During our daily walks around the ‘hood, I’ve been learning a lot about Chooch’s life outside of our house. Sometimes I wish I could shadow him for a day because he tells me these stories and I’m like WHO ARE YOU.
So this post will be interspersed with stories and facts, because I’m going to force him to answer some questions.
Such as:
Question: What’s your current favorite song?
Answer: “New Rules” by Dua Lipa
Mr. Gray & Cindy
Chooch is friends with this younger kid down the street, we’ll just call him Pita for anonymity purposes, and also because Henry has him as a contact in his phone as Pain in the Ass. Anyway, every time he comes home from hanging out with Pita, it starts out the same: PITA AND I HAD A FIGHT BECAUSE [insert some awful injustice served to Chooch].
Last weekend, he came home and started immediately with, “Pita is so annoying! I was walking Mr. Gray—”
“Whoa,” I interrupted him. “Who the fuck is Mr. Gray?”
“Cindy’s cat,” Chooch shrugged, desperate to continue his tale of woe.
“Who’s Cindy?!” I asked, and when Chooch said she lives next to Pita, I realized she’s the same lady whose old cat Teddy knocked up my cat Marcy back in 1999, which is how Don and Willie came to be. (RIP to all.) So I kind of know her.
Turns out, Cindy pays Chooch 75 cents to walk her cat and on this particular day, it was because she was trying to eat breakfast and Mr. Gray was bothering her.
I don’t remember what about this situation caused Chooch and Pita to fight because I was too fixated on Chooch getting paid to walk a cat named Mr. Gray.
Also re:Cindy, Chooch told me that he recently mentioned to her that her old cat Teddy was the dad to two of our now-deceased cats and she denied the probability of it which is confusing to me because that’s the only interaction I’ve had with her, was when we were talking about being kind of related now because of our cats and it was like such a cute Stars Hollow moment but now she’s acting like this is an incredibly non-truth. Is she suddenly worried I’m going to ask for back kitten support??
Question: What is your current favorite Kpop song?
Answer: “Wolf” – EXO
Chooch vs. Greensleeves
Chooch’s school has this thing called the Trifecta Awards, which happens twice a year (I think?). It’s based on grades, perfect attendance, and citizenship, whatever that means. Chooch has won it multiple times, including this current time, but the ceremony is during the school day so Henry and I couldn’t attend. Chooch reminded us all last week that we’re shitty parents (duh) and mentioned in passing that he also played the piano during the ceremony, which was news to me. He said he played Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Greensleeves, and we left it at that, but then earlier today he casually said, “I only played half of Greensleeves and then said, ‘That’s all I know. Bye’ and left the stage.”
WOW THAT’S MY SON, LADIES & GENTS.
Question: Do you think the Mexican taco cart guy likes me?
Answer: I don’t know. You’re obsessed. Yes, sure.
Rob’s Firecrackers
One night a few weeks ago, Chooch came barging in the house. “Rob’s in his backyard lighting firecrackers with a cigarette!” he panted. Chooch is always on Neighborhood Watch and in this particular instance, he was on the hunt for Pita, because Pita’s mom didn’t know where he was. Anyway, he found Pita with Rob, who has lived on this street longer than me but I never knew his name until Chooch became such a boy about town and befriended everyone in Brookline. The first time I learned who Rob was when Chooch casually told me that Rob pays him five bucks to help carry the groceries in the house for his wife, who is Chooch’s neighbor nemesis, maybe even more so than Larry.
“I have to go tell [Pita]’s mom that I found him,” Chooch yelled as the door was shutting behind him. Then he came back and asked where our leftover firecrackers were because Rob’s wife wasn’t home (Chooch calls her the Witch because she yells at him for being in his yard all the time and I’m kind of like relishing this payback because when I first moved here, her son was Chooch’s age and he TERRORIZED ME) and Chooch wanted to join in the pyro-action while he had the chance. So he collected some small firecrackers we had and then split.
Did I mention that this is the same guy whose house was on fire a few months ago?
Fun fact: Rob’s wife is Cindy’s sister!
Fun fact #2: Chooch still has all his phalanges and eyebrows.
Bus Driver Beef
In addition to the lunch lady, the gym teacher, and the librarian at the Brookline public library, we can now add GIFTED SCHOOL BUS DRIVER to the list of Chooch’s on-going beefs. He told me last week that he was sitting with Dang (pronounced: Den; he’s Vietnamese) and Dang kept pushing him so that he was nearly falling out of the seat. He pushed Chooch off the seat once; the bus driver looked in the mirror and GLARED AT HIM (his words — he’s telling me the story again as I type this), and then focused her eyers back onto the road. Then she kept making VERY SHARP TURNS and it was so rough that he fell off the seat AGAIN and she looked in the mirror AGAIN and glared even WORSE. And then she did it again and he fell off the seat AGAIN. She looked in the mirror again and yelled, “IF YOU FALL OFF YER SEAT ONE MORE TIME, I’M GONNA MAKE YOU SIT UP HERE WITH ME SO YOU CAN’T FALL OFF YER SEAT.” He wants you to read this to yourself with a strong Pittsburghese accent, you guys. Chooch looked at her and rolled his eyes and went back to the convo he was having with Dang. I fell off again and she looked in the mirror again and glared the worst yet but she didn’t make him sit with her. They finally got to the gifted center and when he walked past her to get off the bus, he said, “I wasn’t falling off on purpose.”
“YES YOU WERE. NO ONE ELSE WAS FALLING OFF THEIR SEAT!”
He hopped off the stairs and said, “‘No bitch, it was your fucking driving,’ Just kidding, I didn’t say that. I said, ‘It wasn’t my fault’,”
And that was Chooch’s story in his words but written by me.
Question: What question should I ask you?
Answer: I’m not answering questions about questions!
Question: OK favorite hobby I guess.
Answer: Right now it’s pretty much playing games on Kongregate.com.
Puzzle Update
The puzzle is still not finished. Chooch spends more time re-piecing the parts that the cats have demolished that actually assembling any new sections. I was on the phone with Henry during my lunch break on Thursday when he said, “Oh, wait for it….wait for…” and suddenly I heard a blood-curdling scream in the background. Apparently, Chooch had come home from school and found his puzzle in even worse condition and had a mental breakdown over it. So then I had to stand there in the middle of downtown with the phone to my ear while he and Henry fought about the puzzle because Chooch was mad that Henry saw the puzzle in such a state and didn’t try to fix it and Henry shouted, “IT’S NOT MY FUCKING PUZZLE!” so now we’re about to have a fucking family meeting (maybe even in a courthouse at this point) to come up with a solution because Henry wants the puzzle off the table but there are no other tables to move it onto so Chooch suggested buying a card table to put on the backporch so that the cats won’t bother it when it’s unsupervised because we can close the door, but Henry doesn’t want to buy a table and I personally don’t care either way because I lost interest in the puzzle a day after we got it. Actually, probably that same night.
So that’s where we are with that.
Question: Are you embarrassed of Trudy?
Answer: No she looks badass now with the gas mask because you can’t see her stupid face.
Question: when did you stop believing in Santa?
Answer: I either watched a video or you guys accidentally did something, I can’t remember.
(I probably told him in the middle of a fight haha.)
Well, we’re both bored with this now and I want to do jumping jacks so goodbye.