Coming back to life

It's been a few weeks since Kindra and I split, this time it sounds like it may be for good.  I've been shacked up with my parents for the last 2-1/2 weeks, the only place besides a homeless shelter I have to go.

I've struggled with addictions for the last 7+ years and she says that's one thing she doesn't miss about me not being around.  She'll probably be pissed about me throwing my personal life out there, but I'm not looking for sympathy. 

I never thought of myself being without Kindra the rest of my life.  I guess I didn't show her that I loved her enough, or maybe I was just a downright rotten mother fucker to be around.  A friend told me "put yourself in our shoes when we have to deal with you men and your addictions." 

Okay I can do that.  Can you put yourself in my shoes?

My self-worth and livelihood were robbed of me because of my accident and being a stay at home dad is stressful as hell.  Maybe I should've done things a lot differently and maybe another man wouldn't be moving in on my ex (I still cant get used to that term).  Now someone else is spending long lengths of time on the phone with her and asking her all the right questions that tickle her fancy.

Every time I talk to Kindra she seems to have no interest in our conversations.  She gets easily upset and offended by me questioning her new life.  I feel left out to dry out.

We had family day yesterday and I went over to the house and made some ribs for all of us.  It was a good day and the conversations we had seemed to be making some headway but today that's a different story.  I notice she changed the locks on the doors and I asked why.  She said she didn't want me showing up in the middle of the night. 

I guess after 7+ years she doesn't know me and I don't know her.  It's been a long hard road but I've come a long way from the days of getting sloppy drunk and angry.  I wouldn't do anything to hurt the woman I still love, the mother of my girls.  I was hurt that she thinks I would do something to hurt her, I'm not that person anymore but its a little to late to hold out for hope.  She seems to be happy without me in the picture so if it's her space she wants, then it is what I will give her.  I don't want to hold her back from happiness by bringing her down with my misery.

We're splitting our time with the girls equally but it's still hard not being under the same roof with them every night.  I miss tucking them in and waking up to them in the morning.

On a positive note, I've got a lot of writing done....the old school way with a pen and notebooks.  Sometimes beauty comes from pain.  I miss being a family, I miss Kindra, I miss life as it was.  I'm not interested in dating or even looking.  My main focus is the two ladies who still love me unconditionally.  I'm giving all my love to the girls who won my heart, they are only 4 and 6 years old but it's a real fine way to start.

This has been the hardest thing I've had to do over the past 7 years but I know somehow I'll get through this. 

So I'm out of here to work up a case of carpal tunnel with my notebooks.  Maybe this was the eye-opener I needed but I didn't expect it to happen this way.

God cant love you more than I do...

This morning Gabrielle came downstairs to tell me she "loves me" as I got dressed.  

"I love you too honey...."  I replied.

"But dad, you can't love me more than God and I can't love you more than God."


"Bullshit Gabby."  Yes I swear around my children.  If you think it makes me any less of a parent than I already am the go piss up a rope.


I explained to her that it's fine that you love God more than me, I am "okay" with that but I will not have her thinking that God loves her more than I do. 


"Gabby, I will love you forever and always, even when I am not here on this earth you will know that I still love you.  God is not here to kiss your boo boo's.  God won't hold you when you're sad so, therefore: I love you more than God does!"


My love for my children is more than any god could give.  Their concept of a god is in it's infancy.  My love is tangible where god's is not.  God doesn't put food on the table, he doesn't tuck them in at night, he doesn't remind them how much he loves them every chance he gets.


It's hard for them to understand that, in my book, God is a thing of myth or urban legend.  I've lost some very close friends and family members over the past 6 years and if there was a god that was so loving, why didn't he cure their ails?  


It's fine if my kids want to believe in god, that's their prerogative and I'm sure it wont hurt them any, but when my kids think that god loves them more than I do......


I have a problem with that.

Ybor City, Florida

We had arrived in Tampa a day after a hurricane had just blown through.  It was mid-September and a friend of mine, who we will call John, set up the trip to Clearwater for a long weekend.  He booked the flight, room, rental car, and even had a daily itinerary of things for us to do; all I had to do was give him the cash.

After fetching our luggage and walking out of the terminal the outside temp was equal to getting slapped in the face with a steaming hot towel; I immediately start to sweat my balls off.

We picked up the rental car, a convertible Mustang, popped the top and turned the AC on full blast to keep from frying like bacon on the seats.

Shortly after arriving at the hotel we change into our bathing suits when I realized that I needed a pair of sunglasses.  Across from the hotel was one of those beach stores where towels are 3 for $9.99.  As usual, the cheapest pair of sunglasses are ten bucks and a pair that were remotely stylish broke me of $20.

Back across the street to the beach we find ourselves in solitude except for that one guy who wades in three feet of water with his metal detector.  By this time I look as if I had already jumped in the water because I have been sweating balls since we stepped foot in Tampa.  

I peel my shirt off and make a mad dash for the ocean with John right behind me.  Into the water I dove forgetting that I still had the sunglasses on that I had bought about ten minutes ago.  I quickly surface with glasses M.I.A.  I dive back underwater hoping to retrieve the new shades but alas, they were gone for good.  After wading around for a few I hit the sandy beach to work on my tan.

While catching some rays I am busy watching this old fart with the metal detector who has now weaseled his way over to where I had been swimming.  

Watching, waiting, watching, sweating, BINGO.....the metal detector starts beeping.  The old codger kept waving the detector over the object as if he couldn’t hear the loud annoying beep.  I sit up as the old man bends over to feel around in the water and to my surprise he pulls up a pair of sunglasses.  This is my cue to run over and ask for them back.

I walk over to the old man and tell him I had just lost my glasses and if they were mine, could I have them back.  He looks up and smiles and says, "are these the glasses?”

"Yes they are, thanks!"  I sigh in relief.

"Finders keepers" he says.

"You COCKSUCKER!!!!" I shout at him as he walks away.  

I was really hell bent on not getting my glasses.  I really would’ve liked to pull some Jackie Chan shit on him, but I figured if he couldn’t give me the glasses back the poor bastard needs them more than I do.  They weren’t even the big clunky wrap around like half the population in Florida wears so I have no idea what his intentions were with my glasses....they were gone.

After a day at the beach we decide we'll ride down to Ybor City, which I was told would be like the Flats in Cleveland.  We arrived there and it was a ghost town.

We pick out this little restaurant because I thought it would be nice to have a couple drinks and some fresh seafood, John agreed.  Now I have shrimp on the brain but there is one craving that has to be handled first.....beers!  After a few cocktails I order what I thought was shrimp cocktail. 

The waitress lays the shrimp appetizer on the table.  By now I am feeling like I can finally get over the incident on the beach and I was feeling great.  The conversation was great as we talked about important things like getting laid, off the hook bars, and work.

As I am flapping my jaw I grabbed a piece of the jumbo shrimp and dipped it into the cocktail sauce.  I stop chatting for a quick second to bite into the shrimp and it was crunchy.  I quickly grab the napkin to spit the shrimp in and I begin inspecting the other shrimps to see why they are crunchy.

While inspecting the shrimp the waitress comes to the table to ask if we need anything else while we await our dinner and she asks me if there's something wrong.

"Yeah the shrimp is crunchy!"

"That’s because it’s peel and eat shrimp cocktail!" she laughs.

"Well you might as well just bring me another beer while I work on this shrimp" I utter in an unassumingly embarrassed tone.

After eating I came to the conclusion that even though we are surrounded by ocean, it doesn’t always mean great, fresh seafood in every restaurant.  I would’ve been content eating at Red Lobster.  

Aww fuck it. I'm on vacation and there's always tomorrow and plenty of seafood to be had is what I thought to myself.

The next day I decided that I had to try that parasailing gig they offered up the street from the hotel.  John didn’t seem interested in doing much more than taking a nap so I hoofed it up the block to the dock.

I paid my thirty bucks for approximately fifteen minutes of 'air time'.  While up in the air I concluded that it wasn’t worth what I had paid and figured it would be more fun to unstrap myself and freefall about fifty feet into the water, but I didn’t and I was reeled in.

There was a middle aged couple that was next and the wife was gung-ho about doing something so risky.  For Christ sakes it’s only parasailing, its not skydiving or even bungee jumping;  I had walked iron 300+ feet at work, unharnessed, so there was really no thrill in it for me.

The woman is all giddy as she is being strapped in and when it’s the husbands turn, he backed out because he was afraid of heights.  Seeing that this woman weighed about 100 pounds soaking wet, I was asked to ride with her.  There has to be a minimum amount of weight on the tow line for them to reel you back in, so I got two rides for the price of one.  The husband looked like a nervous wreck as we took on air.  The second free ride had made up for the thrilless thirty bucks I had spent on one.

On Saturday night, John suggests we should go to this high class bar called 'Liquid Blue'; it came highly recommended by his cousin who lives in the area and he claimed there were plenty of scallywags for the taking.  With pimp suits on we rode.

We arrived at the club and walk in; swanky was my first thought.  Black lights, strobes, neon, leather couches everywhere, and the perfect hunting ground for a date.

First things first we hit the bar for some drinks.  Now John tends to be slow and cautious with his drinking, but not me; I had a tendency to drink like I lived....fast and hard.  Had to build up those beer muscles to compete with guys who were on steroids at this club.

The people there were plastic people, dolled up with snazzy outfits and hair.  I almost felt like a homeless bum mingling with celebrities.  The alcohol quickly erased those barriers in my mind.  Now I was in pimp mode as I made my way over to these two blondes sitting on one of the leather sofas.

John and I walk over and I make some small talk with them to see if I can spark some conversation, but these two ladies were about as sharp as bowling balls.  The conversation is not going as planned and I can see I am going to strike out before I am even up to bat, so I throw out a quick "can I buy you a drink?".

Neither of them was willing to let me buy them a drink, so I immediately cut through the crap and ask the one chick about her fake boobs which she wasn’t going to admit were fake.  In all my years of pimpin, that is thee only time that a woman has ever sad no to me buying them a drink.  Let's face it, when you use that line, most women will feel a slight obligation to converse with you if they accept and that is undoubtedly the best time to change their mind about you.

Now I am just a wee bit offended that they shot down the drink offer so out with some more polite insults; I mean as sharp as they were, they took each and every insult as a compliment until John decided it was time to roll before the Barbies found some Kens they knew to ruffle our feathers.  We stayed at the bar for a while longer, just enough time for me to get totally blitzed before we headed back to the room.  I was feeling like Popeye as I talked out the side of my mouth the whole ride back, not quite getting over the fact of being shot down.  

The following morning around seven o'clock I awoke to the door of the hotel room opening.  It was John with a bag of McDonald's.

"Damn that was mighty white of you to get up so early to grab us some breakfast."  

"Get up?  I am just getting home from the hospital!"  John replies as I choke on my hash brown.

"The hospital?  What? When did this happen?"

"Don’t you remember last night when I woke up and told you I couldn’t breathe?"

"Uhhh, NO" I state in a sort of disbelief.

John goes on to tell me that after getting back to the room after the bar, that he had been asleep for a short while before he had woke up.  He was having trouble breathing and he said it felt like his throat was closing up.  Scared, he called the front desk to see if there was a doctor at the hotel.  There was no doctor so the front desk called an ambulance for him.  He tells me that he laid back down and minutes later the ambulance arrived and the paramedics pounded on the door.  He also says that I hopped outta bed and opened the door to let them in and said " hey come on in, you guys want a beer?" right before I did a swan dive back into the bed and instantly fell back asleep.

"Wow, I don’t remember that at all.  We had more beer last night?"  I asked.

The paramedics took him to the local hospital where a doctor examined him.  The doctor said there was a bite mark on the roof of his mouth near his throat.  He had obviously been sleeping with his mouth open and must've been bit by a spider and had an allergic reaction which caused his throat to swell.  They gave him a shot of Benedryl and sent him on his way.

I guess there is truth to the story that you eat about eight spiders a year while you sleep.

While eating McDonald's, John and I find it amusing that I don’t recall a single second of the incident.  

"Remember I told you I woke you up telling you I couldn’t breathe?"

"Yes"

"You know what you told me?" John asks.

" 'If you cant breathe, try harder!'  and that’s when I got scared".

Let's do something gay

It was a cold Thursday night in 1999 when I was cordially invited to do some drinking and dancing with two girlfriends of mine.  Michelle and Jennifer wanted to meet up with friends from work at a bar in Ferndale. 

I was a little hesitant on going because Ferndale is known for its predominantly gay community, but what the hell; drinking and dancing had become two of my favorite pastimes in the years prior.  I agree to go with them and so I ask a friend of mine named ‘Chubs’ to come along.

Chubs was always down to ‘roll’ the night away with some E and he didn’t work at the time so he was almost obligated to go with.  He tried to weasel out with the “I’m broke” excuse but when I said “I got your back on some drinks” his attitude changed.

The four of us arrive at the club where we had to check our coats at the door.  When we walked into the building there was a long corridor with a tiny coat check room at the end. The music from beyond the double doors at the end of this corridor is deafening. We hand our coats over to the skinny, frail looking guy that has hip huggers and a cut off shirt.

I snicker at this guy’s get-up and as I open the door for the ladies I’m with and I lean over to tell Jen and Michelle what I think about the coat check guy.  I have to raise my voice to just under a yell and I say;

“That coat check guy looks like he’s flaming!”

“WHAT?!?” replied the girls.

I am half way through repeating myself when the music comes to a sudden halt and just in time for the whole bar to hear me say “….he’s flaming!”

That should’ve been hint number one.

We make our way through the double doors and into the barroom.  The bar is very low lit except for the intermittently flashing strobe.  I order a beer for Chubs and I as I scope out a possible date.

“What the fuck man? This is cockfest ‘99” I tell Chubs who most certainly agrees with me. 

By this time the girls we came with are unseen so I am guessing they must’ve found these friends from work. 

“There’s a couple hoes over there” as I point Chubs in the direction of the restrooms.

“Well I gotta take a piss before I grab another beer…”

“Yea I have to piss too.  I’ll go with ya.”  Chubs says hesitating for a moment.

At that very moment Chubs has a look of uncertainty, a look of discomfort.

We walk over towards the restroom where I noticed men coming in and out of both the men’s and women’s bathrooms.  This is where it dawns on me that I am a gay club.

This is fucking amazing, something you would never see at a heterosexual club.  So fucking A, I am going to use the women’s bathroom.

Ok for me.

Not Ok for Chubs.

I took a whiz and saddled up for more drinking.  I stand waiting for Chubs in the small little walkway that separates the two bathrooms and as he is walking out a man on his way into the restroom lightly slaps Chubs in the ass.

You would’ve thought Chubs got hit with a 6 foot long wooden paddle the way he jumped. 

Now I am really amused that we are in a gay bar and Chubs is a wanted man by men with the same plumbing.

“Holy shit!!  Did you fucking see that?!!?  That dude just slapped my ass!!  We HAVE to get the fuck outta here like right now!!”  Chubs says in a nervous and agitated voice.

“Take it easy fancy pants, we just got here and Jennifer and Michelle are not going to want to leave this soon.”  I try to explain.

We find Jen and Michelle talking with some friends at a table so Chubs and I join.

“We gotta get the fuck outta here!”  Are the first words out of Chubs’ mouth.

I am having some beers and shots and talking with the gay friends Jen and Michelle had come to meet and they were pretty cool people.  Not once that night was I ever hit on by a member of the same sex and the friendly friends explained why.

They go on to tell me about this thing called ‘gaydar’ and tell me that it is a common feature among gay people; both men and women have this.

I am intrigued by this concept and in the back of my head I am thinking about the bathroom incident just moments earlier.

Chubs is listening in on the conversation I am having with this fellow and you can see him becoming very uneasy right before he asks for the keys to the car.  I tell him “no”.

“We need all you eligible men who are looking for a date tonight to come on up!!”  Say a Rupaulesque looking man.  Well the once man I should say.

All these men make their way to the dance floor as this Rupaul plays matchmaker for the single gay men.  These were indeed the happiest bunch of people I had ever seen.

By now Chubs is repulsed by the display of groping other men on the dance floor.  He is becoming very homophobic, so I agree to let him wait in the car before we end up fighting because of his blatant use of the word ‘fag’.

As soon as he leaves, the man explaining the concept of gaydar leans to me and says “Your friend is going to be very unhappy the rest of his life by staying in the closet”.

Shocked I say “he’s not gay”.

My new friend tells me that Chubs had been setting off the internal gaydar of a few of the men at the table, so they were shocked when opted to wait in the car.  They also tell me that he must’ve set off some serious gaydar for another man to slap his booty.

“Well what about me?”  I inquire.

“We knew you were straight from the moment you walked into the club, but your friend is a different story!” 

Feeling a sigh of relief, I offer to buy the whole table a round of shots.  I had felt so joyous  that I wasn’t setting off anyone’s gaydar that I wanted to reach over and kiss this guy on the cheek, but I didn’t as I didn’t want to give anyone mixed signals.

It was a great night and Chubs only had to wait in the car for about an hour as I confidently hammed it up with my new gay friends.

I may have never went if Jen and Michelle had told me it was a gay bar and it was quite the confidence boost knowing the same sex doesn’t find you desirable;  if only Chubs could’ve had the same great experience.

Closed minds keep you in the closet one might say!!!

The TDRR Daily 01/27/2010

I've blogged about this before and I've been warned several times about this: beware of what you post on Facebook or Myspace. The social networks can be used against you in a court of law or when it comes to keeping a job.


Quite a few of my friends had to clean up their Facebook page because of their jobs or had to delete coworkers off friend's lists. My lawyer has warned me several times to be careful of what I post: two words - fuck him!


I can see the justification for cleaning up your page if your a manager for a large corporation or even not having friends from work on your page just to keep the whole work/play things separate but how does this precaution pertain to me?


How does what you do on a social networking site dictate the person you are while you're at work? I can see how some people would nail their own coffin shut by befriending a coworker, posting statuses about getting "Crunk" then not making it to work the following day. That's the jackass' own fault.


If worker's comp or the people from my third party lawsuit wanted to dig up some dirt on me, what is the worst they could find? Do they look at the people on these friends lists also? What could those insurance companies possibly dig up that would help them win a case against me, the plaintiff? I've been off 7-1/2 years, don't have any money to have any real hobbies, I'm more less the house bitch because the wife works, and developed a case of anxiety/agoraphobia so I like to "socially network" with other like minded peeps. I get some good laughs, I get angered at the religious fanatics who think their belief is the only way, and I've been sick of politics. (I think I've said this before) But on another note, I've got this really awesome fake farm. Would farming be consider a future income earning potential in the insurance company's eyes? I told a friend last night that if the insurance companies wanted to take away my benefits or use anything I do on a social networking site to hinder my case, I'd get them in front of a judge and drop my drawers and have my benefits reinstated - pronto.

In my opinion, what you do on your own time is your own business. I could see social networking becoming a problem if you're doing it while "on the clock." The same goes for drug testing. You need to take a drug test to work at flipping McDonald's these days....are you fucking serious?!?


Speaking of jobs and drug testing, now that marijuana is legal for medical purposes how is this going to work out when you give a urine sample for a job? Even if you have the medical Mary Jane card I can almost guarantee that they'll hire somebody who doesn't give a dirty sample. The laws with regards to medical marijuana are still in that gray area when it comes to getting it legally and trying to get a job.

Someone asked me the other day about how much I donated to Haiti. Not a dime. I'm on the brink of destitution and have no "extra" money to give but if I did I'd make a nice contribution. It's shocking really. The same people who'd dig deep to help the people in Haiti wouldn't bat an eye at helping the people who are in dire straits here on the home front. Just turn your blind eye and they go away eventually. I am glad to see so many Americans stepping forward to help Haiti in their time of need, but if Americans were only this empathetic to the poor and starving right in their own yard.


Enough of that bullshit....


Last night I decided to try something different in the kitchen. I got these fresh, unsplit, bonless, skinless chicken breasts from the farm market by my house. I decided to make a homemade cornbread stuffing, butterfly the chickens, and bake in the oven over a bed of Uncle Ben's chicken flavored rice. Although it looked good when it came out of the oven, my kids didn't give it the "wow" rating (as in WOW daddy this is good!). The chicken and rice was good but the stuffing was kind of soggy. Next time I'll buy the box of "cornbread stuffing" and go that route.


That's all for today. Beware of the company you keep!! HAHAHAHA

Christmas Jews

I guess last night was a bad time to start Christmas shopping!  If finances had panned out otherwise, I would've started much earlier -- like this past July.  

Oh the crowds of people wandering aimlessly around store aisles and to top that off most of them are rude.  I wouldn't mind the rudeness so much if they threw a "Merry Christmas, now excuse the fuck out of me" at me.  I'm in the department store with Kindra and the girls, I am dripping sweat because I am dressed for being outdoors.  The crowds of people are setting off a defense mechanism in me that makes me want to ram their cart out of the way after the first "excuse me!!!!!"

I hate the phrase "happy holidays."  Sure there's two holidays crammed right next to each other but c'mon people.  Do I look Black or Jewish or Arabic??  Okay.  Maybe I throw people off when I talk ghetto, or maybe the 5 o'clock shadow has me on the terrorist watch list, or maybe it's because I usually have enough change in my pocket to give exact amounts at the register.  I don't know, but y'all know how I feel about people being politically correct and people lay the PC on thick this time of year.


I could only make it through two stores of assholes and elbows before I felt the Tourrette's starting to kick in. (I had to Google Tourette's for the spelling, I didn't want to offend any of you cocknockers)


This year Gabrielle asked for an Ipod, a Blackberry, and a laptop.  She is five.  I laughed and asked if she needed a bra too.  Kids these days.  When I was a kid we got socks, underwear, and five different sets of Legos; we were content.  But back then we weren't so excited about the gray tube socks with yellow and green stripes around the calves. 

My Christmas shopping has just begun, so today I would double the dose of anxiety meds and baby-step through the stores.

On another holiday note; a couple nights ago they had a piece on the evening news about how to correctly "tip" service people and how this year most people don't have the extra cash to leave the kind of tips they want to.  I can see tipping a waiter/waitress or someone who valet's your car or the pizza delivery guy, but tipping the Fedex or mail carrier.  (Sorry to my mail carrier friends!!)  

Tip the mail carrier, this is a new one to me.  I've offered the mailman a cold bottle of water or a cold Coke when it was blazing hot, but tipping them for Christmas?!?!  I took the advice.

I wrapped a frozen burrito in gift wrap, and on the tag came the real tip:  "Please try and drop my mail at the same time on a daily basis. Also, please keep the junk mail I am supposed get on Monday's and Wednesday's and last but not least -- watch out for the landmines in the yard."

I bought a lot of extra stamps this year with the intentions of all you mail carriers getting a raise.

The other day our puppy, a Boston Terrier, was playing with our other dog, American Bulldog, and she got so riled up that she latched on to his balls.  The Bulldog started to bleed like a stuffed pig so Kindra got a wash cloth to wipe his sack off.  He laid there on the floor, with his leg twitching, as Kindra wiped the blood away.  The more she rubbed the more the dog got excited.  She abandoned that chore when Mr. Pinky started to show himself.


I was browsing through the local drug store a while back looking for something to get rid of my foot odor.  I was really off in la la land and found myself in the "feminine hygeine" aisle.  I stopped and looked straight ahead at eye level and Eureka!!!!!!  


Summer's Eve feminine body wash.  If that can kill some funk down south, it should be like using a cannon to kill a house fly on my feet.  I took it home and scrubbed my feet with it.  Man did that shit work good.  One day Kindra was in my shower and said "what's the Summer's Eve for?!?!" in that suspecting voice.  I told her my story and erased all suspicions.  She thought it was dumb at first, I thought it was a scientific breakthrough, and when she couldn't smell the funk of my feet, she agreed it was a great idea.


Now I buy the shit in bulk at Costco.  I have no shame in going to Costco for a 12 pack of "feminine body wash".  The people in line behind me probably think the old lady has serious problems but oh well.


On work bonuses....


Back in the 90's I worked as an Ironworker for about a year or so.  I worked for a company that put up commercial metal buildings.  It's the bottom of the Ironworking trade.


98% of our jobs were outside and this particular day we were siding a building.  The siding sheets were about 60 feet in length and had to be screwed in about every 10 feet.  It was just days before Christmas and it had been blistering cold for weeks.  It was a Friday so the owner of the company decided to hand deliver our checks with our Christmas bonuses.


My coworkers told me the boss gave cash bonuses and usually a turkey or a ham.


The boss pulls up in his SUV, we all climbed down from the scaffolding and walked over to his truck.  He hops out and starts handing out the envelopes.  My coworkers and I opened our checks and each of us got a different cash bonus.  One guy got $500, another $300, another got $250 and I got $100! ! !!! !!!!!!!


I immediately started thinking "what a fucking cheap ass!"  The guy had a 40 yacht, owned his own Yacht club, his own contracting business that was booming and I got a measly 100 bucks?!?


"C'mon over here for your turkeys."  He gave all of us turkeys but when I got my bird it looked more like a Cornish hen than a turkey.  


By now I was wound up tight with the skimp check and even skimpier bird.  I stood there with check in one hand and a baby turkey in the other.  Everybody wished him a Merry Christmas.


I hastily said "Happy Hanukkah Ray!!"


"But I'm not Jewish, Mike." he said in this dumbfounded look.


"Well from the looks of this check and this turkey, you're a fuckin' Jew bastard!!!"  I slung the turkey across the frozen parking lot and went to the break trailer.


Needless to say, I got fired a week later on a Tuesday for being 5 minutes late.  The boss had my check made out already, so I was lead to believe it was planned around my Jew comment.


Merry Christmas people!


Does anyone still get Christmas bonuses?


Have your kids asked for something and you laughed?!?!


Got any other "home remedies" you want to share?






 

On Social Networking

Social networking on the internet is serious business, at least to many people it is.

I have 285 "friends" on my Facebook page and I probably know about 250 of them in real life (yes I'm that cool).  When I use to blog on Myspace I had about 700 "friends".  But were they really  friends?

Myspace had a bulletin feature and quite often people would post bulletins "Cleaning out my friends list, if we haven't talked in a while you will be deleted..." or something of that nature. 

Get a fucking life.  The odds were on space that, that person befriended me for some reason (my blogs would be an excellent guess).  It's a social networking site, key word networking.  My life will go on even if the number of friends is lighter one day than it was in previous days.

You see folks, some people get carried away and take social networking too seriously.  If you get so upset that some of your "friends" haven't poked you, took a quiz about how well they know you, or sent you fancy glitter comment, then maybe you should re-evaluate your life.  

Would you be upset if not everyone on your wireless network didn't contact you? NO!  So why would it be any different on a website?  

Since I've left Myspace for unspecified reasons I've been trying to whore my blogs out on Facebook to get people to read.  There's a big difference between the two sites:  Myspace is like a sleazy night club and Facebook is like rehab or church.  Your grandma, your Aunt Edna, or your boss is more likely to be on Facebook than on Myspace because Facebook censors a lot of us free thinkers.

But since I've left the uncensored Myspace (it's a lot harder to be censored there) I haven't changed the way I think or who I am.  I'm still the same smart ass with a warped sense of humor and what is even more humoring is when people delete my comments or wall posts.  It's means I've struck some kind of chord and that's music to my ears.

I will befriend just about anyone and I'm sure I could just about offend everyone, but I won't be deleting anyone because we've never corresponded since we became "friends".  And if you are offended that someone on your list has had no contact with you and you plan on deleting them, maybe you should cancel your internet service altogether and get some real life friends.  


It's easy to make and delete friends on the internet but have you spent so much time social networking that you've lost any social skill you had to make or delete friends in real life?  I think there may be quite a few on my list that have socially decayed. 


Remember, networking sites are in place to stay connected with people.  If your life has come down to who leaves comments and who doesn't, then all you're doing is taking up air.  I know this isn't the case with everybody but there are some out there like this and I'm certain everyone has at least on person like this on their "friends list."


So from me to you: if you feel I haven't been in contact with you enough feel free to delete me.  If I deleted everybody who didn't read my blog, I wouldn't have many friends.


Stop taking social networking so seriously, it's only the internet!