Nightmarriage 2012: The Paralyzed Shopping Spree

I am learning a new parental dance. I call it the Paralyzed Shopping Spree.

Consider if you will, the ecstatic excitement that accompanies going on a shopping spree. The knowledge that you have been dropped like a consumerist paratrooper into a retail paradise that is yours to pillage and plunder.

But there is a catch. You are immobile. You have exactly three minutes to fill infinite shopping carts with bounty, and the only way you can achieve this is if you are riding in one of the shopping carts like a child, with your mother pushing you through the store. Of course, your mother is busy stretching her wings in her empty nest, laughing because you are finally getting what you deserve as a new parent.

You are dancing the Paralyzed Shopping Spree with no spectators to behold your lonely dance-floor triumph and/or failure. 

I have observed in the past 24 hours that this is what parenthood is like, at least when my wife says, “You have an hour to do whatever you want. I’m taking Evie to such-and-such an event. Have fun!”

I could do anything in that hour, she said. I could attach harnesses to our five cats, tie them to the front of my Dodge Stratus, put it in neutral, and let them pull me through town. I could watch two-thirds of a movie. I could go to the record stores in town – Kief’s or Love Garden – and search for treasures on the cheap in the clearance bins. I could play the original Legend of Zelda and explore the second quest for the first time since I recently beat the first quest for the first time in twenty years. I could read. I”m a writer, after all, and writers usually benefit from reading.

But I could not decide what to do. I had an hour to do something and, along with that, an hour to decide what to do.

Fifteen minutes went by. I had 45 minutes to do something. I could watch half of a movie.

I look and see my copy of Eric Metaxas’s book Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Even Dietrich has been roped into the world of our infant. I read for a spell, making sure Bonhoeffer feels secure without his pacifier. I cannot escape parental tasks.

I have been reading this book for approximately four score and seven years. It is 591 pages long if you include the index. I do.

Every time I pick it up and read, I am captivated. But then the restlessness gets to me.

I am restless. I have 35 minutes to do anything I want. I could see a third of a movie. I could go to Walgreen’s and buy candy. I have been buying candy from dime stores all my life. I have a merciless sweet tooth. So does my dad. Candy is our Kryptonite.

I go to Walgreen’s and buy jelly beans. It’s a month from Easter. Russell Stover’s pectin jelly beans are especially delicious.

I have 15 minutes to eat them. I could see 30 commercials. I could do anything. The world is my oyster for 15 minutes.

I eat my jelly beans, hardly even noticing them. In my brain’s restlessness, I wonder: If beans are the musical fruit, what happens when you eat jelly beans? Do you fart multicolored clouds of synthetic-fruit scented gas? Is this what the Easter Bunny’s farts are always like?

I have 10 minutes to figure out what to do with my time without my wife and daughter.

I could read more.

I read more. I remain restless.

A half-hour passes, and my wife and baby do not return. I am still doing the Paralyzed Shopping Spree. I am a marathon dancer.

How could I have known I would have extra time? Becki said she would be gone an hour, and an hour consists of 60 minutes. No more, no less.

Another hour passes, and I am watching the clock as if I am watching a movie. I am wishing I would have watched a movie. But what movie?

The world is my oyster. But really, I am more an oyster myself. Mindless and stationary, at the bottom of an ocean of possibilities. Dancing the parental dance that is the Paralyzed Shopping Spree.

I play Legend of Zelda, thinking this might be a good idea. Like I said, I am mindless at the moment. Playing video games is a mindless pursuit. The two ought to go hand-in-hand.

It is worth mentioning that, when my wife left and took Evie with her, I was playing Legend of Zelda as well.

So when my wife returns with our daughter after being gone for a confounding two and a half hours, it looks like I have been playing the game for two and a half hours. I have not.

I have been floundering. Like a flounder, which lives at the bottom of the sea. Like an oyster. Flounders are more mobile than oysters, I think. Not this flounder though.

“Where have you been?” I ask. “You said you’d only be gone an hour, but you were gone two and a half hours. I could’ve watched a  movie! A long one at that! But I didn’t. I was just paralyzed. I kept thinking, ‘Becki said she’d be gone an hour. How can I make use of that hour? Quick! Think of something!’ But I couldn’t think of anything.”

“Well,” she said, “don’t be mad. I only planned to be out for an hour, but Evie was good, and she was awake. Why bring her home and put her to bed? I figured you’d like the extra time to yourself.”

She was right. I should’ve enjoyed that time. I never get bored. If anything, more often than not I am paralyzed because I have so much I want to do, and not enough time to do even half of it.

I think in my head that this new dance is awful despite the fact that I excel at it. I am the most immobile Paralyzed Shopping Spree dancer the parental world has ever known. I can sit there, confused and restless, dancing with the best of them. 

And yet, I somehow still love my wife and daughter and know I need to cherish times and memories such as these. I am clearly in need of serious help.

“Chad Thomas Johnston is an author, sonuva’ preacha’ man, PhD-dropout, singer/songwriter, music producer/sonic reducer, daydreaming doodler, gorilla/guerilla publicist, cinemaddict, & pop-culture obsessive. He is represented by Seattle, WA-based literary agent Jenée Arthur, who is currently shopping his debut manuscript to major publishing houses.

Follow Him on Twitter: @Saint_Upid

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