Squeak’s Squeals

I stopped by WalMart’s handy-dandy Tire and Lube Express department this morning to have a headlight replaced (I’ve been a padiddle for the last two weeks…  And calling a three hour wait for a bulb change “Express” is blatant false advertising, but that’s a rant for another day).

Today’s rant involves musical talent - or the lack there of.  You see, while I was patiently waiting for the line up of work release convicts to finish with my car (one guy had “FTW” tatooed on his forearm… while I am fully aware of what this means INSIDE the prison system, I prefer to believe he’s just a REALLY hardcore gamer), I stopped by the handy-dandy McDonald’s-in-WalMart… because nothing says ‘white trash’ like eating at a restaurant INSIDE a WalMart.  “Hoowee, Charlene!  I is gonna take you someplace REAL special fer our first date… an affer dinner, we can splits us a apple pie!”

Ok, back on topic - I ventured into the white trash Hell within the white trash Hell and orded up a fish combo (cuz nothing says ‘fine seafood‘ like a deep fried slab of fish on a bun).  I picked a little two-seater table and proceeded to dip my first mushy-assed fry in ketchup (no complaints here, I LOVE mushy-assed fries).  It was then that I saw it - across the distance of the entryway, on the opposite side of the 900-year-old people greeter, under the uber vents that blast you with the only shot of hot and/or cold air you’ll get while you’re in the store, on a poster inside the little You’re-Stealing-Our-Shit sensor panel.  Dost mine eyes deceive me?  I blinked hard and looked again.  Nay, nay, mine eyes dost not seem to beist deceptive.  Nevertheless, I looked down at my fries, trying to rend from my mind the image now burned to my cornea.  No!  It cannot be!  Fate would not be so cruel!  This is not proof of a just and loving God!  I looked up again, just to be certain.  And, alas, it would seem as though my childhood has come back to haunt me.  For there, before my very eyes, was a sight I had last beheld in 1994.

It was a piece of my life, my youth, my childhood that I had hoped would remain packed away in my mother’s attic right next to the shoe strings, pillow cases, nightgowns, framed posters and t-shirts bearing their name.  But Noo-ooo-oooo!  They have to come back FOURTEEN years later for a “reunion tour” and remind me just how lame I used to be (which is considerably lamer than I am now, which is truly saying something).  Regardless, the rumors are true, the nightmare is real: The New Kids on the Block have reunited.

And calling themselves “Kids” at this point in their lives is really very, very sad.  For everyone.  I realize “New Men on the Block” makes them sound like a bunch of dirty perverts, but New Kids!?  Seriously?  Maybe they could rename the ‘band’ “Midlife Crisis on the Block”….  I’d be much more down with MCOTB.

As I munched my greasy sammich and sipped my fountain lemonade, I tried desperately to avoid looking back at the poster, but to no avail - it was like a train wreck.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t pull my gaze from it.  Even now, as I hide in the secluded safety of my own office, I still see them… old and married, but none donning wedding bands…. some pudgy, some balding, some obviously, flamingly gay… why, God, why!?!  Of all the skeletons to bring forth, why THIS one!?  Does anyone else have a mental image of Jesus waving his arms to “The Right Stuff” “Hangin’ Tough”*?  Or is it just me?

You’ve noticed, I’m sure, that I’ve added an image of the wonderkins as they are today.  This is the exact poster that caught my eye across the Wally World lobby.  Just one question: Is that really a V-neck wife beater?  Pimpin’.

Some things are better left in pieces.  Boy bands would be at the top of that list.  And to the New Old Geezers… so long and thanks for ruining my square fish.

You'll find more disturbing flashbacks at humor-blogs.com.

Have you ever sat at home - wide awake at 6 o’clock on a Saturday morning - and felt the itch?  The fierce internal need to go out and do something childish and stupid?  It’s like an urge for a mini midlife crisis (or in my case, since I refuse to count myself among the mid-aged, a mini PRE-midlife crisis).

I went through this a few years back - before meeting the Neanderthal - while facing the impending damnation that is and/or was my 30th birthday (oh, vile, evil day of despair - I still wear black to mourn the loss of my youth).  Anyway, it manifested itself as a serial dating binge - it was something insane, like 30 dates with 25 men in three months.  Then the Neanderthal popped into my life and it all stopped.

But the itch has returned.  The need to do something completely, utterly stupid is slowly taking over any conscious attempt to subdue the desire.  And, no, I don’t mean that I am desiring to date 25 more men (puhleez!  Once is enough, people!  Honestly, how many men can one woman tolerate before she snaps?).  What I mean is I just want to do something reckless and stupid like I would have done ten years ago - perhaps spending a weekend in an alcoholic stupor (one weekend is all it would take… my body simply can’t process that crap like it used to), or maybe grabbing the girlfriends for an improptu road trip with no map, no plan and no destination (ah, the good ol’ days), maybe a costume party in an outfit no one should actually wear in public (last time this happened, the GFs and I went as a pimp ‘n hoes…. holy cleavage, Batman!  I was so proud of my alabaster orbs).

Regardless, my point here is that there is a fire burning deep in the darkest recesses of my bowels and slowly working its way through the rest of my body where I will be overcome by the craving, the thirst - nay, the insatiable hunger - to spend a weekend living free and wild (and probably half naked).  Well, here’s hoping when I finally succumb to my fevered lust for immaturity that it is (1) blog-worthy and (2) without police intervention.  w00t!

The girls go wild at humor-blogs.com.

I live in the suburbs. I am not a suburb kind of gal. I may be a little bit country, but a little bit suburban, I am not.

I am perfectly comfortable in a little podunk, backwoods, inbred, redneck town, but I now reside in the ritziest, most upscale suburb in this part of Pennsylvania. I’m not here because I make a lot of money. I’m not here because I want people to think I make a lot of money. I am here because the schools are excellent, the house is gorgeous and the rent fell inside my price range. However, I get the feeling that I am nothing more than that weird, creepy neighbor no one talks about. Call me Lady Voldemort.

Maybe it’s my incessant need to wear my Bert and Ernie lounge pants in public. Maybe it’s the rusty, little, 275,000+ mile, back-firing beast of a Subaru parked in the driveway. Maybe it’s because my kids sing Weird Al tunes as loudly as their little lungs will allow. Maybe it’s because I like to sit on the back porch in my underwear and smoke cigarettes at 5am. It’s probably a combination of all of the above, coupled with seeing my hideous (translation: cheap and/or free) furniture when I moved in, indicating that I obviously am not wealthy and therefore not worthy of their company.

Seriously, my house is gorgeous. My furniture is awful. I have one of those eclectic collections of slightly-better-than-a-college-dorm furnishings (complete with milk crate book shelves). My couch is black velvet with pink and blue swirls. My coffee table isn’t a coffee table at all, it’s a night stand turned sideways. My dining room table cost five dollars at an auction five years ago - the chairs were ten bucks at a yard sale. But they are comfy and they are mine. Though some days I wonder if I should try to spruce things up a bit.. you know, maybe bring myself up to speed with my station in life. You know… start skipping the garage sales and hitting the thrift stores instead….

And I know the reaction people have when I tell them I’m a nerd. Believe me when I tell you the average Suzy Homemaker stay-at-home mom looks at you like a freak and never speaks to you again. Case in point: The kids started back to school this week. One of the bus stop moms introduced herself and we started talking. We hit it off quite well for being total strangers. This went on for a couple days… then she asked me what I do for a living, “I’m a web developer for an IT company across town,” I said. “Oh,” she replied. And she has not spoken to me since. In fact, she started standing on the opposite side of the street… like I’m carrying the plague. “Don’t stand next to that new girl…. you’ll catch the dweeb!”

Don’t feel sorry for me, dear readers, for I love being the odd man out. I like to do things - especially in a neighborhood full of snobs - just to drive them insane:

I let my kids hang a metallic, dollar store happy birthday banner in the front window… and I left it there… just for the hell of it.

I take my trash out while wearing a plaid bathrobe and platform shoes.

Sometimes, I close all the curtains and pull all the shades, then turn the lights on and off as fast as I can for two or three minutes.

I play “I am the Walrus” (the Jim Carrey version) over and over again during my 5am smoking sessions… in my undies… on the back porch.

I draw faces on the kids’ kick balls and make them talk in funny voices.

Yup. I know how to keep myself entertained… and it gives the gossip mongers something to talk about. I’ll stick with my nerdy, dorky buddies. They’re the best kind anyway… I just feel bad for my kids (in a strange sort of way)… they will forever be the girls with the REALLY creepy mom.

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My children. Oh, my children. I love them. I do. Very much. More than life itself, even. But the bottom line: I really don’t like them much at all. Except when they’re sleeping. Then they’re angels.

For those of you who have not yet experienced the joys of child rearing… well…. buyer beware. For those of you that have…. it’s nice to know I’m not alone. I believe Denis Leary said it best, “…immediately, when they hit age five, your life becomes about peace and quiet. You just want the fighting to stop.  Can’t we all just get along!?…” Can I get an ‘Amen!’ for Brother Leary?

I am pretty much convinced at this point that my children are indeed trying to see just how far they can take things before someone dies - them, me, the neighbor, a random groundhog - doesn’t matter who or what… so long as someone or something is dead when it’s over.

It’s as if I tucked them in one night - all cute and sweet and innocent and wonderful - and I awoke the following morning to find my house in the midst of a hostile takeover by a race of bipolar, mutant midgets.

Honestly, how many times should I really have to repeat the line, “No, you can’t have scissors,” before it sinks in?? Two, you might say. Perhaps five. Or ten. Or twenty-five. Oh, nay nay, my friends. It is a line that must be spoken, like a broken record in an abandoned building, one hundred and seventy times - elevating vocal volume every five repeats until finally you start to feel your skull crack (for I firmly believe arguing with children causes your skull to crack, which in turn allows tiny amounts of brain matter to seep out under your skin where it congeals and forms the lumps and lines that society perceives as ‘wrinkles’ while simultaneously making one utterly, ridiculously stupid). At this point, you just scream it, “NO! YOU CAN’T HAVE SCISSORS!” Just a note to those non-parental types out there: If the neighbors couldn’t hear it, you didn’t yell it loud enough.

Oft have my dreams wandered to a magical place in my head where the walls are all covered in massive pads of Velcro… and all children’s clothing is covered in opposing pads… where anytime, anywhere… you can stop, bend down, pick them up, stick them to the wall… and walk away. And they have mute buttons - hidden where they can’t reach them. And when they are whining, crying, kicking, screaming… throwing tantrums enough to make a colicky newborn stop and go, “Damn! What the f*%k’s HER problem!?”….. you can push the magic button and silence prevails. Ah, yes…. to dream…. though fleeting it may be…. And so it goes… that we live in our little dorky, parental bubbles where life is happy and quiet… and children are well-mannered, well-behaved and always clean…..

But alas, the time has come for me to leave the safety and security of my personal kid-free bubble and start the screaming over again…. this time it’s, “No, you can’t use super glue!” Let the fun begin! Whee!

Yeah... they're funnier than me over at humor-blogs.com.