The Grapes of Wrath

It really doesn’t seem all that long ago.  Maybe a little more than ten years “BC” (before children) or so.  My wife and I were still just dating at the time.  The summer was creeping to a close.  Warm winds were being replaced by cooler ones from the northwest and all of the leaves were prepping themselves for nature’s fireworks.  It was my favorite season of the year. 

It was fall.  It was October.  It was wine festival season.

Back then, there were usually ten to fifteen of us crammed into a commuter van stocked with an allotment of food and beverage for the day.  Maybe a Lunchable or two in tow for the eternal bachelors aboard.  There were no plans, time constraints, or schedules.  Just a day of music, laughs, and fermented grape juice with friends.  That’s the romanticized version of how I remember it anyway.

Recently, my wife and I had received a flyer in the mail for an upcoming wine festival.  It had been ages since we had been to one.  Right about the time when the kids became a little too mobile to make them enjoyable.  The flyer stated that, on top of the ten wineries, there would also be activities for the kids.  It was pretty close to our old stomping grounds back then, so we decided to give it a try with some old friends.  This just sounded too good to pass up.  Fun for us and for the kids.  This was a sure-fire win-win.

That morning, however, it became pretty evident that the romanticized version I remember so vividly was going to be completely thrown out of the window.  The car was completely packed with booster seats, running stroller, diaper bag as well as toys, snacks, and changes of clothes for the kids.  In the end, there was just enough room for a couple homemade Lunchables for the kids, but apparently no room for the jovial adult foods of years past.  My wife and I would now be pairing merlots with animal crackers and string cheese. 

Upon arriving at the wine festival, we realized that it was lunch time and the kids were beginning to show signs of low blood sugar.  They were spiraling rapidly towards DEFCON3, so food had to be consumed…and soon.  We unpacked the stroller, bags, food, and toys from the car and migrated into the wine festival like vagabonds fleeing the Dust Bowl.  The only thing missing was the family of livestock tied to the back of my Sonata.

After setting up a blanket, I stood to take in the atmosphere.  Music as well as smells of wine and food filled the air.  It was a lot like I remembered.  Except for the part with my kids incessantly tugging at my shorts, wondering where the kid activities were.  After several trips around the grounds, we realized that there was only one ride for the kids.  One.  Stinkin’.  Ride.  A lawn-tractor pulling wheeled-barrels around in a circle.  Oh, and that face-painting tent.  There’s your plural for the kid activities.  Kudos to the flyer’s creator for their mastery of the English language.

The barrel ride was a hit for the first half hour.  But, as the afternoon wore on, the kids grew increasingly bored.  They wanted us to walk down to the river, play games, or read to them.  I can’t complain really.  Ten years from now, they’ll probably deny that we’re even related to them.  However, we were finding our opportunities to taste wine narrowing and opportunities to converse with old friends dwindling.  The nostalgic, carefree wine festival was becoming a parental juggling act.

The times that I was able to taste, I noted my surroundings.  At one point, I was standing next to two twenty-somethings reeking of expensive cologne and narcissism.  Their egos were vaguely familiar, but I’m well-aware that I misplaced such bravado eons ago.  Gelled hair, Polo sunglasses, and Armani dress shirt on one.  “Faux hawk”, Versace sunglasses, and matching designer shirt on the other.  A third walked up with similar garb.  Then there’s me.  Bald head, $15 Dockers “Danger Magnet” sunglasses from Kohl’s, $10 button-up dress shirt from Old Navy…and that stroller.  Eeny, meeny, miney, schmoe.

After five long minutes of their insufferable banter, I had an uncomfortable revelation.  Were my friends and I really this obnoxious at wine festivals, all those moons ago?  You’d have to replace their $200 Italian leather shoes with Timberlands and Vans, of course, but you see where I’m going.  We had a lot of fun back then and we were just as full of ourselves.  Not only did the parallel startle me, but I also suddenly wanted to hurt myself.  OK, I’ll admit it.  I really just wanted to hurt them.  The thought was surprisingly therapeutic to my self-loathing at that moment. 

Essentially, I chalked up the differences to a welcome change in my priorities.  I took solace knowing that over those ten years, I changed from thinking of myself first to thinking of the family first and myself last…without even thinking about it.  It just happened.  That was a lot of thinking.  At that point, I decided that I needed more wine to subdue any further maturity or enlightenment on my part. 

As I walked away, I humored myself by mumbling a famous Steinbeck quote.  “They's a time of change.”

Finally, it was time to go home.  Our kids were ecstatic.  I’ve never seen them leave anywhere as cooperatively as they did that afternoon.  As they cartwheeled towards the exit, I stopped, put my glass in the stroller’s drink holder, took in a deep breath, and looked around one last time. 

Nope.  I still wanted to hurt them.

Danger Magnet

Superdad, Representative of the League of Responsible Husbands, the Man’s Man, and all-around Encompasser of Smoothness.  A lot of fathers strive for the full package.  However, there would be no such luck for this guy.  Not that weekend anyway.  It’s those moments you look back on as a man and cringe.  OK, two moments.  For now though, I’m blaming the sunglasses and will have them tested accordingly.

It was a beautiful Saturday.  My wife had taken part in a four mile run that morning.  I had lone dictatorship of our children and offered to meet her for a picnic after her race.  Three kids, dressed, lunches packed…Mr. Together.  I had even gotten us to the park fifteen minutes early. 

As I got out of the car, I noticed a group of women talking nearby.  They waved politely as they witnessed Superdad get kids “A” and “B” out of the car and swiftly set up the running stroller.  All this mind you, while baby was still happily giggling in her car seat.

It was at that point that I noticed the flat tires on the stroller.  With fists on hips, I raised my face towards the noon sun and laughed heartily out loud.  Superman may have needed a phone booth, but not this guy.  After all, Superdad had remembered to bring the electric air pump.  Your flat tires were no match for my superior powers of preparedness!

What I hadn’t accounted for though, was the thundering racket that the pump made when turned on.  So obnoxious, in fact, that it terrified baby.  Laughter instantly turned to ear-piercing scream.  A scream that clearly echoed through the same crowded parking lot in which restless kids “A” and “B” were now running wildly amok. 

Then, my cell phone rang.

As I stood to grab the phone and scold my scampering brood, I proceeded to smash the nosepiece of my sunglasses into the handbrake on the stroller.  Pain, as well as many of the decorative words that I had learned in various locker rooms, swam uncontrollably downstream from throbbing nose to unfiltered mouth.  Squinting in agony, I immediately barked at my darling offspring like the crotchety old man telling the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn.  Missing were my shillelagh and weathered fedora.

As my eyesight returned, I immediately looked around for potential witnesses.  That same group of women had stopped talking and just stared.  Sunglasses skewed ninety degrees in the wrong direction, feral children galloping about, baby screaming…all with blood and tears trickling from my swollen beak.  Add to that the intolerable sound of that pump still churning away in the background, setting the appropriate “Symphony of Pandemonium” ambiance. 

Smoothness personified in just under ten seconds.

Cringe event number two took place twenty-four hours later.  We took the kids hiking for the day in the mountains.  About halfway up the ascent, I took note of the shear drop off from the sides of the trail.  Having my nine month old daughter strapped in a carrier, I decided that use of a walking stick was probably in our best interest.  At this point, I wasn’t particularly interested in being the world’s first father-infant daughter BASE jumping tandem.

At the top, we stopped for a break.  I propped my stick against a wall and bent down to unbuckle the baby carrier.  Really, a skilled marksman couldn’t have sighted it any better.  The stick slid off of the wall and right into the nosepiece of my sunglasses.  I’m pretty sure that I heard a twenty-strong chorus of groans to accompany the event.   Ego and nose still painfully bruised from the day before, I mumbled through the remainder of my offensive vocabulary before ripping the sunglasses from my bottom lip.  The only thing that kept me from heaving them deep into the wilderness below was the lecture that I would have received from my four year old standing nearby.  “You littered.  You’re going to jail!”

The sunglasses have now been sent to the Institute for the Modishly-Impaired.  I anticipate the test results will confirm my theory that the nosepiece is made from the exact same magnetic material as is found in my toes.  I’ve been known to smash toes in the same weekend, even the same day.  However, this was a first for the nose.  It had to be the sunglasses. 

So, where does this leave me and my shades?  Hipness enabler or danger magnet?  GQ advertisement or Plastic Surgery Weekly? 

For now, I’ve opted to keep the sunglasses.  They may be a reprehensible maiming hazard, but they’re still functional.  This, even after the skin and dried blood were washed from them.  Public humiliation may have dimmed those brief flickers of “smoothness”, but I’ll continue to strive for that full package status.  For now, no phone booths required. 

Although a part of me is beginning to wonder if these types of scenarios are what led Superman to totally disregard the trendy eyewear fad.