Stuff Daddy Ruins: World Peace

The year is 2022, and in Oslo, Norway a middle-aged man from central Pennsylvania is about to make his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize that he has just received.  He gains his composure, wipes his brow, and begins by saying, "On a warm summer day, ten years ago, I was very frustrated with my life.  I was in a dead end job.  My girlfriend of five years had just left me.  I was about to call it quits."


"Then one day," he continues, "I was walking through the square in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania - a place known for incredible war and bloodshed.  It's a place where the anguished yearnings of the thousands who gave their lives during that great Civil War battle can weigh heavily on your soul.  Yet in that very place, I saw the most important person I have ever met in my life.  A man was pushing a stroller toward me, and in that stroller was the most beautiful child I had ever seen.  She was wearing a pretty pink shirt with hearts and peace signs all over it.  And in that moment, when her sharp blue eyes connected with mine, she laughed."  He pauses, not for drama, but because he can barely utter the next few lines without bursting into tears.

"In that moment, when she looked into the depths of my soul and gave me that brief outburst of pure joy, I decided right then that I would make a change in my life.  I decided to forget about all of the terrible things that were happening to me, and work for world peace.  That special moment is the only reason I stand before you here today.  An ordinary father doing an ordinary task with his ordinary child changed the way I viewed myself and my world, and I thank them."  The room bursts into glorious applause at the conclusion of the story, and the man graciously accepts his award and walks back to his seat.

This moment will never happen.

Why?  Because daddy ruined the pink shirt with the peace signs.  Yup.  Here is what's left of it.

What's left of world peace.

I honestly thought that I would have a lot more of these stories by now.  After nine months of being an at-home dad, I am proud to say that my list of "Stuff Daddy Ruins" stands at only two.  I mean, Tim the Tool Man was sort of an at-home-ish dad, and he blew up his house practically every other episode.  So, I feel like I'm doing pretty good by TV standards.

So, how exactly did I manage to ruin the shirt that would inspire world peace?  Remember back a few weeks ago when I took my daughter to Express Care?  Well, she got a sticker for being so good while getting checked out by the doctor.  As most toddlers do, she put the sticker right on the belly of her shirt.  Back at home, daddy took the shirt off of her when she was getting changed into her pajamas, and like daddy usually does, he left the inside-out shirt laying on the floor until morning.

The next morning, daddy put the crumpled up shirt in the laundry and totally forgot about the sticker.  When daddy finally did the laundry over the weekend, he didn't turn the shirt out like mommy always tells him to, and ended up sending it through the washer and the dryer with the sticker still attached.  I do not recommend this to anyone.  I spent a few days trying to get the glue out of the fabric to no avail.  The paper was the only part I could remove.

So, this pretty shirt, which I'm fairly certain would have led to world peace, is now a bunch of dust rags. Hopefully, that young man who would have seen me pushing my daughter through the square of Gettysburg next summer will be surfing the web and come across this blog and see this picture.  I can only hope that it will have the same effect as seeing my child laugh at him while wearing it.

Way to go, dad.