Dylan Stafford

I hate email. Flat out. Whoever invented email is torturing me. Email multiplies like rabbits—one goes out and two come back. I get barraged by them at work and it doesn’t help that I sometimes can’t read.   

Last week I got an email inviting Marisa and me to a Saturday night holiday gathering. My good friend Elizabeth was having a party. Marisa thought it sounded fun and she arranged our friend Jen to babysit after her work.   

Elizabeth sent a second email asking if we were coming because she had to buy the food. I skim emails and miss key details. That should have been my clue. 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 thought it was a big tree-trimming event with lots of people I didn’t think our lateness would disrupt anything.   

Jen came 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 in the 80s and 90s. By the time we were in the car it was 8:00. 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 do that.   

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 and she was supposed to have a houseful of people, so she wouldn’t step away to call us would she? And didn’t it sound kind of 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 people everywhere there were only two other couples. Instead of a half-decorated tree there was a dining room table fully set with centerpiece and crystal and show plates. I looked at the well-noshed trays of appetizers with the sinking realization that I had missed some more email details. This wasn’t a tree trimming party. This was a formal dinner party and 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 hosted the evening with toasts and courses and gifts. The other couples were longtime friends of hers. One couple was Jewish and in honor of Hannukah 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 when we left.   

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 loser for both showing up late and now leaving late. I had inconvenienced Elizabeth at the beginning and Marisa 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 5 minutes. I sped off from the pharmacy parking lot as my emotions came out in my driving.   

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

I held the wheel with both hands and didn’t say anything. In my mind everything was dark. The thoughts were coming fast and bitter. “Why can’t I pay attention? I can’t even read a damn 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 mind was firing its accusations.   

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. I couldn’t distinguish between impatience and intolerance and being judgmental. I tossed the prayer up, Hail Mary style, hoping for any relief.   

I couldn’t quit thinking that I had pushed my wife too far when she wasn’t feeling well. My mean brain was throwing guilt and shame at me like the food fight in Animal House.   

The last chance for cold medicine was the liquor store down the street and they did have some night time medicine that could help her get a good night’s sleep. We came home and hugged Jen and heard about Jack’s bedtime. Jen was on the couch watching an old Western and all was well with her. She said he 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 until midnight. She gathered her coat and left. Marisa and I went and brushed our teeth quietly. Jack was asleep in his bed, his body cocked up at a funny angle on 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 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 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 9:00am but I 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. She was still fighting her cold so she was staying home to rest.   

Sunday morning is when I imagine what it was like to live in Los Angeles before it got crowded. The traffic flows freely and the air is clear and the mountains are easy to see. That California cliché about being able to snow ski in the morning and surf in the afternoon makes sense on Sunday mornings.   

Jack and I made good 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 breakfast with both meat lover and vegan options. Her daughter is vegan and Kay is learning new recipes. I started with coffee to get my caffeine back up to my normal levels.   

In recovery meetings people say, “If one 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 just one cup when I can have a half pot to myself? I prepare the coffee maker at night and in the morning hit brew on my way to the shower. I have my warm-up pot at home and then drink more when I get to work.   

To drink less, I have to wean myself slowly. If I change my caffeine too quickly 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. While we had our salon, talking about life and love and politics, I sat on the floor against the couch and sucked down coffee like there would be hell to pay if I didn’t catch up to my daily dosage.   

The salon lasted until 1:30 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 slowly in the afternoon traffic. I might even drive beyond our house if he was still sleeping. 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 the morning 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. My fear was we would get home too soon and Jack’s nap would be too short and he would be cranky the rest of the day.   

Fifteen minutes later he did fall asleep, quickly, like a light switch going off. Maybe it was the monotony 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. I started to feel like I had to pee. Apparently I had overdone it trying to catch up on my coffee. Plus, adding to that pee feeling, the caffeine headache I had been trying to avoid was happening anyway. My head was starting to pound and the bright California sun amplified the pain between my ears.   

I love Stephen Colbert and his Colbert Report. In one of his mockumentary episodes he railed against the evils of trucker bombs. With dramatic music and slow speed close ups he showed, strewn along the highways and byways of America, discarded plastic Gatorade bottles full of amber colored liquid, a liquid distinctly different from the original contents.   

It turns out long haul truckers like to get paid and part of how their salary gets calculated is how fast they make deliveries. Instead of losing time pulling over to pee, they keep the engines of capitalism humming by relieving themselves into empty plastic bottles to keep on truckin’. If they are civic minded, the bottles will get emptied out later. If not, they get tossed out the window into the ditches of America to add to our litter, thus trucker bombs, the demon in Colbert’s mockumentary.   

Jack was asleep in the car seat. The Dallas Cowboys were playing painful football on the radio broadcast, not doing well at all. My headache was pulsing and my bladder was bursting and the sunshine was making it all seem loud. I started going through my options. If I pulled over and went into a restroom, I would have to take Jack with me and 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.   

Maybe I could pull over on the shoulder but keep the car running so Jack wouldn’t wake up? Sure. Good plan. On the freeways of Southern California in the blazing sun it would be like taking a leak on the fifty yard line during halftime. I had to keep going.   

Another TV image filled my mind, erasing the Colbert memory. This time it was those public service announcements warning against drinking and driving. Each time the officer knocks on the window of the drunk driver sitting in a car full of liquid. Each time the driver rolls down the window and the liquid comes sloshing out. It is supposed to be beer or wine but today in my mind it was pee. My kidneys had failed and the pee had filled my whole body. All I could think about was peeing.   

The only grace was that Jack continued to sleep. We were up to forty minutes now and he was still sleeping. If I could only hold on for twenty more minutes we would have reached the magic hour mark. Anything over an hour is a success for a weekend nap and usually enough to ward off the evil crankies. But twenty more minutes for my bladder seemed like too much.   

I started to imagine pulling off on the shoulder anyway, peeing in the full glare of the afternoon light with people honking at me as they drove past. Worst-case outcomes ranged from getting a ticket to getting rear-ended and perishing in a giant fireball, a fireball that faintly smelled of burning urine.   

The traffic was moving and we were coming up to our exit. It wasn’t an 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 coming out of a bog. He’s a toddler now and he doesn’t wake up crying, but kind of mumbles as he gets his bearings.   

“We home?”   

“No Jack. We’re almost home but not quite.”   

Don’t think about an elephant.   

Don’t do it. Don’t think about an elephant. I mean it… 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 about 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 and I was about to make my own trucker bomb.   

I pulled behind a restaurant in an alley but there were two old guys standing around a small grill. Dammit. I circled back and parked on the side of the restaurant. It wasn’t private but it was better than the highway and the fireball.   

“What daddy doing?” Jack asked from the back 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 make peeps Jack. That’s what people do.”   

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

The relief was blissful as the bottle filled and my bladder said thank you. The only question was whether the bottle was going to be big enough. I could see the pee slowly creeping up the sides. It was going to be close. 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 wasn’t better and my Dallas Cowboys were still losing. But I didn’t have to pee anymore and Jack almost got a whole nap.   

Somehow the domino effect from that email had led me to this, too much coffee and peeing in a parking lot. If I would ever slow down when I read emails maybe things like this wouldn’t happen. But then what would I have to write about?   

I picked up my son Jack from daycare about 4:30 this afternoon. Mommy had to go directly from her work to her volunteering so I had Jacktivities from 4:30 to bedtime.

We drove down the 405 with the endless rows of red lights. After we pulled off the freeway we took a weaving route home so we could look for Christmas lights. Jack likes the window rolled down but I only let him do that on side streets. He was shrieking while alternating between putting his fingers out and then pulling them back and saying “Coooood.” He still doesn’t have much in the way of “L” sounds, so “cold” sounds like “code”.

At 27 months old, he is getting the hang of Christmas and Santa Claus and lights. We have a Norman Rockwall-esque living room with a Christmas tree and a fireplace and an extension cord with a step-on button so he can turn the lights on and off, and on and off. We got home and he stepped on the button so our lights would shine for other people.

We’d been away on a four-day trip to Arizona. We drove across the desert after work last Wednesday, suffering through Los Angeles rush hour traffic as the first 30 miles took an hour and a half. Jack was back in his car seat talking about “bijou” and staying up way past his bedtime. Bijou is one of his imaginary words right now. It doesn’t have any fixed meaning and he will use it in different ways. Bijou this and bijou that. He’ll sing bijou bijou bijou sometimes to himself. We haven’t taken him on that many car rides and he was too amped up to go to sleep at his usual time. It was bijou-tastic in his world.

I was going to Scottsdale to do a course called an “Incomplete Items Inventory”. It was a four-day look at anything from my 40 years of life so far that might be incomplete, and then a deciding of what to do to make it complete. Marisa’s job consulting is 3 days a week right now so she could take Thursday and Friday off and we could all three go over together. She and Jack visited her girlfriend while I did my course. She had to work Monday so she and Jack flew back together Sunday afternoon and I got up Monday morning and drove from Scottsdale back to Los Angeles by myself.

My mom grew up in Tempe, Arizona, and my grandparents are buried there. Sunday night, after Marisa and Jack had gone to the airport and my course had completed, I went to the cemetery to see my grandparents. It was about 10pm and the car gate was closed but the side door was open so I could walk in. I had gone to Taco Bell and bought three supreme tacos to take with me to see grandma and grandpa.

I had a little flashlight from the glove box and with my tacos I went to have some “Day of the Dead” time with my grandparents. Back in 1992, I lived in Mexico with a host family and I learned about Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. Mexican families go to the cemeteries where their family members are buried and they take the favorite food and music of their departed loved ones and have a  picnic. They tell stories and catch up and remember their loved ones. That night back home they leave out food and candles so the dead can come home and visit. When I first heard about this tradition I thought it was morbid, but over the years I’ve had a change of heart. I like to visit the cemeteries of my grandparents and my great-aunt, all those main people who made my childhood special.

I crunched along the Arizona gravel with my flashlight until I found my grandparents’ gravesite. I squatted down and ate tacos and licked salsa off my fingers. I said the Lord’s Prayer and then proceeded to update grandma and grandpa on my marriage and little Jackson. Even though I like going, I never know how to update dead relatives when I visit the cemeteries. If they are all up in heaven looking down on us all the time, then isn’t it kind of redundant to tell them what is going on? Since I was there and I had run out of tacos I took the opportunity to share with them that I am happy in my marriage and happy being a daddy.

Their gravesite is in Double Butte cemetery. It’s right in the middle of Tempe and the ambient light from the city keeps it from being totally dark. My eyes had adjusted and I could see around me well enough to put my flashlight away. All of a sudden the sprinkler system kicked on and scared the bejesus out of me. It made a strange shushing noise from all directions and I jumped up and spilled taco wrappers. I wondered if grandma and grandpa were chuckling as I gathered up my Taco Bell bag and said my farewells.

I got up at 5:00am Monday and was on the road before six to miss the traffic. I looked forward to some desert driving and solitude but was disappointed by how much of the 400 miles between Phoenix and Los Angeles is built up now. There were probably fewer than 100 miles that actually felt like I was out and away from all the urban buildup.

I called my mom on the drive and told her that I had gone to visit her parents. I told her that after the cemetery visit I had driven over to where their homestead had been. There is nothing left of it now and the location is an access road off the Superstition freeway. After looking at the location I had driven over to “Friendship Village”, the retirement home where they had lived out their final years. I told the security guard that I was a grandson coming by to pay homage to his grandparents and he let me in to walk around. I had not been back since 1996 when my grandmother had passed away. As it is December, there were luminaries lining the sidewalks like I remembered from Christmas visits when I was a kid. My mom got all choked up as I told her that I had made these three visits. The older I get, the more I cherish opportunities to do something nice for my mom.

Tuesday, today, was back to work and the regular routine of my life. I got Jack back home after driving around and looking at lights. Marisa was out volunteering so I had to prepare dinner daddy style, which tonight meant tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Jack doesn’t mind my low-tech, comfort-food cooking. I was tired from all the travel and when I get tired I often get lonely. I put the speaker phone on the table and Jack and I called my parents for some reassurance.

I talked to mom and then she passed the phone to my dad. He and I were talking and Jack was getting impatient. I had to tell him “It’s daddy’s turn to talk. Daddy needs to talk to his daddy. Daddy needs to do this to feel better.” Jack seemed to understand and he got quiet and let me finish speaking with my father. Dad and mom both reassured me that all is well and that there wasn’t anything going on that a good night’s sleep couldn’t cure.

After I hung up the phone Jack and I finished our grilled cheese sandwiches, dipping them in the tomato soup. He had a big red clown smile on his face by the time we were through.

“I missed you.” Jack looked right at me and spoke. “I missed you daddy.” He said it again, serious under his soupy clown smile.

“I missed you too Jack,” I replied. “I missed you a lot.”

It was the first time Jack ever said that he missed me. I caught my breath for a moment realizing I was hearing these words for the first time from my little son.

 “I missed Daddy.”

“I missed Jack.”

It was turning into too much of an emotional moment in my tired and lonely frame of mind, but before it could get too syrupy his little mind moved on to other things he missed. “I missed Gallop.” (A book of his.) “I missed chair.” He continued taking inventory of various kitchen items that he had missed and I let out a little laugh. He had missed his daddy, and he had missed his kitchen. It brought me back to earth and I gave him a hug and took him off to bath time and books and bedtime.