infinite loop: "Nooo... Nooo... Nooo... Nooo... Nooo... Nooo..." It's long, slow, and grating, and as much as you want it to stop, you know that if you push too hard or ignore too long, the explosion will come.

It's not every day, and it won't last forever, but it raises a question. What do you do with this new truth, this realization that there are times when you don't want to be around your son? When you look at him at your feet, either clinging to your leg or fleeing from your embrace, and all you can think about is how many hours and minutes until bedtime comes, what do you do with the guilt?

But then he stops his tantrum to take a breath, he looks up at you through the tears that have collected in his eyelashes, and he says the four most magical words you've ever heard: "Love you forever, Daddy."

This is when it all becomes clear. You know in your heart that the tantrums are only a small part of your sweet boy, far less significant than his beautiful laugh or his squinting smile. You remember the boy who tells you to be careful when he sees you standing on a chair, the boy who claps joyously at the thought of dessert, the boy who turns a paper bag into a purse that's just like Mama's.

And in that moment you realize that you can make it through all the tantrums this sweet, little boy can dish out.

This is my son, and I love him.

Santa's Watching...

Okay, here's a true confession. I have to admit that I'm happy with the job I've done so far as a father to my three children. I'm not running for Father of the Year or anything (that will have to wait until Alison gets a bit older and writes a letter nominating me for the award, then gets grounded for sneaking out to mail the letter, leading to an incredibly guilty ending when the newspaper people show up at our door to give me the award while Alison smiles through her tears in the background) but I think we can agree that I probably wouldn't be writing this blog if all my stories were about unfastened seatbelts, playing in the street, and latch-key kids.

So if you'll indulge me, I'd like to tell you about my single proudest accomplishment as a father, a perfect moment in time when the hand of my creator reached down and lit a beautiful spark in my mind, the type of divine inspiration which no doubt led to Einstein's theory of relativity, the Eiffel Tower, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

If you're like every other parent in the world you've certainly warned your children about the perils of misbehaving too near the holidays. With Christmas around the corner, the stakes are raised. A temper tantrum in February gets a timeout; the same fit in December means a lump of coal in your stocking. "Santa's watching..." This is fine, but at a certain point the savvy child begins to wonder about the mystery of the whole thing. How exactly is Santa watching?

Well, here's how he watches our kids. When we moved into our house a few years ago we had a security system installed, complete with motion detectors. The motion detectors are mounted high in the corners of our common areas and look like oversized white garage door openers. A small red light comes on when they detect motion.

Two years ago, as Alison was in the middle of a wicked tantrum and we were at a complete loss as to how to proceed, I was struck with what I now call The Ephiphany. I looked at my daughter on the floor, noticed that her head was spinning slowly in a counter-clockwise direction, and my eyes were inexplicably drawn up to the motion detector in the corner of the room as a strange voice inside my head repeated over and over, "The power of Santa compells you..."

Suddenly everything was clear.

"Alison, do you know what that is in the corner?"
"No."
"It's a camera that Santa uses to watch you."
"Is he always watching?"
"No, only when the red light is on. Do you think he likes what he sees right now?"
"No."

And the tantrum was over. Instantly.

We were able to maintain peace in our little corner of the Earth for the duration of the Christmas season, and Alison even came to like her direct line to the North Pole. Last year I caught her in prayer in the hallway, kneeling reverently with eyes looking up towards the light, whispering a request for a scooter. Now how can that be a bad thing?

We introduced the concept to Henry the other day, and he bought in quickly. When he finished with a potty run this evening, he stuck his head out the bathroom door and called out, "Me go poo-poo, Santa!" I'm not sure if they were sugar plums, but he certainly had visions of something dancing around in his head.

I'm sure that one day our children will come to resent this lie, but I'm not too worried about that right now. Right now I like that I can end any argument by standing up quickly, waving my arms above my head, and noticing that Santa's watching.

And you know the best part? As soon as he's finished with the cameras, Santa's nice enough to let the Easter Bunny use them for a while.

Trimming the Fat

Towards the end of Seinfeld's run on NBC, some of the episodes started to slip a bit. I saw an interview with Jason Alexander (George Costanza) after the series had concluded, and he explained that there's always a point towards the end of a sitcom's life where the characters become caricatures of themselves. One particular episode that exemplifies is The Reverse Peephole.

Lots of different things happen in this one: Kramer and Newman decide to reverse the peepholes on their doors so that they can look inside their apartments from the hallway, thereby avoiding ambushes when they're coming home; Puddy wears a fur coat that Elaine hates, then later replaces it with an 8 Ball jacket that she hates even more; and Jerry somehow ends up using a European carry-all. ("It's not a purse!")

But the angle I'm thinking of has to do with George, who suddenly has an inexplicably large wallet. Jerry looks at it at one point, incredulous, and asks how he could possibly walk around with a monstrosity like that in his back pocket, and George responds, "I need everything in there!"

Which brings me to my true confession. My wallet is dangerously large. I measured it the other day, and -- no joke -- it was more than an inch thick. Unlike George, I never had any trouble folding it up, but I have to admit that there times when it could be quite a pain in the ass -- literally. And so I started to wonder, do I need everything in there?

The more I thought about it, the more I knew that it was time for a change. A few weeks ago my buddy Brent boasted about his new super-thin wallet, devoid of all excess baggage, and I was intrigued. Perhaps it was possible...

Leslie's parents had given me a billfold for my birthday in 2003, but it had been gathering dust in my closet ever since. Why not give it a shot? Inspired by Brent and afraid of becoming George (really, aren't we all afraid of that?), I took the plunge this weekend and went through my wallet, one artifact at a time, sorting everything into two piles.

Here's what had to go:
1. Membership card, Aquarium of the Pacific. I'll take it when I need it.
2. Business card, The Paper Princess. Leslie, don't hate me.
3. Two membership cards, The Huntington Library. See #1.
4. Medical insurance card. We can file it.
5. Alison's library card. We use this once or twice a month.
6. My library card. I've never used this. Not once.
7. Victoria's Secret credit card. Don't judge.
8. Hilton Honors Points & Miles card. Do I need daily access to this?
9. $50 range card. I've played golf once in the last six years.
10. Prescription drug card. I get prescriptions all the time, but I don't think I've ever needed this.
11. Two temporary membership cards, The Huntington Library. This isn't the best filing system.
12. My 2004-05 Middle School I.D. card. The new school year starts in two weeks.
13. Leslie's 2004-05 Middle School I.D. card. Aren't wedding rings enough? Do I really need to carry her I.D?
14. Vons Club card. We don't shop at Vons.
15. Membership card, LA Zoo. Expired 11/30/2004.
16. National Bone Marrow Donor Program card. I really am a good person, aren't I?
17. Barnes & Noble Educator's Discount Card. Expired 10/31/2003.
18. Borders Classroom Discount Card. Expired 10/03/1999.
19. Fortune Cookie fortune: "You are only starting on your path to success." Really?
20. Two filled Subway "Sub Club" customer appreciation cards. Our Subway no longer accepts these.
21. Unused ticket, Padres vs. Giants, 9/29/2004.
22. Four photos: Me and Leslie; Alison and Santa; 2 of Alison. No room for sentimentality.
23. American Heart Association CPR card. Recommended renewal date: March 2002.

So, there's no Irish money, but it's still a fairly ridiculous list. Now here's what made the cut and got transfered to the sleek new billfold:

1. California driver's license.
2. Debit card.
3. Credit card.
4. AAA card.

And after further review, the Paper Princess business card slipped in as well. After two days on the new wallet diet, I feel like a new man. I'm a step and half quicker, and I'm pretty sure I've added two or three inches to my vertical leap. And best of all, my ass doesn't hurt when I sit down to eat dinner, so I got that going for me, which is nice.