Hot Pink Puppy

One of the tough things about being as ridiculously smart as I am, is that I have so much more to worry about than the average schmuck. My mind is weighed down by the complexity of life. I am burdened by my profound understanding of the human experience. Honestly, sometimes I feel like a mental Superman, living among mere mortals that wander along through life, blissfully ignorant of the intellectual troubles I confront daily with my Herculean physique with my dashing good looks. This is my lot in life, and I do my best to bear it well.

Since the birth of my two daughters, I've been very aware of the socialized genderization of kids. I do think there is something besides anatomy that makes girls girls, and boys boys – something powerful and important. But it is all the extra stuff that worries me; the stuff that makes boys feel ashamed when they want to express emotion and the stuff that makes girls think they cannot achieve something. It is the same stuff that for generations and across the globe let men get paid more than women, made sons more desirable than daughters, and in general has given us a messed-up male dominated world. So I'm aware, for example, when Cyra (my daughter) is given a pencil with butterflies and Kian (her male cousin) is given a pencil with race cars. The fate of the world rests in the giving of pencils, and I alone seem to notice.

Cyra and Kian are very close in age, so watching them has been informative. They are like lab rats for my experiments on the socialized genderization of kids. Cute little lab rats. Kian was potty trained first, and Cyra watched in envy as he peed and pooped like a big kid. After she was potty trained too, Cyra was upset when we told her that she could not stand in front of the toilet and pee like Kian did. It just didn't work that way, but I loved that she assumed she could. And I love when we tell them to pick a DVD to watch and Kian always yells "I want to watch My Little Ponies" because there is no reason he shouldn't like such adorable little magic creatures. I love coming home from work and being told that throughout the day Cyra would pick up her bag and say, "Bye mom, I'm going to work." I love that for several months Kian's favorite pants were a pair of pastel orange ones that someone bought for Cyra but were too big.

Unfortunately, the experiment of Cyra and Kian's discovery of gender is impossible to control; there are forces of gender oppression that bare down on them relentlessly. And in my experience so far, the biggest culprit of force-fed genderization, is a grand parent. They seem so nice and docile, with their graying hair and generous eyes. But in practice they seem hell-bent on ensuring that our kids' world is every bit as male-dominated and messed up as their own. The tactics they employ could not be more insidious, gifts for holidays and birthdays and for nothing at all. Gifts that if I refuse, turn me, the hero, into the bad guy, a result the grandparents would love. But I won't play so easily into their wrinkly little hands. Instead, I choose the much more subtle approach of making snide and sarcastic comments about the "gifts" that make everyone feel uncomfortable.

"Here Cyra, I brought you a present" my mother in law said, trying to hold back the cackle.

"Yea!” said Cyra, "a baby."

"Yea" I said, "a blonde haired, blue eyed doll, dressed in pink from head to toe."

My mother in law explained, "the baby talks, and tells you when it is hungry, when it needs its diaper changed, and when it wants its blanket".

"Oh" said Cyra.

"Oh" I said, "so Cyra can learn how to take care of kids because that is all women are good for."

"Thank you grandma" said Cyra, and she cradled her little pink baby.

"Thanks grandma," I said, "I was afraid I was going to have to put this girl through college, but this baby should give her all the skills necessary for a successful life."

"Mama, I'm hungry mama,” said the pink doll, and Cyra put the plastic bottle to the plastic lips and bounced the baby like I do her little sister. The baby played a recorded drinking sound. My mother in law won the battle, but she would not win the war; I love my daughter too much to just surrender her to the shackles of gender oppression.

Cyra celebrated a birthday some time later, and my in-laws showed up with a quiver of new attacks on my daughter’s choice and destiny. There were the butterfly sandals, and pink outfits, a bottle of princess bubble bath and a set of dress-up high-heeled shoes. It was an all out assault, but I fearlessly countered each gift with a quip that was sure to simultaneously 1 - cause my daughter to question the assumptions upon which the gifts were based, 2 - inform my in-laws that I would not surrender my daughters their designs, and 3 - make everyone uncomfortable. I was flawless, but battling thousands of year’s gender oppression at a 2-year-old birthday party is no easy task. And, admittedly, I was not prepared for their final "gift".

Cyra unwrapped the box, and pulled out a fluffy battery powered hot pink puppy. The in-laws were more tactical than I thought. I could take the label of the princess bubble bath, I knew Cyra wouldn't really like the high-heeled shoes, and I could buy her other colored clothes to dilute the pink outfits. They must have known all this too. But what would I do about this puppy? It walked and moved its head up and down to create a "Yap!"; Cyra loved it. Thankfully so did Kian, but his salvation was not my worry. This toy was too cute, and too pink, and my in-laws must have known it was good one, because they looked at me victoriously as Cyra and Kian fought over whose turn it was to play with the hot pink puppy.

"What, they didn't have any brown dogs?" I quipped. It was a lame retort; no assumptions were questioned and no one was uncomfortable. I was losing my daughter to a puppy. A hot pink puppy that walked and yapped -- and was killing my daughter. I would have preferred if it breathed fire and had broken glass for fur. At least then others could see the danger that I saw, visions of Cyra dressed up like Paris Hilton flashed in my mind, but I was told to relax and we all watched Cyra forge the chains of her own bondage, one yap at a time.

I think I hated that puppy so much because it was a landmark blow. Gender oppression had sunk roots into my daughter and I knew it would never be completely gone after that. I mistreated the puppy every chance I got. I'd kick it when no one was looking, often extracting a little "Yap!" I pushed it down the stairs once. But Cyra still kept playing with it. The batteries soon ran out and were replaced. The hot pink puppy stopped walking a short time later, but it would still yap if you shook the body and made its head bob up and down. Cyra's interest waned, but the damage was done, and I still hated the puppy.

Cyra really hadn't been in to the puppy for a while, but a few months ago her interest in the hot pink puppy re-surfaced for a few days. She and I were playing on the ground in the living room and she brought the puppy over to play. I glared at that little devil toy, remembering all it represented and how much I hated it.

"Daddy, touch the puppy" Cyra said. She might as well have asked me to touch a hot coal with my lips, but I placed my hand on the dog’s head.

"Daddy, kiss the puppy" She said.

"No" I said. How quickly Cyra had succumbed to the traps and bondage laid out for her. Perhaps I overestimated her desire to be free; I'd have to try harder with my younger daughter.

"Daddy, kiss the puppy!" Cyra ordered again.

"Over my dead body" I replied.

"Daddy KISS THE PUPPY" She began to yell, and pushed the hot pink fur ball into my face. I didn't have the energy to explain to her, again, about the systems of oppression that she lived in and the careful path to freedom, so I faked a kiss in the direction of the puppy, just to get her off my back.

"Good" She said, and left the puppy in my hands.

It was in my hands, and the puppy was staring at me, with a devilish little grin. Teasing me, taunting me. "I won" it seemed to say with those glass eyes. I gave it a shake, it's head bobbed, and it yapped. I shook it again, a little harder, and it yapped louder, and louder.

"You are laughing at me, aren't you, hot pink puppy?" I shook it harder.

"Yap yap yap!" "You're sucker," it seemed to say, "and your daughters are suckers too."

I held it's body in one hand, and it's head in the other, forcing it's head to shake back and forth harder, every time eliciting a louder and louder yap.

"Yap YAP YAP!!"

Cyra looked at me blankly, was she confused? Was she scared? No, I was sure she understood the intense struggle that was happening right before her eyes. Her father was battling all the forces that want her to fail and to be second-class, embodied in a hot pink puppy. I would win, I knew it!

I shook and shook that puppy and began to feel my daughter’s spirit, on the verge of freedom, pleading me not to stop. The puppy’s yaps became even louder and more desperate. No longer did it mock me, but now begged for life. That devilish puppy even began to promise that it would leave Cyra and my family alone, and spare them the shackles of gender oppression.

But that puppy was a liar. It could not live. And in a rush of adrenaline that comes from protecting one's family, and with a furious and final yap, I broke that puppy's little neck.

I was sweating and panting. Exhausted after slaying the dragon that would destroy my daughters. I laid the puppy on the ground, it's head barely attached to the body by a tuft of hot pink fur. Mehrsa must have heard the commotion and then the sudden silence and walked in the living room.
"What happened?" She asked. I wondered where I should begin the explanation? Perhaps with my super-human intellect, or a discussion of forced genderization?

"Daddy broked my puppy!"

"What did you do?" demanded Mehrsa.

"Uh..." I stammered, my brain muddled by the cries of my daughter and the clinking of the chains that want to bind her. "It was pink,” I finally said.

Cyra began to sob, "Daddy shake and shake and shake him. My puppy's head is broked. Daddy broked my puppy."

Cyra looked at me with eyes of betrayal. Mehrsa looked at me like I was a nut.

"I…I didn't like that puppy" I said, as they left me sitting in the living room, in a pile of my own confusion and shame.

Luckily Mehrsa is pretty smart too, and remembered the scene in Dumb and Dumber when Lloyd sold Billy the blind kid his dead bird. She got a roll of tape and she and Cyra did a pretty good job of reattaching the hot pink puppy's head.

Cyra walked back over to me in the living room, "Look dad, I fix the puppy!"

Her grief had changed completely to smiles. Big beautiful smiles in the way only Cyra can smile, and it dawned on me that in the end my daughters were probably less likely to be oppressed by pink toys and princess bubble bath, than a dad who was taunted by and demonstrated rage toward their a hot pink puppy. Cyra liked the puppy, and if I liked Cyra, I would have to get over it.

"Daddy, do you love the puppy?" She asked.

"Yes," I said. "I love my Cyra."

Sweet Adeline

Deep in my closet, behind all sorts of other skeletons, there is one wearing a striped vest and a bow tie. He is singing high tenor with an adolescent falsetto. Hello my name is Jared, and I am a recovering barbershop quartet member.

I do not think there is anything wrong with all barbershop quartet singing, it is perfectly appropriate at Disneyland and by older men nicknamed 'Gramps'. But there are some things that America's youth need to be protected from, some things that we should not let them do. Things like like stealing, drinking, doing drugs, hurting others, killing people.. and singing in a barbershop quartet.

In my defense, I was young, probably 14 or 15. And I was small; now that I have a beautiful wife and daughters, I am comfortable admitting that I was what you would call a "late bloomer." At 15 years old I was barely 5 feet tall, weighed 100 pound if I had rocks in my pockets, and as much as I practiced shaving with my brother's razor, nothing more than peach fuzz and the occasional pimple decorated my upper lip. My little sister was bigger than me. And my voice must have been simply angelic, which is exactly what a 15 year old boy wants his voice to be.

So when a guy from church mentioned to my dad that he was starting a barbershop quartet with his son, a baritone, and was looking for a tenor, my dad must have thought I'd be perfect. The details of the groups kick off are a little hazy. I can't imagine that I went along with it completely voluntarily. Perhaps when the guy came and asked me if I wanted to join, he was saying barbershop quartet and I was thinking boy band. "Yes, I would like to be in a boy band." "My voice? It has been compared with the voice of an angel." "Can I dance? I'll do the Running Man right now." "How will I handle hoards of screaming girls? One at a time, he, he, he." I would be the shy and sensitive one; it would be perfect.

My boy bandmates and I assembled for our first practice, and it was quickly obvious that there would never be any screaming girls. If I was the shy sensitive one singing tenor, then the others in the group were the tall gangly one, singing bass; the studious overweight one, singing baritone; and the awkwardly eager one, singing lead. Somehow it turned out that we were affiliated with another barbershop group of older men in the town, one of whom was recently removed as the choir director at my high school and relegated to teach basic economics for the rest of his tenure to seniors just hoping to graduate. Their group called themselves the Jaybirds or Jaybees or something like that. So they dubbed us the Little Jaybirds, apparently all the other completely emasculating names were taken.

Our rehearsals went something like this. We would all gather around the piano at Baritone's house. Baritone's dad (who I think secretly was trying to position himself into the Big Jaybirds group) would play the piano, and the four group members would stand around with our fingers covering one ear, trying to harmonize. Baritone would burst in "Lead, you are way off." Lead would reply "What are you talking about, I'm the lead. You follow me." Baritone's dad would pipe in, "you just need to try to follow the piano a little better." Baritone, seeing his chance, would venture "Maybe I could sing lead." But his dad would insist, "you are a perfect baritone, and he is doing a fine job at lead." Bass and I would exchange glances and rolling of eyes. I got along best with Bass, he was by far the most normal. He has since served some time in jail, but I don't believe his crimes were singing related.

Our first performance was after a small church gathering, and completely unexpected. Up until that point, I had kept my double life somewhat secret from my friends. But the secret was out when Baritone's dad stood up after the meeting had ended and said, "Who would like to hear from the Little Jaybirds?" I think most folks thought he was crazy even before he positied the awkward question. "You see my son, Baritone and his friends have formed a barbershop quartet," he said with pride. "Isn't that right Lead, Bass, and Tenor?" he asked, outing us to everyone. I shifted uneasily in my seat "Please sit down you crazy man" I thought, finally beginning to understand the full weight of my decision to join this fateful group. My friends looked at me with confusion and bewilderment, like Ceaser must have looked at Brutus. By being so uncool, I had tanked the stock of our collective coolness. The ultimate betrayal.

"The Little Jaybirds have a competition coming up in a few weeks and could use a practice audience." I was dumbfounded. My 15 year old mind was swimming,"what in the world is this man talking about." No one said anything about a competitive barbershopping. Would it be an acapella battle to the bitter end? Would I be pitted against other Tenors in hand to hand combat? I had accepted the fact that I would never have the opportunity to fend off screaming girls, but to proactively make a fool of myself was a different story. "Never mind the competition", I told myself, I had a few weeks to wiggle my way out of that, break a bone, contract a disease, whatever. This spontaneous performance was the immediate catastrophe. Maybe they wouldn't have time for us to sing.

"Uh, sure, lets hear them sing," said our bishop. Of course they wouldn't stop us from singing, it was a church for heaven's sake. Baritone's dad must have known this, perhaps I underestimated his cleverness. Baritone, Bass, and Lead all got up to follow Baritone's dad to the piano for our pitches. I slowly got up as well; how could I avert this disaster. "Uh, I don't know if we're ready" I said. "You'll be fine" Baritone's dad replied. "I just ate ice cream," I said, "isn't there some time period where you are not supposed to sing after ice cream?" I ask him, trying to feign sincerity. "I've never heard that, you'll be fine." "I'm not really feeling that well," I begin, but by that time my dad had noticed my resistance. "Just sing" he said, and gave me a look that threatened a hundred days of dishes, pulling weeds, and splitting wood. That was the end, I was going to sing.

We each got our pitches. I looked at my friends, most had eyes fixed on the ground hurt by the unjust reality that my first angelic falsetto note would be the end of all of us. Then I looked at my older brother. He was giddy. Reveling in every second, he was bathing in the awkwardness of the moment, already dreaming up the hundreds of way he would remind me for years to come of what a dork I was. I looked at my dad, I could tell he was nervous too. He loved to sing and loved music, and I'm sure wanted me to do well and love music like he did. But perhaps he began to doubt the wisdom in placing dreams in the hands of such an awkward son. We sang, but I have no idea what we sounded like. It is hard to hear when my head was pounding with the ridiculousness of the situation. We finished and there was a tepid golf applause. "How has it come to this" I thought.

At our next practice, Baritone's dad shared the exciting news of the competition. I readied the list of a thousand reasons why I could not go; I would order and fire them off starting with the most effective until this beast of an idea was killed. "The competition is in two weeks, March 18 and 19th in Las Vegas. I can't go, but you'll be traveling on a bus with the Big Jaybirds as they go to compete as well. They'll take care of you." "I'm busy that weekend, I get carsick, Vegas is too far, I'm alergic to buses, I'm alergic to Vegas, I think I'm getting sick, I can't sing, I've hit puberty.." the excuses were streaming. Then it dawned on me, I only needed one excuse. "I don't think my parents will let me go." I said. It was true, there was no way they'd let me, a 15 year old boy, travel with other 15 year old boys and a bunch of old men nicknamed 'Gramps' for the weekend in Vegas. Right? Right? It was perfect, Right?

Wrong. Dead Wrong. Either I underestimated my dad's desire for me to sing, or I overestimated my value in a family with six kids. They might not even notice if I never showed up again. And just like that, I was on a bus headed for Las Vegas with Bass listening to his Walkman, Baritone and Lead dueling vocal accomplishments, and the Big Jaybirds all asleep with mouths wide open. At least I won't know anyone, was my mantra, it saved me that weekend. Before we got into Las Vegas one of the Big Jaybirds had the driver stop the bus at a WalMart. He said we needed an outfit. "If he says the word 'bowtie' I'm going to hitch hike home," I thought. "But since you guys are young and cool, lets get you some matching t-shirts." That was fine by me, even though I think the t-shirt idea had less to do with us being young and cool and him being cheap. Four turquioise Hanes t-shirts later we were back on the bus.

The competition was a bust, we came in fourth of four teams. We sucked. All the other groups had bow ties and choreographed moves like grabbing the heart when singing about a girl, or shaking a finger when singing about doing something wrong. It was genius. We just stood up there like turqoise tools and tried our best to harmonize.

At least the Big Jaybirds were too busy gambling and boozing the night away to bug us, so we just walked around Vegas trying to avoid the fliers for topless dancers like only good 15 year old Mormon boys would. At one point Bass and I were walking a few paces away from Baritone and Lead, and he casually said to me "I don't think I'm really in to this." "Yeah, me neither." I replied. And we ducked into a building leaving Baritone and Lead to decide the groups next move.