How Santa Will Make My Son An Episode Of Intervention

It’s the holidays!

And you know how I know?

Because everyone’s becoming just a bit more of an asshole than they normally are. Even the kids! Hell, the dog has even gotten into the holiday spirit by gnawing on the strap of my man-purse I carry to work every day.

He’s never done that before!

Ahhh the holidays. When people pepper-spray you for buying video games at half-price at a Wal-Mart instead of doing what you should normally do at Wal-Mart….bring your best camera and search for great pictures to upload to www.peopleofwalmart.com.

I found a catalogue over Thanksgiving weekend the daughter had taken a liking to. Upon opening it I thought, “oh cool, she’s circled a few things in……oh…oh she’s circled everything in here.”

The son is still an incredibly devoted believer in Santa. Which sucks for two reasons…

1) It’s gonna break his heart and be rough as hell on him the day he finds out that fat bastard is really his MILF mom tossing extra un-wrapped gifts under the tree late at night while his drunk dad stands naked next to her whispering loudly, “just look at it…I’m making it look like helicopter blades!!”

I can’t help but see an episode of Intervention 20 years from now when my son’s all cracked-out, crying on national TV saying his addiction started when he learned Santa wasn’t real.

2) He thinks he can get whatever in the hell he wants. All “I gotta do is ask Santa!”

It’s like a huge middle finger being jammed in our faces when the boy asks for an iPhone, we rightfully say no, and he responds with that. It makes me want to out Santa right then and there.

But then we wouldn’t get away with my favorite phrase which keeps him in line, “really? You’re gonna give your sister a swirly in that toilet while Santa’s watching? Wow man…you’ve got balls of steel.”

Then there comes the wife. I procrastinate. I’ll occasionally look at commercials showing other rock-star husbands blowing the socks off their wife with cars, jewelry, vacuum cleaners and more. I can’t afford a new car, the wife sells all the jewelry I buy her and I might as well cut my own throat before buying her a vacuum cleaner.

So I wait. And wait.

And wait.

Until a couple days before Christmas and decide to fight the crowds. Bitching the whole time about finding no place to park, the long lines waiting to check out and the check-out ladies being rude because I had the gall to actually purchase something from them today.

I bitch about not being thanked as I hold the door for some jack-wad whose arms were full and mumble angrily to myself as I get stuck in endless shopping traffic.

And it’s at that last stoplight that I realize….the holidays and I need each other. Like my future cracked-out son needs his drugs, I need the holidays to be angry about something. I thrive off the rush of anger that I got on December 22 and 23 when I’m last-second-shopping for my wife. It makes me feel alive. It makes me…

LOVE THE HOLIDAYS!!!

Time for New Threads

Ask anyone I know and they’ll tell you—I desperately need new clothes.

Hell, my good friend @momomatics did a three-part series about a sweater I wore every day for almost four months when I was unemployed.

My favorite National Geographic shirt has a hole in each armpit.

The shirt I wore when my seven-year-old was born and still wear now has a bleach spot on the front.

The grey version of that shirt has white elbows from being so worn out.

And the crotch of my only pair of jeans blew out after giving me a good few years of love.

The rest of my wardrobe…a few dress clothes and tons of running shirts which smell like death.

My new job is a bit relaxed. Most days I’ll be able to wear jeans and a dress shirt or polo. So, I had to go shopping.

Shopping for clothes is like asking me to change the neighbor-kid’s diaper while watching Caillou, listening to Oprah, and eating asparagus all at the same time. I loathe shopping.

From the second I hit the front door I feel like everyone’s watching me. Like all the professional shoppers are eyeing my every move and scoring me on a approach to the pants rack, my ability to properly sift through the clearance rack, or understand that stoned washed jeans went out-of-style two decades ago.

My spontaneous decision making shows through when I’m clothes shopping. I’ll see a pair of jeans and quickly go try them on. Then I’ll see another pair of jeans and go try those on. Then another…and another. Within 15 minutes I’m sweating and just walking around the store half nude trying shit on at the racks.

I have a hard time with the jeans being sold these days. (Holy shit I sounded old just then.) They’re cut so damn low. So I keep hiking them up and my “package” gets all bunched up to one side to the point where I look like I’m some kind of pervert douchebag thrusting his junk out to the public.

And of course the wifey took off as soon as we walked in the door so I’m making really bad, spontaneous fashion decisions on my own.

After 20 minutes at Khols I’d picked out two pairs of jeans, some new boxer briefs, and a belt. Thirty minutes later I found the wifey and we bolted to Old Navy – the Mecca of teenage low-budget hipster wanna-be’s. All I wanted was to buy a variety of colored polos. Five minutes later I’m standing in line and the wifey comes walking up staring at my wadded-up pile of un-purchased shirts like I was holding a nude picture of Rosie O’Donnell.

“Seriously? Black, brown, and navy blue? Could you pick any more drab, darker colors?,” she asks as a half-dozen people around me look at my selections, then at me.

“I wear black…you know everything I wear is freakin’ black or dark. It matches that cloud over my head,” I said. Then reluctantly put the brown back and grabbed a dark red.

When I got home later I put the jeans on for the wifey and got a “oh….oh no. Oh I don’t like those at all. Wow. Well…I guess they’re OK, I’m just not used to seeing you wear something that’s in style I guess.”

I love her honesty…I just wish I could have heard it when I was standing half nude at the jeans rack in the middle of Kohls while receiving 2’s and 3’s out of a possible high score of 10 in the category “knowing when you shouldn’t be making these types of decisions on your own or without a female at your side.”