Let me start by saying I respect your right to smack the shit out of your kid. In fact, I support and advocate it. That's not to say you should actually beat him, or slap your 9 month old baby. But if you're six year old won't stop playing with matches, you need to go ahead and spank him. I don't see a lot of grey area here. I know a lot of people frown on that sort of thing these days, but we all somehow managed to survive with our parents laying into us once in a while. And let's be honest, sometimes we really deserved it when we were kids. So, discipline? You bet.
Nevertheless, there is a time and a place.
One of the things that amazes me about living in the city is how some people have a complete disregard for anything resembling civility. You see absolutely crazy shit on a fairly regular basis. It makes you wonder if they even care what other people think of them.
As I came around the corner at the entrance to my Metro station this morning, I saw a teenage girl screaming and yelling at what I guess was her daughter. She looked to be about three years old. It's sad how often you see things like that. The other day I was at the grocery store, and I saw a girl no older than about twenty with three little kids, none older than five. The woman was on her cell phone, yapping away, while the kids were wreaking havoc. After they finally got her attention, she put the phone down and unleashed a tirade of obscenities at the kids, in front of at least thirty people in the store. She then went straight back to the phone, once again oblivious to the kids. Now, I understand that mistakes happen. Lord knows we all do stupid shit when we're teenagers, and we all had close calls (and some of us got pregnant). So everybody deserves a get out of jail free card on the first one. But my god, if you can't be bothered with the kids then for christ's sake stop fucking! How hard could it be? Couldn't you have at least learned your lesson after the second one?
But anyway, the mom and the kid on the escalator.
They were standing on the metal platform at the top of the escalator, so they weren't actually going down yet. There are two down escalators at that stop, and I wanted nothing to do with that scene, so I tried for the one they weren't standing in front of. It was, of course, out of order. (As an aside, in almost two years I have seen all four escalators in that station working a total of two times) So I had no choice but to use the one they were using.
As I got closer, I noticed the kid was really crying. The entire front of her coat was wet with tears. I was listening to my ipod, so I didn't hear what was happening, but I imagine the kid was freaking out about actually getting on the escalator. And that's understandable. I see adults every single day who are absolutely terrified of them. The mom was trying to coax to kid on. And by coax, I mean shaking the shit out of her. As I got closer, I could hear over my headphones "get your motherfuckin ass on the goddamn escalator." Nice.
At this point I'm only a few feet away. Miraculously, the mother actually notices me. I've got no choice but to give the "kids will be kids" sheepish grin and try to pass them. But then the mother does something totally unexpected. She gets on the escalator alone, leaving the kid at the top, crying and blocking my path to the escalator.
I respect this move, it was one of my mom's favorites. My mom was the mom who actually did pull the car over to smack us. If I was at the playground and didn't want to leave, my mom would start walking towards the car. It's an effective last resort, and I can attest that it works. So, well played, ma'am.
But the kid wasn't buying it. The mom is rapidly moving away from us, and the kid hasn't budged. I have no idea what to do, but I know things are bound to get worse before they get better.
Exasperated, the mother looks at me and says, "Can you get her?"
WHAT?!
Look kid, I appreciate it's difficult to raise a kid who is only fourteen years younger than you. With my upbringing, I've got nothing but respect for what you're going through. But dear god, this is not my fucking problem. I don't want to be stuck in the middle of this, and I don't want to give you even a hint of complicity. This is your kid, not mine. Things like this are precisely the reason why people use birth control.
But at the same time, I feel for the little girl. If your mom treats you like this in public, imagine how bad things are at home. And escalators are scary, and your mom is lousy, and, let's be honest, you've got a long road ahead of you growing up. So it becomes, "Are you ready? 1, 2, 3!" and I lift her up.
Only she's not buying that either. She starts kicking her feet and flailing around. I try to set her down anyway, and she goes completely limp. She's not gonna stand up, and I can't put her down, and by now the mother is almost to the bottom of the escalator.
Out of ideas, I step onto the escalator and wait until it's taken off. Then I set her down next to me, and that seems to calm her down a bit. I help her put her hand on the railing, and ride down with her. Crisis averted.
I'm not saying I'm a hero or anything. I'd like to think any decent person would do the same thing in that situation. What kind of a monster leaves a three year old kid in distress? But I wasn't prepared for what happened next.
As we got to the bottom of the escalator, the mother doesn't even acknowledge me. She grabs the kid by the arm and drags her away. She doesn't even look at me, let alone say thank you.
Awesome.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
You're Driving Me Crazy
I just can't explain it to you, and I don't even feel like I should have to.
I appreciate that you have emailed me, out of the blue, to offer me a new job. I understand that it's a great opportunity, that your company is prestigious, that it represents a nice jump in pay. I get all that.
But I'm not taking it, because taking it means I'd have to haul my ass all the way out into the suburbs every single day.
Oh, I see the irony. I was born and raised there, spent thirty years of my life there, so now I don't want to go back? How metrosexual of me, to have invented myself in this fancy new urban mold.
No, you douche. It's not about where you are (although dude, where you are sucks). It's about the getting there. The act of dragging my ass out of bed every day, and figuring out how to get way the fuck out there. I could:
1. Buy a car, deal with the DC DMV, spend an hour a day looking for parking, spend 3 hours a day wondering what day it is, hoping I'm parked on the non-street cleaning side, worry about gas, pay astronomical insurance rates, contribute to the destruction of the planet, fight traffic for hours every day on a highway full of people I want to die (but please pull over first), have to listen to the same nine records that have been playing on a loop on corporate controlled radio for the last 15 years as I sit in my car (honestly, Stone Temple Pilots weren't even good then, can you please add something new to the rotation, Clear Channel?), kill kill kill, die die die, everything everything everything, etc.
2. Use some combination of atlas and GPS to devise a way to take public transportation all the way out there, involving taking the Orange Line to the bitter end, then getting on some kind of bus or shuttle and sitting in traffic on the beltway for hours on end, which is supposed to somehow be better because I don't have to worry about the driving? If I'm not driving, I don't even get the benefit of fantasizing about standing on the gas and plowing my car into every fucker that cuts me off. Explain to me again how sitting on a bus with a bunch of whack jobs (have you ridden a fucking bus?) is better than sitting in your car by yourself?
Or I could just not take the job, which is what I'm gonna do.
You just don't understand, because you haven't tried it. My commute takes, at the very longest, a half hour. And that's if I walk from door to door and get stuck at every light. It takes about fifteen minutes if I take the Metro. Do you get that? I'm home and drinking a beer before you even pull out of the parking lot. Guess when the last time I scraped ice off my windshield was? Guess how much time I spend waiting in line at Jiffy Lube?
So spare me the condescending tone that suggests I'm a flake. There are more important things in life than salary. I value those extra hours I'm not sitting in my car every day, and I relish not having to worry about any of that car nonsense. Some people only care about money, and they're willing to commute four hours a day for every last dollar they can get their hands on. Some people value the piece of mind that comes with never having to worry about any of this shit. And fuck you if you can't see the difference. If you're going to be a cunt about this, why on earth would I ever want to work for you?
I appreciate that you have emailed me, out of the blue, to offer me a new job. I understand that it's a great opportunity, that your company is prestigious, that it represents a nice jump in pay. I get all that.
But I'm not taking it, because taking it means I'd have to haul my ass all the way out into the suburbs every single day.
Oh, I see the irony. I was born and raised there, spent thirty years of my life there, so now I don't want to go back? How metrosexual of me, to have invented myself in this fancy new urban mold.
No, you douche. It's not about where you are (although dude, where you are sucks). It's about the getting there. The act of dragging my ass out of bed every day, and figuring out how to get way the fuck out there. I could:
1. Buy a car, deal with the DC DMV, spend an hour a day looking for parking, spend 3 hours a day wondering what day it is, hoping I'm parked on the non-street cleaning side, worry about gas, pay astronomical insurance rates, contribute to the destruction of the planet, fight traffic for hours every day on a highway full of people I want to die (but please pull over first), have to listen to the same nine records that have been playing on a loop on corporate controlled radio for the last 15 years as I sit in my car (honestly, Stone Temple Pilots weren't even good then, can you please add something new to the rotation, Clear Channel?), kill kill kill, die die die, everything everything everything, etc.
2. Use some combination of atlas and GPS to devise a way to take public transportation all the way out there, involving taking the Orange Line to the bitter end, then getting on some kind of bus or shuttle and sitting in traffic on the beltway for hours on end, which is supposed to somehow be better because I don't have to worry about the driving? If I'm not driving, I don't even get the benefit of fantasizing about standing on the gas and plowing my car into every fucker that cuts me off. Explain to me again how sitting on a bus with a bunch of whack jobs (have you ridden a fucking bus?) is better than sitting in your car by yourself?
Or I could just not take the job, which is what I'm gonna do.
You just don't understand, because you haven't tried it. My commute takes, at the very longest, a half hour. And that's if I walk from door to door and get stuck at every light. It takes about fifteen minutes if I take the Metro. Do you get that? I'm home and drinking a beer before you even pull out of the parking lot. Guess when the last time I scraped ice off my windshield was? Guess how much time I spend waiting in line at Jiffy Lube?
So spare me the condescending tone that suggests I'm a flake. There are more important things in life than salary. I value those extra hours I'm not sitting in my car every day, and I relish not having to worry about any of that car nonsense. Some people only care about money, and they're willing to commute four hours a day for every last dollar they can get their hands on. Some people value the piece of mind that comes with never having to worry about any of this shit. And fuck you if you can't see the difference. If you're going to be a cunt about this, why on earth would I ever want to work for you?
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
How To Be Cool, Chapter One
If you read this blog, you probably get the impression that I like to make fun of everyone. That's not really true. I prefer to pick on a particular type of person- the guy who thinks he's cool. If you're a nerd or just plain weird I'll definitely tease you, but it's a good natured kind of thing. If you think you're awesome, I probably hate you. I can spot that guy a million miles away. How? Because I'm him.
We celebrated my old man's (Daddy #2) birthday last weekend, so we had to drive way out to the sticks. That requires getting a car from Zipcar, and sitting on Route 66 for an hour. But I hadn't seen my dad in a while, and he does have a full bar and a ping pong table. So, you know, you take the good with the bad.
On the way out of town we stopped to pick him up a bottle of Maker's Mark, because he had specifically requested booze for his birthday. Lately I've taken to drinking Maker's straight, which I admit is probably not a good idea. Back when I was a kid, my friends had to ban me from drinking any hard liquor because I would become a complete trainwreck. I could sit down with you in a bar and drink 900 beers and get in my car and drive home (I'm not proud of this). But give me a few shots and dear god, there is no telling what will happen. The straw that broke the camel's back when we were younger happened at a party my friend threw at his parent's house when they went out of town one weekend. I had disappeared for a while, so my friends had to go looking for me. They found me in the basement, behind their little bar, open bottle of Crown Royal in one hand, book of matches in the other. I was trying to set things (bar, stools, etc) on fire. The next morning, when I came to, we had a little mini-intervention. We agreed to the ban, and I stuck to it for years and years.
But over the last couple of years I've branched out a bit. It started with gin, and it was harmless enough. But then I branched out to Maker's. It feels somehow more grownup to drink booze instead of beers, like it's somehow more sophisticated. I've been drinking Budweiser for like fifteen years, and I felt like I needed a change. I used to mix the Maker's with ginger ale, but it was always too sweet. So I started chasing it with Budweiser, and I felt pretty cool. I fancied myself the guy sitting at the bar with a beer and a shot in front of him, in some charmingly drunken Rat Pack moment. But lately I just drink that fucker straight. Good times.
We got out to my old man's house and started with the ping pong. In case you haven't heard, I'm kind of a big deal at table tennis. Such a big deal, in fact, that I've asked my mother if my long lost biological father might actually be Asian. No dice.
Somehow my brother managed to beat me the first game, which surprised everyone. Perplexed, I lost the rematch. So I opened a beer. Normalcy returned. I beat him three straight times to save face. He was devastated, and I loved it. I rubbed it in so much that my old man started speaking up in his defense. I was getting drunk from the beer, and carrying on a shit-talking contest against my old man and my kid brother. Even though I knew I would have to face my father, and my motorskills were declining by the second, I broke open the Maker's. My dad poured himself a thimble full, and I discovered yet another way to demonstrate my superiority over the other men in my family. I poured myself a glass (the amount I actually poured is subject to much family debate), and started drinking.
From what I gather, the following things happened next. At least, that's what they tell me. Because I don't remember any of it.
1. My father beat the ever living shit out of me at Ping Pong. It was like it was 1981 all over again, and I could barely see over the table. By all accounts, the asswhipping was truly legendary. My dad actually called the next day to apologize, and suggest I don't drink so much.
2. I somehow convinced my kid brother that I was not that drunk, and he should let me hold his one month old son. My brother has never had a drop to drink in his entire life, and because he is stupid, he let me hold the baby. Apparently at this point I was still fooling my family, because nobody objected to this. In fact, there are reportedly pictures of me doing this, but I've yet to see them.
3. We had to have the car back, so Baby urged me to go get my coat. She found me in the den, face down in the giant chair where all the coats were piled up. This sounds plausible, as I have a vague memory of falling at some point. I also have an unexplained bruise on my shin. Is this why?
4. I told Baby I needed to use the bathroom before we left, apparently to pee. She obliged, and waited by the door. After several minutes passed and I didn't come out, she came in looking for me, certain I was throwing up. I was not. I was, in fact, just standing there, in a daze. She ushered me out.
5. Somehow I said goodbye to my family. The consensus is that I appeared drunk, but not nearly drunk enough to explain what happened next.
6. I got into the passenger seat of the Zipcar, and we hit the road. We were on the highway for about nine seconds before I realized I was going to be sick. Baby then asked if she should pull over, and I told her no. (?) My explanation was that I didn't want her to have to merge back onto the highway. So instead, I just rolled down the window and started heaving.
7. At first Baby didn't know if I was actually throwing up, because we were probably doing seventy and the windows were rolled down. But then she was hit with the smell of whisky and birthday cake, and the mystery was solved.
8. This went on for thirty five miles.
9. According to Baby, only one car full of people pulled alongside us to taunt me. I don't believe this, and I think she's just telling me that to be nice. She was probably actually flagging people down to witness it.
10. We got the car home with about two minutes to spare. They track the time you return your Zipcar by the last time you use your card to lock the doors, so we were up against the clock. We pulled into the parking lot, and Baby asked me if I needed help getting out. I assured her I did not, and I opened my door. I fell, face first, out the door, but was held in place by my seat belt. I began a slow descent toward the ground until Baby made it around to my side of the car to save me, with my face just inches from the asphalt.
11. She dragged my drunk, staggering, vomit-smelling pathetic ass two blocks from the Zipcar lot to our apartment. We thought we had managed to make it home without running into anyone we knew, but the gay couple in the apartment upstairs were coming out of their place right as we got to the front door of our building. At that point I was still in my coat and scarf, which were literally covered in used whisky and birthday cake. What's going on, guys?
12. She opened the door to our place, and dropped me in the bathroom. She then went back outside in the freezing cold, to the dark, scary, inner-city Zipcar lot to clean my puke off the side of the car.
13. She came home to find me passed out in the bathroom on a pile of dirty clothes. She tried to get me to go to bed, but I refused. So she cleaned me up as best she could. I was shaking like a leaf, so she got me a blanket. We have many in the house, but she chose a special one. My ex, the dreaded Osama bin Megan, used to hand-sew quilts (yeah, I don't know either). I have a small, nice one she made years ago that I never managed to give back to her. I've held on to it, because it really is nice and I just don't have the heart to toss it. Baby gave me that to cover up with. How awesome is that? Sweet revenge.
14. At some point in the middle of the night I awoke and crawled into bed. I don't remember this.
15. I do remember waking up at 6am, in the bed, confused. I got up to pee, and found my clothes strewn all over our bedroom. When I got back to the bed, Baby was awake. I asked what happened. She told me. "Really?" I says. "Really" she says. "That's funny, I don't feel sick now" I says. Duh, I was still drunk.
16. I woke up at around 9am, as sick as I have ever felt. I could not get out of bed literally all day. Although it was a Sunday, Baby got up, made me breakfast, and put in twelve hours at the office. Shen she got home at 10 o'clock she found me where she left me, in bed.
17. My hangover lasted through Monday, and was so bad on Monday evening, nearly 48 hours after I stopped drinking, that I could not work out after work.
The entire episode is utterly humiliating. Just complete amateur night. And to have put Baby through everything just makes me feel horrible. She took every single thing in stride though, never got mad or bitched or even complained. Until yesterday, when we got this email from Zipcar:
"After your reservation in [deleted] on Dec. 1st it was reported to us that the interior of the vehicle was left in poor condition with vomit inside the vehicle."
Honestly, could I be any more cool? The asshole guy I make fun of in my blog, the guy who puts his fiance through hell, endangers infants, throws up on himself, forces his some poor bastard at Zipcar to have to clean up after him, the guy with no regard for what an asshole he is, and how he fucks it up for everyone else? Yeah, that guy is me.
We celebrated my old man's (Daddy #2) birthday last weekend, so we had to drive way out to the sticks. That requires getting a car from Zipcar, and sitting on Route 66 for an hour. But I hadn't seen my dad in a while, and he does have a full bar and a ping pong table. So, you know, you take the good with the bad.
On the way out of town we stopped to pick him up a bottle of Maker's Mark, because he had specifically requested booze for his birthday. Lately I've taken to drinking Maker's straight, which I admit is probably not a good idea. Back when I was a kid, my friends had to ban me from drinking any hard liquor because I would become a complete trainwreck. I could sit down with you in a bar and drink 900 beers and get in my car and drive home (I'm not proud of this). But give me a few shots and dear god, there is no telling what will happen. The straw that broke the camel's back when we were younger happened at a party my friend threw at his parent's house when they went out of town one weekend. I had disappeared for a while, so my friends had to go looking for me. They found me in the basement, behind their little bar, open bottle of Crown Royal in one hand, book of matches in the other. I was trying to set things (bar, stools, etc) on fire. The next morning, when I came to, we had a little mini-intervention. We agreed to the ban, and I stuck to it for years and years.
But over the last couple of years I've branched out a bit. It started with gin, and it was harmless enough. But then I branched out to Maker's. It feels somehow more grownup to drink booze instead of beers, like it's somehow more sophisticated. I've been drinking Budweiser for like fifteen years, and I felt like I needed a change. I used to mix the Maker's with ginger ale, but it was always too sweet. So I started chasing it with Budweiser, and I felt pretty cool. I fancied myself the guy sitting at the bar with a beer and a shot in front of him, in some charmingly drunken Rat Pack moment. But lately I just drink that fucker straight. Good times.
We got out to my old man's house and started with the ping pong. In case you haven't heard, I'm kind of a big deal at table tennis. Such a big deal, in fact, that I've asked my mother if my long lost biological father might actually be Asian. No dice.
Somehow my brother managed to beat me the first game, which surprised everyone. Perplexed, I lost the rematch. So I opened a beer. Normalcy returned. I beat him three straight times to save face. He was devastated, and I loved it. I rubbed it in so much that my old man started speaking up in his defense. I was getting drunk from the beer, and carrying on a shit-talking contest against my old man and my kid brother. Even though I knew I would have to face my father, and my motorskills were declining by the second, I broke open the Maker's. My dad poured himself a thimble full, and I discovered yet another way to demonstrate my superiority over the other men in my family. I poured myself a glass (the amount I actually poured is subject to much family debate), and started drinking.
From what I gather, the following things happened next. At least, that's what they tell me. Because I don't remember any of it.
1. My father beat the ever living shit out of me at Ping Pong. It was like it was 1981 all over again, and I could barely see over the table. By all accounts, the asswhipping was truly legendary. My dad actually called the next day to apologize, and suggest I don't drink so much.
2. I somehow convinced my kid brother that I was not that drunk, and he should let me hold his one month old son. My brother has never had a drop to drink in his entire life, and because he is stupid, he let me hold the baby. Apparently at this point I was still fooling my family, because nobody objected to this. In fact, there are reportedly pictures of me doing this, but I've yet to see them.
3. We had to have the car back, so Baby urged me to go get my coat. She found me in the den, face down in the giant chair where all the coats were piled up. This sounds plausible, as I have a vague memory of falling at some point. I also have an unexplained bruise on my shin. Is this why?
4. I told Baby I needed to use the bathroom before we left, apparently to pee. She obliged, and waited by the door. After several minutes passed and I didn't come out, she came in looking for me, certain I was throwing up. I was not. I was, in fact, just standing there, in a daze. She ushered me out.
5. Somehow I said goodbye to my family. The consensus is that I appeared drunk, but not nearly drunk enough to explain what happened next.
6. I got into the passenger seat of the Zipcar, and we hit the road. We were on the highway for about nine seconds before I realized I was going to be sick. Baby then asked if she should pull over, and I told her no. (?) My explanation was that I didn't want her to have to merge back onto the highway. So instead, I just rolled down the window and started heaving.
7. At first Baby didn't know if I was actually throwing up, because we were probably doing seventy and the windows were rolled down. But then she was hit with the smell of whisky and birthday cake, and the mystery was solved.
8. This went on for thirty five miles.
9. According to Baby, only one car full of people pulled alongside us to taunt me. I don't believe this, and I think she's just telling me that to be nice. She was probably actually flagging people down to witness it.
10. We got the car home with about two minutes to spare. They track the time you return your Zipcar by the last time you use your card to lock the doors, so we were up against the clock. We pulled into the parking lot, and Baby asked me if I needed help getting out. I assured her I did not, and I opened my door. I fell, face first, out the door, but was held in place by my seat belt. I began a slow descent toward the ground until Baby made it around to my side of the car to save me, with my face just inches from the asphalt.
11. She dragged my drunk, staggering, vomit-smelling pathetic ass two blocks from the Zipcar lot to our apartment. We thought we had managed to make it home without running into anyone we knew, but the gay couple in the apartment upstairs were coming out of their place right as we got to the front door of our building. At that point I was still in my coat and scarf, which were literally covered in used whisky and birthday cake. What's going on, guys?
12. She opened the door to our place, and dropped me in the bathroom. She then went back outside in the freezing cold, to the dark, scary, inner-city Zipcar lot to clean my puke off the side of the car.
13. She came home to find me passed out in the bathroom on a pile of dirty clothes. She tried to get me to go to bed, but I refused. So she cleaned me up as best she could. I was shaking like a leaf, so she got me a blanket. We have many in the house, but she chose a special one. My ex, the dreaded Osama bin Megan, used to hand-sew quilts (yeah, I don't know either). I have a small, nice one she made years ago that I never managed to give back to her. I've held on to it, because it really is nice and I just don't have the heart to toss it. Baby gave me that to cover up with. How awesome is that? Sweet revenge.
14. At some point in the middle of the night I awoke and crawled into bed. I don't remember this.
15. I do remember waking up at 6am, in the bed, confused. I got up to pee, and found my clothes strewn all over our bedroom. When I got back to the bed, Baby was awake. I asked what happened. She told me. "Really?" I says. "Really" she says. "That's funny, I don't feel sick now" I says. Duh, I was still drunk.
16. I woke up at around 9am, as sick as I have ever felt. I could not get out of bed literally all day. Although it was a Sunday, Baby got up, made me breakfast, and put in twelve hours at the office. Shen she got home at 10 o'clock she found me where she left me, in bed.
17. My hangover lasted through Monday, and was so bad on Monday evening, nearly 48 hours after I stopped drinking, that I could not work out after work.
The entire episode is utterly humiliating. Just complete amateur night. And to have put Baby through everything just makes me feel horrible. She took every single thing in stride though, never got mad or bitched or even complained. Until yesterday, when we got this email from Zipcar:
"After your reservation in [deleted] on Dec. 1st it was reported to us that the interior of the vehicle was left in poor condition with vomit inside the vehicle."
Honestly, could I be any more cool? The asshole guy I make fun of in my blog, the guy who puts his fiance through hell, endangers infants, throws up on himself, forces his some poor bastard at Zipcar to have to clean up after him, the guy with no regard for what an asshole he is, and how he fucks it up for everyone else? Yeah, that guy is me.
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