Bleat-o-riffic!™… Friday is here and not a day too soon.  In fact if it had come any later we'd all be stuck in a limbo where it was half-Saturday, half-Friday and – who am I kidding, that is not clever, it might be the dumbest thing I've ever written.  Sigh.  Some days I look at these scribbles and I can feel the words shudder with effort under all the idiomatic whimsy and dry-cleaned anachronisms.  The temperature outside is too cool and I'm having nocturnal emissions again and I sometimes hallucinate a haunting image of Jack Lord telling me to eat more hot wieners.  Psychic end result:  I'm having Bleat doldrums.

James Lileks

Best way to get out of it:  play with Prat.

I was doing some light housework and "writing" one of my columns in the Duluth RipSaw News.  In short:  vocational transvestism, the only thing missing being a couple of Century 21 brochures and a study guide for passing the real estate exam.  Naturally, Prat interrupts me every three minutes.  If my wife were here a punch in the face would fix that – me or Prat, it really doesn't seem to matter to her.  But I soldier on, thinking maybe Jesus Christ had days like this.  Apostles interrupting him with questions about dietary restrictions while he's trying to relieve himself of the results of the Last Supper.  Please, I'm trying to make poopie here!

Prat runs up to me for the thousandth time.  Her face is smeared with Snickers chocolate and she's shouting every word and wriggling in place.

Daddy, I want toys!

Well, darling, you have plenty of toys already, shouldn't you play with them?

I want toys!  Toys!  Toys!  TOOOYYYYYYYYYYSSSSSSS!

Hon, listen carefully.  When we want something we already have too much of, that's called gluttony.  Gluttony is wrong.

TOYS!  MORE TOYS!

Tell you what, sweetie, I'll get you more toys if you give some of your old ones to your little friends.  Giving away your unwanted cast-offs is called altruism.  Altruism is good.  Then you get more toys.

TOYS!  TOYS!  Ugh-glub-glub-TO-blurgle-glub-YSSSS!  Gurgle-glub  TOYS, FAGGOT!!!

Uh-oh, choking on her thickened saliva, going red in the face, shrieking at the top of her lungs…time to make another emergency trip to Southdale mall and buy her whatever she points at or pees on.

You read every sort of book on children's pschology, fill your head up with theories and practical wisdom, try to sort out all the contradictory advice, but when it comes right down to it what works is old-fashioned spoiling.  Later, maybe a casual slap on the head from Mommy, but spoiling first to quiet the adorable little imp down.  I hope it's the right way to bring up a child in today's world.

I lose Prat briefly at the mall and have a horrible vision of Jack Lord sticking it in her from behind in the men's bathroom – it's amazing the fears parenthood calls up from the depths of the psyche – but a few seconds later I find her unscathed and throwing a baby carrier into the fountain with all her strength.  Baby on board?  Yes, but it lands face up, so I grab Prat by the arm and skedaddle.  Prat cries on the way home, throws some of her new toys out the window, and vomits in the glove box.  What am I going to do with this kid?  And then I remember I have to stop off on the way home and replenish our stock of Ding Dongs.  I don't want Prat to miss supper.

Still haven't figured out how to make that calendar on the main weblog page show a link on every day of the month that doesn't yet have an entry.  Typical PC, trying to tell me how to do things.  By gum, if I want to have every day of the month link to my William Shatner 404 page, I should be able to!  The whole thing appears to be done automatically.

Uh-uh, Maccy don' play that game.  We do things by hand, like ancient artisans.  Scripts are for lazy slackers who just want to sit back and let someone else do the work for them.

I tune in to Hugh Hewitt's show.  I have only four words for the man.  His dick, my mouth.  Hugh rules.  Thus endeth today's Bleat.

Editor's Note:  James Lileks will be contributing to Udolpho.com for the rest of 2004.