Raging Dad

Who spilled the milk?!?!

Anyone else have something that drives you into an instant frenzy? Something that turns your Raging Dial to 11 regardless of how completely irrational it is? I do: spilled milk.

Isn’t that stupid? How embarrassingly cliché. In truth, I am driven crazy by chronic inattentiveness. As I’ve said before, I am engaged in an ongoing war with my three-year-old boy Sonny. It ain’t pretty. I may be bigger than him and can win the fight on physical or intellectual grounds, but I quickly shrink far below him and lose the battle of maturity, adjusted for age. I’m like Hulk. The bigger I puff out my chest, the less sensible I become.

It’s just that Sonny seems to have no awareness of his surroundings. With a full glass of milk sitting directly in front of his dinner plate, he’ll go Pat Morita on me and wax the car, sending the milk across the table.

Now, I admit think that very few people would describe me as an overly clean person. I make messes. My desk at work looks like a nest, with piles of paper, partially-consumed water bottles, and old coffee cups strewn about. And, of course, the mud and twigs that I have so painstakingly gathered in my Raging Beak to give the walls their structure. Yet, I loathe crumbs. Little bits of food under my feet can send me to the moon. Since most kids are naturally-gifted crumb producers, this makes me uptight and obnoxious at most meals.

How do I square these obsessions then, with my complete state of calm at being vomited on an airplane by a complete stranger? The source of the vomit was an expectant mother, traveling alone, who was lucky enough to be seated by two exhausted parents and our three creatures. She handled takeoff just fine, but once up in the air, Sick Mom-to-be (SM2B) blew chunks just after the seat belt sign blinked off. Make that a ginger ale, please, will you stewardess?

Yes, I’ve been vomited on before. And pooped on. All the fun stuff of having a baby. As SM2B brushed past us (window seat, of course), leaving a hand trail of stomach matter smeared across the seatback in front of me, I was strangely comfortable with the situation. Hey, it was puke, so it was no fun. But I was far more concerned about SM2B. Heck, Michael hadn’t even woken up even after sobbing SM2B dribbled on him on her way to the aisle. Takes after his old man, I guess.

The stewardesses were far more repulsed than I, and stared at the mess for a while before deciding a plan of attack to clean it up. I wanted to say, chill out, you get to wear gloves! I’ve got her breakfast on my lap and I’m not wigging out. The airline staff was far more concerned with me than with SM2B, which I also found to be ridiculous. SM2B locked herself into the little closet can and hurled some more, and then I think she just stayed in order to hide from human gazes. An entirely different mile high club.

So, I give a total pass to a grown stranger who hurls on me, but can’t do the same for my own three-year-old who spills his milk at the table. How unjust is that? Now that I’ve written it down, it is even more insane than I had previously thought. Man, I gotta get some perspective and cut that handsome little fella a break!

Guess what I did the other night? Knocked over my own full glass of milk. It spilled everywhere. It even ran into the gaps in the table leaves, forcing me to open it up and wipe it out. That was a mighty fine slice of humble pie, dear readers. It is a good thing to take a bite out of, from time to time.