Raw Drip

Thank goodness I’m out of the baby phase these days now that Adam and Tabitha are walking, talking, and generally acting like little people (When did they become people, again?).  While I miss the baby days, looking at one of the newest crop of baby care devices reminds me how quickly my kids are growing.  Back in the old days (3 1/2 years ago), if you had to pee while out with your baby you needed to hold the baby on your lap and do the one-hand, quick-wipe while balancing him precariously on bent knee. 

But no more!  The Babykeeper Basic is described as an “infant carrier seat that hangs from the stall wall in most public restrooms”.  Now your baby can just hang out while you do your business.  No more balancing acts and no more jockeying for the single handicap stall that has an infant seat built into the wall.

I find this invention to be simultaneously amusing, bizarre, and brilliant, but I don’t get the “Basic” part of the product description.  What would an ”Advanced” version do?  Maybe the basic model gives you the comfort of knowing your baby isn’t going to have to balance on your lap or sit on a filthy restroom floor, but it’s only safe for midget babies? Hm.  I bet if your baby weighs more than 5 pounds, you’ve got to pay to upgrade to the advanced version.  Sneaky inventors!

But an advanced version of this product might be a worthwhile investment.  I mean, wouldn’t it be cool if it could hold a 40-pound kid in place so a parent could urinate in peace – without advice or enthusiastic offers of assistance from ”helpful” children in the midst of potty-training?  Just think of all the potential uses.  If it could safely hold 38-pound Tabitha, I might decide to leave her hanging all the time (the back of the master bedroom closet door, for instance) – just for a breather from all the chattering.  It’s an awfully tempting proposition.  The Babykeeper could be the best invention ever! 

Intrigued by the possibilities, I decided to read the product FAQs to get a little more information on what features comprise the “basic” and ”advanced” models. 

But I encounter disappointment; there is no “advanced” model.  The company claims that the basic model is capable of holding a toddler.  I’m sure it holds an average-sized kid, but Dick and I only make gigantic children.  What about parents of freakishly large kids?  What are we supposed to do?

While the FAQs didn’t really help me figure out what makes the Babykeeper so basic, I did learn that there are no parents willing to face the shame and ridicule of others by asking the all important, most frequently un-asked question, “How likely am I to leave the restroom with my purse, but without my baby?” 

Because, let’s face it – you know some sleep-deprived mommy out there has done this already…

Psst!  Wanna know a secret?  Well, here it is - your girlfriend/wife/partner just wants to know “The Plan”.  

What is The Plan you ask?  The Plan consists of all the day to day to-do’s, roles, and responsibilities that you and your partner, as a couple, need to take to prep for anything you do – from planning the most mundane task of who’ll pick up the dry cleaning, to tackling the more complex tasks such as planning a cross-country move. 

From listening to and talking with other women, I’ve found that the need for both partners in a relationship to be on board with The Plan increases dramatically once you become parents since your lives revolve around planning for all the little things that you used take for granted - like eating or going to the bathroom. 

Executing The Plan is usually the easiest part.  But, formulating The Plan – now that’s painful.  As a mother of two (four if you count the dog and Dick), I spend most of my time planning for myself AND for everyone else.  As if the mere act of thinking for 4 people and a dog isn’t tiring enough, I also need to organize all my thoughts into intricate plans incorporating an almost endless stream of variables.  And, with small children around, there’s planning required for everything – wardrobe, hair, make-up, food…food – and that’s just for me!

When I reach out to Dick to square away The Plan for something simple, like a dinner menu for instance, I am in no mood to play “go fish” – sorting out which elements of The Plan he seems more or less enthusiastic about.  If he knows The Plan, I want him to save me the effort and just tell me what it is.  If he doesn’t, then I want him to tell me straight away that he’s open to my ideas and then help me organize a joint plan.

So, the following conversation would be an example of what NOT to say to show your spouse or partner that you’re on board with The Plan.  This would be an example of how to infuriate and annoy your mate:

Me: “So, what’s the plan for the evening?”

Dick: “I don’t know.  What sounds good to you?  Do you feel like cooking tonight?”

Me: “I’m fine with that.  I have some chicken defrosting in the fridge.”

Dick: “Chicken?”

Me: “Yeah.  Why?  Did you have something else in mind?”

Dick (sounding vaguely disappointed): “No, no if you want to cook chicken, that sounds fine to me. I always prefer your cooking.”

Me: “Well, if you don’t want chicken, I can make something else?”

Dick: “Don’t be silly.  If chicken is easy and sounds good to you, then I’m fine with it.  Is there anything else you could make?”

Me: “Do you not feel like eating chicken?  Because, if you don’t want chicken, that’s okay.  Just tell me what you want?  Or, do you want to eat out?”

Dick: “Would you like to eat out?”

Me: “I’m okay with eating out if you don’t want me to cook…”

Dick: “I never said that; you know I always prefer your cooking.  But, if we were to eat out, it would give you a nice break from cooking.”

Me: “Fine.  We’ll eat out.  What do you want?”

Dick: “I don’t know.  What do you feel like having?”

This conversation goes on for another 10 minutes until I finally beat out of him the fact that he’d like to go by our favorite Italian place.  Why couldn’t he just tell me he had The Plan so we could’ve fast-forwarded to the end of the episode?  Why couldn’t the conversation have gone something like:

Me: “So, what’s the plan for the evening?”

Dick: “I’ve been thinking – you’ve been working so hard lately, we should eat out tonight and give you a nice break from cooking.  How about Italian?”

Me: “Oh, darling! I do so appreciate your sensitivity and thoughtfulness.  I would love to eat Italian tonight and then, after the children are asleep, I’d love to eat you to show my appreciation. How does that sound?”

By my calculations, cutting straight to The Plan rather than dancing around it, shaves off 10 minutes of conversation and makes Dick at least 70% more likely to get lucky.  And all he has to do is occasionally remove the omnipresent burden of The Plan from my shoulders.  Is that too much to ask?  Because, while Dick may have the flexibility to plan or not, our society still expects me, as the mommy, to run a tidy household and to plan the hell out of everything.

How can I explain to all you men out there the comfort for us ladies in knowing The Plan?  I guess it just makes us feel a tiny bit of control over the chaos that is our lives as females.  In fact, most women will tell you that you don’t even have to know The Plan. For must of us, it’s enough just to know that you’re thinking about one.  And when we occasionally stumble across you formulating The Plan for something, we feel relieved because we’re reminded that we’re not the only ones in our relationships capable of bearing this burden.  There is another!  We really are a team!  You really are capable of thinking through all the same endless tasks that grind away at our patience and consume our energy.  We are NOT alone! 

While women may be complicated creatures, I can assure that, as long as you guys do a good job of pretending to understand what ticks us off and what lightens our load, we’ll give you a free pass on a lot of the stupid, lazy stuff you say and do.  So, get out there and spread the word!  It’s all about The Plan, man.

Are you special?  Are you a toothless, guy in your late 70’s?  Do you speak with a unidentifiable thick foreign accent and say things to passing women such as, “Lemme muk loove to you een my ‘ammock, pretty leedy!”  Are you a guy with stomach-churning B.O. and open sores on your arms?  Well, then – I am the woman for you!

It could be my 6ft tall Amazon-woman build or my laid-back nature that makes me bait for the strange, but all my life, the odd-ball guys (oh, and one girl) in school, on the job and everywhere in between have found me utterly irresistible.  I’d be flattered if I weren’t so repulsed by my fan base.  An old acquaintance of mine and Dick’s – a 5ft tall Chinese-Polynesian man with a fondness for computers, ballroom dancing and butch women - once described my impressive abilities to appeal to weirdos as a mathematical term – he said I was a strange attractor.  Dick loved this description and has used it to describe me ever since. 

How does one know if they’re strange attractor?  Look around you.  In my case, there are so many strange people around me that I’m forced to assume that I’m just strange, myself.  And, as one of the strange, maybe I give off a freak-vibe, undetectable to normal people, like those high-pitched sounds only a dog can hear?  Maybe my silent signal says, “Hey, I’m weird like you. Let’s get together”? 

I’m strange – we all are to a certain extent - but not so strange that I can’t spot other people’s weirdness and recognize that it’s way out of normal tolerances.  So rather than it being a case of sending out silent signals to my freaky peeps, it’s probably my friendliness that gets me into trouble; my willingness to talk to people accounts for most of my strange encounters. 

Like the time I was out shopping in NYC for my wedding with a visiting girlfriend.  Standing at the corner of 34th & 6th Avenue, a glassy-eyed man walked up and asked me if I knew where there was a Burger King.  Before I go on with this story, I have to acknowledge that most people know better – they know when you’re in New York City that you don’t chat with strangers on the street.  Heck, you don’t even look people in the eye.  But no, these facts never phased me and certainly didn’t curtail my desire to help the poor guy find a Burger King.  Back to my story… 

As I was giving him directions, he began to scream obscenities at me, “F’ing bitch, whore of a woman – all I want is a god-damned Diet Coke? Jesus Christ, why won’t you get me a Diet Coke? 

I replied back (Yes. I know, I know – I’m stupid…), “I’m trying to help you find a Burger King, sir. You never mentioned wanting a Diet Coke until…” 

“Are you nuts?  Stop talking to him!”, my girlfriend said as she wisely grabbed my arm and drug me across 6th Avenue traffic to get away from the raving lunatic still standing on the corner (still standing there DESPITE my very clear directions to the closest Burger King, I might add…). 

Thankfully for me, I have good friends around to save me from myself. 

My strange attractor gift may also have something to do with me being a good listener.  Often, the strange will offer up their bizarre opinions about random crap without any prompting from me, converting an otherwise ordinary situation, into a strange encounter of the worst kind.  

For instance, there was the time I was taking a cab to my OB/GYN and the overly friendly cabbie complimented me on my appearance saying that I was a “nice woman” and “very beautiful”.  Then, as we were stopped in traffic, he turned around to face me.  I instinctively sunk back into my seat and reached for the door handle.  With a frighteningly lecherous gaze he launched into a rant against Hillary Clinton, defending Bill’s affair with Monica Lewinsky as necessary to keep him from going insane from too much baby-batter on the brain. 

“Hillary, she don’t keep her husband satisfied, so poor Bill has to turn to a nice woman to take care of him.  If he don’t do that, then the entire country will be risky, cuz’ we men we can go crazy, you know?  Monica, now that’s a good American girl – round, pretty face and wanting to please the man.  She doing her patriot duty!  Hillary, you know, she like ice cube.  No man wants ice cube sitting on his lap, you know?”

Just as quickly as the diatribe began, it ended up with a bizarre pick-up line, “Hey baby, you a nice girl.  Would you like to meet me for dinner in Queens sometime?  I love the pretty American girl like you – nice girl like Monica.” 

Gee, let me think – uh, no thanks!  At least I didn’t need a friend to save me from this situation.

I could go on, but what’s the point – you get the idea.   The frizzy-haired guy who molested me on the downtown 6 train on a Friday evening, the homeless guy who chased me through Madison Square Park (with what I thought was a brick…), the toothless geezer in Vegas who watched me throw up in the trash can and then asked me out for dinner - they’re all strange and they’re all attracted to me.  I suppose there’s not much I can do about it.  I can’t stop being me and I think my family probably wouldn’t have me any other way – after all, I’m very entertaining.