Big Daddy Paul

This post is the written version of the Sesame Street bit where they talk to all of the different people around the block. Instead of interviewing the people and being sweet, I am going to be sarcastic and talk trash. Call it Sesame Street for bitter stay at home parents.

I like the Butcher Lady at the Grocery store. She is super cute and really into Malcolm and I. Every time we see her, we are met with a steady stream of  free slices of ham and salami. Actually, she could be a super mean troll, but as long as we would be met with a steady stream of free salami and ham, we would like her. When Malcolm is not with me, she asks about him. She brings a little ray of sunshine to the world of cured meats.

I believe that the coolest guy in the world is our garbage man. I am not sure that I have ever talked to him, but we converse like old school chums through a complex system of winks and nods. We greet each other on Thursdays with a big smile and Malcolm totally enjoys watching him work. Things are so tight between us that he gives me special privileges. Sometimes, I am late getting the garbage cans out, and he actually comes back for them. He also lets me dump dead bodies in the back of the garbage truck.  I would like to try and strike up a conversation with him one of these days, but the noise from the truck is deafening and his ride smells like shit.

I am creeped out by the manager at the bank. He is a really friendly guy, but has one quirk so amazingly weird that I fixate on it. He fingers are extremely long and way to0 knuckly. It’s as if he has three extra joints in each finger and each knuckle points the digit in a new and unexpected direction. I can’t imagine how hard it is to control those things, it must be like orchestrating a fistful of old churros. I had to watch him write out a loan application once, and I nearly threw up. He asks about Malcolm and Amy whenever we meet and we sometimes chat about the economy. While doing this, all I can think is, “Show me your fangled claws! Whip ‘em out and scratch someone in the face!!!”

The one person I am on the fence about is our Mail lady. We have a bit of a checkered past. When we first moved into our house we began noticing that someone was leaving plastics bags in our gutter. A closer examination revealed that the bags were filled with urine. At least I thought they were filled with urine, I did not actually smell or taste the liquid for verification.

Artists re-creation of the trucker bomb

We noticed a steady stream of peebags for a while when I arrived home one day and found the mail lady sitting in her truck speaking on her cell phone. Right by the door of her truck was another trucker bomb, perfectly aligned with the open window. It appeared that she had been peeing into a plastic bag and then tossing the bag out her window before leaving. I am not sure if she peed in front of our house or did it on the route and just saved the bag for us, although I can’t tell which option I prefer. So why am I on the fence? It has been a few years since we have been peebagged, and it’s like we have reached a sort of detente. It’s like the old adage goes, “A postal delivery worker who pees in a bush is worth more than two who pee in a bag and ditch that bag in front of your house.” I’m not sure who said it, but it’s pretty famous.

So, those are the people in my hood. Who are your people?

While visiting Tunzel and Matt, I was treated to quite a rare luxury on the airplane. Before you go jumping to conclusions about a hot stewardess and an unlimited stash of peanuts, let me tell you that my tastes are pretty simple: free time.  Being a stay at home parent brings a seemingly endless array of tasks that should get done during the day.  An airplane ride, however, forces you to do nothing, and I relish every moment of it.

I decided that I would borrow Malcolm’s portable movie player and watch some movies on the 5-6 hour flight to and from Boston.  The question then became, what should I watch?  Sadly, I cannot just pick a movie that I want to see, there are a number of issues that I am forced to confront.

#1 – No dirty movies.  On a recent flight the guy next to me watched what appeared to be “On Golden Blonde,” except that Ed Norton was in it.  Satisfied that the appearance of a legitimate actor made the movie “Art” and not “Porn” I occasionally glanced over at the large computer screen next to me while pretending to read my book.  This worked out extremely well, until the woman on my left looked at me (intently gazing at what appeared to be the “cowgirl” position), then looked at the computer screen to my right, and made a frowny face.  Caught in a classic “Sophie’s choice,” I had to choose between watching “Sophie” and Ed Norton make friendly or reading my book.  I lacked the personal restraint to avoid eye contact with Sophie, and after seeing the scorn on the face of the woman to my left, I vowed that I would never put anyone in the difficult situation of risking public scorn because they cannot avert their eyes from dirty movies.

#2- No tear jerkers.  The second hurdle I had to overcome is my penchant for crying on the airplane.  Mostly due to excessive consumption of white russians and weird little bottles of wine, I have cried during the following movies: My Giant, Jerry McGuire, and (I am pretty sure that no one has ever cried to this before) Mulan 2.  Having been laughed at by high school girls, burly Texans, and my own wife, I wanted to steer clear of anything that could possibly tug on my heart strings, which, I guess, become even stringier at 30,000 feet.

#3- Cool movies only.  I wanted my movie selections to emote some coolness on my part.  Believe me, I am not cool, but everyone doesn’t need to know this right away.

This is why I need help for people to think I am cool

I figure that if I watch cool movies people around me will think that the aroma around me is “hipness” and not “Funion breath.”  I also think that the right choice in movies could even bring closer to my ultimate dream of getting into a bathroom with a hot stewardess and an unlimited amount of peanuts.

So, the first movie I watched was Two Towers, the second movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I followed that up with Return of the King, the final Lord of the Rings movie.  These movies had the benefit of being extremely long, which was good, but also had the unintended consequence of making me look like a total nerd.  Since I was not consuming white russians, I kept my crying down to a few sniffles surrounding the consuming but unspeakable love between elf and dwarf.  Even those were a little too much for the guy next to me, who just shook his head at me.

On the way home, I watched Rendition, a movie about our country’s policy of abducting suspected terrorists, taking them abroad and torturing them to get information from them.  I didn’t really know what the movie was about, but I think I prefer racy Ed Norton scenes to a naked man being choked and electrocuted. I followed this up with Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part 1, but immediately turned it off when the first scene of the movie depicted 10 ape men masturbating wildly.  I caught a break when the airline movie was the Will Ferrell movie Land of the Lost, followed by episodes of The Office and 30 Rock.  I put my computer away, saddened by the fact that not a single person would think I am cool, that people still laugh at me for crying at silly times, and that hot stewardess with unlimited peanuts have been replaced by flight attendants selling cheese platters.  Still, a kid’s gotta dream eh?

I am going to Reno this weekend.  My friend, Derek, is an avid University of Missouri fan, and I, along with some of his other friends, are going up to watch the Tigers play the University of Nevada, Reno at football.  This sounds like a perfect opportunity to blow off steam with a weekend with the boys, but I am a bit worried.

The guys I am going with are quite successful in the business world.  They are all upper level executives at successful companies, with nice houses and cars that probably don’t smell like old sandwiches.  They wear clean clothes, shower every day, and are polite to one another.  That is what has me worried. 
When I go to Reno with my normal crew, I tend to get just a tad out of control.  When there, you will normally find me with a beer in my dirty little hands, a cigarette dangling out of my mouth, and I am constantly making up reasons to take the next shot.  And that is all before breakfast.  I like to yell at the dealers, do squats around the tables, and if you see me order food that doesn’t start with “chicken fried” then something is wrong.  One time, I got an entire blackjack table to rub their nipples every time the dealer busted.  I am concerned that I will not be able to control the beast within, and the others will have to ask Derek, “Why is your friend doing shots at the bar with that old Chinese woman?”  It’s gonna be tough.

The other potential pratfall will be the blackjack tables.  The tables, along with AC Transit buses, are one of the last few places where you can see democracy in action.  When sitting at the tables for hours with random strangers, you tend to talk about who you are and what you do.  I can foresee going around the table with everyone else talking about their impressive responsibilities and the movers and shakers they have in their contact list.  And then all eyes will fall on me.  Being a stay at home dad is great, but it is not the kind of awe inspiring profession that lends itself to impressing the general public.  In anticipation of the blank stares that I normally get, I will tell people, “I’m in derivatives.”  If forced to, I will eventually disclose that this means that I wipe Malcolm’s constantly running nose and that I sponge off of my wife, but I am hoping that I won’t have to.

I am going to approach the weekend like this: I am going to ignore my initial inclination.  I will not be going to the strip club with a bag of cocaine and $1,000.  I will think about it more closely and go to dinner with the boys.  My pants and shirt will stay on at all times in the casino.  I will channel my proclivity for taking off my clothes by simply leaving my fly unzipped.  If someone makes fun of me for being a stay at home parent, I will buy them a drink instead of spilling one on them.  It’s gonna be hard, because when I start drinking, it takes me approximately 1 second between when I think of something and when I start doing it.  Wich me luck!

Oakland is a strange and wonderful place. The city has found itself in the embarrassing position of not having any more money and, to try and make some, they are going crazy with the parking tickets.  We have received three in the past month, and I had to go to city hall today to demonstrate that my front license plate had been replaced.  Yes, I got a $80 parking ticket for not having my front license plate. Seriously. Those of you who wonder where the license plate went should ask Amy how closely she pays attention to the car in front of her when she is getting on the freeway.

So, with a shiny new license plate and a signature from a cop who swears that the license plate was there, I headed into downtown Oakland to prove that I had fixed my ticket and, in the process, saved $70 off the tab.  I noticed that I take a couple of shortcuts in life when I was walking to city hall.  The first thing I noticed was the carrying vessel I used for my coffee.  Unable to locate my state-of-the-art thermal coffee mug (in the last month) I have resorted to using Malkie’s sippy cup to schlep my coffee around.  I also noticed that I took the shortcuts of not combing my hair and not zipping my fly. So, today, the residents of downtown Oakland were treated to the sight of a messy haired man with an unzipped fly taking hits off of a bright orange sippy cup.  I was, for all intents and purposed, a very large child walking around without parent. Of course, I didn’t notice any of the above until I walked past some people whereby I realized how much I have let myself go.  I need to make some major life changes.

My sense of innocent ignorance stayed with me when I reached the parking office.  When I arrived, there was a group of people sitting in the chairs waiting for their turn.  I walked in and wanted to say, “Hi there everybody!  It’s real nice to meet ya!”, but the angry look in their eyes told me that their response would have been for me to “Shut the fuck up!”  One woman seemed greatly displeased at having received a ticket, and was yelling at the poor counter worker.  At one point she slammed her fist against the counter to show her rage against the injustice, and when that failed to elicit the dismissal she desired, she stormed out of the room.  I secretly believed that she was going to lose, as anyone dumb enough to yell at the counter person at a city office is probably parking in the wrong spot.

I sat their listening to everyone’s sad stories about emergency trips to the store, out of control employees and children who had stolen the car. Over and over I heard the pleas for mercy, and when none came, outrage and defiance.  I wanted to get worked up, but I was beating my phone at scrabble, so I was in a pretty good mood.  When my number got called, I fixed my ticket and walked out of there with a clean parking bill of health.  Now, I just need to work on my appearance.