Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Children With Penises Are Overrated
The other day the family and I packed up the car and headed over to Marshall’s. Marshall’s – It’s just like a department store, except that you’re poor! Anyway, we go into the store and I start looking for some white t-shirts. If you’ve ever been to a Marshall’s (or a TJ Maxx, or any other place that’s the retail equivalent of Goodwill), you know that finding anything specific in there is like trying to find your dog’s shit after dark. The entire store is gigantic bargain rack, which means the clothing you’re looking for was likely thrown on the floor, or placed next to a 64 oz. jar of apple butter.
At any other store, I’d look for an employee to tell me where the shirts are. But this is Marshall’s. You’d have better luck finding a copy of High Society at Ryan Seacrest’s house than finding an employee at Marshall’s. Or, if you’re like me, you do the thing where you accidentally ask a black guy who doesn’t work there where something is. Hooray, casual racism! And, even if you do find an actual employee, it’s unlikely that their brain has synapses that actually fire.
So I go to find my stuff the old fashioned way, when I notice a kid in the shoe section. This kid was probably 13 years old. He weighed roughly 200 pounds, wore dirty mesh shorts that hung down below his knees, and a t-shirt that was three sizes too big (didn’t know they made quintuple XL’s). He wore knee-high socks that had no elastic in them. He had bedhead and clearly hadn’t showered in two or three days. I thought I had already seen my worst nightmare. I was wrong.
God, I’m glad my child doesn’t have a penis. Yes, there are things to worry about when you have a girl. Will she date normal guys? Will she fall in with the wrong crowd? What if she can’t get on the list at Bungalow 8? Those are all normal concerns. But a son comes with worries all his own. You’ll always love a daughter. But what if, for reasons beyond your control, your son becomes a complete and utter tool? What if you love him, but don’t actually like him? What if he ends up being fucking Stewart from “Beavis & Butthead”?
Looking at that kid at Marshall’s, I thought to myself that, if he was my kid, I’d probably spend 12 hours a day just punching the shit out of him. Until I suddenly realized why the kid frightened me so. Because, at that age, I was exactly the same. When I was 13, I ordered a t-shirt from the back pages of Rolling Stone that said “New Kids on the Chopping Block.” It featured an illustration of Joe, Jordan, Donnie, Danny, and Jon (I listed that from memory) with their heads cut off. I thought it was the greatest t-shirt ever. God, what a fucking douche.
It gets worse. I was overweight. I had dandruff. When I sat on the couch, I stuck my hands in my pants. I liked making cinnamon toast 3 times a day. I thought Baja shirts were cool. I fucked my sheets. This is not the stuff greatness is made of. If I have a son, it’s likely I’ll be confronted with a spitting image of myself at the most awkward, miserable time of my life. Stupid Freudian insight! The Girl comes with no such baggage. She’s perfect. She’s clean, affable, and smells like apricots. My son would likely have none of those features.
My plan is to hold off on having the next kid until I’m 65. Then, we can have a boy by surrogate. That way, by the time he’s morphed into 13-year-old dipshit with unmistakable Drew-like qualities, I’ll be long dead of cirrhosis of the liver. Now that’s Planned Parenthood.
Oh, and I found the t-shirts. You can hide all you want, Calvin Klein men’s crew necks, but I’ll always find you.
At any other store, I’d look for an employee to tell me where the shirts are. But this is Marshall’s. You’d have better luck finding a copy of High Society at Ryan Seacrest’s house than finding an employee at Marshall’s. Or, if you’re like me, you do the thing where you accidentally ask a black guy who doesn’t work there where something is. Hooray, casual racism! And, even if you do find an actual employee, it’s unlikely that their brain has synapses that actually fire.
So I go to find my stuff the old fashioned way, when I notice a kid in the shoe section. This kid was probably 13 years old. He weighed roughly 200 pounds, wore dirty mesh shorts that hung down below his knees, and a t-shirt that was three sizes too big (didn’t know they made quintuple XL’s). He wore knee-high socks that had no elastic in them. He had bedhead and clearly hadn’t showered in two or three days. I thought I had already seen my worst nightmare. I was wrong.
God, I’m glad my child doesn’t have a penis. Yes, there are things to worry about when you have a girl. Will she date normal guys? Will she fall in with the wrong crowd? What if she can’t get on the list at Bungalow 8? Those are all normal concerns. But a son comes with worries all his own. You’ll always love a daughter. But what if, for reasons beyond your control, your son becomes a complete and utter tool? What if you love him, but don’t actually like him? What if he ends up being fucking Stewart from “Beavis & Butthead”?
Looking at that kid at Marshall’s, I thought to myself that, if he was my kid, I’d probably spend 12 hours a day just punching the shit out of him. Until I suddenly realized why the kid frightened me so. Because, at that age, I was exactly the same. When I was 13, I ordered a t-shirt from the back pages of Rolling Stone that said “New Kids on the Chopping Block.” It featured an illustration of Joe, Jordan, Donnie, Danny, and Jon (I listed that from memory) with their heads cut off. I thought it was the greatest t-shirt ever. God, what a fucking douche.
It gets worse. I was overweight. I had dandruff. When I sat on the couch, I stuck my hands in my pants. I liked making cinnamon toast 3 times a day. I thought Baja shirts were cool. I fucked my sheets. This is not the stuff greatness is made of. If I have a son, it’s likely I’ll be confronted with a spitting image of myself at the most awkward, miserable time of my life. Stupid Freudian insight! The Girl comes with no such baggage. She’s perfect. She’s clean, affable, and smells like apricots. My son would likely have none of those features.
My plan is to hold off on having the next kid until I’m 65. Then, we can have a boy by surrogate. That way, by the time he’s morphed into 13-year-old dipshit with unmistakable Drew-like qualities, I’ll be long dead of cirrhosis of the liver. Now that’s Planned Parenthood.
Oh, and I found the t-shirts. You can hide all you want, Calvin Klein men’s crew necks, but I’ll always find you.
1 comment:
drew is fucking hysterical
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