Reunited....and if feels so gooooood.

I went to a reunion of sorts last night. Someone I went to school with put a little gathering together via facebook. Now, I didn't know about it until the last minute for two reasons.

1. The girl who set this up has had some serious animosity towards me since, maybe, senior year.
2. I am not on facebook.

As I think I've stated, facebook is for women who want to cheat without actually having sex or women who simply want to check in on all their old boyfriends to confirm their nagging suspicions that they fucked up and married the wrong guy. Oddly enough, I know this from listening to other people talk. My wife is not, for now, on facebook.

Anyway, this chick has a hate on me, Never knew why, never really cared. A couple of friends dated her in college. One for about a year and my roommate, senior year, was swindled into taking her to formal. She actually admitted, last night, that she was upset when he chose the law school he atteneded. He had nailed a perfect score on the lsats and got a full scholarship to some school in NY. She was rather impressed with his scores and thought it was not worth bragging about the school. Shallow bitch.

So, I'm in a restaurant with my wife many years back (girlfriend at the time), and this girl comes over to me and says hello. She's got blonde hair (she was always a brunette) and she's got a whole new look and I don't recognize her. So she says her name and I say "Holy shit, I totally didn't recognize you." We spoke for a minute or two and then they sat us.

When we sat down, my wife asked who she was and I said her name was Abe. Abe Froman. My wife looked at me like I was nuts, then I corrected myself and told her the girls name. She asked who Abe Froman was and I said "the sausage king of Chicago." Then I explained the nickname and she understood. Then we see the hostess coming over with Abe and her husband and you see the empty table next to us and you see Abe say something to the hostess and they stop, turn around and head back to the front of the restaurant.

She didn't want to sit next to me.

I got a kick out of it. Didn't know why but figured she wasn't a big fan, I knew two guys who she used to fuck, she puked in my roommate's bed on a few occaisions, she's with her husband etc.

So, she has this party last night. Everyone I know gets an evite or a facebook thing. Except me. One of my friends asks me if I'm going and I told him I had no clue. So he fills me in on the details and I tell him, oh, I wasn't invited because I'm on Abe's shitlist for some reason or other.

He laughs, says that can't be. Not on facebook, not her list, that kind of shit.

I wasn't sure if I was going until ten minutes before I left for the party. So, anyway, I head over there and I find the bar and walk in and what do I see?

My ex-girlfriend from college. We dated/hooked up for most of college and our senior year we were, mostly, exclusive. We dated for a few years after college and I broke her heart. I say this because her sister told me, her parents told me and she told me. She wound up marrying a guy who, apparently, looks like me. She has twins, she lives in the burbs, she's happy now. The last time I spoke to her was 8 or 9 years ago. She was coming on to me in a bad way and she had just puked. Seems she was a bit nervous about seeing me and she drank too much, or so the story goes.

Anyway, there's my ex. She sees me and smiles. I smile and mouth hello at her and scan the room. Great, the girl she's talking to? Been there. And that girl. And I hooked up with her. My roommates' girlfriends from college were all there.

Everyone was there. Totally fucked up. No guys. Wait, one guy. A famous friend who's show is filming in the area for a while popped in. He had a "rescue me" look on his face but I wasn't going anywhere near that group of girls and I let him know.

I wound up talking to a couple of guys from my fraternity. More of my friends showed. It was a most pleasant evening until about 10:00. My friends and I had already discussed the whole Abe Froman didn't invite you because thing when suddenly Abe walks over, stand in front of me and says "you named me Abe Froman, I never forgave you for that. You were an asshole in college and that name has been haunting me my whole life."

I looked up, smiled, turned to my friends and said "see, she does blame me for something."

Then I turned to her and said "Abe" Ok, I used her real name. "It wasn't me. I'd love to take credit for it but I'm just not that quick. Nicknames were never my thing." My friends all agreed and she insisted. She told me the party where it happened. I asked when this was and she said "first semester, sophomore year, I was just starting to date Steve (friend of mine)." I asked if she was sure.

100%. I remember it like it was yesterday.

I spent that semester at home. I told her this. She didn't believe me. She asked my friends. They confirmed it. she said I was an asshole and I came up with name.

I told her that harboring deep seated hatred for me for all these must really have been awful, more so when you learn that the focus of your ire is totally innocent.

She said I wasn't. I told her Abe Froman was a fucking great nickname. I told her there were far worse things that the guys called the girls.

She asked for examples.

Another girl who was there, who looks amazing and who I am friendly with (and hooked up with once I think - yay me) said "they called me the forehead - my forehead was big so they made fun of it. I tried different hair styles but it was big."

Someone said "it was."

She agreed.

We had a girl we called the closet ho, we had the scarecrow, chalkpussy (don't ask), stubble bush, the headmaster (my ex, aptly named) and stinky vuj (misnomer if you ask me).

None of them seemed to give a shit and their names were far worse.

This was brought to Abe's attention. I then told Abe that Brad Pitt uses the name Abe Froman for reservations and other things that might alert people to who he is.
Someone asked if that was true.

I explained that it was. I explained that I nearly pissed myself when I got into my elevator one night, years ago, to find an envelope marked ABE FROMAN, with the apartment above me listed as the address. Brad and Gwynneth were living above me at the time.

Abe got testy and said "I'm going to ask her, I was just with her and I can ask her."

I said do it. I said "she lived on the third floor, I gave the address and I said she can even ask if she remembers the guy who helped her with her bags when she came back from shooting in Georgia with Jessica Lange. She was hauling bags in and I helped her.

I then thanked Abe for putting the party together. Told her, next time, I won't come as it is clear she has some issues with me, unrelated to her name but they are there and it would be best if I let her keep the unnecessary hatred bottled up inside.

Then I said goodbye to friends, working my way across the bar, so long, great seeing you etc.

One of my friends stops me and says "do you know her name?"

He points to a very attractive woman.

I say no. I apologize, tell her I spent the better part of my college life in a haze, I'm horrible with names and faces and, odds are, I might have a touch of brain damage.

She says "see. told you"

I ask who she is. She is the roommate of a girl who dated a friend of mine freshman year. She was in school for one year after that, I think. she fought off a rapist who slashed her hands and arms and I never saw or heard of her again. I knew she was a fucking champ. That was it. she is now a stunning woman, as opposed to a cute freshman.

How the fuck am I supposed to remember her? We were barely friends.


I move closer to the exit and I get pulled in to the girls I most want to avoid. The ex, her sister, the other girls I hooked up with multiple times.

Why didn't you come talk to us?

Tried, busy. You guys look great. Seriously. I need to go. Getting up early. We need to do this again. Maybe I'll get invited next time.

Then I get it.

Are you on facebook?

My ex is smiling at me. She wants to be my facebook friend.

I lean in, kiss her cheek, tell her I'm not on facebook but I'm out and about and if she wants to keep in touch, almost all of her facebook friends are friends with my real life friends as well as facebook friends with my sister so, keep in touch.

I kissed the other girls goodbye and walked out into the night.

Tonight I have a charity event with the forehead and another girl from school who wasn't there. I'm looking forward to hearing what Abe said about me after I left.

And for the record, as far as I can recall, I did not come up with the name.

I hated that bitch. I'd have called her much worse.

Free Flesh and Adventureland

Ok, so, I finish my meeting with a client and I'm walking back to my office and my dad asks me to come into his office. I stick my head in and he introduces me to this blonde woman who he's meeting with. I know all of our clients and I have no clue who she is but she says it's nice seeing you again so I agree with her. My dad says "come all the way in, I want to talk about something."

I do the wise ass, "am I in trouble?" routine and walk in, grab a chair and sit down.

My dad says "don't get comfortable, I just wanted you to be in the office when we spoke.

So I stood up and asked "this work for you?"

"Perfect" he said with a Nicholsonesque cheshire smile.

He then tells me about this woman's desire to get into the medical sales field and he asks if my client (I have one who sells surgical supplies) is looking for sales reps. She then interrupts and I turn towards her and that's when I see it. Her right breast is exposed. Not a little. It's out there. Her shirt has moved over a bit too much and she's flashing me. I look away a little. I've only seen this twice in my life. Once, when I was kid, my cousin's bathing suit popped back. she was 9, I was 14 and I think I said "your flashing tit" or something and that was it. The second time was on the street. A hot model (I work in the fashion district), was walking down the street and one boob was out. Way out. Guys were snapping pics with cell phones. She was oblivious. I casually walked over and said "you might want to fix that" and gestured, with my eyes, towards her chest. She tucked the errant hooter back in place, whipped the other one out for a second, said "now you've seen the set" and asked if I was going to show mine to even up. Handled well on her part. I, however, stammered and stuttered like a fucking idiot.

So, anyway, I'm talking to this woman, her tit is out, my old man is smiling at me and I'm trying not to look at the tit and the conversation is not a short one and I can't figure out how to fix the situation. I am enjoying the tit but it's really wrong and unprofessional and oh, there you go, nice work unforseen hand that somehow managed to wrangle the tit back into place and oh, no, hello again my cherry tipped little flesh mound.

And so it went. For a solid 15 minutes. The mammary with a mind of its own wandered in and out of her shirt like McCain across the stage in a presidental debate. At some point I couldn't take it anymore and my dad brought up my friend again and I'd been calling him by his first name the whole time and I slipped and called him by his nickname, and you are just going to have to believe me here, but his nickname is Hooter, and my father turns purple and I know he's either dying or he's holding in the kind of laughter that got your thrown out of class when you were 12 and I saw that this was about to get horribly ugly so I said "I need to speak to Hooter so let me email him and, hopefully, he'll get back to me before you guys finish up."

Then I turned and left. The laughter has yet to be released.


And what, you ask, does Adventureland, mean?

Ahh, Adventureland. This was a small amusement park near my home growing up. I don't know if I ever actually went there but I remember it well. Very well. There were, actually, two of them. One of them had the scariest looking rides (for the time) and the other was a more all around friendly kind of park.

Anyway, there's a movie coming out at the end of March called Adventureland. Two of the producers are clients of mine. The movie is from the mind of the director of Superbad. The cast is great, the soundtrack is right out of the 80's and it's supposed to be a great coming of age with modern comedy touches a la breakfast club meets apatow.
The redband trailer:
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Adventureland-Red-Band-Trailer-12150.html

(sorry about the unclickable link but the set up isn't showing the link when I do it correctly.)


So, anyway, I just got my press screening pass and I'm psyched. For starters, I never get to see movies anymore. Getting to see one that I want to see and one that I can see, for free, during this hellish time of year? Fucking home run.

So, yeah, I'm a bit amped up about it.

I'll let you know how the movie is after I see it. Way before the movie is released.

Cause I'm cool like that.

An Appeal

Ok, so, in an effort to try and learn more about the internet inner workings, I have now added google analytics to the blog. Why? No fucking clue. All I know is that I have had adsense running on this blog from day one and I had it on my old blog and you lazy motherfuckers don't click the ads so I don't make any money from this thing. So, with analytics, I figure I can at least see how people would be making money if their readers were actually clicking ads. So, let me again ask my 4 readers to hit various pages, click ad links and try and make the analytics and adsense numbers move.

Now, why the fuck are you still reading this? You should be checking out that ad on the right for, um, debt assistance? Now, wait, mesothelioma? No, bankruptcy attorneys. No? Mortgages? Hot sex? Free love? Fuck, what are the ads anyway?

No wonder I can't make a dime on this thing.

Cold Can Conundrum

I'm going back to the bathroom for a bit.

I've said this before, there's a certain amount of courtesy needed when you share a bathroom with several offices. Things like, don't piss all over the seat, don't leave a big, titanic dump half in, half out of the bowl etc.

Then there's the courtesy flush. Even my 3 year old knows about the courtesy flush. He better since I am always stuck sitting with him when he poops. The smell is comical. He's not a small kid but he's still only 3 and a half. His shit stinks like a rotting corpse's farts. Ok, take a moment and ponder that. Gagging? There you go.

So, my boy knows to hit the handle and alleviate the noxious odors in the room.

Most men know this but our public bathrooms have autoflushers. They work great when you get up. Usually. I still haven't figured out how I can open a stall and be greeted by a leaning tower of poop. The shit itself should set off the auto flusher. Giant turd, bobbing and weaving in the water, the toilet should flush repeatedly, until the dumpire state building slowly slips down beneath the water.

But it doesn't and it is a mystery that needs to be studied. Stonehenge, Atlantis, Roswell, invisible men making massive shits not triggering the auto flusher.

Anyway, the courtesy flush. Since there are no handles and, even if there were, nobody likes touching things in a public bathroom, the courtesy flush often goes by the wayside.

Instead, a gentleman, knowing he's about to create a wmd in a small space, will open a window. This is done all the time and it is greatly appreciated.

So, I'm back to the no carb thing for a spell so I won't worry about shitting for a while and, if I do, there won't be an odor so I am completely free of this issue. But I'm peeing all the time. Well, not all the time. I'm not sitting in soaked pants or anything but I do have to pee and I did pee 20 minutes ago and I will have to pee a bunch more before I head home and what the fuck, where the hell is this going anyway.

Oh, yeah, so I have to pee. Badly. So I race into the bathroom and I open door and I'm greeted by a horrible stench and a blast of arctic air. Someone took a dump, opened the window to air it out and left. So the smell stayed and the 7 degree temperature infiltrated the bathroom.

My fingers were blue from the cold and I could barely move them but I managed to unzip my fly and I reached inside and..what the fuck...where's...my....dick?

So cold the little fucker must've inverted. So, I'm standing there, feeling around like a blind man searching for a nickle in a pile of change....hair....leg....leg....maybe it moved down more, nope, that's ass....what the hell...is that?...Fuck, I have a vagina?

My dick inverted itself, grabbed the balls and headed behind my spleen.

So, there I am, standing at the urinal, my legs spread, my arm, elbow deep in my fly, feeling what amounts to a flat area where my penis should be. Now, it's not a big penis. It isn't tiny but it isn't bragging rights big or anything. It works. Well, it used to. Not so sure anymore.

So, I closed the window and stood by the radiator, both hands in my pants trying to coax the little guy back out when someone walks into the bathroom. He looks at me, shakes his head and says "might be better if you jerked off in the stall."


I've been at my desk for an hour now. I've had a large cup of starbucks nestled between my legs for the same hour. I've been viewing porn. Good porn. Still no sign of my mcnoogin. The ice cold combined with the humiliation of being caught with my hands in my pants has resulted in, I fear, a permanent mangina.

Fortunately, I wasn't using it anyway.

Floogin McNoogin, Super Sleuth

So my brother in law is a scumbag. I've stated this many times. The first time I made this claim was to an old girlfriend who grew up with this weasel who was, at the time, dating my sister. I referred to him as a free loading gold digging loser to my girlfriend and her roommate. The roommate was, at the time, dating a guy who was still friends with the scumbag. Word got back to him that I said this. He never said a word to me about it but it was clear that he knew. I guess his lack of defending himself should have been plenty of verification that I was spot on.

He has since married my sister and he is turning out to be just like his dad. A con man who has no problem tapping into all external resources so as to avoid any finanical responsibility of his own.

Some stellar issues that should have been warning signs to my dad who has now become an ATM for this moron.

Several years ago he came to my dad, hat in hand, asking how he should handle the student loans that he thought his father had paid. From day one, my sister talked about how great it was that her boyfriend worked thru college and struggled after college to pay off his student loans. Lie. He didn't and he then blamed his father. He came to my dad, seeking advice which was his way of asking my dad to pay for his debt. He did.

Over the years, these things popped up. The jackass didn't file taxes for several years. So, my dad took care of it. The balances on the various years were the moron's responsibility. After a year of nonpayment, he came to my dad, hat in hand, telling the sob story of how hard it is to raise 2 kids, take good care of his wife and still pay these things off. Poof, tax bills cleaned up.

Now the moron has a business with a partner and they decide to go their separate ways. My dad lends this con man $25k to get his business up and running. This was in August of 2008.

Fast forward to 2009 and he has tapped my old man for $80,000 so far, another $45,000
is available and he has not used the money for any business expenses. I know this because my bookkeeper has come to me, asking me to help deal with this. She said she asks questions about the company and his response ranges from "I'll make something up and get it to you" to "who's asking?"

Did he pay the $50,000 in payroll taxes he withheld from his employees? No.
Did he pay off the line of credit from his old company? No.
What was the initial money and the line of credit from my old man for? The above two items and any incidentals going forward.

So, here's what I have done this weekend, as I toil away in my office. I snooped.

Here's what I've discovered.

This moron has been holding the rent for the office. Sending in partial payments so that we have an outstanding balance of $20,000 in rent due. Guess who's name the lease is under. My company. Fucker has me on the hook for that.

He's brough in roughly $250,000 in the last 6 months. This is revenue. Add the $80,000 in money he clipped from my dad and he's done rather well. Didn't spend it on the big ticket items so, where the fuck did the money go?

Ok, the initial $25k? Personal account. Used to pay off personal credit card debt.
The $50k in accounts receivable he claimed to have and put up as collateral towards the line of credit my old man guranateed?

Yeah, that came and went too.

Skipped payments on the line my old man is on the hook for too.


This guy is a stain and he is taking advantage of my old man and my old man is stuck. Cutting him off means cutting his daughter off and he cannot do that.

Monday morning I am having a talk with my dad. Time for him to understand how badly he's being swindled. Time for him to do the right thing. This moron has done a few things in the last week that are guaranteed to chase his employees away. I'm not going to go into detail but what he did will result in their being alerted to his stupidity via tax issues. So, my old man is going to have to step up and pay more debts off for this guy and he is going to lose his employees resulting in no business.

So, my proposal is a simple one. Tell dumbass to fold up shop and put him on the payroll. Hire him to not be a fucking moron. Pay him $200,000 a year or whatever it is he's going to tap you for. His job description can be gopher, it can be prince or it can be deadbeat. Doesn't matter. He'll be getting what he wants, a job that pays well, requires no work and doesn't force him to use his brain.

Should be a hell of a meeting.

Disney

I figure I'll have plenty of things to discuss, should I find the time so expect Disney posts for a while.

Anyway, I'm home. The trip was actually pretty good. The folks who run the tourism division of Disney are fucking brilliant. We curbside checked our bags and didn't touch them again until we got back last night. They handle getting them at the airport, bringing them to the hotel and then they have a curbside check-in style set up at the hotel so there's no lugging your shit around whilst dealing with your exhausted kids. Fucking brilliant.

I hate large hotels. I hate large groups of people and, well, I hate large people.

Disney is all of this.

The largest collection of fat people I have ever seen. So fat that they look like they might be part of the show. Huge, parade float people everywhere, wandering around, eating. It's scary to see a 1000 pound man inhaling a turkey leg and a coke. I mean it. My son loves to call people "big fat man" or "big fat woman" but this trip he managed to not say it once. Probably afraid he'd be eaten by one of the big fat people.

Some quick hits as I am way behind in my work and need to catch up or I won't be able to pay for the trip.

1. My daughter, at 6 years of age, asked why anyone would go to Disney on their honeymoon. To quote her - "why, Daddy, it's noisy and it's all kids. That's not romantic at all" She's a fucking genius.
2. Same child, age 6, like rollercoasters. She went on all of them. Loops, corkscrews and backwards, she loved them all. Fucking dare devil and guess who she always wanted with her - yup, me!. I did let the wife do some hairy rides with her so I missed a few of the good ones but I have a feeling I'm going back next year.
3. My son is fucking cool. The kid was in character heaven but he seemed most pleased when he was being hugged tight by the many hot young ladies playing the various princesses. Dude's a stud.
4. My kids are not into buying shit. We referred to the crap they sell at Disney as mouse droppings (mouse shit, get it?) We'd wander into a store to get gifts and my kids could care less about the shit. No nagging for things (the boy did, once, for some buzz lightyear toy and he got it because he didn't ask for anything the entire time).
5. The number of people faking handicaps to cut lines was frightening. The number of people on scooters because they couldn't walk due to being dinosaur sized was even more frightening.

All in all, it was a great trip but it really was like walking in the land of fat people.

Scary stuff.

Holy Crap!

OK, I cancelled my party the other day. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it was the idea of paying for my own party not being as much fun as, say, having someone just throw me a party. Perhaps it was the mounting cost that was starting to scare me. Perhaps it was just my hatred of birthday parties. Whatever the case, I told the wife I don't want it. She was upset. It means one less thing for her to do and that translates into get your resume in order sooner, rather than later. That isn't why I put the kibosh on the party but it is a welcomed side effect.

Anyway, the party is off.

Good timing too. Last night I'm going thru the mail and I see all these bills from the pediatrician's office and then I see one from the doctor who put me in the boot. I open the bills. Check it out, insurance has rejected every bill. I owe about $2,000 in medical bills. SuhWeet!!!

No, wait. Fuck me. What the hell is this all about.

I ask my wife what the deal was regarding her medical insurance coverage. She tells me that, until the severance package is signed and accepted, her former employer is not paying for insurance but, she adds, "cobra kicks in automatically."

Did you pay them? I ask.

No. They bill you retroactively, she tells me.

What? So, if we don't have any insurance claims, we don't pay for insurance?

No, we need to pay them.

When?, I ask.

I don't know, she tells me.

Ok, so, let's see, I just got tagged for $2,000 for a month and a half worth of medical and still, nobody has billed us for insurance. So, I ask, do you think NOW would be the time to find out what the fuck is going on with the insurance?


She asks me why I'm yelling at her.

I explain that I am not yelling at her but, having just shelled out close to ten grand for last month's spending and anticipating the 3/15 and 4/15 tax deadlines that will further thin my wallet, I really don't need to hear her tell me that we are, currently, running without medical insurance.

She agrees and tells me that she will take care of it first thing in the morning.

Then she runs through the list of reservations and dates with friends that she's lined up for the next month and then she sticks me one more time with the question "are you sure you don't want to have a party?"

oh, yeah, I'm sure.


On a side note, one of the geniuses at crapple spent 25 minutes looking at the bottom of the nano to determine that a piece fell out, then they spent 10 minutes trying to figure out if they can replace the piece, all the while my wife is telling the genius that they already told us it was going to be an exchange for a new nano. After a total of about an 45 minutes, she got the new nano.

I hit the genius bar after work. They don't serve alcohol. They do, however, have video monitors of blue's clues playing under the bar so that the geniuses are entertained during the 9 minutes when they don't have people lined up to fix their crappy apple products.

iSuck - Why Floogin doesn't buy apple crap

I am one of those loyalist type people. I find a product I like, I buy more from that company. I own several pairs of shoes by one designer, sweaters in multiple colors, shirts from the same company, computers are all dell etc. Canon digital cameras are all I know from (except the new panasonic I bought for the wife) and I will continue purchasing sex from women because, to date, women have always provided me with a product I enjoy. Hell, I have owned palm pilots and treos for as long as they've been making them and only finally switched to a blackberry when palm was so outdated that it was becoming embarrassing to carry a treo. Sadly, they are about to unleash a new phone that I would have loved (fortunately, I am loyal to verizon wireless and palm isn't making it available to verizon just yet).

Anyway, when it comes to my music, I am a zen user. I wrote about this a long time ago on my old blog. I listened to sony walkmen for years and then moved into the discman era with aplomb. As soon as the digital world took over I picked my favorite product and have been upgrading within the company ever since. The company is creative. They make some of the best digital media players around. So good that a certain fruit named company wound up paying a huge settlement after stealing infringing on some intellectual property a year or two back. They've been at it for much longer than the icrap and it shows. They make products that last. The only reason I have upgraded any of my systems was to get more space or smaller players. I've dropped them, dented the casing, got them wet and still, they keep on playing.
Plus, many different companies allow you to put music on these players and I am not stuck using a service like itunes where you can't listen to music without paying for it. Hell, I pay $15 a month now and I can put as much music as I can cram into my zen. sure, if the company goes out of business I might be fucked but I probably downloaded enough music in the past to make it a fair trade.


So, with that in mind, I bought my daughter a zen stone for couple of dollars and loaded it with all her music. She loved it. It was small and easy to use and she really dug it. Then she got it in her head that she needed an ipod because, well, they market their crap better than anyone. So, on her birthday this past December, she got an ipod nano. She loved it. It's taller and thinner than the stone but the stone holds more music (I think). She doesn't care about that and she doesn't have a big enough collection of songs to fill either so she's fine with the nano. About a week into owning it, the bottom of the nano fell off. Little plastic piece that is actually stuck in place with, what seems to be, the same "glue" that is on a post-it. Fortunately, she had the plastic piece and we popped it back in place. A day or two later she noticed it was gone and showed me the nano. It makes hooking it up to the mac or the piece of shit docking station that won't charge the nano a total bitch. So, my wife takes the nano to the apple store. She waits and waits and waits and they finally see her and tell her to go to some apple doctor or something. she goes there and they tell her the piece is not covered under warranty and she needs to buy a new ipod nano. Seriously, this is like losing the cap to a soda. this piece is nothing more than a small plastic plug of sorts, to protect the insides of the ipod from the outside. It should be screwed in place but it isn't. It's glued in place using pretend glue.

So, she brings it home and tells me this. I tell her that is total bullshit. We carry the stupid little nano around with us for a week or two until we are near the apple store again and I head in to get the piece. I walk up to some 9 year old in an orange shirt who has her nose pierced and she clearly thinks she is superior to me (and anyone else around me) because she has an iphone and a mac and they allow her to be one step closer to j-bs and I explain the problem to her and she says, in a voice dripping with contempt "you need to go to the genius bar and explain the problem to someone in an orange shirt."

I say "but you're wearing an orange shirt. do you have a function here besides standing around looking trendy?"

She pointed me towards the genius bar so, there I went.

Now, I am no genius but I am fairly sure I can hold my own with the pre-pubescent nerdfest that is the genius bar.

I walk over to a tweener in an orange shirt and a white hat right off the head of the gay guy from the high school musical series. I say "excuse me, the girl in the orange shirt told me to speak to a guy in an orange shirt and since I am color blind and can only see grown-up colors, can you help me?"

He says he can and I explain the problem. He then says to me "well, we need to show the ipod nano to one of our" and here, his face lit up and I think he stood a bit taller "geniuses, so they can determine the problem."

I said "are the geniuses the kids with peach fuzz behind the bar?"

he's fucking beaming now, like we're talking about the wizard of oz or, for this crowd, perhaps, a guy who's not only seen a real woman's breast but has touched it and it wasn't an accident and it wasn't a relative. "yes, they can tell us what needs to be done."

I start to walk over to the bar and he says "oh, you need an appointment to speak to the geniuses."

Now I'm starting to get pissed off. I pull out the nano and I hold it up and I say "look, my daughter got this piece of shit nano for her birthday and the bottom, which is apparently fixed in place using chewing gum, fell off so all I need is a new piece. can you ask one of the children if they have pieces in their lego sets so I can put it back in place and be on my merry way?"

Now he's a little upset. "Sir, we're very busy and people have appointments."

I explain that the store is set up to accomodate people buying and people fixing apple products and I find it very odd that the busies section is the fixing section and I find it odd that they built the store with this much space dedicated to fixing their products unless they knew, going in, that they were making high tech gadgets with low tech parts.

He tells me they are always this busy and I cut him off, telling him he shouldn't be promoting the fact that they make garbage products.

From the look on his face, I just told him I fucked his mom. In the ass.

He tells me he will go in the back and ask if they can fix this and if they have the part they will get it for me.

While I'm waiting I listen to the cacaphony around me, Everyone is pissed off. One woman is screaming at her son, no, wait, that's another orange shirt snot nosed kid. It seems she brought her daughter's laptop in to be fixed immediately after the girl got it and they told her to come back for her appointment yesterday. Well, yesterday was beyond the warranty expiration for that problem and, now, "you will have to pay to have it fixed, parts included."

oh man, she's pissed but who wouldn't be?

The fetus in a hat comes back and tells me they cannot squeeze me in and he tells me I can set up an appointment for tomorrow (today). And what is this appointment for? To exchange the nano for a new one. Seriously. This pimple tells me I need to come back to exchange the nano for a new one. I ask why we can't save us all the aggrivation and just get my daughter her replacement now.

"Only geeeeniusus can do that!"

Now I'm fucking mystified. A genius is needed to tell me that my product is under warranty and then hand me a new one. If they're geniuses, I'm einsteins smarter fucking brother.

So, anyway, I'm out of patience and it is clear that I am not going to leave the store with the replacement so I make the appointment for 2:20 Monday (today). My wife will deal from here on in. I'm officially bowing out.

I prepped her about the issue last night. I told her that they will replace the nano as the little boy told me the nano was covered by the warranty and we will be getting a replacement. I told her she will have to follow the yellow brick road to meet the wizard, known as the g3nius, and he's l33t and she should lol when he makes jokes and she should be all omfg when he helps her because he's a genius and they are to be held high and honored and we should be in awe of them. My wife, officially, thinks I'm nuts.

Until 3 pm today.

My wife calls me to tell me they still haven't taken her yet. I asked what the point of the appointment was and she said "I don't know but when I asked this little asshole 'why the fuck I made an appointment'" he said "ma'am, I would appreciate it if you didn't use those words"

She told him to fuck off.

I have no clue as to the outcome but I think this will be the last apple product bought in my home for a long, long time.

Oh, and for the record, last night my daughter was lying on my bed, watching tv, while I was digging through a drawer, looking for something and she saw her old Zen Stone and she said "Daddy, there's my stone, I thought I lost it. Can I use that instead of the ipod, it sounds better and it doesn't break all the time."



yes, darling, you can.

Geoffrey Giraffe Kicks My Ass

I got head butted by Geoffrey today. I was walking into Toys 'R' Us with my son and as we walked into the store the fucking giraffe bent over and spun around and slammed that massive fucking cloth and hard foam head into my melon. How fucking humiliating is that? Head slammed by a fucking kid in a giraffe costume.

That's all for today

Adsense - Not Again

So, one of my readers alerted me to an ad that consisted of "barbie type dolls" talking about nude pics or something. I've never seen this ad. Whenever I look at my blog I see crap about the shit I posted. There's no nude pics (there might be now that I've mentioned nude pics repeatedly - does porn pay more?) that I know of and there are no ads of this nature that I am aware of. I wish there were, I'd love to have my blog plastered with them. Then I might get some traffic, my adsense revenue might increase and I might actually get paid. As it stands, adsense owes me $25 for over a year's worth of blog ads. They don't pay interest and they don't give you your money until you get over a certain amount in the account. I think it might be a c note. Not sure.

Since we're talking advertising and I'm a total whore, I will now mention that I haven't smoked in 44 days. I'm the Reggie Jackson of no smoking. No cigarettes means...hopefully...no mesothelioma. What is mesothelioma you ask? Well, I'd tell you what mesothelioma means but then you wouldn't google mesothelioma using the google gadget to the right or the bottom of the blog. If you do google for mesothelioma you will learn what mesothelioma means and you might learn that lawyers pay large sums of money for mesothelioma ads on the internet. Well, they used to. Not sure if they still do but I guess we'll find out if mesothelioma ads still pay top dollar.

If you see an ad for a law firm, click it, let's see what they pay and I will donate the proceeds to charity - mesothelioma charity of course.

One last thought. Every time I mention Disney, someone snickers and makes reference to turkey legs. I thought this was a comment about the skinny legged fat people that are, apparently, in abundance there. Nope. My brother in law (the cool one) was kind enough to explain it to me (the loser talked about how awesome they are).

It seems they sell some kind of brontosaurus burger sized turkey leg and all the fatties, and quite a few skinnies, walk around gnawing on these things. My brother in law says they look more like ostrich legs. I asked about the fat people in carts and he said that a large portion of the crowd is riding around in them. Their disability? They're fat and lazy and eating a giant freakshow sized turkey leg is easier when you are driving to the next meal.

We've got a bet. He says the over/under for fat people in carts eating giant turkey legs is 13 (he confirmed this by sending several friends an email and they all concurred). So, we've placed a bet on the fat cart riding turkey leg eating total. I said it would be under 13 for the week.

I'll let you know how it goes. If you want to throw your own guess into the mix, feel free. No money shall be bet on my blog so there's nothing to win, except, perhaps a pat on the back and a good job from me.

In case this last thing brings up fat disney turkey ads, let me remind you to click the mesothelioma ads so I can bring in enough money to donate to the mesothelioma charities.

Disney Yet Again and My Birthday

As I've mentioned, I was supposed to go to Disney back in November but little Toogin (not his real name)got sick and we postponed the trip. Fortunately, we had travel insurance that cost me $300 so, when Disney moved the dates and jet blue changed our flights for a total cost of $215, I was refunded the $215. Wait, what? That's right, I paid $300 to be refunded $215. In other words, travel insurance with Disney is a waste of money.

Anyway, we're planning on going next week. We've put the house on lock down. No play dates, no visits with friends or family. The kids go to school and come home. The wife has, brilliantly, opted to not try and set up interviews out of fear of picking up some ailment. We've even extended our no kissing rule to further prevent the spread of any diseases.

We'll all come down with typhus next Wednesday but we're still going to the house of mouse. I'm not going thru this build up to this crap again. While the wife and kids are all excited and working themselves up to some orgiastic frenzy, I am dreading this trip. For starters there's the boot. The fucking boot. The big, plastic, life altering boot. I fucking hate it. Of course, on the bright side, I'll probably get a tan. I hear Hell is lovely this time of year.

So, yeah, I'm fucking miserable.

To make matters worse, I turn 40 next month. I could care less about it. No, I am not one of those guys who thinks he looks better, feels better etc now that I am 40. On the contrary, I think I peaked when I was 20 or so. Sure I was crack addict thin but I had a great head of hair and all my teeth so I was a healthy crack addict. I did have my fat period between then and now and, yes, I probably do look better now than I did 10 or 15 years ago but it serves no purpose. It's not like I'm out getting laid as a result of it. Even my hands are rejecting me these days.

So, anyway, I'm turning 40 and my wife is all over it like flies on a ribroast (points for naming the movie). She wants me to have a party. A big birthday bash like the one I threw for her when she turned 40. I told her I wasn't really interested in something like that. I've never been a big fan of birthdays. Might have something to do with my parents always saying it was my birthday when we'd eat in restaurants where the waiters sang to the birthday kid. I was always so fucking humiliated by the attention. Another big issue I have with this party is that I'd be throwing it for myself. So, she is, basically, just planning it for me and I have to pay for it.

And I don't want to waste my money on it.

What I want, for my birthday, is to go somewhere. Alone.


New Orleans for jazz fest perhaps.

Vegas maybe.


Me and a few friends. No wives, no kids. No $150 a head, $6500 minimum, bar not included. No space limit but we have to invite....

Fuck all of them. I don't want the attention, I don't want the bill.


Maybe we'll celebrate in Disney. I'll get drunk and fuck minnie. I hear she's a real whore. Then I can come back here, blog about it and the two people who read this can laugh at my expense.

Tech Woes and The Grammys

So I spent the day Saturday at the office. Normally, this wouldn't be something I'd do this early in the season of hell but our server was in need of an upgrade and the timing was such that it couldn't wait any longer so I made the arrangements and I came in at 10 am. Got in at 9:30, the boy was going to come and changed his mind. No sooner did I walk thru the door than the phone rings, he wants to come to work with me. So I am going to head back uptown as soon as the tech crew arrives.

The show up, get started and off I go. I wind up stuck on the subway for 20 minutes, finally get there, grab the boy and he's hungary. So I get him food and he wants some toys to play with so I get him toys. Head back to the office and the geek squad rejects are whining about how slow this is going and they'll be here late and blah blah blah I don't give a fuck, I'm paying for this shit.

So, at 5 they tell me to go home, they'll be here for a while, it will all be up and running by Monday morning. I get the email Sunday, declaring a success. Everything is in order and I'm good to go.

Um, no.

I get to work this morning and I have a new email telling me the server upgrade should result in blazing fast business software.

Sure.

If it worked.

If anything worked.

I can't access the tax programs. Well, I can but it takes forever. My secretary can't even get her pc to load up and my bookkeeper? She's got her old pc which is on the verge of collapse but it works perfectly.


So I am without the ability to work for most of the day. On the bright side, plenty of time to fuck around and do nothing.

Which leads me, somehow, to the grammys. I watched them last night and here's what I think. I think they have made the show far more enjoyable for the public by removing the awards that are accepted by the people who write the music and produce the music, instead, giving the spotlight up, entirely, to the performers. This would be great if the performers were worth watching. Whitney Houston? She's clearly still smoking crack.

I don't understand the whole rap thing so I can't understand how lil wayne can run around with his underwear hanging out of hi pants. I don't understand how musicians, in general, get laid. These ugly guys are all scoring some very hot women and it is based solely on their music. It can't be on their looks. Robert Plant is frightening looking. Sure, back in the day he had the swagger and he was a huge star but he looks like some outcast from a casting call for a freak show. And Justin Timberlake? I figured him out. He's the Derek Jeter of musicians. An overrated performer that looks ok, has girls screaming for him and an ego the size of the stadiums he performs in.

Ok, Jeter's far uglier than him but you get my point.

And the MusiCares award winner was Neil Diamond. Neil Fucking Diamond. Seriously. For those of you that don't know this, MusiCares is a charity award given to one musician each year for their charity work. The night before the grammys, musicians gather to honor the winner by singing their songs and then the winner gets up there and performs. I went to the 2000 Grammys. I went to the Musicares award dinner the night before. The honoree? Elton John. That's right. It was insane. I think I took some ecstacy. I was sitting next to Hefner's table. Chatting with Hef's girls, knowing that was the closest I'd ever get to the grotto. I smoked butts outside with Brad Pitt (we didn't talk but I did mention that he lived in my building for a while, he didn't care). I listened to Elton John songs sung by all the best musicians around. It was insane. A few years later I went to the Grammys here in NYC. I went to the Musicares awards show the night before too. They honored Bono. Now, I am not the biggest Bono fan. I like old U2. I find Bono to be a big of an arrogant ass but his bandmates sure can write a song or two. Tony Bennet gave us his table as he was leaving early. I wound up sitting between Bill Clinton and Bono as BB King Performed. BB King, at one point, told me to stop kicking his chair. The show was insane, the performances were awesome.

So, this year, a bunch of losers paid to see other people sing Neil Diamond. That's sad. Sure, Sweet Caroline is catchy and we all shed a tear over his ET song that never made it into the movie and we all dig the Jazz Singer but, wait, nobody likes any of that shit. It's crap. So, they honor him Saturday night and then he comes out on Sunday, at the Grammys and I'm thinking this guy's a mess. If Dick Clark (today's Dick Clark) and Austin Powers jerked off in a cup, blended the goo and artificially inseminated Whitney Houston (because seriously, would anyone be so bold as to stick their dick where Bobby Brown's has been?), Neil Diamond would be the offspring. All slurring, cheesy lounge lizard freak fest.

The show itself sucked. Sure, there was some good in it. Blink 182 is back, Kid Rock is fucking awesome, that fat chick with the crush on the Jonas Brothers was great, the country music shit? No thanks. Keith Urban was everywhere. Why? Because by inviting him you get Nicole Kidman and I'd listen to country music if it means I get to look at Nicole Kidman. Miley Cyrus? Sure she's cute but she's typical trailer trash. She'll be fat by 21. Really fat. Let's see how big a star she is then.

M.I.A. all pregnant and gangsta was awesome. The other four dudes? Couldn't understand what the hell they were saying. Paper Planes was ruined as a result.

The Bo Didley medley was great, having to listen to actors introduce musicians as their friends was ridiculous. It goes back to the musician appeal. Samuel L. Jackson is one of the coolest dudes around. He sounded like he was ready to fondle balls when he was introducing Timberlake.

I wonder if he gets that way at Yankee games too.

And one last thing.

A Rod juiced. Everyone thought it. Now we know it. Now the Yankee fans have an excuse for his ridiculous behavior and his inability to get the clutch hits. Steroids don't make the bat bigger.

A Good Old Fashion McRant

Let's see, where to begin. My wife told me that, since she has no source of income, she cannot figure out how she will pay her bills. So, being the caring husband that I am, I told her I would help her out but I had a few rules. First, they must all be current. If she hands me some late shit that she was avoiding (she does this), it won't count towards the current situation - old bills, incurred whilst working and all that.

Second rule, no excessive spending. I have no problem paying for the food, the kids shit etc. I do that anyway. Mrs. McNoogin has a way with credit cards and shopping that is a total mystery to me. She will walk into a store and drop $4,000 on shirts, knowing she will be returning $3,800 worth once she decides which one she really wants. This would all be fine, fucking moronic, but fine nonetheless, if she returned the stuff during the billing cycle. She doesn't. She keeps shit for two, three months, then she returns it. Again, all fine, idiotic for sure but, fine, provided she paid the bills each month. She has this thing where she figures, if she plans on returning it, she shouldn't pay for it. So, she incurs late fees and interest while she stores the items for the retailers. Fucking moronic. I've tried to show her how fucking wasteful this is but she just can't seem to understand it. So, I won't pay for any excessive spending. She wants a shirt, buy it. It. Not them. I see shit laying around the apartment that, she says, is for returns, fine. I find she hasn't returned shit during the cycle, no more free cheese from me.

Third, cut the fat. I asked her if she cancelled her gym membership. She said no, she can't do that. I know, y'all are thinking, cruel Floogin, cruel. On the contrary, she has been paying the gym for over 8 years now. She has been there 4 times. Each time was to discuss the money she paid without every using the facilities. She gets them to give her free training sessions, which she then never uses. I don't even know how much a membership costs but $1 a month for the last 8 years that would be $96 pissed away. So, I told her I wasn't paying for it. She told me she will start going, she needs to loses weight (she doesn't) blah blah blah which leads me to the final, most important aspect of my agreement.

She has to provide me with the thing I need most. Yup, I want it and I want it often. I don't care how she feels, how she looks or whether or not she is even interested, she must provide me with this.

I want to watch my shows without interruption. Every night I settle down to watch a show I taped, I thru about half the show and she plops down next to me and asks "what else is on?" Well fuck you. If I asked her to stop watching a show halfway thru it, she'd tell me to watch in the bedroom. I'm asking for the same fucking courtesy.

So, a couple of weeks ago, my old man told me how he lent my brother in law some money to help him with his business. I told him I thought he was nuts, that my brother in law was not capable of running a business and the only way for it to work would be if he brought in a partner to manage the business while he worked the selling and account management side of things. I then quickly added that I was not willing to take that job on. I asked my dad how much and he said he cosigned a line of credit for him in exchange for his receivables.

Well, then I found out that he tapped my dad for $25k 6 months ago, right around the time he bought a nice big flat screen tv, new home theater set up etc for his living room. Must be a coincidence. Then my dad told me he hasn't been making the necessary payments for withholding taxes and various employer required insurance. The penalties for not having workman's comp etc could be as high as $22,500 for the last 6 months. He didn't have the money to pay his employees' taxes. That was his reasoning. Ok. But he had the money to take his family to Disney. As soon as my sad cosigned the first of two lines ($100k total), he decided his family should fly rather than drive to Disney. Oh, and he also decided to throw himself a nice 40th birthday party which, a month earlier, he decided was a waste of money that he didn't have.

So, my dad, who is only free with his money when it comes to this deadbeat and his wife, is feeling a bit like a schmuck and, rightfully, so. Seems the fucknut missed the first payment, resulting in the bank tapping my dad's personal account for the payment. He asked me what he should do. I asked him if he was going to listen to me this time. He said yes. I told him to cut the guy off. Call the banks, tell them to freeze the line where it is.

I am exhausted dealing with stupidity and lunacy.

I need a reprieve.

She Cooked!!! She Cooked!!!!!

No shit.

The apocolypse is upon us. Mrs. McNoogin made me dinner last night.

More or less but, given there was some stove usage and a few pots were actually used, I'm going to give this one to her for the effort.

I came home around 7:00 last night. I was greeted by the baby sitter and my daughter's best friend's sitter. The kids were quietly playing and my wife was nowhere to be found.

The friend's sitter asked me for the recipe for the sugar free crustless cheesecake. She said it was awesome. I thanked her as nobody else had tasted it so I didn't know if it was really good or I just like cream cheese. Now I know.

Anyway, I asked our sitter where my wife was and she smiled and said "in the bedroom getting dinner ready."

I was a bit surprised. I couldn't imagine my wife, who is not exactly the outgoing sexcapade type, was summonning me to the boudoir for some late afternoon fucking.

She wasn't.

She was on the internet looking up recipes. She was planning on making me dinner and she needed to learn how to make what she wanted to make.

Not a good sign.

Anyway, I removed my ridiculous boot, put on some sweats and a tee shirt and went to say hello to the kids. I was greeted by all three of them with hugs and kisses and cheers. Then my daughter leaned in close and whispered "mommy's cooking" in a somewhat frightened tone.

I told her not to worry, she was googling recipes and I'm sure it will be great.

I went into the kitchen and heard the sitters talking about their obama crushes, my wife's lack of skills in the kitchen and my apparent skills in that same room.

I stuck my head into the kitchen, more to see what was being prepped for me than anything else and this is what I saw.
A big bowl of chopped spinach - frozen and defrosting.
Butter in a pot
Several different seasonings
Heavy Cream
One nut
Two steaks wrapped in the shrink wrap that screams "not the best meat."
computer printouts


So I asked what was going on and the sitters said "steak and creamed spinach but she doesn't know what you can and can't eat so she took everything out and she's been waiting for you to come home before she started cooking."

So the butter, the heavy cream etc have all been sitting out for a few hours. gross.

The steaks? One was a shell steak, the other a ribeye. The label on the rib eye said bone in. There was no bone. The shell steak was some organic, no anti-biotic etc company. The color was not the color of raw steak. My wife came in as I was inspecting the meats and she said "they didn't have two rib eyes from the same company and the woman told me the steaks were identical so I got this one."

I had to explain the different cuts of meat to her.

I had to show her the colors.

I had to show her the fat on the steak and explain the importance of said fat.

I had to explain the concept behind aging - the steak she bought was new baby, new.

I had to do all of this without upsetting her as she was trying to make me dinner but she didn't know that you are better off going to a butcher for steaks.

I managed to do this without putting a damper on the night.

Then I hit the bottle.

It was a necessity. The steaks were not going to be great. They wouldn't suck but they would rank in the bottom of the list of all time great steaks.

Way down at the bottom.

But she was cooking so I couldn't complain.

So, the sitters left and we got the kids in bed and asleep and we went back to cooking our dinner.

I offered to help and my wife said she'd do it. I asked her if she was going to salt the steaks a bit and she asked what that meant. I explained that a light salt rub would seal in the juices, keep the steak nice and flavorful blah blah blah. she asked me to do it.

So I did.

So, the end result was, she made me creamed spinach. It was pretty good. The rib eye was eh and the shell was horrific. It turned an even stranger color after cooking and the only way I could eat it was by first drowning it in bleu cheese dressing.

All in all, she cooked so the cook watch is over.

Should I start the sex watch next? I can put up a sex watch clock right next to a hell freezes over clock.

We can all bet on which one ends first.

She Cooks, She Ruins, She Kills!!!! (almost)

Well, it was bound to happen. The wife actually made a meal.

Sort of.

I spent the better half of yesterday afternoon making cupcakes with my daughter and then a crustless sugar free cheesecake for myself. This is the second time my daughter has requested baking with daddy and it has proven to be a rather fun event. She loves going to the market to get the goodies, she loves mixing and pouring and making the desserts and she loves licking the bowl, as most kids do.

So, we baked. All afternoon.

My wife came home around 6 with my son. They spent the day at a birthday party and then they did some shopping and hit the Children's Museum. A great day, the little man claimed.

Then the wife announced "I'm making dinner."

A cold breeze ran thru the apartment and an eerie music could be heard.

So, while my daughter read a book and my son watched some tv, Mrs. McNoogin toiled away in the kitchen.

First she opened a can of beans that looked like pasta, poured them in a bowl and put them out in front of my son so he could snack on them. My daughter walked into the room just as my wife was doing this and she came skipping over, hoping to grab a few bites as well.

Both kids reached into the bowl, grabbed one of these long pasta looking things, put it in their respective mouths, took bites and spit it out.

"ugh, that's not pasta"

from both of them.

Next, my wife announced to the room "dinner is ready, wash up and sit down."

So, cart the kids off to the bathroom, they wash up and get ready for dinner. My daughter looks up at me and asks "what do we do when it tastes gross?"

I tell her it won't. I tell her mommy probably made something they love.

So, we sit down, the three of us. Apprehensive smiles on our faces.

And out she comes, holding what appears to be a quiche.

A quiche?

She didn't make dinner. She heated it.

The kids looked at the quiche on the table, looked at me, looked at my wife and looked back at the quiche with a bit of fear on their faces and my daughter says "I'll have soup."

My son then said "I want chicken thunders." (chicken tenders)

I tell them to try the quiche.

They look at me like I'm nuts. I then take a slice of the quiche and put it on my plate. I start eating the top portion, trying to avoid getting any of the crust in my mouth as I cannot eat that and I don't want my kids to see me spit out the crust.

My kids laugh at me and both get up from the table. They ask to be called back when their dinner is ready. I tell them to sit their asses back down and try the quiche.

My son says no, my daughter says fine. As soon as her soup is ready, she says, she will try the quiche.

So we sit and talk about the party, the baking and whatnot until the soup comes out.

My daughter eats the soup.

My son says it lookes like poop.

My wife comes out with another bowl of beans. Butter beans this time.

Shunned again.


I explain to my wife that the only way to get the kids to eat beans is by mixing them with something else, like rice.

"I'm not making rice"

I'm not asking you to, I tell her.

My son asks where his chicken is.

My wife says "shit, I forgot to plug the toaster oven in."

My daughter has her bowl of soup. My son, eventually, has his chicken thunders and the kids are excused from the table.

I tell the kids they have a few minutes before bed time and I ask them to behave as I am running out to grab some soda for myself.

When I return from the store I almost pass out. The smell of gas overwhelms me. I actually get my first whiff of it when I am outside the apartment, in the hallway.

I walk in, walk straight into the kitchen, open the window and look at the stove. The front left burner is on, no flame burning. Gas has been pumping into the apartment for some period of time.

I ask my wife if she smelled the gas and she said she thought it smelled a bit but it always smells a bit in our kitchen. This is true, there is, at times, a very faint gas odor.

Apparently she heated up some corn and some soup and in the process of moving pots around she accidentally turned one burner back.

I asked her when she made corn. She said she heated it up for our daughter but it didn't look or taste right so she didn't serve it.

So, my wife finally "cooked" a meal and almost asphyxiated the family in the process.

Here's what she cooked:
2 cans of beans. Process of cooking - open can, pour into bowls, serve.
1 can of corn. Process of cooking - open can, pour into pot, heat over low flame, serve. This resulted in disaster. The food couldn't be served (not sure why) and the gas was left on, almost killing my family.
1 can of soup. Process of cooking - open can, pour in pot, heat and serve. One child ate it, one didn't.
1 Quiche Lorraine. Process of cooking - preheat oven, unwrap and cook for 20 minutes.
Chicken Thunders. Process of cooking - preheat toaster oven, put one chicken fillet on the baking pan, slide into oven, cook for 7 minutes, flip, cook for 7 minutes and serve. One side was crunchy and browned, the other side was wet from not being flipped.


As I left the apartment this morning she said she was going to make dinner again tonight.

I'm increasing my life insurance and investing in gas masks for all.

Stupidity

Ok, so a bunch of local department stores settled a price fixing lawsuit recently and the end result is that starting this past Monday, they all had to give away free make-up. They are doing this until $175 million in overcharged merchandise is returned to the customers.

And how, you ask, are they doing this? Starting this past Monday, you simply had to go to any of the stores and pick up your free shit.

Since their doors opened Monday morning, there have been insane lines to get the freebies. At Macy's, the line stretches around the all four sides of the building and then heads into a back entrance. Where it goes from there is beyond me but the line barely moves. I've watched it. Bloomingdale's has a similar line, not quite as long and, I presume, the other stores also have lines like this.

Today is Friday. Five fucking days of standing on line, shuffling foreward two steps, standing still, shuffling, standing, shuffling. I asked how long the line was taking and the girls responded "hours."

Hours. Not an hour. Not a couple of hours or a few hours but hours. That, in my book, means 4 or more hours. Like this was an all day affair for these folks.

And all this waiting is for what?

I figured they were giving out store credit. The news said they were giving the overcharge back to men and women so it couldn't be a single product and, since it wasn't an overcharge of just one manufacturer, whatever they were returning should cover everyone and everything in the makeup section, no?

No. The women are waiting on line for a little mascara tube. One little tube of mascara. That's it. 4 or more hours for fucking mascara.
A product that costs $7 at walgreens and $25 at Nordstrom? Four hours for that? Seriously? Is this what we've come to? I'm waiting for free shit, regardless of the wasted day or the unpaid hours.

If I announced free shit for two days would all these morons line up for a bag of my shit, free?

I do think so.

An experiment is in order. I just need to start bagging my shit first.

I'd ask for help but then I'd be giving away your shit, not my shit and I highly doubt anyone would want to help bag my shit.

UBP, Firearms And A Good Book

So, I'm talking to a friend yesterday and I'm bitching about the boot I'm wearing and how, thanks to the size of the heel on this thing, I needed to put a small lift inside my right shoe to try and even out the legs. So, I'm complaining about teetering on two different heel sizes and I realized how hard it must be for women to walk around on those heel stilts. If I can barely handle an inch or so of insert in my shoe, how can women manage to walk on 6 inch heels?

Of course my calves and ass look great in these heels but has anyone noticed? Has anyone said "Floogin, check out the shape of those stems!"

Nope.

So, as I continued my whine about my long shapely legs, firm, tight butt and the foot pain I endure to provide the world with the view of the aforementioned legs and butt, I realized I was a couple of boobs away from being a woman so I told my friend I needed a pair of boobs and vageen to make me complete.

She laughed and the conversation turned, of course, to something a bit more graphic and she said I would not be too happy with the accidental period in public.

Would anyone? To spontaneously bleed from any hole is nasty. To do it in public and have that blood come from your most private of privates? Um, no thanks but, given that we all know women get their period each month, is it not expected that, sometimes, an accident might occur? And yes, we do all know. Y'all are sure to tell us. It's almost like we're reminded so as to turn us off in the event we want some sex (we do, we always do).

You know how it is.
Honey, do you have the phone with you?
I'm bloated.

Honey, what do you want to do for dinner?
I'm getting my period

Sweetheart, I'm going to leap in front of a bus.
I'm cramping.


And so it goes.

Anyway, where was I? Right, thanks. Accidents in public. So, anyway, this friend brings that risk up and I explain that it should not happen too often as women seem to always be "getting my period any minute" and, besides, it happens. Women certainly can't be embarrassed by it. Every other woman knows that risk and men? We don't care. We see a woman with a period stain and we're thinking "blowjob."
So I tell this friend I'd rather get the blood spots than a public erection.

A what?

Unwanted Public Boner. UBP. The dreaded public hardon.

Girls, you think the high beams were bad. Try pitching a tent and having to hide it from the class.

So, this friend asks what an unwanted public boner is and I simply say "imagine sitting at a funeral and your dick decides to stretch. Hard? At a funeral? Yeah, try getting a date with anyone now sicko.

UPB is actually far more common than accidental public period. Far more common. The wind blows the right way and BOING!! now you neeed to convince the other parents on the playground that you have a condition.

A woman flashes a smile, shows a bit of cleavage and HELLO. So, there you are, standing on the wing of an airplane that just crashed into a river in sub-arctic temps, sporting a giant pleasure stick.

If only we had control over it.

So, instead of trying to harness this power, and use it for good, we have mastered the art of concealing the UPB.

Some of the many ways to conceal:
Hunch over and claim back troubles.

Spill coffee all over yourself, yank the shirt out to dry. The untucked shirt should work as a nice cover.

Grab a pencil and stick your hand down your pants. If anyone notices, pull the pencil out and say "how the fuck did these get in there?" as you pull the first one out. Then dive back in for the others.

Do not tuck it up inside the waist band. The rubbing could prove to be disastrous. Then a coffee stain will be welcomed.


And somehow this leads me to gun control. Now, I'm not a pro or anti gun person. I've fired a gun before. It didn't make me feel like I had a bigger cock. I didn't feel any more power or control but that doesn't mean others don't get that rush. So, do we have the right to control gun ownership in our country? Yes and No. The second amendment to the constitution gives us the right to bear arms. Of course, at the time, they were using muskets and pistols which did little damage. Think bb gun. You know, you'll shoot your eye out Ralphie. Or, better yet, it'll lodge under the skin and cause a very bad infection (points to the reader who can tell me who said this and where).
So, our forefathers knew it was important that we, the people, be allowed to own a gun. Not a machine gun. Not some mini-cannon that shoots thousands of rounds of metal piercing bullets that enter your body and explode, releasing hot magman and flesh eating bacteria that sing abba tunes.

No, our forefathers wanted us to be able to shoot pheasant and deer.

How important was this right to bear arms? Pretty fucking important. Let's see, draw up the basic foundation of our laws and government. Done.

Wait, guys, we forgot something. We forgot to say "we have the right to speak our minds, to practice any faith we see fit (except witches, they burn in hell), the press can report what they want and we shall give everyone the right to protest the government. That should keep us all on our toes. Jolly good. Let's go.

WAIT!!!

We should also be allowed to carry guns.

Yes!

Let's see. Say what you want. Assemble peacably and protest. And do it all whilst carrying guns.

Brilliant.

Bunch of dope smoking drunks just put all the ingrediants for a riot into our consitution.

The second most important thing, behind free speach is the right to bear arms.

Fuck, the thirteenth freed the slaves and the nineteenth gave women the right to vote.

that means it was more important for a man to carry a gun than for a woman to vote.

Actually, if you look at the amendments, it looks like they tried to fix the mistakes created by the previous amendments.

1. free speech, free assembly etc.
somebody brought a gun to a rally.
2. right to own a gun
The military, knowing Jim had guns, took over his home during some fight.
3. Forbids the military from using a private citizen's home for quarters during peacetime.
someone had guns, wouldn't let a military man inside so they went in anyway and found contraband.
4. must have probable cause to search a home.
someone was re-arrested after using the 4th amendment as his excuse for why he shouldn't be in jail.
5. double jeopardy, grand jury indictment etc.

Read the amendments and put your own story together. It's fairly easy to see how the government was taking advantage of people until the amendments were added.


And the good book?

The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston.

I've read all of his books and they're all incredible. He writes pulpy pulp fiction. He's got a series of books about vampires, another about an ex baseball player who has some dealings with some bad people and two stand alone novels. The one out now, mentioned above and another called The Shotgun Rule.

All are incredible and, if you like to read action packed, funny stories this guy is your man.

Counting The Days

It's been 21 days since I've had a smoke.
21 days without a toke
21 days, that's no joke.
21 days without a smoke.

15 days since the wife got fired.
15 days and so far here's what she's accomplished.
She has not made me one dinner. Nor has she cooked for the kids.
She has not, yet, filed for unemployment.
She has not, yet, dealt with her severance package.
She has not, yet, done shit.

She has, however, chastised me for not making good photo copies (she can go to fucking kinkos downstairs next time).
She has complained about how I should be more concerned about the cost of things. She told me this while she was shopping for shoes with a friend. (in her defense, she didn't buy anything or she hid the new boxes).

7 days since I got this dreadful boot on my foot. one week of hobbling around like some fucking frankenstonian gimp. one week of banging the bulky boot on doors and furniture.
do I feel better? nope. the moment I take the thing off, my ankle hurts. my knee is starting to ache from the new method of climbing up and down stairs.

7 days so far. 35 days left.

I need a fucking smoke.

A Short One About The Short One

I took my kids to see may parents over the weekend. They'd been cooped up for days, sick with Strep so I figured a day or two out east would be nice. The bay is frozen, it snowed most of the time we were there and they stayed indoors for two days (except the trip to see the seals) but it was a change of scenery and it gave them a chance to see the frozen tundra of the east end of long island.

Anyway, Saturday night, we're having dinner and my son is cracking us all up. He's on a roll and he knows it. He has this ability to make everyone laugh and push all the right buttons, knowing just the right time to stop. So, he's going on about god knows what and my daughter, who's sitting next to him, is in hysterics. Suddenly, as she lets out a loud, hearty laugh, she releases a rather large, rather loud fart, amplified by the position she has taken on the large, wood dining room chair.

My son, without missing a beat, turns to her and says "that's enough apples for you"

and goes right back to his story.

my father almost had a heart attack from laughing so hard.

My wife was stunned, my mother was cracking up. Me? I had heard it once before so I just sat back, smiling, knowing that one day, soon probably, I was going to be meeting with teachers, trying to convince them my son isn't the trouble maker they make him out to be.

There's Hope For Our Future

I've read about these groups that bring Israeli and Palestinian kids together for summer camp, with the hopes that the kids will learn that the Hatfield and McCoy hatred is unwarranted, that they are all very much alike and that people can get along, if they actually open their minds to it and accept that we aren't all the same.

This morning I read more about the current situation in the Middle East. It always makes me ill.

Then I read about the plane that went down in the Hudson yesterday. The pilot's heroic landing, which has never been accomplished with zero fatalities (according to the Daily News) was incredible but to read that he then walked up and down the aisle, making sure everyone was ok, then he got everyone off the plane and then, as the water was rushing in, he took one more pass thru the plane to be 100% sure he was the absolute last man off the plane. A local cop was talking about the pilot and how cool he was. He said the pilot was sitting and drinking coffee a short while after, smiling and talking as if it was just another routine day.

The article went on to talk about the actual incident and, as a New Yorker, the first thing that came to mind was 9/11. Everyone who saw the plane said the same thing "oh no, here we go again."

One of the passengers on the plane was quoted as saying "god put me on that plane."

What? The fucking plane went down in 20 degree weather, crash landing in icy waters and you say god put you there?

I read on.

This gentleman, it seems, missed his flight and wound up on the doomed flight. He was responsible for saving an infant's life yesterday. His first reaction wasn't to think "why on earth did I have to miss my flight." No, this brave soul said he was put there to help.

Then I read about how the pilot gave very little warning "brace for impact" and then the plane went into the water. The passengers all helped each other off the plane. Women and children first. Ferry boats pulled up to immediately assist in the passenger removal.

All done in a calm, orderly, humane manner. The pics in the paper look horrific but the people? They all seem to be calm and in control.

Thank you humanity for showing you can, once again, rise up and act in a proper manner.

So, anyway, Gaza, Israel, Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, airplane crashes....What the fuck does this have to do with anything, right?

Here's the thing. I had a cute little story to tell from last night that, when taken in the context of current events, made me think that, perhaps,humanity has hope.

Here's the story.

My son is sick (both kids are - raging strep going around). So, he slept all day and now he's up all night and who does he keep up? Me.

So I'm lying in bed with him and he's talking talking talking about everything anything nothing. He's telling me about the store across the street with the magic box and how he has a present for me and on and on and on and suddenly he says...

"Dad, a plane crashed in the water yesterday. Near the Trepid (intrepid, we'd just visited a couple of weeks ago). A plane crashed and a boat hit the plane. I saw it on the news."

I tried to interrupt him, to tell him everyone was ok, nobody got hurt but he wouldn't let me speak.


"Dad, put your finger up. Now, put it to your mouth. Say shhhh"

(always makes me feel like a little boy when he does this. I almost say yes sir)

"Dad, the plane, it crashed. A boat hit it and then they took all the people to the hospital. It happened in the city."

I know, it happened in our city

"DAD, No, it happened in a city, where everyone is black. All black people"

(I'm clueless as to where this came from or where it might headed so I give him some rope)

all black people?

"Dad, yeah, Rock Obama is from there. He has two daughters you know. They're little girls, not as little as me but little. And he has a wife, Michelle. He's the president of the flag of the united states of america."

(he's 3 and a half)

I'm stunned. Not that he thinks all black people live in a city but that my three and a half year old, who can't even get his colors correct can tell me the name of our next president, his wife and that they have two daughters. Fucking impressive.

About ten minutes later my son gets up to pee and when he comes back he says "Dad, my hands have ink on them from before"

I tell him that the stamper he was playing with colored his hands and fingers and that was why I told him to be careful with the ink pad. He said "it won't come off" so I tell him it is permanent.

He gets this freaked out look on his face and starts rubbing his hands.

He then says "Dad, Barbara (his pre k teacher) is going to think I'm turning into a black person"

I start laughing and he looks up, his face is still red from the fever, his eyes are swollen and bloodshot and he looks, pretty much, like a tired, sick child. A smile creeps over his face and his eyes brighten up just a bit.

Dad, if I turn into a black person, I can be president too.




So, there you have it. My son only knows of a black president. He doesn't know that the current president is a mental midget from a wealthy family. He doesn't know that since the beginning of our nation's history, we've had white folk fucking things up and now we're giving a black man the same opportunity.

My son, only knows black presidents. In his eyes, if he were lucky enough to be black, he could, one day, run for president.

Oh, the times they are a change ing.


The Israeli/Palestinian Camp concept is pretty much the same concept. Get people when they are young, teach them the way it should be and maybe, just maybe, the prejudices of the world will fall by the wayside.

Of course, in most cases, the kids go home to parents who teach them that one color is better than the other, that one faith is better than another, my god kicks you god's fat, hairy pimpled celestial ass etc.

Not true.

Here's the deal folks. Pass this on to your kids. Maybe then we'll break the circle.

all colors are good, all colors are bad
all faiths are good, all faiths are bad
all gods suck ass. if they didn't, there'd be no death and no suffering.
there is only on race. the human race. better to run together than go it alone.

No Smoking Observation

A double dose from me. Yay.

So, today is day 13 without a smoke. Not bad. Truth is, it has, so far, been somewhat easy. Too fucking cold to smoke. Seriously. So, I have not been tempted to inhale frozen air and smoke whilst my fingers ice over. No sir, not for me. The hands are warm and cozy stuffed into my pockets.

This cold sticks around and I should have no problem coasting thru January sans smoke.

And after almost two weeks, here's what's gone down.

My taste is back. Not in clothes. I'll always dress like a schmuck. No, the taste in my mouth. I can actually taste foods again. I know this because I had to order food from the diner last night and it tasted fucking amazing. Ok, perhaps it tasted great because it was a warm meal cooked just for me. So what if it was cooked for me by a fat sweaty man in a diner. If I close my eyes it could be Mrs. McNoogin. She has really let herself go since she got laid off last week. She looks like some greasy spoon chef, minus the food stains on her shirt of course. That only comes when you cook.

Another thing I noticed - my lungs are starting to clear themselves out. Gross? Yes. Still, it is happening. Climbed a shitload of steps coming out of the subway yesterday and I wasn't the slightest bit winded. That's comforting. Makes me feel like it is working.

Lastly, smells are back. For better or worse, I can smell everything again. I'm like a werewolf now. Riding on the subway yesterday, I sensed Chanelle #5 to my right, some sweaty pakistani man to my left, some cheap j lo perfume in front of me and what's that? is it? yup, curry sweats from an indian man behind me. I was identifiying the stink before the person came into view. It was impressive and horrific. I knew some dude at the end of the car stepped in two day old poodle shit and I knew that the baby on the platform had rice and peaches for breakfast as there was a nice rice and peach turd squishing around his diaper.

This is great. I can smell the secretary and she is a good 50 feet away, in another room. I can smell the take out shit the guy down the hall is eating and I can smell the sharp stench of piss mixed with urinal cake from the bathroom down the hall.

If I had known the world smelled like shit I never would have quit.

The Audition Process

Here's how an audition works. You show up, do your absolute best to convince the person hiring that you are the best person for the job, then you wait while that person sees other people and makes a decision. The most important thing is to do everything you can to convince the person making the decision that you are the absolute best person for the task.

So, with that in mind, my wife spent her first day auditioning for the role of stay at home mom. Yesterday I told you that I gave her three tasks. The first one was very high on the importance list. Ignored. The second one was not at all important. Ignored. The third one, make me dinner, was actually a joke. I knew it wasn't going to happen but, I figured, she understood the cardinal rule in my home. Make sure I have the three things that make me smile.

1. Coke Zero
2. Sugar Free Jello and Whipped Cream
3. Food should I want more than the first two. This usually consists of cheese, meat, eggs etc.

Not exactly fine dining. Hit the deli counter, the butcher counter and the dairy for eggs, jello and the whipped cream. All told, you can be out of the market in 12 minutes.

So, I get home last night around 7 PM. I take off the heavy coat, remove the scarf, hug the kids, work my way into my bedroom and start to undress for the night. I come back out in a pair of sweats and a tee shirt. Comfy, cozy, ready to talk to the kids, put them to bed, eat dinner and watch the first two hours of 24.

I go to the fridge to grab me a glass of zero. Nothing. Not even a fucking half drank can of flat soda.

So I ask my wife "no coke zero?"

The nanny, who was getting ready to leave, says "I told you daddy would be mad at us."

So I go back to the bedroom, put on jeans, pull on a sweater, put on socks, shoes, scarf, coat and head back out into the frigid cold to get myself a bottle of soda. As I am leaving, my wife says "oh, we need light bulbs too."

"For the lamp on your side of the bed?"

"yes" she tells me.

So, she can't even get herself a fucking light bulb. I guess she didn't notice when the light went on over her cartoon head because it was fucking burned out.

So I trudge out to get her bulbs and me soda. Of course this means two places instead of one. So I get the soda, the bulbs and get back home. Put the soda in the fridge, put the bulbs in the closet, take off the coat, the scarf, the sweater, the jeans, the shoes, the socks, put on the sweats and head out to pour myself a glass of soda. No glasses. What the fuck?

"oh, yeah, we need dishwasher detergent"
Did you do anything today?
"fuck you, I was running all over the place."
Fine. So I go get dressed again. Before I leave I take a piss in the kids's bathroom. I flush and go wash my hands. There's water in the sink. I open the drain. Water doesn't drain out. I wash my hands, filling the sink some more. I ask Floogin Junior why the sink is clogged. He tells me he stuck some tissues and a wipe in the sink. So I take off the coat, the scarf, the sweater and start trying to get the shit out of the sink. No such luck. Then the wife tells me "oh yeah, there's something wrong with the sink."

Did you think to ask the super to come fix it when he came to fix the drip in our bathroom?

"I didn't ask him to come up yet."
"too busy?"

"fuck you"

I get the coat on, scarf etc and head to the store again. Grab draino and the dishwasher stuff and head home.

undress, unclog, turn on the dishes, get to see the kids off to bed, order my food from the fucking diner and while I'm waiting for it to arrive, I put a nice sign up on the fridge. It reads:
THINGS THAT MAKE ME SMILE:
1. Coke Zero
2. Sugar Free Jello and Whipped Cream
3. Food That I Eat - eggs, cold cuts, etc
Signed,
Management


So, I'm still auditioning. Oddly enough, I got a call this morning from a photocopier sales rep. She is so damned hot that I actually had to tell her that she should come by once a month just so I could see her.

She called to say happy new year, see if we changed our minds about the copier and then she told me she had no heat last night and she said it was cold and if she only had a boyfriend, someone she could cuddle up to, stay warm with. She said she has this big apartment and she's all alone. She's got a fridge filled with her favorite things, coke zero, sugar free jello, whipped cream, eggs, cold cuts and steaks, and nobody to cook for.

When I get home tonight, I am not even taking the coat off. Just going to see what she didn't buy today. Then I am packing my bag and heading to copier girl's apartment.

Doctors Suck and As The Wife Turns.

So, let's see, I finally found a doctor who takes insurance and can see me in 2009. Everyone I called started off with "we don't take insurance and our next appointment is in 2013."

These doctors are the equivalent of the velvet rope night clubs. Nobody is being let inside and then, when you get inside, there's nobody there. Exclusivity so stringent that you feel compelled to pay out of your own pocket for services that other doctors will perform and bill your insurance directly for? Interesting concept. Where have I heard of someone who refuses admittance to almost everyone? Someone who rejects people without hearing their tale? Someone who's inner group was so select, so secretive, so fucking desirable that people were willing to skip the formalities of actually bothering to see if they knew what they were doing? Someone who created such a legendary myth that people blindly turned themselves over to him?

That's right, Bernie Madoff, Ponz Scum. Thanks for reminding me. By the way, that's my term but you can use it. Not like anyone would ever give me credit for anything.

My wife is spending her first day at home today. She spent the first 3 days of her unemployment clearing out her desk. Today, she woke up, took snoogin to school and then called me a few hours later to tell me she hasn't done shit yet and can't figure out what she should do first.

One fucking day without working and she is already becoming one of those women who I hear the old men bitching about on the golf course. OK, I don't play golf but it sounded good.

Here's the deal. My mother has had, as far as I know, two jobs in her life. Both of them were working for her own company, which my dad backed and supported. The first was a retail store with a very well known (back then) fashion designer. So, in essence, my dad's client wanted to open a store, needed money, asked my dad for assistance, he put up the cash and put his wife in the store to watch the investment. Store closed after a year or two. Designer and her boyfriend were drug fiends and other assorted problems, you know the drill.

Job 2, a print shop for higher end artwork. My dad and a client set their wives up with this one. Why? The client was (is) a very famous artist and my dad had many artist clients who needed a place to go for printing so they figured they'd set their wives up to supply the art world. Business lasted a few years, mainly fueled by the husbands' connections.

So, my mom, really never worked. She has no clue what it is like to deal with stress or deadlines or the specter of unemployment. she knows how to ask her husband for money, she knows how to spend it and she knows how sales people treat you well when you are buying. When my mom heard my wife lost her job, her reaction was to call my wife and tell her how sorry she was and how she knew what she was going thru because she "lost her new sunglasses this morning" and she's "devastated!!"

My dad will ask my mom to put gas in the car, pick up his dry cleaning, grab him some food from the takeout they like etc and she never, ever has the time. she does nothing all day but never has the time. So, my dad and I came to the realization that people who don't work have the busiest schedules.

How is this possible.

Think about it. All the time in the world to do the few things you need to do. So, you try to not finish anything, lest you find yourself with nothing to do and, therefore, boredom sets in. Or, perhaps, you simply cannot take on new work because you are so busy doing absolutely nothing that you have no time to spare. This second one might be the case.

Over thanksgiving, my mom was making a big deal about needing to head back to the city early Sunday morning because she "had a ton of things to do." I asked what and she got pissed off and stormed away from the table.

Last night, she was nagging my dad to leave our apartment to get home in time to watch the golden globes. They went on at 8 last night. It was 4:45 when she started nagging. They live 15 minutes away. My wife asked "what's the rush?" to which my mother said "I have to get home for the awards." My wife told her they were in 3 hours and she had plenty of time and my mom said "I have other things to take care of." My dad, playing with his grandson, looked up from the couch and said "no you don't. what could you possibly have to do on a Sunday night?"

Silence.

No more talking from mom.


So, here we go. My wife has been out of work for 3 days but today is the first day out of the office and she hasn't been able to figure out what she should do. The malaise of the non-working woman is setting in.

don't get me wrong. There are plenty of women who don't work who are sharp as tacks, take care of a million things and run a tight ship at home. I respect and applaud all of you. Seriously. I find those kind of women to be very appealing. They are no different than the high powered business women, only they have more sex appeal because most high powered business women I know have decided to release the motherly instinct and, in turn, that certain sex appeal goes with it.

No, I'm talking about the women who don't work, have someone else taking care of the kids, the house etc and have all day to do nothing but shop.

As I was leaving this morning I told my wife she needed to get ahold of the lawyer regarding the severance package, she needs to take our daughter's ipod to the apple store to get it fixed and she needs to go to the market and buy food so she can cook dinner tonight.

The nanny made a comment about how, in six years, she has never seen my wife cook anything. I said I hadn't seen any kitchen work in close to 15 years. My daughter said "mommy knows how to make toast. she usually only burns one piece before getting it right."

So, let's see, call the lawyer, hit the market and hit the apple store. Both stores are 5 minute walks from the apartment and the lawyer is a phone call. she should be done with all three by now.

If I got laid off and had three things to do, The three things would be done by 10 am and I'd be locked in my room with a ton of porn, some food, a bottle of coke zero and some lotion to avoid the chafe for the rest of the day. My wife? still trying to figure out which one to do first. Thus, the nonworking wife syndrome is setting in.

I'm doomed.

Mmmm Shit Sandwich, My Favorite

So the holiday season is over, life returns to normal. The kids go back to school, I gear up for the upcoming busy work schedule, the wife starts nagging about my birthday, her birthday, the spring trip, a late winter visit to her mother, a new car and anything else that she can think of that might be worth spending money on.

So, as the holiday spending spree is being tallied up by the various creidt card companies, let's focus on the upcoming trip to Disney and the inevitable request to visit her mother.

Yes, I'm going to Disney. The trip that was postponed thanks to Junior being sick was moved to presidents' week. Fitting time. Over crowded and just starting to get hot and rainy. A recipe for disaster for sure.

So, the trip is booked, the flights booked. Reservations for any and all meals were made. We are all set to go but...perhaps....maybe...well...we should at least think about.....visiting her mother for a few days before we head to Disney.

It would get the visit out of the way, keep the cost down by not forcing a second set of flights on my fragile wallet. Sure, great, and the psychiatric bills will quadruple thanks to the added time in the so called sunshine state.

Of course, all of this changed about 3 hours ago.


I highly doubt if there will be a single nagging request to go visit her mother. I doubt if there will be any nagging about me spending money on anything for a little while at the very least.

My wife got laid!!!!!!!!


off that is.


That's right, the company she worked for for 9 years, the company that screwed her out of back pay owed as a result of her working full time after taking a pay cut to work 4 days a week has let her go. They gave her ten weeks salary. At that point the pay becomes unemployment and the benefits are gone. So, right around the time I am celebrating my 40th year on this orb, I will be spending my well earned birthday present for myself on fucking medical insurance so my family is covered.

This unemployment thing is going to cost me a fortune. Forget the whole lack of income from the wife. I now need to get medical insurance which is very expensive for small companies such as mine. I need to put restructure my business and the tax handling to accomodate the salary and medical benefits for employees. I will, in about ten weeks, know if she is going to find a job or stay home with the kids. If she picks the latter, she is going to lose the nanny. This should result in some serious fights and other such fun stuff.


Yeah, stellar fucking day.

I quit....and this time, I mean it. I hope.

Well, it's been almost 3 days without a smoke. Not even a puff. Shit, I won't even inhale when I pass a smoker in the street. So, far, so good. Around 11 PM on New Year's Eve I had my last smoke and the urge, while there, has yet to get the best of me. Sure, I haven't fully tested myself yet but I have certainly given myself many reasons to hit the stick.

My normal routine during the week is to wake up, shower and help the wife get the kids ready for school. Then one of us takes my daughter to school. If it is me, I drop her off and walk the ten or so blocks to my office. 2 butts smoked during the walk. Then I hit the office and I light up whenever I leave to get food, drinks, hit the bank etc. No smoking in my office. I smoke on the walk home. A mile, maybe a mile and a half walk. Several smoked along the way.

On weekends, the smoking is actually reduced. Wake up, toss on some clothes and get Starbucks. Smoke on the way to Starbucks and on the way back. Add another butt if I also pick up food for the kids (doughnuts, bagels etc). Then I smoke whenever I am alone. So, the wife realizes we are out of something I am very quick to run and get it. We need the car? I get it and pick the family up in front of the building so I can get one last smoke in before we hit the road.


So, I stopped on Wed. night. Yay me but the work day, the stress and the need for a break will put me to the test for sure. That said, so far, here's what I've done that has not resulted in my enjoying a long deep breath of carcinogens settling into my already scarred and tarred lungs.
1. Got the coffee two days in a row.
2. Ran several errands for the wife.
3. Two pointless, I am stressed and suffering from nicotine withdrawal fights.
4. One trip to get the car, on trip returning alone from the garage.
5. One long day at my mother in law's. That's right, I spend an afternoon with my wife and kids at my mother in law's apartment. To make the time there more enjoyable, my sister in law and her husband and kids were there. 9 people stuffed into her apartment while she berated and yelled at her daughters for infractions like trying to clean up, offering to help and being blond (not even natural).
6. Walked to my office from Times Square. Dropped the wife and kids off with her sister and her kids so they could do some touristy shit and, since my brother in law was not coming, I figured I'd head to the office, go thru the mail, fuck around and kill time. Freaked me out when I walked in to find someone else in the office - employee of the web design firm we share space with.
7. Took copious amounts of pain meds. The ankle has been acting up quite a bit lately. Might be the walking around, climbing up and down steep steps in the Intrepid (awesome, heading back on Wednesday I think) or just that the ankle is getting worse and, therefore, hurting more but I had to loot the percocet supply big time over the last 2 days and I do so love me a perc haze smoke. Still, I haven't had one.

I hate to be a gun jumping jackass but I will say that I have quit for extended periods before, once for about a year and the first week is usually tougher than the last few days have been so, perhaps, the whole mental planning, promising myself that, at 40 (3/12/09 start shopping now) I would no longer smoke etc worked as intended.

Who knows, maybe my seeign two movies in a row last week where one of the lead characters coughs up blood freaked me out enough. Don't care why it has, so far, been this easy. Just know that it has.

Oh, the two movies?
Bucket List which I had seen before but I was one of two people that really enjoyed the film. My wife was the other.
Gran Tourino - new Clint Eastwood movie. Fucking brilliant. Clint at his grizzled, crusty, angry codger with a heart best. Even if you removed Clint's oscar worthy performance, took away every other actor's incredible performance (they were all incredible) and you took away the amazingly emotional, comical, nerve wracking, heart wrenching story, you'd still have a movie worth seeing. The stereotypes, the bigotry and the ethnic slurs are genius. With about 8 minutes left in the movie, when you think you have heard every single asian slur known to man thru the course of the movie, Clint drops 4 or 5 new ones in a row.

While smoking.