F*ck You, Bandit
An angry PSA to a cartoon dingo
Nothing like a picture-perfect family of Australian dingoes to make you feel like a shit parent. I mean, damn, I was riding high when the likes of Phil Dunfy and Peter Griffin were the TV dads to outclass. I was all like, “Oh, you know, I’m not the best, but I get the job done. I’m certainly no Walter White, moonlighting as a drug lord or anything.”
And then here comes Bandit, doo-doo-dooin’ like the dad you always wanted from fucking down under. Even I want to crawl up in those stubby little arms and cry over a stupid leaf.
For Christ’s sake, Bandit, for the rest of us begging to snip our dicks and barely surviving the daily demands of irrational babies, let loose a little, mmkay? Sit back, have a beer, drown out the noise — lock yourself in the bathroom for once. You’ll be glad you did.
Honestly, I’d be so relieved to start watching another Bluey episode just to hear the opening voice say, “Thees episarde’s cohlled, ‘Datty’s drunk again.’”
Let’s kick some reality into gear. I want to be represented!
I can see it now. It opens up with Bandit letting a swear slip in front of the kids.
“Whuht’s a fuhck, datty?”
“Well, uh…Bluey, sometoimes when uh mums and dats regret theih loife decisions…”
Or let’s see Bandit and Chillee have it out for once. Just like barking at each other in the kitchen, showing fangs and everything, over something so trivial like that last piece of cheesecake. But everybody knows it’s not really about the cheesecake. It’s just an opportunity for them to unleash their piled-up resentment, and the truth deep down is that she doesn’t feel loved or appreciated and he doesn’t feel loved or supported.
And maybe, if we’re being honest, they just haven’t had sex in a while because they’re too busy working to make money to buy food to feed kids who don’t eat, and if they ever do get the chance to be alone, they’re just too damn tired to knock paws so they binge-watch “Everybody Loves Raymond” with a big bottle of Cabernet and an early bedtime.
But, in the moment, they just like hate each other, and they’re barking and barking, and drool is flying, and they’re barking, and then Bingo’s like, “stohp foighting.” And they’re all like, “Hoiy! Thees ees adult toime!” But then they catch themselves dumping onto the kids, and they snap out of it, and they’re like, “Orh we’re sarh sorry, baby, we lovfe you very much and we lovfe eachovva. Just sometoimes grorwn ups awrgue.”
Who are we kidding? We’d still be bawling our fucking eyes out and taking notes. I mean, come on. Season 1, episode 4 — that one got me to my core. “Flowers may bloom again, but a person never has the chance to be young again.”
Fuck you, dad of the year.
If he wasn’t a twenty-one-hour flight away and a cartoon, I’d fuck him up. Teach him a few things!
“Here, Bandit, this is how you pawn off a poopy to your spouse.”
“Here, Bandit, this is how you get your kids’ grubby hands off your ice cream by telling them it’s spicy.”
“Here, Bandit, this is how you sit on the toilet with the door locked for a half hour swiping through memes under the guise of, ‘oh, sorry, honey, it’s a mean one!’”
“Here, Bandit, this is how you strap your kids in front of Disney Plus just so you can sneak a two-ounce shot of alone time.”
Yeah, I’d teach him, alright. I’d teach him how to be real too. “Be real with me, bro. I know it’s hard. You can say it. You can tell me. You’re depressed. I get it. Me too.”
We all are, and that’s the beauty of it: you struggle through the difficult years of dried smoothie on the chaise lounge and nightly zombies in the hall and tantrums over toast that’s just not squishy enough and not being able to hear your own damn voice over the noise — you do it all so that maybe, just maybe, you’ll have managed to raise one of your kids decently enough that they’ll agree to change your diapers in the end.
We’re all making this up as we go, Bandit, and you’re no exception. We love our kids to death, but this shit ain’t easy.
