Stories

A few years ago, I was complaining to my art director friend Tom Lichtenheld about how dull I thought all my kids’ storybooks were.  In his gentle way, he suggested I think of some stories to tell my kids since that’s already kind of what my job was.

I told him to shut up.  If he was so smart, maybe he should go write his own darned stories.

Tom went on to write several New York Times best sellers like “Duck! Rabbit!” and “Shark vs. Train.”

But over the last couple weeks, I’ve gotten into telling the boys made up bedtime stories.  Mostly because the boys demand an adult lay on the floor for a half hour before they fall asleep.  Telling stories helps keep my mind off how incredibly filthy their floor is. 

I started out a little clunky.  I tried to recast classic childrens' stories with Star Wars characters or Rescue Bots guys.  But my telling of “Goldilocks and The Three Ewoks” didn’t go over well. 

But I really found my stride when I incorporated the secret to any great story: scatology.  Any story that involves poop, characters stepping in poop, getting pooped on or stinky poop gets a standing ovation from Elijah and Luca.

Like the story of when Chewbacca clogged up the toilet on the Millennium Falcon.  Or the time the Transformer accidentally turned himself into a port-a-john at Lollapalooza. 

The boys now beg me to tell them stories every night.  “Dad.  Tell us one of your funny stories.  The kind with poop.”

I can even get them to stay in bed at night with the threat of no poop stories.  And, on occasion, they’ll actually ask for me to put them to bed instead of Diana.

But I am running out of ideas.  I gotta keep my poop stories fresh.  I do not, however, recommend looking up “Poop Stories” on the internet.

So if anyone has any good ones that involve Boba Fett or The Rescue Bots, please forward them via the comments section.