Dan and Terry’s Stupid Conversations

Pandemic Pounds, Dad Bods, Belly Shirts and “Matic” Depression

Thursday

Dan and Terry have lunch every day on a bench in the courtyard between buildings in their office park. They have awful conversations proving they are the perfect combination of clueless and boring.

Terry: You’re eating a veggie wrap?

Dan: Yup. Still shaving off pandemic pounds. These guys only saw me from the nipples up for almost a year. They had no idea down below I was doing a Nutty Professor in reverse. Like Benjamin Button style.

Terry: (shaking his head) Gained weight. You’re allowed to just say “gained weight.”

Dan: You don’t get it. I had a dad bod when I wasn’t a dad. Then I became a dad, and my body didn’t change. So it was like I was ahead of the game.

Terry: Strangely… that actually makes sense to me.

Dan: Right??

Terry: I already regret saying that.

Dan: I was rocking the Mustang GT of dad bods. Now I just look like a dad. A real dad. I’ve got side boob! When I put on jeans I’ve got two choices with my belt line. I can go under the gut. And you know what that means. Full t-shirt overhang.

Terry: Oh no.

Dan: That’s right. Changing a light bulb. Reaching the high shelves in the supermarket. Even scratching the top of my head. Constant threat of showing more naked belly than the Britney-Christina Cold War of 1998.

Terry: I couldn’t live like that.

Dan: Not many men could. So I decided to be brave. I’d sacrifice my dignity. I’d lean in and accept my birthright.

Terry: So you’re…

Dan: Sailing the Equator. Jeans pulled straight up to my belly button.

Terry: (shivers) But wait. Can you call it your birthright if you didn’t have it at birth?

Dan: How do you mean?

Terry: Well you didn’t get a gut until you had a kid. Followed by a global pandemic. And then a workstation seven feet away from your fridge. Absolutely none of that was predicted at your birth.

Dan: Okay fine so it’s my baby’s birthright?

Terry: Your daughter’s birthright is to have a dad with subcutaneous fat deposits?

Dan: Kids need to learn to dream small in the 2020s.

Terry: So we’ve got the boy who lived under the stairs. And the girl whose dad rubs cocoa butter on his stretch marks?

Dan: How did you know?

Terry: Because you smell like a Werther’s Original right now?

Dan: (sniffing) At least I don’t smell like a freaking underground poker game.

Terry: Don’t start. I get enough grief at home. Even if go a week without smoking, she still says she smells it on me. Starts coughing and wheezing.

Dan: (skeptically) Really? She does that even when you haven’t lit up?

Terry: I swear to God.

Dan: So you think she’s faking? Just to bust your balls?

Terry: You know her. She’s not like that. I just think it’s all in her head.

Dan: So it’s matic?

Terry: It’s what?

Dan: It’s matic. Like when people feel symptoms but it’s all their imagination.

Terry: I think there’s a different term for that.

Dan: It’s the only one I know. When I was a kid my crazy neighbor always complained that our dogs crapped in her yard. She said she could smell it.

Terry: I am fascinated to see where this is going.

Dan: I walked the dogs. I knew where they crapped. And when they played in the yard, we were with them the whole time. No way they got into her yard.

Terry: Yes Danny. Please keep going. I haven’t felt this way since the Burn Notice series finale. I knew it was going to be terrible but I had to see the flaming finish.

Dan: So I asked my dad what she was smelling. He just waved his hand and said “That psycho’s so matic.”

Terry: …

Dan: What?

Terry: Have… have you used that word your whole life?

Dan: Since I was a kid.

Terry: (wincing) Still… post Google. Has Soph ever heard you say that?

Dan: Of course. She’s the one who explained it to me. I was 10. I didn’t understand what dad said. So she broke it down for me. And she’s sorry she did. You know how many times I called her “matic” when she had her time of the month? Ha!

Terry: And how’d that work out for you?

Dan: Her friends laughed at me.

Terry: (pressing a contact on his phone) Hey.

Sophie: (over speaker) Hey. I’m about to go into a meeting. What’s up?

Terry: I just want to apologize for sneaking a smoke.

Sophie: (speaker) This couldn’t wait until you got home?

Terry: Well I think I deserve an apology, too. You know. Given your history.

Sophie: (speaker) History of what??

Terry: Your history of being SOOOO matic?

Sophie: (speaker) … Hahahhahahahhahahhahahahhaa!

Terry: (doubles over laughing)

Sophie: (speaker) Oh my God! I’m crying.

Dan: I don’t get it.