In between the Big Butler Fair and trying unsuccessfully to clamp my hand over Chooch’s mouth as he booed the 4th of July fireworks, we worked on the kitchen. Of course you’ll understand that “we” means Henry, singularly. He rearranged all of the shelves and the microwave stand so that now three whole people can stand in the room at one time without ever having to press up against each other! It’s very feng shui in there now and it makes my heart do a little gyration of joy every time I enter the kitchen.

Henry was also able to extract the pocket door from the wall. (I just learned that it’s called a “pocket door.” Up until the other day, I had been calling it the Door That Was Inhaled By the Wall.

) I had been living in this house for a few years before I even noticed that the door was there, but whoever lived there before me had gone to great lengths to ensure that it couldn’t be used anymore. When Henry was painting last weekend, he felt inspired to do something about that (maybe because Chooch and I were screaming FIX THE DOOR FIX THE DOOR WE WANT THE DOOR! I even got out my pom-poms and did a split), which entailed him sawing through the dining room floor and forcefully prying out a strip of wood that had been glued inside the top of the door frame, only to find out that the outlet for the refridgerator was preventing the door from sliding all the way out. (I know, that part confused me, too. I’m actually just making stuff up now.)

Good thing Henry used to pretend to be an electrician in another life! He spent a good portion of Sunday fucking with wires and drills while I edited photos and listened to music, two things I excel at. Eventually, we had a door! I was half-expecting the remains of a putrified body to come falling out of the wall, or perhaps a treasure map to be adhered to the inside of the door with strips of aging masking tape, but no—-just a door.

Pretty anticlimatic.

I got to prime one side of it yesterday! It was horribly taxing and boring! Henry did the other side to shut me up.

We still have to do something about the floor.

I have big plans, specifically for a utensil holder that I want to make (no really, I can do it by myself!) but Henry seems pretty whatever about it.

I did notice that he never re-hung my 1970s rainbow picture frame. I really do have to do it all around here.

Anyway, I’m just happy that now I can have parties and not die of embarrassment when people accidentally wander into the kitchen, looking for a private nook in which to hook up.

This is a very boring post.

Awhile back, I wrote about one of my old neighbors whom I dubbed Tourette’s because of his oft-profane outbursts. He must still live closeby because I see him walking past the house a lot, and often run into him at the local Eat n Park and Tom’s Diner.

A few weeks ago, Chooch and I were walking home from CVS and had the great fortune of passing him, mid-outburst.

Chooch of course stopped after the man had walked by and proceeded to stare as he retreated.

“Why is he so mad?” he asked me. I didn’t really know what to say, so I just said that sometimes he likes to yell and swear for no reason.

“We should call the police on him,” Chooch suggested earnestly.

[I should remember this for the next time Chooch has his own (daily) outburst.]

“He might have a medical condition that makes him yell like that,” I tried to put delicately, when really I wanted to pee myself at the memory of epic lawnmower wrestling matches of yesteryear and whine, “He’s psychotic and really scares me! Hold me, son!”

“Or,” Chooch mused thoughtfully, “he might just watch The Family Guy a lot.”

OK. Or that.

The other day, we had the pleasure of sharing the sidewalk with him again on the way back from the store. I prayed and prayed and prayed that he wouldn’t be spouting off and that my outspoken kid wouldn’t feel inspired to confront him. I started flexing a hand in preparation of clamping Chooch’s mouth shut.

Luckily, one of Chooch’s neighborhood friends (he has a LOT of them; I have NONE) was across the street so Chooch ran ahead to greet them maniacally, never even noticing Tourettes. Crisis averted. (This time, anyway.)

My town is one big mental ward. I mean, I’m a resident, after all. I can only hope that I grow into one of those…”colorful” characters who skulk around town leaving a trail of mental dysfunction in their wake. I like to think I’m one of them in training.

I’m going to make my own Brookline postcards, make you all wish you were here.

Leave a comment if you want a slice of schizophrenia! (Seriously. I’ll email you for your address.

I love sending post cards!)

There’s not too much to tell about the zoo trip considering Chooch didn’t let us stay more than 20 seconds at each exhibit before yelling, “OK, GREAT. I SEE IT. I SAW IT. LET’S GO!”

Bitch, I want to look at the fucking lion! I haven’t been able to really enjoy the lion (or any other animal for that matter) at the zoo in years thanks to my unimpressed son. I could literally stand there and watch the Silverback all day. I’m totally going by myself next time.

Totally not caring about the giraffes.

Even though it was a school trip, the class didn’t stick together. I was partially glad about this because I didn’t want to get stuck shuffling through the zoo with the mom brigade, but at the same time I felt bad for Chooch because he rode on the bus with his buddy Zachary and expressed interest in sticking with him through the zoo. However, I felt like Zachary’s mom held him back when we got off the bus, purposely preventing him from getting stuck with us.

Or it could be that she was waiting for her husband and youngest son, who had driven separately, but if that’s the case then no one will feel sorry for me. Wah.

Before we got to the monkey house, I remembered that I had the crappy point-and-shoot in my purse, so I shoved it at Chooch and suggested that he take pictures of the animals. This bought us significantly more time at each exhibit, even though he wasn’t actually taking any pictures because he’s too impatient to hold the button down for the whole ONE POINT FIVE SECONDS it takes to capture an image. So every once in awhile, Henry would grab it and start snapping random pictures just so it would look like he accomplished something. Funny how when it comes to taking clandestine photos of me with my phone, Chooch has all the patience in the world.

I wanted to stay and look at the octopus for much longer than Chooch allowed me. Henry was all, “Just take your time and look at things! I’ve got Chooch.” But what I heard was, “Here give me your phone so you have no concept of time and miss the bus and have to stay here forever getting raped by orangutans, you ruined my life, bitch.”

Nice try.

All the times I’ve been inside the aquarium, I had no idea you could actually pet the sting rays! Of course I wouldn’t know that—Chooch never let me check out their tank because it’s right by the GIFT SHOP. I refused to leave until I touched one.

“Just touch one of the smaller ones that keeps swimming past,” Henry begged, after we had been standing there accomplishing nothing for countless minutes.

“No! I want one of the big ones,” I said defiantly.

“I forgot who the kid is here,” Henry muttered.

I finally got to touch one for .00008 seconds before screaming and pulling back my hand. It was squishy and soft and pleasant on the fingertips, but it was still a STING RAY.

Chooch actually let us hang out with the sharks for awhile. Probably because I told him that they’re our cat Marcy’s relatives.

Marcy underwater

There was an incident where four older boys ganged up on Chooch in one of the play areas. They were probably around nine or ten, and I thought that they had been playing pleasantly at first, because older kids seem to generally appreciate Chooch’s foul mouth. But a few minutes later, we had moved on to this area with little scooters, and they were already there. Chooch walked over to get on a scooter and one of them said, “Leave us alone!”

That flipped my bully retaliation switch real quick-like and I said loudly, “DON’T LISTEN TO THEM, CHOOCH. YOU’RE OK.” One of their trashy Jersey Shore moms was standing nearby but she was too engrossed in studying her slutty Lee-Press Ons to notice that I was about to trounce her fucking asshole children.  So then I did that thing I do really well, which is say things super loud and immaturely to Henry, putting him in an awkward accomplice position.

“WHICH ONE OF THOSE ASSHOLES SAID IT?” I kept loudly demanding, to which Henry would WHISPER back, “Which one do you think? Take a wild guess.” Then he was pissed off when I proceeded to guess wrong three times because in my opinion, it could have been any of the four. I really thought it was the fat boy swaddled head-to-toe in DC brand, but Henry said it was the preppy fuck with sunglasses on his head.

They were in my crosshairs for the rest of the day after that, and when they walked past me after deeming the scooters “lame” upon Chooch’s arrival (hello, aren’t they too old for that shit anyway?) I said loudly to no one in particular, “I HATE bullies.” I made eye contact with some of them and then quickly swiveled to make sure the mom chaperone had heard me, but she was too busy with her nose to her phone, watching Young and the Restless clips on YouTube.

“They’re like, ten,” Henry reminded me when I proclaimed that I was going to fight them and stalked off in the direction they left in. We had several encounters in the reptile house, but I think they had caught on by that point that some kid’s mom was looking to fuck up their world, so they didn’t give me any more reasons. But we did make lots of eye contact and it was not of the MILF variety, I promise you that.

Meanwhile, Henry used this trip to the zoo to remind us that he knows a lot about birds, which is why I won’t be going to the aviary with him.

I took Chooch’s thank you cards to school on Wednesday morning for his teacher to hand out. She (and Momesis, who was also there) began cooing over my handwriting. It’s really nothing special, but I only had eight envelopes to address so I spent a little more time making them look cool.

“I have a lot of time on my hands,” I laughed, brushing off their compliments because I am SO MODEST.

Today when I was waiting outside the classroom to get Chooch, his teacher came out and said, “Oh good, you’re here! I have something to ask you! You can say no if you want!”

I braced myself. When people tack that on to the end of favor-askin’, I get scared. One of these days it’s going to be an organ request, I just know it.

Anyway, she wants me to write all the kids’ names on their graduation certificates. Including the 3-year-olds, it’s a total of 24. I said yes, it’s not like I have much else going on & I myself enjoy the arthritic sensations of pen-gripping.

“You must get asked to do this all the time,” his teacher laughed as she prepared a list of names for me.

“No, not really,” I said, flashbacks of four years being the signage bitch at a meat company running through my mind like a stop-motion slasher reel.

The only downside is that now there is pressure to perform perfectly. I just know I’m going to accidentally write “Jonny Craig” on one of them, probably a penis-doodle, too.

I know, thank god! A sea monkey post! Trust me, even though no one actually came right out and asked it, I could practically sense the global panic when people would come to the good old blog and find NO SEA MONKEY UPDATES OMG.

They’re alive! In fact, two of them have been furiously mating. I found that peeping on them all night at work kept my nerves tempered. Otherwise, it was a pretty agitating work night full of shouting, Facebook snubbing* and loud conversations about snapping turtles.

(*Sandy and I sent one of our co-workers a friend request on Friday and he has not confirmed us! We even mentioned it to him and he played the Facebook Ambivalence card but PROMISED that he would go home and confirm us post haste.

It is now Tuesday and my friend count is still at 346. I decided I was going to give him the cold shoulder but Sandy felt he wasn’t going to notice that I went from not having casual conversation with him to…not having casual conversation with him. I see her point.)

In other news, our friend Bill called me today and invited us to join him and Jessi at his time share in Gatlinburg, TN this summer! At first, I was like, “Oh. Tennessee.” All I really know about Tennessee is that Arrested Development wrote a peppy little tune about it. That song is also as close as I get to a game of horseshoes. But Bill said there is a ton of kitschy tourist traps in town and urged me to Google that shit.

So I did and OH MY GOD, I’M GOING TO TENNESSEE, YA’LL! I didn’t know that’s where motherfucking DOLLYWOOD is!

“You want to go to Dollywood?” Barb asked, all full of skepticism when I was gushing about this at work today.

“Barb, it has roller coasters. I’d go to Sarah Palinwood if it had roller coasters.” There was a moment of silence, and then we both laughed. I’d rather buy my own rape kit.

I spent a good portion of my night at work on various tourist sites and Roadside America. You can bet your ass I’M going to Christ in the (motherfucking) Smokies. Henry said I’ll be going by myself.

THAT’S OK. I need to see life-sized Jesus shit.

And to think we almost got roped into going to the lame beach with another couple (a story for another day). A lame beach with no Titantic Museum and NO BOARDWALK = NO THANKS.

VI. Balloon Sweatshop

Henry wanted to hire some form of entertainment for the party, forgetting that 5-year-olds are pretty much good with some grass to run on and slides to slide down. Unfortunately, the only party entertainment I could find that catered to poor-folk like us was a clown whose sole review said: CON ARTIST!

Part of me thought it would be pretty awesome to hire her and watch as she picked the pockets of the preschool moms, but my luck she’d pick that day to graduate to armed robbery.

But then Bill mentioned to me that he used to be pretty savvy with balloon twisting. Hired!

I caught him pacing around the pavilion, watching tutorials on his phone. He was really taking his role seriously, which I appreciated because I wasn’t going to let him eat until he entertained some fucking kids.

It’s amazing how excited kids get over balloon swords.

Everything was going great until one little brat decided that swords were yesterday’s news and began requesting other things. Like puppies.

Thank god for Bill’s secret weapon: Jessi. She began twisting the fuck out of green and yellow balloons until they were these perfect, precious daisies. I gave one to Momesis’s daughter and I was sure she was going to faint like Perez Hilton meeting Lady Gaga for the first time. Momesis and I laughed together until I realized that we were having a moment so I walked away.

Stripper’s daughter must have requested a sword in every color, thrice, only to take five steps away from the pavilion and stomp it to death. Pretty sure Bill and Jessi wanted to cut her off.

Or just cut her.

At one point, I caught Bill trying to eat while a line of balloon-addled children formed to his right. What, you want a break? You’re tired and hungry from driving all the way to Pittsburgh that morning from Michigan? Boo-hoo! You’re not here to enjoy yourself! You’re not a guest, you’re the HELP. And if you want to know what that entails, go ask Janna.

Then I felt bad and decided to intervene. I’m not really good with talking to children*. My first inclination was to flick the kids on the forehead and tell them to beat it, but their moms were near by so instead I just said, “Bill’s taking a break. Come back later.”

(*Like when I told Kara’s baby Harland that the grill was there for cooking babies, which caused Henry to give me a disgusted look. What? Harland’s young enough still for me to get away with that. But if he grows up into a serial baby-griller, then it was really Henry who said it.)

I DON’T SEE ANY BALLOONS IN YOUR HANDS!

VII. Douche Cup

Toward the end of the party, I was sitting at a table with my friend Lindsay. “We learned a new word over at the playground,” she said to me in such a way that I:

• knew my kid definitely was going to be a character in this story
• knew that it definitely wasn’t going to be church-appropriate

“Douche cup,” she said, snickering.

When Bill and Jessi were here last year for Chooch’s party, Bill and Chooch were putting together a Spongebob Lego set. But Bill had the audacity to eschew the directions and build his own things. Chooch didn’t like that at all and that is how Bill became known as Douche Cup.

I guess being around Bill again jogged Chooch’s memory, and the day became a douche cup free-for-all. Barb mentioned that he ran past the table she was sitting at and everyone was like, “Did he just say—-yeah, pretty sure he said douche cup.”

Later, Jessi told me that she overheard one of the preschool moms saying, “I think he wants a juice cup?”

Yes, that’s exactly right! My kid REALLY likes his juice cups.

Douche cups.

VIII. The Guests

We had a small Labor Day cookout at my mom’s last year. I only invited three of my friends, and two of them couldn’t make it. So it wound up being Blake, Henry’s mom, my two brothers, and Jessy* and Tommy.

(*Not to be confused with Jessi from Michigan, who is a much better example of a friend.)

Nothing major, just a small cookout, during which I expressed interest in having a Halloween party.

“Um, have you SEEN how your parties turn out?” Jessy sneered, waving an arm around the table of limited guests.

It hurt my feelings real bad. Too bad she’s a dumb bitch and wasn’t invited to this party, which ended up having a total of 62 people show up.

There were old friends, new friends, faraway friends, high school friends, my favorites from the Law Firm, family I haven’t seen in forever (like my cousin Danielle and Aunt Susie, who brought embarrassing pictures from when Christy and I were junior bridesmaids in her wedding), my dad, Henry’s family. And of course all the preschool kids. There were so many kids, surprisingly none of which were crying kids. Not even Jacob, who unfailingly cries before school each morning.

That was my favorite part of the day, knowing all these people cared.

And the moms didn’t even bother me too much!

Kaitlin, Kristen and Danny. This was Kaitlin’s first time meeting Henry and she said watching us together was like reading my blog in real time. This made Henry frown, because he knows it’s true.

IX. Fuck a Pinata

Hey, did you know that you don’t pulverize pinatas with a baseball bat anymore? Apparently, the Mothers Against Dangerous Party Games banded together to eradicate these festive abominations and now pinatas come with a bunch of ribbons dangling from its anus, and each kid gets to pull one.

Chooch went first, and naturally pulled the one string that was rigged to break open the bottom. Total party foul. Except it was stuffed tighter than 4 bodies in Bundy’s trunk so only three pieces of candy flittered to the ground. Then we had to go through the motions of every kid yanking a ribbon, which clearly wasn’t going to do anything, but Henry insisted that every kid have a turn. He really took this seriously. Probably because it was his only responsibility of the day.

I honestly thought Henry was going to backhand J.T. for trying to pull a ribbon before Chooch. J.T.’s mom was right next to me, so that wasn’t awkward at all. It’s probably why she snubbed me on Wednesday when we were picking up our kids at school.

Random gun. I’m sure one of the moms had a problem with that. SO GO WRITE A LETTER.

There’s the Baby Grill in the background. I hope you brought some buns.

X. Cake, Part 2

Stapler makes a cameo.

I feel like I missed the full glory of Chooch’s embarrassment at being serenaded because I was too busy tripping over myself trying to take pictures. This was also right about the time the fucking camera battery died. I hate taking pictures at parties because I just want to enjoy myself but I can’t trust Henry to take pictures (I asked him 87 times to take pictures of the kids at the playground but he refused because it was “creepy.” NOT WHEN IT’S OUR SON’S BIRTHDAY PARTY.)

And then everyone (myself included) stood around after the candle was blown out, anxiously awaiting the cake to be cut. But Henry just up and left, fucking walked away like leaving a cake to fester beneath hungry eyes was no big thing. I literally had to chase him down, chanting, “When are you going to cut the cake, when are you going to cut the cake, when are you going to cut the cake, I’m going to slit your throat tonight, when are you going to cut the cake.”

“You told me to find the other camera battery!” he yelled. “What do you want me to do first?!”

“Um, cut the cake.” Obviously.

So he cut the cake, but then never gave me a piece, which of course is a silent, yet LOUD, way to say, “The last thing you need is a piece of cake, Chubs.”

In addition to the cake, Kaitlin made French macaron lollipops. Suck on that, preschool moms. How many 5-year-old have such culinary riches at their parties? Suri Cruise probably does, but she also probably has mimes handing out Scientology pamphlets.

XI. Presents. Or: The Best Part of the Day, as declared by Chooch.

I had every intention of writing down what everyone got him, but guess what? He started opening the presents right when I FINALLY got a piece of cake. (I made Henry’s mom cut it for me. I don’t do cake-cutting.) So it was either set the cake down for later or stand there worthlessly, shoveling it into my maw while all the moms watched me only half-care about my kid. Every now and then, I’d mutter the obligatory, “Whoa, buddy. Cool gift!” while cake droppings cascaded from my lips.

The cake totally won.

Bria was all up on him, telling him which one to open next. I wanted to be like, “Let the guy breathe, Jesus Christ!” Until I realized it was like watching a mini Henry and Erin.

I liked when he started pulling out zombie and Jason Voorhees memorabilia in front of all the moms who played it safe with age-appropriate toys.

Bonecrusher zombified this Batman doll for him!

After the presents were opened, all the preschool kids left. On their invitations, I put 2-3:30 as the time of the party, when it was actually 2-6. (Sometimes I’m smart like that.) Henry was acting like a jazz choreographer on speed, trying to get everything out of the way in the first 2 hours.

“PINATA! (jazz hands!) CAKE! (boomkack!) PRESENTS! (step ball change!)”

With all that out of the way, I got to relax with my friends for the second half. I love my friends. And there were still plenty of kids there, which meant I didn’t have to entertain my own child.

After the party, Jessi told me that she heard one of the moms say this was going to be the party to beat. Success! Thanks to everyone who helped make it the best party Chooch has ever had!

Right as we were leaving the park, a bird shit straight down Chooch’s back. Happy birthday, Chooch! Better you than mommy!

I had a pretty bad night, sleep-wise. I’m a little under the weather and just wanted to rest, but it was one of those nights where Chooch just refused to stay in his bed.

Henry had already left for work super-early—like around 2AM so he can get shit done since we’re going to Cleveland tomorrow morning and his co-workers can’t be trusted to do jack shit to help him out—-so I couldn’t pawn the child off on him as I am normally wont to do.

  It wouldn’t have been such an issue if Chooch hadn’t been bringing his industrial snoring machine into my bed with him. I’d escort him back to his room, wait for him to fall asleep, climb back into my own bed, and within an hour the cycle would start all over again.

Somewhere around 4:30AM, he came into my room and announced that he had “accidentally” peed in his bed, which I’m fairly certain he did on purpose because the kid hasn’t had a bed-wetting episode in at least a year. And what better way to eliminate his bed from the equation.

Finally, I left him in my bed and went downstairs to sleep on the couch. He found me about 2 hours later and fell asleep on the other end, in an up-right position. He was still snoring.

Talk about the most annoying shadow of all time.

You’ll understand then why today I am not only a bit sick, but I am fucking exhausted and slightly stressed and completely nervous about the aforementioned trip to Cleveland (but in a good way). So about thirty minutes ago, when I heard a loud thud in between my front doors followed by an angry and impatient knocking, I was ready to fight; maybe even miraculously call forth some of the moves I learned in the Zombie Self-Defense Course.

Turns out it was one of the asshole mailmen, delivering me an unexpected package from my decidedly non-asshole friend, Misty.

She made me a goddamn Robert Smith purse and it is perfect! It made me squeal and tear-up. I love the Cure so much and any relic makes my heart swell. My mom once got me a poker chip with Robert’s face on it and to this day I have it displayed in my curio cabinet like it’s the fucking Hope Diamond. Anytime someone recognizes my love for the Cure, I am so touched.

And for Chooch, Misty made a tooth-receptacle which he thinks is the coolest thing ever.

He and I are totally not friends today so he’s lucky I even let him have it. I could’ve used it for my crack.

KIDDING.

The inside of the purse is lined with this mesmerizing owl fabric! I LOVE OWLS. It is absolutely perfect and completely turned my day around. Thank you for your awesome friendship, Misty! I’m so happy right now!

“Did you by chance let Chooch put this in the DVD player?” Henry asked in his standard accusatory manner when Devil began to skip and ultimately freeze last night. It was already our second night in a row trying to get to the end of it. I just don’t have the attention span for movies like I used to, and usually something better comes up, for example: things that involve listening to Dance Gavin Dance on repeat and role-playing.

Henry squatted in front of the TV and began the OH SO STRENUOUS task of wiping finger prints from the disc while I sat on the couch eating carrots.

“It smells like cat pee over here,” Henry complained, starting a mild argument in which I reminded him that my cats never used to do such dastardly deeds until he forced me to take in his mom’s cat for two years, a stray who taught my upper crust cats a host of bad habits and I will never forgive Henry for letting that happen.

Somewhere between Henry threatening to kick out the cats and me wishing they’d piss on his fucking mustache, we began arguing over whether our entertainment center is in fact an entertainment center.

Henry said yes.

I said no.

(For the record: it is not. I should know—I’m the one who bought it based on aesthetics, not functionality. But for whatever reason, Henry thinks it’s more than just a white-washed table which accidentally fell into the role of holding a fleet of electronics instead of a Precious Moments platoon, wicker baskets holding sewing sundry and milk-glass vases filled with potpourri and silk flowers. You know, as I had originally intended.)

Henry, determined to turn this fucking heap of synthetic Swedish timber into the catalyst for our inevitable demise (you know one of us is getting jail time when that happens), continued to blabber on and on about it well after I dipped on out of the conversation, choosing instead to stimulate myself by checking in on Twitter, see if everyone else was having as annoying of a Sunday night as I was.

And that is what was going on in my house when we found out Osama bin Laden was dead, which is decidedly less interesting than the Revolutionary War porn I was reenacting when JFK died.

No, we did not finish watching the movie.

Get fucked.

All the pre-school kids get to bring in treats on their birthday. Since there was no school on Monday, Chooch is bringing shit in tomorrow. I thought perhaps Henry could bake some cupcakes; Chooch suggested cookies.

But Henry went off on his own and decided to make chocolate lollipops. He bought three different sets of molds: pirates, dinosaurs and monkeys. Also procured were bags of white chocolate molding things, food coloring and paint brushes to help aid in a potential murder-suicide situation.

Because solid chocolate is too easy.

Before sitting down to “help,” I considered relisting* myself as “in a relationship with Henry Robbins” on Facebook so that I could re-breakup with him after fifteen minutes, because the two of us working side-by-side on anything involving food and arts and crafts is surely going to end with our home criss-crossed in yellow crime scene tape.

(*Technically, according to Facebook, I’m still single after Henry failed to take me roller skating Saturday night.)

Henry wasn’t even done setting up yet when Chooch spilled a jar of orange food coloring on himself THREE TIMES. This was partly because I was too busy perfecting my Negligent Teen Mom act and partly because no one ever listens when Henry says not to touch something, which would explain why I’ve found myself in so many philandering situations over the years.

So now my child looks like he was sired by Pauly D after a reckless night of beatin’ the beat in Snooki’s kuka with his spray-tanned guido venereal-rod. Have fun selling booty shorts on the boardwalk this summer, son.

Meanwhile, I managed to paint the miniscule crannies of a pirate skull, a pirate ship and two dinosaurs before completely flipping my shit.

“IT WON’T STAY MELTED!” I kept screaming at Henry, who would calmly tell me to “work faster.”

%&*%*^$*^%

Listen here, Wonka. Unless you want to see how fast I work when equipped with a sausage grinder and your dick in my hands, best BACK UP OFF ME.

Fifteen minutes — pretty lofty expectations on my behalf. I only made it ten before rage and a quickly diminishing temper had me demonstrating full-body palsy shakes before launching my paint brush into a death-spiral to Hell and stomping off to pout on the couch.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” Henry murmured, hard at work filling his molds with plain milk chocolate and not even bothering to PAINT THE FUCKERS LIKE HE WAS MAKING ME DO, while I yelled a bunch of vulgarity-drenched death threats to the entire institution of chocolate candy and made promises to insert leftover lollipop sticks into Henry’s asshole while he sleeps tonight.

He’s currently in the kitchen, making exaggerated motions of extreme harriedness while I sit here listening to Emarosa, loudly and with my feet up, because I have no obligations to fulfill. Life is good.

Enjoy yourself, bro. This was all your idea, remember? If it were my choice, I would gladly just jam a stick of Juicy Fruit in each of those little fucker’s mouths and be done with it.

God, I hate doing things.

Nothing says Happy Birthday like half-assed chocolate shit on sticks born from rage, dysfunction and pure, unadulterated hate for life. Eat ’em up, kids.

Chooch and I were fucking around outside before I went to work. I love this picture so much.

I like this picture too much not to post it here, too. SHE’S MY BABE.

The sun was beating down on them that day like a space-hung magnifying glass search-lighting for human ants. On dehydration’s horizon, a collective of construction workers toiled at a work site, beleaguered with dry mouths and Sahara-strong hallucinations of sparkling oasis.

Manfred was the first to experience a slack in perseverance. “If we don’t take a break, we’re all going to melt,” he assured the crew. “Or worse,” he mumbled, stealing a glance at Anthony’s sun-beaten face and quaking knees.

“He’s right, you know,” Lenny wheezed, stabbing his shovel into the cracked soil, which a summer-long drought had turned into an uncanny semblance of over-baked chocolate chip cookies, sheet-form. “And we’re running out of water, to boot.”

The others needn’t be told more than once, and a symphony of metal clunking ground resounded through the site; brows were mopped in tandem; chests heaved in exhausting unison.

“The b-boss’s not going to be pleased when h-he sees we’re not w-working,” Anthony panicked, anxiety bringing forth the stutter of a five-year-old’s first day of school.

“I wouldn’t worry about that old prick,” Carlos laughed. “Found his body slunched over back behind the scaffolding; been dead at least six hours.” And with that, he doled out what little aqua remained in the boss’s confiscated Hello Kitty SIGG water bottle.

***

This painting was sold awhile ago, but it is available in pendant-form, which I’m wearing tonight and felt inspired to repost its story. Just so you know.

After taking in a matinee of Burnt Offerings from our Netflix instant queue, Chooch must have decided he better squeeze in some age appropriate programming, because the next thing I knew, the house was filled with the Blue’s Clues theme. This particular episode ended with Blue and Steve performing the cyclone experiment.

“I want to do that,” Chooch said.

“I kinda do, too,” I decided. Luckily, we were able to catch Henry right before he left work and he grabbed two empty Faygo bottles.

Chooch was so excited. He even found a funnel in the bread drawer; I didn’t even know we had a funnel. (But I did know we had a bread drawer, amazingly enough! We never keep bread in it though.) But then of course Henry came home and his testosterone pills made him hijack our project.

“We don’t need that,” he said, batting away the funnel.

“Yes we do! Steve—-” Chooch started to cry, but Henry had already filled up one of the bottles directly from the faucet. Then he grabbed a roll of electrical tape and began wrapping a long length of it around the two bottles, joining them together at the spouts.

“Steve only used one small piece of yellow tape,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but I’m sure there was more holding it together than just that,” Henry spat with indignance.

“No there wasn’t!” I cried. “We watched him assemble it from scratch!”

But Henry put it together his way, and then got to be the big man on campus as he flipped the bottles and gave it a quick shake, creating a cyclone in the upside-down bottle as the water flowed down.

Chooch, who had felt the need to strip down to his underwear for this experiment, was pretty captivated. I guess I was too, for a few seconds. I hadn’t done that since elementary school. I mean, why would I have done it since then? Although I guess I am enough of a dork to pull out some lame parlor trick like that in the middle of a kegger or one-night stand.

After all the fuss was over, I went upstairs to get ready for work. When I came back down, Henry was sitting on the couch, still playing with the bottles.

“Seriously?” I scoffed. “It’s not that great.” But he said nothing and flipped the bottles over another time, causing a brand new cyclone to be born. This is probably how he wiled away his days in the SERVICE while his buddies were strutting around in their fatigues, getting blow jobs: the cyclone experiment & baking brownies for the staff sergeant in his Easy Bake Oven.

I bet he’s at home doing it right now, when he SHOULD be getting his chores done.

Low budget and it shows, mediocre-to-poor acting, horrible sound quality, but somehow it manages to be extremely effective. Of course Henry didn’t think this was scary at all, but I was very messed up by it, to the point where I was pretzeling my limbs around Henry in bed later (when typically, I’m kicking and punching him for snoring) because I was THAT SCARED to go to sleep.

Trust me when I say I dealt with his animalistic snoring for the night.

I tried to find a picture of this weird wooden box that’s used in the movie. It’s like a small, almost coffin-shaped black trunk of sorts (decorated with a crucifix, of course) which opens up wide enough to fit around a head. At the top of the box, which is the end that is looked out of once it’s being worn, a picture of the murderer’s husband (some sort of pastor) and JESUS is slid inside, so that’s what she’s looking at when her husband is going to town on her, kind of like a full-cranial S&M Viewfinder. I think that was the scariest part of the movie for me.

But now of course I really want one of those fucking helmets. I bet Lady Gaga knows where to find one.

(Totally should not have watched this movie. I’m getting so wussy in my old age.)

More fun for Henry, delivered today!, originally uploaded by appledale.

I’m so excited about this, I could puke!

Oh wait, I just did!

Our tickets to the Dance Gavin Dance show in March also arrived, and Henry can really barely contain himself.

You should see him. You would probably say, “Henry, get a hold of yourself!

” and then I would say, “Who are you?” because maybe then I would finally get to know who I’m referring to all those times I say “you.”