My little creeper. Sometimes he makes those faces when I’m least expecting it and I just die. Especially when we’re in public, like the mall, and I look over and realize that my son is now Igor.

I hate using the flash on my phone, because I have to look away and then I’m seeing blinking penii for an unlimited collection of minutes. But anyway, this was my Friday face last week. I was wearing Rabid Weasel from the My Pretty Zombie collection, which I had forgotten about because I have so many jars of Andrea’s amazing eyelid decorators. This is a very underrated shade and it makes me want to start flaunting the sparklies again.

Today, I’m wearing Goth Mary Poppins. No pictures though. Ain’t nobody wanna see that much of my mug. I try to limit myself to posting two-to-five self-portraits a month on the blog.

Maybe I should get Henry to model one MPZ shade a week.

Ever since the Art Festival last June, Chooch has been hounding me to get him pottery classes. I made the mistake of leaving this up to Henry, since everything I found was on a weeknight and I work a sucky evening shift, so it would be up to Henry to take him. Of course, Henry dropped the ball and missed the enrollment for summer classes. So, as a Christmas present, I signed Chooch up for the winter session. God, I really have to do it all!

I worked a half day yesterday so that I could go to the first class and it was totally worth it. Even though it was only an hour. The class size was small and the kids were pretty inoffensive for the most part, which is saying a lot because usually it only takes a kid to glance in my general direction before I’m getting all huffy and designing anti-kid brigade t-shirts.

All the other moms (and one dad in the official uniform of Portland*) stayed too, but no one bugged me. But I think I was too distracted by all OF THE CLAY! THAT SWEET, BEAUTIFUL CLAY!

*(Stylishly ragged Urban Outfitters olive-green cableknit sweater; dirty pegged stonewashed jeans; boots; a modest hipster beard just brillo-y enough to tuck inside a Crayon or two in case he decided to doodle some owls on his Pabst-spotted napkin at the Wavves show; and thick-framed glasses — but I hope you already knew that he was wearing thick-framed glasses.)

Chooch and Portlandia’s spawn were the only boys in the class, so Chooch was being especially lippy because that is what he does around other girls his age. I think he especially liked this one girl with long brown hair in pigtails. She was pretty exotic-looking and I just have a feeling Dad is a doctor or high-powered businessman with stock in some wildly lucrative Japanese pornography market, so I approve.  Her mom sat next to me and knitted the whole time. I was surprisingly OK with that.

The parents at those cooking classes from 2011 were WAY more offensive than this lot, but Henry was still totally out of place and squirmed a lot. Mostly because they appeared to be NPR-listening hybrid-drivers* and Henry is one of those Blue-Collareds. He is bound to be out of place any place we go that isn’t a truck stop or Pep Boys.

*(I am OK with these kinds of people as long as they’re not snobby motherfuckers. It’s the snobby motherfuckers I hate, like the parents from Chooch’s old Catholic school. They thought they were so fucking hot.)

The instructor was this super cute artist girl with baby gauges that I desperately want to be friends with (the girl, not her gauges) because I bet she’d go to a Xiu Xiu show with me. I admired her patience and also her ability to answer the children sarcastically and not sound like a total d-bag doing it.

I forgot her name.

Anyway, the kids got to make a bird in a nest with an egg for their first project and I desperately wanted to not only make my own, but also stick my hands in there and fix everyone else’s because they were all doing it wrong. They will all be fired and ready to take home next week. Chooch said, “Yay! I can’t wait to give it to my teacher.”

WHAT THE FUCK!?  I’m sorry, but that fucking nest is going on Mommy’s desk, son.

I expected Gotye to be playing for the entire hour, but only one Gotye song came on, proving my pottery prejudices mostly wrong.

Willie, totally enrapt with watching the Pope leave Rome in a helicopter. This is fascinating to me because in the 14 years Willie has co-existed with me, I have never known her to show interest in anything other than not peeing in litter boxes.

Peace out, Pope!

I took this picture of a nun at an Italian Festival in 2008. It was one of the seredipitous moments that captured what would wind up being—to this day—one of my favorite photos.

Look at that mug! She was so fucking pissed that I took her picture.

Anyway, I gave her a pretty background on Photoshop and then made her into a pendant. I like to think that when she’s around my neck, she’s warding off evil.

Ciao for now.

“Everyone at work said there’s nowhere to get good fruit downtown,” I told Henry in a sneering voice.

“Everyone? Everyone who?” Henry smirked.

“The whole department*! They all said ‘tell Henry to go fuck himself!’ So go fuck yourself,” I said, patting him on the stomach.

“Do I have to prove all you fuckers wrong?” he said, beginning to get all up in arms.

“Even Barb said so, and she’s well-versed in Things That Are Downtown,” I said, but Henry had already enlisted his phone to solve the problem.

“Rosebud!” Henry shouted, the glow of his cellphone screen spotlighting his tired, yet smug, face.

“It’s on the corner of [streets I don’t know]!” He gloated about this for a few more seconds before mumbling, “Oh. Never mind. It’s closed.”

*(4 people.)

• We were about five minutes into the commute to work when I realized I left my fruit at home.  Henry didn’t have time to turn around because he needed to get back to his own job, so of course I made this a Henry Problem. Like he is the one who left the container sitting on the couch. He should have put it in my purse! Why didn’t you put it in my purse, Henry?! I sat there, wailing about how my day is ruined — nay, my LIFE is ruined — and he was sweetly tossing out workarounds. Like, “Can’t you just walk to a store downtown and buy some fruit?” WHAT STORE!? Even my co-workers defended me on this one. “Yeah, if you want to pay $4 for a crappy apple,” Cheryl laughed and I was like, “OMG please call Henry and tell him that.” She laughed again and walked away but I wasn’t joking. I really wanted her to call Henry and tell him that. “I can bring it down for you later,” Henry offered, but I was in full-blown Indignent Girlfriend mode at this point and spat, “JUST FORGET IT.” We drove in silence for a few minutes until I realized that Henry was silently LAUGHING AT ME. “God forbid if I ever break up with you,” Henry said, which is of course the mother of all opening lines. “I’d feel so guilty. You’d probably wither away.” (That’s one way to lose weight, I guess.) Joke about it, Henry. Then I got to work and my computer wouldn’t turn on and then I knocked a bunch of pictures off my closet thing when I was hanging up my coat and I cried, “THIS IS ALL BECAUSE OF THE FRUIT!” (There were witnesses.) Luckily, Barb had an extra apple so my shakes have mostly subsided, knowing that I will have an apple to eat at 4PM. (I don’t eat my apples at 7PM anymore, now that I’m full-time. Keep up.) Just looking at the Honeycrisp in front of me, preciously perched near a picture of Jonny Craig, is keeping my heart rate steady. I need things to be a certain way, OK? I don’t like change. Anyway, when I returned to my office with Barb’s apple, I held it up for Cheryl to see and told her she didn’t have to worry. She just laughed because I don’t think she necessarily grasped the severity of the situation.
• Before The Fruit happened, Henry came home from work and immediately asked, “Why is the mayonnaise out?” God, Henry and his stupid questions. I told him it was because I was going to make tuna but didn’t feel like opening a can so I had leftover brown rice with barbeque sauce instead. So I forgot to put my shit away SO SUE ME.  It’s been a real day, you guys. A REAL DAY.
• I hate doing things for myself. Especially things that require me to stand in the kitchen. The kitchen makes me so sad and tired.
• I asked Henry the other night if he thought my mom would cry when she was identifying my body at the morgue. “Well, wait — why aren’t I identifying your body!?” he cried. Um, murder/suicide, Henry. Get with it.
• Speaking of my mom….oh wait, there’s nothing to speak of. Still aren’t talking.
• Chooch has his first pottery class tomorrow night! I took a half day so I can go to the first one, since everything happens on weeknights and I have to miss out because of my crappy work schedule. I can’t wait until he molds his first weener.
• Henry and I laid in bed Saturday night and talked about all of the music festivals we’ve traveled to over the years. It was pretty awesome to reminisce, until Henry started bringing up all the times I acted like a motherfucker, none of which was deserving of me having a BLUEBERRY MUFFIN thrown at my face, though, I promise you. Now I’m thinking about all the other conflicts which arose on the road and suddenly the cute little romantic stroll down memory lane is more like a foot-stomping Sumo stance down a flaming path of domestic dysfunction.
• Spent $50 on new Adidas Samoas for Chooch and after one day, he totally scuffed one of them. I threatened to make him start wearing Crocs if he doesn’t treating his shoes better, and that seemed to scare him into shape.
• I let Chooch watch “Sinister” and he totally wasn’t scared. Didn’t even get startled once. It’s no “Ju-On” I guess.
• We’re having cake at work in 20 mintutes but I don’t care because I have an apple. (It would be a different story if it were a Law Firm Lamb Cake, though.) OH, OF ALL THE DAYS FOR THERE TO BE CAKE.
• Speaking of Law Firm Lamb Cake*,  Andrea and I are collaborating on an Oh Honestly, Erin eye shadow set! And by collaborating, I mean of course that I say things like, “What about Henry’s Melon Shirt?” and then she does theactual labor. More details later!
  • I should probably take her to a Lil Wayne show as payment.
  • *This is already an MPZ eyeshadow shade and it is fucking regal. Get some.
• One night last week, Henry and I stayed up late, watching “Dexter” and making pendants. TRU LUV.
• On Saturday, I had lunch at Zenith with Kara. The guy who sold me my very first wheelchair was our waiter, and I said to him, “I don’t know if you remember, but you sold me a wheelchair over the summer…do you acquire wheelchairs often?” He said right away that he remembered me, because that was an unusual acquisition for him. “But now that I know that you collect them, I’ll definitely start looking,” he said enthusiastically. “I do have a really old syringe that I haven’t brought into the store yet….” he mused. “Oh god, please don’t get her started on syringes,” Kara muttered. And I guess she had a valid point there. Here are some pictures from our time at Zenith:

The owner set this down at the table next to us and deadpanned, “Jesus is watching you.” We were having a pretty serious conversation at the time, so it was super apropos and gave us a much-needed laugh.

Man, my grandma LOVED THE SHIT out of Julio Iglesias. I remember one time in the 80s, her Cadillac was stolen from the mall parking lot and all she cared about was that all of her Julio cassettes were in there.

I need to go back for this.

• Hey speaking of wheelchairs, the Craigslist guy finally replied to Henry, so Henry is going to go out to the dude’s dad’s house this week and hopefully not killed, because I really want that wheelchair.
• Had someone from my past profess their undying love for me today, which was not as flattering as you’d think. Just really sad.
  • Just to clarify, I don’t mean this to sound arrogant. I really am pretty sad about it.
• I want Danni to be The Biggest Loser.

After WEEKS of being forced to eat American people fruit, we finally went fruit hunting last weekend, thank the fucking lord. Henry asked me where I wanted to go and I just looked at him like his mouth had turned into a flapping kooka.

“Um, an Asian market, idiot!” I scoffed and it’s a wonder that man never backhands me.

There we were, surrounded by the fruits of the Oriental Market, and Henry asked, “What are we getting?”

What a fucking dumbass. All of the persimmons, obviously.

I haven’t had persimmons in weeks. WEEKS. The regular grocery stores quit selling them, but I just had a feeling my stinky little Eastern markets wouldn’t let me down.

Henry wouldn’t buy all of the persimmons, just four. Fucking tightwad. I was picking through the pear selection when I noticed a box of small green balls.

Apparently, jujubes aren’t just teeth-hugging candy. I tried to unload a handful into the basket but Henry juju-blocked me.

“You better google that shit and find out what it is first,” Henry warned, not wanting a repeat of the 2004 Durian Disaster.

Google told me that jujubes are basically Chinese dates. I love dates! So we bought some. Unfortunately, I didn’t read enough to learn that when the jujubes are green, that means that they’re not ripe and will essentially mock the taste of an apple, only without any flavor at all.

They also had mangosteen, which I desperately wanted and not only just because it looks like some crazy medievel marirtal aid. However, Henry did the whole cartoon-eyes act when he saw that they were only available in mesh bags (probably also doubling as marital aids in some uncivilized country) and were $8.toomuch a POUND.

This is apparently a lot of monies for fruit so Henry quickly shooed me away from the produce aisle, which was fine, because it’s in close proximity to the fish counter resulting in a veil of rotting scales got trapped in my throat every time I opened my mouth to complain.

So then we went to dumb Whole Foods where Henry stocked up on boring, regular fruits (seriously, how many types of tangerines do yuppies & hippies really require?!), which is what I ate all week in lieu of exotic pulps.

I’m a citrus’d out. Henry watched me eating a grapefruit the other day and was one errant eye-squirt away from enrolling me in the remedial living facility down the street.

“Who eats grapefuit like that!?” he cried, watching me stab the pink with a limp wrist and a fork.

“Someone who doesn’t have a GRAPEFRUIT SPOON!” I snapped, opening the door for another Life Lecture from Henry who tried to  tell me all I need to do is CUT IT WITH A KNIFE.

Oh OK, Henry. Remember my knife allergy?

Every time I eat a grapefruit, I wind up looking like the tail end of a citrus porno was just filmed on my face.

One time, I used one of Chooch’s coats as a bib.  And I don’t care if you tell him, because:

• he shouldn’t have left his fucking coat on the goddamn couch
• he’s done way worse shit to my stuff

Eating fruit is exhausting. I’m one step away from having Henry chew it for me first.

We went back to the Oriental Market on Saturday. The whole way there, I chanted, “Please can I get a mangosteen. Please can I get a mangosteen. Please can I get a mangosteen I’VE BEEN SO GOOD!” (Lies.) Totally wore Henry down and he snapped, “OK! OK. God.”

And of course they didn’t have any so I got to indulge in a Veruca Salt moment.

They did, however, have a jackfruit! Look at the size of that motherfucker! I didn’t even bother asking Henry if we could get it. That fruit’s girth had his answer written all over it.

Meanwhile, two white vans full of Asian adolescents dressed in their most eye-blinding neon swag (lens-less neon eyeglass frames, check!) spilled into the store and began loitering in every area I needed to access, like they were waiting for an LMFAO appearance. Chooch and I took that as our queue to go sit in the car, but car key-carrying Henry and I were separated by a sea of shopping carts spilling forth with bricks of tofu and seaweed-wrapped quail eggs and not one of the carts’ pushers would respond to my sad whimpering and quiet “excuse me”s so I had to walk all the way back around the produce department just to make it to Henry, like some lame Asian market rom-com.

Mangosteenless in Pittsburgh.

You’ve Got Exotic Fruit.

I don’t really watch many rom-coms so I have no idea what I’m saying right now, except that I had this overwhelming desire to get back to Henry, like he had just come home from the SERVICE and the only thing that stood between us was a bunch of adulterating whore-bitch army wives and psychological quicksand.

I have never felt that before! Either I’m Falling in Love For Real or I just really wanted out of that market.

Meanwhile, Chooch was squinting at candy wrappers, like clearer vision was going to help him understand how durian could possibly be made into a delightful treat.

After finally escaping with my precious produce, Henry got in the car and animatedly spoke of being jostled around by Eastern  elbows and finding himself the victim of a brutal line-jumping*, which was probably more action than he experienced in the SERVICE, but Chooch and I definitely didn’t care because there were no battle wounds to show for it, plus it didn’t happen to us and we are selfish motherfuckers cut from the same cloth.

(*Some old lady sideswiped him with her cart when he was trying to move up in line, totally robbing him of his spot. Cry us a river, Henry.)

At least I have enough persimmons to get me through the week.

I guess this wasn’t as urgent as I thought.

Chooch drew this last night before he went to bed and oh how we laughed! Henry, on the other hand, frowned disapprovingly.

For as much as Henry always says no, we still somehow manage to get our way.

My friend Jessi shared this today on Facebook and at first I was like, “Oh. This video is over 7 minutes long. I don’t have time to watch that.

” But it had already started playing and just like that, I found myself making the time to watch it to the end and I am so glad that I did. This video is amazing. This man is an inspiration.

School was fucked up when I was a kid, but it is so much worse now — I worry all the time, is Chooch going to get shot at? is Chooch going to get bullied? is Chooch going to BULLY? We talk about that subject all of the time, and I always make him stop what he’s doing when anti-bullying commercials come on TV. There are things that were said to me when I was a kid that have become some ugly, fucked up accessory that I feel like I almost flaunt to a fault.

I could weigh 100 pounds and still find fat that I want to cleave off.

But most of it came from home. I will take this fucking inferiority complex to the grave, but I’ll be damned if my son is going to have one and I’ll be doubly-damned if my kid’s going to give some other kid one.

You should definitely make the time to watch this. And pass it on. It’s fucking beautiful.

Yesterday, Henry made me take the trolley to work, resulting in me having to walk fifteen minutes in ten degree weather. You might think, “Oh here it comes. Yet another predictable blog post berating and emasculating Henry while somehow finding a way to mention for the 87th time that he dropped a bowling ball on her foot.” But no! This blog post is actually thanking him for making me take the trolley, because I ended up having a Unicorn Moment^TM.

(Although the severe coldness nearly made my already half-dead bowling ball toes turn into grape-colored freezepops.)

I was standing alone on the trolley platform when I noticed a man dressed entirely in an olive-palette mountain climbing ensemble approach the ramp. He brandished a blind person stick, which pendulated in jerky arcs across the pavement.

“Oh god, please don’t come up here,” I thought in a mild panic. What if he needed help getting on the trolley and I was the only one there? What if he fell over into the tracks and I was too stupid to remember the number for 911? What if I tried to help him off the tracks and then my foot got caught and holy shit I don’t want to die like that! What if his blindness heightened his ability to feel the hellfire of my aura and he started shouting in Latin about me being a demon and the Sam and Dean Winchester pulled up and shanked me over top of some AC/DC joint? What if he was only pretending to be blind so that he could find gullible broads like me to pity-rape* in a storm cellar? LITERALLY ANY OF THESE THINGS COULD HAPPEN.

(*This has only happened to me once, when I took pity on a Canadian with a gigantic head.)

And then he was at the top of the ramp, three feet away from me. I considered standing stock-still, hoping he wouldn’t smell my panicked perspiration or sense the heat waves of fear emanating from my body.

But then I thought, if I were a blind person, I would want to know if someone was around in case I started doing weird calisthenics or an X-rated hand jive routine. So, in a voice that sounded like a 20-year-old orgasm finally expulsed from a nun, the word “hello!!!!” shot from my mouth and kind of just levitated awkwardly in the cold winter air while the blind man rotated slowly to face the direction of my voice.

And then we exchanged weather-pleasantries and laughed about Good Ol’ Pittsburgh for a minute before I went back to nervously counting and re-counting my trolley fare and he went back to being blind.

If I was blind, I would probably just use that blank screen to play imaginary Dr. Mario 24:7.

Before I could spend any more time in blind man fantasy land, another person joined us on the platform.

A goddamn motherfucking Asian midget, are you fucking kidding me. Best day ever!

Unicorn Moment^TM in full effect!

But then the trolley pulled up and  I went back to fixating on the blind man, who had overshot where the trolley would stop.

I wondered if I would have to walk over and be his guide dog (I don’t have many “guiding” qualifications, but I’ve been called a dog by plenty of middle school boys), but the whoosh of the trolley door opening was enough to steer him back toward me and the Asian midget.

“After you, sir,” I said to him. Seriously! I said that! (When I told Barb at work, I think she thought I was lying.) Then I had to watch him struggle with the toll machine, which kept rejecting his dollar bills. I was going to offer assistance but please, I’m a card-carrying Trolley Dunce. There was one time when it wouldn’t take my dollar and the driver completely lost his shit and screamed, “THIS FUCKING THING! JUST GO SIT DOWN! I MIGHT AS WELL JUST LET EVERYONE RIDE FOR FREE TODAY, FOR FUCKS’ SAKE!

” and then gave the toll machine a swift blow with the heel of his hand. I almost cried.

Meanwhile, it wasn’t the toll machine’s fault. The dollar I was trying to use had been laundered numerous times and by this point in its sad life resembled a thin, transparent sheet of cotton.

(I don’t know that it’s really called a Toll Machine.)

Anyway, the other reason I didn’t try to help was because what if this guy was one of those Handicapable Crusaders who hiss in the general direction of kind and helping hands? I didn’t want to get hissed at. Just being on the trolley in and of itself was like being hissed at by the Universe. How much more could I bear.

Meanwhile, Asian Midget had made himself at home in the front seat and was savagely gnashing his way through some sort of giant, hot stinky meat sandwich the size of his own wobbly head. So where do I choose to sit? Right behind him. He kept getting up to talk to the trolley driver (seriously, one of THOSE busy bodies) which afforded me ample opportunity to realize that he looked like a stunted version of the Hoobastank motherfucker dressed in a long (but probably normal for the rest of us) trenchcoat and chinos and he walked with an obnoxious self-confidant swagger.  He pulled off his knit cap to shake and fluff a thick bouffant of 1990’s skater hair—which I was honestly not expecting to be under there— and then re-scarfed himself, almost whipping me in the face with one end of it.

God only knows what they possibly had to talk about.

And then some guy came on and asked the driver something about trolley stops, so Asian Midget interjected and started schooling him in the art of Which Stop To Get Off. He even hit the “Stop Requested” strip for him!

I guess he was just trying to prove that he could reach it.

———-

I had to ride it again today. This time I was the only person with a disability (I have a disabled personality) who was waiting, but I’m pretty sure two of the broads with me were off-duty strippers.

And not the fancy kinds, either.

Some older man in a Steelers coat started asking me questions about the trolley, like: “Does the Red Line come out here from the North Shore?”

I don’t know, does it? Why does everyone come to me with their public transportation questions when I look like a frightened Farmer’s Daughter taking a trip to the City to get her ailing grandma some Medicine? In my head,  everyone on the trolley is flicking a switchblade beneath their seat.

Sometimes I think people must look at me and mistakenly think they saw me on TV, winning it all on the Port Authority question on Final Jeopardy.

God, go ask the Asian Midget.

Last Friday, my brother Corey swung by our house before work to gift Chooch and me with a talking Pee Wee doll that his awesome girlfriend Danielle found for us! Chooch was so excited, he had to stay home from school. (Supposedly his “stomach hurt” but I’m pretty sure I was duped.)

Chooch is still pretty stoked about emailing people! He randomly emailed me, Barb, and his brother Blake, asking if we know who Dr. Who. He was quick to spot the typo in Blake’s reply and on went the Spelling Dick hat.

Blake got all defensive and cried, “It was a mistake!” (I imagine he cried, anyhow.)

(Barb replied and said, “Yes, Dr. Who is a TV show. Why do you want to know?” to which Chooch replied, “I know that. I just wanted to know if you knew.” This is how titillating it is to email with a six-year-old.)

And then he went on to write a review for Minecraft, WTF! I didn’t even know he was doing this until he asked for help submitting it because he needed two more words.  It’s just so unreal to me to see how much he’s learned in such a short period of time. Yay for school!

(Janna was so proud when I sent her a picture of this review.)

Snocone or clown weener!?

(I can’t even think about snocones now without immediately reflecting back on the Great Rainbow Flavor Debate at the flea market last year. God, that was such an irritating conversation.)

LATER THIS WEEK:

• Fruit foraging update! I got new fruit! It’s apparently not ripe though.
• Trolley Adventures! Henry made me ride the trolley when it was 2 degrees out! My bowling ball toes got frostbitten on the walk to the trolley stop and my compass blew clear out of my hand!
• Probably something about Henry! Maybe something where he answers questions begrudgingly!
• Something about how I found out that SOME Wacky Worms have APPLE TUNNELS! Except I guess that’s all I really needed to say about that.

My friend Michelle posted this on my Facebook timeline because she is smart and knows that I would:

• cry from laughing
• annoy the shit out of Henry with it

Boy, was she right.

“I bet Henry sings this song at work,” Michelle said, and oh! what an image!

I haven’t had much opportunity to really get under Henry’s skin with it, but on the way to work, I played it in the car and said, “Do you know what this is!?”

He only needed to hear about 3 seconds of it from my shitty iPhone speaker before smirking. “Yeah, it’s an old Faygo commercial. It’s on their website!” he scoffed, utterly unimpressed. And then he added, “There’s a rap version, too.”

OMG PLEASE TELL ME IT’S BY ICP.

For those who don’t know, Henry works for a beverage company that distributes Faygo.

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

In other Henry news, I found out that he was actually planning on getting me this beautiful(ly creepy) antique wooden wheelchair for Valentine’s Day, but the motherfucker on Craigslist never responded. Henry, you should just quit Craigslist already. Anyway, just knowing that he was trying to do that for me made me be pretty nice to him all weekend.

I mean, other than the whole Redbox debacle.

Alternately titled: It Was All Henry’s Fault

Redbox Warriors

Chooch and I decided to be strong, independent humans Sunday evening, so we ordered a movie from Redbox (“Possession” — we also wanted to be scared independent humans) and then declared to Henry that we were going to walk to the Redbox a few blocks away outside of CVS to retrieve it all by ourselves.

“And I’m even going to buy TOILET PAPER while we’re there!” I decided, noting that we were down to one roll. (I shudder to think what goes on in the bathroom when it’s occupied by Chooch.

) Henry seemed bemused by this, to say the least.

However, I failed to note that it was about 10 degrees out there. Chooch at least had a heavy coat and hat on so I figured I was probably still within the child abuse margin of error. Although, we had to walk kind of slow because there was ICE EVERYWHERE.

Chooch and Erin against the elements — a scary thought.

Then! Then we stumbled upon a DEAD BIRD on the sidewalk and let out a collective “awwwwww!” We almost retreated after that, but I really wanted that fucking movie.

“What kind of bird do you think it is?” Chooch asked, after hypothesizing on how it died (his theories were way more violent than mine).

“I don’t know, who do you think I am? DADDY?!” And then we started shit-talking Henry, because that is what we do best.

Faces chapped and burning from the icy wind, we had finally made it to the Redbox outside of CVS. It took me three attempts to swipe my credit card because my hands were frozen flesh bricks at this point. After the final swipe, my credit card flung out of my hands and what a real parlor trick that was, trying to pick it up back up with fingertips I could no longer feel. After all of that, Kiosk B said it had no such record of my reservation so we moved on to Kiosk A, which didn’t acknowledge my now-violent credit card swiping AT ALL. (And yes, I was swiping it the correct way! Ask Chooch!!) By this time, there was a small crowd of people waiting for their turn, so I freaked out and announced, “JUST FORGET IT.

THIS IS ALL DADDY’S FAULT ANYWAY!” and drug Chooch inside CVS to hopefully purchase toilet paper without incident. I was totally acting like Splintered Chooch.

Here is a helpful piece of background information: While I have reserved tons of Redbox movies, I have never actually used the machine-thing, except for one time a few months ago, when I thought I would be Really Helpful and walk to the very same Redbox one day and return a movie, but it kept rejecting it. Some woman was standing behind me, causing me severe performance anxiety, and I finally yelled, “FUCK IT!” and went inside to spend money on makeup to piss Henry off, because THIS was all his fault TOO!

Turns out, it was rejecting the DVD case because the DVD wasn’t inside. HENRY’S FAULT FOR NOT PUTTING THE DVD IN THE CASE!!

I called Henry from the toilet paper aisle and completely berated him (in hushed tones, I hate talking on my cell phone in stores!). “This is all your fault! I looked like a complete asshole out there! THIS IS WHY I WANTED YOU TO COME WITH US!” Then I hung up on him.

OK. The part about me and Chooch wanting to be independent humans? That’s not completely accurate. The truth is that HENRY didn’t want to walk there with us so we sort of had no choice but to go alone.

Henry called back. “Were you at the right kiosk?” he asked innocently, which made me see the bloodiest red that ever redded.

“I’m not an idiot!” I hissed, still extremely cognizant of the people around me and God forbid I should start fitting the Brookline stereotype of broadcasting my domestic disputes. And then, “Since this is all your fault, why don’t you just come here and do it yourself!” And END CALL.

In the checkout line, two guys in dirty beige coveralls stood behind me, hawking up a storm and being your basic white trash Yinzer pricks. The guy closest to me took a call on his cell and literally it felt like he was standing inside my ear, showering me with this terrible Pittsburgh cachinnation and coating the back of my head with the essence of date rape and Steelers. I kept inching forward but there was no escaping his grating voice. Meanwhile, Chooch is looking at the fronts of all the gossip magazines, asking me, “Who’s this broad? Who’s that? And her? And him?” because if it’s not someone that’s on the cover of Alternative Press, he’s clueless. But every question made my heart race faster and faster because MOMMY IS IN A BAD MOOD, OK SON?! Commotion was all around me! I just wanted quiet!

“How’s your evening?” the young cashier asked when it was our turn to check out.

“Fine,” I said.

But at the same time, Chooch, in his typical high-pitch, shouted, “MOMMY’S CREDIT CARD DIDN’T WORK IN THE RED BOX SO NOW WE CAN’T GET OUR MOVIE!” And of course, he would pick the moment when Pittsburgh Asshole put away his cell phone and approximately 12 other people had joined our line. And of course, I hadn’t paid for the toilet paper and his fucking apple juice yet so the cashier was kind of looking at me like, “Bitch, if you can’t afford a $1.50 movie from Redbox, you might not be wiping your ass tonight.”

“That’s not why!” I snapped at Chooch, while swiping my credit card. At least CVS recognized the existence of my credit card! “It’s because Daddy is an idiot!”

I don’t know how this was Henry’s fault, but give me time and I’ll write a manifesto.

I snatched the CVS bag off the counter and stormed off outside, where Henry was waiting for us in the car. He took my credit card and JUST LIKE THAT the movie was in his hands.

“I SWIPED THAT MOTHERFUCKER A MILLION TIMES! CHOOCH, TELL HIM!”

Chooch actually agreed! He usually likes to pick these moments to be infuriatingly contrary.

“I believe you,” Henry sighed. “Now get in the car.”

“FUCK YOU! I’M WALKING HOME!” I cried, a little confused about why I was still feeling so much anger but still certain it was all Henry’s fault.

Henry just laughed (HE LAUGHED AT ME!) and patiently said OK.

A block away, Chooch and I lost it and started cracking up.

“I bet daddy’s going to be so pissed that we didn’t get him a drink!” Chooch giggled, which made me giggle to the point of tears. Henry has this thing where he HAS TO BUY A DRINK anytime he’s at a store, no matter what store he’s at. Bonus points if they sell those nondescript jugs of iced tea. And anytime I happen to (rarely) go to a store without him, he acts like I cheated on him if I come home beverageless. Bitch works at a fucking Faygo plant! Bring your own shit home! And really, in 12 years, when have I ever thoughtfully picked something up for him at the store without being told to first? He’s lucky I’m courteous enough to order a drink for him at restaurants when he’s in the bathroom.

Everything we went through and that movie wasn’t even all that good. But at least the new episode of The Walking Dead was on right after.

Chooch and I talked A LOT about that dead bird and how fucked we’re going to be if Henry dies/leaves/quits doing shit for us.

Yesterday I went to castle blood for their valentine show and there were a lot of pop-up monsters and jannas fortune didn,t love her and daddy peed his pants!Daddy got yelled at for not turning off his phone and mommy was not awesome the whole time.

I was awesome the whole time and i got to rip a hart out of a monster and it said i never loved you any way!

Katelyn (my frenemy) gave me cookies and love potion.

Today Mommy had to get her dumb fruit and Daddy acted like a idiot who is at work and he knows everything about the weird asian market and it smells like fish in there

They still wont let me get a durian!!!!!

I wondered why Henry was being so weird about me buying tickets to the upcoming Jonny Craig show in March. Every time I’d say, “I’m buying those tickets tomorrow,” he would snap, “No!!” I thought it was because he was writing checks behind my back again and we actually had no money.

But then he forwarded me the email ticket confirmation because I guess he was afraid I was going to start putting myself up for auction on fetishist websites again in order to buy the tickets myself.

So I guess I’m supposed to consider this my Valentine’s Day present (“I bought the tickets and I’M GOING WITH YOU, TOO. That says a lot!” Henry fought for his cause), and that’s sweet and all, but we all know I was getting these tickets one way or another.

Therefore, he still has to do something for me for Valentine’s Day. Maybe I’ll have him clean out the car or chase down a Mexican fruit cart. We shall see.

(What the fuck is up with that sinister Johan up there, anyway?)

———-

In other V-day news, I passed out my serial killer cards (and some of Chooch’s zombie ones as a safe bet for the people I wasn’t sure about). They were mostly well-received! However, I gave an Albert Fish to one of my co-workers, even though I don’t know her very well. Later, she came over to my office and, with a horrified look on her face, said, “I wiki’d the guy on the card you gave me and that was the most disturbing Wikipedia page I’ve ever seen!” And then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “Thanks for the Valentine.” I think she liked it!

I was telling Barb about it later and she was all, “OMG you gave her one of those cards? She’s so sweet and innocent! Good job, Erin!”

You know me, making friends wherever I go!

(Speaking of the serial killer Valentines, they got a little shout out on the FEARnet website!)

I got a splinter and blah blah Daddy hurt it really bad. i wish i never had a splinter…it felt really bad…daddy had to use a pin and tweezers…he was torchering me.

—————————–

Erin’s 2 cents:

My favorite part was at the very beginning of this incident, where Chooch learned that he had a splinter in his foot. He very casually said, “Huh. My foot kind of hurts. Did I step on something?” As soon as I said the “s” word, he fucking FLIPPED HIS SHIT. He’s never had a splinter before so I’m not sure how he knew that this was going to turn from mildly irritating to OMG I’M BEING KILLED. Maybe it was a lunch table topic one day at school.

He just stood there yelling in front of me, so I said, “Um….go upstairs and tell daddy.”

Which loosely translates into “Tell your dad to deal with this shit.”

Moments later I heard this ungodly, high-pitched shriek so I ran upstairs to spectate. I mean, Chooch + Splinter + a tweezer-wielding Henry = Must See TV.

What I found was a red-faced child flailing on my bed. Henry, ignoring the melodrama, held him in one place with one hand clamped around his ankle, the other hand scraping away at the dead skin around the splinter. He looked so patient, his mouth pursed in quiet concentration. I don’t know Henry does it!

Meanwhile, Chooch’s head was tossed back, one hand draped across his forehead, and he was screaming, “I HATE YOU DADDY! I WISH THIS NEVER HAPPENED! DADDY YOU’RE HURTING ME!!!” It was the performance of a lifetime.

I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that we live in a duplex and our neighbors were very much home. I had to counter with my own yells: “IT’S JUST A SPLINTER! DADDY IS JUST TRYING TO HELP! PLEASE NEIGHBORS DON’T CALL THE POLICE!”

Moments later, the splinter had been extracted and Chooch’s tear ducts miraculously plugged themselves. After all that. Life went on.

An hour later, we were watching a man writhing in pain post-zombie attack on The Walking Dead. “He looks just like me after I got a splinter,” Chooch observed sadly, without an ounce of sarcasm.

The next morning, we were walking to school. I still had a limp from the Big Bowling Ball Boo-Boo, which Chooch noted and scoffed, “My limp is worse than your limp.”

“It totally is not!” I cried.

“Yeah, it is. My foot injury is way worse than yours,” he argued.

“You had a splinter. I had a BOWLING BALL DROPPED ON MY FOOT!!”

“Yeah,” he replied smugly. “And the splinter was worse.”

Yeah well….I wrote more sentences than him!

THIS IS REALLY HOW IT HAPPENED.

I have vowed to mention Henry’s brutal bowling blunder at least once a day on the Internet for an entire week. I have one day left. Maybe I’ll recreate the crime using Homies.

Happy Valentines’s Day, Henry, you brute.