What Robert Had

Do yourself a favor: run-don’t walk-to the bookstore and buy Dad is Fat by comedian Jim Gaffigan. Gaffigan is an “observational” comedian who makes a living observing that bacon  tastes good.

Gaffigan is a married, to a woman, and has, now get this, five children, all of which he sired and none which came out of a country he just happened to be visiting for The United Nations. In my Evangelical circles, we would say Mr. Gaffigan is blessed with a full quiver.

The family Gaffigan lives in Manhattan in a two bed room apartment. For this alone, I think we can all make the clinical assessment that Mr. and Mrs. Gaffigan are insane. Oh yeah, it has one bathroom too. Here at Casa de Manis,  we have two and half bathrooms and sometimes it feels crowded in our house with three people.

Gaffigan makes the important point that he feels totally inadequate to be a father and really received no training. Which is true. None of us receive any training to be fathers. He says, "Aside from my physiology, nothing in my childhood, teenage years, or early adulthood indicated to me that I would someday have children. Obviously many, many things indicated I would likely be an astronaut. Well, okay, I drank Tang once."  I can relate. I was the youngest child in my immediate family and my mother's family and the kin my Dad claimed. I had no idea what came with having a child.

My son Ben is really a great kid. No felony arrests at this time. When he was born, I just wanted him to be happy, to date girls, and to somehow become a professional baseball player that would buy his parents a house.  So far: he is happy,  he has a steady girlfriend and will not become a professional baseball player that buys his parents a house. Two out of three ain't bad, to quote a poet (Meatloaf).

When he was younger, he had this thing that the doctor called, “A queasy stomach”. Since he was a toddler, when he would get really upset and cry, he would throw up. Therefore, we were trapped in a predicament because we did not want to cave in to his every whim, but we didn’t want to clean up the car, house, earth, etc, every twenty seconds either. It was a challenging time.

On top of that, if he smelled something or saw something that was gross, it would make him throw up. He was in daycare which is almost an hourly gross-out factory. Fortunately, it got to the point where the daycare knew when to remove Ben from a PU (Possible Upchuck) situation and we didn’t have to field calls to come pick up Ben because he was sick.

However, there was this one day.

This particular day, I was working at the insurance company. The insurance company was rolling right along in powerful insurance land when it decided to merge with another insurance company and create a brand new insurance company that was run by morons. In addition to this, our largest client decided to pull their business from us and give it to a competitor. This caused the Mother of All Massive Lay-Offs and the survivors, which included me, all feared for our jobs.

The phone rang on my desk. “Mr. Manis, Ben is throwing up and is very sick. You need to come pick him up.”  I asked if they were sure because Ben was known to throw up a lot if he saw, smelled, or ate something he didn’t like. “I’m sorry, but you have to come get him. He is a very sick little boy. We tried to contact Mrs. Manis but we couldn’t get a hold of her”.

Two historical points. One: this was in 1995 right before everyone had a cell phone. In fact, the idea that someone had a cell phone meant that they were rich or a Kennedy. Two: Mrs. Manis had left her office for a half-day break from the insanity that was her company to go shopping.  At this point in time, there was no way I could contact her.

So I went to my boss and explained the situation. It just happened to be at the busiest time of the day and things were just wacky at the office. My boss let me go but honestly I expected my desk to be boxed up when I got back to work the next day.

When I got to the daycare and they brought Ben to me, I could tell he was a sick little boy. He was green in the gills. He slept in the car all the way home. Throwing up takes a lot out of a kid.

When we got home, I placed him on the couch. “What happened?” I asked. “I got sick” was the reply. “What made you sick”?  “Robert……had…a ….booger”.  “What?”  “Robert had a booger and it made me throw up”.  

I sat back and saw my future. “Tell me Mr. Manis, why were you asked to leave your position at the insurance company?” a potential employer would ask. “Well, Robert had a booger…” 

When my wife got home, she was surprised to see us. I explained about Robert and tried to prepare her for a life living in a van down by the river.

Well, things have worked out. I didn’t get fired. We went out and got a pager that we discarded as soon as cell phones became affordable for us non-Kennedys.  Ben outgrew his tummy troubles and hasn't had a PU situation in a long time.  I still wish he would buy me a house.