Apparently, Evilness & Fashion Sense Don't Go Hand In Hand
Have you ever met someone who was just down right mean? When I say mean, I’m talking about borderline evil! I have met such a person, I have looked them in their eyes and lowered my head in shame due to their behavior. It isn’t easy to stare down the face of evil and walk away unscathed, but somebody has to do it, someone has to stand up for the little people, and yesterday, that someone was Ty.
I typically don’t get too excited about specific companies or products, unless it’s Apple, or PS3, or Right Guard deodorant. Okay, so maybe I do get obsessed excited about a few things here or there, but today’s company/product is different, it’s different because it’s totally awesome! Hmmmm, maybe I’ve said that before as well, um, okay, let’s just go with this one: it’s different because I said so! Too strong? Ah, I got it, it’s different because it’s totally FREE!!! Whew, now that that’s out of the way, now I can focus on more important things like explaining why the Lowe’s Build And Grow clinic is so awesome.
When I was a kid, I REFUSED to grow up; point, blank, period. When my parents told me that I wouldn’t be a child forever, I would pout and fuss until they (usually my Mom) caved and told me that I could be a kid for as long as I wanted to. I took the “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys R Us Kid” motto to heart, and felt that Geoffrey the Giraffe would take it as a personal insult if I had broken my promise. I mean, it was bad folks, I played with my X-men action figures well into the second half of my 8th grade school year. You remember the 40yr Old Virgin? Yeah that could have been me in a hearbeat. Luckily though, someone sprinkled some fairy dust on me and I went from super nerd to ultra cool kid overnight. Okay, maybe “fairy” dust wasn’t the best descriptor to use there. The point is, I grew up real quick and swapped Toys R Us for Gap and other trendy clothing stores of that era. Now that I’m a parent, I’m realizing that my childhood transformation likely won’t be replicated by my own kids. They have completely different outlooks on being a kid and neither of them resemble how I viewed it at their age.
Last week, we took Tre for a kindergarten assessment in the hopes of getting him enrolled early for school. Our hopes were quickly eroded, but we’ll get to that later. The exam was a piece of cake and he aced it in typical Tre fashion, and by that I mean with charm and a ton of personality. The kid was a natural and it made me extremely proud. After watching him fly through those questions, I was sure that he was a shoe in for the job. Unfortunately, even with all of Tre’s style and charisma, he wasn’t able to dazzle his way into a kindergarten seat for next year.
Don’t eat them because they are tainted, tainted with some sick mind altering gadget love potion. That has to be the case, because I am totally addicted to Apple products; yup I’m a fanboy and I’m proud to admit it. It’s logical for me to be a fanboy, I’m a gadget guy; hell, my friends even nicknamed me Jetson (because I was so futuristic), but my family on the other hand is a bit less explainable. Apparently, the APPLE doesn’t fall far from the tree (pun SOOOO intended), because not only do my kids love trying to sneak and play on my iPhone, but they also have their own now. It’s crazy, I know; I’m not one to speak ill of those who have passed on, but I honestly thing Steve Jobs was engineering a little more than electronics. I think he was holding the key to biological warfare right within the walls of his headquarters in Cupertino, each new device releases a special pheromone that entices consumers to buy it. That’s not too farfetched is it? How else to you explain my family’s addiction to Apple products?
We all fear getting old & decrypted, to varying degrees. Weather you are petrified or merely a little concerned about getting old, the fact remains that it’s an inevitable fact of life. One of the major consequences of aging is the fact that us elderly folks are constantly under the threat of being replaced by younger, quicker, sleeker versions of ourselves. When getting up in age, It is completely natural to be paranoid about a youngster taking your job, significant other, or even your competitive edge away from you. But at age 7, what would one have to be afraid of in relation to aging and the younger generation?
Very recently, within the span of two weeks I encountered two very different kinds of hustlers. I tried very desperately to teach each of these people a lesson about hard work and honesty, but surprisingly got two extremely different results. This experience has given me the opportunity to understand the underbelly of the hustling world, to really dig in and get up close and personal with these unsavory individuals. During my recent experiences, I have learned that not all hustlers are unscrupulous characters. Some of these hustlers actually have a moral code, there are ethics to their dealings and a general sense of honor in their dealings. Of course the two hustlers that I encountered are none other than my very own children; Tre & Ty. They both had angles to work recently, only one of them went about it in a way that can only be described as COMPLETELY SHADY!!! For the remainder of this post these hustlers will be known as hustler #1 & hustler #2; I’ll let you judge for yourself which child is associated with what hustle.
Last weekend I’m sure many of you saw my frantic tweets about Tre being rushed to the hospital by ambulance and being admitted into the ICU. You would think that seeing your child whisked away strapped to a gurney in an ambulance would be enough to frighten any parent, surprisingly however, I wasn’t shaken at all by the situation. If anything, I was a bit angry because I felt that the doctors and nurses were going extremely overboard. Well it turns out that Tre is quite a bit more fragile than I had ever anticipated and although he made it thru his hospital “bid” and got paroled early for good behavior, he clearly wasn’t put of the woods yet. Apparently the hospital stint was only the first hurdle for us to overcome in a long race against allergies and asthma.
A long time ago I wrote a post called The Name Game, it was about ensuring my kids had built in nicknames and some of the difficulties that such a task entailed. Well I’m happy to report that nearly 2 yrs later, I’m finally received those cool points that I wrote about oh so long ago. Tre finally, knows and responds to his nickname, he enjoys having a nickname and prefers people to use it. YES!!! Goal achieved, this is exactly what I never had as a child, and now both of my kids are enjoying the perk that I was denied as a child. Only problem is, I now have the HARDEST time calling Tre by his nickname.
How many of you know someone who is genuinely funny? I mean someone whose jokes literally make you keel over with laughter. They’re good people to have around right? These types of people can turn a bad day around with a few simple words. When they’re around, a smile is bound to be landing on your face within minutes. A person who can tell a good joke won’t find themselves with a shortage of friends very often, and for good reason. But what about those friends who attempt to be funny and just fail at it miserably? The people who couldn’t tell a good joke if there was a chicken and a road right in front of them (wait a minute, considering that last joke, am I one of those people?) That’s neither here nor there, this isn’t about me. No, instead, it’s about a little boy, a 3 year old little boy who I’m afraid is incapable of telling a joke. In my expert funny accountant opinion, I’d say he’s a class 5 bad joke teller. We all know that those classified as class five, are destined to live a life of being laughed at instead of laughed with. It hurts my heart that my very own little boy is walking down such a humiliating road, but without forking over thousands on improv comedy classes, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do. If things continue in this manner, Tre may never know the joy of being able to make people laugh.
