by Mariana Lopes<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aiden and I met when we were respectively 32 and 34 years old. I know, it\u2019s not the typical story of a couple, but it\u2019s also great that way. Not belonging to a habit, an expectation. We are originals, at least that\u2019s how I like to think of it. He likes to think about it that way too. Oh, another detail, we\u2019re gay. And have two daughters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDad!\u201d she screamed from her room upstairs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes?!\u201dAiden and I responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can\u2019t find the other yellow sock!!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Annie is the oldest, and she really loves these yellow socks. So we knew one of us would have to be the hero and find that yellow sock. Amy is the little one, only 6 years old. She is a sweet pea, just unlike her sister. Let\u2019s say Annie is an energetic and torn teenager. Yeah it\u2019s just that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That evening, Aiden and I were cooking some salmon pasta. It\u2019s our favorite meal, mostly because we never eat it except on the 3rd of November. It\u2019s a weird tradition, just like our unconventional family. We like to think of it that way. I was helping Annie with finding her yellow sock when suddenly I heard a big shablam in the kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s happening over there? Do you need help?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m fine!\u201d he said. He actually didn\u2019t seem fine at all. I was coming down the stairs when he yelled at me to keep searching for that yellow sock. It was all good. So I walked back up to help Annie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDad, I\u2019m starting to panic. That\u2019s it, I\u2019m having a panic attack!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSweetheart, calm down, we\u2019re gonna find it. It can\u2019t be that far. Socks don\u2019t just hide from humans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat do you know about that?! Maybe they do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell maybe if you were nicer to them, they wouldn\u2019t disappear!!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course this doesn\u2019t make any sense. I am just a tired father looking for a yellow sock for what feels to be already an hour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another loud sound from the kitchen. This time, I went downstairs. Only to find my dear husband, with our dear youngest, and the salmon on the floor, being eaten by our golden retriever; Sam.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t know which one I wanted to kill first. But thinking about it, the dog and the kid would be the only survivors.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI know, don\u2019t get angry Adam. It\u2019s only salmon, it\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s being eaten by Sam. Our SALMON is being eaten not by our family on the evening of the 3rd of November, but by our CUTE LITTLE FAMILY DOG.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, the dog may be the only clich\u00e9 element of our story. But c\u2019mon, a golden retriever?? Who doesn\u2019t love golden retrievers?? We\u2019re two gay dads, not aliens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAmy wanted to know the secret recipe, and since it\u2019s such an important tradition of ours, I wanted to show her how it was done. She first spilled the boiling pan with the pasta. Sam was chilling in the backyard. But now she spilled the salmon, and this time Sam was not chilling in the backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAmy darling come here.\u201d I said, transferring her from Aiden\u2019s arms to mine. \u201cYou know what? Why won\u2019t you go help your sister finding her yellow sock?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amy looked at me all excited, because she really enjoyed being with her sister. Even though her sister wouldn\u2019t enjoy it as much at that moment. So I went upstairs with the little pea in my arms, and I confided her to Annie, who was really starting to lose her mind. But she was always careful with Amy, no matter what. So I knew I could go back to the kitchen to commit a murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAiden. What are we going to do?! If we don\u2019t have our untraditional salmon pasta tonight, I\u2019m gonna start chasing yellow socks too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRelax, love. I\u2019m gonna fix this.\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aiden was always the reasoned one. Everytime I\u2019d freak out, he would help me and find ways to solve the matter. This time, he decided to run to the store to find some salmon. When he came back, I thought I saw an angel entering the room. Amy was crying for 10 minutes, and Annie was about to destroy the closet in her room. We NEEDED this salmon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t find any.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat do you mean you couldn\u2019t find any<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSeems like there wasn\u2019t any stock of salmon in the stores today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh jesus. This is a disaster. I\u2019m gonna find all these bastards that bought salmon today and kill them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAdam!! Not in front of Amy!! Watch your tongue!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was holding Amy in my arms, while this time it was Sam helping Annie with the mystery of the sock. Amy had finally stopped crying when her other daddy walked in the salon.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAlright alright.\u201d I said, forced to admit that I couldn\u2019t just say such things in front of a 6 year old. \u201cBut listen to me Aiden. I am\u00a0very<\/em>\u00a0serious now\u2026 I\u2019m heading to Norway to catch some salmon myself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCome on now Adam!! Always so dramatic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cME?!\u201d Amy was looking at us with her eyes wide open. \u201cMe\u2026?\u201d I repeated more contained. \u201cI am not dramatic. How dare you calling me a drama queen like that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBecause you\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0a drama queen.\u201d He, on the other hand, was looking at me with despair. But despair coming from a place of love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI found my sock!!!!! Dads, I found my freaking yellow sock!!!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cANNIE! Watch your tongue too!!\u201d This time Aiden was really desperate with the two of us. \u201cBut that\u2019s great honey. I\u2019m really happy for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMe too sweetheart. Come grab your sister and go play upstairs if you don\u2019t mind.\u201d I said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen will dinner be ready by the way? I\u2019m kind of hungry to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aiden and I looked at each other. Damn it, we had only averted one crisis. But he instinctively walked in the kitchen and came back thirty seconds later, with a frozen pizza in his hands.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNew tradition kids. November 3rd is pizza night!\u201d He had a smile on his face. The kind of smile only a dad has. The one that says: \u201cI\u2019m doing my best as a human being living with a bunch of kids, myself included.\u201d And I freaking loved him for that.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sam immediately started to drool profusely, because if there was anything he understood better than everything else, was the word \u201cpizza\u201d. So then, the girls set the table and we all ate a delicious frozen pizza. Of course we cooked it, we didn\u2019t eat it frozen. Everyone was delighted, except Sam because he was punished and couldn\u2019t eat pizza since he ate the salmon. The girls were happy, Annie was wearing her yellow socks and all the crises had been averted.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s almost a typical day in our family. And I love my silly husband more than anything else in this world. Even if he had the\u00a0nerve<\/em>\u00a0to call me a drama queen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aiden and I met when we were respectively 32 and 34 years old. I know, it\u2019s not the typical story of a couple, but it\u2019s also great that way. Not belonging to a habit, an expectation. We are originals, at least that\u2019s how I like to think of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,7],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-9","tag-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350,"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions\/350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}