Big Daddy Paul

I hate doing stuff around the house. Perhaps this is the reason that our house looks like a clutter bomb just went off and has more spiders in it than humans. Alas, I knew that my housework hiatus was finished when I found a mushroom growing in our bathroom. I’ve had mushrooms in pizza and mushrooms in soup, and I even had mushrooms on prom night, but mushrooms in the bathtub? Yikes!!! Somewhere, deep down inside me, the beer drinking slacker died, replaced by a mighty Bob Villa-inspired phoenix springing forth out of the ashes.

Daddy, that thing I just ate made me feel a little ... fuzzy.

I hadn’t really figured out how I was going to go about getting Malcolm to agree to go to Home Depot with me to begin the process of unfungaling and re-grouting our shower. Luckily, fate was on my side this day, as Malcolm threw a ball into his ceiling fan, causing the light  to shatter and sending shards of glass cascading everywhere in his room. I saw the opening and I drove straight through it: “Malcolm, now we are going to have to go to the hardware store and figure out how to fix the light. This is really bad thing that you have done.” Inside, I was beaming! Score one for the home team! Sure, this meant that I was going to either have to replace the light fixture on Malcolm’s fan (or worse, replace the whole thing!) but this paled in comparison to having a whining brat running all around the store, throwing merchandise everywhere and proudly informing anyone who would listen how much he hates my guts.

Malcolm was more than a bit puzzled as to why we spent most of the time at the store in the cleaning solution and caulking aisles. “Daddy, I thought we needed a new ceiling fan?” he asked, at one point. I assured him that we were almost ready to head over to the ceiling fans and constantly chastised him for why we were there, “Remember, you did a really bad thing.” Much to my amazement, this actually worked, and he was pretty well behaved while I read instructions on the back of anti-fungal cleaners. Sadly, Home Depot does not appear to sell replacement globes to the ceiling fans they sell, so I ended up having to buy a whole new fan. Even worse, the replacement ceiling fan we bought is awesome: the light is a mini-earth, and there are stars and moons all over the blades. I am sure Malcolm has taken away this from the experience: destroy something large in the house and it will be replaced by something way better. I’m pissed.

We got home and Malcolm got to watch me scrape all the infected grout out the cracks in the shower. To his credit, he did not ever say, “You missed a spot!” I offered him the chance to help, but he graciously declined, muttering something under his breath about not wanting to inhale potentially poisonous spores. Soon, I had the caulk gun out and was spreading sealer around like it was icing on a cake. Both of us were extremely happy as nothing makes boys giggle with glee as much as the words “caulk” and “gun.” Having assured myself that I had rid our bathroom of any further pizza ingredients, we piled back downstairs, started up a game of Life, and picked a date next year when we planned on replacing his ceiling fan. Remember that beer guy? He’s back!

Jack hall asks: Do you like cows?

Cows are great, but elephants are better!

I don’t know you Jack Hall, but I must say I like your style. To answer your question, cows are stupid animals who eat, fart and poop all day. So, it safe to say I am insane with jealousy. I therefore do not like cows.

Scott Wilson asks: I imagine I am supposed to know this, but what is a “rave”? (Scott is my father-in-law)

A rave is a party for young people with lights shows, loud music and rampant drug and alcohol abuse. Behind becoming a cow, it is the thing I would most like to do in my life. I don’t really see it being your scene, but then again, you may be the life of the party, provided you follow these three rules. First: wear a banana hammock and paint your entire body with glow in the dark paint. Second: Suspend your dislike of loud, pulsating music and learn to groove to such bands as “Schpongle” and “Infected Mushroom.” Third: Drop acid. It may not go especially well with your diabetes medication, but that definitely WON’T be the weirdest drug concoction at the party. So go, live free and have a good time. Let me know how it goes.

Larissa asks: How do you deal with kids that don’t follow the rules (aka act like assholes) when they play at your house?

I think this may be one of our friends using an assumed name wondering what to do when Malcolm comes over. I’ll answer it anyways. Kids who act like assholes need to be broken, like a wild mustang. After experimenting with different approaches, I have decided on the oven as my primary means of dealing with repeat offenders.  After a kid breaks the rules for the third time, I take out the shelves in the oven and stuff the kid right in there. I then get down and tell them through the window that I am going to turn on the broiler if they don’t start behaving. Older, taller kids may not fit in there, so you’ll have to double them over like a slice of pizza. After sweating them out for a few minutes, you’ll transform those zeroes to heroes.

Kramer posits the following: I am 19 years old and a freshman in college.  I have 2 roommates, one is my older brother and the other is a random senior from our football team that’s like 25 and moving out after this semester.  Recently (about the past 2 weeks) he decided to quit cleaning anything included dishes.  Half of our sink is now full of dirty dishes and the pile has spread to take up half of our counter space.  He’s lived in the house for 4 years now and is older than me, how do i tell him to pick up after himself because I’m sick of our house smelling like shit?

Kramer. At many points during my life, I have been the “dirty senior” you speak of, and I can honestly tell you that it is very important not to hurt his feelings. The slob, if frightened will nervously spray you with shit, and trust me, you don’t want that. The easiest thing to do is just give up and become a total slob yourself. You can learn a lot about yourself if you live in complete and utter filth. Will you eat garbage? How long can you go in the same underwear? Is mold really bad for you? It is time to start learning and stop cleaning. Good luck!

Great questions people keep ‘em coming!

Our car window. Our Honda Accord is almost ten years old, and it is starting to show signs of wear, most notably the fact that the driver’s side window is broken. Whenever I need to roll down the window and talk to someone on the street, I instinctively push the button to make the window go down before realizing that I now drive a hooptie and am one step away from having a car whose door handle is an old piece of rope. If you think it easy communicating with a parking lot attendant through a tiny crack in an open door it’s not. It’s embarrassing, and makes me mad. Sure, I could spend the small fortune it would take to fix the stupid thing, but if I did, the terrorists would win. Surely.

Pretend baseball. Everyone’s kid does something all the time that at first is kinda cute, but then starts to annoy you to the point where you wish you never stopped contracepting. For us, that is now pretend baseball. About thirty times a day, Malcolm asks who we are rooting for, and then names two teams (the most popular being the Floridelphia Marlins and the Cinfernatti Reds.) He then proceeds to run around the house pretending he is playing and then invariably tells you that the team you were “rooting” for lost by some large margin (last night the Giants lost to the Dodgers 130 to 0 and I am still pissed about it.) Eventually, he suckers you into playing catch and then actually playing the game itself, where you have to be the catcher, the umpire, and all of the other team. About the time you realize you are doing most of the work, you tell Malcolm you don’t want to play anymore, which leads him to start whining and forces you to look into a full time nanny.

The stuff in our house. Our house is in a state of disarray which leads guests to the conclusion that we are about to be featured on an episode of Cops. There are piles of shit everywhere and I fear there may be small rodents lurking about in them. I would get rid of the piles except for the fact that I have no idea where to put anything. So, most of the stuff in our house eventually makes its way to our office, which has the same role as the dead pile on a farm. Every year or so, I clean the office and promise that it will never get that bad, making Amy roll her eyes before turning her head at the rustling from the pile of papers in the corner. Most of the time, she utters, “Damn Varmints!”, and I am not sure if she is referring to the rodents or me.

I can't even see my feet anymore!

My boobs. I have the boobs of a perky high school freshman and if I don’t make any changes soon, I will one day be the prom queen. (I should also be quite upset at my muffin top of a belly that allows entire knit sweaters to lurk in my belly button instead of mere clumps of lint, but I can’t get past looking at my rack in the mirror. Yowza!) There are some people who “work out” by going to a place called a “gym,” but those are the kind of people who having working car windows, love playing with their kid, and don’t live in mortal fear of the accumulated stuff in their house. I am not that kind of person, but one day I hope to be. Until then, when you see me constantly moving so that you never get a profile shot of  my “Heavage,” you’ll know why.

What’s annoying you?