I guess I must have been so busy I missed the Evite. I don’t begrudge them enjoying their time; I just want acknowledgment for my part in making it possible for them. I’ve always said when people ask me about career goals that I would like to be successful enough to enjoy the life my wife and kids have.
So my kids will eventually get their wish and Daddy will stop talking, due to the massive coronary I suffer from busting ass to provide for them. With that in mind I’d like to use this book to also lay down some fatherly wisdom they’ll need when hitting those big life events — specifically buying your first car, buying your first house, and hitting puberty — since I won’t be around to dispense it. Think of it as mediocre parenting from beyond the grave. The sections specifically for Sonny and Natalia to read at those milestones will be marked with this graphic.
And you, dear reader, may also see these graphics.
This is to let not just Sonny and Natalia, but all of you, know to strap in and prepare to get hit with some serious pearls and nuggets of truth. The Aceman is about to say something heavy and lay down a great concept that you need to dig.
And…
This is to signify my ideas: all the apps, gadgets, products and systems that I’ve come up with to make parenting, or just life in general, better.
I hope that all you readers dig these concepts and inventions because again I’m sure when it comes to Sonny and Natalia all of this wisdom will fall on four deaf ears. I tried to drop some knowledge on Natalia not so long ago and she shot back, “I don’t have to listen to you. I’m not one of your assistants.”
CHAPTER 2
THE HOUSE THAT the kids were first brought back to from the hospital was a 1929 Spanish-style home. It was more than a fixer-upper. I did a meticulous, total nut-and-bolt restoration of that place. I painstakingly turned it into a centerfold for Architectural Digest. It was a museum to my cars and monument to my craftsmanship. It even had a name: Vista del Lago. When your house has a name, you know you’ve arrived. But when the twins came along, all that shit went out the window. When you have children the idea that a man’s home is his castle no longer applies. Your home just becomes a place to store their crap.
When you have kids, your castle becomes their bouncy castle. In my case, this is literally true. Jimmy Kimmel bought Sonny and Natalia this inflatable castle in 2012. It’s the real deal. At first, I thought he had rented it. No, he bought it.
It’s nice having rich friends who can blow a bunch of money on great gifts for your kids, but it really makes you look like a loser. I’m positive that my kids are secretly planning a Menendez-style killing so that they can live with their rich Uncle Jimmy and get lavished with bouncy castles and audioanimatronic ponies (an actual Kimmel Christmas gift in ’08).
I didn’t have the space for the bouncy castle, and, in order to simultaneously go for the World’s Coolest and World’s Worst Dad title, I moored it to the pool. Before you call child protective services, the fan was off to the side, so they wouldn’t get electrocuted. I’m not a monster.
Technically, you can’t have an orgasm at age six, but when he saw this setup, Sonny was close. They were sliding down that thing for weeks. This kind of luxury would have been unimaginable for a young Adam Carolla. It is not just that my parents were cheap. These kinds of things didn’t even exist back then. Why not? Did we not have fans and burlap in the 1970s? Sonny has spent more time in bouncy houses than I did in my regular house when I was his age. I was out on the streets trying to get away from my family as much as possible. He’s so used to being in bouncy castles that I wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up at his first job interview not wearing shoes and complaining that the carpet didn’t have enough spring to it. It’s going to be an issue later in life, I’m convinced. Sonny is going to off himself at twenty because his pleasure center will be burned out like someone who did too much coke in the 1970s.
This thing literally covered my pool for a month, but at least I knew where it was. Usually, I find my kids’ crap by stepping on it in the middle of the night.
Ugh. Legos. I’m happy Sonny is into building stuff, but if I step on one more fucking Lego I’m gonna go loco. I remember thinking when I was a kid that Legos would never last. Who knew they’d be the biggest thing ever and that every movie would also have a Lego version that my kids would need to buy the toy version of? It’s a great scam. Iron Man comes out and you need to take the kids to see it and get the Iron Man figure. Then Lego does an animated “Lego Iron Man” DVD and you have to buy that and the Lego set that goes with it. I should come out with a Lego version of this book and make some extra cash.
Sonny is into the Ninjago Legos, which are particularly awful to step on in the middle of the night. As if the eight corners of your standard Lego block weren’t enough to puncture your heel, these fuckers are carrying spears and throwing stars. I was walking down the hall one night carrying a glass of red wine, and one of these Ninjago spears went into my bare foot and I ended up dumping the whole glass of wine on the carpet.
Not only did I think Legos would go the way of dodos, I can’t believe how long ninjas have hung on. Once the gun was invented, shouldn’t our fascination with the ninja have ended? Yes, you have a black belt. But is that belt thick enough to stop this bullet, bitch? Sonny is crazy for ninjas. I don’t know why. I think it’s a waste of time. What are the chances he’s going to grow up to become a ninja? Seriously, how many kids are going to parlay that fascination into a thriving career in ninja-ing? I’m going to show him a picture of Larry Flynt and tell him “this guy could take out ten ninjas if he had a gun on his lap so quit giving them so much credit.”
If it’s not Ninjago spears piercing the soles of my feet, it’s a fake spider or rattlesnake freaking me out when I stumble around half-drunk in the middle of the night. What happened to robots and rocket ships? I’m not going to head downstairs for my third tumbler of Mangria and think a miniature robot broke into the house. But if I see the fake rattlesnake in the dark through my boozy filter, I’m going to attack it with a mop handle.
Sonny’s Legos did provide a cute moment one day, though. He had a new Lego set, and the box said “Ages 5–8.” So he came up to me and asked, “Dad, are you the right age to help me put this together?” I laughed. It was really cute how he thought that once you were past eight you couldn’t build with Legos anymore. Of course, I told him I was too old and went to take a nap.
So finding the kids’ stuff is very easy when they lose it. Just take off your shoes and walk around in the dark, and you’ll find every Ninjago spear and fake tarantula you’ve ever paid for. But you know what I can’t find? My shit.
As a parent, you can fill your house with toys, as I have, and the kids will still go for every item you want them to leave alone. Their favorite toy when they were two was my alarm clock. They were constantly messing with it. They’d take it down, pull the plug, remove the batteries, take a leak on it and beat it with bats like Joe Pesci and his brother at the end of Casino. My house looked like a Gymboree, but they were still attracted to the only thing that I needed them to not screw with. It was either the alarm clock or the universal remote. (Which I still think should come with a button that you hold for four seconds to put in lock mode. That way kids can’t go monkeying with it.) The twins’ hit list of shit to mess with when they were terribly two was: #1 my alarm clock, #2 my universal remote, #3 the wrapper from my wife’s protein bars, #4–#9 anything I didn’t want them to play with and #10 their toys.