By Jean Lomas-Hamilton of this slow process
Local father Chad Thompson was awarded a goddamn medal yesterday for his widely-celebrated achievements in doing regular crap that should be the basic expectation for any parent.
“I honestly don’t know how this happened,” gushed Thompson at a lavish award ceremony attended by the mayor and other local luminaries. “One minute I was just a normal dad hanging out with my kids for the afternoon, and the next, people started showering all these accolades on me. I guess it’s nice to finally get some recognition for my efforts.”
[adsanity id=”35664″ align=”aligncenter”/]Thompson’s humility was lauded by the award adjudication committee, who commended his “hands-on” parenting style as though ignoring your fucking kids should in any way be an option. The committee cited the following examples of why they felt this year’s honoree was particularly deserving:
– On September 8 of last year, Thompson took his daughter and son, aged 7 years and 10 months respectively, to the park while his wife visited her grandmother in the hospital. As if this wasn’t a spectacular enough accomplishment on its own, when his eldest yelled, “Watch me, Daddy!” Thompson briefly looked up from Clash of Clans on his phone to see her perform a flip on the monkey bars.
[adsanity id=”35667″ align=”aligncenter”/]– On four separate occasions, Thompson was observed making silly faces to entertain his children so they wouldn’t lose their damn minds while his wife went through the checkout at the local Safeway.
– Thompson regularly wears his son in a carrier, often while holding his daughter’s hand, on weekend hikes with his family. This apparently makes him a goddamn saint in the eyes of the committee and society at large.
Said Thompson, “I thought that was just normal dad stuff. To be honest, sometimes I feel like I’m just scraping by and doing the bare minimum. People even ask me if I’m ‘babysitting’ when I’m out with the kids, so I thought I must look pretty incompetent. To even be in the running for a medal I figured I’d at least have to get up in the middle of the night with the baby or something, but I asked around and it turns out that’s some Nobel-Prize level shit. So I’ve made that my goal for next year, because if that’s all it takes, then why the hell wouldn’t I?”
[adsanity id=”35665″ align=”aligncenter”/]In his acceptance speech, Thompson thanked his friends and family for their support and dedicated the medal to his wife, “without whom none of this would have been possible.” He then left for the airport where he boarded a plane for what the adjudication committee termed a “long overdue and much-deserved” Vegas weekend with the guys.
Chad’s wife, Susan Thompson, recently sparked outrage in the community when she declined to host a gluten-free sleepover party for her daughter’s entire second-grade class. Ms. Thompson could not be reached for comment, but as of press time, sources close to the couple indicated she was up to her elbows in human excrement after a wholly unremarkable, 749th consecutive sleepless night.
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About the Author
Jean Lomas-Hamilton has a husband, a baby, a cat, and a lot of thoughts. You can read about them all on her blog, this slow process. Jean’s writing has been featured on Scary Mommy, BlogHer, and, in her younger days, more than one public bathroom wall. She’s also on Facebook and Twitter… so there’s that.