Being the better dad

I’ll get it out of the way right now – we watched “My Dad is Better than Your Dad” last night.

I feel dirty admitting to the lack of television viewing judgment. I’d be better off admitting I watch midget ménage a trois on hotshortysex.com. Worse yet, I kind of enjoyed the show. In fact, I thought it was entertaining, and I’d watch again. Of course, I watch NASCAR not for the wrecks and TiVo “Dirty Jobs” to watch a dude root around in pig shit and bat vomit (folks I’m a UNLV grad, I can’t make that stuff up – seriously bat vomit! And I complain about letters discussing dog poo at the prison work camp). So, I may not be the best barometer for what makes good TV.

First off, Dan Cortese hosts the show. The last time I saw this dude he was Elaine Benes’ mimbo and was falling off a rock because George Costanza forgot to secure his rope (to George’s defense, he was fishing through his pack for the tuna sandwiches he promised – hunger over safety has always been my motto, too). He’s hyper, he’s annoying, he’s a little Jeff Probstish, and I think I’d rather shove golf tees into my ears than listen to him ask eight year olds how they feel after blowing their family’s chance at $50 Gs. I was waiting for the little girl, eyes welling with floppy tears, to tell Cortese to shove that microphone up his ass sideways and twist, but she took the safe way and said “I’m just glad I can do this with my daddy.”

Puke.

If my kid said that on the show, I’d disown Freeloader on the spot. When the munchkin is old enough to speak, I’ll sit the little bugger down to review our post game interview answers in case such an instance arises, like us being on an idiotic game show.

Cortese: “How do you feel Freeloader?”

Freeloader: “Well, Dan, it sucks donkey balls. What else can I say? It makes me want to crap my pants.”

Cortese: “Dad?”

Me: “Don’t look at me, Dan. He gets that competitive edge from his mother. If you don't watch out, (he/she) will take that mic, fart on it, and then shove it in your mouth.”

Did you watch “Double Dare” as a kid (or as an adult for my older reader(s))? That’s this show in a nutsack, without the green goop. The first event had the pops swinging sledgehammers on particleboard desks. The dads had to smash the desks, collect the bits and deposit it all in a clear tank. The team with the most weight in their tank wins. Never mind that the dads were all Mike Brady clones (well, except for the fact that they all appeared straight, evidence being that their wives were in the crowd) who didn’t know a sledge hammer from a drummel, they swung the hammers like they were John Henry.

Second up, and my favorite, was human dartboard. The gist was to hurl your kid at a dartboard painted on a Velcro wall while the kid tried to stick an arrow within a point circle. Nothing says fatherly love like sailing your spawn as if he/she was a 40-pound paper airplane. But all the kids wore smiles as wide as the Grand Canyon, so they must have been having fun. It prompted me to do the same in the nursery, and once Freeloader gets a few months old, we’ll practice on being accomplished human darts. Tiger Woods started golfing at 2, my kids will learn to stick to walls in half that time.

With the field whittled down to two teams, the final event is a mix of speed, agility and dexterity. The two dads competing were 0-for-3 on that mixture. The object was to fire tightly rolled newspapers at the opponent who was tasked with guarding three windows sectioned off into scoring squares. The opponent is armed with a tennis racket, a frying pan and looks like a SWAT team barfed its entire body armor cache onto the hapless dad. We have paper delivery people in Arizona, but never have I felt the need to grab a pan and a racket to protect the Compound. If we were under attack by a pissed off paperboy, I can guarantee you Mr. Louisville Slugger would be in my hand, not Mr. Faberware. That might just be me, though.

In the end, the dad had to answer questions about their son or daughter. The dunce up there last night missed two despite his little whelp standing across from him, able to give eye signals as the old man talked out his reasoning for his guess (why must they waste time talking through the question? What happened to the day when if you said anything other than the answer Alex Trabek would jab you in the eye with the clicker?).

But watching the show got me to thinking about our soon-to-be new arrival. Is this how kids act on the school yard? Do they taunt each other by comparing what their dads can do? If that’s the case, I best start kicking ass at something.

I think guzzling a six-pack of Natural Light in less than two minutes could earn the Freeloader some street cred at Montissori School.

“Who cares if your dad will pilot a rocket ship to Mars … my dad can drink him under the table and then will barf in his shoes.”

Yeah, I can see the kid propping his dad for that ability.