Grow The Hell Up Already!

The other day the wife and I stood up from a two-hour session of financial budget crunching and strategery to stretch, high five over renewed resolutions and try to ignore the suckness that is adulthood.

It was about that time our boy came down stairs to inform us of his struggles with having to give up half the pack of gum (per my request) to his beloved sister.

This would eliminate two whole pieces of gum from the boy’s life.

Two…

Pieces of gum…

Causing much sadness, regret, torture and just outright anger.

Gum.

For shit-sake…GUM!!

It’s moments like this that you want grab the precious little angel by the neck, strap him in a chair and introduce him to the vicious world of bills, jobs, commuting, groceries, dogs shitting all over your yard, babysitter fees, and taking a shower hoping for sex only to find out tonight’s “Netflix’s mega-shownight!!” only to find out hours later that your wife made that whole damn naming convention up.

There are times when the girl is breaking down because we want to comb her hair so random lice-infested birds flying by don’t claim her furry skull as a future home.

There are times when the boy can’t believe his father met him at the school bus in his 1991 shiny blue running tights and shirt picturing a huge sandwich with SILF written under it.

I remember as a kid believing my world was going to end because I had to wear a pair of “jams” my mom made that puffed out in the front like I had a “butt in front.”

I was devastated.

Probably the most common phrase ever muttered between parents is “if only I knew how miniscule my problems were as a kid.”

But we still appreciate them and understand them because we were once there.

We panicked when we walked into school with the knock-off Members Only jacket.

I freaked when kids called me names on the soccer field.

For shit sake my most favorite song for years was “The Rainbow Connection” by Kermit the fucking Frog!!

But I keep telling myself and the kids…this time…is just a blip on the radar of your life.

Years from now we’ll be drinking beers at a pub with the kids while laughing over the fact they’d fight over some dorky game called Angry Birds.

Or that the kid who bullied them in the school bathroom now pummels their Facebook page with Amway products.

The hardest part is not telling your kids to let the bullshit parts of childhood roll off their backs…it’s instilling the strength in them to believe in themselves.

I for one am guilty as hell of that.

Steve Irwin Took Over My Body

So every day I commute into the city on the train. It’s about a 20 min. ride with about 6 stops along the way. But shhhh…don’t tell wifey, she thinks it’s an hour train ride with 18 stops along the way and that I have to walk up-hill both ways to get to and from the iron beast.

I love the train...I get to listen to music, read, catch-up on work, go through emails, and stare randomly at strangers…a hobby of mine I’ve perfected.

Yesterday I hopped on a late train and was beat. Just before it takes off, I got in the simultaneous double-wammy of shit situations. I’m 6’3” so I take up some room in the seat. Along comes Mr. 6’1” overweight dude who feels like squeezing in next to me. At the exact same time comes this mousey-looking lady who slides in right in front of me with her just purchased, fresh out of the oven, roast beef sandwich loaded the fuck down with onions.

Once my urge snap her neck, bust out a window and throw Big Boy on to the tracks subsided, I kicked into observation mode. The mousey lady plowed through a sandwich like I’ve never seen anyone do. Meanwhile, with her other hand, she’s doing shit in Excel on her laptop that makes The Matrix look like ColecoVision. All of a sudden I see her snap her head to the right and look at a dude across the isle.

I quickly pause my iPod to get the low-down on what’s getting her panties all in a wad and I hear it ….a loud pop… Her head immediately snaps back at him with another “die you son-of-a-bitch chewing gum popper” look. This onion-eating, whole sandwich swallower, Excel goddess hates gum-poppers. I thought that was the oddest fucking thing. And this dude couldn’t give two shits. He had his headphones on and was playing some game on his cell phone and suckin’ on a tallboy Bud Light.

I felt like the Crocodile Hunter reborn. I wanted to take my umbrella like a mic. and have Big Boy take the camera as I crouch behind the seat in the isle and start filming me as I said (*in an awfully shitty Australian accent):

Krikey!! We have an incredible stage being set for what will play out as blood-bath of amazing proportions. Mother Nature’s fury will be unleashed on this suburban commuter train. Just over this seat I’m crouched behind is a healthy Type-A, male-hating, accountant known as Psycho Scary Midget Bitch. Her natural predator is just on the other side of this seat…a scumbag shoe salesman who purposefully leaves his zipper down on sales calls, is known on Twitter as @sexyramone, and has masturbated twice a day since he was 12—the Annoying Sloth Bastard. His mating call is the popping of gum, which agitates the Psycho Scary Midget Bitch. In a mere seconds…he’s going to give what will sure to be his last mating call as the Psycho Scary Midget Bitch is going to spring from her habitat, slice him from groin to chin before he……..

Just then my train stopped and I had to get off. I was dying to know how it ended….just as much as I was dying to escape the horror of onions, gum popping, sneezing, Big Boy, cell phone screamers, and a shit-ton of other nightmares loading that train down. But I can tell you one thing.... she sure as shit knew Excel.