Halloween Costumes

Halloween is easily my favorite holiday. There is candy, you get to dress up in whatever kind of outfit your heart desires and hardly anybody ever gets murdered by razor-blades in their Milky Way.

For someone like myself, who spends a large portion of the time upset over the fact that superpowers and interstellar travel via fancy space ships aren't real, Halloween is about as close as I'm able to get to living in a sci-fi world. Hell I'll even take a good zombie apocalypse over another week of going to work and paying bills.

The point is Halloween is awesome and my favorite, even though my wife isn't nearly as into it as I am. On the bright side, being that she doesn't care so much, she agreed to let me pick our costumes this year.

I'm not gonna sugar coat it. I spent an unnatural amount of time thinking about Halloween Costumes. I probably sat in bed and searched costumes every night before I went to sleep for a month before settling on what I wanted to do.

The thing that got me stuck for so long was this: Even though she had agreed to let me pick the costumes I've got to at least respect the fact that shes not as into Halloween as I am a little. It's all well and good for me to dress myself in a spandex Deadpool bodysuit or go as a Borg or a Dalek or something, but whatever I pick has to at least be something she recognizes and isn't so bizarre that she refuses to wear it.

So I thought long and hard about what would be a great costume, not too outrageous, and would satisfy my desire to live out my whimsical and childlike desires to dress up like cool stuff from movies.

After much consideration, I found the answer to my costume conundrum in the form of a question. What was that question?

"Who you gonna call?"  

We were gonna be the goddamn Ghosbusters for Halloween.

It was the perfect balance between nerdy and not too ridiculous that I knew it was what I wanted us to be.

The jumpsuits and stuff I could buy, and I wanted to try and make a pair of proton packs to go with the costumes.

Luckily, the internet is full of other nerds who want to make proton packs as well, so I was able to find a sweet set of schematics to follow on a site called http://www.gbfans.com/. 

I didn't think to take pictures during the process of building these things, though I really should have as it would have been great to show. I do have one picture that I took after I had cut/glued, sculpted and sawed my way through a good chunk of the building process and made the bases of the packs.

Here they are after they were put together and received their first coat of spray paint:

It took me about a month to complete both packs as well as get all the other odds and ends we needed for the costumes. In fact, I was putting finishing touches on at like 6:00pm the night of a Halloween party we were supposed to be at in an hour.

Here are the finished packs:

Emily ironed the patches onto the jumpsuits for the costumes and helped me attach the backpack frames to the pack. All in all I think the costumes came out pretty freakin' good. I had to put aside the obsessive need to make everything 100% movie accurate for the sake of time, keeping the cost of materials reasonable, and keeping everything fairly light weight. A small part of me screams inside that the guns aren't perfect and I had to use various hazard stickers I found at Lowe's instead of buying movie ones online, but I'll get over it.

Our costumes went over great, we had a bunch of folks take pictures with us, and I'm generally pleased with how everything turned out. I may be completely useless when it comes to things like fixing sink drains, remembering to make doctors appointments or responding to important mail but I'll be damned if I didn't make the crap out of some proton packs.

I've got a whole year to bask in the awesomeness in these costumes before I have to start worrying. Next year, I agreed to let her pick the costumes, and I swear to the baby Jesus I'm gonna purposefully contract polio if I have to go as something egregious like raggedy Anne and Andy.

Happy Halloween, folks.

My Wife is a Troll.

I came home from work on my Lunch break today to find my wife in the kitchen doing kitchen-ish type stuff. The smell of recently finished baked goods was heavy in the air; kind of a peanut butter doughy scent. 

I looked on one of the counters and  noticed a tray of tiny golden-brown cookies each roughly the size of a quarter. 

"What are these?" I asked.

"Try one." She responded, as she chopped vegetables for a salad, not turning to face me; Presumably to hide a look of diabolical menace. 

Thinking nothing of it, I picked one of the still warm little cookies off of the baking tray and popped it in my mouth.

It was terrible.

I tasted a faint hint of peanut butter, but other than that, the ingredients were indistinct. If I had been on one of those cooking shows where they have you try to identify a recipe by taste alone to determine gets to use their knives  and who has to do all of their cutting with a Sacajawea gold dollar,  my best guess at the ingredients would look like this:

Butt Cookies

1 1/4 cups flour

2 tablespoons peanut butter

1 pack of blackboard chalk (crushed)

14 crushed up little cardboard flavor communion wafers

1/2 can brown play-doh

Scrape the inside of a dirty microwave and just mix whatever you get into the batter

Bake 450 degrees for 12 minutes or until hard and lifeless

As I chewed and swallowed I knew I was in a very delicate position. These cookies were practically a hate crime, but saying anything negative about them was not an option. My wife is very proud when it comes to the quality of her cooking and baking.She does not react well if she thinks I don't like something she's made. Were I to even hint that a dish was not agreeable to me you'd think by her reaction that I had called her grandparents toothless hepatitis ridden slave owners or something equally disgusting, like Philadelphia Eagles fans.

No, letting her know that her cookie was an insult to the invention of the modern oven was not an option. Now was the time to maintain my best poker face and find a way out of this situation. I immediately figured I needed to somehow convince her to try one without giving any hint of my own opinion first. Assuming the horribleness of these cookies didn't drive her into a semi-catatonic state, she'd find out they awful for herself, thereby clearing me of the responsibility of being the one to say it. It was going to be a delicate and carefully executed bout of mental sparring to get her to eat one without raising her suspicions, but I knew I was capable of the task.

"What do you think?" She said.

"Why don't you try one." I replied, dodging the question like any master assassin of verbal combat would.

It was a stalemate. We stared each other down, neither one of us prepared to make the next move. 

It was like an old western; A clock tower struck high noon, townsfolk closed their shutters and vanished behind the saloon doors, a tumbleweed rolled across the kitchen floor.

Just as I was beginning to think I'd be forced to either admit the cookies were an abomination or eat another one she burst out laughing and informed me that I had in fact just been fed... a dog treat.

To be honest, I was less upset about being trolled into eating an oven warm dog cookie that tasted like dirty cardboard rolled in socks and more grateful that I was off the hook having to tell her something she baked was gross.

Some wives send adorable little note's in hidden in the pocket of their husband's coat for him to find at work. Some wives surprise their husband with something special like a nice meal. My wife tricks me into eating dog biscuits.

Touché, madame. Touché.

Star Wars

As you probably already know if you've read A Night at the Movies, my wife is not really into films or most of the general nerd stuff that I love. Recently, I was reminded of something I posted on Facebook years ago when we were apparently watching one of the original Star Wars films.

It occurred to me that it would be interesting to revisit her familiarity with one of the most beloved film franchises in all of nerd culture after all this time. Since we originally had that conversation we have grown to be each others closest companions, gotten engaged, married, and shared a life together. We have lived together and gone through the experience of moving to a new home, away from our old friends where we are each others primary lifeline in a new town. After all of that time shared together I wondered if she had absorbed any greater familiarity with Star Wars.

She had not.

I interviewed her on the plot of the original films. The following is Star Wars, as described by my wife:

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M: Okay, so walk me through the story. Start at the beginning.

E: So it opens up in a desert and its Luke Skywalker and the robots and his Aunt and Uncle cause his Dad died. And his Mom died, I guess.

M: What are the robots names?

E: R2-D2 and C3-PO

M: Okay, what happens?

E: He finds out he has the Force and he gets upset and runs away.

M: How does he find out he has the Force?

E: He can move things with his mind.

M: So he's just going along and he accidentally moves things with his mind and finds out he has the Force?

E: Yeah.

E: So he gets upset and runs away and runs into Yoda.

M: Why is he so upset?

E: His aunt and uncle kept things from him and he's upset because he doesnt understand the Force.

M Okay where are they while all this is happening?

E: Vulcan.

M: Alright, so he's on Vulcan with his Aunt and Uncle and the robots, and finds out he has the Force and runs away, and finds Yoda?

E: Yeah

M: Okay, so he finds Yoda and then what?

E: Yoda sees he needs guidance so he goes with Luke and the robots. They go to the bar.

They meet Han Solo and Chewy, and they see that blubber guy.

E: They say "Something is up" and they see Princess Leia in her sleazy outfit and they don't like it.

M: And they know shes a Princess?

E: Yeah I think Han Solo recognizes her. 

M: Okay.

E: Yeah they get her, and go on Han Solo's ship

M: Whats Han Solo's ship called?

E: ..... What's the President's plane called?

M: Air Force One?

E: Yeah That.

M: So Han Solo, Chewy, the robots, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Yoda are all Air Force One and escaped the booger guy, what do they do now?

E: They just go to space and eventually end up on a jungle planet and Yoda helps Luke learn the force. 

E: I think Luke wants to kill Darth Vader because he thinks Darth Vader killed his dad and he needs to learn the Force to fight Darth Vader.

M: So it's all because Luke wants to fight Darth Vader for killing his dad?

E: Yea.  Probably his mom too.

M: So they're on the planet and Yoda trains Luke so he can fight Darth Vader, for killing his dad-

E: And his mom.

M: And his mom.

M: So what happens next. 

E: So they go to the Death Star and they fight. There is a big room with a bridge and Luke and Darth Vader fight with their light sabers and Darth Vader is falling and says:  "Luke I'm your Father."

M:  As hes falling?

E: Yea.

E: And that's the End.

E: Oh and there are storm troopers too.

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Idiot Tantrum RSS

The Night of 1000 Dog Farts: Part 1

We have two dogs in our household. Olive is almost two years old, and we've had her since she was a puppy.

She is incredibly smart. In fact, she is rather too smart for her own good. Her intellect borders on that of an evil genius for a dog. She also has a particular food allergy to poultry so she has to be on a special fish based dog chow. That might seem like a random and superfluous detail, but it will be important later.  

Once Olive was out of the worst of her puppy phase we decided it would good for us to get a second dog.Eventually that led us to our second dog Griff. Griff is a good boy, but Griff is very stupid. He is also not in this story so I don't know why I'm even mentioning him.

Prior to officially finding a permanent second dog of our own we had been doing some fostering. It was important to Emily, and I liked reaping the benefits of having a second dog (mainly that Olive had a playmate to burn off her excess energy with so that she wasn't such a terror) without the financial responsibility of owning them ourselves. We searched around to find a foster program that we liked and started taking in dogs while they were waiting to find a home.

One of the first dogs we took in was named Riley.

Riley, like Olive was a shepherd mixed with something small. She was about 30lbs to Olive's 40 and pretty close in size. Riley also happened to share another particularly troublesome characteristic with Olive. A very high intellect for a dog.

In addition to the other traits I have already described, both Riley and Olive shared one other characteristic. An insatiable, manic drive to obtain and consume every edible substance known to dog-kind.

I could start an entire website dedicated to stories about the times Olive has broken out of or into places and devoured an entire cake- I won't as every story would end with "Then she ate the entire cake and looked like a bowling ball with feet" which would get boring after the first or second time.

Due to the fact that we had two evil geniuses in the house, hell bent at all costs to obtain and devour anything the could possibly lay their furry little mitts on, we had to take a series of security measures to prevent them from escaping whenever we left the house.

Olive is typically kept in the living room downstairs whenever we leave the house. She has a couch near the window in there that she likes to lay on. We barricade the two doorways into that room with baby gates (We started with one and now have four due to continued escape endeavors).

The baby gate dog jail is typically enough to contain Olive. Riley, we kept in the den inside a large dog crate. Due to the combination of an uncanny and diabolical ability to  escape from this crate, and Emily's paranoia about dogs breaking their neck trying to squeeze out of cages with these types of doors we latched it and had to resort to putting a combination lock on the door just to try and keep her in there.

Emily's job is one where she will work a 14 hour day, but only works about three days a week. On days when she is at work, I am typically left to my own devices from the time I get out of work until she arrives home that night.

On one such occasion during Riley's stay with us I went to the gym in the late afternoon, securing both dogs in their designated areas before leaving. I went to the gym, worked out, and came home. All in all I was probably out of the house for two hours.

Upon returning I was greeted by two things: The first was Riley, happily coming to see me at the door.

This confused me, as Riley was not supposed to be greeting me at the door-Riley was supposed to be padlocked inside a crate in the other room. 

The second thing was the sight of our house transformed into a desolate wasteland of dog poo. 

Imagine a barren expanse of endless depressing landscape as far as the eye can see. Nothing but bombed out buildings and ruin in all directions. Imagine that you are standing at the center of this hellscape as the crumbling remains of society decay around you, leaving you to question if it would not be better if you had never existed at all, so that you would never have had to suffer the misery of the sight before your very eyes.

Now imagine that, plus everything is covered in dog shits. 

There were no fewer than eight full sized dog poos and urine puddles scattered throughout the first two floors of the house. I truly and honestly do not understand how a single 30lb dog crapped that much, that many times in such a short period of time.

I went into the den to see if I had forgotten to properly secure Riley in the crate, and on my life I swear to you that when I went in there and looked, the door to the crate was still closed and latched and the padlock was still on there. 

That dog somehow got out of a closed, latched and padlocked crate without opening the door. To this day I frankly just don't know how she did it. I can only presume that she has the ability to teleport.

I went into the kitchen next and discovered the source of all the pooing. Riley had gotten onto the counter, pulled down her bag of chow along with Olives special fish food and apparently proceeded to undertake a continuous chain of eating and crapping for the entirety of the time I was out of the house.

I picked up the chow and went to let Olive out of captivity from the other room. I put them both outside so that they wouldn't be in the way while I cleaned up the mess, and because I didn't trust that Riley was finished evacuating the foods she had eaten.

It took me a solid 45 minutes to locate and clean up all of the messes scattered throughout both the downstairs and upstairs of the house. What struck me the entire time was that instead of the messes becoming sloppy or Riley having thrown anything up she seriously appeared to have eaten, processed and crapped out a weeks worth of food over the course of two hours. 

Science may never unravel the mysteries of that dog's digestive system.

Little did I know at this point that the nightmare was just beginning.... 

A Night at the Movies (or: Why My Wife Will Probably Develop A Drinking Problem)

One of the things upon which my wife and I do not see eye to eye is going to the movies. 

One thing I will establish is that my wife is not big on movies in the first place. 

"What?!" you might ask "What kind of person doesn't like movies? Is she a serial killer? Did she suffer some sort of movie related emotional trauma as a child? Was her sense of fun surgically removed?"

To answer your oddly detailed series of questions in order:

1. I don't believe so, but if I disappear mysteriously, start asking questions,

2. Not that I am aware of

3. Maybe.

She has a hard time sitting through movies as she either feels like we've wasted two hours of our day not doing anything productive, or she gets put to sleep.

Trying to get her to actually go out to a movie theater is even worse. I think the idea of wasting three or four hours of her day not doing something constructive combined with the idea that we're paying money to do it makes her want to  bang her head into a wall.

Also I think watching me shovel pretzel nuggets into my face like a pig makes her a little sad.

There are a few reasons that this makes things hard on us sometimes. Firstly, I love movies. Watching movies and specifically going out to the theater has always been one of my favorite activities. I end up not seeing more than one or two movies a year because either she flat out refuses to go, or I feel guilty dragging her along somewhere she has no interest in going.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, pretzel nuggets may in fact be the single greatest nugget shaped food of all time. I LOVE pretzel nuggets more than a grown man reasonably has the right to. If it was possible for a man to enter into a polygamous marriage with one woman and one bite sized cheese dipped bread product I would join that cult, re-marry my wife, and take pretzel nuggets as my second life partner. If you have never had pretzel nuggets, go to literally any movie right this second, get some pretzel nuggets, eat them and then come back and finish reading this blog. I'll wait.

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Done? Good. If you are a decent human being you've now just had a life altering experience and are filled with an overwhelming sense of euphoria.

If you didn't like the pretzel nuggets you are a child molesting carnival of tortoise excrement that probably thinks Hitler "made some good points". You disgust me.

Anyway. You can see how my love of movies and pretzel nuggets clashes with her general disinterest in movies and dislike of me eating things that will slowly kill me.

However, once in a while there will come a time when the stars align in such away that something miraculous happens. For one reason or anther my wife will be willing to go out to the movies. Maybe there is something out that she is interested in, or maybe she is just throwing me a bone by going with me so I shut up for a few months.

This was one of those times, but we were in a further crisis. We each wanted to see a different movie. Because I am a sane and reasonable person I wanted to see Jurassic World. She, being a girl and clearly not understanding that there was a movie currently playing that featured Dinosaurs, wanted to see Pitch Perfect 2.

Now look. I've got nothing against Pitch Perfect 2. I more or less enjoyed the first one, and I'll happily watch anything with Anna Kendrick in it, but I can almost guarantee that unless there is a MAJOR plot twist, there will not even be one dinosaur in Pitch Perfect 2.

We seem to have reached an impasse here. I want to go to the movies and for once she is willing to go with me. But she wants to see Pitch Perfect 2 and while I'd normally not mind going to something that she had more of an interest in... dinosaurs.

Like all great disputes in our relationship. This would have to be settled by fate. Time to flip a quarter.

The rules are simple. Whenever we can't agree on what to do or have an important decision to make like if we should go home and cook dinner or buy Salad Works, we flip the quarter. One and done, fate decides and we live with the consequences. Two out of three is for little bitches.

So we flip our coin. Heads is Jurassic World, Tails is Pitch Perfect 2. C'mooon fate...

F#@k.

Whelp It looks like we'll be going to see Pitch Perfect 2. Fair is fair, we let fate decide, and I lost. I am a man of honor and I will respect the sanctity of the coin flip.

But if you think I'm going to do so quietly, you are very wrong. So very, deliciously wrong. I'll see Pitch Perfect 2. But I'll do so under protest.

So let's see. How can I go to this singing lady movie whilst still making a statement that the addition of Dinosaurs to literally any situation would make it instantly more awesome. 

I head to Target because when I need to buy something for an elaborate and foolish prank I always head to Target. They never let me down and this time was no different. Lets see what we've got:

Naturally. Jurassic Park logo fake vintage looking t-shirt. That is practically a given. What other Dino stuff you got for me Target?

Foamy T-rex head lookin' hand puppet thing? Check. I can hardly imagine going to the movies without this. How else would I hold my drink if it got too cold for my hand? What would I use to make loud 'OM NOM NOM' noises while rooting around in my popcorn? This is a good start, but so far I'm just a guy with a t-shirt and a puppet and I'm pretty sure that's how you get on To Catch a Predator. We can do better.

Small inaccurately painted plastic dinosaur figure? Yep. Now I have something to hold in my other hand while I watch the movie. Along with my dino-fist hand I've practically added enough Dinosaurs to make Pitch Perfect 2 just as good as seeing the real Jurassic Park. Almost done but something is still missing... I really need an accessory to tie the whole thing together, but what?

Safari hat. Nailed it. It'll be like I literally stepped off the screen of Jurassic World and wandered into the nearest adjacent theater which just happened to be a movie about singing ladies.

Whelp now I'll be ready for our date to the movies and my wife can add another thing to her future divorce case against me/topics of discussion in therapy. 

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   UPDATE

I wrote this piece whilst still in the planning phases of operation: Make a fool of yourself at the movies. 

Specifically. I wrote this in the couple of days between buying all of the dino-swag and when we were supposed to go to the movies. Best laid plans, as they say. I purchased all of the stuff without accounting for my wife's ability to lose enthusiasm for going to the movies.

We ended up not going to the movies when we had planned to, and in fact, it took so long before guilt at depriving me of a movie trip after promising me one overwhelmed her, that not only was Pitch Perfect 2 no longer in theaters, Jurassic World was nearly finished it's run by the time we actually went.

Her procrastination worked out in my favor really, as it took her so long to agree to go that we ended up getting to see Jurassic World anyway. Point, me.

I did however find myself in a dilemma. I had already done all the leg work and spent money on this idiotic gag, but the fact that we were going to end up seeing my movie anyway kind of ruins the joke. I had to ask myself very seriously what course of action to take at this juncture? Do I admit defeat and accept that timing has rendered the punchline to my joke obsolete? Do I shrug and forever let my plan have been the fond memory of an unfunny and humiliating thing I almost did once just for the sake of annoying my wife?

Nope.

I wore that Jurassic Park t-shirt, Safari hat and t-rex hand puppet and carried that little green inaccurately painted dino-toy like a champion. 

While the original joke may have been ruined in that I didn't get to sit in a theater full of enthusiastic acaplla fans in full dino-gear, I did get to go to a movie dressed up in a crappily slapped together outfit one might expect to see from someone standing in line for a midnight release a full month after the movie opened been out.

Since, as stated the movie had nearly completed its theatrical run, there was almost nobody besides us there. In the end it may only have been funny for me, but isn't that what the point was all along really? Plus to be annoying to Emily and that, I assure you, went off without a hitch.

Notice her resolutely ignoring me as I loudly hummed the Jurassic Park theme song at the side of her head with the puppet. 

If you look closely though, you can see her planning my murder.

How I Ended Up With a Box of Pulled Pork and an Avocado

I had the opportunity to perform a random act of kindness towards a stranger at the grocery store today.

I did not perform said act of kindness.

To start, I like to think that I'm a good person. I possess what I would consider to be the qualities of a good person; I'm generally friendly, I try to do things which are helpful to others, I've never lit an orphanage on fire, I go to the upstairs bathroom to poo so that my wife does not have to pay for my sins... I could continue but I think you get the idea. I am, for the most part not a complete iguana scrotum of a human being.  

Nice as I like to think I am, and as much as I would like to pride myself on being the type of person who would do an unsolicited charitable thing for a stranger, I am also cripplingly uncomfortable with even the most casual social interaction with strangers. 

This has been the case for as long as I can remember. In fact my father takes particular glee in recounting tales of how I would glare murderously at any adult that would attempt to interact with me when I was as young as two years old. Don't believe me? This is my second grade school photo.

Yeah.

I specifically remember that the photographer was overly cheery and made way too much of an effort to be my pal and get me to smile. This, naturally, made me so uncomfortable that I resorted to staring unhappily at her until she gave up and just took the picture.

Now, realistically, I don't think I was ever legitimately an angry hateful little bastard. I mostly just remember being shy and uncomfortable, but lacking a developed sense of socially acceptable behavior to mask it.

As I've grown older, I don't particularly feel like I've become any less uncomfortable around other people, but I've definitely developed the ability to generate the appropriate facial expressions, inflection of voice, and general level of pleasantness not to make people think I'm some sort of sociopath. Retreating behind a stone faced deadpan might fly when you are six but it certainly doesn't when you are a grown ass man.  

Now, I am not sure if this ability to interact socially is something that comes naturally to most people, but it typically requires a herculean amount of mental effort for me to accomplish. I am usually left feeling like a trauma victim for several days after any major amount of socializing with people I don't know all that well. It's not that I dislike socialization, it just takes a lot of energy out of me and I need to recharge afterwards.

I detail all of this general social discomfort because I believe it sets the stage for understanding the following story:

On the particular day this occurred, I ran into the grocery store next to our gym after my workout in order to pick up a gallon of milk Emily had asked me to bring home. This grocery store is one of those ones where they shave costs by doing things like putting coin slots on carts to make sure  people restock them, don't offer any type of bags for the groceries they sell and sell meat and produce that is of questionable quality at best. It is however cheap, so as long as we avoid the iffy stuff it's great for getting the basics.

Though the level of detail I've gotten into about our grocery habits is probably superfluous, the fact that this is one of those "cost saving" stores does relate to the story.

I enter the store, grab my gallon of milk and head over to the register to check out.

There is a woman ahead of me at the checkout when I set my gallon of milk down on the conveyor thing. She is far enough along in the process of her transaction that all of her items have been scanned and she is working on the pin pad.

The conversation underway as I arrive goes something like this:

Cashier: "Is that a credit card? We can't accept credit here, only debit or cash."

Woman: "Oh, yeah I think it is, it might be a combo credit/debit though..."

Cashier: "Ok. As long as you've got a pin number it should work."

*woman swipes card, and fusses with pin pad for a few seconds, discovering that it's not going to work*

Cashier: "Ok, well you can try to call the number on the card and set up your pin if you don't know it. That sometimes works..."

Apparently as a method of keeping costs down, this store does not accept credit to avoid the processing fees associated with them. This woman apparently only had a credit card on her as a means of attempting to make her purchase.

 As the interaction between the cashier and the woman ahead of me takes place, I am undergoing a silent battle within myself; It only looks like the woman has a couple of items, her entire transaction is probably under fifteen bucks. I could just offer to pay for the groceries along with my milk and do a good deed for this person. I am conflicted however.

 Firstly, the cart is partially blocked from my view so I can't be entirely sure that there are not sixty-eight cans of soup, an entire turkey and a gold Rolex in that cart that I just cant see.

If I make a move and the contents of this cart turn out to be more expensive than I am prepared to pay, I'm now forced to either rescind my offer like a total doucher or blow my own weekly grocery budget on this lady and her unreasonable amount of soup.

Additionally and more prominently, I am highly paranoid that if I say something, I'll end up looking awkwardly eager to buy her groceries for her. This, I am convinced, will for some reason cause everyone in the store to think I am a giant creepy sex pervert/murder rapist who chooses his victims based on buying them foodstuffs.

I honestly don't know if this is a fear that other people experience, but the number of times that I haven't done something nice for a stranger because I'm truly afraid they will think I'm using whatever the situation may be as my opener before trying to lure them into my windowless bang-van is a little out of control.

I live in constant fear of saying, doing, or just generally existing in such a way that leads people to think I am some sort of molester.

As this woman struggles to successfully complete her transaction I am crippled by indecision, social awkwardness, and the paralyzing fear of strangers thinking I am a creep. I am a prisoner inside my own body. I want to be helpful but I cannot force myself to move or speak, no matter how hard I try to will myself into action. 

Before I can internally spur myself to action the woman gives up on making her purchase, apologizes to the cashier for wasting her time and turns to leave the store.

I move up with my gallon of milk and am able to get a good look at the now abandoned contents of the woman's cart. It isn't very much at all. The shame of my inability to act gentlemanly combined with the fact that the woman was now no longer standing there inspires me to make a desperate attempt to rectify the situation.

I quickly tell the cashier to just ring up my milk with the rest of that lady's stuff before she clears the transaction saying that I'd run out and see if I could catch her and give it to her. 

I pay for my milk and the items in the cart along with one of those plastic bags they'll sell you for fifteen cents if you forgot to bring your own ahead of time before running out of the store to the parking lot after the woman.

It was too late. By the time I made it out, there was no sign of her. It then occurred to me that even if there had been, I'm not entirely sure I could have identified her anyway. I had been so consumed with my own thoughts and trying to see what was in the cart while she had been standing there, I hadn't really taken note of what she looked like or was wearing.

I do a mental recap to see if I can recall her appearance from my subconscious.

My subconscious is a dick, and is unhelpful as usual. 

Defeated, I returned to my car with my gallon of milk and unwanted groceries and went home.

And that is how I ended up with two limes, an avocado, some rice, and a box of frozen, microwavable pulled pork.  

Autocorrect makes me Harpy

Sometimes autocorrect is super embarrassing, like when you text your mother something about whores when you were just trying to tell you how long you had left at work before you'd be coming over to help move a dresser.

Sometimes it happens to someone else, in which case it's always hilarious.

My wife had the misfortune of having autocorrect sabotage her request for dinner.

Now I'm sure what she meant to say was that she wanted me to make her a scramble of eggs and vegetables in a wrap. Her iphone, it it's infinite wisdom decided that she wanted eggs and vegetables on a raft.

I refuse to let it be said that I am a husband incapable of following instructions to the letter.

I responded accordingly.

It should be noted that my lettuce raft construction turned out to be sub par. The S.S. Egg Scramble started taking on water shortly after this image was taken.

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I am Technologically Deficient

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

So I found out about this lovely site called www.bloglovin.com.

Apparently it is very useful for helping folks find and keep up with sites like this and it came very highly recommended so I thought I would get setup with it.

Long story short, since I have no idea what I'm doing it took me like six hours of faffing about with the thing trying to figure out how to prove to them that I am in fact the curator of this website.

My offer to email them a lot of drawings of butts was apparently not acceptable. 

Anyway, I apparently needed to make a blog post including the link at the top there in order to 
'claim' my blog with their service.

Since I don't want to just put up a pointless entry for the sake of linking that thing here is a different thing as well:

I'm really sorry I made you see that joke.

One more important thing. As part of the giant clusterf*ck that was trying to get this thing to work, I had to alter the web address for my RSS feed. So for those of you that were previously subscribed, you'll have to click the RSS feed button below and subscribe to the new address for the feed.

Sorry for the inconvenience, you may think mean thoughts at me.

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Inspirational Texts

My wife got a rough nights sleep last night and was on her way out the door for a 14 hour shift at the vet clinic where she works. 

Tired, slightly ill and feeling generally bleak about the work day to come, she asked me:

"Can you text me throughout the day to help me get through it?"

Why yes I can dear. I decided that in order to keep her spirits up and her sense of motivation and vigor at maximum levels I should send her some inspirational quotes throughout the day.

Lets begin:

Starting strong. When life gives you lemons is a classic, can't go wrong there. And throwing in a reference to some sort of weird hesperidium fetish really gives it a nice finish.

As you can see, she is clearly not as enthralled as she should be by the uplifting messages with which I am attempting to enrapture her. Her attempts to carry out a normal conversation with me must mean that she is insufficiently inspired. (Apparently we're doing alliteration today, just let it happen.)

Really feel like I was taking it to the next level with this one. I was all like, "Snap! Work some scathing social commentary in there by taking a cheap shot at some low hanging fruit, yeah!"

Actually I should admit, I'm so out of touch with popular culture that I first typed "look at the people from the Jersey Shore". I went back and changed when I realized that none of those people have been relevant since 2012 though.

BAM! Worked another one in there. Someone break out the industrial sized tub of ointment for all of these burns! 

Still texting me normal stuff? This is getting out of hand. I have basically been pelting a steady stream of concentrated rainbows and awesomeness at her phone all day. She should pretty much be so motivated and inspired at this point that, that last text should not have read "Last appointment here. I'm ready for bed."

It should have read:

"Last appointment here. I'm ready to strap on a jetpack and fly through the air whilst shooting two guns simultaneously only one gun is actually a flamethrower that shoots democracy and the other on is a bald eagle and I fly my jetpack to the top of a mountain comprised of all my hopes and dreams and I plant a flag at the top of that mountain with my face on it and shout "F*@k YEAH, I AM THE GREATEST!"

Not to be discouraged, I've got at least one more inspirational quote for her before she gets home. 

Mission accomplished. I mean, it's no jetpack bald eagle flamethrower, but I'll take it.

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I Suck at Home Repairs

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As I may have mentioned a time or two, I am a failure at making minor home repairs.

Let me be clear, I 'm not entirely incompetent. If I were the perfect caricature of a bumbling dolt; hammering his thumb, spilling the paint bucket, and generally making a clusterf*@k out of everything I touched it would almost be forgivable. 

My problem is that I'm the perfect combination of just competent enough to understand what to do and how when it comes to most basic fixes around the house, but insufficient skilled to effectively make said repair.

This in and of itself wouldn't be too bad if it were not for the fact that I also possess the glorious man-need be handy around the house in order to validate my Y-chromosome. 

Inevitably I get into a simple repair, and it takes three times as long and six more trips to the hardware store than it would if I knew what I was doing. I like to imagine my bearded, lumberjack shirt wearing heavily muscled man ancestors (or mancestors), watching over me as I flail ineffectually underneath the kitchen sink. They would probably stand, arms folded, shaking their rugged heads in shame and disappointment as they slowly choke the life out of grizzly bears with nothing but their blue jean clad quadriceps. 

I thought I'd keep a running log of a home repair as I start, and inevitably screw it up, eventually either fixing it or giving up and calling someone to come fix it for me thus bringing great dishonor upon myself. 

The Job 

In this particular instance the very simple home repair in question is a leaky sink faucet coupled with a reoccurring clogged drain in one of the bathrooms. 

Periodically the sink in the downstairs bathroom becomes clogged. This probably happens once a month on average.

Depending on who in our household you ask, the reason the sink clogs so frequently varies.

So that we're all on the same page here, the downstairs bathroom is my wife's bathroom. It has a a countertop with space for all her lady stuff like makeup and lotions and that assorted pile of bobby pins, loose earrings, hair ties and bracelets that have taken over the soap tray.

 The upstairs bathroom is unfinished, and has nothing but a two inch rim around a free standing sink upon which items may be placed. It's literally one step above a pale of water in the middle of the floor. Naturally that is the one I use.  

With the appropriate bathroom assignment situation's clarified, you can see where my wife's claim that the clogged sink is a result of the one or two times I have shaved my neck down there falls apart pretty quickly. 

Clearly the clogged sink is from a tangled clod of hair that made it's way from her head, to her hairbrush, into the sink where it slithered down the drain, and unionized or something and is now blockading the drain in protest preparing a list of demands for things like fancier conditioner.

Fresh from the rousing success of just having repaired a leaky kitchen sink, (a project that took three days instead of the twenty five minutes it should have) when my wife informed me the sink was leaking in her bathroom I decided I'd fix that and try to take care of that pesky recurring clog while I was at it.

Naturally after bumbling your way through one plumbing task, you should jump right into a second one, right?

So the job would be simple: Fix the leak, take the J-bend out and see if there is a pseudo-sentient hair amalgamation to extract, put it back together, stand back and stroke my glorious moustachio and beard in stoic approval of my own good work.   

Assuming that everything would go disastrously wrong I decided to chronicle the job. Below is the running diary of said task:

Day 1- Friday

4:00 PM

I decide to tackle the bathroom sink right after Emily leaves for work. Figuring I'd do it while she was out and have it leak free and draining like a champ by the time she came home. Thoroughly impressed with my rugged sink fixing man skills, there would proceed to be gallons of making out.

 4:05 PM

In my zeal for home repairing, at no point do I bother to run some water through the sink to locate the initial leak which had been reported to me. I have no idea what joint was actually leaking.

Figuring I'd have to take everything apart anyway in order to clean out wherever the clog is, I launch right into trying to take the pipes apart with a wrench. My assumption is that once the clog is dealt with, the leak will be sorted out when I put everything back together and tighten it.

I begin the process of attempting to disassemble the drain with the tools I have collected:

• Adjustable wrench x1
• Roll of paper towels x1

At no point does it occur to me that I have possibly under-prepared.

4:06 PM

I am unable to budge the joints holding the various pieces of pipe together with my single wrench. I probably need to get a second wrench to apply some force in opposite directions.

I own a second wrench.

Aforementioned wrench is in the basement.

I am not in the basement, I am in the bathroom.

That wrench can go f*@k itself. I'll make it work with the one.

Update 4:08 PM

Due to an unforeseeable complication involving inadequate wrenches the pop up drain breaks off of the bottom of the sink.

This project has now escalated to require a trip to Lowe's. I'll need some plumbers putty or something to glue the thing back together.

Now in a towering sink drain related rage, I do the responsible thing and procrastinate on returning to the task for the rest of the afternoon. I hang out with the dogs instead.

Day 2- Saturday

5:00 PM

Armed with a bright eyed and bushy tailed enthusiasm for sink repair as well as an extensive font of knowledge obtained via searching "How to replace a sink drain" on Google and reading a single article I am now prepared to re-tackle this job.

5:15 PM

My first step is to remove this bad boy from the sink so I can see what I'm dealing with. After the application of a bit of tactfully applied smacking the crap out of the pipe and wrenching it free I get the drain out of the sink.

I am met with this sight.

Well that's Gross.

I then look at the actual drain piece I've pulled out.

 Aaaand also gross. If you have a particularly weak gag reflex, I apologize for not having prepared you for that.

Now thoroughly aware that I have been washing my hands in a bacterial ooze filled basin of filth I set off for Lowe's to purchase all of the materials I'll need.

As I, prepare to leave, old drain in hand, I realize the threaded part of the thing is cracked. This displeases me. The piece was either already cracked, or I cracked it manhandling it out of the sink like a toothless rock gumming barbarian. 

I elect to presume the former.

I insinuate that the drain's mother was a lady of ill repute who conjugated with many foreign made pipe wrenches.

I leave for the hardware store.

6:00 PM

I arrive at Lowes.

Because I am well versed in the location of plumbing supplies in Lowes from the previously mentioned kitchen sink fiasco, I get right down to business and start looking for the parts I'll need.

From this point on, you may feel free to imagine the theme song from Jeopardy playing on a loop in the background as I stare at the wall of drain pieces attempting to match the old bits that I've brought with me to shiny new counterparts which don't smell like a four day old bag of vomit.

One would imagine that simply taking a piece, finding the one on the shelves that looks like it, and grabbing it would be a relatively simple task which should require no more than a few minutes of time and minimal brain power, right?

6:45 PM

I have been standing in this plumbing aisle for so long that I begin to forget what my life was like before I walked into this Lowes.

Much like a goldfish in captivity, my understanding of the world narrows to this single fourteen foot wide, hundred foot long prison of gaskets, flanges and union joints. The outside world is but a distant memory, lost to the all consuming task of picking out the proper replacement parts for this god forsaken sink.

I grab parts that I think are correct at first, only to realize they are slightly incorrect on some way or another a few minutes later. The signs, describing the dimensions of each individual part might as well be written in hieroglyphics for all the good they are doing me.

I had enough parts to have built two and a half of the section of drain I wanted to build at one point, all sprawled out on the floor like some sort of Beautiful Mind style web of madness.   

That picture is the tidy, sane version of the mess I made on the floor of this establishment, once I had narrowed things down quite a bit. Also, I'm not sure where that mystery liquid on the floor came from. Lets just presume they are the countless tears I shed during my imprisonment in aisle 14.

  I have a feeling if anyone else walked into that aisle looking to pick up a few things for their own home and saw me steadily building a rat-man style den for myself on the middle of the floor they quietly turned around, went home to hug their wife and children and are proceeding to live out the remainder of their life with new-found appreciation for their sanity.

Eventually I do get things under control and collect all the supplies I will be needing to make my repair. 

6:50 PM

I leave Lowes.

I am surprised to find that the world has not progressed to a futuristic state of utopia during the time I was inside the building. I locate my car and head home.

7:00 PM

Returned home with my goods, I set to work putting the new drain in the sink.

I follow the instructions provided on the packaging that the new drain came in and manage to replace it in a fairly successful and uneventful manner. Plumbers putty on the underside of the bit that goes into the bowl of the sink, and screw it all together. 

With the new drain in place, I begin to get all the other pieces of pipe ready to put everything back together when it occurs to me that I really never found the reason the drain has been backing up. All the pipes I took off were pretty clear.

I notice that I might be able to take off that tiny, unsuspecting little bit of pipe that you can see coming from the wall in the picture above.

Could it be?

I will say this. The things that I have seen cannot be unseen. Should you chose to continue reading beyond this point, you do so with the understanding that I cannot be held responsible for the psychological trauma that may be inflicted upon you by what is to come. You have been warned.

I remove the pipe and shine the flashlight of my phone into the opening in the wall. 

I was not prepared.

Oh dear sweet virgin Mary what am I looking at? What foul vortex of pure evil could be responsible for regurgitating this twisted clod of concentrated hate?

As I reached into the drain with whatever would serve to dislodge and pull free any portion of this fetid wad of sludge I swear to you it began whispering to me in a dead tongue. I saw visions of the end of days and my nose began to bleed. Whatever hell-pit this thing had come from, it was loathe to be extracted from my bathroom drain, and it would destroy me and all that I hold dear given the chance.

Calling upon every ounce of inner strength in my body, I removed as much as I could reach. In the end, I wound up with a golf ball sized wad of horrible filth. They should have cast this thing as the piece of Voldemort's soul that get's blasted off of Harry in the last movie. It was that foul.

To help put the size of that abomination in perspective. If you look closely you can see a q-tip lodged in there. A poor unfortunate casualty, absorbed into the elder hive mind before being destroyed along with it. 

In order to ensure that it could never hurt anyone again I had to walk this thing to Mordor and throw it into a f*@king volcano.

7:30 PM

After performing a cleansing ritual and scrubbing the topmost layer of skin off my hands with steel wool I get back to work putting the sink back together.

It all seems to be going well, and I get everything put back together.

I test the sink.

It leaks profusely.

Son of a parasite ridden three toed sloth, why is this thing leaking?

I isolate the leak to the nut that holds the stopper mechanism in place. Wishing a pestilence upon the nut, the company that manufactures the nut, and the first born children of all of the employees who work in the factory where they produce that nut I remove it to find that it's cracked.

..... balls.

Day 3-Sunday

8:00 AM

Guess where I am again?

Don't let the heavenly rays of light shining down from above on the front of this store fool you. This is a place of sadness and misfortune.

I've got every square inch of the plumbing aisle eternally etched onto the insides of my eyelids, it does not take me long to get in, locate the replacement nut and get back out. 

8:30 AM

I arrive back at home with the nut, quickly swap it for the cracked one, give everything one last tightening, and fire that baby up.

Nailed it.

I stand back and bask in the glory of my handiwork. I am the master of my domain. My mancestors are slightly less ashamed of me this day. Tonight I will feast.

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