Poetry Effluviatic

We're in the car the other day and I'm listening to the kids in the back. They are doing copious amounts of wet, sloppy, phlegmy raspberries into thin air. Over and over again. Little spit bombs exploding all over the backseat of the car. Then I hear the Peanut say "Pumpkin Man. Catch them! Catch them !"

I manage a glance over my shoulder, something I'm loathe to do as I really don't like to get involved back there. I hazard a glance and I see fine, fine sprays of saliva in the air, the kids hands clapping madly through it, trying to make a catch. Awesome.

"What are you doing?" I accuse. 

And the Peanut says, "Daddy, we're catching stars!"  I can't argue with that. 

Also, this is why I'm an atheist. Childhood turns spit into stars, and I'm supposed to be impressed by some half-assed water into wine trick? Please.

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For Father's day, my wife helped the kids bake me those hand prints and foot prints that you can harden in the oven and then paint.  They tasted awful. I ate three of them.  Because when my kids bake me something, I eat it, even when it's not really edible. Because that is the kind of father I am. 

This is why I deserve a Father's Day. I know it's bullshit. I know it's a holiday invented by an unholy triumvirate of Hallmark, Faberge, and super intelligent werewolves to get us all to buy cards and Brut. It's well known that werewolves love the taste of Brut.  It's science. 

I don't even need a card or much of a gift, really. I'm not asking for anything fancy. Like that ad for a Sprint Phone where the dad buys himself one on behalf of his baby daughter because he rationalizes that she'd want him to have it. Disgusting. And wasteful. The last thing I need is a new smartphone so I can ignore my kids. I can ignore my kids just fine with this laptop right here. Or a book. Or even just by curling up on the couch in the fetal position and closing my eyes until they go away.

My point being, I am an excellent dad. I'v earned a day in celebration of my fatherhood.  As contrived as it might be. I just want to go out for breakfast, that's all. Just go out for breakfast, come home, see them clean the house maybe. That's all. Breakfast, a clean house, and a pedicure. And a sixer of Newcastle. They can use the fake id's--that I got them for their birthdays, by the way--to buy it. 

Because whether it's a contrived holiday or not (and by the way, what constitutes a contrived holiday? Christmas and Easter are bizarre soups of pagan and christian traditions, Halloween is from Celtic pagans, Presidents' day falls on no day belonging to any President, and Groundhog day . . . actually, that one is pretty legit) we dads deserve a day. 

A day to celebrate those of us who are up to our elbows in the shit, literal or otherwise, everyday.  

Deadbeat Dad's day can be in August. Then when they show up to get their baked footprints, we nab'em!  

Happy Fathers Day

Homemaker Man