The Man What Made You.

To celebrate Father’s Day, Simone demonstrated the proper way to turn a solitary, contemplative shower into…not that:

Curtain

When we attempt to cleanse ourselves, Simone likes to whip the curtain open and stand there in the spray until she is soaked through, occasionally trying to twist the hot water spigot, for sport. Don’t bother suggesting we close the door to keep her out, unless you want to see all the glassware in our house shatter with one sonic baby scream of fear and mourning, especially if her father is the one behind the door.

Simone is a boisterous kid lately, swooping her hands about, scratching people’s faces, flinging herself bonelessly backward with no prior notice. Scott bears the brunt of this—she clambors over him squealing and grabbing at his nose to wake him up in the mornings, she rides on his shoulders and pulls his hair, she yanks his ears and pokes at his teeth. Today I wrote a mournful, folksy country tune about it:

Don’t pinch the man what made you
don’t bite him and don’t scratch
Don’t climb him like an obstacle
please leave both ears attached
Your daddy’s not a step stool
he’s not a trampoline
So, don’t pinch the man what made you
or knee him in his spleen

I wish I knew how to transcribe music, but I don’t, so you will have to imagine the tune on your own, somewhere between Brewer & Shipley and Patsy Cline, sung with a gently twanging southern accent. I write alot of songs while I am going about my days, but this is my first country piece since “One Eyed Whore,” and I wrote that one a good ten years ago.

Anyhow, it was a lovely day, here. Scott boycotts Father’s Day, because apparently it is a made-up holiday blah blah blah, but I found myself noticing the two of them more than usual this afternoon, how much they adore each other, and thinking how lucky Simone is to have my husband for a father. She should probably go a bit easier on him, however, if she’d like him to survive to her teen years.

UPDATED TO ADD:
My intrepid readers have just informed me that Father’s Day is, in fact, NEXT Sunday, not today, as I was told by my husband. At least I think he was the one who told me it was this weekend, or perhaps I just assumed, and was too lazy to look it up on a calendar. All that treacly sentiment wasted on an ordinary Sunday. I guess it was a made-up holiday after all…