The younger Secret was sick all weekend, and now the older boy is home from school a-sneezin’, a-snottin’, and a-hackin’. Fan-flipping-tastic! I feel like I’m sitting, right this very minute, inside a cloud of illness particles.
He’s going to the doctor at 4 pm, and hopefully they’ll make him better. And we can get some Lysol up in this bitch. Sweet sainted mother of Mary Mallon!
I was informed, about an hour ago, that the retro t-shirts are ready for pickup. I’ll get ’em on Thursday, my next day off, and try to put them in the mail on Monday. I’ll have a few XL and 2X left over, so if you want one….
Also, the T-Shirt Lady tells me there was a mix-up at T-Shirt Lady Labs, and a full batch of maroon shirts were run with the Evil Twin leapin’ catfish logo. So, the shirts are maroon, and the design is orange and white. She’s going to let me have those for a discount, if I want.
I’ll take a look, and see how hideous they are. If they’re not too bad, I might take them off her hands and pass the savings on to you. I should be able to sell them for $10 each, postage included. I’ll post a pic of the “miscommunication shirt” as soon as possible.
Who knows? Maybe it’s one of those fortunate accidents? Probably not, but maybe.
Over the weekend I watched two or three episodes of a show called World’s Strictest Parents, or somesuch. Have you seen this? It appears on some unknown cable channel, way up the dial.
The concept is fairly interesting… They take a couple of smart-ass, disrespectful, out-of-control teenagers, and make them live with a Ned Flanders-style family somewhere. Then they chronicle the friction.
Most of the kids made me crazy. Sarcastic little shits, one and all. If I ever talked to my parents the way they apparently do… well, it would’ve only happened once. Let’s just put it that way. Wow!
But one of them made me laugh. He was also an asshole straight-up, but was creative with it. Know what I mean? It wasn’t just the standard hollering of profanity, and slamming of doors. He would calmly argue with the host parents, being completely smart-alecky and infuriating, in a subdued, conversational tone. He was a different style of asshole, which I appreciated. He had skills.
Of course I couldn’t admit any of this out loud. So, don’t tell anyone, OK?
And just for the record… the “strict parents” irritated me too. What a bunch of humorless goodie-goodies. The natural reaction, for anyone with an, um, adventurous streak, would be to screw up the operation. None of it was overly surprising, and some of it I applauded. Secretly, inside my head.
Anyway.
A guy at work brought in a large freezer bag filled with “homemade sausage.” He said he and his buddies drank beer and “smoked” over 100 pounds of the stuff on Saturday.
He handed me one, and it looked like one of Andy’s yard crullers. I instantly smelled the smokiness of it, but was exceedingly skeptical. Homemade sausage? Made by a bunch of beer-guzzling cuppa-two-trees? Visions of salmonella danced in my head.
“Thanks. I’ll try it in a little while,” I told him, and laid it on a legal pad beside my keyboard.
When I picked it up, an hour later, there was a grease stain on the paper. But I sniffed the thing, and had to admit… it smelled like something I’d enjoy. So I took a tentative bite, and it was really good. I couldn’t choke down the whole thing, but ate most of it.
And so far, blood hasn’t exploded from my ass. I’ll keep you posted.
Are you ever put in that situation? Somebody at work, or wherever, brings in something they’re very proud of, and wants your reaction — right now? How did it work out for you?
A quick note to all the Westerberg/Replacements fans out there: six new Paul Westerberg songs were released today, and can be downloaded here. Also, the EP is available on CD. I haven’t heard it yet, but plan to grab it before I leave for work in a few minutes. Let me know what you think.
And I’ll leave you now with the Question of the Day… What lies have you told since getting out of bed this morning? I can only think of one: when Toney called she asked if I’d remembered to unload the dishwasher. My answer was a bold-faced lie, but I’ve covered my ass in the interim.
What about you? What lies have you told today? Is it possible to go through an entire day without telling, at least, a tiny white lie? I somehow doubt it.
I’ll be back tomorrow.
See ya then.
Jason _ Don’t sweat it man. Your a good father. Keep doin what your doin.
top 100, again!
Reserve me an XL orange and white on maroon
collectors Special Edition Tshirt please.
At least till I can see what they look like.
At 3:30am they seem like a good idea.
I will of course pay extra for the hazardous sea journey to the land of the lovers of Libya!
(did any of you guys catch that over there and does anyone really care about a dying arab who seems to have been ‘stitched up’ in the first place? If no one answers ,you’ll be affirming my suspicions! )
Jeff – I’m good for one of the “miscommunication” shirt’s. Matches the VT colors perfectly.
Upper management in my office is always trying to push potlucks on us in lieu of catering or an event off site. So far this has been successfully avoided. The primary argument has been some of the things that have happened in our restrooms. If someone is that gross at work, imagine what their homes are like, and the offenders are unknown, so there is no way to avoid the filth. So, yeah, I try to not eat stuff at work that people bring from home.
And, really, I don’t know why they care if a party is catered or takes place off site. We pay for our own parties, the office doesn’t. Ridiculous.
Bryn , I think I am with you on the baby shower thing. I don’t think I have ever been invited to a shower under the circumstances you describe, but I am just against baby showers on GP.
Have I lied yet today? Don’t think so, I’m not much of a liar, but I lied quite a bit recently at a baby shower where I ooohhed and aahhhed lots of things that I didn’t really find adorable.
Gretchen – Happy birthday!
t-storm – Happy birthday!
Melissa – Sorry to hear about Lucy. Dogs are awesome.
Oh, and Gretchen, thanks fir the 1000 year egg page. You are right, that will haunt me for a very long time.
Ian, are you referring to something more recent than the Lockerbie release? If it is something else, I am watching BBC news right now, so I might catch it.
Heavy Hundred, at least as of this writing.
The only food-from-a-coworker occasion I can think of was when a guy brought in some deer jerky he had made – and it was fantastically delicious. Man, it makes me salivate to think about. And huntin’ season is coming up, which I never thought I’d be looking forward to.
Oh, and there’s also Breakfast Club, about which one does not talk :^) Every Friday, one member brings in food for all the other members. It works out that each person has to ‘provide’ about four times a year, so not too heinous. And those who can’t cook at least have the wisdom not to try – they pick up breakfast burritos at Anita’s, or whatever.
Knucklehead, I know what you mean about the filter. I think it’s just a manifestation of decreasing bullshit tolerance.
Melissa, I’m so sorry about your poor puppy. I’ve been there, and it’s no good.
Ian the Errolite,
Let me be the first to affirm your suspicions. Dying Arab? Stitches? WTF? Is this going to raise my gas prices? Outrageous! Somebody bomb something, this is absurd!
HAHA! How’s that?
Jason, I am not positive, but I think Ian’s cryptic comment is regarding Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, a Libyan who was convicted in 2001 of involvement in the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. 270 people were killed including 190 Americans. Mr. Megrahi was to serve a life sentence but was recently released by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds because he is terminally ill with cancer and has less than three months to live.
Ian – Did I guess right?
SR – I come from a long line of sarcastic bastards and most often when sarcasm is employed around here, it is to cover for an opinion that the rest of us would find shameful.
Bryn – I guess I stepped into that one without looking. So, just back the bus up and finish me off…
Of missing birthdays, departed dogs, dead cats and lost souls:
My man, Kinky Friedman, wrote the prose that follows as the epilogue to his 1993 book, “Elvis, Jesus, and Coca-Cola”. I’ve had too damn many reasons to refer to it in the intervening years.
Epilogue
On January 4, 1993, the cat in this book and the books that preceded it was put to sleep in Kerrville, Texas, by Dr. W.H. Hoegemeyer and myself. Cuddles was fourteen years old, a respectable age. She was as close to me as any human being I have ever known.
Cuddles and I spent many years together, both in New York, where I first found her as a little kitten on the street in Chinatown, and later on the ranch in Texas. She was always with me, on the table, on the bed, by the fireplace, beside the typewriter, on top of my suitcase when I returned from a trip.
I dug Cuddles’ grave with a silver spade, in the little garden by the stream behind the old green trailer where both of us lived in the summertime. Her burial shroud was my old New York sweatshirt and in the grave with her is a can of tuna and a cigar.
A few days ago I received a sympathy note from Bill Hoegemeyer, the veterinarian. It opened with a verse by Irving Townshend: “We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle…”
Now, as I write this, on a gray winter day by the fireside, I can almost feel her light tread, moving from my head and my heart down through my fingertips to the keys of the typewriter. People may surprise you with unexpected kindness. Dogs have a depth of loyalty that often we seem unworthy of. But the love of a cat is a blessing, a privilege in this world.
They say when you die and go to heaven all the dogs and cats you’ve ever had in your life come running to meet you.
Until that day, rest in peace, Cuddles
KINKY FRIEDMAN
FEBRUARY 5, 1993
MEDINA, TEXAS
Melissa: So sorry about your dog. I have an 11 year old pug with cataracts, arthritis, and on the verge of heart failure. I will be in a fetal position when that fateful day comes. They are with you through thick and thin…doesn’t seem fair.
I don’t eat “funky” meat, so I would have had to pass on the “homemade” snausages. Blecch. But it always seems like I get fooled on cookies. Someone brings a plate in at work or where ever and they look delicious….take a bite and OMG…a little puke comes up.
johnthebasket-I’m not a pet person but having read your post I feel like I understand you guys a little better. Thanks
@bikerchick: Yesterday was a ‘decent’ day (meaning I could get through it with talking and thinking about her without crying), but today I woke up and already have cried four times, am sitting at my desk staring at her picture wondering why and am feeling a pain so deep in my chest I can only hope it’s a heart attack.
This losing an animal shit sucks. How cruel that the one creature in the world who will love you so unconditionally is ripped from you when you least expect it. It’s just wrong.
Sorry, but this is all I’m going to get finished before leaving for work today: http://tinyurl.com/nonuvs I’ll shoot for a 3 am update, but that’ll depend on a thousand ball-busting factors.
See you guys soon.
johnthebasket — Thanks for posting that. Now I’m gonna have to work towards gettin’ to heaven someday. I was just as content to go to that other place down below to be with all my human friends but you’ve gone and ruined it for me. Dammit.
Here’s to seein’ Tootsie, Whiskey, Bauzie, Hasso, Pepper, Max, Lobo, Shayla, Boo Boo, Hannah, Gage, Scooter, Sammy, Sara, Toby, Sage, Sasha, and Lala again after I die. That’s a whole lotta canine and feline love, but I’m still hoping I have some time and that the list will be longer before my number’s up.
shitmydadsays – “You’re gonna run into jerk offs. But remember, it’s not the size of the asshole you worry about, it’s how much shit comes out of it.”
Baby Showers- especially at work, are a No-Go. Congratulations you procreated, im not chipping in for a “babies R Us” gift card…Buy your own damn stroller.
Food- I’m particular about it…i dont like the taste of anyone elses kitchen and lord knows what they put into that baked ziti. I also have friends that are “freegans” wich means they “dumpster dive” and that’ll get you questioning foreign food items real quick.
lies- someone asked me at work about this news story with the duct taped cat(http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/bizarre&id=7027337)…and i pretended it was horrible but really i laughed because while the story is sad the picture is hilarious
I just saw the craziest man alive. I’m sitting at a model home and this guy walks in the door soaking wet. He was jerking and twitching and saying off the wall shit. His eyes were fucked. I’ve never seen anything like it. He pulled a wad of cash out of his shirt pocket and asked to buy the house. I told him that he’d need more money and he started laughing hysterically.
Then he said, “Uh, listen, I need to grow a monkey tail man. Where’s the head?” That was his way of saying that he wanted to shit in my house. What was I gonna do? I pointed out the most remote bathroom and he went off for about 15 minutes. When he finished he walked right by me and didn’t say a word. I said something like, “Everything come out okay?” and he ignored me.
I watched him walk down the road in the pouring rain until he disappeared. I went to the bathroom he used to make sure he didn’t drizzle shit or piss anywhere and there was a pile of cash on the tank of the toilet. He wrote “thanks” on the toilet in wax pencil or eye liner or I don’t know what.
$173, mostly fives, is what he left. Crazy.
That’s one expensive crap! I think the most I ever paid to crap was a quarter in San Francisco, seems all the fast food places had doors with coin slots on them, apparently to keep out the homeless. Perhaps Knucklehead can confirm this?
Even more proof that I have to live in AL, Jason. Here in CA he woulda shit then charged me $173 for the use of my toilet!
Expensive crap indeed! You think I got in my car and tried to chase him down? I didn’t.
Melissa,
You’d fit right in. We’d probably have to work on your accent and teach you to delude yourself into thinking that crap such as greens and hamhocks are “good”, but I’m sure you’d make it.
Here’s a shitty cell phone picture of his note:
https://www.t-mobilepictures.com/myalbum/photos/photo25/d5/30/9a9b49b4a0ff__1253705470000.jpeg
It sort of feels like this in here today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQFEY9RIRJA
WB in OH – My sentiments exactly and I’m not saying another word about baby showers.
I just read all the posts from top to bottom and I think….there all lies !
Happy Birthday Gretchen – Mine is today, and I get steak. Really good steak.
A friend of ours has a 13 year old daughter who just got invited to a classmate’s baby shower. That’s right, a 13 year old in middle school is getting a baby shower, thrown by her mom, who wants credit for being “supportive.”
I don’t know if she knows who the father is, but according to our friend’s daughter, the girl was fully developed at 12 and wore low-cut tops and makeup to school everyday.
Thank God I have only boys.
With boys, you only have to worry about one penis – with girls, you have to worry about a million penises.
Happy Birthday Malcolm!
@Jason: Not only do I think greens are “Good”, but I grow them in my garden now! So ha!
Also, I sure hope that “Thanks” wasn’t written in fecal matter…..
Happy Birthday Malcolm. So I guess the million vaginas your boys could stick their one penis in doesn’t matter?
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to Maaaallllllcooollmm…..
Happy Birthday to you!
Ha cha cha cha!
Enjoy your steak! Millions of penises! Oh the huge manatee!
Malcolm – Happy birthday! Enjoy your steak!
Melissa – I though the same thing about the “thanks”.
Dunno Malcolm. I’m with Gretchen. There are many types of vaginas out there, including, but not limited to: the just-plain-stupid, those in denial about getting pregnant, those too shy to make him wear a condom when he thinks he’s gonna get away without one, the devious wanna-be-a-baby-mama, and the its-OK-just-this-once.
Child support is an 18-year lesson in birth control.
(Happy Birthday!)
FYI (For Yall’s Information):
The “thanks” on the toilet appeared to be brown crayon or something like that. Not poop. It was hell to get off.
Brown crayon, ‘eh?
I bet money on the fecal matter……
Brown crayon, feces, same same. You say tuh-mae-toe I say tuh-mah-toe.
Slow day around here. Did the rapture take place?
Poop would have cleaned up easier than crayon!
Farty – if the rapture took place, all the surf report readers would still be here 😉
NDfaninAZ – fine point. Perhaps there’s a huge concert or some submarine races that we’re unaware of.
For shits and giggles – If you’re ever in a bar and some guy walks in wearing a brown leather outfit and says, “Could I interest any of you ladys in a penis?” That’s me.
Shiney Rod…I thought we had a discussion about those VT colors? NO NO NO!!
Jeff….I know you’ve been in the bunker or at the library today, becuse you have some FB posts, so where’s our update? By he way I sent your website to everyone in our class group on FB. Maybe we can add your readers.
AWG….on FB? We have over 400 in our alumni group now. If you’re not you need to be, All kind of good gossip growing there, even a long distance romace in our class and yours!
Happy Birfday dear Maaaallllllcooollmm……..ah, shoobie doobie doo……..SEXUAL CHOCOLATE!
I’m outta here.
Jeezum crow, you don’t come by for the better part of the day and look what you miss!
Happy Birthday, Malcom!
WB – was that fast food joint on Market Street? I’ve never seen that, but it would make sense on Market Street (near 6th) where all the hookers/junkies/meth heads hang.
Man, I’m not gonna stay away that long ever again…
so sorry about melissa losing her pet! One of my cats hasn’t come home for two weeks and I am bugging about it. My pets mean the world to me! gretchen Happy Birthday! I have bad ones and good ones it sucks to have a bad one! Sometimes it seems like no one cares but people are just self centered and forget about other people when it would mean a lot they don’t come through I enjoy other people’s cooking and hope that they cook it under sanitary conditions never got sick from it. I don’t lie too much people can always tell if I’m lying
WVBumblebee – I’m smack dab in the middle of Nort Cacalacky. They ignore those colors because they think it’s Shaw University.
y’all are all just nuts.
Happy birthday to all concerned.
Now playing on the iPod – Daft Punk “Techonologic.”
Shiny…..Ok I’ll let you slide then. If you’re in the middle you must live close to WS, I lived in Kernersville for 16 years.
Jeff,
I bet you already sold the shirt. I get full-blown moronic whenever I try to buy from you, I forget my name, my SSN and my wvsr ID. Wife gave me a free link to get free music, similar to your link. Free shit hates me or something, because I cannot chase those links down even using the Evil E.
Let me know what you have with the bona fide scribbles. I am Old School, and will not change.
GS
Malcolm – Happy birthday! Hope the steak is everything you have hoped for.
Thanks surf reporters!
The steak was awesome (a grass fed NY strip that was actually bought believing it was a rib eye (wrong tray), but fantastic nonetheless).
And ladies (Gretchen & Brynhildr in particular) , what I was getting at is that if I teach my “penises” the correct behavior (wrap that rascal), at least I have done that and can sleep a bit better at night. If you are raising girls, you have to count on dads like me to have done their job, which doesn’t always happen. That’s why I think boys are a relief in the end (not now, in the beginning).
And definitely, the field of play has changed since we were the horny teenagers – the gals are just as aggressive if not more, and that means more and better edumacation sexuale is necessary.
Cheers, everyone, tomorrow I’m off to Mexico on business for a week – will try to check in and comment if possible.
M
Jason, I think that is the most impressively bizarre story I have ever heard. If you live to be 150 you will never be able to top that. What are you going to do with your prize money?
Perhaps the horny teenagers I know/knew were not representative of the way things are outside my little bubble. OK, show of hands please… How many of you, ladies and gents, were taught to always “wrap the rascal” and still, at least once or twice in your life, decided to tempt fate and play Russian Roulette with a member of the opposite sex?
*hand waving madly in the air*
Jeez, I’m cynical and jaded. I will accept that I may be the only fool, though. I came of age early in the AIDS epidemic and the use of condoms was pounded into our heads as a life or death situation, yet ….
(Thank goodness I don’t have children. I would just fuck them up beyond repair.)