Daddy's Fish BowlA Clear View Of A Father's Family Experiences

REJECTED!!!

You know society is in a bad state when you find yourself saying to your 5 year old son: “Get used to it, you’re going to have to deal with it your entire life. Just learn to smile and say sorry. That’s just the way woman work”.  Now before some 60 year old radical from the feminist movement comes banging on my door to give me an earful about woman’s rights; please give me the chance to explain by providing the back story to that statement.  

Ty has a “girlfriend” and their “relationship” is the most entertaining thing to watch in the world.  The reason that it’s so funny is because it actually does resemble a real life adult relationship only on a smaller scale.  I’m not talking about the young couple who is newly in love either; I’m talking the old married couple who has been together for many years. The same couple that can let a drink of Orange Juice cause a day long feud (Thanks Kevin Hart).  Ty and his chick bicker and fight all the time, but then 5 minutes later are happy and playing together like nothing has happened.  It’s almost as if since they’re younger their relationship moves on a quicker timescale.  Shouldn’t it be the other way around though?  The older we get, the less time on this earth we have, so why does it take older people so long to make up and start “playing” again after a fight? I digress.

It’s not all bad times between them however.  They exchange gifts on holidays & dress to impress whenever they have play dates with each other.  And of course there’s the cheek kisses, oh boy, the thrill of getting a kiss from a girl was almost overwhelming for Ty.  I remember when Fefe texted me at work and told me Ty got his first kiss. I was all “Oh yeah, that’s my boy!!!” But when I got home, I had to curb my enthusiasm so that he wouldn’t try to get from half base to actual first base.  So when I got home I said “Ty, I heard you were kissed today…by a girrrrrrrrrrrllllll.” He was so utterly embarrassed that I thought he was going to run away, only to return after puberty hit.  I decided to have a little fun with Ty and told him that girls have cooties and now that he’s come into contact with one, he may have caught the cooties.  He tried to pretend that he didn’t believe me, but looking in his eyes told me that he was worried about cooties.  I told him to find out if he’s infected; we need to put a line on his hand with a green marker.  If that line turned red before the end of the day then he did indeed have cooties.  I swear the boy looked at his hand every 5 minutes up until his bedtime, as if his life depended on it.  The line never turned red and he was relieved to be cootie free.

After the cootie incident, Ty got over his embarrassment of cheek kisses and the “relationship” with his “girlfriend” continued to flourish.  Then it happened, Ty got smacked with a big dose of reality.  While they were playing one day, his girl decided that she was irrefutably mad at Ty and would no longer speak to him.  She sat on the floor arms folded, lip poked out, with the look of a woman scorned.  Ty kept trying to bring her toys to play with (he’s learning early, gifts brings smiles), but she was relentless with her anger; she couldn’t be bought off buy some sleazy action figure.  It would take much much more to sway her; I’m talking colossal, like a Barbie dream house or something. 

But like most men, Ty didn’t have the means to buy his way into forgiveness.  He came to me looking sad and defeated, like a puppy that had lost its owner.  He said: “she’s mad at me, but I didn’t do anything and she won’t tell me why she’s mad” and to that I said: “Buck up kid, get used to it, you’re going to have to deal with it your entire life. Just learn to smile and say sorry. That’s just the way woman work”

We never did find out what he had done, or why she was so mad at him, but eventually she got over it and they ended the day with a nice long cheek kiss.  I think Ty learned a valuable lesson that day, girls rule the world and the decisions of those in power rarely make sense, yet we must abide by them.