We've come a long way since then. My wife and I have a real partnership. We work together on everything, and try to do the best for our kids every single day. After years of failing to find work, I grudgingly accepted the new economic reality and became a stay-at-home dad. I like to think I'm a good father, a modern man, but even I have my limits. There is one thing I absolutely will not do. I will not do a play date.

The thing is, I don't like interacting with other parents. It's enough that I shop and try to cook a nutritious meal every single night. Now I have to yammer on about my girl's love of kitties or stuffies or the Wonder Pets? That's valuable time taken away from my rapidly shrinking male pursuits.

Even the concept of the "play date" rubs me the wrong way. When I was a young boy, you went over to your friend's house and hung out, until you heard your mom yelling down the street to get your you-know-what home. The moms and dads were never involved in this activity. Why would they be? I wouldn't have wanted Mrs. Krula on my dirt-bomb team for all the Fantastic Four comics in the world.

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But some of my coping mechanisms manifest themselves in funny little ways. One game, in particular, is extremely special. It's also brazenly immature.

I positively, absolutely, never ever use the one singular device that defines us as a higher species. That all-important plastic strip that maintains order in the chaos of the grocery story checkout line. To the best of my knowledge, this instrument has no official name. To me it's always been known as "the bar." It's quite an ingenious little widget, actually: A portable barricade that keeps your own food purchases snugly isolated from everyone else's, a thin black line between your ice cream and another man's Depends.

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