This is why I don’t have a car seat.

But you know who does have a car seat? My brother, Terry. That car seat in the back of Terry’s Highlander is reserved for his 18-month-old son, Ethan Ray. Very recently, I had Terry pick me up from the eye doctor. My vision was blurry and I’d regretfully plummeted to a 1-star Uber rating (tighten those Tupperware containers, folks), so thankfully, Terry was able to pick me up on his way to drop Ethan Ray off at daycare. That’s when I heard it:

“Captain Feathersword’s an amazing bird!
He’s a bird! What a bird!
He’s a pirate bird!”

That’s right. Terry. The brother I once dropped acid with at a Gorillaz concert. The man I’ve seen regardfully remove his hat during a Slash solo, now listening to The Wiggles. I look in the rearview to see Ethan Ray affixed to his safety seat, exuberant, enjoying every second of this stupid sound about pirate birds.

“Dude,” I duded. “Pass the aux cord. I’ve curated what’s maybe the sickest of all possible Bad Company best-of playlists.”

“Ethan Ray likes The Wiggles,” he responded.

Unbelievable.

As a guy with no children or the physiological capacity to have them, this saddened me. Deeply. A one-year-old’s brain is just beginning to develop, meaning they’re virtually incapable of differentiating between the buoyant, cheery sounds of The Wiggles and, say, a Rush album. I say give them the Rush album. They have songs about pirate birds too, probably.

This is why I wish I had kids of my own. No Wiggles. No “Wheels on the Bus.” No Moana soundtrack. Just complete and total inundation of good tunes right from the beginning. Even in utero, I would bombard it with the Nirvana discography (except for In Utero, not a fan). If my brother Terry wants to raise a loser, so be it. Let Ethan Ray grow up a Wiggles fan. Go ahead. See how quickly his first date ends when he attempts to find common ground on songs like “Henry the Octopus” and “Go Far, Big Red Car.” Sure. Go for it, Terry. Me and my hypothetical offspring will be over here listening to Offspring.

The father wondered if this would be their final moments together.

“I told him he would have to break the glass or kick the door open. I couldn’t help him.” the elder Sammons told News Channel Nebraska.

But eventually Kobe was able to kick the door open.

“It was in those moments. Just when it had to open, the door opened.” Kobe’s dad said.

By the time firefighters arrived the truck was completely engulfed in flames. Authorities on the scene considered that the fire may have caused the doors’ unlocking mechanism to malfunction.

The truck can easily be replaced, the important thing is that this father and son duo escaped unharmed.

Elizabeth Feldhausen, the founder of Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary, told The Huffington Post that Lauerman never signed up to be a volunteer but just showed up one day, armed with a cat brush and dream to help some kitties.

“He just walked in and started brushing,” Feldhausen said. “So eventually we told him he was an official volunteer and had him fill out our volunteer form.”

Safe Haven is a cage-free, no-kill shelter aimed at rehabilitating cats with special needs who would likely be euthanized elsewhere. Feldhausen says Lauerman usually comes in for about three hours every day—he’ll start by brushing a cat but usually ends up dozing off.

“He sleeps for about an hour, then he’ll wake up and switch cats,”

The cats aren’t the only ones benefitting from his visits, though. “He said, [the brushing is] as great of an experience for him, as it is for them,” said Feldhausen.

The post about Lauerman has received tons of positive attention and according to Feldhausen, they’ve received about $20,000 in donations since the post went viral.

While Lauerman is happy to have brought so much attention to Safe Haven, he wants people to know that there are plenty of other volunteers that put in hours of hard work to make sure the cats are loved and cared for.

Unlike them, however, Lauerman can do it in his sleep.

They always come first, and I believe they will appreciate the struggles later on in life, and they’ll be better off for it.”

– Mauro Hernandez

Want to share a story about fatherhood? Email fatherfigures@thedad.com

“My dad told me to stand by the apples because he said he discovered a new way to take pano pics vertically,” Simran told Mashable. “I agreed to it and this was the result.”

My dad trying to take Panoramic’s of me. I’m mad asf. pic.twitter.com/qLz73jM5tk

— Simran (@sc_x_cs) September 15, 2018

“When he saw them he said ‘they look great’ and then I saw them and completely lost it. I mean, are you kidding me? I look like an Alien,” she said.

A number of people chimed in and made fun comparisons to some pretty unflattering images.

Clearly, Simran has been a good sport and we commend her dad for a bold attempt at harnessing advanced photo technology. But perhaps he should stick with the old fashioned point-and-shoot method from now on?

Roger was not present for his birth and therefore the Filipino authorities will not put his name on the birth certificate, making dual citizenship impossible and therefore making him ineligible for treatment via England’s National Health Service. So Nicholas is being treated in his mother’s country, and because the public hospitals aren’t up to par, they needed to find private treatment.

“The hospital was disgusting, we had five patients in a small room and two family carers per patient so in total 15 people in the room. It was overrun by cats and the whole hospital smelt of cat wee, they told us they needed the cat to keep the rats down. It was so hot in the hospital and you just could not breathe,” Kerrison told Plymouth Live.

So he is paying for care at a private hospital, on the island of Cebu City. And it costs about 300 pounds a week.

To cover the bills, Roger has upped his hours as a delivery driver for Deliveroo, and he’s upped them about as up as they’ll go. He’s been driving 11-hour days, 7 days a week. Those 77 hours a week are nearly double the typical hours for a full-time job. But such is the sacrifice he has to make to care for his son.

The doctors think Nicholas may have a rare genetic disorder called Noonan Syndrome, but without the proper facilities, they cannot test him to confirm. The parents are hoping to get Roger’s name on the birth certificate so the boy can get dual nationality and then be flown to England for better care. But until then, Dad is doing everything he can to cover the cost.

“I am working seven days a week, 11-hours a day, to try to keep up but it’s costing around £600 every 14 days. It seems like every time we take him to hospital they find another problem and Elena and I are exhausted and very stressed and worried. The financial worries jut add to the problem because in the Philippines they will not treat you until you prove you can pay and have to pay for every small detail.”

So far, the couple have raised £2,116 of their £10,000 goal on Nicholas’ Just Giving page. On the page, Roger states, “If you met my son I know you would fall in love with him, he is so cute and he is my life. I just want to make it all go away for him.”

And he’s doing whatever he can to make that happen.