A Moment With My Daughter

On a cold morning this past December, I walked in on my 21-month old daughter sitting on the floor of her nursery reading a book. I sat down in front of her and the following exchange took place (names have been changed to protect the innocent):

Daughter: *eyes on her book* PUP-py
Me: *looking at a book that has no puppies in it* Puppy?
Daughter: Puppy WA-wa.
Me: *eyebrows furrowed*
Daughter: *looking up at me now, more insistently* PUP-PY WA-WA!
Me: Um...
Daughter: *frowning at me*
Me: *uncertainly* Uh...Yes, puppy wa-wa...
Daughter: *still frowning*
Me: Do you want some wa-wa?
Daughter: Hi Duckie. *still frowning, then looking back at her book*
Me: *gets slowly up and backs out of the room*

I walked down the hallway to my bedroom and sat at my desk to contemplate the meaning behind this exchange. What do I know, at this moment? There is a puppy, somewhere, in need of water. In the book? In real life? Is my daughter the metaphorical “puppy” in this case? Is she thirsty? My responses to her were met with definite distaste. Am I the “puppy”? Is “wa-wa” a symbol of the thirst for knowledge? She acknowledged my presence with ‘Hi Duckie’. Is there a duck that somehow ties into this?

While I agonized over this exchange, my daughter walked down the same hallway to my room and gave me a stuffed duck, saying “Baby Duck” and then slowly walked back down the hallway to her nursery. Why a duck? Why now? Does it have something to do with the true meaning of Christmas? She is smarter than me, I know this. Was baby Jesus gifted a baby duck in his manger so long ago? Does the receipt of this duck now mean I am Jesus?!? Does my daughter represent one of the three wise men?!?!? Do Baby Ducks have any sort of symbolism in reference to the apocalypse? By accepting this “Baby Duck”, as she called it, do I acknowledge the mortality of the planet? Are we all Baby Ducks? How do the puppy and the wa-wa tie in to all of this?!?!

I crept back down the hallway and peeked into my daughter’s room. She was lying on the floor looking up at the ceiling singing what sounded like the ABC song. “A...F...HJ...MP...QR...V...WXYZ.” I hurriedly wrote down what she sang and ran back down the hallway before she knew I was spying on her. I put my scribbled notes down on my desk and sat down. I had a lot to go over here. Yes, it appeared to be the standard alphabet, but with key omissions. Why did she pick the letters she did? Where did BCD go? Why no S? Why include Q and leave out E? I took the missing letters and tried to form words out of them. The best I could come up with was “DUCK TALK BIG NOSE.” I dropped my pencil and pushed myself away from the desk. The duck again. Something is going to happen with “the duck” that much is clear. Big Nose? I looked in the mirror carefully staring at my nose from all angles. Finally, I decided that my nose must look huge to her, and then I realized that she has been talking about me all along! I AM THE DUCK! I AM THE DUCK! I fell on the floor and crawled into the corner of my office, shutting the lights off on the way.

I feel as though I may be going insane.

Epilogue

Later that night, before bed, my daughter patted me on the head and said to me “Night-Night, Duckie. Puppy wa-wa. Santa bye-bye.”

I fear I will be dead by daybreak.

Credits

This is a fun game I like to play and maybe you will enjoy it too. Watch a movie. That’s not the game, hold on a second, I’m getting to it. At some random point during the movie, usually at a climactic scene somewhere in the middle, imagine if the director as a cruel joke decided to fade to black and run the credits. These are the types of things that make me laugh.
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Now, a scene from “The Karate Kid”, already in progress:

*music playing* Danger! Everywhere you turn…
*Daniel-san is running across a dark field at night. He is being chased by almost every member of the Cobra Kai dojo who are dressed in skeleton costumes*
*Daniel runs into the fence separating the field from Mr. Miyagi’s office/home/workshop. He tries to scale the fence, but it is too late. Johnny and the rest of the Cobra Kais catch up to him and pull him down.*
Johnny: You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you, little twerp? No, you had to push it. Well, now you're gonna pay!
Skeleton 2: Where are you going, sweetheart?
Skeleton 3: How about a front kick, Johnny?

*credits*
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Look, I already know I’m crazy. That goes without saying, or with saying, whichever. The beauty of this game is, you can play the credits game at home whenever you want. It’s a hoot and a holler, and plenty of knee-slapping fun too!
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We now join “The Shawshank Redemption” already in progress:

Red: *narrating* But then, in the spring of 1949, the powers that be decided that...
Warden Samuel Norton: The roof of the license-plate factory needs resurfacing. I need a dozen volunteers for a week's work. As you know, special detail carries with it special privileges.
Red: *narrating* It was outdoor detail - and May is one damn fine month to be working outdoors.

*credits*
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Just once, I would love to work at a movie theater and attempt something like this. Just splice the film reels and put the fade to black followed by the credits right after that line. Imagine the reactions! These are the things I think about. I know I would get greedy though, and eventually I would just put the credits first, right after the previews, and really mess people up. I feel like leading with the credits of a movie could cause some kind of time-space wormhole or something and the whole earth might start spinning backwards.
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We now join “Forrest Gump” already in progress:

*Forrest is sitting on a bench waiting for a bus. There is a lady sitting next to him. Forrest leans over and introduces himself*
Forrest: Hello. My name's Forrest. Forrest Gump. Do you want a chocolate? I could eat about a million and a half of these.

*credits*
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I like to think of things and do things to amuse myself. My poor wife gets caught in the crossfire, but hey she knew what she was signing up for. The only real world occurrence of this awesome exercise happened in the last episode of the Sopranos. Imagine my surprise! I should have had this idea copyrighted, or trademarked, or patented, or simonized, or bronzed, or flash-frozen, or embalmed or something. I haven’t even told you the most embarrassing part yet. Sometimes when it’s late at night, and no one is around, I’ll open up a bottle of vodka and…

Blogger: Eric
Daniel-San: Ralph Machio
Johnny: William Zabka
Skeleton 2: Sir John Gielgud
Skeleton 3: Meryl Streep
Red: Morgan Freeman
Warden Norton: Bob Gunton
Forrest Gump: Tom Hanks
Lady on Bench: Dame Judy Dench
Key Grip: Marv Levy
Best Boy: Jake
Director: Eric
Assistant to Eric: Flavor Flav
Sound Editor: Sir Elton John
Public figure with inflated sense of self-importance: Oprah Winfrey
Capitalization: e.e. cummings
Stunt Coordinator: Scut Farkus
Animal Wrangler: Jean Claude Van Damme

No animals were harmed during the writing of this blog.

All resemblance of characters in this blog to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Soundtrack available on Arista Records

Copyright 2008 Lincoln Blog Productions

Urgent Questions: Volume I

Do you ever have the urge to just grab a duck and hug him until all his troubles go away?

Did you ever look up at a clear blue sky and think, “Why isn’t the sky red like it is in all of my hellish nightmares?”

Have you ever kicked a midget, and then apologized to a different midget, thinking it was the one you kicked, when really it was a completely different midget that happened to be dining with the midget you kicked?

Did you ever blow on a dandelion and then chase the floating seeds while laughing and skipping across a dew covered meadow that is literally covered in goose crap?

Did you ever punch a wall so hard that your arm goes all the way through the wall into the adjacent room, and then given all of the people in the other room, who were enjoying a nice afternoon tea until Mr. Cranky decided to show up, the finger in that room?

What if God was one of us? Would God look around and say, “Man I hope some one-hit wonder writes a song about me, calls me a slob in it, and then is never heard from again. I think that would be a fitting legacy for my enormous deadly power and widespread influence”?

Have you ever dived into the ocean, only to surface with a mass of seaweed on your head like a perfectly styled seaweed wig? Do you then thank God that seaweed is not only delicious, but it is smart enough to cover the skull tattoo of a giant eyeball on your dumb, bald head?

Why is it that crocodiles are so mean, and panda bears are so genuinely helpful and nice? Is it because crocodiles live in Florida, and everyone knows that Florida’s property taxes are very high and basically the common taxpayer ends up screwed because all the money goes to corrupt politicians instead of back into the community like it should? Panda Bears don’t have to deal with any of this.

Have you ever had the urge to run as fast as you can at a bus and then throw yourself under it, just so you can later tell the paramedics “Wow, I really threw myself under the bus?”

How many roads must a man walk down before he gets accidentally shot by a rogue police officer who recently lost his job and had his wife leave him for another woman?

If Popeye and Woody Woodpecker had a child, would that child be named Poppy Peckeye? (Hint: The answer is yes. The real question is how drunk was Popeye that night? One thing you need to know about Popeye: When he’s drunk, he’s gotta have it.)

If a train leaves New York heading west at 60 miles per hour, and another train leaves Los Angeles heading east at 70 miles per hour, at what point would you hijack a train in the New Orleans area to try to meet them in the middle and cause a horrific three-way train crash?

Have you ever run screaming into a forest and then come out on the other side of the forest arm in arm with a grizzly bear, laughing and reminiscing about all the troubles you just went through together in the middle of the forest?