About a year or so back, I wrote in another blog about the absurdity of the term/concept of metrosexual. In that brief essay, I figured I semi-qualified: though semi-urban, I was somewhat interested in appearance (if only I could remember to get a haircut more than once every decade), I can make a mean Chicken Marsala, and pick a great wine to go with it, my house is MOSTLY clean and uncluttered... However, having 3 little ones definitely takes me out of the metrosexual running. Is that fair?
As I wrote in that previous blog, who cares? I don't think Salon or GQ would find me very metro and not just because three little lovelies are tugging at the tail of my Versace shirt. The ability to fix a leak in a washing machine is probably not on the metro resume and you probably won't find replacing the clutch cable on a 68' Bug on there, either (much less doing a full tune-up). Making a pretty cool set of shelves out of scrap lumber is also not part of the metro mystique. Fops don't fix things and fops don't make things.
Part of figuring all of this out is navigating this new identity. It's not something I asked for but it is something I have gladly taken on. I've always been for a new adventure and I have to hand it to my kids, they keep things interesting.
Necessity has been the father of invention, as a single dad, and just like my children I'm learning by baby steps. “Google is my friend” (is my motto) and typing in “how to” along with ket symptoms of my problem always gets me a solution. Oxyclean is likewise my friend. Most importantly, I know what wine goes well with ironing (although I prefer beer - India Pale Ale - to be precise) and how to get a 22-month old through washing his hair without shattering glass.
I've wondered what Single-Dad support groups are like, what they talk about. I mean, I really can't find a reason for attending something like that but I would have some questions. For instance, how do you get the little stopper-thingies from sippy-cups good and clean? Yeah, yeah, I know the pat "Well, don't let it sit all day so the gunk doesn't build up," but really, kids are wonderful with "Hide the Sippy". If time really is money (and I've never figured out that equation) then spending 10 minutes sticking a toothpick into sippy-cup parts is just about equal with tossing it and buying a new one.
For whatever reason, the little sippy-cup brushes are as elusive as the sippy-cups themselves. No matter where I keep them, they seem to escape, almost immediately. Or maybe the kids are hiding them. That would make sense because for each minute I spend toothpicking a sippy-cup, there's another minute for taking fish out of the fish tank and taking them for a swim in the puddle in the sandbox.
I’m pretty sure the other dads are with me on just tossing the sippy-cup, so maybe I’d ask them how to get mashed-up Pop Tart out of anything, short of scoring it with a razor blade. The rule has always been, “No food leaves the table” but it seems Pop Tarts get pocketed; I find fruity-goo everywhere. And once it’s there, it’s part of the furniture. Maybe I need a jar of liquid nitrogen.
Now that I think about it, I see no reason to go to a Single-Dad support group. I doubt metrosexuals need a support group, they seem like a pretty self-satisfied bunch (emphasis on “pretty”) and I doubt they have to deal with their hair-care products spilled all over a bed spread. Too bad for them; maybe their lives would be interesting.
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