“It’s nice to know you made a sandwich for you and Chooch, but not me,” Henry said, peeking inside the Iron Man snack pack Chooch uses for school.  Hey, I never promised him a ribbon-topped box of consideration for Christmas. Chooch and I waited impatiently for him to make a sandwich and then we finally set off for our (my) favorite cemetery on the Northside of Pittsburgh.

Henry was worried that our car would get stuck on the unplowed cemetery lanes, which is his way of saying, “I think this is the dumbest tradition ever and sandwiches don’t taste good when eaten while my dick is getting frost-bitten.” I knew that the dead people wouldn’t let ourcar get stuck.

NOT ON CHRISTMAS! Who the fuck else is going to visit these old, forgotten bones?

Chooch loves going to the cemetery on Christmas.

I  mean, I used to always just  assume he did when he was too young to really have a say, but now this brat is so strong-willed that I know he would be all, “Oh hell no!” if he really didn’t want to do something. Because that’s what he says.

“I don’t look pissed off enough,” Chooch said. “Take another.”

A much better depiction of my child

For the forty-five minutes we spent amongst the dead, I was completely at peace and stress-free. But there were family-obligations looming ahead, so I should have known that wouldn’t last long.

I woke up Christmas morning to some Prince video marathon on VH1 Soul. It was Purple Rain-era, so I left it on, because nothing says Christmas morning quite like velvet blazers, jheri curls and lewd guitar stances. Finally, I couldn’t take the anticipation any longer and decided to coax Chooch out of slumber.

“Santa was here!” I yelled, pushing him back and forth on the bed with one impatient arm.

He mumbled some string of slurred profanities at me, shrugged me off and rolled away from me, falling back asleep.

What non-orphaned child doesn’t want to wake up on Christmas morning!? I went back downstairs and watched more Prince videos.  We had moved from “When Doves Cry” to CREAM-era by the time Chooch and Henry finally decided to join me. I was a little annoyed, but determined not to let it ruin the day.

He tore open gift after gift like a forgotten Looney Tunes character, arms blurred and paper shooting out behind him in a discarded pile. He needed no reminding of Christmas morning protocol.

I thought it was really sweet that my far-away friends thought of Chooch and sent him gifts. He got a Thing doll and some Ben 10 comic books from Bill and Jessi, causing him to rejoice in that high-pitched way children are wont to do.

I kept waiting for Henry to emerge from the kitchen with a silver tray stacked with hot cinnamon buns and some mimosas. But I guess he would have had to lift his old man bones up off the couch in order for anything short of cereal-pouring to happen.

Andrea got him a Jason wall grabber, which I can’t wait to use to cover the Sharpie art on his bedroom wall.

And then my Floridian friend Octavia saw this pull-apart zombie doll and thought of Chooch immediately. It arrived a week before Christmas, so we all had to sit around and stare at this odd-shaped package; she wouldn’t even tell me what it was. Torture!

Chooch accidentally opened Marcy’s gift, so I tried to dupe her by sliding Speck’s under her nose. She looked at me like, “You think I was born yesterday? Nice try,” so I had to unwrap it for her. And remember how Henry only bought two packs of cat treats because “Only two of the four cats eat the fucking things!”?

Yeah, good job, Henry. Because we all know how awesome cats are at sharing.

I’m so glad I bought the little fucker a Wii, when a fucking $10 Zombieland DVD elicited the biggest response from him. Seriously, it was like giving a blind bastard back his eyesight, he was so amped.

I had to beg him to put pj bottoms on so he wouldn’t be half-nude in all  the pictures. It nearly started a war, until I desperately yelled, “IT’S SANTA’S RULE, NOT MINE!”

The entire Series #5 of Homies! Next year’s gingercrack house will be even more balls out. We’ll probably have enough left over to make a manger scene, too!

Zombie loot.

Henry knowing his role on Christmas morning. Prince videos in the background.

The most adorable renditions of horror movie stars.

Halloween wristlet from Bill & Jessi; more awesome makeup from Andrea!

After all of our (Henry’s) hardwork was ripped to shreds and left in a wilting, used heap on the floor, Chooch was busying himself with his new Imaginext playsets, the Prince marathon had graduated to The Artist Formerly Known As Prince-era, and Henry and I were relaxing on the couch.

“Isn’t this the cutest thing ever?” I said, holding up Chooch’s new “10 Little Zombies” book.

“No, you are,” Henry said, and it seemed sincere! It totally made up for his failure to buy me a Christmas present.

Almost.

On the night of Christmas Eve, we went to Henry’s sister’s house for some holiday hootenannies. We passed out gifts to all the kids and then Henry’s mom Judy asked, “Where are the spinach pies?”

Henry looked at me like I was going to tug them out of my g-string, but unfortunately I forgot to stuff them in there. It’s tough when my pimp doesn’t remind me to stow sundry down my pants like a human pantry. Besides, spinach pies were Henry’s duty, and he evidently failed. Judy seemed very sad about this.

Toward the end of the night, Henry was in the living room watching the kids play video games, while I sat in the kitchen drinking wine with Judy and Henry’s sister Kelly.

Henry walked through the kitchen at one point to grab some food and I made an off-hand remark about how I’ve been trying to get him to dress a little better, and they both said they had noticed and thought he looked nice. Once he left the room though, the atmosphere got very heavy and Judy leaned in and, with her face drawn into a grave expression, murmured, “You know the reason why my son doesn’t dress nice, right?”

Because he got the domestic piece of the gay gene and not the sense of style slice?, I wanted to say. Instead, I shook my head and said, “No, why?”

“Oh, that girl he dated after the Service!” Judy exclaimed, hand on her chest.

I gave her a blank look.

“You don’t know about that girl he was going with?” she asked, clearly astonished that Henry left that chapter out when divulging his life story to me after a night of cheap drinks and bad karaoke at McCoy’s.

I looked over to Kelly for some help, expecting for her to chime in and say that their mom was losing her mind—which typically is Kelly’s role in these conversations, to say that Mom is batshit crazy—but she too had gone all somber.

“No, I guess I don’t know about her,” I said, wondering what the story was since Henry has told me some Pretty Big Secrets in our time together.

“She was awful!” Kelly spat, looking completely repulsed. “I don’t know what he ever saw in her!”

“He met her at Jack’s, right when he got out of the Service,” Judy regaled. “They were always together, going out drinking. Oh, when he found out she was gay, he didn’t come out of his room for three months.”

RECORD SCRATCH. My ears were practically fluttering off my head, this unbelievably moist wad of gossip sending them into overdrive.

HENRY HAD A GAY GIRLFRIEND? Oh, how rich.

At this point, I was pretty sure Judy was trying not to cry. But the more I let it sink in, the less it seemed like a verified Henry Story to me, so I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I kept trying to imagine him, fetus-curved on a twin bed in a mostly non-descript bedroom that maybe had one lone Dukes of Hazard poster on a wall, hugging a pillow into his chest and sobbing because some broad left him for the vag, while the whole family convened out in the hall on suicide watch, fruity tones of Air Supply wafting out from under his door like so many homosexual farts. These images didn’t come as easily as maybe you’d like to think. But I really, truly wanted this story to be legit. More than anything, that would have been the best Christmas present ever.

“What are you talking about?” Blake asked, who was sitting with us at the table messing around with his new camera. I didn’t even think he had been listening.

“Nothing!” Judy snapped, waving him off. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“I hated her,” Kelly continued in hushed tones, after making certain that Blake wasn’t listening. “Chrissy, I think that was her name.” Henry’s mom nodded in recognition. “Yeah, she was always telling him what to do. What to wear. Where to go. She was so controlling. I was like, ‘Why are you letting this girl control you?’ I couldn’t ever understand it.”

Just as I was thinking this broad sounded an awful lot like me, Henry walked into the kitchen. Judy made lip-zipping gestures and acted all awkward and suspicious. I locked eyes with Henry, smirked, and shook my head.

“What?” he asked, stopping in his tracks.

“Nothing!” his mom shouted. We waited for him to grab another handful of chips and leave.

“Don’t tell him I’m telling you this!” Judy pleaded. “He was so upset when this happened. If he hasn’t told you, it’s probably because it’s too painful for him to talk about.”

Henry texted me just then: “What is my mom telling you?”

I replied: “Oh, we’ll be talking later. I can’t believe you’ve been withholding from me.”

Judy wasn’t done.

“I’ve never seen my son so upset!” she continued, face still pulled taut in that expression of utter seriousness. “They didn’t date for long but she really hurt him. He hasn’t bothered dressing nice since her. I guess she ruined him, I don’t know.” By this point, I was chewing on my inner cheeks, trying not to laugh. I just didn’t buy it. It didn’t seem like something he would purposely omit from his oral history, but you better believe I was thinking of all the ways I could use this to fuck with him.

***

A few minutes later, I was in Kelly’s living room, sitting alone on the couch with Henry.

“So I just heard a terribly devastating story about you,” I baited.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” Henry mumbled, not taking his eyes off the Wii game he was playing.

I started to sprinkle out little hints but he honestly kept saying he didn’t know what I was talking about.

“So you mean to tell me you never dated some broad who wound up being gay, plunging you into a downward spiral that left you house-bound for three months?”

“What are you talking about?!” he asked, looking at me for the first time. I filled him in on what his mom and sister told me. They told me not to, but it was too good! I had to chide him, at least a little.

“That girl?! I never dated her! She was just my drinking buddy.” I asked him what her name was, as a test, and he said he couldn’t even remember. I could tell he wasn’t lying.

“Oh, yeah. Chrissy,” he repeated absently after I told him. “Where the hell did my mom get that story from?” he asked mostly to himself.

According to Henry, he used to “loaf” (that’s what old people say instead of “hanging out,” you know) with her and some gay guy named Kenny.

“Oh my god, so you were dating BOTH of them?” I gasped obnoxiously.

“NO! They were just my drinking bud—-SHUT UP!”

The most I could get out of Henry, who is playing the Bad Memory card, is that she was “mannish and had short hair.”

I let it go for awhile, but in the car after we left I filled Blake in and together we rode him like a down-trodden mule all the way home.

“Nothing sexual was going on!” Henry swore.

“Hahaha, Henry said ‘sexual’!” And Blake and I cracked up even harder.

I asked him what ever happened to Chrissy, and all Henry could muster was that he “thinks” she moved to Florida.

“Yeah, you know that because you creep her Facebook profile on the daily,” I needled away.

“I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER HER LAST NAME!” Henry cried, the heat of the situation making him tug at his collar.

***

Today, we were in the car when I noticed that the skin beneath Henry’s bottom lip was bulging, like he was pushing his tongue down in front of his bottom teeth.

“Did you used to dip when you were dating Chrissy?” I asked.

“What? No. Why? AND I NEVER DATED HER!” He quickly tacked on to the sentence.

“Because I’ve never seen you do that with your bottom lip before, thought maybe all this talk of Chrissy was bringing back some old tics.”

“I’m going to kill my mom and sister,” he mumbled.

Maybe they were just that mad over the spinach pies.

Of course we still had shit to buy on Christmas Eve, but luckily we were both off work. (This is almost never the case for Henry.) We hit up Arsenal Cider in Lawrenceville first to grab a growler of vanilla honey cider for my dad. Good thing we got there exactly when they opened, because within five minutes, the small room was quickly filling up with their douchey hipster clientele. Seriously, I find this is the worst thing about the place. But the cider is good enough to keep me coming back.

Afterward, we hit up Salem’s Market in the Strip District to pick up some spinach pies for Henry’s mom and sister.

Chooch thought everything looked disgusting and wasn’t afraid to say it to the faces of the men behind the counter. Meanwhile, I got a lentil soup that was quite delightful.

Outside of Salem’s Market, posing next to a Gorbachev quote.

We came home to a box of presents from our awesome Michigan friends, Bill and Jessi. We stowed them all under the tree, except for the one that said “open fast!” beneath Henry’s name. We tore it open and found a half dozen Faygo cupcakes from Just Baked bakery in Livonia, Michigan. I have now learned what Henry can use in lieu of Viagra, should his future ever call for it. (For those who don’t know, Henry works for a beverage distributor here in Pittsburgh that deals with Faygo. He’s kind of like a God to all of my friends in other states who long for the taste of generic ‘hood-distributed soda but can no longer find it in their local shops. Henry will hook them up every time. Pretty much, it’s all he’s good for.)

This is what ravaged Faygo cupcakes look like.

They were damn good cupcakes. Even after being frozen preventatively by Bill and Jessi and then jostled and man-handled by so many in the shipping industry, they were still world’s better than those crappy abominations that Dozen here in Pittsburgh tries to pass off as cupcakes. These suckers were moist, the frosting was the perfect texture and consistency, and I could totally taste the Faygo. It was remarkable experience for my mouth. Next time we visit Bill and Jessi, I will definitely be stopping at Just Baked.

It was exhausting (watching Henry) wrapping all those presents. We were up most of the night on Christmas Eve getting shit done.

I collapsed on the couch pretty early on.

“What are you doing?!” Henry yelled, breaking a sweat in his attempt to wrap a large open-front trapezoid box.

“Taking a break,” I answered in my teenager-approved “duh” tone.

“After wrapping TWO presents?”

Hey, those cat treats were a bitch to wrap, OK?

Speaking of which, Henry only bought two packs of cat treats when we have FOUR cats!

“Now two of them are going to be left wondering what they did to make Santa diss them,” I whined, considering all the possibilities.

Now they’ll DEFINITELY pillage my body if I die in the house.

“Don and Willie don’t even eat cat treats! They just stare at them!” Henry argued.

Yeah, well guess who the first one was to eat some after I helped Marcy open her present? DON.

And then Marcy was like, “This is some fucked up Christmas bullshit that I have to SHARE my motherfucking holiday cat treats” and Christmas was pretty much ruined after that. What a fucking disaster; thanks a lot Henry.

(My next post will be about my fantastic Christmas Eve and the incredible secret I learned about Henry, straight from his mom’s lips!)

If it were up to me, we wouldn’t have gotten a Christmas tree. It’s just not a big deal for me and the only reason we even had one last year was because my mom took us out and bought it for us. I’m cheap; I’d rather use that money to buy gifts. (Read: drugs. Read also: drugs as gifts.)

But then I remembered Chooch and realized I need to consider him. Especially when he’s been acting all perplexed over where Santa is going to put his presents if we didn’t have a tree.

So the three of us finally went out to some roadside tree lot near our house on Sunday, where some fucking gross Christmas spirit penetrated my heart and I went from not caring about a tree to desperately needing to find the most majestic one imaginable, preferably equipped with a nest of fornicating Keebler elves.

Before I was even all the way out of the car, I was instantly ensorcelled by the young guy who approached us with his offer to help us find the perfect tree.

“I’m in love with this guy,” I whispered to Henry, who was quick to point out that this charming lad was essentially just being a salesman and this treatment was definitely not as special as I wanted to believe, and why couldn’t I see the strobing Christmas light-strung dollar signs in his eyes?

I guess when you’ve been fucked over by as many prostitutes and wives as Henry, skepticism is the only hat that feels right on your head.

Eventually, Henry tossed his say in the situation up in the air, watched it blow away on a cloud of pussy-whipped emasculation, and then proceeded to make passive aggressive comments about my choice of frosted fir.

Perhaps if he didn’t want to get saddled with one of the most expensive trees left on the lot, he may want to refrain from saying things like:

• “It’s up to you”
• “Whatever you want”
• “I left my balls in the Service”

The tree guys, after securing our new over-sized cat toy on the roof of our car, asked if Chooch wanted to help them sell trees for the rest of the day. I wanted to let them take him, so badly.

Once we got home, Henry sent me off to the attic with explicit instructions to return with the tree base, only the tree base, but by the time I got up there, I forgot what he wanted and just brought down the ornaments. I let Henry do everything else in an effort to help him grow some length back to his weener.

“I had these put away all nice and neat last year, then some ASSHOLE had to pull them out and take pictures of herself with them.

”

It took Henry a good twenty minutes to detangle the lights while I sat on the couch and did important things like play on my phone and watch the NHL Network. Chooch was a lot of help, I’m sure Henry will agree.

“Stop with the fucking pictures,” Henry yelled. “I’m not taking any,” I swore, as I partook in an uploading frenzy on Facebook.

As magnificent as last year’s Liberatree was, we all mutually agreed to 86 the tinsel and opted for some gold garland and purple beads instead. It’s not as flashy, only half as gaudy, and definitely needs more garland, but I present to you the Mediocritree:

When I told Henry the tree’s name, he looked at me dumbly (not uncommon).

“Because last year it was the Liberatree,” I reminded him, in a snide teenagery tone

“It was?”

“Oh my god, don’t you read my blog?” I yelled. I know he doesn’t!

Chooch and I fought for the entire hour it took to hang ornaments. Someone tell him you can’t put four ornaments on one goddamn bough. TELL HIM. Ew, it’s like Chinese water torture for my OCD. This kid is like the little brother that I’m much too old for. He knows every button to push.

I’ll admit, it’s nice having a live tree usurping our living room once again. Even if I can’t put down any presents without living in fear of the fucking cats pissing on them.

The year was 2000 and I was standing in a parking lot with my dad, having just eaten dinner together at Olive Garden.

“Do you need any money?” he asked, reaching for his wallet like all good daddies do.

“Actually,” I mused, considering his offer. “I’ll take all your quarters if you have any.”

He looked at me strangely before rummaging in his pockets for loose change. I cupped my palms as my dad poured in a chunk of quarters.

I arrived at the Best Buy up the street just as an employee was pulling down the gates.

“We’re closed,” he said apologetically as I pressed my nose sadly against the door.

“I don’t need all the way in the store!” I said desperately. “Just need to get right there,” and I pointed at the row of vending machines in the small foyer between the two sets of automatic doors.

The employee let me duck under the gate and watched as I inserted all my quarters into the same machine, two at a time, cranking the dispenser wheel until it shat, one by one, tiny plastic capsules stuffed with Homies.

I was at the height of my Homies addiction that year, transported them in a metal Krishna lunchbox to and from work. Lined them up on my desk and smiled at them. Used them to put on plays for my cats. Considered giving up smoking so I could jam the extra money into vending machines all over the tri-state area, expanding my Homies collection from a tenement to a motherfucking barrio.

Every holiday season, there was always this one thing I was itching to do: Build a house of gingerbread and turn it into a crack house for my very best Homies.

Problem was that I’m not actually into the construction of gingerbread houses.

Seems tedious to me.

Two weeks ago I learned that Chooch would be making his own gingerbread house at school! Unfortunately, this required each child to bring an adult to school that day. I reminded Henry that I took one  for the team in October when I chaperoned that hellacious field trip to the pumpkin patch, and that he best take a motherfucking half-day.

Henry did just that, too. Together, he and Chooch spent the morning as carpenters of sugared shacks, and when they came home I was finally able to realize my dream of having a gingercrack house.

Ten years in the making and so satisfying.

The other day, one of my co-workers asked if we were taking Chooch to see Santa.

“Well,” I began hesitantly. “Since we’re so…’alternative,'” and if I had my quotation tattoos on my fingers like I want so badly, I wouldn’t have had to go through all the effort of BENDING them into air quotes, “we’re taking him to see Zombie Santa.”

She looked at me strangely for a split second, then threw her head back in laughter. Behind me, Barb wasn’t even fazed. She’s sat near me long enough now that nothing I say or do really shocks her. To Barb, this was just another family outing for the Kelly-Robbins clan.

And that is just what we did Saturday night at Monroeville Mall. My friend Kim was there with her boyfriend Chris, so that was cool because I don’t really see her very often. Kim got me into my first bar when I was 17, so she will always be special to me! I can remember sitting at the Blue Rock in Port Vue, being very obviously underage and getting trashed off of Seabreezes. Lisa (she’s the one who introduced me to Kim) kept taking the drinks away from me and every time she would look away, Kim would push another toward me.

Kim also tried to talk me out of getting my hair cut at some shitty Fantastic Sams or Bo-Rics when I was 18 but I wouldn’t listen to her and wound up walking out in tears and wearing a scarf around my head for weeks. In August.

I think we also ate donut holes that day at my house with Lisa?

It was nice to have them to talk to while Chooch ran around Time and Space Toys, yelling CAN I HAVE THIS I WANT THIS. I hope Kim knows I wasn’t joking when I said she can borrow him anytime she wants. ANYTIME.

Zombie Santa was finally ready so we all walked into the back where the zombie museum is set up and Chooch nervously sat down. He couldn’t even look at the scantily clad elves, let alone allow any of them to get in the picture with him. Apparently, zombie girls make Chooch very shy.

Hey Erin, try to remember to check the settings on the camera once in awhile. Christ.

There was a table of COOKIES set up that we got to enjoy while waiting for the Santa picture to be printed out for us. There was one particular powdered sugar cookie that I was really feeling. It wasn’t a Russian teacake, but nearly as wonderful. While we ate cookies and repeatedly said, “No,” to all of Chooch’s begging, Kim and Chris mentioned that they had been thinking about going roller skating and I nearly choked on my tongue that’s how fast I said I was up for it. Like I would ever say no to rollerskating. So Kim, if you’re reading this – set that shit up!

It’s always the same people playing zombies at these events so I’m beginning to recognize them now. Chooch’s girlfriend from the Zombie Car Wash was there as a (SUPER HOT) bloody elf, so we forced him to get his picture taken with her. He didn’t want to wait his turn so the security guard who was having his picture taken at the time eventually just called Chooch over to join him.

This wasn’t the best Thanksgiving, but it definitely wasn’t the worst either. My mom at least didn’t call twenty times to cancel, making us scramble for the Chinese take-out menus.

My biggest beef of the day was the side dishes Henry chose to make.

I guess since Alton Brown says to chuck an entire chipotle factory into the sweet potatoes, it must be OK. If there was any lesson I hope Henry took away from Thanksgiving, it’s that Alton Brown, while a food genius most of the time, IS NOT ALWAYS RIGHT. Holy shit, those were the worst sweet potatoes ever. However, they did serve to provide comedy when we “forgot” to tell my brother Ryan that they were “kind of hot” and he almost skyrocketed from the table.

The other side he made was corn porridge.

I will go on record and say that this was my pick. It’s that Tyler Florence motherfucker’s recipe, but more importantly, it’s PORRIDGE. I felt it was my way of doing a solid for all my orphan hoes.  Anyway, that shit tasted fine when we were still at home, but once we brought it to my mom’s and it was sitting amidst 49 different vegetable casseroles and a pot of mashed potatoes (which almost didn’t get made and I would have walked out, I’m not kidding), it became very obvious that it didn’t complement the standard Thanksgiving fare. At all. So fuck you, Food Network, for including that shit in the Thanksgiving sides category on your lame ass website, you fuckers.

I think I was the only one who ate it, anyway.

Chooch made this centerpiece at school. Thank god there was a prayer pasted to its back.

Chooch had giraffe for dinner. Everyone knows you need three forks for that.

Not pictured: my elusive brother Ryan, otherwise known by Corey and me as The Other.

Blake and Chooch, enrapt in Toy Story 3 Matching Game on my phone.

Obligatory chandelier shot.

Much to Henry’s chagrin, my aunt Sharon (who never joins us because she’s a crazy half-recluse) took it upon herself to cook the turkey. Of course it wasn’t done on time, so my mom had everyone start eating the side dishes (which is all I ever get for Thanksgiving anyway because no one considers making me a Tofurkey because who cares about the dumb girl who doesn’t eat meat, she should just be lucky she was even invited, right? Just stick a carrot in her mouth, she’ll shut up). When the turkey was finally done, my mom asked Henry if he would go pick it up (Sharon lives two houses up from my mom, up at Grey Gardens).

“Wow, is she actually going to let him in?” I asked my mom, because Sharon, you might remember, keeps the house locked-up airtight.

“I guess,” my mom shrugged.

Of course it was the first question I asked Henry when he returned with Chooch.

“No,” he laughed, but not in the jovial way. “She had it sitting in the driveway.”

There was a short silence as everyone at the table waited for him to laugh and admit he was just practicing being, what are the kids calling it these days? Funny.

But he was serious. She had the turkey in the roaster thing, wrapped in a blanket, waiting in the driveway for him.

I started laughing. Like, really laughing, with food in my mouth. “I don’t know why, but now I can’t stop picturing the turkey as baby Moses, floating down the lane.”

And then Corey started laughing too, and so did Henry’s mom but her eyes had a questioning crinkle to them, like she was silently thinking, “I don’t understand this girl at all, better to just laugh along with her though.”

Sometimes laughing is the only thing to do when you have a screwed up family. It staves off the tears for a little bit, at least.

Christmas plates and Halloween utensils: Keepin’ it classy.

Henry’s third and final mistake of the day was choosing to not bake the pie I selected, but rather some apple butter pumpkin pie found on some motherfucker’s blog. It was pretty terrible. Everyone at the table was all, “Oh wow this is a good pie, Henry” (except for me; I am very honest when it comes to pointing out Henry’s cooking fuck-ups) yet it was funny how no one finished their slice! Not even Corey! What kind of man leaves an uneaten piece of pie on their plate? A man whose taste buds are revolting, that’s who.

At least I had the foresight to bring a 6-pack of Strongbow for Corey and myself. That was my big contribution. (That’s a lot for me!)

Don’t worry, Henry. Christmas will be better. Just leave the recipe-finding to me this time.

Hope all you people had a great (and tastier) Thanksgiving!

Henry and I stayed up late the night before Thanksgiving, drinking and listening to the new My Chemical Romance, when we started talking about our recent trip to Lancaster and how it’s changed so  much since the time he and I went there in 2003.

“I remember taking pictures of people’s laundry, and that’s about it,” I said.

“No – I don’t think that was Lancaster…” Henry said, thinking about it. So I decided we better pull up the photos from that trip so I could prove that once again, Henry is a clueless dillsack.

“Wow,” Henry said as we looked at all EIGHT photos from that trip. “You sure were a picture-takin’ fool.”

And aside from the one of the laundry line, the rest were basically photos of random people I decided to hate for no reason. Except for the guy in front of us on the train ride in Stausburg. I had good reason to hate that motherfucker.

So we started looking through the other pictures from back then and sat here in front of the computer cracking up. I bet 75% of pre-Chooch pictures are of people I’m stalking. Just utter asshole-y randomness.

“Why did I take a picture of that car?” I asked.

“Who knows, but with you, there was probably something about it you hated.”

Then we came across the picture I took of Henry honest-to-god leading a blind man down the sidewalk in Norfolk, Virginia; I lost it. I was laughing so hard, I’m not sure how I didn’t poop my pants.  Henry frowned. “I don’t understand why helping a BLIND PERSON is so funny,” he said, but I could tell he wanted to laugh really hard too. I’m a super good influence.

There was a picture of the muffin Henry chucked at my head.

Copious shots of the cable guy that Robbie, Blake and I pretended Henry had a crush on. (“Pretended.”)

The fake Italian guy my old friend Cinn brought over to my house one year for my birthday, making me think he didn’t speak English; naturally,  I pantomimed and shouted things to him.

He was not Italian.

But my favorite was unearthing a picture of Henry worshiping at my altar. I think it was for some LiveJournal meme where people got to tell me what sorts of photos they wanted to see, and some wise-ass felt that was a pretty great way to emasculate Henry further.

(There’s also one of him in his underwear, gagged and on all fours, with me on his back.

Second fave.)

Various pictures of bands at Mr. Small’s inspired us to talk about all the shows we’ve been to (he swears we’ve seen TV on the Radio and I feel like I should remember that but I don’t?).

“Who’s that?” Henry asked when we came across a picture of a girl singing.

“Emily Haines. That was the night we went to see The Stills and Metric in 2004 and I found out we are political opposites. Then came home and made a fake LiveJournal for you.

Also, I was wearing white pants at that show and kept thinking I was about to get my period.”

Henry nodded as it all came flooding back.

I know this is a day late, and it’s not that I needed Wednesday night to make me realize this, but god fucking damn I’m thankful for Henry. I can’t believe we’ve been together since 2001, how did that even happen??

And I’ll tell you right now, don’t let him fool you – he still worships me, altar or not.

I had given Henry explicit instructions on what to get for the cupcakes while I was at work Thursday night. The plan was that he was going to bake them and then I would attempt to not look like an honorary member of The Dream Team while recreating what I saw in the last issue of Better Homes & Gardens (which somehow is delivered with my name on it, but Henry is always quick to whisk it from the mail slot before I throw it away).

When I came home from work, it was after 9pm and I quickly saw that Henry had not yet made the cupcakes.

“I’ll get to it,” he kept muttering.

I distracted myself by stuffing the treat bags with lame little Halloween party favors and candy. Then I panicked because I wasn’t sure if the game we had in mind was good enough, so I printed out Halloween mazes and stuffed those in the treat bags too. Goddamn children.

This took about fifteen minutes, start to finish. One could imagine how exhausted I was, having single-handedly carried this entire party on my back while Henry pranced around in his underwear.

Somewhere around 10:30pm, I found out that Henry had purchased red decorating gel instead of black. RED! I cornered him in the kitchen as he mixed the cupcake batter and laid into him for being so worthless, so stupid, so irresponsible, so UNRELIABLE.

We broke up for the second time that night, but he still put his big boy pants on and went back to the store in search of black decorating gel.

By the time he came back, I noticed that he also forgot the pretzel sticks/Frankenstein neck bolts.

“I just came back! I am not going to the store again!” Henry shouted.

I raised a knife.

We broke up again.

I know, I know: Erin, why didn’t you just go to the store yourself? And let that motherfucker win?! Never. Let me remind you that the fact I haven’t eaten meat since 1996 was born from my impenetrable stubbornness. My head, it is that of a bull. (And not just because I’m that ugly.)

“Just forget it!” I screamed. “Fuck the cupcakes! I just won’t take them!”

“Fine,” Henry mumbled, pushing past me and going to sit down on the couch.

“NO I’M JUST KIDDING WE NEED THE CUPCAKES OMG GET BACK IN THERE!” I yelled, heart rate up, left arm tingling. Ew I fucking hate parties. As Henry walked by to go back in the kitchen, I muttered, “But the cupcakes are going to look pathetic since you forgot the pretzels, good job.” I saw him tense up for a second, like he maybe was contemplating pushing me into the hot stove, but then he adjusted his Susie Homemaker ruffled apron and went back to ladling batter into the cupcake tray thing.

“Did you start cooking the spaghetti yet?” I asked. We needed a lot of spaghetti noodles for the stupid game that the other moms so thoughtfully left for me to come up with.

“Can I get through the cupcakes first?” he snipped, and we broke up again.

Around 11:30, the cupcakes were cooled off and it was time to start icing them. Henry mixed up a bowl of purple frosting while I struggled with the orange. I didn’t mix it well enough, so all the cupcakes I frosted had dark orange striations throughout them, and that’s on top of the sides I smashed in from gripping too hard.

“Look,” Henry instructed. “Turn the cupcake with your other hand so the frosting goes on easier.” But as usual, I ignored his tip and continued glooping on mounds of frosting before moving on to the frustrating task of smoothing that shit out.

I started to cry. Then I screamed, slammed down the cupcake I was working on, and marched out of the kitchen.

But not before breaking up again, followed by a death threat.

“You’re a fucking retard,” I heard Henry say as he examined the three cupcakes I managed to frost before having a full-blown temper seizure. I really believe that it takes a special kind of person to be able to work with sprinkles and frosting without winding with brain matter Pollacked across the kitchen wall.

I started to watch the Jersey Shore reunion show, mouth still molded into a scowl, until I realized that I couldn’t let Henry take all the credit for the cupcakes. And he would, too. I knew it. So I went back in the kitchen and pushed Henry out of the way. He had a plateful of large marshmallows which he had previously rolled through green glittery sprinkles. I picked one up and decided to start working on the Frankenstein heads, that maybe if I concentrated real hard on that, I could block out the fact that Henry was two feet away from me, making me hate life.

By then, it was midnight.

I did that high-pitched shriek that happens when something isn’t going my way.

“What?” Henry yelled.

“THIS BLACK GEL IS TOO THICK! THIS FRANKENSTEIN IS RUINED!” I hurled it into the garbage.

“Great,” Henry said sardonically. “Now we’re going to be short one marshmallow.” Turns out there was just enough green sprinkles for fourteen marshmallows, the exact number of kids in Chooch’s class. “If you weren’t being such a BITCH, I probably could have fixed that one,” Henry sneered and I wanted to skin him alive.

“Oh you think you’re so fucking perfect!” I spat. And we broke up so badly that I created a profile on Match.com.

Whoever lives in this house after us is going to be haunted by all the ire left clinging to the walls from our mutual belligerence. And that’s assuming we both make it out alive. Otherwise, someone might want to consider taking a wrecking ball to 3021 My Street.

Being short a marshmallow, I made the executive decision to only use half and do spiderwebs on the other cupcakes. Oh great idea, Erin Rachelle. Next time, maybe try to remember that you have an unsteady hand and SUCK at decorating.

How do you bitches make this look so easy?

I was standing over the oven, dragging a toothpick over these bastards, and GRUNTING. It was excruciating! You need precision for this shit. And precision and me? We’re not friends. We’re not even frenemies. In fact, if precision turned into a zombie, I’d push everyone out of the way so I could be the one to shoot it in the motherfucking head. Precision makes me cry, you guys. And I think I have arthritis now. I fucking hate you, too, spider webs.

I hate anything to do with baking! I hate frosting! I hate food coloring! I hate the kitchen! I hate Henry!

I do like licking the batter off that mixing contraption though.

The worst part is that I kept catching Henry trying not to laugh when my sanity was very clearly slipping through my fingers like sand through an hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

Of course, they looked nothing like Frankenstein and I had a failure-induced panic attack. Then I realized that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to have a variety.

“What if the kids start fighting because they all want one with a marshmallow head?” I freaked out.

“It’ll be a good lesson for them. You don’t always get what you want in life,” Henry said matter-of-factly. That’s great, but I didn’t want to be there when parts of Mr. Potato Head began flying as the kids fought each other with tinker toys and glue sticks and teachers staggered away with pencils jutting out from their femoral artery. You might be wondering what sort of impression I have in my mind of preschool classes. Obviously a very Mad Max, post-apocalyptic one.

It was nearly 1:00am by the time we finished decorating the fuckcakes. Henry and I slept in separate rooms.

FUCKERS!!!!

[Ed.Note: Henry can attest this is not an accurate account. It has been toned down. A lot.]

If every October is going to bring with it The Great Costume Conundrum of [Insert Year], then I’m about to peace out from this Halloween bullshit. I thought having children was supposed to exacerbate that childlike wonder of trick-or-treating, carving pumpkins and pushing friends into chainsaw guys? Because so far, all it has done for me is stack a metric ton of stress upon my chest. All over a goddamn costume! This shit started last year, when all of a sudden my little voiceless pet developed a mind of his own and just couldn’t decide on a costume and batted away all of my suggestions like so many filthy flies.

Immediately after his Halloween party on Friday (I will get to that tomorrow), he goes to us, “Yeah, so…I don’t want to be Ben 10 for trick or treating. I want a new costume.” OH WHAT A SURPRISE. And poor naive Chooch, he had hopeful dreams of us taking him to 12 different Spirit Halloweens while he vetoed every costume on the racks. I sat him down and explained to him that I already wasted on a piece of shit pelt of cheap fabric and he’d make due with what we already had in the house.

Which turned out to be a clown wig and bow tie.

“You can be a zombie clown,” I suggested, which was more of an order actually.

“No! I want to go get a new costume!” he stamped.

October brings out his rich kid silver spoon syndrome, I fucking swear to god. I have NO IDEA where there this comes from.

(I was more of a silver platter kind of kid.)

Halloween afternoon, it was getting down to the wire. He was still huffing about not wanting to be a zombie clown when a commercial came on for Creepy Crawlers. I wasn’t even aware that Creepy Crawlers still existed, and evidently they are a million times more disgusting than when my brother Ryan used to terrorize me with them.

“I want that,” Chooch said.

I seized the moment. “If you let me do your makeup for trick-or-treating, I will buy you that tomorrow, I freaking swear to god.” I am not ashamed of resorting to bribery. A little promise now and then can get you pretty far in life.  How do you think I get Henry to do everything I want? (I rarely pay up, though.)

We even pinkie-swore on it.

And that is how I was able to get my finicky child to sit in a chair while Henry and I tag-teamed him with costume makeup.

It’s a good thing Henry and I are makeup dunces, because we honestly were striving for a half-assed, disheveled, under-the-dock-all-night-with-a-bottle-of-Jack look. Chooch was absolutely  miserable through it all, but I kept whispering Creepy Crawlers in his ear.

Once we were done and he saw his face in the mirror (and also got Andrea‘s seal of approval), the day took a decidedly happier turn. He flew outside and readily posed for photos, while waiting anxiously for people to walk past and see him.

Some day, Chooch will realize that his mother is ALWAYS ON POINT and maybe we can eliminate all this wishy-washy, back-pedaling, mind-changing bullshit that is seriously the most miserable fucking game ever.

He hates the feel of fake blood on his face (as opposed to the real thing, which he’s been coated with way too frequently). So we tried to go easy on him.

Chooch’s cousins Zac and Steph came with us this year, which made it more fun. Trick-or-treating is meant to be done in groups! I felt bad for Chooch last year, being stuck with me and Henry. He looked so envious every time he saw flocks of children together.

Steph didn’t actually trick-or-treat, but came along as a bloodied escort. She volunteered all season at Hundred Acres Manor (where my friend Gina peed her pants) so her make-up is always disgustingly good.

Chooch and Zac got equal amounts of love from passers-by. Everyone loves a good Jason Voorhees! I noticed that most people were like, “Aw! Cute clown!” But then Chooch would get closer and they would notice the blood and his naturally sinister visage (sometimes he gets too into character and it scares me because I think it’s real), and their voices would kind of trail off.

Less than a block away from our house, some girl bit the pavement and began wailing. Henry, Steph and I just stood there, and I said, “Well, this is awkward.” And then I laughed and rolled my eyes because she barely fell that hard and it was a little excessive, this high extent of pain she was attempting to convey.

Fifteen minutes later, Chooch totally fell head first down someone’s front steps. He managed to NOT bust his front teeth through his bottom lip this time, and mostly just hurt his chest a little. It was a slow descent, and there were no wounds to show for it. But when he stood up, he looked at his hand and began sobbing. “I’m bleeding!” he cried.

It was just some of his makeup.

“I guess this is what I get for laughing when that little girl fell,” I joked inappropriately.

He cried for about thirty seconds while the residents of the houses near the scene of the accident offered encouraging and soothing words to him. Then Henry asked, “Do you want to go home?” and he sort of wiped his eyes and gave Henry this ‘hell no!’ look, then stomped off to the next house. Thank god. The tears did little to mar his painted face, which I was admittedly too preoccupied with.

After that, I practically life-flighted him down every set of steps.

And he still wiped out another three times. And the number of “close calls” was in the double digits.

“He needs a Hover-Round,” I mumbled.

“Or a Segway,” Steph added.

Chooch did much better this year than last. He actually remembered to say “trick-or-treat” at every house and didn’t get as distracted by all the Halloween yard decorations as he did last year, when we were forced to spend at least five minutes at every house while he inspected all the inflatables in the yard and dummies on the porch.

While waiting on the sidewalk in front of one of the houses, I saw their large black cat inflatable begin its slow tilt into the earth, but there were people in front of me so I couldn’t see the culprit. Once I saw it was Chooch whose ankle was caught in it, I murmured, “Of course it would be my son.”

And who knew Henry was the official coach of trick-or-treating? My god, was he bossy. “START OVER HERE AND CRISS-CROSS! NO ONE’S HOME, YOU’RE WASTING TIME! TURN DOWN THIS STREET NOW!” Jesus Christ, Henry, get a life.

Oh look, Chooch – Mommy was a clown one year too. YOU ARE SO MUCH LIKE ME.

***

This morning before school, Chooch was watching Spongebob. A commercial for Creepy Crawlers came on. “I’m getting that today, YOU SAID!” Chooch reminded me.

Fuck. I liked him better when my promises wafted away into the ether of his psychotically-whirring mind the moment they were uttered.

On his own accord, Chooch is eating apples (while taking in an early Sunday viewing of Halloween II) as a prelude to the pillow-sack he’s about to fill with snazzily-wrapped partially hydrogenated thunder-thigh oil, high fructose double-chin syrup, and all the sweet seductive promises of childhood obesity.

I’m hoping he doesn’t get any Whoppers; talk about the party foul of trick-or-treating. Well, that and getting hit by a car.

I think I’ve effectively convinced him to eschew his HORRIBLE Ben 10 costume (can’t take all the credit – I’m pretty sure the fact that 3/4 quarters of his school turned into undulating question marks when they saw his lame costume might have had something to do with it). We are going to attempt to turn him into a zombie clown, since we already have the wig, nose and bow-tie from one of my pathetic photo shoots with ex-Christina. I am trying very hard not to be an over-bearing Halloween pageant mom like my mom was to me. At least I haven’t tried to put him in a box yet.

Henry and I have about 4 hours to learn how not to suck at applying costume makeup. Wish us luck.

P.S. I will be posting pictures from his school Halloween party (which turned out fantastically once I successfully trumped the Gosselin mom – good call on that one, guys!), probably tomorrow. I haven’t been feeling well . Ask Henry – he was in the basement trying to fix the furnace when he overheard the dulcet notes of my vomiting as it traveled two floors through the vents. I’ve sort of been phoning it in the last few days.

P.P.S. Oh yeah, Happy Halloween!

When I picked Chooch up from school yesterday, all the kids were wearing these lame-ass spider headdresses.

Chooch was not pleased – not even a little.

I made him keep it on for the entire BLOCK we have to walk to get home and he bitched the whole time, like he was afraid some hot preschool broad was going to roll past on a squeaky tricycle and catch him looking decidedly non-bad ass for once.

So tomorrow is this fucking Halloween party at the school. Henry is my chaperone. Please pray for me, you guys.

I guess I wasn’t really expecting anything when I walked into the office Friday evening. I only work 25 hours a week and I’m just a temp (though that’s supposed to be changing here soon), so I didn’t expect bells and whistles for my birthday. Or even verbal acknowledgment for that matter.

But as I rounded the wall to my desk, I saw three pink-glazed donuts next to my keyboard. A candle of varying colors jutted from the hole of each one, elevating them from morning snack to birthday cake status. Taped to my monitor was an orange sign that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ERIN!

They remembered. I was touched.

Behind her desk, Kaitlin stood up. “Barb and I  tried to find you cupcakes, but we remembered that you hate Dozen.” (I do. They’re over-hyped and non-tasty saliva-suckers.

) “So I had to settle on donuts from Starbucks.”

I didn’t care what they were or where they were from. I was just so happy to be remembered.

One of my favorite analysts – Chris – kept coming over and salivating above them. Barb said he had been doing that even before I got there. “You better watch out,” she laughed.

“He might try and steal one.”

An hour later, another analyst came over while the donut-drooler was still skulking around my desk.

“Oh, is it your birthday? Happy birthday!” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, happy birthday!” Chris echoed.

“Seriously?” I laughed at Chris. “You’ve been over here like, ten times already, and you’re finally wishing me a happy birthday?”

It was a slow night. Three of the analysts working the evening shift began bowling with apples. Then two of them found a toy dart gun and by the end of the night, they had made up four different games revolving around that.

It wasn’t the worst way to spend my birthday evening, that’s for sure.