The two things I love most in this world are wearing corduroys with ridges so deep that you can slide a can of Coors Light in there to save for later, and making sure my son thinks I’m cool. Usually, my son’s opinion of me is always high since I’m the laid back dad who lets the kids drink at my house (I’d rather my son and his friends have a silver bullet from my corduroys where I can keep an eye on them than they drink beers out of God knows whose corduroys).
Yet, my son’s penchant for burning wooden effigies in our home in my likeness (I knew they were me because they wore my corduroys) while speaking in tongues was seriously testing my patience. Smoking in the home can decrease the resale value by nearly a third. And if I ever want to open a beach-themed novelty restaurant at Universal Studios in Florida that’s located right next door to Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville in hopes that Jimmy will view me as some sort of rival, but also endearing frenemy, I’m going to need to save every penny I can.
That’s why I had no choice but to request that my son take his effigy burning outside. I even offered to do it with him to bond, but he always refused to go out back and have a little dark arts séance with his old man. (I would have killed for my father to invite me to do something like that when I was his age.)
Maybe I’m just self-conscious because I’m still a virgin and I haven’t fully embraced it (I was able to conceive a son even though I’m a virgin because I don’t believe you lose your virginity until you either make love while you wear The Mask, or you make love with someone who is wearing The Mask).
The stress of parenting isn’t helping either. You always hear about those kids that offer their father’s soul to the Beelzebub, but you never think you’ll raise one.
Thus, I was left with no choice but to build my own wooden effigies in my son’s likeness and recite incantations as I burnt them down in our home. Obviously, when you’re burning down as many wooden effigies in the name of Satan as we were, two things are going to happen; first, you’re going to get some serious smoke inhalation injuries and second, eventually the Antichrist himself will enter your home to see what you want. Boy, was I nervous when he arrived, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of my son by acting afraid. And to be honest, Satan was looking pretty good, hooves and all, so I put my cards on the table and asked him if he wanted to get a coffee or something.
Long story short, I married Satan. My wife was none too pleased about the whole situation. I thought she was cool; she always let me get decals on my car of literally any of the Wolf of Wall Street characters I wanted (lately I’ve been rocking a big ass Ethan Suplee right on the hood of my 2008 Honda Civic). But after she found out that I was going on dates with Satan, her tune quickly changed, and she said some downright hurtful things about the watercolor paintings I made of my favorite scenes from Silver Linings Playbook that I had recently gifted her for her birthday. (I feel like such a fool for believing her when she said, “Seriously, these are really good.”)
My son didn’t exactly jump for joy when he heard the news either. He now has renounced his Satanism and become a devout Catholic, which absolutely breaks Lucifer’s heart. I’m sure he’ll rediscover necromancy later in life though. Most people do.
I used to think the only way I could be cool was if I let my son do whatever he wanted, even if that included horsing around (“horsing around” is what he calls injecting me with horse tranquilizers while I’m asleep and filming my reaction for his YouTube channel). But now I know that the coolest thing you can do is follow your heart no matter what, even if it includes sucking and fucking the Prince of Darkness. And I’ll drink a corduroy Coors to that!