A Memorial Day...To Forget!

Our forefathers would be proud...

For many, Memorial Day is an opportunity to honor those who sacrificed their lives in service of the United States by taking advantage of once-per-season savings on cargo shorts and flip-flop at Old Navy.  A small segment of the population finds itself at work on Memorial Day. My industry, radio, offers the opportunity to avoid the fun often associated with days off. The perks of working while others don't, of course, are wearing a “Who Farted?” t-shirt to work, and checking out the Ladies Room (a little on the underwhelming side, except for the softer colors and lack of urine stains on the floor).

Memorial Day was always just another Monday until this year. For the first time since 1994 I didn’t work on Memorial Day. However, there would be no softball games or potato-sack races (has anyone actually seen a potato sack race that didn’t involve an episode of “The Brady Bunch”?). This Memorial Day would be all about packing for our annual summer move. My wife oversees a residence hall for a college and part of her compensation is free housing. However, the proverbial string attached at the end of the paycheck is that we have to move each summer to make room for an academic camp.

The move is typically quite stressful, in large part, to our divergent styles of move-preparation. Jess is a firm believer that everything needs to be in its proper place, properly wrapped, properly taped, and properly stacked for proper efficiency and properness. I employ the “Just Jam All That Shit In The Box Or A Garbage Bag” technique. Up to this point we have been surprisingly on the same page, in that we’ve avoided the issue altogether. By completely ignoring the inevitable, we hope it will go away like a deadbeat dad with a fast car. So, we’re a little behind.

"Do you question my beloved list?"

 If there is one criticism for which I have absolutely no defense, it’s that I can be extreme in how I approach tasks. I'm either completely ambivalent or way too into it.  In this case, I really wanted to take advantage of my day off and  created a list so ambitious, the  drill sergeant in “Full Metal Jacket”  would blush.  Jess expressed her concerns and I instructed her to, “..drop and give me twenty, Private Pyle!!”

 To me, the list seemed do-able…if it weren’t for the aforementioned children. This is a fact of our life that I admittedly fail to account for when making plans lately. Somewhere in my brain is this place that believes we can still be spontaneous and fun despite needing to feed these dudes every 180 minutes. This is also the place where professional wrestling is still real and I can enjoy Michelob Ultra with my masculinity still intact.  Or maybe I am a little on the stupid side. Either way, my "time-to-get stuff-done math" needs sharpening.

If you’re going to have twins, it is important to work together in almost every task. It is just a must. And I must say, Jess and I were like Jordan and Pippen on Memorial Day. We took down glassware, packed the wall decorations, vacuumed the rug, rolled it up, dusted the hard-wood floor and even did some pre-rearranging for our return in the fall. Not bad. OK, so we didn’t get to the nursery and we didn’t get air in the wheels for the dolly. Still a decent performance. Not quite a series-clinching Game 7 classic, but a nice 3-games-to-2 lead performance.

But this teamwork came at a cost. In putting a bunch of check-marks on my list, Jackson and Logan didn’t get the care they’ve grown accustomed to when we are both there. Our parenting style was  akin to the bucket guy on a sinking ship: Just keep enough water out of the vessel to keep it afloat.

Due to our inattention, the day went kind of like this: One cries, the other one sits patiently. Then the one is soothed and the other one explodes. That one is chilled-out and we start packing. The original agitator starts to whine, the other one chimes in and before another piece of tape is pulled, a full-on, double-nuclear meltdown has ensued. Multiply that by the entire day, and you have a pretty good picture of the challenges we faced. It’s also worth mentioning that there is no A/C and the temperature rose to a muggy 90.  All this frustration came with a thick layer of sweaty slime.

Even Clorox is speechless

So here we were, trying to get these kids happy so we can return to being miserable. Logan seemed the least impressed,and his dissatisfaction extended beyond fits of crying. By 3:00, the poor boy lit into a fit of gas that damn-near propelled him to the ceiling. For a good three minutes this kid sounded like a Harley headed to Sturgis. Then, the thud. Any parent knows the thud. It’s when the child has officially struck mud. Jess swept the lad up and headed to the changing table for a diaper-replacement. Unfortunately for her, Logan wasn’t quite finished. As she lifted the eldest child’s legs to apply the new diaper, he pulled the sphincter trigger and landed a perfect bulls-eye on her white tank top. It was as if he said, “That’s what I think of dad’s stupid list!”

All nurseries should be this color

The shriek that came from the nursery was sounded unlike any I’ve ever heard from Jess. It was the sound of…well…a woman who had just been shit on. So now I know what that sounds like. The force of his diarrhea dart was so strong, that Jess dropped wipes full of his #2 on the nursery rug. Luckily the baby-crap colored rug masked the remnants of the stain.



Lovely....



But the protestation wasn't complete. One culprit needed to be dealt with: The maker of the list. Since Logan was all pooped-out---quite literally---he took the only recourse of bodily fluid he had at his disposal. During the next feed, he proceeded to unleash a flood of warm, off-white vomit all over my Cotton Bowl t-shirt. Had he soiled a Mizzou "Texas Bowl: or "Insight Bowl" t-shirt it would have not only been OK, but appropriate since the Tigers’ performance in those games made me vomit, too. Alas, the article of clothing representing their greatest bowl performance in recent memory was now a sponge. 



"Revenge is mine...and it stinks!"

There’s a lot to be said about ambition, but perhaps there’s even more to be said about not tempting fate, especially with newborns involved. The general rhythm of the world seems to know when your priorities are a little out of whack. That rhythm shouldn’t be toyed with, or you find yourself adding “get pooped and puked on” to your to-do list.

Think I’m gonna work next Memorial Day…and do nothing.