"Maggie crapped on your pillow."
There are about 10,000 other things I'd rather have heard from my wife while I was out of town for work, like: "We're gonna need to save for a new vacuum cleaner," "The little monster across the street is using your brand new car as a backstop for his baseball," or "I'm leaving you for the local Walmart greeter."
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
A Letter to My Daughter
Dear Tootie,
That's what I decided to call you when you were about 3 days old -- Tootie McWhistlebottom. Sadly for you, it looks like it's going to stick -- like I've learned baby poop does to pretty much anything, including cats. I'll occasionally throw in a Scooty McBooty or call you by your middle name just to keep you on your toes, but as it stands today you're nearly 7 months old, and there's no indication you have any idea what your real name is. For all we know you will think you're name is Kiwi (one of the cats), which is probably fine because she doesn't know her name either as a result of me constantly calling her anything other than the name I gave her. If you ever get mad about the nickname Tootie as you get older, I'll simply regale you with tales of how you used to make your mother and I feel like we'd been beaten mercilessly by Republican Guard torture experts for days on end after trying to feed you your bottle -- every four hours. Your mother may never recover, and what little hair and pride I had left now below to the Gerber Gods.
Thank you for making fart noises cool again. Without you I would just be a creepy 29 year old with an obsession for making random fart noises. However, as long as I'm making fart sounds in the vicinity of you, I'm just being a dad. I will probably flash back to all of these hour-long conversations we are having in Fartese someday when you're 16 and telling me how big of an a-hole I am because I won't let you go on a date with some 21-year-old prick who goes by the name Bones. Embarrassing moment: There was a time when you were sitting in your playpen grabbing your toes when suddenly you unloaded a Luvs killer worthy of its own license plate and blew yourself flat onto your back and then started laughing hysterically and making fart noises. If I'd captured that moment on camera, we'd be living on America's Funniest Home Videos money right now.
You are a binky snob. You will only take a green Soothie binkie. If we try and give you any other binky you look at us like we robbed all of the premium beer from your fridge and replaced it with Stag. I don't know what it is about a green Soothie binky, but I know that if you get in a mood and it ever takes us more than five minutes to find one, this house is gonna look like a scene straight out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The smack addicts on Intervention complain less when they can't get a hit.
You are a master manipulator. We have been trying to put you to bed around 7PM for the last couple of months, but you won't have any of it. You warm up with a gentle "Wah, wah, wah" and over the course of 10 minutes it escalates to a full-on, face-quivering revolt. Your mother and I will be sitting in the living room, listening on the monitor, pretending not to hear and patiently playing some kind of unspoken, morbid game of Russian Roulette where we wait to see who cracks first and will end up getting you. And the minute we open the door, you stop screaming, smile and reach out your arms, because you know you've got us -- hook, line and stinker. I didn't write the book Go the F*ck to Sleep, but after spending numerous late nights holding a half-asleep baby and watching every episode of Intervention on my iPhone via Netflix twice, I have a healthy respect for whoever wrote it.
You are keeping the cats thin. The critters were just fine with you before you learned how to form a grip. They had taken you in as one of their own, just without fur. Ever since The Great Hair Ripping Incident of 2011 where you got a hold of Maggie and she ran away but you came up with a massive clump of black hair, they've been earning their Fancy Feast.
You have zero desire to crawl. Whenever we put you on the floor, you lay calmly for a minute with a look on your face that implies that maybe if you play dead we'll just give up, pick you up and return you to your upright position. After it sets in that we aren't going to budge, you start flailing your limbs and scream in such a way it sounds as though you are being waterboarded. I can only imagine what the neighbors think. You cause such a ruckus that your mother is convinced Nosey Neighbor to our right (I'll explain to you what sets apart Nosey Neighbor to our right, Dumb Neighbor directly across the street, Old Neighbor to the right of Dumb Neighbor, and Weird Neighbor to our left when you get older) is going too call the Department of Children and Family Services because it sounds so painful.
But, you are awful cute, and we couldn't have asked for a sweeter baby. I guess we'll keep you, I just hope you forgive me for calling you Tootie.
Love,
Daddy
That's what I decided to call you when you were about 3 days old -- Tootie McWhistlebottom. Sadly for you, it looks like it's going to stick -- like I've learned baby poop does to pretty much anything, including cats. I'll occasionally throw in a Scooty McBooty or call you by your middle name just to keep you on your toes, but as it stands today you're nearly 7 months old, and there's no indication you have any idea what your real name is. For all we know you will think you're name is Kiwi (one of the cats), which is probably fine because she doesn't know her name either as a result of me constantly calling her anything other than the name I gave her. If you ever get mad about the nickname Tootie as you get older, I'll simply regale you with tales of how you used to make your mother and I feel like we'd been beaten mercilessly by Republican Guard torture experts for days on end after trying to feed you your bottle -- every four hours. Your mother may never recover, and what little hair and pride I had left now below to the Gerber Gods.
Thank you for making fart noises cool again. Without you I would just be a creepy 29 year old with an obsession for making random fart noises. However, as long as I'm making fart sounds in the vicinity of you, I'm just being a dad. I will probably flash back to all of these hour-long conversations we are having in Fartese someday when you're 16 and telling me how big of an a-hole I am because I won't let you go on a date with some 21-year-old prick who goes by the name Bones. Embarrassing moment: There was a time when you were sitting in your playpen grabbing your toes when suddenly you unloaded a Luvs killer worthy of its own license plate and blew yourself flat onto your back and then started laughing hysterically and making fart noises. If I'd captured that moment on camera, we'd be living on America's Funniest Home Videos money right now.
You are a binky snob. You will only take a green Soothie binkie. If we try and give you any other binky you look at us like we robbed all of the premium beer from your fridge and replaced it with Stag. I don't know what it is about a green Soothie binky, but I know that if you get in a mood and it ever takes us more than five minutes to find one, this house is gonna look like a scene straight out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The smack addicts on Intervention complain less when they can't get a hit.
You are a master manipulator. We have been trying to put you to bed around 7PM for the last couple of months, but you won't have any of it. You warm up with a gentle "Wah, wah, wah" and over the course of 10 minutes it escalates to a full-on, face-quivering revolt. Your mother and I will be sitting in the living room, listening on the monitor, pretending not to hear and patiently playing some kind of unspoken, morbid game of Russian Roulette where we wait to see who cracks first and will end up getting you. And the minute we open the door, you stop screaming, smile and reach out your arms, because you know you've got us -- hook, line and stinker. I didn't write the book Go the F*ck to Sleep, but after spending numerous late nights holding a half-asleep baby and watching every episode of Intervention on my iPhone via Netflix twice, I have a healthy respect for whoever wrote it.
You are keeping the cats thin. The critters were just fine with you before you learned how to form a grip. They had taken you in as one of their own, just without fur. Ever since The Great Hair Ripping Incident of 2011 where you got a hold of Maggie and she ran away but you came up with a massive clump of black hair, they've been earning their Fancy Feast.
You have zero desire to crawl. Whenever we put you on the floor, you lay calmly for a minute with a look on your face that implies that maybe if you play dead we'll just give up, pick you up and return you to your upright position. After it sets in that we aren't going to budge, you start flailing your limbs and scream in such a way it sounds as though you are being waterboarded. I can only imagine what the neighbors think. You cause such a ruckus that your mother is convinced Nosey Neighbor to our right (I'll explain to you what sets apart Nosey Neighbor to our right, Dumb Neighbor directly across the street, Old Neighbor to the right of Dumb Neighbor, and Weird Neighbor to our left when you get older) is going too call the Department of Children and Family Services because it sounds so painful.
But, you are awful cute, and we couldn't have asked for a sweeter baby. I guess we'll keep you, I just hope you forgive me for calling you Tootie.
Love,
Daddy
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
The Worst Marriage Proposal Ever
My wife and I have vacillated between Happy and If you say one more word I'll *&$%#@! punch you in the throat for just over two years. I once heard a guy say, "Sometimes you hug each other to show affection and sometimes you hug each other as a way to get a better grip so you can take a better swing." That's us in a nutshell. It's a functional marriage, and from what I can tell, we're not terribly different from everyone else. However, the process leading up to marriage was quite the circus.
I asked my wife out on our first date to a Chinese restaurant that was promptly shut down a few months later for violating health codes and employing about 20 illegal immigrants via text message. I know what you're thinking: "You stay classy, Travis." I don't remember much of the conversation, but she likes to recount how about 10 minutes into it I started doing some kind of stupid trick where I wave my hands in front of my face. My 6-month-old daughter is not amused with that trick now and her mother wasn't amused with it then. If you were watching it happen on a reality dating show, you would have winced and said, "He isn't going to... Oh God...oooooo" and then promptly turned off the television because you couldn't deal with the pain of watching.
But the drinks took hold and, because of my restaurant choice and the poor magic trick, the date had nowhere to go but up and the relationship lasted a few more weeks. Eventually, because I didn't feel comfortable dating a woman six years older than me, I sent her an e-mail breaking up with her because she was "too old" and I was also interested in someone closer to my age. Yes, I broke up with my wife via e-mail, and yes, I told her she was too old. Again, I know what you're thinking: "You stay classy, Travis." If I can contribute one thing to the "Man's Guide to Relationships," it's this: If you think there's a cold chance in Hell that you will ever ask a woman out again, run into her in a dark alley or find yourself alone in an elevator with her, I strongly advise against ending a relationship on those grounds via e-mail. Tell her anything else. Tell her you're bipolar, being transferred to China, have Typhoid or all three. I figured the worst-case scenario was that we had a few more classes together, a few awkward conversations and that would be the end of it. In retrospect, we got along really well, much better than the ex-boyfriend she literally tried to run over in her driveway.
I wound up getting a job in St. Louis. Tori wrote a fantastic blog about her dating life that I continued to read and comment on, because it was so damned funny. The best story is when she got roped into a date with a midget, but that's neither here nor there. She would occasionally note how she hated her job. I suggested that I was working for a great company in the St. Louis area and that she should apply for one of the open positions. She applied, got the job and started working a brisk two-minute walk from my desk.
Not long after she started working we started hanging out, which grew into a relationship. Eventually, things were going well enough that I threw caution to the wind and bought a ring. The day after getting the ring, I pulled one of her work friends out to the car and had her take a look at it to see what she thought. She squeaked with glee and started twitching like a weasel on speed. I said, "Erin, this is very important. You can't tell Tori. Whatever you do, you can't tell Tori." I added emphasis on the second "You can't tell Tori" to hammer the point home with Shakes McGillicutty. She asked when I planned on proposing and I told her I was working on that, but it would be some time around Valentine's Day. I threw the ring box back in the trunk of my car, we walked back into the building and Erin skipped her way back to her desk, right next to Tori's, brimming with excitement.
Not five minutes after Erin got back, Tori asked her a question about work to which Erin promptly responded, "You know Travis doesn't want to get married, right?" Tori's happy face comes with an expiration date, and once you pull the pin on the grenade, her anger has a blast radius that, if it goes off in the center of the contiguous 48 states will rattle the teeth of people in Australia. I don't know how the rest of her work day went or how many people were killed because she didn't say anything to me on her way out the door, but I definitely felt her wrath later.
I was scheduled to look at a house that night and Tori said she would go with me. I pulled up in front of her apartment and she walked out, looking angry as Hell. She usually gave me a chance to talk before she got pissed off, but not this time. No sooner than she got in the car her guns were drawn. She teared up and started talking about how Erin told her that I didn't want to get married and started carrying on about how I was wasting her time. For a proper frame of reference, it's about one week from Valentine's Day and I still have this ring in the back of my car. By the time we get to the house I've made countless wrong turns, each one marked with "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GO THAT WAY YOU *^$%#& MORON YOU DON'T WANT TO GET MARRIED ERIN SAID SO I HATE YOU!!!!!" By this time, I've got a thousand different things rolling through my mind: How the *&%$ do I get to this house? Is cyanide traceable and will Erin smell it when I put it in her drink? Is this what marriage is like? And if it is, why don't more men kill themselves? What will happen on Lost tonight? After what felt the same amount of time it took Odysseus to get to Troy or the government to solve the debt problem, we finally got to the house. I opened the car door and sucked in the sweet air of freedom. I decided then and there that I didn't want to listen to this crap for another week, popped open the trunk, grabbed the box, poked my head around the trunk and, with her stomping in my direction, said "Marry me." She shut up and turned white.
For the next hour I enjoyed the soothing tones of our realtor while Tori didn't say a word. We eventually bought the house and got married in Las Vegas and had the world's most beautiful baby. The only downside is that every argument eventually ends in her saying, "Oh yeah, well you dumped me by e-mail," after which point I generally just shut my mouth and walk away. Everything has worked out well, we just took the long way.
I asked my wife out on our first date to a Chinese restaurant that was promptly shut down a few months later for violating health codes and employing about 20 illegal immigrants via text message. I know what you're thinking: "You stay classy, Travis." I don't remember much of the conversation, but she likes to recount how about 10 minutes into it I started doing some kind of stupid trick where I wave my hands in front of my face. My 6-month-old daughter is not amused with that trick now and her mother wasn't amused with it then. If you were watching it happen on a reality dating show, you would have winced and said, "He isn't going to... Oh God...oooooo" and then promptly turned off the television because you couldn't deal with the pain of watching.
But the drinks took hold and, because of my restaurant choice and the poor magic trick, the date had nowhere to go but up and the relationship lasted a few more weeks. Eventually, because I didn't feel comfortable dating a woman six years older than me, I sent her an e-mail breaking up with her because she was "too old" and I was also interested in someone closer to my age. Yes, I broke up with my wife via e-mail, and yes, I told her she was too old. Again, I know what you're thinking: "You stay classy, Travis." If I can contribute one thing to the "Man's Guide to Relationships," it's this: If you think there's a cold chance in Hell that you will ever ask a woman out again, run into her in a dark alley or find yourself alone in an elevator with her, I strongly advise against ending a relationship on those grounds via e-mail. Tell her anything else. Tell her you're bipolar, being transferred to China, have Typhoid or all three. I figured the worst-case scenario was that we had a few more classes together, a few awkward conversations and that would be the end of it. In retrospect, we got along really well, much better than the ex-boyfriend she literally tried to run over in her driveway.
I wound up getting a job in St. Louis. Tori wrote a fantastic blog about her dating life that I continued to read and comment on, because it was so damned funny. The best story is when she got roped into a date with a midget, but that's neither here nor there. She would occasionally note how she hated her job. I suggested that I was working for a great company in the St. Louis area and that she should apply for one of the open positions. She applied, got the job and started working a brisk two-minute walk from my desk.
Not long after she started working we started hanging out, which grew into a relationship. Eventually, things were going well enough that I threw caution to the wind and bought a ring. The day after getting the ring, I pulled one of her work friends out to the car and had her take a look at it to see what she thought. She squeaked with glee and started twitching like a weasel on speed. I said, "Erin, this is very important. You can't tell Tori. Whatever you do, you can't tell Tori." I added emphasis on the second "You can't tell Tori" to hammer the point home with Shakes McGillicutty. She asked when I planned on proposing and I told her I was working on that, but it would be some time around Valentine's Day. I threw the ring box back in the trunk of my car, we walked back into the building and Erin skipped her way back to her desk, right next to Tori's, brimming with excitement.
Not five minutes after Erin got back, Tori asked her a question about work to which Erin promptly responded, "You know Travis doesn't want to get married, right?" Tori's happy face comes with an expiration date, and once you pull the pin on the grenade, her anger has a blast radius that, if it goes off in the center of the contiguous 48 states will rattle the teeth of people in Australia. I don't know how the rest of her work day went or how many people were killed because she didn't say anything to me on her way out the door, but I definitely felt her wrath later.
I was scheduled to look at a house that night and Tori said she would go with me. I pulled up in front of her apartment and she walked out, looking angry as Hell. She usually gave me a chance to talk before she got pissed off, but not this time. No sooner than she got in the car her guns were drawn. She teared up and started talking about how Erin told her that I didn't want to get married and started carrying on about how I was wasting her time. For a proper frame of reference, it's about one week from Valentine's Day and I still have this ring in the back of my car. By the time we get to the house I've made countless wrong turns, each one marked with "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GO THAT WAY YOU *^$%#& MORON YOU DON'T WANT TO GET MARRIED ERIN SAID SO I HATE YOU!!!!!" By this time, I've got a thousand different things rolling through my mind: How the *&%$ do I get to this house? Is cyanide traceable and will Erin smell it when I put it in her drink? Is this what marriage is like? And if it is, why don't more men kill themselves? What will happen on Lost tonight? After what felt the same amount of time it took Odysseus to get to Troy or the government to solve the debt problem, we finally got to the house. I opened the car door and sucked in the sweet air of freedom. I decided then and there that I didn't want to listen to this crap for another week, popped open the trunk, grabbed the box, poked my head around the trunk and, with her stomping in my direction, said "Marry me." She shut up and turned white.
For the next hour I enjoyed the soothing tones of our realtor while Tori didn't say a word. We eventually bought the house and got married in Las Vegas and had the world's most beautiful baby. The only downside is that every argument eventually ends in her saying, "Oh yeah, well you dumped me by e-mail," after which point I generally just shut my mouth and walk away. Everything has worked out well, we just took the long way.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Life in a LEED Certified Building
A few years ago, the company I work for moved us into a building that was certified LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver. I'm all about doing everything I can to save the planet. I suspect I'll never get back the sizeable portion of my manhood I traded in when I bought my hybrid; I use the Water Miser setting when I do dishes; and I nearly electrocuted myself installing an energy effient ceiling fan light. If I could afford it I would buy one of those silly Dean Kamen devices that turns Doritos, rocks, mud and basically anything that's not baby poop into drinkable water. It's more manly for me to stick my 6-month-old daughter's little lion squeeky toy out the window and squeek it at someone than to lay on the horn in my hybrid. You get the point.
I don't know the corporate benefits of LEED certification, but I suspect there are some nice tax breaks and it makes for a nice HR press release. We even have a nice LEED logo declaring our high level of environmental friendliness on the front door. But, over the course of a few years, I've noticed a few downsides to working in a LEED building that I think everyone should be aware of.
1) Toilets: Our toilets have two buttons on them: a green button with one drop of water on it, and a silver button (for the rebels among us) with three drops of water on it. The icons on these buttons are life size representations of exactly how much water will be used to flush the waste. You couldn't flush a fly with either of them. If you think low-flow toilets are stupid, these things are a crime against humanity. I'm pretty sure people have missed meetings because they spent an hour in the bathroom hitting the flush button. I think the green icon should be replaced with the text "Play Again" and the silver icon should be replaced with the text "Not Quite."
2) Sink and Soap Sensors: The sink and soap sensors really save the big bucks; they not only regulate the water, they also cut down on the power bill -- because only about half of them work. It's quite the circus in the bathroom in my wing. You literally have to do the Macarena to wash your hands properly, because the faucet sensor works on the left side and the soap sensor works on the right side. You have to literally criss cross your hands or migrate between both of the sinks to wash your hands. And God help you if the towel dispensor is acting up. It's not uncommon to come across a guy who came into the bathroom having a bad day in the first place who had to press the pathetic flush button 58 times and do a triple toe loop to wash his hands, banging his fists against the paper towel machine screaming "Why, God, why!?!" because he ran into trouble on the final leg of his quest. Indiana Jones had an easier obstacle course in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I'm pretty sure some people have taken off the rest of the day after working the circuit in the bathrooms. And to make it worse, every bathroom in the building has a unique situation with regard to what works and what doesn't, but I haven't found one yet where everything is functional. If Michael Douglas had to deal with this in Falling Down, he would have lost it a lot sooner.
3) The Dump: One of the qualifications for LEED Silver certification is that the building be built in an area that meets the qualifications for "Regional Priority." Given that we're 500 yards from the dump, I'm guessing the way to achieve LEED Gold is to actually build a building on top of the dump and replace the water in the little fountain on the first floor with toxic sludge. On a good day the building smells like a gym sock; on a bad day, it smells like you bottled the farts of every athlete who graced a men's high school locker room over the course of 30 years and then released it into our building. I won't be shocked at all if 30 years from now I have some terrible disease that they trace back to breathing in these toxic fumes.
I often envision the guy who sold my company on the LEED certification as having a lot in common with the guy who sold pet rocks: At the end of the day he made a few nickels and 30 years later the idiots who bought the rocks wound up in therapy. Apologies if you owned a pet rock.
I don't know the corporate benefits of LEED certification, but I suspect there are some nice tax breaks and it makes for a nice HR press release. We even have a nice LEED logo declaring our high level of environmental friendliness on the front door. But, over the course of a few years, I've noticed a few downsides to working in a LEED building that I think everyone should be aware of.
1) Toilets: Our toilets have two buttons on them: a green button with one drop of water on it, and a silver button (for the rebels among us) with three drops of water on it. The icons on these buttons are life size representations of exactly how much water will be used to flush the waste. You couldn't flush a fly with either of them. If you think low-flow toilets are stupid, these things are a crime against humanity. I'm pretty sure people have missed meetings because they spent an hour in the bathroom hitting the flush button. I think the green icon should be replaced with the text "Play Again" and the silver icon should be replaced with the text "Not Quite."
2) Sink and Soap Sensors: The sink and soap sensors really save the big bucks; they not only regulate the water, they also cut down on the power bill -- because only about half of them work. It's quite the circus in the bathroom in my wing. You literally have to do the Macarena to wash your hands properly, because the faucet sensor works on the left side and the soap sensor works on the right side. You have to literally criss cross your hands or migrate between both of the sinks to wash your hands. And God help you if the towel dispensor is acting up. It's not uncommon to come across a guy who came into the bathroom having a bad day in the first place who had to press the pathetic flush button 58 times and do a triple toe loop to wash his hands, banging his fists against the paper towel machine screaming "Why, God, why!?!" because he ran into trouble on the final leg of his quest. Indiana Jones had an easier obstacle course in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I'm pretty sure some people have taken off the rest of the day after working the circuit in the bathrooms. And to make it worse, every bathroom in the building has a unique situation with regard to what works and what doesn't, but I haven't found one yet where everything is functional. If Michael Douglas had to deal with this in Falling Down, he would have lost it a lot sooner.
3) The Dump: One of the qualifications for LEED Silver certification is that the building be built in an area that meets the qualifications for "Regional Priority." Given that we're 500 yards from the dump, I'm guessing the way to achieve LEED Gold is to actually build a building on top of the dump and replace the water in the little fountain on the first floor with toxic sludge. On a good day the building smells like a gym sock; on a bad day, it smells like you bottled the farts of every athlete who graced a men's high school locker room over the course of 30 years and then released it into our building. I won't be shocked at all if 30 years from now I have some terrible disease that they trace back to breathing in these toxic fumes.
I often envision the guy who sold my company on the LEED certification as having a lot in common with the guy who sold pet rocks: At the end of the day he made a few nickels and 30 years later the idiots who bought the rocks wound up in therapy. Apologies if you owned a pet rock.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Grandpa's False Teeth
When my parents asked if they could come by the house for the afternoon to see the baby, it was not a big deal. However, what they didn't tell us is that they were bringing grandma and grandpa, and that's a game changer.
God love him, but my grandfather has somehow putzed his way through nearly 90 years of life, and it's only by the grace of God he hasn't, to my knowledge, seriously hurt himself. I've heard stories of the man almost having his head taken off by parts flying from machinery, putting diesel fuel in a vehicle with a gas engine, smacking every one of his fingers at least 40 times with a hammer, almost burning down his house on accident, almost burning down someone else's house on accident, and sawing off a tree limb that he was standing on, among other things. In short, he's like the anti-McGyver; he doesn't intentionally try to build a bomb out of toothpaste, an Etch-a-Sketch and a DVD player, but he does it anyway. Oh, and there's also the time he told me to pee on the electric fence when I was about 5 years old so I would have a proper frame of reference for not doing it again. My dad saw the crime unfolding and rescued me from a fate unbefitting of any crime I may have committed prior to that or would commit after that.
These days, grandpa avoids machinery for the most part and doesn't saw the limbs off of trees. In spite of this, the man still manages to transform himself into a human wrecking ball when he visits our house. Every time he comes over, there is inevitably a point where he gets up from wherever he is and walks downstairs to look for a bathroom. There is no bathroom downstairs. Never has been, never will be. There are no hookups and nothing that makes you say to yourself, "There may be a bathroom down here." Sure enough, I'll get up 5 minutes later and find grandpa walking in and out of rooms muttering about a bathroom. One time I even found him in the garage. Because one of the cats also has a tendency to pee in the office, we'll never be able to pin it on grandpa, but Tori's pretty sure that, at one point or another, he has defiled the room. Another time, we caught him trying to walk out with my camera; it's not a great camera, but it's mine. Tori also walked in on him one time eating straight out of the cake pan that people were cutting their cake from and licking the fork. The conversation went something like this:
Tori: Grandpa, are you licking the community cake fork.
Grandpa: (Sets the fork down) Nope.
Tori: Grandpa, I saw you.
Grandpa: (Walks away)
My grandmother is not clumsy, just occasionally cheap. She has always been a big fan of the Goodwill. I'm not knocking Goodwill, but there are some things that should never be placed on a resale rack. For a proper comparison, my grandma is one step above the grandma in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation who wrapped her cat and a jello mold. Almost every Christmas that I can remember, I've received either used Stetson or Brute cologne. For Tori's first Christmas with the family, grandma gave her used hand lotion, and nothing says "Welcome to the family" like used hand lotion.
So out of the car rolled grandma and grandpa. After Tori digested that we would need to batten down the hatches from the impending storm that was grandpa, something else caught her eye. "What the Hell is that?" I couldn't see what she was talking about, so I didn't know. "Is that a toilet training potty chair?" I stil couldn't see what she was talking about, so I still didn't know. Sure enough, there was grandma and grandpa getting out of my parents car carrying a beaten up toilet training potty chair. It was missing parts and covered in dirt and bugs. It looked like something you would see in one of the nuclear ravaged houses in The Hills Have Eyes. It looked like my mom had tried to talk her out of it to no avail, and alas, it made the journey. Immediately after seeing the potty chair's pitiful condition, I immediately knew that Charlie Sheen had a better chance of making a guest appearance on Two and a Half Men than my daughter's bare bottom did of touching that chair. It also didn't help that the missing parts looked like critical components, for example a seat. Needless to say, it found it's way to our recycle stash after everyone left.
After what could be called a successful day for grandpa (he wandered around upstairs instead of downstairs in his neverending quest for the bathroom, didn't drop the baby and only made an attempt to catch one of the cats) he found his time to shine. Somehow the conversation shifted toward teeth and we couldn't remember exactly how many teeth are in a person's mouth. In perhaps the fastest grandpa has ever moved in his life, he popped out his false teeth out and started counting. There was a moment of silence where all you could hear was grandpa rattling off numbers and clicking his fingernail against each tooth before he proclaimed "Thirty-two." It took us roughly two minutes to get the old man to put his teeth back in, during which time he extolled the greatness of his false teeth while holding them in his hands like he was showing off a trophy he'd won at a shuffleboard competition. Now I just have to check the couch and make she he didn't forget them.
God love him, but my grandfather has somehow putzed his way through nearly 90 years of life, and it's only by the grace of God he hasn't, to my knowledge, seriously hurt himself. I've heard stories of the man almost having his head taken off by parts flying from machinery, putting diesel fuel in a vehicle with a gas engine, smacking every one of his fingers at least 40 times with a hammer, almost burning down his house on accident, almost burning down someone else's house on accident, and sawing off a tree limb that he was standing on, among other things. In short, he's like the anti-McGyver; he doesn't intentionally try to build a bomb out of toothpaste, an Etch-a-Sketch and a DVD player, but he does it anyway. Oh, and there's also the time he told me to pee on the electric fence when I was about 5 years old so I would have a proper frame of reference for not doing it again. My dad saw the crime unfolding and rescued me from a fate unbefitting of any crime I may have committed prior to that or would commit after that.
These days, grandpa avoids machinery for the most part and doesn't saw the limbs off of trees. In spite of this, the man still manages to transform himself into a human wrecking ball when he visits our house. Every time he comes over, there is inevitably a point where he gets up from wherever he is and walks downstairs to look for a bathroom. There is no bathroom downstairs. Never has been, never will be. There are no hookups and nothing that makes you say to yourself, "There may be a bathroom down here." Sure enough, I'll get up 5 minutes later and find grandpa walking in and out of rooms muttering about a bathroom. One time I even found him in the garage. Because one of the cats also has a tendency to pee in the office, we'll never be able to pin it on grandpa, but Tori's pretty sure that, at one point or another, he has defiled the room. Another time, we caught him trying to walk out with my camera; it's not a great camera, but it's mine. Tori also walked in on him one time eating straight out of the cake pan that people were cutting their cake from and licking the fork. The conversation went something like this:
Tori: Grandpa, are you licking the community cake fork.
Grandpa: (Sets the fork down) Nope.
Tori: Grandpa, I saw you.
Grandpa: (Walks away)
My grandmother is not clumsy, just occasionally cheap. She has always been a big fan of the Goodwill. I'm not knocking Goodwill, but there are some things that should never be placed on a resale rack. For a proper comparison, my grandma is one step above the grandma in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation who wrapped her cat and a jello mold. Almost every Christmas that I can remember, I've received either used Stetson or Brute cologne. For Tori's first Christmas with the family, grandma gave her used hand lotion, and nothing says "Welcome to the family" like used hand lotion.
So out of the car rolled grandma and grandpa. After Tori digested that we would need to batten down the hatches from the impending storm that was grandpa, something else caught her eye. "What the Hell is that?" I couldn't see what she was talking about, so I didn't know. "Is that a toilet training potty chair?" I stil couldn't see what she was talking about, so I still didn't know. Sure enough, there was grandma and grandpa getting out of my parents car carrying a beaten up toilet training potty chair. It was missing parts and covered in dirt and bugs. It looked like something you would see in one of the nuclear ravaged houses in The Hills Have Eyes. It looked like my mom had tried to talk her out of it to no avail, and alas, it made the journey. Immediately after seeing the potty chair's pitiful condition, I immediately knew that Charlie Sheen had a better chance of making a guest appearance on Two and a Half Men than my daughter's bare bottom did of touching that chair. It also didn't help that the missing parts looked like critical components, for example a seat. Needless to say, it found it's way to our recycle stash after everyone left.
After what could be called a successful day for grandpa (he wandered around upstairs instead of downstairs in his neverending quest for the bathroom, didn't drop the baby and only made an attempt to catch one of the cats) he found his time to shine. Somehow the conversation shifted toward teeth and we couldn't remember exactly how many teeth are in a person's mouth. In perhaps the fastest grandpa has ever moved in his life, he popped out his false teeth out and started counting. There was a moment of silence where all you could hear was grandpa rattling off numbers and clicking his fingernail against each tooth before he proclaimed "Thirty-two." It took us roughly two minutes to get the old man to put his teeth back in, during which time he extolled the greatness of his false teeth while holding them in his hands like he was showing off a trophy he'd won at a shuffleboard competition. Now I just have to check the couch and make she he didn't forget them.
A Word of Advice to the Paperboy Who Forgot My Wife's Coupons
Dear Paperboy,
We all make mistakes. I am sympathetic to your cause and I understand that my wife just signed up for the Sunday edition of the St. Louis Post Dispatch this week. However, she only subscribes to the paper for the coupons that you forgot to drop off today -- Saturday.
I have done about as much as I can do. I hid the knives and any other sharp objects I could think of that are laying around the house. We don't own a gun (lucky you) and I don't think she knows anyone in the area who has one (again, lucky you). I have a friend who is a Navy SEAL, but he charges more than she can afford for mercenary work. In a further effort to protect both myself and you, I am pretending to share my anger at you with her. I will occasionally say things such as, "I bet that little bugger did it on purpose," "You're right, if we lived in Texas we could get this handled the right way," and "I bet he's selling the coupons on the side." I can tell you that if she ever gets a hold of you, you will be taken out Braveheart style, except you probably won't be able to yell "Freedom!" at the end.
You should also realize that I'm not so much doing any of this for you so much as I am me. Ever since TLC introduced Extreme Couponing into our lives, she's been absolutely nuts. The show has caused her to think that having 8,000 tubes of toothpaste, 4,000 things of deodorant and a never-ending supply of Mentos on hand at all times is the key to eternal happiness. I walked into my office yesterday to find that one of my lower shelves is now home to about 150 rolls of toilet paper. I'm pro toilet paper. I think everyone should have 10-15 rolls on hand at all times, but this is outrageous. I bet you're asking yourself, "So why does this idiot want me to bring the coupons if he doesn't want this crap in his house." This is where you have a lot to learn about marriage. It's psychological. If she goes through the coupons right away, I'm screwed. However, if she picks the coupons up and walks away from them, I can quickly sift out the ones that look dangerous and throw them away before she knows they were ever there. Of course I have to leave some of them, but some of them can go.
You should know that she has already chewed out three customer service reps and a manager. I don't know if it was the manager or one of the reps, but I definitely heard someone through the phone crying and yelling something to the effect of, "I'm so sorry! Please don't burn down my home! I still live with my mother!" I hope it wasn't your manager. If it was your manager, he needs to grow a spine and you need to find a different job. You should also know that she referred to you as a "selfish turd" twice and a "witless mudhare."
Also, while I suspect you don't care about any of this, I felt you should be aware that my wife has also uncovered your name and address. Your manager turned you over so my wife could "go and pick up her paper." Again, continuing to work for this gentleman is probably not wise. I would advise that you put the coupon packet at the end of your driveway and that you and your family take up refuge in a hotel for a few days. She is a crafty lock picker. I would recommend throwing out any food upon returning to your house. Because while she may set up shop there and wait for you for a day or two, she can't stay there forever, as she is a stay-at-home mom and I need to go to work at some point. You get the drift. She loves animals, so if you have any pets they may be shaved, but I don't believe any real harm will come to them.
Best of luck to you. I need to get back to cursing your name and pretending to care about this unfortunate situation. Also, you should probably get moving, as she left the house five minutes ago.
All the best,
travis.
Disclaimer: Obviously, this is made up. However, she was really bent out of shape over this incident. I never thought I'd see the day she cared so much about coupons.
We all make mistakes. I am sympathetic to your cause and I understand that my wife just signed up for the Sunday edition of the St. Louis Post Dispatch this week. However, she only subscribes to the paper for the coupons that you forgot to drop off today -- Saturday.
I have done about as much as I can do. I hid the knives and any other sharp objects I could think of that are laying around the house. We don't own a gun (lucky you) and I don't think she knows anyone in the area who has one (again, lucky you). I have a friend who is a Navy SEAL, but he charges more than she can afford for mercenary work. In a further effort to protect both myself and you, I am pretending to share my anger at you with her. I will occasionally say things such as, "I bet that little bugger did it on purpose," "You're right, if we lived in Texas we could get this handled the right way," and "I bet he's selling the coupons on the side." I can tell you that if she ever gets a hold of you, you will be taken out Braveheart style, except you probably won't be able to yell "Freedom!" at the end.
You should also realize that I'm not so much doing any of this for you so much as I am me. Ever since TLC introduced Extreme Couponing into our lives, she's been absolutely nuts. The show has caused her to think that having 8,000 tubes of toothpaste, 4,000 things of deodorant and a never-ending supply of Mentos on hand at all times is the key to eternal happiness. I walked into my office yesterday to find that one of my lower shelves is now home to about 150 rolls of toilet paper. I'm pro toilet paper. I think everyone should have 10-15 rolls on hand at all times, but this is outrageous. I bet you're asking yourself, "So why does this idiot want me to bring the coupons if he doesn't want this crap in his house." This is where you have a lot to learn about marriage. It's psychological. If she goes through the coupons right away, I'm screwed. However, if she picks the coupons up and walks away from them, I can quickly sift out the ones that look dangerous and throw them away before she knows they were ever there. Of course I have to leave some of them, but some of them can go.
You should know that she has already chewed out three customer service reps and a manager. I don't know if it was the manager or one of the reps, but I definitely heard someone through the phone crying and yelling something to the effect of, "I'm so sorry! Please don't burn down my home! I still live with my mother!" I hope it wasn't your manager. If it was your manager, he needs to grow a spine and you need to find a different job. You should also know that she referred to you as a "selfish turd" twice and a "witless mudhare."
Also, while I suspect you don't care about any of this, I felt you should be aware that my wife has also uncovered your name and address. Your manager turned you over so my wife could "go and pick up her paper." Again, continuing to work for this gentleman is probably not wise. I would advise that you put the coupon packet at the end of your driveway and that you and your family take up refuge in a hotel for a few days. She is a crafty lock picker. I would recommend throwing out any food upon returning to your house. Because while she may set up shop there and wait for you for a day or two, she can't stay there forever, as she is a stay-at-home mom and I need to go to work at some point. You get the drift. She loves animals, so if you have any pets they may be shaved, but I don't believe any real harm will come to them.
Best of luck to you. I need to get back to cursing your name and pretending to care about this unfortunate situation. Also, you should probably get moving, as she left the house five minutes ago.
All the best,
travis.
Disclaimer: Obviously, this is made up. However, she was really bent out of shape over this incident. I never thought I'd see the day she cared so much about coupons.
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