Chapter 4 – Downwind Lapping Dog

“HE CALLED SHIT, POOP!”

I laugh out loud and put up my hand so my daughter can give me a high five.

I can’t help but laugh whenever Veronica quotes her and her brother’s namesake movie: Billy Madison. We are curled up on the couch together, watching the best movie of all time, and Billy is asleep in his swing a few feet away.

Jenny walks in the door a few minutes later. Actually, she limps in the door and hobbles across the room until she makes it to the couch and sits down on the other side of Veronica, giving her a kiss on the head.

“Mommy, you gots a boo-boo?” Veronica asks her.

I stare in horror at Jenny as she pulls the footstool closer and props her leg up on top of it, leaning back into the couch and pulling Veronica onto her lap.

Oh my God. This is it. This is the fake injury. How should I play this? Should I call her out immediately and tell her she’s a big, fat liar? Wait, never call a woman fat. Especially after pregnancy, even if you’re just joking. Lives will be lost. Maybe I should just play along and keep my cool.

“Yes, mommy has a boo-boo,” Jenny replies with a sigh.

“HA HA! YOU GOT HURT!” I yell.

Jenny gives me a dirty look and I quickly wipe the smile off of my face.

What the f**k was that? I shouldn’t be happy if she’s injured, right? Play it cool, man. Play it cool.

“I mean, that sucks that you got hurt. You hurt yourself. That’s just sucky. I mean, because you know, you hurt yourself.”

There. Much better. Be calm, be cool. She’ll never know you suspect anything.

Jenny’s dirty look never leaves her face and I start to squirm. “You couldn’t have picked up a little today? This house is a mess.”

I look around at all of the toys on the floor and the dirty dishes on the coffee table.

“We were busy watching movies,” I explain.

She turns and looks at the TV, noticing for the first time what we’re watching.

“You have seriously got to quit watching this stupid movie. Veronica doesn’t stop quoting it as it is,” Jenny complains with a sigh.

This worker’s comp fraud has already changed her! She used to love this movie. Nooooooooo!

“So, how did you hurt yourself? You know, when you really hurt yourself,” I ask, folding my hands in my lap and acting concerned.

She can’t know that you know. What if it’s like that TV show, When Animals Attack? She might just come at you, bro.

“Well, I decided to leave work a little early and try a yoga class. It turns out I’m not as flexible as I used to be,” she tells me.

Is yoga her code word for something? Is that what she’s calling “sticking it to the man” now? I wonder if she has a group of minions working for her, helping her with this elaborate lie. Yoga – yeah right!

“I tried doing that Downwind Lapping Dog thing and I twisted my ankle,” she finishes, resting her head on the back of the couch and closing her eyes.

See? I totally caught her in her lie. Downwind Lapping Dog isn’t the name of a yoga move. It’s a Chinese proverb or something, like, “He who fart in church sit in stinky pew.” I think it goes, “He who is downwind of lapping dog make bump-bump in pants.”

“So does Claire know? Did you tell Claire? What did Claire say?” I question.

“No, why would Claire know? After class I just wanted to get home and put my foot up. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet.”

Ahhhh, so she’s biding her time, formulating a plan. I got ya.

Jenny picks Veronica up from her lap and sets her back down next to her, pushes herself up off of the couch, and starts hobbling towards the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“I need to get some ice for my ankle,” she replies as she uses the wall to support her as she goes.

Wow, she’s good. She really thought this through. I would have never thought to go get ice. That limp kind of looks real too. She must have been practicing.

I jump up and go to her side in a show of “helping” her with her “injury”, when really, I just want to see if I can trip her up.

As I help her walk into the kitchen, I stick my foot out in front of her and she stumbles over it, grabbing onto the table at the last minute before she falls to the ground.

“Drew! What the hell? Did you just trip me?” she yells.

“How’s your ankle?” I ask, staring down at the foot suspiciously as she holds it a few inches above the floor.

“What is wrong with you today? You’re acting weird,” she mutters before using one of the chairs to help her stand and then hops over to the freezer to grab an ice pack.

“I’m onto you, Jenny,” I tell her menacingly.

“What the hell are you talking about?” she asks as she sits at the kitchen table, brings her foot up to a chair, and sets the ice pack on top of her ankle with a wince.

Man alive, how is she so good at this? I never knew she was such a good faker. Oh Jesus, what if this isn’t the only thing she fakes? Oh my God. This is why she never wants to have sex with me. She’s tired of faking it!

“You’re faking it when you have sex with Claire and now you want to cheat me out of my money! Sons a bitchin!” I yell, before stomping out of the room.

~

In hindsight, I’m pretty sure I can pinpoint exactly where I went wrong with Jenny. I blame it all on natural childbirth. No man should ever have to see his wife in that position. No man should ever have to look at a live va**na in that position. Although a dead va**na in that position would probably be just as bad because it would be dead. A dead, gooey vagina. It’s a sight you can never un-see.

The day had started off fairly well. Jenny was a week overdue so the doctor had her check into the hospital first thing in the morning so she could be induced. We took Veronica with us since the day would mainly consist of us sitting around waiting for something to happen. Carter and Claire agreed to take her home with them for a sleepover once things started progressing. We did everything we were supposed to do so Veronica wouldn’t hate her brother at first sight. We included her when we picked out the name, we let her help decorate the nursery, we brought her to the hospital, and we had a present hidden in Jenny’s overnight bag that would be given to Veronica, “from her brother”, as soon as he was born - everything necessary so she wouldn’t step on his nuts and call him a shitbag when she saw him. Considering that was the name she picked for him, calling him that at first sight actually wouldn’t have been that weird. It was her new favorite word, and it was a hard sell to get her to pick another name out for him when we were going through the baby name book.

“But I wanna call him Shitbag! Baby is a shitbag!”

It was kind of hard to be mad when she strung together her first swear word sentence. It really was a proud day for me.

Around lunchtime on the day of delivery was when things got serious. And by serious, I mean seriously f**ked up. Jenny’s contractions went through the roof and the woman I like to refer to as “Crazy-Ass Bitch” made an appearance. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

“WHERE THE FUCK IS THE GUY WITH THE DRUGS?”

I put my hands over Veronica’s ears and stared in horror at my wife. Jenny never yelled or cursed in front of Veronica. Ever. She raised her voice at times, but it was usually just because someone couldn’t hear what she was saying. This was a whole new side of her I wasn’t used to.

“The nurse just paged him like two minutes ago, baby. He’ll be here soon,” I reassured her as I removed my hands from Veronica’s ears.

“FUCK YOU!”

I glanced at the contraction monitor and saw that the little squiggly lines were so far off of the top of the page that the thing was flashing a red warning light.

“Breathe, baby. Just breathe. Think about something else,” I told her.

“I’M THINKING ABOUT SHOVING YOUR BALLS STRAIGHT UP YOUR ASS, YOU SHIT HOLE!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carter and Claire standing in the doorway with equal looks of horror on their faces.

“Um, so we’ll just come back later,” Claire said as she quickly darted in the room, scooped up Veronica, and made a mad dash back to Carter whispering, “GO, GO, GO!”

With Veronica out of earshot, I walked over to the side of the bed and tried smoothing hair off of Jenny’s forehead and telling her it would be okay, but she bit off my hand.

And that wasn't an exaggeration. She literally leaned over and clamped her teeth around the palm of my hand.

The doctor had showed up a few minutes later, but when he told Jenny he wasn’t the one with the drugs, I actually feared for the poor guy’s life. Then he had told her he needed to break her water to really get things going.

What has been happening in here for the last hour? A mother f**king tea party?

I really wish I could erase this part of the story because I look like a giant douchebag, and if I could take it back, I would. But I guess it’s necessary for you to understand everything.

The doctor had ripped open a package and pulled out what could only be described as a crochet hook. It was a long stick with a hook on the end, and it instantly made me laugh when I looked at it.

The doctor went to the end of the bed and asked Jenny to spread her legs. And before you ask, yes, I laughed at this too.

“Hey, hon, looks like the doctor is going to do some knitting while he’s down there between your legs,” I joked. “I bet you he could make a blanket for ten people with all that long-ass pube hair you got going on.”

Can you hear that? That’s the sound of my nuts being clamped in a vice.

After the doctor broke her water, and I apologized profusely for not shaving her ridiculously long pubic hair before she gave birth, it was back to the waiting game. No, not waiting for the baby to be born, waiting for the god dammed drugs.

“I don’t think we should name him Billy,” Jenny stated in between breaths as she “heeee-ed” and “hoooooo-ed” and “hee-hee hoo-hoo-ed” through the pain.

“What are you talking about?” I asked her in horror as I paced back and forth over by the door. My nuts still hadn’t recovered from the pubic hair crack so there was no way I was getting within five feet of her right now.

“Who names their kids after a stupid movie?” she questioned as she took a big sigh of relief when the contraction ended.

“You must be delirious from the pain. That is the only excuse for the nonsense coming out of your mouth right now.”

She glared at me and I instantly covered my nuts with my hands. I wouldn’t put it past her to pick up the phone, yank it from the wall, and chuck it at my dong.

“Did you just call me an idiot?” she questioned softly.

I really should have just run right then...turned around and darted out of the hospital room and down the hall until I reached the ward with all the comatose patients who wouldn’t scream at me.

“If it walks like a duck and talks like an idiot, then yes, yes I did,” I told her boldly, putting my hands on my hips.

Mistake number two.

Jenny’s cell phone smacked against my junk two seconds later, and I squeaked out a groan and clutched onto the boys.

“Cheese and crackers! That hurt! Dude, Billy Madison was the first movie we ever watched together. And it is the greatest movie of all time. There is no way we are naming our son anything other than Billy. We already have a Veronica, named after his hot teacher, Miss Veronica Vaughn. We can’t leave our daughter hanging like that. Think of the children,” I pleaded. “Do it for the children.”

“You don’t love me anymore, do you?” she wailed as tears started running down her cheeks and she put her head in her hands.

Sweet Jesus what is happening right now?

I rushed over to her bedside and wrapped my arms around her while she cried.

“Hon, of course I love you. Calm down,” I told her.

“YOU FUCKING CALM DOWN! I’M SITTING IN A PUDDLE OF MY OWN UTERUS WATER!” she yelled.

I tried to hold it in, really I did, but I couldn’t. I dry heaved. It was just…uterus water. Water from her uterus. She was sitting in it. She was marinating in uterus fluids.

“OH MY GOD! DID YOU JUST GAG?” she yelled.

I started furiously shaking my head “No”, but the damage was done.

The anesthesiologist came in then and pushed his cart of drugs in front of him and I almost begged him to give me a hit of whatever he had. I really should be numb from the brain down for the rest of this day before I f**ked anything else up.

The doctor let me stay in the room for the epidural and let me tell you, nothing prepares you for seeing a needle as long as your arm, being pushed into your wife’s spine. And since she was in the middle of a contraction, all she did was sigh when it went in. Until I opened my mouth.

“Holy f**k that’s a huge needle,” I mumbled.

Jenny glanced over at me and scowled. Well, as much as she could anyway since she was hunched over her big belly as far as she could go, and a nurse was pushing down on her shoulders.

“What if he moves a fraction of an inch to the left and you’re suddenly paralyzed?” I asked in horror.

“Shut...Up,” Jenny muttered.

After the epidural was firmly in place, I double checked that we had a waiver on file that states we would own the hospital should my wife become paralyzed. If I was going to feed her mashed peas and wipe her ass until we die, I wanted to be rich.

“You’re never going to want to have sex with me again. I’m going to push a human out of the hole where you stick your penis, and you’re never going to want to go there again,” she sobbed.