The Large Man Chronicles

Mrs. Large Man and I have raised two great kids. They’re not better than your kids…they’re not better than anybody. Well, they’re better than me, but that was the plan all along…it was what I hoped for from the start. Please remember “…what I hoped for” as you read the rest of this story.

A lot of people (including me) will insert the barb, “You mean Mrs. Large Man raised two great kids.” Then we follow with “…you were gone all the time playing golf, traveling to exotic lands, like Greensboro, NC, and Rehoboth, Massachusetts”. Well, just so ya know, my well-meaning and beloved friends; no, we both raised these kids, and we both made them who they are…good stuff and flaws.

Mrs. Large Man gave them manners, a work ethic, their pretty faces, and a little bit of class. I gave them curiosity, passion, courage, and belief. It may not seem like I’ve been around… but I was, and I am, and I gave them good things. Not “store things”, just good things. I don’t spend a lot of time boasting on my contributions to society, but I’m unapologetically  (it’s a word) proud of the two people Mrs. Large Man and I are about to donate to you.

I’ve written a tale or two about the magic I felt the day my kids were born. The very first “official” Large Man Chronicle was ‘Thank Heaven for Little Girls’ written about the day I met my daughter. I can’t wait to finish and share the story of my son’s first day here with us. He came quickly, and quietly, with a little bit of humor, and just a touch of intrigue, and he’s spent the last fifteen years living pretty much that same way.

I explained once in a Large Man story about how I didn’t want kids, and how stupid I was for thinking that I didn’t want kids, because I think kids have ultimately defined who the Large Man really is.

I love being a dad.

When my daughter was born, after the original scared shitless days, I remember the bliss that came after “bath and boobs”, just holding that little bundle of hope, and staring into those little blue eyes full of potential, and thinking about all the things she was going to be able to be. This baby girl was going to be the “fix” to all my flaws and failures, and she was going to make me a better person. It was no longer about me, it was about her.

Then I remember thinking, Didn’t I say that same shit about my wife when I decided to ask her to marry me? Yeah, I did.

My wife was going to straighten me out, and here was the theory:

I knew she was a good person, and for the first time in my life, I also knew, and trusted, that she loved me. This was the first time someone who wasn’t required by birth and bloodlines to love me, actually loved me…not because she had to, but because she wanted to. If somebody this good, this beautiful, and this amazing, could love me, maybe, I didn’t need to be “straightened out”. If someone like her could love someone like me, then there simply had to be good and beautiful and amazing things inside of me.

Yeah, no… I was wrong there…way off. Turns out, great, amazing, intelligent and beautiful women fall in love with assholes almost every day.

But, somehow, holding my daughter, kissing those little cheeks, and nibbling on those tiny little perfect fingers, and gazing into those perfect little eyes that gave me hope, I trusted that she was going to be amazing, and I was still going to be flawed, and that it was all going to be okay.

The day I found out my son was coming, I experienced two extreme and opposite emotions. My wife and I were on our way to The Virginia Wine Festival and as I was getting ready to manipulate her…I mean convince her, into being the “designated driver”, she came out of the bathroom with one of those sticks in her hand, and a smile on her face, and a twinkle in her eye.

My initial reaction: YES! DD baby! Daddy is gonna get his drank on! Because this is what people with goodness inside of them do at wine festivals when they find out they have another child on the way.

Then, like 10 seconds later, I thought, Damn, another baby? I’m just getting used to the idea that I’m not gonna break the one I have. I love my little girl more than anything I have ever loved. I didn’t even know you could love like this. How on Earth will there be enough of me to love another one? They’re both gonna be cheated.

I share these very personal thoughts as support data for my earlier statement that women fall in love with assholes all the time. But I’m an asshole that can learn.

Wanna know what I learned?

Okay…

I think if you love, and you love unconditionally, love becomes infinite. I could have ten kids, and I would love each one as much as the other. That’s what I learned the day my son showed up. I didn’t know it until the day he came, but it happened the second I saw him. I owe him for that one, that’s a lot for an asshole to learn in one second.

I think loving someone, and ALLOWING SOMEONE TO LOVE YOU, allows you to change, and evolve, and to develop the good things inside of you. And I think most of us have good things inside us.

So now these babies who taught me and my wife (but mostly me) these great lessons on love and life and goodness, have grown up. We have laughed and learned together, been on great adventures together, and we have experienced intolerable sorrow together. Our storms of life have been much more bearable because of this bond…a house full of love and kids can do that to you. It’s what I hoped for.

I’ve bitched and moaned so many times as I grabbed a jacket and boots and sat through the rain sleet and snow at soccer games, band performances, football games and track meets. I’ve whined and complained about “FOUR NIGHTS IN A ROW AT THE THEATER?! REALLY? ARE WE ON F-ING BROADWAY NOW? I’M RUNNING OUT OF BLAZERS!” And at the time of my protests, there was always a little truth in my ranting, but I never regretted going. There is always something that amazes me, or tickles me, or makes me proud. Watching one of my kids do something  I can’t do, and something  I didn’t teach them, has been one of my life’s greatest joys…there is an emotion there that I’m not skilled enough to explain in a Chronicle.

But things are changing. My daughter is driving, she’s been accepted to college, and I just watched her march with her marching band for the very last time. My son is riding in cars with buddies, he’s talking to the ladies, and he’s making decisions for himself. Just in the month of August, both of my kids showed me strength of character, maturity, and courage, that would make the most disinterested and detached parents on Earth beam with pride. They did these things on their own, as their own people…kinda like grown-ups.

It’s the nature of things, and these are things to celebrate…and it’s what I hoped for.

Sort of…

All my dreams somehow had me and their mom in the same picture with them. When my daughter was fighting for justice in a courtroom, passionately speaking the truth as she stares over her glasses into the eyes of the judge, I was sitting on one of those hard wooden benches watching with pride and admiration. And in that dream, when the bad guy spoke harshly or threatened her, I stared him down with my best Clint Eastwood stare and he sat his ass back down. (I’m talking ‘Dirty Harry’ and ‘Unforgiven’ Clint, not Republican Convention Clint)

When my son rescued dogs from puppy mills, scored touchdowns, hit home runs, and pulled women and children from burning buildings, in the dream, I’m driving him to all these activities. As he crosses the finish line, covered with sweat and grit and blood, I’m handing him the Gatorade and his mom is handing him a cold washcloth to wipe away the hurt.

My daughter and my son are going to stare down life’s bullies, bad guys, and “storms”, because they can. They’re better than me, and that’s what I hoped for. I just didn’t think it was going to happen so fast, and I didn’t think they were going to do it without me.

I didn’t think about that part.

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Have any of you ever suffered from Vertigo? Well I have, and it sucks.

Today’s tale is dedicated to my bro, Patrick. Patrick and I are co-workers, and once upon a time I must have shared this story with him while we were traveling together. I tend to tell lots of stories to people who travel with me. People usually only travel with me once.

Anyway…Patrick thought the story I’m about to tell was funny, interesting, and just “messed up” enough to be shared with the masses, so he suggested I should write it as a ‘Chronicle’. I told him he should mind his own business, and not tell me what to write, and to go fuck himself. Upon reflection, I realized my initial response to his suggestion may have been a bit course. I can’t really apologize to him, because apologizing would be admitting I was wrong, and even though I was wrong, I can’t go around apologizing to people every time I’m wrong about something.

  *****

A long time ago, in an airport far, far away, I was waiting for my terminating flight to Hartford CT, and my ears would not “un-pop” from my previous, connecting flight from Kansas City. I was uncomfortable. I was suffering from a minor sinus infection, nothing debilitating, but certainly unpleasant while flying. I made quite a spectacle of myself walking around the terminal, pinching my nostrils together and blowing into the blocked off nasal cavity with all my might. It made me dizzy, and frustrated…and it didn’t work. Passersby watched and judged as I stood in line to board the plane, and turned my pale winter face a deep crimson as I continued my pressure relief attempts. It still didn’t work.

I was not excited about getting on another airplane. I wondered if my ears would double pop on the next trip. And I wondered if my ears double popped, would my head explode? It seemed like a possibility, even though I had never heard of this occurring before. So then I imagined if my head did explode, it would suck for my fellow passengers what with the mess and everything, but since it had never happened before, I would probably have a story written about me in ‘People Magazine’…and that would be cool.

My wife’s dream is to be in ‘People Magazine’, so maybe she could be in the article as well:

“…he is survived by his wife and children in Kansas City. When we spoke with Mrs. Large Man, she said ‘His head looked fine when he left that morning. He talked like he was a little stuffy, but that was it. It’s all so shocking and hard to process. Do we get any money for this interview? You know, the Maury people want an exclusive, and they’re talking deep into 4 figure territory. Just saying. I’m probably going to have to raise these two children on my own for a few months.’”

Even though I wondered about these things, we never made it to ‘People’, because, obviously, nothing exploded. Well…technically.

So I hop on the plane, and we take off, and I feel the pressure build as we climb. I expected it, so I just took the pain as the air pressure in the cabin grabbed two metaphorical ice picks and jammed them mercilessly into both of my ears. Pain isn’t really a big deal to me. I took it like a man…like a Large Man.

Then, the bell chimed, indicating we had reached 10,000 feet…and my ears un-popped. For about 2 seconds, everything felt great. Such relief…for about 2 seconds.

So I hear the chime, the ears clear, and as I exhale the sigh of relief, the plane appeared to turn upside down. As the plane turned upside down, my body became completely drenched from sweat (I hoped). I felt a total body tremor, and within another second or 2 a wave of nausea completely overtook me.

I’m on a Southwest Airlines flight, about 3 rows back from the forward lavatory, but we were still in our ascent, and as far as I could tell the plane was still upside down, although now it was spinning in circles while we were upside down. I pressed the help button, and a flight attendant announced over the intercom that the flight attendants were not available until we reached a safe altitude. There was an empty seat between me and the dude sitting by the window. I remember looking at him with pleading eyes and he smiled at me. At that moment, I assumed that he assumed he was going to heaven after our plane crashed. The flight attendants were calm as well, and as I looked around the cabin at all the other passengers, no one was afraid. They were calm, some were sleeping, some were talking, others were listening to iTunes, on their iPhones or their iPods, completely at peace with our impending iDoom.

At that point I realized while I have been a bit of douche bag most of my life, I couldn’t be the only person on the plane not going to heaven. I looked behind me, and quickly determined that the asshole in 7F had no shot at “ascending to the light”, based solely on the fact that he was wearing a blue seersucker jacket with a tan button down oxford shirt, brown slacks, RED socks and black lace up cap toed shoes. Five different articles of clothing, and couldn’t match two? Yet he was calm.

I don’t know if it was 7F’s f-ed up apparel, or my own malady but I could no longer keep the contents of my stomach contained. I grabbed the airsickness bag and even in my state of panic and confusion, I deftly unfolded it just in time to release the morning’s sausage, egg & cheddar on everything bagel mixed with diet Coke, into the bag.

Well, that was the plan anyway. However, I still thought I was upside down, so instead of tossing my bagels downward into my emergency puke container, I held the bag above my head as I leaned my head back. The vomit percolated out of me, upwards… like one of those old style water fountains that would shoot straight up and then fall back into the basin. Unfortunately, the “basin” in this situation was my bearded chin.

This was unfortunate.

The dude sitting next to me, the one going to heaven, looked at me in horror, and asked in a rather unsympathetic tone, “What the fuck are you doing?”

I replied calmly, wait, no…I mean hysterically, “I don’t know. Is the plane upside down? Are we going down?”

He just smiled and said, “No, you have vertigo, and you just got puke all over your clothes.”

And then the smell hit him and he covered his mouth and his nose and his gag reflex started tickling the back of his throat, and he almost puked as well. His body heaved a couple of times, and then he just turned away and faced the window…like a little baby.

About a minute later, the plane leveled off and a flight attendant brought me a handful of paper towels and a plastic bag, looked at me with utter disgust and said with a totally phony smile, “Just do the best you can, sir.” Then her hand went over her mouth and she did the “body wretch” dance as well.

I cleaned up as best I could, I threw the paper towels into the plastic bag, wrapped it up tight, and tried to hand it to the flight attendant. She looked at me with the disdain that someone might have if they watched someone else puke all over their self. I couldn’t blame her for that one…totally MY bad in this situation.

She said, “I don’t get paid enough to handle that bag. Please just keep it under the seat in front of you until we land, and find a wastebasket at the airport, sir.” She was very polite, with all the “sirs” and everything, but I didn’t get the feeling that she liked me.

We landed. I did as she instructed. And the horrifying and shameful experience was over…

…until the next time I flew on a plane.

Vertigo sucks.

Thanks for reading. I hope Patrick was right, and you found it to be a story worth reading.

Tell someone you love them today.

TLM

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