ISBN-10: 1615991158
ISBN-13: 978-1615991150
Review:
Padman: A
Dad's Guide to Buying…Those and Other Tales is a short collection of essays
taken from the life of author Mark Elswick. The first of these essays gave the
book its title. The Padman story is about
the author being woken up by his twelve-year-old daughter and ordered on an
emergency feminine supply run. A single dad, the author is left with no choice
but to brave the terrors of the drugstore's feminine hygiene aisle all by
himself. Other tales in the book include the horrors suffered by a new dad who
has to change his newborn's stinky diaper, followed by the same dad years later
finding his teenage daughter's thong in the washing machine.
Until I started writing this review, I hadn't
realized that the book contains so much material about female undergarments. I
wonder if that was intentional or if it's simply that female undergarments are
such a strange and confusing world for men that they stick out as particularly
ripe fodder for a collection of humor essays.
The stories are generally light in tone, but some also
address tragedy. The author suffered a traumatic brain injury some years back,
and he indicates in the prologue that part of his incentive for writing this
book was to provide a few laughs to victims of traumatic brain injuries and
their caregivers. Clearly, the author's experience and condition are an
ever-present fact of life for him and others with similar brain injuries. One
story in the book recounts the events of the accident that nearly killed him
and his long road back.
This book contains cute stories interspersed with more
serious ones. There's nothing particularly original here – the embarrassment of
a dad buying his daughter maxi-pads or a diaper change gone wrong have been
done before. Yes, the author experienced a near-fatal brain injury, but plenty
of other people write about the impacts of their injuries or illnesses. Still,
reading about common, shared experiences can be comforting. There's plenty to
make you smile, although you won't find belly laughs. At 50 pages, this is a
quick read that might leave you grateful for your good health and remind you to
keep a linen closet stocked with maxi-pads if there's a teenage girl in the
house.
Reviewed by Peter W.
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