Why I'll answer to just about any name.
Yesterday I bamaged my drain.
It was the first nice day in thirteen months, the first really sunny, no jacket, oh-my-I-can't-believe-how-nice-it-is day in a long time. Obviously, this meant I should go with my five-year-old son to the park while wearing my winter pea coat. He had a scarf on. And a winter jacket. With hood. Up.
The coats and scarves and hoods didn't last long.
At the playground we ran into two of my son's friends from school. They played well together, attacking me and the other dads. We were zords, or some-such, something big and horrible that they either fought or drove. At one point it was clear that the kids were playing by proxy, as another dad and I were being "steered" so that we could fight one another. The boys weren't doing anything other than telling us what to do.
After an afternoon at the park we headed home, got a bite to eat, and my son casually asked how babies are made. As I tried to remain calm while giving him an answer he picked up his kazoo and began to hum Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance." Two thoughts went through my head. "I should just show him a Lady Gaga video to answer his baby question," and "Why is the school handing out kazoos?" (When he brought the kazoo home he ran around for twenty minutes buzzing like a three foot tall worker bee. He proudly showed me the kazoo and explained that the school music teacher had given everyone a kazoo with the instructions that "We were supposed to take them home, not leave them at school." I said I could understand why. "Why?" he asked. Because sixty kindergartners humming on kazoos at the same time would probably peel the paint off the walls. "No," he said, shaking his head at his poor, stupid father, "It's so we don't lose them." Uh-huh.)
So I am explaining how an ovum forms and he's humming Lady Gaga. I interrupt myself to ask, "Did they teach you that at school, or did you figure it out yourself?" Good news: he figured it out himself. Bad news: he figured it out himself.
It's about this time that I notice he looks rather red in the face. And my head is kind of... radiating. I look in the mirror. I have a doozy of a sunburn. It's still early April and I've roasted my brain. Both of us have sunburns, are lethargic and crabby. Lady Gaga's not helping, and neither is explaining how cell's divide. I declare that, "I am making dinner and we're putting away the kazoo."
After dinner and some stories my son falls asleep quickly. I am happy for some quiet time and figure I'll get some writing done, but my skull has other plans. While misjudging the distance between my head and a door frame I effectively gave the wall a headbutt as if I intended to see what the inside of the wall looked like. The inside of my head sounded like clicking teeth, and the room turned gray and swirled. I spent the evening making goofy comments on Twitter and wondering if I would ever remember my phone number.
So that's where I am this morning. My brain has been fried, clubbed and divided by Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and Sex Ed questions from a five-year-old. No wonder I just turned around when someone yelled, "Hey, Toby!"
(posted by... uh... uh oh.)
