Donna reminded me the other day that, while I spend a good deal of time bitching about my current problems, I rarely talk about what she feels is a more likely candidate as the root of my problems... my parents. I've mentioned my mother from time-to-time before. Her neglect, her awkward boundary issues and even how she got knocked-up back in the summer of love. So this time, let's give my dad a turn.

My father is what some would call a compulsive groom. A serial marrier. He just can't manage to stay single no matter how hard he tries. He falls into marriages, despite his obvious lack of matrimonial ability, with surprising ease. My brothers and I have run out of ways to address all of our mothers.

First, of course, is Mom. Our biological mother. That one is pretty obvious.

Because we've decided that five is simply one too many weddings to finance before we're forty-five, Donna has had an intrauterine device entrenched in defense of her fertile-as-the-Tenessee-River-valley uterus for a couple of years. Crammed in her cervix just like God intended. Or wherever it is they jam those things.

Sorry, I haven't had a close look for myself lately to know the specifics. Also, I don't think cram and jam are the exact terms that reproductive medical professionals use for this sort of installation. It does send and receive SMS messages though, so that's cool. At least, I presume that it does based on what our insurance company paid for it. I mean, for nine-hundred bucks, it had better have an IP address and run some flavor of UNIX.

Being the high-tech, bionic fishing lure that it is, the IUD requires some kind of regular maintenance. Lube and oil change, probably. So Friday Donna took it in for its fifty-thousand mile maintenance and to have her airbags safety inspected.

I don't need random freaks stalking my children, it's bad enough the Primary President drops by from time-to-time. To keep the creeps at bay, I don't post pictures of my children. I think I may have found a loophole though.

Turning their backs on me already.

Back in 1969, my grandfather was a Bishop in the Monument Park Stake on the very exclusive, very Mormon, east bench of Salt Lake City, Utah. This was at a time where there were only, believe it or not, eight stakes in the Salt Lake valley. In other words, everybody knew the family. They were high-profile and well-respected. To this day, I often meet people whom I've never met who know my grandfather and refer to him as "Bishop".

My mother was 19 at the time. My father, just a bit older. Of course, they weren't my mom and dad then. They were just two crazy kids in love... in love with sex. As a result, late in 1969, my older brother was conceived. There was just one thing missing... the ring.

Yep, my brother is a bastard. Well, except that in February 1970, my parents were rushed into an ill-fated marriage in order to save face for my mother's family among their friends, ward members, and colleagues. To this day, when my dad hears the word shotgun, he ducks.

As the parents of four daughters (pick yourselves up, you heard me right... try to keep the karma comments to a minimum) Donna and I decided early on that we would need a less clinical term when referring to... ahem... a girl's... umm... junk. I mean, I'm fairly certain you can't even say the word "vagina" within 100 feet of an open diaper in Utah. Something to do with the Utah Clean Mouth Act or whatever.

My sister-in-law (who I would just as soon karate-chop in the throat as talk to) uses the term "Vahgeegee". I think that might actually be a character from the Book of Mormon, so we opted against that. Plus, you sound like a french interior decorator when you say it.

We instead opted for "ToTo" (Hurry boy she's waiting there for you...). I still feel like an idiot saying it but it seems better than sounding like my high school health teacher for some reason.

Sometime around midnight Donna and I heard a voice from the doorway of our bedroom, "Mom... Dad... hey..."

It was our twelve-year-old daughter, Megan. We hadn't noticed her come into the room as I had been busy under the covers gently, yet firmly pressure testing Donna's bartholin's glands and she was preoccupied moaning and begging me to, and I quote, "hurry up and stick it in [her]". One thing we were certain of is that Megan had been standing there a little longer than any of us would have liked.

"Get the hell out of here!" I instantly reacted.

A few nights ago I noticed while flipping through the on-screen cable guide that The History Channel was to air a 2-hour show, The Egyptian Book of the Dead. It was to air that night at ten o'clock. I was giddy.

I am not particularly interested in Egyptian antiquities specifically, though all aspects of history are of interest to me. In this case I hoped that by innocently tuning in and watching that Donna would happen to recognize a few of the more-than-coincidental similarities between the Book of the Dead papyrus and the published-as-Mormon-scripture, Book of Abraham Facsimiles. And while I hold no false illusion that exposure to this information would cause her to once and for all shed her Pioneer Birth Control^tm I did hope that a dose of objectivity might prep her mind for the truth of the matter at a later date.

The truth of course being that the papyrus Joseph Smith claimed had been written by Abraham, even "by his own hand, upon papyrus", was nothing more than the most common burial document in all of ancient Egypt. A document that since the time of Joseph Smith has been correctly translated and which has nothing whatsoever to do with Abraham, Christianity, Mormonism, the pre-mortal existence, or any of that other nonsense.

Sally Field is hot. She always has been. Gidget, The Flying Nun (What is it about nuns that is SO hot?), Smokey and the Bandit, the braless Norma Rae, Sybil ("I want to be YOUR little girl!"). Hot, hot, hot. Who cares if she's older than my mother? She's hot.

Now, I find myself once again predictably aroused by her in an ad for an osteoporosis medicine. She keeps talking about how she told her girlfriend how hard it makes your bones. It then cuts to a shot of her eating a piece of fruit with her eyes closed in slow motion.

And then, as if I weren't aroused enough, she says the name of the product, "Boniva". Gawd, could it get any better than this? "Boniva", she says again matronly. This is some great advertising.