Empty Nest Envy Syndrome

Wait, wasn't I supposed to be sipping a demitasse at a Paris cafe this morning?

I checked my schedule and, indeed, my children were supposed to be gone already. Well, one of them. The other one is never here anyway so it doesn't matter. But the 20 year old? She's still sleeping in her room which, in French, is pronounced My Office.

But she has a job and she's going to go to school. I think. She said she was. I'm not sure which school she's going to. Maybe she's going to the school of sleep-all-day-go-out-all night and wear that one dress that makes me want to drape a blanket over her.

I willingly gave up my hip years to raise kids. I could've been a slightly bearded wordsman waiting tables in a boutique pork shop while spending all night smoking Gitanes, drinking coffee, writing 700 page oubliettes while never using the letter e.  But no, I was hip deep in dirty laundry, spent Pampers, and old pizza boxes. Instead of chilling out to jazz in Prague, I was learning all the words to the Sponge Bob theme song.

Which is all fine, because of the unspoken contract between I and my progeny in which, pursuant to page 89, paragraph 16, sub section MN, which states: "you will leapt from the premises as you turn 18 with a job in one hand and apartment keys in the other, forsooth."

Hasn't happened yet.

My friend's nest is empty as a Church on Saturday. He's renovated his daughter's room into a den and turned the other kid's room into a mancave. His empty nest is like a lair. He's currently teaching his dog how to open a beer.

 

My Dog Ate My Homework--Then Threw Up!

My daughter turns fifteen in a few days and I am compelled to make a few observations. I am finally getting to the point where her boobs don't scare me, where her astonishing compilation of sexual inuendi doesn't surprise me; and where her frank independence no longer challenges my authority and I am damn proud of myself.

But there is a trait that seems to have grown deep roots in the fecund habituae my daughter possesses and that trait is abject, terrifying, horrible absence of kempt. The girl's a slob. She exudes disarray, disorder, and disarrangement. She isn't, how do you say, sheveled.

She comes by it honestly--I am a reverse neatfreak. I'm obsessive-repulsive, I throw stuff everywhere. Well, ok, that's not entirely true. I love order. I relish organization. I get a contact high at the container store. If a house is organized and perfectly arranged I'm capable of pretty much keeping it that way. It's the putting it that way that I'm not up to and never have been. There's so much unfinished laundry in my basement that it's more like excavation than housework. I can pull it apart and read the history of our family as easily as a paleontologist reading lithics: the German Porn Bin-olithic era, the Pink and Purple pajama pant-o-zenic stage, the Osh Kosh B'Gosh-a-zoic. One day I'll break through the onesie-stratum and reach the floor.

But the girl child has taken it to a new height. Her habits aren't human, they're gull-like. She doesn't have a room. She lives in an impenetrable nest of unmatched bikini tops, iPod earbud wires, pantyhose, Pirates of the Caribbean pajamas, and yarn. Lots of yarn. I reached down to yank a lose strand of yarn out of the way yesterday and slung a hamster corpse across the room. This wattle is adorned like a crow's nest with spent Vitamin Water bottles, old glasses of orange juice, chip bags and Popsicle sticks.

This isn't so bad. I venture into her room trembling with fear, wary of boobytraps and micro-carnivores, stuff her underwear into her drawer and back out carefully. I keep the door closed. And just like the mom in Poltergeist, I will occasionally open it for curious strangers who will stare in wonder and fear then marvel at my indifference (not recognizing it as abject terror). As long as it's contained, I feel safe.

But last night, the unclean-teen's poltergeic puerility escaped and wreaked havoc on my living room.

As I have mentioned (bragged) in the past (five minutes) my daughter (monkey) attends Superhero High School, oft mentioned in a national magazine I'm too humble to name (Time) several (5) times. Her workload is college level and she often has homework questions I can't answer. Thank God her mom (rumored to be My Attorney [true]) is a superkillerfreakyEinstein genius with dominate genes or she'd be eating paste every day. Instead she's writng essays about Buddhism and Teen Pregnancy (that was a fun trip to the Library) and working calculus. This last weekend she crammed for her very first final exams ever. Her focus was like a powerful searchlight. You could see her thinking. It was like watching Jackie Chan outtakes, only for math. She studied for 17 hours straight and aced her exams. She earned a perfect score.
However, proud as I am, some reject teacher assigned a scrapbook project on the Greek Gods--all of them--showing the God, the origin of their name, and a well known product or object named after them. Two days before finals. That #@%@!

So I go to sleep and she's perched on the edge of the couch with scrapbook materials and her laptop, prim as a pea. I woke up to this:

The Great America Swine Flu Roller Coaster Heat Stroke Calamity, or, What I Did on My Summer Vacation!

The kids have had a busy summer. First I took them to Alabama for their ritual Summer sunburning and to taunt them with the richness and normality of family life in the rural South; then I throw the girl on a plane to a University level full immersion Arabic language course;

[caption id="attachment_1676" align="alignleft" width="240"] Six Flags. No, seriously.[/caption]

then I go to school for two weeks and leave the boy to starve to death while watching an endless loop of McDonald's commercials; then I pack his lazy ass off to a two week long computer camp at Lake Forest college where he stays over night in a killer dorm after spending the day with other geeks who understand AllCap, the geek Ur language, which sounds something like WTFD? STFU! NK! Beast headshot, dude, beast!; then he got swine flu and had to miss the second week AND lose 2400 bucks in the bargain and THEN after a week plus of ultra-laze video-game and dope induced bliss and recovery I send him to Great America on the hottest day in the Midwest in a year so he can ride roller coasters all day, blister his feet into some kind of cephalopodic skin graft gone wrong, get heat stroke, come home and fall down the stairs.

There are certain precautions most parents take when delivering their prepubescent children alone into the roaring maul of an amusement park. For instance, the parent will send the child with the following items:

1. Cell phone. Charged. Ringer on "taze"


2. Cash.


3. Water bottle. Do not confuse with Vodka Bottle, which is what adults bring.


4. The right clothes: sandals, light t shirt, hat, a bag with extra in case of drenching.


5. Hat.


6. Sun screen.


7. ID card pinned inside their shorts so if they fall off the ride, the authorities know where to send the body.

I sent my son to Great America on a day that would've made native Floridians shake their head with wonder as the humidity and the oppressive heat slaked their skin off their bones, in the following:

1. white socks


2. heavy tennis shoes


3. heavy shorts


4. a black t-shirt


5. no hat.

He had plenty of cash and was instructed to spend it mostly on water and Gatorade, instructions given by a parent who has forgotten that water in a theme park costs the gross GDP of Belarus.

He was instructed to call us at least three times and finally a few minutes before he leaves so we could swing by and pry his hyper excited carcass off the lot.

Call  1:

"I! just! rode! the! Eagle! in! the! front! car! I! rode! the! Raging! Bull! seven! times!!!! This!!! is!!! awesome!!!! OMG!!!!!!! AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [garble, garble]!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   !   [ click].

Call 2:

[garble, garble; screaming] hands up but at the end!! I [garble, garble, garble, garble; music] huge wave hit me!!! [garble; click.]

Call 3:

You know the park closes in an hour, right? You have to leave now to come get us.

Call 4—29:

You heard what I said about coming to get us, right? Where are you? Should we run out to the highway? Can you see us? Can you see a McDonald's? Can you see McDonald's!

We get to the gate. Pull right up to the big WELCOME sign and the kid staggers out like a chunky prepubescent Frankenstein. He's holding his hands out from his sides and walking like he rode a sandpaper saddle all day. He's flushed and moist and squinting. I realize he looks exactly like I did when I was his age and did a six mile hike in Scouts along an open road in Florida in JULY and I realize the kid's in real pain.

We feed. We water. On the way home he tells us at one point during the day, he was dizzy, his heart was racing, and his mouth was dry. He starts to complain. He has a headache. His thighs hurt. His feet hurt. We get to his friend's house, drop the kid off, and my son starts to cry. He's moaning. We check him out, poke, prod. His head is hot and his hands are cold. We administer aspirin and Gatorade. He finally falls asleep in the back seat. We get home and he doesn't even want to go to his room. I make him a bed on the couch. We go upstairs.

An hour later, I hear a crash. Now crashes are not uncommon in our house and I always wait until the screaming starts before I react. 99 percent of the time, there's no screaming, so, no emergency and I can continue my Psych and Burn Notice marathon uninterrupted. Tonight, there were no screams, but a little while after the crash I heard whimpering. [My Attorney] and I leaped out of bed and found the kid slumped at the bottom of the stairs.

The poor kid, he was so exhausted, he kind of sleep walked and was going upstairs, god knows why, and laid his hand on my usual stack of magazines and books permanently perched on the third step and the whole thing tipped and he slid down. Didn't fall down the stairs; didn't flip over, hit his head, and paralyze himself down the stairs. But let me tell you, coming around the corner and seeing him puddled on the hardwood stopped my heart cold.

And it's all my fault. The kid had an absolutely fantastic day, except for the effects of bad parenting. To whit:

• I neglected to impart to my son the miraculously soothing quality of corn starch when applied to one's [insert preferred euphemism for one's "junk" here]. By the end of the day, you could've driven a clown car between his knees. He was walking like a retired cowboy.

• I dressed him like a retiree with bad circulation. I mean, seriously, the heavy lined shorts, socks, and a black t-shirt? We're lucky he didn't burst into flames.

It took him a while to get back to sleep. [My Attorney] performed her famous HIGH ENERGY LED FLASHLIGHT IN THE EYE CONCUSSION TEST wherein she uses a high intensity beam of pure radiation to cauterize the retina. I made him drink nearly a liter of Gatorade. He's fine.

I might not sleep all night, but he's fine.

This is how the world ends

If the world were ending on, say, Saturday, around 3:21 pm or so, would there be some kind of catastrophic leading indicators? And if so, would we be smart enough to notice? I'm only asking because, as your resident brainiac, I have to tell you, I'm seeing some pretty disturbing stuff out on the rough seas of the internet. In fact, I think I'm starting to see things, anomalies, virtual ghosts, bandwidth banshees. I'm seeing the kind of things you read about after the disaster happens and someones just happens to mention that all the dogs and cats ran away just before the volcano blew or 300 surfers mysteriously showed up the day before the tidal wave struck. Stuff like that.

The clearest leading indicator of our Apocalypse is the proliferation of Brit Lit. No, I don't mean all those Percy Bysh Shelley blogs. I mean literature regarding the imminent decline of Our Lady of Trailer Trash, Britney Spears.

This brief article will be the most attention I've ever given Spears during my adult life. She don't register. My mind is trained to edit my reality with excruciating prejudice. In th course of a day there are countless boneheaded micro-catastrophes it just blithely deletes. I never know they're there. It's like my inner child grew up to be a curmudgeonly aesthete and barely has the time of day for me much less the sheer billions of jaggoffs that walk among us, her calamitousness being one of them, being in fact, their queen. It's a gift from God.

But deep in the bowels of Death By Children's secret underground complex, the internet churns and wails and occasionally I have to go down and poke it with a fork and today when I poked it, it said "The end is near--Chart Britney's period."

We all know Spears went crazy when she married Kevin Federline. It's simple math: trailer trash + trailer trash = "Cops". And we're all guilty of paying attention to her mostly because we know she's bound to set herself on fire any day now and we want to be the first person in our Five to make the emergency conference "Dude" call and put the YouTube immolation video on our blog. Same reason we go to NASCAR. It's not the race that's exciting, it's the crash.

The thing is, Britney's crash is so inevitable that I can't see how it's interesting to anyone. In fact, I think her crash is long over but she's milking it. Or worse, it's all orchestrated by her Svengalian manager to drum up sympathy and support for a massive comeback to coincide with a new album and hit song. I don't know if it's better that I'm right about that or wrong. And I don't care that much. I'm just saying that she's one of the leading indicators of impending planetary destruction. She's THE indicator. In a bazillion years, they'll be referring to her and Nostradamus in the same breath.

How do I know? This is how I know. Celebrity gossip hounds have sunken pretty much as far as they can in finding Britnephalia to coat the empty insides of their blogs. It's not enough that she's just %$#@!ing crazy. That's not simple enough. And it's not enough that she's bipolar, or suffering from post-partum depression, or exhausted, or any of the ten thousand other afflictions that might explain the source of her ludicrous behavior (she makes Ludicris look like a Lutheran). NO, for the leading indicator of global deletion, Britney must suffer from something both noble and mundane, both ridiculous and rare, something divine yet disturbing.

She's on the rag.

But when Britney is visited by her leel frin it's she can't just be a little crabby. Her orc horde switches on her bipolarity, her post-partumality, and her panty-less-shopping-ism. Because she isn't human. She's a leading indicator and she dances on the upturned faces of her worshipful bloggists, people who watch her every move and would, could they afford the air fare, gleefully root through her garbage like feral pigs stumbling out of the forest into the grease trap at Arby's. People like this guy, who actually CHART HER PERIOD TO SEE WHEN SHE' GOING TO FREAK OUT NEXT! Gaze, as the planet teeters on the brink of disaster, on the wonder that i the menstrual cycle of Our Lady of Holy Sh--


(Red indicates . . . uh . . . that her "Cousin Red's" in town t help her with her "Grammar" . . . )

Dinner and a Booby

We run a tight ship around here at Casa de Death. No cussin. No runnin' with scissors. No mixing metaphors. Also, we're dead set against public nudity. This is not true of everyone in our neighborhood.

There's a fantastic Mexican/Guatemalan restaurant a couple of blocks away. We love it. Eat there all the time. In fact, we don't even call it by its actual name (because we'd get sued). We call it by the name of the exuberant owner. We call it Juan's. Some families order Chinese. We say, let's eat at Juan's. And so there we were the other night, peacefully crunching through some lomo de Res con nopalitos, chicken flautas, and steak quesadillas when I casually glance across the street and notice a light come on in a second story window. Oh, how nice, I think. I didn't know anyone lived over those nondescript businesses. Someone lives there. That's where they live. There.


I'm bringing a forkful of lomo and nopalitas (steak and baby cactus) to my mouth when the person who lives there steps into view and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt they not only live there, they also poop there.

Most bathroom windows are made from frosted or pebbled glass. Not this one. This one was carved from pure gas plasma high definition glass. As I stared, agog, through the remarkably clear possibly magnifying unfrosted pane, an elderly woman removed her robe and sat on what I could only assume was a pissoir and opened what I could only assume was a magazine (Exhibitionist Monthly?) I watched in horror, steak and baby cactus dangling before my gaping mouth, as she thrust out her chin the tiniest little bit and, I assume, strained, ever so slightly.

[My Attorney]: What?
Me: Man, these tacos are scrumptious.
[My Attorney]: (not fooled for a minute) What.
My son: Dad? Why do you look scared?
Me: How's your chicken oh my god!

The horror show across the street has gotten measurably worse. I will never be able to wipe it from my memory. As hard as I try now to wipe it from my mind, I cannot. I can't wipe that image clear. It remains there where I can't wipe it. Wipe. Wipe. Wipe.

Following my stricken countenance, [My Attoryney] and innocent child glance behind them and spit their flautas across the table. A flurry of Oh My Gods are whispered through fingers as we clamp our hands across our faces to wipe the horror from our horror wiped faces. Wipe.

Now we're trying to finish our meal without calling attention to the free show happening across the street. [My Attorney] is facing mostly away and the boy child, so innocent, so pure, has his back to the window. Well, his chair has its back to the window. My kid is practicing yoga so he can eat while accidentally glancing out the window into the window.

Our waiter stops by, follows our glance across the street into the red light district, and pours cold water all over the guacamole. He tries to clean up but he keeps staring at our new friend who is now standing and putting on a shower cap. She does some sort of . . . examination? We're not sure. All we know is the waiter poured water in the guac, the flautas, our empty margarita glasses, and onto the floor.

We figured she'd have to finish her ablutions and turn off the light but she did not. She continued to disappear and reappear, nekkid as all get out, as we finished our desert, politely refused to have our empty salsa cups refilled with coffee, and paid our check. She was doing some kind of pit maintenance as we drove away.

Two weeks later, we're at a neighborhood party and mention this, purely out of an altruistic effort to perhaps communicate to this woman that her glass, she is not frosted. We mention it because a person at the party works in the building beneath the glaze de l'boudoir and we felt we had to tell her. Turns out the woman is not entirely shy and may not give a rats ass if people can see her flaunting her flab over their flautas.

I guess we'll have to start requesting a table that faces the wall or perhaps only eat there in the daytime.

Alternate titles for this post:

"Rear Window"
"Room with a View"

The Joy of Shopping!

I took the boy child shopping today at the urging of [My Attorney] who saw there was a sale at Kohl's and insisted we go buy snow boots.

I don't hate shopping but I manshop which means I go in alone, unaided, unprotected, a solitary soldier with an objective and a deadline. I learned long ago that I have no real style so I stick with the classics and never deviate: white shirts, black or khaki pants, no prints, no visible branding, no logos. I know my size and I know where to go and I shop during the day when the pros are at work.

[My Attorney] can close her eyes and visualize any shirt as it would appear on the kids. It's her super power. If she were on Heroes she's defeat Silar by fitting him for winterwear for three hours until he caved and begged for mercy. She can buy a suit off the rack and it will fit me like it was tailored in Shanghai. She's like the terminator--only for clothes.

I am not. I had the actual boy with me today who actually tried on the clothes and stood in front of me wearing the actual shirt and we looked at each other and couldn't figure out if it fit or not.

"Is it too big?"

"I don't know."

"Is it too small?"

"Um, uh"

"Is it a small or a medium?"

"What?"

And the boy isn't exactly in it to win it. Here we are willing to drop a deuce on duds and he steps off the escalator, surveys the second floor and says "Everything here is gay."

Being that I end up in the stores with the moms most of the time, I have learned by carefully concealed observation how to find the stuff that appears to not be in stock. I've learned there is no such thing as sold out, that with enough arms-crossed-lethal-glare ground holding, one can make a befuddled stocking clerk hang by his nails in the rafters to look on top of the office roof and find a discarded pair of Totes Snowcaps size 8 that somehow got left there last winter and are now 80% off. I can do this.

Take today: Your average dad would take a quick look at the boxes stacked underneath the boots we wanted, see that they are all 9s and 11s and walk away satisfied that they don't stock 8s. I, however, am married to SHOPZILLA and, like a Spartan, I either come back with my sale item or draped across it, dead from multiple stab wounds. So I removed the entire wall of 9s and 11s, re-stacked them along the aisle, and lo, there in the back, were 8s and 14s. As soon as I had the pair I wanted, a herd of mothers spontaneously assembled behind me and bought everything I'd uncovered.

Using her super ninja shopzilla armor piercing sale-radar, [My Attorney] realized I had the boots in hand but was walking out before looking at shirts and pants so she called me and ordered me to drag the boy child through the shirts until something stuck.

We walked around the corner and he reminded me that 'everything here is gay' and I reminded him that people who say everything is gay are gay and he said I was working off some kind of repression and I mentally threw him down the up escalator. Physically, I made him try on mauve colored sweater vests until he realized I was just messing with him. Still, not one t-shirt made the bill excepting the "Chuck Norris" shirt which was too small. Everything else? Gay. He walked out with a belt buckle and a belt and a knit hat and a dapper gray button up.

In the parking lot, it was already snowing. The boy had elected not to put on his jacket because it was simply too much work. Now a mom would've busted his chops and made him suit up. But a dad is born with a sink-or-swim mentality that won't let us do that. I asked him once, he said no, I said fine. On the way in, it was still light out and he managed to just make it into the store before he shivered. But when we left? Black as night, falling snow, slight breeze and I had the keys. I made that trip across the parking lot in baby steps, talked on the phone, dropped my keys, asked him if he left his coat in the store. By the time I squelched the doors, he was blue and shivering.

"You cold?"

"Nope."

"People who say nope are gay."

"Shut up, dad."

"People who are cold are gay."

"SHUT UP!"

"People who say shut up are gay."

"Shut Up!"

"See."

Neal Patrick Harris is My Lord & Savior

It started in "Harold & Kumar Go To Whitecastle," when NPH played himself. I thought, wow, that guy is a total dilligaf. He's funny as all get out and dosn't take himself seriously. But his acting there was just him playing against type and being snarky.

In Dr. Horrible's Sing A Long Blog, he reaches some kind of Zenith of cool, with the help of Josh Whedon and some really great sidemen. When are the Coen brothers finally going to get it and cast Harris? This little movie is so good, so smart, and so funny. And watch NPH's nuances as the Mad Scientist/Blogger who's too shy to talk to his true love, Penny. Good lord this is the best thing on the web.

Dr. Horrible

Please save me: my children are trying to kill me.

How to Not Get Hired: Part 1

I posted my resume on an online job board because another freelancer convinced me you can get work that way. I haven't gotten a single contract from it but boy if I wanted to go into door-to-door knife sales or insurance franchising, I'm in the money. I don't know if these people can't read or if the job board just doesn't check who's looking at our resumes. So I figured the only thing to do is do what I do best and write back at them. Here's the first one...

Their letter to me:

On Dec 31, 2010, at 2:00 PM, Jennifer Butler wrote:

Dear Christopher,

I’d love to speak with you about your resume.

Despite recent economic conditions, a few industries have experienced success - one of them being the franchise industry.  I have been hired to (hand select) and invite qualified individuals with managerial/leadership backgrounds (to explore franchise opportunities).  Based on your credentials, I feel you may be a good fit.

I work with an enormous network of consultants that represent hundreds of major franchise businesses.  I place qualified individuals in various franchises that fit within the realms of their previous work history and acquired talents ultimately training (and equipping) born entrepreneurs with the necessary tools to take the leap towards owning a business and taking control of their futures.

This is a unique opportunity that would allow you to apply your experience towards a business of your own, increasing your earning potential and allowing you some much deserved flexibility in your career.

Please visit our website at:  www.explorefranchise.com and just take a look around.  Once there, fill out the "Get Started Today" form.  When I receive your information, I’ll give you a call within 48 hours to discuss the next steps.

Best regards,

Jennifer Butler

Franchising Coordinator

jennifer@explorefranchise.com

www.explorefranchise.com

26035 Acero Suite 200

Mission Viejo, California 92691

http://app.streamsend.com/private/PKHj/UYK/dL0tU8T/unsubscribe/13169603

My Response:

Dear Jennifer;

What a fantastic idea. I am totally on board. What I'm most interested in is a franchise involving importation. I think that's a great bet considering the economy and how it looks going forward into the second term of the current GOP.

Specifically, I'm looking at a franchise importing the rare New Guinean Tufted  Ocelot. These are beautiful, naturally miniature versions of the common ocelot we all know and love. They'll fit in the palm of your hand when they're still six months old so importation through standard customs will be no trouble.

My method of importation is highly advanced, yards ahed of that guy from Brazil who stuffed endangered bearded tiger monkeys down his pants and expected to make it through Miami Nat. Classic, right? No, my method involves a certain amount of salesmanship and believe me, I am the right guy for the job.

First, my friend Fiornio who is a "Doctor" in Ecuador, admits me to his specialty oncology lab in Quito. There I am fitted with a full body stasis wrap under which the Ocelots, drugged of course, are packed pretty tight. Fiornio then slaps a couple contagion stickers on a flatbed rig and hooks me up to a fake IV and we get on a direct flight to Homassasa Springs.

Understand I won't have bathed or brushed my teeth for at least three weeks so I'm not what you'd call pleasant. Also, this covers up the natural musk of the Ocelots. The Ocelots themselves will be hibernating due to the massive doses of neambutol administered by Fiornio. If anyone asks, Fiornio will tell them they're tumeritic bulbues and we're on our way to a lab where they'll laser them off for study. If one moves, so much the better. I'm betting no one's going to come close to us.

In Homassassa, we unload with medical priority directly into a waiting ambulance and bingo bango bongo, we're in business. I meet with a couple of dealers I know and unload the product that's still alive (we're working on percentages here--neambutol is pretty strong stuff).

I'm so happy you picked my resume out of the pile you must certainly receive regularly and even happier you saw through my disguise as a"creative writer" right. Whatever.

So, when can we get this shindig started? Soledad's got about 20 cats ready to pop so we're looking at a cool 380 grand here. Can you front the airfare and costume fees as "start up"? I love the franchise cover, by the way. Classic.

Yours;

CG

The Clash

At the movie theater:

"Why is that guy singing, rock the cat box?"

The Wet Willy Way: NINJA!

Death by Children is committed to supporting only the highest standards in parenting techniques. We are especially devoted to methods of parenting that embody joy, love, and laughter, as well as promoting the idea to every parent that their children are not a burden, but a gift. We also tell fart jokes.

WWW Technique #002: The Ninja

This technique is designed to teach the parent how to reconnect to their children through absurdity and laughter.

Method:

Wait until your kids is sitting quietly, lost in thought, then grab their forearm and loudly scream NINJA!

Why it works

It's funnier than hell. Seriously, nothing's funnier than surprising the crap out of your kids.

It's inclusive: your kids get to ninja you back.

It's ridiculous: it erodes tension and severity with absurdity.

It levels the playing field: Everyone gets really silly and competitive and tries so hard to find that perfect moment when everyone's forgotten about NINJA then yell NINJA!

Try it.

See. It works.

Open Letter from the Dogs

Dear Bipeds;

We are concerned. As practicing members of the canine subculture, we dogs face a constant problem of dehydration. It is vital to us that we are provided with adequate water at all times.

By adequate, we mean, of course, clean. To that point, we need to address certain habits of the uprights that have come to our attention.

Firstly, allow me to say, and I'm speaking for myself and the short one who tries to hump me all the time, we have deep and abiding respect for you and all the two-legs in the house. As you know, we are in the habit of licking you on a fairly regular basis. This is our way of showing you our respect and affection (albeit, we're also checking for pizza crumbs). We are, in the humblest manner, as they say in the street, your dogs (yo).

Secondly, we feel compelled to bring to your attention your usage of the water bowl located in the bathroom. Although you do a remarkable job keeping this bowl full of fresh, clean water, free of debris, and available to us quadrapeds, you also seem to enjoy urinating in it. Regularly.

Suffice it to say, we're displeased. We drink out of that bowl, good sir. We dip our unprotected snouts in that water several times each day and we do so with a certain mindlessness that comes from habitual behavior (I assume you've read Pavlov and Skinner; you know how this works); i.e., we don't check first. We just start lapping and to do so and suddenly realize one of the vertical kind has marked the bowl again is, well, surprising would be diplomatic.

We're not asking for much and we know this is a cultural difference that needs to be addressed with care, but could you possibly start urinating outdoors like a good dog? Peeing in our water bowl is just rude and leads to aggressive behavior (I don't want to sound threatening but have you looked in your shoes today?).

In closing, if you could please find it in your heart to reform this unacceptable habit, we'll stop peeing on the couch.

With warmest regards;

The Dogs.

Or maybe not . . .

[My Attorney] told me in no uncertain terms that Death by Children shall not be terminated. Also, it looks like an independent publisher is very interested in turning it into a book in 2012. So, that whole Aztec end of the world thing was actually all about me.

Here's what will happen: The current stories will disappear and be shuttled off to North Korea where a warehouse full of kidney donors will type paginate them prior to publication.

I will continue to write stories and, according to [My Attorney], I will write even more.

All this despite having a book out on the shelves now that I'm co-marketing with my co-author, co-Dave Haynes; AND despite having just started a new intensive project mentioned earlier (which is already going well).

So don't expect much. I will probably write total crap, first draft level, show gazing crap. But it'll be funny.

Children’s Books for Precocious Youth

I was working on future book projects and came up with these fetching kid's books.

1. Alphabet Cassulet:
   A is for acidophilus
   B is for brachinacea
   C is for contrapuntal
   D is for dipsomaniac
   E is for existentialism


2. My Pet Giant African Land Snail


3. Everybody Poops: Academic Review of Fecal Humor in Early Childhood Educational Literature.


4. Goodnight Bassoon


5. Where the Wild Things Are: Statistical Analysis For Establishing Social Boundaries


6. Why Are You My Mommy?


7. Where the Sidewalk Ends: Jungian Archetypes and the Loss of Urban Micro Social Cultures


8. Spurious George


9. Schrödinger's Cat in the Hat


10. Green Eggs & Ham: Sustainable Agriculture and Carbon Footprint Reduction in Breakfast Food Production Techniques


11. My Two Mommies: An Argument for Human Egg Cloning

Penn and Teller

Guest Post by Kevin Bender

 

One of the best shows to ever been seen on satellite TV from directstartv.com is Penn and Teller's show entitled Bullshit. The title may seem a little profane and some people may not watch it based purely on this, of course that is the intention as typically only open minded people are into this particular program.

Penn and Teller are famous magicians that preform in Las Vegas regularly, but very little magic is in the show. They seek out issues that controversial and seek to prove whether or not something is in fact Bullshit. The aforementioned profane word is used to avoid charges of slander, but really helps to set the mood.

Some of their episodes have gone so far as to prove a deserve array of things such as disproving Fung Suei, which is the art of arranging furniture to increase a room's positive energy. This was easily disproved by hiring three so called experts and having them arrange the same room for optimal positive energy. Seeing each expert arrange the room in stark contrast to one another and provide their own reasoning for it, goes so far as to prove beyond a doubt that this not a legitimate thing.

They have had a variety of different topics on the show and seemingly nothing is off limits. This is why so many people are looking forward to new episodes to come.

 

First Snow

The sky finally gave it up and covered our yard with a velvety blanket of snow last night. It's still coming down and I know I don't usually write Hallmarky bull hockey like this but it's really nice.

I think what I like the most baout snow is that my yard finally has a consistent, beautiful appearance--one unbesmirched stretch of alabaster instead of a hodge podge of green grass, brown dead grass, old leaves, dead plants, McDonald's litter, and rusted bikes.

My mom is visiting and I got up to make waffles and bacon and coffee and she got up and had her coffee and decided to take a moment at our big windows and take in the snow. She parts the drapes to gaze out at our beautiful snow white landscape and nearl spit her coffee through her nose because staring back at her was a gossamer draped skeleton and a grinning horrid skull glaring back at her through the falling snow.

I left my halloween decorations piled in a corner of the backyard. I'm thinking of finally putting them away but then, it does make for a unique snowman . . .

Second First Day of School Epic Fail

I woke up (from my night of wondering if I'd ever fall asleep) to the sound of my iPhone sawing through my desk. I heard the front door slam, looked out the window, and saw the boy child getting into his mom's car.

That seemed like a perfect thing. He gets to school on time and I get to go back to sleep. Which I did.

I wake up a few hours later to the sound of my iPhone trying to bury itself in my desk to hide from [My Attorney] who is reaching through the phone and beating me to death. I get up. I drive all the way downtown to pick up the papers I needed yesterday to register the girl. I drive all the way home. I make six calls on the way down there and two on the way back all in the vein of: take a frikkin shower so you're all dressed and ready when I get there. All of these answered with SHUT UP DAD I CAN HANDLE THIS ALRIGHT?!

I walk in the door and she's in her room.

"Hey, you ready?"

"No."

"What? Listen, we've got to get our carcass to that school and get you in."

"I don't have any pants."

I just . . I can't . . . I . . .

How does she not have any pants? She had pants yesterday. She wore them for less than an hour. Where are they now? Did they return to their pant overlords and report on the activities of teen humans?

(Pants: SIR WE TRIED TO OBSERVE THE HU-MAN TEENS BUT THEY NEVER GOT OFF THE COUCH SO THERE'S NOT MUCH TO REPORT UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED ON 'ADVENTURE TIME' FOR THE LAST SIX WEEKS.)

I fix this problem. I get her loaded into the car. I get there despite spending all seven minutes fighting for control of the radio. We leap out of the car, race across the field to the office where they tell us they stop registering at 11am, which we missed by an hour and five minutes.

Derp.

I'm so mad. I needed my day of peace and I haven't gotten yet. All the other dads-who-"work"-at-home have called me up trying to explain around the end of their cigar how good their beer tastes while I'm washing bras.

So I threaten her that I'm going to prance across the tennis courts just to embarrass her and she tells me I couldn't prance my way out of a light mist and I swear I can score higher than her on Prance Prance Revolution and we stop there in the middle of the tennis courts at the school she will go to every day but, apparently, never attend, and we shout OH MY GOD THAT WOULD BE AN AWESOME GAME!

I am a 17 year old girl.

Do You Feel Lucky, Punk? Huh, Do You?

’m anti gun. Not for you—-for me. I don’t care who else owns a gun. I assume all the retards, rejects, and reprobates already have one. I assume I’m walking among the armed.

But I put myself on the DO NOT EMPISTOLATE list years ago. I’m too likely be looking for a hammer and settle for a .357 magnum. I still get a kick out of guns, no doubt. With adult supervision, I can shoot.

This summer I helped my father-in-law site a scope. We chugged up the mountain to his private hunting reserve, laid a gorgeous 30-06 across the sighting table and started peeling off high velocity brass jacketed hell-yeahs one after the other.

Meanwhile, a gunfight was brewing in my sister’s basement. She was throwing a party for my nephew and though I knew my son was attending, I didn’t know it was a gun-centric occasion.

The guns in question were a kind of sub-paintball-weapon maximized for safety by firing a soft, resilient pellet that is best described as ‘nerfish’. Shoot somebody from more than a couple feet away and they barely feel a pinch. Closer up and it’s just a wicked sting. Point blank? We’ll get to that.

So we’re all at part a) of the soirée. We’re playing laser tag (did I mention I’m from Alabama? We’d stir our grits with a gun if it didn't rust) and on the way home, my sister—with a van filled to the eaves with 11 year old boys bristling to shoot something and chattering non-stop about barrels and ammo and calibers and my son, my cute little geek son, is practically drooling—she stops at a regional sports store (ammunition dump) so some of the kids can get more nerf-pellets and her son gets a new gun and my son, wiping the drool off his face, knowing full well my position about firearms, he gives me the sad kitten appeal and just pleeeeeads with me. He is relentless. Ardent. Driven. Finally he hits me with the heavy artillery. He says “You were out shooting guns today!” Crap.

I pride myself on parenting with logic and clarity (and threats of maiming and punitive deletion of cherished electronics) so when he points out the obvious I know he’s got me. I buy him the gun.

On one condition.

I get to shoot him.

“But dad! That will HURT!”

“You’re right. It’s dangerous.” I start to put it back on the shelf. The rest of the assassins are watching carefully because if Roon gets a gun that means he gets to play and THAT means he’s a target and they know he's a little slow on his feet. Roon considers his options and agrees.

So we get back to Dodge City Basement and I line the boys up gauntlet style. Roon runs upstairs and puts on three thick t-shirts. I get my older nephew to play a military dirge-march on the drums, pin Connor to the wall and ceremoniously walk back to my place, point, aim, ask him if he has any last words, then shoot the little bastard in the solar plexus.

He didn’t even feel it.

So later. Two of the gunfighters come upstairs and ask that Connor be ejected from the OK corral. Seems he can’t really tell the difference between STOP SHOOTING, PLEASE STOP SHOOTING, OW OW OW DAMMIT STOP! and OK, START SHOOTING AGAIN and the rest of the boys are about to take away his gun by pulling it through his ass. So I go downstairs and, as I’m standing there, Connor puts his finger over the open barrel and pulls the trigger. There is a distinct, surprisingly loud SNAP and Connor looks at me with a big shit-eating grin on his face. For like one second.

Did you ever see the Grinch That Stole Christmas? Remember when his sourpuss morphs slowly into a beatific smile? Imagine that in reverse. Connor’s grin slides backwards into a howl of pain and he THROWS HIS GUN down and runs upstairs.

He was ok later, even laughed about it. But the gun? Well, let’s just say he’s on the same list I am and the gun is safely out of reach.

Radio Free Winnebagoes!

The bra discussion continued on the air:

Why Men Should Watch Sex and the City

So we're on our way back from New Orleans when [My Attorney] whips out her laptop and asks me if I want to watch Sex in the City.

For a little vacation lagniappe, we used some of our miles to bump into first class thinking it could be a great way to top off the trip. A little bubbly. A little movie. Comfort. First class is statussymbolville, rock star level, pole dancer stewardessing luxury. I wanted the optional foot massage and nude kabuki theater. Instead, I got a crabby stewardess who yelled at everyone. The champagne was crap. My seat was broken. There was GRAFITTI on the seatback.

There was no movie. There were no peanuts.

So when my attorney offered to play a rental on her laptop, I jumped at it. So what if it's Sex and the City? None of my friends were there. The seatbacks (covered in gang tags) were pretty high. So I did it.

I know, you guys are throwing your hands in the air asking How Could You, Man!? I was bored. I needed something. So she hits play and the credits come up and I find myself intrigued. The credits are pretty good and I'm surprised that the lead is actually much hotter than I used to think back in the day when SATC was the rage. And I got to give credit where credit is due--the directors really use a lot of slo-mo hair flips which are nothing more than extended gratuitous boob shots. Yay.

So the show starts and I'm all prepped to crack on the crappy writing but instead I'm asking questions and saying dude, (I often refer to My Attorney as Dude--it's unisexual, I swear), that dude's a loser and what's up her crack? And I'm into it, the story is pretty good, pretty well written, and the jokes are funny as hell. I'm realizing that basically this is just a recurring chick flick, like Roman Holiday on endless repeat, and Mr. Big is Cary Grant and all the other chicks are the quintessential American women: the hot slut, the hot professional, the hot girl next door, and the hot brainy lit chick. They're all perfect and exquisite and they have interesting conversations. About sex. For an hour. Now that's pretty cool and tolerable and yes, you will learn something about the mindset of women and yes that will help you understand your [attorney] better.

But that's not why men should watch Sex and the City.

Dude, you should watch Sex and the City because, dude: you get to watch hot naked women have sex--with your [attorney].

I saw more skin in three episodes of SATC than I ever did watching Serena Williams play tennis. It's like the Sopranos only instead of a really satisfying lurid payback assassination, you get one of the women topless. WITH YOUR [ATTORNEY].

So get comfy and plop yourself down on the couch and make occasional comments like yeah, that guy's a turd, or wow, she changed her hair. And every time they have one of the xtra-hot main characters revealing their most bankable options, say Oh that's gratuitous. Say it like you mean it.

13 Bad Headlines for NASA's Admission to Sex Training For Mars Mission

A NASA adviser recently battled the president of Virgin Atlantic for the title of "most purposefully misquoted official" after they discussed how co-ed Mars Mission astronauts---stuck together in tight quarters for three years--- might, um, think about, um . . . probing. Read the whole story here.

1. Astronauts Train For Bumpy Ride!
2. The Eagle Has Landed! (um, that's not my Eagle . . .)
3. NASA Talks to VIRGIN About SEX!
4. Asked to Extend Boom, Astronauts Giggle Uncontrollably.
5. Virgin Atlantic Adds "NOT!" to Logo!
6. Probes No Longer Limited to Aliens!
7. Uranus Begs for Name Change!
8. Cigar Shaped Object Not Cigar!
9. Howard Stern Heads New Apollo Mission!
10. Mile High Club Extended by 100 Miles.
11. Cape Canaveral Worker Fired for T-Shirt: "I Got Yer Right Stuff Hangin!"
    
12. NASA Relocates to Miami Beach, Opens Club.
    
13. New Space Suits Designed by Trojan.