A case of chronic generosity

THE TROUBLE with watching Big Bird on TV is that it inevitably leaves me hungry for chicken. A breast. A wing. A side of potatoes.

“Hey, we have any chicken?” I call to the kitchen.

“Are you watching Big Bird again?” my wife asks.

I’ve made a reasonable request, but lately anything I ask for seems to be met with another question, so that conversations are merely endless strings of questions, with no information ever tendered.

All I ask is a civil discussion once in a while, an adult moment, marked by clarity, wisdom, wit. Instead, I get this:

“Hey, we have any chicken?” I ask.

“Are you watching Big Bird again?”

“A breast? A wing?”

“Do you know what time it is?”

“Time for bed?” I ask.

“It’s 7 in the morning.”

“But I just got up,” I say.

“Can’t you ever be serious?” my wife asks.

I tried being serious once. It didn’t work out. I got cramps. My nose started to bleed. I contracted mono.

In fact, I’ve had a mild case of mononucleosis since the seventh grade, which is roughly 35 years. It’s a long time to have mono.

“You know, I have mono,” I tell the little girl.

“You do?”

“It’s low-grade mono,” I explain. “I’m a little sleepy.”

“And cranky,” says my patient older daughter.

“And generous beyond belief,” I remind them all.

Generosity is a decent quality in a dad. Sometimes it’s disarming how generous I am with my time and my bling. The money that I don’t give to the kids I give to the government. I keep nothing for myself. It’s a monk’s life. All I ask is a piece of leftover chicken once in a while. Or maybe a kabob.

“Can you drive her to school?” their mother asks.

“Now?”

“No, next week,” she says. “Of course now.”

I explain that I gladly drove the little girl to school for six straight years, during which she always kissed me as she got out of the car, then looked back and smiled as she rattled into her little school lugging a backpack decorated with key chains, or charms, or whatever it is kids affix to their backpacks.

Back then, I would sit in the car and watch her walk away, wondering when she would grow a butt, if ever. Should we see a butt specialist? What about a fanny transplant?

Now, when I take her to school I have to beg for a goodbye kiss, which when it comes is dry and hurried, like a whisk broom across my cheek. After she gets out, she doesn’t look back. She has the beginnings of a butt. I find the whole thing excruciating.

“Maybe you should take her,” I say.

“What will you do?” my wife asks.

“I’ll wash him,” I say.

“Wash who?”

“Who do you think?” I say, jerking a thumb in the direction of a toddler eating pancakes.

The toddler smiles at the prospect of being washed. He has heard this threat before, but no one has really been able to pull it off. He repels water the way the Hilton sisters repel regular work and petty obligation.

“Come here,” I say, and he just laughs.

If you’re ever in this situation, here’s how you clean a toddler: First, you rake the things he’s been eating from his hair: Cheerios. String cheese. Play-Doh. Then you wipe down his hands and elbows repeatedly with a soft wet cloth. Roughly 4,000 times will do it -- or, if you really want to get the stickiness off, 6,000.

It takes a couple of hours, but when you are done, you have an entirely clean toddler you can be very proud of. It is not a task for a lazy man. I’d compare it to grooming pigs for state fairs.

“There you go, Satchmo,” I tell him when we finish.

“Thanks,” he lies.

In the bathroom, Rapunzel. She is combing-combing-combing her long lustrous hair and telling everyone within a quarter-mile that it is too cold in this house, “worse than Minnesota” even, where our oldest child Rapunzel has never been, to be honest.

“Jeeez, it’s cold in here!” Rapunzel screams. “Why doesn’t someone turn up the heat? Heat? Heat? Anyone heard of heat?”

“You want to pay the utility bill?” Rapunzel’s mother asks.

“Dad, you want to tell her to turn up the heat?” Rapunzel asks.

No. All I want is a piece of chicken. Really. A wing. A prayer. Breakfast of champions.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.