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Archives from 2002-2006

I got in a fight with JB this morning and while I was in the midst of raising my voice in growing frustration Riley came over to harangue me — wagging his finger and bossily telling me to stop shouting at his daddy — and in a chaotic moment of feeling picked on and misunderstood and marginalized by everyone, I barked at him to SHUT UP. To which he instantly responded by bursting into tears.

I tried to comfort him but he was pretty upset with me, and I was so angry at JB I couldn’t even let it go and so trailed him to the other side of the house, both children jailed in the kitchen and clinging pathetically to the baby gate, basically in order to escalate our screechy argument — pointless and poisonous, but I felt like I might just explode into a thousand pieces if I didn’t get the words out of my mouth. Because it always helps the situation to go ahead and throw out a few insults, right?

Eventually I went back to the kitchen where the baby raised his hands to be picked up and Riley snuck dark looks at me under his eyelashes and when I asked him for a hug he reluctantly backed into my outstretched arms and stood there, stiff-legged. I said I was so, so sorry for yelling at him, and he said, “But why were you yelling at my daddy?”

Ahhhhhh.

“Sometimes grownups have arguments, but it doesn’t mean we don’t love each other,” I said, weakly. Was there something better I could have said? I don’t know. I don’t know.

They left without saying goodbye this morning, JB gathering up the kids and sweeping out the door without the usual ritual of see-you-later kisses. I suppose I deserved it, and yet it’s just more evidence of the hurtful actions adults are willing to inflict on each other. Ugly and unworthy in the presence of children. Sometimes grownups fight. Sometimes grownups lose their temper and do stupid things. Sometimes 3-year-olds behave better than grownups.

My little boy who only wanted the yelling to stop, and got told to shut up. My heart beats brokenly today: do-over, do-over, do-over.

JB and I did a major purging of some over-stuffed closets this weekend, and we came across a familiar unwieldy giant triangle crammed under a set of dusty sheets. There it was: the Liberator Wedge.

It’s been a long time since the Liberator has served its original purpose, which I realize is probably more information about my personal life than you ever wanted to know, but what can I say: it’s huge, it’s sprinkled with dog hair, it’s been used as a toddler slide. There is nothing remotely sexy about it anymore, and if you’ve seen its appearance in Burn After Reading you know just how silly it really looks.

(Also, honestly? A few pillows pretty much provide the same helpful assistive technology, and can be re-arranged to their usual innocent tableau afterwards.)

What to do with a large foam wedge, one that could ostensibly be passed off as an enormous reflux pillow or some such except for the telltale Liberator logo on the (washable, obvs) cover? We had amassed several large bags for Goodwill and I briefly considered the ramifications of donating it — would anyone even know? Could I cover up the logo? What sort of tax write-off would that be? — but ultimately decided I couldn’t handle the thought of it lurking in our local thriftstore, balanced on end next to the broken vacuums and deflated beanbag chairs.

I posted my conundrum on Twitter (because there’s something about being limited to 140 characters that leaves me with no shame whatsoever) and the prevailing advice was to put it on Craigslist, which was appealing if only for the chance to write the ad. But of course then there’s the whole awkward situation of having someone come out to your house in order to take away your gently-used sex furniture. I pictured myself handing it over, the brief moment when my hands and a stranger’s hands were simultaneously touching its plush microfiber covering. Or worse: both of us staring at it on the floor.

A crafty person could probably whip up a jolly new cover for the thing and permanently relocate it to the kids’ rooms, but isn’t there just something. . . awful about that? Like glueing fins on your vibrator and giving it to your kid to use as a “rocket” — it’s both a horrific little secret that would surely scar your child for life should they ever learn the story behind Space Shuttle Jack Rabbit’s origins, and a pathetic statement about the less-than-exotic nature of your sex life.

I suppose there’s always the option of hacking up the foam innards and stuffing it, gruesomely dismembered, in the trash. There it will be ferried away to some landfill, probably taking about a thousand years to biodegrade. Crows will pick holes in it, seagulls will spackle it with droppings. The Liberator logo will bleach in the sun. Wall-E will eventually pack it in a cube.

So let my story be a lesson to you: if you’re considering your own bedroom adventure gear purchase, make sure you have ample storage, never let a small child play on the damn thing no matter how much they beg for the “blue slide”, and be prepared to keep it FOREVER.

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