May 2008

So my 7-year-old son came home the other day and said: “Papa, do you have a five-pack?”
“You mean a six-pack?” I asked.
“That’s it.”
“You mean like … a six-pack stomach?”
“Yeah.”
God knows what possessed me, but in the next moment, I was lifting my shirt (taking care, of course, to suck in my gut). Seth studied it a good long while and then said:
“Ehh.”
And as he said it, he made that little wiggling motion with the hand. I didn’t even know he knew this gesture, but I sure as hell know this. As a physical specimen, I am seriously lacking. In the last few days alone, my son has told me:
1) My teeth are too yellow.
2) My face is too wrinkled.
3) My stomach (in addition to being a two-and-a-half-pack) is too hairy.
If I were dating him, I think I would have broken it off by now. Instead, I’m starting to consider plastic surgery.
And the good news is this. If I ever do go under the knife for purely esthetic reasons, someone stands ready to explain the situation to my kids. According to a Washington Post article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/18/AR2008041802861.html), a South Florida plastic surgeon has put out a children’s book called “My Beautiful Mommy,” which explains why “Mommy,” in the interests of lookin’ good, goes away with one nose and comes back with another.
But why stop there? How about “Mommy’s Face Doesn’t Move”? “My Daddy Can’t Frown”? “If Mommy Gets One More Lift, She’ll Have Daddy’s Beard”? “Papa Used to Have a Gut, and Now He’s Strangely Ripped (But Only for the Next Year or So).”
Bring it on. I’ll be ready with a whole line of counter-propaganda. “Mommy Is Plump Because of You.” “Daddy Drinks Because of You.” And (this is the book I’ll write myself): “In Thirty Years, Your Teeth Will Be Yellow, Too. Repeat After Me. Ha. Ha. Ha.”