[Ed.Note: Apparently, in the beginning, I tried extra hard to pretend we weren’t actually calling him Chooch 24:7. This post was originally written June 2006.]

Last week, I had Riley on the front porch and I noticed that he was staring at a bird perched above us on a telephone wire. Clearly, this meant that he is obsessed with birds so Henry and I took him to the National Aviary on Saturday. Because that’s how all infants want to spend a hot and humid Saturday afternoon, right?

We get him inside and I extract him from his stroller, in spite of Hoover’s pleas to let him wake up first, and began thrusting him at all the birds. Now, he’s not even two months old yet, and the rational portion of my brain realized that he wasn’t going to give a shit about an enclosure full of birds. But the child-like section of my brain is a large expanse of Legos and spit bubbles and it always wins when pitted against rationality and reason. So there I was, holding him up and saying, “LOOK AT THE GODDAMN FLAMINGOS! WHY DON’T YOU CARE ABOUT THE GODDAMN FLAMINGOS?” When he was nary a week old, I got all fed up and deflated because he wasn’t paying attention to his toys. “Make him wake up!” I would whine to Henry. Now I’m all, “For the love of God, make him go to sleep.” But I still get frustrated when he won’t take delight in the treasure trove of toys I totally splurged on when I could have been buying CDs for me me me.

I realized that Henry wasn’t capturing these riveting aviary memories so I barked at him to start videotaping for Christ’s sake. We now have a few minutes of Riley slobbering and staring blankly at everything but the goddamn birds, and then a few seconds of Riley bursting into tears at which point Hoover hurriedly turned off the camera because God forbid people know that our baby cries.

We sat outside under the protective cover of shade for a bird show, also not cared about by Riley. I looked around at the toddlers, who were squealing and applauding with expressions of pure fascination, and I wished Riley were older. But then we went into the gift shop and one of said toddlers was running amok and throwing merchandise off shelves and it really made me appreciate my little infant Riley, sacked out in his stroller. Please don’t grow up.

Then he arose and screamed bloody murder. He is not the happiest of babies. Henry said he has my temperament. Mine? But I’m a DOLL.

Oh well, at least we didn’t have to pay for him to not care about birds. But really, not even the parrots, Riley?!

Riley, enjoying life in the quiet sanctuary of his crib before being whisked off into a rowdy and humid pen full of bird shit and bellowing children

Two days earlier, I had wanted to dip Riley into a fountain at the cemetery we were at, but that was when I realized that I might have left the stove turned on. When I relayed my foiled plans to Henry that night, he breathed a sigh of relief and began lecturing me on dirty fountain water. It looked so clean and sparkling to me, though!

While we were there, I noticed a refreshing pond-sized rectangle of water down yonder from the aviary and begged Henry to let me dunk Riley in it. Maybe this particular receptacle of water would meet Hoover’s standards.

“Do you even know how filthy that water is? I don’t think so. And what’s with you wanting to ‘dunk’ our son in water?”

I can’t help it, he just looks so dunkable! I want to be dipping him in swimming pools, ponds, puddles, vats of molasses. I just want to be dunking him!

Yesterday, Henry compromised and let me dunk Riley in his little bath tub.

Thank you for dunking me in clean and sanitary water, Mom
At least it was clean and sanitary until he let loose with an explosive shit. I screamed and made Henry clean it. Anytime he protests, I viciously remind him that I’m breastfeeding. The breastfeeding card is just as good to play as the birthing card. I love this game.

That’s me who he’s smiling at, by the way. I was so excited the day he flashed his first smile, because it was 6-6-06. But then I realized it wasn’t so exciting because that was also Henry’s birthday. However, I noticed that while he does in fact gift Henry and I with his occassional smiles (which he usually follows with a scowl or blood-curling scream as he realizes that, “Hey, I’m being happy. There goes my reputation.”), the recipient of the bulk of his beams is none other than Robert Smith. It’s true. He’ll be staring off over my shoulder and I’ll follow his gaze straight to one of my many Robert Smith portraits. Maybe those nine months of rubbing my belly, playing the Cure and chanting “Robert Smith is your daddy” really paid off.

This kid is going to be so confused.

I guess Chooch turning four has really hit me harder than I thought it would. Not that I still considered him a baby, but goddamn, he REALLY isn’t a baby anymore. I was looking through some old pictures of him on Flickr and began reminiscing. It’s hard to imagine what life was like back then, when he couldn’t yet walk on his own, ruin my stuff intentionally, or call me a bitch when I follow his sneezes with a “bless you.”

This would NEVER HAPPEN now.

I think this will always be one of my favorite photos of him, because he looks like a cartoon. And I’ve been told that about myself more times than I care to recall.

Chooch and his doll Rot at the Uniondale Cemetery. Miraculously, Rot is still intact! Probably only because Chooch hasn’t learned how to set things on fire. Yet.

Robert Smith pins!

Oh my god, I wish he was still a baby. I did less fearing for my life back then. I think today is going to be the start of  Old School Chooch Week where I’ll post old stories from his baby days. DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT?

I don’t know if I ever explained this yet, but Henry drives me to work every day like the good little jitney he is. I start at 4pm, and he doesn’t leave his job until at least 3, so for me to take (OMG) public transportation, he’d have to come home even earlier, forcing his boss to have a stroke. Plus, being poor folk, we only have one car and sometimes Henry actually needs it to go out and do things for me while I’m filing my nails at my comfy job.

The first two weeks of this went well. Henry is a seasoned pro at driving around downtown because that was his delivery route when he worked at the horrible Jewish meat asylum. So every day, we’d take a different route and I’d marvel at all the new sights of a city where I lived MY WHOLE LIFE. Put me in the center of town and force me to find my way home if you ever want to see me completely give up all hope and succumb to rocking back and forth with hugged knees atop a steaming sewer grate.

Then the cop incident happened, and that was sort of the impetus that took Henry from being all, “No, this is fine; I don’t have a problem driving downtown everyday” to “FUCKING DOWNTOWN OMG ANOTHER BUS I WANT TO BOMB THE BUSES NOW WHAT DOES THIS BROAD THINK SHE’S DOING?”

Two days ago, there were two young black guys yukking it up while jaywalking. I waited for Henry to slow down.

Henry did not slow down.

If I close my eyes, I can still the one boy’s lips beginning to hug the words OH SHIT as Henry nearly grazed his left side.

“WHAT THEY WEREN’T USING A CROSSWALK” Henry bellowed at me, and then approximately five seconds later we almost got t-boned by a bus.

Henry was flipping out. His nostrils, I’ve never seen them that flared, and come on – he’s lived with ME (Erin Rachelle!) for TEN YEARS.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS MY CAR INVISIBLE” he screamed out the window.

(Punctuation need not apply when quoting Chafed Hank.)

As he started to round the corner to drop me off, an older woman was attempting to cross the street.

“Watch—” I started to warn.

“I DON’T CARE I’LL KILL THEM ALL” he spat.

I was very happy when my feet touched my curb, because it meant I’m a survivor. Where’s my magnetic ribbon for the car?

[Side note: When I was shuttled to work yesterday, Chooch had chocolate frosting smeared like shit all over his lips, and was dangling a blown-up latex glove and one bare foot out the window. When you’re met with judgmental stares of homeless people and curb-dwelling wiggers, you can damn well be sure you just exited a Hillbilly Mobile.]

As soon as I got in the car last night, he started rambling about strippers. “They think because they’re strippers, they can just STAND IN THE STREET? I ALMOST RAN ONE OVER” He sounded so exasperated and disgusted, of course I was going to laugh at him.

A note to strippers from Henry: Just because you make him erect does not mean he won’t run you over if you walk in front of his car.

***

The UPS man brought Chooch a package yesterday. It was a Lego set. And not just any Lego set – but a SPONGEBOB lego set!

Spongebob is probably my least favorite cartoon in the world. Legos are probably my least favorite toy in the world.

OH WAIT, this is about CHOOCH. I keep forgetting!

“That’s mean,” I said to Henry, who had stopped home on his lunch break. “To get a kid Legos.”

Mean for the parents. Or, for the Erin, in this case.

But then I noticed on the invoice, it said it was purchased from his wish list. “That little asshole added it to his Toys R Us wish list!” I said to Henry.

“Yeah, because I wanted it,” Chooch butt in with his patented “no duh” tone.

Henry went back to work just in time for Chooch to start begging for someone to help him sort through 98,098 of the tiniest pieces I’ve ever seen – when did Legos shrink? Is there a growing dwarf population that Lego is trying to accommodate? Just what I wanted to do, spend an entire afternoon on the floor, tugging on my hair and blowing out steaming obscenities.

And then I heard Chooch snickering as he sat elsewhere, playing with less complicated toys that came already assembled by the manufacturer.

“Why are you laughing?” I asked angrily.

“Because you’re doing that all by yourself,” he giggled. “And you’re so pissed.”

Not ten minutes after I put the final dust mite-sized piece on the Krabby Patty Hell House, Chooch picked it up and five sections broke off, shattering as it hit the ground like pieces of a glass leper.

I firmly believe that Hell is carpeted with Legos, and everyone is forced to watch Spongebob ad nauseum while seated in chairs cushioned with the up-ended swords of the PlayMobile viking set.

FUCK TOYS.

But Chooch is happy with it, and my sister was nice enough to get it for him. And that’s all that matters!  I can say that now, because I got all my anger out yesterday after I punched all those orphaned babies and took a gin bath.

Look at me, being a grown-up!

Seriously though, I kind of want to just give him a cardboard box and tell him to use his imagination.

[ETA: After skimming through this, I realize I sound like an ungrateful asshole! I’m not, I swear! This was meant in good humor. I’m glad Chooch got a present – something he wanted, no less –  from someone other than me.]

More cards from the Chooch collection! We’ve sold a few over on Etsy and he just thinks he’s the shit now. And I split the proceeds with him.

So now he’s able to buy his own food.

Inside is blank, in case you want to write a haiku about your lovah’s frontal lobe.

Front

Inside. Prepositional rules don’t apply when you’re professing love.

And if your love-person has a penis?

Inside is the same as the girlie one.

They can be boughteded here: Non Compos Cards. Help Chooch survive!

Chooch turned four yesterday by rolling out of bed and colliding with the nightstand.

But it was all uphill after that!

Since he has a birthday party coming up in two weeks, we decided to just give him some small things for his birthday. I bought him (notice I said I – I’m the best parent; Henry is a deadbeat!) some Batman stuff; the Friday the 13th remake; Diary of the Dead; and a fucking viking PlayMobile set, over which I’m currently suffering stabbing pangs of buyer’s remorse. Fuck you, PlayMobile! The outside of the box said it included something like 40 pieces, but it didn’t specify that 3/4 of those pieces rival the size of ANTS. It’s some goddamn BULLSHIT. I kept trying to hide it from him all day, and every time he was on the precipice of forgetting its existence, asshole Alisha would say, “Gee, Chooch.

Where did your VIKING SET go?”

I actually had a nightmare about that viking set. Worst purchase ever. OK, maybe not quite as bad as the cream I bought eleven years that was intended to make you lose weight once applied to your wrists. (It did not make me lose weight, so I went back to the pills I bought at GNC that made me black out.)

Janna joined us later for a Vanilla Pastry Studio circle jerk. Chooch wanted cupcakes from Shop n Save, and at that moment, I actually saw a little bit of Henry in him: poor taste and frugality. The horror.

I was like, “Son, this is as much my day as it is yours, lest you forget. And I’ll be damned if we’re eating stale lumps of Betty Crocker mix out of a plastic grocery store bakery container.”

All day, Chooch kept asking, “Is it still my birthday?” and it was kind of adorable. Which is a new thing for me, because usually he’s being a holy terror.

Henry burnt himself no less than 18 times lighting these, which made me happy because he had previously spent a good five minutes haranguing me for buying “too many” candles. I’m sorry, what? There’s no such thing as too many candles. (If Henry were writing this, that would say “to many.”)

There were no complaints as everyone ate themselves into a cupcake coma. THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT.

Look at her, thinking of ways to ruin my life. This was right before she extracted Chooch’s “bonus gift” from her purse….

A whistle! A motherfucking whistle! Who gives a four-year-old a WHISTLE? An asshole who hates the kid’s mother, that’s who!

Chooch REALLY likes knives. We were at IHOP last week and he asked to take his knife home with him. Chooch, giving new meaning to WWJD. (WHAT WOULD JASON DO.)

When Janna is around, Chooch is super good. She’s like a goddamn Chooch Whisperer. I keep trying to drop joint-custody hints around her, but I don’t think she’s quite picking up on it.

It was a good day. I think my favorite part was when he was watching his new Friday the 13th DVD, and very seriously said, “Whoa. She is really good at killing Jason.”

He was so well-behaved yesterday. I don’t think I had to lock him in his cage once!

Today is Chooch’s last day as a three-year-old. Here’s hoping he’s as charming and adorable as I was at that age, because if he continues down this path of petulance, I’m not so sure I can continue being his mommy.

You got that, Child Protective Services?

Pantsless zombie, the new fashion statement. It’s what I’m wearing to work on Monday.

This is either him emulating the undead or mocking me. I can’t decipher between the two anymore.

God help me.

If the two’s were terrible, then the three’s were a regular trepanning.

This was right as he was saying, “Zombies are fucking assholes.”

We are currently looking into homeschooling. Well, Henry is. I’m looking into a nice one bedroom apartment a few states away.

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Chooch will be FOUR (!!!) on April 25th so we’ve been all immersed in planning his birthday party. He’s still gung-ho about the zombie theme and I had big plans for the invitations. While I love my new job, there’s still that little bit of anxiety that comes with starting something new, and paired with the fact that I now have much less free time, the original invitation idea will have to wait for another year.

Instead, I thought it would be fun and simple if I just had Chooch draw a zombie. Then I scanned it, added an exposed brain, and digitally colored it. It was perfect, because my childish art skillz basically merge effortlessly with those of an actual child. It ended up being so cute and I was so proud of Chooch for his contribution, and we didn’t even butt heads! But it made me sad that only a few people would get to see it, so I changed the front to read “I want your brains” instead of “Chooch wants your brains,” and now they can double as note cards in case you want to send your pastor a note about last week’s sermon or tell your hair stylist that you’re cheating on her with the broad at Philip Pelusi.

Set of 5 on Etsy!

I refused to pay the exorbitant price that rip-off company at the mall charges for some untrained teenager to carelessly press a button on a camera while some unsavory character in a smelly fur suit forces my child to sit upon his questionable lap.

So I had an unsavory Henry slap on a smelly plastic rabbit mask, shrug into a blazer that hasn’t seen the light since 1989, and force our child to sit upon his questionable lap.

I think Henry could have tried a little harder, but what can you do. Besides make the rest of his night a living hell, which I fully intend.

Afterward, we had a lovely dinner at my mom’s house with Alisha, Henry’s mom and my brother Ryan. Corey is still in London and he was missed. We drank wine from real wine glasses this time, Corey! Post-dinner was full of HILARIOUS anecdotes (told by yours) and at one point I called Henry a spring chicken and we all laughed heartily. Then I pressured him about marriage, creating room for awkward and uncomfortable chuckles. Henry’s mom said something about it “just being a piece of paper” and I almost screamed, “I knew you didn’t want me to be your daughter-in-law!” but remembered I had just downed two glasses of very potent spiced wine and thought better of it.

Chooch showed Ryan the zombie games he plays online and they bonded over that for awhile, even went outside and played with a basketball, portraying a regular uncle-nephew scene from a Norman Rockwell painting and my head almost exploded. It was awesome. The bonding, not the near-explosion.

My mom said Ryan told her he was going to go home and check out more of the zombie games.Good job, Chooch! I kept suggesting to Ryan, “You should babysit him sometime!” and he kept laughing. But I wasn’t joking.

Alisha had stuffed cabbage for the first time and bragged a lot about Arkansas;  Henry’s mom and my mom talked about things; I piped up every now and then to remind everyone how lucky they are that someone as fantastic as me would even bother spending such a grand holiday with their ragtag asses.

Then Chooch fell and scraped his knee on the driveway and it has been a regular scene from Vietnam around here ever since. Everything is “my scrape!!!!” this and “I’M DYING!!!!!” that.

Next holiday, please.

It’s been almost three weeks now since Chooch’s foot-maiming and there is nary a faint red scratch marring his flesh to indicate any hint of what was once a gnarly gash.

But he’s still favoring it, swaddling it with a sock. He comes home from a long day at Target, the playground, the Hells Angels meeting in the alley behind the Army Navy store; strips off his shoes and pants like all men do, but always keeps the sock on his left foot. Henry and I have been calling him Choochie One Sock.

“Chooch,” I’ll start. “You can honestly take that sock off now.”

“No, I need it.”

He was even keeping it on during baths at first. Actually, he wouldn’t even put his foot in the water. He’d prop himself up in a way that allowed for him to extend his left leg, keeping his battle wound from meeting the dastardly bath water.

Finally, I held his foot into the water like a sack of kittens, in spite of his thrashing and yowling.

“THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR FOOT ANYMORE!” I shouted the other day, over top of his skin-prickling shrieks. Then I hurriedly allowed him to fling his foot back to the surface before the neighbors called the police under suspicion that the crazy girl next door had activated the torture chamber again.

Today, I swore we were making progress. He mindlessly peeled the sock off as he prepared for his bath. He then subconsciously submerged his foot into the water. I waited, braced myself, held my breath in anticipation for a vocal reenactment of Misery’s foot scene.

Nothing. Not even slight whining. Not even a whispered “ow” or a sharp intake of breath.

“Why, my son is done near HEALED,” I thought, referring more to his mental complex than the injury itself.

After his bath, I left him alone to dress in his room. About twenty minutes later, he drove past me on his tricycle and I noticed that he had completed his post-bath ensemble with one goddamn sock.

It sort of reminds me of myself, and the psychotic way I obsessed over my C-section incision for MONTHS.

It’s been 4 years and I swear there are still times when I feel phantom twinges, stings, and tenderness.

In fact, it would have been nice to have had the luxury of guarding my wound with a sock. I’d probably still be wearing it.

I still have a job! And it’s going well. Jim and his collection of Cosby sweaters only lasted two nights. So now it’s just me; the supervisor, Ev; Monica with the cool hair; and four older broads. Mostly, it’s just very quiet there, aside from Ev’s frequent monologues she has with herself.

Ev might be my new favorite supervisor. I’m not sure she realizes I’m as old as I am, because she seems to baby me, calls me missy and says things like, “You know, those things that all you kids listen to.” An iPod, Ev? Because I have mommy issues, I have succumbed to my new role with little to no arm-bending.

The cleaning crew at this place are seemingly normal people who don’t wear Krueger-like acrylics and drive kidnapper wagons. The girl who cleans my area is young with long red hair and I think she might be flirting with me sometimes but I’m dumb when it comes to girls.

The other night, I was listening to the Penguin game while trying not to cheer out loud or punch my desk when the Rangers scored. It was a trying time for me because I have a big mouth. But I was pretty successful, though I hurt my wrist during one of my fist pumps.

The game went into OT, and as I did a celebratory lurch in my seat when Malkin scored and won the game, Monica with the cool hair shouted YES! Everyone turned and looked at her, and she sheepishly said, “Sorry, I was listening to the Pens/Rangers game.”

“Oh my god, me too!” I gushed, hoping she would invite me to a sleepover and do my hair up in corn rows. She just smiled and went back to work, probably whispering, “Oh-em-gee, yay, stupid white girl.”

We are SO going to be besties.

And the job itself continues to be low-stress and mindless, which is mostly a good thing until I start getting lost in my head and thinking about shit that’s better left alone, and then I’m practically rolling me and my ball of angst into the house every night, at which point I become Henry’s responsibility.

*****

In Chooch news, he was downloading zombie games on my iPhone and one of them plays sound bytes from Night of the Living Dead. He’s been walking around saying, “I’m coming to get you Barbara” in his strangled zombie voice and then in a high-pitched tone he goes, “Stop it, you’re ignorant!

” We’re in the middle of Target and he’s reciting this. He’s been watching clips from the movie on my phone, and then the 1990 remake was on over the weekend, so I DVRd it and he watches it 1683 times a day, though he gets irritated that the new Barbara says “You’re being mean” instead of “ignorant.”

*****

I hate Pizza Hut. I guess hate is a strong word, but I’m notoriously picky about my pizza.

However, they’re offering Penguins collector cups so of course that’s where I wanted to eat after the Pens/Bruins game on Sunday. Alisha came with us which meant I got to sit in a cramped booth with her and her purse, which is so prominent it might as well be capitalized.

I think our waiter was an escapee from a halfway house and I’m sure he drives a Pinto. We asked him questions about the cups and his answer to everything was, “I don’t know” and “I’m not sure.” Kind of like when people ask me questions about the city I live, which I know next to nothing about because I don’t care and I’m also a partial shut-in. We ended up spending ALL THIS MONEY in order to get all four cups, only to be told later that they only had two of the players, so what combination of that would we like.

Fucking foiled as usual. Now we’ll have to go back there AGAIN to get the other two and I just don’t think I can answer any more confusing questions like, “What kind of crust do you want?” and the be expected to ingest it, too.  Fuck you, Pizza Hut.

While Henry was inside paying, Alisha, Chooch and I decided to go out to the car. I was dealt the arduous task of securing Chooch into his car seat (I CANNOT WAIT TO BE DONE WITH THIS CAR SAFETY RIGMAROLE). There I am, in a dark parking lot, ass jutting out of the backseat when I feel a sharp jab between my ribs and the voice of a convicted child molester snarling, “Give me all your money.”

I blew back Chooch’s face with the loudest shriek I could muster, only to find it was Henry being an asshole.

“I can’t believe Chooch didn’t cry when I screamed in his face,” I marveled.

“That’s because you were using your horror movie scream and not your hockey scream,” Alisha rationalized. And that’s probably true.

My grandma was finally released from the nursing home yesterday. There’re both pros and cons to that, I guess, as nursing homes can be negligent and have proved that several times during her stay. However, being back home with my aunt Sharon isn’t really such a hot idea either, as she will likely fall right back into a routine of little movement and no outside interaction.

In any case, Sharon sought Henry’s shoveling skills so that the paramedics would be able to get my grandma safely into the house. Chooch and I went with him, because I had wanted to get some new pictures of Chooch anyway. It was sort of a bad idea. And I don’t even mean the fact that Chooch was being completely uncooperative and dickish with me. It was just sad being at that house. I grew up there, and to be outside of it, with the sunlight highlighting all the mossy overgrowth, broken lanterns, rusted railings and caved in gates? It was a bit much for me.  Especially when I followed Chooch into the backyard and saw how decrepit and forlorn the back patio looks, the pool nothing more than a gaping leaf-filled hole in the ground and the accompanying  shanny overtaken by weeds and God only knows what kind of wildlife.  That used to be the summer hot spot, right there, but since my Pappap died it has quite literally been consumed by nature. It breaks my heart to know that my kid will never get to have pool parties there like I did.

Maybe they should rent out their backyard to be used as a horror movie set. Because I honestly had the shivers being back there. And the back of the property is hugged by an expanse of woods, so God only knows how many bodies are buried there.  I used to walk out there daily when I was in high school and there were times when the hair on my arms would stand erect in ninety degree weather and my heels would instinctively fling me into a pirouette and send me running back home.

Chooch ate chicken nuggets while Henry teetered on the edge of Heart Attack Mountain in an attempt to break through blocks of ice on the front porch. Apparently, after the big fucking snowstorm that left Pittsburgh looking like Antarctica gave birth in its background, my aunt was trying to solve the problem by throwing salt on three feet of snow, which only resulted in layers of it melting and then freezing into sheets of ice. Which in turn became Henry’s problem. He should be used to cleaning up after me and my family by now, though. Like the time I tried to vacuum liquid from the bottom of the fridge and didn’t realize that it was pouring out of the hose and onto the kitchen floor behind me. Immediately became Henry’s problem.

While Henry was shoveling, Sharon called me from inside the house to inform me that Henry is an angel and that I better never let him go. This schmooze fest went on for a few minutes while I’m struggling to not blurt out, “He better never let ME go! I’m the awesome one in this arrangement!” but secretly I knew she was right. Goddammit. At one point she said he was god sent and I was like, “OK, I have to go.”

There’s a large shed that’s also in the back of the house. Chooch was like, “What the hell is this, a farm?” and I almost blurted out, “No, this is where I hid my boyfriend Mike when he ran away from home.” It was unlocked, but I was hesitant to open the door.

It just feels like everything is going to break if I touch it and I guess I would just rather remember it the way it used to be. And not some rotting cavity filled with broken down mowers, lawnchairs  and ATVs. And probably dead animals. Actually, after my Pappap died, a “family friend” broke into that shed and stole most of his stuff, anyway (and later fell from a ladder, broke his neck, and died). So it’s likely filled with nothing but stale air and shitty fucking karma.

He later bitched the whole way home because for some reason HIS PANTS WERE ALL WET, WAH.

I used to roller skate up and down this lane. There were speed bumps on it back then though, which my Pappap was responsible for. The story was that there was a family who lived at the end of the lane and their teenaged son used to get a little overzealous behind the wheel. Apparently he almost ran over my aunt Susie when she was a kid, so in went the speed bumps. Every one hated them, especially once my friends started driving, because no one ever thought to SLOW DOWN for the SPEED BUMPS and perhaps save the undercarriage of their cars, and I don’t know, a LIFE?

After my Pappap died, some of the neighbors got together and had the speed bumps taken out. Even though I had already moved off that street and into my own apartment by then, it really upset me. Like a piece of him had literally been ground into dust. Ew, I couldn’t stand it. I hate the fuckers who live on that street.

I shudder to think what will become of my grandparent’s house once my grandma is gone. Being there yesterday was kind of terrible.

9 comments

Underroo shopping is serious business. Chooch ultimately went with the glow in the dark Iron Man variety. He officially has graduated from the toddler section and is now perusing racks of Shawn White flannels and hoodies in the BOY SECTION. Oh my god, it seems like just last month he was still wearing onesies under his shirts and puking breast milk in my face.

His fourth birthday is April 25th and I imagine his party will be sometime around then.

Chooch and I already sat down and started working on a Toys R Us wish list, which was frustrating, I mean – fun. So very fun. I keep trying to tell him he wants all this awesome Penguins memorabilia but he just looks at me and mumbles, “I hate you.”

Chooch has been very set in his decision of a zombie theme so I guess I better start begging my Etsy Dark Side friends for ideas and help. Lots of help. I already sense another homemade birthday invitation odyssey. Speaking of zombies, he’s watching “Zombieland” right now and just cheered, “Yeah, fuck that clown!

”

In other non-swearing child news, Immigration Insiders is following me on Twitter. What do they know??

“…and I’ll be 65 and retired,” Henry was saying.

I laughed. “You? Retired? You’ll never get to retire. We’ll be living in a goddamned porta potty by then.”

“Oh please. Like you’ll even still be with me then. You’ll be 40 and flirting with younger guys. Whore.”

It’s funny because it’s true.

And then Chooch was talking about the ice cream shop he supposedly opened “down by Giant Eagle,” and Henry goes, “What do you say to your customers? ‘I hate you, what do you want?'”

Chooch paused in consideration and then said, “Yeah. Douchebag.”

Alisha and I had plans to meet down the street at Eat n Park for lunch.  I don’t mind walking there because it’s only a few blocks away, but I hate that I have to cross over a main road; it’s a phobia.  Fortunately, there was a young guy ahead of me who was about to cross, so I ran and yelled, “Wait! Wait for me!” He turned mid-step to eye me up suspiciously. Catching up to him, I panted, “I don’t like crossing the street by myself.” It wasn’t awkward at all. But then I made the mistake of telling Alisha and she was like, “Why are you so stupid.”  Later, she ordered a turtle sundae but that is a story for another time.

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OK, it’s time. Alisha decided we should get dessert and since she was buying, I heartily agreed. “I’ll have the dutch apple pie,” I said to our waitress, Barb. This was after I recovered from the shiver session I had when, in passing, Barb imprisoned me in an intense eye-lock. I really don’t know what that was all about, but afterward I was literally trying to bear hug my way through to my soul, you can ask Alisha.

Barb nodded and duly jotted it down.

“And I want the turtle sundae,” Alisha mumbled with the general disdain she reserves for strangers.

“Ooooh, the turtle sundae!” Barb exclaimed in an intonation preschool teachers must master before getting their own classroom. And then she let loose with some celebratory sound before shuffling away.

Shocked, I asked Alisha, “Did she say ‘God damn’?!”

“No,” Alisha shook her head, looking alarmed. “It was just some excited noise. And why was she talking to me like I’m 8 years old?”

When Barb came back, she made some monotoned comment about, “Here’s your dutch” before raising her voice several octaves and cooing, “And here’s your….turtle sundae! Ooooh! Look at that!” Alisha gave her a fake smile and was all, “OK bye bye now.”

“What the hell, it’s just a sundae,” I said. And not even a signature one at that. But then I remembered I had the pie of the Dutch beneath my face and focused on that for awhile.

Barb reappeared a few minutes later to make sure we were competently devouring our desserts. “How’s your TURTLE SUNDAE?!” she shouted, fawning all over Alisha like she was a visiting diplomat, because don’t all visiting diplomats stop at Eat n Park for a turtle fucking sundae while visiting Pittsburgh?

Alisha, refusing to make eye contact, assured her it was fine. Satisfied with that review, Barb began to retreat. She made it a few feet before turning, as an after thought, and asking over her shoulder, “Oh, and how’s the pie?”

Oh, why it’s no turtle sundae, Barb.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that this situation seemed redundant. Like, I was having some major deja vu. And then I realized I had been in that same situation before, three years ago, only that time I was in the Queen Seat. I went home and checked LiveJournal, and sure enough, this was not my first run-in with Barb, the Dessert Snob:

July 2007

Lisa temporarily resides in Colorado so I was excited to get to see her Wednesday afternoon during her Pittsburgh visit. We walked down the street to Eat n Park for coffee and dessert, the perfect pre-work sugar fix.

Our waitress Barb was an older woman with the easy-to-talk-to charm of a seasoned server. Lisa immediately overshadowed me with her big smile and confident voice.

“I’ll have the chocolate cake!” Lisa cheerfully ordered.

Barb smiled and jotted it down.

“And I’ll have the blackberry pie with ice cream,” I ordered not as cheerfully, but I sort of smiled. Which is big for me.

Barb’s body shook with pleasure. “Yes! Good choice!” she sang as she scratched my order on her pad with a flourish.

“That’s my favorite!”

I smirked at Lisa after Barb retreated. “She likes me better than you,” I chided.

“What makes your pie so much better than my chocolate cake? I mean, it’s chocolate cake!” Lisa’s visage melted into a befuddled glaze.

“Chocolate cake is a menu mainstay, Lisa. My pie is a seasonal delight.” This seemed to distract Lisa long enough for me to continue droning on about my life’s conundrums. It’s nice to have counseling ears across from me sometimes.

Barb returned with our desserts and the reminder than I am, and always will be, better than Lisa. She set down Lisa’s plate with an unremarkable motion, but then turned to me with the fanfare of a queen’s arrival as she gently placed my pie beneath my fat face and took a step back.

“Look at that pie, would you?

Oh, I hope you will enjoy it. It really is the best!”

I hesitated before crushing into the crisp sugary crust, unsure if Barb was going to stand there and gawk. She smiled once more and carried on with her rounds of coffee refills.

Lisa was absently slapping her cake with the back of her fork, scowling at me. “Enjoy your freaking pie,” she mimicked.

During our meal, Barb came back later with our separate checks. She was delighted to tell me that my check was special. “Lookie here! There’s a number at the bottom to call and complete a real short survey. Then you write down the code they give you and bring this back next time for a two dollar discount!

” She clapped her hands together and held them under her chin, waiting for me to call my mommy and thank her for birthing me so that I could one day experience the jubilation of getting an Eat n Park survey check.

I feigned happiness for the sake of Lisa’s plummeting self-worth. “It’s because I was smart enough to order the delicious pie and not the boring cake,” using my words to further wheedle away at her ordering inadequacies.

We continued to pick away at our desserts and imbibe (too much) coffee, when Lisa spilled her water all over the table. Barb came running over with her rag and we all tried to make light of Lisa’s fumbling fingers.

“At least it didn’t get on her pie,” Barb sighed.

The worst part of today’s episode in dessert racism is that suddenly Alisha likes cherries now and no longer gifts me with her unwanted maraschino sundae toppers. FUCK.

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Just a few moments ago, Chooch started shouting some nonsense about how there’s a Valentine card for me in the car.

“No there’s not,” Henry said tersely, all but making throat-cutting motions to get Chooch to shut up.

“Yes there is!” Chooch battled.

“No there’s not!” Henry said through gritted teeth, like the subject was hidden paternity and not some flimsy supposedly secretive greeting card for a holiday that I know is tomorrow, sorry, but I have a calendar and people on twitter reminding me every .005 seconds that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.

“Yes there is!” Chooch shouted, getting visibly upset at this point. “We bought it in the Valentine card section!”

The jig is up, Henry!

The votes are in and the Crosby/Talbot spot was voted #1 NHL commercial, which I’m sure has caused an uproar in the Crosby HaterNation and that makes it even more satisfying. I love reading the hate that spews from anti-Crosby fans on the NHL Facebook page because it’s so unwarranted and nonsensical.

Anyway, I love this commercial; it’s sweet and cute, even if you don’t like hockey. It makes me wonder if someday Chooch will be famous for…something, and the computer monitor he slashed with a pumpkin carver will be in a commercial.

This is an extended version of the commercial that’s on TV:

Seriously, Chooch slashed our monitor with a pumpkin carver. That was two nights ago. I’m only moderately sick over it now.