Candy, Video Games, And Other Childish Matters

Strategically placed candy dishes are all over my house. They are placed under the pretense that I wish to be a good host and have sweets to offer to my guests in a readily accessible manner. The real reason though is that I personally want to have candy readily available to myself regardless of where I am in the house. For instance, let’s say I am deeply involved in a video game, and I do not have the opportunity, time, or desire to pause and go to the kitchen for candy. Anyone who has ever played a video game knows that the minute you pause a game, you completely throw off any sort of positive momentum you’ve built. It just throws the whole game off. You come back, unpause it, and thirty seconds later you’ve been killed. I’ve seen it a hundred times.

My siblings and I used to play Playstation a lot. Usually it was Tekken 2 or Twisted Metal 2, and the secret weapon was always the abrupt pause. For instance, if my sister was a demented ice cream truck that was ten seconds away from pelting my vehicle with napalm (as demented ice cream trucks tend to do from time to time) I would pause the game, claiming my nose itched and I had to scratch it. This would throw her off and give me the ideal path to avoiding her destruction. Of course, whatever violence I could escape on the TV in this fashion always manifested itself in reality. A fist fight could break out between my brother and I. He would shout “YOU PAUSED ON PURPOSE!!!” and then the gloves came off.

But this immature violent side of children does not stem from video games as some people would claim. Because these outbursts are the same kind of behavior exhibited in a board games, where one person flips the board over, quits while throwing a temper tantrum, or refuses to clean up after losing because “you fucking cheated!!!”

A huge thing about childhood that I miss though is fort building. When you’re a kid, literally anything can be turned into a fort. Children are like MacGyver meets This Old House. Take two bar stools, the sheets off your bed, cut up a cardboard box to make walls, and suddenly you have a three room fort right in your bedroom. Put a flat board high up in the trees across some branches and you got a fort. And there were no rules in the fort. It was the one place you could safely hide and say 'Shit' or 'Ass' or any swear words you wanted.

And there were always new friends. You were constantly getting ‘new friends’, some kid you met in the park who taught you how to start a fire, or a someone in your elementary school who claimed to have all this cool stuff at their house but would never invite you over. When you’re a kid, you can hang out all the time basically. I’m learning as an adult that ‘hanging out’ seems to be mostly a childhood thing. Not that adults don’t want to hang out, they just simply can’t. When you’re in your twenties, everyone is working part time with crazy hours that always overlap your friends. When you’re working, they seem to be at home, and when you’re at home, they’re working. And by the time we all transition into the Mon-Fri 9-5 jobs, we suddenly have families and can’t make the time to hang out. As an adult, you can’t just walk into a park and meet someone on the swing set and bring them home and say ‘This is my new friend’

At 21, I feel like an only child anymore. My older siblings have houses of their own now and are starting their own lives, my little brother is in Japan, and I’m just a big kid who lives with his mom and occasionally goes to work. But I’ve yet to feel like I have become an adult. I will still waste an entire day playing video games, or watching TV in my pajamas with a bowl of cereal. And that is why I keep strategically placed candy dishes around the house. Because I am still just a kid.

Sleep Habits Pt. 2

I’m trying to break this awful habit I have of having to sleep with the TV on. First off, it’s such a waste of electricity, especially compared to how much it takes to keep a simple nightlight going instead, and even worst compared to (gasp!) being a man and sleeping in the dark. But there’s other problems I’ve found with leaving the TV on, and it’s that it will slowly work it’s way into my dream. So, for instance, should I fall asleep and during the course of the night a scary movie comes on, there’s a good chance it could weasel it’s way into my happy little dream world and scare the begeezuss out of me.

Nobody wants to have a dream that they’re vacationing in Venice, and then suddenly everyone around you in a café is being cut into tiny little pieces. That’s awful.

But that’s just one of many bad sleep habits I’m trying to break. Another big one is to learn to sleep in my bed. Now, don’t go rushing out and tell everyone you know that I said I don’t sleep in my own bed and have become some huge whore. What I mean is, I have a habit of staying up really late, and just falling asleep wherever I am, rather than taking the thirty seconds it takes to walk through my house to my bed. I’ve even fallen asleep on the floor right next to my bed. I fall asleep in chairs, couches, the horribly uncomfortable bed in the spare bedroom, which has springs that dig into your back and you are guaranteed to feel worst when you wake up. And it’s a shame that I do this, because my bed is amazing! It’s like somebody took a cloud and sewed it together. It’s the kind that you can’t just get into, you have to do a running start so you can dive face first into it.

But that’s assuming I go to sleep at all. I’m slowly making the realization that I am not 15 years old anymore, and that all nighters are really not as easy as they once seemed. There was a time when I stayed up for three straight days, no problem. I could barely stay up 26 hours the other week, and I didn’t even do anything, I basically sat around watching movies. When I stayed up for three days, I literally did not stop moving the whole time. Who was that bionic man impersonating me? Because I seriously cannot imagine ever being physically able to do that now.

Also, I need to stop eating food just before falling asleep. This is probably the worst habit I have. What has happened, and it’s happened more than once, I have fallen asleep while eating something, and awoke the next morning to find chocolate smeared across my face, or chips crushed all down my legs, or a snack cake smashed under my back or something. That’s never fun to wake up to.

Lately, I’ve discovered that I am becoming a sleep stripper. Now, I’ve always gone to bed fully clothed and there was even a time when I didn’t even change into pajamas, I would just pass out in my street clothes. But lately, I seem to be restless in my sleep. Furiously ripping my socks off and tossing them across the room seems to be the only part I’m conscious for and in the morning, to my surprise, I’m in my underwear and my clothes are all tossed across the room somewhere. I pick them up and I wonder how angry could I have been at my clothes to chuck them in all different directions?

Wow, rereading over all of this makes me want to go to sleep.

Well, That Was Awkward

This post is going to be about that one genetic defect that I am cursed to carry with me my entire life. Anyone who knows me, knows I have quite the record of being awkward. Just plain ol’ I need to leave the vicinity of these people right away awkwardness. It’s just something I have to deal with, I am not a graceful person. Here are a few examples of my awkwardness and lack of grace:

-If a fight ever breaks out, I’m usually just the person who is in no way, shape, or form involved in the fight, but just happens to be standing too close to the fighting parties that it turns viciously awkward for me and I desperately try to find any place where I can escape.

-Quite often I’ll find myself holding up a line at a store, and in an attempt to finish my transaction quickly, try to ram my change into my wallet like a madman whilst grabbing my bags. It is almost never a fluid movement.

-I also have on several occasions startled the mailman. I hear the mail being put in the box, and I get up to retrieve it, and once I open the door, I realize I have not allowed the mailman enough time to get off my porch, and we both look at each other….and it’s super awkward.

-I was looking up at the aisle numbers at work, and accidentally ran into an old lady

-I went on a quasi-blind date with someone who turned out to be over six feet tall. Everyone was staring at us.

-In order to get into any SUV, I have to basically scale it like a mountain.

-When I was 8, I used to do skits for my family after dinner. One of those skits, I walked into the kitchen pretending I was smoking a cigarette and proclaiming “I am a lesbian”. My memory is vague, but I believe I had heard the term used in a Julia Roberts movie and thought it sounded funny. This of course led me to learning what a lesbian was at way too young of an age.

-I fall a lot

-Most times when I’m telling a story that is full of secrets and things to only be shared with certain people, someone walks in and I have to just let the story die right there unfinished.

-I’ve locked myself out numerous times, and have had to discreetly break into my own house.

-I’ve been 17 cents short before. That’s an amount so small that people feel bad for you, but large enough that they won’t let you slide and you just have to walk away.

-I was getting ready to do a stand up routine when someone pointed out that I was wearing white socks with my suit, and that they were very noticeable.

-Back in high school theater, I got sick right before a show and had to make an emergency use of the dressing room bathroom (which had poor air circulation) and stunk up the whole backstage for the duration of the first act.

-In the fifth grade when we first signed up for band, they tried to talk me out of a trumpet because they were concerned over whether or not I could play it with ‘crooked teeth’. I cried.

-People call me ma’am on the phone way too much

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.

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.

A Fictitious Free-Cucumber Stand

I was out walking today, hitting up a few garage sales. First off, garage sales this summer are really crappy. It seems as if people are just emptying their garbage cans out on card tables and slapping price stickers on them. Absolutely nothing worth buying, just stuff like old chipped coffee mugs that seem to still have a coffee film inside from the last time it was used, or Betamax tapes.
But the real story of today is about a particular lady that I ran into randomly while walking. From afar, I could tell that she was holding something in each hand, but I could not tell what it was. Then she waved at me, and I started squinting my eyes, wondering if I was supposed to know who this person was. Upon getting closer to her, I did not recognize her and instantly labeled her a crazy person. Upon getting even more close, I realized she was holding a cucumber in each hand. Yes, cucumbers. As I’m about to pass her, she stops me.
“Young man, would you like a cucumber to take home?” She asked.
“No, thank you.” I said.
“They’re giving away free cucumbers at the corner of the street. You should get some.” She tells me, and then goes on her way. I keep walking, and briefly put what she just said out of my head. But suddenly I’m at the corner of the street and I’m realizing something. There is nobody giving away free cucumbers on this corner. I ended up proposing two theories. One was that woman was completely insane and probably just stole two cucumbers out of somebody’s backyard believing it to be ‘a free cucumber stand’ rather than a garden. Or there actually was a free cucumber stand, but in the three minutes between the bizarre cucumber lady talking and me arriving at the corner, they ran out and quickly disassembled their makeshift stand (which I could only assume was a plywood and particle board junk heap much like a young child’s lemonade stand). I was more inclined to go with the first one. I began to imagine some elderly couple who was frightened, hiding in their house behind the blinds after being harassed by some crazy lady who just ransacked their garden.
I almost wanted to double back and find this lady and interrogate her.
“Where is this fictitious free cucumber stand you speak of? Not that I want any, but I just have to know, where the hell did you get those vegetables? You got them somewhere!” But by that time she was long gone. And so ends the brief yet weird story of the cucumber lady.

Thoughts From Walking

Everyone knows I love to take my walks. After three years of taking almost daily walks, I have just a few things to share.

-If you are walking your dog and it comes sniffing/drooling/barking/growling/bearing teeth or just getting too close to me, don’t say “Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you’ How do you know? Siegfried and Roy couldn’t keep their tiger from ripping a face off, and they’re professionals. Why should I trust you complete stranger?

-I’m going to start putting razor blades on the bottom of my walking shoes so I can slice the garden hoses of inconsiderate people who let their sprinkler just completely drench the sidewalk.

-Fat guys love to do their lawn work without a shirt on. The rest of the world does not like this.

-I’m pretty sure 84% of Ice Cream Truck Drivers have a felony arrest record.

-When I see two neighbors who have signs for competing political candidates, I always like to imagine them arguing to the point of the cops being called.

-You can always tell which houses are selling drugs….always.

-If it’s getting towards dark and you have to go through the park, put on your ‘Maybe that’s a cell phone in my pocket…maybe it’s a gun’ face.

-The kid to parent ratio that I see while walking?? 30 Billion to Zero.

-UPS Drivers always wave to me. FedEx driver’s do not. Therefore, FedEx driver’s must be total assholes.

-It makes my stomach hurt when I walk past each house and can point out every item that was purchased at an Aco Hardware.

-Even after all the garbage cans have been collected on garbage day, the neighborhood still smells like blood and fish carcasses. Disgusting.

-If you honk your horn at me, odds are I will flip you off.

-There are a lot of people out there who have that ‘If given the chance would properly murder another human’ look to them.

-Middle aged women in South Warren love Looney Tunes shirts/leather jackets

-Everyone has that compulsion to run over and just kick a For Sale sign.

-There is nothing more sinister than a coin operated car wash.

-When I see kids get off the school bus, and then into their parents car, which takes them to the house, I just know they’re gonna end up fat.

-You just don’t see roller skates anymore

-When I see a basketball game in the street, there’s always one person texting. Put the phone down, be a part of the team buddy. I mean, they’re just asking for the ball to smack them right in the face.

-I see Swanson’s trucks almost daily. I don’t know a single person who get’s Swanson’s delivered though.

-You’d be surprised how many people look up at the sky when they hear airplanes. It just never gets old I guess.

-When I pass someone and say hello and they don’t say hello back, I want to punch them hard in their lower back as they walk away.

-Most of the handwriting I see in sidewalk chalk seems suspiciously too good to be a child’s.

-Why do pairs of flip flops keep ending up on the side of the road? Seriously, I see this all the time. How can you leave the house with shoes on, come back bare foot and not notice?

-My biggest mailbox fear? That if I open it, lots of wasps will come flying out.

-I saw a ‘hefty’ couple walking recently. I smiled and remarked to myself that it was nice that they were being active together. As I passed them, I saw they were carrying a pizza.

-I once saw a woman rush out of a house to her car in her underwear to grab a duffel bag. Completely redefined ‘Walk Of Shame’ for me.

-Please don’t stand on the front porch and yell at your ex-husband on the phone.

I could go on and on, but I think I’ll stop right here. I’ll have to do a part two about walking real soon.