Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Phoo Phees

There are questions a father gets asked by his offspring. How do plants grow? Why are there wars? What are toenails made of? Why did the T-Rex have such short arms?

I’m prepared for such questions. I keep a cheat sheet.

But nothing prepared me for this: “Daddy, why does Grandmom call you Phoo Phee?” ...


Or, later, this: “Hey, Phoo Phee, can we go to the playground?”

Or this: “Where’s Phoo Phee? Is that you, Phoo Phee? Are you hiding under your pillow, Phoo Phee? It’s me, your son. Why are you covering your ears, Phoo Phee?”


I had grown comfortable — smug even — during the years of obscurity from my previous life as my mother’s Phoo Phee. Now I've come to understand what it feels like to one day be under witness protection and then the next day to be outed.

“Look it,” I said to my wife later. “I don’t want him calling me Phoo Phee. I don’t want anyone calling me Phoo Phee.”

To me, there’s no sound more grating, more discordant in the world than the sound of Phoo Phee. The only sound that even comes close is that of a French police siren, which, by the way, is “Phoo Phee” backwards.

“Talk to your mother, not me, Phoo Phee,” my wife said.

“Mom,” I said on the phone, “please stop calling me Phoo Phee. My son is now calling me Phoo Phee. My wife is, too. I’m not Phoo Phee. Maybe I was once Phoo Phee. But I’ve changed. I’m a man now. I have a family and a mortgage. Things are complicated. I own a chain saw. I barbecue. I eat solids. I even have a chronic health condition. I worry about the fate of the world. I struggle intellectually with matters such as mercy and justice. Phoo Phee doesn’t describe a person in my situation. I have earned immunity from Phoo Phee.”

She wasn’t impressed.

“You’re my Phoo Phee,” she tells me, matter of factly. “You’ll always be my Phoo Phee.”

So there.

Crap.

The thing is, she’s right. I know it. I will always be her Phoo Phee because I’m certain my 8-year-old son will always be my “Schmoop.” Even when he’s a man. Even if he buys his own chainsaw, chews tobacco, scratches his armpits incessantly, engages in aerial firefighting, or gets heavily into NASCAR.

Sure, we named him Henry, and that's because you’re supposed to name your child something. The Social Security Administration demands it. The nurse has a pen in her hand, and she's tapping on her clipboard awaiting your decision. You could name him "X" or "Skyy" or "Opal" or "Joseph T. Harsgrove," but for most people, naming a child they don't even know yet is akin to naming a celestial surface feature that's light years away. You know it's shape. You know more or less what it's made of. You try to personalize it. But there's a disconnect.

Really, it’s the act of nicknaming them — Phoo Phee, Schmoopy, Tiny Turtle, Honey Dip Melon Drop, Little Leprechaun, Ninpin, Nugget, whatever — that breaks down the barrier between strangers, that stakes tender claim upon a loved one.

When God paraded the beasts of the land, air, and sea before Adam so that each could be named, I’m sure later that evening, as he was preparing a non-apple-related Garden tart, Adam had some second thoughts.

“Koala hardly describes it,” he probably told Eve. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You’ve got to see it. It’s got this Groucho Marx nose that supports a set of the saddest, darkest eyes you’ve ever seen. And, whoa, it’s fluffy! Like, super fluffy! And it hangs onto you like you’re a tree trunk. You know what it is? It’s not a koala. It’s a Cuddly-Wuddly Snugglepuss! That’s what it is!”

Anyway, “Henry” seemed like a solid choice at the time. But then we brought him home and really got a good look at him — top to bottom. We held him up. We turned him around. We scratched our heads.

“You know what?” my wife finally announced. “He’s a Schmoop. That’s what he is.”

“You know what: You’re right,” I said.

He’s our Schmoop.

So there.

And even though I dare not ask, that’s probably more or less how I became a Phoo Phee. My only reasonable choice now is to be man enough to acknowledge that my Phoopheeness transcends me.

I understand these things. We give the people we love "a handle," as it were — a handle that helps us keep a grip for when we have to let go.

Comments

  1. So now I finally have leverage...you pronounce "Porsche(-a) correctly and I will forget I ever heard of Phoo Phee......

    ReplyDelete

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