The Dude In The Tube

Tubedude Variation #3: Bacon Cheeseburger Man

When people meet my family for the first time, they are delighted. “What a charming all-girl family,” they enthuse. We are like the Go-Go’s: a gay Go-Go’s who rock the party known as cheery diversity, complete with pink princess front woman. Eventually, the tactful questions ensue. Did we adopt? (No.) Who had the baby? (Kate.) Ummm… how did that happen? (The Dude In The Tube!)

The Dude In The Tube has been a shadow member of my family since the day Kate’s doctor, in all of her outside-voice-having, personal-space-disregarding brilliance, shook my hand and yelled “TODAY IS THE DAY!” in my face. She clasped Tubedude in her other hand: freshly thawed in his neatly-labelled plastic vial. Dr. K called to mind a gleeful revolutionary, brandishing her beloved pet Molotov cocktail. (Kaboom! Goodbye, old life! Hello, flaming new world of parenthood! Whoopeee!)

Tubedude donated his sperm to the cause “to make money to start my own business and to help others.” His favorite color is midnight blue. He likes bacon cheeseburgers. He tinkers with car engines in his spare time. He enjoys alternative rock. I know this because that’s what he says on his donor profile. He also bears an alleged resemblance to Justin Timberlake. This I know because that’s what Dr. K scribbled along the top margin. “GREAT GUY!”she bellowed right off the page.

The facts are sketchy, so Tubedude is whoever I envision him to be. Sometimes, he’s a balding regular at Cheeseburgers In Paradise, rocking those Timberlooks for all they’re worth. Sometimes, he’s a suburban Alpha male entrepreneur, blasting Nirvana in a midnight blue Prius, on his way to the gym where he works off his secret bacon cheeseburger shame. Sometimes, he is a bacon cheeseburger, the mechanic cousin of Mayor McCheese — clad in greasy overalls, humming “Having My Baby”, while jump-starting Kate’s ovaries.

Tubedude is a plausible answer to the question “Where did that come from?” when our daughter baffles us by taking apart our cell phones or forcing us to buy her stuffed animals  from her. When she insists on tying my shoes (in knots—but hey, she’s 4), I can’t help thinking that maybe Tubedude meant what he said about helping people. It can’t be denied that the kid loves her bacon cheeseburgers, though.

Setting aside the speculations and flights of fancy (bacon cheeseburger-related or otherwise), Tubedude is a guy who filled out a form and a cup. In his (unavoidably icky, motivationally suspect) way, he met us at the revolutionary crossroads of medical science and social progress, and helped us join in the most time-honored tradition of all: parenthood.

So, yeah, we’ll rock your groovy diversity party, but like The Go-Go’s themselves, we’re actually an oldies act.

Photo by Cotar