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

Comment #37 will be the lucky recipient of 5 pots of Andrea’s My Pretty Zombie eye shadow! (Literally, comment #37 wins the eye shadows, not the person who actually left the comment.)

So, person with the best name in the entire world (i.e. Erin), I will be contacting you for your mailing address. LOOK OUT.

Thanks to everyone who entered and a special thanks to those who courted the eye shadows with poems – they were so much fun for Andrea and I to read!

“I’M WATCHING THIS!” as the channel changed.

“WELL, I WANNA WATCH DEGRASSI!”

“TOO BAD, I’M WATCHING HOUSE OF ANUBIS!”

This volleyed back and forth a bit, like a tennis match between two short-fused siblings fighting over how best to kill Daddy for his money, before Henry entered the room to play referee.

“This is an argument I should be breaking up between a twelve-year-old and a four-year-old,” Henry yelled as brand new wrinkles gouged themselves around his eyes.

“Not a THIRTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD and a four-year-old.

“

I’m sorry, but after a long day, mama wants to kick back with some Cherokee Red and a fucking Degrassi episode, OK. And I haven’t seen Cherokee Red in the store for years, so best let this bitch have her goddamn show.

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.

Chooch, circa 2007

Me, circa 1986-ish?

In other news, Henry has been on vacation all week and it’s really hindering my blogging diligence; all I want to do is sit around in filth and watch the Game Show Network with him.

I’m about to go get my hair cut. Jennifer Aniston just got hers cut and she’s pretty much my idol, follicularly and otherwise,  so of course I had to follow suit. One day a few weeks ago, I made an off-hand comment while watching her on Conan that she’s the most beautiful person in the world.

Chooch glanced at the TV and said, “Um, actually, no she’s not.

“

Where did I go wrong with him. Stop raising your hands so fast, you’re going to start popping sockets.

I was going to take some pictures of Chooch outside yesterday, but the sun was one deceiving motherfucker. It was so windy and cold, so we took the ‘shoot to the bathroom, which I’m sure chagrined some people who absolutely HATE it when people take photos in their bathroom. (Seriously, this was a discussion on Facebook the other day.

I mean, excuse me if that’s the best-lit room in my house. Sorry that my STUDIO hasn’t yet been erected. Jesus Christ. And yes, we DO put on our makeup and fix our hair just to take pictures for Facebook, because photography = art.

Owellz0rz.)

Total Creeper.

Me and my passive aggressive attitude are going roller skating now.

Peace out, girl scout.

One of my favorite bands, and I wear their hoodie with pride. With all supergroups* come conflicting schedules, so they were only able to play a handful of shows.

The DVD that this video was pulled from is the closest I ever got to see them play live. I’ve been revisiting this album all morning, much to Henry’s chagrin.

(He doesn’t like Anthony Green. This is actually grounds for break-up, so I’m not sure what’s keeping me with him.)

I think I will listen to ALL of their albums, ALL DAY. And all of Circa Survive’s, too. That’ll show him.

*Most notably, this band consisted of members from Rx Bandits, Circa Survive, Finch, Chiodos (well, ex-Chiodos, as it were), Good Old War and The Autumns. In my opinion, it’s the perfect concoction of talent.

The first thing I noticed when Henry and I arrived at the Neville Rollerdrome for adult skate was that Roller DJ’s slimy ‘fro was replaced with a shiny pate.

“Dude, you’re bald!” I exclaimed without decency.

“I lost a bet,” Roller DJ frowned, slapping a hand on his nude scalp for emphasis. “The Steelers lost,” he sighed.

I feigned a sympathetic pout with my lips, but I was cracking up internally. It was even better that the abysmal “Stillers” played a part in the shearing.

Henry and I were the first to arrive. As he laced my skates (a woman of my stature does not stoop to lace her own skates), Roller DJ permeated the empty rink with a hot and pulsating mix of Depeche Mode. This is what all of these skating sessions had been missing–the sonic sex of the ’80s.

This particular adult skate was sponsored personally by Roller DJ. He rented the rink and then prayed that enough people would show up. It was looking pretty bleak for awhile there, as it was nearly 8pm and there were only about 10 other people there aside from us, Kim and Chris. But then something outstanding, absolutely extraordinary happened: some of the Steel City Rollers began filing in.

“AW SHIIIIIIT!” I squealed to Henry, who rolled his eyes. (Surprised?) Their presence inspired me to step it up, so I quickly in my head choreographed a Really Hot Valentine’s Routine designed specifically for me and Henry.

“Look,” I explained to Henry, in a very no-nonsense fashion. “You’re going to make a heart with your hands, then I’m going to shove my fist through the heart, at which point you will grab me passionately by the wrist and twirl me around like the tiny ballerina that the world refuses to believe I am.”

“Why don’t I just skip all those steps and knock you on your ass now, then?” Henry suggested.

“JUST DO IT!” I bellowed in the middle of the rink, underneath the sparkly lights.

And this is when, my friends, I learned that Henry does not know how to make a heart with his hands. He made a circle. An oval. Something uncannily akin to a Snork. But that derelict with the defective meat fists could not even come close to molding anything remotely comparable to a heart.

“Just forget it,” I huffed, mumbling a quiet addendum of “retard” as I skated away. This is about the time I began to really realize, really REALLY realize, that I was in love with my roller idol anyway, who was busy skating in a squat while playing air guitar on an extended leg.

“He skated up on me!” I bragged to Henry, who had no idea who I was talking about. So I refreshed his memory. “That guy over there who is like the best skater ever! I’m in love with him this week.” I mean, the more I admired his slick moves, the more I began to notice that he was definitely handsome. For an older guy. And I like me some older guys, apparently, though I’m not sure if I ever actively decided that or if someone LURED me down this path with empty promises and Michael Myers figurines.

I was trying to psych myself up to give him heart hands, you know–show Henry how it’s done. But I lost my nerve every time we made eye contact. Now how will he know to propose?

There was only one real sour patch all night long: We had just left the snack room where Henry’s snack counter nemesis told me my finger tattoos are awesome (holla!) when Diddy’s seminal urban hit “Last Night” came on. I clutched Henry’s hand real tight-like and began tugging him onto the rink. “Aw shiit, it’s mama’s jam!” I hollared, making sure all the Steel City Rollers heard.

“It is?” Henry loudly asked over Keyshia Cole’s chorus cameo, sincerely perplexed. “Since when?”

Was he honestly going to try and discredit my inherent g-funk swagger right there in front of a bona fide pack of my idols-on-skates? Bitch doesn’t know me at all.

And Daryll was back! I almost didn’t recognize him without the honkin’ ice pack on his head. And there was some new-to-me broad there in a trucker hat and leggings, dancing on the toes of her skates. It was mesmerizing. I need to stop hanging out with so many white people. They’re not teaching me shit!

Something devastating nearly happened, and I’m not talking about the time I almost fell on my ass from all the show-boating. I was still wearing my damn ratings device clipped to the pocket of my jeans, and I had skated around a good 10-15 times before realizing it and quickly stuffing it in my pocket. Can you imagine if it had fallen off and become the latest impediment in Daryll’s path? IT HAS MY NAME ON IT, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.

***

Hey, speaking of my new manacle, I thought I had the ratings system beat in regards to superseding Henry in the points race. I left my stupid device at home while I was at work last night, right next to the radio, figuring it could be molested with signals while I was at my radio- and TV-free workplace.

But when I put it on the charger last night, it said I only had 48 points. Henry had NINETY-SOMETHING for the day! And then you know what it actually said to me, in tiny calculator-type?

PLEASE KEEP ME WITH YOU.

%&^*(&(*%

FOILED!

But today, the first thing I noticed when I woke up was that Henry’s device was still in the charger. Mr. Dilligent Ratings Company Servile Pawn actually left his precious device far away from his person.

I cheered. And then I called him immediately to gloat.

“Is that the only reason you called me, to gloat?” he asked, and I could almost touch his exhaustion through the phone.

“YES!” I screamed and then laughed evilly, so evilly that even Marcy, the Resident Purveyor of Evil, woke from her nap and gave me a blanched look from across the room.

You best believe my device has been glued to my jeans all the livelong day. I might even wear it shamelessly to work if it means elapsing Henry in the race to nowhere.

“I could leave mine on the charger today, tomorrow and SUNDAY, and would still have more points than you,” Henry taunted me from work, which is where he does all of his taunting because he knows he’s too far away for my flailing telekinesis to shove physic pokers in his dick.

Oh, its on, motherfucker.

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.

I was contacted through the mail last year by some ratings company asking me to fill out a short survey. Included in the envelope was a dollar, and apparently that’s enough to buy me off because I filled it out with zeal and sent it back the same day.

A week later, they sent me a thank you letter and a ten dollar bill. Now I can feed my child! I thought happily, hugging the crisp bill to my chest.

This happened again a few weeks ago, except instead of a survey to send back, it was conducted via phone. It only took about five minutes, and they sent me another ten dollar bill for my time.

Two weeks ago, another letter came from them but there was no money in it so I didn’t read it. However, Henry did and he informed me that I was selected to go to the next level in the world of media ratings. There was a pamphlet inside, explaining that there would be small cash awards at the end of each month, with a $50 bonus at the end of 90 months. Also, every weekend, I’d be entered in their sweepstakes. Henry only cared about this because in the literature it said that any household member ages 6 and up could participate and he was dying to be part of something great, I guess. He’s always trying so hard to keep up with me.

So he kept hounding me to call them and opt in for the both of us.

Now we have to wear these fucking pager-things on our person at all times, except while we’re sleeping. It picks up TV and radio signals (and probably bowel movements, too) and the longer we wear them, the more points we rack up which will determine if we’re eligible to be entered in the sweepstakes at the end of each week. The lady I spoke with asked what names I wanted on the devices, and it took every last ounce of my maturity to say “Henry” and not “Lola Sausagesucker” or “Peddy Filer.” He really owes me for that. It was a pretty big deal.

“We should just watch porn for two years straight. Really fuck with them,” I suggested to Henry, who gave me no argument on that one.

Henry and I rack up points while the device is off the charger. Of course this means I’m in heated competition with Henry. The problem is that he gets up for work around 3:30am so he clearly is wearing his device way longer than me, and the points reflect this. I’m really stressing myself out over it. I even goes as far as to throw myself at him in an intimate embrace, distracting him long enough for my hand to slip down to his pocket and unclip his device.

The other morning, I even forced myself to get up at the same time as him so I could take my own device off the charger and go back to bed with it.

AND HE STILL ACCUMULATED MORE POINTS THAN ME.

I only wore it to work once, on that first day. (It came with another $10, holla! Henry got $10 too though so now he thinks he’s a part of the club or something.) I felt so conspicuous though, like a drug dealer from the ’90s, so I eventually took it off and clipped it the side of my purse. Two days ago, I forgot to take it off when I got there and still had it clipped to my waistband, which made my shirt jut out as though I was pregnant with a pack of cigarettes. Keepin’ it classy as always. I caught it within my first hour at work, at least, and tossed it into my purse while muttering.

Meanwhile, Henry wears his with pride, like he WANTS people to notice it and think he’s an outdated weed-slinger. And he still has so many more points than me! I can’t stand it! It’s literally all I think about. I even cried about it the other day and screamed, “I QUIT!” which made Henry laugh and tell me I was sad. It’s easy to laugh when you’re WINNING.

“God help me if I ever win one of the sweepstakes,” Henry nervously laughed. “You’d probably kill me.”

Competition is pretty much what I excel at in life. I have little other talent.

I’m going to start wearing this thing on my person again and telling people it’s my organ transplant pager.

Get some sympathy out of this gig, you know?

I like how it appears that Henry is pre-punch.

I try not to get too hung up on that whole Valentine’s Day bullshit, but when Chooch came home from school on Monday with a Valentine for his DAD, I kind of lost my shit a little.

Chooch gave a blase shrug and a mumbled, “I don’t know” when I asked him why he made one for his dad and not me.

“IT’S BECAUSE YOU LIKE DADDY BETTER! YOU HATE ME!” I wailed, because this is how really extraordinary,  properly emotional and not-at-all competitive moms choose their words.

Quickly realizing his entire childhood was on the verge of going up in flames, he very desperately pleaded, “No! I LOVE YOU!” and then threw his arms around me in a hug fraught with fear and regret.

I made sure I reminded him every chance I got how this MISTAKE of a Valentine had decimated my already fragile feelings.

“You’re overreacting,” Henry laughed after receiving my hysteric phone call in which I tossed out promises to hedgeclip his ballsack when he came home from work. “He was probably sitting with the girls and they probably wanted to make one for their dads, so he just followed along.”

WHATEVER.

That child must have reminded me 100x yesterday that he loves me.  And when I came home from work last night, he was so excited to give me my Valentine’s Day present, which he had picked out all on his own. I guess he felt this was his penance, I don’t know.

An iCarly messenger bag! I was elated. I can’t wait to use it at Warped Tour this summer. He did such a good job that I decided to let him off the hook. But I was still hating on Henry, because everything is his fault.

EVERYONE LIKES HENRY BETTER. God, I can’t stand it. I am super competitive when it comes to Henry, and I will elaborate on soon, in another post.

Chooch drew a heart on the envelope to my card and I was really kind of smitten with the fact that he emulates his heart after my own.

(Except I usually have a little tail on mine, but that’s probably too sophisticated for him to handle.)

This new strange, loving behavior carried over to today when he gave me a spontaneous kiss in the middle of purposely letting me die in a very irritating game of Super Mario Bros. on Wii. I probably scared the shit out of that kid. He’s never going to want to do anything nice for Henry ever again, for fear of me shipping him off to an orphanage. On Father’s Day, he’s going to frisbee Henry a card and scream, “HERE’S YOUR CARD BUT I STILL LOVE MOMMY BETTER!” while flinching in fear of my reaction.

Fuck, I’m such a fantastic mom.

My Pappap was friends with the guy who owns Blue Flame, so we spent a lot of time there when I was growing up. It’s the sort of establishment where the food is consistent and if you go there enough times, you will eventually hear a Chuck Mangione tune. There used to be this  section of two large round goldenrod booths that were sort of separated from the rest of the restaurant by low wooden walls; that’s where we would sit if my Pappap’s friends were there, and I always felt like I was sitting with the Mob, like I was a real 4-year-old big shot.

All the waitresses knew my Pappap, so he would be real obnoxious with them, thwapping a fork off the side of his water glass to get their attention. They’d roll their eyes and exasperatedly ask, “What do you want, John?” but they’d always lose their faux-attitude long enough to dote on me, the shy little blond who was always there with her Pappap and treasured stuffed dog, Purple.

I never even had to say what I was ordering. They just knew: grilled cheese. Every goddamn time.

And even when dining in a family restaurant, my Pappap would always order his glass of Lambrusco. We would go there often after church on Saturday nights, usually accompanied by my best friend Christy. She and I would always order the same thing, prompting the waitresses to call us the Bobsy Twins and causing my Pappap to rub his eyes tiredly and say, “Why don’t you girls try ordering something different. There’s an entire menu.” Then, Christy would almost always fail to finish her food, resulting in a good-natured chiding from my Pappap. God, I miss those days. (And not just because it was my pre-vegetarian times and that meal Christy and I always ordered in unison was a cheeseburger and fries. It was only a phase though, and I would soon go back to my true love – grilled cheese.)

Eschewing the five-star restaurants we could have easily chosen, Blue Flame is where everyone went after my Pappap’s funeral in ’96. We had the entire back room reserved and the waitresses (Monica was always my favorite) were absolutely beside themselves. A bunch of my friends were there with me and I remember feeling OK. It felt like the right place to be, full of comfort and familiarity; after the nightmarish days following my Pappap’s death, it was the one thing that had a calming effect on me.

I continued to go there in high school with my friends, but never with my family. It had always been this giant brick receptacle of good memories for me, all involving my Pappap, that I couldn’t bear to stop going there. I just couldn’t let go of it.

I think the last time I was ever in that big back room was the summer after my Pappap’s death, when Lisa and I paraded through with about fifteen of our friends and, much to the chagrin of every waitress on staff that night, pushed about five tables together and held (a very obnoxious) court right there in that same room where everyone had gathered post-grieving a few months prior. I was a little on edge, because the Blue Flame people knew me, and I didn’t want them to think I was an asshole, that my friends were assholes. Even though we were, of course. Since this was the height of my obsessive camcorder-carrying days, I have video of Lisa standing by the door as our friends filed into the room, repeating, “Erin said to be good. Erin said to be good.”

No one was good. We were complete fuckers and I have no idea how we weren’t kicked out that night.

Blue Flame has kind of gone downhill over the years. Not so much the food, but more of its popularity. The sons took over and there are times when I drive past and it looks like it’s closed for good; my stomach falls every time. Henry and I take Chooch there several times a year and, in a land of chain restaurants and fast food joints, never fail to be close to the only patrons who chose this hashery on Rt. 51 as the place to be fed. It makes me sad because I can vividly remember it being loud and bustling, so busy that all of the sections are open. Now, the back room almost always has the doors shut, with a sign propped in front that says “Section Closed” and the private little boothed-area has long since been gutted in favor of a salad bar. One of the worst things that place has ever done, if you ask me.

I miss that little section with every last 1980’s-surviving piece of my heart.

***

Earlier in the week, we became aware that Chooch has two loose teeth. His dentist told us this over the summer, that they were slightly loose, but it didn’t seem noticeable to him so we sort of forgot about it. But last week, Henry and I both noticed that the two in the front had become VERY loose. Like, hopefully-he-doesn’t-swallow-them-in-his-sleep loose. He’s been messing with them all week, aggravating them with his finger, prodding them with his tongue.

We ate at Blue Flame for lunch on Saturday, after our first two choices were too crowded. We were in the area, and I shouted, “Oh, duh! Blue Flame!” We pulled into the lot and I was surprised to see it almost filled to the brim. Turns out it was just because there was a baby shower in the back room. (That’s almost where I had my baby shower, by the way, until someone snagged me a private room in a fire hall, where I could be more free to carry out my weird Halloween-themed activities. In March.)

Sometimes I still the old waitresses, like Monica and Mae, but typically they’re only there during the weekdays. Weekends are made up primarily of young high school waitresses, which is kind of a bummer. But on Saturday, we had this cute and extremely attentive quasi-scene girl waitress who didn’t fuck anything up and was always there when we needed her. She even made really non-irritating small talk and caused Chooch to blush and bury his face in my side.

And then, while eating his cheeseburger and fries, Chooch pulled out one of his teeth. Just gave it a good hard yank, and there it was, in between his two fingers, held up high for us to see.

I gagged a bit and Henry gave me that stern “DON’T SCARE HIM!!!” look that he’s had no choice but to master over the years. But Chooch wasn’t freaked out. In fact, he was pretty stoked and asked, “Am I a grown-up now?” Then the waitress came over, noticed the commotion, and exclaimed, “Did you lose a tooth?!” Chooch looked so proud. And also extremely embarrassed, as he always does when pretty older girls pay attention to him.

Seriously, what a perfect place for him to lose his first tooth – in a restaurant that already is bursting with memories and affable childhood ghosts. I kept tearing up all day when I would think about the poetic happenstance of it all. (Sort of crying a little right now, too.)

Luckily, I almost have at least one empty plastic gumball toy container in my purse, which ended up being the perfect tooth vessel. (Especially later that night when his second tooth fell out in the car. He officially has a Cindy Brady-lisp now.)

We were walking to the car after I paid the bill when Henry said, “You left her a big tip, didn’t you?” When I just silently shrugged, he said, “You did,” and then laughed. What? She was an awesome, young waitress who was there to see my kid lose his first tooth. It’s what my Pappap would have done.

Trying to distract myself from hockey hell by looking through old pictures. Found this one from June of 2007 and now I want to re-share the story behind it, so you will just deal with that, OK? I’M A LITTLE OUT OF SORTS. I wish you could see my eye twitching. (Yes, I realize how pathetic this makes me. But I’m used to it. I will be OK once I go skating tonight.)

**************************

Uncle Otis was a spry nine year old lad when Annie and her family moved to the neighborhood, on account of her daddy losing his job at the paper mill and forced into the trade of candlestick making, naturally. Uncle Otis’ town was known all around, far and wide, as a thriving candle hub.

So this made sense, you see?

Annie was in the grade below Uncle Otis and he would flick daisies at her during recess. She never noticed him, mainly because he was poor, but also because she liked black boys and Otis was, well, very pale. And had a small peepee.

Uncle Otis continued to pine for Annie, all the way through high school. Even after Johnny Maplebitch gave her genital warts, his heart still pitter-pattered down Lovelorn Lane. Even after, at age sixteen, Annie was impregnated by a salesman shilling Swiss Army knives and gained fifty pounds that she couldn’t shake, Uncle Otis would still feel a horde of butterflies molesting his insides at the mere mention of her name. Even after Annie joined a religious mountain top cult and was brainwashed into sewing up her vagina, Otis yearned to be the one to rip out the stitches.

At age eighteen, Uncle Otis was offered the job of a lifetime, joining a carnival caravan as a gum-wrapper sweeper. In his mind, he would let himself be engulfed in this job, saving each and every penny and dime, until he had a nest egg large enough to return to town, scoop up Annie, and deposit her into their new house, which even would have its very own colored television, and a pinwheel near the front stoop.

But you know how these love sagas pan out: Some shit always has to go down. Someone dies, someone cheats, someone gets caught masturbating with a candlestick, because Lord knows there’s more than the candle pourers can keep up with so what else are you going to do with it? Give it a wig and call it daughter?

I’m not too clear on the details, as I’m sure pertinent facts have gotten lost in translation through generations, but from what I’m told, the salesman caught wind of Uncle Otis’ great American dream and sent an anonymous telegraph stating that Annie had been murdered by the town meat cutter, after being confused for a bovine.

Uncle Otis snapped, just completely went ape shit all around the camp site. He ripped suckers straight from the mouths of conjoined twins, urinated in the cotton candy maker, fucked a chicken or two; he was destroyed, sanity annihilated. The carnival director was forced to serve him his walking papers, because the dwarves were starting to cry.

Otis binged on moonshine while trying in vain to fight off chimeras of Annie, frolicking through the junkyard next to the campsite.

He’d squint and rub his eyes, probably give his face a few sharp slaps, as you would too if you thought you were seeing the ghost of your one true love. She would eventually fade away just as fast as she had appeared.

It didn’t stop, though, no matter how much booze Otis would gulp. He couldn’t take it anymore; it was too torturous. So late one night, after all the lanterns had been snuffed around the camp, Otis sneaked back in and rummaged through the prop chest, tossing bowling pins and barbed hula hoops over his shoulder, until he finally unearthed what he was seeking.

Making a hasty sign of the cross, Otis closed his eyes tight and swallowed the sword. This was tragic because Annie had not actually been murdered, contrary to Otis’ belief. Salesman lied to keep Otis at bay!

So my friend God was like Aw, hell nah and made Otis into a vampire, because if he hadn’t, then all the other suicide-by-sword-swallowing vampires would cry foul and God would have another revolt on his hands, like the time when that big-chested broad had half of her back flesh torn off by a zombie and God was all, “Aw, she’s too pretty to be a zombie” and instead turned her into a fairy princess. Shit like this doesn’t sit well with some residents of the afterlife. But you probably know that.

You can imagine how thrilled I was, now that I’ve regaled you with Uncle Otis’s rich history, when I happened upon his portrait bright and early yesterday at the flea market. Henry, after six years of meticulous note-taking and observation for his forth-coming case study, knew immediately what I desired when I abruptly stopped in the middle of the hustle and bustle and shouted, “Oh-ho, hold the phone!”

“Aw, come on. No. No, no, no. Keep walking. Please keep walking.”

The portrait was propped up at the foot of a table holding less savory items, like books and costume jewelry, a few tools and glassware. My hunger for this tasteful portrait was hearty enough to make me forget about my current hunt for owl-related merchandise and postpone my challenge of forced unicorn affection, which originated after I stumbled upon a display of unicorn figurines, of which Henry reminded me of my dislike for such nonsense.

Manning the table was an older gentleman.

He seemed approachable enough but after a few seconds scrutinizing the situation, Henry deemed that it was the same person in the portrait, but you and I know that’s false, because the boy in that picture was Uncle Otis. “I am not buying that. No way, that’s embarrassing.”

There was really no good reason for a person to desire such an item if it wasn’t that of their vampiric ancestor. We couldn’t even really say it was for the frame, because it was battered cardboard. But there was something fantastically compelling about this child and I really needed to have it at that moment or I really think I could have died. What was the use in continuing to breathe if that picture wasn’t going to be on my mantle, I reasoned.

I could only imagine the scene that would ensue if I tried to inquire about the portrait because I really just couldn’t shake the giggles. I’d undoubtedly end up embarrassing myself and that poor man. Plus, it would have really pleased me like a good back-scratchin’ to see Henry muddle through the awkward transaction.

And if you know anything about our past flea market expeditions, you know that there was a moment or twenty of tense deliberating, negotiating, bribing, threatening, whining, crying, until Henry’s endurance was whittled away by my expertise in the subject of spoiled brat.

“Fine, I’ll ask. But you’re coming with me!” I pretended to follow him and Riley over to the table, but then I ducked behind a rack of clothes and feigned admiration over a velvet blazer decorated with gold flecks. I peeked over top of the fourth-hand clothes and nearly ODd on riotous laughter when I saw the seller holding my son while Henry handed him a dollar.

On his way back over to me, Henry hissed, “Take the picture. Take it. Take the fucking picture.” I snatched it up greedily and returned the seller’s happy wave. Then I laughed my fucking ass off.

“You owe me ten dollars,” Henry mumbled.

“But I saw you hand him one dollar.”

“You owe me ten dollars,” he repeated.

Henry was carrying Riley, allowing for an empty stroller in which I could prop my cherished artifact of some stranger’s past. I mean, the eyes weren’t as Borden-ish as I’d generally like my old-fashioned photos of strangers to feature, but it was still one for the brag books. I wanted everyone to see it, to kick themselves for not acting fast enough the first time they wiggled past his table.

“Turn it around. TURN IT AROUND!” Our neighbors were at the flea market and god forbid they should see us with our impressive acquisition. Henry probably didn’t want them to be jealous.

Uncle Otis will be so pleased that I recovered his old school picture. Hopefully it won’t dredge up too many painful memories. I guess I’ll show him the next time he comes over to play Boggle. He’s a real challenging opponent.