Weeding out your weekends

Friday afternoon I drove to pick up my boys for the weekend.  As they were finishing getting their stuff together, I checked my messages on my phone and had a voicemail from my dad.  He'd called to let me know that they were in town and wanted to know where I was.  I called them back and he said they were at my sister's house, who lives about thirty minutes away from my kids.  We decided to head over there to see them.  Another sister of mine did the same thing, so it turned into a partial family reunion of sorts.

My mom and sister went and picked up pizza for everybody, and we stayed and visited until around midnight, at which point I figured I should probably start driving home.  My sister said, "Why don't you guys just stay the night.  Everyone else is.  We have enough couches."

I asked my boys what they wanted to do, and they wanted to stay, so we did.  After all, my sister and brother-in-law have an entertainment room that's basically a miniature movie theater.  (To them, there's nothing like playing Modern Warfare on a 160 inch screen with surround sound.)

The next morning Mr M was playing with his new PSVita that his mom decided to spoil  him with for his birthday last week.  My seven year old niece was fascinated by it, so at one point he let her play a game while he went and did something else.  She picked it up very quickly.

As my dad watched her play it he turned to me and said, "How on earth do these kids learn how to do all this shit?"

I said to him, "I don't know.  Probably the same way you learned how to ride a horse.  Or skin a cat.  It's just what kids do now."

Fuck you kitty you're gonna spend the night outside

Here is further proof that I am a cold hearted bastard (I mean that in the figurative sense, not the literal sense as I do in fact have a father).



The only thing that warms my heart when I look at this picture is the thought of of lighting an oil soaked rag and tossing it into the box.

What? Fire's warm.

Dead cat in a top hat, wow

This may come as a surprise to you, but I'm not much of a pet lover. Maybe it's because we were never allowed to have pets in the house when I was growing up, or maybe it's because I'm a horrible, horrible person. I'm guessing it's a little of both. Or maybe I get it from my dad.

I have a sister who loves pets. Ok, I have more than one sister, and more than one of them loves pets, but this particular sister really takes it to the next level (ironically, it's not even the sister who has 30 goats). She's the one who convinced my parents to spend $300* on a Pomeranian even after they swore that they'd never get another dog. She also recently convinced them to let her take in a Siamese cat. It was supposed to stay in the garage, but somehow that didn't stick and now it's always in the house. This particular sister has also moved out recently. Her pets have been left behind, even though I don't think either of my parents or my sister who still lives at home even like them. I know my dad doesn't.

Last time I was at their house, the cat was playing around with some stuff in the living room. My dad told me that he was trying to get it to play with plastic bags from the grocery store.

Him: My plan is to train it to jump into a bag. When she's used to being able to jump in and out, I'll wait for her to jump in, then I'll tie it off and sit and watch until it stops moving around. This is going to be fun**.





* If you knew my parents, that price tag would amaze you.

** He wouldn't really do it, but it is funny.

Tommy the Cat's my name, and I say unto thee

This is the story of how I intentionally scarred the lives of two little girls, but did so unintentionally. You might be thinking that the previous sentence makes absolutely no sense, but you'd be wrong, as you'll see shortly.

When I was 16 years old I was employed at the local meat packing plant. My job was to clean the place up after business hours. It certainly wasn't the best paying job, nor was it the best work environment, but the hours were flexible so it wasn't all bad. I worked there with one of my close friends, and our boss didn't care what time we went in as long as everything was clean by the time he had to start everything up at 5 the next morning. The problem with that was that sometimes it was a little too easy to put off going to work.

The meat packing plant was about a mile from my house, and I usually had to walk there, but occasionally my parents would let me take their car, especially if it was late. It was one such night when 'the incident' happened. I'd put off going to work until about ten o'clock, and my parents let me take the car so that I wouldn't be out any later than I was going to be already.

As I was driving to work a cat crossed the street just in front of me, so I did what any teenage boy who had just obtained a driver's license would do: I swerved to try and hit it. It wasn't until after I swerved that I noticed the two little girls on the sidewalk. Not wanting to force them to witness the bloodshed that was about to occur, I swerved to try and miss the cat as soon as I saw them, but it was too late. I ran over the cat with the back tire.

I didn't stop. I just felt guilty that these kids had witnessed me killing a furry little animal. I felt even worse when I was driving home from work and the cat was no longer lying on the side of the road. Apparently it wasn't just any cat. It was their cat. I hope they thought it was just an accident because it was dark, but I doubt that's the case.

I would say that it was the last time I intentionally killed something, but that would be a lie.

When I was young I had a lust for knives and guns

I had a really nice Christmas. I got to see all my siblings and spend a few days with my kids. On Christmas Day my kids got spoiled (again), and people gave me a whole lot more than I deserve. Especially my sister and her husband. I'm going to come up with a way to thank them, but until then, she'll just have to read on here how grateful I am for everything (thanks sis!).

I feel bad for my mom though. She kept asking me and asking me to give her a wishlist, but I put it off so long that she had to go out and buy my stuff without any guidance from me whatsoever. The stuff she got me is cool, but I'll probably never use some of it so I'm still debating whether I should keep everything, or exchange the things I won't use. I hate to seem ungrateful, but I'm leaning toward the latter (keep those receipts handy until I let you know otherwise Mom).

The first item that I'll probably return is a hooded sweatshirt that she bought me. I like it, but the simple fact of the matter is I rarely wear sweatshirts. Plus, I got another one from my sister and I'm not likely to put them both to good use. I like the one my sister got me a little better because it has a zipper and can be worn like a jacket, unlike the pull-over that my mom gave me. Also, the one my sister gave me is plain, whereas the one my mom gave me is full of double entendre. On the back is a picture of a brown trout with the words 'Early Morning Rise' and on the front are the words 'Live by the Rod, Die by the Rod.' I know that if I keep it I'll be hearing comments like, "You know how I know you're gay?" every time I wear it.

(It's basically the same reason that I had to exchange her birthday present to me a few years ago when I got a t-shirt that had a rainbow trout with the caption 'Rainbow Warrior')

The other present that I can't make up my mind about is two AirSoft BB guns, colored pellets and targets to shoot them at. Apparently these things are quite popular right now, and it does seem like it could be fun, but it also seems like something that I'd use exactly once and then put in a drawer until I die, or until I give it away, whichever comes first.

Given such a difficult decision, I decided to ask Flieswithoutwings for his opinion.

Me: What would you do if you got AirSoft BB guns for Christmas? Would you keep them or take them back?
Him: I'd probably just give them to a kid or something.
Me: Yeah, but I don't think I could give them to my son.
Him: How old is he? It seems like I was about his age when I got one.
Me: He's ten. I didn't get my BB gun until I was 12.
Him: Me too. But I felt old. I knew kids that had them when we were younger than that. But they were kind of punks and would go around chopping up dead cats and stuff.
His Wife: Um, wouldn't that be incentive NOT to give them to your son when he's ten?