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Living in
the Great Midwest
May 25, 2005 Twenty Random Minutes I have a job interview in 2.5 hours. I am listening to my wife fuss at my children and my children fuss back at my wife. It is unclear who is winning. I know the final score will be Mom: 2, Kids: 0, but it’s pretty damn distracting at the moment. She’s going to throw his orange away if he doesn’t stop not eating it. A constant mechanical buzz injects its point-of-view into the argument. I look around to see where the noise is coming from. My search ends at my little daughter’s right hand. She is trying her best to get her new Dora the Explorer battery-operated toothbrush into her mouth. The bristles rub against the side of her face and cause her little head to shake. I think to myself that if the wife hadn’t taken the new toothbrushes out of the package in the first place the kids wouldn’t be playing with them instead of eating the orange. She could have easily used opening the toothbrushes as a reward for eating the orange. I think Dr. Somebody says that you’re not supposed to bribe your kids… Whatever. Now my daughter has put down the toothbrush (which is still buzzing on the floor) and taken to running over to me and pushing slices of orange into my mouth like some sort of late night drop box. After I eat the orange slice, my daughter runs off toward my wife screaming, “Daddy bite!!!!!” To which my wife replies, “For the love of God! Can you please go and wash your sticky hands?” My wife starts talking to me about the fucking garage sale that her sister is having this weekend. I stop typing and tell her what I think last year’s summer outfits are worth on the resale market. I absolutely hate garage sales. The thought of random assholes picking through my old belongings and then haggling about the price makes me nauseas. Take the crap to the Salvation Army…and get a receipt. There. You got rid of our shit and made some money. Anyway, after I answer her question, she goes back to her parenting/garage sale preparation routine long enough for me to start typing again. Then she asks another question about a fucking Wal-Mart jumper that we paid $4 for in the first place. I stop typing and answer her question. By this point, the kids have decided that their old dad’s lap is the place to be and they have starting applying the first coat of orange juice/slobber/mucus on my forearms. I think you need about three coats to do the job properly. With my wife’s second question answered and my kids situated so that I can type again, I get back to work. I punch out about three sentences before my wife breaks out question number three. I start to freak out inside. I count to ten, close my laptop and attempt to set it down between concentrated attacks from the kids. I finally get everything situated and give my lovely wife my undivided attention. Unfortunately, these actions are misinterpreted by the wife as acts of frustration. She realizes that she has interrupted whatever exercise in idiocy that I had been engaged in. This causes her to go into what I call “extreme girl mode” “Extreme girl mode” consists of getting an unhappy look on your face, making a snide remark of faux apology and then refusing to share whatever it was she was talking about – no matter how many times I ask. With a loud sigh, I give up and resolve myself to the notion that she’ll either get over it eventually – or not get over it and take half my shit. I move the kids again so that I can pick up the laptop. By the time I get it open, working and the word processor back on, the kids have decided that they should empty my pockets. There go my pens. My pocket change rolls down the side of the easy chair. My keys start jingling incessantly from between a tiny pair of fingers. I immediately take back a pocket knife after the boy gets hold of it. I begin to freak out again. I close the laptop, unplug it and head upstairs. I climb up the stairs, lay on the floor, open the laptop and type as fast as I can in an attempt to get it done before the inevitable strikes. I can barely type the phrase, “The Channel 4 Weatherstripper” (I’ll tell you later) before a tiny pair of heads peek out from the top of the stairs and giggle. For the final time, I close the lid and say “Fuck it” – I guess there’s no metten column this week at The Surf Report…I’ll send Jeff an e-mail, I’m sure he’ll understand. Then I scoop up the kids, run down the stairs and simultaneously commence Operations Tickle Mommy and Juice Coat. Both of which were a tremendous success. Love, JRM Comments to metten0@lycos.com |
