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A Chef Is Born

I was watching Worst Cooks In America on Food Network and, man, did it take me back. They say that a successful businessman is the one who, when he sees a need, finds a way to fill that need. Well back in college the food on campus sucked and my "aha" moment came when I was standing in the commons area kitchen when two super-duper fine girls walked by and said, "See if you were back there cooking, we'd be in here eating with you instead of going to the cafe."

Eureka!

Ten minutes later I was standing at the bus stop waiting to go to Kmart to buy some pots and pans. Every single decision a man makes is rooted in his desire to bait and catch a woman. Cars, jewelry and a fancy apartment work best, but when you're a poor college student you have to get creative and you gotta have heart. I wasn't gonna let a little thing like not knowing how to cook stop me.

It would've helped to have known that they sell cookware sets. I spent $70 buying individual pots, pans, forks, spatulas, plates, etc. Half of it broke on the way home when the bag ripped but I wasn't deterred. I got back to the dorm and decided to make something simple, fried chicken. I figured that every Black person knows how to make fried chicken even if no one's ever taught them before. Maybe I'd just touch the pan and the wisdom of my ancestors would come rushing into my mind and like some kind culinary savant I'd just know how to do it.

Rrrrright.

I was stuck at step one. I called the best cook I knew and left an urgent message on her voicemail. "Hey Ms Johnson, it's Ordale. I'm making fried chicken for the first time and I know that I need to wash it first. What kind of soap do you use? Is Palmolive okay?" While I'm standing there scanning the back of the Palmolive bottle to see if it's non-toxic, three girls walk by. "You gonna make enough for us?" one of them asked. I managed to work myself into a dinner date with two of them. This plan was working better than I thought.

After washing the chicken, I seasoned, floured and breaded it. I made some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and a can of Glory Greens. I even baked some Pillsbury Rolls. Yeah, I was going all out. Then came time to fry the chicken. I hated how some people's chicken in my family always tasted burnt, so I was careful not to overcook it. And man, would that be the least of my concerns. I cooked the chicken legs for two minutes on each side. As soon as it had that golden brown "Popeyes-ish" color all around, I took it off and sat it on some paper towels. I kept thinking, "These girls are in for a treat tonight."

So true, so true.

So anyway, just as I finished up the last batch of chicken the girls came back looking finer than they did before. I made us all a plate and we sat down to eat. They liked the macaroni and thought the rolls came out great. One of them didn't really like collard greens but she said they still tasted good. "How long you been cooking, because you got skills" "Girl I been cooking my whole life." Things were going great. Then one of them took a bite of the chicken.

They say you can judge a person by how they react when they're upset. The girl who freaked out because the chicken bled when she bit into wasn't the one for me. Running to the sink to rinse her mouth out and then trying to force herself to throw up in the trash can was just rude. No, I wasn't "trying to fucking kill" you. And it just goes to show that you didn't know everything either because you thought washing your mouth out with ginger ale would somehow kill salmonella. I looked it up later...it wont!

The second girl was a little bit cooler about it. I thought she might be the one. I tried to be smooth and said something along the lines of, "This meal represents my life. I can make the sides, but I need a woman to complement the meal and be the main course." I knew it was corny as it was coming out of my mouth, but I was thinking on the fly and considering that I was facing possible manslaughter charges if the other girl really did die of salmonella poisoning, I think it was a good line. It didn't work, at least not as I had hoped. She finished her macaroni and left. I never saw them again and I really hope that the chicken had nothing to do with that.

Criminal of the Month

I've written about this before but someone out there missed the message, so let me say this again. STOP ROBBING BANKS!

I wrote about stupid criminals, but this week's criminal of the month goes to the guy in PG County who is robbing banks by slipping a note to the teller saying that he has a...wait for it...

Nuclear Bomb

That's right. This dude is robbing banks saying that he will detonate a nuke if they don't empty the drawer. So many thoughts on this one. Where do I begin? I'm gonna have to use some strong and offensive language, so shield your children.

Nigga have you lost your damned mind?

Let's think this one through, okay. There's a country in the Middle East called Iran. They make hundreds of billions of dollars a year selling their oil to the rest of the world. With all that money, they JUST developed nuclear technology and they STILL don't have a nuclear weapon. You're telling me that your broke ass, and I assume you're broke because you're robbing a Capital One in a strip mall, has not only discovered nuclear technology but also managed to harness the power of enriched uranium to create a nuclear weapon. Bravo nigga! Bravo!

So let me follow you down this train of implausibility. You are the first dude from the hood to build a weapon of mass destruction. It's easily worth billions of dollars on the black market, yet you've decided to keep it for yourself and do what exactly? Use it as leverage to rob a bank? Not just any bank, a Capital One which is the McDonald's of banks. You'd be lucky to get a drawer full of coupons outta there. So you've now robbed a Capital One. What is your next move?

You see, you just fucked up. You managed, with your vast Mensa-worthy intelligence, to recreate the Manhattan Project in your living room without raising any suspicion from the FBI, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, DC Police, Metro police, or any other government agency. It's not like you can just buy uranium from Home Depot. The government tends to know where that shit is at all times. Maybe you had a cousin on the inside. Hell, maybe you mined it out of the ground yourself. Who knows? What I do know is that you just killed the element of surprise by not only revealing your marvel of technological might, but by also giving the FBI pictures of your dumb ass when you walked into the bank.

You sir are an idiot. Too many elements of stupidity and intelligence have to converge for your threat to seem plausible to even the dumbest bank teller. The only reason the tellers gave you the money, and trust me I know because I used to be a bank teller, is because you asked for it. I'm not endorsing bank robberies, but having worked at a bank where one of the tellers was killed, I find it a better option to share this secret so that more people don't have to die: You don't need a gun to rob a bank. You just have to ask for the money. All tellers are trained to comply whether they see a direct threat or not. You could simply just walk in with a note and they'll give you the money. That's why you got the money.

Unfortunately for you, you just threatened to blow up a whole city. I'm certain when the FBI finds you (and they will find you because you are obviously not that bright) your charges are gonna be a lot higher.

[caption id="attachment_1892" align="alignnone" width="296" caption="Congratulations Criminal of the Month Feb 2012"][/caption]

Did You Watch The Oscars?

Here's how the post-Oscars discussion usually goes down in my inner circle:

Me: "The Oscars came on yesterday."

Person: "For real? Anybody I know win?"

Me: "That black lady from The Help won."

Person: "Antwone Fisher's mother?"

Me: "No, the other one. The bigger lady. You know the one. She's in a lot of commercials and tv shows. She always looks like someone you'd see in church."

Person: "Oh, her! Anybody else?"

Me: "Nobody Black."

Person: "Did Brad Pitt or George Clooney win?"

Me: "No, some other dude."

Person: "What was the Best Picture?"

Me: "The Artist."

Person: "Who's in that?"

Me: "No clue."

Person: "What's it about?"

Me: "No clue. It's the one in black and white. I wanna see it, but Imma wait for it to go to Redbox."

Person: "That's why I don't watch the Oscars."

Me: "I didn't watch it either. I read about it this morning."

Person: "The only time I watched it was when Three six mafia won."

Me: "Oh that was the day I cut up my Black card."

Person: "What!?"

Me: "I was more offended that they even nominated that damned song. It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp??? So I quit the race. I needed a sabbatical. If that was the image of our music streaming into White American homes then I needed to distance myself from that shit."

Person: "You stupid."

Me: "Unlike when Denzel and Halle won in the same year."

Person: "That shit will never happen again."

Me: "I know, right! Still though, that was a proud moment. None of us expected either one of them to win, and when she got it first we were like, 'Better luck next time, Denzel. They'll never let both of yall win."

Person: "Then he won too."

Me: "Right and my whole dorm went crazy. It was like the Superbowl. People were yelling in the hall. 'THEY WON, THEY BOTH WON!"

Person: "I remember that."

Me: "That was the pre-Obama Obamiracle! Not only did I take out my Black card, I had that joint framed and wore it around my neck."

Person: "You stupid!!!"

Me: "I signed up for the Platinum Black Card...called that joint the Midnight Super Slave Blue-Black Card."

Person: "You going to hell."

Me: Probably. But yeah, the Oscars are kinda boring now that you know that it's possible for us to win.

Person: "Yeah."

The Great Kool-Aid Caper

So one night me and my friend Kory were leaving the corner store headed for home when we hear what sounded like a gun cock and hear some dude say, "Where the money at?" Now I'm no criminal, but this had to be the world's dumbest criminal. I would think that the first thing you say to someone, especially if you're not wearing a mask, is "don't turn around." Since he didn't say that, we turned around.

Turning around allowed us to see that he was by himself, about 5'3" and very skinny. Kory looked at me giving me the "let's jump him" look. There was still the matter of the gun, so I gave him the "I aint tryin to get shot" look. That brings me to my next point: Where is your gun? He had on a long green army coat and had his hands inside the sleeve so we couldn't see if he had a gun or not. Typically, I think you should always lead with showing the gun. I would make the argument that a career criminal knows that if you don't show a gun then technically it isn't armed robbery and you get a lesser charge if you get caught, but he was an idiot and I doubt he knew that. In all likelihood he probably didn't have a gun, but rule #1 of the city is "Don't take any chances." So I tried to be hospitable and make our new thief feel welcomed.

I asked him some open ended questions. "What money?" El Stupido says, "Nigga don't play, gimme that wallet." So I take my wallet out, hand it to him and, rather run away, he decides to go through it right there on the spot. In my mind I'm thinking, "Sir, we no longer have your full attention. You aren't even looking at us and holding my wallet while holding your imaginary gun would probably put you at a disadvantage." I didn't say that though. You never want to be rude to your attacker. Meanwhile Kory is really giving me the "Let's jump this nigga" look. Not right now.

So he goes through my wallet, throwing my license, school lunch card and metro farecard on the ground. Finally he gets frustrated and throws the whole wallet down. I keep thinking to myself, those are metro checks. There's like $80 worth right there. You could sell em for half value and get at least $40. What's wrong with you? He then gets angry and his voice starts to sound like Pinky from Next Friday. "Ooooh you niggas think I'm stupid." (Yes, sir we do.) "I saw you come out the store and put a wad of cash in your pocket. If I have to go in your pockets and get it myself, Imma kill both of you."

At "wad of cash" I started laughing inside. I said to him, "We don't have any money, that's why we went to the store. We didn't have enough money to buy a soda, so we bought some Kool-Aid!" I slowly reach in my pocket and pull out five packs of Kool-Aid. It's rare that you get to stand witness to the moment that someone's dreams come crashing down all at once. The look on his face said that he was now starting to doubt his future in crime. Maybe he thought he was the next Rayful Edmond or Frank Lucas, but in that moment he was just a dumb ass.

"Man fuck you niggas!" and he ran away down the street never to be seen again. I picked up my wallet, my $80 in metro checks and we went home and made some Kool-Aid.

[caption id="attachment_1883" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Maybe this makes you rich in prison"][/caption]

Smartphone Dumb Criminal

They always say that when the economy is bad then crime (mainly robberies) goes up. That kind of makes sense but looking at what half of these people are out here stealing...it doesn't. Back in the day people would jack you for your coat, your shoes or your chain. They could either wear it themselves or sell it to someone else. It was wrong, but it made sense. I don't get stealing smartphones.

My phone bill is $200 a month. To be perfectly honest with you, if you could get me out of my contract with Verizon then I'd happily give you my phone. No gun needed. But if you can't do that, then what in the hell makes you think I'm just gonna let you walk around using my phone? This aint a beeper from back in the day. You can't just take it to a shop and turn it on in your name. The minute you walk away I'm going online and "bricking" it. That means activating the app on my phone that not only pulls up the GPS showing me where exactly you are with my phone on a map, but also wipes all the data off the phone and makes it unusable ever again.

And going back to the tennis shoe thefts: I always wondered if the criminals work at Foot Locker. You have to work at some shoe store to be able to gauge what size shoe another man has on from a distance. It's gotta lower your criminal self esteem to shoot a dude over some shoes, add assault with a deadly weapon to your list of charges only to get home and realize the damn things don't even fit. There isn't really a market for used shoes. You can't even take em back to the store if the sole is scuffed.

I remember getting robbed once by the world's dumbest criminal. I think I'll write about that tomorrow. Maybe it can be a cautionary tale to up and coming thieves out there.

Community Meeting

There's been a spike in robberies across the DC area but the ones catching the most attention occurred in my neighborhood. I live in Ward 3 which is one of the more affluent parts of the city. There's a house two blocks from me that's going for $5 million. I'm not bragging. The neighborhood is rich, I'm not. Think of it as a foreign exchange program: For every well-to-do White person who acts as a scout for gentrification in a shitty neighborhood in Southeast, there's a poor Black guy like myself who takes his place in Chevy Chase.

Anyway, the rich folk don't take kindly to people coming over here and stealing their stuff so they "asked" the police chief to hold a meeting to explain what they're doing to rectify the problem. I went for two reasons. One, I'm a concerned resident. Two, I'm Black. That last one will make sense later.

For about an hour four different cops took turns saying the exact same thing four different ways: "We're doing the best we can. Don't leave valuables in plain sight in your car. Look around when you're walking at night and don't stare into your smartphone." What they wanted to say (but couldn't for obvious reasons) is that robberies are the chief issue in this part of the city. The rest of the city on the other hand is dealing with shootings, homicides and rapes in addition to robberies. The only reason they're even having the meeting is because the tax dollars coming out of this side of town buys their attention. But back to why I went to the meeting.

There was a Q&A session and the answers to all of the questions were a variation of, "If you see someone suspicious in your neighborhood or someone who looks out of place, if there is any suspicious activity at all, call 911. We've made calls about suspicious persons priority one and will send a unit to the area right away." That's why I went. I wanted to get up to raise my point but a lady beat me to it. "As one of the few African Americans in the area, I'm concerned for my sons and other black males who live in this neighborhood. I'm not worried about them being robbed, but rather them being labeled as 'suspicious' or 'out of place.'"

Bingo!

I always said that if I ever made enough money to buy one of these million dollar homes then the first thing I'd do is donate a huge chunk of money to the policeman's ball and staple a picture of my family to the check. I went to the meeting so that all of the "concerned" residents would see my face and hopefully remember it so that the next time I walk down the street to go to the store they won't run to call 911. Ever since the robberies ramped up I've found myself followed by the cops, people cross the street or clutch their little keyring of mace.

To their defense, the cops and the councilwoman hosting the meeting reiterated that being Black doesn't justify a call to 911 and a few people clapped but the rest just looked annoyed. I can't really blame them. After all, they began the meeting by saying that all of the suspects involved were Black males.

That was their ONLY description of the suspects. No height, build, weight, hairstyle or clothing. Just Black.

That helps.

 

It's A Jungle Out There

I'm sitting on a bench sharing a slice of pizza with my daughter the other day when the guy sitting next to me decides that now is the perfect time to light up a cigarette.

Here we go again.

DC is the most non kid-friendly places on Earth. Learning to adapt gives you a set of superhuman skills. I feel like the Terminator when I go out. There's a scene in the movie where they cut to his vision and the audience gets to see what he sees. It's a red computer screen that's constantly analyzing the environment. That's me.

[caption id="attachment_1839" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="It makes finding crackheads easier"][/caption]

From a hundred feet away I notice the three people taking up the whole sidewalk and refusing to move over even though they see us coming. I'm factoring in their body shape and size to determine how much force it'll take to mow them over with the stroller. I'm looking at the person walking up the street in La-La Land while carrying grocery bags full of jars that would hurt my daughter's legs if they swung into her while passing. I see the woman with worn out heels walking with a cup of Starbucks. She's a huge threat so I scan the path ahead of her to see if there's a dip, rock or broken piece of concrete that she could possibly trip over and spill scalding hot coffee on my child.

This place is so bad, I even find myself looking up at the trees for impending doom. Even the trees will kill you in DC. We were waiting for a light to change one day when I heard this loud pop. I darted across the street and knocked some woman over trying to get out of the way. I looked back and this huge tree limb had fallen just where we were standing.

If the trees and the people don't kill you, the cars will. To date I've had near death encounters with FedEx trucks, Metrobuses, distracted drivers and people with road rage. It takes a sick person to rev up their engine and speed towards a guy pushing a stroller across the street, but it happens at least once a month. This is a city where people kill each other for ugly tennis shoes. Imagine what they'll do if they're running late for something.

[caption id="attachment_1838" align="alignnone" width="604" caption="Keep your eyes open"][/caption]

Play?Ground

I don't even know how to make today's adventure funny. It was just irritating and there's no humor in it. Me and the kid went to the playground and there was an unusual number of parents there today. The playground we go to is in a pretty expensive neighborhood so normally you only see nannies at the playground with the kids. Most of them are minorities so we get along just fine. Today, however, the parents were there and the tone was completely different.

First and foremost I don't appreciate them treating us like lepers. From the minute we walked through the gate all eyes fell on us. My daughter went in the huge 20 ft by 20 ft sandbox and immediately all the parents called their kids to go play on the swings, the slide or any area away from us. She's one and half so she doesn't really have a grasp on social settings. Some little girl emerged from underneath the slide and my daughter ran up to her and smiled. She didn't say anything, didn't talk to the little girl, just smiled. The girl's mom cried out, "Kaitlin, honey, come back over here."

There's a huge paved area with Little Tyke cars, tricycles and other toys that people donated to the playground. My daughter went over there and it was like turning on the lights;The roaches scattered. My daughter is still in that oblivious phase, so she didn't seem to mind that all the kids she approached were called away. She just kept smiling and playing in her own little world. As far as she knows, she had the privilege of playing with whatever she wanted without having to wait her turn. I, on the other hand, know exactly what it was.

It made me wonder what I'd tell her if she were older. The jury is still out on that one. A lot of people comment that I have forgotten where I came from or that I'm trying to be White because I live on the "uppity" side of town. This type of stuff happens to me everyday over here, so trust and believe that I never forget who and what I am. How can I?

By the way, Happy Black History Month!

These Feet Were Made For Walking

There was once a time when I'd go to the mall, buy two or three pairs of shoes and go home. Then a baby came out of my wife and things just got all weird. Suddenly it was 1990 again and I was a kid who couldn't just go buy shoes whenever I felt like it. I had to wait until the old ones wore out. It's about that time and like my 1990 counterpart, I'm having trouble finding shoes in my budget.

I've never really known how to define my financial situation as a kid. Poverty is such a strong word. It usually implies going hungry or having a cardboard mattress. We weren't that bad off. We were like Diet Poverty, you know, everything you like about poverty but with Splenda. We went shoe shopping the same time we went school clothes shopping: The weekend right before the first day of school when my mother got paid.

We'd hit up Discount Mart, Morton's or 7th Heaven and I'd get some outfit that my mother or grandmother picked out blindfolded. One year my grandmother bought me a full length fire engine red coat with dark black fake fur going around the neck. It's because of that kind of love that I don't get embarrassed easily as an adult. Shoe shopping was different though. That's where I drew the line. I had to have some say in what shoes I got. My mother let me pick out whatever shoes I liked so long as they came from Payless. I tried my best to find shoes that looked enough like brand named shoes but the velcro snaps always gave me away. (They just don't make ProWings like they used to.)

Then someone told her that Payless shoes would mess up my feet and I got to go to Foot Locker. (Hallelujah!) For about two years I had shoes that were in style. Then came third grade and my hobbit heritage started to take over. I somehow went from a size six in second grade to a size eight in third or as my mother put it, "These shoes cost HOW MUCH!" Once you get out of a size six you have to buy adult shoes and they cost a hell of a lot more.

My mother gave me the choice of hobbling along in size sixes or following her down the green mile of Landover Mall and into Lady Foot Locker. I'll never forget going to school the next day with what I thought were the manliest looking shoes in the place only to have a classmate point out the pink and lime green stripes that I overlooked on the bottom of the shoe. Eventually my father found out and I was rescued. He took me to the mall and bought me some real shoes, but because I only saw him a few times a year, I had to make em last.

Every year around Labor Day, I prayed that he'd make another appearance and whenever he failed to show I ended up with another pair of Reebok Princesses that needed to be kept up. And that ladies and gentlemen is why I believe that being gay is not a choice but rather determined at birth. If it were a learned behavior then my family would've turned me a long long time ago...walking around with a long red fur coat and a pair of AKA tennis shoes.

The Greatest Love of All

Whitney Houston's funeral was today and although I initially had no intentions of watching it, I found myself glued to the screen for however many hours it lasted. Of course Facebook was all abuzz with people on both sides of the line debating the appropriateness of a televised funeral for a celebrity especially one whose life spiraled out of control due to drug abuse.

I'll say this much, I wasn't really a Whitney Houston fan. I know the lyrics to some of her songs because she's Whitney Houston and her songs defined music for a while. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, the Star Spangled Banner will forever be hers. Still, I never bought one of her albums and I didn't really enjoy her acting all that much. In general, I have very little sympathy for people who destroy their lives with drug abuse, but somehow watching the funeral gave me a greater appreciation for her as a person.

You can't fake love, and what I saw on the faces of those people speaking today was sincere hurt that someone they loved was gone. As they shared their stories of her as a person I began to see just how much she'd grown into her faith in God. I heard stories of how generous, giving, down to earth and loving she was. It painted a picture of someone who I'd only caught glimpses of through caricatures in the media and it made me feel guilty. It made me realize that I'd written her off as just another celebrity doing drugs and fucking her life up.

This funeral celebrated her life as a person and it showed people who that person was. Someone commented on my Facebook page that it was inappropriate and insinuated that the whole thing was a spectacle or a parade for artists to get out there and perform as if it were a follow-up Grammy show. I reject that on so many levels. To say that music was a big part of her life would be an understatement. She immersed herself in her craft and when you do that in whatever field you're in, it's only fitting to be remembered in that medium.

If I died today, my relatives and friends would sing at my funeral. Perhaps later they'd play some of my favorite songs as a memory to me. When you're godmother is Aretha Franklin, your cousin is Dionne Warwick and your "almost-like-family" include BeBe and CeCe Winans then naturally your funeral will look like a concert. Some of them were asked to sing her favorite songs, while others wanted to pay their respects in the best way they knew how. Their craft, like hers, is singing. It's how all of us express ourselves at some point or another, so it's only fitting that Stevie and Kim would alter song lyrics to honor her or Alicia Keys would play one of her songs that reminds her of Whitney. It wasn't about fame or glory, it was about love and that's what I took from the funeral.

I'm an even bigger fan now that I have a glimpse at the person. This was someone who could bring all these people together and moved them in such a way that nearly all of them were brought to tears. That is greatest love of all.

 

Flashback Friday: The Block Is Hot

It's one of those what came first, the chicken or the egg kind of deals. I don't know if people back in the 80s and 90s saw how well the youth adapted to selling drugs and decided to exploit it or if they were trying to teach us salesmanship and inadvertently created drug dealers. Either way, why is it that every adult tried to use us to peddle things back in the day? I'm speaking of fundraisers.

Girl Scouts are the only, I repeat, ONLY group of children that people are happy to buy things from. Everyone else can go to hell as far as adults are concerned, nonetheless parents, teachers, churches and athletic groups sent us out on candy and wrapping paper runs like drug mules.

[caption id="attachment_1814" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Would you like to buy some for my school?"][/caption]

It's sad when your own relatives won't buy your wrapping paper. Everyone in my family got theirs from the Dollar Store. My neighbors would sometimes buy it, but never enough for me to get the cool prizes like a mini TV which required you to sell $17,000 worth. I ended up with the crappy prizes:

[caption id="attachment_1815" align="alignnone" width="116" caption="It's either this or some bedazzled pencils"][/caption]

No one likes this crap either:

[caption id="attachment_1812" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Fine! How much are they? TWO DOLLARS!?"][/caption]

I remember being given these little bricks to push around the neighborhood. Some kids just walked around with a milk crate full of tasteless, Dollar Store looking, stale Valentine's Day candy. My group tried to be "upscale" and sell these overpriced wannabe Snickers. Then adults would say, "Why don't y'all just sell real candy?"

So someone got a bright idea:

[caption id="attachment_1813" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Pure and uncut"][/caption]

These sold way easier, but now there was a problem: Everybody was selling these. You'd be on the subway and two little kids would get on with their junior high school basketball jerseys. At first you'd think they were about to rob the train. "EXCUSE ME EVERYBODY! We go to Martin Luther King Malcom X JJ Walker Let the Good Times Roll Public Charter School and we're trying to get new jerseys." Why is it that the first thing every black team needs is jerseys and a ride to nationals? How did you pay your coach?

In the end, you just went with the default and had your mother sell it at work. Not sure why they even involved the kids in the first place.

PS...Did anyone else have their mother almost crash the car to buy these from kids selling them at the intersection?

[caption id="attachment_1817" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Crack."][/caption]

 

 

It Was A Clear Black Night, A Clear White Moon

Here's a fun tale of friendship and adventure:

One day 13 year old me was walking home from school with three of my "friends." Even though they don't deserve it, I'll protect their little reputation and call them Ike, Spike and Mike.

3 Friends + Me= 4 people

Four is the number of the day so write it down somewhere.

The four of us are walking down the street when the afternoon turns into an episode of The Fresh Prince. When a couple of guys who were up to no good started making trouble in my neighborhood. I got in one little fight...

My father had just given me a Polo jacket. In DC the rule is that you only wear nice clothes if you have a gang of people with you. What was the number of the day? That's right, four. There were four of us. So imagine how I felt when we approach these three dudes at the bus stop who yell out, Hey cuz, come up out that coat.

They were about eighteen and looked like they'd probably dropped outta school years ago, so not the brightest minds in DC. I tried to play it off like I thought they were joking. I chuckled and kept walking. Yeah it would make me look like a punk, but it would also stop an immediate fight. They'd have time to use their fingers and toes to count and realize there were more of us than them. I'm proud to say that I haven't been in that many fights in my life. People from DC don't fight. They have pre-shootout fights. Kind of like a good cardio warm up to get the trigger finger loose, but nobody just fights and lets it go. So, yeah I tried to play it off.

That's when they got in our faces. Nigga I ain't playing. Gimme that coat. So now we've gone from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air to the standoff scene in Bad between Michael Jackson and Wesley Snipes. You're doing wrong! Better watch your mouth boy! So we're just staring each other down waiting for someone to make a move and all the while I'm thinking to myself, Thank God I didn't walk down here by myself like usual.

That's when I notice Ike out of the corner of my eye. One minute he was beside me. I blinked and he was down the damned street. You know how cartoons run so fast that you don't see their feet, just a blur? That's what happened. I tried to keep my game face on though. There were still three of us. And then there weren't.

Spike yells out, Yo Ike wait up! and he takes off running too. The sad thing is, he isn't fast...at all. So picture the scene in your head. Three people (originally four) staring down three other people with a menacing look on their faces and then you see some bumbling idiot "mallwalk" away at what he thinks is top speed across and then down the street. The dude I'm staring at has the mean mug like Treach from Naughty By Nature and then he breaks his stare at me to slowly follow with his eyes this fool running away.

So now there are two of us. Ike and Spike lived in the neighborhood. The pressure got to be too much, they got scared and they realized that their houses were just two blocks away so they ran. Mike is from Southeast along with me. Even if he wanted to run, there is nowhere he can go. We catch the same 90 bus to Anacostia. We're now outnumbered, but at least we'll fight this together.

Then that 90 bus I mentioned pulled up to the stop. Then like some wannabe knight from the round table, Mike says, This isn't my fight man. And he runs and gets on the bus. It was like something out of a movie. The camera is facing us from the right side like they do the two boxers staring off before a match. In the background a bus pulls up, my wingman runs to get on, the doors close and the bus pulls off and now it's just me and three other dudes who wanna beat my ass for a coat.

I could've run with Ike and Spike. I could've gotten on the bus with Mike. I could've just easily handed them my coat, but I something inside me wouldn't let me do it. I didn't give a damn about the coat or my pride. I cared about the fact that if I gave them that coat or if I ran, I'd be doing that shit every day. Someone pulls a gun on you in DC, you give em whatever they want. Chances are you'll never see them again and you keep a bullet out your ass. Someone just walks up and demands your property in DC without brandishing a weapon...you don't give it to them. That labels you a punk and punks get picked on and bullied every damn day. Take my shit with a weapon. Take my shit by force but you will not take my shit just because you huff and puff. So the scene started back up.

What you gonna do now nigga? Your friends left you. I looked him in his face and said just as calmly. Do what you gotta do. They proceeded to kick the shit out of me. I didn't fight back because there was no point. I couldn't fight all three of them, but I didn't take it off. They pulled on it, punched me, kicked me, threw shit at me and did their best to tackle me to the ground, but I would not go down and I would not take that damn coat off. They tried their best to rip it off me but I gotta hand it to Ralph Lauren, he makes some durable shit. After about three or four minutes, something surprising happened.

The dude said, "Man keep your bamma ass coat, bitch!" And they walked away. I sat there at the bus stop, lip bleeding, and I kept thinking three things as I waited for the bus:
1) I'm gonna beat the shit outta Ike, Spike and Mike. They better not say shit to me ever again.
2) This isn't my fight? What the fuck?
3) What the hell is this coat made out of? Why didn't it rip?

 

You Want A Bag?

I've written about this before on my Facebook page but the problem seems to have spread to Maryland now so it bears repeating:

Dear cashiers at all major grocery stores,

If you see me walk up to the register with fifty two cans of tunafish, twelve jars of Miracle Whip, seventy four packs of butter, thirty apples and a box of Cap'n Crunch and you see me put all of that on the belt then there should be a mechanism that flips in your brain that prevents you from saying the dumbest phrase in all mankind...
"Do you need a bag?"

How else do you expect me to get all of that home? Juggle?

Now I could understand if you saw me carrying a backpack, duffel bag or pushing one of those grandma carts but I'm empty handed wearing shorts and a wifebeater. Where else will I put it?  Then when I tell you I need some you continue down the path of the dark side with...
"You know they cost five cents, right?"

Oh for real? Well in that case let me just put this shit back. I can eat tomorrow. It's a nickel. There are twenty of those in every dollar. Just give me the damn bags.

When you tell them you're aware of it they then go into super duper silly mode.

"Do you want your milk in a bag too?"

I understand what they think their logic is. They see a little handle on the milk and assume you can just carry that. Well if I had seventeen other bags and I've already told you I don't need parking validation then that should trigger some common sense. I don't have a car, yet I probably need about ten bags for the stuff you've rang up already. How big do you think my hands are that I can carry ten bags AND that thick ass handle on the milk?

So I finally get them to bag everything and after paying I go to collect my stuff and realize that they have somehow forgotten that these are PLASTIC bags, not titanium. Just because we now have to pay for them does not mean they've somehow gone up in quality. Why did you put sixteen cans in one bag?

Excuse me, can you separate some of this stuff and double bag?

"You know they're five cents EACH right?"

 

Thriller Track Number Nine

So yesterday I told you about me, now let me tell you a little about my wife. She's a baaaad chick. Behind the veneer of a friendly disposition is a woman who has endured some of the worst hardships in life, carried on her shoulders the burdens of a series of other people's mistakes and dreams deferred and like some type of damn Brita stress filter she transforms all of the shit that life has thrown at her into an almost constant goddamn smile on her face. If spirit is strength then she can pick up the weight of the world in one hand and write down the names of the asses she's kicking with the other. She's so bad that if I wasn't me, I'd be her.

Every year she wants to get me a Valentine's Day gift and every year I say no because the idea of a man getting a gift is just odd to me. Nonetheless we reached a compromise this year. She wouldn't get me a Valentine's Day gift, she'd get me a Black History Month gift or as I like to call it "We Have Overcome (WHO) Month." So on Saturday we went out under the auspice of going to get her a cupcake in Georgetown.

She drives down the street like she's trying to test out the flux capacitor. It scares the hell out of me and she, as if annoyed by my constant breath holding and eyes closing, pulls over and tells me to get out. I happily oblige and proceed to start thanking baby Jesus that I'm alive. She hands me an envelope through the window, gives me this Batman-ish "I'll find you" and then drives away like she's going to catch the Joker. The envelope says "Happy W.H.O Month." I open it and find a card inside that has an address and a time on it. My wife is now playing Mission Impossible with me.

I go to the address and find that she's sent me to a spa. I was kinda pissed because I thought she was leading me to Bobby's Burger Palace and the idea of a straight man going into a spa just seems silly. I'm not paying a woman for a massage or any other service (that's what my charm is for). Anyway, I went in because she went to so much trouble. Fast forward an hour and I now know what it felt like to have slaves back in the Egyptian days. From the time they put me in that fancy robe, had one of their servants bring me some cucumber water and wine and then had another slave girl take me to the back and give me what can only be described as just "one step away from adultery" I was hooked. If I have to sell dummy rocks on the corner made out of old baby formula to support my new massage habit then I'll do that.

My wife picked me up drove me a few blocks and then pulled over again. She opened my door, handed me my bookbag and my daughter's diaper bag and gave me another envelope. After that massage she could've asked me to stand on the corner and turn tricks and I would've said yes. So I followed the address in the envelope and it led me to a hotel. I thought she had the wrong address. It was one of those fancy historic hotels in DC. The bell hop asked me if I was lost. I told him my wife sent me on a scavenger hunt. I went inside and she'd reserved an executive room for me. The concierge gave me a glass of champagne and two slaves asked to take my bags.

I went upstairs and opened up my bags. Now this is where you know you have a good woman. A normal woman, a nymph, would've just packed a change of clothes, BUT a goddess...(single tear rolling down my face) she packs your Xbox 360, your games, a box of Cheez-Its, reese cups, skittles, whoppers, water, your laptop and ten bucks for wifi. (Hallelujah!) Oh, and for those who haven't caught on...she wasn't coming. That's a person without kids' fantasy...to have the wife meet you in a nice hotel. An overworked, stay at home dad who raises the seed of Chucky just wants a night to himself.

The only thing I needed now was dinner and that's when I saw two more envelopes. The "open at 6pm" one led me to my reservation at Morton's Steakhouse where I was instructed to buy "a real steak" instead of those cheap paper thin ones that I get from the grocery store all the time. I tore that damn porterhouse up and had some cheesecake for dessert. I went back to the room, actually took a bath in my huge marble tiled bathroom. I even put on a damn robe. Before I passed out for the night on my king size bed that was toddler free, I read my last card which told me I had a free breakfast in their fancy restaurant downstairs.

The next morning I had breakfast in a place where two waiters/servants/slaves stand by your table and refill your coffee every time it gets to half way. They had smoked salmon on the breakfast buffet bar. I walked outta there with the feeling you get when you find money on the ground. Finally she and the child came and picked me up, I clicked my heels three times and now I'm back home. I feel like a king, and this is just one weekend with this woman. Imagine what nine years does to you.

 

Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself

Hi, I'm Ordale. I'm a househusband and stay at home dad. Those job titles are as stressful as they are emasculating.

There's a double standard in society. If a man works and his wife stays at home then he's a good provider. If, however, that same man complains to his stay at home wife about dishes in the sink or dinner not being ready at six then he is an insensitive bastard because staying home with a kid is difficult work. Now turn around and make that man stay home and send the woman out and all of a sudden the guy is lazy because watching kids becomes easy the minute you no longer have a vagina.

Ask any of the old women who sneer at me when they see me pushing a stroller and they'll tell you that men are supposed to work. I'm supposed to grab a spear and head out into the urban jungle to hunt squirrels and pigeons to feed my family. Never mind that I get up at seven each morning to begin a day of servitude for a small human who is both the reason behind every smile I'll ever have for the rest of my life and simultaneously the inspiration for every movie about exorcisms.

This shit aint easy. I grocery shop, cook everything from scratch, do laundry, doctor visits, diaper changes, tantrum negotiations, field trips, library story times and actually do daycare lessons in house everyday. I'm on the job 24-7 and besides that time I was rushed to the hospital for kidney failure, I haven't missed a single day. And even then my daughter docked my pay for an unscheduled absence. By 5 months she could crawl, 9 months she could walk, 10 months she made the switch to English from whatever elf language they speak in Middle Earth and by 18 months she knew the ABCs, could count to 20, navigate an iPad and the doctors said she was at a two year old level.

So everytime I see these old women staring at me or someone's mother speaks out of turn I tell myself that they aren't making those faces because they're looking down on me. They're looking at me because they haven't seen me before. I'm a goddamned superman, a centaur, a mythical creature you'd find in Narnia: A Black man that takes care of his kid. I'm a big foot with big shoes and I cast a big shadow. And all it costs me to do this job is pride. I can live with that because I'm repaid for it everyday when she does something new.

And if you think I'm bad...wait until tomorrow when I tell you about my wife.

Conundrum

So I'm walking to the grocery store yesterday when I had a racially perplexing moment. While pushing my daughter's stroller across the street, a Camry pulled up to the two-way stop sign and then slowly proceeded to block the crosswalk and ramp. The driver was an older Middle Eastern woman who clearly wasn't paying attention to us. I couldn't tell if she was trying to position herself to back into a parking space or trying to get a better view so that she could speed across the busy six-lane street. Since I didn't know what her plans were I couldn't decide whether or not to go in front or behind her car.

On the other side of the street I see this old White guy on the corner and he starts yelling at her. Move the goddamn car back! I thought he was mad because she was blocking him from crossing, but she was actually his ride and he was telling her (in a really evil, "I used to be a wife beater" way) that she was blocking our way. I crossed in front of her car and kept on walking and as he's opening the car door to get in I catch a part of their conversation.

Her: What did you say?
Him: I said move the goddamn car back!
Her: I was waiting for you to get in.
Him: You were in the middle of the fucking crosswalk.
Her: So?
Him: You were blocking people's way.

Now at this point I'm like, Well that was nice of him to point that out to her. I don't think he had to curse her out like that, but whatever.
Then I hear the next part...

Her: What people?
Him: You didn't see that nigger right there trying to cross the street?

My brain: Wait a minute...what just happened?

There are so many things wrong with that conversation, but what stands out to me is that this old White guy got in a car with a Middle Eastern woman who I think was his wife. He scolded her for being inconsiderate and blocking my way. Then he referred to me as a nigger. Is this like a racist brain teaser or something? My brain couldn't come up with a suitable response other than to just keep walking. I'm certain of what he said, I just don't understand what he said.

 

 

 

Flashback Friday: The Land of Make Believe

What do these three things have in common:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="187" caption="Not this oneYeah the one that was so badass they called themselves "THE REAL" Ghostbusters"]

I'm Going Down

One day I'll sire a son and when he's old enough he'll come to me and ask about women. What makes them tick? How do you impress one of them. I'll tell him this story.

Many years ago I went to an amusement park with a bunch of friends from school. Like most guys, I didn't have my heart set on a particular girl. Any one of the cute ones would have done. I was ready to be brave when it came time for the roller coaster and herculean when it came time to win a prize, and I was especially ready to be a typical man and enjoy their water park attire. What I was not prepared for was to be asked to get in the water myself.

It's been documented several times that I don't mess with water. In my eyes a wave pool carries the same destructive potential as Hurricane Katrina, but when you're a man you make stupid decisions whenever women are involved. On this particular occasion three of the finest of the fine wanted to get on a water slide.

Note: I still suffer from some of the trauma of this experience so I may be slightly off in my description of the slide.

It was a massive beast that ascended the heavens one hundred stories into the air. You had to walk up a staircase of broken glass to get to it and you went through a series of turns at breakneck speed which culminated with a free fall of about 25 feet into an alligator-filled lagoon.

Okay I'm lying. There were no alligators. So anyway, we went up and the whole time I'm writing out my will in my head. I eyed that the red slide in the corner seemed to be the slowest and safest one of the four so when it came time I'd just go down that one. Naturally we get to the top and one of these heifers gets scared and asks if we can switch. Being stupid I said, duh okay.

It started off fine. Nice and slow ride. Not bad for my first time on a slide. I kept my feet crossed and head back. Things were going well. It was one of those enclosed slides that looks more like a giant pipe. Well inside this pipe there were places along the way where streams of water would pour down from the top. I went under one such stream. Maybe that's normal, but for someone who has never been on a damn slide before it felt like I was being waterboarded. I instinctively sat up but the pipe wasn't made to be sat up in so I hit my damn head on the top of it. Then came another stream of waterboarding.

I'm choking, chlorinated water is in my eyes so I can't see and I'm disoriented from banging my head. Al Qaeda was winning. My vision finally clears in time for me to see this bright ass light. The noonday sun! Apparently I'd reached the end of the interrogation tunnel, and was now blinded from looking directly up at the sun after being in a dark place. I tried to look down at my feet to get an idea of how close I was to the end of the slide. I was partially blind and concussed by this point so all I could make out was something blue.

Is that water?

That's when the slide disappeared from underneath me and I was flung into a free fall into the pool of water below. Son of a (choking on water)! I start kicking and trying to get to the surface. It isn't working. I'm trying to float on my back, but I keep going under. I'm trying to right myself, but I'm still hazy from the tunnel of love. I see a lifeguard in my view. Help! I can't swim! I see her rushing over but not jumping in. Help goddammit! She's yelling out to me but I can't hear her b/c I'm under water. I'm ready to give up and drown but I start thinking about to the heifer that got me in this situation. I can't die without cursing her out first. Help! And that's when I finally piece together what the lifeguard was saying.

Stand up.

That's an odd thing to say to someone drowning.

The water isn't deep. Stand up.

What the hell is she talking about? Wait is that the ground? I stop fighting and realize that my butt is touching the bottom of the pool. I stand up and the water is at my knees. I look over and see the two girls staring at me like I'm special.

So son, the moral of this story is be yourself. Don't try to impress women, because you'll always fail at it. Oh, and find a woman who can't swim.

Taxi!

I'm gonna open up my own Black cab company. They say that if you see a need you should create a business to fill it. Well, after watching this Black guy stand out on the corner trying to hail a cab to no avail, I'm going into business. It's not that I have anything against cab drivers in this city. The way they've been robbing, shooting and killing cab drivers, I can't blame them for being afraid. When I open up my company I plan to racially profile too, but I'm going to do it right.

First and foremost, I'm gonna do just like Dominos used to do back in the day.
What address? Oh we don't go over there.

Secondly, my entire cab will be bulletproof. From the run-flat tires to the bulletproof escape hatch I'm gonna install for my ejection seat (think: fighter jet), you'll need a rocket launcher to put a dent in my cab. I'm going to install one of those bulletproof turnstiles like they have at all the ghetto Popeyes so that you can pay me. There will be no hopping out without paying either, because the doors won't have handles and bulletproof windows don't roll down. The only way to get out is to put your money in the door like a soda machine or something. I know that in case of an emergency that might not seem to be too safe, but then again neither is walking through the hood late at night, so choose your battles. I'm sorry that it has to come to this but I'm not gonna be a statistic. I could avoid the business altogether, but the people need it. Let me tell you a story:

Once upon a time I had heart surgery. Contrary to what you see on television, not all hospitals wheel you to the door and put you in a cab. I signed out and me and my wife went outside to catch a cab. It was around lunchtime on a workday so cabs were abundant. About ten passed us by. Finally this white guy walked up and stood about five feet from us and held out his arm. A cab on the other side of the street made a U-turn for him. He motioned for us to take it and the driver pulled off as we walked up. He said, Well that was rude, to which I responded, You aint seen nothing yet.

Another cab stopped and did the same thing. When the third one stopped, he opened the door and pretended he was getting in and then told us to come on. The driver pulled off with the door still open. The White guy said, I'm so sorry. I don't know what else to do but I have to get to a meeting. We thanked him for trying and we got on the subway. Now imagine having heart surgery and then having to walk down the metro's broken escalators to stand and wait ten minutes for a train, walking up the escalators at the other station and then walking a mile home from the station. That's what I did and it hurt like hell the whole way home but not as bad as the feeling of a cab after cab blatantly refusing to even stop for you.

So yeah, my cab company's gonna be different.

My Mother Told Me To Pick This One

We were walking by the playground the other day and I found myself intrigued as I watched the little kids play. They had a soccer field, two basketball courts, a sand pit, some grassy area and then a big and little kid playground. I heard one of the kids say, "I'm bored."

REALLY?

I would have killed for a playground back in the day. Do you know what we had over a Maury Elementary School back in the 80s? CONCRETE. We went outside for recess and for 45 minutes we ran around, literally. We played tag, freeze tag and team tag. You yelled "one, two three, not it" or you did "bubble gum bubble gum" with your feet in a circle and then you played. If the school got a donation or a new teacher who still cared about children then we had a kickball. The fat kid always played pitcher and you called out whether you wanted it bouncy or just a regular roll. Then you kicked the hell out of it and hoped it didn't go up on the roof to die like the other ones.

I heard one of the little kids say, "I don't wanna get on the swings. The swings are boring."

Back in the day, swings were a goddamn anomaly. Going to a hood playground back in the day was like going on an archaeological dig in ancient Egypt. You'd see structures and make an educated guess about what USED to be there. I always saw two posts and the little hooks where a swing might have been back in the 60s or 70s, but we never had any. If you did find a playground with an intact swing that wasn't wrapped around the top and rusted over because of some ignorant child then you had better play on it quick before the bad ass project kids came along and tore that shit up.

The same went for basketball courts. We had plenty of basketball posts, there just weren't any hoops anywhere to be found. Back in the day a playground was two things: A place for kids to run around during the day and skid row at night. All kinds of shit went on inside those chain link fences after dark. Sometimes it was just grown men playing ball and ripping the hoops off the rim because they forgot this wasn't built for their big asses to dunk on. Other times it was people shooting up, having sex and doing god knows what. The next day you'd find anything from condoms to needles to bullets on the playground but one thing you didn't find were basketball rims.

Half the time it was too dangerous to go to the playground during the day, especially on the weekend, so you played in front of your house. There isn't a lot of space on the sidewalk so you made up games. There was "O-U-T, Out" which was just dodgeball but with three chances. "High, low" where you tied a rope to someone's fence and someone pulled the other end so you could all line up and see who could jump highest over the rope. There were always those sad looking lonely little girls who didn't have enough friends so they tied one end of the rope to a fence, one girl turned the other end and the second girl jumped in the middle. The boys played "throwback" where you just threw a football into a crowd and whoever caught it and made it out scored a point. If you got really bored then you just played "How many steps can I jump down."

All of this was done on concrete by kids who had little to no health insurance and we came out just fine. Sort of.

"Grandma, I fell outside and hit my head. I can't feel some of my fingers."
"I told you to keep your ass in here in the first place. Go in the room and lay down."

Extra Credit

Sing along if you have kids...

FOR SHE'S A JOLLY GOOD CREDIT, FOR SHE'S A JOLLY GOOD CREDIT, FOR SHE'S A JOLLY GOOD CRE-E-DIT, THAT THE I.R.S. CAN'T DENY. THE I.R.S. CAN'T DENY!

I've been married for almost nine years and it wasn't until the baby came along that we actually got a tax refund. This is only the second year that we've had a child to claim, so the shock is still new for us. It's like looking at an infomercial or something. There's me doing the taxes and looking increasingly depressed as I make my way down the 1040.

There's always the initial disappointment when you get to line one for wages, tips and salary and you think to yourself, damn that's all we made? Then you go through and it reminds you of how broke your ass really is by asking you about stuff that only people with money can answer. Dividends? Capital Gains? Rental income? If it weren't for kids, the average person wouldn't even do a regular 1040. That old 1040-EZ used to be done in three minutes:
Wages: Very little
Tax paid: More than I'd like
Refund: Yeah right
Tax Due: How the hell do I owe???

So yeah, as I go through the 1040 line for line I get more depressed until that magic section about Child Tax Credit. How many dependents from line 6a? Multiply times what? Subtract from that. Then those magic words:

This is the amount you overpaid!

I wanted to break out a cardboard box and start break dancing. I picked up my daughter and carried her around the house on my shoulders like those Taco Bell commercials.

[caption id="attachment_1721" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="My daughter, the hero."][/caption]




 

Baby's Day Out

It was 65 degrees yesterday so I decided to take my daughter outside. We're broke so we went somewhere free, The Capitol. I took her out of her stroller and tried to get her to pose for some pictures but of course she hauled ass as soon as I let her go. I ran after her and put her back into place and tried again.

This went on for a while.

Now it's important to the story that you know that I'm a very paranoid parent. You never know when you're gonna get trapped in the Metro/elevator/traffic/snowstorm/etc, so I keep a bunch of survival stuff in the bottom of the stroller. There's food, water, diapers, first aid, clothes and toys all individually sorted in large Ziploc bags. Now at no point did it occur to me what I looked like yesterday.

Let's recap:
I have a large black stroller.
Several large plastic bags underneath it
There's a blinking toy cell phone on top of the bags
And I just ran away full speed from it (to catch my daughter)

It's amazing just how much attention you get from the Capitol Police when you do that. I'm sure it also didn't help that my daughter seemed to strategically take off running in the direction of the motorcade that was parked out front. My headphones fell out of my ear as I was running, so I had them in my hand and my phone was in my pocket so I'm sure that was a good look to the police snipers: A guy running with a dark jacket and wires coming out of his coat.

As soon as I realized what I looked like to them, I scooped my daughter up and put her back in the stroller. I knew that if I tried to leave it would look way too suspicious. By this point there were like five or six cops in my area who weren't there before. So we walked around the grounds pretending to be interested. I sang Sesame Street songs and spoon fed her like Father of the Year. It almost worked until my daughter went into Phase 2 of get daddy arrested.

She's like Monk. She has this thing where she has to touch every light pole and jump on every manhole cover. All of those things are marked on the Capitol grounds so she's reading off the letters. I point to them too and say, What letter is this? What number is that? It was cute...until I realized there were cameras near those things (they're probably security risks) so I'm like Oh shit! Now it looks like we're taking inventory for Bin Laden Jr or something.

About four police approached us one at a time after that and asked how we were and if it was our first visit. One gave my daughter a Junior Police badge. I know damned well they weren't being friendly rather they were trying to size us up. Of course my daughter threw the badge on the ground as the woman handed it to her and I'm thinking Why don't you just yell death to America and get us both locked up!

I say the hell with it and decide to just leave before my daughter grabbed one of their guns or something. She picks up a stick off the ground and we make our way out. As we're leaving she drops the stick. I pick it up and I hear someone yelling through a headset or walkie talkie,

RIGHT THERE, RIGHT THERE...TARGET HAS SOMETHING... IDENTIFY...SHOT!

All of a sudden this Black dude who I thought was a visitor like me starts talking into his coat,

It's a stick. I repeat a stick. No Action. The little girl has a stick.

I couldn't get the hell outta there fast enough. We will never go back to the Capitol.