The Boy Emulates Dad? Thank A Cop? This one's a long one.

An anonymous comment made about my last entry was unanswerable until Saturday. Anonymous asked "what would you eat while you shit?"

Well, I wouldn't eat anything but young Floogin Junior has brought new pride in the McNoogin bathroom activity division of life.

Saturday evening I walk into the bathroom and fine my mini-me sitting, naked, on the throne, swinging his feet back and forth, apparently, in mid-shit. And what, pray tell, is that dangling from his mouth? Cheese stick. Polly-O string cheese stick. So, anonymous, cheese sticks are something you can eat whilst taking a shit.

Now, that, in and of itself, is impressive (and disgusting) but not worthy of the pride. No, to fully garner the props and bragging of dear ole disgusting dad, young Floogin Jr had to do something even I never attempted, and for good reason.

Sunday morning, getting the boy ready for the schlep out to Rockaway Beach to pick up his sister, he tries peeing while playing Mario Kart on her DS. All I hear is the jingle jangle sounds of the game and my wife screaming "what the fuck are you doing?"

Seems little man peed everywhere but the toilet. Came in second so it might have been worth it.

The boy was the focus of the weekend as my daughter slept out Saturday night. After dropping her off we came back to the city and little man said he wanted lobster. Not an easy task at 9 PM on a Saturday but there's this Puerto Rican restaurant down the street that serves paella with lobster so we parked the car and headed over. I've never smelled cigarette smoke as thick as this outdoors so I was a bit worried about what we might be getting ourselves into but still, we walked up to the place. The women outside the restaurant were all decked out in what can only be described as the latest trends in whorewear. Skirts so short that you could see short ass cheeks and, on one occasion, I think I saw a lip. To say that cleavage was exposed would be like saying Mexico had one person with the sniffles. Tits out, nipples nearly exposed. Lots and lots of boobage. The bouncer (what kind of restaurant needs a rope and a bouncer?) comes bounding over "you guys live in the neighborhood?" he asks. We explain that we do. "Head straight back, ask for T.J. and tell him you're local." We walk in. We're the only white people in the joint, other than a table of the grossest, sleaziest, white trash girls I've seen since that time in Lousiana when I discovered the girl I was kissing had three teeth. JT sees us and comes racing over, presumably to avoid having us freak out and run from the place. He ushers us over to a table and sends two waiters to our table to ensure our happiness.

The food was great (burger wasn't but the paella, grilled shrimp and the mound of shaped vomit my wife had on her plate was, apparently, far better eating than looking) and my son got a kick out of the music. It was loud. So loud that you had to scream to order food. Every three seconds it was someone's cumplianos and the music would stop, some birthday song would be played, everyone would clap, hooting and whistling ensued and then right back to the heavy beats of latin flavored disco.

The best part of this place was the food itself. Giant portions, apparently, for giant people, mostly women. This was chubby chaser nirvana. Seriously, if you dig fat broads (or guys), head over to Sofrito. Tons of fat folks there. Literally.

So, anyway, that was the night.

Yesterday, after picking up my daughter, we decided to enjoy the heat wave and head over to Coney Island. For those not in the know, this is an old, famous beach in Brooklyn. Home of The Cyclone, one of the scariest roller coasters in the country. Scary because it's about 100 years old and feels like it might collapes beneath you. Also home of The Wonder Wheel. Frightening ferris wheel with moving cars. Not swinging cars, moving. As in they slide forwards and backwards as you rise up and come down.

Speaking of swinging, we're waiting on line for the Wheel and the two women behind us are decidiing if they want the swinging cars or the other, stationary, cars and one woman points up at the signs and asks her friend, do we want swinging or, um, standinary?

That's right, she saw the two signs, swinging and stationary, and still, said standinary.

I quietly pulled out the Storm to type that one in. Never want to forget something like that. More so since her friend said "standinary?" to which the first woman replied, the one that doesn't swing. Standinary." The second woman then said "no, swinging is more fun, standinary is higher but boring. fuck standinary."

Verbatim. I typed it as they said it.

We took the swinging car as well. She's right. Fuck standinary.

My daughter was an inch too short for the Cyclone. So, we'll come back at the end of the summer and try again.


The kids rode the rides, mini free fall, small coasters etc. I did the tilt a whirl three times with my daughter and still feel like puking.

On the ride home we got a flat. Not a slow leak but a full on flat. On the fucking FDR. This is a highway type road that runs from the Battery Tunnel (where we came into the city), up the east side of Manhattan. No shoulder, no median, no place to pull over. I'm driving on a dead tire, it's smoking up a storm and, finally, I see the exit so I pull into the small island between the exit lane and the highway and we call AAA. I've changed tires before, fully capable of doing so but not in the fading light with my kids out cold in the back seat and cars whizzing by at 60 miles an hour. No room to maneuver around the car and see where to place the jack. No room for any comfort. Shit, getting out of the car was a bitch in and of itself.

Fortunately, we've got AAA. They promised to be there within the hour. Then they said no, make that 20 minutes. Wait, 20 more.

In the interim, 3 cop cars and two cop trucks flew passed us. Nobody stopped. Not one cop. Not even to put flares around us. Assholes.

Then, at about 8 PM cop pulls up. I'm about to get out of the car and my wife yells "he'll shoot you."

Fucking paranoid.


So I get out of the car and I swear to god I thought I was staring at John C. McGinley. Dude was the spitting image of the actor.

Anyway, I'm behind the car talking to him and he says the tow truck is about 20 minutes away, why don't we just change it ourselves. The two of us then get to work. Far easier knowing a cop is watching the road as I remove the lugs. He did the jack like a pro. I'd have been lying on my back, feet in the street, trying to find the right spot. As we were removing stuff from the back of the car to get to the spare my wife gets out and starts putting it in the back seat. I tell her to get back inside, it isn't safe and she's ranting and yelling and I turn to the cop and I say, "this is your territory, tell her to get inside for safety reasons."

I swear to god, this guy was McGinley. He says "some times, it's best to step back and let it happen. just make sure the life insurance is paid up."

I love this guy.

We changed the tire, nobody got splattered and as we were putting the destroyed tire away the two shows up. Nice guy. Wasn't too bent out of shape about not being called to tell him he was no longer needed. The cop then blocked the highway for me so we could get back on. As I was getting into my car he said "you're front headlight is out." I told him it happened last night, we didn't expect to be on the road at night and it was being fixed Monday (it is). Jokingly, I said "don't give me a ticket for that."

He said "for the irony, I should but you've had a long enough evening and it looks like (he gestured to the car) it's not going to get shorter."

I looked back at the car, both kids were up, my boy was crying about something, my daughter was talking to my wife and she looked like she was ready to dive headfirst into traffic.

We made it home in ten minutes, I dropped them off, unloaded the car, headed to the garage, almost got into an accident with a taxi with a driver who, it seems, doesn't care about blinker signals, and parked the car. They'll change the light for me, double tighten those lug nuts and, if I am really lucky, clean the shit from the destroyed tire, out of the back of the car. So, in all, the day wasn't totally destroyed by this added hour or two.

And most important, thank you to the NYPD and the awesome officer McGinley (not his real name) who helped us. It was greatly appreciated and my wife wrote down the car number and she is going to locate the precinct he works out of so we can make a donation to the station - she wanted to send flowers, I told her that was not the way to go.


I she can't locate the station, I'll hit the station around the corner.