Why We Suck_ A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid - Denis Leary [20]
Twelve minutes later you stand there with sweat pouring down your brow and your face contorted into a bleak mask of Halloween terror-lips pursed, teeth grinding-and you finally break down and go to give them a nice hard whack on the ass and guess what-you miss because the human amoeba has somehow swaggled its ass out of your aiming area.
That's when you snap. You start chasing them as they slither and slather down the hallway-aiming and whacking and missing by so much your arm almost flies out of its socket.
And if you find yourself lucky enough to make some good, solid, sudden hand on ass contact-guess what again?
It works.
It sends a blood-rushing, breath-stopping shock right from their ass up into their elbows and out of their wickedly wide-open eyes. First there is a moment of absolute silence and then-of course-they start to cry. That's the key moment-when they squinch their eyes tightly shut and begin to howl you gotta grab 'em before they begin the amoeba dance again. Grab 'em and whack 'em a second time and carry them off to bed. This, of course, is all based on the fact that the tantrum has occurred in the private inner sanctum of your own home.
Because if it happens in public? All bets are off. You get a kid who wants to pull The Jellyfish Move in a store or in a restaurant or God forbid out on the sidewalk and pushes you to the point where you have to whack him or her on the rear end? Get ready for almost every passerby to call you out as a bad parent or to shun you like you bear a scarlet letter on your chest or to beckon a nearby officer of the law and claim themselves a witness to child abuse. And once a kid realizes you can't get away with hitting him or her in public? Those tantrums will happen over and over until the toy or piece of candy or place they wanna go is handed over in a split second. They will cry and kick and jellyfish their way to every little thing they want.
And you deign to tell me they are angels.
You dare to call them cute.
Hugs not drugs?
Bullshit. I say drugs. Drugs with a capital D and plenty of them. Drugs in all kinds of colors and flavors. Foolproof kid-type drugs that look and taste like candy and ice cream so they greedily suck them down like the one-way elves they are and end up getting knocked on their self-centered pink-cheeked hair-free little asses.
They wanna use the dreaded Jellyfish Move and become immobile unassailable amoebas? Good. Let's ply them with sweet-tasting sugar-coated chemicals that will make them pure putty in our nonsilly gi-normous parent hands.
We owe it to ourselves and all the innocent, childless people on planes, trains and other forms of public transportation.
CHAPTER 3 - Please Drug Your Children
I know I know-you find it distasteful and dangerous and just plain wrong. Give drugs to my kids? you say, What kind of a mother/father do you think I am? But what you are really worried about is this: how can I do it and know for a fact that my kids won't slip into a coma and somehow send me to prison for life when all I really wanted was some peace and quiet.
Hey-calm down. It's fine. Better than that-it's legal. Besides-it's not like you're asking them to teethe on a lead paint-covered choo choo train outsourced by Toys R Us from the bowels of China. These are good, solid, FDA-approved American drugs. The very same ones you take yourself in big tired parent-type doses.
Slip the little brat a simple shot-NyQuil actually comes with an actual plastic shot glass-of a basically harmless and not to mention very patriotic over-the-counter medicine that will not only taste good but within fifteen minutes have him or her sound asleep and dreaming about sugar plums. Or video games. Or high school shooting sprees-whatever the hell it is that children dream about these days. Meanwhile, you and your better half can tear each other's clothes off and have