So for Father's Day, the kids all got jobs so they could make some money to be able to buy me a gift. My daughter got a job as a mattress tester, which meant for about two hours a night she tested her mattress, and for the next 8 hours, she tested mine, and drooled all over my pillow, and shoved her doll's pointy feet into my vertebrae. My son got a job as a Carpet Tester, which meant that he ran around the house spilling things on the carpet to see how well it would absorb those things. The dogs even got internships as urine distributors, but we'll talk about that later...
Anyhow, they got me this nice gift called Ladder Golf, which goes by a whole host of other names which generally denegrates the Polish. It's this game with two golf balls attached together by a thin rope, and the object of the game is to fling the golf balls/string thing and get it to wind around one of the ladders. (Side note: If you're a severe idiot about putting things together like me, and I mean like one step above being-in-a-coma type of idiot, putting together the ladders can be so frustrating that you just want to throw the whole thing in the fire while running around screaming and raping strangers.) But eventually I got it OK. I'm grown.
So we get everything set up, and are ready to play. Me and my son, versus my wife and my daughter. Let me interject for a second here and say that as the game began I was still a little on edge and tense and also feeling very competitive since I had actually won the fight with the stupid ladder thing and not started screaming or raping anybody nearby in the process.
The kids are all excited. I'm excited too, yelling things like, "We're gonna whup your asses!!" and "Boys rule, girls drool," and other such taunts which were sure to inspire my 5 and 3 year olds to play their best and have fun all the while respecting the idea of good sportsmanship.
My daughter steps up to throw. She has never played this game before. This is the first ladder golf throw in her entire life. She throws.... and being 5 she greatly overestimates the "oomph" you need to put on golf balls and rope to get them to go 15 feet in the air. Greatly overstimates this. The ball/rope thing flies over the ladder. The ball/rope thing flies over the backyard fence. The ball/rope thing lands on the neighbor's roof. The ball/rope thing rolls down the neighbor's roof and sticks in the neighbor's gutter. I stare at the gutter. My daughter and wife stare at the gutter. My son stares at the gutter. There is silence. Finally my son says,
Son: The balls are stuck.
Everyone looks worried about this. I try to ease the tension.
Me: What the crap kind of a throw was that???
The game of ladder golf has taken on a completely different meaning. My wife gets the real ladder and begins to walk over to the neighbor's house to retrieve the balls. I sit in the grass and pout, and swear softly, and rip grass from in between my legs.
Finally after 20 minutes, we get the balls down (notice how I say we, like I had much to do with it.) My daughter is extremely gentle after that. Her next few throws go like this.
Really short
Really far left
Really really far left
10 minute stoppage in play because balls are all tangled up. I get mad because I have no patience for knots either, so instead of carefully untangling rope, I yank fiercely at the balls in all angles, and stomp around when they won't come undone out of fear.
Really short again
Backwards
My son, on the other hand, doesn't even pay any attention to the ladder, instead choosing to fling the balls as hard as he possibly can. His first few throws go like this.
40 feet left, rolls under the big pine tree
50 feet right, rolls right up by the back door
10 feet right and way too far, smashes high chair we have left outside for no good reason
Way too high and far, smashes into outside of porch
Way far left, smashes dog in lungs. Dog makes a "Buhhhhh" noise, then goes and hides under the trampoline and whines
So, sufficed to say, our first attempt at ladder golf did not go according to plans. We're probably playing again tonight. Watch out for your lungs, Burnsville.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Bikers, Locker Rooms, and Perverts
Every once in a while the stars align, the planets revolve in perfectly concentric circles, and the child predator's internet connections go bad all at the same time. When this happens, you can really see some entertaining things. It happened the other day when I was at the gym.
I was walking in, when I noticed that they had switched the locker rooms around. The Men's Locker room had become the Women's Locker room, and vice versa. I immediately had this thought.
"Hmm, it would be really hilarious to me if some idiot walked into the wrong locker room."
No sooner had I thought that when a big surly biker guy walked up and started shuffling into the women's locker room. Now, the two ladies folding towels nearby saw him too, but they only saw his back, and he had a big, long, braided ponytail hanging off his head. So, from the back, it was difficult to tell if he was a big, surly biker guy, or just a big, fat, stinky girl.
The two towel folders were looking at each other, in an obvious state of concern. I couldn't take it any more so I said:
Me: A dude just walked in there.
Towel Folder: Good LORD!!!
About one second later there was a bunch of screaming. It was like one of those old cartoons where a mouse walks into a circus tent full of elephants. I am jumping up and down in place and pointing at the locker room hole by now. What a great show!!
About two seconds after that the biker guy sprints out covering his eyes. He runs right into the large bin of towels that is on wheels. The towel bin falls over and makes a loud noise. The entire gym stops doing anything. The guy is almost crying, he's so upset.
Biker Guy: There are.... WOMEN in the men's locker room!
I start to cry, poop, and pee my pants simultaneously because I am laughing so hard. Then, a gym manager type guy quickly walks up to the biker guy. He looks angry.
Gym Guy (Incredulously): Why did you go in the women's locker room?
Biker Guy (Nearly Hysterical): The Men's room....there were women!!
Gym Guy: This is the Women's Locker room. You can't go in there ever again! OK?
The biker guy takes off. He just runs out the door and leaves. I am really happy to have seen all this.
Here's the kicker. As the smoke starts to clear, I find myself walking back next to the gym manager guy.
Me: Geez, poor guy. He must have been really embarrassed.
Gym Guy: Shit dude, that's the third time he's done that this week.
Let me reiterate. So happy I saw all this!
I was walking in, when I noticed that they had switched the locker rooms around. The Men's Locker room had become the Women's Locker room, and vice versa. I immediately had this thought.
"Hmm, it would be really hilarious to me if some idiot walked into the wrong locker room."
No sooner had I thought that when a big surly biker guy walked up and started shuffling into the women's locker room. Now, the two ladies folding towels nearby saw him too, but they only saw his back, and he had a big, long, braided ponytail hanging off his head. So, from the back, it was difficult to tell if he was a big, surly biker guy, or just a big, fat, stinky girl.
The two towel folders were looking at each other, in an obvious state of concern. I couldn't take it any more so I said:
Me: A dude just walked in there.
Towel Folder: Good LORD!!!
About one second later there was a bunch of screaming. It was like one of those old cartoons where a mouse walks into a circus tent full of elephants. I am jumping up and down in place and pointing at the locker room hole by now. What a great show!!
About two seconds after that the biker guy sprints out covering his eyes. He runs right into the large bin of towels that is on wheels. The towel bin falls over and makes a loud noise. The entire gym stops doing anything. The guy is almost crying, he's so upset.
Biker Guy: There are.... WOMEN in the men's locker room!
I start to cry, poop, and pee my pants simultaneously because I am laughing so hard. Then, a gym manager type guy quickly walks up to the biker guy. He looks angry.
Gym Guy (Incredulously): Why did you go in the women's locker room?
Biker Guy (Nearly Hysterical): The Men's room....there were women!!
Gym Guy: This is the Women's Locker room. You can't go in there ever again! OK?
The biker guy takes off. He just runs out the door and leaves. I am really happy to have seen all this.
Here's the kicker. As the smoke starts to clear, I find myself walking back next to the gym manager guy.
Me: Geez, poor guy. He must have been really embarrassed.
Gym Guy: Shit dude, that's the third time he's done that this week.
Let me reiterate. So happy I saw all this!
Thursday, June 4, 2009
News you never Hear
Doesn't it get tiring to hear about some guy that gets fed up and goes on a shooting rampage? It's just tedious. You know why? It's because it's always one of two people.
1.) Some guy who just got fired or dumped by his girlfriend runs into his or her work and kills everybody.
2.) Delusional nerds who never talk to anybody except online where they spew violent rhetoric with a screen name like "ZombieSpockBallhairs13" and then one day they run into their school and kill everybody.
Always the same. You know what I want to see? The star player on the basketball team walking around shooting dorks just because he gets peeved at how unbelievably unobservant they are. Didn't you ever want to do that.
Maybe not shoot them, but, didn't you ever see some kid that was always getting picked on, and want to just go over to him and give him a good hard shaking, and say, "Why are you such a freaking dork? You walk around in the same halls I do, you see the kind of stuff that's going to get you picked on, why do you insist on still doing it?? Look at your dandruff! Your shoulders are completely white. Get a better shampoo!! Your breath smells like inside buns left out in the sun. Brush your teeth!! Not that hard."
How about a Janitor that pops out of broom closets and rapes the lunch ladies. That would be interesting huh? How about a guy with multiple personalities raping himself. Now that would be newsworthy. There's all sorts of things like that that you never hear about that would make really great news
-A tornado that touches down in a valley and can't get out so it bounces around in the valley like a pinball forever.
-A talking sheep
-A man who is addicted to slamming his penis in a door
-Joe Mauer gets busted smoking crack at the bus station
-Catholicism and Satanism are basically the same thing.
-Every single person in Rhode Island has at least one testicle.
-A man gets arrested for pooping off the Empire State Building Observation Deck
-Listening to classical music in utero makes your baby 10 times more likely to hate you as a teenager.
- 95% of wizard sightings are actually just women in Burqas.
-People's buttholes start spontaneously and mysteriously growing over.
That would all make great news. Someone needs to make sure all of these things happen. Not me though.
1.) Some guy who just got fired or dumped by his girlfriend runs into his or her work and kills everybody.
2.) Delusional nerds who never talk to anybody except online where they spew violent rhetoric with a screen name like "ZombieSpockBallhairs13" and then one day they run into their school and kill everybody.
Always the same. You know what I want to see? The star player on the basketball team walking around shooting dorks just because he gets peeved at how unbelievably unobservant they are. Didn't you ever want to do that.
Maybe not shoot them, but, didn't you ever see some kid that was always getting picked on, and want to just go over to him and give him a good hard shaking, and say, "Why are you such a freaking dork? You walk around in the same halls I do, you see the kind of stuff that's going to get you picked on, why do you insist on still doing it?? Look at your dandruff! Your shoulders are completely white. Get a better shampoo!! Your breath smells like inside buns left out in the sun. Brush your teeth!! Not that hard."
How about a Janitor that pops out of broom closets and rapes the lunch ladies. That would be interesting huh? How about a guy with multiple personalities raping himself. Now that would be newsworthy. There's all sorts of things like that that you never hear about that would make really great news
-A tornado that touches down in a valley and can't get out so it bounces around in the valley like a pinball forever.
-A talking sheep
-A man who is addicted to slamming his penis in a door
-Joe Mauer gets busted smoking crack at the bus station
-Catholicism and Satanism are basically the same thing.
-Every single person in Rhode Island has at least one testicle.
-A man gets arrested for pooping off the Empire State Building Observation Deck
-Listening to classical music in utero makes your baby 10 times more likely to hate you as a teenager.
- 95% of wizard sightings are actually just women in Burqas.
-People's buttholes start spontaneously and mysteriously growing over.
That would all make great news. Someone needs to make sure all of these things happen. Not me though.
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