Hurricane Earl currently has Cape Cod in its crosshairs and the impending pandemonium of this peninsula’s populace is perturbing indeed. Not to mention the barometric pressure is causing severe alliteration as well. People mob gas stations and supermarkets, buying up all the water and non-perishable food items as if they’re headed into a bunker for the next two years. Some stay at their oceanfront homes and tempt fate. Others board up their windows and flee for higher ground. A small percentage of lunatics actually enters the churning sea to surf.

And some of us, well…some of us really go nuts.

Happy Hurricane everyone.

All the kid asks for are crackers and milk. But at least he said please, so I happily retrieved a few Ritz crackers and tried to hand them to him.

“No dada! Bowl!”

Of course, how could I forget? He needs to have all of his food in a bowl or else he can’t eat it. So I fetched a small plastic bowl and I dropped the crackers in. And that’s when Will lost his fucking mind. I’m serious. He cried and cried and screamed like a friggin lunatic. And for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why, because I had given exactly what he wanted.

Even though Will is extremely communicative right now and able to express himself very well for a 2-year-old, his fit of rage left him temporarily speechless. His chest was heaving and he couldn’t stop the sobs long enough to speak. Finally, after several minutes and a whole lot of soothing, I was able to extract from him the reason for his hissy fit.

It was because one of the crackers had a piece missing.

I shit you not. The edge of one cracker had crumbled slightly. So because of that nearly imperceptible little flaw, my son could not eat ANY of the crackers currently in the bowl. I thought maybe he just had a hangup with crackers, so then I went and got the deli cheese out of the fridge, which I know he loves. And sure enough, he was totally excited for it. But before I gave him a piece of cheese, I ripped a very small piece from the corner.

Bad idea. He threw another hissy fit of epic proportions.

At first I was confused but then it all kind of started to make sense. When Will sits in his booster seat to eat at the table, before he dines he needs me to roll his sleeves up. Even if he’s not wearing sleeves. Hell, even if he’s not wearing a shirt. Doesn’t matter. I still need to pretend to roll his sleeves up so they won’t get messy. And when it comes to the food on his plate, you cannot fuck around. If there are two separate foods on his plate, they sure as shit better not be touching. God help you if they’re touching. He will allow different food to be on his plate, however the food must be in his Mickey Mouse plate and stashed in the ears because there is a divider that keeps the food separate.

But it goes beyond food.

Will has a bunch of toy cars with which he loves to play. Some of these cars have doors and hoods that open up. But they can absolutely not be opened while he is playing with them. If a door or hood is ajar it ruins his whole playtime experience. He will lose his mind. And if the cars or trains or blocks aren’t lined up directly in front of him in neat rows, it’s all over buddy.

When it’s time for bed, Will has to have his “friends” with him. He has to be holding Lambie, Monkey and Bear. And when he goes to sleep he clutches them to his chest tightly, and then rolls over three times before settling on his stomach, as I sing him the same verse of the same song to lull him to sleep. Note that I once tried to sing another verse from the song, and all hell broke loose.

I wondered how the hell my kid could be like this. I’m so messy and not organized whatsoever. My desk at work can best be described as chaotic (although I pretty much know where everything is) and there is a constant flow of dirty clothes littering the floor and my side of the bed. So how, I asked myself, could my kid be such a freak.

Just then I walked by our bedroom closet, and the answers suddenly revealed themselves.

I always knew MJ’s side of the closet was neat, but I had never really studied it before. What I saw wasn’t just neat, it was organized to the nth degree. See I put my “nice clothes” on hangers in the closet. I throw them in there haphazardly and don’t give it a second thought. But MJ? She not only has her good clothes in there, she divides them up even further. I realized she has dresses she wears socially separated from her work dresses. Then the business suits and power outfits are separate from that.

Intrigued, I went into her dresser.

While I have a drawer for underwear, she’s got an underwear system. On the left side is the frilly stuff. Lace, thongs, all the cool shit. In the middle it became the second-tier stuff. Still sexy but definitely a step down. And then, on the right, are her everyday undies. Faded and worn cotton numbers. The kind married guys are used to seeing except for special events, when she harnesses the left side.

On and on it went. Socks, shirts, jeans, pants. Everything had its place. Not to mention MJ doesn’t like her food touching either. I once made her a burger, put it in a bun, put the bun on the plate and then scooped her some baked beans. And the baked beans touched the bun!! It was a near catastrophe I tell you.

So what’s my life going to be like? Apparently I’m going to be surrounded by ridiculous amounts of needless organization while sitting on the couch that must be exactly parallel with the carpet. I’ll be eating perfectly round circular food and pieces of cheese with sharp 90-degree angles. All of our plates will be replaced with cafeteria trays that adequately isolate our meals, ensuring everything is contamination free.

Basically I’ll be rooming with Jack Nicholson from “As Good as it Gets.” Minus the good-natured racism and witty repartee.

Dear Aaron, I saw you mentioned fantasy football in one of your posts and as a wife to a guy who is obsessed with it, I need to know WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL?? As far as I can tell you’re picking real players to play on made up teams and you’re putting money on it. It’s fake!!! Are you all really that pathetic? And what’s worse, for the next four months I hear about it constantly. He’s checking his teams (because he has like 6 of them) on his phone at family outings. He needs to make sure to hit the “waiver wire” (whatever the hell that is) to get new players. And he’s constantly trying to trade with his friends. It’s a sickness. I’ve asked him why it’s such a big deal but he says he can’t explain it. So I’m hoping you can.

Thanks, Pissed Off Wife

Well POW, you’re in luck. I was going to delve into the world of fantasy sports and you provided me with the perfect segue. So here goes.

Most men, myself included, played some sort of sport at some point in their lives. But if they’re anything like me, they’ve long ago given up pursuits of athletic glory. Probably because they’re now 30-40 pounds overweight, working full-time at a sedentary desk job and too busy being a husband and a father for such endeavors. But at the same time, we miss our playing days. Being around the guys. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Not to mention the locker room talk, which we can’t do anymore because our wives hate it and our kids will mimic it.

That’s where fantasy sports come into play.

Here is a concept that allows us to pick and manage our very own professional sports team. We draft the players, make free agent acquisitions, craft trades and try to guide our franchise to a championship trophy. We get the opportunity to do our research, take a chance on rookie or unknown and watch as he leads our team to the promise land. And we can do it all on our phone or from the comfort of our couch.

But the best part is we are playing against our friends. Make no mistake, that is the main value of fantasy sports. At least for me.

My primary fantasy football league has been in existence since 2004. Almost all of my closest friends are a part of it, including my dad and my brother. We live all over New England and my brother is in Baltimore. Most of us are married and half of us have kids now. Needless to say getting us all in one place is quite the task. But even with work, kids and long travel times, each and every one of us has made it year after year for draft night. Being there in person is a requirement actually, or else you forfeit your team.

In fact draft night is so important that one of my brother’s only stipulations upon moving to Baltimore with his future wife Melissa was that he be allowed under every circumstance to return for the draft in August of every year. No matter what. I think he even has it in writing.

And speaking of draft night, it’s awesome. Well, if you’re a guy it’s awesome. Women would probably take one look at us in a dank basement reeking of farts and beer and wonder how the hell we manage to tie our shoes on a daily basis. But for us, it’s heaven.

We come from all walks of life. We are journalists, lawyers, stockbrokers, store managers, veterans, teachers and pharmaceutical salesmen. Some of us are sports fanatics who develop multi-tiered Excel spreadsheets and color-coded pie graphs to assist us with drafting. Others pick up a Fantasy Football magazine minutes before we arrive. There are 12 teams, and the team names over the years have been the best. This year I’ve returned to an old favorite, The Killer Brushis. But I’ve been the CU Next TuesdayS, My Boys Can Swim and Mike Vick’s Rape Stand. Craig’s team this year is simple: “Ass and Titties.” Dino went with “Deadly Sausage Farts” (if you know him you know the moniker is apropos) and my brother is “Dead Guys Rule,” because last year he drafted former Bengals WR Chris Henry. I say former because Henry is now dead. Needless to say when you draft a dead guy you’re going to hear it from people.

And speaking of hearing it, man we lay into each other. Because we’re all great friends, it means the taunting is especially vicious since none of us hold a grudge. Like this year, for instance, when we were all sitting around the grill cooking dinner before the draft and my friend Billy showed up. With veggie burgers. We immediately began eviscerating him but it got even worse when we found out he stopped eating red meat only because his 5-year-old son got wicked upset when he found out red meat comes from cows. So Billy, who never met a steak he didn’t like, is now a vegetarian all because his little boy doesn’t want to hurt cows. Billy, you’re a complete jackass and a total pansy.

Not to mention he also drafted Ben Tate, the Houston Texans running back who sustained a season-ending injury before the draft. Of course that’s nothing next to the year he drafted WR Peerless Price…IN THE FIRST ROUND! The bitch of it is he went onto win the league on two separate occasions. The fantasy gods work in mysterious ways.

One year the draft actually doubled as a bachelor party for our buddy Kelly. We had a friend of a friend who did a little “dancing” for a “gentlemen’s establishment,” so we hired her for the night to write all the names of the players on our draft board and get us beers. Topless. And she did lap dances too. Which was hysterical because I didn’t tell my father she was going to be there, and you should’ve seen his face when this girl suddenly whips her shirt off. So of course we threw a few $20 bills on his lap and delighted in his obvious discomfort.

The bottom line is we need that one night of year. Some women may not understand that or disagree, but it’s true. Draft night is one of the best nights of my year because I get to see all my friends. In between the insults and beating the crap out of each other, we catch up. Share pictures of our kids. Talk about life in general. A few of us always end up staying the night and it’s great, even if we can’t remember it all the next morning.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I thank my lucky stars every day that I’m married to MJ, because she gets it. A lot of wives give their husbands shit about stuff like this. But not MJ. She sends me off with a kiss and a smile and tells me to have a ball. And she means it. That’s rare. I know many women who think this is childish and stupid. They scold their husbands for hanging on to something so juvenile and they deride them, saying we should stay home and deal with our responsibilities. But when it comes to buying another pair of shoes or performing a hobby they like but we think is the dumbest thing on Earth, we’re just supposed to go with the flow. I’ve seen it so many times and it irks the shit out of me.

But fuck that. Those women suck and I want to pitch them over a cliff. MJ knows how important my friends are to me. She also knows I more than pull my weight around the house. I’m a good husband and a good father and she recognizes the importance of connecting with friends every once in a while.

Because that’s really what the draft is. Sure we’ll argue for weeks leading up to draft night about whether to take Adrian Peterson or Chris Johnson with the #1 pick (I’d go with Peterson for what it’s worth), but draft night is all about buddies. Camaraderie. Of if you’re a woman and still don’t get it, it’s some warped and twisted version of Girls Night Out. Except with a lot more farting and belching and calling each other derogatory names.

It may sound stupid, but it’s more important than you might think. So guys, enjoy the upcoming fantasy season. And ladies, thanks for being cool about it.

And for those who care, here’s my team this year. Obviously it’s the best one!

STARTERS

QB: Matt Schaub

WR: Andre Johnson

WR: Jeremy Maclin

WR: Mike Sims-Walker

RB: Cedric Benson

RB/WR: LeSean McCoy

TE: Visanthe Shiancoe

K: Laurence Tynes

DEF: San Diego

BENCH PLAYERS:

RBs: Thomas Jones, Toby Gerhart

WRs: Mohammed Massquoi, Devin Hester

QB: Sam Bradford

TE: Heath Miller

Yesterday, my 31st birthday, started off in dubious fashion. As in my wife forgot about it. She overslept, rushed into the shower, didn’t even have time to get Will ready while I showered and then left for work. But I couldn’t give her too much shit because the night before, I forgot my own birthday. MJ was asking Will if he knew what day it was tomorrow (meaning Daddy’s Birthday) and I had no friggin idea what she was talking about.

Maybe our collective Alzheimer’s should’ve been the first tip something was amiss.

An hour later MJ called me and apologized for temporarily forgetting my birthday. She also told me she had all these wonderful things planned that morning like breakfast in bed and maybe even a morning “sandwich,” and apologized for things having gone haywire. I told her it was no big deal and we could just make up for lost time after work.

Bless her heart, MJ asked my parents if they could come down and watch Will so we could actually go out for an adult dinner and — gasp — even a movie! Since my parents pounce on every opportunity that presents itself to seize my son like rabid wolverines are awesome and thoughtful, they agreed. The only problem is I was working on a front page story and the guy I needed to interview wasn’t available until 4 p.m. That means I had to spend 20 minutes interviewing him and only then could I begin to write the story. Which meant our plans were once again fucked and the movie part of our date was out.

I love my job. But the downside is the total lack of a set schedule. I never know where I’m going to be or when I’m going to be called in because of an accident, fire, murder, etc. And even after I hand in a story, the editors often have questions or changes they need to make. That means they call me, no matter what time it is, to go over the story. For MJ, this means more dinners than I can count have been interrupted by repeated phone calls I have to take outside, which can last for 10-15 minutes a clip.

Thankfully our dinner went great, with no interruptions. We went to a nice Italian restaurant and MJ looked beautiful. We didn’t have to skip appetizers because of an impatient child, and we could eat at a normal pace because we didn’t have a child acting like a ticking time bomb in a highchair next to us.

Now you’d think because it was my birthday that I would indulge with a few alcoholic beverages. But you’d be wrong.

Instead, I have MJ drink to her heart’s content. Because in my old age I’ve learned that sure it’s fun for me to get a little drunk, but I have a much better time if my wife gets bombed. Drunk MJ is decidedly more feisty and relaxed than Business MJ. And the likelihood of sandwiches increases exponentially with each extra dirty martini she imbibes.

Yes sir, things were looking up indeed. MJ told me to order whatever I wanted and the first thing that caught my eye was my all-time favorite dish: penne with chicken, broccoli and alfredo sauce. Words cannot express how much I love this meal. I would eat it every single day if possible. But I don’t. In fact, I rarely eat that particular culinary masterpiece. And for a very good reason. Without getting too graphic, heavy rich sauces with loads of fat content tear my insides apart. But in the heat of the moment and since it was my birthday, I decided what the hell. More on this later.

Dinner was great and MJ was feeling very loose. Even though we had missed the movie it was still fairly early and we figured we’d make a romantic night of it.

The first problem, however, was that I couldn’t stop yawning. Sure it was only 8 p.m., but apparently I’m 31 going on 90. But I fought off the sleep trying to overtake my body and suggested that MJ and I find a secluded spot along a beach and have a little fun. We chose the Sandwich Boardwalk, which is a picturesque and beautiful boardwalk through some marshlands that eventually leads to the beach. Truly the perfect place for us to reconnect.

Except we couldn’t find it.

We’d both been there before multiple times, but for the life of us we couldn’t remember how to get there. No worries though, because MJ had a Plan B. She told me she recognized the general area we were in and knew of a secret beach spot we could go to for some privacy. But as we wandered through a maze of back roads, something suddenly soured my mood.

“Um, baby? How is it that you know about this secret beach?” I asked skeptically.

“I used to come here when I was younger,” she said.

“Uh huh. And by ‘come here’ I’m guessing you’re talking about the most literal and sexual definition of the phrase. I can’t believe you’re taking me to some place you used to bang other guys in high school.”

“I never had sex with anyone at this spot,” MJ said with an indignant tone. “I did that a few towns over in Falmouth.”

Right about then we found a spot, but if the thought of making out with my wife in the same spot she did God knows what with other guys 15 years ago didn’t ruin the mood, my gut told me something else was going to. As she snuggled up to me I felt a familiar rumbling in my stomach and I knew, right then and there, the night was over. In less than 20 minutes the alfredo had torn through my intestines and was now contemplating a hasty exit.

“We’ve gotta go back home. Now,” I said while starting the car back up.

“Why? What’s wrong?” MJ said.

“Well in addition to the risk of going outside and accidentally stepping on the ejaculate of your former boyfriends, I…I just have to…I have to go home,” I said, trying to preserve what little dignity I had left.

“Oh my God, get over it,” MJ said. “Are you really upset about guys you don’t even know from years ago?”

“Look, I have to take a crap OK?”

And there it was. Ten years ago I could’ve eaten whatever I wanted and had a bunch of drinks. Then I would’ve had a secluded spot of my own in mind. I would’ve been wide awake despite the fact that I probably didn’t go to bed until 6 a.m. the night before, and I would’ve had buck wild crazy sex in the car for 7 minutes all night long.

But the difference between 21 and 31 is significant.

Last night I could barely stay awake because I was tired from work and from potty-training a 2-year-old. We can’t find the make-out spots anymore because it’s been so long since either of used one that we can’t remember their locations. And when we do try to get romantic, the date is ruined because I have to rush home to take a massive dump due to a sensitive stomach.

Happy birthday to me.

And it sucks.

Today alone we went through a half dozen pairs of underwear. He pissed through five and took a huge dump in the sixth. I hate this. I’m very impatient and even though technically he’s making good progress, it’s not fast enough for me. I’ll admit, he’s fairly good about peeing in the potty. He’s gotten to the point where he tells us just before (but sometimes right as) he has to pee. So it’s not peeing that’s the problem.

We try to limit his diapers to nighttime only, so we’ve put constantly trying to force him on the potty to take a shit. So far it hasn’t gone well. In fact, he’s so rebellious and obstinate that he recently went 36 hours without dropping a deuce. During that span, as you can imagine, he was complaining about his stomach.

But today it’s like we hit the shit jackpot.

He can’t stop pooping. And worse than that, he’s pooping hard, golf ball-sized nuggets. I’m not sure how he’s physically passing these Gulliver-esque shitballs through his tiny bum, but I know it hurts him. And until today, when something has hurt him he’d always ask us to kiss it better.

Enjoy the video, and sorry about the quality.