Archive for the “From Past Blogs” Category

Propaganda cats are any cat you’ve ever met that is cute, affectionate, or adorable. These cats are rogue Al Quadea cats. These cats wish to suck us into their illusion of coolness and cuteness. “I’m cute and fuzzy!” they convey. “I’ll sit on your lap and purr!” they assert.

FILTHY WHORISH LIES!

No “real” cat is this way. REAL cats never let you pet them. In fact, you never see a REAL cat except for when you fill their food dish, and when they appear out of nowhere to scratch the shit out of your calf, then disappear again.

So if you meet a cat that’s cuddly and sweet, that is a terrorist agent for the Propaganda Cats. Their mission is to pretend they’re something they’re not (i.e. pretend they’re a decent pet), infiltrate every American household, then overthrow the US Government using a strategy of spreading a toxiplasmosis endemic, coupled with coast-to-coast unprovolked scratch marks which lead to minor infections.

Don’t be fooled!!!

I entered the darkened abode, shaking off the chill of the cold Colorado fall evening. Immediately, I sensed that something was wrong. Very wrong.

I looked around my living room. It was trashed! Debris everywhere! Revolting filth, mind-boggling chaos!

A split-second of panic, and reflexively my hand went for my cell phone to alert the authorities.

Then I recalled my weekend of sloth, spent watching tivoed South Park and TV Funhouse episodes while dozing in and out of consciousness on my couch.

Slightly relieved upon realizing that I was the one responsible for trashing my living room, I loosened my grip on my cell phone. But yet, something was still amiss. Fifteen years of seeing the worst violence humanity could dole out to one another have honed my “spidey senses”.

Something horrible had happened here tonight. I could just feel it. The abomination. The unholiness.

Then I saw it. The empty shell. The insides had all been eaten — oh, the humanity!

Who could have done such a heinous evisceration?

I was only gone a few minutes. Yet that was enough time for the criminal to take what they wanted. No concern with the fact it wasn’t his to take. No afterthought about who would be hurt.

Yes, my entire takeout carton of Boston Market Macaroni and Cheese was completely gutted!

Following the violent pattern of drool and cheese splatters on the wall and carpet, I came upon the one responsible for the slaughter.

His eyes plead innocence. However, the ring of yellow on the muzzle and nose told me everything I needed to know about the evening’s events. A scene of gore and brutality that flew in the face of God.

My macaroni and cheese. Gone. Snuffed in the prime of it’s take-out life.

Goddamnit Moose!

Originally posted 10/10/02

One of my friends in high school, who I dearly loved and was a wonderful person, was kind of an airhead (bless her heart). In fact, that was her nickname: “Airhead”. But she was so sweet and happy you couldn’t help but like her. For the sake of anonymity, I will call her Rhoda.

One time our sophomore year, we were outside our school campus one night. There was a football game going on, but we preferred to stay outside on a side street, drinking beer. (It’s not as bad as it sounds; at the time I was an amateur and could barely get half a can of 3.2 down). We were in the covered bed of a parked truck, so no one would see us drinking beer. Of course, we didn’t know whose truck it was!

Anyway, Rhoda had to go to the bathroom REALLY BAD. So she decided to run across a practice field and go over to the football stands and use the bathroom. However, the borders of the school campus were blocked off by those low stumps with steel rope strung between them; you know, the kind that they put in parks to keep you from driving off the road? It was so dark out that Rhoda didn’t see it, and she tripped. And fell. And peed her pants!

Later, it was senior year, basketball season. We had all been drinking before the game (we had gotten good at it by now; it was a German Catholic high school). A whole group of us were leaving the basketball game. In Kansas it doesn’t snow, it ice storms. It had ice stormed during the game and the parking lot was like glass. Rhoda had on these purple cloth pants, and was rushing ahead of the whole crowd streaming out of the stadium. You guessed it: she slipped, fell, and peed her pants in a BIG WAY, in front of a parking lot full of people.

We (her friends) were laughing so hard that WE had to sit down for fear WE’D pee OUR pants. She had this huge dark stain on the front of her pants and down the legs (you know how purple is when it gets wet). Rhoda was running from person to person, begging someone to drive her to a nearby friends house so she could BLOW DRY HER PANTS. No one wanted her in their car!

Oh, I have a million Rhoda stories. But the peeing stories are especially funny to me, because this was when she was a teenager. Now, she’s had like five or six kids. I can’t imagine how often she accidentally does it now!

I doubt if anyone is keeping scientifically-sound statistics, but if I were a bettin’ woman, I’d bet that the divorce rate of couples who CRAM wedding cake into each other’s faces at the reception is about 98%.

There is nothing funny about a woman in a $1000 wedding dress, $150 hairdo and $80 makeup job getting assaulted by (or assaulting) her new husband at the reception. Taking your $850 wedding cake and turning it into a grade school cafeteria food fight is not only tacky, but it shows poor judgment on so many levels. Whenever I see a video of a couple doing this on AFHV, I just want to mail the bride a business card to a battered women’s shelter. And when it’s the bride acting like scum, it makes me want to call up the groom and ask him if he’s dumped the trailer trash husbandbeater yet.

Originally posted December 3rd, 2005

I lived in a suburb of Chicago from Kindergarten through fourth grade. Christmas was a big deal for us, being kids and all.

I remember one year, I must have been in second or third grade, which meant my brothers were in like Kindergarten and first grade… ANYway, that year was the year we realized my dad was cheap. How cheap was he? Real cheap. Our Christmas lights sucked.

One evening my parents decided to be nice to us kids and drive us around to look at Christmas lights. Were we delighted? NO! We were PISSED OFF!

Everyone else had pretty Christmas lights. All we had were one strand. along the gutters of the first story of the house.

UNACCEPTABLE!

Looking back, this was the mid-70’s and I’m SURE that many people had just a strand. But we didn’t see THOSE houses.

The house we saw was the one owned by an executive of the local Electric Company. It had lights covering every square inch of the house, driveway, and lawn. It was magical!

And we were pissed! Why couldn’t OUR house look like that. We began to verbally assault our father. I told him that stoplights had prettier lights than our house did! Mark began crying and getting really pissed.

We got home, and Mark began to pack. He was running away to the electric company exec’s house that had all the lights. “They obviously LIKE children at THAT house! I’m going to go live there, where they LIKE kids. Not like here!”

I became involved when I saw he was using my hideously-green-with-awful-brady-bunch-daisy-print suitcase. So Mark was throwing a temper tantrum about Dad “not liking kids, or he’d have some good lights on the house,” and I began throwing a tantrum about Mark taking MY suitcase to run away!

So mom and dad told Mark that they hoped he’d be happy with his new mom and dad at the house with all the Christmas lights. Mark hastily packed nothing but underwear and socks, and his stuffed dog. Then he took off out of the back door in his footy pajamas and his winter coat, into the cold Chicago winter’s night.

My dad waited a minute then set out to follow him, so Mark wouldn’t see he was being followed. However, there was a snag in that plan: Dad came back and said he had lost Mark’s trail!

Panicked, Mom started calling the neighbors and Dad was about to head back outside when I happened to look out the front window. Mark had never even left the property. He had circled around to the front porch and was curled up to go to sleep with his head on the suitcase, holding the stuffed dog.

And that was the end of Mark running away to the house of the people who liked kids.

Epilogue: Our Christmas lights always sucked.

My Christmas memories are, of course, laden with trauma and emotional scarring that a lifetime of therapy will not overcome. However, some mirth has managed to squeeze from the black pit of despair that has been family Christmases over the years.

One of my favorite stories is about my grandfather Paul. Of course, this happened way before I was born.

Grandpa Paul lived in Webb City, Missouri and worked in Joplin for the electric company. This was the Ozarks, and back in the 30’s (and even into the 40’s) many people in the area were too poor for electricity.

The electric company would attempt to promote electricity use by selling electrical appliances to their employees at reduced rates. Now, it was the depression and the family was not much better off than anyone else of the time. However, because of the electric company “perks”, they tended to be first on the block to have an electrical appliance. They were the first family to have an electric fan.

They were also the first family to have a string of Christmas lights. Folks around those parts had never seen Christmas lights before. The first year my grandfather hung his Christmas lights, it brought people from miles around. Since the house was right on a highway, it also caused a traffic jam on the highway. Everyone slowed down to see Paul’s beautiful Christmas lights.

It was a single string of seven bulbs.

And thus began the love/hate relationship with Christmas lights that plague the family to this very day.

Since I can remember, my mother has been saying the most annoying thing after we have a good meal. It can be Thanksgiving. It can be a restaurant. A birthday. Whatever. After the meal, my mother says, “Well, this was such a big meal! We ALL won’t have to eat again for the rest of the day!” And she means it!

If the big meal was lunch, you’re not getting dinner. You may not get breakfast the next day either. If you have a big lunch the next day, you’ll hear about it.

“Why do you kids want to eat again so soon? You just HAD that big lunch YESTERDAY!”

It’s become such a joke and she’s so predictable, that I’ve started to make fun of her openly about it.

Last time they visited, we went out to eat. I could tell mom was working up to her big “you’re never allowed to eat again” speech. I beat her to the punch and announced: “Well kids, we had a BIIIGGGG dinner today. We won’t have to eat again until SUMMER!”

You could tell I totally stole her thunder.

Funny, in nursing school I don’t remember learning that digestion takes longer the more my mother doesn’t want to cook again.