David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published Sept. 9, 2003

We need plastic, so we have children

"I have just one word for you. Plastics."
The Graduate

You've heard of a house of cards, a house divided, the House That Ruth Built, the House of the Rising Sun, a house of horrors and maybe a house of ill repute.

I, for one, live in the House of Molded Plastic. I once had a nice house, a normal house. It was a fine house. It was a very, very, very fine house. But then the children moved in. And they brought plastic.

Comedian George Carlin has a bit about how humanity's purpose on Earth is to make plastic. In essence, he joked that the Earth needs plastic but can't manufacture it naturally. Hence the dawn of man and his plastic, and when Mother Earth accumulates all of the plastic she needs, she'll drop us like a bad habit.

I'd like to think we humans are a little more productive than that, but dear George isn't too far off. The reality of plastic, you see, is on a much smaller scale. There are many reasons why humans replicate, but chief among them is an unconscious craving for plastic.

We need plastic. We want plastic. We yearn for plastic, and the best way to satisfy our hunger for plastic is to have children. Every time you take a baby home from the hospital, at least 2,300 pieces of plastic molded into infinite shapes and colors are following your car.

They won't all arrive at once. It will take a little time, but make no mistake about it -- the plastic is coming.

As many of my readers know, I'm a stay-at-home dad. I take care of the offspring while my wife the druggist goes to work, and being the stay-at-home dad of a 2-year-old and an 8-month-old means that I'm often responsible for putting away the toys, all of which are made
from - you guessed it -- molded plastic. The 2-year-old provides some help in this area, but the brunt of plastic-retrieval and -archival duties fall to me. A 2-year-old understands the notion of "clean-up time," but she rarely gives it the respect and commitment it so richly deserves.

We're working on that. The 8-month-old, well, he could care less about "clean-up time." He just wants to drool on his shirt and gnaw chair legs.

So do the math -- two kids with 2,300 pieces of molded plastic per child. That's more than 4,500 hunks of plastic in our home at any given moment. "Clean-up time" is a daunting task, and there are dark and magical forces working against me. For instance, I can put away all the molded plastic in one child's room in a few minutes. Every piece of plastic has its space, so it's just a matter of matching the space with the plastic. When the job is done and the plastic is put away, the sinister forces go to work, for in less than 45 minutes the once-clean room is a total wreck - a plastic nightmare. The plastic that was just moments ago so orderly and inconspicuous reverts to its natural state of being strewn about the floor in utter chaos. Plastic fills open space.

The most challenging part about living in the House of Molded Plastic is negotiating the minefield of toys on the floor. It's rough enough finding your way to a wailing infant at 3:10 in the morning in total darkness, but stepping on a Lego -- right on the corner -- with your bare feet just adds a layer to the colorful tapestry that is child rearing. For me, it's even worse than a toe stub. With a stubbed toe, at least you get a little warning. When you stub, you're treated to three or four seconds of preparation before the pain actually reaches your brain. It's time to set yourself, to lock your jaw and to brace against the agony. When you step on a Lego's corner, however, your nervous system doesn't give you the fair warning. The pain just hits -- instantly.

I'll bet a neurologist could tell me why a toe stub is time-released and a Lego poke is instantaneous. Heck, I'll bet the professor explains it on the first day of neurology school. If you're a neurologist and can remember what the professor had to say way back when in medical school, just send me an e-mail. I try to check my e-mail fairly regularly, unless I'm in the hospital for yet another Legoectomy.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.