Tag: Emotional

Posted in Everyday Life

The ER Is A Weird Place To Write Comedy.

Posted on by Matt Gallagher

I should open by saying that I’m typing this column on my phone in the waiting room of a hospital ER.  I had mild heart attack symptoms earlier tonight, hyped myself up until “mild symptoms” became “terrifying certainty,” and went to the hospital.  Now I’ve been sitting here in the emergency room, probably fine, and feeling like a complete tool for the last 5 hours.

I’ve never had an issue with false alarm hospital visits before.  Some people will go at the drop of a hat, but I really dislike seeing the doctor and tend to avoid going until I’m sick enough to start hearing dead relatives beckon from beyond the grave.  The only other time I’ve ever gotten scared enough to visit the ER, I went into emergency appendectomy surgery within a couple of hours.

What I’m saying is that unnecessary doctor visits are not a pattern of behavior for me, but if I went every time I wondered whether or not I should go, I could probably list the hospital as a forwarding address for my mail.

I hate feeling any unexpected physical symptoms, because no one has figured out a good system for what is and isn’t ER worthy. The easiest way to decide if something is serious enough for a trip to the hospital is a Google search, which is also the worst possible place to turn for medical advice.  Beyond the sites shilling conspiracy theories, metaphysical healing, and miscellaneous mumbo-jumbo, even the serious sites are no help. Nobody wants to get sued, so every symptom, no matter how minor, comes with a recommendation to visit the emergency room.

Short of breath?  ER.

Bad gas?  ER.

Disappointed with the last “Avengers” movie?  ER.  Better safe than sorry.

“We thought the time travel subplot was pretty thin, too, but you should probably get checked for a stroke just in case.”

Regular readers know that I mostly write about my experiences as a parent, and today is no exception.  I’m finding that the older I get, the more my medical decisions are made with my spouse and kids in mind.  I’m sitting in this miserable waiting room, trying to type next to a guy whose combined snoring and sleep farts could probably drown out a basalt mining drill, purely for my family.

(Seriously: some doctor is gonna miss a code blue because this dude is louder than a marching band getting hit by a train.  I didn’t know the human body could produce this kind of volume.)

Supposedly married men live longer, and I think I can see why.  The long running joke among guys is that a spouse will make you go to the doctor rather than just duct tape your leg back on or whatever, and yeah: that isn’t entirely wrong.  I’ve gone to the doctor before purely because my wife Sara drug me there by the scruff of the neck (metaphorically, though my neck scruff is probably equal to the task).  It’s more than that, though; once you have a family, your health stops being about you.

When I was in my 20s, dropping dead unexpectedly never really scared me all that much.  Some pain, a moment of wondering if you still have time to erase your weird browser history, and then you’re forever beyond having to give a damn.  Seemed pretty easy. Your mom will cry, someone will have to clean your grungy apartment, and then everyone will move on with their lives.  It’s the ultimate no call, no show.

…But dying unexpectedly with a family absolutely scares the crap out of me.

What would happen to my kids if I disappeared tomorrow?  Would my wife have to break the news to them?  I can’t imagine having to do that if the roles were reversed.  Who would take care of the 3 of them?  Would Sara’s mom move in to help with the kids?

I don’t think I’m here because I’m worried about my heart; I’m here because I’m worried about how my heart effects my spouse and children.

Between starting this column and now, I’ve been discharged from the hospital.  An EKG, a chest x-ray, and 2 sets of blood work confirmed that my heart is fine.  Honestly, by the standards of a heavy 40-year-old, it’s actually in pretty good shape.  For all the drama of tonight I guess I had nothing to worry about, besides what this is going to cost me and finding a ride home at 2 AM.

…But I think I need to view this as a disaster averted instead of a clean bill of health.  A Get-Out-of-Hospital-Free card I lucked into, not something I’ve earned.  I’ve never paid a ton of attention to trying to stay fit because I like who I am.  My lackluster physique isn’t something I’m ashamed of, but I’m beginning to realize it’s something I need to be prioritizing, because my health isn’t my own any more.  It’s time to take it seriously.

It’s also time to call the hospital and see if I can wheedle out what was wrong with the snore-farter, because whatever he has, I don’t want it.

Feel free to buy me a cup of coffee at paypal.me/inessentialreading if you enjoyed the column. 

Posted in Life With Kids

Someday I’ll Miss Chuck E. Cheese.

Posted on by Matt Gallagher

Monday I took my kids to the park.  I didn’t really want to.

I didn’t want to because I was sick, the kitchen needed to be cleaned, there were clothes to fold, the dishes were piled up, I had dinner to make, and I was holding some outlandish fantasy that I’d be able to do it all in time to watch Monday Night Football.

…But perfect weather is rare in Oklahoma and school was out for the holiday, so I relented and took both kids to the park.  It was a great. Sloan (8-years-old) played on the playground and Penny (18-months-old) stuffed dirt up her nose.  Then everyone hurt themselves and cried, demanded to go home, cried again because I agreed to take them home, and restarted the whole process back at the dirt-up-nose phase.  Pretty standard park trip.  4 out of 5; would recommend.

The real reason I took them, though, is the looming specter of The Last Time They Ask. 

The last time Sloan asks to go to the playground is coming.  The last time I’m handed a stuffed animal to hug as part of the going-to-bed ritual is coming.  I was in the middle of typing that the last time she hands me a plate of pretend food from her kitchen playset was coming, until I realized it’s probably been 8 months since that last happened and I WAS NOT PREPARED TO DEAL WITH THAT REALIZATION TODAY.  Time to mentally file that one away with the last time I heard what her imaginary friend was up to and the day “Daddy” turned into “Dad.” 

Kids grow up.  They grow out of stuff whether I’m ready to let go or not.  Sloan is past the halfway mark towards her ninth birthday already, and the ominous ‘tween’ phase feels like it’s right around the corner.  When I was her age ‘Tweens’ weren’t a thing, but now it seems like pre-teen-post-childhood era starts earlier for kids every year.  Pretty soon they’ll exit the womb already poking at a smartphone and midway into a K-pop phase.

I guarantee that even this thing comes preinstalled with some trendy social media app I’m too old to understand.

I feel a lot of mixed emotions about going into the tween years.  I’ve really enjoyed seeing how every new year created a kid with interests and opinions of her own, and I’m excited about what comes next.

…but, real talk?  I like doing kid’s stuff.  I like swings and stuffed animals and tea parties and pretending to be a dragon so she can chase me around the yard with a foam rubber sword.  The feelings of growing-up FOMO are hitting hard, and I’m already pretty susceptible to that kind of thing.  I mean, I had to take “Puff the Magic Dragon” out of the lullaby rotation because I can’t make it to the end dry eyed, a song I’m convinced was written as part of a cold war psych program designed to make opposing soldiers cry so hard they can’t aim straight.

Here’s the song for those who’ve forgotten it and/or want to cry every last drop of moisture out of their body.

How do you balance enjoying a time of their lives that’s painfully impermanent with living a normal life?  I don’t love going to Chuck E. Cheese, but my kids do, and the span they’ll love it is short.  Every day I don’t take them is one more day crossed off the calendar where a trip to that horrible place is The. Best. Thing. 

So should I be going to Chuck E. Cheese more?  Way more?  Should I go once now and then stop forever so it lives in Sloan’s memory as something perfect instead of the grungy child casino it becomes once you cross a certain age?  Because we’ve got maybe 200 more days before her perception of that nightmarish pizza rat goes from a magical new friend to a teenager dressed in a sweaty carpet.  Probably less if she tries to read this over my shoulder when I’m not looking, as I suspect may have happened during my spirited criticism of a certain Christmas elf (though maybe I’m not super heartbroken about seeing that holiday ordeal in the rear-view mirror).

This is not a complication of parenting I ever expected. 

At least this particular harbinger of growing up gives me an excuse to play skee-ball.

Maybe any approach to enjoying their limited childhood still leaves you feeling guilty.  Take this line of thought to its logical conclusion and everything feels like squandering time.  Keep the meals and sleep short; there’s memories to be made.  Every quiet afternoon must become a visit to the park.  Every visit to the park must become a trip to Disneyland.  Every trip to Disneyland must become a trip to that ultra-exclusive Super Disneyland where Beyonce takes her kids.

Of course that’s not sustainable.  I need rest.  I need time away from her.  Nobody can afford Disneyland every weekend.  I need to write a column about feeling like I shouldn’t be squandering my limited hours of her childhood writing a column.

So yeah: I’m easy to talk into a trip to the park. I don’t know what the right balance is with this.  Maybe there isn’t one.  I suspect that when my toddler reaches her own tween years I won’t have learned a single thing from this experience and I’ll be feeling the exact same anxiety I am now.  Maybe at least I’ll have something funnier to say on the topic.

…Anyway, I guess I’ve low key talked myself into taking the kids to Chuck E. Cheese now.  Maybe Disneyland; I’ll play it by ear.

Feel free to buy me a cup of coffee at paypal.me/inessentialreading if you enjoyed the column.

Posted in Uncategorized

“Hop On Pop” Should Not Inspire Tears.

Posted on by Matt Gallagher

I am a terrible reader when it comes to children’s books.  It’s not that I struggle to read in general or dislike reading to my kids in particular, the issue is that I have like zero resistance to anything even remotely tear-jerky.  It’s not something I’m proud of, but give me a story where someone loses something, learns a lesson, or essentially does anything at all and suddenly I look like your mom watching the ending of “Beaches.”

So I invite you to laugh at my complete lack of machismo as I list the top children’s books that make me cry like a kid whose scoop of ice cream just fell off their cone and into a thresher.

“City Dog, Country Frog” by Mo Willems, illustrated by Jon J. Muth

Mo Willems, how dare you?  At this point Willems has overthrown Dr. Suess as the grand emperor of grade school picture books, and even my emotional hair-trigger can get through “Elephant and Piggy” or “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” dry eyed (even though the poor pigeon is never going to get a chance to fulfill his lifelong dream of bus ownership, which is just…[sniff]…tragic). 

Then out of left field all the lovable cartoonish characters are gone, replaced with page after page of beautiful watercolors about friendship and loss.  Based on that heartwarming cover photo and the fact that I’ve described it as “Sad,” the plot points should be so obvious I hardly need to outline them, but just for full clarity they are:

A: Dog meets Frog.
B: Frog dies.
C: I cry like my genitals are caught in a laundry mangle.

To begin with, anything sad involving a dog gets exponentially sadder, and a cute puppy who, by coincidence, looks exactly like my dog only worsens the problem.  Even the frog is somehow cute, and that’s really saying something since the standard look for frogs is “Damp pile of old pudding skins.”  Seriously, look at these two:

That dog makes Lassie look like a pillowcase full of turds.

…and here’s City Dog coming to terms with Frog’s death a mere 7 sentences later.

I’M NOT CRYING; YOU’RE CRYING! 
…Just kidding; I’m bawling my eyes out.

This little dude is in mourning by page 42.  I didn’t need to look that number up; It’s burned into my mind like a glowing ember of sadness.  I will think about him gazing forlornly across that frozen pond on my deathbed.  Give me back that frog, Mo; I don’t need this kind of emotional catharsis when I’m trying to put a 5-year-old to bed.

“Oregon’s Journey” By Rascal, Illustrated by Louis Joos

This is such a sweet and sad celebration of America’s downtrodden I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that all the ink used in the printing process contained trace amounts of Woody Guthrie’s blood.

The plot involves Oregon the dancing circus bear who asks his friend, Duke the clown, to take him back to the forest to live with other bears.  The circus seems to be in the middle of industrial Pittsburgh, and yeah: I’m right there with you, Oregon.  If I were living in a grim caricature of the Rust Belt I think I’d want to move too.

“Take me home to the forest…or, like, literally anywhere else.  At this point I’d settle for living in a highway median.”

Together they cross the country exclusively via transportation mentioned in Bob Dylan lyrics.  They walk, ride a Greyhound bus, hitchhike, and jump an honest-to-god boxcar.  No mention of them playing forlorn harmonica on the trip, but you’ve gotta assume.

On their way to the west coast they stay in rundown motels, sleep in an abandoned Chevy parked in a field, meet a traveling salesmen, a Navajo elder, an aspiring actresses, and MY GOD IS ANYTHING IN THIS BOOK NOT STRAIGHT OUT OF A FOLK SONG?!?!

Sing that paragraph over a G chord and you could probably get a headlining spot at the Newport Folk Festival.

Oregon’s Journey doesn’t leave me quite as emotionally drained as the other two entries on this list.  I can make to the end glassy eyed with my voice breaking, but not quite ringing tears out my beard like it was a mop full of warm saline like the others.   I can handle a bittersweet road trip way better than heartbroken dogs.

…I can also handle “Oregon’s Journey” a hell of a lot better than…

“The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams, illustrated by Charles Santore

Listen, Margery Williams, you Edwardian era jerk: I have young children, poor sleep, terrible personal habits, and one last fraying thread of emotional stability.  I don’t need you tap-dancing all over it. 

I don’t even know how I’m gonna write a few paragraphs about this thing.  Just look at that picture up there.  All I’ve done so far is look up a photo of the cover and I already need to go get a Gatorade because I’m dehydrated from dribbling 32 warm salty ounces of despair onto my shirt.

This is the 100 year anniversary of The Velveteen Rabbit, so at least I’m not alone.  By now every parent alive has had to deal with this stupid, beautiful, heartwarming story about children bonding with stuffed animals.  Your grandma was pulling for this adorable sack of sawdust to become a real rabbit back in the 60s.  Her grandma was tearing up at it while tucking her own kids into bed in the 20s (presumably so they could be well rested for another big day at some factory that just made coal exhaust).  The collective tears this book has rung out of parents could probably fill a pool deep enough to drown a giraffe.

Here’s the velveteen rabbit so sad it cries a single real tear and DEAR GOD WHY DID I GO LOOKING FOR A USABLE PHOTO FROM THIS BOOK?!

Look, I’m a grown man.  I know toys don’t have thoughts or feelings, no matter how long and hard they’re loved.  What I DO know, however, is that once my daughter outgrows her need for stuffed animals, I fully expect there be a day where I go out to the park near the house and see a grey and white cat walking around with a big red scarf on.

…because if my daughter’s favorite stuffy fails to make the cut, I am FINDING the Nursery Magic Fairy and that chick and I are gonna throw hands.

Feel free to buy me a cup of coffee at paypal.me/inessentialreading if you enjoyed the column.