We have a new saying in our house – “it smells like balls in here.”We picked up this jaunty little phrase last night whilst at the dollar movies.We’ve been going to the same dollar theater for years and it has always been clean, if not high quality, or populated with folks of similar income levels and dental hygiene.
The nice, quiet, possibly homicidal guy that cleaned the theaters has been there every time we’ve gone and has, over the years, become comforting in his presence, if not in his demeanor.The last two times we’ve gone the nice, quiet, kill-you-with-a-cleaver guy that cleaned the theaters has been missing, and the theaters have been littered with cups and tubs and candy boxes.In a word, it’s become trashy.
It should have come as no surprise to us that the four tween girls that came in to the theater just as the movie was starting would also be trashy.One of them welcomed us into their world by uttering the now popular phrase “it smells like balls in here.”As young as the four girls were, I’d be surprised if they’d ever smelled balls.Still, they said it, my girls heard it, and now it’s a saying that we have – a phrase that we can use if ever we feel the need.
It didn’t stop there, of course.The four tween girls chose to sit in the aisle of the theater.If you can imagine the nastiest, stickiest, dirtiest movie theater in the world and then also imagine sitting on the floor of that theater, then you will get the feeling that I had in my stomach when I saw them sit there. Then the obnoxiousness began – laughing inappropriately, talking loudly and burping even louder.It was gross, and embodied everything that is wrong with the youth of today.After just a few minutes a fellow movie-goer hailed a theater employee who moved the girls into seats. After another twenty minutes of continued obnoxiousness, I went to get the same employee and by the time we’d returned, the tweens had left the building.
This brings up a lot of great questions that might never be answered.Where is the guy that cleans the theaters?He did not have the kind of personality that would cause him to seek other employment.Perhaps he’s part of a movie janitor exchange program, or in jail for the murder of thirty-four people whose bodies were discovered in his basement.Where did these girls learn their manners?Would it have helped if their parents knew of their rude behavior?My wife wanted to wait for their parents and tell them.I was of the opinion that it would not help them parent better, and the retribution might push the girls further down the path of deviant social behavior.
One thing is for sure, the dollar movies are on the short list of places we might not visit anymore.The air-conditioning does not work, the janitor guy is gone, and the locals have transitioned out of the realm of interesting and into the realm of creepy.Plus, and I don’t want to offend anyone, but it did sort of smell like balls in there.
I am aware that in some circles, talking about television is akin to discussing religion, politics, or natural hair color; some things you just don’t talk about. But, in this instance, it’s funny, so I ask that you leave your broom of judgment at the door, and come on in for a laugh or two.
That said, in our house we typically allow our children to watch one television show a night. It’s called The Disney Channel. I am currently writing a piece about one aspect of that endless show, Hillary Duff, which I think I’ve alluded to, but which is in no way ready for you to read. Watching only one show has it’s advantages; you don’t need a remote, a program guide, or a brain. You just sit, and the television does all the work for you.
But, something happened. I don’t know how, but one night I came home from the store, and The Disney Channel was gone. The family was watching Fear Factor, featuring Joe Rogan. If you have never seen Fear Factor, possibly because you can’t find the remote, it’s a show where people have to do stupid and/or gross things to win. I’m not sure what they win, but I’m guessing it’s a Sultanship in Brunia, because the contestants will do anything to win. “And now, in addition to the scorpions and tarantulas already climbing all over your body, we’re going to add a bunch of snakes, for fun.” You know how bad I want a Sultanship, but I don’t think I could do the snake thing.
Fear Factor is not really aimed at 7 to 9 year olds, especially the two shows that we have seen; Fear Factor: Playboy Playmates and Fear Factor: Other Women with Giant Boobs. But, the kids seemed genuinely interested in the women eating raw crab meat, so we watched. And, then we watched again. Our girls seem to love Fear Factor.
So much so, that recently our broken-legged six-year-old, in an effort to entertain herself, because she had already seen most of what was on The Disney Channel that day, tied the cord from the blinds to a piece of furniture, and then tied her new Barbie to that cord. “What are you doing, sweetie,” I asked. “Playing Fear Factor,” she replied. The blind cord was actually dangling the Barbie over a shark-infested ocean. Barbie had to zip down the cord, and smash into the piece of furniture, repeatedly, for several hours.
As an aside, the Barbie was naked, as are all Barbies in our house. Before becoming Fear Factor Barbie, she was California Barbie, and she was quite tan. I know seeing this naked tan Barbie tied to a zip line should have had no effect on me. And it didn’t, really. Sorry, where was I?
How she made the mental leap from Playboy Playmate to Barbie is, well I guess it’s not that big of a mystery. What she knows of Fear Factor, based on the two shows we have seen, is that women who are built like Barbie, and smart like Barbie, do incredibly dangerous or stupid things for fun. That’s the show, and Fear Factor Groovy Girl just doesn’t seem right.
Sadly, I don’t think Barbie won. At least, we didn’t have to give her anything for winning, since repeated ramming into furniture left her mentally impaired. But, only slightly more so than before she started. Just like real Fear Factor.
I wrote on Monday about the demise of The Great Googly Moogly – my youngest daughter’s esteemed fish and former resident of the still-empty tank in her bedroom. I mentioned that I’d gently placed Googly’s earthly remains in a shoe box awaiting a candle light service wherein we would return him to the great sea in the sky, or more aptly, throw him over the fence into the pond across the street.
As is ever the case, we got busy, and were unable to hold the service on Monday night. The shoe box containing Googly sat quietly in the garage and I knew it would be fine until Tuesday night. We were busy Tuesday night as well, and Wednesday night, and Thursday night. Friday morning I walked into the garage and it smelled like an outhouse in a fish market in Kuala Lumpur, only not so fresh. I took the shoe box and placed it outside of the garage in the back yard and opened the big garage door to air the place out, thinking that we would definitely dispose of the fish Friday night, or first thing Saturday after Volleyball.
It is funny how life has a way of working things out for us, so that we do not have to work them out for ourselves. My wife messaged me to say that my main dog, Indy, after his morning constitutional in the backyard, had come into the house carrying something. My wife and both daughters were in the kitchen when he came in and they all noticed the something hanging out of either side of Indy’s mouth. At first they thought it was a bird, but when Carrie gave him the drop command, he did, and they could all plainly see that Indy had found Googly, or, five-days-dead Googly.
The scene I pictured first was of a coffin on a kitchen table holding the remains of grandma. A ruckus tears through the kitchen (dogs chasing cats) and busts one of the legs of the kitchen table, which in turn allows the table, and the coffin, to tip over. The coffin opens on its way down and with a giant thud on the kitchen floor, out rolls grandma. Two or three rolls I think, before her body finally comes to rest face up (arms askew) amongst all the family members’ feet.
I realize that grandma lying dead in the kitchen is a far cry from the family fish laying dead in the kitchen, but still…
How Indy found the fish was understandably confusing to my wife, who was under the impression that Googly was still neatly packaged in a box in the stinky garage. The Googly carcass on the kitchen floor was, upon realization, understandably horrifying for my youngest daughter, who had last seen her fish lazily (in that “last-day-on-earth” sort of way) swimming around the tank in her room.
For Indy, though, this was a huge moment. He had found a dead thing where just the night before there was no dead thing, and, as dogs love rolling around in and playing with dead things, this had suddenly turned an otherwise ho-hum morning into a really spectacular morning. I’m sure his thoughts were something like this:
“Holy Crap, a dead thing! This is exactly what I’ve been looking for, and here it is. I’ll take it inside – maybe to the living room – and roll around in it for a while. Then I’ll have some lunch, but then I’ll get right back into rolling around in the dead thing – really see if I can get all of the smell off of the dead thing and on to me. This day is going to be epic.”
I feel sort of bad that we ruined his plans, but I’m certain that Indy’s moment of joy would not have been worth re-carpeting the living room, sleeping in a hotel for a week while the smell dissipated, or killing the dog – all of which would have been necessary, and justified.
I’m not sure where Googly is at the moment. My wife did not mention whether she scooped him up and put him back in the box, or threw him in the trash or down the garbage disposal. But, with or without the physical Googly present, I do feel it is important that we set aside some time this weekend to say a word or two about Googly and put him to rest in our minds. I think we might be busy all day Saturday, but we’ll do it Sunday for sure.
We lost The Great Googly Moogly today. (aka Bubbles III) He was a seven pound gold fish (only, black) with Marty Feldman eyes and a tail as long as his body. Towards the end of his life he’d gotten so big that instead of swimming all the day long from one end of the tank to the other, he would just get up every morning, turn around, and realize that he was at the other end of the tank. Another quick turn would confirm that he was, indeed, much too large for the ten gallon tank within which he was housed.
Of course I jest. I would not want you to think that we are, or were, irresponsible fish owners. Googly’s predecessors (Bubbles and Bubbles II) did not live half as long as Googly. I think fish just get old, like every creature on the planet, and when you are old it is difficult to swim all day long in month-old brown water. I do feel a bit guilty about that. Had I changed the water last weekend, he might still be with us today. The good news, though, is that he went just after I changed the tank, (using the same procedure that I always do – so the new water was not a factor) so Googly got to swim his last few strokes in a fresh clean tank, that will likely sit uninhabited (but still bubbling) for a month or so before (a) I empty the tank and store it in the garage or (b) my daughter convinces us that she cannot live another day without a fish to feed and otherwise ignore. I’m voting for the first option, but I don’t think my vote counts.
We’ve decided on a burial at sea. Googly is too large to flush down the toilet – especially given that the most likely toilet has recently swallowed an entire cleaning sponge and undergone invasive procedures to remove the blockage. The procedure would not have been that big of a deal had I remembered that I flushed a sponge down the toilet, and I am not sure how one forgets such a thing, but I did. So, it was not until my wife called me on my cellular phone while I was preparing my bicycle for my weekend ride to tell me that she was standing in inches of water that I remembered the sponge. Oops. We believe the blockage to be cleared, but we do not want to take our chances with a seven pound goldfish, so tomorrow night, during a candle-light service, The Great Googly Moogly will join his brethren at the bottom of the neighborhood pond. Call for directions.
Speaking of cleaning sponges, my wife is having some people over on Tuesday, and in our family that means the house must be cleaned from stem to stern, or bow to aft, or whatever term is in fashion, so I spent the better part of Saturday cleaning. Other than the sponge incident, things went fairly well. I managed to get the place looking pretty sparkly, though I did notice my wife touching up a few places today, so I probably could have done better. I have no doubt that we will be up into the wee hours of Tuesday morning continuing to put finishing touches on everything, but at least I know the toilets are clean.
Speaking of weekend bicycle rides, I am in quite a bit of pain. Last weekend we went for a ride with the kids and the grandparents, and I came home feeling much the same as when I’d left. The ride was nice and steady, and we took our time, so I personally did not exert much effort. (My wife had some difficulty for the first few miles because her brake was not set properly and so her front wheel was not spinning freely, but once we figured that out, she was fine.) Today I decided to see if I could ride to work. It is about 12 miles, so while it is a good trek, I figured I could do it in an hour or so. That still may be true, I don’t know. Someone, probably just to be a jerk, went and put a bunch of hills between my house and my office. Normally I would not mind a hill or two, and maybe I was just off my game, but about three quarters into my ride I felt like I was going to die, so I turned around.
The beauty of a bike ride is that if you ride until you feel like you are going to die, and then turn around, you are about as far away from being home as you will ever be, and in order to get home, you have to do the same ride that almost killed you. I stopped for a Coke, which helped a little, and I was doing pretty good – repeating my mantra on the up-hills (“I effing hate riding bikes, I effing hate riding bikes”) – until I happened to glance up and notice another bicyclist passing me on an uphill. He had one hand on his handlebars and the other was holding a bag of groceries. His bike was not nearly as cool as mine, but that was little consolation. He didn’t just sort of pass me slowly – he was flying. This, of course, took what was left of my self-esteem and flushed it down the toilet. I thought about calling my wife to come pick me up, but somehow I managed to talk myself out of that, and finish my ride.
People say that exercise is easy – “just a half hour, no big deal.” I left for my ride at noon – just over twelve hours ago – and that was pretty much it for me for the day. So, in essence, I did twelve hours of “exercise” today; two or three hours of riding (it felt like three, it was probably two), an hour on the couch, a shower, a nap, and then some more hours on the couch. Sort of does not seem worth it to me. Maybe it will snow this week, and I can put away my bike for the “winter” without feeling guilty. Or, I could get a job at the grocery store up the street. That way, when I want to ride to work, it will be easy. That sounds like the best plan.
It became evident to me while on our trip to St John that other parts of the world do not adhere as strictly as we do to some basic safety rules. For instance, in St John they drive on the wrong side of the road, and most transportation is done in open-air trucks – meaning most tourists are riding in the back of a truck on the wrong side of twisty mountain roads with no sort of means of anchoring said people into said truck. In the event of a vehicle collision, everyone would be dead, but they no one there seemed to mind.
So, I suppose when folks from other parts of the world, where safety is number seven or eight on the list of stuff to worry about, visit our country, they probably think we’re being sort of girly with all these rules and stuff. Take, for instance, a couple that my wife and I observed yesterday at a local amusement park. As you may have guessed from the photo, these folks took their infant on to a ride with them, and just sort of held the infant, one-armed style, while they enjoyed the ride. Now, in the photo I depicted this couple on a roller coaster, because that was funnier, but in reality they were on the Tea Cups. But, while the Tea Cups seem innocuous enough, stuff could still happen that might but the baby at risk.
I guess what I am asking is, who is right? Are we too concerned with safety in this country, or are other cultures maybe a little lax in their analysis of the dangers of certain situations?
I feel a little like Inigo Montoya in that, I’ve been doing the parent thing for so long that when I am not parenting, I don’t know what to do with myself. We dropped our kids off at camp on Sunday afternoon, and have had no communication with them since then. Camps, in general, feel that it builds character to cut off kids’ communications with their parents – like prison, or the army. While it may be good for the kids’ character, I must admit that I am struggling with it, a little bit.
Of course, I lied – we have had one communique from the inside. Yesterday we received a letter in the mail that went something like this.
“Dear Mother and/or Father,
Pursuant to Article 4, Section 9 of the Universal Camp Code, I am writing to inform you that I am having a great* time at camp. My counselors are wonderful (and fully licensed in the State of Colorado to administer aid should a life or limb-threatening situation arise.) Tomorrow we are probably going horseback riding,** or engaging in some other pre-approved activity such as swimming*** or hiking,**** at the discretion of the aforementioned counselor and with the full support of the Camp and its staff.
I hope you are well.
Signed,
Child’s Name
*Great, here, means that all the child’s basic needs are being met and does not constitute a guarantee of fun.
**Horse supplies may be limited. Not available in all states.
*** Child must first pass a basic “swim” test before being admitted to any body of water. Children who do not swim will come home stinky, as this is how we bathe.
**** By hiking, we mean walking, basically, but with a water bottle. Also there will be nature in some areas, so children allergic to nature will be re-directed to another activity.
I must admit that while it was nice to hear from the kiddo, the letter left me feeling a little like she’d been kidnapped by The Gobblers and was maybe being forced to write things she didn’t really feel. When I was at camp, we didn’t write home because we were too busy setting fire to things and overturning our canoes to see if we could survive. (It was Boy Scout camp. I maybe should have mentioned that first.) But, we did have “parent night” where, as you probably guessed, the parents came. That was a good way, I think, to stave off the home-sickness, and I can’t help wishing that my kids’ camp had something similar.
But, they don’t, so unless the older daughter writes a letter – which is doubtful, since I don’t think she packed stationary like the little one – that’s all we get until Friday night. Sigh.
You are probably wondering what we are doing with our free time. You shant need wonder any longer. Mostly, we are drinking heavy, not watching the Disney channel and rescuing random animals that we find wandering the streets. But, I feel as though I should save that for tomorrow’s blog.
Have a great day.
When you get one or two 4th to 6th graders in a room and have them spell words, its called homework. When you get 200 kids in a room to spell words, it’s called a Bee. That’s what we had this morning, and one of my kids was in the bee, so I thought I should at least check it out. We arrived about ten minutes late because apparently there is a barista strike or something. It was nice visiting with the neighbors while we all waited for the woman making the drinks to whisper our order (venti soy chai), but we had somewhere to bee, so it was frustrating.
I dropped the wife off at the door and then parked on the street, so by the time I sat down the eldest daughter was spelling her second word. In the first round all 30 contestants spelled their names – which I think was a way to weed out “those” kids. Except, you had to take a test to even be in the bee – which is why my youngest daughter was in the audience and not on the stage – so maybe they just did it to get the kids comfortable. That didn’t seem to work.
A few kids dropped in the third round, and that’s when we noticed something a bit alarming – these kids started crying when they missed a word. I guess I can see being upset when you think you might win, and then your hopes are dashed – I coached enough semi-adequate baseball players to know that feeling. But it was, and is, my hope that they were not crying because they felt pressured to win. That would be sad.
One 4th grade girl missed a word in round seven, and I’m pretty sure her brother, seeing her in tears, missed his next word on purpose. This kid was the quintessential spelling bee kid – the “can I have the country of origin” kind of kid. And he misspelled something pretty easy. That was a very nice thing to do, I thought.
He was the last boy to go out, so by round nine it was mostly sixth grade girls. My kiddo misspelled “breathe.” B-R-E-A-T-H – breathe. “I’m sorry, that’s incorrect.” “Oh yeah, E.” She didn’t cry. She is pretty laid back – so much so that she was the only kid that didn’t seem even the least bit nervous. She just spelled. Even when she was wrong, she was confident. I like that.
It came down to three girls. The third place kid missed “provolone,” even though she knew it was Italian. There was some drama right at the end. The second place girl spelled “diagnosis” correct, but the Principal said “diagnoses” and when she asked for a definition, they read the one for “diagnosis,” so she spelled the right word, but the wrong word, so they gave her another one – “silhouette” – and she missed it. The other girl spelled her last word correctly, so she was declared the winner.
In all, it was an hour or so well spent. It made me want to watch Akeelah and the Bee again, but the kids both have sleep-overs tonight, so the wife and I have the house to ourselves and a movie is not on our agenda. I should mention here that I had to let Word correct my butchering of “sillouette”. I couldn’t spell that word if you spotted me the “S-I-L-H-O-U”
