Sew!!! A needle pulling thread......

“Dad, Kim has an incompetent cervix.”

“What are you talking about she’s got a bachelors degree in English.”

“No dad, her CERVIX. The doctors say it’s incompetent.”

“Son I don’t think you’ve got that right. I’m sure they meant something else. I mean come on, and incompetent cervix? What are they going to do? It’s not like you can outsource her cervix to India?”

“No joke dad, they want to sew it up. I think the baby could fall out or something.”

Okay, I have a bad habit of finding the humor in… well… everything. But I could sense that my son was scared to death and this was not the time to screw around.

This needed to be handled in a calm cool intelligent manner.

All the skills I had learned as a dad were coming into play right now.

This was my time.

This was my moment.

“I’ll get mom.”

Well? What did you expect me to do? While I, like most men, would like to think I’m a cervix expert, the reality is I have never been properly trained. Asking me about an incompetent cervix and expecting a credible answer is like taking a Lamaze class at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

There’s going to be an accident.

And I know it’s wrong but I kept having this thought run through my head…

“How do I get a “customer cervix” joke out of this?”

I can’t help myself.

But don’t tell me a woman, particularly a mom, couldn’t be president of the United States.

My wife’s a pro.

It is truly amazing to watch a mother work. They have this calming affect when they are in crisis management mode that is completely alien to men.

I now understand why Black Widow Spiders kill their mates. We’re useless.

We panic.

Oh yes we do.

We don’t call it panic; we just start doing stupid useless stuff like weed whacking or invading countries for no apparent reason.

We do it to hide the fact that we don’t know what the hell to do but we need to do something… and we need to do it LOUDLY AND RIGHT AWAY.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“SWEEPING THE GARAGE!!!”

“What for?”

“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WOMAN WE’VE GOT AN IMCOMPETENT CERVIX HERE!!!! SOMEONE NEEDS TO DO SOMETHING!!! WE COULD HAVE CERVIX ALL OVER THE PLACE!!!”

“Okay honey, you keep sweeping.”

Most women reading this understand the whole incompetent cervix thing.

I’m not sure how the whole thing works but I’m guessing it’s a lot like purse seining.

I must say it made me very proud to see my son caring so much for his wife and his unborn baby. There’s a lot of love there so I must have done something right.

I'm trying to convince my wife to run for city council. Hey, it's a start.

Kim had her cervix sewn up and she has to have complete bed rest until the baby is born but she looks like she’s doing fine.

When you get a little older, and your kids have grown up, you’re more of an innocent bystander than anything else. Occasionally you get hit with a stray bullet but for the most part you just sit back and watch.

And you know... I’m okay with that.

I did have my moment.

At the information desk in the hospital.

“Can I help you sir?”

“Yes, I need to speak to someone in “Customer Cervix.”