This Message Will Self Destruct

By the time someone reads this it'll be the morning. The sun will have risen and reset the day. Despite this fact, I'm writing this anyway. It's currently 10:18PM. My child is bouncing around with her hair out in a fro. Normal kids would be asleep right now but this model comes with a backup generator. She could possibly go another two or three hours.

All I want to do is play some NBA 2K12, eat some Cheez Its and have a Coke and a smile. I don't wanna look at Super Why. The mechanism inside of me that pretends to be entertained by the Let's Rock Elmo doll is broken. I'm this close to taking out the batteries and telling her that Elmo has been put on the heart transplant list and one (or six) AA hearts should become available tomorrow.

After 10 is mommy and daddy time or at the very least daddy and Xbox/PS3/DVR/Netflix time. I blame my wife. My daughter was on her way to sleep. The eyes were closing. I saw the lids about to touch and then my wife messed it up. She smiled or maybe she had a happy thought. I don't know what exactly, but she did something that my daughter's telepathy picked up on that translated into "they're gonna have fun without me" and my daughter woke back up. I know the drill. She goes to sleep, I removed all glimpses of hope from my face. I pretend to be having a bad day. I pretend that I'm sleepy too. Then, when she's actually in her bed asleep, I army crawl back into the living room. I mute the TV, turn on the closed captions and "read" some TV. Reading is fundamental, you know.

It's moments like these that I'm tempted to start a child support task force. I want to be like Tom Cruise and the rest of the Mission Impossible team. Imma go hunt down all of these deadbeat, no good fathers who miss out on moments like these. I'm gonna drag them back to their respective families and they're gonna put in the time. If you won't do it because it's the right thing for your child then you're gonna do it because I have to do it and I'm way more important than you.

The Department of Social Services can disavow all knowledge of our existence in the unlikely even that we fail, but c'mon, I'm motivated by the shame that I know way too many episodes of Sesame Street by heart. I want justice.

[caption id="attachment_1537" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Even if I have to scale a 200 story glass crack house, I WILL find you."][/caption]