He told me “Everyone loves my Pineapple Upside Down Cake. The mothers all raved about it at my son’s birthday party. No one ate the sheet cake he picked out from the supermarket, except for his friends. They all want that frosting and those sugary-Crisco-flower-things. That’s when I knew I had to stop being a stay-at-home-dad and get out of the house” he said. “It was obvious I’d lost my bearings. What had I become?” he asked.
So he switched from changing diapers to pounding nails and went to work as a contractor. Not that he felt there was anything wrong with a guy who wiped baby bottoms. He knew that being at home with his kids was a luxury. And on those days when he reached his limit, he’d go out and cut up firewood with his chainsaw. All in all it had been a relief to get out of the professional world. At home, he didn’t have to shave and some days he never changed out of his sweats. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why the mothers who didn’t know him kept their distance as he chased his kids around the jungle gym and egged them on to swing higher than he did.
He knew those mothers viewed him with apprehension and maybe even suspicion — like it is still weird for a grown man to be hanging out with little kids, even if they are his own. They probably figured that he’d been fired from his job and they never asked him to join their babysitting co-op. He took it well for the most part because he knew he was something of an enigma — most men don’t stay home. And his wife made a good income with her internet company so it didn’t make sense for her to become a housewife. Besides, he was the parent with the patience to coo all day and do the potty-cheer.
He had a groove – there were good days and chain saw days, but it was the Pineapple Upside Down Cake that made him realize how lost he really felt.
For his wife, it was the maraschino cherries that did it. That’s when she knew he had to get out and do something else. When she saw them on the shopping list — on that pad of paper stuck to the fridge — the one with ‘Forget-Me-Not’ printed on the top — she said to him “You mean you’re really going to buy maraschino cherries? Aren’t they cancerous or something?” They were written in between the Tofu Pups and the refried beans. He defended himself by saying “You can’t make a Pineapple Upside Down Cake without them. You’ve got to have that red dot.”
She went on to tell me about how their son cried when he saw the birthday cake that his dad made. “I almost did too” she said, “I mean – who makes a birthday cake without frosting?” So they ran out to the Stop-n-Shop to buy one. Since it was such short notice the bakery couldn’t decorate it with the Lego-Man design the kid really wanted but thankfully, a generic-soccer-theme cake was there that did sooth him, even though he doesn’t play soccer.
The dad gave me a copy of the recipe – he’s got it printed out on cards now. He said it tastes better with dark rum and lots of it, but that I should remember to leave it out for the kids.
originally broadcast November 12, 2003
