“What is this?” I ask her.
“It’s Everclear with a splash of cherry juice,” she explains before rushing off to another table.
“Ooooh, Everclear. That sounds pretty,” I say before downing the shot.
I immediately start coughing and choking, fanning my mouth with my hand.
“IT BURNS! OH MY GOD IT BURNS!” I try to yell with a raspy voice that feels like it’s on fire.
“Here, drink this,” Claire tells me as she slides her beer across the table towards me.
I drink the entire thing in three big gulps and smack the glass back down to the table.
“Well, I do believe that is plenty of liquid courage for the evening,” Liz says with a laugh.
Chapter 7 – Fake it Till You Make it
“Holy f**king Wheat Thins. What did you feed this kid?” Jim asks as he brings Billy over to me, holding him at arm’s length with a look of disgust on his face. “It smells like he ate a dead dog covered in vomit and yogurt and then shit it out.”
He puts Billy in my lap and as soon as I get a whiff, I throw up in my mouth a little and have to hold my breath.
“Jenny stopped breast feeding last week and put him on formula and cereal. Maybe that’s it.”
Carter shakes his head. “That is not what formula and cereal smell like. That smells like ball sweat covered in Swiss cheese.”
I place Billy on the floor at my feet and step away from him so I can take a breath.
“Jesus, that is really bad. How is he smiling? Can’t he smell himself? If I took a dump that smelled that bad I wouldn’t be smiling,” I say.
“Well, at least whatever that was isn’t inside of him anymore. Imagine the havoc it was wreaking on his stomach. He’s probably like, ‘Thank f**king God that shit is out of me.' Literally,” Jim says as he plugs his nose and takes a few giant steps backwards.
All of a sudden, the sound of five little girls screaming bloody murder comes from the toy room at the back of the house, and ten-year-old Gavin comes running into the living room with a grin on his face.
“What did you do?” Carter asks him as I dig through the diaper bag for a gas mask and latex gloves.
“Nothing,” Gavin replies as he flops down on the couch. “Who farted? It stinks in here.”
We all point to the baby. There is still screaming and crying coming from the toy room, but at this point we’re all more concerned with the fact that the smell coming from my son might start peeling the paint off of the walls.
Veronica comes charging into the living room holding a headless, naked Barbie in her hand. Behind her is Carter’s six-year-old Sophia and Jim’s three daughters, Charlotte who is also six, Ava who is five, and Molly who is three. All have tear-stained cheeks and a multitude of naked, headless Barbies in their hands.
“GAVIN TOOK THE CLOTHES OFF OF ALL OF OUR DOLLS AND POPPED THEIR HEADS OFF!” Charlotte screeches.
“My dolly has no head!” Ava wails.
“He drew boobies on my Barbie!” Sophia cries as she waves the torso of her inked Barbie in front of our faces.
“Hey, those look pretty good. Nice nipple placement,” I tell him.
“Why does this one have a big red dot in the middle of its chest and a shaved head,” Jim asks as he grabs the only one with its head still intact that three-year-old Molly is cradling to her.
“She’s got a third nipple because she was abducted by aliens and they experimented on her. The other Barbies shunned her and cut off all of her hair when she went to sleep,” Gavin explains.
The wails from the five girls grow louder, and we all wince at the sounds they are producing.
“Oh my God, make it stop!” Carter complains.
“GIRLS! Calm down!” Jim yells in an effort to be heard. Living in a house with three girls and a wife, he is quite the expert at the trials and tribulations of females. But even he looks shocked at the amount of noise that is coming out of them.
They begin crying even harder because they think Jim is yelling at them, which in turn produces snot, dry heaves, and honest to God foot stomping.
“No, no, no! Please stop crying!” Carter pleads with them, getting down on his knees so he is eye level with them.
“I WANT MY MOMMY!” Veronica shouts.
And thus begins a half hour chant of “I WANT MY MOMMY” from five little girls.
Instead of calling the wives and admitting to them that we have no idea how to control the situation, Carter calls his own mother. She tells him to bribe them with candy. Exactly six seconds after he hangs up the phone, each girl has a sucker in her hand and a smile on her face as they walk back to the toy room to play “Headless Barbie Princess Parade”.
The peace and quiet lasts exactly fifteen minutes.
I manage to get Billy changed with only a little bit of puke coming up my throat but then I actually throw up in the kitchen sink when I look down and realize I have some poop on my finger. Carter takes over at that point and gives Billy a bottle and rocks him to sleep. Gavin is sitting next to Carter on the couch playing his Nintendo DS when all of a sudden, more blood curdling screams start coming from the toy room.
“You have got to be kidding me with this shit!” Jim complains.
We start to get up to see what the problem is now when all five girls shuffle out into the living room in a giant clump. Upon closer inspection, once we are able to get them to finally stop screaming and ask them why they are walking around with their heads all touching in the middle and refusing to separate, we find out that unsupervised suckers with little girls is a no-no.