Here’s a great thing, and I am not sure if that’s an ironic statement or not yet. When I was younger I used to like to have sex, at like 11 p.m. If you asked me to fill out a form, I would have said something stupid like “Anytime is good for sex, bra” but the truth is I was a night owl. Maybe more like a night vole, because I have crap night vision. Awake, enjoying myself, but will probably get eaten by a hawk or lawnmower.
Nowadays sex is like “When am I conscious, this old person that I have morphed into? Business hours are between 5 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. (No orders may be placed after 9:15.) Ok so 7:15? Child is doing the dishes? Sounds good.” Yes, I made my Feral Dwarf do the Easter dishes. She does not get to be Strudel for this post because that is a term of endearment. She was cross about this injustice. Dishwasher loading. A crime against her people (short lazy ones). She does not do the big heavy ones or the super greasy ones. Just load the dishwasher and wipe the counter and EARN YOUR KEEP ALREADY, A LITTLE AT LEAST.
There is dish bitterness. There is no lock on my door. (That changes this week.) Feral Dwarf BARGED into my bedroom last night because she found the answer “Planning a muffin party” unsatisfactory with regards to her demands about WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE. Door opened, bang, a la Swazye kicking the door down Roadhouse-style.
“Oh…what? WHAT?” she said and then retreated back to the kitchen again. I heard maniacal laughter echoing down the halls.
“Poor thing, she has finally snapped, blinded by taint,” I said to her father. “I better go check on her.”
I threw my robe on and walked into the kitchen, where Feral Dwarf was still laughing her moronic little head off.
“Are you ok,” I said, attempting to be concerned and parental. “Do you understand why it’s not nice to barge in on people.” I cannot produce a rising inflection when I am in serious parenting mode.
“Was that…THE DIRTY DRAGON DANCE?” she asked me. Ever since Buffy had sex with Spike and broke the house it has been henceforth been known as the DDD, as in, “What is Buffy DOING with Spike??” “HA HA HA THAT’S HILARIOUS,” she continued. “THAT IS THE MOST HILARIOUS THING. I AM SO TELLING FRANNY.” Wow, was this conversation getting away from me.
Also, she said this last bit in tattle voice. Tattling on me that I was having sex, me, the person who had sex to make her. I think the cat’s out of the bag on that one.
“Okay, Franny knows, because it is a normal thing that adults do,” I said. Then I said something stupid, because everything you can possibly say as a parent at this point is going to be A. stupid and B. indelibly written on your child’s memory. Good luck with this one, I mean it. “You should be glad that we like each other. Really.”
Peals of laughter! Never has there been a jollier dwarf in all of North Seattle!
She should be glad we like each other, too. Shit is hard, man. And almost didn’t work out at all. A summary of my early 30s: I got an IUD in and literally wanted to die and it almost ruined everything that is good in my life. YMMV.
Later FD’s dad reminded me that I got the IUD in because he was afraid then to get a vasectomy! Afraid! I sincerely enjoy when I am reminded of something to be mad about. WHY? I am not actually going to be mad about it, but for like ten seconds I can shake my fist and go “YOOOOOOO GUY.” It’s good for you.
I tried a different tack, which really, I should have just changed my name and moved to Fife at this point.
“Do you…know…how you got here?”
She stopped for a minute, thought.
“Well, not really, no. Sort of? Wait, LIKE THAT? HA HA HA! So that is what all the noise is about in there,” she said. “I am so telling Franny* about all of this.”
Franny came home and it was pretty much forgotten then, but I am sure they’re going to gossip about it on the way to school. I took my customary Sunday night shower, which is so relaxing and kind of puts a period on the weekend and gets off whatever I have done to myself that day (yesterday was FINALLY finish painting the hall!). Franny was clingy as usual and wanted to come in, so I told her she could and she hung out and talked about her weekend while I conditioned my hairs.
“Sooo your sister was kind of…a thing happened tonight,” I said.
“Oh?”
“Yes, your sister walked in on me and P. tonight while we were doing an adult thing that adults do together.”
“You mean the dirty dragon dance?” Franny asked. “Ha ha, oh, Mom. That sucks.”
Sigh. “Yes, that. I just wanted to give you a heads up, because she is freaking out with the hilarity of it all, and will want to talk to you about it. So let me know if there’s anything you want to discuss with me later or if you have questions about anything relating to sex IN GENERAL, okay?”
YOU KNOW I am not a prude. I agree with Dan Savage when he said that kids don’t want to hear about your sex life. Or anyone’s really. Until they are ready for it, and then it should be their friends’ lives, not mine. They are busy being kids. I am okay with them seeing network television type sex scenes and them being very knowledgeable about the biological particulars of sex and knowing it’s a thing that adults do. None of this is secret. But I will tell you I have a line, and that line is a smoking crater in my brain that happened when my mom told me a story about her experience with monster black cock. I would tell you the story, but see: smoking crater.
ANYWAY, my child walked in on me having sex and thought it was the most hilarious thing ever. Later she apologized for being a barger. Therapy savings: questionable.
*Franny, just then, as it turns out, was on her way home from her dad’s, so we all got to have bananas foster together and watch Easter Angel. Her dad does this funny thing where he texts me around two or so on Sunday to come get her from some arbitrary fair place he has decided on that week. I ignore the text and then he has Franny call me and make a sad voice, because ‘don’t I want to rescue my widdle precious miserable baby?’ Well, of course I do, but she will be okay one more night and I will see her Monday, after he drops her off at school, which is how it’s supposed to go according to the parenting plan. Then he gets SeaFed up (GET IT.) and brings her home around or after suppertime. They went out to Chinese food for Easter. Franny: “It was terrible, I told them they should just bring me home so I could have PROPER Easter dinner because I knew yours would actually TASTE GOOD.” She is really just Not Nice over there which makes me cringe because I am trying to get her to experience an opposite outcome of my life (N.B. blog title). But I get it.