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A Fierce Wooden Spoon
I want to tell a story about a hot summer Sunday at my Grandma’s house. She lived near a fairly large church, literally like 2 blocks away. I think I was around 8 or 9 years old and had already proven I was as angelic as my grandma pretended I was. In other words, she always knew trouble would find me but only as a mischievous curiosity to do wrong. Never malicious intent from either one of us, but she made sure that in most cases the punishment fit the crime. Which brings me to this story…
Ricky and I wanted to go to the Electric Kingdom to play some video games. As usual we had no money for the arcade and we were devising a plan to earn some. After going through multiple scenarios I ended up with asking Grandma if we could wash the cars for arcade money. She agreed to this contract but had no idea what she had gotten herself into (nor did I). We grabbed washcloths, a bucket, Palmolive dish soap, and began to unspool the hose (more like a pressure washer than a garden hose). Everything went as expected washing the two cars that were parked side by side, perpendicular to the street. Then this great idea popped into my infantile head. Let’s hide between the two vehicles and spray cars as they drive by. Oh yeah it’s on. I ducked between the cars and waited. As a car began to approach I aimed the hose, and by the time I pulled the trigger the car had pretty much already past. Fail. So I corrected my stance so I could see better and corrected my aim like I was spraying into the mouth of a carnival clown to be the first to pop the balloon. I locked on to the next vehicle coming down the street. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and spray. What I didn’t realize until I heard the screech of tires braking was that…
1. Ricky had took off running
2. The car was driven by an old couple on their way to church
And most importantly…
3. The windows were rolled down
Needless to say I didn’t get my money for the arcade, but what I did get is…
A 5 ft., 80 lb. Grandma with a wooden spoon, which to this day, has given me the worst ass whoopin’ I have ever had in my 44 years on this planet.
Grandma, I love you and I will miss you dearly.
***written 8 years ago
Part of being a parent involves doing things that you don't necessarily like, but you do it for the good of your child. My little girl is 6, so exponentially this wasn't a life altering decision or event. Okay sit down here it comes. She was invited to a birthday party at Skate World and wanted me to take her. Now I don't know if this is just a local rink or a franchise, either way I will admit I did spend a very, very small part of my youth hanging out there. I remember…
…The psycho, geometric indoor/outdoor carpet used to cover all non-skating areas, assisting all travel on 8 wheels.
…The crazy DJ that used to work at the hippest radio station in the late 70's, but now spends his weekend passes from Bellevue spinning vinyl at an awkward preteen school dance on wheels.
…The oldest, old school skates known to man, one step down from rented bowling shoes, with laces so long you had to wrap them around your ankles twice before tying.
…Slow skating to Def Leppard with that special girl, holding hands under the cheesy black light ambience of adolescent love.
…The creepy older man who arrived in his van with bubble windows, who had the Mr. T starter kit out his half buttoned shirt, showing off his mad skating skills, winking at all the prepubescent girls.
All the things I didn't notice as a child but did notice on Saturday. I hated being there, but I made the most of it for my little girl. It put a smile on her face all day to have her daddy with her at Skate World. It was important to her and I'm glad I went, cause eventually that smile will turn to embarrassment.
So, on the way home I called my mom and apologized for ever dragging her to Skate World.
As promised, Noah and I have been working on building a computer for him. We finished it this weekend. Now being a huge computer geek, at one point having my own side business, and building PC’s for 17 + years, I do know a few things or two. I wanted my son to do it himself (now that he watched me work on a ton of computers). I would say he did 90% -95% of the work and I just supervised. I was definitely proud of him, but was even more proud to what he said to me when we were done. “Dad your super power is building computers”.
So this made me think what super powers have my Dad and Grandpa taught me.
So my Dad is a very good mechanic. I remember working on sand rails, dune buggys, anything with a VW motor including my first car. The one thing I could never figure out was this, and now I’m claiming this as his super power, was eyeballing a nut or bolt and knowing it’s exact size. “Hey scott 15mm deep well socket” Bam perfect fit. “Hey Scott that looks like 7/16” again perfect fit. I still bring 3 sockets and 3 wrenches to any nut or bolt.
So my Grandpa was a carpenter, the only one I knew that could walk on water. On his super hero tool belt was this thing called “a tape measure”. I never saw him use it so I never learned what it was until 7th grade wood shop. This man would never measure and always cut. Perfect fit. I measure 2 -3 times and still can’t cut a board straight.
Although we come from a long line of Super Hero Dads, we all get our own special, not so super, powers…
Love you dad and grandpa, and Noah when you find your, not so super power, show your son and tell him it just runs in the family…
As I opened my fresh can of chew, I was asked by my son Noah, “Why do you do that?” My first thought was to tell him the story, since I am brutally honest with my children; sometimes outside of the MPAA rating. But in this case you should be clear what your kid is asking before you answer… For anyone who has watched me open my nicotine in a can, you notice that I completely peel off the label. The side first to break the seal, and then the top/bottom if applicable: basically anything with adhesive. It’s not OCD; there is a story behind it.
So, on and off since the age of 14 I have chewed tobacco: probably more on than off. Yes, I know it is a disgusting habit. I don’t need to be reminded. However no one ever died from second hand spit. Nonetheless I have witnessed the consumption of many a spittoon. Not a pretty site. Yet again; no one ever died from second hand spit. You hear about the cancers associated with “dipping” but you are probably not aware of your risk of ass cancer.
Rewind to the glorious year of 1992 when I was working 2 jobs and going to school. One of those jobs was for UPS at the airport. I would leave my evening job at about 8pm and go over to JT’s house before we would all head to the airport for our midnight start time. That 4 hour window should have been for sleep, but always ended up in debauchery.
Now I don’t know if it was JT or myself who started peeling off the labels. I just know one night we had this “intellectual” conversation about why they should be peeled. And even after the “smoke” settled, it turned into a drinking game where you had to peel it off in one try; or you had to drink a 22oz of Mickey’s. But I’m getting off track (And Noah is very confused right now). So JT’s house was not necessarily a party house; but there was a lot of people traffic. No one ever went thirsty and you could alter your reality nightly. Lumpy (and yes this is a nickname, and no, to this day I never knew his real name) was also a UPS employee and stopped by on multiple occasions. After about a month he fell prey to mine and JT’s peer pressure to take a pinch between his teeth and gum.
Now to set this up correctly, I will have to mention that we would go into work early and hang out in the pilots lounge. It was niiiiice. There was a big screen TV with all the channels you could ask for; and more importantly there was about 10 leather lazy boy chairs to fall asleep in. We would smoke “something” that would make us really hungry, slam Mickey D’s or Taco Bell, and nap in the pilots lounge until we had to work at midnight. The first night that Lumpy took a plug, we had just ate an ass ton of food at Mickey D’s. He was a big guy and if I remember correctly he ate 3 Big Macs. For all those who remember their first encounter with smokeless tobacco; you should relate. As he sat in the brown leather lazy boy I could see his face beginning to change colors. I had flashbacks to my first time; where I chucked Jo Jo’s Pizza out my nose. As he tried to get up to make it to the restroom, he was engulfed by leather buoyancy not able to get up. The faucet of liquid fast food sprayed the leather and the floor below. Needless to say we were not allowed in the pilots lounge again. But again; I am getting side tracked (and so was Noah). Despite the incident at the airport; he continued to chew along with JT and myself. About a week later, he noticed that when we bought a new can of chew we peeled off the label; side first, then top and bottom. As did Noah, he asked, “Why do you do that?” Being the smart ass (no pun intended) that I am I said this...
“You know how guys always put their can in their back pocket. Well there was just this study that long term exposure to the adhesive used in the labeling causes cancer. So there has been a dramatic spike in ass cancer with people who chew tobacco. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want ass cancer. (I’d like to thank the academy)”
Now Lumpy must have got into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn’t watching; and moreover he was pretty gullible. So from then on, he peeled his labels; as did JT and myself. It went from a drinking game to one of the funniest running jokes I had ever set in motion. To this day; after losing touch with JT and Lumpy, I still peel in honor of my brilliance, and other people’s ignorance.
As I finished telling the story to Noah; I could see that he still seemed a bit baffled. And then he followed up with, “No Dad, I didn’t mean why do you peel off the labels. I mean, why do you put that stuff in your lip?”
Oops!
Postscript: For all you punctuation Nazi’s, yes I know I way over used colons and semi-colons. Again, this is part of my brilliance. And if you don’t get it, well, read the title again, and if you still don’t get it, we’ll just call that ignorance.
I’m not much on setting New Year’s resolutions due to the fact that I have very little self control and on top of that January 1st isn’t my deadline to make a change for the better, or worse. So to me New Years is probably my least observed holiday of the 24 holidays listed in my Outlook Calendar. Some of you may have 25 but I don’t count one of those… But I digress. Now notice I said observed, not celebrated. Definitely have celebrated for the better, and ended up worse. But we’ll get to that. Reflecting back I haven’t really celebrated like I feel the holiday deserves. And again I probably won’t, because it’s just not productive to make a list of things I will never do or change. You can call it realism or stubbornness. Interestingly enough on average only 7% of resolutions are actually followed through on. This is based on a completely bogus statistic that I just made up, but it did sound pretty legit as you were reading it, huh? So instead of keeping balance of misgiving commitments for the next year I am going to look back to the most memorable New Years experiences…
Circa 1995 – After a long, full day playing volleyball at a co-ed tournament in Lake Oswego the gang ended up at “Seaside Randy’s” house for the New Years party. A night of drinking heavily and full contact Spades (yak em’) followed by “Seaside Randy’s” brilliant idea for the whole party to streak the neighborhood. There was probably about 20 of us barebacking the community at the stroke of midnight.
Circa Y2K – With all the hype surrounding Y2K, I had went and bought the most expensive police scanner available. The ex and I, spent the whole night listening. Needless to say it was very entertaining. And not that I would ever do this, but at the time this scanner also would pick up 900mhz cordless phones. Wink, Wink.
Circa 2006 or 2007 (not exactly positive) – My Hank Moody phase. Pretty self explanatory if you watch Californication. But to be a bit more specific, I completely pickled my liver that night and sang FHG by Tenacious D on Karaoke. Ended up passing out in my car in the bar parking lot. And when I awoke the next morning, apparently I had attempted multiple times to throw up out my car window. It didn’t work. So I spent the whole day taking apart my driver’s side door. Not only was there puke on the inside and outside, but when I had rolled down the window it went down inside the door jam. This was the last time I have drank until I chucked.
Happy New Year 2014!
A Cold Cup of Tea with a Friend
The travesty of great relationships between men and women, I speak of friendship and nothing more, is that someone will cross the line.
…In the morning, I sat at the breakfast table wearing the same clothes as the night before. Wardrobe barely wrinkled from sleeping on top of her down comforter, not underneath with her. My choice, not hers. A loud, humid whistle filled the kitchen, distracting my thoughts from the fidgety sleepless night. My water was ready, and as it seems, this steamy hiss would serve as her alarm clock. I had 4 minutes, to await her entrance, and to steep the perfect cup of tea. It's just the right amount of time to turn scorching purity into a nice cup of darkened reality, and it was her average travel time from bedroom to kitchen on these mornings. Douse and soak. Douse and soak. Douse and soak. Perfect. As I removed the teabag, she entered the kitchen with sleepy eyes wearing that robe I swore she stole from the set of "Fight Club". I began to stand, to fetch my usual sweetener, but she stepped her fuzzy warm foot behind my chair leg and whispered in my ear, "I'll get it". I was uncomfortable because even though last night was different, I was still trying to keep it the same. She continued her stride to the cabinet that housed the little plastic bear filled with the bee's golden reward. She found it where it always was, next to the powdered sugar I used when cooking her Swedish pancakes. As she made her way back to the table with the bottle, it was already inverted. It hovered slowly over my cup with the top already flipped. Déjà vu of every night I've stayed over. When the abnormally slow motion stream of honey began to fall, her index finger darted into harm's way to catch the initial drop. At first I wondered why, but it was clear when she pulled away and placed it on her tongue. A taste? An innocent taste, so I thought. She maneuvered her finger back to the steady pour, but I was still focused on her tongue. "Say when?" rolled off her lips. Without turning away from her, I tried to respond, but was abruptly shushed with a sticky pointer. Awestruck, I sat paralyzed as she continued to spread it evenly across my bottom lip. She made a second pass and stopped. Mute. I couldn't speak or move, as she began to walk away. With her head slightly turned, I could barely see her lick her finger clean, not to rush the chore. And when she reached the entrance to the kitchen, now the exit, she turned and used the same finger to invite me to follow…
And my tea got cold…
Thank You Easter Blasphemy, Bawk Bawk
As I’ve said before, I'm only agnostic and dyslexic 2 days out of the year; on Christmas and Easter. And for the rest of the 363 days, I'm just not sure if I believe in doG. Now, some people would say that is blasphemous. And I would say the only thing that rhymes with blasphemous, is, kiss my ass. If you want to get all theological (on my ass) I would remind you the words “Theo” and “Logical” are antagonistic, like an oxymoron. And if you don’t know the difference between agnostic and antagonistic, you are an oxy moron. Which is an oxymoron itself (dictionary.com oxy – denoting something sharp). But that's not my point... My point is, I witnessed pure unbridled blasphemy yesterday...
*Flashback to age 6 or 7...
…I could see their yellow buoyancy through the cellophane wrapper as their blank innocent stares balanced in parallel. As I tore the plastic encasement I could almost hear the pseudo chirps begging for mercy and absolution. Bound together by marshmellowy benevolence, I tore a single hatchling from its coop. The first abrasive bite of heaven, coated my teeth and lips with gritty sweetness. At that exact moment, I knew, Peeps were a gift from doG...
*Back to yesterday...
Yesterday I was shopping for Easter candy and my faith was destroyed. Upon the shelf sat, “Sugar-Free Peeps”
doG Help Us!!!
*Postscript – What position are the Yoga Peeps doing in the picture? Oh yeah, Downward Facing doG…
