Dad's Chair
Do Come Hither and Hold Heather
By Greg Benson
May/June 2010

When my wife, Kris, and I were wee babes ourselves (23 or so), my mother, with whom we were shacking up at the time, assigned us the task of baby-sitting the infant daughter of a friend. "Sure," we said, because the word "awesome" had not been invented yet, and we figured it would be fun to play house and get an idea of what we were in for should we ever take the leap into parenthood.

Heather had just been fed and dressed for sleep when we arrived. She looked like an expertly wrapped package of joy as her parents, who assured us she'd nod off to sleep in a half hour or so, sashayed out the door and into the childless world of romance, restaurants and cinema.

Heather's screams as they drove off nearly cracked her parents' windshield. Kris picked her up and danced with her as I sprinted out the door and down the road to flag down the dad, who--I swear to this day--spotted me in his rearview mirror and gunned it out of the neighborhood.

Sensing I was at some kind of crossroads, I considered thumbing a ride to Cancœn. But then I thought of Kris and, with the husband-father instinct kicking in, I slunk back into the house to face my destiny.

Kris's look of raw panic indicated that I should take over, so I held Heather and gently danced her around her bedroom, showing her the Care Bears poster on her wall, the panda figurines on her dresser and the pink Hello Kitty mobile dangling from the ceiling.  Heather looked thoughtfully at each one before arching her back to get more volume out of her relentless shrieks. It was as if I had shown her the aftermath of a train wreck involving puppies.

In the pre-cell phone era, reaching each other in emergencies presented a challenge.  "What restaurant did they say they were going to?" shouted Kris as she looked frantically for the phone book. "Where is their freaking phone book?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Well, you know these people better than I do!"

"Oh, I've known them for two weeks longer than you," I countered. "So that means I know where they put all their crap?"

Suddenly it was as if we'd been married for 20 years. Tackling a seemingly insurmountable problem together brought us instantly closer, so close that we could finally dispense with such niceties as "You're such a good person," and "If it pleaseth thee, allow me to sooth the babe whilst you rest."

Giving up on reaching the happy parents, we passed Heather back and forth like a rugby ball, slaloming through the house in an effort to distract the child from the grim realization that her mommy had placed her in the hands of oafish, college-educated children. When we got too winded to continue, I found that, if I dropped Heather onto her parents' bed from a height of roughly a foot, the novelty of impact would stun her into momentary contentment. It was a landmark discovery--but, as with a sleeping pill or booze, Heather built up a tolerance to the treatment and soon jacked up her screams to a level we'd thought unimaginable only 10 minutes ago.

"Do we call the police?" I yelled, only half-jokingly. Thinking I was plotting to get myself arrested as a means of escape, Kris replied, "No, that's a dumb idea.  Here, your turn."

The remainder of our evening with Heather is a blur. I do remember the insufficiently remorseful looks on the parents' faces as they entered the house arm-in-arm-the way Kris and I had been earlier that day. But, as with most painful experiences, time erodes the memory and fools you into thinking you're ready for another. Sam, our older boy, came along seven years later and gave us the Heather treatment almost daily for two years of earsplitting bliss. 

Asked now what he was crying about, Sam, now 15, looks up from his guitar and says, "I dunno. I was probably hungry or tired or something." 

If only we had thought of that.

Heather?  She's all grown up now, a dental hygienist whose primary task is gently chiding patients to stop acting like such babies.

Greg Benson is a father of two boys who know better than to cry for what they think they want.