Your Basic Pre-Apocalyptic Rapprochement Synchronicity (or "Why Da-da Ain't 'Gunnin' fer 'Squatch ")

Don't do it, 'Squatch.

Ok, this is weird. Da-da was flipping through his littany of bizarro news sites while Bronko and Nagurski were watching aftersnack/snickersnack TV (they're deep into, "Timeblazers," an awesome show out of Canada; the subject for said episode was, "Living in North America 300-odd years ago"). Anyway, right in the middle of it, Nagurski, who's gonna be seven soon, glances over at Da-da and says, "You know, I think Bigfoot is just misunderstood." Da-da blinked at this totally out-of-the-blue, plate-o-shrimp, non-sequitur, big-word Delphic utterance and asked, What?

Bigfoot Mystery SOLVED, Da-da Style

Time for a spa treatment.

Bigfoot is stinky. And hairy -- nay, SHAGGY. Unkempt. Nails are uncut. He's certainly not one for personal hygiene. He likes his privacy. He's a little heavy-ish and misanthropic. He leaves big footprints (um, hence the name). He's cranky and lives far from civilization. He occasionally screams and howls for no reason. Any of this sound familiar? It does to a parent of small children.

Yes. Bigfoot is simply A PARENT WHO'S GONE OFF THE DEEP END and is wearing fluffy slippers in the mud. Young children have driven a group of these poor individuals insane and they've just not showered or shaved or got a haircut or manicure in a lo-ooong long time. Kinda like Da-da, who is occasionally mistaken for bigfoot.

So. There ya go. Another Great Mystery solved. Waiter, Monkee haircuts and absinthe high colonics for all of Da-da's bigfoot friends!

Baby, you done let yourself go.

The Curse... Nay, the HORROR of Mommy Brain

No... MOMMY brain, not mummy brain. Jeez. Who's in charge here?

For those not yet 30, and who eventually want kids, a word of advice: don't wait to have them. Da-da doesn't care what your mother says. Have them while you're still young and energetic (just not before you're 29, please). If you wait like everyone else, "till you're ready," like Da-da did (ready at 95?), then you don't exactly bounce back from the endless marathon obstacle course. Indeed, you don't bounce back much from ANYTHING. You just start moving slower and slower, getting closer and closer to the ground until you're a permanent resident.

Interestingly, scientists recently discovered that people who multitask in the extreme (like parents) begin to lose their will -- which explains Da-da and parenthood and the electorate perfectly. You find yourself not bathing for a week (oh, well). You notice that you're eating cold chicken tenders and tator tots again (ok). Someone has thrown something that's either marred the wall or stuck in it or attached itself to your head (interesting). One child starts wrestling with another and then they're hitting and using knives and shuriken and mad monkey kung fu and flying respective B-52s to their failsafe points (huh, you kids). You find that you're not sleeping much and going to bed later and waking up earlier and making kid meal after kid meal after kid meal often eating the cold leftovers while driving small beings here and there and filling out forms and making small talk about kids and forms and cold meals and no sleep and the weather and shopping for more food and washing things you can't remember getting dirty and finding the cat taped to the wall and then there's a big white BIGFOOT in the front yard tap dancing and singing, "Silver and Gold," and you think, that's nice.

THIS is Mommy Brain. Da-da's so-oo ready for it to be done... though he suspects it's a permanent condition.

Fresh from the cranium, it's Mommy Brain! Now in cheery radioactive green.