These Feet Were Made For Walking

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Greatest Love of All

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Flashback Friday: The Block Is Hot

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

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

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

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

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

No one likes this crap either:

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

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

So someone got a bright idea:

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

It Was A Clear Black Night, A Clear White Moon

Here's a fun tale of friendship and adventure:

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

3 Friends + Me= 4 people

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

You Want A Bag?

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

Dear cashiers at all major grocery stores,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Thriller Track Number Nine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself

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

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

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

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

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

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