I Hate my kids...Izzy Goes for the Record...

I had a bottle of honey, the kind that looks like a bear. Isobel had asked about it so when it was empty, I cleaned it out and gave offered it to her.

Isobel: "Gee thanks, just what I always wanted."
Daddy: "You asked about it a while ago, you asked if you could have it when it was empty."
Isobel: "Oh, OK. Thank-you."
Daddy: "You're welcome."
Isobel: "Wait Daddy, what the hell would I do with this?"
Daddy: I don't know, make a bong out of it." (damn)
Isobel :"What? Make what?
Daddy: "Nothing, never mind. Give it to me if you don't want it and I'll throw it away."
Isobel: "What's a bong, Daddy?"
Daddy: Something that people use sometimes when they...ask your uncle Doug the next time you see him."
Isobel: "Wait, I know.(picking up Bear and slamming it on table) BONG...BONG...BONG...yeah, not fun. Throw it away."

I hate my kids...Let me say that again, I hate my kids...before this is over, you will likely hate your kids. Maybe even mine...
I didn't have much of a plan when I was younger. No clear direction or vision of what I would do with my life. I wandered through a series of pointless, meaningless jobs until I got a job in a meat plant. Then I really gave up. But as if by some miracle, I discovered I had a knack for music. I could play a little and fake what I couldn't figure out. I had discovered what I was supposed to do. I was a musician and I was to bring pleasure and joy to the masses with my instrument...I hate my kids.
I joined a band and I got better. So much better that I got asked to join a real band. A band from The States. A band that toured the world (literally) and had a recording contract and everything. I didn't just jump, I leaped at the chance...I hate my kids.
And it was everything you have heard it is. it is sex and drugs and booze and all night parties that never end and the band is always at the centre of the whirlwind. Always. And that little thing that gnaws away at you, that you can't quite put a finger on, gets drowned out by the din of raucous parties and deafening sound checks...I hate my kids.
And then you start to generate a little buzz in the music world. And more and more people come to see you and people start buying you drinks because they want to get close to you and booze is the great equalizer. And the women get more interested in you and more people start to hang around you because the women are more interested in you and soon people want to work for you just to be part of this non-stop all night party that is you...I hate my kids.
And then the music business people start to crawl out of the wood work because they can smell money to be made. And they want you to sign with them so they will do anything to win you over. If you want to see someone drink battery acid and try to fart lightning, they'll find someone to do it. Just to make you happy...I hate my kids.
Then you might find yourself with someone, someone who you couldn't live without and then realize you have been gone four six months and you don't care whether you spend time with them or not. What's one more relationship shot to hell when there's another one just around the corner?...I hate my kids.
Then maybe the gnawing thing gets so loud that you can't ignore it anymore. No matter what you do, all the booze and drugs and sex and lightning shitting circus midgets,(makes you think about what we did on the road, right?) will not make it go away. And you realize that the thing you can't quite put your finger on, the thing that is gnawing away at you is you. You, sitting alone in a hotel room in Lawrence Kansas on a Wednesday night. Wondering what the hell is going wrong and why can't it be right for just a little while?...I hate my kids.
What is all then point of this, Sid?
I reconnected with an old friend over the weekend and when she asked me what I had been up to for the last twenty years, I actually had to think about it. Not because of old age and memory loss (not entirely anyway) but because I actually struggled to think of memories that didn't involve the kids. I actually said that I couldn't picture my life without the children...and I can't. I don't mean it in a warm squishy way, I mean it that I struggled to come up with something that didn't involve them. They're like a virus that has infected my brain.
I actually came home after the encounter with my friend and thought of my past, my rockstar life and what it meant. I was happy...wasn't I? I was fulfilled...had purpose. I look back on it now without a shred of regret but was I happy, really happy or fulfilled? Did I honestly have a purpose? No.
I was more than content not to breed. Not to be a parent but then it happened and after my head stopped spinning and the nausea died away, I figured I could do it and so here we are. Do I have regrets? Sure, who doesn't? By a show of hands, how many parents out there( Real parents, mind. Not dead beat dads or crack head baby Mommas or other people who generally don't give a flying shit what happens to their offspring) regret having children and have even thought 'life would have been so much better easier/more fun/less hassle if you had never been born?...Not one of you.
I was thrust into parenthood in fairly short order, as most of us are and shortly after I received a gift that I didn't expect and thought a already had...both kids gave it to me and it's the one thing everybody wants...a sense of purpose. I was never a musician or an entertainer...not really. Through all of that, all the roles I fought so hard to hide behind, I was what I am...I'm a Dad...I hate my kids

Mrs. Narrator and I have been on an exercise bent lately. Dumbbells and exercise programs are strewn about the house and a few things that were left to gather dust and cobwebs, have been brought up out of the isolation of the basement. Including the exercise ball. Isobel is delighted. From the time she was very young, she has been fascinated with the giant blue rubber ball. Finally she is big enough to do something with it...like bounce it...endlessly...anywhere in the house.
It is a test of one's patience not to reach out and throttle her when she bounces the ball...I remember a similar ball of my own. It was one of the giant purple numbers with the handle on the top of it. You would sit on it and bounce to your heart's content. And it drove my mother mad. I thought she might beat me to death with it.
"If you don't give that thing a rest, I'll beat you to death with it." she would say. You can see why I was worried.
I was upstairs practicing the other night when Izzy came upstairs. For those of you that don't know, something intrinsic to success as a musician ( particularly bagpipes) is practicing with a metronome. It is impossible to practice to the beat of a metronome when a giant blue exercise ball is bouncing at a completely different beat.
(Bounce...bounce...bounce..) "Izzy, you gotta stop. I'm trying to practice."
(Bounce...bounce...bounce...) "OK Daddy, sorry."
(Bounce...bounce...bounce...) "Izzy, you're not stopping."
(Bounce...bounce...bounce...) "Yes I am."
(Bounce...bounce...bounce...) "Izzy, you're still doing it. Stop!"
(Bounce...bounce...bounce...) "But Daddy, more bounces and I get the record."
(Bounce...bounce...bounce...) "What record?"
(Bounce...bounce...) "Damn it...Never mind now."
She threw the ball and walked away dejected. But at the beginning of writing this week, I heard her bouncing the ball again and throwing it off the bedroom door. Somebody call Guinness or the nut house. Either way somebody is going places...