She doesn't like to be told twice

" fliiiiiicccckkkkkkkkk ?!"

I swear, sometimes I think that there's a button underneath the toilet seat that makes people scream when I sit down.

" FLLIIICCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK !?"

I assumed that embarassing position that half way resembles a downhill skiier in tuck and half way resembles a very large dog shitting and shuffled over to the door.

" WHAT ?!?!"

" The children are killing each other in the basement."

" Well can you just deal with it for now, I'm right in the middle of something !"

When I came out of the bathroom the house was eerily silent. I went downstairs to find the boy sitting on the couch whimpering with an ice pack on his face.

" What's going on ?", I asked my wife.

" Your daughter", ( MY daughter...with that tone and desciption that could only mean the 5 year old) my wife continued, " scratched the boys face and now he's bleeding."

With that she pulled the ice pack off the boy, exposing a couple of bleeding scrapes, and sending him into a wailing fit.

I should note that the boy is almost 8 years old. But beyond that he's the biggest kid in his class by 3 inches and he weights 80 lbs. The youngest girl might weigh half that, maybe, and is one of the smaller kids in the class.

My wife continued, " She up in her bed, you need to go deal with her."

I walked into the room and she was sitting there with her arms crossed, a frown on her face, and starting straight down.

" What did you do to your brother !", I asked sternly.

" He was calling me names !", as usual she went right on the offensive.

" Well I don't care what he did. What are you supposed to do when someone is mean to you ?", I asked.

" Come see you.", except it come out in begrudging grunts, " Come....see....you...urgh."

" AND...if that doesn't work, then what ?!", I keep on her.

" Yeah but...but", she realized that bullrushing me wasn't working so she moved to plan B...pity, " He was called me a THERAPIST !"

Now that got my attention, " He call...he....WHAT ?!"

" He called me a therapist !", she continued gaining her confidence back.

" Well I don't care what he called you, what are you supposed to do ?", I got myself back on track.

Uh-oh, distracting me didn't work, she moved right onto plan C...lieing, " Well I tried to come tell you...but he tackled me and held me down."

" He tackled you and held you down...that's your story ?", i had heard this before.

" YES !"

" So, I'm going to go downstairs and asks your brother and if that's not true you're in big trouble.", I bluffed.

" Well..", now she was getting really angry, " well he wouldn't even remember !"

Weak.

" He wouldn't remember eh ? Well seeing as he was the one holding you down, allegedly, I suspect he'd remember. Now I'll ask you one more time before I go downstairs....did he hold you down ?"

" FINE !!! FINE!!! NO !!!", and she burst into tears.

I send her to bed for the night and went down to check on the boy.

He was still sitting there pouting and I asked, " What did you do to your sister ?"

" NOTHING ! I was cleaning the basement like Mom said to and I told her she had to help. Then a minute later, when she didn't get up, I told her a second time. The she got up, picked up the dominos tin, whacked me in the head, then jumped on me and and started clawing my faces. All I did was tell her twice !"

" Did you call her any names ?", I asked.

" Yes, I'm sorry.", and then he started crying, " but it hurt and I got mad...I'm sorry"

" That was after she attacked you. What did you say to her BEFORE that ?"

" Nothing. I didn't call her nuthin..I just told her she had to help me, I swear"

So I had to ask, " Are you sure ? Did you call her a therapist ?"

He stopped sobbing and turned and looked at me puzzled, " A what ?"

" A therapist...did you call her a therapist ?", I felt foolish even asking.

" No why would I call her that. I'm not even sure what that is ?", he said.

" Yeah, that's what I suspected." I answered the boy, " But if this stuff keeps up, I"m gonna be the one calling her a therapist."

" Yeah ?", he coninuted, "Well if you do that you better watch out. She's nuts."

What a welcome home.

I spent the weekend down in Myrtle Beach playing golf and then playing some more golf. Other than that it was 3 days of blissfully sitting around without having to break up a fight or get someone a drink or letting people in and out of the house. It made me realize that parenting is most being a bouncer for midgets.

So I came home and got right back into the swing of things.

Last night I sat down to check my email and my wife informed me that she had to run to the store and I should keep an eye on the kids.

Two minutes after she left, I heard my five year old daughter say " Oh-OH !" then I heard a door slam.

" What was that ?", I yelled.

" NOTHING ! DON'T COME IN HERE !!!"

Now she had my interest, " Where are you ?"

" I'm in the potty, DON'T come it "

Now I was worried, " What the matter ? Are you ok ?"

" I'm fine !", she was doing a poor job of trying to sound convincing, " There ....ahhhh....just been a surprise "

" A surprise ?", I asked.

" Yeah, a surprise !", she answered.

" What kind of surprise ?", I kept pressing.

" There's something on the floor....well I really don't want to say, but maybe it would be ok if I can spell it."

" Ok"

" P...O....O....P"

" Oh jeeze", I cried.

" No, no, no don't come in. I'll take care of it!"

So I waited. I'm trying to teach the kids to be self sufficient and pressing on them to start cleaning up after themselves. This isn't exactly what I meant, but to be consistent I gave her a shot. I sat there for a while, doing what I was doing, but keeping one ear to the door.

After a while, " Ummm DAD ?"

" Yes dear ?"

" Umm, I'm going to need a little help in here. I need someone to wipe me."

OK. That's an unusual request....and thankfully one I didn't hear the entire time in Myrtle Beach.

I walked into the bathroom to quite the site. There was a little bit of poop on the ground that she had attempted to wipe up, but instead smeared it around. Additionally, she had feces on her bottom and front and her clothes were strewn about the room. By the rising water level, the toilet was obviously clogged and there was a mountain of toilet paper stacked high enough to look like a paper mache volcanic island in a sea of tiddy-bowl blue.

" What in gods name....", I started in.

Now the interesting thing about my daughter is that, while being the smallest and the youngest, she's by far the most aggressive. When the other two kids are faced with a stressful situation they gravitate to "flight" while this one goes right to " fight". Before I could express my awe, she hit me with shock.

" HEY! ", she yelled, " I TRIED TO CLEAN IT UP !"

That did a pretty good job of putting me on my heels.

" Yeah...well...fine", She had me stammering, " Its just that I might barf"

" YEAH ?!", She kept pressing me and at the same time coyly stepping around the poop, around me and out the door, " Well if you're going to barf, then you should get a bucket or something. I'll tell you what, I'll go get you a bucket". And the little weasel tried to run off leaving me there.

" NO WAY...HEY !!!!! Stay right where you are !", I yelled.

The yelling got the attention of the older daughter who I heard running down the stairs..boom-boom-boom..and into the hallway.

" AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !" she screamed, " She's got poop on her dingle !!!!!"

This immediately drive the younger girl into a fury and she stood there holding her shirt up above the poop line, red with rage and she started screaming....I believe the biblical phrase is "in tongues".

I quickly took command, " YOU ! Stop screaming...and YOU, stop making fun of your sister and make yourself useful. Go get a plunger...NOW !"

This commotion drew the attention of the boy who came running into the hallway.

I never gave him the chance, " YOUUUUUUU ! OUUUUUTTT !"

" But ...", he started.

" OUUUUUTTTTT !" and I pointed to the nearest exit and off he ran.

The next 5 minutes I was a fervor of wiping, plunging, washing, plunging and wiping again. Finally I got the girl clean and sent her to the upstairs bathroom to wash her hands. On the way up there the other two started making fun of her. Her response was to say, " I didn't wash my hands yet" and then she chased them around the upstairs of the house trying to touch them while they screamed and ran terrified.

Eventually I ran up and quieted that revolt.

Finally after all of that, I got to sit back down and start to read the email that I had started 30 minutes earlier. With that my wife walked in with some groceries.

" Everything ok while I was away ?", she asked.

" Yeah, yeah.", I just didn't feel like getting into it.

" Good", she said.

And then continued, " You just got back from vacation... why don't you spend some times with the kids instead of sitting on the computer all night ?"

" Yeah. Good idea."

Quitters never lose either

Since I quit poker...again...i was looking for a little action last night.

I busted out Pictionary and we had ourselves a little family game night.

The Boy and I were doing quite well until we got into an all play against the girls where my wife and son were both drawing. I was the guesser for our team.

The word was CANNON.

The boy drew this...



Cannon eh ? The boy must think quite a lot of himself.

Room in your coffee for some rage ?

I walked into Starbucks this morning, got into line, the reached into my pocket for some money. As I did so, I took a half step back with my left foot so I could turn to the side and count my bills. When I did so, I stepped on something...and was surprised to realize someone had come in, and was standing right behind me, and I had stepped on his steel toed boot.

" Oh jeeze, pardon me", I apologized and turned around to see a very surly looking, saved head, five foot-six, construction worker standing there with a scowl on his face.

" Fucking idiots !" he muttered, no so under-his-breath.

" Pardon me ?", I though perhaps I had misheard.

" You heard exactly what I said " he growled.

I was stunned, this had to be a joke, " Are you serious ?"

" Yeah, I'm serious", and the little fucker started stepping towards me.

I was still in disbelief, " What are you talking about ? You snuck right up behind.."

" Don't give me that bullshit, I came in right behind you...YOU SAW MEEE !!!", now he was foaming at the mouth.

The first thing I thought was 'this is what is must be like for other people when I flip out', the second thing was ' this is going to be a really entertaining fist fight'.

I turned to him, " You're out of your fucking mind. I didn't see shit and what the fuck, you have boots on anyway.." I was starting to stammer and getting fired up expecting that the next 10 second were going to determine whether or not I was going to spend the next 4 hours at the police station.

The think that may have saved the situation was that I could see his posture start to change. Having been on his end of things once or twice i realize that the initial freakout is sometimes tempered when you realize that the other person might be as retarded as you. He didn't exactly back off, but my reaction at least stopped him in his tracks.

I took a breath and said, " You know what...just go ahead of me and get your coffee."

" No, I don't trust you ", he said.

" Just get your coffee", I've made the committment to try and be a better person and avoid confrontation. And I gotta figure that whatever problems this guy has have almost nothing to do with me or his toe. " If I'm going to do anything its going to be right here to your face, not when your back is turned."

We stood there toe to toe for a second.

I gave him every option, " How do you want this to play out ? Where do you want this to go ?"

" Fine !", he walked past me and up to the counter, " Give me a tall coffee."

" HA !, that's rich.", well I said I was TRYING to be a better person...sometimes I just can't help myself, " TALL coffee ? How that for irony ?"

He grabbed his coffee and out the door he went.

Tu Rah Lou Rah Lou Rah Ayyyyyy

I forced myself to listen to 'Come on Eileen' in its entirety on the drive here in the hopes that it would either lift my spirits or convince me to steer into a tree. Unexpectedly, but thankfully I find myself a tad cheerier.

I don't play poker well tired, frustrated, or stressed. That information would have been more helpful 24 hours ago. Apparently the price of self-actualization is $105.

And of course I handled it with enough composure to compell me to explain to everyone that I wasn't really that mad. Bitterness, for me, is about 80% performance art.

Luckily for my other 20% still suffices to provide more misery that would be experienced by the common man. Thankfully for you, it might also provide a reasonable and steady source of entertainment...case in point..

After everyone left I was sitting there broke, miserable, drunk and tired. I cleaned up, pouted for a while, then decided to go to bed....or in my case last night go to 'couch'. I dug through the ottoman and couldn't find a blanket bigger than a large towel so I patch worked together 7 small blankets, intricately overlapping them to create one large blanket and cocooning myself in.

I no sooner got all of situated and put my head upon my pillow when I had the sudden and uncontrollable urge to piss. Now it had taken me maybe 6 minutes of adjusting and readjusting those fucking blankets 100 times so that my ass wasn't sticking out into the cold air and now that I had everything perfect I had to take a leak.

I refused.

I laid there for what seemed like an eternity, spiting myself, and refusing to give in. I somehow figured that if I could just fall asleep everything would be ok. Obviously, that was a flawed plan.

I was just about resigned to getting up when I remember that the giant 64oz glass that I had just finished was sitting empty at the end of the couch. Now I don't wanna be no 'jug-pisser' but extreme circumstances sometimes call for extreme measures...and without upsetting the apple cart and using my cell phone as a light source, I could both reach the cup and unveil the necessary particulars.

After some nervous apprehension I got the process started and felt the calm relief of release....and more release...and some more...about 62 ounces of......errr wait for it.....up-oh....63.....oh lord please don't...whew....about 63.5 ounces of relieved release.

Delicately, carefully, tentatively, I wedged the cup between the couch and the ottoman. I didn't want to accidentally knock it over and I sure as hell didn't want the cat to tip it. I placed it down next to the couch and pulled the ottoman closer and closer. It was quite tight enough so I gave the footrest one last little tug, just hard enough to firmly wedge the cup in there.....and just hard enough to overcome the inertia that was holding my cell phone in place atop my laptop. Before I could realize what that noise in the darkness was my cell phone slide off the laptop, off the ottoman, and directly to the bottom of the piss filled cup.

BTW, a Motorola razor displaces exactly .4oz of water if fully submerged.

So the final tally is me:
- minus another hour of sleep
- minus one cup
- minus one phone

On the other hand I have a great story that I really can't (shouldn't) tell anyone.

Needless to say, if you need to get hold of me today, ring me on the office line. Oh yeah, and be sure to ask for me by my new name..Rock....Rock Bottom.

pandora out...rhapsody in

At the sound advice of a friend checked out Rhapsody today.

At the sound advice of the Grammys I also checked out Amy Winehouse this morning.

Plesantly surprised that both lived up to their billing.

And here's a little Billy Bragg to get your week started.

smooth criminal

I've been using pandora.com as my music source lately. You punch in an artist and it finds music of a similar genre.

I was on a hard core gangsta tip yesterday and had fiddy-cent punched in. This morning when I logged on, my intention was to switch that to something a little more reasonable to listen to with my coffee.

But when I fired up the browser I was met with some sweet old-school smooth funk sounds. Boom bah deeeewwwwwww. Like a slow rolling jam that you might have in the background when you were laying some smooth moves on your lady. I found myself bouncing along, sippin my coffee, and having visions of a fire place and a bear skin rug when the lyrics began...

" I pop caps in niggas then I steal their bitches....I need a hundred ho fo my hundred itches .."

( ok, that's not what it really said. I made that up, but you get the idea )

So hard core lyrics laid over smooth tracks ?!?!

Yes, this morning I discovered Jay-Z.

Happy Tet

If you were Chinese or Vietnamese you'd be as psyched as I am, cause today is New Year's Eve. The plan is to head over to the Budist temple in Columbia and rock out Viet Cong style tonight. Hopefully I'll have some pictures for tomorrow.

If you want to ever get really depressed, spend 10 minutes listening to NPR the day after an election. My candidate has no chance, has never had any chance, so I have the pleasure of viewing this election from the outside with some detached objectivity. I'm less interesting in who wins as much as I am in understand why someone wins. With that in mind I've been intently paying attention when people are interviewed for their opinions and justifications for who they're supporting.

My conclussion so far is that 'the man on the street' is, by and large, functionally retarded.

But enough of that. Here is something worth smilin about

http://www.myspace.com/riskaydramaqueen

Now THAT'S a candidate I can get behind. My favorite song so far is Kristpy Kreme.

Wizzurd my bizzurds.