I Pout Like a Champ

About 30 minutes into my pout, I realized that I was pouting.

What am I, some kind of 3 year old. But there is nothing better than a really good pout. You can just feel the lower lip coming up. You sit there in your own crapulence, just waiting to snap at someone that enters your fortress of solitude. What I really need is an arch enemy but so far I have only a mysterious neighbor that called in a barking complaint. Asshole.

My wife and I are 14 weeks into the pregnancy. I say “we” in this case, but I am currently not doing anything in the department of growing life. Nope, my job is done. I was a consultant and my services are no longer needed in the company. I have been demoted.

When trying to conceive, I was very a very important person. It was up to me whether we were having a boy or a girl. It was up to me to create the spark that would one day become another minion in the Hossman Family. I geared myself up, gave a pep talk to my boys. I let them know that although today they ride off in to glory, never to be seen again, their legacy will live in infamy. I read patriotic magazines like Guns and Ammo. I watched good kick ass movies like Platoon and Predator and Society Sluts 3. I saluted the flag every morning, drank protein shakes and did pushups. Let’s go create some life boys.

So I did. For the second time. I am a fertile bastard. I should be studied to determine how I can create such Hossness.

Then I learned that my role was no longer as important. I have been dethroned and am now nothing more than a figure head for the public. I do not even have a seat in parliament. My representative in this area seems to be a very fat dog that only lobbies for bologna. Poker night, Newt, get me a poker night! She doesn’t listen. So I am reduced to going around the house bringing awareness to the dog poop landmines in the backyard. I do charity work like laundry and cleaning toilets.

I also learned that as I have no voting ability in the realm of baby growing, therefore the final decisions are not mine. And this is what has brought me to my pout.

At week 18 in a pregnancy, you are able to find out the sex of the baby. This is greatness. This is modern technology helping out the Hossman. The first time around Hossmom decided that we would both be better off not knowing the sex of the baby. She wanted the excitement at the end of pregnancy. She wanted to only know boy vs girl when she came out screaming. For the record, my daughter came out screaming like a banshee. She is pure Hoss, right from the beginning.

My wife then reminded me that I really have no choice in the matter because of the great and wonderful HIPPA. Medical privacy is supposed to be a great thing. Keep the big evil corporations out of our lives. Normally I agree. However, there is always one jerky that abuses the rule. That would be my wife.

Without her say so, I cannot know the sex of the baby either. What the hell man! This is my child as well. That’s half me! That’s Hoss JR in there. Where is my HIPPA! The dog ate my HIPPA and I have no choice but to go along with the regime.

But it was fun the first time around. It was exciting. I was so sure that I was having a boy the first time around that the first toy I bought was a hammer. Luckily, Little Hoss loves her hammer.

So I turned to voodoo the first time around. I listened to every old wives tale about how to tell the sex of the baby. If the heartbeat is below 140, it’s a boy. I consulted the Chinese calendar—it said boy. Was my wife carrying the baby all up front or was it more back? I took a string and hung my wedding ring over my wife’s belly and watched which way it spun. Everything said boy, the God’s have decreed it! Then I had a daughter.

This second time around, I was sure that we would find out the sex of the baby. That was the deal that my negotiators had reached on the first pregnancy. We wouldn’t know the first time around but we could the second time around. This is where I mention again that my chief negotiator is a fat dog that is easily bribed with a piece of cheese.

14 weeks in and I ask my wife:
“Are we going to find out the sex of the baby?”

“No”

That’s it. There was no discussion. There was no back and forth. There was no movie trailer previewing what was to come.

But I was not deterred. The hell with this, I’m going to push it. I reminded her of the agreement that was signed in the living room. That’s when my wife asked me one of the goofiest questions I have ever been asked.

“Why do you want to know?”

What the hell? What kind of question is that? That’s a question with an obvious answer. It’s like asking someone why they would want a million bucks and ten slutty blonds. What do you think I am going to say? No, I would not like money and women as that would only make my life more enjoyable.

I didn’t know how to answer this question, but I pressed on. Again, I reminded her of her commitment. Then I think I might have went the wrong direction. Sometimes I don’t know when to shutup, much like when I write in this blog.

I explained that not only did I help create that baby, it was probably even going to look more like me. I explained that I do all the god damn cooking, cleaning, chores and dog work. I explained that I get her gas every Sunday just so she won’t have to be around the fumes. I explained that I have never missed a doctor’s appointment or a sonogram.

I quickly went from superdad to martyr. No one wants to be a martyr. It never wins arguments and it didn’t win this one. Let’s see, a nail through the wrist, one through the ankle and could someone please stab me with a spear real quick?

All it did was piss her off and make her feel like the only thing she was doing was growing life. It brought a torrent of everything that she has to go through like back aches, pimples, stretch marks and pooping in front of other people during actual child birth. It was a brutal assault. It was a blitzkrieg and my kingship quickly folded. The dog ran, leaving me alone. Fucking coward. Now she doesn’t want to know the sex of the baby out of spite.

So I did what everyone does when they lose an argument. I pouted. Normally, I don’t do this but screw it, I’m going the Gandhi way. Nonviolent protest. Yup, that’s the ticket. I’m going to stage sit-ins until I get my way. I am a toddler. I am a 2 year old.

But here was my pledge: No more backrubs until I know the sex of the baby. No more making the bed so she will be comfortable. No more foot rubs and defiantly no more going to bed at 7:30 every night so she can fall asleep with me. Give me a guitar and some cum-baya, I’m going hippy.

However, like every good pout you realize that you are an idiot and that maybe I should see this from her side. And besides, who wants to win this way? That’s when I told my wife that I didn’t want to know the sex of the baby and I would be damned if we would find out. That should show her, Hossman taking back the power. That’s when she said we could know the sex, but if I really didn’t want to know then we wouldn’t.

I have been manipulated by the master. I swear to god, I’ve got to get some better foreign policy advisors in this place.