Chicago "Dibs"

My wife refuses to let me participate in the coveted, Chicago tradition called “Dibs.”

Here’s the picture definition:

We currently have over two feet of snow on the ground here in Chicago.

And, let me tell you that’s no easy chore to dig out, especially when the plows throw another two feet right on top of your curb.

After a couple hours of digging through snow and ice to create a perfect little space for your car to fit, and for everyone to enjoy a snow-free entrance into the kid-caravan, you feel like you’ve climbed Mount Everest.

And there’s nothing worse than coming home to find some two-faced prick parked directly in your spot.

So, Chicagoans started putting lawn chairs in the street to call “dibs” on their spot

Stuffed animals

And even robbing innocent old-folks of their walkers to use to claim “dibs” on their spot.

Genius!! I know!!!

So after Snowmageddon  2011, I dug a nice snow-free home for our car and then started lugging a couple lawn chairs to the curb to use whenever one of us took the car.

My wife quickly popped her head out of the door and screamed, “what the hell are you doing with those?”

In a manly man caveman style I said, “Me protect spot. Me work hard. Me dig in snow, get sweaty. If car go vroom me put chair in spot so no one take. Me get angry if spot gone. You go make dinner….protect kids! You make self pretty for manly man husband!”

She wasn’t a huge fan of that.

In fact, I was told, “putting lawn chairs in the road doesn’t promote neighborly relations!”

I immediately reminded her that the people on this block who are actual human beings already know us and would never park in front of our house. The rest…well...the can burn!

I lost the fight

And as a result, we have access to my neatly shoveled spot 80% of the time.

The other 20% of the time I’m out late at night shoveling as much snow as I can on their car.

One day I’ll have balls enough to stand up to the wife and tell her that she can….

Hold on, I’ll finish that sentence in a second…the wife’s looking.



The Wifey & I Have a Talk

Wifey: “I did this for an entire freakin’ summer you douche!”

Me: “I don’t know how in the hell you pulled this off. Were you on crack the whole time or what? I mean, I’m two minutes from jumping off a bridge.”

Wifey: “That’s why men could NEVER birth children.”

Me: “Fuck yeah we couldn’t!!! The world as we know it wouldn’t exist. Humans would have died out centuries ago. We wouldn’t be having this conversation cause I’d be a tiny worthless sperm cell sitting in front of the egg all: “screw that dude, you go ahead…I’m good. I’ll just take pictures of you being all bad-ass and put it on your Facebook page!”

Wifey: “Speaking of Facebook, you seriously need to be more careful about what you put on there. People there know who you are. It’s not Twitter jackass.”

Me: “Say that shit on Twitter…people will cut you woman.”

Wifey: “If Grayson ever calls me ‘woman’ cause he over-hears you saying that to me I swear you’ll need to wear a cup around me for a year.”

Me: “Look – you’re getting off the point. Three days!! Three day’s I’ve taken the kids sledding. And today I added a third child. And there was crying…anger…crying…ambulances…more crying. But it’s only been three days. How the hell did you do it for three months?”

Wifey: “Seriously – snow and ice and you want a medal?”

Me: “And when I got home I made snacks. The children loved the peanut buttery snacks. And TV was on. And all was good. Serenity rained down upon the land. And then Grayson came down stairs crying like a baby cause your freakin’ “mini-me” daughter socked him in the eye for trying to teach her how to say “the!” The simplest word on the planet – “the!!!” Well, next to “a.”

Wifey: “She hit him in the eye? What did you do?!”

Me: “I Googled ‘daughter hits brother in eye’ and a ton of videos came up. And they were so awesome. So then I Skyped my brother to show him some of these videos so I could see his reaction. It was hilarious. Actually – get the lap-top you HAVE to see this one...”

Wifey: “You seriously need medication you ADD bastard! What’s wrong with you?”

Me: “Oh, no…it’s cool. The kids made up and were making art projects by the time I got off Skype! In fact, they made you a Valentines card!”

Wifey: “For the record – when I leave in the morning for work…I leave scared for my children’s lives!”

Me: “You’re taking me all wrong. I just wanted to say that I appreciate everything you did as a stay-at-home-mom for a year. I’ve been doing it for not even two weeks and I hurt. I hurt everywhere. And I appreciate you.”

Wifey: “No!”

Me: “No what?”

Wifey: “No. No we cannot have sex tonight. I still have to write like 30 thank you notes from Christmas.”

Me: “Damn you and your ninja mind-tricks. How in the hell did you know?!”

Wifey: “You’re like the cat, dumb-ass. You only come around all happy and caring and stuff when you want to be fed. In your case, when you want some action. Back off dude!”

Me: “No, seriously. I appre-ci-ate you!!!”

Wifey: “It….ain’t….happ-en-ing!!!”

Me: “I took your children to see the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie woman! Baby Jesus…that should get me sex for 6 weeks straight!”

Wifey: “’Your children?’ Really…you just dropped the ‘your’ word in talking about ‘our’ children? And also – idiot-boy - I was there, too! We shared the pain together!”

Me: “Holy shit you saw that movie too?! I swear to god…if I ever see anything as awful as that again…I told you I appreciate you right?”

Wife: “You seriously scare me. And, No!!!”

Me: “Fine! The appreciative train has left the station. You’re gonna have to work for it now!”

Wifey: “Damn. That sucks. And you said we weren’t doing Christmas gifts this year. Hey – can you toss me that pillow before you leave the room? That’d be great!”