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.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
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.
Monday, June 1, 2009
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.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Why I won't be your Facebook Friend:
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Monday, May 25, 2009
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.
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.
I surrender!
Forget that last night my daughter who has been to the doctor six (6), count them six times in two weeks – probably because she insists on playing in the kids area, which like Chucky Cheese has been sneezed on and snot wiped since the Nixon administration – had either a urinary tract infection or some neurological issue associated with her upcoming surgery. She was up past midnight whining potty and ..oh, nevermind...that I have to call the doctor this morning again to take her during lunch today.
Forget that my son needs to go to a special school for five weeks this summer at a cost of $7,500 - $7,499 of which I do not have – and the process to get him an interview is about as complicated as an 1120S form for a sub chapter S corp. with 10,000 employees – and that while I now have enough documentation to become an Iranian Citizen and was supposed to copy it all and mail it today - my wife left out line ONE - His social security number. And forget that when I called her about it she yelled at ME.
Never mind that all morning I’ve been screamed at so loudly and obnoxiously -(I’m guessing severe monthly cycle issue here) that if I were a puppy I would have peed on the floor.
Forget all that.
Today I was late for work because I got pulled over by a cop.......For HAVING MY RIGHT HAND IN MY HAIR! (I almost said ON MY PENIS – but that would have made some sense).
Normally, when you get pulled over – I say normally, because it’s a weekly thing with me – you have some clue as to why. Perhaps a lane change, a broken tail light – maybe you’re DWW – Driving While White – Yes, I’ve been stopped for driving while white in a black neighborhood – and no I wasn’t buying drugs. That time.
But this time I hadn’t a clue. “License, Registration, etc.”
Me with the stunned look of a deer in the headlights, and a very loud “WHAT?” as in WTF? Followed by several of these ”!!!!!”
“What do you mean, WHAT? - Were you on the phone?”
Not only was I not on the phone. I didn’t HAVE MY PHONE!!!!
“OK, How about your seat belt? Your seat belt is not on. Was it on?”
My seatbelt is not on you Fking genius because I leaned over to get you my Fking registration and insurance card.
“Yes sir. It was.”
“Then have a nice day Mr. Forman.”
WELL IT’S TOO F*CKING LATE FOR THAT NOW ISN’T IT?
So here’s what I’m going to do:
From now on anytime I pass a cop – regardless of where, how and why – I’m just going to pull over, get out of the car, lay on the ground on my stomach, cross my hands behind my back...and surrender.
Too extreme?
OK – I’ll just always drive with a box of donuts
Forget that my son needs to go to a special school for five weeks this summer at a cost of $7,500 - $7,499 of which I do not have – and the process to get him an interview is about as complicated as an 1120S form for a sub chapter S corp. with 10,000 employees – and that while I now have enough documentation to become an Iranian Citizen and was supposed to copy it all and mail it today - my wife left out line ONE - His social security number. And forget that when I called her about it she yelled at ME.
Never mind that all morning I’ve been screamed at so loudly and obnoxiously -(I’m guessing severe monthly cycle issue here) that if I were a puppy I would have peed on the floor.
Forget all that.
Today I was late for work because I got pulled over by a cop.......For HAVING MY RIGHT HAND IN MY HAIR! (I almost said ON MY PENIS – but that would have made some sense).
Normally, when you get pulled over – I say normally, because it’s a weekly thing with me – you have some clue as to why. Perhaps a lane change, a broken tail light – maybe you’re DWW – Driving While White – Yes, I’ve been stopped for driving while white in a black neighborhood – and no I wasn’t buying drugs. That time.
But this time I hadn’t a clue. “License, Registration, etc.”
Me with the stunned look of a deer in the headlights, and a very loud “WHAT?” as in WTF? Followed by several of these ”!!!!!”
“What do you mean, WHAT? - Were you on the phone?”
Not only was I not on the phone. I didn’t HAVE MY PHONE!!!!
“OK, How about your seat belt? Your seat belt is not on. Was it on?”
My seatbelt is not on you Fking genius because I leaned over to get you my Fking registration and insurance card.
“Yes sir. It was.”
“Then have a nice day Mr. Forman.”
WELL IT’S TOO F*CKING LATE FOR THAT NOW ISN’T IT?
So here’s what I’m going to do:
From now on anytime I pass a cop – regardless of where, how and why – I’m just going to pull over, get out of the car, lay on the ground on my stomach, cross my hands behind my back...and surrender.
Too extreme?
OK – I’ll just always drive with a box of donuts
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