Adam Carolla - Daddy, Stop Talking! - And Other Things My Kids Want but Won't Be Getting

And who cares. The kids didn’t know at the time and it’s not like they’re going to sit me down when they’re older and say, “How come you didn’t have the guts to sit in my room when I was three weeks old and watch me shit myself?”

Let me start with a fuck you to all the people who are reading this and thinking, “Quit complaining about how hard raising kids is, rich guy. You’ve got a nanny and a maid.” Yes. But I didn’t wait in some magical line and get them assigned to me by the government. I pay for them.

And I pay them well. Here’s a great rich-guy move that says something about who I am. Two years ago, I heard my kids saying goodbye to Olga for the day, shouting, “Happy Birthday, Olgai!” (When they were first learning to talk, they couldn’t say her name correctly, so the mispronunciation just stuck.) I didn’t know that it was Olga’s birthday, so I asked Lynette what we got her. She told me Olga had been having issues with her car, and that we paid three hundred dollars to get it fixed. So I grabbed Olga before she left and asked her what was wrong with the car, what the year and model was — all those dude questions. I was impressed that she knew the mileage. Most people, and sadly most straight guys today, couldn’t tell you the mileage on their car. It was a 2002 Camry with 123,000 miles on it. I asked her how much it cost, and she said she didn’t know. I was curious how she could remember the mileage, but not how much she paid for it. She said, “You bought it for me.”

I had no recollection of buying her a car. Apparently in ’06 when the kids were born, I purchased her said ’02 Camry to drive them around in. After this revelation, I asked Dr. Drew what it said about me that I had zero recall of buying her a car and the hugs and thanks she swore she gave me at the time. He thinks my lack of self-esteem doesn’t allow me to register things that feel good. That’s probably pretty accurate, because I’m now about to list all the things that piss me off about having maids and nannies running around my house, instead of all the good things they do for me and my family.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Olga. I love what she’s doing for my kids. I have almost no complaints. She’s helping them learn Spanish, which will be very handy in Los Angeles — which by the time they’re in high school will be referred to as North Tijuana. But one issue I do have with Olga is how she calls Natalia “Mama.” I know this is a Latino thing, but I don’t like it. I don’t understand the deal with calling eight-year-olds “Mama.” It’s always the kids and the elderly that get this name. They don’t call anyone “Mama” who can actually be a mother. The ones who haven’t sprouted their first pube, and the ones whose eggs are powdered are “Mamas,” but the actual mamas not so much. I know that this can’t be helping the teen pregnancy rate in the Latin community. When you start calling a kid “Mama” at age four, you’re pretty much prepping them to become actual mamas by age twelve.

The second issue I have is what I have termed the Nan-boree. Every couple of weeks, I’ll come home to find that my driveway is full and my house is a swarm of wealthy white kids all brought over by Olga’s underground nanny network. They have big nanny parties where they get all the kids together and essentially let them roam free while they drink my coffee and chat. I’m fine with that, it’s just that it always seems to happen during the very rare opportunities I have to be home in between gigs trying to grab a nap or do some work from home, like calling into radio shows to promote the podcast or writing books like this one.

Interruption is a constant theme in my house, and it is not just caused by my kids. I had a run-in with our maid just the other day. It was eight-thirty in the morning, and I was sitting at the computer in my bathrobe, letting gas pass with my first cup of coffee, as I do loud and proud when I’m in my own home. Then she did the simultaneous knock and enter.

What is that all about? What does that accomplish? The point of knocking is to warn the person who’s farting or beating off that you’re about to catch them in the act. If you do the simultaneous knock and enter, you don’t give them enough time to holster their junk, only enough time to look horrified as you catch them dick in hand. You’re supposed to knock and wait for a response or just barge in, but not both. Now I have the humiliation of you catching me in the act and the horrible moment right before that, when I know it’s going to happen. If you’re going to shoot me, just put a bullet in me while I sleep. Don’t wake me up and let me see the gun in my face first.

So a couple of hours later, my maid was cleaning the bathroom and I innocently turned the corner. She then did what I believe to be the greatest contribution by Latin women to our nation… the screaming of “AIIIEEE!” It was startling. It sounded like she got her tit caught in the slide mechanism of the drawer she was cleaning. How frightened can you possibly be? It’s my house and you saw me earlier. I’d understand if you saw me pop up behind you in your bathroom on a Sunday, but once you’re in my house don’t be surprised when you see me. What am I supposed to do, phone you ten minutes before and tell you that I’m going to be entering my kitchen? Her scared reaction then got me scared. I ended up being more startled by her reaction than she was by my entering the room. It was a chain reaction of unnecessary fear.

As a side note, Hispanic women, you shouldn’t be as jumpy as you are. You come from a land where finding a duffel bag full of heads is a common occurrence. Why do you leap out of your skin when I step into my own kitchen to top off my coffee?

Then Olga got me a few weeks later. This time I was on the shitter. You’re supposed to knock and then wait for a response like “Excuse you!” “Wait a second” or “My anus is dilated” (okay, maybe that last one is a little wordy and personal). Again, there was no pause between the knock and her entering the room. Of course she found me on the shitter, because there was nothing I could do in the three-tenths of a second she gave me to react. So why bother knocking at all? Why not just kick the door in and do a shoulder roll like a SWAT team if you have no intention of actually pausing long enough to hear if a noise comes from the other side of the door?

And to you assholes who feel the need to point out that I could lock my bathroom door: One should not have to lock one’s bathroom door while in one’s home making a number two.

While we’re on locks, let’s discuss the well-known but tragic fact that having kids also means that your sex life is pretty much over. This is why there’s so much fucking in hotels. When parents actually do manage to get away from the kids for a weekend, that hotel room becomes Sodom and Gomorrah because there have been so many thwarted boning opportunities at home.

I’ve always recommended getting a barrel bolt on the bedroom door, so if Mommy and Daddy are humping, the kids can’t just bust in and ruin it. Unless you’re a perv and are into that.

As a builder, I can tell you that there are three kinds of knobs: the dummy knob that you have on the hall closet door or the pantry, it’s only on one side and doesn’t turn. Then there’s the passage knob, which does turn and has two sides, but doesn’t lock. This is the kind you have on your bedroom closet or den. Then there’s the privacy knob. This locks on the back side so people can’t just stroll into the room. It’s not going to stop a gangbanger who’s throwing a shoulder into it, but will ensure the kids don’t walk in, traumatize themselves and ruin one of your infrequent hump-ortunities.