" /> BRAINPAN LEAKAGE » summer
  • Really Good Spaghetti…

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    It took everything I had to keep from spitting spaghetti across the table and all over The Evil Redhead.  Judging from the bemused shock in her eyes and her hand over her own mouth, I am fairly certain the same was true for her. We both glanced quickly at our daughter as she continued to stuff her face, then I pushed away from the table and made a beeline for the telephone…

    Of course, as with most of my stories, for this to truly make sense we have to step into the “wayback machine” for a moment to get a bit of background. So, have a seat next to Mister Peabody while Sherman fiddles with the dials and takes us back to a point in time just a scant couple of weeks prior to the “almost spaghetti spewage.”

    Kerchunk… bleep… ring… ring… bloop… blorp… kerchunk… kerchunk…

    Okay, here we are… Not only have we traveled back in time, but we have also shifted westward better than two-hundred miles to a suburb of Kansas City Missouri. The townhome (at the time) of my friend – and E Kay’s occasional doormat – Duane.

    You see, the near spaghetti spewage is all Duane’s fault. And, the fact that it is his fault in this particular instance is 100% true. Just ask him. He will even admit to it without objection. He won’t even scream “Unicorn.” Well, not right away like he normally does.

    Allow me to explain…

    Her Supreme Evilness, the O-spring, Johnathan, The Chunk Man, and I took ourselves an extended weekend trip out to see Duane. This wasn’t unusual by any stretch. He comes to Saint Louis to see us, we go to KC to see him. However, during this particular visit, Duane – or as he was called by E K for a brief period, “Dammit Duane” – set certain events into motion that culminated in the almost spray of whole wheat fettuccine noodles, along with a lovely Bolognese, all over our dining room.

    “How?” you ask.

    Simple. Like all of us, Duane receives his share of bizarre email forwards from folks out there. On the particular weekend in question he had received an attachment in the form of a video file. Now, I have to admit that there is no truly delicate way to put this – the file in question involved “adult activities” between a Latex clad Dominatrix and her submissive.  However, the “porn” factor wasn’t the real reason the clip had been forwarded to him. As it turns out, not only was there a high level of “OMG bizarreness” to the  depicted activity itself – which I shall leave up to your individual imaginations – but the German language dialogue also punctuated it with an LOL factor somewhere around a 7 on the “LOL 1 to 10 Scale”. Anyway, to make a long story short, Duane found it so amusing that he insisted on showing it to Johnathan, The Chunk Man, and me. Due to the fact that I was in the middle of cooking, I was unable to watch the whole clip, however, I got the gist of it, as did Johnathan, The Chunk Man, and Duane. And, they got it in spades, for you see, the rest of the weekend the catch phrase between the three of them became this innocuous snippet of dialogue –

    “Yah… Das is gud!”

    Fast forward back to the summer evening around the dinner table. We had only been eating for a few minutes when the O-Spring, who was all of 5 years old at the time, stopped shoveling the spaghetti into her mouth and announced, “Das is gud!”

    (Now, before you go calling Child Protective Services, the kid did NOT see the clip. She merely heard her Uncle Duane, Uncle Johnathan, and Uncle Chunkee running around the whole weekend chuckling and saying, “Das is gud!” about everything…)

    Once I managed to swallow my mouthful of pasta without choking, I called Duane. After all, someone had to warn him that E K was already plotting his demise.

    Of course, I certainly wasn’t opposed to it being him in trouble instead of me.  In my way of thinking, das is gud

    More to come…

    Murv

  • Periodic Airbag Testing…

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    I almost wrecked my truck the other day.

    Not Actual Truck But Damn Close...There I was, minding my own business, as usual. Summer break had officially begun and
    because of that I wasn’t able to get much writing done. You see, I kinda need peace and quiet when I write, which is something severely lacking when the O-spring is bopping around the house. All good, not a problem. She would soon be starting her summer day camp stuff and this gave us an opportunity to hang out for a bit.

    Of course, as O-springs get older – and we parental units do as well – we become an embarrassment and they really aren’t all about hanging with us. Still, we had errands to run and the kid had no choice but to come along, so she had to hang out with me whether I was an embarrassment or not.

    This is where the path to near wreck begins.

    O-springs have contingency plans. If they don’t want to hang with you, even if they are going to be in the same vehicle, they find a way around having to interact on anything more than a minimal basis. My O-spring’s method of doing this is to immerse herself in a game with her Nintendo DS.pink nintendo

    We didn’t have these things when I was a kid. Hell, I was in my tween’s when I saw – and played – one of the first commercially available PONG games at a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor on St. Charles Rock Road. I was a full fledged teenager before video game systems that did anything more than the aforementioned PONG were sold for home use. Now my O-spring has something the size of a checkbook – in a designer color mind you – that has more computing power than the system that put astronauts on the moon back in ’69. There’s something not quite right about that…

    But, let’s get back to the almost wreck.

    There we were, cruising along taking care of errands. We’d been to FedEx, the Post Office, the Recycling Dropoff, and several other stops in between. Our final stop before heading back home was the local Walgreens and I had aimed the big red truck in that direction. All during the excursion, O-spring had her nose in her DS. Anything I said to her elicited either a grunted “yeah” or more often a “what?”

    Silly music was blaring from the pink time waster as the O-spring engaged in untold feats of stylus-on-touchscreen über-skillz while playing something called “Mario Party”. Judging from the somewhat familiar midi tune, I gathered it had something to do with the old Donkey Kong / Mario Brothers stuff.

    Suddenly, the kid spoke up, much to my surprise. Seems I was now a necessary part of her day…

    “Daddy?” she said with that questioning note all parents have come to expect whenever they hear their “name” called.

    “What, honey?” I asked.

    With a perplexed tone to her voice she asked, “What are Crazy Crotch Hairs?”

    Brakes squealed… The steering wheel spun… And caffeinated beverage sprayed…

    We missed the telephone pole at the entrance of Walgreens by something on the order of half an inch. I still haven’t been able to get the coffee stains out of my dash from where I spewed a mouthful all over the instrument panel.

    Upon some careful and targeted questioning I came to discover that “Mario Party” is a cluster of games, one of which is named “Crazy Crosshairs”.

    The truck is fine, and the O-spring now knows what crosshairs are. Me? Well, I think I’ll be making an appointment with a cardiologist. As I understand it these “holy crap” moments only get worse as the kid gets older, and I’m not sure how much my old heart can take.

    Now, if I can just find a way to NOT test the airbags on my truck, I’ll be all good…

    More to come…

    Murv