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(Continued from NATIONAL PASTIME PT 4)
“Daddy, is it true you’re a nartha-ssistic asshole?” My son Ethan asked me out-of-the-blue this morning while stuffing Lucky Charms cereal into his mouth.
“A what?”
“A nartha-ssistic asshole.”
“I think you mean ‘nar-sa-CISS-tic asshole.”
“Yeah, that.”
At first I was a little taken aback, but then I thought for a long moment, gave him a sidelong glance, and said, “Let me think about it.”
“Ok.” he sighed.
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, when I was talking to Granpa ‘Big Mike’ on SKYPE, he said he read your blog and said you have selective memory and are a nartha-sistic asshole.”
“Narcissistic.”
“Yeah, narcissistic asshole.”
As my son Ethan munched on his high sugar, high calorie, high carb cereal and I choked down my pathetic egg white omelet, I took a few moments to consider what my child was asking. I could have scolded him for cursing, but thought better of it, as in my mind the use of the word ‘asshole’ in conjunction with term ‘narcissistic’ seemed appropriate and was in keeping with the spirit of the description applied to me. I was however slightly perplexed as how to answer my son’s question truthfully and without bias. On one hand, I knew myself to be a narcissistic asshole of the first order, but as any narcissistic asshole will tell you, you don’t necessarily wish to be reminded of it by your child who can eat as much sugary cereal as he wants and NEVER gains an ounce, while I must resort to eating low carb, low taste, ZONE-style breakfasts and am still morbidly obese according to that hateful Wii Fit. Those fucks at Nintendo who created that piece of shit deserve to die! Who wants a machine that not only tells you that your core strength is completely lacking, your balance is like a 90-year-old in traction, and you’re fatter than shit? Christ – isn’t that what your mother is for?!
As I debated the ‘narcissistic asshole’ description in my mind, my thoughts drifted happily to my dad, ‘Big Mike,’ who spent his precious spare time on Sundays patiently catching the baseballs that his young, misanthropic son threw. Big Mike, without any kind of comment, paid for the picture window I had broken and worked tirelessly to perfect my throw. By the end of that spring, I could throw and catch as well as any of the other boys on my Little League team and even got to play right field for two whole games!
I am happy to report that after that first hideous season, I never returned to Little League due to my father’s abandonment of me in favor of my younger sister, who had by the grace of God, become a star tennis player. I am however eternally grateful to my dad, for if he hadn’t been in his own way, the original asshole narcissist, I wouldn’t have the wonderful memories of our time together, nor developed the ability to win every ’Let’s-get-fucked-up-and-play-Strip-Beer-Pong’ contest I enter.
“Yes, I am a narcissistic asshole.” I said proudly to my son Ethan.
I also made a mental note to add FIELD OF DREAMS to our Instant Cue on NETFLIX, for not only did I feel incredibly nostalgic about those catches with my dad, I wanted to see if Kevin Costner’s ghost dad was as cute as I remember.
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