Fear and Loathing in Pandemic Parenting
“We were somewhere outside of Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”
Thus begins “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” Hunter S. Thompson’s savage journey to the heart of the American dream.
Weighing in at a madcap 200 pages, “Fear and Loathing” makes for a quick read. Terry Gilliam’s 1998 film adaptation hews closely to the book, as does the 1996 audio-book CD narrated by Harry Dean Stanton. Between the book, the CD, and the movie, I’ve probably read, listened to, or watched the story close to a dozen times. I never intended to — it just sort of happened.
Key to the story is the chaotic interpersonal dynamic between Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson) and Dr. Gonzo (his attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta). Their fractured mental states are continually out of alignment as they skate from crisis to crisis on the edge of manic incoherence. Out of alignment, but not out of sync — whenever one of them is overwhelmed by events (or drugs) and caught up in a moment of panic nearing total cognitive or emotional breakdown, the other is already past the peak or has not yet reached it. Somehow one of the two always summons enough presence of mind to negotiate the madness and evade total disaster.
That’s an awfully familiar feeling.
For the past year my wife and I have both worked full-time jobs from home while helping a four-year old with zero chill cope with months-long stretches of social isolation. Our situation is doubtless better than what many others have faced during this pandemic, but there were more than a few times where one or the other of us felt the fabric of sanity slipping from our clutches.
We’ve been wearing the same clothes for half a week, so where’s all of this dirty laundry coming from?
How am I doing three loads of dishes in a single day for a three-person household when one of us lives on veggie straws and chocolate milk?
How many times can that child watch Cars II in one week?
Why is our housebroken dog suddenly pooping in my son’s bedroom?
Why are we all continually within five feet of each other when our house has seven rooms, a back yard, two stories, and a semi-finished basement?
To be clear, I am not saying that raising a child in a pandemic is equivalent to the experience of being blasted out of your skull on mescaline while trying to purchase an orangutan from a stranger in a casino.
Because mescaline generally only lasts 12–24 hours.
But that’s not what’s important here. What’s important here is that the #1 reason why I don’t end up in a bathtub full of dirty water embracing a plugged-in air-fryer while Alexa blasts Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” at full volume is because my wife stands ready to smack me in the head with a grapefruit at the appropriate moment.
In psychedelic parlance, there’s a term for the person who’s job it is to keep their head straight while everyone else is absolutely gone — sometimes called a “trip-sitter,” or a “co-pilot,” or even just “the guide,” it’s the person who’s got their shit together enough to make sure you don’t set the house on fire, run into traffic, or call your boss/mother/ex-girfriend and tell them what your soul truly knows about their secret real self.
I’ve seen my wife skating close to the edge of pandemic breakdown this past year, and I’ve skated there too, but somehow we don’t both go skating there at the same time. Somehow one of us is always keeping it together just enough to talk the other one down, run interference, cook dinner, clean up dog-poop (or kid-pee), distract a melting-down child, “accidentally” remove the batteries from the musical toy, sweep up broken glass, take our son for a drive, etc.
We’re sometimes out of alignment, but never completely out of sync.
As Ecclesiastes 4:9+10 says “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. For if one falls down, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to help him up!”
Again, I’m not saying that being a parent is like being on drugs. Except for that one time I took my son to the B&O Railroad Museum to see Thomas the Train, and while I was carrying him in my arms through a giant room full of dozens of huge old trains he leaned his head on my shoulder and said, “Daddy, I’m so happy.”
And.
Let.
Me.
Tell.
You.
There is absolutely no other substance I’ve encountered that has ever come close to that feeling.
