Bill Cosby knew what he was talkin’ about

I recently rented ‘The Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Bill Engvall and Jeff Foxworthy made me split a gut. But I gotta admit that Larry the Cable Guy was hit and miss with because his humor appeals a little too much to the junior high boy level than I’m used to. Ron White is funny enough, but I worry for that guy and his family, is really as bad of a drunk as he pretends to be on stage?

When I was a kid in college, a popular comedy album was ‘Bill Cosby; Himself.’ Even the guys who liked the racier jokes told by Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams thought that Cosby was the best. But I have to admit that back then I didn’t appreciate half of Doctor Coz’s routine. And it dawned on me the other night when ‘Bill Cosby; Himself’ showed up on late night cable why that was. It’s the same reason that Jeff Foxworthy is currently the funniest man on the planet, they’re parents.

I SO did not get many of Cosby’s jokes about being a dad. Now that I’ve been one for several years, I know why Bill Cosby is considered a genious.

“These people (kids) cannot hear.-Come here. Come HERE, commere, commere, commere, COME HERE!”

“DA-AAD, she’s touching meee!”

“Quiet down, stop touching your sister, knock it off, leave her alone, give that back to her, If you don’t stop that I’ll stop this car. Don’t make me pull over and stop this car, I’ll stop this car, don’t make me come back there….”

I didn’t have to look up a transcript because these are all things that I’ve said over the last few years myself.

“What did your mother ask you to do? Close the door, we’re not paying to cool (or warm) the whole outdoors. What did I ask you to do?” Etc. Etc.

Coz was right, we all become our parents and say things that we swore to ourselves we’d never say when we grew up and had kids. Like Jeff Foxworthy, I have three girls, so needless to say, my lifestyle isn’t anything like it was in college.

Probably two thirds of our laundry is pink, for example. Last summer even the shower curtain and bathroom accessories went pink.

I have maybe four pairs of shoes. Dress shoes, work shoes, tennis shoes and sandals. Each of the four women in my family have no less than twenty pairs of shoes- and the eight-month old only wears one pair maybe once or twice a week- she doesn’t even walk yet!

Last week I reached into the refrigerator for a pop and there was a pair of pink shoes!

You can’t walk through our living room without having to side-step a Barbie or Barbie clothes. Nothing hurts so bad in the middle of the night on the dark walk to the bathroom, than stepping bare-foot on a Barbie shoe.

I’m the kinda guy who prefers a little privacy in the john, but every other morning when I step into the shower, there’s Barbie staring up at me.

The other night it happened. I thought I’d get through my entire life without being drawn through the vortex and into their world, but what could I do? My wife Bethany had taken Grace, our six year old to speech therapy in Omaha, so there I was with three-year old Ellen and the baby…

“Daddy, will you play Barbies with us?”

“Huh, wha?” I pretended not to hear her as I peered over my Newsweek at them on the floor.

“DA-AAD, play Barbies with us! PLEEEASE. Here…” she handed me two dolls, “you be these two and I’ll be these two.”

Oh jeeez. What am I supposed to do? How do I do this?

“Hi I’m Ewika and I’m Pwincess Anamaliese, what’s your names?”

“Uh, hi…uh, I’m, uh… Snow White, and uh, this is- er, uh, Ken, yeah, Ken. How are you? Do you want to play?”

What can I tell you, you pretty much have to make it up as you go along.

As Dr. William H. Cosby, once said, “My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own parenthood, but it didn't because parenting can be learned only by people who have no children.”