Daily Dollop

Three Down, Eight to Go

2009-11-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

When I awoke this morning, the only way that I knew that I hadn't been slaughtered by an errant poltergeist overnight was the feeling of cotton slowly swelling my groggy, befuddled head.

Ye gods, what a night!

I went to bed early because I was horrifically stuffy and exhausted. Everything I did yesterday seemed to sap my strength, as if I were Sisyphus constantly struggling to make some kind of progress against the Herculean task of watching two largely self-sufficient children all by myself while nursing a head cold.

Even the nap wore me out!

But the sweet release of sleep was not to be mine. I couldn't take Nyquil for two reasons: firstly, I needed to be aware for the inevitable break-in by some sociopath hell-bent on slaughtering me in a gruesome, SAW-esque fashion. I needed all my powers of detection at peak strength to be ready to detect and flee from just such a problem.

Secondly, if one of the children hollered for me overnight and I didn't respond, they'd complain to mommy, and then I'd wish that a homicidal maniac had broken into the house.

So I settled down to a non-drugged sleep. The sacrifices I make for my children! But sleep came slowly because, as I may have mentioned before, our house is haunted by the heavy-breathing floor-creaking daddy-creeping ghost from hell. And I swear I heard scratching on the roof all night, but I'll be darned if I'm going to open the door and discover my dead boyfriend's body hanging by his heels and then have some hook-handed maniac hunker down in the back seat and slaughter me as I drive home.

Or, you know, something like that.

Worse, when I did finally drift off, I awoke from time to time with a river of snot flowing freely forth from my sinuses, and I had to towel it off with tissues. And then I had to repeat the whole thing again, going back to sleep with all the scratching and screeching and me wetting the bed with no small regularity.

I was pretty parched by morning. Plus I had enough tissues stuck to my head with snot that the kids thought I was a mummy and hit me with a dictionary.

The first thing I did (after rubbing the imprint out of my forehead) was to take a shower. And let me tell you, I'm coming around on this whole "bigger hot water heater" thing that Wifey's been pushing lately. She just might be onto something.

Then I went downstairs and started heating a cup of hot water, when I realized that there was no coffee to be had. So I did what any normal person would do: I howled obscenities and tore the cupboard apart.

And there, in the back, I found it: "NEW NESCAFE DESSERT COFFEE: NOW WITH LESS ROACH AND SHOE SHAVINGS!"

Ooooh, baby! It was caffeinated! I don't care if it's made from goat foreskin; I'm drinking that stuff down!

From the first sip, suddenly a chorus of angelic voices resounded throughout the kitchen, and I swear I levitated a few inches off the ground. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! I am saved, brothers and sisters! Saved!

Take that, Wifey!

Now I was full of vigor and ready to go. All was well with the world! So I loaded the kids into the car and we went to church. Not much to say about that, except that we arrived well before the time we usually arrive when Wifey is here with us. Not that I'm saying that she's the delay, I'm just saying…

I better stop now. Let's just say all went well.

When we got home, it was time to start laundry. I don't know if you've ever tried to sort and wash and dry laundry with a seven and nine year old, but this is not the easiest of tasks.

First came the complaints, which I deftly parried by asking them if they wanted their DS's to become my property until Mommy returned.

(It's fortunate that they don't realize this is totally a bluff: I mean, am I really going to take the thing that distracts them in complete silence for hours at a time just because they're being a pain in the ass? Of course not! If Wifey doesn't come back, which is a distinct possibility, I'm going to marry those DS's and give them guardianship over the kids, since I'll expect them to do a good bit of the raising of the children.)

Second came the questions: does this white shirt go in lights? Do these black pants go in darks? Can bears climb trees?

This last one from the boy, for no real reason. I told him it depended on the bear, and he starts running through all the bears he knows: what about Polar Bears? Grizzly Bears? Winnie the Pooh? The Country Bear Jamboree Bears? What about them, huh?

I told them it didn't matter since all bears would be extinct soon under the world government's "Earth for Earthlings" policy, and that seemed to satisfy him. When they questioned me about it, I told them to ask their teachers, who were all big fans of the United World Government.

That'll learn those meddling teachers for criticizing my kid's lunches and sending home shitty little notes about telling your kids to be "friends" with everybody.

What if some other kid's a jerk? I tell my kids that if some kid is hassling them, just aim for the face and punch as hard as they can, since most children have a glass jaw. I even give them punching lessons.

Well, when mommy's not around I do. Not that I did that today. Or at least, not that I'll admit to.

After laundry was well started the kids wanted to know what was for lunch. I convinced them to do scrounge, where we just dug up whatever. So the girl and I polished off the chicken man from yesterday (not a man who is a chicken, but chicken bought from a man). And the boy had a hot dog.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the end of the leftovers.

The next few hours are kind of a blur. I remember telling the children to leave me alone, and I remember them not doing it, and I vaguely remember telling the girl to go do her homework or something, but quite frankly, it feels like I spent about forty years in solitary confinement with a speed-addicted two-year-old jonesing for a hit.

I realized as evening wore on that we'd need to do something for dinner. I was about to propose ordering Chinese when I remembered that Wifey has hexed the house to rise up and destroy us if we don't follow her list. So it's time the check, for the first time, what Wifey's put on the menu, because she doubtless bought the ingredients too. Or so I dearly hope.

And the lucky winner is: tuna casserole!

Well isn't that just great? The boy's favorite meal, which unfortunately requires preparation and lots of dish-washing before it's all said and done. Not coincidentally, this is also something Wifey doesn't particularly care for, nor does the girl.

So it falls to Daddy to make this, and yet both children know Wifey was the one who prepared the menu, so she gets all the love and adoration from the boy for including his favorite meal. It's like being married to Machiavelli sometimes.

Wary of having glass shards in close proximity to my testicles again, though, I dutifully followed the menu. So I'm cooking away when the girl wanders in.

"Can I help?" she asks.

"Sure! Grate a block of cheese!"

See, in our family, when a recipe says "sprinkle cheese" what it really means is "put a six-inch layer of cheese on top." Because cheese is like freedom: the more you have, the better off you are.

Then the boy wanders in. "Can I help?"

"Sure! Set the table."

"No, I want to help cook," he says.

"I don't have any job for you."

"Oh," he looks around wistfully. "So then can I have some cheese?"

So we're putting all the ingredients together, and when the girl dumps the cheese on top of the casserole, I see something that horrifies me: her nails contain the dirt and grime of several weeks beneath them.

"Did you wash your hands like I asked?"

She shrugs. "I dunno. I don't remember you asking."

"I'm pretty sure I did," I say. "Those nails are filthy, and you've been fondling our cheese for the past ten minutes!"

"This one's fine!" she protests, holding up her first finger. I see that it has, in fact, no nail.

"What are you talking about, doofus?" I ask. "You don't have a fingernail there."

"What?" she looks at her finger. "I did when I started. I remember because I had just cleaned the dirt out of it using your toothbrush, because this is the finger I pick my nose with, and I want it to be clean."

Serenity now. Serenity now. Serenity now.

So I was faced with a dilemma: to eat, or not to eat, the tuna-and-booger-fingernail casserole. On the one hand, it's just whatever fingernail's made of. It's not harmful. On the other hand, it's a fingernail. Although, if you think about it, it should have been semi-clean. But on the other hand, it's a fingernail.

I ended up deciding to eat the casserole. Oh, don't make that face: if you screwed around with the damn thing for thirty minutes in a cursed house, you'd cook and eat it too. So just spare me your high horsing.

But I will admit that I scrutinized dinner a little bit more judiciously than usual.

After dinner, we were cleaning up when a foul, wretched smell reached my nose. It seemed like a mix of stinky cheese, unwashed socks, and motor oil.

"Shh!" I warned the children. "I think we have a prowler in the house. Probably a Frenchman."

I hefted up a golf club and began creeping through the house. But no matter where I went, he was one step ahead of me, his foul odor lingering behind him but me catching neither sight nor sound of him.

Finally frustrated, I stopped.

"Have you found him yet, dad?" the boy asked.

I took two whiffs and replied. "Yup," I said. "And he is you."

"Ha ha!" the girl laughed. "You stink!"

"I can't stink!" the boy protested. "I just showered, uh, you know, uh,"

"That's what I thought," I said. "And what about you, little missy? When did you last wash?"

"I went to swimming on Monday," she said haughtily. "So you can forget about me smelling bad."

"Both of you in the shower," I insisted. "You know your mother wouldn't let you go to school stinking like this."

"But mom's not here," the boy said slyly.

"Yeah," the girl said. "And you're cooler than she is."

Now, I have to admit, I was tempted: it's not like the kids sleep upwind of me or anything, and the lure of being "cool" is pretty strong. And they do go to swimming on Mondays, which is a lot like taking a bath.

But letting your kids wallow in their own filth is the sign of being a bad parent. It's also a sign of being a hippie, and the last thing I want to raise is a hippie.

(Slight digression: there are lots of things I can handle my children deciding to become, up to and including a lawyer. But I will feel that I, as a parent, have failed if my child goes on to become, in descending order, an environmental engineer, reality-TV star, sociologist, or hippie.)

So I took the children upstairs and washed them. But since it was close to bedtime, I had to give them a DAW, or Daddy-Assisted Washing. This is where I control the water and hose them down, then they wash off, then I rinse them. Kind of like in a prison movie.

The girl went first, and all went well. She knows the drill. Then they boy came up. I should have foreseen trouble based on how giggly he was when he got in, but stupidly I foresaw nothing.
At one point I have to put shampoo on his head. So I hand him the shower nozzle and say "hold this perfectly still."

Which, translated into child language, means "Spray me in the face with this and then drop it and let it spray me all over with hot water while you stand there and cry that there are bubbles getting in your eye."

After he got out I realized that his armpits were completely dry, while mine were totally soaked.

Do you suppose Wifey will notice if there's only one child when she gets home?

Then it was off to bed for them, and now Daddy's going to go have some quality time with a soon-to-be-empty unopened bottle of whiskey.

Only eight more days left.

This is the End...of Day 2

2009-11-07T12:41:00.000-08:00

The kids are in bed. My head is throbbing. But I've reached the end of the second day of being without Wifey. Which, if you think about it, is really the first full day. But I digress...

After I'd showered and shaved, I felt somewhat better. We went and did a little shopping at the open-air market, it was time to prepare our costumes for the Halloween party tonight. See, we'd been invited to a costume party, and after much deliberation I had convinced the children that we should go with "theme" costumes so we can all dress the same.

Our theme? The Royal Family from a deck of cards. So the girl was the Queen of Hearts, the boy was the Jack of Diamonds, and I was the King of Clubs (complete with golf clubs, because I love a good pun). Wifey, ever helpful, had designed and executed three really fabulous card fronts for us to wear.

All I had to do was finish the back of them and then figure out a way to get them to hang on us, which only took me about an hour and six yards of tape. Ah, tape. Is there any problem it can't solve?

While I was in the middle of this, I got a call from Wifey.

"So, you're alive!" I said. "That's good!"

"I envy the dead," she said. "I really do."

And then she proceeded to tell me her tale of woe from yesterday. I can't possibly hope to convey to you the entirety of her awful trip, so let me hit the high points:

She sat next to Dr. Doom's mother. No, really! After hurrying through security and making her way to the plane, she ends up sitting next to a rotund Latvian woman who proceeds to detail her entire life story to Wifey, up to and including ten minutes ago when she got lost trying to get to the gates.

But wait, there's more! It turns out that this woman's life is a series of misfortunes caused by other people giving her misinformation (Wifey told me she suspected a bad case of dumbassery on the part of Mrs. Doom).

The best part is this: they were stalled on the tarmac for five hours. So Wifey spent five hours sitting still listening to this, then nine hours in the air listening to this. She put in her iPod, and Mrs. Doom talked. They ate dinner, and Mrs. Doom talked. She tried to sleep, and Mrs. Doom talked. She watched the movie, and Mrs. Doom talked.

In my mind, I see the scene from Forrest Gump where Bubba is talking all about shrimp, only in a Latvian accent.

Desperate for something else to do, Wifey tried to get out her find-a-word book. Wifey likes doing these, but I don't, because I always get distracted trying to find dirty words they didn't mean to put into the grid but have on accident.

So Mrs. Doom starts pointing out words over her shoulder! How Wifey managed to keep from throttling this woman I will never quite understand.

Finally they begin the descent, and Wifey begins to dream of a life after Mrs. Doom. However, her new best friend had other ideas.

"After we land," Mrs. Doom says, "Can you help me find the luggage claim area."

"Yes, whatever," Wifey says, proving that she's a better human being than I am. "Just shut up ten minutes."

So Mrs. Doom shuts up ten minutes, and in this time, suddenly Wifey realizes something.

"You're not a citizen, are you?"

"No," Mrs. Doom says.

"Well, then, I can't help you. I go through a different passport control line."

"But you could wait for me," Mrs. Doom says.

"I have another flight." Wifey says. "But since I missed it, they've scheduled me on some different flight, I'm sure, and I don't know which one it is."

"I have a connecting flight too," Mrs. Doom says.

"But what if while I'm waiting for you my flight takes off?"

"It won't," Mrs. Doom says.

"But what if it does?" Wifey says.

"I only need you to show me where the luggage claim area is."

"I'm pretty sure there's a sign," Wifey says. "And besides, if I was near one of those rotating belt things and you were there I'm certain that I'd shove you on it and hope it decapitated you."

Okay, she probably didn't say the last part, but I'm sure she thought it.

When, finally, she arrived at the airport she couldn't get out fast enough.

So she's going through the customs area when an airport inspector comes up to her and asks her which flight she was on. The inspector frowns and says,

"Ma'am, we have reason to believe that there was a violation of the passenger's bill of rights during that flight."

"Really?" Wifey asks. "Because we sat on the tarmac for five hours with no food or drink?"

"No ma'am," the inspector says. "Is it true that they showed Land of the Lost?" Wifey nodded. "The horror," the guy says as he wanders off. "The horror..."

Well, after hearing that, I said the only thing to Wifey that a loving, caring husband can:

"Thank God I wasn't there. The kids would have driven us crazy."

Unfortunately, at that moment the line went dead.

Anyhoo, after a nap we were ready to go to the party decked out in our costumes (see what I did there? Card-themed costumes yield a lot of puns!)

It was quite a hootenanny, let me tell you! These people really know how to throw a party! And while everybody came as a wich, or vampire, and the kids came dressed as Clone soldiers (which I am convinced is either a neocon plot to lure kids into the army or a progressive plot to rob us of individual identities), we were the only playing-card themed costumes.

We were the hit of the party.

Everybody was amazed and impressed.

The whole crowd swooned over us.

Until the slutty she-devil arrived and knocked the wind right out of our sails. I mean, how do you compete with six inches of sheer red fabric, spiderweb tights, and double D cups?

You don't, that's how. But, being a man, I didn't mind so much.

The other part of the party that was good was that the people had hired a magician to entertain the children, so I didn't see hide nor hair of them for two hours. And at this rate, any break I get from them is magical in and of itself.

Ahh, sweet release.

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and we eventually had to leave and come home. I cleaned us all up and sent the children to bed.

And I'll be going there myself quite shortly.

Two days down, nine to go.

Morning, day 2

2009-11-07T00:43:00.000-08:00

By my reckoning, I've spent over 120 nights away from home since we moved here, or about 1/3 of a year. Four whole months. On those nights Wifey is solely responsible for everything to do with putting the kids to bed, and then turning out the house, and then going to bed herself. She never, not once, mentioned to me that we live in a house that makes the Amityville Horror look like Cinderella's castle.

How in the hell does she do it?

I'm laying in bed listening to all kinds of shit last night: heavy breathing, footsteps upstairs and downstairs, boards creaking, kids occasionally murmuring in their sleep, and noise from outside that was definitely some psychopath checking the windows to make sure they're locked.

But oh my God! I don't know how to lock the windows! Shit! What if she left one open? What if, right now, some seven-foot CHUDD-eating monstrosity is looming over me with a rusty chainsaw planning on sodomizing my vacant eye sockets as I scream for mercy?

So, in short, I kind of had trouble sleeping last night. Finally I drifted off into a fitful, nightmare-plagued sleep.

When I groggily came awake, I was pleased to find that my head cold, which had migrated to my vocal cords, had decided to come north for better climes and was back in my head. So I felt like crap.

Finally I dragged myself out of bed. I found the girl quickly, but the boy was nowhere to be see.

*whew* All that worrying for nothing! How could I forget that the monstrous evil infecting the house would go for the youngest kid first? Silly me.

So I was unrolling the fire ladder to go out the window (because I figured that, like Chucky, my zombified son waited downstairs to slaughter us with a cheese grater) when he pops up from under a pile of sheets and yells "BOO!"

I pissed my boxers.

Once we'd gotten everything cleaned up, and I'd threatened to murder him, we went downstairs for breakfast.

My head throbbing, I went for the one morning cure that solves everything: coffee.

I am the only coffee drinker in the house, and I only drink caffeinated coffee. It's not that I have anything against decaf, it's just that if I'm going to waste my time fiddling about heating water and mixing in coffee and whatnot, I want some kind of payoff.

Drinking decaf coffee is like being a lab rat trained to hit a button to not receive a pellet.

So I open up the coffee container and find that IT'S FREAKING EMPTY! I mean, really, is it so hard for Wifey to keep my coffee thing full for me? Apparently it is. But she doesn't care, because she's six hundred thousand miles away laying on a beach with some thong-clad muscle man massaging her toes.

First she curses the house, then she flushes my coffee down the toilet.

After a lot of rooting around, I found three different kinds of decaf tucked away in the cabinets. WTF? I guess those 120 mornings when she wakes up alone, she's making decaf coffee for somebody who isn't me.

We'll see who gets who with a cheese grater when she gets back, indeed.

Finally I came up with a stopgap solution (scraping enough coffee out of the empty container to make a lamentably weak brew that taunted you with its inefficacity) and made myself some coffee. I felt marginally better.

"What do you want for breakfast?" I ask the children.

"I want a special breakfast!" the Girl says. "Because mommy isn't here. Pwease?"

Sigh. Okay. So we rooted through the "special breakfast" stuf, and found Blueberry Cheescake muffin mix, which mommy hates. So we had a very special father/daughter bonding time making blueberry cheesecake muffins.

They boy, meanwhile, played his DS and ignored us fully.

When I bit into the first muffin, I remembered that Wifey wasn't the only one who didn't care for these things; they taske like lard with artificial blueberries in it. Ugh. But the girl liked them, so she ate mine, the boy's, and hers.

After breakfast, thwarted in my drive to defeat my cold with coffee, I decide to go with the other sure-fired cold cure. "I'm gonna take a shower," I said.

"What about my breakfast?" the boy asks.

"Get whatever you want," I say.

"But she got something special!" he says. "Why?"

"Uh," I didn't really have an answer for that.

"Because he loves me more, duh!" she says.

He starts to get mad at me when I cut him off. "Hey, only one of my children scared the piss out of me this morning!"

Defeated, he slumps off to go get his own breakfast. Daddy wins!

So I decide to come check e-mail, because I didn't get a call last night about Wifey getting in, so there's probably a note on e-mail. And what I received there simultaneously filled me with dread and delight:

"Dear Passenger,

Your 10:30 AM flight has been delayed until 2:35 PM. Because you will then miss your connecting flight, we have booked you on the following flight: 8:30-9:45. Thank you for your understanding."

The e-mail from Delta arrived at 10:45 PM. That's right: it came well after the plane left. Now, really, how can that possibly be of any use whatsoever? And, unless I missed my guess, given the time change it meant that Wifey (who goes to bed around 10 PM) was up until 4 AM her time trying to get to her destination.

Man, is she pissed. I'm sure flames are shooting out of her eyeballs. I'm only hoping she didn't strangle some airport person and end up getting hauled off to jail.

So why does this fill me with joy?

Duh! Because I'm not there, idiot! When your wife is in full-on Godzilla mode set on destroying everything and everyone around here, you don't want to be present!

Plus, I still owe her for the hex on the kitchen, the lack of coffee, and never telling me that this house is terrifying at night.

It's now 10 AM. Time to face the day.

One down, Ten to go

2009-11-06T12:45:00.001-08:00

And so, dear reader, we reach the end of day 1. The children are in bed, I'm sitting down at the computer, and Wifey's…well, I'm not so sure where Wifey is. Probably on a beach getting suntan oil rubbed on her back or something.

Before she left, Wifey made this really complex menu for us, an exhaustive calendar of the children's activities, and a list of when her plants need to be watered.

(Quick note for any plantologists out there: does peeing on a plant count as watering it? Just let me know in the comments. Thanks!)

Personally, I admired her optimism.

"Are you sure you can handle this?" she said as we tearfully parted this morning at the airport.

"Pfft," I waved her off in disdain. "What could go wrong?"

I mean, come on: I outweigh the children by about a hundred pounds, I know both their names, and she gave me the bank card. Is some situation that I can't handle going to come up? I sincerely doubt it. I mean, I'm not Ward Cleaver or anything, but I'm certainly better than Homer Simpson.

So I hopped in my company car and drove to work, not even pausing to see if she could struggle the suitcase into the terminal. If she needs help, she'll hail a skycap or give up or something. For all I know she's gonna spend the next week hiding out in the Airport Sheraton or something.

(Digression: ironically enough, my company car is the car she uses, while I drive around in "her" car, because the car I bought for myself began hemorrhaging oil and had to be retired the same week I finally qualified for a company car. Let's hear it for dumb luck!)

At three, it was time to pick the little darlings up from school. So I zipped on over there, parked up near the football field, and made my way to the pickup room to get the boy (who, like a prisoner, must be paroled from school, unlike the girl, who wanders wild and free after school like a trustee with a weekend pass).

It was so dark that there were bats roosting in the light fixtures. A layer of dust had settled over everything. According to the clock on the wall, it was three thirty. But where were all the children?

After a bit of wandering around, I finally stumbled across a room with my child in it. I waved to him, and he didn't even acknowledge me before turning back to whatever it was he was working on over at the little table he was at.

I've been a father for nine years now, so I know exactly what the next step is: you go and noogie the child until he cries for mercy. And I was headed over to do exactly that when the room monitor, some little pencil-necked teacher's aide creep I'd never seen before in my entire life, stopped me.

"And who are you here to pick up?" he said, looking at me like I was some kind of kidnapper.

"That one," I said.

"Can I see your ID?" he asks me. So I flash the guy my ID. Take that, pencil-necked wannabe grown-up hall monitor!

"That's not you," he sniffed.

Oh, crap. Upon further review, it wasn’t me. It was Wifey's ID, since I'd just grabbed it out of my car, which is actually Wifey's car, while my proper ID was in her car, which is actually my car. So I tried to just play it off.

"But…you know her, right?" I asked. "I'm her husband. It's not like I jumped her in the parking lot and murdered her and stuffed her in the boot of the car and now I'm trying to pick up her children to sell them…"

Have you ever been about 30 words into a sentence and realized that what you just said was horribly inappropriate, verbalized in the wrong place, and overheard by six or seven strangers?

Yeah, me too.

So they're all looking at me and I pull my hands out of my pockets to prove that I'm not standing there "jingling my keys" or wearing those Freddy Kreuger razor gloves or whatever when the boy finally comes over.

"Okay dad," he says. "We can go now. I finished making you a paper gun. Here." And he hands me this paper gun that he's folded up. "See, I drawded some blood on the barrel just the way that you suggested, here and here," he says. "Where's mommy? Did you get rid of her already?"

"Let's just go," I say as everyone icily stares at me. "We've gotta go find your sister, okay?"

The teacher's aide squats down to talk to the boy. "You know, if you ever don't feel comfortable, you can always talk to a grownup here at the school. You know that, right?"

"Yeah," the boy says. "But daddy says if I don't feel comfortable I should just try to fart it out and as long as it doesn't stain my underwear there's no problem."

"What a delightful child," one of the women says as she stares daggers at me.

Oh, well, they were probably bitches anyways.

Then we went out into the playground to find the girl. Once I'd gotten ahold of her (easier said than done; she nearly knocked me over tackling me from behind) I got out of there ASAP.

When we got home, I checked the food schedule: pizza. Well, that could mean anything. For example, there could be frozen pizza, only I didn't find any. It could mean that I have to make pizza from a box, but that simply isn't going to happen. It could mean that I should order pizza, which sounds great.

Only, I just got over a cold, and whenever I have a head cold they always settle in my voice box and I can't talk right for two or three days. So I have this completely scratchy, bizarre voice. I couldn't order food on the phone in English, much less in the foreign language required to have anything here.

So I made the executive decision to damn the torpedoes and eat whatever we please for dinner later. The children, duped easily, quickly agreed. Freedom, thy name is bachelorhood!

But before dinner we have to go to their Friday activity, gymnastics. So I bundled them into the car and off we went to Little Gym. I, personally, couldn't wait. Every week they have a different theme at the gym, and this week is my personal favorite: pajama week.

As I always joke with Wifey, I keep hoping that one of the firm-bodied young instructor women will come to work in a tight little red negligee or something.

Sadly, this never happens. We have one instructor in flannel armor, a dude wearing swim trunks and a shirt, and a new girl that they've never had before wearing hot pink flannel pants.

Oh, well, better luck next year.

So the kids do their gymnastics thing, and I pull out my laptop to start writing this very post. And you know what? Battery's dead. So I get to watch the kids doing gymnastics.

And the only thing more boring than watching them do the same gymnastics routine I've seen for the past five years coached by a dude in swimtrunks and two refugees from the flannel factory is…I'll get back to you on that.

But of course, this week we had a big surprise in store for us: they were filming!

Yay! That means we get to go inside the big gymnastics room and watch the film! Oh, boy! Then spend several minutes watching the film of what we just saw! Hooray!

And do you know what the best part is? Do you?

I bet you don't!

This gym is used by children all week! In Europe! And it's Friday! And it's the last class of the day!

And it smells like a bunch of dirty Frenchmen had a rotten-egg food fight but were interrupted by some skunks and then the sanitation department buried them all in the refuse from a stinky cheese factory/papermill warehouse!

Oh boy!

I will admit that I don't know the Geneva Convention rules by heart, but I'm fairly certain my human rights were violated having to sit in that room and be assaulted by that smell.

Thankfully, mercifully, eventually the tape was over and we went home and immediately started making dinner, since we were all hungry. For the children, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and for daddy some microwave rice stuff that I love.

Being in a playful mood, I decided to play a joke on the boy. So I got out the strawberry jam to make his sandwich, then I threw a red plastic cup at him to make him think I'd thrown him the jam jar, so that when the cup bounced plastically off the floor he'd freak out and we'd all have a big laugh.

Instead, it hit him in the eye and he started swearing like a wounded pirate. His sister screamed, thinking the jelly was falling, and dove for it, knocking me to the ground and dropping the glass full of milk she was holding, shattering it everywhere and giving me a milk shower in the process.

I think there are glass shards in my underwear now.

After much crying and recriminations (and a not-so-satisfying dinner), we resolved never to go off-list again. Apparently mommy has cursed the house.

Home Alone

2009-11-06T08:36:00.000-08:00

Earlier this year, despite the gloomy economic climate and my general worthlessness as an employee, my company offered me a contract extension to remain overseas for a few more years, and I accepted. That evening, I came home and told Wifey the good news.

"Guess what? I got a three-year extension! We're staying, baby!"

I knew there would be trouble when she said to me, "You know, I agreed to come over here for three years, and now you've signed an extension to keep me here for eight. I'm starting to feel like I was lied to."

So, sometime later, I was presented with a list of demands, eight things that she said were absolutely required for her to be happy over the term of the extension.

Like any good husband, I knew that only half the list really mattered. See, if I did all of them, then she'd just think up more stuff. If I didn't do any of them, there'd be hell to pay. If I did half of them, though, I'd have some bargaining chips when my company offers me another extension in three more years.

But the trick is that I needed to figure out which half of the things were important, and do those, and then ignore the other stuff.

Based on the age-old adage that there's no such thing as a stupid question, I decided simply to ask her "Any chance you'll tell me which of these are important and which ones I can ignore? 'Cause this list is kind of long."

Based on the dick punch I quickly received, the age-old adage is, at best, misleading.

But being a clever husband, I honed in like a laser-beam on the ones that I thought were probably important. Well, after I could focus my vision again I did.

The first item was easy: BUY SOME ANTIQUES. I figured she'd find it a pleasant surprise if I resolved one item immediately, so the day after getting the list I nicked on down to the second-day-bread store, purchased a loaf of week-old rum raisin loaf, and that was that. Because when bread ages past its sell date, it's an antique, right?

Based on the dick punch I received, though, she didn't mean it in quite that fashion.

So I pawned the kids off on a friend, took her off on a whirlwind tour of an antique store, bought something really old and probably too expensive, and crossed the first item off the list.

Advantage: Plebian!

The second item on her list was also easy: GET MORE STORAGE SPACE IN THE GARAGE. So I loaded the family into the car and went to Ikea, since they're full of stuff that you can easily construct to store the mountains of crap that fills up your garage and turns your house into a fire hazard.

At least, Ikeas in a normal country are like that. Our local Ikea was, sadly, lacking in any shelf stuff. They had all the six-inch-high beds you could ever want, though, just in case you've got some deep-seated desire to sleep very close to the floor.

So we ended up going to Brico, which is what K-Mart would be if it were run by Lawn Gnomes dedicated to slaughtering all of humanity by selling them dangerous and difficult-to-assemble items from inside a warehouse that smells like pee.

Okay, the "smells like pee" part K-Mart already has down, but you get the point. Miraculously, though, we found two incredibly heavy metal shelves that would do the trick, and I got them loaded into the car with only a partial hernia.

We got them home, and quickly I had not only assembled them but I'd cut my thumb from webbing to nail via this cool spiral that bled profusely enough that one shelf is known as "daddy's extra digit."

But they're up, the garage is neater than it ever has been, and another item was crossed off the list.

Advantage: Plebian, again!

The third item on the list was so laughable that when I saw it, I thought for a moment that it was some trick on her part to lull me into a false sense of security. But no, there it was: TRIM THE *@$&! TREE!!!

This combined two of my passions: using an obscure tool and destroying stuff. I practically raced out of the house when I saw this one with my long-handed overhead tree saw in hand. Ten minutes later I'd practically denuded the darn thing. No dick punch even necessary!

When I got back inside, I grinned at her. "I don't know why I never did that before," I said. "That was pretty fun!"

Note to self: after Wifey complains about something for three years, when you finally resolve it, don't admit that it wasn't a pain, or you might get a dick punch.

If you're keeping track at home, once I could stand and breathe under my own power, the score was now Plebian 3, Wifey 0.

The fourth item, though, brought me up short with a feeling of dread in my stomach: FIX OUTSIDE LIGHT.

Listen, I've done a little wiring in the house. But I draw the line at fiddling around outside on a ladder in a country where it rains 98% of the time. So there's no way I was touching that one.

On to the fifth item: MORE QUALITY TIME TOGETHER.

"You mean naked quality time, or quality time like doing stuff with our clothes on?"

She just raised an eyebrow at me, so I went on to item six: WIRELESS INTERNET IN THE HOUSE.

WTF? What am I, the Verizon guy? I couldn't hook up wireless internet if my life depended on it. I'm also half afraid that the radiation from a wireless in-home network might cause lupus, or erectile dysfunction, which is probably what she wants anyways because I'm hung like a donkey on Viagra.

So I skipped on to item seven: BIGGER HOT WATER HEATER.

Yeah, not in a rented house, babe. I'll tell you what: as long as I'm upping the property value for the landlord, why don't I build on an extension and install a Jacuzzi?

So I finally arrived at item eight: GET STUFF FROM STORAGE LOCKER.

Now, if you read our vacation odyssey from two years ago, you might remember our trip to the Storage Locker of Doom. And you might recall Wifey's reaction to seeing the stuff in there . And you might recall my joy.

Apparently, though, this has worn off, because there are some "things" she wants from storage. I don't know what, and I don't want to know what. It's enough to realize that unless I want to risk irradiation, raise the property value of my rented house, or become a better husband, this is pretty much my last option.

Oh, sure, I could let her cash in my life insurance by electrocuting myself on the front step fiddling with the driveway light, but I'm not running for super-husband here. And I don't even park in the driveway, either, she does.

However, a devious plan formed in my mind: you know, if I were to arrange it so that Wifey went to the storage locker, leaving me behind, then she would have to fulfill this item on her list.

So I'd get one item off the list for free without having to do anything at all!

As you can imagine, that cinched the deal for me: storage locker here she comes!

I marched straight into my bosses' office six weeks later (hey, like I said, I'm not running for super husband) and presented it to him like this:

"Now that I'm gonna be here for eight years instead of three, is there any chance that my wife could go get some stuff out of our storage locker and have it shipped here?"

"Sure," he says. "We want her to be happy, you know."

When I repeated that to Wifey, her reaction was classic:

"Shit. If I'd known that, I'd have asked for more."

Oh, well. Live and learn, Wifey!

So this morning, I loaded Wifey onto a plane bound for America. Now it's just me and the kids for ten whole days while she works like a galley slave to cross an item off her own list.

Game, set, and match to Plebian!

Unless something goes wrong while I'm totally alone with the kids without Wifey, who typically takes care of managing them and is the only one in the house who knows where everything is and is the only one who can ever manage our son without getting so frustrated that she wants to break something over his head or swallow poison, whichever is closer at hand. Oh, and did I mention that the Girl is worried that she's about to start puberty and has already told me that she misses her "girl talks" with mommy and might have to have one with me?

I'm beginning to think there was a hole in my plan. And I'm right royally screwed if she doesn't come back in ten days.

I'll keep you (and Wifey, if she thinks to read the blog) updated on our progress…

Back to normal

2009-11-06T08:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, so we're going to go back to the satire/humor angle I'm used to working, starting with the next post. That last one was kind of an aberration, see. It's not like I'm wise, or thoughtful, or even very bright.

And for all those of you who have been pining away for another of Plebian's Seria Adventures, it's time once again!

Rope a dope?

2009-11-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

So I'm reading American Lion, the biography of Andrew Jackson. As a Tennesseean, I have always loved Jackson. He's basically the only TN president worth a damn (the others are Johnson, famous for being impeached, and Polk, famous for, uh, having a name very close to a common meat product).

What I've always loved about Jackson is this: when he lost the election of 1824, he believed he'd been screwed in a backdoor deal by Henry Clay and John Q. Adams, with Clay taking the Secretary of State under President Adams in return for throwing his support to Adams. This all despite Jackson having won the popular vote.

So Jackson did what any clever politician would do: he spent the next four years criticizing the administration, decrying the corrupt bargain that had defied the will of the people, and worked his way into the public imagination as their savior.

He won the 1828 election, unseating Adams and causing a furor.

When he took office, the Washington insiders were horrified. They despised him. Some of them opposed Jackson on everything on the grounds that if Jackson wanted it, it must be wrong.

Despite all this, Jackson remained popular with the people and, more often than not, got what he wanted done.

I find this interesting because we've only ever seen this strategy used once in the past forty years, when Reagan kept himself in the public eye after losing to Ford in 1976 to re-emerge four years later as the "people's champion" in the 1980 election. And Reagan, as you may know, ended up with a successful (in his eyes) presidency.

In 2000, Al Gore could have used this strategy. If he'd simply conceded, kept himself pushed forward as a stern critic of George Bush, and not gotten distracted lecturing about global warming, I'm convinced he'd have easily cruised to victory in 2004. But for some reason, Gore didn't do this. How he could miss this strategy, coming as it does from the founder of the Democratic party and a president from his home state, always perplexed me.

I wonder, though, if this isn't the place that Sarah Palin is carving out for herself. She certainly seems to be in the heads of the establishment, which despises her. She's clearly set herself forward as an opposition voice to the Democratic Party and President Obama. She seems to be making her case directly to the people, as Jackson once did.

She can leap upon every misstep by the President, every error by his cabinet, every unfortunate incident, and use it as a club against them and then explain how much better she would do. And with no real duties of her own to perform, there is nothing to yell back at her except insults, which rarely resonate well outside of partisans.

Witness the power of her "death panels" attack. She says it, the Democrats go apoplectic, and finally they end up changing the provision. Whether it's a fair attack or not, or a fair comment, a woman who is essentially a private citizen riled up the entire Democratic party and forced a change in a proposed bill.

That's more power than actual elected Republican congressmen have.

She has set herself up to spend the next three years as an optimist, explaining how it could be done better, while her opponents must explain poor performance(bad) or embrace failure(worse). That, to me, sounds very much like a hybrid Jackson/Reagan strategy.

I'm not saying that Palin's destined to be president. I'm saying that, at the current time, she certainly seems to be running a better strategy than any that's been deployed since Reagan lost his challenge to unseat Ford.

And that may explain a lot of the hair-tearing that surrounds her by Democrats.

Can this strategy be defused? Certainly. Here are four ways Obama could cut her off at the pass:

1) It's the economy, stupid: tomorrow, appear on TV and say a variation of the following: "My fellow Americans, let me be clear: the economy is our top priority. Starting from today, November 6th, my administration is pushing every other issue to the back burner until the suffering from this global recession has abated. We may have inherited the problem, but that won't keep us from creating the solution. Yes we can!"

Then, enforce ruthless message discipline: we don't talk any more about health care, or card check, or cap-and-trade, until unemployment is dropping and the economy has clearly recovered. So long as something else is atop the agenda, the American people assume (rightly) that the President and the Democrats don't care that the economy's in the tank.

Go on TV every week and talk up the economy. Livestream it over the internet. Call it a monitor-side chat. FDR would be proud.

This, incidentally, sank the first Bush and elevated Clinton. So it's inexcusable for them not to know this.

2) Ignore the critics, say nothing, and then repeat: it's maddening that a gifted campaigner, who has the media stepping atop one another to defend him, feels the need to crouch down to take pot shots at radio personalities and former governors. There's an old adage about getting in a pissing match: always piss up. When you're president, you can't piss up! So don't get in pissing matches, morons!

This goes for his surrogates, too. When David Axelrod whines about Rush Limbaugh, it elevates Limbaugh. The recent hand-wringing over Limbaugh's commentary makes me laugh: who is it that elevated Limbaugh to the President's level? It wasn't Limbaugh; it was the President himself by getting cheesed off over the infamous "I hope he fails" line.

When Reagan re-ran for election in 1984, Mondale desperately wanted to debate him. Reagan, with a monstrous lead, wouldn't have it. Why give Mondale's campaign any oxygen, when ignoring it was all that was required to win? So this is what Reagan did, unable to hear Reporters asking "why won't you debate?" because of the helicopters.

Reagan wins in a landslide. Why is Obama pumping pure oxygen to Sarah Palin?

3) Laugh and the world laughs with you: For me, candidate Obama's greatest moment in the campaign was when he was asked what his greatest fault was at a debate, and he said he had a messy desk. The other two candidates (Clinton and Edwards, if memory serves) answered after him and gave the typical "sometimes I care so much it keeps me up at night" answers.

After the debate, Obama joked that if he'd known the answers were supposed to be like that, then he'd have said that his greatest fault was that sometimes he went out of his way to help old ladies across the street (or something to that effect). It was funny. It was human. It made us like this guy who, like us, thought that a lot of this political stuff was phony and stupid.

Where did that guy go? I'm not asking for a comedian as a president, but the dour, stern-faced, angry president who sends on-air corrections and runs a White House tipline is a fary cry from the one who could laugh at himself eighteen months ago.

4) Remember whose shoes you fill: President Obama. Until 2012 (and perhaps beyond) he is our President. The office is worthy of respect, regardless of the man (or woman, someday) who fills it. It's the office that was filled by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and other bold, visionary men who, for better or worse, changed this country and its people.

It was also filled by William Henry Harrison, James Buchanen, Jimmy Carter, and other men who are better forgotten than regretted.

But at all times the President should carry himself with dignity. He should be wary of expending the dignity of his office in political pursuit. He should treat other heads of state with respect and dignity, regardless of his personal feelings. Our President should succeed at those things to which he turns his hand, because he is our President.

He should represent all of us, not some of us, and he should never apologize that we exist, nor grovel in the face of other nations. Just as we would not grovel to him, nor should he ever expect us to.

Clinton did not let himself be made a fool of on the international stage by prostituting his office in a vain (and fruitless) civic pursuit. Monroe, in the infancy of our nation, told the Europeans that they were not welcome here, and that they should look elsewhere for colonies, instead of groveling before them and begging their forebearance.

Our President should never bow, nor kiss a ring, nor show any obesiance to any other ruler or potentate on all this planet. We are a free people, and he is our leader.

President Obama needs to remember this: carry himself with dignity. Let a mayor throw out the first pitches, and let a governor campaign. Let an assemblyman harangue policemen.

The President has more important things to do.

So, yeah, it's been a while

2009-11-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah, I know; it's been a while. A long while. I've been rather swamped at work. On the one hand, this is a good thing: the whole global recession hasn't really impacted me at all. On the other hand, it pretty much killed off my blog.

But, I got an e-mail asking me, basically, "where the heck did you go?" And I see that I have two followers despite not having posted in many months (which is comparable to having two interregnums and forty Italian parliaments in real time).

So I'll post twice today, because inspiration struck me earlier today. And this counts as a post. Honest, it does.

Yeah, that'll make up for it.

Through the Looking Glass

2009-07-21T21:08:00.001-07:00

While others waste their time conspiracy-mongering about the Obama birth certificate, a great and hideous cabal works its nefarious will to alter the United States in ways we cannot possibly imagine, spearheaded by the Republican arch villain Karl Rove.

I speak, of course, about the ongoing efforts to sell southern California to China, which is happening under our noses and with the express written consent of the NFL.

When I tell people about this conspiracy, they inevitably pass through three phases: disbelief, followed by ridicule, and finally spittle-flecked outrage at this plan.

Read on and prepare your salivary glands, my friends.

Here are the facts:

California is impoverished, and is in fact paying bills by sending misspelled IOUs written on used cocktail napkins that have been coated in the Ebola virus in an attempt to either discredit or slay their creditors.

California’s Republican governor is a foreigner famous for having come from a communist country in the east.

The US is deeply indebted to China, and is taking on more and more debt every day to fund Obama’s lavish plans to socialize everything from health care to underwear (or didn’t you read the Boxer-Reid bill ‘Fruit of the Loom Relief Act of 2009’?).

Sarah Palin is doing everything in her power (faking pregnancies, resigning as governor, and even giving lapdances to Bigfeet) in an attempt to draw public attention northwards on orders of her Rovian master.

Obama is a lousy sportsman and has long harbored an intense disdain for surfing, ever since a group of surfers beat him up in junior high school, which is why he encouraged North Korea to nuke his home state of Hawaii (plot only foiled by the timely intervention of Kim Jong-Il’s bout of Explosive Flatulence). With southern Cal out of the way, there will be no surfing enclaves left.

No NFL teams of note reside in southern California, and the NFL is desperate to go global despite the obvious barriers to playing football outside of the US, most notably the rampant mental deficiencies in other cultures that make them enjoy soccer (which is erroneously translated as football in most other languages).

Obama’s secretary of state has close contacts with numerous Chinese officials and previously helped sell them other important US landmarks, such as the White House.

The Chinese recently toured Southern California with a torch to check it out, not unlike a prospective homeowner looking in the crawl space of a property with a flashlight. Before you scoff, remember that in many third-world countries a torch is just like a flashlight, and San Francisco is very much like a crawl space, only it smells worse.

At this point, as the spittle collects in the corner of your mouth, you might be wondering why Karl Rove wants to carve Chinafornia out of the southernmost part of the Golden State. The reason is quite simple: to create a permanent Republican majority. With those leftists gathered on the southern part of the state now getting what they deserve (re: communist enslavement), the northern part of the state will swing right and suddenly the guaranteed 55 Electoral College votes for the Democrats will disappear.

Illegal immigrants from Mexico will now be China’s problem, not ours. China will likely handle them in the respectful, humane way that they handle other problems, which will satisfy Rove’s dark thirst for blood.

Even the Democrats gain something, which is why they are supporting this vile effort: they’ll be rid of Nancy Pelosi.

The Real Civil War Analogy

2009-06-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

Some people think that Obama is the new Lincoln. Others think he's the second term of Jimmy Carter. They're both wrong.

Barack Obama is serving the first term of George McClellan, Lincoln's do-nothing general who ran on the Democrat appeasement platform in 1864.

The similarities don't stop at their party: both were first-class politicians, both had persecution complexes, both blamed the previous administration for all their problems, both talked big but never particularly accomplished anything, and both sat on their hands when action is called for.

We don't specifically know whether McClellan would have intervened to save sailing ship manufacturers during the rise of steamboats, only to see them go bankrupt anyways. But he probably would have. Whether or not he would have also turned their management over to scurvy-ridden merchant seaman we can only guess.

And we can also only guess at whether or not McClellan would have pissed on his most ardent supporters and told them it's raining, but he did run as a pro-war candidate with an appeasement platform, on an appeasement ticket, with a peace advocate as a running mate. The will of his party, at least, seemed clear on this issue.

Whether those who wished to continue the war would have slavishly followed McClellan after he signed away half the US to the Confederate States of America is unknown, but I like to think they'd have shown a little more sand than the gays, Jews, businessmen, and peace advocates who Obama has so far spurned as he enforces the DOMA, demonizes Israel, socializes the economy, and continues Bush policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo.

The only real mystery is why Republican elites didn't flock to McClellan in 1864, pronouncing him a "man of great character" and "somebody we can do business with" despite obvious signs to the contrary.

They must have had some kind of commitment to principles or something back then.

How novel.

Attacks on Pirates Making Them Bolder, Study Says

2009-04-27T14:35:00.001-07:00

A non-partisan think tank, the Organization for Promoting Right-Wing Agendas (OPRA) today warned that recent counterattacks on pirates near the Horn of Africa could lead to "disastrous consequences" and would mean an escalation of pirate raids, not a decrease as some have suggested.

"Shooting and killing pirates only makes them bolder and causes their number to swell," said OPRA spokeswoman Cheyenne Markoni-Spitzhughes from their London offices. "Over two hundred years of data have shown that there's a direct correlation between dead pirates and the incidents of piracy on the high seas, with more dead pirates meaning more attacks. The world needs a better way."

Instead, OPRA suggests that world governments form a new UN agency dedicated to opening call centers in Somalia, where the pirate's natural aggressiveness can be channeled into more productive venues. "After all," Markoni-Spitzhughes said, "if they're willing to try to take over an oil tanker then they should be comfortable cold-calling people to see if they're interested in switching their long-distance carrier."

Top Democrats scoffed at the warning, however, calling OPRA a "thinly-disguised stink-tank for the Republican smear campaign."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters that "every thinking person knows that pirates are like any other terror-wielding outlaw group: if you shoot them, then there are less of them active, and potential recruits inevitably turn to another, less dangerous line of work, such as tasting food additives or being a bungee cord tester."

President Barack Obama painted it in even starker terms in his White House address. "Despite Hollywood glamorizing pirates in their shameful movies, and Disney making pirating seem fun in their disgraceful rides, we will continue to bring shock, awe, and death to anyone who would prey upon the weak and the helpless on the high seas."

Economic Freedom and the NFL

2009-03-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

The intertubes are all abuzz with the latest from the NFL, namely the coming shift to an 18-game season and dropping two preseason games. The consensus among sportswriters, their commenters, and drooling idiots (but I repeat myself) is something along these lines:

"Good, because charging full price for preseason games is a total ripoff, man. Those games totally suck!"

Let me be blunt: the NFL will charge whatever they want for the preseason games, and so long as somebody pays it, it's not too much, and the price is not a rip-off. If you feel spending for preseason games is a waste of money, use the tried-and-true method that other consumers use with the Shamwow, New Coke, and the Segway Scooter: don't buy the damn thing.

But please, spare me the faux-populist outrage against "exorbitant" ticket prices. For one thing, most of the simpering nimrods doing the bitching can't even spell exorbitant. For another, nobody forces you to go to preseason games. In fact, if they suck so bad, you should be thankful to have a reason not to attend.

If the NFL started auctioning off used jock straps (complete with ball sweat!) on E-Bay, I'd not only steer clear but have to clean my E-Bay account with bleach. But you know that some wannabe's somewhere is willing to pay $110 plus shipping and handling for a used TO jock strap. Maybe even more if it was worn in a big game, or had authentic "battle stains" on it.

And that is right, and good, and the natural state of capitalism. Exercising our economic liberty to make stupid choices about sporting events and memorabilia is a form of freedom, and we should encourage people to do that.

Because freedom in abundance is never a bad thing.

REVEALED: Obama is Rovian Plant!

2009-03-16T15:07:00.001-07:00

An explosive new expose set to publish next week will reveal that, far from the starry-eyed newcomer he poses as, Barack Obama is actually a Manchurian candidate cooked up by none other than longtime Conservative blackguard Karl Rove. While White House officials have scoffed at the allegations, some Democrats have privately admitted that they had begun to suspect this themselves.

"Cozying up with lobbyists? Putting the deficit on steroids? Trying to re-establish the welfare benefits that were discredited in the mid-90s? It's been clear a long time that something's not right with Barack Obama," said one Democratic senator. "The only thing he could do worse is get distracted with some side issue, anger our critical allies, and have half his nominees withdraw in disgrace. Oh, wait!"

Among the charges the book makes are that President Obama:

-Is obsessed with making Rush Limbaugh the pre-eminent voice on television and radio, thus ensuring that the Conservative message is heard by as many people as possible

-Intended to thoroughly discredit the traditional press as starry-eyed and naïve, by first sweeping them off their feet and then by treating them like a sophomore on prom night, leaving them puffy-eyed and sore-assed

-Staffed his cabinet with the worst caricatures of liberal excesses, from anti-Semitism to rampant hypocrisy to a total disregard for basic tax law

-Has not been criticized by George Bush not because the former president respects tradition and the honor of the office, but rather because Bush knows that Rove is really the one pulling the strings of the Obama administration

-Sleeps in Star Trek pajamas

-Wanted to revive Democrat's image as "tax-and-spend liberals" by acting as a tax-and-spend liberal

Calls to Rove's sinister subterranean lair for comment were not returned, likely because the peals of his sinister laugh were echoing off its cacophonous ceiling.

News from the Future

2009-03-03T11:36:00.000-08:00

News from the Future

2009-03-02T11:36:00.001-08:00

News from the Future

2009-02-18T12:12:00.001-08:00

(Note: Living as I do near the Hadron Collider, I expected strange things to occur once they'd fired that thing up. And lo and behold, I have started receiving e-mail updates of news from the future, just like that show Early Edition except with a lot bigger audience. So I'm going to pass along to you my news updates from the future.)

Ford to Declare Bankruptcy

Ford Motor Company, the only automaker that is not part of the US Government Automobile Fabrication Corporation, announced today that its 2009 losses have driven it into bankruptcy and that it will likely have to lay off up to 40% of its workforce and may eventually sell all assets.

The move comes a week after GM unveiled its newest car, the Michelle, a sporty 3-seater made of 98% recycled parts. As all other models have been declared redundant, the Michelle is considered to be "the new standard" for GM and represents a conversion to all-green technology, getting 38 miles per gallon and capable of reaching highway speeds in excess of 48 miles per hour in non-headwind driving. Although the base cost is $36,000 per unit, after government rebates, dealer incentives, and buyer subsidies the cost is $1200, which after the New Car Stimulus Act of 2009 means that the consumer must only pay 1/3 of the sticker price, or $400.

Ford's truck line had already collapsed after the other member of the USGAFC, Chrysler, introduced the Kenyan, a sturdy two-seater with almost one and a half tons of pure towing power and a bed just over twenty square feet. The Kenyan gets eleven miles per gallon of 100% ethanol, whose $19.50 per gallon cost at the pump is reduced for consumers by 75% after the Renewable Fuels Subsidy Act of 2009. Though some have criticized its unique 3-axle design, its $750 price tag (after rebates and subsidies shave off some of the $62,000-per-unit cost from the factories) have had consumers lining up to purchase the unique vehicle.

In unrelated news, both companies have petitioned the government for an addition $62 billion, nine weeks after receiving an addition $78 billion from the government. The moves are necessary, say industry experts, because the stalemate in negotiations between Unions and Management are entering their fourteenth month. At issue is the desire of management to trim pensions for workers with less than ten years seniority by 1%, which according to a UAW spokesma "is tantamount to selling out future generations of workers forever."

Meanwhile sales of Ford's newest flagship automobile, the Daisy, have sagged after a promising start. The seven-seat "green" minivan has suffered from its excessive cost of $24,000 and criticism from environment groups, who say that its 45 MPG is unacceptably low for a vehicle that doesn't run on 100% ethanol blends. Also exacerbating the problem is the $4,000 penalty consumers must pay for the Daisy's excessive carbon footprint, as well as a $2,500 "sourcing fee" for buying outside of the USGAFC approved dealer network.

Ford has indefinitely postponed the release of the 2010 Hayek, which was designed to compete with the Michelle. The five-seat sedan would have been made of 99% recycled parts and in tests was capable of up to 70 MPH with an efficiency of 45 MPG, but its forecasted $18,000-per-unit cost was deemed "untenable" in the current market.

Former Vice President, Nobel Laureate, Oscar winner, and Pulitzer Prize author Al Gore said that the announcement showed that capitalism and environmentalism can work together to create a vibrant market. "Ford is paying for its decision to remain outside the USGAFC, and consumers are responding by choosing vehicles with a more environmentally sensitive production process. Once again the free market, guided by the benevolent hand of government experts, has proven to be the most efficient engine for effective social and environmental change."

A Night at the Ballet

2009-02-16T12:23:00.000-08:00

As the great philosopher Moe Scyzlack one said, "we're all pigs, Homer. The difference is that every once in a while you pick yourself up out of the muck, clean yourself off, and show your wife that you love her."

With all due respect, Moe is an idiot.

Six months ago, Wifey informed me that one of my husbandly duties was that I was responsible for taking her out once a month without the children so that we could spend "couple time" together.

This was in the context of a discussion about my many failings as a husband. And by discussion, I mean that she spoke in a louder-than-normal tone of voice and I nodded vigorously.

Hey, I haven't been married for fifteen years on accident.

I did pretty good at it for a while. In August we went to see a movie that I loved and she hated (Cloverfield). Then in September we went to a one-night-only tractor pull, and the next month I got so drunk at Oktoberfest that I vomited down the shirt of one of the busty waitresses. Good times.

For some reason, Wifey didn't seem too upset that we didn't go out for the next three months, and I figured that meant I was off the hook.

With Valentine's Day coming up, though, Wifey decided that it would be a glorious idea to reaffirm our love and commitment. When I told her I hated Valentine's Day and that I didn't want to go anywhere, she offered to send me up Swan Lake with a Nutcracker I'd never forget.

Seeing her interest in ballet, I decided to see if there was a show in the area on Valentine's Day. And lo and behold, I found us boss tickets to Romeo and Juliet the Ballet, by Prokofiev, danced by the Moscow City Ballet.

Like I care, but she's into this kind of thing, so I figured it'd at least get her in a good humor, which is what 90% of marriage is all about.

When we went to dinner, I could see that she was really excited. She had a twinkle in her eye and a lift in her step that I hadn't seen in years. I began to get excited, thinking about the post-ballet entertainment that I had planned, and which by the Valentine's Code is required of any woman who attends an event where her spouse or significant other is forced by social protocol to wear a tie.

Hey, my tie may have read "I'm With Stupid" with an arrow pointing up, and have had a naked woman concealed on the underside, but it still counts, even if it was a clip-on.

We entered the ballet at promptly 7:50, in order to be well seated before the 8:00 curtain up. This was the first time I'd been to the ballet, and I learned three things:

1) It didn't start until 8:15

2) It takes at least 15 minutes for a ballet character to die, which is a problem in a show where half the characters are going to be murdered or commit suicide.

3) In the ballet, no one can hear you scream.

We were halfway through the thirty-minute "dance of love", where Romeo and Juliet roll around, kiss, dance on tip-toe, then repeat ad infinitum, when Wifey leans over to me and says "I have a secret."

"What? You have a secret bottle of poison stashed somewhere?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "I'll tell you later."

Then she kisses me on the cheek.

So I'm running through all the possible secrets she could have: she bought me a present, she's got polio, I have only minutes to live, she's willing to walk out at intermission, something. But I come up with nothing.

Finally, mercifully, intermission comes. Then, all too soon, it's over, and I march back into the Bataan Death Dance.

The second act starts with some sword fights, which of course culminate in Tybalt killing Mercutio, which sets off ten minutes of women in black shrouds dancing around and Mercutio staggering this way and that, never actually dying but not able to live out the rest of the ballet (although they do drag his corpse back and forth a few more times).

Just as Mercutio falls, Wifey leans over to me and whispers in my ear "I'm not wearing panties." Then she gives my earlobe a little nibble.

I now considered three courses of action:

Course #1: Do nothing.
Course #2: Jump on her like a trampoline.
Course #3: Verify whether or not this information was true before embarking upon Course #2.

You have to understand that in the entire course of our lives together, the only time Wifey has ever left the house without panties is, well, very much never. In fact, short of showering, I think she wears panties all the time. Oh, maybe not underneath the full-length circa 1860's flannel nightgown that she wears to bed. But I'd never know, since it's like +5 Plate Mail in terms of protection.

Besides, Course #1 seemed like an insult. If she's being honest, I figured she wanted me to show interest. And I was interested. Very interested.

Even in Europe, though, I'm pretty sure going at it like wild gibbons per Course #2 would get you arrested. Well, not in Amsterdam, but anywhere else it's dicey.

So I opted for Course #3.

Since I don't want this to turn into a Dear Penthouse letter, I'll just give you the broad brush stroke of what happened: I reached over under the coat on her lap and, a few opened buttons later, verified that I had received an accurate account of the state of her undergarments.

Course #2 was looking better and better all the time. In fact, I suggested it, but she rebuffed me to continue watching Juliet flail about as she tried to decide whether or not to drink the sleeping potion (total time required: 45 minutes and 22 seconds of toe-standing indecision).

In due time the ballet was finished. I think Romeo won, but I'm not quite sure, since I didn’t pay that good attention to it; I was distracted by other things. People started clapping, dancers started bowing, and I started drooling.

I jumped up from my seat, her coat in my hands so that I could help her into it like a true gentleman. My watch snagged ever so momentarily on something, but I ignored it, and I saw a shower of small white confetti bits fly out over the audience from behind us.

"Nice touch," I thought.

Wifey looked up at me in horror. I looked down at her in lust. The old lady in the row in front of us, who had turned to see what hit her in the back of her head, screamed and fainted.

There was Wifey, in all her commando glory, dress now torn open to her waist, looking for all the world like she wanted to murder me where I stood. And here I was, slobbering and shaking her coat at her and urging her to get up so we could go discuss politics and backgammon in the parking lot.

Yes, the full reality of what had happened had not yet sunk in. To be honest, I was doing most of my thinking in the southern hemisphere, where such concerns as morals and decency rarely see the light of day.

Fortunately, people swarmed to help the collapsed old lady. The house lights were brought up. I dashed into the aisle, urging Wifey to come with me, always capering a few steps in front of her and shaking her coat at her like some kind of crazed medicine man as I tried to get to the car, and paradise, as quickly as possible.

Behind me came Wifey, cursing and trying to hold her dress together and catch up to me. And behind her a group of people shouting for everyone to get out of the way, that the old lady needed to be taken out into the air, thus attracting the most attention possible to her as she tried to climb the stairs and not give everyone seated along the aisle a money shot that they'd not soon forget.

Judging from my angle, she failed miserably, and I think I saw one or two camera flashes as she came along behind me.

I was out the door quickly, an angry Wifey right behind me, now screaming curses into the night. "WOULD YOU STOP AND GIVE ME MY COAT, YOU MORON?"

I began to suspect that the night would soon take a somewhat less-than-pleasurable turn.

She didn't speak a word to me as we headed back to the parking lot, trying as she was to hold her dress closed, pull her coat down, and walk all at the same time. My Spidey-Sense was tingling, telling me that to speak was to die, so I kept my mouth shut.

The warm breezes of the Southern Hemisphere were extinguished, snuffed out by the sudden resurgence of the ice cap from Wifey.

When we reached the parking lot, it was closed with a big white gate. So we stood, and we waited. And waited. And waited. Slowly, other patrons began filing out and stood in line behind us, pointing and whispering, with the two of us standing at the center of a small circle now surrounded by gleeful onlookers, at least one of whom was kneeling and pointing a camera phone at Wifey.

"Did you have a good time?" I asked.

"Let's see," she said. "My favorite dress is ruined, I was exposed to half a theater, and I'm standing out here freezing my hoochie off waiting for the gate to open. Do you suppose I had a good time?"

"You've probably lost a little of your ardor, then," I said.

She glared at me.

"How about when we get home, I'll see if I can help you relight that pilot?"

She glared at me with death in her eyes. I knew all hope was lost, so I tried my trump card:

"Since I went through all this trouble to set up our night out, just to be fair you should still plan on having intense verbal negotiations with my silent partner when we get home."

Whereupon, to my great chagrin, she showed me the Nutcracker.

Have I mentioned how much I hate the ballet?

A Letter from the US Economy

2009-02-05T12:38:00.001-08:00

Dear US Populace,

Though in the past I have never directly addressed you, preferring to act either via unseen methods (the so-called "invisible hands") or through sweater-clad proxies, I am taking the exceptional step of speaking directly to you, the US taxpayer, during this time of our joint crisis.

I have taken this drastic measure because more and more of you are being misled by charlatans, fools, and gun-toting religious nuts who want you to believe that I will receive little or no benefit from the stimulus package that is currently passing through congress.

I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth, and I shall be stimulated more thoroughly than Ron Jeremy after swilling down a Cialis cocktail and dropping into the Playboy grotto.

Perhaps you live in a fairy-tale world where cat feces miraculously shape themselves into effigies of the Virgin Mary strangling Christ by his umbilical cord, or where bicycle paths spontaneously carve themselves in areas where they are patently infeasible and unnecessary, but here in the real world it takes tax money forcibly removed from your pocket to provide these valuable social services to the chronically unskilled and underemployed.

During your morning commute on the Interstate, where you see a large empty expanse of terrain beside the road, I see a place where an ultra-modern, high-cost light rail system could endlessly shuttle half-empty trains back and forth in an eternal procession of protected union jobs and hopelessly outdated railworker benefits packages, all taking people from a place they don't live near to another place they don't want to go.

Assuming, of course, that no tit mice or red-crested dungbombers would be disturbed by the installation of such a rail system, in which case it will have to be rerouted through a residential area.

I have read several economic "columnists" claim that there are legitimate concerns, but I can assure you that they are invalid. Even now sociology and performing-arts majors are flooding the rolls of the unemployed; don't they deserve a chance to be hired by a shoddy construction outfit owned by political cronies of the ruling party so that they, too, can have the life experience of constructing shoddy high-density housing that will crumble into disuse within the next 3 to 5 years?

To those of you who still feel that my stimulus is less important than your paltry tax dollars, which you will doubtless squander selfishly thinking only of yourselves, remember that when I am angry my wrath is terrible to behold. If you think that my boundless rage will be slaked by closing thousands of Starbucks and brutalizing the journalism industry, you are fooling yourself.

Inefficient car manufacturers are only the beginning. Unless I get my stimulation, I may turn my attention to other trillion-dollar operations that are poorly run.

Like your government.

Why Baseball is America's Sport

2009-01-20T13:54:00.000-08:00

While the unthinking cosmos turns in its splendor around us, and our national soul is rent asunder on the political stage, it is always comforting this time of year to know that we can turn our careworn eyes to sports to find ourselves reflected in its warming glow.

But this warmth comes not from the beer-soaked artificial grass of the football field, with the communist NFL teams each vying to be more average than one another and the slaveholding plantations of College Football using computers to see which one gets to discriminate against the Mormon colleges. Nor do we see ourselves in the vast array of minor sports, from lacross to hockey to basketball.

No, I speak of that truest of American sports: Baseball.

Baseball is a microcosm of life, capitalism, and truth: rich teams like New York or Boston are able to shower players with money, thus allowing them to hold a competitive edge that can never be erased. This is good, and right, and completely American. Who wants underdogs succeeding when we have rich, cocky favorites to support?

You see this attitude rightly reflected in sports film. When I saw the first Rocky, there wasn't a dry eye in the house when cocky champion Apollo Creed finally put the common street man in his place. Once again sanity reigned, and the favorite won out over the plucky underdog. This is why Rocky is a successful movie that won a screenwriting Oscar, the first ever awarded to a functional illiterate.

Who among us cannot help but smile when the rich, elite private school that recruits players from out of state wins out over the small, rural public school in the local sporting levels? This is right, and good, and the way that the world should work: underdogs should lose, because that is why they are underdogs.

There are signs of hope in the NFL that this mediocrity might finally begin to fracture, and we could once again have the elite and the scum, which is the way of the world. Everyone I know is praying for an uncapped year, so that we can finally see football teams vastly overpay for fading stars at the tail end of their careers, just as we so often see in baseball.

Because as the old joke goes, what's the difference between Lehman's CEO buyout package and Carl Pavano's contract with the Yankees?

The Lehman CEO wasn't a part-time employee.

Cowboys to Build Second Locker Room

2009-01-19T13:48:00.001-08:00

Jerry Jones today hit back at growing rumors that the Dallas Cowboys sought to part ways with troublesome wide receiver Terrell Owens, saying that his organization "valued this great receiver and all of the contributions he can make on the field."

However, the Quixotic owner announced that there would be changes to the Dallas stadium for the 2009 season.

"Listen, I'll admit that the guy's a locker room cancer," Jones told reporters. "So we're going to be building a second locker room, just for T.O. It's gonna be eighty thousand square feet, with Italian marble sinks, a solid gold locker, and mirrors everywhere so that TO can see his favorite person night and day. And it might not even be in Dallas: we're thinking of putting it in Austin, where someone with TO's personality can fly under the radar."

Jones had other plans, too. "We're not just putting him in a separate locker room, though. He'll have his own staff, from coach to trainer to ballboy, dedicated to making TO happy. A separate uniform for TO. A different charter flight. A different practice schedule. Everything designed to keep TO completely isolated from the team except on Sunday afternoons, some Monday nights, and Thanksgiving Day."

Some questioned whether the plan, dubbed Typhoid TO around Dallas headquarters, went far enough. One inside source said that "everyone is completely sick of hearing TO, TO, TO. Well, everyone except Donovan McNabb and Jeff Garcia, who are laughing their butts off at us."

Fluffy Bunny Prices Soar

2009-01-08T11:10:00.001-08:00

European markets sagged today on news that the fluffy bunny shortage is expected to continue, with prices more than doubling to 55 euros/bunny on the German stock exchange. The move comes after the world's largest Fluffy Bunny exporter, Hamas, released a statement that their primary processing facility had been destroyed by angry Israeli soldiers wielding unfair, high-tech weaponry.

"Once again the evil crusading Zionists have shown their true colors and turned their computerized weaponry on our fluffy bunny facilities," said a Hamas spokesman late last night. "In addition to the total destruction of the fluffy bunny plant, we have also had severe damage to three schools, and old folk's home, and one entire side of our Sesame Street set was burned down. Big Bird was killed in the attack, and we still haven't located Oscar the Grouch, although a badly-burned trash can lid was found that may have been his."

Sue Messersmith-Cooper, president of International Response, criticized the US and Israel for their continued attacks on Fluffy Bunny factories. "How much longer will the citizens of this world put up with the barbarians who insist on destroying these cute, defenseless, fluffy bunnies? After coalition forces razed facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and continued sanctions strangle the fluffy bunny economy in Iran, was it really necessary to launch an illegal, immoral, and indefatigable attack on the poor Gazans, whose only source of income is fluffy bunnies and 'Hang In There!' cat posters?"

Even in the US ordinary consumers are starting to feel the pinch. Shopping with his family in New York, blue-collar worker Greg Packer said that "I'd planned on getting a fluffy bunny for my fiancée for Valentine's Day, but now I don't think I'm going to be able to afford it. I hope that Obama can do something to change this situation, otherwise it'll be a really long, cold night."

Candidates Line Up for Illinois Election

2008-12-09T14:43:00.000-08:00

With Democratic leaders calling for indicted Illinois Governor Rod Blagovich to resign, it seems clear that a runoff election will soon be coming to the Land of Lincoln. As such, numerous would-be Governors are flooding the state with applications to make sure that they can get a shot at being governor of the incoming president's home state.

The current leading candidate is former NFL star OJ Simpson, who hopes his experience outrunning federal prosecutors will allow him to avoid the fate of the last two governors.

Also expressing interest is longtime Democratic standard-bearer Al Gore, who feels that the state's proximity to the water and several fine all-you-can-eat buffets makes it the optimum location to continue hectoring citizens about the coming global apocalypse.

A popular dark horse candidate is California Governor and Republican Arnold Swartzenegger, although he would like to churn out a few more wretched movies before driving another state into the ground.

Bill Clinton has been mentioned as a possible successor, but politely declined, saying he's holding out for something more prestigious than a mere governorship, perhaps working with young, ambitious men and women, helping them learn vital skills that will help them succeed in business and politics in the future.

Most surprising of all, though, is that former Illinois senator Barack Obama has tossed his hat into the ring, saying that not only does he love campaigning, but he also hopes to burnish his meager credentials with some executive experience before trying to make the jump "to prime time."

Plebian and the Mysterious Missing Classmate

2008-12-02T10:23:00.001-08:00

I received the strangest call the other day. It was round about 7, and I was drying my daughter's hair, when the phone rang. Like a good homeowner, I answered it, and for my troubles I was met by static.

After a few moments, I was able to discern just a few things:

*The person on the other line knew me (they did, after all, refer to me by name).

*They were calling from the International Space Station, evidently deep within the Van Allen belt, because all I could hear was massive static.

So I instructed them to wait and call me back in a few minutes, to see if that would alleviate the problem. They did indeed call back a few minuets later, and I was able to figure out a few more things:

*They had gone to high school with me (they did, I think, refer to the proper high school)

*Their name was either Tom Simpson, Pete Krugerand, or Funky Winkerbean, I'm not sure which, and I couldn't understand through the scratching when I asked him to spell it out for me what the name should be.

At this point, and despite my protestations, Funky insisted on asking "So…SCRATCH-HISS-SCRATCH…do you…SCRATCH…ember…HISS…me?...SCRATCH"

"No, but I might if I knew who you were!" I insisted. The first two I'd never heard of, and I never cared for Funky Winkerbean anyways. Stupid band geek.

"Oh," the dude sounded really disappointed. "Oh, I see...SCRATCH! HISS!"

"HEY!" I yelled. "I'd probably know who you were if I could understand you! You've gotta call me back on a different line so I can understand you!"

And at this point, the line went dead.

Great. Just great. This is going to bother me for the rest of my life, you know?

And I can just see the headlines now:

"Beloved local businessman Funky Winkerbean committed suicide this evening, leaving a note behind saying that he's tired of going unnoticed in this faceless society. Funky was despondent because his dearest childhood friend forgot all about him and hung up on him earlier in the evening."

The funny thing is, Wifey has gone certifiably around the bend over this. Listen, it's no real hair off my ass if I reconnect with Funky one way or the other. Sure, it'd be nice to know who it was that called me, but he probably was just trying to trap me into buying him dinner so he could have me drugged and extract my liver to sell it to an organ trafficking ring.

Because that happens to me all the time.

But for Wifey this has become a quest. She's hunted down all the people we still keep in touch with from high school and asked both of them if they'd handed our number out. Which they hotly deny, but I swear one of them has beady eyes and I never trusted her anyways and she probably put us up on the bathroom wall under the line "for a good time call…"

So, on the off chance that one of my 40 readers is either my old friend Pete Simpson or Tom Krugerand, please be sure to call me back, because I'd really like to talk to you and catch up about old times, and I'm sure I'll fake remembering you better once we get off of a terribly staticy line.

If it's Funky, though, well; lose my number. And don't bother asking why, you know the answer!

On Teenage Values

2008-12-01T14:37:00.000-08:00

Over the past forty years, some groups have gone to great pains to “liberate” women and convince them that they are equal to men in every way, most importantly by freeing them from ancient constraints on having liberal amounts of sex with any toothy metrosexual of their choosing.

Naturally, this liberated attitude has spread from the 20-something set, and now we are not only suffering from the stories of saggy-breasted swingin’ grandmas going to key parties, but more and more we learn that there is a veritable army of trampy bimbos in high schools across the land eager to outdo each other in proving that they are eager to bed any jagoff with an earring and pants whose seat drags the ground.

This is wrong, and it threatens to destroy the very fabric of society.

It used to be that, if you wanted to get a polite kiss on the cheek, you had to take a girl out to dinner, then some sort of amusement, such as a movie, paying spectacle, or any number of fine miniature golf/bowling establishments. After you’d done this every other week for 3 to 6 months, you could arrange to have “car trouble” and, after a heavy petting session, perhaps convince her to have negotiations with your “silent partner.”

As you can imagine, this did not come cheap: there was food to buy, gas to purchase, diversions to arrange and pay for, and angry parents to dodge. And we won’t even begin to discuss the investment necessary to “go all the way”, up to and including purchasing the plastic diving bell for your little Nemo before he goes twenty thousand leagues under the girl, one of the more humiliating life experiences for a seventeen-year-old.

However, as the grainy health film they’d shown us in sixth grade drove home, the next time you had unprotected sex a bacteria known as Penus Falloffus would infest your testicles causing, among other things, jock itch and erectile dysfunction.

And having no penis will be difficult to explain in a locker room of wiser boys, all of whom spend an inordinate amount of time staring at each other’s genitals and going “how did you get that festering welt in your Johnson area?”

In order to meet the economic needs of high-class ladies (the ones that didn’t smoke nor go with boys much larger than you), you needed to make money. And since time immemorial, during the fall teenage boys have made money via the most noble of professions: leaf raking.

Here’s how it works: you pick a big house owned by an elderly widow, you take your rake, and you show up one morning and offer to rake the entire yard for ten bucks. She agrees, and an hour or two later you’re ten bucks richer, you’ve eaten some cookies and lemonade, and if she’s a particularly desperate widow you’ve received an offer which you politely declined but which you wonder about during dark nights of the soul for the rest of your life.

[If you accepted the offer, you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it, unless you enjoyed it, in which case you’ve just discovered your true calling: gigolo.]

Of course, ten bucks isn’t much, so you have to do this over and over. And eventually you run out of widows, so you move down to the elderly, then simply the lazy, and eventually (if there are enough teenagers in town) you’ll rake leaves for anybody who pays you ten bucks.

This does not happen, of course, if there are sluttily-writhing teenage girls under every other section of bleachers. In this case every zit-farmer just goes dragging his tool kit through the dirt, and eventually he finds some girl who’s just desperate to look cool, and that’s it. And what with “hip” parents and these giveaway clinics, you don’t even have to buy the latex spacesuit before you send Buck Rogers down to check out Planet Hooch.

And this is wrong.

Worse, this irresponsible behavior is responsible for hundreds of deaths in the North and Midwest every year, because these same teenage boys used to fill up their Nookie Fund in the winter by shoveling driveways.

But without them, fat old men are dying by the droves as they try, desperately, to get the driveway cleared so they can make their weekly run down to the VFW to complain about kids nowadays. And the complaints aren’t going to make themselves, you know.

So I implore all teenage girls out there to just cross their legs and hold out for dinner and a show. Really, it’s not too much to ask.

If you won’t do it for the elderly widows who need their yard raked, then at least do it for the fat, old men who are keeling over just because you couldn’t hold out for dinner and a show before you turned into Sharon Stone, minus the icepick, but probably plus better acting skills, because let’s face it, your paramours don’t have the benefits of being trained by an elderly widow.

In the end, you’ll be getting something, too. Trust me.

Pleb the Builder!

2008-11-24T14:26:00.001-08:00

One of the chief disagreements that Wifey and I have had regarding our charming European home is the lighting in the living space on the ground floor. This common area houses both our living and our dining room, and in the past we have illuminated it via several Ikea pole lamps.

I like Ikea pole lams. They’re cheap, which is nice. They’re portable, which is also nice. And when your spouse turns them off, if she does it slowly you can imagine that you’re at an upscale gentleman’s club and she’s about to give you a private dance, particularly if you choose that moment to jam a fiver in her panties and grope her.

Or maybe that’s just me. Okay, I don’t use the fiver, but I do grope. It’s one of the best non-verbal ways to say “I love you”, right?

Wifey, however, does not like the pole lamps. In fact, she finds the bottom level of our house much like a dungeon: dark, cold, and filled with people that she really doesn’t care for.

Some time ago, I accidentally installed a new wall lamp in one corner of the room. This unit has been operating now for a month without either burning the house down or going on the fritz, so Wifey decided to give me a little more challenge: she bought a chandelier.

I came home from work one evening to discover the thing in a box on the table, and her proudly telling me that she’d gotten it on sale: only sixty euros. That’s a hundred bucks in non-Monopoly money, which is actually pretty good for lamps here.

Needless to say, I was terribly excited with the thought of climbing atop a ladder, drilling holes in the ceiling, and hanging a forty-pound mass of metal and glass directly overhead. So I did what any husband does when faced with a similar situation: I procrastinated.

Weeks passed, and although eating around the box with the chandelier posed some problems, it eventually got to where we viewed it as one of the family. It was a lot less trouble than the kids, I can tell you that.

All that changed Friday . Wifey went out with friends, and I had to cut out of work early to pick up our children. Plus the two children of her friend. Plus the daughter of a woman that we don’t particularly care for but whom Wifey shuttles around sometimes. Other than the times that she gets so annoying you want to toss her in a creek in a burlap sack, this kid’s not so bad. So I hear; I spend all my time with her looking for burlap sacks.

Well, we got home, and the children went upstairs to play. I was a little disgruntled with Wifey, so I decided that the best way to take it out on her was to finally hang this stupid chandelier.

No, I hadn’t been drinking, but I do suspect mental illness played a strongly contributing role here.

I got the mounting bracket up, then hung the thing up, then realized it was time to go again, in order to get all the children ferried to their varying activities. “I’ll be back,” I said to the unwired chandelier waiting for me.

Jokingly, I told the children I was going to leave it hanging a few hours to see if it fell down.

Several hours later, we returned, to find not only Wifey but also the chandelier, right where they should be. Wifey was somewhat less than impressed, as the chandelier didn’t yet work, but did appropriately ooh and aah that I’d gotten it hung.

She did not ooh and aah when I said “if you think it’s hung well, come check me out.”

Come Saturday morning, I jumped on the task with both feet: Operation Light-the-damn-dining-room had begun! I spent some time swearing, splicing wires, and getting everything just so. My shoulders aching, I prepared to make the final tie-in of wires to chandelier.

“Do you want me to do anything?” Wifey asked.

Since children were present, I couldn’t say what I was thinking, so instead I opted for “just sit there and look pretty. I’ve got it all under control.”

Just as I said this, the house leapt six feet into the air. Either that, or the chandelier fell six feet as I knocked it off its hanger. The net effect was the same: with a loud crash, glass went everywhere, Wifey’s table, which she loves, was brutally scratched, and I had just payed a sixty-euro dumbass handyman tax to stimulate the local economy.

Wifey’s chandelier, whom I had eaten dinner next to every night for the past three weeks, was utterly destroyed.

Have you ever done something stupid, and just after, wished that you’d be injured so that you’d get some sympathy instead of blame? I felt just like that. In fact, I leapt off the ladder, hoping to break my leg or shove a shard of glass through my foot, but instead I ended up just smashing more glass flat.

If you thought the house was cold before, it was nothing compared to how cold it was gonna be, trust me.

“Never mind,” I said. “We’ll just pop out and get another lamp, right?”

“Wha?” Wifey had lost all capacity for rational speech. “Guh?”

“Great! Let’s go!”

So off we went. Turns out, though, the lamps were on sale for a limited time only, and now cost 120 euros. Well, not so bad: almost 200 euros for a lamp. Still less than I expected to pay. Right? Right?

“Hey,” I joked. “You wanna get two for when I smash this one also?”

This joke did not pan out as I had hoped.
Upon return to the house, I did what I should have done in the first place: I punished the children and sent them to their rooms. Helps me focus. Then, with a degree of skill that would make any home-improvement Bob from Vila to Thebuilder jealous, I wired up and hung my very own lamp.

And lo and behold, there was light. Lots of light. The bottom floor is now no longer dark. It’s still cold and full of objectionable people, but I’ll be darned if I’m moving out or paying exorbitant heating rates.

I have, however, moved all those Ikea stripper-pole lamps up to the bedroom, where they belong.