It's 11PM Wed Nov 28th. I'm sick again because I took my daughter to a birthday party last weekend where one of the children was an Outbreak monkey in disguise. She had a runny nose on Monday and I knew something was up. I was praying that it was just the cold air. I knew she was sick when I put all her toys up and they stayed in the same spot all day long. If she were one of the X-Men, her mutant power would be the ability to take a cold and strengthen that shit so that by the time you catch it from her...it's smallpox. She's sick, but I'm sicker.
My wife got home around 6:30 and both of us were knocked out on the couch. The thing is, I don't remember even sitting down on the couch. I think I collapsed in the kitchen somewhere and my daughter carried me to the couch. My head hurts, throat hurts, fingernails hurt. I'm coughing and sneezing simultaneously so my lungs hurt. Right now I have on sweat pants, a hoodie and a hat. The heat is on 85 and I have a space heater on and I'm still cold, but have a fever.
So why am I still up then? I can give you 550 million reasons. Powerball. Talk all the shit you want about the lottery being for fools. I will gladly spend $2 on the off chance that I MIGHT win half a billion. I'm good when it comes to defying the odds. Hell, I'm the sperm that made it. Out of the estimated 280 million swimmers, I was the one smart enough to bring a jackhammer. If I don't win...meh, whatever. But if I do win...you can say goodbye to Mentalstorage.com, because I'm going into hiding. I know too many grimy people to stay visible.
But let me not reveal my secrets. Just know this: If there's no post tomorrow, be happy for me...or send some flowers to the "Outbreak" ward at GW Hospital.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Christmas '92
So let's pick up where yesterday's post left off. I picked the Christmas tree up, leaned it back against the wall, and straightened out the decorations. I Will Always Love You went off, and I gave up on finding Christmas music. Fast forward a few days and it's Christmas. I wake up at my mother's apartment where we have an actual (green) Christmas tree. The white one that I put up at my grandmother's house was so pitiful that my mother was compelled to go to Ames or Zares or whatever the place was called over on Rhode Island Avenue and we got a cheap tree.
I was ten, so the magic of Santa Claus was long since dead. I'm sure it came as a relief to my mother. Instead of me handing her thick envelopes with four or five page letters to mail to Santa detailing all of the things I did right that year and the presents I felt were reasonable compensations for my efforts, now she sat down with me at the kitchen table like some kind of proprietor of a fledgling small business. "Look, I don't have a whole lot of money. You give me a list of what you want. Want! Not what you think you're actually going to get. Write it in order of how bad you want it and put down how much it costs. I have about a hundred dollars to spend this year, so don't go crazy."
It wasn't something that she needed to say. The four of us were living in a one bedroom apartment in a sketchy neighborhood about a block from Trinidad near Benning Road. All I wanted for Christmas was a moving truck. Still, I swung for the fences and asked for a Super Nintendo, a Sega Genesis or a Neo Geo. She sent the list back. My union redrafted a list asking only for Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game for regular Nintendo.
So I ran to the tree that morning and there were dozens of gifts...all labeled for my one-year old sister. Beneath the pile was a box that I knew was probably a sweater or a hat and glove set from my grandmother (I was right) and some cheap, ugly Tiger Handheld LCD Game knockoff from Montgomery Wards. "Hurt" doesn't even begin to describe how I felt, but I didn't say anything. I tried to look grateful. I kept waiting around hoping that there was a big surprise somewhere. Nope. Over the next hour my mother seemed to develop an attitude that I could only guess was the result of my poorly hidden lack of appreciation for my presents.
I sat down to play Nintendo on my beat up 13 inch black and white television and she got mad. The living room was technically my room, because I used to sleep on the couch, but during the day it was everybody's room. It was apparently rude to play video games on the living room television on Christmas. That was another thing that always bothered me. My mother had a 20 inch color TV in her room. Back then 20 inches was huge, at least compared to my little TV which looked like an iPod screen compared to what's out now. You could turn her TV on and tune to a station and the show would just appear as if by some kind of witchcraft. Not my little pathetic thing.
Step 1: Turn on the TV
Step 2: Take the knob off the top and put it on the bottom to change the station
Step 3: Move the antenna
Step 4: Move it some more
Step 5: Walk away from the TV to see if the picture stays still
Step 6: Move the antenna again
Step 7: Adjust the vertical and horizontal knobs in the back
Step 8: Bang the top of the TV
Step 9: Just stand there with your hand touching the antenna until the next commercial
So, you know how it goes when you're mad as a kid. You can't speak your mind, at least not to the average black mother. I just sat there and "thought" things real hard. "She could go in her room and watch TV. Why do they need to be out here? Why can't I go in her room and plug up my Nintendo? Maybe I was switched at birth. Maybe my real family is rich and they're gonna come find me and when they do I'm gonna get a TV of my own and my own room." My mother interrupted with, "Fix your face! You roll your eyes at me again and Imma knock em out your head. Matter of fact, go take out the trash!"
So I went outside to take out the trash and I came back in and just sat in the kitchen imagining what my real rich family might be like. My mother appeared again. "What are you sitting in the kitchen for? Go clean up the living room!" I walk into the living room (cursing her out in my head) and I immediately moonwalk backwards towards the door. My TV was gone. In its place was a brand new Zenith 20 inch television with a remote control.
...
...
...
I didn't say anything for a good minute. I just stared at it. I knew it was a TV and I knew it was in my house. My brain just couldn't connect the dots. I looked back toward the kitchen and my mother was smiling, "Merry Christmas!" I still didn't get it. "So, am I getting your old television?" She looked at me, "No boy, it's yours." I lost my damned mind! I can't even find the words to describe the emotion. It had buttons! Like...no knobs. Just buttons! That was futuristic to me. A remote control!? Oh my God, the possibilities! I can be on the couch and change the channel at the same time. Oh my God! I can turn up the sound from over there by the window. Holy shit! I can hook my Nintendo up with the coaxial cable. I don't need that adapter with the two screws anymore! I'm one of the Jetsons! And when I turned it on...Man/Girl/Whoever you are out there...When I turned it on, it asked me to set the time. My TV could tell me what time it was! "I don't need a watch anymore!"
I cherished that thing for the next 16 years until that lady I married finally convinced me to give it away in 2008. "You have a flat screen now. Let it go!" Little does she know, I kept the remote.
I was ten, so the magic of Santa Claus was long since dead. I'm sure it came as a relief to my mother. Instead of me handing her thick envelopes with four or five page letters to mail to Santa detailing all of the things I did right that year and the presents I felt were reasonable compensations for my efforts, now she sat down with me at the kitchen table like some kind of proprietor of a fledgling small business. "Look, I don't have a whole lot of money. You give me a list of what you want. Want! Not what you think you're actually going to get. Write it in order of how bad you want it and put down how much it costs. I have about a hundred dollars to spend this year, so don't go crazy."
It wasn't something that she needed to say. The four of us were living in a one bedroom apartment in a sketchy neighborhood about a block from Trinidad near Benning Road. All I wanted for Christmas was a moving truck. Still, I swung for the fences and asked for a Super Nintendo, a Sega Genesis or a Neo Geo. She sent the list back. My union redrafted a list asking only for Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game for regular Nintendo.
So I ran to the tree that morning and there were dozens of gifts...all labeled for my one-year old sister. Beneath the pile was a box that I knew was probably a sweater or a hat and glove set from my grandmother (I was right) and some cheap, ugly Tiger Handheld LCD Game knockoff from Montgomery Wards. "Hurt" doesn't even begin to describe how I felt, but I didn't say anything. I tried to look grateful. I kept waiting around hoping that there was a big surprise somewhere. Nope. Over the next hour my mother seemed to develop an attitude that I could only guess was the result of my poorly hidden lack of appreciation for my presents.
I sat down to play Nintendo on my beat up 13 inch black and white television and she got mad. The living room was technically my room, because I used to sleep on the couch, but during the day it was everybody's room. It was apparently rude to play video games on the living room television on Christmas. That was another thing that always bothered me. My mother had a 20 inch color TV in her room. Back then 20 inches was huge, at least compared to my little TV which looked like an iPod screen compared to what's out now. You could turn her TV on and tune to a station and the show would just appear as if by some kind of witchcraft. Not my little pathetic thing.
Step 1: Turn on the TV
Step 2: Take the knob off the top and put it on the bottom to change the station
Step 3: Move the antenna
Step 4: Move it some more
Step 5: Walk away from the TV to see if the picture stays still
Step 6: Move the antenna again
Step 7: Adjust the vertical and horizontal knobs in the back
Step 8: Bang the top of the TV
Step 9: Just stand there with your hand touching the antenna until the next commercial
So, you know how it goes when you're mad as a kid. You can't speak your mind, at least not to the average black mother. I just sat there and "thought" things real hard. "She could go in her room and watch TV. Why do they need to be out here? Why can't I go in her room and plug up my Nintendo? Maybe I was switched at birth. Maybe my real family is rich and they're gonna come find me and when they do I'm gonna get a TV of my own and my own room." My mother interrupted with, "Fix your face! You roll your eyes at me again and Imma knock em out your head. Matter of fact, go take out the trash!"
So I went outside to take out the trash and I came back in and just sat in the kitchen imagining what my real rich family might be like. My mother appeared again. "What are you sitting in the kitchen for? Go clean up the living room!" I walk into the living room (cursing her out in my head) and I immediately moonwalk backwards towards the door. My TV was gone. In its place was a brand new Zenith 20 inch television with a remote control.
...
...
...
I didn't say anything for a good minute. I just stared at it. I knew it was a TV and I knew it was in my house. My brain just couldn't connect the dots. I looked back toward the kitchen and my mother was smiling, "Merry Christmas!" I still didn't get it. "So, am I getting your old television?" She looked at me, "No boy, it's yours." I lost my damned mind! I can't even find the words to describe the emotion. It had buttons! Like...no knobs. Just buttons! That was futuristic to me. A remote control!? Oh my God, the possibilities! I can be on the couch and change the channel at the same time. Oh my God! I can turn up the sound from over there by the window. Holy shit! I can hook my Nintendo up with the coaxial cable. I don't need that adapter with the two screws anymore! I'm one of the Jetsons! And when I turned it on...Man/Girl/Whoever you are out there...When I turned it on, it asked me to set the time. My TV could tell me what time it was! "I don't need a watch anymore!"
I cherished that thing for the next 16 years until that lady I married finally convinced me to give it away in 2008. "You have a flat screen now. Let it go!" Little does she know, I kept the remote.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Trim the Tree
Well for the first time in my life, I put up a Christmas tree in November instead of waiting until the last minute. Hold your applause, I have another announcement to share: For the first time ever, I put up lights on my window. (Thunderous Applause)
Christmas was always confusing growing up. It was that magical time when Santa Claus brought me all the stuff that I wanted out of the store and none of the stuff that I asked the elves to build through meticulous drawings, diagrams and blueprints. Every year he delivered presents to my mother's house and my father's house instead of just leaving them at one location. And despite being an honor roll student throughout my childhood, Santa always seemed to have a dollar limit. Anything over $150 was absent from the tree. For a man whose elves could build anything and whose sleigh could go anywhere, he sure had limits.
Nothing was as confusing as the holiday spirit in my house. The best way to describe it is...well, as a spirit: Some lingering entity moaning about, trapped between one place and the next. Not really at peace, nor was it happy. It just existed, hoping to move on. It was Christmas '92 when things really got weird. For my birthday, my grandmother gave me a Christmas tree. My birthday is in July, by the way. To commemorate turning 10 and my age having two digits instead of one, my grandmother gave me a Christmas tree...in the Summer. An explanation would soon follow sometime around Thanksgiving.
My grandmother felt, in her own words, that since her children were unappreciative of her efforts that she was henceforth and forevermore canceling Thanksgiving in her house. She would no longer host it, cook for it or acknowledge it. There's more to the story, but too many relatives still alive to do it justice and live to tell about it. So let's just say that when my grandmother gets mad, the Earth trembles. So, Grandma P. Diddy Allen shut down the studio. She then went on to explain that she was also done with Christmas. She wasn't wasting her time putting up a tree, but if I wanted to do it then she wouldn't stop me, so the cheap, ugly white Christmas tree became mine.
The white Christmas tree got its start in our house sometime in '88 or '89. My grandmother saw a sale on trees and sent my grandfather to retrieve one from Hechinger's. He and I got inside his 1807 Plymouth and chugged down the street to Hechinger Mall leaving a trail of deathly smoke behind us. He didn't pay attention to the fact that there was a white tree on the box and my grandmother spent the next two hours reminding him of that. Flash forward three or four years and now the tree was handed down to me.
For a few days in December I asked my grandmother to put up the tree with me and she refused. My mother wasn't interested either. Aunts didn't seem to care and uncles lived too far away. My grandfather wasn't even an option as the tree brought back too many painful memories of my grandmother cursing him out. So on the evening of December _?_ 1992, I cleared a space for my tree, dragged it up from the basement and proceeded to put together what remains to this day to be the ugliest tree I have ever seen.
Because no one with a job was interested enough to buy any, I had to use whatever ornaments and decorations that I could find in the basement. I had some gold and silver tinsel that was frayed or cut and had to be literally tied back together to fit around the whole tree. I couldn't find any hooks to put on the ornaments so that they'd hang, so I just sat them on the tree and hoped that they wouldn't fall. It was a fake tree so I just bent some of the branches upward. We had an old dusty, Chucky-looking Santa doll that my grandmother either got from a yard sale or a thrift store. I leaned him up against the tree. The tree itself leaned up against the wall because one of the legs was missing.
It was a sorry sight, but I tried to remain positive. I turned on the radio looking for Christmas music. There was a new song out for the holidays that I hadn't heard before, but after a few seconds it just made things worse. There I was, a ten year old boy in the house alone putting up the world's saddest tree by himself trying to bring some joy to the world (or at least the family). Instead of the Temptations' Silent Night or Hathaway's This Christmas, what did my ears hear for the first time?
If I
should stay
I would on-ly be in
your way.
So I'll go
but I know
I'll think of you every step of
the way
And I....
I just started balling. "Life sucks! Christmas sucks!" Just then God sent me a message:
The tree fell over.
And I
will always love you
Christmas was always confusing growing up. It was that magical time when Santa Claus brought me all the stuff that I wanted out of the store and none of the stuff that I asked the elves to build through meticulous drawings, diagrams and blueprints. Every year he delivered presents to my mother's house and my father's house instead of just leaving them at one location. And despite being an honor roll student throughout my childhood, Santa always seemed to have a dollar limit. Anything over $150 was absent from the tree. For a man whose elves could build anything and whose sleigh could go anywhere, he sure had limits.
Nothing was as confusing as the holiday spirit in my house. The best way to describe it is...well, as a spirit: Some lingering entity moaning about, trapped between one place and the next. Not really at peace, nor was it happy. It just existed, hoping to move on. It was Christmas '92 when things really got weird. For my birthday, my grandmother gave me a Christmas tree. My birthday is in July, by the way. To commemorate turning 10 and my age having two digits instead of one, my grandmother gave me a Christmas tree...in the Summer. An explanation would soon follow sometime around Thanksgiving.
My grandmother felt, in her own words, that since her children were unappreciative of her efforts that she was henceforth and forevermore canceling Thanksgiving in her house. She would no longer host it, cook for it or acknowledge it. There's more to the story, but too many relatives still alive to do it justice and live to tell about it. So let's just say that when my grandmother gets mad, the Earth trembles. So, Grandma P. Diddy Allen shut down the studio. She then went on to explain that she was also done with Christmas. She wasn't wasting her time putting up a tree, but if I wanted to do it then she wouldn't stop me, so the cheap, ugly white Christmas tree became mine.
The white Christmas tree got its start in our house sometime in '88 or '89. My grandmother saw a sale on trees and sent my grandfather to retrieve one from Hechinger's. He and I got inside his 1807 Plymouth and chugged down the street to Hechinger Mall leaving a trail of deathly smoke behind us. He didn't pay attention to the fact that there was a white tree on the box and my grandmother spent the next two hours reminding him of that. Flash forward three or four years and now the tree was handed down to me.
For a few days in December I asked my grandmother to put up the tree with me and she refused. My mother wasn't interested either. Aunts didn't seem to care and uncles lived too far away. My grandfather wasn't even an option as the tree brought back too many painful memories of my grandmother cursing him out. So on the evening of December _?_ 1992, I cleared a space for my tree, dragged it up from the basement and proceeded to put together what remains to this day to be the ugliest tree I have ever seen.
Because no one with a job was interested enough to buy any, I had to use whatever ornaments and decorations that I could find in the basement. I had some gold and silver tinsel that was frayed or cut and had to be literally tied back together to fit around the whole tree. I couldn't find any hooks to put on the ornaments so that they'd hang, so I just sat them on the tree and hoped that they wouldn't fall. It was a fake tree so I just bent some of the branches upward. We had an old dusty, Chucky-looking Santa doll that my grandmother either got from a yard sale or a thrift store. I leaned him up against the tree. The tree itself leaned up against the wall because one of the legs was missing.
It was a sorry sight, but I tried to remain positive. I turned on the radio looking for Christmas music. There was a new song out for the holidays that I hadn't heard before, but after a few seconds it just made things worse. There I was, a ten year old boy in the house alone putting up the world's saddest tree by himself trying to bring some joy to the world (or at least the family). Instead of the Temptations' Silent Night or Hathaway's This Christmas, what did my ears hear for the first time?
If I
should stay
I would on-ly be in
your way.
So I'll go
but I know
I'll think of you every step of
the way
And I....
I just started balling. "Life sucks! Christmas sucks!" Just then God sent me a message:
The tree fell over.
And I
will always love you
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Christmas Kicks Off
You wanna talk about irony? I spent the entire weekend looking for Christmas presents for a child who spent the entire weekend giving me reasons not to buy them. We went to a birthday party this weekend at the Playseum where my daughter auditioned for a Ritalin commercial. I don't understand. We took out three of her batteries before we left the house, but she still had enough juice to go tazmanian on us. The other 10-15 kids sat and painted nice and quiet. Stripe-Gremlin thought we were trying to put her in a strait jacket when it came time to put on the smock. Eventually I got it on her and she sat down to paint for twelve seconds before I saw that look in her eyes. Rather than ruin it for the other kids, I just took her back to the room with all of the toys. A few minutes later they came in the room to do story time.
You know, "I appreciate you" gets thrown around so much these days. When my wife says it, I kinda believe it. When I watch her struggle to keep Dizzy Devil still on the floor during story time...I believe it wholeheartedly. She looked back at me like I was supposed to lend some advice...share a trade secret of how I get her to sit still when I take her to story time. Not a chance in hell. She gave me the Bernie Mac look: "Summa ma bitch! Imma bust yo head to the white meat." I just smiled. I make it look too easy sometimes and the only way you'll respect the magician is if you fail horribly at duplicating his trick.
So anyway, after all of that was over, I went shopping to get Christmas out of the way. She's two, so I'm not going all out. She won't remember this anyway. When she can be scarred by the memories, then I'll put some effort into it, but for now a wrapped up empty toilet paper roll will do just fine. "Look baby, it's a telescope...and a microphone...and a drumstick." I got her two Angry Bird plush toys ($10), some used Dr Seuss books (12 books at $3 each), and a Minnie Mouse folding table set ($30). That lady that I married wants to get her a toy kitchen. I say we get her a step ladder and put it in the real kitchen.
(Note to self: Take pictures with Santa this year...or do what you did last year: Take pictures of Santa, but conveniently position her in the shot so that it looks like she's standing next to him like people do with the Eiffel Tower.
You know, "I appreciate you" gets thrown around so much these days. When my wife says it, I kinda believe it. When I watch her struggle to keep Dizzy Devil still on the floor during story time...I believe it wholeheartedly. She looked back at me like I was supposed to lend some advice...share a trade secret of how I get her to sit still when I take her to story time. Not a chance in hell. She gave me the Bernie Mac look: "Summa ma bitch! Imma bust yo head to the white meat." I just smiled. I make it look too easy sometimes and the only way you'll respect the magician is if you fail horribly at duplicating his trick.
So anyway, after all of that was over, I went shopping to get Christmas out of the way. She's two, so I'm not going all out. She won't remember this anyway. When she can be scarred by the memories, then I'll put some effort into it, but for now a wrapped up empty toilet paper roll will do just fine. "Look baby, it's a telescope...and a microphone...and a drumstick." I got her two Angry Bird plush toys ($10), some used Dr Seuss books (12 books at $3 each), and a Minnie Mouse folding table set ($30). That lady that I married wants to get her a toy kitchen. I say we get her a step ladder and put it in the real kitchen.
(Note to self: Take pictures with Santa this year...or do what you did last year: Take pictures of Santa, but conveniently position her in the shot so that it looks like she's standing next to him like people do with the Eiffel Tower.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Black Friday After Next
The concept of Black Friday confounds me. My family has never been big on holidays, especially Thanksgiving. We get together to eat, but the emotion that you see in movies or Folgers Coffee commercials is kinda phoned in when it comes to us. There's usually not enough gas left in the tank to hang out together the day after Thanksgiving, which is probably why I never heard of Black Friday until college.
This girl asked me what my plans were for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. I had the same pause in my brain that you get when someone uses a word that you don't know. The first thing that popped in my head was Good Friday. Maybe Black Friday was a Roman Catholic holiday. Perhaps it's the day that the first Bible scripture was written. Not wanting to sound stupid, I said, "Oh we go to church." I kinda liked the girl and would've said anything at that point.
When I got back to the room I "Altavista'd" Black Friday (Google wasn't popular yet). I liked my assumption better. I am too cheap to appreciate Black Friday. It's counterintuitive, I know. You'd think that I'd be first in line to buy something, but instead I find myself angry at the realization of just how much retailers markup their products. If you can sell me this TV for $150 today, then why in the hell were you trying to sell it to me for $500 last week?
I understand business, profit margins, marketing psychology and all of that. I know that you're only doing it to lure people in when you probably only have five in stock, but still...it's the principle of the thing. "It's principalities, Smokey." I'm not standing in line for hours just so that I can get inside and fight people for the right to hand you my money. Not while Amazon has the same deals online and I can do it from my house. lol
To those of you patient enough to do it...Happy Hunting. For the lazy, cheap and arrogant bastards like myself...Have another swim in your money bin.
This girl asked me what my plans were for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. I had the same pause in my brain that you get when someone uses a word that you don't know. The first thing that popped in my head was Good Friday. Maybe Black Friday was a Roman Catholic holiday. Perhaps it's the day that the first Bible scripture was written. Not wanting to sound stupid, I said, "Oh we go to church." I kinda liked the girl and would've said anything at that point.
When I got back to the room I "Altavista'd" Black Friday (Google wasn't popular yet). I liked my assumption better. I am too cheap to appreciate Black Friday. It's counterintuitive, I know. You'd think that I'd be first in line to buy something, but instead I find myself angry at the realization of just how much retailers markup their products. If you can sell me this TV for $150 today, then why in the hell were you trying to sell it to me for $500 last week?
I understand business, profit margins, marketing psychology and all of that. I know that you're only doing it to lure people in when you probably only have five in stock, but still...it's the principle of the thing. "It's principalities, Smokey." I'm not standing in line for hours just so that I can get inside and fight people for the right to hand you my money. Not while Amazon has the same deals online and I can do it from my house. lol
To those of you patient enough to do it...Happy Hunting. For the lazy, cheap and arrogant bastards like myself...Have another swim in your money bin.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Elmo's World
Kevin Clash resigned? How did I miss this yesterday? It is too tacky to make jokes about him, Elmo or pedophilia. I'll say this though...
What the hell is going to happen with Elmo? The people at Sesame Street are too smart to not have a line of succession already established. The minute the first person got shot for a Tickle Me Elmo they had five people auditioning to replace Kevin Clash one day. My question is will it work. Elmo is a god, Elmo's World is his televangelism and Sesame Place is the Vatican. Whoever takes that job better come correct. The first missed inflection or first-person slip up (Elmo never says "I") and heads are going to roll. I bought a Sesame Street book that came with an audio CD that was not voiced by Clash. My daughter looked at me like "Who the hell is this?" That thing is in a landfill now. I can see an army of toddlers descending on Sesame Place in Pennsylvania. That place is gonna look like Iraq in '03 with statues of Elmo toppling over.
I don't know what's going to happen, but if they're smart they'll just keep running the same reruns of Elmo's World like they've been doing.
What the hell is going to happen with Elmo? The people at Sesame Street are too smart to not have a line of succession already established. The minute the first person got shot for a Tickle Me Elmo they had five people auditioning to replace Kevin Clash one day. My question is will it work. Elmo is a god, Elmo's World is his televangelism and Sesame Place is the Vatican. Whoever takes that job better come correct. The first missed inflection or first-person slip up (Elmo never says "I") and heads are going to roll. I bought a Sesame Street book that came with an audio CD that was not voiced by Clash. My daughter looked at me like "Who the hell is this?" That thing is in a landfill now. I can see an army of toddlers descending on Sesame Place in Pennsylvania. That place is gonna look like Iraq in '03 with statues of Elmo toppling over.
I don't know what's going to happen, but if they're smart they'll just keep running the same reruns of Elmo's World like they've been doing.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Beating Free Zone
Not much to talk about today. Feeling kinda sick. The child got on my last nerve yesterday to the point that I had one of those headaches that I only hear about in Tylenol commercials. In reality, I've never seen someone have a headache that's so bad that they start rubbing their temples while looking constipated, but that's what I was doing yesterday. I'm old school. I'm from an era where whenever a kid does something that you don't like, you just yell at them until they stop. Half the time the kid doesn't know what you're talking about or why you're angry so they keep doing whatever it is that they're doing which causes you to either keep yelling or switch to asswhipping mode. That's where I'm from. That's not where I live now.
I live on the other side of Asswhipsylvania. Over here we're still waking up with night terrors from our own childhood beatings, so we're a little more cautious about breaking out the Hot Wheels tracks and extension cords. I'm thirty years old and I STILL remember the last two beatings that I got. There was the Thrilla in Manila of Summer 1986 and then the Rumble in the Jungle of Spring 1987. That's right. The last beating I got occurred when I was only four years old. Most "urban" children have at least one beating that took place in their teens. They look at me and say, "Oh you must have been spoiled because you didn't get a beating anytime after pre-kindergarten." Nope. Don't assume I was spoiled just because your parents were entry-level ass whippers. My grandmother mastered the craft and my mother was her apprentice. Obi-Wan and Anakin all day everyday.
I've written about this before I think, so there's no need to go into a long detailed story. The first one happened outside of a church. My grandmother was singing as part of the guest choir at a church and I was sitting in the audience standing up on a pew trying to climb out of the window because apparently I was bored. My grandmother came down out of the choir loft, walked me outside and beat the hell out of me with the same cat o' nine tails that they beat Jesus with at the crucifixion. And just like Jesus...I wept.
The next and final beating took place in Brooklyn. You haven't lived a full life until you've been beat down in Brooklyn. We were at my great-grandmother's house and my mother decided to go hang out with her cousins. I wanted to go, she said no and I don't know what the hell was wrong with me but the word "Why" came out of my mouth. "Why" is a curse word in black households. The next thing I knew she was taking the paddle ball that I was playing with and beating the hell out of me (while still maintaining a rhythm to keep paddling the ball). I screamed and hollered to the smooth percussion of my own beating. It was so bad, that just the memory of it stopped me from doing anything beating-worthy for the rest of my life.
So anyway, with all of that said, my daughter got on my last nerve and if I were my mother or grandmother, then she would probably be pulling Payless 'Highlights' women's shoe rubber out of her behind. Because I am not them, she lives to sit normally another day, while I have a blinding headache that's been going on for two straight days. What's so hard about laying down the hammer is that I can tell when she's acting out on purpose and when she's just emotional, frustrated or unaware that what she's doing is wrong. I just know. Nothing she did yesterday was 'demonic.' It was just her being a kid. Her job is to ask me to read Fox in Socks 54 times. My job is to not try and paper cut my wrists with the book.
It's okay. I'll be avenged one day. When I show up to her high school wearing combat boots, a tiara, a too-too and long fur coat and then walk around making sure that everyone knows I'm her father...she'll cry and ask why. I'm going to point to this day.
I live on the other side of Asswhipsylvania. Over here we're still waking up with night terrors from our own childhood beatings, so we're a little more cautious about breaking out the Hot Wheels tracks and extension cords. I'm thirty years old and I STILL remember the last two beatings that I got. There was the Thrilla in Manila of Summer 1986 and then the Rumble in the Jungle of Spring 1987. That's right. The last beating I got occurred when I was only four years old. Most "urban" children have at least one beating that took place in their teens. They look at me and say, "Oh you must have been spoiled because you didn't get a beating anytime after pre-kindergarten." Nope. Don't assume I was spoiled just because your parents were entry-level ass whippers. My grandmother mastered the craft and my mother was her apprentice. Obi-Wan and Anakin all day everyday.
I've written about this before I think, so there's no need to go into a long detailed story. The first one happened outside of a church. My grandmother was singing as part of the guest choir at a church and I was sitting in the audience standing up on a pew trying to climb out of the window because apparently I was bored. My grandmother came down out of the choir loft, walked me outside and beat the hell out of me with the same cat o' nine tails that they beat Jesus with at the crucifixion. And just like Jesus...I wept.
The next and final beating took place in Brooklyn. You haven't lived a full life until you've been beat down in Brooklyn. We were at my great-grandmother's house and my mother decided to go hang out with her cousins. I wanted to go, she said no and I don't know what the hell was wrong with me but the word "Why" came out of my mouth. "Why" is a curse word in black households. The next thing I knew she was taking the paddle ball that I was playing with and beating the hell out of me (while still maintaining a rhythm to keep paddling the ball). I screamed and hollered to the smooth percussion of my own beating. It was so bad, that just the memory of it stopped me from doing anything beating-worthy for the rest of my life.
So anyway, with all of that said, my daughter got on my last nerve and if I were my mother or grandmother, then she would probably be pulling Payless 'Highlights' women's shoe rubber out of her behind. Because I am not them, she lives to sit normally another day, while I have a blinding headache that's been going on for two straight days. What's so hard about laying down the hammer is that I can tell when she's acting out on purpose and when she's just emotional, frustrated or unaware that what she's doing is wrong. I just know. Nothing she did yesterday was 'demonic.' It was just her being a kid. Her job is to ask me to read Fox in Socks 54 times. My job is to not try and paper cut my wrists with the book.
It's okay. I'll be avenged one day. When I show up to her high school wearing combat boots, a tiara, a too-too and long fur coat and then walk around making sure that everyone knows I'm her father...she'll cry and ask why. I'm going to point to this day.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
And in Other News...
I'm sitting here reading the news and I gotta say that DC never fails to disappoint. I remember my first day of college. The breaking story was an overnight burglary at a furniture store. I remember thinking to myself, "That made the news?" The entire first week of school I listened to local residents caution me about how dangerous Durham, NC was. "Be careful out there. There are gangs in Durham." I used to respond with, "Really? That's it? DC is so bad, I expect pigeon or a squirrel to pull out a gun and shoot me one day."
So anyway let's see...
Stabbing at Woodley Park Metro. Two guys got jumped and robbed in Adams Morgan and instead of reporting it, they say that they followed the robbers to the subway and confronted them. The robbers pulled out a knife and stabbed the two guys, killing one of them. This goes to show that standing up for yourself in is the last thing you want to do in this city.
Speaking of robberies, somebody robbed a man at an ATM machine while the victim's four year old daughter was standing right there. No church in the wild, I guess. You would think that with a kid present that maybe someone's heart would grow two sizes too big and they'd leave you alone, but that's not the case in this place. Personally, I find that people (drivers mostly) see me and my daughter as moving targets that earn them bonus points should they successfully take us out.
On a lighter note, a new study shows that eating fish out of the Anacostia River is a really bad idea. Not sure who in their right mind would eat anything that comes out of there, but it's good to know. For those unfamiliar with the Anacostia River, it's a moving body of liquid...I guess you can technically call it water. It doubles as the runoff for our storm water and sewage overflows. So basically whenever it rains for more than ten minutes our sewers back up and all of that "stuff" feeds into the river. I don't think people catch fish so much as maybe the fish are willing to take their chances on land and thus see baited hooks as a better alternative to staying in there. If you've caught and eaten a fish from there and are still alive, I invite you to drop me a line. You don't have to comment on this site. Just use whatever telepathic powers you've gained since consumption and send the message to me using your mind.
I'm done reading the news for today. That's just the first three articles I saw. I'll save the rest for tomorrow.
So anyway let's see...
Stabbing at Woodley Park Metro. Two guys got jumped and robbed in Adams Morgan and instead of reporting it, they say that they followed the robbers to the subway and confronted them. The robbers pulled out a knife and stabbed the two guys, killing one of them. This goes to show that standing up for yourself in is the last thing you want to do in this city.
Speaking of robberies, somebody robbed a man at an ATM machine while the victim's four year old daughter was standing right there. No church in the wild, I guess. You would think that with a kid present that maybe someone's heart would grow two sizes too big and they'd leave you alone, but that's not the case in this place. Personally, I find that people (drivers mostly) see me and my daughter as moving targets that earn them bonus points should they successfully take us out.
On a lighter note, a new study shows that eating fish out of the Anacostia River is a really bad idea. Not sure who in their right mind would eat anything that comes out of there, but it's good to know. For those unfamiliar with the Anacostia River, it's a moving body of liquid...I guess you can technically call it water. It doubles as the runoff for our storm water and sewage overflows. So basically whenever it rains for more than ten minutes our sewers back up and all of that "stuff" feeds into the river. I don't think people catch fish so much as maybe the fish are willing to take their chances on land and thus see baited hooks as a better alternative to staying in there. If you've caught and eaten a fish from there and are still alive, I invite you to drop me a line. You don't have to comment on this site. Just use whatever telepathic powers you've gained since consumption and send the message to me using your mind.
I'm done reading the news for today. That's just the first three articles I saw. I'll save the rest for tomorrow.
Friday, November 16, 2012
4:59AM
It is 6:07 Friday morning. I'm running away. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm gonna sleep when I get there. You can't make this shit up. First off, the "child" (and I use that term loosely) woke up Thursday morning around 9 AM. The only reason she woke up at 9 is because she went to sleep around midnight the night before (don't ask). So she woke up at 9. We began our broadcast day with some breakfast and a few songs for morning devotion: "I pledge allegiance to my daddy, the coolest mofo in America, and to his Republic, which isn't likely to stand. One daddy and a mommy, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Sometime after that we watched the Clockwork Orange shows on Disney Junior and then we went on our field trip down to the National Mall. I let her run free from the Tidal Basin all the way to the WWII memorial. We did a few laps around the Washington Monument and then ran up to the American History Museum where we looked at the big trains down in the basement and sat in the replica of the Chicago 'L' for a while watching the little movie on the wall. Then we ran all the way back to the car.
Two hours of that was enough to make me tired, but I'm old compared to her. She got home and ran around the house like the Tazmanian Devil that she is and pulled every doll, toy and mega block from its place and methodically laid them out on the floor like the little sharp pointy landmines that they are. Then she ate about $20 worth of groceries and bounced around the house some more. Other stuff happened that isn't interesting enough to write about, but was loud or destructive enough to etch across my soul and around eight o'clock when the normal two year olds of the world were winding down to go to bed, she was crushing up some No-Doz into a powder, spreading it out in a line on a mirror and snorting it through rolled up play money.
10PM came and went and she was still wide awake. The natural assumption is that she had a bunch of sugar or something throughout the day. Nope. She doesn't like sweets. Not cookies, not candy, not juice, not anything that would explain this nonstop energy that she has. She didn't have a long nap during the day. In fact, she didn't have a nap at all. She was up from 9AM until 1AM...taunting me. She's like Puffy. When she was a baby she used to hum, "I thought I told you that we won't stop, I thought I told you that we won't stop."
So anyway, around 1AM she figured that most of the clubs were closing and there was nothing else she could get into, so she went to sleep. Just to fuck with me, my wife gave me this false hope..."Since she went to sleep so late, you can probably bank on sleeping in tomorrow. There's no way she's gonna get up early." The devil is a liar.
4:59AM--I was dreaming that I was asleep. That's how tired I am these days. When other men are dreaming about God knows what (or who), I'm dreaming that I'm laying in a king-sized bed in a quiet soundproof room. So anyway at 4:59 my dream is brought to a halt by what I assume is the song that plays on the elevator ride down to hell:
"We're going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship, zooming through the sky. Little Einsteins!"
My daughter has an Eastern European Immigrant's grasp of the English language EXCEPT when it comes to one of those damned cartoons. Then, all of a sudden, she's an audio CD of Webster's Dictionary. At 4:59 and zero seconds she was standing in front of our bed singing that song. "We're going on a mission. Start the countdown! Five, four, three, two one!" (I'm thinking to myself, "If this isn't a dream, you're going on a mission to an adoption agency.")
If you read my posts often then you know that I have serious problems with insomnia. If I wake up, I'm up. My wife can go to sleep running up a mountain, so don't think I'm insensitive in this case, but while trying to keep my eyes closed and not wake up completely, I started kicking my wife. "Get up. She needs you. Where's your maternal instinct to protect? She's about to be placed into foster care. Save her!" My wife rolls over like she doesn't hear shit. My daughter starts lifting my eyelids. "We need you! Little Einstens, YEAH!"
At 5:01 AM and twelve seconds, I got up and kept repeating to myself "She's just a baby. She's just a baby." I walked her to the bathroom. She went. I tried to explain to her that it was 5 in the morning and that she'd only slept for four hours, but she wouldn't go back to sleep. So for the last hour or so we've been watching Little Einsteins and eating Cheerios. I've been keeping myself entertained with the thought of either running away or building a tree out of Mega Blocks and hanging myself from it.
...sigh
Sometime after that we watched the Clockwork Orange shows on Disney Junior and then we went on our field trip down to the National Mall. I let her run free from the Tidal Basin all the way to the WWII memorial. We did a few laps around the Washington Monument and then ran up to the American History Museum where we looked at the big trains down in the basement and sat in the replica of the Chicago 'L' for a while watching the little movie on the wall. Then we ran all the way back to the car.
Two hours of that was enough to make me tired, but I'm old compared to her. She got home and ran around the house like the Tazmanian Devil that she is and pulled every doll, toy and mega block from its place and methodically laid them out on the floor like the little sharp pointy landmines that they are. Then she ate about $20 worth of groceries and bounced around the house some more. Other stuff happened that isn't interesting enough to write about, but was loud or destructive enough to etch across my soul and around eight o'clock when the normal two year olds of the world were winding down to go to bed, she was crushing up some No-Doz into a powder, spreading it out in a line on a mirror and snorting it through rolled up play money.
10PM came and went and she was still wide awake. The natural assumption is that she had a bunch of sugar or something throughout the day. Nope. She doesn't like sweets. Not cookies, not candy, not juice, not anything that would explain this nonstop energy that she has. She didn't have a long nap during the day. In fact, she didn't have a nap at all. She was up from 9AM until 1AM...taunting me. She's like Puffy. When she was a baby she used to hum, "I thought I told you that we won't stop, I thought I told you that we won't stop."
So anyway, around 1AM she figured that most of the clubs were closing and there was nothing else she could get into, so she went to sleep. Just to fuck with me, my wife gave me this false hope..."Since she went to sleep so late, you can probably bank on sleeping in tomorrow. There's no way she's gonna get up early." The devil is a liar.
4:59AM--I was dreaming that I was asleep. That's how tired I am these days. When other men are dreaming about God knows what (or who), I'm dreaming that I'm laying in a king-sized bed in a quiet soundproof room. So anyway at 4:59 my dream is brought to a halt by what I assume is the song that plays on the elevator ride down to hell:
"We're going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship, zooming through the sky. Little Einsteins!"
My daughter has an Eastern European Immigrant's grasp of the English language EXCEPT when it comes to one of those damned cartoons. Then, all of a sudden, she's an audio CD of Webster's Dictionary. At 4:59 and zero seconds she was standing in front of our bed singing that song. "We're going on a mission. Start the countdown! Five, four, three, two one!" (I'm thinking to myself, "If this isn't a dream, you're going on a mission to an adoption agency.")
If you read my posts often then you know that I have serious problems with insomnia. If I wake up, I'm up. My wife can go to sleep running up a mountain, so don't think I'm insensitive in this case, but while trying to keep my eyes closed and not wake up completely, I started kicking my wife. "Get up. She needs you. Where's your maternal instinct to protect? She's about to be placed into foster care. Save her!" My wife rolls over like she doesn't hear shit. My daughter starts lifting my eyelids. "We need you! Little Einstens, YEAH!"
At 5:01 AM and twelve seconds, I got up and kept repeating to myself "She's just a baby. She's just a baby." I walked her to the bathroom. She went. I tried to explain to her that it was 5 in the morning and that she'd only slept for four hours, but she wouldn't go back to sleep. So for the last hour or so we've been watching Little Einsteins and eating Cheerios. I've been keeping myself entertained with the thought of either running away or building a tree out of Mega Blocks and hanging myself from it.
...sigh
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Nyquil Will Help You Get Your Zzz's
I hope to post something 'real' tomorrow (it's 11PM Wednesday) but I just took some Zzzquil and I'm looking forward to seeing my mistress (sleep) tonight. I haven't slept in like three days. I don't wanna get an actual prescription for Ambien because I remember what those lunatics were like when they'd call me on the (Health Insurance Company) phones. "You people declined my prescription for Ambien. I can't sleep without it. I'm gonna kill your entire family!" I don't want to become that. Those people were just a step below the Viagra men. "Why can't I get 30 pills?" Because it was originally a heart attack drug and it might kill you. "Well I'm willing to take that risk! I'm gonna kill your whole family!" To avoid becoming a druggie I try to spread my Zzzquil habit out so that my body doesn't get hip and develop a tolerance for it.
So anyway, that's what's going on in my world. I feel the need to explain myself because I am now at like 20 regular readers. Not exactly enough to throw up ads and retire off the revenue stream, but it's more than the two I used to have a year ago. I'm *this* close to blowing up.
A.D.D. Moment...
Did Mitt Romney just come across my television screen and say that Obama won because he gave 'gifts' to his voters? Why Mitt? You were doing so well with the classy disappearance from public view. I actually respected you for that. Per a brief scanning of a CNN article, apparently R-Money made a call to his top donors this morning thanking them for their support and explaining that Obama won because he offered incentives that equate to real money aka gifts. Example: Obamacare. He says that for some people that is adds up to a $10,000 gift.
Healthcare is a gift now? What the fuck is being sick? A blessing in disguise? Dude, I've been in the hospital a few times. I had almost a $200k bill for heart surgery. At no point did I equate my deductible with a birthday present. I get what you're saying...it's a financial burden lifted and subsidized by the government and thus you see it as a gift. Wow. Okay. You need to answer some phones at a health insurance company.
What else did he say? (Scanning...) You raised $900 million? Daaaamn! He said that he feels special because he only expected about half a million. You know who I feel bad for? Those little kids I see in front of Dick's Sporting Goods trying to raise money to buy cheerleading uniforms to go to Regionals. Tell rich people you're gonna make them even more money and you get almost a billion dollars. Stand in the hot ass sun selling nasty melted chocolate bars and you get $43. Wow.
It's a strange world we live in. You give a billion dollars to help someone else get a job. Imagine if every time you logged into Monster.com somebody handed you a check for $50.
So anyway, that's what's going on in my world. I feel the need to explain myself because I am now at like 20 regular readers. Not exactly enough to throw up ads and retire off the revenue stream, but it's more than the two I used to have a year ago. I'm *this* close to blowing up.
A.D.D. Moment...
Did Mitt Romney just come across my television screen and say that Obama won because he gave 'gifts' to his voters? Why Mitt? You were doing so well with the classy disappearance from public view. I actually respected you for that. Per a brief scanning of a CNN article, apparently R-Money made a call to his top donors this morning thanking them for their support and explaining that Obama won because he offered incentives that equate to real money aka gifts. Example: Obamacare. He says that for some people that is adds up to a $10,000 gift.
Healthcare is a gift now? What the fuck is being sick? A blessing in disguise? Dude, I've been in the hospital a few times. I had almost a $200k bill for heart surgery. At no point did I equate my deductible with a birthday present. I get what you're saying...it's a financial burden lifted and subsidized by the government and thus you see it as a gift. Wow. Okay. You need to answer some phones at a health insurance company.
What else did he say? (Scanning...) You raised $900 million? Daaaamn! He said that he feels special because he only expected about half a million. You know who I feel bad for? Those little kids I see in front of Dick's Sporting Goods trying to raise money to buy cheerleading uniforms to go to Regionals. Tell rich people you're gonna make them even more money and you get almost a billion dollars. Stand in the hot ass sun selling nasty melted chocolate bars and you get $43. Wow.
It's a strange world we live in. You give a billion dollars to help someone else get a job. Imagine if every time you logged into Monster.com somebody handed you a check for $50.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Say It Ain't So, Elmo
Damn. On the same day that I post my rant about Sesame Street taking advantage of me with their live performance prices a report comes out that Kevin Clash (Elmo) is taking a leave of absence following allegations that he had a relationship with a 16 year old boy. The accuser is now 23, and apparently Clash doesn't deny their relationship, but he insists that nothing happened until the boy was of legal age.
I don't know if it's true or not, but why put yourself in that situation in the first place? I had a teacher in school that everyone suspected of sleeping with his students. There was no proof that he was doing that, but he came into my theater one day on a date with one who'd just graduated. Again, why put yourself in that situation?
It's stuff like this that makes me nervous whenever little kids come around and show some type of interest in me. I don't mean in a sexual way, but just period. I'm silly and I've always been good with kids. Perhaps it stems from my being the family babysitter starting around six or seven years old, but for whatever reason kids always seem to find me entertaining. Unfortunately, there are too many pedophiles in the world and I refuse to be mistaken as being one.
Kids on the playground try to play with me and my daughter because I'm an enigma to them. Half the nannies sit around talking to one another while the kids eat the sand in the sandbox. If their real parents are there then they sit around on their phones doing work. Kids see me army crawling down the slide behind my daughter or hanging upside down off the monkey bars and they quickly gravitate towards the fun guy...and I quickly fling their little asses right back out of our orbit.
"Mister, can you put me on the monkey bars too?"
"Absolutely not. Go find your real parents."
"Can I play with you guys?"
"In this little toy house with me, a grown man, that's just out of sight of your father? Hell no. Go finish licking leaves or whatever it is that you were doing."
Maybe it's paranoia or overreacting, but if Michael Jackson had been half as paranoid then things would've gone completely different for him. If I were famous and it was a kid's dying wish to meet me, then I'd meet him at a Popeyes or something, buy him a two-piece and throw in an extra biscuit. That's it. We're not climbing trees together and you're sure as hell not spending the night at my house. I don't care if your family was homeless. I'd visit you at the shelter and the press could take pictures of me presenting you guys with a space heater.
You won't catch me slipping.
I don't know if it's true or not, but why put yourself in that situation in the first place? I had a teacher in school that everyone suspected of sleeping with his students. There was no proof that he was doing that, but he came into my theater one day on a date with one who'd just graduated. Again, why put yourself in that situation?
It's stuff like this that makes me nervous whenever little kids come around and show some type of interest in me. I don't mean in a sexual way, but just period. I'm silly and I've always been good with kids. Perhaps it stems from my being the family babysitter starting around six or seven years old, but for whatever reason kids always seem to find me entertaining. Unfortunately, there are too many pedophiles in the world and I refuse to be mistaken as being one.
Kids on the playground try to play with me and my daughter because I'm an enigma to them. Half the nannies sit around talking to one another while the kids eat the sand in the sandbox. If their real parents are there then they sit around on their phones doing work. Kids see me army crawling down the slide behind my daughter or hanging upside down off the monkey bars and they quickly gravitate towards the fun guy...and I quickly fling their little asses right back out of our orbit.
"Mister, can you put me on the monkey bars too?"
"Absolutely not. Go find your real parents."
"Can I play with you guys?"
"In this little toy house with me, a grown man, that's just out of sight of your father? Hell no. Go finish licking leaves or whatever it is that you were doing."
Maybe it's paranoia or overreacting, but if Michael Jackson had been half as paranoid then things would've gone completely different for him. If I were famous and it was a kid's dying wish to meet me, then I'd meet him at a Popeyes or something, buy him a two-piece and throw in an extra biscuit. That's it. We're not climbing trees together and you're sure as hell not spending the night at my house. I don't care if your family was homeless. I'd visit you at the shelter and the press could take pictures of me presenting you guys with a space heater.
You won't catch me slipping.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Dear Big Bird
As a stay at home parent in a downtrodden economy I'd like to say, on behalf of all broke people everywhere, Elmo, Big Bird and any of those other people at Sesame Street Live can kiss my ass! $90 for floor seats? Not total, but $90 each! Really? Talk about forgetting where the hell you came from. Didn't you muppets start on PBS akaPublic Broadcasting Service?As far as I'm concerned, every building on Sesame Street is public housing aka the projects. How dare you project dwelling bastards ask me for $90 when I've given so much to keep the lights running on Sesame Street. I bet if Mitt Romney had won you would've been humble and come up here with some sensible prices.
For $90 my daughter deserves more than just a folding chair down on the floor. She deserves to ride into the arena on a snuffalupolous' back and then sit in an arm chair stuffed with 100% Big Bird down feathers. She better get a free autographed program and the last page better have a map that tells me how to get...how to get to Sesame Street.
Since that's not what we're gonna get, we're not going. I refuse to pay you that much for floor seats and anything cheaper will probably require us to look up at the screen to know what's going on. If I wanted to watch Sesame Street on a screen I'd stay home and do it for free.
For $90 my daughter deserves more than just a folding chair down on the floor. She deserves to ride into the arena on a snuffalupolous' back and then sit in an arm chair stuffed with 100% Big Bird down feathers. She better get a free autographed program and the last page better have a map that tells me how to get...how to get to Sesame Street.
Since that's not what we're gonna get, we're not going. I refuse to pay you that much for floor seats and anything cheaper will probably require us to look up at the screen to know what's going on. If I wanted to watch Sesame Street on a screen I'd stay home and do it for free.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Children's Story
Once upon time not long ago,
I was riding the 90 bus home. For you home-gamers playing from out of town, the 90 bus goes to Anacostia, which would be the part of Mufasa's kingdom where the light doesn't touch and therefore Simba mustn't go. During rush hour the conditions on that bus mirror the Middle Passage. It used to be so packed that people used to sit underneath the seats.
So anyway, there I was riding in bondage on my way to the forgotten world. I was sitting in the back because, at that age, the concept of Rosa Parks was still lost on me when this dude in a puffy coat got on. His man in the back whistled or cooed or clucked...I don't know what word describes the hood noise that people make to get someone's attention, but you know what I'm talking about. After he finished arguing with the bus driver about his transfer he made his way to the back. Now this was back when DC buses still gave out transfers and people used to A) hand them out the window to a friend waiting to get on or B) paste/tape/hold real tight two transfers together to make it look like it was valid.
So anyway, the dude got on and then somehow squeezed his way through all those people to get to the back where his friend was standing. Normally people would curse you out for doing that, but let's just say that this dude had the kinda face that opened doors (and pockets and wallets) that would otherwise be closed to the average person. It was a look that you were just too afraid to say no to. He made his way to the back and they started talking real loud about some ignorant deed that happened a couple of days before. To write it verbatim is too much for even my potty mouth, so let's just say that they were chilling out, maxin, relaxing all cool while shooting some b-ball outside of the school when a couple of guys who were up to no good started makin trouble in their neighborhood.
So about two stops later, what happens? A guy gets on and what do these two dudes say? "Oh shit, that's that nigga right there!" Now everybody in the back of the bus already heard what they were gonna do if they ever ran into the dudes again, so when we all discover that one of them is on the bus alone, our hearts immediately go out to him. None of us are gonna say anything, as a matter of fact if the police are asking I don't even remember being on a bus that day. For all I can remember, it was black history month and I was trying to honor Dr. King by walking across the 11th Street Bridge.
The survivalist and military strategist in me starts thinking, "Please take your ignorant shit up off this bus. Please don't let that dude look or come back here." What happens? Dude looks toward the back to see if there's any space because all black people are magically drawn to the back of the bus. He doesn't see Thing 1 and Thing 2 in the back so he forces his way to the back. Then he sees them. They exchange glances at first while me and this older black lady sitting across from me do the same thing. She hangs her head as if to say "Here we go."
Thing 1 says "What the fuck you looking at?"
Thing 2 adds, "Bitch ass nigga."
New guy says, "What, nigga? Come say that shit in my face."
Thing 1: You a bitch. I'll fuck your ass up.
New guy: Step off this bus motherfucker. Let's see if you talk all that shit then.
Me (internally): Yeah step off this bus.
At this point I'm working on an exit strategy. The bus was in motion and again, for the out of towners, bus drivers stay out of conflict. Unless you're messing with them, they don't see nothing. So my plan was to keep these three separated using only the power of my mind. As long as there were about five people between them, I had a 70% chance of all five of them getting shot before I did.
Then the big dude sitting next to me rang the bell, got up and got off.
Me (internally): Bitch ass nigga. You were my backup body shield. Fuck!
Old lady sitting across from me (speaking to me telepathically): Bitch ass nigga. He was gonna be MY body shield.
Thing 2: We aint gotta step off the bus, nigga! Aint nothing but space and opportunity.
Me (internally): There's a lot more space off the bus.
So now my plan has shifted to pulling that little red lever on the window and jumping out, but only if they start shooting. I'm preparing myself mentally to tuck and roll on the way down. I figure there are enough empty packs of Newport and Chicken Wing styrofoam trays on any southeast street to cushion my fall.
New guy says, "Fuck it then. Let's go. What you wanna do. I'll light this whole motherfucking bus up!"
Thing 2 reaches into his puffy coat and says "You aint the only one nigga."
The bus driver is now looking up in the mirror and I see his hand motioning toward the thing that opens the door which tells me that he's planning to jump out himself. The old lady holds her bag up as if it's made out of Kevlar.
New guy starts walking to the back with his hand in his coat
Thing 2 walks toward new guy
I realize that the fucking lever is broke on the window and then
These two niggas pull their hands out of their coats, give each other dap and start laughing. One of them looks around the bus and says, "Yall were scared like shit weren't yall. You see ya man get up and get off the bus and shit." I'm thinking to myself, "Fuck yall!" Then one of them says, "Yall just as bad as them white folks. Just because two niggas start beefing you assume they gonna light the bus up and shit." (Yeah, right. Racial profiling.)
So the old lady promptly starts cursing them out and they explain that they're in some drama program and do this just to mess with people on the bus. "Yo let's hop on the 92!" They get off and I guess they go do the same ignorant shit on the 92.
I was riding the 90 bus home. For you home-gamers playing from out of town, the 90 bus goes to Anacostia, which would be the part of Mufasa's kingdom where the light doesn't touch and therefore Simba mustn't go. During rush hour the conditions on that bus mirror the Middle Passage. It used to be so packed that people used to sit underneath the seats.
So anyway, there I was riding in bondage on my way to the forgotten world. I was sitting in the back because, at that age, the concept of Rosa Parks was still lost on me when this dude in a puffy coat got on. His man in the back whistled or cooed or clucked...I don't know what word describes the hood noise that people make to get someone's attention, but you know what I'm talking about. After he finished arguing with the bus driver about his transfer he made his way to the back. Now this was back when DC buses still gave out transfers and people used to A) hand them out the window to a friend waiting to get on or B) paste/tape/hold real tight two transfers together to make it look like it was valid.
So anyway, the dude got on and then somehow squeezed his way through all those people to get to the back where his friend was standing. Normally people would curse you out for doing that, but let's just say that this dude had the kinda face that opened doors (and pockets and wallets) that would otherwise be closed to the average person. It was a look that you were just too afraid to say no to. He made his way to the back and they started talking real loud about some ignorant deed that happened a couple of days before. To write it verbatim is too much for even my potty mouth, so let's just say that they were chilling out, maxin, relaxing all cool while shooting some b-ball outside of the school when a couple of guys who were up to no good started makin trouble in their neighborhood.
So about two stops later, what happens? A guy gets on and what do these two dudes say? "Oh shit, that's that nigga right there!" Now everybody in the back of the bus already heard what they were gonna do if they ever ran into the dudes again, so when we all discover that one of them is on the bus alone, our hearts immediately go out to him. None of us are gonna say anything, as a matter of fact if the police are asking I don't even remember being on a bus that day. For all I can remember, it was black history month and I was trying to honor Dr. King by walking across the 11th Street Bridge.
The survivalist and military strategist in me starts thinking, "Please take your ignorant shit up off this bus. Please don't let that dude look or come back here." What happens? Dude looks toward the back to see if there's any space because all black people are magically drawn to the back of the bus. He doesn't see Thing 1 and Thing 2 in the back so he forces his way to the back. Then he sees them. They exchange glances at first while me and this older black lady sitting across from me do the same thing. She hangs her head as if to say "Here we go."
Thing 1 says "What the fuck you looking at?"
Thing 2 adds, "Bitch ass nigga."
New guy says, "What, nigga? Come say that shit in my face."
Thing 1: You a bitch. I'll fuck your ass up.
New guy: Step off this bus motherfucker. Let's see if you talk all that shit then.
Me (internally): Yeah step off this bus.
At this point I'm working on an exit strategy. The bus was in motion and again, for the out of towners, bus drivers stay out of conflict. Unless you're messing with them, they don't see nothing. So my plan was to keep these three separated using only the power of my mind. As long as there were about five people between them, I had a 70% chance of all five of them getting shot before I did.
Then the big dude sitting next to me rang the bell, got up and got off.
Me (internally): Bitch ass nigga. You were my backup body shield. Fuck!
Old lady sitting across from me (speaking to me telepathically): Bitch ass nigga. He was gonna be MY body shield.
Thing 2: We aint gotta step off the bus, nigga! Aint nothing but space and opportunity.
Me (internally): There's a lot more space off the bus.
So now my plan has shifted to pulling that little red lever on the window and jumping out, but only if they start shooting. I'm preparing myself mentally to tuck and roll on the way down. I figure there are enough empty packs of Newport and Chicken Wing styrofoam trays on any southeast street to cushion my fall.
New guy says, "Fuck it then. Let's go. What you wanna do. I'll light this whole motherfucking bus up!"
Thing 2 reaches into his puffy coat and says "You aint the only one nigga."
The bus driver is now looking up in the mirror and I see his hand motioning toward the thing that opens the door which tells me that he's planning to jump out himself. The old lady holds her bag up as if it's made out of Kevlar.
New guy starts walking to the back with his hand in his coat
Thing 2 walks toward new guy
I realize that the fucking lever is broke on the window and then
These two niggas pull their hands out of their coats, give each other dap and start laughing. One of them looks around the bus and says, "Yall were scared like shit weren't yall. You see ya man get up and get off the bus and shit." I'm thinking to myself, "Fuck yall!" Then one of them says, "Yall just as bad as them white folks. Just because two niggas start beefing you assume they gonna light the bus up and shit." (Yeah, right. Racial profiling.)
So the old lady promptly starts cursing them out and they explain that they're in some drama program and do this just to mess with people on the bus. "Yo let's hop on the 92!" They get off and I guess they go do the same ignorant shit on the 92.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
And So Begins the Obamery!
So here's the deal: The election is over, Obama won and now begins the winter of my discontent. The Inauguration is coming. As a person who already despises eight out of ten tourists in "my" city, the Inauguration is like the apocalypse to me. Hundreds of thousands of people will descend upon my town and with them comes more traffic jams and even more people Cupid Shuffling across the street.
Worse than that is witnessing what happens when the hustler's ambition hits some of these bammas around here (Yeah I said bammas. I'm feeling DC-ish today). Don't get me wrong, I love a good hustle. Personally, I plan to rent out every cubic inch of my apartment to any out of towner with the right price. I'll staple people to the ceiling if I have to. But what I saw four years ago was just sad. I call it Obamery. Words fail to describe it, so I compiled a brief slideshow.
[slideshow]
Worse than that is witnessing what happens when the hustler's ambition hits some of these bammas around here (Yeah I said bammas. I'm feeling DC-ish today). Don't get me wrong, I love a good hustle. Personally, I plan to rent out every cubic inch of my apartment to any out of towner with the right price. I'll staple people to the ceiling if I have to. But what I saw four years ago was just sad. I call it Obamery. Words fail to describe it, so I compiled a brief slideshow.
[slideshow]
The Winner and Still Champion
I haven't had so many black people exchange 'knowing' glances at me in...well, in four years. I got up early this morning coughing and sick (but still handsome as hell) and went out to the newspaper machine to get a special edition "Obama Beat Mitt Romney's Ass" newspaper. I was greeted by two things.
Thing 1: Newspapers really cost a dollar now? Damn. No wonder they're going out of business.
Thing 2: A black dude at the bus stop looked over at me and said, "Congrats, Congrats!"
That's become the ceremonial greeting between people of the darker persuasion every time a black president gets elected. Suffice to say, twice. I honestly didn't think he'd pull it off. When the healthcare debate was going on I thought to myself, "Well, it was nice while it lasted." He pissed off so many people with that one--he actually pissed off so many people just by showing up the first day--that I figured he was going the route of Jimmy Carter. I sat in the house pissed all night watching the electoral college votes come in one after the other for Romney.
Now if there's one thing that I'll say about the Republicans it's that they're great motivational speakers. Just the mere possibility that they were going to win the presidency and the House made me think that I needed to go back to college to be all I can be. I was thinking about grad school, medical school, clown college, and anywhere else that could help me. The message from some of them is loud and clear: You're on your own.
I started looking for apartments away from coastal and major cities. Once we go to war with the other continents, it'll help to be near a mountainous region. To be fair, the polar bears won't pose much of a threat once global warming melts half of Antarctica down. But then I started flipping channels to see who actually had the correct count. CNN seemed hell bent on being last to the party. They were still tallying votes for John McCain when I switched to the glib folks at CNBC. I watch them daily for stock results, but hate their politics. When I saw a glimmer of despair in Maria Bartiromo's eyes I knew that there might be something there. One more station down was Fox News and the flushed red cheeks of one of their talking heads told me all that I needed to know. He did it.
Barack "Don't Call It A Comeback" Obama did it. Relief isn't even the word. I don't expect any more of a miracle than I did last time, but at least I feel like the person in charge cares. As I've been saying all along, there are three branches of government. I'm just happy to know that one branch that's controlled by one man is at least staffed with someone who knows what it's like to be in my shoes. Everything I've written about from being broke to being too dark for some and too light for others to wanting to strike a balance between where I've been and where I can go...I feel like he's been through all of that. So, no I'm not gonna run around singing that "My President Is Black" song, because I think it's just another divisive form of expression. Instead, I'll say this...my president believes in what I believe in. That doesn't happen too often.
Thing 1: Newspapers really cost a dollar now? Damn. No wonder they're going out of business.
Thing 2: A black dude at the bus stop looked over at me and said, "Congrats, Congrats!"
That's become the ceremonial greeting between people of the darker persuasion every time a black president gets elected. Suffice to say, twice. I honestly didn't think he'd pull it off. When the healthcare debate was going on I thought to myself, "Well, it was nice while it lasted." He pissed off so many people with that one--he actually pissed off so many people just by showing up the first day--that I figured he was going the route of Jimmy Carter. I sat in the house pissed all night watching the electoral college votes come in one after the other for Romney.
Now if there's one thing that I'll say about the Republicans it's that they're great motivational speakers. Just the mere possibility that they were going to win the presidency and the House made me think that I needed to go back to college to be all I can be. I was thinking about grad school, medical school, clown college, and anywhere else that could help me. The message from some of them is loud and clear: You're on your own.
I started looking for apartments away from coastal and major cities. Once we go to war with the other continents, it'll help to be near a mountainous region. To be fair, the polar bears won't pose much of a threat once global warming melts half of Antarctica down. But then I started flipping channels to see who actually had the correct count. CNN seemed hell bent on being last to the party. They were still tallying votes for John McCain when I switched to the glib folks at CNBC. I watch them daily for stock results, but hate their politics. When I saw a glimmer of despair in Maria Bartiromo's eyes I knew that there might be something there. One more station down was Fox News and the flushed red cheeks of one of their talking heads told me all that I needed to know. He did it.
Barack "Don't Call It A Comeback" Obama did it. Relief isn't even the word. I don't expect any more of a miracle than I did last time, but at least I feel like the person in charge cares. As I've been saying all along, there are three branches of government. I'm just happy to know that one branch that's controlled by one man is at least staffed with someone who knows what it's like to be in my shoes. Everything I've written about from being broke to being too dark for some and too light for others to wanting to strike a balance between where I've been and where I can go...I feel like he's been through all of that. So, no I'm not gonna run around singing that "My President Is Black" song, because I think it's just another divisive form of expression. Instead, I'll say this...my president believes in what I believe in. That doesn't happen too often.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Uncle Tom?
I just got back from the polls. Now that I'm 30 I figured I'd be a grown-up and not write my name in for one of the ancillary positions. I still can't believe I didn't win for sheriff a few years back. Anyway, I was standing there in line at Murch Elementary when I realized that I was one of maybe four black people in a crowd of a few hundred. I started to take a picture and update my Facebook status to this:
Reason # 348 why you shouldn't but into the diatribe that white people are evil...they helped elect Obama last time.
DC has been a democratic vote forever. The rich white folks who live in my neighborhood proudly display their Obama paraphernalia in their yards and this morning I saw a sea of Obama hats and bumper stickers. So it kinda pisses me off when I hear people talk like white people only vote Republican and that having a "black" president somehow saves us from imperial rule. First, I like to remind people that Obama is mixed, grew up with his white mom and although he may just look "light skinned," I'm sure that he has love for both sides of his heritage. Second, white people are not the devil.
I don't know why it bothers me so much when I hear black people talk about how white people are out to get them. It started when I was little. When I was little my next door neighbors were white. They had way nicer things than we did, which led five-year-old-me to believe that all white people were rich. They invited me into their house with open arms and I ate dinner with them some nights and watched movies with their family. So one day during Black History Month one of my teachers makes a remark that white people don't like black people. I disagreed with her and she made me stay after class to "talk some sense into me."
She told me that white people shouldn't be trusted and that even if the white people next door to me or the white people at my mother's job were nice to me that it was only because they looked down on me and took pride in being nice to a "nigger." A few days later I had another incident where a different teacher made fun of the only white kid in school and said that his parents must be poor if they couldn't afford to send him to a school with his people.
Now throughout all of this my family was broke as hell and I got the full "inner city black youth" experience. Still, I couldn't understand how white people could be so bad. A few years later I went to college where I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. That put me on this road to Black Pantherism and by the end of freshman year I'd read every speech, essay or book that I could find by anyone who lived through the civil rights movement. I became this dude:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFY2kJ96jNY
Now a funny thing happens when you become afrocentric all of a sudden on the campus of an HBCU. It rarely lasts. I emerged from the library like the character in the Allegory of the Cave. I was ready to lift every voice and sing, march on Washington, and keep our eyes on the prize. Then some girl that I barely knew came by my dorm and invited me to run a train on her with some dudes down the hall. (Um...no) A teacher told me that I was stupid for not cheating on the test with the rest of the class. We had an all-hands meeting in the dorm to discuss the double-digit rapes on campus and the disturbing fact that they had to discard 60% of the blood from the blood drive due to STDs. It was an interesting week.
I wasn't discouraged though. I knew that I was just being tested to see if my convictions were genuine. They were not. After a week back in DC during Winter Break, I decided that not only was the revolution not gonna be televised, it wasn't gonna be starring me. Being in NC had caused a mild form of amnesia. Being shot at and chased down MLK Ave near Anacostia station by some dudes in a car over mistaken identity woke me back up from that amnesia and hammered the final nail in my Black Power coffin.
I'm not saying that all black people are bad just like I'm not saying all white people are good. I'm just saying that I hate blanket statements especially when it comes to race. And I really hate hypocrites who complain about how this country needs to end racism about two sentences before they say something about how white people do this and white people do that. If that makes me an Uncle Tom, then so be it, but to this day I haven't been robbed, chased or jumped by white people. Black people did that...or did they?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3PJF0YE-x4
Reason # 348 why you shouldn't but into the diatribe that white people are evil...they helped elect Obama last time.
DC has been a democratic vote forever. The rich white folks who live in my neighborhood proudly display their Obama paraphernalia in their yards and this morning I saw a sea of Obama hats and bumper stickers. So it kinda pisses me off when I hear people talk like white people only vote Republican and that having a "black" president somehow saves us from imperial rule. First, I like to remind people that Obama is mixed, grew up with his white mom and although he may just look "light skinned," I'm sure that he has love for both sides of his heritage. Second, white people are not the devil.
I don't know why it bothers me so much when I hear black people talk about how white people are out to get them. It started when I was little. When I was little my next door neighbors were white. They had way nicer things than we did, which led five-year-old-me to believe that all white people were rich. They invited me into their house with open arms and I ate dinner with them some nights and watched movies with their family. So one day during Black History Month one of my teachers makes a remark that white people don't like black people. I disagreed with her and she made me stay after class to "talk some sense into me."
She told me that white people shouldn't be trusted and that even if the white people next door to me or the white people at my mother's job were nice to me that it was only because they looked down on me and took pride in being nice to a "nigger." A few days later I had another incident where a different teacher made fun of the only white kid in school and said that his parents must be poor if they couldn't afford to send him to a school with his people.
Now throughout all of this my family was broke as hell and I got the full "inner city black youth" experience. Still, I couldn't understand how white people could be so bad. A few years later I went to college where I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. That put me on this road to Black Pantherism and by the end of freshman year I'd read every speech, essay or book that I could find by anyone who lived through the civil rights movement. I became this dude:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFY2kJ96jNY
Now a funny thing happens when you become afrocentric all of a sudden on the campus of an HBCU. It rarely lasts. I emerged from the library like the character in the Allegory of the Cave. I was ready to lift every voice and sing, march on Washington, and keep our eyes on the prize. Then some girl that I barely knew came by my dorm and invited me to run a train on her with some dudes down the hall. (Um...no) A teacher told me that I was stupid for not cheating on the test with the rest of the class. We had an all-hands meeting in the dorm to discuss the double-digit rapes on campus and the disturbing fact that they had to discard 60% of the blood from the blood drive due to STDs. It was an interesting week.
I wasn't discouraged though. I knew that I was just being tested to see if my convictions were genuine. They were not. After a week back in DC during Winter Break, I decided that not only was the revolution not gonna be televised, it wasn't gonna be starring me. Being in NC had caused a mild form of amnesia. Being shot at and chased down MLK Ave near Anacostia station by some dudes in a car over mistaken identity woke me back up from that amnesia and hammered the final nail in my Black Power coffin.
I'm not saying that all black people are bad just like I'm not saying all white people are good. I'm just saying that I hate blanket statements especially when it comes to race. And I really hate hypocrites who complain about how this country needs to end racism about two sentences before they say something about how white people do this and white people do that. If that makes me an Uncle Tom, then so be it, but to this day I haven't been robbed, chased or jumped by white people. Black people did that...or did they?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3PJF0YE-x4
Monday, November 5, 2012
I'm MIA
To the seven people who visited today (11/5/12) and the 14 who visited yesterday,
I have not forgotten you or abandoned the site. The wife is sick. The child is sick. I am sick. I blame it on my nephew. He's one and a half and if you think my daughter is a gremlin you really need to spend some time with him. It's like he took pride in his role as an Outbreak monkey. He walked around my mother's house coughing in everyone's face and blowing his nose into his hand and then slapping people. I gotta hand it to him...biological warfare is new in the hood. He adapted to it so well.
Anyway, I feel like shit but unlike some people I can't call out sick from my job. My employer shows up at the side of the bed every morning at 6:45 making demands.
"Banana? Banana?"
"I'm sleep. Go back in your bed!"
"Banana? Okay, let's get banana."
"No!"
"Potty, potty?"
(Dammit.) "Okay, let's go to the bathroom."
*And as soon as we get in the bathroom and the last drop has landed in the toilet*
"Okay, let's get banana!"
So here I am, functioning on whatever bit of energy that one serving of Cheerios gave me this morning. Not only do I not feel like going to the grocery store, but I have to dress and take the mogwai with me because her owner is in a Nyquil coma.
And since I'm ranting...
I'll be so glad when this election is over. Part of my headache stems from everyone becoming a political activist all of a sudden on Facebook. Name five people on the DC council! If you don't live in DC then name your state senators. If you can do that then you have my respect, otherwise you're just annoying.
There are three branches of government. Two of them are electable. If Romney wins, slavery will not be reinstated. If Obama wins, your beauty school dropout ass will still be unemployed. Leave me alone.
That was mean. I'm sorry. I get cranky when I'm sick...and I have a two year old who is hell bent on skydiving off the top of the couch. It's like, you work so hard to keep someone alive when they obviously have a different vision of their future. Anyway, I'm just tangenting because I haven't blogged in a while.
If I can dope up on enough cold medicine then you can look forward to tomorrow's blog entitled "Am I An Uncle Tom?" Inquiring minds would like to know.
I have not forgotten you or abandoned the site. The wife is sick. The child is sick. I am sick. I blame it on my nephew. He's one and a half and if you think my daughter is a gremlin you really need to spend some time with him. It's like he took pride in his role as an Outbreak monkey. He walked around my mother's house coughing in everyone's face and blowing his nose into his hand and then slapping people. I gotta hand it to him...biological warfare is new in the hood. He adapted to it so well.
Anyway, I feel like shit but unlike some people I can't call out sick from my job. My employer shows up at the side of the bed every morning at 6:45 making demands.
"Banana? Banana?"
"I'm sleep. Go back in your bed!"
"Banana? Okay, let's get banana."
"No!"
"Potty, potty?"
(Dammit.) "Okay, let's go to the bathroom."
*And as soon as we get in the bathroom and the last drop has landed in the toilet*
"Okay, let's get banana!"
So here I am, functioning on whatever bit of energy that one serving of Cheerios gave me this morning. Not only do I not feel like going to the grocery store, but I have to dress and take the mogwai with me because her owner is in a Nyquil coma.
And since I'm ranting...
I'll be so glad when this election is over. Part of my headache stems from everyone becoming a political activist all of a sudden on Facebook. Name five people on the DC council! If you don't live in DC then name your state senators. If you can do that then you have my respect, otherwise you're just annoying.
There are three branches of government. Two of them are electable. If Romney wins, slavery will not be reinstated. If Obama wins, your beauty school dropout ass will still be unemployed. Leave me alone.
That was mean. I'm sorry. I get cranky when I'm sick...and I have a two year old who is hell bent on skydiving off the top of the couch. It's like, you work so hard to keep someone alive when they obviously have a different vision of their future. Anyway, I'm just tangenting because I haven't blogged in a while.
If I can dope up on enough cold medicine then you can look forward to tomorrow's blog entitled "Am I An Uncle Tom?" Inquiring minds would like to know.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
We "Missed" Halloween YAY!
Well, Halloween is over. The boys over here in mission control are throwing high fives around the room. Another holiday has passed that we didn't celebrate with our daughter. So far we've missed Halloween, The 4th of July, Easter, Valentine's Day and MLK's Birthday (That's when kids dress up in suits and ties and walk around giving speeches). I know it sounds mean, but you have to see the big picture. I have the rest of my life to be an ATM machine. If she isn't aware of these holidays yet, then why rush into things? In the words of Janet Jackson, "Let's wait a while...before we go too far." When she starts school next year, I'm certain some asshole teacher will inform her of all of these holidays.
Truth be told, I actually look forward to it. Halloween was one of my favorite holidays. I was always too cheap to spend my money on candy. For the price of a Snickers, I could get two Chick-o-Sticks, two Tootsie Pops, a pack of Now-and-Laters and three of those rock hard bubble gums. Halloween was like the Christmas of candy.
It was the same thing every year. I'd beg for a costume all month and my mother would pull out her "I'm broke" card. "We'll see what happens when I get paid." About two days before Halloween we'd go to Peoples Drug Store (now CVS) so that I could pick a costume from the scraps that were left. They used to come in a box with that hard ass plastic mask showing through the front. Each year I wanted to be a Ghostbuster, but I had to take whatever was left. I got to be one once, but those costumes were so cheap that you couldn't keep them from year to year.
I didn't complain much, because the worst thing you could do on Halloween was go around without a costume. Correction, the worst thing you could do was go around sharing a costume. One kid got the mask and the other got the outfit. And don't get me started on the kids whose parents made them go around in their school uniform and tell people that they were a student. Or...their old cap and gown. "I'm a graduate!"
I'd take whatever they had in the store and walk around with that little mask while trying to breath through the little slit in the mouth. Either my tongue got cut on it or my eyelids were scratched to hell whenever I blinked while trying to look through the eye slots. But I dare not take the mask off. "As much as you begged me to buy you a costume!" We would walk around for about two hours and I'd come home with about three grocery store bags filled with candy. My mother would check it a.k.a. take what she liked out of it. It's amazing how all of the Reese Cups were poisoned every year. Then I'd go to school the next day where everyone would lie about how much candy they got the night before.
Truth be told, I actually look forward to it. Halloween was one of my favorite holidays. I was always too cheap to spend my money on candy. For the price of a Snickers, I could get two Chick-o-Sticks, two Tootsie Pops, a pack of Now-and-Laters and three of those rock hard bubble gums. Halloween was like the Christmas of candy.
It was the same thing every year. I'd beg for a costume all month and my mother would pull out her "I'm broke" card. "We'll see what happens when I get paid." About two days before Halloween we'd go to Peoples Drug Store (now CVS) so that I could pick a costume from the scraps that were left. They used to come in a box with that hard ass plastic mask showing through the front. Each year I wanted to be a Ghostbuster, but I had to take whatever was left. I got to be one once, but those costumes were so cheap that you couldn't keep them from year to year.
I didn't complain much, because the worst thing you could do on Halloween was go around without a costume. Correction, the worst thing you could do was go around sharing a costume. One kid got the mask and the other got the outfit. And don't get me started on the kids whose parents made them go around in their school uniform and tell people that they were a student. Or...their old cap and gown. "I'm a graduate!"
I'd take whatever they had in the store and walk around with that little mask while trying to breath through the little slit in the mouth. Either my tongue got cut on it or my eyelids were scratched to hell whenever I blinked while trying to look through the eye slots. But I dare not take the mask off. "As much as you begged me to buy you a costume!" We would walk around for about two hours and I'd come home with about three grocery store bags filled with candy. My mother would check it a.k.a. take what she liked out of it. It's amazing how all of the Reese Cups were poisoned every year. Then I'd go to school the next day where everyone would lie about how much candy they got the night before.
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