Genital Mixup

Hank and I had a genital mixup. At least according to his mom and my dad. Somehow Hank got my penis and I got his yoni. Hank's mom was certain she was having a girl after she had her oldest son two years prior. But alas, if Hank were royalty he'd be the spare and not the heir.

When I'm feeling particularly masochistic or depressive I replay in my mind the time my mom told me my dad threw one of his hissy fits, like he does when he doesn't get his way, when he found out I wasn't a boy. He went to the corner of the hospital room, covered his face, and cried. Needless to say, it's extremely difficult to pick out an appropriate greeting card for Dad on his birthday or Father's Day. When I work at a greeting card company I will start a line of greeting cards for absentee parents. I'd want to call the line "Bad Dads" but that would leave out "Miserable Moms". I guess there could be separate categories like there are in the birthday section. But what about transgender bad parents? I might be over thinking this one.

Here's an example. On the front of the card it would say, "Happy Father's Day, Dad! Then you'd open it and one of those jokester boxing gloves springs out and punches him right in the face. And it reads, "Thanks for getting drunk and fucking Mom one night. I really appreciate your giving me the opportunity to be born even though when I was in seventh grade and asked you and Mom if you wanted to come to my new school's open house to meet my teachers you yelled, 'Goddamnit, I'm too old for this bullshit' as you turned up the volume on the TV."

I might have to get Hazel's assistance with the brevity. The bad thing is Hazel's the only one of us who doesn't think our dads are assholes. It's that Jesus spirit she has inside her. She feels sorry for them because they're missing out on our lives. Marty has that Jesus spirit inside her too, plus she probably got along with Calvin the best of all of us kids, including me his biological kid. But she stayed out of the house. I think she signed up for every activity a student could sign up for. And although her biological dad and she have communicated a few times over the years, she's pretty indifferent toward him now, after years of feeling only disappointment in him.

And our brothers. Walt and Murray wrote the anthem for children of divorce called "The Stepfather Song" of which my favorite lines are:

"Well he could have an embolism, maybe a stroke
Could be a chicken bone gets caught in his throat
He could get hit by lightening or maybe a train
Blow out his aorta or a comparable vein."

That there is masterful storytelling.

And here I sit bitching and moaning about our dads to anyone with an Internet connection.

So you know what? Here's one good thing about our dads. They were so bad, they made us find solace in our creative minds. Now there. That sounds like a greeting card message.