Sep 032010
 

There was a bakery box on my desk when I got to work last night. A small yellow post-it was labeled “Chooch-cakes” – Kaitlin had baked get well cupcakes for Chooch.

I seriously almost cried, it was so thoughtful!

“I tried to make some of them as much like zombies as possible,” Kaitlin pointed out.

“But since I’m scared to death of them, I don’t keep a lot of zombie provisions on hand.”

Co-workers kept stopping in their tracks, noticing the bakery box on my desk. Once they learned why it was given to me, you could almost see their brains churning out self-injury ideas so they could get their own sympathy treats from Kaitlin.

After work, I got in the car and showed Chooch. He honestly lit up; bloody, bruised lip and all.

He immediately tore into one of the zombie cakes, which left a blood-like smear all over his mouth.

Memories!

But at least THIS blood was edible.

He was so happy. It meant so much to me that Kaitlin would do something so thoughtful for my son, whom she hasn’t even met.

Of course, Henry ate 95% of the contents of the box which I think is bullshit, considering he wouldn’t let me bash him in the mouth with a slab of concrete first.

Goddamn Henry.

Feb 032009
 

Sunday afternoon, we decided to try a semi-new cupcake specialty shop called CoCo’s. Now, keeping in mind that I reside in Pittsburgh (which, for those of you who are unaware, is not exactly a mecca for cupcake couture), I did not hold my hopes so high and loose that they’d soar away through the atmosphere, taking with them a little part of my heart and childlike wonder. Rather, I kept them ground level, tied to a fire hydrant. Because again, this is Pittsburgh. We have tried our illustrious city’s  other OMG-Look-We-Bake-Gourmet-Cups-Of-Cake called Dozen two or three times, and while their selection of frosting is creative and worth the inflation, the cake part is always dry and reminiscent of a school cafeteria dessert tray at 3pm. The last time Henry brought some home, one went missing; I later found it moonlighting as a saliva sucker at a dentist’s office. But their cupcakes are well-portioned. Dry, but bigger than your dominatrix’s fist!

“Maybe CoCo’s will be better,” I hoped, urging Henry not to give up after he made the twenty-eighth wrong turn (Professional Driver, who now?

). When Henry frowned beneath his bristing ‘stache, I added, “The website says that they use FINE INGREDIENTS.” But really, I knew deep down that this here CoCo would have had to swim across to the Amazon and pluck vanilla beans from the one and only Jack’s stalk and then have Jesus Christ bleed out in her sack of cocoa for it to mean much to Henry.

After road raging upon a poor old man from Wisconsin (you’d be a bad driver too if you had a cheese curd trampoline sealing your anus), Henry found a parking spot. I stayed in the car with Chooch, who chanted, “Cupcake. Cupcake. Cupcake. Pee asshole cupcake? Mommy asshole cupcake? What song is this?” over and over. Several minutes later, Henry was plopping a non-descript paper bag in my lap and growled, “There’s $10 worth of cupcakes.”

I peered inside the bag and at first saw nothing. Then, after some efficient maneuvering of tissue paper, I saw them. Four tiny pucks of ganache. I pulled one out. It felt dense and I was angry that the ganache ran over the paper cup. Mama doesn’t like messes. Immediately, my fingers were attacked by melting chocolate and I began sweating.

Chooch and I took a bite simultaneously. Now, Chooch’s barely three-years-old palate is about as refined as that of an ass-licking dog; he eats food off the floor.  So when he breathed, “Oh, it’s so good!” and, in tandem, I said, “Um, ew,” Henry took my word over Chooch’s. And then Chooch promptly started choking because these sons of bitches were drier than a nun’s snatch. You know how sometimes you’re eating corn bread, maybe it’s a day old, maybe you got it out of the dumpster behind that Mexican restaurant, because look, the economy is affecting us all, OK??? And now say you’re eating this cornbread like it’s fucking Manna from heaven and you just survived the motherfucking Apocalypse. You are eating the FUCK out of this shitty, rock-hard, stale as shit corn bread and then, uh-oh, you’re choking like the first time you drank up that trannie’s bitter sex jam.

Then now you know what it’s like to eat a CoCo’s cupcake. And believe me, you would be begging for a Dixie cup of that sex jam to wash it down.

NOW! To be fair, because I always like  to be fair, perhaps they were getting ready to close and Henry bought the last four cupcakes that would generally be used as pigeon chow, hobo deterrent, mother-in-law killing devices. Maybe they were too caught up in their collective “Holy Shit, Superbowl!!” fingerbanging session that they left the cupcakes in the oven too long.

I do not know. But I can tell you that there was no difference in my very scientific moisture-reading in the vanilla as opposed to the chocolate.

The ganache? It was decent. The little fondant shape thingie that was plopped atop each crown like a Crayola-happy turd? Probably that was meant to be a sweet touch.

It made me think of Play-Doh.

Here is Henry’s review:

“What the hell? It’s like, sucking all the saliva out of my mouth. Oh fuck, is Chooch choking? Oh shit, I’M choking! This chocolate one tastes like the other ones — yucky.” [I just included that because I don’t thnk Henry has ever said “yucky” before.] “Wait, I know what these taste like. Stale Tasty Cakes! These are nothing more than overpriced, out of date Tasty Cakes.” But without all the fluffy white, processed guts. You know, the best part.

And from there, he was on a warpath, a warpath lined with delicate cups of cake and dollops of fluffy frosting made by angel kisses and vintage porn. “I’m sorry, but I can’t believe this place is succeeding. You know what? I’m going to bake my own cupcakes and I’ll only charge $2.00 for them. $2.50 for these dry-ass cupcakes…” and he mumbled like that the whole way home, in that strange recipe-speak that I never did quite understand but I imagine it’s how Alton Brown and Bobby Flay talk during poker games.

I want him to call his cupcake shack Hank’s Dirty ManCakes. We’ll make it look like a miniature truck stop, and each cupcake will have bushy moustaches and be named after ’70s porn stars. And then on Sundays he will serve soup as well, so I can finally have my fucking souperie.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue my search for the best cupcake in the universe. If I was iCarly, I would give a shout out on my webcast and all my little teenage viewers would fucking trip over themselves to send me boxes of their local favorites. And then perhaps someone would even send me a smorgasbord of those famous Sprinkles cupcakes, at which point I will understand how Katie Holmes finds the will to stay married to Tom Cruise.  But I am not a Nickelodeon teen sensation, so I must seek other means. Such as, bundling Janna in a parka and sending her off through the tundra to bring me samples herself. I will even give her a little water bottle.

Oh boy, what should I review next.

Dec 102007
 

So, it’s here! I’m freaking out! It came at a perfect time, because Henry was napping, so I shoved it over my fat head and crept up the bedroom to give him a nice little surprise. And by crept, I mean that I clambered up the steps on my hands and knees, pausing every other step to squeeze back pee.

I couldn’t stop laughing, and I tried ever so hard to muffle it, but I only ended up making the inside of the pig’s snout very warm and moist.

Anyway, Henry was not sent spiraling into the land of heart attacks, like I had hoped. He rolled his eyes and quietly begged, “Please don’t show that to Chooch” (who was also napping), before rolling back over and pulling the covers up to his chin.

But I’ll tell you who WILL be taking up residence in the land of heart attacks: My boss, Kim. Everyone got to leave early Thursday night and I thought I was the only one still packing up all of my stuff. (Seriously, I bring half of my house with me in my giant purse, and then it takes me five minutes to stow everything back in it at the end of the night.

) When I was finally ready, I went to round a corner, where Kim was hiding behind a wall like a child and lurched out at me. I dropped some stuff, that’s how startled I was. I startle very easily. So my plan is to stash the mask in my gigantor purse and wait until late tonight, when all the dayshifters have left and our department is left in silence. I’ll wait for Kim to go to the bathroom, and then I’ll hide behind the door.

I hope she cries.

Dec 062007
 


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 was 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

[Reposted from LiveJournal, because I can.]

Dec 052007
 

social2.jpg

This week, I’ve been working four 10-hour shifts because the system will be down on Friday, which means no work. The only way we were allowed to come in early today was by agreeing to make an appearance at the social. It wouldn’t have been so bad if everyone from evening shift was there, but only Bob and I were retarded enough to come in early and eat shitty hors d’oeurves. The night crew is treated like pariahs when immersed with the dayshifters, especially when our pack is broken up.

Bob wasn’t there when I arrived, and I desperately wanted to get it over with so I got Bill, who’s on the dayshift now, to go up with me. Tina promised she would too but then copped out at the last minute–asshole. Bill had already been up there once and therefore knew of the horrors in store for me. He tried to warn me that it was really crowded up there in the cafeteria, but the prospect of being buffeted in a field of holiday cookies helped me soldier on. Unfortunately, my hunt for cookies was kiboshed by a battlefield of gabby dayshift employees stuffed into a small and overheated cafeteria. I think I whimpered, “I’m going to cry,” three times to Bill. I’m not a social person. Perhaps in a group of three, I am. But I hate walking into a crowd, especially one that’s all loud and a’titter and blocking all of the spreads.

My throat felt constricted and I lost the ability to speak more than the same word over and over. My vision blurred and I momentarily lost sight of my mission.

My shepherd Bill directed me to a table with vegetables and several variations of bruschetta, but then I remembered that I just wanted cookies. “Cookies?” I asked. So he showed me a table that had a punch bowl and one lone picked-over platter occupied by several cookies. I thought he was kidding when he said it was all that was left, but his eyes did not lie.

Apparently, my intense distaste for public interaction rendered my hearing powerless, leaving Bill to have one-sided conversations.

I grabbed two sad oatmeal cranberry cookies (wtf? but they were good), one for me and one for my boss Kim who had to miss the social because of school, and Bill and I retreated back downstairs where they keep us processors locked away.

Fifteen minutes later, Bob came over and asked, “Hey, you ready to go up there now?” and I was like, “Jesus Christ dude, I waited for you but you were late.” Erin don’t wait for no homies. But then I felt bad because he’s still kind of new and he swore he was stuck in traffic. So I groaned and then went back up with him. I waited for him to ladle some festive punch into a styrofoam cup and then hoped we could leave.

“This punch is good,” he said. I agreed and added that it was fizzy, as well.

“Maybe we should stay, just for a little while,” Bob said. So we stood awkwardly off to the side, in semi-silence, not knowing anyone else up there. I saw an IT guy that replaced my mouse, and I’m oddly attracted to him even though he has a slight scent of hoppy aftershave.

“So, fishing, huh?” Bob’s going fishing this week. “Is it the kind where you cut the hole in ice?” I asked, trying to be social. So he talked about fishing for awhile and then we got bottles of complimentary foot lotion (wtf?) and left.

Socials can suck a dick.

Dec 042007
 

“I love the smell of the dirt road after a fresh spring rain.

“I love the smell of the asphalt in front of my mansion after a fresh spring rain.”

Pilar and Caspar had been friends for eighteen years. In their youth, they sat together on the bus to and from school and talked about baseball and goat milking. They pulled the hair of the girls they liked and drank chocolate milk from straws. Caspar always finished his carton first, slamming it down on the cafeteria table in a loud crush of championship, and then ran off to French kiss the girls whose names were scrawled across Pilar’s notebook.

“I love the smell of steamed asparagus,” Pilar said, giving a little grunt as he peddled his bike up a slight grade.

“I love the smell of my urine after I eat asparagus,” Caspar challenged, peddling just a few revolutions faster.

In tenth grade, Caspar convinced Pilar to steal tampons from Greta’s knapsack. When Greta bled through her white knickers later that day, Pilar collapsed under the weight of his guilt and turned himself in. He was suspended for a day and was forced to clean the sweat from Olaf’s desk seat. Olaf was the fattest boy in school. He liked to wear short denim cut offs.

“I love the smell of my puppy’s feet. It smells of buttered popcorn,” Pilar smiled as he glided his bike to a halt at the ice cream shack.

“I love the smell of the cold hard cash in my hand after my puppy wins a race. It smells of win,” Caspar said, reaching the bike rack seconds before Pilar.

Planning for college, Caspar convinced Pilar to be his roommate, making him promises of parties and girls and infinite bottles of rufies supplied by Caspar’s cousin Jake, who worked in a factory making fly strips as a front. But every time Caspar returned from class, he was greeted by a sock dangling from the door knob.

By the third week of fall semester, he ended up moving back home and commuting.

“I love the smell of my office after my desk has been Pledged,” said Pilar, squinting at the colorful ice cream menu.

“I love the smell of my office after my Swedish masseuse has rubbed me down with the finest essential oils,” said Caspar, after ordering before Pilar.

Pilar showed up at Caspar’s apartment three years ago, after finding out that his papa had been having an affair for two decades with Brenda, the bar maid from the inner city. Caspar listened to Pilar cry for a few minutes about how his entire childhood was built on a foundation of lies and infidelity. When Pilar was in the bathroom, vomiting up his heart ache, Caspar jogged to Pilar’s old childhood home to take advantage of the newly single woman’s vulnerability.

“I love the smell of pistachio ice cream,” Pilar happily divulged as he gave the dripping bulb of frozen confection a hearty lick.

“I love the smell of pistachio ice cream after I’ve fucked your wife.”