The Hellcat is a helpful sort.
Groceries to bring in from the car? She’s a pint-sized pack mule, loading herself down with three bags per arm and a couple gallons of milk. On The Hellcat’s bucket list, carrying in $300 worth of groceries in one trip is somewhere near the top.
If there are shelves to be dusted — not that we believe in that type of thing — The Hellcat’s your huckleberry, a Swiffer-wielding-Tasmanian-devil-like blur of helpfulness in the living room.
And when your eyeglasses need cleaned, she’ll be more than happy to polish them up for you. But don’t ever let her do that. Trust me: just don’t.
So I wasn’t surprised when The Hellcat wandered out at 5:30 this morning ready to help me cook breakfast. Doing so would include three of her favorite things: helping and cooking and being with her dad.
Sweet, right? Well, sort of.
Part of the reason I get up at five is because no one else is up at five, and oftentimes I get up earlier than that. I want quiet time for myself, which is to say that I desire it non-kid.
But The Hellcat had stirred from her den so change of plans. No biggie.
However, The Hellcat also insisted on assisting me with those pancakes. I ever-so-slightly clenched my jaw, smiled through gritted teeth and said sure, knowing full well that I was unleashing a mixer-wielding-Tasmanian-devil-like blur of helpfulness in the kitchen.
The recipe called for two tablespoons of Serenity Prayer. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and mother bleeper that’s an ungodly amount of flour on the floor!”
Make that three tablespoons.
But what really pushed me to the breaking point — aside from the space invasion and mess — was when The Hellcat asked to flip the pancakes.
No. Flippin’. Way.
Why? Because she wouldn’t do it right. She might flip a cake before it was ready — flap it before it was adequately jacked — get sticky batter on the spatula that would then affect subsequent flips and flaps. Or she might fold a cake in half. Or one might end up touching another that had yet to flipped or flapped, wrecking both.
Not acceptable.
And when I say she might do these things, I mean she would absolutely do each and every one of these things. Not on purpose but because she’s nine. Besides, she’d understand that committing these breakfast sins doesn’t matter anyway.
Because guess what? Regardless of their shape, texture or consistency, those pancakes are going to end up in the same place: a digestive system. The kids don’t give a crepe what they look like. They’ll indiscriminately shovel those suckers into their gaping maws regardless.
But I do care about the appearance of those pancakes. I just do.
And there was a time not so long ago that this predawn catastrophe would have proved devastating to the start of my day. The Hellcat emerging early and wrecking my alone time, flour on the floor, pancakes flipped flippantly.
There was a time not so long ago that I would have started to perseverate on those goddamn pancakes, and the lunches that still needed to be packed, and the kids that still needed to be woken up and told a hundred times (non-hyperbolic) to get dressed and to brush their teeth and to grab their backpacks. And I would have started to resent the fact that we ever had kids in the first place.
And then I’d have started to look around and notice all of the things that needed to be done in our house. I’d look right past the picture hanging on the fridge that Tax Credit #4 colored for me and instead think how that fridge needed cleaned out and serviced, top to bottom. Christ, when was the last time that was done? Never. So I’d add it to the list in my head — “#1384: clean the effin’ fridge” — and then I’d yell at the kids for yelling at one another and rush them out the front door and slam it and fume up the stairs and look at the kitchen which was even more of a sty than it was before because of the pancake debacle.
Seriously, so much flour.
And then I’d grab my wallet, fume down the stairs, re-slam that front door, jump in my vehicle and head to town, and while I was driving I’d start thinking about all there was that needed to be done — a thousand different tasks in a thousand facets of life —and I’d be so overwhelmed that I’d decide I wasn’t doing any of them, not today. And then I’d start thinking about other people — people I don’t really even know — and how much better they are than me, how they’re more successful, how they have more money, how they’re better looking, better at this, better at that. And I’d wonder, “What did I ever do to deserve this?”
And before I knew it, I’d be pulled up to the drive-thru window of that liquor store on the south end of town that opens at 8:00 AM — not the drive-thru window of that liquor store on the north end of town that I went to yesterday morning because screw that clerk if thinks he’s going to judge me — telling myself what I loser I am.
And as I pulled away and cracked open the first cold one of the day, I’d think, “What the hell? This day’s shot anyway. I’ll try again tomorrow,” knowing full well that the following morning at 8:00 AM I’d be pulled up to the drive-thru window of that liquor store on the north end of town.
This is what insanity looks, sounds and feels like. The fact that I tried to rationalize that type of behavior for years, throwing away days one after another like so many empty beer cans, makes me sick. But if I dwell on that person and those decisions, I’m wasting this day, too.
And I’m done wasting days.
So this morning, I told Hellcat to go ahead and flip the pancakes, even though it took everything in my power to not tell her that she was doing it wrong. And lunches were packed and the other kids were woken up and told a hundred times to get dressed and brush their teeth and grab their backpacks and a bowl of pancakes. And I walked the kids out to the car and gave each of them a hug and told them I loved them. Then I gave KAW an awkwardly long kiss which made the kids squeal and cover their eyes.
And then I walked up the stairs and looked at the kitchen which was even more of a sty than it was before because of that whole pancake debacle, and I grabbed my wallet and I headed out the door and I jumped in my vehicle.
And I drove past that liquor store on the south end of town.
And then I walked into an anonymous 12-step meeting where the topic of the day was the danger of perfectionism.
Flippin’ perfect.
I love my mom dearly. She is truly the most kind, caring, compassionate soul one could ever be lucky enough to cross paths with. 
We are strongly considering “gray” for our new home. This word resides between a pair of apostrophes because, like Bigfoot, wrinkle-free shirts and my hairline, “gray” does not exist in the natural world.
LOVES to do is take our stuff — any stuff. He takes our slippers, stuffed animals, and shoes. This furry beast likes to goof around, too. He jumps on our trampoline, he chases us, and tackles us A LOT. Our dog also loves to sleep, like ANYWHERE! On the couch, on our parents bed, and my bed are all places he sleeps, and there’s more. I can’t imagine life without Scouty!
For those of you who don’t know, I’m currently working on a screenplay titled Well. It’s a coming-of-age story about a 12-year-old boy in early 1980’s Wyoming. This story has been in my head for years and I’m excited to finally be putting it to paper.
Dr. Tunstall explained the behaviors observed in subjects suggestive of mental imbalance.
See, our youngest turned eight a couple of days ago, and in Western culture, this age marks the time in an individual’s life when he takes on the responsibility of fishing things out of his own sinuses. It’s a rite of (nasal) passage.
It happened one morning in the fall. My dad had walked down to the pasture pond to check on the dam. That damn dam. It was his nemesis. Like Ralphie’s old man and the furnace, my old man and that dam had waged some epic battles over the years. There was this tenuous yin-and-yang where the pond would hold water for a time, then spring a leak which my dad would fix… temporarily. Their feud became almost comical to the rest of the family.
My mom heard him call. What she found downstairs was a muddy, wet, battered man who had drug himself out of the bottom of the creek with one arm and somehow made it to the house. “You need to take me to the hospital,” he said.
He took his last breath at 5:25 in the predawn hours.
Some Species Eat Their Young 