Working From Home Makes Me Stabby

For years I used to be envious of those who work from home.

I used to imagine them waking at 8:59 a.m., hair in Einstein mode as they walked down stairs to log onto the computer.

No lines to the coffee maker or having to fake interest as that annoying co-worker shows you 231 freshly printed pictures of their 4-year-old kid’s birthday party the day before.

The joy of being able to stroll upstairs and relax for the morning bathroom break without worrying about Bob sitting down in the stall next to you and blowing a hole in the back of the toilet.

Well let me be the first to tell you it’s not so grand.

You don’t believe me do you? Fine!

Here’s a few highlights of how my day went yesterday.

Let me first set the stage. We have a dog (it’s my wife’s, I don’t claim it), a cat, a daughter who attends half-day kindergarten, a neighbor’s kid that hangs out during the day (which is cool…he’s a good dude), and my wife also works from home four days out of the week, part-time.

6:45 – 7:55 a.m. – Alarm goes off. I wake the boy, make his lunch, feed him, tell him 157 times to take a bite of cereal, and then drop him off at school.

8:14 a.m. – Go to the grocery because we have no bread, milk, or cat food.

8:40 a.m. – Log into work.

8:42 a.m. – Let the dog outside because he rang his bell by the door which means he wants out.

8:44 a.m. – Let the dog back inside because he’s barking…..at nothing.

9:32 a.m. – Step outside to take a call from the boss because my daughter’s screaming because she doesn’t want to wear the shirt her mother’s telling her to wear.

10:02 a.m. – Tear-ass down the street after my wife’s dog which my daughter let out of the front door.

10:24 a.m. – Go to the bathroom.

10:26 a.m. – Stand up from the bathroom before finishing because the neighbor’s kid is jumping up and down outside the door screaming “I’m gonna have an accident Justin!!! Hurry!!!”

10:36 a.m. – The dog rings his bell to be let outside.

10:37 a.m. – Let the dog back in because he’s barking at the wind.

11:00 a.m. – Step in cat puke filled with pieces of our indoor plants he’s eating.

11:11 a.m. – Lose Internet connection because the wife decided to rearrange her desk and unplug the Wi-Fi without warning me.

11:34 a.m. – Apologize to the other professionals on the conference call I’m on because my daughter just walked in the door and screamed “Macy’s in the house!!!!!”

11:45 a.m. – Take daughter to school.

12:05 p.m. – Shun the dog for chewing a hole through my wife’s sandals while I was out taking the daughter to school.

12:30 p.m. – Ask the wife if she’s up for a little afternoon “action.”

12:31 p.m. – Go back to my desk excited because the wife said “not today” which means maybe tomorrow!!

12:46 p.m. – Run to the front window because the high-school drop-out drug dealing 16-year-old kid is fighting with his girlfriend on his front lawn again.

12:58 p.m. – Yell down to the wife that he dog just peed on kitchen rug….again.

1:09 p.m. – Strongly consider buying a bottle of Jack and killing it.

And it goes on…..There’s four more hours of this.

I’m seriously considering making the local coffee shop my new office. Although I’m so damn ADD I’d spend the entire day people-watching and being distracted by bright shiny things.

So maybe I’ll visit the dog-pound instead.



Doomsday? Tomorrow's Not Convenient For Me

So apparently tomorrow as each time zone reaches 6 p.m. the end of the world as we know it will come crashing down.

I was driving in my car when I first heard about this impending doom. I was listening to NPR when the story came on.

This guy they interviewed was 110% confident that as each time zone reached 6 p.m. it would start to experience horrific earth quakes which would soon be followed by the skies filling with the “believers” as they ascended into the heavens while the rest of us douches were left to live “hell on earth.”

When the story ended I was still driving. A drop of sweat trickled down my forehead to my eyebrow before falling from my face and landing on my crotch making it look like I had a pee stain on my pants.

My heart was racing ever so slightly like when you’re taking a shower and the wife walks in and for a split second you believe it’s because she’s going to hop in there with you.

And a tiny bit of fear crawled down my spine the same way it did the first time I overheard my parents having sex.

Logically I knew this all couldn’t be true.

Was there really some elaborate code weaved throughout the words of the Bible telling people that on May 21, 2011 the earth was gonna crack like an egg, morph into hell and launch the good souls into the air like bottle rockets?

And why 6 p.m.? Because they wanted to piss-off the people left behind by interrupting their dinners, drinking, and trash TV with lava flows and death?

And what about people that are flying in airplanes? Or the space shuttle docked at the space station right now? Did they manage to find some cosmic loophole? Does that mean they just get a free pass?

And the logistics of all this is really driving me bat-shit.

What if you’re a good soul but happen to be in your basement? Do you get pulled through two floors of wood, beams, roof, tile and all the stuff in your house on your journey to heaven?

Or does your soul just leave your body and rise leaving your flesh and bones to simply collapse to the ground?

Cause that would be freaky as hell if you happen to be standing around a whole group of people who are good souls.

And what if you’re masturbating and your soul rises from your body leaving your corpse naked, vulnerable, and unsatisfied only to be found by your wife….or mom?

What if “become a believer and one with the lord” was on your Bucket List but you just haven’t gotten to it yet? Do I get a free pass?

I guess only time will tell.

I’m sure I’ll be a little on edge that afternoon like I was on New Year’s Eve 1999.

But logic has me confident it’ll be just another day of chasing the nippers, checking out the wife’s attributes, quoting the Honey Badger video, and showing the neighbors my favorite lawn dances like “the sprinkler” and “the shopping cart.”

I guess the only way I’m ever going to buy-in to the doomsday thing and really start to panic is if an announcement is made that Dick Cheney would like to address the world at 6:30 p.m. on the 21^st.

Then I’ll know I’m fucked.



Stopping The Time Continuum

My son is slowly killing me!

It’s true. And he’s doing it with one simple little phrase “hold on, one sec!”

With that one little phrase the boy truly feels the time continuum comes to screeching halt.

Parents slow to a grind. Soccer games, swimming lessons, school, homework…everything that he should be helping to arrive to on-time is slammed with a huge “pause” button and shelved for kick-ass things like shuffling through eight-foot-high stacks of Pokemon cards, SpongeBob, and burying his sister in pillows.

Of course if I were being truthfully honest I’d take a portion of the blame. After all, I am the dumb-ass that waited until it was time to go before I ask the boy to stop what he’s doing, stand, put on a coat, and walk out of the large rectangular door.

No, I clearly must secretly enjoy the pain and still go by adult time rather than children time.

Instead I say, “OK, grab your shoes and coat and let’s go!”

Son: “Hold on, one sec daddy.”

He then immediately throws on the jittery, jerky, fast-moving motions like he’s going as fast as he can to finish what he’s doing so he can leave as per my request.

His eyes are darting all over the room like he’s trying to locate his shoes and coat, but in reality in his tiny little brain he’s thinking, “OK, if I stand here long enough looking like I might implode he’ll leave to go get my shoes for me giving me enough time to finish watching SpongeBob while I give the dog Macy’s favorite dolly to chew on while we’re gone!”

Me: “Grayson, seriously…you’re shoes are right next to you. Put them on your feet and let’s go!”

Grayson: “OK daddy…one sec!”

This is when he quickly runs up the stairs.

Me: “Oh my god!!! Where in the world are you going son?!!”

He then throws on the fake urgent mumbled voice knowing damn good and well I can’t hear a word he’s saying and that I’ll be way too lazy to go up the stairs after him.

Me: “Dude!!!!! I’m going to carry you out the door in one second!!”

He then comes running down the stairs with absolutely nothing in his hands, blows by me, and heads to the table to start shuffling through his Pokemon cards.

Which makes sense because in his mind time has literally stopped. The bitching and stomping his old man is doing is not really happening. The clock hasn’t moved one second.

He dropped the “hold on, one sec” so he’s got all the time in the world.

Meanwhile the blood has rushed to my head leaving my fingers numb, a gray hair pops to the surface of my massive head, and my heart is pounding out of my chest as I try like hell to keep my cool.

This is the point in which I shock the hell out of him by breaking his little time stopping trick, grab him by the back of his shirt and physically move him towards his shoes and the door.

Which is always met with, “OK DADDY!!! I was just about to get my shoes….geeeze!!!”

And now, I’m an asshole, the worst father ever, and in his mind, the poster-child for lack of patience.

Tomorrow I think I’ll wake him up at 5 a.m. to start getting him ready for the 8 a.m. start-of-school bell.

Think he’ll learn his lesson then?

Yeah, me either.



The Daughter's Solution To Death

It’s been a few months since my daughter’s had to deal with death.

A few months ago my son’s hamster “Teddy” took a dirty-nap a mere two months after this ordeal. We honestly didn’t think he’d live two days after that.

But then, this past Monday, she found a tiny little caterpillar. She immediately sprung into action and located a small cup to put it in. She then frantically searched for the perfect leaf for it to munch on.

Next, a toy! It needed a toy. Carefully placing an oversized piece of mulch into the cup she was satisfied until she realized she had nothing to call it!

“Ted! I’m gonna name him Ted,” she declared suddenly.

And “Ted” he became.

For the next 90 minutes Ted and my dear sweet innocent daughter were inseparable. She sat with Ted. She talked to Ted.

She gleefully encouraged Ted to make his first heroic climb up the Mt. Everest of bark mulch.

She even laughed hysterically when she finally found Ted hiding under a leaf, camouflaged and clearly playing a trick on her.

Then, it came time for school and she had to leave Ted behind. After kissing his habitat goodbye she skipped off to get her learnin’ on.

I went about my regular working from home day.

Three hours later, the kids burst into the door with the daughter leading the pack eager to show off her new friend.

And that’s when it happened.

Upon throwing open the back sliding door she screamed, “TED!!!!”

The cup had been blown over and rolled off the deck into the grass. The leaf and mulch piece were there.

Ted……was not.

She was absolutely crushed. After the entire family searched for what seemed like hours we declared Ted alive and well but back with nature again.

Secretly we knew damn well when he landed in the grass, he bumped his chest two times to the lord above and crawled his ass far far away from here.

“Ted always knew how to make me laugh mommy,” the daughter recalled shortly after through her steady flow of tears.

Three days later (yesterday) the neighborhood was alive with the sounds of joyful children when all of a sudden one yells, “a dead bird!”

My daughter’s ears perk-up and she immediately hauls-ass to the spot where a tiny, baby bird had fallen from his perch and landed head-first onto the sidewalk.

Only, it wasn’t dead. It was barely breathing as it laid there slowly dying.

The daughter immediately starts searching for a box to place it in. Crying hysterically asking for help because “I want to save it!!”

If only life were simple enough to where a box, small sample of nourishment and oversized play thing would make everything spring back to a joyous life filled with double rainbows all the way!

The wife stepped-up, hugged the little darling tightly and helped her unwillingly understand the bird was doomed.

The bird would die.

Seeing my innocent little angel learn one of life’s hardest lessons yet again was painfully difficult.

I was humbled at the way the wife made the parenting side of it look so damn easy. I was a complete waste of space during the entire thing just watching as if I were a moth on a wall.

Forty-five minutes later she was eating pizza and riding her bike up and down the block.

Ted nor the dying hairless baby bird that never had a chance were even a blip on her radar anymore.

I long for the days where the only things that concerned me could fit inside a small little container. And, once they fell out of that container, they just weren’t important anymore.

When did life get so complicated?



Oblivious In Training

You know those people who walk down the center of a grocery isle with their cart at a snale’s pace completely oblivious to the fact not a single human being can pass them?

Or that person who strolls down the middle of a parking lot causing you to slowly creep behind them while fighting the urge to floor it and enjoy the sound of them tumbling over the hood, roof, and back of your car?

Or the jackass who walks through a door a mere 4 feet in front of you and lets it swing closed without holding it for you?

Well those oblivious, brain-dead, life-suckers are what my son is turning in to.

He’s essentially a human gnat bouncing around in a wide open space utilizing his uncanny ability to land in only the most annoying spots possible.

Example 1

We were going for a bike ride the other day. The sun was out, birds were chirping, I had an amazing view of the wife’s derriere bouncing ever so slightly on her bike seat, and my son was leading the pack with his head turned around to us asking things like:

“You know that Pokemon card where the little blue guy looks all innocent and stuff? He turns into a dragon!”

“Hey dad, what happens if you fart when you’re butt’s on the seat? Will it hurt you?”

Boy: “Hey daddy, guess what?” Me: “What?” Boy: “Hahaha…you said the Nerd Word. You’re a nerd now!”

Meanwhile, bikers on the peaceful pathway are diving off to the grass, desperately grabbing their children, and giving me death looks as my son obliviously drives his death-machine down the middle of the path without looking ahead because he’s too busy trying to see my reaction as he reveals to his old man that he’s in fact a huge nerd.

Example 2

We have a dog that I didn’t want but wasn’t man-enough to say “hell no” to. Apparently dog’s poop. And apparently my son’s shoes are a magnet for said poop.

The other day I notice footprints of shit in my house. Immediately I panic, yell for the boy who’s broken the golden rule of no shoes in the house. Sure enough, there’s a massive pile of crap attached to his foot.

After explaining the golden rule….again, I then say, “please go outside and clean off your shoe.”

What does my 8-year-old boy do? He uses the back deck steps to wipe the shit off his shoe. To him, the steps were technically “outside.”

Oblivious.

So I know you’ve got good stories. Leave a comment of the most oblivious thing your little nipper does that makes you want to drop kick him/her?