1. I have an 8th grader. How is this even possible? Didn’t I just finish 8th grade myself?

2. Not only [...]]]> The first week of this school year is in the books. All told, I’d call it a resounding success, with a 100% survival rate for all parties.

1. I have an 8th grader. How is this even possible? Didn’t I just finish 8th grade myself?

2. Not only is The Boy an 8th grader now, but somehow he’s in football. He hasn’t ever played before, never watched the game, still needs a physical, and doesn’t understand the game’s most basic concepts. Should be awesome.

3. We have Baby’s first sinus infection! Kudos to her for joining the Fucked Up Timing Club. She’s a lot better now, but it made for an interesting week.

4. This makes me happy. It’s not related to school, but it’s a fatherhood thing. I will be this man when I get older.

5. Alien started 2nd grade this week, and his teacher labelled all of his school supplies with his name. The only problem is that she misspelled his surname on all of them. Of course, she would say that the joke’s on me because I misspelled the word ’sirname.’ In other news, we’re not looking for Alien to learn much this year.

6. The 4 year-old learned to spell his name, and played video games. A lot of video games.

7. I learned to get up early again. This is no minor accomplishment. While we’re not out of the woods yet, I think I will survive. Not sure about everyone else yet.

Nope, there’s not an untrue statement in the above sentence. A couple of weeks ago, I attended a family reunion at Lake LBJ. It ran from Thursday to Sunday, but Manda and I didn’t show up until Friday. [...]]]> It’s just not a family reunion without a beating, stabbing, slashed tires, and an (alleged) molestation.

Nope, there’s not an untrue statement in the above sentence. A couple of weeks ago, I attended a family reunion at Lake LBJ. It ran from Thursday to Sunday, but Manda and I didn’t show up until Friday. By then, three of the four offenses had already been committed.

On Thursday night, a couple of my younger cousins, we’ll call them Harry and Lloyd, decided to get their drank on. Despite it being well known that Harry doesn’t handle hard liquor all that well, Lloyd decided to shame him into drinking whiskey. He was successful in that endeavor, but the end result was Harry poking him in the side with a hunting knife. Ah, youth. It’s wasted on the dumb.

Lloyd didn’t take this lying down, or even thrashing around wildly with a superficial stab wound. He (and his three friends) proceeded to lay a beatdown on poor Harry. Duly chastened, Harry departed, but not before he slashed all four of Lloyd’s tires with the aforementioned hunting knife. And thus ends day 1 of the family reunion.

On Friday, Manda and I made our appearance. All was quiet, and past offenses were forgiven. The kids were in the pool, with the older kids, Lloyd among them, throwing them around. In general, things were good, albeit a little quiet. I made plans for the evening, which included sitting on the bank of the lake and drinking large quantities of whiskey. I don’t stab people when I drink, so where’s the harm?

That night, a drunk guy approached our party. He was pretty upset, and claimed that another cousin, Lloyd’s brother, had touched the man’s son inappropriately. Nobody took him all that seriously, including his friend, who told us that he gets this way when he’s drinking. I honestly had no idea that booze made non-relatives crazy. He left without incident, and that was the end of that. Until the cops showed up.

At first, I thought we were in for a treat. The tall, bald cop was accompanied by a young, good-looking, female cop. My first thought, “Is it someone’s birthday?” turned out to be incorrect: the drunk guy had called the law. After a few minutes of questions the cops left, completely disgusted with Lloyd, and satisfied that one drunk was flinging wild accusations at another. We don’t think Lloyd’s brother did anything inappropriate. In the words of my aunt, “He’s too cute to do that stuff. He doesn’t have to do it.” I took this to mean that he can have any underage boy he wants, but maybe I misunderstood.

In keeping with standard operating procedure, I killed the bottle of whiskey, watched the sun come up, and went to bed, prepared to start the process all over again a few hours later. After a few hours of sleep, I decided against it. Yeah, I caught a lot of shit over being ‘too old’ to throw down anymore, but truth is, I just didn’t have any bail money with me, and I was pretty certain we were progressing to body-in-the-lake territory.

I cannot wait until next year.

1. I apologize for the fact that when you had me do dishes, I threw away some of the silverware that your grandmother gave [...]]]> As a belated Mothers’ Day gift, I’m posting 10 apologies to my mom, on a blog she doesn’t see. Sure it’s pointless, but that’s kind of how this thing works.

1. I apologize for the fact that when you had me do dishes, I threw away some of the silverware that your grandmother gave you if it was too gunked up.

2. I apologize for the time that I ‘cooked’ the charge from a Roman candle in a pot on your gas stove. I probably should have known better by then. For what it’s worth, I regretted it for a number of reasons, most notably the harm I did to my hearing.

3. I apologize for the trips to the emergency room. I have no idea why I felt like drinking bleach or eating baby aspirin were such great ideas.

4. I apologize for telling the doctor that you gave me poison, and we had to wait outside for me to throw up, when in fact I was the one who consumed poisonous berries, and that the ipecac syrup you gave me wasn’t actually poison.

5. I apologize for torpedoing your Avon career by rubbing Crisco into the curtains belonging to a little old lady during one of your sales calls. In my defense, I really think she just wanted someone to talk to, and had no intention of actually buying anything.

6. Although it’s not my fault, I apologize for the unhealthy interest that my friends have taken in you over the years, culminating in Joboo’s professions of his undying love for you. I really can’t stop vomiting enough.

7. I apologize for one time that I beat up my sister. She deserved it the other times.

8. I apologize for the excuses I made to get out of school. The Boy is using them now, and they’re pretty ridiculous. Why did you ever let me stay home?

9. I apologize for the time that I locked myself in a closet, and screamed until I fell asleep. I appreciate that you remembered the mirror on the other side of the door before my grandfather took an axe to it.

10. I apologize for the stolen orange cone in my bedroom, with the bottle of tequila underneath it. You never did think to look under there, right? Uh, right?

1. Purchased a medical billing company, although I’m still currently working my old job as [...]]]> With the month of April nearly behind us without a single blog post, I should probably go ahead and write something. At the expense of making excuses, I’ve been seriously busy. Since the beginning of March, we have:

1. Purchased a medical billing company, although I’m still currently working my old job as well.

2. Enjoyed my 33rd birthday. Manda totally surprised me with a cake and presents, and then I watched movies with The Boy after gorging on cake. I can’t remember having a better birthday.

3. Cringed over The Boy’s 12th birthday. Pizza. Foosball. Video games. The kid equivalent of a casino.

4. Impregnated Manda. Whoopsie. We’re hoping for a girl this time.

So, yeah, my plate’s been a little full. More soon (hopefully).

Yesterday, we went to my dad’s house for dinner. As is often the case on such trips, Alien and The Boy went to the bedroom to watch cartoons on TV. For some reason, they ran into some trouble [...]]]> Yeah, that’s right. Let that wash over you. Ok, bad choice of words there…

Yesterday, we went to my dad’s house for dinner. As is often the case on such trips, Alien and The Boy went to the bedroom to watch cartoons on TV. For some reason, they ran into some trouble with the TV, and my stepmom asked for my help in resolving it. So far, so good.

At first glance, the TV appeared to be on the wrong input source. After cycling through a few of them, I found what looked to be either the satellite receiver, or the DVD player, but for some reason, the screen was rolling. I was able the make out the word ‘Natural’ on what seemed to be a DVD menu screen, so if anything, they were watching The Natural, and busied myself with the remote. Meanwhile, Manda and my stepmom both started nervously asking me to turn it off, while the kids wondered what the big damn deal was. Finally, I got the point, and turned it off. Later, Manda told me that along with the word ‘Natural’ she also saw the term ‘100%’.

Short story long, I pulled a muscle vomiting last night.

What began as a nice dinner at a large steakhouse on a hot Sunday in a [...]]]> Most of the names in this post have been changed to protect the innocent. The lone holdout is decidedly not innocent. For sake of simplicity, I lifted all names from the 1985 cinematic tour de force, Weird Science.

What began as a nice dinner at a large steakhouse on a hot Sunday in a dusty, west Texas town took a very abrupt turn.

My great aunt is seated to my left, and Manda is seated to my right. As I’m carving off a slab from the onion ring monolith, my great aunt leans over to ask me a question. Ok, it wasn’t really a question so much as it was a statement. “I sure hope you and Manda didn’t fornicate in your grandmother’s house last night.”

Now, to the uninitiated, she sometimes can be a tough lady to take. In actuality, she’s a comedic genius. Her delivery is the perfect measure of earnest and deadpan. She can sell the most outlandish ideas by pretending she’s serious. Fortunately, I was ready for her, and was acting as a human shield for Manda. I was able to downplay Manda’s surprise by putting on my best poker (I hardly know her!) face and flatly declaring that no, we had not in fact fornicated in my grandmother’s house. Sure I was lying, but make an omelet blahblah break a few eggs. Heh, eggs…

I was not prepared for what came next. My great aunt proceeded to tell me a story about her grandson, Gary. Gary’s father Wyatt is her stepson, and his mother Lisa had apparently started dating again:

I asked Gary if Lisa’s boyfriend was nice, and he said yes. He said that mom likes him a lot, but sometimes she screams. I asked if they were fighting and he said no, when he goes into the pantry, he can hear her screaming in the bedroom, and that his brother Chet says that they’re hompin’.

This resulted in the utter annihilation of my poker face. Nothing more was said; she got what she needed. Honestly, her skills would be better utilized interrogating terrorists.