But the baby kept kicking and flailing her arms while I was wiping her down, all excited after four ounces of Similac Advance that I didn’t realize a part of the new diaper was stuffed inside the one inch crack of her palm sized butt. Honest mistake, right? After all it’s six in the morning and I was up till two a.m. watching season five of Entourage where Vince lands a Scorsese gig and Turtle bangs the Soprano girl. I was tired and took my eyes off the diaper, no big.

But when wifey gets up a few hours later having pleasured herself with eight uninterrupted hours of sleep, I hear OMG and realize the shit’s gonna hit the fan. Literally.

Let’s be clear. First, I didn’t smell the funk coming out of my infant’s ass. Second, the baby’s been on the floor learning to crawl playing with numerical rubber squares so I didn’t bother to notice her pink polar fleece sweats soaking in the color of wheatgrass. And third, the baby didn’t cry so why would I give a fuck when I’m laying on the couch catching some Z’s with the granny dimwits from The View serving as necessary background noise to distract the baby from her wet diaper.

But rested wifey accuses me of the kind of neglect that gives Child Services hard-ons and thrusts the baby’s ass to my face. Funky, I get it. Shit, I get it. I shut my eyes, going back to sleep. She screams GET UP OFF THE COUCH, YOU NEED TO SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE.

I need to be taught a lesson, so she makes me walk upstairs to the changing table to show me the drippy green turd all over my baby’s back and legs. I tell her that’s nasty but also say I’m sorry. She reminds me that I wasn’t paying attention and once again she has to clean up the mess. This is so inconvenient. I tell her for the umpteenth fucking time I’m sorry it was an accident and she says sorry isn’t good enough when our baby is soaked in shit. Did you know she might get a rash? A yeast infection? An itch that can turn into a cut, a cut that can turn into, oh don’t make me go there. Her skin may never be the same, she says. So inconvenient.

She tosses the polar fleece at my chest that smells like the inside of a health food store and says wash it, soak it, and hang dry it. No shortcuts. I’m too tired to fight her and so I do. I do what she demands, I absorb more of her scolding, and I start to get pissed and wonder if I’ve got the audacity to do it again. To do what makes her hate me, which is, to give the baby another wedgie.

My plan to get her to love me instead of hate me: I plan on changing the baby’s diapers for two consecutive weeks, approximately seventy times or until she feels she’s neglecting her newborn. I mean she should feel something, hell she gave birth to her. But if she taps into her heartless side and that doesn’t work, I’ll let some of the baby’s crud creep under my fingernails and make a salad for her. After she bites into what she thinks are pepper flakes on that cucumber piece, I’ll say “Oh shit honey, stop eating! Look at my hands!” Yeah, she’ll hate me more but at least I won’t ever have to change the baby’s runny diapers again.

I am.

I break the news to her, hoping she’ll understand. She’s my wife of five years and if she doesn’t understand, who will? But instead she tells me to go find a new job before I can even file for unemployment.

I tell her it’s not my fault. And she says I know honey, but her face says something else. She does that thing with her nose, twirls it up like my funky ass didn’t turn on the fan during my after coffee shitfest. Then I see her mind racing with bitter thoughts like I could’ve saved my job and not put her and the kids in a tight-ass spot. I could’ve worked seventy hours instead of the sixty I was coasting on each week. I could’ve been nicer to my boss, licked in between the olive hills of his rump a little, and not bitched about my cotton field conditions. I could’ve foresaw the crappy economy where 3 million people are out of work, car companies are going bankrupt, small businesses are shutting down, and found a back up for the job I planned on losing.

So I tell her I’m sorry and place my hand at her ass, squeeze softly and remind her we’re a family and it’s not my fault and quote that purple guy by saying 2009′s the sign of the times, baby. So I wait for a hug and a kiss, and maybe she’ll let me put my hand down her pants to calm her, but damn if she doesn’t get don’t touch me bitchy and starts talking the language called whacked. So you’re gonna make me a stripper, huh? Tears start to fall from her eyes. I’m going to have to take off my clothes so we can pay the mortgage, huh? I’m going to have to rub up against horny old men so we don’t lose our house, really hubby? Is that what you’re going to make me do, make your wife sink to her knees and beg for a dollar?

No, I say, that’s hella crazy, woman. Oh, you’re calling me crazy? Me crazy?! Take it easy, calm the fuck down, I tell her, something we’ll come up. Go find a new one now, she orders me like Dr. Phil as if I’m suddenly the Octomom wanting to sit on my ever growing ass that could feed fourteen kids. It’s all your fault, she adds, strangling my nuts once more with that loaded line. My fault? Her face gets steamy and I hear it again, what kind of husband makes his wife be a stripper? There she goes thinking men would pay good money to see her tummy rolls. Even I look away and I don’t have too ‘cause when we do it the lights are off.

I lose my job and my wife loses her mind or the clothes in her mind. And even if she finds it, her mind that is, that won’t stop ever her from hating me.

My plan to get her to love me instead of hate me: The obvious answer is to find a new job (fast!) and one that pays more. Once I get this new job, I’ll celebrate her by taking her to Vegas or somewhere sunny and warm where everybody’s having fun so she has no choice but to have fun too. Then I’ll proceed to screw her until she gets sick of me or until my dick falls off, whichever comes first. Then when she feels we’ve achieved the necessary amount of physical intimacy required for a healthy marriage, I’ll take a deep breath and relax, might even thank the Lord. I’m off the hook until the next time I say something stupid or get fucked over by my boss and lose my job again.