First Person Review: War of the Worlds

Published June 3rd, 2008

War of the Worlds

God I hate to admit this now, but I was an awful father, just wretched. Divorced, living alone, very selfish, a bit of a womanizer, it goes without saying I wasn’t exactly Father of the Year. I didn’t even know my own daughter was allergic to peanuts for Christ sakes and my son, forget about it, he hated me with a passion bordering on fanaticism. But we’ve all got our faults and my inexcusable parental behavior is in the past now. I’m happy to say I’ve changed my ways and, while I’ll never be the Mack Daddy Daddy, I’m no longer the pathetic absentee father I once was. How’d I do it? What prompted me to change?

Like they always say, nothin’ like a little alien invasion to spark a gut check. Looking back, I guess it was unfortunate that millions had to died and fugly critters from space had to raze the planet in order for me to embark on an introspective journey but it is what it is. Like my momma always told me, “Son, they give you lemons then you make lemonade.” So sure people died and the planet’s now a twisted waste land of grief but, by gosh, I love my kids.

It took the possibility of planetary annihilation and possible human extinction for me to get it, but get it I do. God bless those aliens, without their colonial lust I never would have realized what a gift being a father really is. You know, in many ways those funky space dudes were a lot like the old me, selfish, inconsiderate and angry. If I knew then what I know now I might have been able to talk with them. You know, share my pain. Guess you don’t really know but I think they may have understood the silent agony I was going through. As it is I piss on their dead bodies for fucking with the Earth.

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