Dancing with the snake

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Ezekiel Buchheit

Dave Barry identified age as a snake. A snake that slowly swallows your body, starting low and moving, slowly so one would hardly notice it. He said one day you would find yourself turning off the radio because all the hit songs just sound the same to you. You find yourself uttering parent-isms you swore would never leave your lips. The friends you once skinny-dipped with while under the influence of banned substances, you now engage in conversations with over the warning signs of prostate cancer.

And the snake gets its hold on you. Swallowing.

I have felt this snake, though I will admit I didn't notice its presence until the damage was beyond repair.

I think the first warning was when I got married. We received a ton of wedding gifts.

In college once, a group of people whose identity is unknown to me, sent me about $150 worth of the best marijuana I have ever seen as a token of gratitude for my pro-pot writings.

At my wedding I received Corning Ware.

When did this happen?

In college my friend Matt would regularly drag me over to Crazy Man Ken's house. Crazy Man Ken is this guy who lives way up in the foothills just below the Catalinas. He is called Crazy Man Ken simply because we thought that it was a clever nickname for a man named Ken who was completely insane. When we went to his house, we'd all smoke a bunch of drugs and Crazy Man Ken would then enlighten us on such subjects as the invention of agriculture (alien astronauts who taught our ancestors), the creation of god (alien astronauts), and his own abduction by the democratic party. Sorry, I meant aliens.

And if he really liked you, he'd offer to show you his spooky alien tattoos they gave him aboard the mother ship. I never partook.

You know what I did the last time I went out? I went to Lamaze class with my wife.

When my wife and I were dating, we would go out into the desert with our friends, have a great big bonfire and watch the giant purple monkeys swing from the clouds. On Fridays and Saturdays, we would hit all the parties, and sometimes I would have to carry her home. Now she files my feet while we debate the pros and cons of live birth without an epideral.

I have found myself worrying over subjects that I could go decades without thinking about. What if my kid gets sick? What if I am a bad father? What am I going to do if my child starts going out and partying?

What if I have a daughter and she starts dating? What if she meets a boy like me? Would the cops call it justifiable homicide?

These things hound me.

Something has happened here. It kind of snuck up on me. The snake, that is. I can distinctly remember when I was young. I remember a time when I was smoking government-regulated substances while engaged in a conversation with my English teacher. Those days are gone.

I don't think real adults get drunk. I don't think real adults use drugs. I don't think they do. I think there's a time in your life when those actions are acceptable. It's part of growing up. But when you're doing it as an adult with responsibilities, it's become an escape and an addiction.

Some people either accept responsibility and change, or we end up with a nation of parents who drool. Either way, I can't honestly say it's all right to raise a child drunk, stoned or what have you.

And that is why I'm getting drunk tonight. I haven't done anything like this in, oddly enough, the last nine-plus months. I've got a kid due on this earth in just under four weeks. Dad's going to party with the boys one last time. And then the whole world is going to change.

Ezekiel Buchheit's guest commentary appears every Friday, and he can be reached via e-mail at Ezekiel.Buchheit@wildcat.arizona.edu.