True Stories by Rob Corddry: The Back Hallways of Fatherhood

You assholes have no idea how hard it is being a Dad. You have no idea at all. I wish you did. I wish you could walk a mile in my shoes! You’d look so stupid, with your flat feet and your tight jeans! Jerk.

You have no idea how hard it is being a father until you and your three-month-old are both sobbing in your underwear, standing halfway between the back hallway and the dining room. Yeah, that’s right, I have a BACK hallway too. Jealous? Well, I’m on television, I have a ton of shit you don’t have.

Let me back-up myself. My wife and I have nothing in common at all. She likes beets. I like hot dogs. She listens to music. I listen to good music. She wears women’s clothes. I wear jeans made of dungaree. She also likes to go to the gym alone on Sunday mornings. And she doesn’t like bringing a three month old. This chick is selfish!

So here I am: busting my ass trying to get my infant daughter to appreciate early Guided by Voices. She’s not having it. I can tell by her look that she thinks Robert Pollard is pretentious. You know that feeling, right? When you’re playing a song for someone and you know they don’t like it and you regret even playing it in the first place but you have to keep playing it to save face or in hopes that they’ll come around? Well, I’m balls-deep in that shit. I hate emotions.

So my three month old is chewing on some speaker wire when she gets that look that says either “I have to somehow politely excuse myself” or “I’m filling my diapers with body-garbage”. Then it dawns on me: she’s really stupid! She can’t even talk! I mean, her brain is straight-up undeveloped! And don’t get me started on her skull (it’s soft)!

So I’m starting to feel better. Am I to expect this dumb-bell to get GBV? Even if she did have a myelin sheath covering her tiny brain, she still wouldn’t have the musical background in place to be able to appreciate the early 90’s Dayton indie rock scene. She’s never heard the Smith’s! She’s never heard the Replacements! She’s only heard Cheap Trick once or twice but she was drunk…

Now she’s crying and I’m like, “I GET it! You’re not smart enough to articulate your emotions!”. I think maybe coffee will do the trick so I go off to make a pot, moving her closer to the speaker-wire so she can perhaps re-comfort herself with that. I love coffee!

I only succeed in burning her lip. That’s was pretty dumb, I guess, giving coffee to a baby. I should have made it room temp. She’s still crying and her mother’s probably only ten minutes or so into her class at the gym. She takes Yoga, Spinning, Step-Aerobics, Kickball, and she loves the Parachute. Don’t get her started on square dancing, though. Ugh!

I turn on Meet the Press and sit my daughter down in front of that. She cries even harder. I play around with the aspect ratio but that just makes us both dizzy. I bounce her up and down. I kiss her feet. I braid her hair. I put her in the fridge. Nothing. I make fart noises with my mouth. I make fart noises with my ass. I juggle old Barney VHS tapes (the only way to watch them). Nothing. I put on a strobe light. I put on a Dracula costume. I put on a fake British accent. I do some of my best impressions (Dick Cavett, Elijah Wood, Pol Pot). I pick her up. I put her down. I walk her into the BACK hallway (remember?). I stare at the wall. She’s still crying.

Now, I’ve made girls cry before. Lots of them. I usually hit them with “It’s not you, it’s me” or “You’re still pretty” or “Can we have sex one more time?” and then I roll. But I’m not saying that to my daughter! Imagine that? She’d be like, “What’s ‘not me’?”. I cannot impress upon you enough how fucking dumb she is.

That’s when I realize what’s really going on. Standing in one of my many many hallways, looking into my dining room (yeah, I have a whole room for that) I finally understand what simple truth has made her inconsolable: She’s a baby. That’s it. She’s helpless. She’s not stupid. She merely lacks the faculties to explain to me what she needs. She’s. A. Baby.

And she probably has cancer. Yow! Cancer hurts! I’d cry too…

Rob Corddry is an actor. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.

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