Buy a Freaking Camera ... and a Videocamera ... and USE THEM MORE THAN YOU WANT TO

This one took some training for me.

I have personally always had a bit of an aversion to the taking of pictures and to cameras in general. Dating back to high school and college, I would walk into my female friends' rooms at home or dorm rooms at school and look upon the 76 pictures of friends in collages and other arrangements covering walls and dressers and always found it all a touch oppressive, all those people freaking looking at me all the time. More fundamentally, it always seemed to me that people took more time arranging people so they could take pictures to remind themselves of how they once were having fun than they actually spent having the actual fun in the first place. And while I took pictures every now and again, I tried to do it sparingly.

Most guys seem to realize that when they have kids, they are undertaking the job of family photographer/videographer. I think this is just another male tactic to be permitted to play with electronics instead of having to delve into the trenchwork of parenting, with its wiping noses and asses. So most guys and smart and take to it quickly.

An idiot minority, however, like me, do not. I figured “These are my kids! I will remember every first that there is with perfect clarity. I will not forget these important moments in my life.”

Do you remember the first time you got drunk? The funniest prank you pulled on a buddy and his pissed off reaction. Do you remember what the hottest girl you ever slept with looked like naked? Do you remember the key plays and where you were when one of your favorite sports teams won it all (well, you know what this feels like unless you are from Cleveland)?

See! Your mind is full of that important stuff. It doesn’t have room to remember what your kid looked like and acted like at age two. And so you’re gonna forget what your kid looked like and acted like at age two.

Do not underestimate the degree to which kids will turn your mind to mush. After a year I was asking my wife things like “Did our daughter used to crawl and not walk?”

So in case you’re part of the small minority of guys like me, get rid of your aversion, buy a camera, buy a videocamera, and then make yourself use them. Take a lot of pictures and movies and join the majority of guys in the gadgethead category. You’ll need them. Someday they’ll be a proxy for the memory that will most certainly leave you.