D is for Cross-Dressing...Apparently

This is my five hundredth post. I was going to write something pithy and brilliant centered on the number five hundred...but, since today is my son's fifth birthday, you're getting this instead. Nothing says "Happy Birthday, Son of Mine" like being publicly mocked and humiliated on the internet!

Yesterday, my daughter was being a snot. Cookie (as I've designated her on this here corner of the innerwebs) decided she wanted to have a tea party...an all girl tea party. My son, Tank, wanted to go to the tea party, too, but since he's not a girl, Cookie wouldn't let him.

My wife, the Comely and Buxom and Ailurophobic Bouddica, tried to talk Cookie into letting Tank come to her tea party, but she'd have none of that shit. Tired of arguing, my wife went to take a shower.

When she emerged from the shower, there was Cookie standing by the door to our closet, giggling. Tank was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is [name redacted] Tank?" my wife asked.

"He's in the closet," Cookie responded.

"Tank, come out of the closet," my wife said.

"I can't," he giggled. "It's too embarrassing."

This went on for a few minutes until finally the closet door creaked open and, well, this emerged:
The thing on top of his head is a scarf that has been cleverly tied up to resemble a wig. The clothes are Cookie's, but I think the shoes are Bouddica's. It's nice to see the boy can accessorize. Just notice how striking that red belt is with the black ensemble.

*sigh*

The problem is, he didn't want to change out of his clothes. He liked dressing up in girls' clothes. He claimed it was more fun to be a girl. In lieu of a tea party, they decided to have a fashion show. Oh, those plucky children of mine.

My wife is distraught. She wants me to take him and do manly things with him. At a loss, I didn't know what to do. Teach him how to piss in the stream out back? Download some videos of other guys getting kicked in the nuts and laugh at their pain and suffering? Take him to the joint down the street with the signs out front proudly proclaiming they boast an "All Girl Staff"? Blow some shit up? Vegas?

So, I sat down and pondered this situation in the only way I knew how: by asking myself "What Would Homer Simpson Do?" I immediately went home and fell asleep on the couch, ignoring my children. When I took them outside after my nap, Tank was climbing to the top of the swingset and hurtling himself off it. I figured there was no activity that was more "little boy" than a possible shattered pelvis and thusly patted myself on the back for another parenting job well done.

Oh Homer, you never fail me.

Busting Six Words Out All Over Your Face

Today is my best friend's birthday. What better way to celebrate than to write a Six Word Saturday post in his honor. So, here you go, chief:

Happy Birthday to the Brewing Optometrist!

My best friend and I did a lot of stupid shit while we were in high school as teenage guys are prone to doing. Trying to pick just one story would do him a severe injustice, but I'm fucking lazy, so I'll tell you one of my favorites. One of the great things about our friendship was that it was a second generation friendship: his father and my pa had been best friends when they were in high school. Plus, he has red hair and big pecs. Hmmm...maybe I shouldn't have told you that last part.

Fortunately, he was about the only person my mom would let me ride in the car with, so he was typically the driver in our misdeeds. One day, we were in the mighty metropolis of Bluffton, IN, up to the normal chivalrous deeds that two high school lads would be up to on a fine day in early June. Such exemplary deeds as: minding our P's and Q's, rescuing kittens from trees, picking up litter, helping old ladies across the street--okay, fine, I admit it. We were buying comic books. There, are you happy? Christ almighty. You people bitch about everything.

Anyway, after we were finished in the den of dorkdom, we loaded back into the car and were pulling back out onto the main drag of the town (there was really only one drag in Bluffton, but I digress). As we were waiting for traffic to clear so that we could turn right on red, we noticed that there was a car wash in the Hardee's parking lot to our right.

Are you guys familiar with the charity car washes, or is this just a midwestern thing? The model for this is brilliant in its simplicity: you line up a bunch of cute girls to volunteer to work at the car wash. This, in turn, nets you a bunch of slovenly guys who pretend to care about charity so that they can hang out with the cute girls. You then make the slovenly males wash the cars while the girls, who are usually wearing bikini tops or white t-shirts that they've tied up in the front so their bellies are exposed, stand around holding signs to "advertise" for the car wash. Perverts Passersby see the girls and thus they decide their vehicles are in desperate need of a wash, so they pull into the parking lot for a very sick and dirty fantasy car wash, only to discover that some squeaky-voiced guy with a half-formed beard from the First Street United Methodist Church Youth Group is asking them for five bucks. Like I said, it's brilliant.

Anyway, there was a car wash next to us, with all the requisite filthy hot teens holding up their signs. But wait, there's more. There was...a clown. The clown, seeing us in our precarious position at the stop light, decided to approach the car. As we're waiting at the light and discussing all the egregious and perverted things we'd do to the high school chicks if we were given the chance Kafka, the clown sticks his head in the driver's side window (my side) and utters his stupid clown giggle. It sounded kind of like if Goofy were being given a prostate exam.

"Hey boys, you want a car wash?" the clown asks after giggling in our space.

Without missing a beat, my best friend leans over me and flips the clown a double bird right in his face. He bellows, "Fuck you, Clown!" as loudly as he can and, without checking traffic, stomps on the accelerator, rocketing us forward and around the curb. One problem: the clown's head was still in the car.

The force of the acceleration carried the clown's head with us, but--and this is rather tragic--the remainder of the clown, well, remained. As we sped away from the scene at--literally--breakneck speed, my gales of mirthful laughter suddenly turned to the terrified shrieks of the damned as something landed in my lap. Staring back at me, with a look of horror and shock on his face with his hollow, haunted eyes staring deep into my soul, was the clown's head.

To say I've never been quite the same since would be an understatement.

So, here we are, tearing through town with the remains of a freshly decapitated clown on my freaking lap and we have no idea what to do. We can hear sirens, but can't see the pursuit cars yet. We know it would be a bad idea to be pulled over with the clown's head still in our possession. Fortunately, the Wabash River runs through Bluffton, so, as we approached the bridge, I picked up the decollated clown's head and heaved it out the window, over the railing of the bridge and into the murky brown waters below, thus ridding myself of our rather maudlin souvenir from the trip to the comic book shop.

Okay, so, the last few parts might have been a bit embellished. However, everything up to the words "Fuck you, Clown" was true. Oh, and the Brewing Optometrist did floor it to escape the scene because, seriously, clowns are lame and fucking creepy.

And now you know why I chose him to be my daughter's Godfather, which is a fitting way to end this tale because today is also my daughter's First Communion. See what I did there? I took the story full circle. Well, not really, but I kind of distracted you from the decapitated clown story, didn't I?

No? Well, fuck you, I'm not paying for your therapy. Happy Birthday, J!

Have more fun, six words at a time, over at Cate's place!

Stuff

I have a bit of a dirty secret that I'm now going to share with you. For the past couple of weeks, I've been cheating on you. I know, I know. Where's the trust, eh, blogosphere? It's just that, every so often, I come across your chest a blog that is spectacular enough, I become--for the lack of a better term--infatuated. I read. And then I get bored because the author only updates once a day, yet the author drips with such a profound exceptionality that I want, nay, need more. The only way to get said fix is to dig through the archives.

This has happened recently.

People, I want you to meet Kristine. She's over there, waiting in the van. Now, originally, I caught a glimpse of her in someone's comments and thought "Holy shit! That looks like my attractive friend, Kristine! I better check this shizz out." Well, it turns out that she isn't my attractive friend Kristine. However, she's now my new attractive friend Kristine! She's smart, she's funny, she puts stuff on her kids' heads and takes pictures, she hates her asshole cats, and, like me, she is a MASTER--or will be someday soon. Unlike me, she will be a MASTER in a field where she can get a job in ten years, whereas I'll be living under a bridge, reciting the periodic table and cursing the far east.

While she's as sarcastic and foul-mouthed as they come *dreamy sigh*, apparently her former blog is even more foul-mouthed, even more sarcastic, and even funnier. Alas, it remains hidden, and since I at least pay lip service to people's desires to remain as anonymous as the internet allows, I have gone looking for it. However, I'm sure it was fantastic, like the Lord of the Rings acted out by ninjas and stuff.

Because awesome oozes from every pore on her body, she's recognized the content and character of this blog with a fabulous award. Behold, the James Frey Award!
She's right, you know. 95% of the stuff here is bullshit. The other 5% is dick jokes and Leelee Sobieski pictures.

So, join Kristine in her van. She drives it around, wanted by the government, and serving as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find her, maybe you can hire Kristine to put shit on your kids' heads and take pictures.

Now, Gwentabulous over at Everything I Like Causes Cancer, posted a picture of her naughties yesterday. I'd say "unmentionables", but since I provided a link to the story, that pretty much supersedes "unmentioning", doesn't it?

Anyway, her challenge for today was to not tell a story revolving around shit, semen, sex or something else gross that starts with 's' (hooray alliteration!). Jesus, Gwen, you just knocked out 95% of my arsenal. Good thing I was planning on publically felating Kristine. Wait...

Gwen's challenge was to have us post pictures of our favorite sleeping shirts. I received mine rather recently. So recent, in fact, that it still carries the sweet, sweet smell of victory. Behold, the TRIVIA SHIRT!

Oh, oh, that's not the TRIVIA SHIRT you were expecting, is it? No, my friends. See, I won this shirt the other night when I went to Trivia Night at a local bar with the Comely and Buxom and Ailurophobic Boudicca and her friends from work. See, they had a three-round trivia contest (we placed third), but in between the contests were special mini contests. Do you want to know the question I answered correctly and quickly?

"What disease takes it's name from the Latin for 'bad air;?"

The answer, of course, is "malaria". I emboldened a couple of parts. Since you're here every Friday morning learning conjugations and shit, you know I'm all about the Latin. However, you probably didn't know that I'm all about the tropical diseases. It's true. I work on a "neglected disease" program at my company. I don't want to brag too much--especially since none of my compounds have done shit to the parasite--but we've pretty much taken Sleeping Sickness by the balls, swung it around the room a couple of times, kicked it in the grundle, and then, for good measure, while it's lying there on the floor, we've whipped it out and pissed right in its battered and beaten face. AWESOME!!!

Also, the person who introduced me to Yuengling, that sweet, nectarous lager from Eastern Pennsylvania, reads this blog and I wanted to taunt him with my victory. I'm expecting an email shortly that will read something like "Bastard."

What? Me? Heckle?

I went to a rather small school for undergrad. It was located in a rather pastoral setting at the south end of a very small, farming-oriented community. Describing it as one-horse probably is lending it too much credit, though it was the town that the driver's ed kids from the next county over would come to, so that they could practice driving through intersections with stoplights. From a certain point of view, it could be described as a booming, thriving metropolis...I guess.

Anyway, the college tried to get comedians and shows in to entertain the students as much as they could. Bear in mind, this was a small college, so the acts weren't always the greatest, and I doubt I could name a single one of the performers or comedians who stopped off in Rensselaer for an hour's worth of self-promotion and a meager paycheck at the end.

However, sometimes, we got really good acts or really good comedians. That was the case on the night in question. The comedienne was actually a very funny lady. I remember a couple of times laughing until tears came to my eyes. As per usual, she went on about driving through cornfields and such to get to the college. Everybody pretty much did that when they came to Rensselaer, but when she entered into her own act, it was damned funny.

I say all this as a preface for the crux of the story. Now, this particular comedienne was a black lady of, we'll say, ample proportions, and as such, she started talking about her love of ice cream. She had me right there. If there's something I love, it is the ice cream (along with a variety of other things that I have detailed here time and again). As luck would have it, Rensselaer had a small ice cream shop called Busy Bee, which was a common congregation point in the late spring evenings for the population of the college. We'd walk into town, enjoy our frozen dairy comestibles, and then sometimes stroll through other parts of the town or simply walk back to campus. It was truly idyllic.

The comedienne saw Busy Bee on her way to the campus and was, appropriately, fired up. But, she was worried. Like me, she had a refined palate and had a few prerequisites as to whether it would be worth her time to enjoy this fine fare.

"Now, this Busy Bee place, it doesn't have just one flavor, does it?" she asked the crowd.

No, was the general response from the crowd.

"No? How many flavors does it have, then?"

At this point, I thought, in the blink of an eye, Hey, she's really funny. Perhaps I'll throw something up there for her, and she can hit it out of the ballpark. We'll all be rolling in the aisles, holding our sides, pissing our pants because she's that fucking funny!

The end result of this internal monologue was me, firing off: "Two!" This was met with a few chuckles from the crowd.

Oh goody, I thought, my internal voice rising in pitch as I pondered the looming possibilities, here comes the comedy gold!!!

"Two?" she asked, her eyes wide, an eyebrow cocked. I swelled up in eager anticipation. Here it comes...

This is where, I should point out, things made a turn for the worse.

"Two? Is that all that makes you happy, farmboy? Two? You and that little ear thing you've got going on. Two flavors for me and my ears, please." And then she turned, dismissively, and continued on with her routine.

I. Was. Crushed. She even, in the course of pointing out that my ears stick out a tad, grabbed the upper part of her ear and pulled it out some. It was like she had just stomped on my puppy, and then kicked its gasoline-soaked carcass into the middle of the street, where it was to burst aflame the moment it was run over by a speeding semi-truck, trailer in tow.

Where was the funny? Where was the comedic gold I had known was coming? Is this all I get? Being called a "farmboy" and my ears made fun of? Not that you needed the help, but I just fired off a slow pitch over the middle of the plate. You could do something with it, other than point out the shortcomings of my personal appearance.

I shed a single tear, much like the Native American standing at the side of the road, an empty 7-Up can rolling at his feet.

Perhaps she thought I was trying to heckle her. Perhaps she wanted to get her entire act finished within the allotted time. I don't know. What I do know is that, after that moment, no matter how lousy or how funny the comedian or how talented the performer, I vowed never to interact with the person on stage, lest my personal attributes are once again held up before the jeering gallery to be judged and mocked.

This does not, however, include the time that, during a screening of The Scorpion King in the theatre, when Lucy Liu straddled the Rock's chest shortly after he had been wounded, I shouted (for all to hear) "Lay here while I suck the poison from your chest with my vagina!"

See, you can bite a movie, and the movie doesn't bite back.