Voodoo, Zombies, and Getting Groovy

When I was pregnant with my first kid I was so super excited and everything was going to be wonderful and there was sunshine and rainbows and mother fucking unicorns with glitter and all kinds of happy shit.

 

Then, I went into labor. 

So, Lamaze is a bunch of voodoo bullshit.  For real.  8 weeks of Lamaze classes and breathing and holding onto little bags of ice to experience the pain of labor and “don’t take the drugs, it will harm the baby”.  Really?  Freaks.  Let me tell you something you natural-ass stinky mother fuckers;  if I were alive during the middle ages and had to go thru 24 hours of what I went thru with my first born, I would have died and so would my child and fuck you all and your delusional hippie ways.  Fuck you.  As I went into my sixth hour of contractions I grabbed the attending nurses’ hand and with tears streaming down my face I looked into her eyes and said, “I don’t wanna be a hero, give me the fucking drugs”.  The drugs don’t even work that well either, but at least it’s something. 

Then the baby is born.  Babies are really creepy and look like zombies when they are born. My baby was sucked out of my vagina by a vacuum so looked like a zombie gumby.  His head was, and still is in the shape of the exact pattern bowling pins should be placed.  We thought it would morph back to a “normal” shape.  Nope!  Don’t get me wrong, he is beautiful and I love him to pieces, but his skull is really messed up.

I didn't even know what planet I was on in this picture.  

Look at the shape of that kids head!  Whoa.

I went through all the cliché new parent crap about everything must be sterile and blarg bloop blarg.  So, our cats killed a mouse and left it on the porch.  Dead animal removal is not on my household chore list so I told Mike to take care of it.  He didn’t.  I asked him over and over and over again to remove the mouse from the porch.  Eventually it was on the porch so long that the mouse was now flat and petrified and still on the mother fucking porch.  It must have gotten stuck to the bottom of someone’s shoe and tracked into the house because the flat dead mouse ended up in my infant’s mouth.  WHAT THE FUCK!  Seriously, my baby boy was sucking on a mouse carcass.  I have never wanted to kill someone as badly as that moment when I pulled the decaying rodent from my baby’s mouth.

Now I have to deal with 2 toddlers who like to mimic everything.  It’s not just the swearing and I do a lot of that.  You know when you’re in Target and your kid starts chanting, “FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK”?  I do.  I keep telling Mike to stop trying to be all sexy in the house.  You know, like when I’m bent over loading dishes into the dishwasher and Mike thinks it’s time to do some club dancing in the kitchen and he comes up behind me because for some reason he thinks that I’m going to be turned on while I’m doing household chores because he is a fucking dumb ass and all he’s really doing is coming closer to getting his eye gouged out with the ice cream scoop because it’s the only weapon I have available to fight off his advances.  The toddlers think it’s funny and so they do the same thing to me.  Do you get that?  Yeah?  Because Mike doesn’t seem to get it when I tell him that the kids mimic every single fucking thing we do and that includes getting groovy with mom. 

Now that I’m thinking about it, here is a list of *activities that are not sexy nor are they in anyway intended to be flirtatious or a sexual advance:

Doing the dishes

Loading the washer and/or dryer

Folding laundry

Shaving legs, armpits, etc

Changing dirty diapers

Cooking

Cleaning ceiling fan blades

Mopping the floor

Vacuuming

Putting groceries away

Mowing the lawn

Decorating the Christmas tree

Scrubbing the toilet

 

*The above list IS IN FACT sexy if a MAN is doing it.  I repeat… A MAN 

Fear The Wookie

When I was little, my parents would tell me the tale of the Mad Chipmunk of Lovells.  It was an angry rodent that lived at the edge of my parent’s property and apparently it would chew your fucking face off it you ventured too far away from the house.  They probably should have just been honest with me and told me about the bears or wild cats or any of the other actual man eating creatures that live in the woods.  Honestly though, the chipmunk really did the trick and to this day the little fuckers creep me out.  There were a bunch of bears living around our house and we even had one that would hibernate under a neighbor’s trampoline.  That trampoline was so fucking awesome. It wasn’t like today’s trampolines. This one was built into the ground, surrounded by a concrete border with big metal springs holding the trampoline over a giant hole (That’s where the bear lived) and I’m honestly surprised that any of us kids survived playing on that thing but it doesn’t really matter because it was that awesome.   

I was thinking about that damned chipmunk in the shower this morning.  I had just dyed my hair and I was rinsing out the holy-crap-black I apparently bought.  It was on sale and I had a coupon.  Sometimes we have to live with these choices.  The manufacturers of hair dye really need to take into consideration that some people have really long dry hair that soaks up most of the tiny bottle of dye on just a very small portion of hair.  I am now sporting a 3 toned style of Goth black, kind of red, and gray. 

Anyway, anytime I get in the shower or brush my hair or get pissed off at the kids; a ton of fucking hair falls out of my skull.  It is really fucking amazing how much hair I lose in one day and still I am able to maintain a full head of hair.  I do fear that my days are numbered though especially since one of my nervous habits is pulling out individual stands of hair with I deem to be “crunchy” and thus unworthy to reside on my scalp. 

I like to leave little surprises around the house for my husband.  One of those gems is the shower wookie.  

As my gift to Mike today, I pulled the shower wookie out and left it in the bottom of the tub. 

All women know what the shower wookie is and all men fear the shower wookie.  Mike even went down to the hardware store and bought a special shower wookie extraction tool.  He doesn’t hunt deer or bears or gators, but damn if he isn’t proud when he hunts down and kills a shower wookie.  He likes to show off the shower wookie to me as if I don’t know that I am capable of producing such a hideous creature.  I am fully aware of it.  I am also totally grossed out by my own hair once it leaves my head.  Mike is grossed out by it too but in a completely fascinated way.  He will call the entire family into the bathroom so we can view the fresh kill. Now that I think about it, maybe the shower wookie contributed to the fail of our septic system.  It is that fucking evil looking. 

Mike would probably like if I ended things here, but I have to tell you about his fucking gross ass hair too.  Not his ass hair literally.  I don’t think I ever want to go there.  We will leave his mangina out of this.  I finally got him to shave the dead squirrel that has been eating all of his food off his face.  He loves to MANipulate his facial hair and by that, I mean; he likes to shave weird shapes into his face and he thinks it’s sexy.  Let me tell you something:  THERE IS NOTHING SEXY ABOUT A DEAD SQUIRREL ON YOUR FACE!  Once anyone begins to grow facial hair I can assume one of three things:  

1.        You are a depressed ass hat

2.        You are a fucking ass hat bent on taking out revenge

3.        You are a fucking lazy ass hat

Mike will go for weeks, even months without shaving, usually just to piss me off.  He’ll say he’s going to shave and then create chops or a goatee.  My friend Jenny has a special name for a goatee.  She calls it Prison Pussy.   Then, as if the facial hair isn’t enough, when he does shave it off, he leaves me this mess around the sink.

                                    Mother Fucker.  That’s dove soap, bitch. 

At least the shower wookie clings together with its peeps in some kind of cult like solidarity.  Mikes fucking facial hair likes to divide and conquer making it impossible to clean up.  

Aqua Bug Net

So, I was going through my old pictures trying to remember why on earth I would ever have done the hideous things to my hair that I did.  Not only did I probably single handedly create a small ozone hole over Northern Michigan, I also left an impenetrable layer of Aqua Net on my parents bathroom floor.  The thing I realized was that people must have thought I was a total fucking bitch.  For real!  My face was so sarcastic and snarky.  The braces didn’t help and kind of added a demonic touch.  I admit though that I was, in fact, a total fucking bitch in grade school. 

I remember spending hours in my bedroom, curling iron plugged in, mixed tape blaring, trying to get the perfect ratio of lift and width.  I would turn off the lights and light a candle completely unaware of the fire hazard perched on top of my head and I would imagine that the members of White Lion were serenading When the Children Cry to me as I made pouty faces in the mirror. Occasionally I was able to come up with a single tear which would cascade down my face trailing a black smear of mascara and pain.   Oh to be a teenager again.

 

Moving to Florida may have been my worst hair decision to date.  Maybe other parts of Florida aren’t this humid, but I live in the scrotum of Florida and it’s basically a stagnant swamp land with no breeze and 100% chance of ass hat.  I fully blame the move on my now ex husband who promised we could use the AC in the house when we moved down here but then became a giant douche bag who tried to convince me that we were better off with the windows open.   Do you know what kind of horrible bugs live in Florida? Really big fucking horrible bugs, that what! 

  There is this thing called a Palmetto Bug but let me tell you the truth:  

IT IS A GIANT FUCKING COCKROACH WITH A SWITCHBLADE AND A BAD ATTITUDE. 

Actual size of Palmetto Bug.  Please note the terror on the T-Rex's face.  

They are everywhere.  They are strong.  They will fight you to the death and then some. They can swim, squeeze into small places, and hotwire a car.  We had a pool at my old house and while trying to cool off from the inferno of Florida, the giant bugs would fall out of the trees and try to drown me while I practice my homemade kung fu in a struggle to survive.   I can only imagine how my sister, Julie, felt when that squirrel fell out the tree during an ice storm and got caught in her super curly hair   It is kind of like that, but way worse because the Palmetto Bugs also poop when agitated and that shit really stinks.    They don’t die either.  You can poison, stomp, and puree a palmetto but and they don’t die.   My friend Shea said that she dropped a phone book on one and them stomped on the phone book a bunch of times and then left it there for hours until her mom came home to dispose of the carcass.  When her mom moved the phone book, that mother fucking palmetto bug scurried away…. shaking its little palmetto bug fist in the air…. vowing vengeance. 

Who the fuck has a phone book anymore anyway?

Botox and Jesus

I went to lunch on Saturday with my friends Suzanne and Jenny.  Don’t fucking judge me either.    I know I don’t have any money to be spending on fancy lunches because of the whole poop tank thing and that’s why I first pimped myself out to Suzanne to clean her house so that I could eat Truffle Fries and Mango Cheesecake on her bill.  And it was worth it.  I should have probably done a better job cleaning but that is what she gets for feeding me first.  She’ll learn next time. 

It doesn’t take long for our conversation to end up in the gutter.  It all started with Suzanne saying she wanted to get Botox done on her forehead and 2 hours later Jenny says the exact same thing.  What the fuck?  Seriously??  So we all start talking about where we would get Botox done on ourselves and Suzanne wants to host a Botox party in her house because you would only have to pay for the injections and not the doctor and I’m thinking that it sounds all shady and I decide I would Botox my upper lip then Jenny says “Botox your hole” and she meant my mouth but we were all thinking asshole.   What better place to try out Botox?  I mean, if you really want to see if that shit works, why not paralyze your pooper to see?  Plus, if it gets all fucked up, you just have to wear some adult diapers for a few months.  I’d rather try that first. 

It got me thinking a lot about down there.  Not about assholes, rather vaginas.  For some reason, once you have a kid, your vagina comes up in conversations more than you would think (maybe it’s just me).  Even my mom talks about my vagina which is really disturbing.  My husband, Mike, likes to say romantic things like “you could drive an 18 wheeler thru there” and “nice meat curtain”.   Today when we were out on a date he said that our first born would probably be really bad at math because his head is all crooked, probably from the hideous birth that lasted 24 hours causing severe trauma A.K.A, my vagina.  I informed Mike that he would probably be bad at math because I am bad at math and that he should keep my vagina out of it. But now that I think about it, the second kid just kind of fell out and his head is all round and perfect so maybe the first born was kind of like a pioneer and someone has to eat the poisoned berries and fight a bear so that we can build a FroYo next to the Alamo. 

This is my first born Davy Crockett.  Just kidding, look at the Gumby head though.  

(the glasses aren't his.  Just added for drama.)

Just the other night at dinner, somehow episiotomies came up and Suzanne remarked that after my 2 episiotomies my vagina tells time and it’s always 3:30 down there.   I told her that is exactly why it now has the nickname Frankenpussy.  I haven’t told my mom that though because she’s a Mormon and she doesn't even drink caffeine so saying Frankenpussy to her might kill her and then when she goes to Heaven or the planet or whatever the what Mormons go to she would have to tell Jesus that her daughter said Frankenpussy and then Jesus would be all pissed off at me and It’s not like I don’t have enough shit going on right now that I don’t need a plague frogs.  But then again, God made vagina's so  it's not like he didn't have "the talk" with Jesus about that stuff and I'm sure he's heard worse things said about vagina's anyway.  

Red Dawn a.k.a. Russian Poop Dog Lady

When I was growing up there was never a time when we didn’t have a pet.  Usually dogs, once in awhile a cat (my mom fucking hates cats because my grandma Vi had 2 Siamese cats that scared the shit out of her and then one of them gave birth under her chair while she was eating dinner), and 2 fish (they committed suicide by jumping out of their bowl which was placed on the fireplace mantle and slowly cooked themselves to death on the woodstove). We had this awesome Old English Sheep Dog named George.  He really was a great dog.   We could attach him to a snow sled and he would drag us around the yard like a horse and carriage ride.  He once ate our front door when a burglar tried to break in the house.  There were 4 kids in my family so we went thru a ton of food.  My mom started freaking out one winter and complaining that we were eating more than a loaf of Butternut bread  each day and the grocery bill was bla bla bla and she was going to have to sell one of us to the gypsies to afford to pay the utility bill.  I remember distinctly that it was Butternut bread because it always came with Snoopy stickers in each bag which caused bloody battles between my sister and I.  She loved Snoopy.  So, the bread continued to disappear along with occasional whole apple pie and we evil children continued to get blamed for our excessive eating habits.  I don’t blame my mom for thinking this.  Each of my brothers could eat an entire box of Captain Crunch every morning which is why she started buying Grape Nuts out of spite.  We still ate that shit; we just put a cup of sugar on it.  Eventually summer came (we could still have snow as late as May).  That’s when we had to do poop patrol.  As the snow pack melted in various layers, 6 months of dog crap would be revealed.  We were like archeologists, out in the yard armed with shovels picking up poop.  Upon a new layer slowly being exposed, it was revealed to all of us where exactly all the Butternut Bread had gone to and who had eaten it; including the entire wrapper.  Mangled poop twisted the the iconic blue and white checker board pattern littered our lawn.  So fucking gross. 

Needless to say, I'm not a fan of dogs or poop or dog poop.  

When you’re pregnant just about anything can and will send you into a blinding rage.  For example:  when your husband locks you out of the car during a severe thunderstorm at 6 a.m. just so he can see the look on your face or your neighbor repeatedly letting her big ass dog crap in your yard and not picking it up. 

For months I kept finding or stepping in dog shit in my yard.  Not just little dog turds.  No, these were from a big dog.  Luckily, I get super obsessed and move the furniture around in my living room so that I could drink my morning coffee and watch out the window for the shit bandit.  Then I saw her.  It was the fucking Russian lady who lives down the street and her big ass designer dog.  I wanted my rage to build and wait for the right moment to politely ask her to pick up her dogs crap and then I got my opportunity.  I was pulling out of the driveway on my way to the grocery store when I saw her walking her dog, in my yard, as it squatted and took a dump.  She saw me pulling out and quickly kicked some leaves over the pile of steaming hot shit.  I rolled my window down and asked her if she would please pick up the offending poop because I have children who play in my yard.  She just stared at me and then motioned as is she had no idea what I was saying.  Then I realized that she was pretending that she didn’t speak English which is complete bullshit because she talks to my husband all the fucking time.  So then I tell her that I would be glad to bring a plastic bag out for her to pick it up and all of a sudden she speaks English and tells me that she usually always carries a bag but she just didn’t today.  I once again offer to go get her a bag and she starts yelling at me.  Well, she obviously didn’t know what a fucking cunt I can be and that’s when I snapped.  I honestly don’t remember what I said or if it even made sense.  I may have said something about rubbing her fucking nose in it.  This began my personal Red Dawn.

 

 I, of course, am Patrick Swayze's Character, Jed.  Leader of the Wolverines.  

This wasn’t the end of it.  The poop kept coming.  She was walking her dog earlier and earlier, trying to bypass my checkpoint.  As I grew more pregnant, I grew even angrier.  Soon my passive aggressive side kicked in (blame the hormones).  I put a sign by the mailbox with baggies.  I was trying to be fucking nice.  Mike said I was being a bitch and asked me to remove the sign.  It stayed for a month. 

Actual picture of sign I put by the mailbox.  I'd say the sign is pretty nice considering it was the second one I put out.  In the first one I threatened to follow people home.  

(also, two separate neighbors came to me and complimented my sign so kiss my ass, Mike)

Then, when I was 9 months pregnant, my friend Sarah came over to help out and clean my house because the bowling ball which had descended into my who-who was making it impossible to anything useful around the house.  While Sarah was cleaning the living room I glanced out the window.  There she was, is broad daylight, letting that fucking dog shit in my yard.  I snapped.  I opened the front door and let loose.  Sarah, unaware of what was happening, stood there flabbergasted at the demon which possessed my body.  I know for a fact I did an impersonation of Robert DeNiro doing "I'm watching you" with the hand gestures and all.  I’m pretty sure I threatened to poop in her mailbox, her yard, her front stoop, and make her life a living hell.  I also called her every name I could possible think of and I even made up a few.  Sarah was okay with the whole incident though.  I know because she lets me watch her kid now. 

A year later I decide to have a garage sale.  I wake up super fucking early because garage sale people are fucking nuts.  The garage sale isn’t even important though.  I had to park our cars down the street so that I would have room for garage sale traffic.  Anyway, I park on the right of way of the street near the Russian Poop Lady’s house.  She comes out of her house with the fucking dog and walks right up to me.  She asks me if I know whose cars are in front of her house and I look at her dumbfounded.  Of course I fucking know and you do too, you dumb bitch.  You just saw me get out of the fucking car.  I didn’t say that but I should have.  I did tell her that they were mine and she says I have to move them or she’s calling the cops.  I inform her that I’m parked on the street in the fucking right of way ... 5 a.m. and I’m yelling profanities in the street.  I moved the cars, but only because Mike made me.  As I drove away I yelled “WOLVERINES” out my window.  Take that you crazy ass bitch.

The Great Dirty Underwear Caper

I started playing Bingo a couple of months ago with my girlfriend Jenny at the local elks lodge with all the geriatrics and compulsive gamblers.  I’m not sure if I like this so much because I’m a crazy stay at home mom, a crazy gambling addict, or both.  At any rate, it gets me out of the house for a few hours and raises my blood pressure which in turn probably raises my metabolism so it’s probably really healthy.  Bingo is the new cardio.  So, it costs a mere $12.50 to play but when your septic tank is broken and you have to shell out 10K to get your shit pipes hooked up to the city system because your home owners association is a bunch of ass clowns and your hospital bills make you scared to go to your mailbox because having to make your health insurance payment each month AND pay a hospital bill which now rivals your student loans makes you want to crawl under your desk at work and cry yourself into a coma but you can’t even do that because you no longer have a desk at work because you were laid off from the state when you were 5 months pregnant and no one would hire your ass because they knew at any moment you would be popping out a baby and even though that is against the law it happens and then because you were unemployed for awhile no one will hire you because you have a Masters in Fine Art and what the fuck is good for anyway.  Phew… 

Don’t you just love when a casual dinner with girlfriends turns into a pyramid scheme to sell used panties online to strangers with an odd fetish for dirty underwear?  I do too!  When I get together with my friends, odd thing happen and this includes last night’s dinner at Sahara (they should pay me for this because I’m totally going to boost their business). 

Meet the players

Jenny:  nurse in training and bingo enabler.

Suzanne:  crippled designer shoe addict who ironically can no longer wear shoes on her right foot.

Kelly:  lover of Oreo cookies, Kayaking, and she also once owned New Kids on the Block bed sheets.

Susan E.:  will do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to raise money to get to Spain and lover of Diet Coke with Lime.

Heather:  snarky waitress who likes to buy things at the flea market and I’m pretty sure she would date a carny. 

Susan (me):  desperate broken septic tank owner, lover of Bingo, and hater of cats.

So, we are all sitting at the table and enjoying our food.  Heather requested no ass cheese (feta) with her meal which I think is crazy because if you’re going to eat at Sahara, you have to eat the ass cheese. By the way:  the waiter is not aware that feta is also called ass cheese which made for a very awkward silent moment when ordering. Jenny tries to strike up a conversation by asking what’s new in people’s lives.  This is what got the ball rolling.  Apparently I am not the only one desperate for large amounts of cash right now.   I know what you’re thinking:  Stop playing bingo and save the money.  Well, when you are a stay at home mom it is vitally necessary to get out of your house at least once a week so that your family isn’t discovered in shallow graves in your back yard.  Plus, Suzanne paid for dinner so, bite me.  Jenny then mentions that there are people who will pay money to buy used underwear.  Really?  Gross!  But then we all realized it was genius and very doable.  Thank you smart phones!  We all start searching the interwebs for selling used underwear and it’s not only real, it’s super popular.  Who knew? (Jenny) (perv). 

I don’t think I should put the actual websites here because they are really pornographic and I don’t want to pay any royalties to anyone.  Plus, Google has banned me from accepting advertisers because I’m already breaking the rules with my fucking potty mouth (fucking ass hats). 

Susan E. says that maybe we could just go to Walmart and buy a bunch of bulk underwear to keep cost down, but we all agree that probably not the kind of underwear people have a fetish for and after seeing the websites, I have to agree.  So I suggest that because our friend Maddi (sorry for dragging you into this Maddi) works in the lingerie department of a large department store that she must have a pile of defective underwear that they just throw away.   That way we could get the underwear for free.  Also, don't think I'm opposed to dumpster diving.  I've done it before and I'll do it again.  After further research we discover that the going price for the dirty britches is $75!  HOLY SHIT!  So, if we each wear 2 pairs per day we could be rich!  Rich I tells ya!   Heather is even down with this idea and she hasn’t worn underwear since her training pants when she was a toddler.  Kelly, the doe eyed innocent one, and probably the youngest in the group, is unwilling to sell her dirty underwear.  Jenny, even though she was the brain child of the group, won’t do it either.  Whatever Jenny, there are ways to get your undies.  I know where you live.  That leaves 4 of us willing to sell our dirty underwear to perverts all over the world.  I told them that was like 60% of the dinner party but smarty pants Kelly tries to correct me and I tell her that I’m bad at math and that’s why I’m now forced to sell my dirty underwear online.  So, Kelly gets to be the accountant. 

We were all very excited at this point and probably talking a little louder than we should have.  Suzanne is so excited that she had to take off her bionic boot that keeps her rotten foot from falling off her body because she was probably getting a little sweaty and I imagine that thing starts to itch when it gets hot.  She had been pretty quiet up to this point and then I realized that she was engrossed in her phone and probably setting up her dirty panty account right then and there.  The group somehow decides that I will be modeling the underwear but I quickly turn that idea down as I have given birth to two children in the past 3 years and I’m probably not the best candidate.   We need a model.  Let’s just say that we made a decision on who would model, but I’m not going to put her name here because she would probably kill me.   

There are a lot of other things we talked about, but they are way too graphic so I’ll just leave you with a short list of key phrases:

Thong

Ass Floss

Juicy

Aroma

Flavor Savor

Time of the month

Ziplock baggies

If it fits, it ships

Frankenpussy

Porno Pinball Christmas

We all have super memorable family holidays. On Easter mornings, my dad would calmly tell us that once again he bagged the bunny as he would point to my mom who was frying up bunny strips (bacon) on the stove. There were the Fourth of July’s when my Grandpa Joe, drunk off Jack Daniels, would light a roman candle off his cigar and point it in our direction as he yelled, “Run, you little bastards. Run”! It’s how I learned to run serpentine and treat 3rd degree burns.

Then there was Porno Pinball Christmas. 

I couldn't get a picture of this Christmas (see end of story) These are my siblings and myself. I am the adorable, glowing child, with the Dorothy Hamill haircut. Then there are my 2 brothers and my sister. My sister is at the head of the table (no, really, that's a girl).

 We all LOVED Christmas mornings. Ok, not just Christmas mornings, but the entire time leading up to Christmas morning including finding all of the gifts and trying to figure out what went to who and why. My dad decided one year that it would be awesome for us to have a real arcade pinball machine in our living room. On Christmas Eve, when all of us had gone to bed, dad set up the most fabulous.. glorious… mother fucking fantastic pinball machine EVER! My dad didn’t really think this through as my mom and dad’s bedroom was directly above the living room and my mom is a holy fucking terror if you wake her up before 9 a.m. Anyway, my brothers woke up first and discovered the pinball machine, immediately turned it on, and began playing it…. At 4 a.m. Of course my sister and I were downstairs pissing our pants and jumping up and down in less than 10 seconds of hearing the first ping of the ball. My dad was next to arrive, trying his hardest to rip the mother fucking power cord out of the fucking wall before the she devil was awaken. My dad knew at that moment that any mistake he had made in his marriage could never be outdone by this one poor error in judgement. Sure, this is the guy who got my mom a lint brush for their 10th wedding anniversary, but this was shit town baby. It was too late. She was up. She was coming down the stairs. She saw the pinball machine. My mom is silently terrifying.  What my mom saw was completely different from what we saw. We kids (kids include grown man-child called dad) saw a light filled wonderland of blinky blinkity blinks and noise. My mom saw the naked Egyptian ladies down the side panels of the machine and the light up orgy scene that distracted from the score. It was the best present EVER. It was the worst Christmas ever... for my dad.

I called my parents the other day to ask if they had any pictures of that Christmas morning. My mom was adamant that none existed and then coached my dad into the same scripted answer. If anyone knows my dad, they know that he took a fucking picture of every moment of our lives with a 35 mm camera with 6 different lenses so by the time the picture was taken we all looked like we were in pain, because we were, and wanted to shove the fucking camera up his ass even though we were saying “smile” under our breath. I know there is a picture out there somewhere. They also told me that it was not a porno pinball machine and I was probably too young to remember anyway. Too Young? Whatever! I know what I saw. I also know that shortly after that Christmas the pinball machine was moved out to the barn, only to be visited when we were waxing skis or burying a dead dog.
I also know that a button nose is super adorable on a child but not an adult.