See? Glass!

It was quite balmerrific yesterday, so we trucked on over to the lake, with all the kidlets in tow. I have no idea what they did once we got there, however, for the minute I hit the sand, I fell into my borderline-Aspergers-searching-for-sea-glass-zombie-stupor-walk. I'll say it again -- if anyone out there knows of some sort of job wherein I might be paid to crawl along a beach looking for rounded off pieces of old glass, let me know.

The xmastacular vacay at the rental's house has had its ups and downs. Xmas morning went surprisingly well. There was a minor meltdown by Miss O when, during the opening of the stockings, noticed that Mr. Z had a glow stick necklace and she didn't. But after that, things were amazingly peachy. They actually took their time opening presents and seemed to even savor each gift before tossing it aside for the next one. Our purchases went over very well -- the highlights being the Teen Titans action figures purchased on ebay ("Dad! How did you get these?! You totally lied to me!") and the giant, green fairy canopy thing for over Miss O's bed ("I can't wait to put this in my room! I'm going to put 1000 stuffed animals in it!"). The "Most Coveted" award goes to the bright green hippity-hop that we got Miss O -- Mr. Z hasn't stopped badgering her about using it since it appeared. The dude's already a complete spatial-relations spazmo, and lolling around on an inflated rubber ball hasn't been helping things very much. He's pretty much kicked everyone in the head at least once and is getting really proficient at "knocking shit over" and "racking himself."

Today, the old lady and I, along with my sister, brother and their spouses (spices?) are heading downtown to the Sofitel, some Frenchy hotel in the city, courtesy of my folks. We did the same thing last year -- they watch the kids and we go out and eat as much not-cooked-in-Michigan food and buy as much not-made-in-Michigan clothing as we can in 24 hours. I plan to savor every fucking moment, 'cuz the memory has to last until next December 30th.

So, instead of wrapping this post up all neat and clean-like, I'm outta here. We'll have to continue our chat later. I've got me some fancy shit to eat and wear.

Happy New Year.

Bruise Cruise...

On the drive here, the other day, we were embroiled in a serious game of "Slug Bug." Mr. Z and Miss O have a kind of love/hate relationship with the game, and vacillate between embracing it wholeheartedly and whining that it's unfair and that they never want to fucking play it again. So, we were chugging along and there didn't seem to be too many Bugs on the road to spot, so we added "Mini Innie," a Slugbug variation I invented that adds in the Mini Cooper. If you see a mini, you can poke the nearest person in the belly-button and say, "Mini Innie!" But again, there weren't too many Minis on the highway.

For some reason, the old lady pulled a majorly un-old-lady-like move, and suggested a new addition that involves P.T. Cruisers, which are like corn kernels in shit on the 5th of July, along Michigan roadways. Her suggestion: when you see a P.T. Cruiser, you yell, "P.T. Teat-ee" and grab your neighbor's nippleage. She introduced the game by grabbing my right nurple while I was driving, nearly sending us careening through the guardrail and into a gulley. Of course, the spawn thought this new amendment was hilarious/brilliant/strangely tittilating, and started grabbing each others' nips like they were going out of style. The old lady instantly regretted her suggestion, but I, too, thought it brilliant and I started scanning the oncoming traffic. I had a distinct advantage because, well, her bullseyes are WAY bigger than mine.

Before long, the whole car was slugging, poking and nurpling and we had a jolly old time, until things basically turned into a slapfight in the backseat, and I had to put the kibosh on the proceedings. Lucky for the old lady, too, cuz I'm the king of the P.T. Teat-ee.

She's just lucky I didn't see a Volvo.

Should Be Thumb Xmas...

Well, it's off to Chicago today. I've gotta go secretly stuff an ass-load of presents in the trunk of the car, along with all our bags, shoes, boots, coats, cameras, and all the other crap we somehow can't do without for seven days. Sure, a minivan would make the whole production a fuck of a lot easier, but I just can't commit to being a minivan person. I mean, if I do that, then you might as well shave off my hair, make me grow a goatee, dress me in some dockers and a turtleneck and then shoot me in the fucking head. And I'm not ready to be shot in the head... yet. Ask me in seven days.

So, yeah, perfect timing for the trip. Mr. Z and Miss O are both getting colds and their snot-cocoons should be nicely formed by xmas day. I don't know if any of the shit we ordered online actually arrived at my parent's house yet. I'm sure we'll be hit by a blizzard in Indiana when we get on the Skyway. And, I think my thumb is infected. There's some kinda cut under the nail, and the whole tip of my thumb is throbbing and warm, kinda like Fred Flintstone's thumb, after a giant boulder crushes it at the quarry. I'm telling ya, this is going to be the BEST XMAS EVER!!

Maybe I am ready to be shot in the head.

Anywhich, I'm going to try to keep posting from my folk's house. Unfortunately, the computer is in the room Miss O sleeps in, so I have to tap-tap the keys ever-so-quietly, for fear of waking her and suffering the who-deigned-to-rouse-me Miss O wrath.

I'm off, then. Let me just grab a couple suitcases here, and--OW! MY FUCKING THUMB!

I Hope That Thing's Paper-Trained...

Bath night, tonight. I walked in on Mr. Z as he was holding this little Harry Potter gnome action figure (Griphook, if you must know):



... next to his schvantz, saying, in a little gnome voice, "Hello, little piggy! Would you like to be my pet?"

Needless to say, I didn't stick around to see if the adoption was ever finalized. I just hope he didn't take his new pet to the vet to get it neutered.

I felt a little shitty today, as I was unable to attend Miss O's kindergarten Holiday Party this morning. It was from 9:30 to 10:30, and today's my short day at work, and I had to finish this music I was working on 'cuz I'm going to be out all next week, and blah, blah, I'm a horrible father, call DCFS, and I'll die alone and penniless. She was a little upset when I dropped her off, but, when I picked her up after school, she couldn't have cared less. So, I guess she'll live. And they apparently ate all my banana muffins, so... bonus.

Mr. Z, however, was a bit of a wreck after school today. Apparently, his one friend, B, has been hanging around with this shit-wipe who's been a total prick to Mr. Z. The boy's convinced his friend has gone over to the dark side, and now feels like he doesn't have any more friends. I tried to explain that B can be friends with lots of people and still be Mr. Z's friend, and I repeated my constant refrain of, "... and that's why you should try to make more than just one friend, so you won't be relying just on that one person." He shot back with the old, "But all other boys just play football or soccer all recess," and I volleyed back with, "But what about the girls? They're lots of fun to play with!" And then he said "no way" and I said "don't worry, it'll be all right," and then I gave him a butter-rum Lifesaver and we walked home, pals forever. Actually, I think he's just ready for xmas and a couple weeks off from school.

He seemed much better after his bath, tonight. Nothing a little plastic dwarf riding on his dink couldn't fix. I just hope that gnome doesn't give his little piggy a case of the Hogwarts.

Hairy New Year!

I was roped into making "something healthy" for Miss O's holiday party tomorrow, so I whipped up a batch of mini banana muffins. I guess they're healthy... except for that cup of sugar in there. And probably the odd hair or two. I s'pose I should've worn a hairnet. Oh well. I'll have Miss O say that they're traditional Welsh Hair Muffins -- and whoever pulls the longest strand from their mouth gets an extra present from "Chimney John!"

Eat up, kiddies!

Blah, Bleeh, Blew...

Well, those fuckers from Detroit didn't buy the elliptical trainer that we posted on Craigslist. Dicks. They came out here on Friday night, looked it over, tried it out, and then said they were coming back through town on Sunday and would give us a call. I knew, at that point, that it was a no-go. The woman was obviously the one who was going to use it -- the dude had a thick ol' skull and looked like more of a handball or telephone pole hurling type. As she was testing out the machine, she said, "Hmm... that's a really loud noise that it makes. Has it always made that noise?" I was going to say, "Oh, you mean the noise that all elliptical machines make? That kind of smooth, whirring, wheels on a track sound? That one? Or were you talking about the noise that's blasting out of your face hole that sounds a little like 'GNAAAA! GNAAAA! GNAAAAA!!!!!!'?" Instead, I said, "Yep. That's the noise it's made since the day we bought it." Then she looked at me, as if she were thinking "You, sir, are lying to me." So I tried my best to shoot back my look that says, "What the shit, lady?!" Apparently, I, instead, shot her a look that said, "Do not buy things from me."

Anyway, it looks like I cleaned the fucking basement for nothin'. Apparently, some other dude is interested in the thing, but I haven't heard from him in a couple of days. Oh Craigslist... at first you seemed so right... but now I see you for what you truly are -- a fickle e-mistress.

I can tell that the spawn are getting restless with all their pent-up holiday anticipaish. Last night, Mr. Z called out at around midnight and said his cryogenically blasted wart-balls were bothering him, so I dosed him up with a little Motrin. Poor dude. I'm sure part of it had to do with the warts, but most of it was due to the fact that he's going to get A CRAPLOAD OF FREE SHIT IN SIX DAYS. After settling him down, I went into Miss O's room to check her look. As I was adjusting her blankets, she rolled over and mumbled, I shit you not, "Looks like presents...." Oh, if only Freud were here to decipher that perplexing riddle of a dream. I guess we'll never know what horrific hallucinations she was enduring.

Well, this post is going nowhere. I wash my hands of these words. Be gone. Besides, I've gotta go watch my new favorite show, "My Boys," on TBS. And we all know what happens when I get into mildly critically acclaimed shows that nobody watches (e.g. - "Everything's Relative," "Sons and Daughters," "Austin Stories," "Freaks & Geeks," "Undeclared,"... um... "The Bonnie Hunt Show," ... uh, "Welcome to New York")?

Cancizzled.

All I Wart for Xmas...

Well, today was appointment number two for Mr. Z and his amazing "Foot of a thousand Warts!" And, just to make things exciting, once again, Miss O came along for the ride.

It wasn't quite as horrific as the first go-round. At this point, all of the warts have turned into giant, pus-filled blisters, after their previous run-in with the liquid nitrogen. Which, apparently, is a good thing. Unless you're Mr. Z and you have to do things like, oh, walk.

We got there and I was a little better prepared this time. I brought a couple of books for the boy and I brought along a blank notebook, some crayons and a sandwich bag stuffed with handful of Polly Pockets for Miss O. The doc came in and took a gander at his handiwork, or footiwork, as it were. He had a look of awe mixed with detached bemusement. He gave off a vibe of, "Wow, that shit I used last time was pretty fucking powerful. And it looks like it's working! Get me, I'm a real doctor!"

So, Mr. Z, knowing what was coming this time, was a little reticent to assume the position on the exam table. I tried to reassure him and remind him of how brave he was last time, but he wasn't buying it. Finally, the doc said, "Well, I have a little something for you and your sister if you do a good job," and that seemed to chill him out a bit. I shot the doc a look of, "Dude, it better be a fucking lollipop and not some cartoony pamphlet on proper foot hygiene, or you're in deep shit." He quickly looked at the floor.

First up, it was time for more carving. The doc opened up a bag labeled "scalpel," and prepared to slice and dice. Mr. Z saw it and almost kicked him in the face. I got him calmed down again... and then I calmed down Mr. Z. (Ha! See what I did there? I made like I was really talking about the doctor! Comedy gold!) Yeah, so he started poking holes in the blisters and slicing the dead skin off to see what kinds of horrors lay beneath the bubbles. Frankly, it looked like the dude was kinda making the whole thing up as he went along, but again, for some reason I went along with it.

At this point, Miss O was pretty cool with the proceedings and was happily coloring away in her Frosted-Flakes-Box-Turned-Into-A-Notebook that I made. Then, the doc got out the can of liquid nitrogen. Miss O instantly pulled all of our coats over her head and plugged her ears. Guess the memories of Wartapalooza I hadn't quite faded yet.

The doc didn't need to blast all of them this time -- apparently three of them were successfully killted off the first time, so they were spared. HOWEVER, I pointed out two other, smaller, warterinos that the dude missed last time, so he had to zap those instead. Thanks for nothing, Dad! Mr. Z was not too thrilled about the freezing, but he was a trooper, nonetheless. Again, he almost kicked the doc in the face at one point, but you know what? The dude could probably use a wart-studded kick to the head now and again to keep him in line, ya know? Keep him honest.

And then it was over. He said they're looking good and we made a final (hopefully) appointment for three weeks from now. Oh, and the doc got the kidlets their treats -- two little bags filled with a few Hershey's Kisses, some candy canes and a pencil. All probably smeared with Streptococcus and Leptospira and BM cultures. THANKS DOC!

The boy did great again, though. Total pro. Miss O? Probably scarred for life. She'll never go barefoot again. I think she wore flip-flops to bed tonight. I'm pretty sure she's suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Dis-Warter.

Sorry... I'm tired.

Honey, Our Neighbor's A Swinger...

Sometimes you find yourself doing shit with other grown-ups that just kinda freaks your shit out, if'n you think about it too much.

Take yesterday - the weather was great, so the spawn and I ventured out-of-doors to see what the neighbor kizzles were dizzle... ing. Now, for some reason, four kids, aged five to nine, can't seem to get their shit together without roping me into their goddamn activities. First, they decided to play tag, but apparently you can't play tag with only four people, so I had to join in. And those fuckers are fast. Between trying not to blow my knees out as they were jukin' around me, and trying hard not to infarct while attempting to escape their reach, I just about passed the fuck out.

Luckily, they got bored with tag pretty quickly. Then, it turned into freeze-tag, which was a little better, because at least I was able to get frozen, affording me ample time to stuff my lungs and bronchii, which had prolapsed onto the lawn, back into my heaving chest. Then they tired of freeze-tag, as well. They have the fucking attention span of a gnat on meth, these kids.

So, while they were whinily debating about which torturous game should come next, the neighbor kids' dad came home and joined us on the lawn. He's a nice guy, and I was looking forward to having a conversation with someone that didn't involve the phrase, "NOT IT!" So, we started shooting the shinola, when the kiddlies decided that the next game was going to be Statue Maker, and both of us adults HAD to play. I tried to call "Customer," but I was beat out by Miss O. My next choice was Statue Maker, and, luckily, I was chosen as such.

Here's where it got a little weird. I spun each kid around, so they could turn into their stupid-ass statues, all of which involved screaming at the top of their lungs and running around and flailing their arms like an orangutan with its balls on fire. Then, I realized that I had to "spin" the other dad. At first I tried to balk, but the kids all shouted, "Go on, dad, spin P!" Busted. So, I grabbed his hand and started spinning him around. I wish I had a fucking camera, because it looked like a scene out of the gayest production of "The Sound of Music" ever. The only thing that would've made it more awkward would have been if I had spun him with both hands, instead of just the one. As it was, it was pretty fucking bizarre.

We made sure that, for the rest of the time, one of us was either the customer or both of us were statues. I guess the weirdest thing about it was that it's one thing to occasionally talk to someone on the lawn -- rapping about work or kids or... I don't know, lawns. It's a whole 'nother egg, though, when you suddenly grab that person's hand and start twirling them around. Seriously, try it. Go up to your neighbor, tomorrow, and extend your hand. When they reach out to shake it, start spinning them around and then let go. And then go up to them and whisper in their ear, "Okay, what statue are you gonna be?"

And then come back and tell me that it wasn't a little fucked up.

Time to Titan the Old Belt...

So, we've decided that this xmas is going to be seriously pared down from previous years. The old lady and I have, in the past, gone a little overboard with the gift-giving for the spawnage and it's time to cool the jets a little. The kids actually seem pretty cool with it -- their lists were pretty reasonable this year. Shit, Miss O put like two things on it and then said, "I just want to be surprised." Well, Miss O, the surprise is, Santa's got a light load waiting for you this year.

She wanted a couple of these "Groovy Girl" dolls. I swear to fuck, they're all exactly the same, except each one has a slightly different yarn color for her hair, and they all have different names, like Larissa, and Natalya, and Shoshana, and Fleeflonna, and Cheechonna and Chlamydia. The great thing is, they're way the fuck bigger than those goddamn Polly Pockets and they don't have miniscule rubber clothing that finds its way into your food, your clothes and your ass-crack. (Don't ask.)

So, yeah, I found those online and ordered them up. We'll probably get her some books, too, and maybe a couple of games. Mr. Z's list, however, proved a might more challenging. He's gotten way back into his "Teen Titans" action figures, and has been playing with those things daily after school. He's got like 10 of them, but, unfortunately, they all have this fatal flaw where their knee joints break and the lower parts of their legs break off. It looks like a goddamn VA hospital in his room. I actually made some replacement legs out of Sculpey for a couple of them, but apparently that ain't cutting it. Apparently Starfire is a little self-conscious about her prosthesis, and it's affecting her ability to fight crime.

So, he asked for some new action figures -- fair enough. I come to find out, of course, that "Teen Titans" has been cancelled on Cartoon Network, and, subsequently, it's fucking impossible to find those little plastic pieces of shit anywhere. Six months ago, I couldn't walk through Target without tripping over a stack of those fuckers, and now -- bupkus!

So, I went online, of course, to pick some up. No dice. The only place I was able to find them was ebay, and I'm not really "the ebay type." In other words, I actually live with a real, live woman. I mentioned to Mr. Z that the show had been cancelled and that Santa might have a hard time locating the action figures he wanted, and he pretty much had an existential breakdown right in front of me. He went on about how unfair it was and that the company that makes the toys is selfish and that they should just give them away to the kids that have stayed loyal to the show and that his life was basically over if he couldn't get a replacement for his "Robin" that got lost in the neighbors bushes last spring, and how he only had "good guys" and they had no one to battle and... well, then I kinda stopped listening after that.

But it did make me determined to find these things for him. So I got on the ebays and started a-searchin', and I found this dude "starwarsrod," (surprise), who was selling 8 Teen Titans (2 different Robins and 6, count-em, 6 bad guys), still in the original packaging. There was only one dorkus who had been bidding, and the thing was only up to about 25 bucks -- about what they would've cost in the store. So I waited. I waited all day -- kept checking in every hour or so -- until the auction was almost over. Still at 25 clams. Then, when there was only one minute left, I jumped in and bid $36.02. The clock ticked down, my heart was pounding, and THEN-- I won. Holy fuckstain. I was totally pumped, until I realized that the person I outbid was probably an eight year old kid who was blubbering to his parents that he got beat out at the last second by some 41 year old shitbag. But screw that kid -- he probably picks his ass and hits small animals with sticks. He doesn't deserve "Red X Robin" and "Cinderblock." Get him a fucking Groovy Girl.

What's the lesson to be learned here? Fuck if I know. Maybe... if your kid bawls his eyes out because he can't get exactly what he wants, you can always throw some money at the situation and make the problem go away.

Yet another Hallmark Moment from the Crabbydad household to you.

My Gills are Killing Me...

It's late, I'm tired, I have nothing to say and I'm hungry because I forgot to eat lunch today. Again, that's part of the dilemma of working from home. There's no one to say, "Hey, where do you guys wanna go to lunch today?" I know there's nothing up in the kitchen that I want to eat, so I say to myself, "Ah, I'll get something in a minute. I just have to finish this one last thing..."

Then it's 6:30.

I used to go upstairs around midday just to warm up for 10 minutes or so, but I got this new sweatshirt from Old Navy that's apparently lined with yak fat, or plutonium and now I'm sweating my nardleys off. So I sit in my freezing basement, sweating and not eating, and I never leave. I occasionally shift from one ass cheek to the other so as not to get bed-sores. And now, at 11:38, I feel that it's finally time to breach ground level and call it a night.

Five bucks says that, by the end of winter, I'm gonna look like this:



Although, hopefully my nipples won't be so rouge-y.

It's A Cellar's Market...

So, I've decided to catapult into the year 2000 or so by actually listing something on Craigslist. I have this Elliptical Trainer that sits about five feet away from me when I work in the basement, and we basically haven't used it since, oh, 2001, or so. We bought it in 2000 and both the old lady and I were pretty elliptically gung-ho for a good year or so. Then we realized that we're FUCKING OLD and that, if we kept our low-impact training up much longer, our knees would explode. That's about when the old lady discovered walking on the treadmill and I discovered doing nothing. Then, about three years later, I discovered swimming.

My knees have been fucked ever since I ran the high hurdles in high school (and in college, for a week, until I realized that instead of running, I could get drunk, get baked, and have constant sex.) I was an okay hurdler, mainly because I was about 6 foot 100 and I weighed, as I do now, about 130 pounds. I won a few races, got some ribbons and shit, but mostly I succeeded in smacking my right knee into waist-high wooden boards every day for two years. And when I wasn't doing that, my coach had me in the workout room, working on this goddamn machine called "The Leaper," which should've been called "The Fuck Up Your Knee-er." Seriously, I couldn't even find a picture of this torture device online because I'm sure the dickheads who invented it were hunted down, drawn and quartered and then burned alive, by an angry, crawling mob.

Basically, you stood on a platform and crouched under these big pads that were attached to ONE-MILLION POUNDS. Then you'd straighten your legs, forcing the one-million pounds up, and then you'd crouch back down again. Then you'd repeat that process for 20 hours or so. I remember this thing made a noise like, "KREEEEEEEPNNGGGHHH!" Actually, that might have been the sound of my cartilage turning to a fine dust -- I'm not quite sure. Whatever it was, I feel like suing someone right about now. Fuckers.

So, yeah, we don't use the elliptical thing and I posted it up on Craigslist today. So far, I've gotten two e-mails, and it looks like some folks might be coming by this weekend to take a look-see. Pretty fucking cool. I'm starting to look around this shithole to see what other dreck I can unload. I wonder if anyone would buy my 8-Track collection? Or my old computer monitors. Or my tax documents dating back to 1997. Seriously, how long am I supposed to hold onto those fuckers? I made like eight dollars in '97. Why can I not throw anything away?

You guys get first crack at everything, though. Anyone want a broken fax machine? Twenty bucks. Sequined jockstrap I wore while stripping on a roof, freshman year for a friend? Twelve-fifty. All of my English themes from 6th grade? A dollar. OOH! Look at what I just found!



See, that's why I don't throw anything away. I loved that game. That does it -- I'm not selling shit. It's all going back into the boxes. Don't touch my crap! Get out of my basement! Go on, SCRAM!

I Guess Some Loaves Just Don't Want to be Pinched...

I love Canada. Everyone I've ever met from Canada is really friendly, I hear there are some beautiful cities there, they have the whole national healthcare thing, they seem pretty liberal, and, according to my site's stat counter, Crabbydad is the number one result if you do a search for "your a farter, gassy gas, farty fart, smelly poop, poopy doo, lets smell one together, stinky smell" on google.ca! Whomever you are, person from Ontario, Toronto, Canada who came to my site at 13:40:28 this afternoon -- Welcome, and I hope I'm fulfilling all your gassy-gas-farty-fart needs, eh.

Speaking of turds, poor Miss O had a big'n that was stuck the other night. Poor kid -- she gets constipated pretty often, mainly due to the fact that she shuns most liquids. It sucks when your kid makes that switch from sippy-cup to grown-up cup. She used to suck down gallons of bevvies with the sippy-cup, mainly because she was able to carry it around with her -- upstairs, outside, in the crapper... wherever. Once they switch to the big kid cup, though, they pretty much have to drink at the kitchen table, and you have to keep yelling into the other room, "Miss O! Come on in here and have some more milk, will ya?!" Which she never does. I'm telling ya, the sippy-cup was better than a saline IV drip.

So, yeah, Miss O was trying to get this fucking ass-teroid to pass through her tiny bunghole the other night, and she was bumming hard. Luckily, the old lady was dealing with it this time. The last time this happened (a couple of years ago), I was "handling" the situation, and I ended up grabbing the mongo-turd with a wad of toilet paper and "delivering" it manually. That's when you're officially a parent -- when you pull a petrified BM from your kid's ass. I think my "You're A Dad Now, Brother!" certificate came in the mail the next day. I don't know how the old lady ended up coaxing out the timid turd, but I know that when it finally did come out, Miss O looked her right in the eyes and said, "I love you, Mom!" Almost makes holding another person's butt-biscuit in your hand worthwhile.

On a positive note, Miss O drank a hell of a lot more this weekend than usual. Which probably means she'll have diarrhea tomorrow.

Crap.

I Know Thou Art, But, Prithee, What Art I?

Mr. Z has been getting back into his drawrings, of late, and they're getting mighty wacky. He's doing this sort of space/wizard/undersea kinda vibe. Here's the cover for his latest, "Tales of the Throne":


It's classic because he and his friend are the heroes and all the shithead bully dicks from school are the evil sorcerors/trolls. Here's a classic moment from chapter two ("Plight of the Preposterous"), in which "A" (manipulative bully from school) and "B" (aggressive, racist bully from school) are having a heated discussion in their lab:

Suddenly, an ugly and demented old man came in. He was a total troll. "I am Lord B! I shall guide you!" said the troll.

"You're evil!" yelled A. "I don't like evil people!"

"But... you are evil yourself, A!" said B.

"NO!" yelled A.

"Come on upstairs, and I will show you," hissed B.

So, B, the evil lord, and A went upstairs. "See?" asked B. "They don't pay any attention to you. Just the babies, the babies, the babies!"

"Why?" wondered A.

"Because... you want me to say?" asked B.

"Yeah!" yelled A.

"They think you are EVIL! EVIL! EVIL! EVIL!..." echoed B.

That's my boy -- working it out through thinly-veiled fiction at home rather than with his fists during recess. Besides, like his old man, he'd probably get his ass kicked.

I can't wait until Chapter Three, when A and B get suspended from the Royal Academy because Principal Galahad finds a spiked mace, two daggers, a sword and a Ram's Head crossbow in their lockers.

Sah--WHISSSHHH!

So, I'm pretty sure my dental hygienist thinks that I'm retarded. Here's the "conversation" we had as she was cleaning my teeth today:

[clean, clean, scrape, scrape, gouge, gouge, poke in cheek]

HER: Okay, now a little water spray to swish around in your mouth...

[spray, spray]

ME: [swishing]

HER: Okay, now swish it around.

ME: [hesitation with "what the shit" look on face followed by resumed swishing]

[sucking out of swished around water]

[clean, clean, scrape, scrape, gouge, gouge, finger in too far--GAG]

HER: Okay, now a little water spray to swish around in your mouth...

[spray, spray]

ME: [swishing]

HER: Okay, now swish it around.

ME: [hesitation with "seriously, what the shit?!" look on my face followed by reluctant resuming of swishing]

[sucking out of swished around water]

This continued for THE ENTIRE CLEANING SESSION! I mean, she seems like a very nice person -- she has a picture of her dog sitting on Santa's lap, for fuck's sake -- but either she thought I was a complete moron, or she's been sucking on the laffy gas between appointments. By about the tenth minute of her telling me to swish and then IMMEDIATELY reminding me to swish, I was so tempted to spray my mouthful of spitty, blood-plaque into her happy face and scream, "WHAT THE SHIT IS WRONG WITH YOU, WOMAN?! I'M FUCKING SWISHING, ALL RIGHT?! I'M MOVING THE LIQUID, THAT YOU SQUIRTED INTO MY MOUTH, FROM CHEEK TO CHEEK, QUITE VIGOROUSLY, I MIGHT ADD! YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY IT ANYMORE! I GET IT!! SWISH!! 10-4!! MESSAGE RECEIVED, LOUD AND CLEAR!!! THERE ARE SHITLOADS OF THINGS IN THIS WORLD THAT I DON'T GET: RELIGION, THE POPULARITY OF 'MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE,' ALOE VERA JUICE, WHY MR. Z CAN'T SIT STILL IN HIS CHAIR FOR MORE THAN 8 SECONDS, WHY MY EYEBROWS ARE THINNING WHILE EVERYONE ELSE'S GET BUSHIER, EUCHRE, WHICH OF MISS O'S TIGHTS GO WITH WHICH OUTFITS, LUTEFISK -- BUT THE ONE THING I REALLY GET... A LOT... IS THE SWISHING. SO LAY OFF!!!!"

But I swished instead. It just came down to me not wanting to fuck with the person who had pointy metal objects in my breathing hole.

And for the record, I find it strangely "neat" when the dentist takes a piece of gauze, wraps it around my tongue and pulls it out of my mouth a little, apparently to inspect said tongue for lesions or fungi or ants. It's something you just don't expect another human to do to you, and it's just a fucked-up sensation. I don't think I like it, but I don't hate it, either.

Try it with a friend.

Buffin' the Tube...

I have to work late tonight, which I try not to do very often, so I'll make this a quickie. I had my work camera on and there were still a couple of people in the office, finishing up. The cleaning woman was darting in and out of frame from time to time, cleaning off desks and vacuuming and shit. At one point, she came right up to the TV, on which my giant noggin was being broadcast, and she started dusting the lens of my camera. She obviously had no idea that I was a real person and not just a really fucking boring TV show, and she thought she was just cleaning off the tube. I was just about to unmute my microphone and say something like, "Hey, lady! Don't forget to wipe off my knobs!" when she must've hit the power switch, or something, and my connection crapped out. Bummer. Though it's probably for the best -- she probably would've had a fucking grabber and I'd end up getting tele-sued.

Wart Is Hell....

Well, give it up for Mr. Z -- the boy did a stellar job at the doc today. I had to drag Miss O along for the ride, and I really wasn't expecting the whole experience to go very well. Frankly, I was expecting lid-flippage the likes of which I have never seen.

We got there and the boy was instructed to take off his shoes and socks and air out his pointy ol' foot horns. The doc came in and explained the dilly-o, Mr. Z rolled over onto his belly and the fun began. He told me he was going to bypass the numbing of the area because the needle is usually more painful than the freezing process itself. A bold stance, but he sounded confident, so I went with it. So he started by slicing off the rough dead skin parts of the two or three bigger warts -- the megawarts. Mr. Z was reading some Disney magazine and didn't even flinch. So far, so good.

Then the doc pulled out this little funnel thing that he proceeded to fit neatly over each protruberance. Then he pulled out his can o' freon, or whatever the shit that is, and started blasting away. That's when Mr. Z began to protest. He definitely didn't flip his lid, but he did let loose with his trademark "Hey! What the heck?!" a couple of times. It sure looked painful, lemme tell ya. After the doc would pull off the funnel thing, the wart would turn into a little white dome -- kinda like a little foot igloo. A "foogloo." Had I not known that the foogloo was a gnarly, flakey wart moments earlier, I might even call it "cute." Like a teensy penguin might waddle out of it and honk a tiny "Hello, stranger!" to us.

He made like four foogloos and then gave Mr. Z a break. (There were six on one foot and three on the other, by the by. It was wart-a-palooza down there, I'm tellin' ya!) Throughout all of this, Miss O was just staring at the war(t) zone with a horrified look on her face and, oh, she was also plugging her ears. I think the whole thing was pretty traumatizing to her, and I think the doc picked up on that. He asked Miss O if she'd like to do some drawing out in the hall at the nurse's station. She yelled, "WHAT?!" about three times, then I pulled her fingers out of her ears and she obliged.

Then I told the boy that we were halfway done, and that's when he got a little upset. But it was a "within-normal-ranges-of-upsetedness-for-an-eight-
year-old" kind of upset, which is HUGE for him. I calmed him down and the doc got back to his foogloo makin'. About 15 minutes later, it was over. The boy pulled on his socks and boots, hopped down from the table and that was it. Fucking trooper, that boy.

I didn't really mention that we're going back in two weeks for another round of foogloo makin', and that, sometimes, it takes multiple visits until the things are finally uprooted. Why kill the post-freezing buzz, ya know? I surveyed the damage tonight and, while they look less menacing than they did, I'm pretty sure they're gonna have to be zapped again. And I found tiny one that the doc missed, too. Fuck.

But I have to say, had this been done a year or two ago, Mr. Z would still be in that fucking office screaming his ass off. It's truly amazing the strides that boy has made in the last couple of years.

If only those strides hadn't been through the stagnant, viral cesspools of the YMCA lockerroom.

Wart's Happenin', Mr. Z?

So there are a shitload of responsibilities one has when taking care of children. There are the basics: feeding them, clothing them, bathing them when they stink, making sure they receive an education, and teaching them how to wipe their asses. Then there are the things you should do: helping them to appreciate art and music, making sure they get enough physical exercise, modeling socially acceptable behaviors, teaching them to put the seat down after they whiz, and the like.

Then there are the tasks that you would have never even thought about in a million years had they not smacked you in the fucking face and said, "Wake the shit up, neglectful parent, you missed me!" Like, say, occasionally checking the bottom of your kid's foot for a teeming colony of WARTS!

I swear, I am the shittiest parent in the world. It was about a week ago, and Mr. Z was pulling off his sock and I don't even remember what he said, but I went over and looked at his left foot and almost ralphed all over it. There were about 5 or 6 gnarly, horn-like warts poking out of the ball of his foot! I was like, "Okay, call DCFS, I give up. It was a good run, but I'm outta here. Visit Daddy in prison, kids."

Mr. Z was surprisingly nonchalant about the whole thing -- luckily they didn't hurt and didn't even seem to be bothering him. The thing that kills me is that, about a month or two ago, I did see a tiny little spot that looked like a mini-blister on his foot and I thought, just for a moment, "Hey, I wonder if that's the beginnings of a wart?" And then I'm sure Miss O ran into the room and farted or Mr. Z jumped up and started running around the house naked and I forgot all about it.

Well, cut to two festering months later and the boy's got fucking antlers growing out of his foot. What's next?! Is Miss O going to get scabies, or rickets... or "The Grippe"?! I'm telling you, you can't let your fucking guard down for a minute in this gig. Just when you think you've got all the bases covered, boom, you've got the Seven Goddamn Plagues to reckon with. Holy crapstain.

I'm blaming it all on the Y summer camp he went to. Swimming every day in some high school pool a couple of towns over. And I wasn't there to say, "Mr. Z, don't touch that, don't sit on that, don't lick that!" I guess I'm lucky he only ended up with warts, instead of... I don't know, trench-face?

So, I'm taking him to the family doctor tomorrow to begin the wartal excavation process. I remember getting a couple of those fuckers burned off when I was a kid -- I don't recall it being an enjoyable thing. I'm just waiting for the doctor's reaction when the boy takes off his sock. "Oh, I see this kind of thing all the time. There's nothing that'll surpri--GOOD LORD!!! IN ALL MY YEARS AS A PHYSICIAN I'VE NEVER WITNESSED ANYTHING SO STOMACH-CHURNINGLY HORRIFYING!!! I'VE SEEN THE FACE OF DEATH AND NOW MUST BLIND MYSELF TO ENSURE I NEVER SEE SUCH AN ABOMINATION AGAIN!!! GET THEE BEHIND ME SATAN!!!!

I'm ready now, though. I'm gonna make both kids do complete self-inspections before bed every night and give a full report before lights-out. Nothing's gonna be growing on, out of, under, inside or between anything that's not supposed to have something growing on, out of, under, inside or between it. Henceforth, this house shall be the land of germless dermis. If I see so much as a pimple, it shall be immediately located, cordoned off, and obliterated.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice? Oh, it's go time, papillomavirus.

Who's the Principal... Alice Cooper?!

Well, it's December and there was a light dusting of snow last night, so that can mean only one thing -- THEY CLOSED THE FUCKING SCHOOLS ONCE AGAIN! These motherfuckers will close their doors if someone so much as spills laundry soap on the ground. Wait a minute -- laundry soap?! Who the fuck am I, Scrubby Von Washboardenson?! Nice fucking metaphor. See, that's how pissed I am about this school closing -- it's making me sound like a grandma from 1943.

And I KNEW they were going to close, too. Shit, yesterday, when I went to pick up the spawn at school, Mr. Z said, "Mr. G [the principal] came into our class today and told us to wear our pajamas inside-out tonight, so there'll be no school tomorrow!" First of all, that's kinda creepy -- I don't want fucking adults talking to my kids about how they wear their pajamas. B, the dude was obviously going to close the goddamn school anyway. And what kind of fucking dark arts is this guy practicing, getting all the kids to adjust their clothing so as to change the laws of nature?! What's next, is he going to have them sleep under their beds in order to open up the hell-mouth under the school?! Fucking Principal Mephistopheles over there.

So, I had the kids for the morning and the old lady took over for the afternoon. Luckily, they were pretty accomodating today, mainly because they didn't have to go to school. The old lady had a great idea, though. We got out all of our old videotapes and they basically sat there and watched their childhoods from, like, birth until the present. It was fucking wild to see that shit. First of all, I forgot how fucking cute the two of them used to be -- they'd make you crap your pants, they were so cute.

The crazy thing was that the old lady and I were so patient and sweet and tolerant sounding on those tapes. It was like we were heavily dosed up on quaaludes, or something. I remembered every single moment as I watched them, and it seemed like it was just yesterday and then seemed like it was forever ago. I just kept thinking, "Man, that dude is awesome -- I've gotta be more like him." I mean, compared to back then, I'm like Johnny Buzzkill now. Sure, I was probably playing it up for the camera a bit, but still. I've gotta chill my shit out a little bit.

You know, it'd probably be easier to be so chipperiffic if Mr. Z and Miss O still walked around in onesies and mashed pureed peas into their faces. They have to be held a little responsible for my escalating crabbitude over the years. But it's not like I've turned into Uncle Charley from "My Three Sons" around here, though. I just have to remember those tapes from time to time and spazz down a little. Again, a packed bong would be mighty helpful in facilitating such a change. I'm just sayin'.

I'm sure we're going to be watching more tapes over the weekend. We're up to Miss O's first birthday party. You know, they're cute and all and I really miss them being so tiny and cuddly, but I do not understand those people who look at old pictures and movies and say, "We've GOT to have another one!" Are you shittin' me?! I remember the cuteness, but I also remember the no fucking sleep, and the carrying those ungrateful lumps around for hours trying to get them to fall asleep, and I remember getting puked on and shit on and peed on and wiping their shitty asses and all those fucking diapers and cradle-cap and vaccinations and waiting for their dried up, bloody bellybutton stumps to fall off and the whole house smelling like a fucking turd and having dried boogersnots on the shoulders of every shirt I owned and singing "Baby fucking Beluga" every goddamn night, not to mention the teething and suctioning out their snotty noses with that blue bulb thing and cutting their tiny fingernails and missing and making them bleed and not being able to go anywhere because they took a fucking nap like every half hour.

Fuck that shit.

They were pretty fucking cute, though.