Dylan Stafford

Originally published December 14, 2009

Email tortures me. Emails multiply like rabbits—one goes out and two come back. I get too many emails, and I miss details.   

Last week, my friend Elizabeth emailed me an invitation for a Saturday night holiday gathering. I assumed it was a tree trimming party. Marisa thought it sounded lovely and coordinated with our friend Jen to babysit Jack.   

Later, Elizabeth sent a second email asking if we were coming because she had to buy the food. When I skim emails, I miss key details. Her second email should have been my clue, that if she needed a headcount then we probably better be on time.

I knew we were going to be late because of Jen’s work schedule, but because I assumed it was a big tree-trimming event with lots of people I didn’t think our lateness would disrupt anything.

So I didn’t tell Elizabeth, nor consult with Marisa.

Jen arrived and we did the babysitting handoff with Jack. Marisa was still blow-drying her hair and Jack was playing Legos in front of the fireplace while I was watching an ESPN documentary about University of Miami football.

La la la, all the time in the world.

We got in the car at 8:00 p.m.

Marisa was fighting a cold and she said, “Let’s make sure we leave by 10 tonight. I want to get a good night’s sleep and not push myself.” 

I replied that we would leave by 10.   

While we were driving Elizabeth called to check and see where we were. She was super sweet but after I hung up I started wondering if I had missed something. This was a tree-trimming party, right, and she was supposed to have a houseful of people, so she wouldn’t step away to call us, would she? And why did it sound so quiet in the background?   

We arrived at her home and walked into a warm living room that smelled like cinnamon and candles and Christmas. Instead of dozens of people everywhere as I’d imagined, there were only two other couples. Instead of a half-decorated tree, there was a fully set dining room table with centerpiece and crystal and show plates. I looked at the well-noshed trays of appetizers with the sinking realization that I had missed a very important detail.

This wasn’t a tree trimming party. This was a formal dinner party. We had made our host wait over an hour. My heart dropped as my embarrassment rose.   

Elizabeth never gave the slightest hint of annoyance.

She graciously greeted us and guided the evening with toasts and courses and gifts. The other couples were longtime friends of hers. One couple was Jewish, and in honor of Hanukah Elizabeth served potato latkes with apple sauce and sour cream. The green salad had blackberries and blueberries and strawberries as well as cream cheese and nuts. The main event was a sweet potato casserole, seasoned green beans and chicken breasts with rosemary and citrus drizzle. Desert was a platter full of creamy calories. All this, plus gifts and stories and it was 11:50 p.m. when we left.   

It was a magical dinner. Elizabeth is a gifted host.

But driving home, I was upset to the point of not knowing what to say.

Everything should have been perfect after such an exquisite meal but I felt like a double-loser: we both showed up late, and now were leaving late. I had inconvenienced Elizabeth at the beginning, and Marisa and Jen at the end.

Marisa was tired from her cold and she wanted to get a certain medicine but we missed the closing of the drugstore by five minutes. I sped off from the pharmacy parking lot.   

“Dylan, it is ok. I’ll be fine,” she said. “You don’t need to speed.”    

I held the steering wheel with both hands and didn’t say anything.

In my mind everything was dark.

The thoughts came fast and bitter. “Why can’t I pay attention? I can’t even read a darn email right. Why am I always in such a hurry? The one night I’m in charge of our social life and I screw it up! How are we going to get to Orange County in the morning if we are out this late tonight? When did we tell Jen we’d be home? I bet I made her angry too. She’ll never babysit again and now Marisa can’t get any medicine.“

Bang, bang, bang my brain shot nasty-grams at me.   

I slowed down my driving and silently prayed for intervention, “God, please remove my defects of character.” 

I wasn’t specific. Any defect would do: frustration, anger, fear, worry. I tossed the prayer up, Hail Mary style, hoping for any relief.   

But my broken brain did not stop. It kept throwing guilt and shame at me like a monkey in a food fight.   

The last chance for cold medicine was a liquor store and they did have some night time medicine.

We arrived home and hugged Jen and heard about Jack’s evening. Jen was on the couch watching an old Western and all was well with her. She said Jackson had a good evening but every now and then he would remember Mommy and Daddy were gone and get upset.

Jen was fine that we had stayed out past midnight. She gathered her coat and left. Marisa and I brushed our teeth quietly. Jack was asleep in his bed, his body cocked up at a funny angle over a pillow with his blue-striped fleece pajamas keeping him warm.   

We crawled into our bed and I gave Marisa a kiss on the cheek. “I love you love.”   

“I love you too.”   

* * * * *

The next morning Jack came into our bedroom at 7:00 a.m. rubbing his eyes and requesting Mommy. Marisa gamely got out of bed to go play with him while I slept a little longer.

When I got up there wasn’t much time left.   

Every month Marisa and I go to a breakfast salon with a group of friends. We eat brunch and drink coffee and try to solve the world’s problems—by noon. We rotate houses and this month our friend down in Orange County was hosting. The salon starts at 9:00 a.m. so we needed to leave by 8:00 to make it on time.   

“Do you want me to make you some coffee?” Marisa asked.   

“No, there will be coffee there and I’m already running late,” I replied.   

Marisa dressed Jack while I took a shower. We bundled him up and into his car seat and I kissed Marisa on her cheek. Still fighting her cold, she was staying home to rest.   

Driving on Sunday mornings, I imagine life in Los Angeles before it got crowded. The traffic flows freely. The air is clear and the mountains are easy to see. That California cliché about surfing in the morning and snow skiing in the afternoon only makes sense on Sunday mornings.   

Jack and I made great time to Orange County. We were only about fifteen minutes late to the salon.

I greeted my friends and explained to them that Marisa was congested and had stayed home. Our host Kay had prepared a feast of a brunch. I started catching up on my morning coffee quotient to get my caffeine up to my normal levels.   

In twelve-step recovery people say, “If one drink is good, then five must be better.” I don’t think that way about alcohol anymore, but these days you might say I am powerless over coffee. Why wake up to one cup when I can have a half pot to myself?

My normal routine is to prepare the coffee maker at night and in the morning hit brew on my way to the shower. I have my first two-to-three cups at home, my warm-up pot, and then drink more when I get to work.   

And, if I drink less, I get a solid headache in the afternoon. I was afraid this might happen today, since I was having my first cup of java three hours later than usual. We had our salon, talking about life and love and politics, and I sat on the floor leaning against the couch and sucking down coffee.   

The salon went long and it was almost two when Jack and I headed home. My plan was that Jack would fall asleep in the car and get a long nap while I drove north in the afternoon traffic. I might even drive beyond our house if he was still sleeping, to make sure he got a full nap. My Dallas Cowboys were playing the San Diego Chargers and I planned to listen to the game on the radio.   

Often Jack is asleep in minutes but today he was in his car seat chatting away about Kay’s house and the muffins and the doggie and the trucks on the highway. He was wide awake and the traffic was moving well and my nap plan was falling apart. If we got home too soon Jack’s nap would be too short, and he would be cranky the rest of the day.   

Fifteen minutes later he did fall asleep, instantly, like a light switch turned off. Maybe it was the white noise of the radio football or maybe he was just tired. The traffic slowed and I felt better, that he was getting his nap. But I also started to feel something else, not better.

I needed to pee.

Big stomach, small bladder. Same as ever.

And adding to that, the caffeine headache I had tried to avoid was happening anyway. My head was beginning to pound driving into the bright California sun.   

Jack was blissfully asleep in his car seat. My Dallas Cowboys were playing painful football on the radio. My headache was pulsing. My bladder was bursting and the sunshine was making it all seem worse.

I started going through my options:

If I pulled over and went into a restroom, I would have to take Jack with me but his nap would end. Jack would be cranky the rest of the day and Marisa would be disappointed.

If I kept driving he would sleep, but I might have lifelong kidney damage.   

If I pulled over on the shoulder but kept the car running so Jack wouldn’t wake up it would be like taking a leak on the fifty-yard line during halftime. Worst-case outcomes ranged from getting a ticket to getting rear-ended and dying in a giant fireball, a fireball that smelled of burning urine.

I had to keep going.   

The only grace was that Jack continued to sleep.

His nap was up to forty minutes now and he was still sleeping. If I could only hold on for twenty more minutes of napping we would have reached the magic hour mark. Anything over an hour is a success for a weekend nap and wards off the evil crankies. But twenty more minutes for my ballooning bladder seemed like too much.   

The traffic started flowing again and we were coming up to our exit.

It wasn’t a full hour. We were at fifty minutes of naptime. The exit ramp had a red light at the bottom and I had to stop. Jack twisted in his car seat and in the rear-view window I could see his eyes starting to open slowly, like a dinosaur head rising out of a bog. He’s a toddler now and he doesn’t wake up crying, but rather he mumbles as he gets his bearings.   

“We home?”   

“No Jack. Almost home. Not quite.”   

Dear Reader, Don’t think about an elephant.   

You, Dear Reader, don’t do it.

Don’t think about an elephant.

It’s hard to do isn’t it?   

Well that’s where I was with the pee.

All I could think about was pee.

We were only five minutes from home but I had to pee so badly. If I made it to home and ran in the door to the restroom and left Jack alone in the driveway in his car seat, that didn’t seem like a very good parenting. I didn’t think I could make it anyway so I started looking for someplace to pull over.

There was an empty Gatorade bottle in my car.   

I pulled behind a restaurant in an alley but there were two old guys standing around a small grill. Darn it. It wasn’t private but it was better than the highway and the fireball explosion death.   

“What Daddy doing?” Jack asked from his seat as I maneuvered.   

“Jack, Daddy make peeps,” I replied, definitely feeling like father of the year at this point.   

“Why Daddy make peeps?”   

This conversation was going nowhere.

“Everybody makes peeps Jack. People make peeps.”   

“Why?” Jack asked again but he wasn’t really interested. He was looking out the window at the men at the grill.   

The relief was bliss.

The bottle filled and the only question was whether it was going to be big enough. I could see the pee slowly creeping up the sides. It was going to be close. Nope, the bottle wasn’t big enough.

Whatever that inside muscle is that makes pee stop, I flexed it. It worked, sort of. I put the cap back on the bottle. My bladder cried thank you. My headache still pounded. My Dallas Cowboys were still losing. But I didn’t have to pee anymore and Jack almost got a whole nap.   

Marisa was feeling better when we got home. She laughed at my tinkle tale.

“Glad you didn’t get rear-ended. Glad you didn’t overdo it,” she smiled quietly.

In our marriage, Marisa runs the details and we have a beautiful home. I think God made us this way on purpose, complementary gifts, hers and mine, but mostly hers. When I read the emails, I miss details, but somehow, we keep going. We had a beautiful dinner yesterday. Marisa got to rest today.

You + Me = We

One + One = Three

Details + The Big Picture = A Beautiful Life

Thank you, God, for letting me be a husband and a daddy, today.