Monthly Archives: January 2009

Sometimes I find myself wondering what my children will be like when they grow up. Will they end up being essentially the same as they are now, only taller, and with more hair? For the sake of everyone else in the world, especially those who may have to share an office or an apartment with them, I certainly hope not.

Take my daughter, Clementine, for example: if she grows up to treat other people the same way she treats her little brother, Clyde, then I pity her future office-mates.

Just imagine what reading her blog will be like. (In the future, keeping blogs will be mandatory.)

January 29, 2024: You know, sometimes, while on a business trip, when I’m in the middle of a really long and boring plane ride, I like to mix things up a bit by turning to the guy in the seat next to me and saying, in a completely conversational tone, “You suck.”

You’d be surprised at the reaction this gets. Sometimes he starts crying right away (how was I supposed to know that he already had “issues”?), sometimes he says something equally nasty back to me, and sometimes he tries to ignore me. The ignoring is the best, because then I can really put on my devil horns and get to work.

“Nobody here likes you, you know,” I’ll whisper in his ear. “They all feel the same way I do–that life got a tiny bit harder the day you were born. Which, by the way, your birth? It was all one great big giant mistake.”

When the flight attendants come back to see what the problem is, I of course deny everything.

January 30, 2024: Today I played the “lay-off game;” it’s a great way to liven things up at the office. Here’s how you play it: let’s say that you’re sitting in some boring meeting, where they’re discussing yet again how important it is to be on time, and how much it hurts the company’s bottom line when people steal office supplies, blahblahblah. (Neither of which applies to me; after all, I’m on time at least half the week, and as for the sharpies–what, like I’m supposed to go out and buy my own? I don’t think so.) Anyway, to play, all you have to do is write a note saying “You’re going to be the next one laid off,” and then hand it to the guy next to you.

Again, just like in the airplane, he’ll either react by crying, saying something nasty (both of which will get him in trouble), or by trying to ignore you, which just means that the game is on.

Sometimes I get asked why I do these things. Sometimes (a lot of the time, really), the person asking me seems genuinely interested–or at least genuinely vexed. They’ll run their fingers through their hair like they’re trying to pull it out (they should be careful with that–it’s getting a little thin on top already), and ask me in an exasperated tone, “Why? Why do you always have to start something? Why can’t you ever just sit there? To which I’ll give them the classic answer: I dunno.

February 20, 2024: Guess what? I was walking down the hall at work yesterday, following some guy from accounting and saying, “lame-o, lame-o, lame-o” under my breath–every time he turned to look at me I would stop and say, “What?”–you know, just a typical day, when suddenly this guy from personnel pulled me into his office and gave me a promotion. Can you believe it? I forget what my new job title is; it’s like “Vice President in Charge of Terminations”, or something.

Whatever. I have to get to the break room before anybody else; I’m going to lick all of their sandwiches and then tell them about it after they’re finished eating them.

“How come we never have any food in this freakin’ house?” says my daughter, Clementine, standing in front of our open fridge. (Warning: sounding like you’re living inside a badly “dubbed for TV” movie is one of the perils of sharing a house with a twelve year-old. Thankfully, she hasn’t started saying things like “Let’s go get those funsters” and “son of a biscuit”–yet.) Slamming the refrigerator door closed, she stomps away. Curious, I wander over to the maligned appliance and look inside; just as I suspected, it’s full of food–just like the cupboards behind me.

In fact, we have so much food (thanks to my habit of never making a list when I go to the grocery store, but rather blindly tossing the same items in week after week) that last Halloween, when six of us decided at the last minute to go to the haunted house at the adult center, the “three cans of food” admission price was not a problem, (although perhaps the fact that we all paid in refried beans and tomato soup was). In any event, the Halloween raid didn’t even make a dent in my hoard, which made it all the more curious that Clementine should choose our kitchen as her platform from which to lament the lack of victuals.

I’ve been in college–I know what an empty cupboard looks like. I know what it’s like to scrape together your last thirty cents (after you’ve bought that week’s beer, of course) to buy a package of generic macaroni and cheese, only to realize after you get it home that you’re going to have to mix it up with water, because your roommate ate the last of the margarine (true, it was their margarine–but still). I am also well aware that the judicious application of Tabasco sauce can render almost any meal edible, if not palatable.

Still, I suppose that I did learn all these thing while I was actually in college, and not before, which proves that poverty really is the best form of on-the-job training for life I know. And I suppose I should be grateful that it looks like my kids are going to have to wait until college to receive that training, as well. After all: I had friends who were unfortunate enough to know well before they reached college age that you don’t actually have to cook ramen to eat it–that simply running it under the warm tap water of a gas station restroom was enough.

I should be grateful that Clementine knows none of these things, and yet it’s still hard to take when the lack of easy food options (food that can be picked up and shaken out of the box directly into one’s mouth) equals no food in her opinion.

I could point all this out to her, but somehow, the phrase, “You know, there are kids with the munchies in college,” fails to deliver the same kind of emotional punch as the “There are children starving in China” of my youth. (Although, coincidentally, the response to both is the same: “Well why don’t you send it to them, then?”)

Instead, I stick with pointing out the fact that if someone chooses to voluntarily narrow their circle of “acceptable” food down to cheese crisps, noodles, and (Yoplait Custard Style Vanilla-flavored) yogurt, then it becomes very easy for them to be “out” of food.

Not that it ever really gets through: despite our over-flowing cupboards, for Clementine, every day will always be like the Irish Potato Famine, but with yogurt. (“Shiver me shillelagh, and what good is this strawberry-flavored yogurt going to do me, then? I’m starving, here, man!”)

That is, at least until she gets to college and finds out that even strawberry-flavored yogurt can be eaten, in a pinch. Providing, of course, there’s enough Tabasco sauce on it.

The other day my son, Clyde, walked out of his room, inserted a finger into an orifice (it doesn’t really matter which orifice, except to say that it was one of his own), examined the contents on said fingertip, and then wiped everything on the couch. All while I was standing right in front of him, which leads me to believe that this is such a regular occurrence that he never even considered trying to hide it from me.

After haranguing Clyde for a few minutes (and making him wipe down the couch), I preceded to walk past my daughter, Clementine–who was sitting in the dining room eating a bowl of cereal–and into the kitchen. There I found a milk and cereal puddle that stretched so far out along one counter (and even to unknown realms, such as underneath the toaster oven), that I am sure that had Captain Hazelwood been piloting a large bowl of cereal instead of the oil tanker Valdez, Prince William sound would have looked only slightly worse than the mess on my counter.

After I similarly harangued Clementine about that mess (“How do you know it was me?” she asked with a mouth full of Rice Crispies), I retreated into my room and put my head underneath a pillow, hoping to avoid any more evidence of what I had been suspecting for some time now: I live in The Filthiest House in the World.

Having lived with my fair share of college room-mates, I never thought I would be in serious contention for this title once again; after all, I had finally moved out of the house with the room-mate who considered his frequent brushes with lice infestations to be “just a part of doing business.” And the room-mate who considered the toilet and the clothes hamper to be interchangeable. Thinking back, I now realize that, as disgusting as those room-mates were, at least they had the decency to try and hide their atrocities from me–at least a little bit.

A room-mate, when he takes a swig from your jug of milk, changes his mind mid-swallow and then spits the whole mess back into the jug–will at least turn his back to you, so that there is some doubt. (“Did you just…” “Did I just what?” “Never mind.”). A child, on the other hand, will do it right in front of you, and when confronted will respond with a defensive: “What?”

Perhaps I’m just being naive, but I like there to be some mystery in my life–especially when it comes to things that are disgusting. You tell me studies have shown that my kitchen sponge has more germs on it than the inside of my toilet bowl? Keep it to yourself. You say the average candy bar contains approximately 3.8 bug parts? Lalalala, can’t hear you.

I’ve heard it said that you know the romance has gone out of a relationship the first time you realize your partner is unashamed to trim his nose hairs in front of you; I would take it even further, and argue that it is when you realize your partner is unashamed to do it in front of you over the kitchen sink, or something similar.

I guess that means the romance went out of my relationship with my children on day one, because there has certainly never been any part of their “toilette” that they have ever hesitated to share with me.

Here’s the thing: I know that the world is a disgusting place, filled with disgusting people (I live with two of them). I’d just rather not have it brought home to me so viscerally, nor so often.

I guess I’m just one of those people who would rather not know that you dropped my toothbrush in the toilet–or, worse yet, that you dropped in on the kitchen sponge.

The other day my son, Clyde, walked out of his room, inserted a finger into an orifice (it doesn’t really matter which orifice, except to say that it was one of his own), examined the contents on said fingertip, and then wiped everything on the couch. All while I was standing right in front of him, which leads me to believe that this is such a regular occurrence that he never even considered trying to hide it from me.

After haranguing Clyde for a few minutes (and making him wipe down the couch), I preceded to walk past my daughter, Clementine–who was sitting in the dining room eating a bowl of cereal–and into the kitchen. There I found a milk and cereal puddle that stretched so far out along one counter (and even to unknown realms, such as underneath the toaster oven), that I am sure that had Captain Hazelwood been piloting a large bowl of cereal instead of the oil tanker Valdez, Prince William sound would have looked only slightly worse than the mess on my counter.

After I similarly harangued Clementine about that mess (“How do you know it was me?” she asked with a mouth full of Rice Crispies), I retreated into my room and put my head underneath a pillow, hoping to avoid any more evidence of what I had been suspecting for some time now: I live in The Filthiest House in the World.

Having lived with my fair share of college room-mates, I never thought I would be in serious contention for this title once again; after all, I had finally moved out of the house with the room-mate who considered his frequent brushes with lice infestations to be “just a part of doing business.” And the room-mate who considered the toilet and the clothes hamper to be interchangeable. Thinking back, I now realize that, as disgusting as those room-mates were, at least they had the decency to try and hide their atrocities from me–at least a little bit.

A room-mate, when he takes a swig from your jug of milk, changes his mind mid-swallow and then spits the whole mess back into the jug–will at least turn his back to you, so that there is some doubt. (“Did you just…” “Did I just what?” “Never mind.”). A child, on the other hand, will do it right in front of you, and when confronted will respond with a defensive: “What?”

Perhaps I’m just being naive, but I like there to be some mystery in my life–especially when it comes to things that are disgusting. You tell me studies have shown that my kitchen sponge has more germs on it than the inside of my toilet bowl? Keep it to yourself. You say the average candy bar contains approximately 3.8 bug parts? Lalalala, can’t hear you.

I’ve heard it said that you know the romance has gone out of a relationship the first time you realize your partner is unashamed to trim his nose hairs in front of you; I would take it even further, and argue that it is when you realize your partner is unashamed to do it in front of you over the kitchen sink, or something similar.

I guess that means the romance went out of my relationship with my children on day one, because there has certainly never been any part of their “toilette” that they have ever hesitated to share with me.

Here’s the thing: I know that the world is a disgusting place, filled with disgusting people (I live with two of them). I’d just rather not have it brought home to me so viscerally, nor so often.

I guess I’m just one of those people who would rather not know that you dropped my toothbrush in the toilet–or, worse yet, that you dropped in on the kitchen sponge.

This is a column about my children. It’s supposed to be funny, although I’m not making any guarantees. (I suppose I could offer to refund you your money if you don’t find it amusing; however, if you actually paid for this free copy of Flag Live, then I am sure that you are much too busy running the Treasury Department right now to worry about trifling little things like refunds.) Anyway, I feel that it is necessary make the nature of this column clear because it seems that–for many of you out there–I am not so much a humor columnist as an ombudsman.

This is apparent from the number of times that I have been approached recently by people telling me, “You know what your next column should be about? Gas prices.” Or the lack of movie theaters in town. Or the fact that the corner market no longer sells their favorite brand of cigarette. If the person making the suggestion seems even slightly sane, I’ll usually point out to them that high gas prices are neither funny, nor do they involve my children. (Unless, of course, they have some kind of an inside scoop on how my kids are involved in a super secret oil cartel involving President Bush, the Saudi royal family, and Legos. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that my daughter, Clementine, is somehow involved in all that. Maybe it’s just a preteen thing, but lately she always looks like she’s up to something).

Of course, on the other hand, if they do not seem sane, I’ll just smile and say something like, “Sure, sure–thanks for the tip.” And then I’ll run.

Who knows–maybe it’s not so much that people see me as an ombudsman; maybe they just think that since I’m just sitting around typing all day anyway, I might as well do something useful, like bang out a letter to the editor for them–and sign my own name, of course. (They wouldn’t want to sign their own name–people would think they were nuts!).

I’ve often wondered whether other Flag Live columnists have this same problem: does Jim Hightower get people coming up to him on the street saying things like, “You know what your next column should be about? The fact that Kelly Poe Wilson’s son, Clyde, absolutely refuses to wear socks, even in the wintertime.”

Even if he doesn’t, I’ll bet he still gets plenty of other suggestions. As Balzac once said, “It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one;” and the assumption that it is the idea (and not the actual hair-pulling, head-clutching, fingernail-scraping, physical process of writing) that is the hardest part of the writing process seems to be fairly universal amongst non-writers.

Even my own father recently suggested to me that we should “collaborate” on a screenplay (“I’ll provide the ideas; you just do the writing”), a suggestion remarkably similar to saying that we should “collaborate” on dinner: “I’ll pick the dish, and you cook it.”

Of course, some writers–such as Dave Barry–seem to make audience participation a regular staple of their columns. (“Let’s look in the old mail bag and see what people have sent us this week.”) Then again, it seems like most of the suggestions and tidbits that Dave Barry gets sent actually are funny, which certainly doesn’t hurt. Of course, maybe that’s just because he’s done a better job than me at demonstrating that his column is supposed to be funny. In fact, I’m pretty sure that he’s never received the response that I once got when I tried to explain to someone that I couldn’t write a column about their missing cat because, tragically, it just wasn’t very funny, and my column is supposed to be funny.

“Oh, is it?” they replied. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Driving a car with two kids in the back seat always makes me think, “It’s Hammer Time.” Not because their incessant whining makes me want to stop at a bar and hammer some beers (although that is often the case), or because I would like to take a hammer to all their beeping, humming and buzzing electronic devices that compete for my attention (ditto), but because we can’t seem to drive more than forty feet down the road without M.C. Hammer’s classic 80’s anthem popping into my head. Although the version that I hear goes “Nunh-nunh-nunh-nunh, nunh, nunh–Don’t Touch Me.”

I used to think that it was because we had a small car, even though when we had a small car we also had correspondingly small children. Then we got a car wide enough to have a pull down armrest (or, as I like to think of it, “no man’s land”) in the back seat, and if anything the fighting got worse. (We also tried having them in two completely different rows once when we were on vacation and rented a minivan, with even less success.) I’m beginning to think that the only way the design of the car would make a difference in the “Don’t Touch Me” department would be if we had one that was designed by the Jetsons, with modular pods angled out from the body of the car like eye stalks on a bug.

Even then I have no doubt that they would eventually be able to figure out some way to hold their breath, zip through the void of space, pop up in the other child’s pod, touch them, and then scoot back to their own pod–all before I realized what happened. I know this because even in the confines of a regular automobile I have decided that you would need stop-motion photography to be able to determine who was touching whom.

This is because the “Don’t Touch Me” game is one of the most complicated games that humans have ever invented. Chess? Forget about it: nobody plans their moves farther out than a “Don’t Touch Me” player.

For example, look at the moves of a typical drive/game (in the tradition of chess and extreme sporting, all moves will be referred to by their IADTM–International Association of ‘Don’t Touch Me’–sanctioned names).

The Pawn’s Revenge. Player one places her elbow on armrest; player two responds by seeming to move away, while simultaneously inching his foot over towards player one; player one, thinking player two is neglecting to protect his territory, slides her elbow over even further so that it is now hanging off of player two’s side; at this point player two kicks player one with the back of his heel while at the same time angling his ribs into player one’s elbow. In the ensuing commotion player one is caught with an angry look on her face, while player two quickly affects the posture of someone who has been pierced through the side with a lance. Point: player two.

The Queen’s Denial. Player one starts the game by seemingly refusing to play; instead, she leans as far back as possible, up against the door, seemingly entranced by the new Twilight podcast on her ipod. Player two then does everything in his power to engage her: he leans on the armrest, lies across the armrest, rubs his buttocks on the armrest (this drawing a strong rebuke from the referee in the front seat). Eventually, player two gives up and turns away–at this point player one reaches across the divide, viciously pinches him, and then returns to her previous position. Player two is then rebuked again by the referee for causing a ruckus by screaming. Point: player one.

So far, the score is one all–except of course for the driver. Their score is zero–just like always.