The History Of Me

Letter To Christina

Its time for me to write, and I can’t, for the life of me, come up with some wild and crazy story about stupid shit I’ve done in my past.  Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of dumb shit antics that are fresh in my mind, but these stories just don’t seem to want to flow right now.  I am In a little bit of a sullen mood right now, so perhaps its time I touched base on some darker times in my life.  After all, my days weren’t always fun and joyous.

I went on my annual family camping trip this past weekend, and my older brother and his wife were both sporting their fancy new iPads.  For the record, although I would never purchase one for myself, they really are pretty cool.  My sis-in-law was happily showing me all of her cool apps, and ultimately ended up on her facebook page, scrolling through her list of friends.  Having gone to the same high school with her, I was familiar with quite a few of her alumni friends.  I remembered a couple of the women from when we were younger.  Oddly enough, these small moments that occasionaly occur often remind me of the time when It was a struggle for me to befriend other kids, and near impossible for me to talk to girls.

As far back as I could remember, I’ve loved the female gender of our species.  I am not that guy who craves a night out with the boys.  Fuck those faggots.  I thoroughly enjoy the company of women.  I am as mesmerized by their hair and the softness of their skin, as I am with their boobs and ass.  I am a sucker for a woman’s sensitivity and, as fucked up as it may sound, it is actually a bit of a turn on when I see women cry during movies.  In my opinion, the differences between men and women, both physically and mentally, are offset accordingly, to create a perfect match.  My respect for them is genuine and I sincerely appreciate what women have to offer in our society.  Oh, and by the way, I also like to hump them.

My interaction with the opposite sex started out favorably enough.  I spent the bulk of my kindergarten school year hand in hand with a girl name Christina.  We would sneak off during recess and innocently kiss each other.  I remember the other kids always trying to sneak a peek.  We would hide in the bushes, behind the bleachers, or an obscure empty corner of the building.  Christina and I spent that entire school year together.  School ended, and I lost contact with her over the Summer.  When I returned back to school for first grade she, to my dismay, was not enrolled.  I was heartbroken and lonely, but made peace with the fact that I would never see her again. 

At the start of my sixth grade school year, though, I was amazed to see that Christina had returned. Its a little embarrassing to admit that I became smitten with her on the mere fact that she had been my “girlfriend” in kindergarten, but it was true.  I somehow thought that maybe it was fate, or destiny, or maybe that she was the only girl that would ever have any interest in me.  Regardless, I knew that I had to get her back.

After a month of trying to get her to notice me, I finally mustered up enough nerve to write a small note.  I asked her out on paper and folded it around a small cubic Zirc ring that my mom had donated to my cause.  Approaching her in the hallway I was terrified.  I handed her the note.  I am pretty sure that I said something to her, but, from what I remember, my tone was quiet and hardly audible.  She seemed confused, and I scurried off before she could open the letter.

What a freak, right?

With the first phase of my seduction complete, I was faced with the sudden realization that I hadn’t even remotely considered phase two.  Of course, phase one most definitely wasn’t supposed to be as uncomfortable and creepy as it turned out.  With that, I went to plan B; I avoided her.

The school was small, though, and we kept bumping into each other over the course of the following week.  She would look over at me, and I would shyly look away and hurry off.  She was the one who finally approached me and spoke.

Dear Christina,

My apologies to my fumbled request to take you on a date.  I was simply unable to find the words I needed to express the joy that I felt from seeing you again after all those years.  I somehow hoped that our previous relationship would make it easier for me to approach you and to speak to you.

I was mortified by my actions, and immediately wanted to turn back time.  I also was terrified of what you must’ve thought of me afterwards, and the things that you might have been saying to your friend, Tanya.

You were, however, a saint.  When you finally decided to ease my embarrassment by talking to me, you were caring and sensitive.  You considerately declined my request, and informed me that you already had a boyfriend.  You made me feel comfortable and at ease when you smiled at me and apologized.

Then, as you walked away, that fucking cunt, Tanya, told me that she passed my note around to everybody she knew and that they all laughed and made fun of me.  The bitch told me that you threw my ring away because it was fake, because, as we all know,  fucking twelve year old middle-class girls are accustomed to being showered with massive diamond rocks.

She laughed and taunted me, until you ,attempting to spare my feelings, pulled her away.

I want to let you know that I think you are cool, and she is a heartless, beasty bitch who I hope goes to Hell and has to be eternally sodomized by a well endowed flaming demon.

Yours truly,
Jake

3 . . . 2 . . .1 . . . Oh shit!

The Fourth of July is upon us.  This glorious celebration is an incredible occasion, indeed.  It is a landmark moment in our country’s history.  A time to remember the great risk that our forefathers took when they gave their oppressors the middle finger and told, nay, commanded them, to fuck the Hell off.  Millions of people gather together every year to show great patriotism.  We raise our flags, proudly adorn our country’s colors, and, most importantly, we blow shit up.  Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.  If anyone so desires to stand up and condemn our God given right to launch numerous beautiful exploding projectiles into the night sky, then I, as the self-proclaimed center of the universe , curse thee to an eternity of sparklers and charcoal snakes.

I am a man,though, and, like most men, I was once a boy.  For those of you that are unfamiliar with the activities of this boy creature, I will fill you in with this small piece of information.  Boy-Code dictates that the male child of our species dabble in the art of blowing shit up.  This craft is typically developed without instruction, as the offspring’s parents are usually not very perceptive to the importance this activity.  Fortunately, the chinese culture begot a wonderful technology that allows any young child with access to fire, the ability to acquire basic blowing shit up skills.

I had spent a good portion of my childhood experimenting with fire and incendiary devices.  Many an ant lost their life to unprovoked attacks on their home.  The barrages would be swift and horrific as exploding piles of Ladyfingers would send insect carcasses flying into the air.  Previously usable toys would have to be secretly disposed of after being mangled with precisely placed M-80s.  Lego structures would be painstakingly constructed around small explosives caches, only to bet lit afire, and destroyed in a fantastic explosion that would send plastic shrapnel flying in all directions.  Fun times, indeed.  As the boy grows, however, so must the pyrotechnics.

My particular coming of age event occurred when I was around eighteen years old.  My current wife had moved out of our apartment due to, what turned out to be, reconcilable differences, and, in an unusual and somewhat awkward scenario, her brother became my roommate for a couple of months.  He and I coexisted in the two bedroom apartment quite peacefully, regardless of the fact that his sister was fairly upset with my antics and attitude.  It was during this short period of time that we found ourselves bored one afternoon and Rodney produced an exotic treasure that he had acquired from his father’s gun safe: a single blasting cap.

We began brainstorming, attempting to come up with a worthy use for this fantastic find. I thought it would be cool to set it off in front of the neighbors front door.  They were friendly neighbors and would probably accept the prank without any animosity, yet I couldn’t shake the mental image of one of them opening the door at the precise moment of detonation.  Rod suggested placing it in the fishtank so the water would absorb the shock.  My large oscar, Haggar, having survived a multitude of unpleasantness from underage partygoers contaminating his environment with libations, would, most likely, appreciate a small explosion in his murky tank none too much.  The toilet seemed like a rational choice for a second, but I was pretty sure that the porcelain would be damaged and I was fairly confident that we would be in need of the commode sometime in the near future.  I glanced across the room, into the kitchen, and noticed the large aluminum sink that graced the countertop.  It was full of dirty dishes that were soaking In pungent water from days earlier.  It was almost if it had been meant to be.

Within seconds the blasting cap was submerged and Rod and I were hunkered down beside the sink holding the wire leads and the only power source that we could scavenge: a triple A battery.  Upon contact with the terminals, maybe half of a second passed, leading me to momentarily think that the explosive was a dud, before it exploded.

The aftermath at ground zero at Sierra Vista Apartments was massive.  The contents of the sink, including the dish water, had erupted out from the top, drenching the ceiling.  The force was enough to completely destroy the plumbing and faucet while simultaneously pushing the sink downward into the counter.  It ripping an enormous gash in the bottom of the sink that spanned its entire length.  I would find out later that my wife entered the apartment the next day, her normal routine in an effort to ensure a return of our security deposit, spotted the destruction in the kitchen and left in disbelief and disgust.  The carnage would haunt the apartment for weeks to come.

I did rebuild, though.  I purchased a new sink and repaired the plumbing by tactfully covering the damage with massive amounts of epoxy.  We moved out and received 100% of our security deposit back.  Everybody moved on afterwards, never returning to those apartments ever again.  I still look back at that fateful day.  I remember how all the pieces fell together, allowing that God forsaken moment to happen, and, despite all of the destruction that transpired, I feel that, at that moment, I had finally matured from that small boy with a fistful of Black Cats, into a man.

Writer’s Block

So.  I haven’t written for quite some time.  As shitty as that may be, it most definitely gave me some time to witness another part of me.  A part, I might add, which I somewhat loathe.  Typically, I am a big fan of Jake.  Jake is a good man.  He is an intelligent and creative man.  He has a sense of purpose on his life, and a desire to break free from the crowd, paving his own path towards a more desireable future for him and his family.  He also, only rarely however, is an asshole who praises himself in third person.

For the past eight months, however, my life has pretty muched sucked.  I say this lightly, for I’m sure there are millions of others who would claim that the alleged suckiness of the recent events in my life is, in fact, not sucky.  This is my time, though, to be a whiny little bitch and, for once, complain about the world not revolving around me.

I am fucking sad and lonely.  I have a family, a wife, two children.  I spend time with my Mom, Dad, and brothers.  I regularly converse with friends, aquaintences, co-workers and business partners. Nevertheless, I feel very much alone right now.  My head, you see, has become absent of creative thoughts.  My familiar visions, visions I’ve had since i was a very young child, have all but left.

I’ve noticed that I no longer “see” music.  It used to be that every song I heard was a soundtrack to some kind of event that developed in my mind. For example.  Eric Clapton’s The circus Left Town translates into a man sobbing in a child’s darkly lit room, his young terminally-ill son sleeps soundly in the bed.  Matchbox Twenty’s You Won’t Be Mine begets a series of scenes, each precisely cued between verses, of the same man, drunk and dibilitated after his son’s death.   A woman, previously unable to deal with loving a ravaged soul, realizes the error of her ways and rushes to be by his side.  She pounds on the door, fumbles for his key that she still has, and rushes in to comfort him.  Camera zooms out from overhead.  Fade to black.  Final chorus.  Some song by a band called Senses Fail fits perfectly with a punk girl singing along to gentle melody that ultimately evolves into an angry screaming rant.  Her future lover watches from a distance, intrigued and hypnotized.  The once bland setting now screams with color as the camera slowly revolves around her and then zooms in on the man’s face.

As of late, my mind doesn’t wander like it used to.  I try to stay focused and attentive, making better use of my time and trying to be productive.  In the past, my commute to work would yield endless hours of imagined scenarios and dialogue.  I could, not so long ago, envision entire alternate worlds and complete personas.  These ideas would often consume my thoughts as I mentally edited each scene, searching for the perfect moment.  I would then attempt to put these events into writing, the final step in the process that I am still attempting to develop.

Yes.  I do believe that I am an artist.  Right now, however, my art has left me and I am a shell without it.  The music is muffled.  The characters and stories in my head are absent.  Unwritten dialogue has creeped away without any traces.

Jake is a forsaken man.

The culprit?   Well, if you must know, it’s me, of course.  I am the valve that shuts off the flow of ideas to my mind.  It’s because I have better things to do.  I have to go to work and make money.  I have to make as much money as I can.   Why?   What do you mean?   Isn’t that our sole purpose for living?  I could’ve sworn that we were taught that in Sunday school.  Thou shalt neglect thy personal dreams, work thy fucking ass off, and make as much money as thou can.  Sheesh.  Read a book once in awhile and you might learn something.   I have to learn things.  Why?   Because I need to better myself as a human being.  Besides, the more I learn, the more money I could probably make. I have to read vasts amount of information on the Internet to fill my head with incredible amounts of knowledge.  I have to stay busy at my house.  Why you ask?  Jesus Christ, you ask a lot of fucking questions.  Because if I don’t, I am a lazy piece of shit who doesn’t deserve to have anything.  Sure my wife got some inheritence that has put us in a very comfortable lifestyle in a monster house, but, you see, I didn’t work for that money, so now I have to work extra hard to justify my work ethic so that I can feel as if I have earned my right to live there.  After all, no one ever dies and leaves their stuff behind. Nobody understands the terrible circumstance that I’m in with my very low mortgage on one of the biggest houses in the neighborhood. Too bad I won’t just relax and enjoy it.

By the way, Jake is a fucking dumbass.

This feels good, though.  I have a mid-year resolution, because i hate when people wait for January;  I will try to behave from here on out.  I will make a legitamite attempt to make some playtime for myself. I will listen to music and open my mind to it’s lyrics and melodies.  I will let my mind wander like that cartoon kid who got stabbed by a four.  I will apologize to my left brain and allow it to grow and flourish once again.  And when my creativity comes back, I wll accept it with open arms because, having lived without it, I am humbled.

I am sorry old friend.

Rock-n-Roll

As a child in the early eighties, a few years before Nintendo would release a beautiful magic box that would render all my other recreational activities obsolete, I was in constant search of new and exciting ways to spend my days. Due to this, I thoroughly enjoyed the freedoms of living in a small town during my preteen years. My father alotted me free reign of the town during the day, so long as I stayed out of trouble and was home for lunch. I covered every inch of land within a five mile radius of my home. My brothers and I discovered spectacular abandoned houses, piles of dumped treasure consisting of broken TVs to smash, appliances to take apart, and the elusive Playboy magazine, and uncharted trails that led deep into the outskirts of town.

One of our favorite places to play, however, was a magical anomoly of stones that we, as kids, called “The Rocks.”  The Rocks was, unbeknownst to me at the time, a small plot of land that was owned by a local business owner who sold numerous types of agregrate. The agregrate was simply dumped into separate piles of river rock, sand, pea gravel, And a slew of other types of landscaping material.  Most piles were roughly ten feet tall and maybe thirty feet in diameter, probably a dump truck full.  The river rock pile was usually about three or four loads next to each other.  Of course, for a young kid, these piles seemed massive, and we, not aware that our parents had acquired permission for us to be there, would play on the rock piles for hours on end.  There was a decorative gong near the property that served as a perfect target to test our throwing accuraccy, and a nearby greenhouse that, naturally, was left unlocked, allowing us to explore beautiful flora, and, occasionally, snatch up a plant to play with and ultimately destroy. For the most part, though, we were pretty behaved, but, as we all know, rocks and stones are the most basic of weapons and tools, and, in the hands of kids, can be the basis of many negative experiences.

An example of a not so bad incident would be if a kid, hypethetically, found a dead cat near said rockpile, and, hypethetically decided to find a large scale rock, and, maybe, hypethetically took said rock and smashed said cats head. This, of course, would hypethetically cause said cats eyes to pop out of said cats said head and cause said kid to become extremely grossed out and quickly run from said area.  Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Others were not so harmless. Occasionally a child will do something that, for some reason, seems like an amazing newly discovered feat, and has to be done repeatedly to take in the complete awesomeness that it is. Our personal discovery came when throwing a rock at the back of a garage that shared the same line as the property’s fence. To our amazement, the rock simply passed through the wall, leaving a small hole.  Now, as an adult, I fully understand that the owner of the garage, trying to conserve money while adding walls to his carport, enclosed the structure with rigid foam that is often used as an insulation in buildings, instead of more expensive wood. As a kid, however, we were just amazed that the rock simply passed through the wall, leaving a small hole.  Adding to the situation, the fact that we had a near endless supply of stones, the “wall” didn’t stand a chance.

We pummelled it for multiple minutes, rejoicing each and every time a rock slipped through, not once giving a single thought as to where our projectiles were going on the other side. For all we knew, or cared, there was an alternate universe on the flipside, and we couldn’t be less concerned. Of course, there wasn’t another plane of existence on the other side, as you, Reader, already know, but cars. Classic cars to be more specific. Three restored 1940-ish automobiles that the owner had taken great pride in building up, never thinking that they would be beat to shit by a few ignorant kids who are easily amused.

Somehow we finished the attack without being discovered. It wasn’t until hours later when our dad approached us and began questioning us about what had happened that we finally realized that we had done something wrong. After what seemed like hours long interogating by my father, we miraculously convinced him of our innocence, and the subject was laid to rest at our household. In fact, it’s one of the few things that, even as an adult, I have yet to confess to him.

The Rocks are gone now.  Houses were built on the land a few years ago, destroying all traces of our once grand playground.  Paradise was paved and replaced with two-bedroom homes with attached garages, leaving only memories of the young children who frequently frolicked on it’s soil, but, thanks to this residential expansion, I think we can all agree that the world is a safer place.

Can’t we just put them in a cage for the day?

Contrary to what I was hoping for, I have found myself commuting daily to a location that is as joyous and fun as the world-famous theme park, teeming with thousands of happy visitors adorning caps with large round ears: the Longmont Butterball plant. The facility has been improved a bit from when I posted about it earlier in the year, though, and, as I become increasingly comfortable with their cross- contamination safety protocol, I’m settling in fairly well. Of course, the shitty economy and serious lack of electrical projects makes me hate this project a little less.

In an effort to ease the suffering amongst those of us who are partaking in this brave endeavor to restore life-safety notification appliances, or fire alarm for short, we, as fire alarm guys, or FAGs for short, have unanimously agreed to adjust our schedule into four ten-hour shifts. With this, we are allotted a full three days of turkey-free time off every week. This, I must tell you, is an adjustment that I both enjoy, and am very fortunate to be able to seamlessly accomodate into my life. There was a time when my schedule wasn’t as forgiving and the slightest delay could wreak irreconcilable damage to my way of life and comfort of living.

About a million years ago, way back during the Candleboxian Era, my wife and I decided to make a child. The plan seemed simple enough, and it didn’t take long before our constant perverted fucking produced a beautiful child. We knew that our limited income would make this financially difficult, but we decided that we’d much rather serve our time as young parents than try to deal with asshole kids in an older, decrepit-er state. We had anticipated the added cost of diapers, baby clothes, and formula, and factored it into our budget early on, but we weren’t completely prepared for the toll that daycare was going take on our pocketbook. Childcare facilities were running upwards of 25% of our combined family income, so we, instead, chose to hire someone who offered daycare services from their home.

The first sitter that we found was living in the same apartment complex as us, so it seemed like an obvious choice. She was watching a few other kids and seemed like a very nurturing woman. Her apartment was littered with kid toys and the place had the exact same aura surrounding it as some of the expensive centers that we had previously approached. Aside from having to lug our own baby swing to and from her apartment every day, there didn’t appear to be any problems. After bailing out of work one day, a couple weeks after hiring her, I found myself knocking on her apartment door, unable to get her to open it up. Impatience got the best of me and, finding the door unlocked, I decided to enter. My son was sleeping soundly in his swing, and a plethora of other small kids were playing gleefully. My presence piqued the interest of the oldest, maybe eight years old, girl. She recognized me and informed me that the sitter, who’s fucking name I can’t remember, was doing laundry at the community laundromat. Pissed at her negligence, I gathered my kid and my swing and stormed back to my apartment. It was at least ten minutes before she called me, frantically hoping that it was me who had removed the child from her home.  I fired her ass immediately.

The next one was slightly better. I have to admit that I was slightly swayed from the first day, though. Shelly was a thirty-ish former co-worker of my wife. She was fairly trim, and decent enough looking, that I wasn’t worried at all about the fact that she was still in her nightgown when she answered the door. She was also a parent, and comfortably reached out and took hold of my young infant son. She bounced him on her hip for a minute or two while I introduced myself and tried, unsuccessfully, to not stare at her nipples poking through her gown. Eventually, the fatigue of holding a small child set in and she sat him on the chair next to her, bending down to hold him still, and giving me the perfect view down her nightie. As if it wasn’t difficult enough to look at her face, now I had an unblocked view of her exposed body, from her small little tits, all the way down to her fuzzy little snatch patch! I was sold.

She ended up being a flaky bitch, though. She’d give us less than a days notice when she was unavailable, and sometimes wouldn’t answer the door when I was trying to drop Junior off, claiming later on that she didn’t hear me knock. This, however, didn’t stop her from being extremely picky about drop-off and pick-up times, and i was stressed daily trying to juggle my very-average work hours with her fucked up and demanding “hours of operation.” The cheap bitch wouldn’t accept a check either, so I’d always have to fuck around on Friday afternoons, trying to get my paycheck in the bank, and getting cash out for her.  She also got knocked up, and had a kid, so the few times that she inadvertently allowed me an additional glimpse down her shirt, I was only rewarded with, in all of its deflated balloon glory, a grim look at the ill-effects of a baby’s mouth on a nipple.

These days, the wife has a nice “work from home” gig that all but eliminates scheduling conflicts. I dont worry about snow days, random school closures, or the occasional sick child. I get up and go to work every morning without obstruction. No longer do I have to make that awkward call to the boss, requesting the day off because the sitter has important errands to run. Ten hour shifts? How about twelve? I don’t have any reason to miss work whatsoever. I can show up whenever they need……………… Fuck!

Cute Little Dead Squirrel

The Mrs. and I started going for walks together recently. We’re both part of the over thirty-five club and can’t quite keep our slender figures without making some sort of attempt to stay in shape. While my occupation requires me to spend a vast amount of my workday roaming around, she, unfortunately is tethered to her computer and workstation at the house. Occasionally, she takes a trip downstairs to do some laundry, but, for the most part, she has a busy sedentary job that is very unforgiving when it comes to trying to burn off a few extra calories from a cream cheese covered bagel.

She has been busting my balls forever to accompany her on a brisk daily walk to help her add some exercise to her weight control plan, and, while I do feel for her and her lack of physical activity, my FIVE hour brisk daily walk leaves me feeling completely unexcited about doing it recreationally. I broke down, though, and now we walk and talk for about forty-five minutes a night. It really isn’t too bad, and I probably should have done it with her years ago. Sometimes even, like most recently, you come across a special find while trekking across the suburbs. My particular find came from not money or treasure or even a glimpse of some fresh boobies through a bedroom window, but a squished, flat as a pancake squirrel.
“Special treasure?” You might say. To which I would respond, “You’re motherfuckin’ god-damned right special treasure!”, because I hate them.

I didn’t always. I thought that they were cute just like everybody else. I watched them frolick around at the park while watching the kids play or when having a picnic, and found them quite amusing when I would throw a piece of sandwich near them and watch them stand upright and eat with their delightfully adorable little hands. I treated their kind well and we lived harmoniously together until they drew first blood, by deciding to move into a cozy and spacious man-made tree that I like to call “my house.” Initially, I wasn’t all that worried. I had read that squirrels in the attic will chew on wiring and cause problems, but, being an electrician, I was completely capable of correcting such an issue. Due to this, I procrastinated on removing the rodent for a couple weeks. Eventually, I acquired a live trap, baited it, captured the tresspasser, and released him a few miles away at a park. He was scared, but free to start a new life in a different locale.

The very next day, I patched the small hole in the roof overhang where he had found access into the attic. Life was peaceful for a couple weeks before the familiar echoed scurrying from above intruded upon our Sunday night viewing of Entourage. The night was restless, and I eagerly anticipated getting home from work the following day so I could inspect the attic space and quickly prevent this new squirrel from making a home. Apparantly, my patch job wasn’t adequate, for this particular squirrel was a bit more destructive, and had chewed the small hole out making a bigger, more gaping access hole into my tree home. After searching in the attic for signs of the squirrels presence and finding none, I closed the hole up with more drastic measures. I retrieved some large metal conduit clamps from my work van and fabricated an impenetrable gate across the makeshift entrance. Pleased with myself I cleaned up and commenced my evening lounging time. I was even more pleased when, that evening, the annoying pest made numerous attempts, judging from the furious scrambling noises that we heard outside, to gain entrance and failing miserably. I had won, or so I thought.

We were squirrel free for a few weeks before we got the first whiff of the disgusting odor permeating through our house. It was the familiar smell of rotted meat, and we immediately began interrogating the children about an improperly stashed dinner. They insisted on their innocence, though, and all attempts to uncover unused food came up empty. As the odor became increasingly worse, a conversation with a colleague developed into a reasonable theory. He had previously seen a not so smart squirrel venture into the uncharted sanctity of a plumbing vent. This vertical pipe ultimately finds it’s way into the sewer and serves the purpose of allowing noxious gas from uncountable shits to safely exit from the roof and into the atmosphere. In short, not a good hiding place. With no other explanation, I could only assume that my squirrel must have also chose unwisely and found himself in the unfortunate circumstance of being trapped in a shit tube.

The smell went away, and we were ecstatic to be able to comfortably breath in our house once more. To further dispute any argument that a squirrel had embedded himself in the vent, my wife had the wonderful experience of witnessing an army of maggots escaping from the shower drain in true Poltergeist fashion. While we are positive, at this point, that the skeletal remains of a semi-retarded dead squirrel is now a permanent artifact in our house’s plumbing, we can only hope that it serves as a warning to “all thee rodents who enter here.”

WWWD?

I believe that there is a coming-of-age event that each and every one of us experiences during the course of our lives. The outcome, of which, is completely dependant on the skills of the individual who performs the act. It can lead to joy and happiness or regret and despair. You may do it once and decide that it’s not for you, or you may choose to partake in the deed mere moments after you’ve completed the initial endeavor.

“Drugs?” You ask. No.

“Sex?” Not on this post.

Let’s reminisce. Sit back in your chair, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and take yourself back to the day when you first took shit from a store without paying for it.

I started out with a comic book. Most kids that I knew had a decent enough collection of comics that were merely another form of reading material. I wasnt one of these kids.  During the moments leading up to my larceny era, comics had a hefty price tag of $0.75.  Probably cheaper with a subscription. Unfortunately, during the course of my upbringing, this added cost was not part of the budget. I did, for a single year, recieve a year’s subscription to my beloved pre- Michael Bay, not yet completely fucked up with Shia LeBeouf, Transformers comic book series.  That was a one time only gig, though, and my request for a renewal was denied. Thus, I was required to find alternate means to support my terrible reading habit. I turned into a criminal.

Initially, my shoplifting was limited to something that I really wanted but just couldn’t afford, but it didn’t take long before I was shopping around for things to steal.  There was a Safeway across the street from my sixth grade middle school where, before and after school, I would browse for things that I may or may not have needed.   Comics and magazines made up a large amount of my booty for they were probably the easiest to get away with, but sometimes something else would catch my eye. 

I swiped a Far Side desk calender once. The score seemed easy enough and I hardly thought twice as I crammed the small box into my pants and calmly made my way out of the store. I think the thing was on clearance anyway, so it shouldn’t have even been that big of a deal.  The manager, having somehow suspected my crime, thought otherwise.  This guy was either extremely busy or extremely slow, though, because I had escaped completely across the parking lot when he finally popped out from behind the storefront doors. I heard yelling, and turned to see him pointing and screaming at me.

“What did you take?” he yelled. Now, I’d like to pause for a moment to explain my reaction to this question. I was raised with a complete fear of adults. My father was not the time-out type of guy, so when adults talked, I naturally payed attention and responded. Having been trained as such, I simply held up the calender and showed him. He must’ve sensed my moment of mesmerization and followed up with, “Get over here!”  I actually contemplated it. Fortunately, however, I was able to break my dad’s voodoo spell and run the opposite direction.  Needless to say, I opted to stay away from the grocery store for awhile.

When I finally did return, it was to jack a package of Binaca. This wonderful, banned from school for stupid reasons substance was way out of my price range, but all of the other kids had it, so I needed it as well. Imagine my frustration when I discovered that they were sold out of the sprays and only carried the small dropper bottles. Now, as any seasoned kleptomaniac knows, the smaller the package, the easier it is to hide. This particular item was vaccuum-wrapped against roughly a six inch by four inch piece of cardboard. That had to go. I quickly removed the small bottle, shoved it down my pants, and hurried out, anxious to acquire fresh minty breath. Instead, having somehow unscrewed the bottle cap whilst removing the packaging, I managed to acquire the freshest, mintiest, BURNINGEST dick, this side of the Mississippi.  The effect was terrible, and I ended up ditching school for the rest of the day.

This, unfortunately, didn’t deter me from my life of crime. I had become accustomed to the finer things in life, and a single bad score wasn’t about to scare me away from other jobs. Plus, a Walmart had just been built, and the vast amount of treasures that were calling my name made it impossible for me to stop. My cassette tape collection was growing exponentially with the likes of Slaughter and Ratt and Cinderella.  My SNES collection was growing a little slower, about as fast as the rotation of stock on the bottom hangers inside the plexiglass security case that I could barely reach after prying open the bottom a little.  Speaking of which, the SNES itself was purchased with refunded cash from stolen scientific calculators.

I stole and stole and stole, yet never got caught. It wasn’t until I turned eighteen that the fear of actual jail scared me enough to stop.  The life was over.  I had it all.  Games, music, magazines.  It was all there for the taking. It didn’t matter. Whatever I wanted I just took.  Today everything’s different.  There’s no action. I have to buy things like everybody else. That’s the hardest part.  I’m just an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.

Little Kitters

I share my life with a few other people. My lovely, sweet, awesome, sometimes bitchy wife, my way cute and way smart diva daughter, and my confrontational and confused teenage son. Very seldom does a day go by that we four aren’t completely entangled in the goings-on within each others individual activities. Like so many other families, however, human companionship alone is not adequate for a satisfying home life, so there are also two lesser life forms that inhabit my home.

Misty is a shy, scared, petite cat that my wife rescued from the shelter. She keeps to herself and is about as completely self-sufficient as a housecat can be. We’ve determined, through her skittish behavior and her constant aversion to people, coupled with the fact that her tail is noticeably shorter than that of every other feline that I’ve ever encountered, that she had been seriously abused before we adopted her. Misty is fairly calm around my wife and I, but she tends to stay hidden and out of site until company is gone and the kids are in bed. She is well taken care of now, but I suspect that the fear instilled in her by mistreatment will stay with her for as long as she is alive.

The second cat, since my wife always insists on having a pair, couldn’t be more opposite. At only a year and a half old, his massive form leaves the pillow backs on our couch in a constant depression. He is a purebred Ragdoll that was born in the confines of a loving breeder and given massive amounts of attention from birth. His experience with pain is limited to a time or two that his paw has been stepped on by accident, and he will readily approach a complete stranger, and possible cat mutilator, in the same carefree manner as he would us. His body, due to his breeding, goes completely limp when handled, and owners of the breed are warned that their lack of a defensive nature is detrimental to survival as a stray in the event that they get out and are lost.

While I’ve grown accustomed to having these furry things always underfoot, I wasn’t always completely accepting of housecats. Of course, one of the main factors that helps contribute to my tolerance of them is the fact that I am a homeowner. The two previous pets that my wife boarded had the unfortunate circumstance of living in a pet-free apartment. This factor put me in the delicate situation of balancing efficient animal training with the desire to have continued residence at low cost rental property.

I will readily admit, at the risk of pissing off the pet-loving population who think that domestic animals are comparable to actual procreated children, that my aptitude to alter instinctive cat behavior was very limited. One of the biggest issues was trying to prevent the cats, Frisky and Cuddles, from lounging in the windows. This behavior, I’m sure, should not normally be frowned upon, as it would seem that all living mammals (and cats) require, a time or two in their lives, to bask in the bright and energy giving sun. Rental lease not permitting, though, I revoked their right to Kal-El’s power-inducing yellow sun, and, instead, forced them to live like Chunk’s dear friend Sloth, in the dark confines of the indoors. As you can imagine, they were not very receptive to this rule.

I found myself having to reprimand them daily, in the form of, I’m sorry to say, a harsh beating. Now, in my defense, I was born in 1974 and there was a completely different approach to teaching animals back then. We didn’t take our animals to trainers or just simply allow them to behave as they see fit. I defy anyone to argue the fact that, back in the day, we were taught to beat an animal’s fucking ass if they acted up. If a dog jumped up on you, you smacked him in the nose, if a cat swiped at your hand and scratched you when you were trying to feed it, you punted it across the room. Animals, I’ve found, are quite resilient to physical pain. I think it’s due to the fact that getting smacked with a rolled up newspaper because you shit on the floor, is in no way as bad as having another larger animal chase you down and eat you.

Ultimately, though, Frisky and Cuddles moved into a house with us and they were able to finally enjoy the sun. I did, however, find myself constantly finding cat piss on a few of our amenities. There was piss on the couch. There was piss on my new leather jacket. There was piss on our clothes in the laundry basket. And, there was piss on my fucking bed. Unfortunately, because I had no possible way of determining which of the two had done it, and because, debatably, the other should have stopped the culprit from following through with their evil deed, they were both recipients of reprimands.

After sixteen years, Frisky became seriously ill and hade to be put down. Cuddles seemed to cope fine, and was, quite possibly, a little relieved as the mystery cat pissing completely stopped and it was suddenly blatantly obvious which one of the two was destroying my furniture and belongings. He lived another couple years, as a behaved and loving companion to my wife, before he too got sick and needed to be euthanized. I didn’t cry for him, although I was seriously choked up by the sadness engulfing the rest of the family, but after he was gone, I did feel quite a bit of guilt for the harsh approach I took to trying to created a well behaved pet.

I think that I would be correct in saying, however, that his sacrifice is much appreciated by the little fuckers that is Misty and Marshmallow (yes, she named the fat cat Marshmallow). I can’t bring myself to lay a hand on them. They scratch the couch, oh well. They sneak out of the house and leave my wife crying for an hour while I go out and ultimately find them cowering in the window well, what’re ya gonna do? They do their thing, I do mine. I am completely tolerant of their behavior because, just like them, I’m a big pussy.

Slacker

Hey everyone.  I just wanted to make a quick post stating that I am, indeed, planning to step up my game on the website.  At present time, I’m working on starting up a company, and it has been very time consuming, exhausting, and detrimental to my creative process.  Since I’m committed to keeping my posts to roughly one-thousand words, it usually ends up taking me well over an hour to write, edit, find a picture, and post.  After a full day’s worth of work and then coming home and dealing with the details of setting up my business, it’s been difficult to get my left brain working effectively.  I will, however, start to make it more of a priority to mentally outline a post during my day, and attempt to post more consistently.  I’ve also received a couple emails and comments, and I’d like to thank you all for taking the time to let me know that my small endeavor is appreciated. 

Thanks, J.

And they lived happily ever after.

My wife likes to take walks in the rain.  I can’t fucking stand that.  Something about being wet in non-swimming attire just drives me nuts.  We recently took the kids to Disneyland, and it seemed as if everyone loves the water rides.  They adore the rides that squirt water at you, drip on you, or just plain drop you into a massive pond of cold, wet water.  Afterwards, they get off the ride, dripping wet, hair soaked and seemingly uncomfortable, yet the lines are miles long to get on them.  I avoid these like the Plague, and my wife consistently teases me for not enjoying them.

I like video games.  I grew up with Mario, Link, and Samus, and love playing such modern gems as Guitar Hero or Half-Life 2.  The old ball and chain hates them.  She doesn’t understand the idea of mashing buttons and fake-shooting aliens and zombies.  Her hand eye coordination sucks, and she claims that the rotating screen and crazy graphics make her physically ill.  Another couple that we regularly hang out with loves to get together, have a few drinks, and waste the night away playing Wii games, and it’s amazing how my wife can go from the tipsy fun-loving party girl to the aggravated can-we-get-out-of-here-now wife, in mere moments after the power button is pressed.

I like KFC, she likes Boston Market.  I constantly require music to soundtrack my day, she looks forward to the listeners calling in and talking to the deejays.  I logically rationalize my way through problems, she throws a tantrum and stresses out.  I put my keys and wallet wherever I happen to be sitting and she has a certain place for every fucking thing she owns.  The list goes on and on.  We’ve been together for over half of out lives now, and we continually joke about how we don’t have a single thing in common.  The time of trying to change each other is long gone, and despite being polar opposite personality types and spending every moment we can together, neither one of us has made a single murder attempt on the other.

I knew that she was very different from me from the moment I met her.  Me, being a little reserved, and attempting to conform to the accepted standards of how people should act, was taken aback when this girl whom I’d never seen walked into my seventh period class, looked at me, and blurted out, “You have gorgeous eyes.” 

I was a shocked but managed to force out a quiet thank you.  She smiled, turned and sat at her desk.  My buddy, Jason, was quick to start teasing me.  Apparently, this girls comment was enough for him to suddenly realize that, he too, thought that my eyes were gorgeous.  Over the next couple weeks, this new girl was quick to gain a bit of notoriety amongst the students of Alamosa High.  Her proclaimed sexual endeavors were a consistent topic during seventh period study hall, and, to this day, I can’t believe that the teacher, Mr. Hall, I think, allowed an underage student of his class to openly discuss performing fellatio.  This particular subject matter ultimately led to my buddy Eric and I assigning her the nickname of “The Nibbler.”

I’m not exactly sure when and how I started communicating with her in a more productive manner, but when it did happen, I was completely infatuated.  We quickly began spending most of our free time together, in and out of school.  We talked on the phone regularly, and went to lunch together all of the time.  Our flourishing relationship moved rapidly and I found myself falling uncontrollably in love with her.  She, on the other hand, was happy to find a friend that she could spend time with.  What a bunch of bullshit.

I sat idly by as she rambled on about the guys that she thought were cute, the guys who she wanted to date, and the guys who she simply wanted to fuck.  I, unfortunately, wasn’t on any of these lists.  She confided in me about her past experiences and regrets, stories that evoked rage and jealousy in my smitten teenage mind.  I listened to her problems and secretly fantasized about the day when I could muster up the courage to make a move on her.  After many months of mental anguish on my part, a situation occurred at my house that resulted in me kissing her. 

She kissed me back momentarily and then, as if coming to the sudden realization of what was happening, suddenly stopped.  I felt the abrupt rigidness of her body, pulled away, and saw the wide open eyes of a startled seventeen year old girl.

“Why did you do that?”  she uttered.

I responded suavely with, “Uhhhh….uhhhh.”

“Why did you do that?”  She repeated, stepping away from me.  I tried to find the right answer, but came up short.  Before I could figure out what was going on, she had made her way out the door, into her car, and had driven off, leaving me standing in front of my house, confused and heartbroken.

I didn’t see her for a couple days after that, and when she finally did show up at school, we pretended that nothing had happened for the better part of the day.  She finally broke up the awkwardness by inquiring about my intentions, and the ensuing discussion resulted in us finally, officially becoming a bona fide couple.  She, to this day, busts my balls about being “sooooo, in love” with her, but, hey, it’s better than being a cold, heartless bitch who left her future husband standing forsaken on the front porch.  Am I right?