Maggie Simpson has the baby with one eyebrow [1]. Humbert Humbert has Clare Quilty. Randall Patrick McMurphy has Nurse Ratched. Seinfeld has Newman. Randy “Macho Man” Savage has Hulk Hogan. Perhaps you think about, on those dark nights, who you might hate the most in the world. For me, it’s easy: My pre-kid self.
I am well along the path of having raised three kids. I’m 15+ years in. I look at my schedule now. I feel like a pretty productive member of the human work force. On the side, I get some coaching in, involve myself with some community stuff, and even have hobbies and interests that I invest time into. But I come home from a long day of work, and I walk in the house, and it’s all just beginning. Every day hours are spent interacting with, talking to, entertaining, and “guiding” (read: disciplining) children. Every weekend, most of it is spent with children. Same with vacations. Same with holidays.
I look back at the person I was before 1999, we’ll call him SJWpre99. Dripping with venom, I ask, “What was that lazy SOB doing?” How could that slug look himself in the eye in the mirror every night, knowing he didn’t have some book or film in production? How could he casually brush his teeth, that yellow-toothed sloth, knowing all those classic novels sat on the shelf unread? How could he snuggle into bed knowing he not only hadn’t climbed Mt. Everest, he hadn’t even crested the Sutter Buttes [2]? Why wasn’t he out there building some furniture or starting some institute? That dude had free time.
How could he have not converted those countless free hours that now spiral into family life into something beautifully constructive? For seven years, my wife and I didn’t sleep. Our kids saw to that. What did SJWpre99 do before the 1999-2006 insomniac death march? What was he doing with those luxury hours all well rested from the night before? He could have gone abroad and promoted peace. Worked the ladle at a soup kitchen. Cleaned up the local park. Made a cool million in the stock market.
He was doing some other stuff, that’s for sure. Cause he did none of that. Whatever he was doing with all those precious hours that I don’t have anymore, I hate that guy and all his TV watching (what did he do on those long Saturdays in the early 1990s — was he watching college football, not even the pros, for god’s sake?) and phone talking. All his Road Rash [3] playing and day drinking. Loser.
If I ever get a time machine, old SJWpre99 will have some time accounted for on at least one of those Saturdays. He and I will have a long, painful conversation. It may come to blows.
Cause I know he’ll make excuses. I try to look back through the lens of that derelict. I bet he’ll claim that he was working hard back then. He’ll say he was enjoying some of the things life had to offer and doing some useful stuff too. In fact, I shouldn’t essentialize him as an indolent boob, should I? He probably thought he was pretty busy, which is why he wasn’t more productive. He probably rattled off his many friendships — and maybe he was a decent friend, a worthy co-worker, a pleasant neighbor. Maybe he helped some people out.
You know what? I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care. Whatever he was or wasn’t, to me he was the biggest bum in the world. And I loathe him so.
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[6]Scott Warnock [7]
[6]Latest posts by Scott Warnock (Posts [8])
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