Monday, August 8, 2011

Advice For My Children

I have all the conventional wisdom figured out that I want to share with my children when they are growing up. Things like work hard, be nice to other nice people, etc. But there are some unorthodox lessons and advice I wish to bestow on my children as well. Here are just a few:


-Try real hard not to be a hoe.

-Don’t hide things under your mattress. I will be checking there first.

- You are probably smarter than your teacher and yes they are probably just jealous.

- Public urination is ok in the wilderness only.

-Don’t write curse words on the sidewalk with chalk

- Running the water while I’m in the shower will make me angry.

-I may yell at you in front of the principal at school, but if you can be fake sorry as good as I am fake angry, then we’ll go get ice cream afterwards.

- Get into at least one fight before you’re eighteen. I’d hate to send you to college without a single fight under your belt.

- Don’t light things on fire in the house….go outside.

-Don’t bring dirty, stinky kids home from the park as your ‘new friend’.

-That friend’s house you always hang at and tell me their parents are always home? I know you are lying.

-Just because I do it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

-Don’t invite me to career day. Odds are the job I’ll have I wouldn’t wish on any eight year old.

-I don’t care if you tell me you did your homework but really just wrote all the problems down instead. As long as you have something to turn in, I’ll be fine.

-The minute you stop calling me dad and start calling me Jake, shit is going to get real ugly.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Obnoxious Displays Of Emotion In A Rainstorm

Sure, maybe standing out in the pouring rain with a broken heart looks good in a movie, but it does not fly in Warren, Michigan. I have new neighbors (when am I not getting new neighbors?) across the street from me. How can I describe them? I don’t want to sound mean or anything, so I’ll try and think of words that aren’t too harsh. ‘Sophistication deficient’ Is probably the nicest thing I can say about them. First and foremost, shopping carts from my work have been disappearing. A curious glance across the street revealed that at least two of those shopping carts are sitting in my neighbors backyard…. Bastards.
And there is a girl. A loud girl. A loud, obnoxious girl who stands in the driveway and yells on the phone. Classy. There are piles of garbage just laying in the driveway, including what appears to be a large yet broken bowling trophy.
Yesterday afternoon though, I hear this new neighbor of mine standing at the entrance to the park, shouting at someone. She uses terrible slang, and it sounds like she’s talking underwater, and all I could decipher was “jklasnflaksnvlkanfbkjahgadg;ahdsfjads TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS!!! asdf;ja;lkngaqwjbnakjsv nafg” Whatever that means.
Later that night (like around 11) she get’s into an argument with a guy on a bicycle. You know that old cookie cutter trashy argument “You let them nasty hoes into your house. You let them skanks meet your family. Blah blah blah” and then he says “You’re a crazy bitch etc. etc. etc.” and then she starts crying at the top of her lungs in the middle of the rain last night. She accuses him of being unfaithful, he accuses her of breaking his Xbox, and so it went back and forth.
Anyone who grew up in my neighborhood knows that it isn’t the nicest or classiest place around, but one thing will always remain, you cannot have obnoxious displays of emotion out in the street. The cops will roll up on you. And sure enough they did. And then the shrieking crying ceased, and I was able to go to sleep. But I began to wonder, at what point does a human think it’s a good idea to just air out all their business in the street? Screaming at the top of their lungs in the pouring rain? This isn’t the Shawshank Redemption, go inside.