"My Evening Adventure"

Ok, so we get home and my mind is on the dishes, laundry, dinner and cat litter patrol...oh the jocularity and high jinks, not to mention the dash of skulduggery I added for good measure, awaiting me tonight. (Yeah your right, I don't buy it either. But an evening of mind-numbing nanny-hoodness just isn't interesting. Don't burst my fragile bubble known as the "male ego". Work with me here people.)

Dinner was the brown jelled blob in the back of the refrigerator. Well, it was dinner for Jaden and me, we're men! Kisha didn't want any part of it after she saw it wobbling across the kitchen island.

Always mindful of "Mom Rules", my little Amazon Princess took the mandatory woman DNA pose, ( refer to "My Morning Adventure" post if your unsure what this pose looks like. ), and declared, "Mommy says dinner is to be eaten at the dinning room table with the TV off. A-yeah." Jaden was elbows deep into his bowl of brownish jelled blob and I was multitasking; spooning brownish jelled blob onto my mouth and watching nonsensical TV. She held the woman DNA pose, demanding a response.

I pondered for a Hollywood moment...you know, fading within my mind to the scene from this morning when Kisha was giving me the hairy eyeball for braking the "Mom Rule" against wearing the same clothes two days straight. I told you this morning that she was mentally filing away my intentional disregard for a "Mom Rule". Storing it away for the opportune moment to pull this tragic trump card out and rain down vengeance upon me for the forced fashion faux pas of wearing "yes-ter-day" smelly jeans to "school". (Take note: another survival trait which Darwinian evaluation has impressed upon woman DNA.) Fading back to the present...I searched wide eyed for an answer.

What was I to do now? I did the only thing left to me to do... I ushers Jaden into the dinning room. I turned my head in a vain attempt to ignore the look of total loss and abandonment of all that is "Man-ness" in my son's eyes. Jaden silently watch through his tear filled eyes as I slowly, painfully, turned the TV off, dropping him to his knees sobbing. Oh the humanity!

Once at the table, Kisha informed me she would not be eating the brownish jelled blob Jaden and I were mindlessly feasting upon. I did what any well seasoned father would do; I sailed straight past "cajoling"; left "mature, intellectual discussion" eating my dust; throw out any hope of "flattery and witty banter" to gain the desired end; ran down and over  "begging and crying". No, I went straight to...dare I say?...the "Dad Thump". Yes! I dared to pull out the ultimate weapon in the dad arsenal?! I dared...the whole fabric of the "Man-centric" universe I had so carefully and craftily constructed in my castle, my home, was on the verge of total unraveling. Never to be re-knit by mortal hands...I owed it to My sons to prevent this tragedy from happening.

( You know how in Japanese cartoons, whenever the exciting, climatic scene is taking place, the actions of the hero slows down, frames are repeated and the techno sounding Bionic Man music is played? Well the "Dad Thump" is just that sort of moment. )

My manly hand slammed down upon the table, creating a Thor like, Valhalla quaking crash. All molecular movement halted as a deafening... (Well deafening to Kisha and I, it's too late for Jaden.)...thunderous  clap reverberated...( See, I'm deaf friendly, reverberations so Jaden can enjoy the immensity of the "Dad Thump" too.)...the Earth to its very core, landed strategically on the finely constructed, hard wood table! "When I was young, we had bread and dirt on one day, then dirt and bread the next day. All week long and we were thankful for it. This dinner Little One, you will eat and be thankful to have it!" ( Feel the testosterone yet?)

We locked eyes, me and the 5 year old Amazon Princess...Jaden sat wide eyed, his head, doing the Wimbledon bounce, back and forth between the two opposing Titans of will power; Kisha and me. There was a moment, which seemed as long as the labor her mother and I endured to produce her, within which Kisha looked into the depths of my very soul unblinkingly...(Here again, the all too familiar cold hand of fear, known by all men since the evils of evaluation made women a tantalizing,  yet life threatening fact in the male world, clutched its boney fingers around my heart with that female stare.)

"Dad, I don't have to eat", said Kisha in that calm, quiet woman tone which causes the most Herculean man to cry shamelessly when heard. A sly smile slowly crept across her angelic face as she raised one eyebrow as I squeaked out, " Why not?"

"Daddy, I had two bowls of Mac n Cheese at Wendy's house while waiting for you to pick me up after work. I've already had my dinner, can't you see?".

I ask you, how do women learn at such an early age to suck all the air out of a grown man's lungs, rendering him totally speechless, with just a smile and few simple words? My little Amazon Princess did just that and relinquishing the almighty "Dad Thump" to a sudden and moot death upon the trash heap of which was my shattered male pride . My face crashrd to a look of "-_-".

The rest of dinner was spent quietly eating the brown jelled blob with Jaden as Kisha joyfully watched TV.