After eating two pieces of leftover deep dish and a spoonful of peanut butter while washing it all down with a highball, I’ve concluded I’d be a horrible father. That’s not to say eating pizza and peanut butter in the morning is indicative of poor parenting, but it certainly doesn’t help the case. Does it? No. For those of you falling asleep during the test, the answer is no.
Drinking, on the other hand, is completely understandable. I watch parents with little children and are surprised more of them don’t. I’d be mortified that my theoretical wife lay up in sheer agony for hours merely to give birth to a velociraptor. It would totally be from her side of the family though.
I’ll just be honest about it. I can be a terrible person. I laugh like a jackass when people slip and fall. I laugh when I slip and fall. I have a callous disregard for large-scale injustice (unless it benefits me directly, of course), and I make inappropriate jokes when people kick the bucket. I laugh when a Democrat is elected into office. I laugh even harder when a Republican is elected. I laugh until I cry and say “you get what you deserve, America.” This is not the paragon of fatherhood generally accepted in this country.
Situations between me and my fictitious offspring unfold like scenes from a sitcom gone awry:
Child: *sobbing* “Mommy! Mommy! I dislocated my shoulder!”
Wife: “Oh my God! What did you do?!”
Child: “Daddy said, ‘if I jumped off the roof, I could fly!'”
Me: “That’s a lie! I said if you jumped off the roof and flew, I’d take you to the circus. By take you to the circus, I mean put you in it. You’d make a fine meal ticket.”
*cue laugh track*
Granted, I can be a decent person at times. I give to charity when I can. I’ve thrown away other people’s litter. I’ve notified cashiers their bathroom’s out of toilet paper. I will say, however, that I’m no storybook hero. I’m human. I have flaws, and some of them get in the way. You should also read that as you have flaws, too, and some of them will get in the way. The upshot of that is I’ve not met anyone worth a damn in this world who wasn’t flawed. It’s all part and parcel of being Homo sapiens.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch my imaginary kids learn about the dangers of electricity when they stick their fingers into electrical sockets.
Corvidae in the Fields 