Dad Is Fat (2 page)

When I initially started dating Jeannie, the notion of settling down and having children became a feasible reality for me. Coincidentally, I was invited to visit one of my close childhood friends who had been abducted by aliens—I mean, who got married and had a kid—about a year earlier.

My friend, his wife, and their one-year-old baby had settled in the Southwest. I was working in LA, so a weekend visit was totally doable. I thought it would be great if I brought Jeannie. We could see what it would be like when we got married and had a baby.

My friend Tom (name changed to protect his identity and
possibly preserve the friendship) suggested that we could drive out and hike the Grand Canyon, which to me sounded unnecessarily difficult and way too outdoorsy, but I knew active Jeannie would love it.

Jeannie and I arrived at night. We were much later than expected, due to a flight delay. As we entered Tom’s darkened house, we were instructed to please be quiet so as not to wake the baby. I felt like a teenager sneaking back into my parents’ house after a missed curfew. We silently tiptoed into a guest room, giggling. “I feel like we’re in trouble!” Jeannie whispered. Once we settled in the room, Tom came in and said good night, announcing that we would be leaving around 7 a.m. for the Grand Canyon, so he wanted to get a good night’s sleep. As Tom shut the door, Jeannie looked at me confused and said, “I thought you said we would have dinner or something.” I looked at my watch: it was 9 p.m. I thought, “Well, he is a parent. I guess this is what parenting involves. This must be what grown-ups do. They skip their second dinner.”

The next morning, at the crack of 7 a.m., we set off to make the long, scenic drive to the Grand Canyon. Tom’s Saab was seated with men in front and the ladies in back, with the one-year-old in the car seat between them. I suppose the first really big red flag of the trip was the fact that there was one CD allowed to be played in the car. It was explained to us that this CD was meant to soothe the baby. The volume would be occasionally adjusted based on the baby’s needs. Um, okay.

So we drove and drove, talking and listening to songs with lyrics like “Ding-a-ding-dong, ding-a-ding-dong.” If you haven’t driven through the Southwest, the only thing more awe
inspiring than the beauty of the landscape is the absence of people. You can drive for hours and never see another person. Restaurants are scarce, expensive, and provide little selection. When we stopped for an early lunch, I ate my first and hopefully last taco salad, with Fritos as the main ingredient. We drove past a drive-thru beef jerky store. Not just a store that only sells beef jerky, but a
drive-thru
store that only sells beef jerky. I guess the drive-thru makes sense, because if you’re eating beef jerky, you’re probably so busy that you don’t have time to get out of your car to buy beef jerky. At one point I started improvising what the owner of the drive-thru beef jerky store was thinking when he came up with the idea for the store. In a ridiculous voice I said: “Fur all dem folks that are in a rush and ain’t got time to park der pick-ups and shop fur some quality jerky …” It was kind of funny. At least Jeannie and Tom thought so. Tom’s wife, Barb (another name change), politely informed me that the voice I was doing was upsetting the baby. I looked back at the baby, who was sound asleep. I didn’t know what to say. I just shut up. We drove the rest of the way to the Grand Canyon in complete silence, listening to the soothing baby CD: “Ding-a-ding-dong, ding-a-ding-dong.”

We arrived at the Grand Canyon around 1 p.m. The government runs the Grand Canyon “hotels,” so they feel more like army barracks. We were standing in line for our housing assignment when Tom’s wife announced that the baby needed to go outside. The baby didn’t actually say he needed to go outside, but somehow Barb knew that the baby needed to go outside. Either way, Jeannie and I stayed behind to stand in line. Before escorting Barb, who was escorting the baby who
wanted to go outside, Tom told me that our reservation was for two side-by-side rooms and to make sure they confirm the rooms were side-by-side. After waiting for another half hour, I reached the counter and was informed that if we wanted side-by-side rooms, it would be an additional hour-long wait. I said that wouldn’t be necessary. We would take rooms in different areas.

As they were handing me the keys (actual keys, I might add), Tom approached: “Are the rooms side-by-side?” I explained that, no, if we wanted that, we would have to wait for another hour. Hearing this, Tom got really agitated. He seemed incredibly disappointed in me and demanded that the lady behind the counter give us side-by-side rooms and that we didn’t mind waiting. I minded waiting, but again I kept my mouth shut.

After wasting an hour, we unloaded our stuff in our side-by-side rooms and set off to hike the Grand Canyon. Tom and Barb had lived in the area for a while and were experienced at hiking around the Southwest, so they came prepared. Tom gave us special backpacks filled with water, and the baby was secured in a backpack with a sun guard on Barb’s back. I felt like we were smuggling the new Dalai Lama out of Tibet. Gear secured, we were all set, and off we went. Twenty minutes into the hike, the baby squeaked a little. Barb immediately announced, “Well, we have to go back. The baby needs a nap.”

For a moment, I thought she was joking, but I then realized something horrific. They thought
we
were going to go back, too. It had taken us longer to get the unnecessary gear on than the time we had “hiked.” I looked at Jeannie, who was clearly
disappointed that she had traveled so far to visit the Grand Canyon for the first time and the day was about to end. She just looked at me like, “Well, I guess we have to go back.” In a rare moment of chivalry, I blurted out, “Well, we’re going to go on. This may be our only time to do this. That’s cool, right?”

After a pause that took way too long, Barb said, “Of course. We’ll just go. C’mon, Tom.”

Tom seemed frazzled again and asked, “How long do you think you guys are going to be?”

I looked down at the long, winding path, trying to get a glimpse of the Colorado River miles below. “I don’t know, an hour or two?”

“Well, please knock at our door when you get back.” Wow. I mean, I’m not that out of shape.

After they left, I realized that Jeannie and I had not had a conversation alone since beginning the trip. “I don’t know what’s going on,” Jeannie said, “but I grew up around a lot of babies, and normally babies will nap wherever they are.” Not wanting to gossip about my good friend, I just assumed we were ignorant about how daunting the task of having a one-year-old would be. I gave Tom the benefit of the doubt.

Hiking into the Grand Canyon is not easy, but I did it. Unpaid, I might add. I was disappointed to find out that when we were done hiking, we had to climb back
out
of the Grand Canyon. There was no elevator. Can you believe that? Jeannie loved it. My legs burned, I was really exhausted, but I acted like I loved it.

Upon returning to our hotel room we were surprised to see Barb and Tom sitting outside their room next door. Did they
get locked out? A weary Tom explained. “We just got the baby to sleep.” I remember thinking, “Is this baby ever awake?”

As I unlocked the door to our room, Barb and Tom followed us in and sat on one of the beds. Tom picked up the remote control and started flipping through the three available channels. I apologized and said I needed to take a nap before dinner. Could they possibly watch TV in their own room?

Tom and Barb seemed shocked. “We can’t turn on the TV in our room!” Tom snapped. “The baby is sleeping in there! We were hoping we could hang out and watch TV in your room while the baby napped. We’ve been waiting for you to get back for two hours.”

I was confused. Was this what parenting was about? I explained that my legs really hurt and I was really tired and I needed a nap. Tom, obviously trying to contain his anger, asked if after I was done with my nap, I could kindly knock at their door so they could come into our room. Again I apologized, but I was barely able to walk. I had to lie down for an hour or I would be done for the rest of the evening. Barb and Tom stormed out.

“Well, that was awkward,” said Jeannie. She went to take a shower and do girl stuff while I fell sound asleep with my shoes on for forty-five minutes.

Upon waking from my
nap
, I lightly knocked on their door, and we gathered to head to dinner at some government cafeteria. Barb, already in pajamas, didn’t want to go. When I asked if we could bring her something, she curtly replied, “I ate my dinner already with the baby. It’s fine. Just go without me. That’s just the life of a mother. Can I use your bathroom
to brush my teeth?” Uh, sure. I wouldn’t want your raucous teethbrushing to disturb the baby.

On the walk over, I noticed Tom was being very quiet. When I asked if there was anything wrong, he stopped, looked down, and chuckled. “You won’t understand till you’re a parent.”

“I won’t understand what?”

He condescendingly explained, “You will
rue the day
you took that nap.”

Rue the day? I’ve rued a lot of days in my life, but I’ve never rued about a nap. It dawned on me at that moment that the importance of the adjoining rooms was that the baby needed his
own
room and the other room was actually for the four of us. It was meant to serve as a “break room” from attending to the baby, an escape from the arduous chore of parenting. Again, I apologized but couldn’t help but think if the rules had been explained at the beginning of the trip, this situation could have been avoided. It seemed to me that the logical thing would have been to outline this arrangement
before
I had screwed up the “break room” situation. An even more logical thing would have been to get
three
rooms and just admit that the baby needed his own room. I was pretty sure this would have allowed us to escape a whole lot of awkwardness, but then again, I’d never been abducted by aliens.

Tom accepted my apology, and the next day we drove back on the long desert highway. It was a relatively quiet drive except for the CD of baby music. “Ding-a-ding-dong, ding-a-ding-dong.” Suddenly out of nowhere, a huge deer ran out in front of the car. Tom swerved to avoid it, but the deer froze like, well, like a deer in the headlights. We slammed into the
deer at fifty miles an hour. All of us screamed in shock. The car was totaled. The deer ran off injured into the desert. Aside from the deer, everyone was fine, thank God, especially the baby. He didn’t wake up from his nap. “Ding-a-ding-dong, ding-a-ding-dong.”

I remember looking at people holding babies on airplanes, thinking, “Weirdo. Why would you do that to yourself?” I didn’t get it. I essentially looked at parents like they were in a cult, and, frankly, I was right. Parenting is a cult.

This goes way beyond the sleep deprivation and being poorly dressed. The following are characteristics of a cult from the American Family Foundation. I’ve provided some clarity with the [brackets].

This may be hysterical or frightening to you, but it’s only half true. Yes, on the surface parents seem like brainwashed zombies, but we are not. We are not. We love parenting. We love it. You will love it too. Come join us. Join us. You must join us! Please take this pamphlet and watch this Baby Einstein video. Isn’t it great? You will grow to love it. It will give you peace. (Help me, I’m trapped.) JOIN US!

To be fair, the intangible benefits of parenting are hidden beneath this scary facade. When I didn’t have kids, I didn’t get it, and I shouldn’t have. I had never fought in the Vietnam War and had dinner in Paris on the same day. I had no context to understand the casualties or the romance a parent feels on the same day. I never knew the joy of successfully putting a two-year-old down for a nap. Well, I still don’t, but that’s beside the point. For people without kids, parenting is just weird. It can’t be articulated. You have to be in the cult to understand it. Obviously, I’m not trying to push you into anything. Make up your own mind in your own time. But the spaceship
is
coming on Thursday.

I am considered a clean comedian. This basically means I rarely curse and don’t work blue. I never made an intentional decision to be clean; it just ended up that way. When you are discussing mini-muffins in a stand-up act, it’s not really necessary to curse or bring sex into the material. Occasionally a reviewer will describe me as “family-friendly,” which always makes me cringe.

As a parent, I know “family-friendly” is really just a synonym for
bad
. Family-friendly restaurants serve horrible food. Family-friendly hotels have the charm of a water park. Really, anything with the word
family
before it is bad. Have you been in a “family restroom”? They always seem like they should be connected to a gas station.

The most frightening aspect of “family-friendly” is that it means other families will be present. Other families will by definition have children, which means more screaming. Children have a tendency to behave as poorly as the most poorly
behaved kid in the room. The laws of physics dictate that if there is a kid screaming and running in the hallway of a hotel, all the other children will scream and run in the hallway of the hotel.