Not A Good Way To End The Year

Fiction

The cigarette hung from his fingers of bone inches over the glass table top.  The smoke wisped into where ever smoke wisps too, just kind of up and gone. The hooded figure attached to the cigarette was slumped over slightly. His attire consisted of nothing but a single robe which hung slackly over his skeletal frame. The robe was old and a colorless gray. A heavy sigh was heard from inside the deep black hole where a rosy face should have been.

“Ok,” said a voice out of the left most darken corner in the room. “Let’s start from the beginning.”

The hooded figure sighed again, “How many times are we going to go over this?”

“As many times as it takes for me to get a story I believe.”

The  hand holding the cigarette raised from the table and disappeared into the nothingness of the face hole. Smoke billowed out, looking like some starless part of the galaxy that was on fire.

The voice from the corner spoke again, “Start from the beginning.”

“Of course,” said the robe with a smile. You couldn’t see his smile, but you sure could hear the smile. It was a blood curdling smile. A smile that many, many, people saw as the last thing they ever saw. A smile that stopped the blood flowing in ones veins. “I was making my rounds…”

“On what date was this?”

“It was on December 12th, 12:38 am  to be precise. I was assigned a Mr. Robert Hupert as my next collection. Mr. Hupert lived in the suburbs in a single story house. Nice lawn, well taken care of…I remember that. Anyway, easy stuff. I entered through the south wall and landed in the kitchen. It was a small kitchen. I was surprised as to how small it was…I don’t know why…you know, just compared to what the outside of the house looked like. Anyway, I was thirsty so I helped myself to a glass of water from the built in water dispenser in the door of the refrigerator. As with just about everyone’s refrigerator  in the world, pictures of what I assumed where the Grand-kids hung with those cheap fruit shaped magnets. A little boy was featured in one photograph, and a little girl in the other. The rest of the photos had them both in it, playing, laughing, hugging…it could have been any house in the world really…”

The Robbed Hood paused.

“Go on,” prodded the corner.

“Right. So I had a job to do and about seven others on my list for that evening. I admit I was in a hurry, but I’m pretty good at what I do. I have been doing it forever…literally forever. ”

Hood sneezed and a spider shot out from the black hole of his face, hit the table on it’s side. It recovered awkwardly and quickly, and then scampered away.

“Sorry,” he said and wiped his hole with the back of his cigarette holding sleeve. “So I head into Hupert’s bedroom where I expect him to be sleeping with  one of those CPAP machines attached to his face. I see a lot of CPAP machines anymore.”

“We don’t need to know that stuff, just stick to the relevant facts.”

“Hupert wasn’t asleep. He was awake.”

“So?”

“He could see me,” said Hood. “He was looking right at me. I knew he could see me. His face was flush of color and he was shaking. He also pointed at me. His mouth was open and moving, but no sound was coming out. This is a look I’m only used to seeing when the collected are in their last seconds of life. I like to look into their eyes as the last bit of their soul leaves their bodies. The eyes lose their shine slowly, like a fading star until…pop…nothing. The eyes, after  they lose their soul mind you, remind me of rocks you find in a river bed; dull, lifeless, flatten, hard…but regardless…Hupert could definitely see me.

‘What do you want?’ Hupert asked me.

‘I’m here to collect you,’ I responded. ‘How can you see me?’

‘What do you mean?’ Hupert asked.

‘How can you see me?’ I asked again. ‘Normally you can’t see me until you are toting that fine line between this life and the next.’

‘I don’t understand what you just said, but why are you dressed like the Grim Reaper?’

‘Because,’ I said matter-of-factly, which is how I always talk. ‘I am the Grim Reaper.’

Hupert started to whimper, then he started to cry.

‘Why? Why me?’ he said.

It’s what they all say. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that question…

(I don’t know what I would do with it. I have no need for money. It would just be a big pile of nickels, I guess.)

‘Because, you have been ordered to be collected. I am never told why. I just collect.’

‘No, I’m way too young! I’m only 47! There has to be a mistake!’

If I had a quarter for every time I heard that this has to be a mistake…

(Again…just a big pile of wasted quarters.)

Hupert suddenly jumped out the window and ran down the street. I was stunned. That has never happened to me before. I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there for a moment. Then I headed back into the kitchen, got a beer and a slice of turkey from the fridge, and left.”

“You just left?” asked the corner in shock.

“Yeah,” replied the Reaper. “I just left.”

Some papers rustled from the darken unseen corner. “Do you know in the billion years we have been doing this, we have never had someone scheduled for collection just run away?! Not one! We have always collected! Our record, until now, has been 100% collected! What the hell where you thinking?!”

The Reaper sighed.

“I wasn’t,” he replied. “I was still in shock… he could see me.”

“Some special people can see you, like Mediums, Clairvoyants, Bakers, Priests…”

“Bakers?”

“I don’t know why, but yes, bakers,” boomed the corner as more papers were shuffled. “You’re fired.”

The Grim Reaper didn’t say anything. He had never been fired before, but of course this had been his one and only job ever.

“What about the quota?” asked the Grim Reaper.

The man from the darken corner stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing a white robe and had a long beard. In one hand he held a stack of official looking papers, in the other he stroked his beard. “We will just have to have a run on of ‘natural disasters’, the Midwest is due for a tornado, Japan needs another tsunami soon anyway. We will figure it out until we hire a suitable replacement. Not your concern.”

“Just don’t get Eligos. I hate that guy.”

“Not your concern.”

The Grim Reaper got up and grabbed his sickle…

“Leave the sickle,” said the Other.

The Grim Reaper got up, leaving his sickle, and walked out the door. Maybe he would go visit the tropics for awhile, have a vacation before deciding what to do with the rest of his eternity…maybe he would check out that restaurant on the fourth level of Hell that’s been getting all the rave reviews…

Maybe he would just seek out Hupert and kill him.

Do the job right.

Get his position back.

Maybe he would buy a puppy instead.

So many possibilities…

The Grim Reaper sighed to himself.

To be continued?

The Other Me Is A Fashion Designer

When you are trying to take over the internet, it’s not narcissistic to use Google Alerts.

It’s not.

Ok, it is a little…but it’s a great tool to find out where you land in the search engines, if anyone is interested in the product you’re putting out, and helps to capture who your audience is outside of the WordPress community.

I use Google Alerts to track this nonsense, as well as (and more importantly) my sister project: Long Awkward Pause.

If you are not familiar with Google Alerts, it emails you when certain words that you ask it to track are typed into the Google search engine. The other day, this pops into my email:

There are a couple of things that make this even more funny and coincidental then it already is…probably only to me…but I’m going to share anyway:

– There are a lot of people with the last name of DeVos, with the one ‘S’, not a lot with the two ‘SS’ ‘s, (that’s a lot of processor apostrophes) like mine. So the fact that there is another name exactly like mine is incredible. It would be like if there where two people named Hippo Bandersnatch in the world.

– If you go to Long Awkward Pause and look at the writers list, you will notice my brother, Jack, is also on the staff. If you really pay attention, you will notice he is billed as Jack DeVoss, while I’m billed as Christopher De Voss. (With a space between the De and the Voss) There is no space in Jack’s last name. That’s because he spells it correctly, and I do not. Why have I chosen to add a space? When I was younger, and trying to be a famous actor, I thought it looked cool. That’s all, just the coolness factor. (which there is none…(and I’m not famous, but kind of stuck with it now. (this is just to add another parenthese)))

– Target is my favorite store.

Now going back to the article that the Google Alert, altered me to; this I think, is supposed to be a picture of the Target fashion designers: Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Voss:

The article didn’t credit who is who…

One looks like a shorter version of the lead singer of Coldplay and the other looks like any lead German-born bad guy in an action movie such as Die Hard. (Die Hard 12, Die Hard With A Fashion!)

Here are some examples of their die hard fashion designs:

It all looks like something Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas would wear.

In case you are not familiar with the reference:

Sally

I think if any of my friends would say that if I designed fashion for women, it would look something like this:

Not true!

I would actually design something more in the lines of this:

Although, I would probably sneak something like this into my fashion line:

I will use this same name thing to try to score free clothes from Target:

“You don’t know who I am?! I designed this plaid button down shirt! I’m fashion designer, Christopher De Voss! Now put these clothes I have in my basket here on Target’s tab! I’m headed to the food court!”

The Gift Of The Scratchi

Once upon a time, in a little village, just south southwest of Santa’s Workshop, in the North Pole, there lived an older couple. This couple was each on their third marriage, although that doesn’t have anything to do with anything…I’m just making conversation. Now the couple didn’t have much money. The husband had started a potato washing business that wasn’t as profitable as it was expected to be, and the wife hadn’t been to work since she was diagnosed with elephantiasis in her left leg. Needless to say, Christmas was around the corner and the couple had no money to buy each other presents.

The husband thought, “Well it’s Christmas…I have to get my wife something!”

So he decided to rummage through the couch cushions and look for loose coins. He looked and looked and looked, and finally found 22 pennies, 3 nickels, one of them minted in the year 1978…which really didn’t have anything to do with anything…just making an observation…2 dimes, and 2 quarters for a grand total of $1.07.  The husband looked at the coins in his hand and sighed. What could he possibly buy with this? A pack of gum? A toothbrush?

Meanwhile in another part of the house, the wife was looking under their bedroom mattress. All year she would stash a dollar here and a dollar there as a little nest egg for Christmas. The problem was that all year she would also borrow a dollar here and a dollar there with the intention of paying it back, yet she never would. Currently all that resided in the mattress Christmas nest was one dollar.  A single tear rolled down her cheek as she got a paper cut on the tip of her finger from grabbing that one little dollar bill.

“What can I do with this?” thought the wife. “Buy a pack of playing cards? A plastic kazoo? A band aid?”

Both the husband and the wife both felt a little dejected, a little depressed, and a little tipsy because both of them were drunks…nothing to do with this particular story, just throwing it out there for discussion.

The husband grabbed his coat and called to his wife that he was going for a walk.

“OK!” she called back. There was little chance she would join him due to her left leg being the size of a VW Bus thanks to the elephantiasis, so the husband had a few moments to himself to think.

So he did.

He thought and he walked, and walked and thought, until he stopped in front of a convenience store. He stood there for a moment as his breath billowed in front of his face from the cold brisk air. He could see the worry lines on his forehead mirrored in the window of the store. He could also see the beer case, because as explained earlier, he was a raging drunk. And lastly he could see the counter where the lottery tickets were advertised. In his pocket, his hand clasped on the coins and he headed into the store.

Come that Christmas morn as the husband and the wife gathered in front of their Christmas tree which made Charlie Brown’s look like a lush Evergreen, he took her hand, and patted her enormous leg and whispered,

“I love you. Merry Christmas.”

He pulled out the  scratch off lottery ticket he bought with the change and handed it to her. He also handed her one of the left over pennies that he didn’t spend. This was so she could rub off that mystery silver cover that hides the winning numbers from the naked eye.

She smiled, and rub the penny back and forth over the ticket, slowly and with determination, all the while biting her lower lip. She turned the ticket to her husband when she was done, and said,

“We won.”

“What?” asked the husband gasping for breath. “Really?”

“Yes,” she said with the biggest grin. “We won a free lottery ticket.”

“Merry Christmas,” said the husband.

Merry Christmas,” replied his wife and slipped the dollar she had found into his pants pocket.

This doesn’t really pertain to the story, but later they got snockered on eggnog…you know…just throwing it out there…for conversations sake…

Merry Christmas to all.

When You’re Sick Of Holiday Movies…

Have you had your fill of Rankin and Bass’ stop motion holiday classic; Rudolph the Frosty Grinch?

How many times have you watched It’s A Wonderful Miracle on 34th Griswald Lane?

Can’t stomach another viewing of “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out Charlie Brown!”?

Well, I’m here to help. Here is a list of slightly non-Christmas-y that you can watch with the whole family.

(Warning: Don’t watch any of these with the whole family.)

Rubber

 Rubber is the charming story of Robert, an abondoned tire that has been left in the desert and then suddenly and inexplicably comes to life. As Robert  rolls around, he soon discovers that he possesses terrifying telepathic powers that give him the ability to destroy anything he wishes.

`

Zombie Ass: Toilet Of The Dead

 Megumi wrestles with the guilt of her bullied sister’s suicide while joining her friends on a journey deep into the woods, where they encounter the nefarious Dr. Tanaka, who conducts gruesome experiments on the living dead. Later, as Dr. Tanaka attempts to make Megumi and friends his latest test subjects, the desperate young woman uses the dual power of karate and flatulence in order to defeat her demented captor.

Nude Nuns With Big Guns

 Sister Sarah is abused, brainwashed and drugged into submission by a corrupt clergy who is in the business of selling drugs. On the verge of death, Sister Sarah receives a message from GOD telling her to take vengeance on all those who did her wrong. Armed with God’s will and an arsenal of big guns and little clothing, she seeks revenge on her former tormentors.

Grabbers

Strange doings are afoot on a small Irish island: the crew of a fishing boat disappears, whales start appearing dead on the shore, a local lobster-man catches a strange tentacled creature in his trap. Soon residents learn they must get very drunk to survive attacks by alien monsters who can’t tolerate a high blood alcohol level in their victims.

(Remember: I didn’t say any of these were good.)

Six Christmas Reindeer that Didn’t Make the Delivery Team

This is a piece that was written by my fellow Pauser, Chowderhead and myself…well to be honest it was about 90% Chowderhead and 10% myself.

The task of expediting billions of presents to mouthy brats around the globe in one night is a heaping pile of responsibility – one that requires a sharp, sober team of hoofed navigators to help carry it out. There’s only room for one drunken deviant on the parcel delivery team, and that’s Santa Claus; a morbidly obese shut-in operating under the delusion that wearing a belt and boots with red pajamas is more than a just a kinky homage to Hugh Hefner, it’s a fashion statement.

Assembling a dashing team of sleigh navigators has historically been no simple task – one that requires a formal tryout, which annually results in reject letters being handed out to dozens of four-legged, horn bearing hopefuls. Remember all those Reindeer games? These caribou take it seriously and have been training all their lives!

Now I know you’re familiar with Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and that freak, Rudolph; but according to some loose media source there were 6 previously unknown potentials that narrowly made the cut.

(To be honest, they weren’t even close to making the cut.)

Flasher

Official scouting report notes indicated that this obscene creature couldn’t keep his reindeer gear tucked between his furry little thighs during the tryouts. A lewd compulsion to flash his candy cane and holly berries in front of festive front room windows not only kept him off the team, but also nearly landed him a two year stay on the pet offenders list.

Dahmer

Initially, his calm demeanor and ability to take orders earned him a spot on the flight crew team. However, his membership status was revoked shortly after scouts discovered his hidden cannibalistic tendencies. He didn’t last too long at tryout camp, and neither did his stable mate, Meaty.

Square Dancer

It was determined that this uncoordinated mess of a creature might potentially blow the cover so to speak. During the trial package drop, Square Dancer attempted to Doe See Doe with Flasher, producing unacceptable decibel levels up on the roof tops.

Grab your partner don’t be shy,

Eat some magic corn, then you’ll fly

Land on the roofop, dosey doe

Santa is in the house,

your ass is standing in the snow

 

Nixon

A soft spoken and charismatic leader-type at first glance. However, walking papers were issued after one scouting team official candidly discovered him editing Christmas Lists and the official package delivery route. The incident was later coined, KringleGate. For the full story, you can watch the movie, All The Reindeer’s Men starring The Elf that Wanted to be a Dentist and the cast of The Island of Misfit Toys.

Vomit

Suffers from motion sickness. Also didn’t look good for any publicity photo shoots, for Vomit always had about six air sickness bags hanging off of him…just in case.

Stupid

His offenses are too long to list. Fellow trial mates frequently complained of inappropriate blinker usage during practice flights, and Stupid fell of a roof during one trial run while attempting a chimney handstand. The incident resulted in a broken femur, insurance settlement dispute that has been ongoing since its occurrence. Officials would not release any further details or names of the scouts associated with Stupid’s official invitation, but it’s been rumored that Stupid maybe in the new Jackass movie.

Blitzed’n

This deer liked his beer, which affected his steer. His also liked his vodka, just like his poppa. You would usually find him in passed out in the gutter, with a hooker nicknamed, Nutter Butter.

Since we are talking alternative reindeer, did you know that when Rudolph throws a hissy fit because he is such a big celebrity, (sometimes they do that) that his cousin from Germany, Christoph sometimes fill in?

True fact.

Yay! Sports!

I’m not a sports guy.

I think I finally want to be, it seems fun.

I like the fact that you get to use the terms “we”, “our”, and “us” when referring to “your” team without actually being a paid member of the team.

That’s really cool.

“How did your team do this weekend?”

“We did great. You know we are really looking  good this year. Our running/kicking/goalie/batter leads the league in runs/kicks/bleeding so far!”

“I know! We really wish we had him on our team!”

You don’t do that with anything else on the planet.

“Our Coke-a-Cola tastes so good! How’s your brand?”

“We are also refreshing! Go Pepsi!”

I want to be part of the comradery that happens every Sunday in American homes. I want to wear someone else’s name on my back with some random number underneath of it. Except I would probably pick the worst member of the team just to be difficult.

“Hey, De Voss…who’s that on your back? Sticklockski? Number 109? Whaaaaaaat?”

“Really?! You have never heard of Sticklockski? C’mon! Sticklockski! 420 career bench warms! 16 stubbed toes in a single season? And you call yourself a sports fan!”

I think really, really, really fat guys in NFL jerseys are hilarious:

Are you ready for some football?! Or chicken wings?!

I think women in NFL jerseys are hilarious too:

Ha ha ha…so….funny…Man, is it suddenly warm in here?

I’m just glad dressing like your favorite sumo wrestler isn’t big here:

FYI: He has a Big Mac tramp stamp over his ass.

Starting a new trend

Which Would Win In A Fight…Writing Or Child Birth?

Writing for me is hard.

It’s really hard.

Writing to me, is like spending days, weeks, months, even years in labor. Pushing and prodding, sweating and cursing, groaning and straining and out pops the top of the head…but only the top of the head. You look at the head and think,

‘That’s a nice looking head, but what could be better about the head? I mean, I like the shape and the little wispy hairs, but..is that a dent on the side? What are those red blotches? Can I make those red blotches look better? I can’t. I don’t know what would make those red blotches look better! Dammit! Is there too much hair going on up here? Is there too little? I hate this baby! No I love this baby, I will never give up on it!’

So you push some more, and it hurts…oh boy does it hurt! But you produce a whole head! You look down between your legs and marvel at the head you have just produced. You see two bright blue sparkling shiny eyes and a nice button nose…wait…my baby’s nose is really a button! That’s not good. We can fix that in the next draft, no worries. OK, what else here? Oh yes, cute little mouth with some toothless gums…that works…and a right ear and only a right ear…

What the hell? Where is the other ear?! I just spent three weeks on this baby and it only has one ear! How can I fix this? I can’t! I just squeezed out this whole head and it’s missing an ear! There is no repairing this! I can’t just shove this head back into my cranial vagina…it’s already hanging out there! I even made the mistake of telling a few friends that I was thinking about birthing something! I remember telling the neighbor yesterday,

‘Yeah, I decided to birth a short story. I don’t know, maybe if it goes well I might turn it into a novella or possibly a novel. We will see. There a couple of publishing nurses I was thinking about shopping it around too, but you know it’s so hard nowadays with all the HMO Blogs and the Affordable Health Care Self-Publishing Services nowadays…the completion is fierce. Dr. Mom says I should go for it. She says I have always had the writing cervix for it, so I figure…what the hell? How hard could it be?’

So now I’m hunched over, cradling this one ear baby as I try find some inspiration. Do you know how hard it is to waddle around with a one ear baby dangling between your legs? Starbucks won’t serve you in this condition.

I tried.

“Um yes…I would like a Mocha Machismo Skinny Carmel Al Pacino Latte, Extra Froth, Double Lid, please.”

“Sorry, we only serve Hipsters, Accomplished Writers, and Moms here.”

“Really?! Since when?”

“Do you know you have a one eared baby hanging between your legs?”

“Yes! I guess I’ll go to Café McDonalds instead.”

“Good, and you might want to be careful! You’re banging that baby against your leg every time you take a step…on its good ear.”

Writing sucks.

It’s also hard to sleep with a one eared baby between your legs. It’s annoying. The thing is always crying,

‘Feed me! Finish me! Fix my ear! Change my sentence structure, its dirty! Where’s my Starbucks?’

I can’t get you Starbucks, its only for clever people, clever people that can sit down and bang out a 92,000 word novel in two hours and its sequel over tea with the Queen of England while inking the movie rights to Steven Lucas del Toro.

I can’t even fix your ear. I’ve tried. I tried hot glue, duct tape, cookie batter…

Then it comes down to the point of:

Do you just live with this baby head, ignoring it for the rest of your life?

Or

Do you take a Samurai sword to it, aborting it into the digital trash can, never to see the light of day again?

Or

Do you keep pushing, hoping the rest of it comes out alright? You know, two arms, two legs, a feasible plot line, a cute little belly button romance perhaps…or at least an “innie.”

(“Outies” are so in your face.)

Or

Do you just put a gigantic hat over it, covering it up, and call it, “taking a break.”

If you could see all the gigantic hats I have in my drafts folder, you would call me a whore.

More often than not I want take this one eared baby between my legs and punch it in the face and scream at it,

“I hate you one eared baby! Things were going to well! Why did you have to have only have one ear?! Do you think Steven King ever produces a one eared baby? No! How about Tom Clancy? I think not! What about J.R.R. Tokien? I’m pretty sure all the Hobbits had two ears and that extra ‘R’ in his name stood for Radical!”

Whoever invented writing hates puppies.

So why do it? Why write? Why bother?

I don’t know. These thoughts just get inside my head and I feel the need to put them on paper regardless if they are good, or bad, or rambling…or stupid. Does everyone else in the blogisphere actually really enjoy doing it? Am I the only one that hates it? I would rather sit on the couch and eat jalapeño Cheetos and watch really bad reality television than write…but I know my brain will turn to mush.

Well…mushier.

Mush potatoes.

McMush potatoes.

Now to be totally honest, there was no point to this except I’m stuck at a point in my story called, “Fatty McFat Fat Fat” and I needed to take a break. I decided to continue the birthing process, be it good or bad, or if it has one ear or three…so thank you for listening for a minute.

I feel better.

I’m going to waddle out of here now, please stop staring at the baby head between my legs.

The Very Worst Driving Instructor In The World (Me!)

The teenage boy is learning to drive.

I’m not helping.

At all.

I’m a bundle of nerves every time I give him the keys. I would prefer that the car be like the Flintstone mobile so I could slam my feet through the non-existent floorboard every time I feel like he is getting to close to another car.

Yabba Dabba…slow down we are going to hit that car!

Sample conversation:

Me: OK, make sure you look left, right, behind you, straight ahead…watch for cars just suddenly pulling out…watch for helicopters…

Teenager: OK.

Me: Watch for semi-trucks. Semi-trucks will squash us like a bug.

Teenager: Got it, Dad, semi-trucks are bad.

Me: And taxi cabs. Taxi cabs are dicks.

Teenager: Right, taxi cabs are dicks.

Me: Hey! Watch your language! OK, now don’t get too close to the car in front of us and don’t stay too far behind it either, watch that car on the side of us…are you drifting in the other lane? I feel like your drifting…

Teenager: I’m not drifting, Dad. I’m clearly in my own lane.

Me: Maybe we should drive more in our own lane, like on the sidewalk. The sidewalk is safe. Drive on the sidewalk!

Teenager: I can’t drive on the sidewalk!

Me: No, no…you’re right. Better let me drive now, the traffic is getting bad.

Teenager: We haven’t even left the Target parking lot.

This parking lot is a little too full of cars for me to take the teenager to practice in. We will have to find somewhere else.

I know, I know, I need to relax. I don’t remember my Dad freaking out as much as I do when he taught me to drive…but then again he might have been drunk. You know, it was a different time…seat belts cost extra in most cars. As a matter of fact, one of the cars my Dad owned didn’t even have a front seat. We sat on the floor and avoided the rusted out hole in it.

The major problem is that I’m in Orlando, one of the worst states for road rage and home to about 50 million lost tourists.

Where the hell is Disney located?! I don’t see a castle anywhere on this map!

I learned to drive in the great winding empty country roads of Ohio.

*singing* Country Road, take me home, to the place where I belong, no teenage drivers, mountain mama, take me home…

I know my screaming like a little girl doesn’t help his confidence. He is actually doing a pretty good job. Orlando is a tough place to drive. Besides the lost tourists, there is a mixture of cultures to contend with, each thinking they own the road, many, many, so many buses, those dick taxis, and a city that grew faster than it’s roadways can handle.

I don’t think I would want to learn to drive here.

I have been kicked off driving instruction duty, the wife is now in charge of teaching the teenager.

I’m also not allowed to cover the car in bubble wrap anymore.

And I’m suppose to replace the headliner of the car where I ripped it to shreds Wolverine style every time we came to a stop that I felt was too close.

I have also been told telling the boy it’s time for his driving lesson if he can find the car keys which I have buried somewhere in the tri-county area is not a good motivational game, and the fact that I created an old timey pirate treasure map to pin point the location of the keys does not count as helpful.

And finally if I’m going to take apart the engine, pretending it’s “broken”, I should learn how to put it back together again.

Truth be told…I can’t wait until he learns to drive so I can send him on errands…so many errands….

*evil laughter, wringing of hands, pulling on invisible curly mustache*

A Seven Year Old Writes My Blog Today

Me: What should I write about?

Seven Year Old: NOTHING!…The Night Before Christmas!….Duffy!…I DON’T KNOW! I’m out! Wait! Watch me jump rope!

*grabs jump rope and jumps for three seconds*

Daddy, I want a phone for Christmas! Can I go play with Whitney? I’m hungry. Can I have some Oreos? Do you know what? I liked Frozen. Do you know what my favorite part of the movie was? When she was knocking, and the snowman said, ‘Is she going to knock? She probably doesn’t know how too.’ That was funny. Here is a fake lemon. Don’t eat it, it’s fake. Can I watch TV? Is Dog with a Blog on? When’s Christmas? Do I have to go to school tomorrow? Fa la la la la LA LA LA! I like spaghetti. Can we have spaghetti for dinner. Where is Mommy? MOMMY! Oh, there’s Mommy. Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. Mommy, can we have spaghetti for dinner? Let’s play restaurant. What do you want to order? We have Fruit Salad and Fruit Cocktail. The Fruit Salad has a lot of strawberries in it and the Fruit Cocktail only has a little bit of strawberries in it. I like Fruit Salad. Can I play on the Playstation? Whitney has the new XBox. XBox is a funny word. When’s dinner? Can we have Fruit Salad for dinner? Watch me jump rope!

*grabs jump rope and jumps for two seconds*

I want some yellow pants. Will you buy me some yellow pants? Whitney has yellow pants. Do you know what’s funny? Chocolate mousse! How can a moose be chocolate? I like Skittles. Mommy likes Sour Patch Kids and you like Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups. Why do you like zombies? I hate zombies! I hate math. Do you know what would be a yummy? Chocolate moose cupcake! But don’t get the antlers suck in your mouth! HAHAHAHA! What do you think Grandma is doing right now? Watch me jump rope!

*grabs jump rope and throws it across the room*

HAHAHAHA! Daddy! The screen on your computer is still blank! Why aren’t you writing anything? You could write about my Furby! He is funny! He has no batteries. I need batteries. Daddy, why are you holding your head in your hands? Do you have a headache? I once had a headache. Hey, my tooth is loose! Look, Daddy! Look at my loose tooth!

*wiggles tooth*

Daddy, are you going to write anything? The screen is still blank. That line thing keeps blinking. Daddy, why did you put your head on the keyboard? HAHAHAHA! You wrote a bunch of D’s with your head! DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD! I can write the word Dog and Cat and Toe….

Daddy?

Are you going to write something?

The Story of the First Black Friday

Many, many years ago the Pilgrims sailed across the ocean surviving cramped conditions, disease, and weather.

After almost turning around twice since Google maps was lacking the proper updates, they finally reached the New World when Mrs. Jones made Captain Jones ask for directions from some sea Sirens.

But things were not any better once they landed upon the shore. They endured even more hardships: food was scarce, the winters were hard, the wifi signal sucked, and no HBO.

One day, as chance would happen, a native of the land was sent out by his wife to pick up a six pack of deer skin, when he happened upon the dying settlement. Seeing a need to help these people, and knowing his wife was going to be out all afternoon with her friends down at the river gossiping about the new shorten hem lines of the latest buffalo skin dresses of 1621, he decided to school these white devils.

The name of that Native American was Squantoski. He had learned to speak English from an illegal obtained copy of Rosetta Rock. Little know fact, it was later renamed Rosetta Stone as the program became more streamlined.

Squantoski made the mistake of introducing himself to the Pilgrim Vinny first. Vinny had the bad habit of giving everyone nicknames, and dubbed Squantoski as Squid Lips. Squid Lips did not take a liking to this nickname at all and threatened to scalp Vinny if he didn’t come up with something cooler, and thus was introduced to the rest of the village as Squanto.

Squanto taught the village how to fish, build better shelters, plant maize, and build hedge mazes.

The Pilgrims were so grateful that they invited Squanto and his posse over for a big feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole with those crunchy fried onions on top, canned cranberries, and small pox.

The Pilgrims thought this to be a big success, and decided to hold this dinner every year there after. The Native Americans agreed, until they started dying off from the small pox. Those that survived plotted revenge.

They thought and schemed all year and came up with a four fold plan.

Step One: Introduce the game of football. This would distract the men folk from helping to prepare the Thanksgiving meal and making the woman angry and resentful.

Step Two: Come up with the concept of Black Friday where the village merchants would hold incredible sales deals the day after Thanksgiving. The woman would go crazy over the opportunity to save money and also be sleep deprived as they stayed up all night running from store to store, and deal to deal in order to get the biggest bang for their wampum*.

Step Three: Have a plan in place so by the year 2020 Black Friday would actually start at 9:00 am on Thanksgiving Day. This would cause division and fights in families as to whether or not to shop, watch football, or eat turkey.

Step Four: As the white man slowly destroys itself every Thanksgiving Day, the Native Americans retake their land with all the casino money they have acquired over the years.

Happy Black Friday everyone!

*wampum is the currency of the pilgrim.