I survived, it's good enough for now

Saturday I took my kids to a pool party. Swimming is definitely not a bad way to spend an afternoon when the temperature is nearing 110. And to think, there's still another 5-10 degrees to go before we hit the summer highs. Man I hate this place in the summer. On the bright side, at least it's always sunny (pun intended).

I knew there was going to be trouble when I saw my four year old who was happily standing by the side of the pool shooting his sister with a water gun throw the gun, grab his butt with one hand, and take off running for the house only to have trouble opening the door and then suddenly stop and turn around with a look of shame in his eye. I walked over and asked him if he'd pooped in his swimming suit, and he sheepishly said that he had. To steal a phrase from CW, it was the worst Play-Doh fun factory ever.

I took him in the bathroom, and deftly maneuvered the suit off his body without spilling any diarrhea on my hands or the floor. His legs and the toilet seat weren't so lucky. He looked down and pointed out the obvious.

Him: Dad, there's poop right there.
Me: Yes there is.
Him: That's disgusting.
Me: Yes it is.
Him: Dad, there's some poop on my penis.
Me: Here. You have to wipe that off with this toilet paper.
Him: Ok. **wiping**That's disgusting.
Me: Tell me about it.

I put him in the bath, put his swimming trunks in the washer, and then had him wear my t-shirt until he could wear his clothes again. He was very embarrassed about it, and acted self conscious about being the only person there who was wearing a t-shirt that went all the way to their ankles with absolutely nothing on underneath. I tried to get him to feel less ashamed by telling him that it could happen to anybody, but he didn't really start acting like his usual self until he got his swimming trunks back out of the wash.

I wonder if it would have helped if I'd have told him this story about one of the most embarrassing moments of my life:

I was in second grade when a similar bout of peristalsis hit my eight year old colon. I booked it for the boys bathroom, but when I got to the door that entered it from the playground, it was stuck. I pulled and pulled, but the door wouldn't open. Probably because of the fat kid that was on the other side that thought it would be funny to hold the door shut so nobody could get in. Well, it worked. I didn't make it, and instead dumped a load of the runny stuff in my pants. I went into one of the stalls to try and clean it up, to no avail. It was all over the place.

Now seems like a good time to talk about how traumatic it was to go to the bathroom at my elementary school anyway. I don't know how it is today, but I doubt it was as bad as my school was then. Anytime anyone was using one of the bathroom stalls, there would always be kids who would climb up and look over to see who was in there. Then they would sit there and yell to people in the hall about how so-and-so was pooping. I'm hoping this weird behavior was unique to my school (and maybe some in Germany - they obviously get into the whole scheizer thing over there sometime). I still don't like to go into stalls in public restrooms, and I'm sure it's partly due this experience.

Anyway, this time was no different. As I sat there trying to wipe diarrhea off my clothes, several of my classmates peered down at me from above while chanting pooh-pants over and over again. Then my teacher, who was a woman, came into the boys bathroom to see what all the fuss was about. Obviously this was a very big deal to 8 year old Native Minnow, but she did go to the trouble of cleaning me up and calling my mom to come get me, and for that I should be grateful.

Upon my return to school I was subjected to being called Pooh-Pants on the playground, but that died off after a few days. At least it did with most of the kids. There was one kid who was a year older than me who continued to call me that every single time he saw me for the next few years (basically until he moved on to seventh grade). I remember one day when I had to wear my cub scout uniform to school for some reason, and I thought about what a relief it would be when that kid didn't recognize me because I was in uniform. If he didn't recognize me he wouldn't call me Pooh-Pants.

I was crushed when I turned a corner at recess and that was the first thing I heard him call out. How could this be? How could he recognize me? I was wearing a cub scout uniform for crying out loud. How could he not respect the uniform? Perhaps even worse than that was the time he brought it up during my sophomore year of high school. In front of one of the cutest girls in the senior class. Oh how I hated that guy! Talk about dragging a joke out for way too long.
I must be over it by now though, or I wouldn't be relating this story online to be seen by anybody who happens to come along.

How can I convince you it's me I don't like?

Yesterday was a long day for me. I went to a symposium put on by many of my fellow grad students, and afterward had a couple of parties to go to. The first party was a going away party of sorts for a friend of mine. He's not actually moving until January, but he's leaving in a couple of days to get married, and won't get back into town until a lot of people have already left for Christmas. The second one was a birthday party for a friend of mine. There seem to be a lot of those these days.

Of course, each of these events had a lot of food that was just begging to be consumed. And who am I to turn down food that is begging to be consumed? If there's one thing that graduate students everywhere have in common, it's that we take full advantage of free food whenever it's available. I ended up eating about twice as much food as I would normally eat in a day, maybe even more, and as a result I began to feel a wave a nausea. It hit me at the birthday party while I was talking to the birthday girl:

Me: I've eaten so much tonight that I feel like I'm going to puke*.
Her: Are you serious?
Me: Yeah, I'm bulemic.
Her: I can't really see you as a bulemic.
Me: What, are you saying I'm fat?




*I puked

But he's driving and striving and hugging the turns, and thinking of someone for whom he still burns

Here's the story about how my friend had a birthday and made me get a speeding ticket (what a bitch that friend is for doing that, I know).

She sent me an email a few days ago asking me if I wanted to join her at an Irish Pub last night. I have to admit that I wasn't too keen on going (since I've been working my butt off this week - literally, it fell off), but then I found out it was for her birthday celebration so thought I'd stop by for a little while. What could go wrong with that?

Well, I'll tell you what can go wrong with that. Plenty!

First, I drove out there with another friend of mine. We'll call him BJ (even though it has very little to do with his real name and he hates it when I call him that). BJ and I left campus in my car and drove out to meet the birthday girl & Co. When we walked into the place, they came to seat us and we told them we were looking for a group of people. Just then the birthday girl let out a big laugh, and the hostess said, "Can you hear them?" We obviously could so didn't need her to show us to our table. We sat for a while, beverages were consumed, jokes were told, and many laughs were had. It had all the makings of an enjoyable evening. They even had an Irish band playing, and let me tell you, you haven't truly lived until you've heard the up-tempo Irish version of Radiohead's Creep. I would normally hate that Irish band for ruining one of my favorite songs, but I actually know the fiddle player, and she's so nice that I can't hate her (no matter how much she might deserve it).

Unfortunately, I really was tired, plus it was a weeknight, so BJ and I left after being there a little more than an hour. I drove BJ back to campus so that he could get his car. After dropping him off I pulled off of campus and onto one of the major streets around campus. Little did I know that I was accelerating quickly. Quickly enough that Officer D. Devitte was horrified by my speed. Or maybe he was just looking out for the safety of that one other driver that was about a mile ahead of me on the road because you never know what a crazy guy like me is going to do when he's driving out of control. I ramped through my gears so fast that I was doing 48 mph within about two feet of the place that I turned onto the road. You had no idea that my car could go that fast that quickly did you? Neither did I. I always thought that it was powered by about seven hamsters running on a wheel, but there's no way that seven hamsters could crank out that kind of speed. Maybe the last time I took it to Jiffy Lube they upgraded me to seven squirrels or something. Everyone knows that squirrels run faster than hamsters.

Anyway, I also didn't have a current proof of insurance card in the vehicle with me so Officer D. Devitte wrote me a ticket for that and the speeding. In the time that it took him to write that ticket seven Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift type cars zipped by us, but those guys couldn't have been going as fast as I was. I'm also pretty sure that within a five block radius of where we were about 700 drug deals went down, 87 stereos were stolen from cars, 3 children were kidnapped, someone was raped and murdered and a drive by shooting was planned, but check the news to make sure.

So the way I see it, the birthday girl now owes me about $190 after I prove to the court that I do in fact have insurance on my car (that in no way shape or form is capable of accelerating as fast as Officer D. Devitte says it is) because if she didn't have to go and have her stupid little birthday party, then I would have gone home my normal way, at my normal time, and wouldn't have gotten pulled over because they can't pull you over when you're just one of 500 vehicles that are moving that fast on the same street. Sure, you might be saying that it's all my fault because the speed limit there is 30 mph so I should only drive 30 mph, but, I'm here to tell you that nobody can drive 30 mph on that street. Do you hear me? Nobody. I know because I've tried it about a million times, and I can never do it. Ok, maybe not never, but every time I do I get rear-ended because I'm going too slow (ok, so that only happened once, but then again, I've only driven 30 mph on that road once, so it really is every time).

I hate cops. But you know what? I say, "Screw you Officer D. Devitte. I'll drive the way I want." The people who come up with speed limits are all stupid anyway. They should really just be suggestions. That way all the stupid morons that don't know how to drive will kill themselves in fiery auto crashes and clear up the road for the rest of us.

Does anybody know if Ticketbuster people really can get your ticket reduced every time? I may have to look into that.

Whose house are you haunting tonight?

Ok, here's the Halloween costume:
















In case you're wondering what the hell I'm supposed to be, I'm Eli Cash from The Royal Tenenbaums:

















And if you're wondering about the make-up, it comes from the scene at the end where he's on the way to Etheline's wedding, he's high, and he crashes his car into the mailbox.

Here's a closer look:
















I swore that I wasn't going to wear make-up, because the last time I did it ruined my opportunities for kissing throughout the night, but once my friend, A-Pizzle, gave me the costume idea, it was just too good to pass up. Luckily (?) there wasn't anyone who wanted to this year.

You bring the razor blade, I'll bring the speed

Last weekend when we were celebrating my friend's birthday we went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants (and by our, I mean my entire group of friends, not just he and I). When we had finished eating, we began talking about where the next stop was going to be. One of our friends announced that she and her boyfriend wouldn't be staying with us for the next stop:

Her: "We'd love to stay, but we have to get up early to catch a flight, and we haven't even packed yet."
Me: "So you're leaving?"
Her: "Yeah, we're tired and we've got to get some sleep."
Me: "It's like a five hour flight, just snort a line of coke off a stripper's ass and sleep on the plane."

They left anyway, but with it being Vegas and all I doubt we would have had trouble finding them a stripper, although the coke may have been a little more difficult to come by.

. . . you live in a zoo, you look like a monkey and you smell like one too

There is a recurring joke among my circle of friends where every time someone has reason to celebrate (birthdays, anniversaries, Fridays, etc.) they'll get asked about which strip club we'll be going to in order to do so. And it's usually me that does the asking. It never gets old. Never!

A friend of mine had a birthday last week, and sent out an email to those whom he wanted to join in on the celebration. He wanted people to dress for the occasion so he ended it with, "make sure you wear your drinking shoes."

I talked to him about it the day before:

Me (being facetious): "What exactly do you mean by 'wear your drinking shoes?' Does that mean shoes we don't care if they get drinks spilled on them, or are you trying to get us to dress up a little bit?"
Him: "I'm trying to get you to dress up a little bit ("Duh, you retard!" was only implied). After all, I only get to turn 30 once."
Me: "You mean I'm going to have to wear pants tomorrow, even though it's 105 degrees outside? That's practically going to kill me."
Him: "Hey, you don't have to go to a strip club, if we go to a strip club, when we go to the strip club if you don't want to go to the strip club."

That sure cleared things up.

A great place for water wings and cannonballs

Some of you have already seen this picture, but there are some who haven't and might be interested. Someone took it at one of the pool parties I went to while my kids were in town for the 4th of July. It's blurry, but I like it.

Every form of refuge has its price

Last weekend I learned that you should never offer someone a dollar amount that you don't really want to pay them to do something unless you're certain that they won't do it.

One of my friends had a pool party at her house the other day, and a lot of the people I work with showed up with their families. It was fun, but as soon as I walked out and sat by the pool, one of the teenagers came up and rubbed cheese all over my back. Not cool. I told him I was going to pay him back, and the first opportunity I got, I threw him in the pool - fully dressed.

He changed clothes and put the wet ones in the dryer, then changed back when they had fully dried. Later he was standing by the pool again, and so I told a girl that was the same age as him that I'd give her $20 to go push him in. I did so thinking that she was a nice girl, and wouldn't want to do it, but I forgot how much $20 is to a 15 year old. Everyone has their price, so she went and did it.

I don't regret it. I just wonder if I could have gotten her to do it for $10.

Night swimming deserves a quiet night

Last weekend I went to another pool party. It seems to be turning into a trend here in the City of Sin, but hey, what else are you supposed to do when it's 112 degrees outside?

I have a friend who was there, but she had just gotten a new tattoo so she couldn't go into the water. She was sitting on the edge of the pool and I was standing in the water talking to her when I felt a tug on my bathing suit. No, it wasn't that kind of a tug. One of my friends had come up behind me and tried to pull my bathing suit down. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I had pushed him off his air mattress a few minutes earlier. The important thing is that he was unsuccessful, the bathing suit stayed on. I think I owe a big thank you to the guy who invented the drawstring.

Scarface Jr.

I don't know why I didn't post this picture sooner since it relates to one of the cutest things I've seen all year, but better late than never, right?

I already told you about my three year old's potty mouth at the 4th of July pool party. I forgot to tell you about how I had taught him to say (in as deep a voice as a three year old can get) "Say hello to my little friend" just before shooting people with the squirt guns in the pool.

Anyway, imagine that he's just finished saying that here:


I know, I know, it's hard to take someone seriously as a gangster when they require water wings and an inner tube to stay afloat. We're working on that.

Well it's too late, tonight

I took my kids to a 4th of July pool party that one of my friends was throwing at his house. My kids had a blast. They spent a lot of time in the pool, playing with whoever would go in the pool with them, and squirting those who weren't in the pool with water guns. After a while I was curious if my 3 year old had picked up the names of the people he was spending the most time playing with, starting with the dog.

Me: "Do you know that dog's name?"
Him: "Aaron."
Me (pointing at my friend): "Good, do you know his name?"
Him: "Aaron."
Me (pointing at another friend): "Do you know her name?"
Him: "Fuck."

I only wish I were making this up.