The best way to familiarize your potty-training child with the bathroom process is to let him watch you use the toilet. When he shows an interest, leave the door open and let him see how you unbuckle your belt and sit. Let him watch you dig your elbows deep into your thighs and roll your spine forward until your eyes touch your phone. Allow him to observe you push, strain, and search eBay for out of print DVDs. He should watch you check your email, check your other email, click a link, skim the headline, open the eBay app again, struggle to remember which movie you wanted to look up, mutter “god damn it” at the Offer Rejected notice from an eBay seller, moan, and pass gas. Let him hear you grunt and cough. Let him watch you pull your ballbag to the side and peer between your legs and say, “Jesus.” Let him watch you wonder if you ate beets. If you ate grapefruit. Show him how you realize you’ve eaten neither. Let him watch your head jolt when the doorbell rings. The electrician to install the ceiling fan. Let your son hear you mutter, “The one fucking time this prick is early.” As the doorbell rings again let him watch you bite your bottom lip and go purple straining to get the bulbous monster out of you. Let your son watch you push again, and wheeze, and fail. Fail to rid yourself of this poison, fail to deliver. You sweat and pant. Let him see it. Let him see you wipe your wet hair with your t-shirt. A third chime and then your phone rings, the electrician. “Fuck,” your son should hear, and he should see how you fumble and drop your phone. Let your boy observe how you rush through sopping up your mess. Show him how your eyes widen when you see the only color on the paper is red. Let him hear the knock on the door, you screaming, “Give me a minute, I’m on a work phone call.” Let him watch you attempt to stand on your sound-asleep legs. Allow him to see your knees collapse, your body buckle and crash into the door frame, cracking your temple, falling to the ground cracking the back of your skull. Let your son watch the electrician peer through the window, ask if you need help. Let your son open the door and watch the man perform CPR on you while your dick and balls bounce. Let your son hear the electrician say that you are not breathing and might be dead. Have your son watch the electrician call 911 and resume chest compressions. Your child should see the paramedics enter the home and feel your belly and say it’s like a brick’s in there. You child should answer when they ask how long this man was on the toilet by telling them it was a normal two hours. He should see their concerned looks, watch them feel the arteries in your blue legs and say there is no pulse, that the nerves and vessels look like they’d been run over by tires the width of forearms. Let your son watch them rev their grizzly bonesaws and slice off your bloodless legs. Let him see the blood spray when they cesarean your stomach and reach inside to grip your turgid log. Allow him to watch them work the rock down your colon until its cracked crown emerges from your nest of ass hair. Let him see them wince and gag. Let him see them drown the duke in lubricant and pinch it with their instruments and pull it hard until the black branch is out and your boy should see how you gasp back to life, choking and crying. Let him see the paramedics wipe you and let him hear you yell at all these pricks to get the hell out of your house immediately. Show him how you buckle your belt and hobble on your stumps to the sink and wash your hands with soap. And then give your son a high-five as you tell him that you did a good job going to the bathroom, and that tomorrow morning we get to do it all over again.

In the movies it’s constant. Diaper opens, little boy smiles and sprays; father leaps back shocked and damp and together they laugh. But the reality of raising a son is more mundane. Only a handful of times have I unwrapped the flaps and been assaulted by gushes of hot froth into my open eyes. These comic scenes of new fatherhood unfold rarely. Does my son roll back his legs in the bathtub, carefully aim, and pressure-wash my teeth with his evil soda? Of course he does. But this is a four or five times a week event, not a daily one. And does he stand over me while I sleep, hosing me head-to-foot with his vinegar, refusing to stop until I’m nose-deep in his rotten puddle? Yes, but it’s not all the time like on television. This takes place but once per night. The endearing slapstick scenes we see on screen unfortunately do not occur as often as I’d imagined they would. So when my baby boy finds me at the office and pins me down on my desk to waterboard me with his foamy brine while my boss and colleagues cheer over the wall of my cubicle, and I choke and wheeze and cry, fading from consciousness, meeting the Devil as I’m baptized in poison, I savor it. Fatherhood is joyous and invigorating, but the clock ticks. I hold on tight to these charming moments that happen only seven or eight times a day.

“I understand the board’s proposal to lower the neighborhood speed limit from 25 miles an hour to 20 in order to reduce the risk of harm to our children. However, I would be remiss to ignore this opportunity to suggest an alternative future for our subdivision. Instead of crawling to our homes at 20 while our dinners cool and our loved ones worry, let’s imagine screeching around the entrance sign and gunning past the pool at 95, rocketing with our eyes closed and our hands off the wheel. Tunes blaring, ripping the air guitar, brutally bombarding across yards, all jostle and clunk. Our big, hot tires chew grass, digesting the flower bed where Doug and Christine were wed. We press harder on the gas, to 110, 120, demolishing Heather’s daughter’s swing set as our ribs crack against our steering wheels, our battered bodies laundry-tumbling because we have outlawed seatbelts. We haul ass and surrender control as our vehicles destroy the gazebo where Judy’s son celebrated his high school graduation before donking down the mailbox in which Judy received notice of her son’s death in combat. We fracture our skulls on our windshields and hear our teeth clatter; dice in the cupholders. Screaming for help, yelling in terror as we thunder up the hill, begging for some hero to fire a bullet through our heads and end this hell. Our broken arms cannot wipe the blood off the windshield. With no other option, we stomp the pedal and blindly charge the historic oak in Greg’s front yard where we gathered for Judy’s son’s funeral, our vision blacking out save a pinprick of that maxed-out speedometer and that Airbags Disabled light. And our cars slam into the ancient tree, killing it immediately, and fire our cadavers through our windshields. Gasoline glugs, a spark, inferno engulfs the streets. Our roasted bodies skid across Kelly’s kids’ hopscotch grid while our automobiles roll backwards towards our own homes like dropped bombs. They accelerate, run over our dogs, then goose up our porch steps and shatter our glass doors as the flames reach the tank and detonate our vehicles, blowing up our homes and the family reunions they host. Before we can enjoy the grace of death, possums drag what’s left of us to an evil den in the woods. An air of terror descends on the neighborhood and no one feels safe to go outside, knowing that all of our neighbors are driving in such an unsafe fashion, now that we enforce a mandatory minimum speed of 95 miles an hour.”

The board deliberates for a minute before passing the resolution unanimously.