The little differences between Football, F*ing, and Frogs

In case you didn't know this, when you have kids, your life changes a little. Though sometimes when your life changes slowly over time, you don't really realize how much things have changed in total. It's like the ancient Chinese proverb about the frog in the boiling water. Roughly translated using the Mandarin I have learned from watching "Ni-hao Kai Lan":

When making frog soup, or boiled frog, or if you are just some sicko who likes to boil frogs, don't just throw ole green-face in the boiling water, because he'll hop right out. But if you put the frog in cool water, and then slowly heat it, he'll swim around and not notice the water getting hotter, and then he'll eventually fall asleep and WAKE UP ONE MORNING WITH A WIFE, TWO KIDS, A DOG, TWO MORTGAGES, AND A FUCKING MINI VAN.

My Mandarin is a bit rough, but I think that's close.

The point of the story is this. I was comparing various stages of life the other weekend when talking to two friends and then looking in the mirror. One friend lives as a single bachelor in San Diego, the other has a serious girlfriend but is still living the dream in San Francisco without the weight of the kids, etc, and then there's me, who wakes up each morning like that frog in the water approaching 212 degrees. We are all about 35 years old, so how different could our lives be at this point?

It was a Cal game day, and Friend 1 had just called to explain to me the difficulties of having sex on the beach with a hot 22 year old he had just met the previous night. It's very overrated you know, piling a hot 22 year old outside, in the sand. It's uncomfortable, and that sand... so sandy. And he was tired after such a long night with such a nice girl. Yeah, it sounded like torture.

Friend number two was calling me from Raleighs five hours before kickoff in Berkeley, explaining the intricacies of the drinking game he was engaged in with another buddy. You see, whoever finished their pitcher of beer last had to stay and hold the table while the winner got to go take a leak. It had the supreme simplicity and utter genius of such famous drinking games as "Beer an Inning" or "Pass the Pitcher" or the popular variant of this game, "Pass Titash's Beer". To a guy with kids, this sounded like a dream day. OK, maybe the night with the 22-year old did too, but the beer drinking and football gameing did sound pretty damn nice.

And then there was Friend #3, who we'll call "me". At that point of the day, I had been up for about 7 hours, awaken by our dog who had some type of bowel issue. I was standing outside in my PJ's with our dog who was just poised like a damn statue in the "crapping" position, apparently unable to do the deed, but continuing to try. I was just standing there in the yard, trying to hide behind my newspaper, while my dog was apparently trying to break the modern day Crapping Time Record for Canines. Of course that's when my neighborhood arch nemesis "Nick" walked out of his house with his golf clubs, looking like he had already run a half-tri, showered, and was ready to hit the links with the boys. I said hi to Nick, and he helpfully explained that he was in fact going golfing, in case the golf clubs weren't clue enough, all the while ole Barkley kept trying to crap in various locations in my lawn. That's when I realized that there are only 2 types of guys who are up and outside at 6:15am on a Saturday: the guys about to attack 18 holes with the fellas, or the guys with the sick dog shitting all over the yard. I gave Nick my typical knowing nod, and then retreated back into the house.

Over the next several hours that morning I had the pleasure of being taught from the woman I love the finer points of safely packing crystal glasses in boxes for our imminent move to the burbs.

When 1pm rolled around and I got the updates from the boys about how their days were going and I noticed how damn hot the water had gotten in my pot. And just to be clear, I love my life and where it is... I mean who doesn't like a nice warm bath, right? It just makes you a little sleepy is all. Sooo sleepy.