I never considered myself a messy person but I certainly wouldn’t call myself organized either. There’s always been this untidy little grey area between cluttered and coordinated that l like to hide in. Let’s refer to it as, my Batcave.
Throughout my twenties I found my Batcave to be a multifunctional space. I always kept it clean enough, so as not to be embarrassed if I brought a certain Catwoman home, but not so sterile that I’d be afraid to fart on the couch. It’s suited me well as a fine place to park the batmobile (hell of a name for my tank like dad bod huh?) or to hang up my batsuit (I’ll spare you the mental image on that one) at the end of a long day.
When Bex moved in, my Batcave got a little more organized. Suddenly there was a place to hang my batsuit instead of just throwing it wherever I decided to dress down the night before. She kept the kitchen running on a schedule too. There were (loosely) set meal times and a menu planned in advance. More or less we kept to that routine and would you believe it, I actually lost weight? No seriously, she’s starving me, please send help before there’s nothing left.
Then Luke moved in and all hell broke loose. If Bex is the Selina Kyle to my Bruce Wayne, then it stands to reason that Luke would be the Robin to my Batman. Right?Wrong. My youthful ward, he is not. Foiling me at every turn, soiling each diaper as I’m changing him, and making more messes than is physically possible, I present to you my son, The Joker.
I wasn’t joking about the messes. This barely three week old baby has had the same effect on our house as the Looney Tune’s Tasmanian Devil. If this was his only transgression I could possibly forgive the little guy. Who among us hasn’t forgone their household chores for a few…months, or so?
What really elevates my son to Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery status is that he’s physically too small to be the perpetrator of this chaos. This criminal mastermind has used his powers of telepathy to enslave his mother and I into doing his evil bidding.
We find ourselves scratching our heads as we patrol the apartment. Then Bex and I start asking questions that get us nowhere. Where did that pile of laundry grow out of? How did those dishes pile up in the sink? How did he convince us to put his rock and play, bouncer, and play-pen in the living room all at once. How many binkies does one baby need?! Seriously, these things are everywhere. They’re in the couch, on the floor, in the crib. As if by magic (or maybe by the Joker’s devious hand) whenever you need one, they’re nowhere to be found. Between those and the blankets, pillows, and discarded boxes, it’s like walking through a mine field out here. Maybe I’ll go hide in the Bat-O-John till Bex cleans it all up. Nope, things are even worse in there.
Here’s how you can tell it’s a dastardly deed at work and not just a poor excuse for dad’s laziness; I actually clean these days! But by the look of things, you would never know it. Bex and I tidy up at least once a day and do the major stuff once a week but if we turn our backs for one second, if we so much as blink, our apartment goes back to being a no mans land.
Somehow this tiny titan of evil has turned his strapping Bruce Wayne lookalike father into poor old withering Alfred, wandering around the house with windex and wipes instead of his trusty batarang.
At least he was kinder to his mother. If she was sexy, leather clad Catwoman before delivering the baby, Luke’s arrival has somehow given her superpowers and turned her into the Amazonian Goddess of Wonder Woman herself. Let me tell you, she can rescue me anytime.
So, what heinous mess will our son make next? Will I get that pee stain out of the rug? Does Bex find the old man butler type attractive? Tune in next week to find out. Same messy bat-time. Same cluttered bat-channel.
Ka-Pow!