When I saw the calendar marking today as a federal holiday to celebrate MILK, I was like “Seriously? Banks are closed to celebrate bovine secretion? My postal carrier is at home today celebrating friggin’ cow juice?”

After a morning of feeling like I had an enormous lack of cultural understanding and a defective tongue, I realized that I had read the calendar incorrectly. My bad.

Dad gets to go skiing and I’m stuck in the house. Soiling my drawers.

It is both literally and figuratively, a buncha crap.

That’s the title of Chapter 6 in my “How to Confuse Mom & Dad” manual that was issued to me shortly after my umbilical cord was snipped.

The chapter basically states that within the first 8 weeks (or 86,400 minutes) of oxygen-breathing life, I should have established a random hour during the day for which to be an absolute nudnik.

The manual doesn’t give any reason as to why I should have an Hour of Darkness, I presume it’s merely to break the monotony of my house arrest.

Whatever the reason, I have selected the time between 5pm and 6pm to just go ballistic for no reason. That way, I’m nice and calm by the time Dad gets home.

Why is this important? The answer lies in Chapter 11, entitled: “When it Comes to Playing Favorites, Ask Yourself This: Which Parent is More Likely to Buy You A Dune Buggy?”

My young physique could be accurately recreated with a variety pack of sausages.

Take my arm, for instance. Either one. It’s basically a bratwurst connected to a link of Spanish chorizo. My hand is a Jimmy Dean breakfast patty with Vienna Sausages serving as my extremities.

My torso is a boule of haggis complete with knotted navel to seal the pluck and suet within.

My legs are kielbasas.

And my head is a giant biscuit.

I sound delicious.

Still trying to figure out how to get my thumb into my cry hole for purposes of self-pacification. Almost there. Need more practice.

Father and I are sitting in our underwear watching CNN when I notice a couple things…

1. My underwear are puffy and feature cartoonish prints of monkeys. Spectacled Langur monkeys, I believe.
2. Dad’s undies aren’t so puffy, and completely monkey-free. Stains, yes. Monkeys, no.
3. I have extremely fat feet.

I also have cankles. Google it. Where Dad has a bony bump at the joint where shank meets hoof, I have a dimple.

That’s right, cankle dimples. Dimples. On my cankles.

How in the wide world of wombats did this happen? And more importantly, can it be fixed?

As you may have noticed in the fiddlehead photo below, I’m beginning to lose my hair. I’m going to refrain from using the verb “bald” because that would imply that the hair is not coming back. And sweet nectar of Northern newt, that would totally suck.

It’s quite normal for a human baby to shed its fur in the first few months of life. The hair will come back with purpose and vengeance. When an adult sheds, it’s another story. A more tragic tale.

My father is bald. I am losing my hair.

Dad would be lucky to work up enough mane for a bad comb-over. I, on the other hand, have many years of mullet growing ahead of me. Which will look absolutely debonair with the prepubescent mustache I plan to grow. I look forward to this.

Take a number, ladies. Take a number.

Turns out I am 100% body fat.

I have expanded the category.

That’s “Happy Year New” to all my non-Mexican friends and family.

There will be no photographs of me in a diaper with a sash and top hat, and for this I do not apologize.

There’s this trick that Mom uses on Dad. She’ll ask him if he wants to go to Bass Pro Shops so he’ll hop in the car like a dog going to the park… only to end up at Bed, Bath & Beyond or even worse – some arts and crafts festival. Funny thing is, there isn’t even a Bass Pro Shops in Vermont.

So yesterday when Dad said “Hey Liam, let’s go to a cold, fluorescently-lit room and have three giant needles jammed in both your thighs by two strange women!” I thought that surely I would be in for the exact opposite.

I was wrong. And my chunky little haunches are so sore today that I can’t even stand up.

OK, so I couldn’t stand up before, but still.

What are the rules? When someone asks me how old I am, I’m not sure how to answer. I go by days. Mom goes by weeks. And Dad doesn’t know how to read a calendar.

Whatever the rules are, I am hereby changing them. From now on, I will answer with minutes. When someone says “Liam, you are my hero. A true pillar of society. How old are you?”

I will answer with “89,284 minutes.” And shortly thereafter, I will say “89,285 minutes.” And then “89,286 minutes.” This will go on and on until they learn.

What will they learn?

That I make the rules.

That’s from a movie about two friends who like to go camping together.

This car seat apparatus reminds me of that particular film.

Today my Father referred to my head as a gigantic, jowl-bearing ping pong ball connected by a swivel to a bag of thrice-bleached biscuit dough.

He said it in a way that was endearing, so I think he meant well.

Regardless, I’ve had more flattering designations.

Although I have declared Jihad on my Father’s olfactory epithelium. The bombs I’ve been dropping have earned my Dad’s nostrils a few hypothetical purple hearts.

I realize that my word choice here is an invitation for Big Brother a.k.a. The Gub-ment a.k.a. The Man to monitor this blog.

Maybe he’ll donate to the Endowment.