IT'S 4AM, WHO DO YOU WANT TO ANSWER THE PHONE?

We get a phone call at 4:45AM from our office manager’s husband who is looking for her.  

According to my wife, waking up from the phone isn’t nearly as bad as laying awake for the rest of the morning wondering where she might be at a quarter to five in the morning.

Turns out, she was driving to Georgetown to deliver a wallet to her brother-in-law who needed it before he went to work, and had left the house about 4AM.

The 4:45AM call to us, was her husband thinking she had the work phone and wondering where she was.

My wife calls me at the office at 9AM. 

“Why did “Duke” call at 4:45?  Where was Trisa so early?”

I hesitate for a moment, “Well I can tell you and it will take about 10 minutes, or she can tell you and it will take 45 Minutes, which do you prefer?

“Just tell me,” she says.

Have I mentioned that I haven’t started sipping my coffee yet?

“OK, Duke’s brother left his wallet, and Trisa took it to him.”

My wife goes ballistic.   “WHY DID SHE GO?!!! IT’S NOT HER BROTHER!  AND WHY IS HE MAD?”

“Good question….”  I look across the office at Trisa and I’m about to ask, but then I hesitate and ask my wife,  “WAIT…..Why are you yelling at ME?”

“’UGH!   CAUSE YOU’RE.....CAUSE YOU’RE, UGH! SO STUPID,” she says, as if that answer is perfectly obvious.  “I HAVE TO GO,” she says and hangs up.

This is a perfect picture of marriage.  

If you’re somebody’s husband:  1. You’re never innocent   2. In most cases, you can easily be replaced by the family dog.

My brain, although sleep deprived and empty of caffeine, is still fully aware that I played absolutely no part in this drama.  Nevertheless, I quickly rewind the tape in my mind:

4:45AM – Telephone rings

I awake abruptly, scanning the room for intruders, looking for a heavy object, smelling for smoke and trying to adjust from deep sleep to wide awake.

 One of my cats is staring at me, probably thinking, “You’re lucky I’m down here at your feet.  If I was still up on that pillow, and you’d jumped like that, you’d be bleeding across your face right now.”

Wife has unintelligible conversation on the phone.  Walks into bathroom.  I fall back asleep.

4:50AM – Wife begins talking as if I am awake.  She announces, “Great, now I won’t sleep, wondering where in the world Trisa is at 4:45AM.”

I think, Great, now I won’t sleep wondering if she’s going to fall asleep or keep talking to me.

6AM – Wife’s alarm rings.   


She has told me that her exercise program is called INSANITY because it’s difficult.  I imagine it’s called “INSANITY” because it is my opinion that anyone who gets up at 6AM for an aerobic workout has mental issues that trump physical health needs.  I keep this thought to myself.  

Now the cat takes its place on her pillow, next to me.  My wife mumbles something as she’s getting dressed. I don’t catch a word of it, but I can swear the cat rolls its eyes incredulously.

9AM – Wife calls me at office. We have the conversation above ending with the declaration….“CAUSE YOU’RE SO STUPID.”

THE TAPE IN MY BRAIN STOPS

I’m drawing a blank.  

If you’re married more than 5 years however, this is actually comforting.     Better oblivious to your part in her anger, than actually knowing what you did wrong.   That’ll buy you a few more hours of ignorant bliss.

10AM – Wife texts from an industry networking meeting that history has taught me is often a complete waste of time filled with stupid ice-breaking games and embarrassing exercises aimed at sharing “feelings.”  It is usually populated by 50 females, 1 or 2 males (questionably), and led by a kook or two with assorted graduate level letters after their names.

WIFE VIA TEXT:  “Right now I’m folding paper into a flower… 

10:05AM  WIFE VIA TEXT:  "Now we’re listening to songs and guessing what they are…”

After the second message, I text back: “It’s a good thing YOU went.  I’d be too stupid to participate.”

She texts back.  “You’re finally catching on?”

I smile. Apparently after 16 years with me, my wife is developing an inkling of a sense of humor.  

Then again, she may be 100% serious.

IN SUMMARY:

Went to sleep.  Awoke by phone at 4:45AM. 

Took kids to school, went to work.

Answered call from wife.

I’ve got it now!  How stupid of me!

BULLSHIT FROM PORT ST LUCIE

If you're not my mother, Carl's early stage Alzheimers can be pretty funny. 


 Mom spends a good deal of time mailing back products and canceling services. She has returned from a UPS drop off location where she was shipping back an expensive BOSE radio, only to find a UPS truck in her driveway delivering another one. 


 She has called to cancel an order for slippers, only to find Carl standing in the doorway wearing another pair, and she now has a strong telephone friend relationship with the operators at QVC, who inform her confidentially, that 25% of their business is from Alzheimer's patients ordering stuff that will eventually be returned by family. She is convinced many segments are targeted to the dementia consumer. Think Teletubbies. 


 What's fascinating about Carl's illness is its specificity.


 While he is totally functional and exhibits few other signs of memory loss, he has nearly completely blocked out everything to do with their financial difficulties. They lost all of their retirement funds in the Bernie Madoff scandal, and while mom understands the severity of their situation, Carl carries on as if it didn't happen. 


 He'll stay up late pledging money he doesn't have to obscure causes, or order from catalogs as if they'd just won the lottery. When pressed about these things, he gets a bit confused, and sometimes but not often, belligerent. 


 When mom needed to get online to check a Visa statement to see how many pairs of the same men's cotton brief's he ordered, or see if he'd perhaps recently contributed to a fund for underprivileged chimpanzees in the Congo, she asked for his online password. 


 "Carl, what's the password to the Visa account?"


 "Why?" 


 "Carl! What's the password?!"


 "Why do you want the password? Stop canceling my orders." 


 "Carl, I'm not starting this with you. I need to check the balance. What is it?"


 "It's bullshit, Alyse. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!"


 "Carl. Trust me please. We don't have the money. Please don't make it difficult. I feel horrible already."


 "Alyse, I'm telling you it's bullshit!" 


 "Carl, we've been through this before. I will show you the bank statements. There's no more money. Just give me the password to the Visa account." 


 BullShit! BullShit! Bullshit! I'm telling you, it's bullshit, and I'm taking the dog out." 


 "Fine Carl, enjoy your walk." 


 She walks into his office, and looks through his Visa statement files, with mounting frustration, until she comes across the initial statement from the time the account was opened. 


 On top in handwritten letters carl has written: 


 Username: AOKCBK
 Password: BULLSHIT 


 Alzheimers or not, marriage is tough. 


 Sometimes it is bullshit.

IDIOT INSURANCE

It's not easy being married to a therapist.


ME: (Via text) "Hon, I'm at Home Depot. I was going to pick up some flowers, maybe an "angel-themed" birdbath, but let's do that together this weekend"


WIFE: (Via text) "ARE YOU A COMPLETE IDIOT?"


Note: No - you didn't miss anything between these two lines.


There's a life lesson here for men. Even if your intention is totally selfless, and you think you've figured out something that may actually make your spouse or significant other happy, forget it; you are a complete idiot.


Luckily I have a wife who can articulate why I'm an idiot. You may need to pay a professional.


Along with a license to listen to people for $100 an hour, (more often 45 minutes, not counting the 30 minutes in the waiting room listening to recorded sounds of birds tweeting and toilets flushing, set up for the previous patient's (victim's) privacy), a therapist has a DSM book of diagnosis.


This is a paperback book, the size of a small chevy truck, that provides a numerical code for every known, real and imagined mental disorder, for the expressed purpose of insurance reimbursement. (NO I did not just make that up).


It's other purpose, if you happen to be married to a therapist, is to allow your wife to take any recent statement that you've made, and provide for you, not an answer to the question, but the formal diagnosis as to why you asked.


Initially, my diagnosis was "Complete Idiot." A disorder that falls somewhere between Attention Deficit Disorder and Zunich-Kaye syndrome, which is a polite term for Mental Retardation, and useful here because it begins with a "Z."


If you're lost as to why the quick diagnosis as Complete Idiot, from the single request to share some time at Home Depot, it's because you didn't spend twelve years earning a Masters in Counseling, and you probably don't own a DSM book.


Actually it's a DSM III or maybe by now a DSM IV book. Each time they come up with new excuses why people act like morons, they have to give it a name for insurance reimbursement, so the books get larger. They were going to put it on a Kindle, but despite the fact that we can now get the entire library of congress onto a micro-chip the size of a neutrino, the DSM books don't fit.


Stupidly, I chose to respond to the text with some truly heartfelt reasoning as to why making the front of our office building look nice makes me feel like I've accomplished something. Our daily routine often feels like we're on a hamster wheel, running fast, but getting nowhere. If I can personalize my office space, I have some tiny physical evidence of something changing for the better, and I enjoy a small creative outlet.


ME: Something to the effect of what I just explained above.


WIFE: "OMG! You can rationalize anything to yourself. We don't have the money to pay bonuses to our employees, or to pay back our start-up loans, but let's get a bird bath."


OK. In the interest of fairness in humor, she scores big there.


Plus, I suppose I should have read the financial concern into her question, "Are you a complete idiot?" What, did you miss that too?


A few minutes go by, while I'm walking the aisles at Home Depot considering how stupid I was to even think of texting my wife in the first place, and I get another phone buzz. I'm afraid to look; how many times can I have my balls snipped in one hour? Especially since I willingly exposed them to the chopping block?


WIFE: HONEY! I'm not mad. I just realized why you're doing this. I'll tell you later."


This of course means that she has pulled out her DSM IV, or perhaps by now DSM X book, and cross-referenced God knows what, to determine the reason I would like to plant flowers outside my office, and yes, perhaps place a small fountain or bird-bath. She is convinced apparently that this is some sort of disorder. If she can just find the code; 1. I am absolved of all guilt, 2. This may be reimbursable by medical insurance.


I too have been married 16 years, so I know what my wife is thinking, and it doesn't take a 1200 page book of gibberish to get it.


ME: "I'm in the manic phase of a bi-polar episode."


WIFE: "Yes! And I want you to enjoy it. Just don't spend any money."


Now, did you catch what happened here?


She was angry, until she found an excuse for my behavior. Then she felt bad for me, because there's a re-imburseable excuse for me.


Unfortunately we're not covered. My idiocy and bi-polar diagnosis are both pre-existing conditions.


I think they both contributed to why I got married.

SEX. WHO PAYS?

Am I the only one that suspects the Georgetown chick is probably a lesbian? Definitely could be playing collegiate field hockey.

Last I heard, they can't get each other pregnant?

Isn't that true, or has there been some sort of breakthrough?



Now - Let's do the math:

She says: Sex is costing $3,000 annually?!

Birth Control pills: $15 per month

This means a woman would have to be swallowing nearly 17X the amount of pills prescribed.

No wonder she looks like a man.

OR

A condom is $1 (Actually, probably less, but lets assume she's only letting luxury penises in).

If sex is costing her $3,000 per year, she's having sex 8.219191780 times every day, all year!

What does that make her? (Exactly the question Rush asked).

Either a 'slut' or a 'prostitute."

Let's hope prostitute because we should hope she's getting paid to do it 8 times a day.

Oh wait, that's pretty much what she wants us to do; pay for her sex.

No thanks.

Humor Blog Directory

WHAT'S YOUR MAJOR?"

I had lunch with a friend who told me his daughter just graduated from college as a dance major. My sympathy was left hanging thick in the air, left unspoken because If you’re the father of a girl, "Advanced Pole" obviously crosses your mind.

Reality check: Dance is not a freaking academic subject. It's voluntarily (usually) - contorting your body, often to music - or perhaps to a chant, as in the case of ritual sacrifice, devil worship or perhaps to make it rain.

If you can get the thought of sloppy drunk men stuffing dollar bills into your little princess’ panties out of your mind, you’ll wonder how else she’ll support herself if she fails Pole 101.

Obviously, there’s only one option, which is teaching dance. Otherwise known as siphoning disposable income from suburban single moms who didn’t pass their pole auditions either. So begins the viscous cycle.

At the university level, what do you do in a classroom all day when you major in Dance? What can you possibly do sitting at a desk?

I can think of very few people with successful dance careers. Let’s see….Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Gregory Hines. Maybe Mary Poppins. And then I think there’s a Geoffrey Ballet, but how the
Toys -R-Us Giraffe mascot relates to a ballet club (or troupe - with a silent “e” just to be more annoying) eludes me.

By the way if you want to name your kid Jeffrey, but opt for the spelling Geoffrey, you deserve a lifetime of painful kidney stones to make up for the total disregard for a life of ridicule you’re imposing on your son. Of course you may be one of the lucky ones who one day will get to see him perform Swan Lake in adult feety pajamas, and savor a singular tear of joy when some dude named Boris, Americanized to Bruce, hands him a dozen roses just off curtain.

So what are some electives when you major in a subject that’s really just a thing to do with your body? What’s the curriculum?

Nose Picking?

COURSE OUTLINE:
“By the end of the year students should be able to stick any finger up to the knuckle, pull out, roll and flick perfectly formed boogers in one fluid motion.” Life credit is given to all male class members with a valid drivers license, for their experience with this skill at every red light in history.

Students successfully completing this class are eligible for Hock a Loogey 101.

When my son switched from private Christian school where he was actually forced to think, to public school where thinking is severely discouraged, the idea of majoring in Dance with a minor in thumb sucking became perfectly clear.

I went to pick him up at school early yesterday and was told that he was watching lip synch practice.

This, just one day after I called the school to ask why he’s watcing Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in science class and received a brief unintelligible note from his science teacher.

Excuse me? I said “Did you say Lip Synch?

Yes.

I picked up a stapler and smacked myself in the face with open end just to see if perhaps this was a weird dream, and I’d better get up before I was late for reality.

Six thousand years of history has seen many civilizations rise and fall. I think it’s safe to say we’re doomed.

Climate School - Change without the Hope

Follow me here, this is idiot proof.

Clear your mind. That means:

Forget what you've heard, forget what you've read.
Forget the inconsistencies and the false data
Forget the true data
Forget the 1970's when it was about cooling and an ice age
Forget global warming causes both greater warmth AND extra cold and snow?
Forget the politics of cap and trade
Forget the email scandals
Forget glacial melting and sea level measurements.

Now with a blank slate, pretend you took the short bus, wearing your hockey helmet to school today and follow along - It's simple!

Ever since God said "Let there be Light," or ever since the "Big Bang" if you've made "science" your religion - and we all see how well that's working out...But ever since whatever you perceive to be the beginning - The Earth rotates and revolves around the Sun.

WAIT! - Let's do this as bullet points for fear of losing some remedial readers -

The Earth spins on its axis.
While spinning, the Earth revolves around the Sun.
The Sun revolves within a Galaxy
And the galaxy moves too, and so on throughout the Universe.

With me?

OF COURSE THERE'S FREAKING CLIMATE CHANGE!!!!

THE EARTH SPINS
THE EARTH ROTATES
THE SUN ROTATES
THE SUN CHANGES, THE EARTH CHANGES
THE ONLY THING THAT'S CONSTANT IN THE UNIVERSE IS CHANGE!!!

We didn't cause it, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.

Get it?

IF THERE WERE NO CLIMATE CHANGE, WE'D HAVE TO THROW OUT EVERY LAW OF PHYSICS!

Now, if you've let that sink in - Allow your own imagination to guess why both bad people and well intentioned people want to ignore this in order to create policy that benefits their own agenda.

You see, there's actual truth (see bullets above) -
Then there is so called "science" - which can create or manipulate facts to any end.

Once you've grasped that you've probably been duped into whatever side of this argument you believe - because it didn't consider the larger picture - Think where else this has happened in society and in your mind, and why.

Next lesson, Evolution -

For all the same faulty reasoning, you somehow believe that you started from nothing. Life began as a single celled organism, that started from some chemicals, that came from no-where. You have also been taught to believe that your entire code in a single strand of DNA was not programmed and created, but happened by accident - AND you're willing to believe your distant family members were apes!

AMAZING!

Both of these topics, where we've pushed aside the obvious and replaced answers with man-made silliness, leave out one thing - or rather one person. GOD.

Believe in God and the scales fall from your eyes, and you see the Universe He created just as He created it, and just as He said so.

1 Corinthians 1:20 -

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

Go Take a Flying.....

35,000 feet in the air and I'm still shaking my head over the sheer idiocy of it. Atlanta airport sees thousands of young soldiers headed out or returning from duty. I feel an emotional sense of gratitude toward each of these mostly young men, and I look for an opening to simply say thanks. If I am at a food kiosk, I.ll pay for a coke or cup of coffee for these brave heroes.

They are dressed in fatigues, and carrying heavy backpacks. I note that today's fatigues are designed for desert camouflage, in lighter muted colors than the dark greens of yesteryear, because the battle has shifted from the tropical rain-forests to the mountainous deserts in much more forbidding places on the planet.

These kids, headed off to protect my family and yours have committed their very lives to military service, and there.s a real possibility that some will not return home. Yet, the TSA in its infinite wisdom, has these men standing in the same long lines as the rest of us waiting to strip down for security.

I marvel at the fact that of the six working screening lines, they haven't set aside at least one exclusively for these heros. Instead, they wait like the rest of us idiots to remove their combat boots, open their laptops and place all of their items in plastic trays.

As a TSA worker wheels a giant cart of trays over, I briefly think about the windfall profit to the company that makes these battleship grey trays, and imagine the day the owner who previously shipped 100 a day to local diners across the country, received the government contract for 10 million needed immediately.

After this bizarre thought, I catch the eye of the soldier in line ahead of me and I say, "This is unbelievable! You guys should have your own line, to walk right through. And Thank you. Thanks fior your service."

He thanks me back, and I stop myself from saying what I'm thinking. "I hope this pisses you off a little and you take that with you to the battlefield." I.m angry now, as I watch a line of seven soliders disrobing and undergoing the indignity. Its an unfunny joke.

"Personally," I say getting his attention again. Id like to see all of you walk through fully armed."

He laughs.

Two muslim woman with their headresses are walking through the metal detector, and are alolowed to pass quickly. Nobody has checked to see if they have hidden anything in their scarfs, which could certainly hold more explosives that that shmuck in his underwear,

If these guys have to unlace their heavy boots, these woman should have to remove their scarfs. Apparent;ly some bitch will have to bring down a plane before homeland security gets as smart as me,.

Theres an old jewish man being hand screened. He has his arms in the air and they are waving a wand all over him, while his wheelchair bound wife waits. She;ll be next. I have yet to hear of an old Jewish couple terrorist team. They are both much more thoroughly screened than the two Muslim woman who choose to follow a religion that commands them to kill the infidel wherever and however they can.

As far as I am concerned, their clothing choice denotes their support. PLEASE! Leave Mr. Rosenberg alone and double check the Burkas please.



Christian is excited to have me back, and he's my new best friend as I walk him to the potty at The Office, a restaurant in Ridgewood, NJ. He's proudly wearing my security badge around his neck. It is dangling down to his pecker, so that when he pulls his pants down, he pees right into it, and it splashes back all over himself.

He finds this funny.

This is before he knocked a newly poured 16 ounce glass of ice water onto my lap, and before Karina, so over come with laughter, spits her huge mouthful of chocolate milk into my face.

It's good to be back from Atlanta, This is exactly what those brave kids are fighting for. Give them their own line!

Good Bye Decade, So Long USA

Greetings! Fellow infidels.

If you're not reading this column through the eyeholes in your burkas, or with explosives strapped under your balls, welcome! Consider yourself blessed.

On the last day of the decade, I would be remiss not to write.
I should explain the long absence between post, but I won't - I'll simply plead Kidney Stones.
I should pledge to post more in 2010, but instead, I pledge to look for a reason to.

Oh the righteous indignation is still there, and through anger mixed with humor, I love to make these two emotions dance through language. However, our country is being destroyed daily by people who've traded truth for lies:

Romans 1:25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself and the few chuckles I can generate here are drowned out by the cacophony of chaos presenting itself daily.

I wrote to Matt Drudge yesterday, confessing that I check his page every morning, and if it looks like we'll make it through another day, I get up and get dressed, but in the last few days of the first decade of the 21st century, all of us getting through the day no longer seems a certainty. I suggested that for the last day of the year, perhaps he lighten up. And perhaps I should take my own advice. So fine:

I'm told I write too often about Shit. "He seems to have issues with shit?" One irrelevant past acquaintance stated through a friend.

Yes. Yes I do. You see, not only do I create the stuff myself two, three, sometimes four times a day, but with three kids and a bunch of animals, its an ever-present topic. I mean, I am not anal retentive as they say. I do not keep orderly, nor do I do anything with my anus that it wasn't meant to do. Which would be a good time to (i hate to use the word "insert" here) but a good time to insert that your anus was meant to do one thing. Ask the lowly earthworm. Even he (she?) has gathered that the anus is an exit, not an entrance.

Seems shit is as good a topic to end the decade as any other - I mean its probably the most prevalent topic today. The world is turning to shit, the country is going to shit, and the shit that comes out of Barak Obama's mouth is most definitely a load of crap. Add to that the rantings of Harry Reid, the bitchiness of Barbara Boxer, the ravings of Nancy Pelosi, the hoax that is Al Gore, the idiocy that's Shmuck Shumer and the ineptitude that is Joe Biden, and you have to admit - There's a whole lot of shit being spewed in the air. If there ever were such a thing as man-made climate change, I'm sure I just presented its truest explanation.

Since we're on the subject, it might be helpful to define what an "Asshole" is here. An Asshole is a congressman who stands on the floor defending mandatory health insurance by comparing it to auto insurance. (I hope you didn't think I was going to define it anatomically?) Now to further define, I prefer to illustrate:

The congressman gives this speech because:

A. He thought of the analogy in the shower, and believes it to be true
B. He thinks you are stupid and will not think any further for yourself
C. He's counting on enough of you being stupid to buy his analogy, but couldn't care less if you don't because he's been promised over 200 million dollars.
D. He believes you are sheep.

B, C, and D -

For those who may need remedial thinking - Comparing Federal Mandatory Health insurance to State Mandatory Auto Insurance is so stupid that of course this aforementioned Asshole knows this. Auto insurance is one requirement of a state licensed activity that you can choose not to do. To follow their analogy every citizen would have to buy Auto insurance. Whether you're 18 months old, or blind, in other words even if you don;t drive. This congressman is well aware that the government has no place whatsoever, no authority whatsoever, telling you how to spend your money - but he doesn't care. Like the anatomical asshole, he has to spew forth shit. It's what he does.

By the way, most recently it was a congresswoman making this argument and she got it straight from her boss, who said it first:

http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2009/09/afterthought-obamas-auto-insur.html

Therefore Anus = Exit
Asshole = Lying congressman or President

Therefore, through the Commutative Property of addition, Obama and likely your democratic congressmen and women are "Anuses."

Here's a list of where Anuses who are trying to sell you a big pile of shit:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/21/price-right-payoffs-senators-typical-health-care/


Anyway, I'm at the office, and I've reached that tipping point. The one where you choose to go to a public bathroom hoping you get a few minutes alone time, over sitting at your desk being uncomfortable. My walk to the facilities takes me the same direction each time, where I have the same two thoughts - 1. Are the other half dozen men on the floor seated at their desks, and therefore not where I'm going, and 2. This bit of discomfort is going to make the next few hours much more bearable.

Today, these thoughts are joined by a third; more of a profundity. Shit is one of those rare entities, where a little is just as bad as a lot. "Jim, you have a little shit on your shoe," is to me just as bad, as "Jim -you just stepped in a pile of shit." Or maybe not. But in any case, my musings have brought me to the door, where I open carefully and quietly because if someone is inside, I will close the door, and come back later or take the stairs down to the lower level bathroom and repeat.

If the coast is clear, I have to act swiftly. I go to the far stall (away from the urinal) and put down two pieces of paper pulled from the paper towel dispenser and I leave the rest to your imagination. Today however, was one of those unfortunate days where I noted there was quite a good amount (bad amount?) of shit and shit stains on the rear of the bowl, and surrounding the seat and there is where our good old-fashioned pondering and possible life lessons begin:

There is somebody assigned here to clean the toilets. Now, obviously we don't have a bathroom attendant who cleans after every person, and this isn't a complaint. I am pointing out here that somebody has drawn the short stick in life, where whatever he did throughout his life has brought him to the point where it's now his job to clean other people's shit. Talk about being humble. The Hindu (or Hindi?) would say he did something in an earlier life to warrant this. While I don't believe this, I can still think Rahm Emanuel.

Now Amazingly, if you've figured out how to turn cleaning up dog shit into a $750 weekly tax free cash income, this doesn't apply. It occurs to me that the person with the shit wiping job most likely did not imagine himself doing this, nor did he likely do anything specific to find himself in this position. It was most likely not a punishment, and in fact unless he's come from another janitorial career, it's unlikely his resume mentions it.

COVER LETTER: Gentleman, I am presently employed as the executive washroom attendant for a medium size company. Most of the employees are obese men with bad hygiene so I have developed unique ways of keeping bowls shit free. I personally instituted odd and even stall numbers and use hidden web cams to locate errant shit before it offends. I am sure I would be an asset to your company.

But here he is today, and his job is to clean the rim. So this had me thinking about the owners and other management executives. Surely whomever crapped so hard that it splashed up the side of the bowl onto the rim, noticed what they'd done?

IN fact, I have on several occasions witnessed an odd, albeit disgusting site - one or more large logs, lazily floating in a bowl of water with nary a piece of toilet tissue in sight. Now, laws of physics aside, can you imagine the arrogance? I mean the utter gall to just stand up and say, "THAT'S IT, I'm DONE," and then just stand up and walk out?

"Screw it, somebody else will flush. And this time, ya know what? I really don't feel like wiping my ass either, deal with it."

OK, so that's probably not how its happening, but how then? I just haven't been able to wrap my brain around this problem. Has anyone else - I mean, not at my company - come across this? Two floaters, no paper? It's like a mind puzzle. Please, anyone - Kindly break the code.

New theory - Not likely either, but at least it doesn't upset natural laws:

The guy or guys, (I'm assuming, as crazy as some woman at my office are, this isn't a female sneaking into the mens room), are bringing their own doodies from home, and depositing them into the bowls at work.

Why?

I have no idea. Now, a web cam might tell us whom (if it's one person), who (if there are multiple offenders), but it will not tell us why.

In fact, I've always thought the term to "take a shit" is rather odd. You don't take one, you leave a few. Hmmmm - Perhaps?

Well, Anyway - somebody in the case of the present story - which involved not floaters, simply bad stains, Somebody had to think, "Somebody else will take care of that." And something inside of me, had the fleeting thought of wiping this anonymous crap to save the next poor dude the indignity. I suppose that's how we're all interconnected. I didn't of course. Proving that our selfish drive is greater than any spiritual connection we may have.

Back to our bathroom attendant/sweeper/duster/garbage emptier dude - and why he should be highly honored. In today's Obama-Nation, this man could choose to stay home and support his family collecting section eight housing allowance, food stamps, and either at least a year and half unemployment, or disability in perpetuity like tens of millions of others who have figured out that they don't actually need to work. He can find an $800 per month subsidized housing apartment, and collect nearly $2,000 in handouts, plus food coupons. His kids will have cell phones and Game Boys and Xboxes, and other toys, because we've created a giant nanny state through a government that's grown exponentially larger than its purpose. There are no poor people in the United States. Huh? Spend a day in Calcutta, or Kabul or Juarez Mexico and then try to challenge that statement.

Yet, this man chooses to get up and go to work for $9 per hour, taking home less than $350 per week after the taxes that permit those tens of millions of others to stay home. He chooses to have some self-worth and work hard hoping the next opportunity will present itself. And guess what? The opportunity is a hell of a lot more likely to present itself in or just outside the executive washroom or in the mailroom at a million different companies, than it is likely to show up at your door, while you're on the couch sucking down a Food Stamp bought Red Bull, watching Oprah in the middle of the day. Most people choose the nanny over the shit sponge, and that's what makes this guy a hero - a real American. Even if he doesn't speak a word of English, and doesn't have a green card.

Probably in the countries that people flee from in order to come to America, even if they wind up cleaning crap off our toilet seats, cleaning shit is a step up. We've grown too rich and selfish to even consider this.

Today, the far left lies, and cheats and commits felony crime and destroys our constitution under the guise of healthcare reform. Yet, not a single person dies in this country for being turned away from a hospital. Perfectly good three page bills to overhaul the system, bring prices down and make policies more affordable are ignored in favor of enormous 2000 plus page pork bills because the goal has nothing to do with healthcare. Ultimately, the goal is to create a larger class of people sitting at home getting government handouts - or a less likely government position. You may be lucky - Working for Government Motors, or Government banking, Government Healthcare or Government insert any industry here. I'm thinking Government Washroom Attendant.

Oh there's certainly "Change" afoot. It's the Hope that's rapidly disappearing.

So let's not look back at the lying shit we've seen and heard. Ignore the radical connections and friends of our great leader. Ignore the horrendous resumes of his Czars. Ignore the fact even that he calls them Czars and we don't flinch. Ignore fraud on a level that the human mind can't fathom. ACORN, Freddie and Fannie, and a list too long and painful to ponder. Ignore how many zeros are in a trillion. Make believe it's not happening.

But let's close 2009 with a sobering truism. Regardless of how bad it gets, regardless of your mood, somewhere out there, somewhere in this once great nation of ours.... there's a Mr. Pelosi.

And somebody, probably not him, cleans his toilet.

Hey Security Czar! Here's How it's Done!

You’re working at the US embassy in Nigeria and this guy makes an appointment and comes to you to say:

"My son is someone you need to be aware of."

STOP RIGHT THERE.

You say: What is his name, and where is he now?

Then you politely say, hold that thought – and you get to your computer or to your assistant.....

And BAM this name and all of his details appear in every international airport with flights to the US - "The No Fly List."

Then you go back and sit with the man and ask his specific concerns.

DUH!!!

What's all this BS about not having intelligence? Or not connecting dots.

The way this works has to be You have a NO FLY list that’s the most up to date – Live feed on the planet – Period.

But I'M NOT Sorry

Do me a favor, since you have this free time to read a blog?  Call 202-456-1414, That’s the White House Switchboard.  Ask them if they would kindly ask their guy to STOP APOLOGIZING FOR ME.

I mean, c’mon – I’m just one guy with a blog and seven followers – he’s got the whole State Media working for him – so I can’t very well buy Network time just to get the message out –

That’ I’m not at all sorry for all the shit he’s always apologizing for America for.

Here’s a short list – 

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obamas-Top-10-Apologies-So-far-47036962.html

Can you remember all that when you call?  

Be polite.

Corn Oil

I just poured corn oil into the dishwasher’s soap dispenser. I refuse to take full responsibility for this even though I have taken two Benadryl, and enough Sudafed to clear the shnoz of a Clydesdale, because I suspect my wife has alphabetized the contents of our kitchen cabinets.

This reminds me briefly of a childhood friend’s grandmother who once sprayed Lysol in her hair thinking it was hairspray. This wasn't nearly as strange as his other grandmother who would say the word “grandma,” after everything she said. “Put on a coat, I’m cold. Grandma.” “What’s the matter with you crazy kids? Grandma.” She somehow felt the need to announce who had just spoken. As if we hadn’t just seen her lips move. Great, in one paragraph I've just insulted the two grandmothers of a good friend whom I have not heard from in some time, but next time I do will probably punch me in the nose. But I digress.

Alphabetized the cupboards? Trust me, this would not even make the top ten list of oddest household behavior in this family. To explain, I must unfortunately begin with my wife's mom. My mother-in-law is the NICEST WOMAN ANYONE HAS EVER MET, and I LOVE HER, and these aren’t ALL CAPS just because I may want to be intimate with my wife again one of these days, but she is truly a wonderful, very intelligent, very sweet, Christian woman. It’s just that there are a few little, let’s call them quirks, that you would never be aware of – unless you stumbled across the calendar on her refrigerator.

Well, you might pick up on the neatness thing, simply by visiting the house or opening her car door and wondering if it’s only been seconds since somebody removed the shrink-wrap. Or if you ever saw her diving off a chair and reaching out like Derek Jeter at short-stop to catch a minor crumb before it hit the floor – or the way she sets up a small tent around the children when they eat in the “dining room.” I don’t think she gets why they call it that. But the neatness thing, that you’ve seen before – this…you haven’t.

There is really no way to set this up any funnier than simply listing some of the daily entries for the month of June. Keep in mind, that some of these will become the reasons she may not be available on these days – also keep in mind that her beautiful daughter, grew up to become A THERAPIST!

“Mom, any way you can come watch the kids for the day next Saturday?”

“Oh honey, I don’t think so. I’m going to be very busy.”

Calendar entries:
June 15th – Rotate the couch pillows. June 16th – Change vacuum cleaner bag. I am not making this up…Well, the exact dates are fabricated – just in case, you see her at the grocery store when she should in fact be…Changing the shelf paper…which would be the June 19th entry or Dust the Lampshades on June 20.

Now, I could go on, but I don’t want to be cruel - I am just making the point, that my wife could certainly be alphabetizing the groceries.

There’s more. My father-in-law knows what’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day for the whole month. His wife has posted the daily menu for the next thirty days on a sheet of paper on their refrigerator.

Now, my mother-in-law is a wonderful cook, and he’s a lucky guy for this, but this man knows that three Wednesdays from now for lunch, he will most definitely be eating Turkey Henny Penny leftovers from Tuesday night’s dinner.

If you’ll recall, your school lunch program posted the hot lunch schedule and you likely posted it on your fridge. Well that was 20 school days - just lunch…….THIS IS 90 MEALS! Breakfast, Lunch AND Dinner scribbled IN PEN, 30 days (COUNT ‘EM THIRTY). I am not making this up. It is very possible that my wife has placed the Corn Oil “C” next to the Dishwashing Detergent, “D.”

To be fair, my wife doesn’t exhibit this behavior…. most of the time. She does however fly into some weird nesting ritual once every couple of weeks where she’ll suddenly just look up from whatever she was doing and decide that right now, at this very second, the hallway floor must be mopped or somebody will die. This will usually happen when I am fully engrossed in work email, but can actually happen any time that mopping the kitchen floor or brushing the toilet rim is not on my to-do-soon list.

Also to be fair, if my wife had in fact arranged items by letter, they would not have ended up in the correct order. I have here in front of me our telephone address book. Some time ago, she admitted that she somehow started on a wrong page and so continued with the entries, one letter previous.

Therefore if you were looking for Casey, you would look under “B.” But it gets more complicated. If you are looking for Doctor Ray Ellis, you can forget about the name, assume it’s under doctor and then of course, turn to “C.” Some of the babysitters are under “A” unless of course their names begin with “A” in which case, they’ll be under “R” for “Sitter.”

Sometimes I think I’ve got the hang of it, but then I’ll find something like this…I just noticed, that my neighbor Tori Catz (not her real name, but first name T, last name C) is in fact under “H” because her dog’s name which is written in quotes next to hers, is “Hershey” – no, I stand corrected – her name is under “J” because her dog’s name is “Hershey.”

So my wife is a little confused with the alphabet, but that has never caused much public embarrassment. It’s her confusion with the calendar that can be an issue. I once stood all dressed up next to her, as we rang the doorbell of new neighbor at precisely 8PM, holding a cheese platter the size of a Ford Explorer when the door opened and the young couple told us we were a week early.

“We’d have you come in and share all that beautiful cheese, but the party’s next week and we’re off to take my mother to get her feet scraped.”

What’s the etiquette?

I have a big dog, two cats, a rabbit and a hamster, a wife and three kids. I like the rabbit the best. He doesn’t even have a name – Well, I’m pretty sure it’s a “he” … because it doesn’t give me any trouble. When the dog is out or caged, he’s a “free-range rabbit, free to walk around the house. I suppose he’ll taste better this way.

The cats generally lead their own miserable little lives showing up at the end of the evening to sleep in my wife’s hair. One leaves for days at a time. I suspect he has a time-share somewhere or he’s had a spat with the other cat and then spends a few days drinking beers from my neighbor’s garbage, returning once he’s sobered up.

The hamster spends 23 hours a day standing up holding the same two metal bars like some rodent Gitmo prisoner chewing to get free. The difference is that this little rat won’t end up in Bermuda when his term is up.

None of these animals were my idea. My wife is a therapist.

Come to think of it, none of the kids were my idea either.

I ponder this, as I am alone in my own house in what feels like and may actually be the first time in almost 14 years. The boys are at grandma’s enjoying sitting on the newly rotated couch pillows, my wife is with my daughter at the hospital, I have sent the large dog to puppy camp, the outgoing cat is probably off on a binge somewhere, the auxiliary cat is licking his balls, and the rat is asleep.

My friend the rabbit looks up at me and stops twitching for a brief moment as if to say “Listen. No screaming, barking, crashing, fighting, no chaos. Just peace.”

For a minute, I feel like I can really breathe. And I smile thankful that I have no idea yet what I’ll be having for breakfast tomorrow.

Sleep vs. Asleep

A twelve year-old boy who has recently lost his sight is learning how to use a walking stick for the first time, and a young girl is learning how to steer her wheelchair with a breathing tube. These are two of the first people we meet at Children’s Specialized Hospital in New Brunswick. We’re awestruck at how beautiful the facility is, and again when they show us to a private room larger than most Manhattan studio apartments.

There’s a free Sony PlayStation, a complimentary 16” laptop, about 1000 channels of IO digital cable, and a DVD player with access to a tower of recently released movies, and that’s just in Karina’s room! On the floor is every conceivable comfort and type of entertainment and half a dozen restaurants with the availability and choice of a luxury cruise.

After a parade of people introduce themselves and talk about the place, somebody asks Karina what her favorite food is. She makes everyone laugh when she says almost in a whisper, “salmon and broccoli.”

“Fine that’s what’s for dinner then,” a woman says, and sure enough at 5PM sharp, that’s what arrives.

This place is like the movie “Wall-E” where all of humanity has anything they can dream of at the push of a button, except here the kids truly deserve anything they desire while they focus exclusively on getting better or learning to cope. I’m thankful Karina will be completely fine in a few weeks, as I meet kids who will struggle for a lifetime.

Speaking of the blind: Allen called this morning with the latest hate mail from his Facebook page. It sounds a lot like Sean’s "Hate Hannity Hotline," and that makes me smile. People I haven't thought of since the Carter administration miss the humor and focus on the politics. If ignorance is bliss, why are liberals so angry? I could care less - 52 Million people DIDN'T vote for Obama -- but you wouldn’t know it if you’re idiot box is glued to CNN.

I proudly thank the Bush administration for keeping my family, and the rest of us safe for the past 7.5 years. Go ahead and hate the man, but he proved America’s strength without apology. Today the messiah is off on his World Apology Tour. Just don’t apologize on my behalf, or on behalf of the millions of people who have died for you Mr. President.

Newsflash Barry: America WAS born a Christian nation regardless of what you say. Read a history book. In the words of Bob Marley: “If you know your history, you would know where you’re coming from.”

Like the kids here who will have to work hard to learn and grow, it takes some effort to educate ones-self beyond what’s being spoon-fed from the talking heads on the shmuck-box. They won’t explain Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals and that Obama taught workshops from the curriculum in Chicago and is presently implementing it like a playbook. And you won’t see it in the NY Times, so at least click here for some excerpts: http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/communism/alinsky.htm

By the way, the NY Times which selectively features gibberish and has more than once aided and abetted the enemy is losing more money than many entire nations’ GDP, but may still have a future in hard copy form….to line bird cages. That is if you want to breed a traitorous, stupid bird that will parrot any crap the White House releases.

One thing the paper can’t selectively refuse to tell you is that the book that sits at the top of it’s own Best Seller list is Liberty and Tyranny, by Mark Levin http://www.amazon.ca/Liberty-Tyranny-Conservative-Mark-Levin/dp/1416562850. You can’t have an intelligent conversation about Constitutional Law and what’s happening today and ignore this book - but what am I saying? Liberals don't read books, they regurgitate talking points fed by other liberals. Reading takes time away from watching television.

The book sits at the top of the NY Times list, because intelligent people still do read. But for those who don’t want to miss Dancing with the Stars, here are the Cliff notes to what’s happening to our country at neck-breaking speed:

"To each according to their needs, from each according to their means." Karl Marx.

“We need to, ya know, spread the wealth around a little.” That’s Barak Hussein Obama.



God made children cute so people wouldn’t kill them. Maybe because she has always been especially difficult, God made Karina especially pretty. Maybe all girls are difficult. They are after all practicing to be somebody’s wife some day.

Wherever we go, especially over the past year, people stare or tell her, or comment to each other when they think she’s out of hearing range. She gets her looks from her mother who people assume was, or is a supermodel. I hate that expression because I imagine an anorexic chic with a flying cape. Here at the Children’s Hospital, with so many seriously hurting kids who will never feel that way, I’m actually feeling a little guilty, almost embarrassed that Karina is so pretty – I know that doesn’t make any sense, but that’s why writing is therapeutic.

I have over the years discovered another mathematic theory – the prettier the girl the crazier - as illustrated by the equation L=P2 (Looks = Psycho-ness squared). For my own safety reasons, I can only say that my wife is a licensed therapist.

Karina does things that really should be set to scary music, and my mom who was and still is very pretty is about as crazy as you can get without the paramedics showing up to drag you away.

She can’t help talking non-stop to everybody she passes. I’ve learned not to be embarrassed by this through sheer shock therapy. You get on an elevator with her and before the next floor she is engaged in conversation. This can be quite amusing because people are so taken off guard that they assume she’s just talking out load to herself and ignore her until she brings it to their attention that she is in fact waiting for a response.

This week, I have repeatedly watched her say something she thought was funny to people that didn’t speak a word of English, interrupt dialogue between a nurse and a doctor because she assumed they were including her in the conversation, and offend a family of orthodox Jews by asking why the Sabbath elevator has to stop on every floor and inconvenience her. She wasn’t serious, but when English is third in line behind Hebrew and Yiddish, you can miss the nuance of the joke.

Mom, maybe try something friendlier, like: “If Ella Fitzgerald married Darth Vader, her name would be Ella Vader.”

My Dad is visiting, and circumstances brought him and mom together for the first time in ten years. Here’s how they got along when I was a kid:

Jeff: “Dad, can we get a dog?”
Dad: “What kind of dog would you like?”
Jeff: “Mom wants and Afghan.”
Dad: “Afgans are stupid dogs. Your mom wants an Afghan because it’s the only kind of dog she’s smarter than.”

Mercifully, they got along well and my dad showed superhuman patience with her. Maybe that’s because he spent the last year recovering from a brain injury after being hit by a van.

I have spent every hour for the past seven days with Karina and it’s been heaven. It’s amazing that you can live four decades and then experience a completely new feeling, and that’s what happens when a man has a little girl.

Karina is shy with people until she gets comfortable, and here with new people talking to her every ten minutes, she’s very cooperative and smiley but especially quiet. When she’s alone again with me and starts talking like herself I feel very special and it’s like falling in love with somebody for the first time, every single minute.

Alone with her away from her brothers, I am discovering the personality behind the nightmare she can be. She is obviously becoming brilliant, and she is extremely creative and funny. With almost psychic ability she repeatedly kicks my ass at various card games - even when I try to win. I watch her sit at the computer and teach herself how to read at www.starfall.com and marvel as she speaks with a vocabulary that’s well beyond five years. I have no idea how or where she is learning and absorbing so much from, but it seems far from normal – or perhaps girls really are much smarter.

She wakes from a restless sleep and asks me to sleep next to her. To those who believe, God has promised an eternity in Heaven with Him, but until then, he’s loaned me Karina, so I have to go now.

Funny is Relative

My wife won’t read  my blog.  She says it’s not funny. I’m writing during the least amusing time of my life while my daughter sleeps nearby recovering from seven hours of spinal surgery, in order to amuse myself.

OK so not everything I say is keel over belly laugh pee yourself funny. Like when the cashier at the mini-mart asks if I want my Doritos in a bag, and I say,  “No thank you, it’s already in a bag.” But that’s no reason for my wife to say I’m not funny.

Stick with me here this may start slow

“Don’t use my name!” she warns me every time I start to write. 

This is from a woman who has joined every social networking site on the planet where she’s posted photos of our entire family on each one. There are Taliban in Kandahar that can pick my four year old out of a kindergarten class picture, but I shouldn’t use her name in my stories.

See, now that right there would really get her mad.   And as I write that, I giggle a little and she responds immediately:

“Are you using my name!?” 

“No, did you use your name on Facebook.com/AlQueda?”

“You’re so not funny.”

This is the support I get.

Sometimes I really think I do have something amusing to say that gets no response whatsoever and I’ll call my brother in North Carolina to repeat it just to see if I’m crazy or if I’ve really stumbled upon a hilarious thought.   Generally, he’ll crack up – unless I catch him at a bad time,  in which case he’ll just call me a schmuck and hang up.

Jeff – he doesn’t care if I use his name – used to have an Instant Messenger problem with his computer where whenever I sent him an Ichat it would automatically open into a full screen window.  This was a minor annoyance to him because he’d never know when he’d be working and I’d unexpectedly pop in. 

Only a minor annoyance until one day he was in the middle of a Powerpoint presentation to a group of businessmen in their conference room.  I’m sure he was discussing something about banking programs and real estate partnerships, when I interrupted with this question that suddenly filled the large pull down screen:

“Have you ever noticed that the urgency with which you have to take a crap is directly related to the traffic coming into and out of the bathroom?”

“I have illustrated this with a simple formula mathematically for your perusal:

Sx = UT²       

Shit (Variable x) = Urgency (Traffic) squared”

Jeff had to stop mid-sentence to address his captive audience -- which thankfully had a better collective sense of humor than my wife – about his brother’s “issues.”

I suppose if my wife thought I was funny, I would have spared Jeff this classic moment in business meetings, but then again if Einstein had Ichat I bet he’d have shared his theory with his brother, even if it opened a full screen window on his computer.

Besides, every one in that room that day could relate to Sx =UT²

In fact some of them might have experienced it that very day.  But, how many people think E=MC²  is even relative to them?    (Relative….get it?)

Maybe my wife is right.  I don’t feel very funny today.

I recommend one of my posts written prior to my daughter’s surgery.

 

 

 

 

More Crap From Central Massachusettes

My son has been stuffing toilets since he learned to go potty.  Or maybe he hasn’t really yet learned to go potty because he still can’t properly use one.   He’ll be 13 in August and he still thinks peeing with the seat down is like some sort of sick carnival game.  The stuffing part isn’t all his fault he just creates abnormally large thick logs.  I know that’s disgusting to read, but not nearly as gross as living in the same house with it.

I’ll spare the details of the last nine year’s worth of extra large feces and the accompanying overflow stories, but this weekend we’re staying at a hotel just the three of us, my wife, my son and me.

 I’m not sure if he’s been eating steel ball bearings or he just doesn’t go for days at a time, but I now find myself searching for Ex Lax in a part of Massachusettes where the hotel visitor’s guide lists the “Heifer Walk” as the next major attraction. The photo shows a cute little pontailed girl with a cow, but the women walking into the hotel as I leave, have me wondering if the event doesn’t begin in our lobby.

 Needless to say there aren’t many 24 hour pharmacies and the few scattered gas stations and mini marts are lightly stocked with meds that help stop the runs, but not start the race.

  I already know how this will work, once I am sufficiently hopelessly lost or I have found the product, my son will have pooped. So I call every 15 minutes or so to ask how it’s going.    

 “Dad!  Stop making a joke out of everything!”

 I’m not laughing.  It’s Friday night, I’m on the first day of my first vacation in three years – most of which will be spent in a hospital with my baby girl next week, and I am in the middle of nowhere on safari looking for Ex Lax so my kid can take a dump.  

 Eventually, I find a Walgreens, directly across the street from a CVS.  Apparently the owner of one of these great franchises went to the Starbucks school of business – but now after nearly an hour of coming up empty, I have a choice of where I can spend $13.99 for my son to do what comes naturally to me three times a day.

 I call my wife.  “Most of these say “works gently overnight.”  Isn’t there something that “works roughly in minutes?”

 Yes, but he wants to swallow rather than insert - so I hand the lady a $20.

 She apologizes for some brief delay in getting to the register, but she should be apologizing for selling a box of four laxitives for $13.99 plus tax.

I am in fact now, as my wife predicted I would be, hopelessly lost, so it takes 45 minutes to find my back to the hotel where my wife and son meet me in the lobby to of course tell me he has gone already.  He feels better, but all is not well.

 He has of course, not only stuffed the toilet with one of his soda-can size doodies, but the toilet has overflowed and there’s now shit water all over the floor in room 440 at the Hilton Garden hotel in Central Massachusettes

 My wife and son have a brilliant plan to handle this awkward situation. They have closed the door and left, and are now waiting for me in the lobby to  go tell somebody.  They will meet me at Pizzeria Uno while I go talk to the front desk.

 “Dad, don’t tell ‘em it was me,” My son pleads.  

 OK kid,  I’ll blame the maid.  I’ll say she stopped by to fluff the pillows, leave some mints and took a dump the size of a dachsund, before leaving and lockling the door behind her.

So now my mini “vacation” includes personally walking up to a young attractive Russian reception girl to ask about a plunger for a stuffed toilet.

 No problem we’ll send somebody up.  Se we’re at Pizzeria Uno and they have a million stupid jokes.  My son is a lot happier after he craps – which unfortunately is only about twice a month.

  When we get back to the room, there has been no sign of a janitor or housecleaning, but the message light is blinking. 

 “I’m sorry,”  the girl at the desk tells me.  Everyone is apologizing for the wrong reason tonight.  “I’ve been calling you for the last hour.”

 “WHY?!”

  “We don’t like to send people up if you’re not in the room.”  huh? 

 And we don't like hanging around nearby while other people are cleaning up our doodies.

 She's going t0 send someone back up now.

So there we are watching the Discovery Channel while some poor schmuck is unstuffing the toilet and cleaning up my son’s doody water.

My wife whispers but loudly over the sloshing, “Hey, do you think we need to tip him?”

 What do you tip somebody for mopping somebody else’s shitwater in central Massachusettes in 2009 during a recession?

I think anything less than $1,000 would be an insult, so I opt for "no" in order to not feel cheap.

 

What's Right is Right

There is no Left and Right, there is simply Right and Wrong and if right is right and left is wrong, so be it.

I can respect that you have differing opinions, but in reality there’s truth and what’s right and then there’s wrong. The confusion about why we can’t find a middle ground is because of the introduction of Moral Relativism into many arguments. The belief that what’s right and wrong is relative. That it changes between cultures evolves over time and differs between people.

Moral Absolute (or Absolute Truth) on the other hand, says there is an unchanging truth at the heart of every debate. And that wrong and right is usually easily decipherable especially if you leave God in the equation.

Of course the Moral Relativism side either says there is no God or has diminished his importance to such an extent as to remove Him from the equation.

Look first at abortion. It sounds better to say you strongly believe in free choice, but you can’t escape the subject of what you’re choosing.

The “choice” one is making is to kill something living. Those on the side of this “free choice” engage in Moral Relativism because they’ve taken what should be a Moral Absolute and applied an additional belief to it. The belief that one’s own circumstances or their own convenience plays a role in the morality of the decision.

This in fact allows for the lessening of the value of life – either through a self-convincing argument that it is either not life or more likely that one’s own life’s happiness is more important.

Where then is the line drawn, and why not take this sore subject a few months further, deliver the baby and then simply shoot it in the head?

Regardless of why the choice to terminate a pregnancy is made (see how clean that phrase sounds?) the person making the choice knows in her heart that what she is doing is wrong. She certainly would not choose to become pregnant in order to terminate a baby. Yet, even though she innately senses this is wrong – Moral Relativism allows her to say, “Yes, this is wrong, but this is better than the alternative.” Therefore, in reality both sides do agree what the Absolute Truth is, but one side has added information that should not apply.

Yet! Pro-life people are portrayed as wackos. In fact those who stand for Absolute Truth on any subject are now ridiculed.

Today in this nation we call right wrong, and wrong right. Where better than in the abortion topic can we see that what everyone knows is wrong has become right? Add God to the argument and the answer becomes clearer – Judean Christian, of course, but it is not likely that your God, in any other form you imagine him - wants you to kill – excuse me – terminate your pregnancy – in order that you have a more comfortable life for yourself.

My best friend is Gay. Today he believes strongly that it should be acceptable, but ask what he felt like the first 20 years of his life and you’ll find that he felt it was wrong. To get to his feelings of acceptance today he had to make changes in his thinking and the world had to “evolve” according to his beliefs. This is Moral Relativism in action. For him, there was a right and wrong but for him and millions of others, it changed.

Moral Absolutes don’t change.

The amount of people that believe something to be true has no correlation whatsoever to its being true. In fact, if an overwhelming majority of people believes one side of any argument, you should always consider it suspect.

There is either the rule of mass hysteria at work, or mass laziness. It’s easier for people to simply believe something is true because they’re convinced a majority already believes it to be. This is why the mass “drive-by” media is so effective in shaping beliefs.

Any effort to actually get most people to educate themselves on their own by actually looking at facts is futile. Today people in our government simply sign off on huge unread bills, or follow junk science blindly.

People who engage in moral relativism often do the same – ignore or refuse to read the data.

Moral Absolutes can be found in the Judeo Christian bible, but the other side without reading the text claims it is not relevant.

It’s amazing how so-called intelligent people are able to suspend their belief in reality where it suits their preconceived or preprogrammed assumptions – and again call the other side crazy.

Evolution for example causes even people of scientific minds to outright suspend the laws of physics and deny the most basic governing principles of the universe– that matter decays and becomes chaotic - it doesn’t become orderly.

They also ignore basic principals of mathematics by simply adding time to the equation. Add millions and billions of years to a pile of wood and it is not going to become a house, it is eventually going to rot and decay and turn into dust.

If you find a watch in the desert you assume somebody built it. Similarly if you find a planet sustaining life in this cosmos, assume somebody put it there. Again this relativism that changes scientific principals to suit ones own beliefs removes God from the equation.

Change “matter” to “information” and the same blind faith not based in fact applies – in this case information may become more complex – but not on its own - it has a designer, a programmer.

All the time through eternity future will not make a series of 0’s and1’s become a game of Pong much less Madden Football- Just as all the time through eternity future without a designer would not create a living amoeba much less a hippopotamus, a peacock and a newt much less a human being.

Look around at your chairs, TV’s clocks and refrigerator, your cars and your homes – God said, “Let Us create man in our own image.”

In His Image he created us – the proof being that like God we have the ability, in fact the drive to create. God alone created the heavens and the Earth and everything in them.

Absolutely, not relative to what you may think.

Why I won't be your Facebook Friend:

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Monday's angry rant

Mondays

I took three kids to the mall on Monday to keep them busy and to keep me from beating them to a pulp. “With Pulp” by the way is the best way to drink Tropicana orange juice and if you’re buying it without pulp why not save $4.50 and drink “Tang?” Anyway, we entered through Neiman Marcus where I noted a dozen well dressed employees looking quite bored behind their respective cosmetic counters. At one, a male employee sat in a customer stool getting make up applied by a female employee - which when I was a mallrat would just not have been considered normal and certainly would’ve provoked some sort of “stool” joke.

The Prada and Ballenciaga handbags priced at $1600 and above sat gleaming but lonely under the fluorescent lights while the employee minimum wage clock silently ticked away toward Chapter 11 and so there I begin my observations with comment.

Even when the stores were filled with shoppers, who obviously didn’t earn their own monthly paycheck, because if they did they certainly wouldn’t be considering $800 shoes – I strongly feel that these dingbats (anyone regardless of income status who spends thousands of dollars because a bag has a certain name on it) should be taken to Yankee Stadium sometime before first pitch and have their heads used for batting practice.

Immediately my kids pulled me in three different directions – or more specifically Justin my 12 year old pulled toward the food court whining he’s hungry, Karina my 5 year old girl pulled toward a kiosk chanting “ice cream, ice cream, ice ream” and Christian my little boy punched me in the balls screaming “Shirts! Shirts! Take me somewhere where they have shirts!” (He’s four – so I don’t know if he even knows what he means, but I was tempted to hand him over to the make-up guy to go browsing).

Karina’s shouts for ice cream usually win, partly because she has the most obnoxious cry, partly because she’s sort of disabled and I don’t feel like carrying her any further, and mostly because I like Haagen Daaz coffee ice cream more than I like my kids most of the time.

Of course we find ourselves standing behind a lady who has somehow managed to reach the age of 70 without learning a word of English, yet has in the course of her life somehow wound up at the Garden State Mall, located in the highest income county in the nation.
She is presently standing in front of us counting pennies out loud in Spanish as she holds each one up to the light, presumably to determine if they’re in fact US currency or Pesos.

Standing next in line does nothing to quiet Karina’s steady cry of “Ice Cream, Ice Cream, Aaaaaaaahhhhh, Ice cream, I want it. Come on, Ice cream.” And Christian’s sudden need to run 100 yards away and back, with Justin screaming “Christian come back!” and this does nothing to quell the thought – I just need a little Xanax or a lot of bullets.

I’m next –
“I’ll have a kid’s size vanilla with colored sprinkles.”
“We don’t have kids size.”
“OK I’ll have small”
“We don’t have small – we have two sizes Large and Grande”
First of all genius, those words mean the same thing, and second of all are you fking kidding me? But the angst from hearing those words was nothing compared to the next words I heard right after I settled on what I insisted calling “The smaller one.”
“$4.95 please.”
“Holy Shit! Are you serious?”
“I’m sorry sir.”
“Fuck.” I couldn’t help myself.
“Can I help you with anything else?” she actually said this - probably because I was too stunned to move out of the way, and hadn’t yet reached for the $5 cup.
“Yes. Can you possibly pull out a gun and shoot me in the head?”
“I know. I’m sorry sir.”

So I’m wondering if our new language for food sizing is a result of our open door immigration policy, a rabbit-like proliferation of Starbucks or a bunch of assholes thinking they’re chic? Oh wait that’s the same as the Starbucks reason.

After the FIVE DOLLAR ice cream, about 100 yards down the hall are Dipping Dots. Now Christian is freaking out he wants those, and Karina needs to go potty right now! Which by the way is about a mile and a half in the opposite direction, and Justin is rambling non-stop about how every girl in the mall, including those around the corner, outside the mall, and in their cars on the way home, are all looking at him.

Christian wins this round, though Karina is confused as to why she can’t chase her ice cream with dipping dots, which thank Jesus are available in kids size….for $4.25.

My luck the girl tells me this is her first day even before I can order.
“OK I’ll have a kid’s size vanilla.”
“What flavor.”
Great, not only her first day working, her first day with her new brain.
“V.A.N.I.L.L.A”
“Vanilla, OK What Size?”
“I will have…a small, Kid’s size…Vanilla…in a cup.”
“Cup or cone?”
Holy shit! “Kid’s size cup please.”
“Vanilla right?”
Finally,…….she seems to be getting the hang of this.
BUT now her friend comes over to the counter and she loses interest in creating this Kid’s Vanilla Cup.
“Hi!!! (Pronounced HOY!) I can’t believe you came to seeeeeee meeeee!”
This is not happening. I kick myself to convince myself I’m not dreaming. Christian thinks this is funny, and begins to kick me in the shins.
I hand her a five for a $4.95 cup and she hands me back $1.25
Normally, I would hand it right back – but she’s now on the phone with her boyfriend and she’s turned her back is to me – so screw it.

I have to pick up Karina to walk her to the potty, while poor Christian has to eat and walk, dropping tri-colored dots over the sides of his bol poco (That’s Spanish for “bowl smaller than grande”) – and Justin now again reminds me he’s hungry for dinner.

Karina sits on the potty for 20 minutes because she can’t go but feels like she has to. I take this almost quiet time to ponder if there’s any meaning at all to life, and wondering how and why I’m here. My Solomon moment over we head to the food court.

The food court is the same nightmare – Justin wants Taco Bell, Karina wants a coke and Christian wants me to go with him to a completely different location to show me something that he can’t verbalize.

First I have a short conversation with Justin because I’ve noticed that his Hollister T-shirt, which apparently cost me $35 according to my last credit card statement, not because I ever agreed to such a thing.

Scattered around the mall are teens and 20 somethings wearing assorted Hollister merchandise, and I ask my son, don’t you realize that these clothes could just as easily say “Random” and don’t you realize that being cool is NOT being one of the crowd?
“You don’t understand teens dad.”
Yeah I do – and I understand that then just as now, being cool meant being different, not the same. Wearing what the hell you wanted and liked, not what the masses are wearing. A losing battle, and perhaps hypocritical considering my own history – but a $10 Gap Pocket T-shirt didn’t say GAP back then.

“Dad, people think I’m cool with this shirt.” He believes this with all of his teenage mind. “Don’t you think those people over there are cool with theirs?” he actually sets this one up for me

“No – I think they’re schmucks too. Watch your sister.”

Justin sits with Karina while I let Christian drag me a few hundred yards mumbling something about “another place” before I stop and just get down on my knees and beg him to let me go back. He simply shrugs and says OK.

When I get back Justin has stuffed two taco “GRANDE’S” (or is it Grande Tacos? depending on what country this is) down his throat and now wants a meatball hero from Subway. My wife calls to say she’s bored.

In order to have a few minutes to vent to or perhaps at my wife - I hand him $10. He asks me if that’s going to be enough. Does he plan on getting two Meatball hero’s or does he just not have a clue – I don’t know because I’m listening to my wife talk about her latest case of neglected child syndrome and wondering again why I have three kids at the mall on a Monday night.