At what age can I know this isn't a coincidence?

While reading a bedtime story to my kids, I heard a sucking sound coming from the general vicinity of my 5-year-old son D-. Since he has been known to occasionally nearly destroy clothing and sheets by sucking or chewing on them, I was all over it.

Me: Were you just sucking on your sheet?

D- (innocently): No.

Me: How about your pajamas?

D-: No.

Me: Were you sucking on any of your stuffed animals?

D-: No.

Me: How about your fingers?

D- (short pause, then either coming clean or going for gold in expressing his opinion): ...Yeah-- this one.

Guess which finger he held up to me?

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You may also enjoy my previous D- conversations, (3 YO daughter) M- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

Posted by LiteralDan

Victoria's open secret

The following is a 100%-authentic conversation with my 2-year-old daughter M- that my wife (J-) and sister recently endured when they were unfortunate enough to end up in Victoria's Secret with her:

M- (loudly, while pointing at some mannequins, scandalized): Why can you see their bummies?!

J- (vainly encouraging her to take the volume down a few notches): ...Because the store wants to show you what all the different underwear looks like when you wear it.

M- (thinking): Ohhh. ... (now excited AND loud) You can see their vaginas! Why can you see their vaginas??!

J- (dumbfounded, and probably blushing due to the increasing attention and laughter): No, no M-, you can't.

M- (mercifully letting that one go as she looks around more): Hey, they have no heads, but they have boobs!* Why don't they have heads?!?

J- (skipping a chance for some biting social commentary): Well... 'cause you don't need to see their heads for underwear and bras. Their heads don't matter for that.

M-: Ummm, okay, but when I get big and buy a bra, can I still have my head?

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* I have no idea where she learned this word, but hopefully it doesn't become her new favorite for random shouting.

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You may also enjoy my previous M- conversations, (5 YO son) D- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

Posted by LiteralDan

Huggy Bear's House of Coffee

I'm not sure if this article I found is a finger-wagging account of a shameful Washington coffee house, or a national advertisement to build a rival to Starbucks overnight:

5 bikini baristas accused of prostitution

My favorite quote also takes you right to the core of the story:

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During a two-month investigation, detectives also saw the women lick whipped cream off each other and pose naked for pictures at the Grab-n-Go Espresso stand.

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I have to wonder who made them cut off the "investigation" after only two months. You better believe that guy got his locker filled with shaving cream (or, perhaps more appropriately, latte foam) and maybe even a couple of dog (if he was lucky) shits put on his engine block or something.

I'm just spitballin' here-- maybe under the circumstances, Washington police were driven to even greater heights of creativity. Regardless, I don't think they could possibly be more creative than the ladies of the coffee stand themselves:

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The women also charged customers to play "basketball," a game in which customers threw wadded up money at the women, who caught the money in their underwear, detectives said.

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What could I ever do to make people just throw money at me like that, whether balled up or not?? Maybe I'm just not cut out for this capitalism game.

One thing* I do know, though, is that these kinds of investigations must be made part of the compensation package for veteran officers, if they aren't already.

Just picture our precious younger officers dodging bullets behind the burning shells of their cruisers right now, keeping the tourniquet tight above their gunshot wounds, telling themselves they can't bleed out in the street because they've only got 10 more years till they get to work the "Handjob Hardees" detail.**

I think I finally understand what it was like for John Lennon writing Imagine, being the only one seeing a better world and wondering why we can't all see our way to get there. Someday, maybe, someday, our hardest-working public servants will get their chance to taste the sweet fruits of their labors in the form of whipped cream pasties.

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* Another thing is that the guys working the "fat trannies" embezzlement case at the local White Castle really know now where they stand in the department hierarchy.

** They can just take out any frustration on their friends and loved ones in the meantime as needed.

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Posted by LiteralDan

Selling out for spam

I recently got a spam e-mail, alone amongst all the offers to "grow [my] membr" and "plezure her all nite" and such, with the straightforward title: "Write me some words".

I'm not sure exactly what they were going for here, since Gmail so helpfully blocked all the content and put a red warning banner on it for me, but I must admit I was momentarily fascinated. How specific are these people getting? Are they really taking the time to hand-pick addresses from across the Web and send things like this to targeted audiences like myself?

Are they picturing some beret-wearing English major dropping his jaw at seeing this title, likely read in his mind with a slight pant and kittenish tone, given the steamy setting, and eagerly clicking to find out more about this easy romantic conquest, the one finally won over by his arguably above-moderate skill at selecting words?

Allow me just a moment to wipe the sweat out from under my beret while I compose a response laced with the appropriate amount of disdain.

You will never catch me, spammers, never! No matter how clever you think you are, or how many times you can fool the first-tier spam filters with your creative spelling.

Come to think of it, I have to wonder how many bitter English majors have been reduced to writing these e-mails, given the sluggish earning power of most of my ilk, and the tricksy/antiquated phrasing I've seen appear in this entertaining little folder.

Should I join the ranks of these turncoats? Do I have a better economic choice? Perhaps I should reply to this polite Nigerian fellow here, to see if he has any suggestions?

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Posted by LiteralDan

Snake heads, heifers, and Carnaval

I thought I'd share just a few recent bits of the evidence I've been gathering that humanity is locked in a permanent mortal struggle with the Terrorists of Nature:

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Heifer Runs for Her Life, and It’s Working So Far

Someone needs to EAT this slaughterhouse-escaping upstart immediately, raw and mooing if necessary, if only to send a message to all the other cows out there that resistance is futile-- they exist only to feed us, and if God didn't want them grown and harvested like so many tomato plants, he wouldn't have made them so Him-damned delicious.

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Snake head in TGIFriday's broccoli

Can't wait for the "I told you so" to come out from George H.W. Bush. He had solid intel back in the '80s that Iranian terrorists were laying the groundwork to begin very slowly violating our broccoli supply with hundreds of snake heads over the course of thousands of years and billions of tons of florets. So this one is logically just the tip of a terrifyingly gross iceberg.

I'll tell you, though, I would probably be able to handle this kind of broccoli violation if only those bastards would be gentlemen enough to use the heads of the rare but delicious Cheddar Cheese Snake.

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Brazilians avoid deadly reptiles in fleeing floods

This is like God's worst, most desperate, Fox-game-show kind of trial. Unbelievably rapid, record-breaking floods rife with man-eating, poisonous, and painfully irritating/horrendously creepy animals?!

Is hosting Carnaval really worth all that?! ...I'm receiving word that yes, yes it is.

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Posted by LiteralDan

A mother-daughter conversation: We're not talking to him anymore

I thought I'd just quickly share today a frighteningly foreshadowing conversation that took place recently between my wife J- and my 2-year-old daughter M-:

M- (having built a few short stacks of Duplos on the table): Look Momma, this is a family!

J- (laying on the usual patronizing Parent voice): Oh, that's a verrry nice family.

M- (like all women*, craving drama): And this one is nasty.

J-: Oh, he shouldn't be nasty, he should be nice.

M- (dismissively): He can't help it, him's just nasty.

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* Disclaimer: When I say "all women", I am of course merely employing a rhetorical flourish, instead of specifically stating the reality, which is that every single woman in the history of time lives and breathes through the creation, enhancement, or management of drama.

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You may also enjoy my previous (5 YO son) D- conversations, (2YO daughter) M- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

Posted by LiteralDan

Service with a smile

While eating dinner the other evening, my wife J- asked me for a napkin. I immediately reached for my own as she began an anecdote, and I quickly flicked it over toward her with two fingers, in my continuing effort to set the best possible example I can for the children.*

The napkin, folded just once in half, sliced up through the air and then zoomed straight down into her mouth like a sniper's bullet shot from an extremely handsome and talented gun.

Because this may already be the most perfect moment that will ever happen in my entire life, I can't help but feel a bit melancholy whenever I laugh hysterically all over again about the look on her face.

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* I have to note here, in a footnote as long as the post itself, that she absolutely hates having things thrown towards her, since she's baselessly paranoid about her supposed inability to catch projectiles of any kind, so I'm not really sure why I chose to throw the napkin in the first place, but I admit I had no idea it had the weight and shape to perform this miracle.

She's actually not half-bad at catching, and not quarter-bad at throwing, though of course she's nowhere near the superhuman level at which I operate.

I think it must be my own freakish reflexes that lead me to constantly initiate spontaneous games of catch on a microsecond's notice. After all this time, J-'s been known to threaten me with severe bodily harm at seeing me do so much as raise my arm up with something in my hand.

Even she had to appreciate the beauty of this one, though. The kids sure did.

Posted by LiteralDan

Daddy's little girl gone wild

I had been trying for a few days to think of a good debut post here at Hot Dads, until the other day when this one fell into my lap while making some toast.

During the half-hour wait for those little coils to brown the bread, my 4-year-old son D- ran into the kitchen carrying a plastic camera he'd found in the toy box I had just been cleaning out.

Given this miraculous piece of technology --a machine that captures images on film, made for only about 50 cents-- his first thought was to ask me to put my scratchin' hand down and pull my shirt up a little farther so he could take a picture of my belly button.

Since there was no film in the camera, I complied.

His second, much more noteworthy, thought was to approach his 2-year-old sister M-, playing on the floor nearby, and say, "Pull up your shirt so I can take a picture of your tummy."

This future demure damsel's immediate response to the intruding photographer was not only to pull up her shirt, but to announce with glee, "I'm gonna take off my shirt!!"

Shudder.

Posted by LiteralDan