Diaper Dandy

Content Warning: explicit language, crude humor, and graphic depictions of bodily fluids

My kids are in college now and when I see young parents dealing with toddlers, I can’t believe my wife Liz, and I had the energy to do it. Never forget when my daughter Hannah wasn’t quite three and my son Jacob was just starting to walk at about fourteen months. I came home after work one night, my wife’s at her wits end, and I could always tell when she was ready to snap, ‘cause as soon I set foot in the door, she flung the kids at me like a Bulgarian shot putter, and in that Linda Blair as Regan exorcist raspy voice said, “They’re all yours you fucking cocksucker, I need vodka” as her head spun around hurling body temperature green bile at me with more force than a Velociraptor in Jurassic fucking Park. And if you’ve never been hit by projectile bile before, that shit stings!

So, I’m standing there wiping blinding hot slime from my burning eyes and as a clueless dad, said, “What should I do with ‘em, dear?”

Bad question. Her freakish head immediately stopped spinning and in that raspy exorcist voice said, “Take ‘em on a flight to Mars and stick the little bastards in the overhead bin for all I fucking care you cocksucker,” as she grabbed a bottle of Grey Goose, slammed back a huge swig, and floated away in her green bathrobe as the house shook like in a magnitude 8.7 earthquake.

Hoo boy, exhausted moms, and clearly my lovely bride being one of ‘em, sure get good at, and really like saying, “motherfucker” and “cocksucker.” There’s another time when women excel at shouting “motherfucker” and “cocksucker,” and that’s while in labor, experiencing painful excruciating contractions, something no man can truly understand. Kinda the same way no woman can really know what it’s like to get hit in the balls, like when a boxer receives a low blow while his opponent who struck the low blow gets a one-point deduction, which ladies, I can tell you unequivocally, is not nearly a big enough penalty.

But whatever a guy’s kick in the nuts debilitating experience is, it’s nothing compared to the intense diabolical contractions when giving birth as the act of pushing a twenty-pound watermelon through a woman’s dainty yet amazingly elastic two-inch vagina causes the immediate onset of Turrets’ Syndrome as even the most religious-devout-God-fearing-evangelical-non-cursing-women let loose more F-Bombs and cocksuckers than an Irish priest who just got his Danny Boy caught in his zipper after takin’ a wicked pizza.

So as my exorcist wife vanished into the bedroom, I felt a tug at my pants causing me to jump out of my skin and let loose a high-pitched “aaahh” from my piehole. Looking down, I saw little Hannah, and realized the kids witnessed this frightening exorcism and in Hannah’s cute little Suzie Loo Hoo toddler voice asked, “Daddy, is mommy okay ‘cause she sprayed a whole shit load of mucous on you?”

Not wanting to scare her, I said, “Mommy’s nursing a bit of a sinus infection, she’s been kinda phlegmy lately” as I quickly changed the subject and asked, “You guys wanna do somethin?”

“Can we go to the movie’s daddy?” they both excitedly screamed.

Now, I’d been out with the kids in public before, but till that night, I’d always had my wife running interference and navigating the public showing of my kids. But this time, I was Han Freakin’ Solo. So, I grabbed multiple diaper bags, wipes, juice boxes, goldfish, cheerios, rattles, binkies, my recently filled Xanax prescription – Hell, the first settlers traveling west in covered wagons brought less shit with ‘em.

I crammed all the crap in the trunk, then started the challenging process of strapping the kids into their car seats. Figuring out all the straps without strangling or pinching sensitive pink baby body parts, I felt like the lead technician on the NYPD bomb squad trying to disarm a suspicious package left on the Lexington Avenue Subway Line. I couldn’t get the right strap into the right buckle, Jacob’s screaming bloody murder, Hannah’s clearly inherited her mom’s genes as she’s looking at me shaking her head in a “Boy you’re a clueless fuck” glance, and I’m sweating more profusely than a 350-pound cigarette smoking pizza maker pulling pies out of a 600-degree oven in a Hoboken pizzeria in August with the AC broken. I’m about to lose it when I glanced up and saw Liz shouting out our bedroom window in full on Exorcist mode for all the neighbors to hear, “Your lame ass good for nothing father sucks cocks in hell!” as she swigged the entire bottle of Grey Goose then chucked it at my feet, shattered glass shards flying everywhere.

Well, maybe that little speech and bottle toss was the extra motivation I needed as suddenly I channeled a pimply-faced seventeen-year-old dork working the Twisted Colossus roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain buckling riders in for safety as I miraculously got the kids buckled in, to which my daughter Hannah, my wife’s Mini Me, piled on with, “It’s about goddamn time dumbass.”

And about that roller coaster worker job. I don’t know why we feel safe when this teenage stoner dude walks over and does that little pull up, push down on the metal bar like that move somehow qualifies as an official safety check. That’s it. We’re good to go. Really! You never see a shot of three astronauts strapping into their seats on the Space Shuttle and then some nerd with a clipboard and pocket pen protector enters the cabin, pulls up then pushes down on their straps, gives the thumbs up, and off they go safely into space.

So, after the thirty-minute buckling bonanza, I got in the driver’s seat, popped three Xanax, and off we went as I backed out of the driveway serpentining from side to side to avoid the raining Grey Goose bottles shattering around us like enemy artillery fire.

We finally got to the mall, and it was mobbed. Wall to wall screaming kids, stressed out parents, more germs flying around than at test laboratories for Mucinex. I immediately went into “protect the herd” mode, keeping the kids close as I got in a lengthy line to buy tickets. It’s taking forever, so the kids wanted to play in this giant circle with Sponge Bob Square Pants cartoon character pictures at the intersection of all fourteen theatres of the cineplex. I said okay and told Hannah to keep a close eye on Jacob.

They’re playing in the circle with other kids and I’m like a mother deer guarding her babies from a distance by glancing over every few seconds as I slowly inch my way forward in line. I looked over again, and they’ve moved to a play area with bouncy houses and slides, slides on which kids zoom down faster than German bobsledders as the chute’s covered in toddler’s snot providing the perfect lubricant to hurdle infants at breakneck speed.

I finally got to the cashier, glanced over, saw the kids, reached in my pocket, handed the cashier twenty bucks and as he’s handing me back the tickets, I felt that all too familiar tug at my leg again and it’s Hannah by herself. “Hi sweetie, where’s your brother?”

“I left him in the play area, daddy.”

“Oh, that’s gah, gah, gah…what!” I swiveled my head faster than an owl getting its neck cracked by an overly aggressive chiropractor, looked over and…no Jacob. Gone! Out of sight!

Immediately panic set in. Heart-pounding-brain-pulsing-prehistoric-survival-of-the-fittest-natural-selection-panic. And it was a combo panic. First, the panic that I’ve lost my kid, followed in a nano second by the panic that my vodka-drinking-green-robe-wearing-raspy-voice-exorcist-wife is going to spit vile green bile at my face blinding me the minute I walked in the door as I explained how her youngest was kidnapped from the Sponge Bob Square Pants circle while I was getting tickets!

So, I grabbed Hannah and ran to the circle. Nothing. I’m scanning the area like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator. Zilch. So, with diaper bags flopping around my neck like breasts of a seventy-seven-year-old Aboriginal woman from a remote village in the Outback who’s never seen, let alone worn, a bra in her life, and Hannah clutching my hand for dear life, I scurried back and forth between the two theatre Cineplex areas, 1-7, then 8-14. Nothing. Nada. Goose eggs. He’s gone, vanished, poof. In that frightening moment, your mind goes to dark places like my kid’s been stolen ‘cause that shit happens nowadays. I’m freaking out so I asked a few of the theater employees to help but he’s nowhere in sight. It’s been three or four minutes which felt like three or four days, and I’m completely stressed in a full-blown sweat. Hell, I’m sweating more than the first time I tried to unhook Debbi Moss’s bra in seventh grade.

Just at that moment, I glanced over and noticed that on the back side of the circle was an entrance to Macy’s, one of the anchor stores in the mall. I grabbed Hannah, the baby bags, and dashed into Macy’s. The first part of the store was the women’s section with those circular racks of clothes, so I sliced my way through and around the racks like cutting through an Amazonian jungle in search of a rare species of Lemur. Suddenly, Hannah screamed “Daddy wait.”

“Did you find Jacob?”

“No,” she replied, “but they’ve got some great deals, dresses are 30% off the already reduced sales price.” Jesus Christ, the shopping gene’s embedded in their god damn DNA right outta the fucking womb!

Suddenly, two elderly women screamed, “Oh my god,” and as I twisted my way through a clothes rack to find Jacob, diaper around his ankles, contented smile across his face as he’s taking a huge poopie. I’m so relieved and as I leaned down and hugged him I was hit with the reality of these two irritated women standing nearby shaking their heads in disgust and the unenviable task of de-pooping my son and extricating him like a helicopter pilot shot behind enemy lines in the movie “Black Hawk Down” only this time it’s called “Black Poop Down.”

So, with Jacob’s poop covered bottom clinging to my white GAP T, diaper bags swinging to and fro, and little Hannah at my side giving me that “Nice goin dumbass, wanna see you explain this one to mommy” look, we dashed towards the movie theatre and as I got to Timmy-the-Ticket-Taking-Teenager, he had the nerve to ask me for our tickets. After the panic, stress, and fright I’d just been through, I shouted “Tickets! You wanna see my god damn tickets! Reach right in my pocket and grab the sons of bitches.”

“Uh, don’t really wanna do that dude,” whined Timmy-the-Ticket-Taking-Teenager.

“Good thinkin Timmy,” I said, “cause I’ve got poop all over me!”

Timmy jumped back, gave me the “wave by” and said, “Uh, you’re good to go brah.”

“Good decision brah, you gotta helluva future in middle management,” I retorted.

So, I shuffled past Ticketmaster-Timmy, jammed to the bathroom and see one of those Koala Bear fold out changing stations. I’d seen these in bathrooms before, but never used one. Remember, my exorcist wife had always overseen the public diapering, which in my view is a paranormal activity much like an exorcism.

As I carried Jacob over to the Koala table, I wondered just how did koalas get chosen as the fold out bathroom device icon for changing diapers? Are koalas known for having similar BMs to humans? Are koalas known as the primo diaper changers of the marsupial genus? Is the Koala Bear Association lobby stronger than other wild animals as they’ve clearly cornered the diaper changing market? Oddly, you never see a chimpanzee changing station even though chimps are human’s closest-living relatives sharing 99 % of the same DNA, so clearly, chimps have failed to capitalize on the bathroom changing station cross marketing play allowing koalas to get market share.

I pulled down the fold out table, placed Jacob on the edge and as I reached down for the diaper bag, I failed to hold the table and Jacob slammed back up into the wall, poops splattering across my white Gap T like a Jackson Pollock masterpiece as a bunch of guys peeing at urinals blew chunks in disgust as I replayed my wife’s evil exorcist shout to “stick the bastards in the overhead bin for all I care you cock-sucking motherfucker!”

Well, I finally got ‘em changed, wiped off my pooped stained shirt, made our way into the movie, that comic masterpiece, Rugrats go to Israel, and within seconds, I passed out faster than after an early afternoon frat party quarters session.

Next thing I know, I woke up, credits rolling, glanced over, and both kids were gone. No shit. Well, I was praying no shit. I gathered all the crap and jammed out to the lobby. They’re nowhere to be found. I’m freaking, stressing, panicking. A second round of lost kids, I’m a dead man. Suddenly I heard what sounded like kid’s voices coming from the bathroom. I rushed inside and Jacob’s naked on the Koala Bear changing table as Hannah let go and he flew back inside as they cracked up laughing in that hysterical way only kids do. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, let ‘em play a few more minutes, gave ‘em big kisses and drove home, exhausted, drained, and never wanting to take the kids anywhere without my exorcist wife by my side.

I pulled into the garage, quietly tiptoed inside carrying my sleeping son hoping to avoid my devil-infiltrated wife but Liz heard me pull in, as she was waiting. Fortunately, she’d had multiple vodkas, was feeling no pain, and apparently had been exorcized.

“How’d it go?” she asked.

I shoved the kids Jacob into her arms and in that throaty raspy Exorcist voice said, “I need vodka motherfucker,” as I projectile vomited green slime onto the carpet.

And as I floated down the hall towards the wet bar, I heard Hannah say, “Mommy, you must be really contagious as looks like Daddy has that same really bad sinus infection you do.”