I Wear the Shorts in this Family

By Charles Dowdy

Dear potential book investor,

DO NOT read this book if:

1.You have avoided marriage, pregnancy, children, life, chaos and pandemonium.
2.You’re a big fan of Dick Cheney. (Or if you are Dick Cheney.)
3.You bought contact lenses in London around 1994.
4.Your child is currently wearing a dirty diaper, or worse, you are.

DO read this book if:

1.Your idea of birth control is trying to forget when you had sex.
2.You or your wife might be interested in buying a maternity bikini.
3.Your dog is a slut.
4.You have been poisoned by your mother.
5.You truly love your significant other with all your heart and you spend each and every day trying to live up to the lofty ideals that damn preacher made you recite the day you got married.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Dowdy
• Release date: Apr 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458002006

Charles Dowdy

Charles Dowdy lives in Louisiana with his wife and four children.

Book preview

I WEAR THE SHORTS IN THIS FAMILY

Charles Dowdy

Copyright © 2011 by Charles Dowdy.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

Smashwords edition: April 2011.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

THE PRESIDENT OF VICE

ANGEL OF DEATH

THANK YOU NOTES AND FORKS WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE

MATERNITY BIKINS AND SOCIAL EVENTS

912 IN 1981

KILLING HARD TIME WITH THE BROTHERS

CLUCKIN' CHICKEN

AMENDING THE NEIGHBORHOOD CONSTITUTION

ALWAYS HOT IN OUR BEDROOM

SMALL TOWNS AND THE THREE SECOND INTERSECTION RULE

CAN YOU SUPER-SIZE THAT SCREAMING?

MARTIAL PASSION AND A PICKLE JAR

SERVICE INDUSTRY LOVE AND A LARGE DRINK TO GO

CROSSING THE STREET WITHOUT LOOKING BOTH WAYS

TOM SELLECK HATES THE ENVIRONMENT

THE PRESIDENT, SPONGE BOB, AND A BANANA

A DOG WITH NO MORAL VALUES

THE KANSAS CITY GUT SLINGER

LETTERS TO SANTA CLAUSE

WEARER OF THE FAMILY PANTS

EXPENSIVE DANCING SPECKS

BEAKS AND FREAKS

CRAWFISH IN THE FAMILY

PREFACE

This book is about my wife and my four children.

It is filled with sex, drugs and alcohol.

Just to keep the record straight, my wife and I had the sex. My wife also took the drugs, they were for premature labor during her many pregnancies. We both drank the alcohol, and we only drank it because we couldn’t figure out how to mainline it directly into our bloodstream.

Since this book is filled with sex, drugs and alcohol, there is no question it will do fine. But the success or failure of this book doesn’t scare me as much as what happens with the next one.

That’s because the second effort can become the third rail in the arts. Think about it. Do you really believe that Italian painter only knew one plain looking woman named Mona? And what about Gone with the Wind? Hello? Earth to Margaret? That story could have used some immediate follow up. These are just two instances where an artist created something wonderful, then crumbled under the pressure of replicating it.

Now, with this book behind me, I’m already feeling that pressure, too. I know I’ll need compassion and reduced expectations from the loving people around me to prevent a failed second effort. That’s why, in the near future, I’m going to ask for some slight behavior modifications on their part.

Let’s start with Bethany, my beautiful, smart, sexy wife. The very traits that caused me to fall in love with her in the first place will have to go if I’m going to write a successful second book. Don’t get me wrong. She steals the show in this book. But with the raised expectations for book two, getting risqué with the Hamburger Helper isn’t going to cut it. I’ll need a crazy wife who will actually do something really crazy.

So, in order to show her love for me, I’m going to ask Bethany to spend a brief amount of time in prison. She’s not copping a plea to some sissy white collar crime, either. How can I pull bestselling gold out of check kiting or tax evasion? Manslaughter is a dime a dozen these days, too. Attempted murder would be better. Maybe my darling wife could become this bipolar, right-handed skank who tries to kill me with a pair of dull, left-handed scissors. But she can’t be so nuts that all I can write about is how loony she is, because you can only take crazy so far.

So, it might be better for my wife to be recovering from a secret drug addiction. Maybe she’ll get pumped up on homemade methamphetamines, lose all her teeth, and then do something violent and stupid. She’d get sent to rehab and we’d have these great intervention meetings with some kind of rigid counselor where Bethany, through lots of gesturing since we can’t understand what she’s saying, would blame her parents, me, her kids, and everyone else for her miserable lot in life. Yes, if Bethany would agree to a brief stint in prison or rehab, that would be about perfect for book two.

No doubt my kids are beyond saving if I’m going to write that second big book. I love all four of the little monsters. I really do. But, quite frankly, they’re not bad enough to do something really interesting, no matter how hard I’ve tried to encourage it.

The biggest drawback with my children is how they always need something from me. Help with their homework. Help learning how to tie their shoes. Help playing soccer. Help. Help. Help. Like I’m the Red Cross or something. If I could find some kids who weren’t so needy, then maybe I’d actually have time to concentrate on my writing. Perhaps I could trade in my children for some kids who are taking that A.D.D. medicine that seriously chills them out, or at least find a couple of kids who like the taste of Nyquil.

You know, now that I think about it, adopting some children from a different socio-economic background would be nice. A collision of cultures kind of thing would buy me at least twenty thousand words for book two. Maybe I could adopt some kids from a Pacific Island that’s just been discovered. Only they wouldn’t speak English, and the mean kids at their new school would make fun of them and my adopted kids would cry and I would be there to record it all.

Even better than that, maybe my adopted kids would come from a society of cannibals; only no one would know it until some teacher went missing and my new kids were having a cookout on the playground. Something like that would really get the old pen jumping.

Or, I could even keep my current kids, I must admit I’ve grown attached to them, and get the little cannibals, too, then I’d be on hand to document colorful exchanges around the house like, Daddy! Wontan’manuuba is chewing on my arm again.

I’m afraid I’ll also have to do something with my parents. As a child I let it be known that I wanted to be a writer and what did my parents do? They raised me in a caring environment, met all of my emotional needs, and gave me a perfectly normal upbringing.

Thanks a ton.

When I tried to write something of substance in this first book, my emotional cupboard was a tad bare and I had to employ some slight exaggerations. Is that really the way to write a bestseller? What if I finally landed a spot on Oprah and my liberties with the truth were exposed? Then there’d be that little fiction versus non-fiction issue she gets so worked up about and Oprah would get all righteous with me, like she isn’t filling her seats with that giving a car away to every audience member racket. Then Oprah’s whole studio audience would turn against me because every person in there would be waiting for the super secret announcement about their new car and somebody would finally yell, You mean you really expect us to listen to some white-bread cracker apologize for making up a bunch of shit in a book? You my girl and all, Oprah, but you best roll out my Prius before it gets tragic up in here!

Since my second book has to show how I’ve succeeded as a writer in spite of my parents’ love, I’m going to need some new parents who will steal money from me. I’ll need parents who are out to betray me and truly hurt me; not any more of my real parents and their boring Brady Bunch b.s.

My friends will have to go, too. Yes, they are good people, and yes, they have been there for me through the recent sex, drugs and alcohol phases of my life. (Not so much for the dirty diapers, late nights, or dealing with kids.) Even so, for the next phase in my writing career, I’m going to need some outrageous material. Am I going to get that from a doctor, a lawyer, and a business consultant? Not unless one of those stiff suits starts popping ecstasy and cheating on his wife, like next week. And, I’m not saying he has to do it, but it would be better for my writing career if one of them would cheat with his best friend’s wife, not some stripper he met at a convention in Cedar Rapids. (Sorry, but my beautiful wife won’t be an option, since she’ll be in rehab or prison.)

It goes without saying that I’ll have to move somewhere else.

Wait, you might say, You live in Mississippi, a state known for producing wonderful writers.

Wonderful drunk or dead writers. That’s because there’s nothing to do but drink booze, make stuff up, and wait to die. People in Mississippi have been known to have heart attacks if they see paint drying.

Could someone local please set off a bomb in the next little while? Not a figurative bomb, a literal one. Is that asking too much? I’m sure a couple of these inbred Jay-Bob morons could figure out how to wire one together.

I’m not saying they need to blow anyone up. A near miss would be fine. Or better yet, they could blow themselves up because they’re too stupid to follow the instructions on how to put together a bomb. All that would be left of them is a Skoal can and one little shred of their grease stained overalls. Then I could write a piece about these two bomb building, pecker-head rednecks and how they came to be so dumb. I’d have to jazz it up a little, but at least that would be a good foundation for something remotely interesting.

And then there’s me. I’m man enough to admit it. My obvious brilliance aside, it can’t all be about everyone else. Once this first book becomes a big seller, I’ll have to make some changes in my behavior for book number two.

First and foremost, I would stop being so nice all the time and start saying what’s truly on my mind. So when people say something like Hey, Charles, how have you been? I will respond by saying, Your breath stinks like you’ve been dead for a month. This honest exchange might spark