Lepers by the lake

“What?” my wife Kara asked, turning off the blow dryer.  She could tell something was wrong because the blow dryer normally doubles as a husband repeller, if only because when she’s using it, somebody needs to be downstairs, making sure that our sons are not creating crayon murals or experimenting with the aerodynamics of our cutlery.    

“One of us is not going to work today,” I replied, holding a thermometer in the air and pointing at our son Zack.

“Oh, no,” she said.

This routine has become sadly familiar to us.  Every day after daycare, our kids bring home wonderful art projects, often accompanied by a wide variety of colorful diseases, featuring pink eyes, red throats and green faces.

This year has been worse than most.  Remember at the end of War of the Worlds, when the aliens keeled over due to their lack of immunity to Earth’s diseases? 

“Go get ‘em, microbes!” I said at the time, before realizing that someday, we would be the aliens.

Also, my apologies for not putting a spoiler alert on the ending there, but the book is over a hundred years old (according to Wikipedia, which also notes that the original story was written by King Tut), and the movie has Tom Cruise in it, which means that you either saw it back when he was still cool, or you’re never going to see it anyway. 

So Kara and I began one of our regular horse-trading sessions, when we compare our schedules to see who can go to work, who stays home, and how often we’ll need to commute to switch places.  We ask important questions during these sessions, like, “You have a meeting?  Is it with your boss?  Are you leading it?  Is anybody bringing donuts?” and we sort it out from there, hoping that we don’t hit any serious conflicts.  Sometimes, when both parents work, it doesn’t really work. 

Complicating matters, Zack’s fever occurred on the Monday before our vacation to Rangeley, Maine.  We were to leave in six days. 

“It’s probably Coxsackievirus.  He’s going to be miserable this week.  And you’re going to be miserable, too,” the doctor said, smiling broadly as if he couldn’t hear the words coming out of his mouth.  

That evening, Zack briefly spiked a fever of a 104.5, putting us minutes from a trip to the ER.  Sibling rivalry being what it is, Zack’s big brother Evan hit 104.6 two days later.  Then Kara hit a paltry 100.  I also barely cracked triple digits, a shameful performance.

On Saturday, when we were supposed to leave, the kids bounced downstairs.

“Can we go today?  Pleeeease?” Evan said, bright-eyed, feverless.  Both kids were the picture of health.  Kara and I were feeling fine, too.

“Why not?” we said, taking a few hours to stuff the entire contents of our house into the car.
Somewhere around Vermont, I noticed the blisters on my hand, a symptom of Coxsackievirus that the kids had thankfully avoided.   

“Dude, these weren’t there this morning,” I said, looking at my hand as if it had been bitten by a zombie.

“Oh, man, I’ve got one on my ankle.  I thought it was a bug bite,” Kara replied. 

We’d gone from War of the Worlds to Walking Dead.  Too late to turn back, we continued toward the lake, where we‘d see lots of beloved family members who would be getting air-fives from us.

The waves gently lap against the shore and the loons call to each other across the lake as I type this, as quickly as possible, before my fingers fall off.       

But really, Maine is as good a place to convalesce as any.  Hopefully, it’s okay that we spraypainted a skull and crossbones on our cabin.

You can give Mike Todd a wide berth at mikectodd@gmail.com.

A ride of passage

“Want to go on a boat ride, buddy?” I asked my two-year-old son Zack, not being entirely forthright about the nature of our upcoming nautical adventure.

“No,” he replied. 

You know how kids will just say whatever they think their parents want to hear?  Me neither.

“But don’t those little boats look like fun?  We can all fit in one,” I said.  By that point, we were nearing the front of the sweaty, snaking line, so I had to close the sale fast.  I pictured my dad trying to stuff our old family cat into the crate before a trip to vet, then pictured myself trying to cram our youngest child into the log flume boat at Hersheypark as he yowled, scratched and fought his way back out. 

“Brother?” he asked.  He idolizes his older brother, but can’t pronounce the “v” in Evan yet, so the word “brother” is the first thing he says in the morning, the last thing he says at night and the loudest thing he screams when expressing mutual interest in whatever Evan happens to be playing with. 

“Yes, your brother is going, too,” I said.

Zack nodded, sale closed.  If his brother would ride a boat over a fifty-foot cliff, then Zack would, too.  It would have been a very brave decision, if either of them had had any idea that that’s what we were doing.

Evan actually understood, on an intellectual level, that he was going to ride a boat over a waterfall, but he couldn’t really know what that meant without experiencing it.  To that point, the wildest ride he’d ever taken had been the time I didn’t notice the speed bump in the Babies R’ Us parking lot.   

Zack had no idea, though.  Bringing an unsuspecting two-year-old on a scary amusement park ride might sound like poor parenting, but my wife Kara and I had done our research the previous evening.  Hersheypark gives you a free three-hour pass for the evening before the date on your admission tickets, which more than makes up for the fact that Hersheypark should definitely be two words. 

So we ditched the kids with their grandparents and visited the park by ourselves, free for the first time in over five years to hop in line for rides that didn’t have cars shaped like ladybugs. 

“We can finally ride roller coasters again!” Kara said.  When we got there, none of the rides had lines longer than ten minutes.  We were soon to learn that roller coaster lines have obscene wait times to protect you from yourself.  The human brain needs an hour-long cool-off period before it can happily handle sloshing against your cranium again.   

“No more roller coasters,” we agreed after an hour, woozily.

That’s when we investigated the log flume as a potential family ride for the following day.   

“No way, that would terrify the kids,” we agreed, laughing as the boat skimmed to a splashy stop. 

Then, in front of us, a family disembarked from a boat holding a smiling baby who looked newer than the latest iPhone model.

“Do little kids usually come out of the boat screaming?” I asked the teenaged attendant.

“Nah, they love it!” he said.

About fifteen hours later, our family’s boat bounced its way toward the big drop, both according to and against our better judgment.

“Are you holding Zack?” Kara asked.

“Yes, of course!  Over my head, so he can get a better view,” I replied.

“Not fuuuun-nnnnyyy!” she said, wrapping her arms around Evan as the boat plunged down the hill. 

Afterward, the kids were quiet. 

“Did you have fun?” I asked Evan as we walked across the big rotating floor.    

“Yes.  Can we not do that again?” he replied. 

Zack agreed.  That was fun, let’s never do it again.

Next time, it might be tougher to stuff the cats into the crate.

You can go over the edge with Mike Todd at mikectodd@gmail.com.

S’more pain, no gain

Until the moment when our five-year-old son Evan wailed that he’d accidentally killed our dog, the camping expedition had been a great success.

Our original intention had been to go camping at a public campground about twenty minutes from our house, because our lives were not difficult enough already.  Our youngest son, Zack, finally started sleeping through the night shortly after his second birthday a couple of months ago, so we were on the lookout for some fresh new hardship to endure. 

“Let’s take the kids camping!” my wife Kara said, excited about the prospect of giving our children
the classic Norman Rockwell experience of tormenting their parents in the woods.

“That’s a great idea.  Let’s go this weekend!” I replied, ignoring everything I’d ever learned about life and parenthood.

So we made grand plans.  I pulled the big tent out of the closet under the stairs.  We gathered the sleeping bags and portable crib.  We picked up marshmallows, chocolate bars and graham crackers.  Then we started thinking about what we were doing.

“You know, if this goes south, we’re in for a long night,” I said.

“I just checked.  The campground has a two-night minimum.  This is starting to sound like a commitment,” Kara said.

We’d already sold the kids on the idea, though, so we couldn’t retreat without taking casualties.

“You know what’d be even better than going to a campground?  Setting the tent up in the backyard, like we’re having a big slumber party!” I said.  Parenting involves a certain amount of salesmanship.

“Will there still be marshmallows?” Evan asked, and I realized that “quality family time” and “communing with nature” were a little further down his priority list, below each of the ingredients for s’mores.

So we pitched the tent, bought a fire pit and had a campfire in our backyard, living just like frontiersmen, with most conveniences more than ten feet away.  Like a modern-day Daniel Boone, my Wi-Fi signal was perceptibly weaker that far from the router.

While Evan fixated on cooking marshmallows, Zack wandered around the fire pit, trying to figure out how he could most efficiently cook Zack roast, barbecued Zack or Zack flambé.       

“Look, buddy, your very own little camp chair!” Kara said, directing Zack to sit down.

He did sit down, and as Kara helped Evan brown his marshmallow to perfection, it was a wonderful family moment. 

Then, as Evan assembled his very first campfire s’more, Zack dumped over sideways in his chair, shrieking.  In the excitement, our dog Memphis sensed a window of opportunity, quietly tugging the s’more out of Evan’s hand and wandering off.   

“My s’more!” Evan wailed as we righted Zack’s chair.

Zack, now upright, wailed in unison with Evan.  Kara and I looked at each other, relieved that we’d kept this show off the road. 

“Dogs can’t eat chocolate!  It’s poison!  It’s going to kill her!” Evan wailed.  We were touched that he felt any sympathy for the thief who’d just eaten his entire reason for camping. 

“Well, that’s called karma,” I replied.  The dog, for her part, did not pretend to be nearly repentant enough.     

“Babe, not helpful,” Kara said, assuring Evan that Memphis would be fine as she loaded his stick with another marshmallow. 

Shortly thereafter, we noticed that we were offering up our sons as sacrifices to the mosquitoes.

“Are we really going to sleep outside tonight?  We can’t go to bed yet, and the bugs are out in full force,” Kara said, smacking her arm.   

“The kids could always play in the tent tomorrow.  That’d be fun,” I replied.

In the end, the boys deemed our camping expedition to be a great success.  Maybe next time, we’ll actually sleep outside.   

You can skewer Mike Todd at mikectodd@gmail.com.

The great indoors

Note: This week, I celebrated my independence from creating original content.  This column is from 2011, way back when Nintendo was still a thing.  Back with new stuff next week!

“Use the Razor Wind, not the Zen Headbutt!” my little cousin John yelled, looking over the shoulder of our cousin Ryan.

Ryan held a Nintendo DS in his hands, a device that has a similar effect on my little cousins that the One Ring had on Gollum.

“My turn! It’s my turn now!” one of my cousins will yell.

“My precioussssss,” the other will hiss, diving into a nearby pond.

No, they actually behaved quite well as they coached each other through various battles with their Pokemon characters. For those who aren’t familiar, a Pokemon is apparently a small Japanese creature with the power to trap children indoors on perfectly beautiful days.

“Anyone want to throw sticks into the pond with me? Memphis is itching to play fetch,” I said last weekend, during the small family reunion that my parents were hosting at their house.

A couple of heads turned my way as the kids decided who would be their spokesperson. Finally, an indeterminate voice from the other side of the couch said, “We’re good.”

At that moment, I had a flashback to me sitting on that very same couch twenty years ago, back when it had upholstery the color of Snuffaluffagus.

“Michael, you’ve been playing Nintendo all day. Go outside,” Mom said as the birds chirped in the afternoon sunlight.

“I’m almost done this level,” I’d reply, guiding my superspy down elevator after elevator. I’d continue being almost done that level until dusk, when the comedies came on, keeping me entertained while, just outside, the lightning bugs probably danced and twinkled against the night sky.

There I stood, twenty years later, the roles reversed. You know you’ve gotten old when you have the urge to tell someone younger than you to go outside for no reason.

“Hey, kid, go outside,” you say, not exactly sure what you expect to happen on the off chance that the kid complies.

The idea seems to be that kids are guaranteed to have magical experiences just because they’re on the other side of the sliding glass door, but they’ll probably just end up back on the couch in a few hours with sunburn and Lyme disease.

To their credit, my cousins actually did fend off the lure of the Pokemon for a much bigger chunk of the weekend than I would have done at their age, and the dog spent each evening slumped on the floor, recovering from a full day of fetching sticks. With five kids standing on the shore winging sticks over her head, Memphis was like Lucy trying to keep up with the chocolates on the conveyor belt. As the unfetched sticks piled up in the water, the kids came very close to building their own beaver dam out there.

While I felt like one of the kids standing at the edge of the pond, cheering on the dog while holding my son Evan in my arms, I found myself proving even more that I’d become an old person.
As a rain of sticks splashed down in the distance, I looked down at Evan and noticed a fleck of dried yogurt on his cheek. I held Evan tight, licked my thumb and started squeegeeing his face. Evan squirmed, determined not to lose the yogurt he’d rightfully accessorized, but I persisted, working my thumb up-and-down like I was challenging him to a thumb wrestling match.

The point I’m trying to make here is that old people love licking their fingers and scraping things off of kids’ faces. We don’t really know why we do it, but it passes the time if we can’t find any kids to force outside. Until we learn how to land a Comet Punch in Pokemon, it’ll have to do.

You can dodge Mike Todd’s Zen Headbutt at mikectodd@gmail.com.