I am a responsible adult. I am an example to the child person that lives in my house, and exemplify as many mature traits as possible each day. I try to be kind, work hard, listen, learn: I attempt not to “whine” and to eat all my vegetables and don’t slouch (except on the couch, because that’s the way to sit on the couch).
It’s a struggle, not leaning into being a kid myself. For instance, I really love cornflakes – not just in the morning but for a snack or dessert or… y’know anytime, and because I am a responsible adult I can have cereal anytime I want, just like I dreamed of when I was a kid. It’s not like it’s Froot Loops or Apple Jacks or anything (delicious) like that… it’s corn flakes, American, born of simplicity and very questionable ethics, a product made pure again by the addition of sugar frosting and the distraction of a cartoon tiger. And mine aren’t even the frosted ones, they’re organic.
So, y’know, I’m a grownup. Eating grown up food. (I’m not like a kid at all.)
As a parent, I do have a few traits that may merit revision, dad-wise. Three of them (and it’s not like there’s a lot of them, just…more than three) have to do with my socks.
I am listing these as a public confession and to encourage myself to evolve past these items to become a better role model.
The Flopsatoe [ˈflop ˈsɑ ˈtoʊ]: where I sit on the couch (well, slouch) during a film or a particularly exciting show and hold down the toe of one sock with the other foot, then slide the foot out of the sock just about an inch. Then I do that for the other foot. In a little while, this repeats, then again, until the front of each sock resembles those tall wind balloons at car dealerships (deflated). When the sock is all the way off the foot, the game is over, and the sock is officially “out of play”, which means I forget about it until someone (or one of two people) say “Pick up your socks!!” Frequency: nearly daily.
They don’t always match. The socks. I am lucky enough to have been gifted a fantastic array of colorful and themed hosiery, each so distinctive from the others as to make pairing unmistakable…and yet, there were times when I chose two yellow ones, and they were not the same yellow ones, or two bluish purple ones with words and stars, and then that devolved to wearing a Monty Python themed sock on one foot and a Beatles Yellow Submarine sock on the other because they were both British so they matched in geographical spirit. My daughter has given up entirely on matching socks, and I had the nerve to justify my own behavior because she was doing it, so now it was a “family thing”. My wife shook her head, slowly, from side to side, in that way she shakes her head slowly from side to side.
Many of my favorite socks have holes in them. Again, I have a unique collection of annual gifted socks in comforting subjects and patterns which are now part of my coping mechanism™. They are hard to let go.
I am not an animal. Any hole which exposes a toe crosses the line – toes stuck in holes in socks stuck in shoes makes an unpleasant day. Most holes are on the heels: light pomice abrasion has been suggested and employed to no clear benefit, so a strict guideline of no holes larger than a two pence coin has been placed in effect.
Two or more holes on the same sock is right out.
Because I am a responsible adult, the socks do not just disappear when Z does laundry; instead it is my duty to place the socks, threadbare and spent, in the rubbish bin - the “sock farm up north where they can… run free”. Sniff. Sniff sniff.
(The way to fix a hole in a sock is to darn it. I can mend clothes, but I’ve only actually darned a sweater, and it was quite a process.)
So, in order to evolve further as a responsible parental figure, I will (attempt to remember) from this day forward to
pick up my socks from in front of the couch,
wear matching socks (at least when I have an important meeting),
and in tribute to all socks past, teach my daughter to darn, which doesn’t seem like a Dad thing really – I’m sure I should be teaching things like hammers and football and sawing and beer, but there’s plenty of time for that.
Anyway, I’m more of a drum and bass, badminton, soldering, martini dad.
Darn.