*I have no shame. I all but promised Whit my first born child and/or provocative pictures of myself if he would agree to guest post for me. Turns out, he doesn’t want my children nor does he want to be scarred by my nudity. However, he did request I quit pressing my nose up against his living room window and drooling. Apparently, it freaks his wife out. Damn. Anyways, thanks Whit. You’re a doll.*

My wife was in bed. I was on the computer. It was late. There was bourbon involved.

In the distance a baby cried. I turned up whatever I was listening to. It may have been Wilco. It may have been jazz. It was something that played well behind an unfocused mind and a bottle of whisky.

I turned up the music and hoped that the baby would solve whatever problem he was facing, or at the very least that my wife would solve it for him. She didn’t. She stayed in bed and she yelled my name into the night. It wasn’t in a good way.

I walked through the dark and took my son from the bassinet. He was only a few weeks old and the fact that I had tried to pawn him off on my wife filled me with regret despite her sleeping not a foot from him.

He stunk, but the smell alone wasn’t enough to warrant my committing the moment to memory. Truth be told, I couldn’t pick that smell out of a line-up. Everything was normal and nothing stood out. I know there was music. Maybe it was Van Morrison. I know there was a drink, was it Maker’s or Knob Creek? I remember that it stunk, but then it always did and I’m pretty sure it always will. Shit stinks and we deal with it.

I took the baby into the the nursery, which was also my office, which was also the extra bedroom. The room was not nearly as glamorous as it sounds.

As I placed him on the changing table I realized that I still had a tissue stuffed inside one of my nostrils. I don’t recall which one, but I remember it had been bleeding. I removed it and within seconds I proceeded to drip blood across my face and onto the smooth, soft skin of my son.

He fired back and suddenly the Pollockesque marks I had drizzled upon us didn’t seem so bad. It’s funny how a rush of piss to the face can put things in perspective.

I did my best Barry Sanders and side-stepped the stream while blocking it with the only item within reach- the bottom of my whisky glass, which of course turned the single stream into a fan of spray that would make the Bellagio blush. It was spectacular.

Everything was fluid, a blur of blood, piss and whisky, and I realized I needed help. I yelled for my wife. She refused to come to my aid, but decided instead to laugh uncontrollably.

Suddenly there was a new noise in the mix. It wasn’t the overly-dramatic cackling of my wife or a boob’s worth of urine ruining an expensive glass of bourbon, it was much more primal. I looked down at the cat meowing beneath me, and I didn’t even flinch as it puked across my bare foot. The right one.

I was a money shot away from hitting for the cycle.

I cleaned up my son, put a new diaper on him and carried him back to the bassinet. My wife tried to curb her enthusiasm. She was not successful.

I wiped the walls and furniture of blood and baby pee. The room was a crime-scene. I wadded a baby wipe into my nose and used the rest to clean up the vomit. The cat watched me, refreshingly unamused.

I poured a fresh glass of fresh whisky and I sat back down at the computer. The room stunk around me, and I listened to Ben Folds.

(This post was written by the hottest, cutest, funniest dad-blogger out there. And then Backpacking Dad stole it from him.) 

Tanis had a visitor last week. A bear.

I know you are waiting for a punch line. But that’s not a joke. A bear showed up in her garden (not in any way a euphemism) to eat her berries (again, not a euphemism).

Tanis has two pre-pubescent, nascent adolescents, preparing for their descent into that pit of sight and scent: junior high.

If you are at all a worrying kind of person, the juxtaposition of curious bear and insane balls-of-energy (pre-teens) might be terrifying. It might be a reason to, I don’t know, move into the city and give up the Redneck Life altogether.

And I am here today to confirm that you would be right. Living in the country is crazy.

Despite my present suburban existence I actually did spend my formative years out in the middle of nowhere. And I often marvel that I survived as long as I did.

For instance, when I was six years old we moved to Carp, Ontario, just outside of Ottawa. We moved into a farmhouse along the RR, across from the OPP station. I’m not sure Carp is famous for anything, but it ought to be famous for the sponsor of my father’s softball team, Karson Kartage and Konstruction. The team jerseys had three big K’s printed on them. The significance of this, what it said, inadvertently or, uh, advertently, about the town was lost on me at the time. Carp should also be famous for the Pet Sematary-like attraction the highway holds for young kids like me. Within a week of moving into our farmhouse I was out on that highway on my brand new chrome BMX Constrictor, riding against traffic and weaving through the hash marks in the middle of the road. And I was hit by a van. From behind. While I was on the shoulder facing oncoming traffic. Amazingly enough I was launched off my bike to land in the ditch rather than being run over and killed. But I spent the second week of our time in Carp living at CHEO in Ottawa. I’m fine now. Mostly. A couple of scars. No broken bones. I still don’t wear a bike helmet. Because, seriously, I’ve had mine. It’s everyone else’s turn.

When I was 11 we lived on an island in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. There wasn’t much to do on the Island, so one winter I walked through the woods behind my house down to a small bay that had frozen over. My younger sister followed me, as younger sisters tend to do, and despite her protests I went a-wanderin’ out on the ice. It was thick ice. And I was 11. I knew what I was doing. She followed me out onto the ice, and her nervous contributions to the conversation (“Let’s go back. I don’t like this. I’m scared.”) were really getting my goat. So, after one particularly egregious exclamation on the heels of a very loud creak from the ice beneath my feet, I wanted her out of my hair, back on the bank where she couldn’t bother me. So, mockingly, I took a step and leaned into a bit. “What are you afraid of?” I asked, like the jackass older brother I was, “This?” And I pressed hard, eliciting the desired screeches from the ice and from my sister.

And then I fell through.

I’d seen enough after-school specials by then to know that the first rule about falling through the ice is to not do it. And that the second rule of falling through the ice is to stick your arms out to your sides (both arms in front of you puts too much pressure on too small a patch of ice, and you’ll just keep breaking it off as you panic). So that’s what I did. I shot my arms out to my sides while my sister screamed (so annoying). Thankfully there was little current in the water of the bay, so I was never pulled along. And I didn’t let my head go under so I didn’t lose orientation. I pulled my sodden body out of the hole and made a slow, careful trek back to the bank and then walked home to get changed. Because it was pretty cold.

Years later some friends and I on a different island in the St. Lawrence River would jump into the ice flow on purpose. We called ourselves the Contra-Cranialists, because we were geeks in addition to being insane. But we weren’t stupid. We had a harness.

So you see, the country is a dangerous place. Everyone should move to the city, where it’s safe, where the world isn’t your enemy and constantly trying to run you over or drown you.

When I was 15 I painted a garage in Rockwood Ontario to make some money for the summer. On my way home by bus later that week I had a long layover in Toronto. I was a teenager and I had about 5 hours to kill in downtown Toronto. I thought I was in heaven. Right outside the bus terminal I came across a panhandler, a young guy, early twenties, clean-cut, asking for change. I gave him some change that I had with me and then I stood and talked with him for a while. Turns out he wasn’t homeless; he was a student and he had an apartment in Scarborough and this was how he made money during the summer. He took a break from his job and I got him to buy me a pack of cigarettes, then I went walking around downtown with him. I met some of the other jobbers, learned how to bait your cardboard box so it didn’t look like you were baiting it (always include some silver in the box, folks; don’t put a bunch of pennies in there). And we went to the Eaton Centre and held the doors open for people while asking for spare change.

After about 20 minutes a woman who had walked by once came back and pressed a five-dollar bill into my hand and looked like she was about to cry. I was done. We went to the arcade nearby on Yonge street and I played some strip poker game and then gave the rest of the money to my so-cool panhandler friend.

If his apartment had been downtown, rather than in Scarborough, and had he suggested we stop by there to get something, I would have gone; because I was cocky and confident and sure I could read character, and because he seemed like just a “cool” guy. As I’ve said, I had seen all the after-school specials; I knew all of the lessons about strangers. But as a teenager, bursting with know-it-all-ness, those lessons were easily forgotten.

Where was I?

Oh. Right. Tanis is crazy to raise her kids in the country. It’s dangerous out there.

I’m about to do something I have never done before. I’m treading into unknown waters and hoping for the best. Having never been one to timidly dip my toes into the pool, I’m choosing to cannonball in and pray to heaven above that I don’t end up belly flopping.

(Because no matter how funny my kids think it is when I do that, there is just no joy getting the wind knocked out of you and having your boobs pushed up your nostrils. Just so you know.)

I’m taking a leave of absence from Redneck. There are some issues that need to be resolved and require my undivided attention. Issues such as school shopping. Which I have put off until the very last possible moment.

I figured since I’m not going to be around the blog for the next week, I may as well open up the doors to my kingdom and invite others to play basically do my work for me here at my blog.

In fact, I’ve declared this week, WIENERS WEEK AT REDNECK’S. All wieners, all the time. Because who doesn’t love a good wiener? Heh.

I emailed some of my testical-toting manly friends and asked begged and pleaded them to help a girl out. Hell, I admit it. I totally batted my eyelashes, wore a low cut shirt and a push up bra while I sent out the invites. This bitch ain’t too proud to beg.

Turns out, very few men can resist my whining flirtatious flattery . Heh.

I’m pleased to announce I’ve managed to charm five of my favourite daddy bloggers into rescuing this damsel in distress. Daddy bloggers don’t get enough lovin’ on the blogosphere and I hoped maybe you all would be so kind as to toss your virtual panties at their feet. I hear they like that sort of thing.

So a warm welcome and great big sloppy kisses to Backpacking Dad, Slicksumbich, Whit, Black Hockey Jesus and the daddy Dooce of them all, Dad Gone Mad.

Thanks guys. Have fun waving your willies around my place.

I’ll be back in a week to clean up the mess.