28 Seconds Later...

Been at the Hershey's again, Final Girl?

Like the quasi-zombies (they aren't technically zombies) in the movie, 28 Days Later, where a mad-monkey-kung-fu-RAGE disease spreads to postmodern Brits like a crack-froth Montezuma's Revenge through a cruiseship full o' Rotarians, there's another very real and very dangerous demographic that can quickly mimic this type of ravenously psychotic fast-moving zombie-crazed biteyness WAY faster than 28 days -- indeed, it can happen in a mere 28 seconds. Who and how? Kids and sugar, hello?

Feed delightful munchkins maple syrup, cake, cookies, cotton candy bongs, etc. and they fairly explode into raging, gibbering, pinballing zombies (the fast kind), sometimes quicker than 28 seconds. Typically, they erupt after about 12 minutes, especially if they're boys and there's more than one of them. Da-da thinks of these short ontological windows as short-fuze events, offering about 10-12 minutes to reach minimum safe distance. Alas, if they're your kids, you're in the blast event-horizon for the duration.

What can be done during one of these attacks? Nothing, of course. You have to wait it out. Like the ancients always said, "That which you cannot cure, you must endure," and parenting is nothing if not a marathon of painful zombie endurance. Experienced zombie parents deploy sugar tactically -- on special occasons -- prepared for the coming onslaught with various sugar-burning activities like towing the car to the top of Mt. Everest or building a giant Egyptian pyramid grill for Da-da from 2.2 ton stones in the backyard. You think the pyramids were built on grain and garlic? Nope. Those suckers were constructed via some kinda Pharoanic sugary whack-juice extracted from who-knows-what and fed to... you got it: CRAZED, SUGARED-UP CHILDREN:

"Get that finished or no SpongeBob tonight. I'm not telling you again!"

"HEY, YOU KIDS! After you finish your slushies and candy BONGS, go outside and BUILD ME A PYRAMID. Bigger than the last two. Align them with the three stars in Orion's Belt, and NO WHINING. Be sure to clean up and brush your teeth, afterwards. AND DON'T TRACK SAND IN THE HOUSE AGAIN."

Typhoid Da-da (or, "Advice for New Parents")

Germs! They're what's for dinner.

Da-da is hardly one to offer anyone advice because he keeps doing everything wrong. Making repeated mistakes is inevitable in regards to parenting (and is, in fact, a time-honored tradition). Why? Because your memory is the first to go. Over the years, lack of sleep, saying the same things over and over again, cleaning the same things over and over again, saying the same things over and over again while cleaning the same things over and over again... this stuff really takes a toll.

Case in point: last night was corn dogs for the kids and leftover spaghetti and meatballs for Ma-ma; Da-da wasn't that hungry (because he's about two steps from shuffling off his mortal coil), so he served as chef, maitre'd, referee and indentured servant, as usual. And as usual, seeing what Ma-ma's eating made both boys want it, too (despite their maddening inability to eat leftovers). Whatever. After the meal, Da-da noticed that his oldest, Nagurski, had not eaten that much of his spaghetti and meatballs, opting for other elements of the meal. Da-da's early warning system kicked in and he started to take the food to the trash... then thought, Well, he's hardly touched it, accompanied by that internecine race-memory phrase whispered in Da-da's mind by countless ghost mothers across the eons: IT WOULD BE A SHAME TO WASTE THAT.

Yup. You guessed it. Da-da woke up sick this morning.

Note to new and future parents: small children are scale models of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), but without the control. Even though Da-da's sons aren't sick, they're carriers for every preschool and elementary microorganism beastie lurking about for an unsuspecting mammalian digestive tract or mucous membrane.

So, Lesson 492: Don't Eat Your Kid's Food.

Ug. Da-da's GORGON cold medicine is... turning... him... to... stone...

Nooooooo!