Man of Action!

Why the GOP Must Pay Attention to This Huntsman Fellow

2011-09-09T07:50:00.000-07:00

This is it, folks. This is the bottom line for the Republican party:

The Case for Jon Huntsman - Mickey Edwards - National - The Atlantic: "For the sake of the country, the focus in the Republican contest must begin to shift from who would be the best cheerleader for a particular ideological mindset to who would be the best president -- not the best president of the tea party or the Ripon Society or any other subset of the Republican electorate, but of all 300 million Americans of different backgrounds, different concerns, different interests, and different preferences."

'via Blog this'

The article goes on to clarify that he may not bring the far-right to its feet in adulation and excitement, but the GOP needs to remember that more than just the conservative base will be voting next November. Besides perhaps Ron Paul, Huntsman is the only candidate that can bring in that delicate mix of moderates, independents, and disaffected Democrats to gain enough votes to unseat their hated Obama.

You don't defeat a sitting President by being his polar opposite. You defeat a sitting President by stealing his base right out from under him.

Probably Over-thinking It: I'm Afraid You'll Need a Working Knowledge of All the Toy Story Movies to Keep Up With Us On This One

2011-08-16T10:25:00.001-07:00

What's with Woody?

We know a couple of things about the toys in Toy Story as a rule. First, there is nothing a toy loves more than its child. For its entire existence, a toy will want nothing more than to be played with and to make a child happy.

This is illustrated in a few ways: Obviously first and foremost is Woody's ceaseless devotion to making Andy happy, throughout the series. The years of neglect he has suffered by the beginning of TS3 haven't dimmed his outlook or his energy, and he has kept the rest of the toybox excited about the possibility of that ever elusive play time as well.

Jessie the Cowgirl and Lotso Lovin' Bear illustrate this rule as well, in their own ways. Jessie is clearly traumatized from having been given away by Emily in TS2 (sometime in the 70s or late 80s judging by the decor in her flashback), which has clearly given her significant abandonment and trust issues. Lotso, after being replaced by Daisy's parents, became bitter and power-mad after he found out he was no longer going to spend his days being loved and cared for; he focused all his energy on making sure other toys wouldn't fall for the lie of kids loving them forever. The fact that he had to scheme so thoroughly to achieve this goal shows just how deep a toy's devotion to its child goes. Therefore, the rule is proved: A toy wants nothing more than to make its owner happy and to be played with.

The second rule that we have is a little harder to prove, but I'm no less confident of its veracity: A toy's memories begin before they are opened.

Think of Buzz Lightyear. Not only do we know that he is a 'new toy' in TS1, we know for sure that Andy is his original owner; there would have been no play time or make-believe sessions (such as those that informed Mr. Prickly Pants' behavior in TS3) to have made him think he was a Space Ranger. That belief was given to him at the factory, and it is part of his programming. He knows who he is, has memories of the Academy, and can quote chapter and verse of Star Command Galactic Code.

Also from TS2, we see more and more evidence that toys are only 'awoken' when their packaging is bothered. 'Buzz Lightyear: With New Utility Belt!' was silently staring ahead until Classic Buzz broke into the packaging to steal the belt. Towards the end of the movie, Buzz accidentally causes an Emperor Zurg figure's box to fall from a tall pile of toys, where it is smashed by an automatic door. Awoken, he rises to seek his vengeance.

(An aside: It seems toys from the Lightyear universe are missing the component that lets them realize they are toys. They seem to awake believing the stories from the side of the box. Fascinating.)

If you're with me so far on the Laws of Toys (Toys Love Their Children Unconditionally, Toys Are Awoken When Their Packaging is Disturbed) then I invite you to revisit the original question with me:

What's with Woody?

If ever a toy has demonstrated his devotion to his child, it is Woody with Andy. He is obsessed with Andy; he puts his and the other toy's lives on the line regularly for a little play time and attention. No matter how much abuse or neglect they are subjected to, he is always eager for more because that's his role in life.

And that devotion was put to the test when, in TS2, we saw him tempted to join his long-lost toy family in a Japanese toy museum. Jessie, Bulls-Eye, and Stinky Pete fight for nearly the entire movie to convince Woody to join them. After all, they say, the museum isn't interested in a partial collection of the Woody's Roundup Gang. Separate, they are nothing; it's Woody's presence that makes them worthy of display.

And yet...this is all news to Woody. Not just the fact that he was part of a play set, but the fact that he was valuable at all. After all, he was being played with by Andy; Big Al treated him like a priceless artifact. Andy ripped his arm off while playing with him; Big Al spent absurd amounts of money for a late night house call from a creepy toy-repair specialist to sew it back on.

Wouldn't Andy's mom have wanted her son to treat such a valuable toy with care? Maybe keep it boxed up to sell as part of a college fund? Of course not. She simply wasn't aware of his value. As she says to Al when he tries to buy Woody from her in TS2, 'It's an old family toy.' Meaning he wasn't new, in box, when Andy received him.

And that's the bombshell: Andy is not Woody's original owner. Either he was handed down from an older relative, or he was purchased secondhand and given to Andy.

From here there are two logical conclusions we can draw. Either Woody's past was so dark, so terrible that he has stricken his previous owner from his memory and has devoted himself wholly to Andy's happiness as thanks for saving him; or Woody is simply not as loyal as he appears.

Neither answer makes for a particularly wholesome kids movie. Both lead to different, darker stories than those marketed to us. Critics have always said that Pixar seemed willing to go in darker and darker directions with their movies...perhaps Toy Story 4 will answer these uncomfortable questions.

***This message has been brought to you by the thirtieth viewing of Toy Story 2 within a month's time.

Oliver Sings the Classics

2011-06-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

Oliver falls asleep to us singing him songs. There are a few classics like 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,' and 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat,' but for the most part he prefers it when we make up songs right out of thin air. I'm guessing he just wants us to keep up our improv skills.

What will happen is, we will be halfway through a standard song, and he will spike up in bed, open his eyes, and say something like:

'Baby song!'

'Read a book song!'

'Fast slide song!'

'Mommy song!'

And our current favorite, based on a shockingly impacting episode of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, 'Minnie bouncy ball throw it on the moon song!'

Most of these songs are exactly what you would expect them to be. We assign a random, shifting melody to a stream-of-consciousness set of lyrics. 'Oh, we read a book and it was great! Oliver liked it a lot but then we had to go to bed, and maybe we can read it later when we wake up,' etc, etc, ad infinitum.

There are maybe two or three songs that have consistent lyrics. The 'Nana Papa Song' is set to 'If You're Happy and You Know It,' and is about how they're the best because they love their crazy Oliver.

Or there's the Mommy song. Also referred to as the Daddy song, or the Baby song, it is set to the tune of 'Frere Jacques,' and goes like this:

"I love Mommy / I love Daddy / Spyro too / Spyro too / And my baby brother / And my baby brother / Yes I do / Yes I do"

Pretty basic stuff, but nothing memorable. Right?

Right?

Then last night while we were winding down for the night, Oliver busts forth with this little gem for his little brother:

Rock. And. Roll.

Kicking It At the Palace of Civic Justice

2010-10-20T18:17:00.001-07:00

Jury duty comes like an illness: it is acknowledged shortly before the event itself, forgotten for days while you busy yourself with other matters, and then suddenly makes itself known and unavoidable when most inconvenient. Unlike an illness, though, you need a court order to get out of it.

For myself, I was notified three weeks before my report date. It was through the grace of Amanda that I even remembered to send in my 'Yes, I would love to serve!' postcard that prevents me from going to jail. I promptly forgot about the entire affair; whenever Amanda reminded me to tell our HR department at work that I had jury duty, I would enthusiastically agree. 'Got it!' I would say, as the task I was agreeing to flowed smoothly back out of my brain.

So it was that, Monday morning on my way to the courthouse, I called my supervisor and let them know I had jury duty. 'Worst case scenario, I don't make it in until lunch. I'll let you know.' I sign in at the courthouse and have a seat in the jury waiting room.

A clerk enters. 'Since we are only selecting for Grand Jury today, we will only need fourteen of you.' Awesome. My odds of serving are 14 : 100. As I mentally try to take that down to its lowest common denominator, those of us who were still qualified to serve (A whole mess of people disqualified themselves after finding out you can't have been convicted of basically anything in the last fifteen years) march into a courtroom.

I am still waiting to see a Perry Mason style courtroom in real life. No wide aisle down the middle gallery, nor olde-timey wooden gates and banisters separating the legal teams from the viewing audience. No separate witness stand behind which weeping widows can confess to plotting against their husbands. The style and size of the courtroom is way off from what I expected, and I get the feeling the other jurors are thinking the same thing.

Upon being seated, a circuit judge enters the room and gives us a quick rundown of constitutional democracy. I don't begrudge her this because, 1. It is actually relevant to why we are there, and 2. This lady probably doesn't talk to a lot of non-lawyers in her daily activities, and she should feel free to show off the knowledge that earned her those black robes.

We are told that grand juries serve for two weeks, and there will be two juries of seven citizens selected. One will serve Monday, Wednesday, Friday. The other will serve Tuesdays and Thursdays. Unlike a normal jury, we will not be observing trials and handing down verdicts. Instead, we will view about a dozen cases each day that the District Attorney's office is hoping to prosecute. We are presented with evidence, witnesses and victims testify to us, and we choose whether to indict an individual based on the evidence, which will then allow the case to move to trial. Think of it as proof-reading the case before it goes to trial, and you're halfway there.

I don't know why the judge chose me for the Monday/Wednesday/Friday crew, but it probably had something to do with my height. I sat straight and tall in my pew (?), and was seated in between two tiny old ladies who were both busy clutching their bags and looking down.

Show me to be attentive.

I can't discuss the cases outside the courtroom, but after two days of hearing cases I can safely say one thing: Salem, you've gotta kick the meth. It's getting a little embarassing.

Five days left, and keeping my fingers crossed that I don't hear any child abuse cases. Already had to send a few domestic violence and attempted murder cases to trial, but this is a job that I definitely don't want to take home with me.

My Barely-Informed Economic Opinion

2010-09-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

I spent a little time this morning reading what is apparently a fairly controversial blog posting from Chicago law professor Todd Henderson. I couldn't do this on his main blog page because the firestorm of negative, personal attacks on his family and livelihood from certain readers has caused him to permanently quit blogging.

Todd Henderson, good luck to you and your family, and I'm sorry that your blog-post put the lie to the idea of Liberals being more reasonable and civil.

Since I couldn't read it on Mr. Henderson's page, I followed a link from the Huffington Post to its reposting on the blog of UC, Berkely economics professor Brad DeLong. Mr DeLong has, in addition to posting the original blog in its entirety, has been good enough to provide a safe haven for the comments Mr. Henderson was compelled to leave in response to people attacking his character.

If you haven't clicked on either of those links, go ahead and do that now. I'll wait until you're done.

Finished? Good.

I agree with Mr. Henderson, almost entirely. He is not saying that he should be pitied, nor is he implying that he will be worse off than the poor due to a tax-hike. What he is saying, reasonably, is that he and those of his particular bracket should not be the scape-goat for what is wrong with the American economic system.

This is where it gets tricky for me. As a left-leaning, registered Independent, I generally support our President's policies and ideas. I believe in a robust government that helps those who can't help themselves, and I believe that a few bad apples skating by on the system is a small price to pay to provide assistance to families who can't make it no matter how hard they try.

I supported extending unemployment benefits for those who have exhausted their 99 weeks of benefits, and I support an extension of all the Bush-era tax cuts, at least temporarily. We can re-assess after another two years when, optimistically, our economy will be in a recovery in practice as well as in economical theory.

I guess the whole point of this post is to say:

I'm tired of the hypocrisy that many, many Republican congressmen, pundits, and voters displayed when they said we couldn't afford to extend those unemployment benefits that cost so much less than these tax-cuts, but are practicing all sorts of Newspeak to justify extending these tax-cuts.

I'm surprised and equally disappointed with our President for saying that we have to extend those unemployment benefits by adding to our deficit, but deciding that the line must be drawn in the sand when it comes to paying for tax cuts that will affect our economic recovery in a very real way.

I remember reading an analogy during the unemployment extension argument by an economics professor. If I knew who it was, or when they said it, I would quote it. But I don't, so I'll just finish up this post by paraphrasing him.

"When your house is on fire, and water is the only thing that will put it out, you don't yell at the fireman for getting your couch wet."

For those of you not paying attention, our economy is the blazing house, a short-term deficit is the water, and our couch is...well...our pure ideals about progressive taxes and low government spending, I guess. They're going to get a little soggy and we may have to get new ideologies once this fire is out. Maybe there will be a sale.

For now, though: Unemployment is, arguably, a worse problem than government spending. Let's wait until unemployment is back to reasonable levels before we throw down on the 'let's stop spending,' argument. Okay elected officials?

Please?

New Phone!

2010-05-11T17:26:00.001-07:00

This is a test post that I'm writing on my phone.

I received a free phone at work for being awesome, and one of the things it has (which my old, touch screen only phone didn't) is a full physical keyboard. I'm so used to the touchscreen by now that I use it still for browsing the web and texting, but I thought having a full keyboard would make blog-length typing a bit easier. So, I downloaded a blogging application, and here I go!

Testing, one, two? Test, test?

Critical Thinking: A selection from an essay I wrote for my Russian History class.

2010-05-06T18:01:00.000-07:00

It’s a question that I’ve tried to discuss with my friends a number of times: What would you do if your country was invaded?

The question is purely academic. As an American living in the twenty-first century, I’ve never had the opportunity (and never will, God willing) to answer that question based on experience. Neither have many Americans; the entire twentieth century was an exercise in empire building and intervention where we have been the invading force, but never once were we forced to expel invaders from our own country. As I ask my friends, time and time again, What would happen if a foreign country invaded and threatened not only our livelihood, but our lives? Our family’s lives, our neighbor’s lives?

It’s a popular question, when taken in a Hollywood context. Chuck Norris in, ‘Invasion,’ and Patrick Swayze in, ‘Red Dawn,’ show us what it means to be an American fighting back against invaders, and show that it’s a common enough question to be a reliable box-office smash. Outside of Hollywood, however, the question is difficult to answer: What if a war was brought to our shores and inaction meant death?

The answers--sitting around a table at a restaurant, or lounging on a sofa in my living room, or standing around a parking lot after a movie—are predictable. ‘I’d fight back, no question.’ ‘I’d take my family and go into hiding.’ ‘I’d grab my Dad’s shotgun and my Uncle’s truck and have a blast!’

I may as well be asking what they would do in case of a zombie apocalypse.

The humor and bombast are only to be expected given the context of the question. It can only be hypothetical; no nation exists (again, God willing) that would challenge the U.S. with a full invasion.

But let’s change our position. Let’s say we’re a small European nation. Not a century ago, not a lifetime ago, but barely a generation past. Sixty years ago. We’ve been through some rough patches over the last twenty years, with a change in government, a Civil War, and we haven’t been sure of the name of our country for the last few decades, but at least we have our home, our land, and our family.

Then the Germans invade.

At first, we take it in stride: This is nothing new to us. After all, we’ve been Russians, then Ukrainians, then Russian again on and off for the last thirty years, so now that we are Germans, maybe Stalin will stay off our backs for a little while. Russian, German, or Ukrainian, just let us keep our land and we’ll salute whatever you ask us to.

Then we realize that this is not like the other times. This is not an invading force that wishes us to be its new tax-paying subjects; the Germans want our land, and they want us gone. We hear rumors of the last village they went through, stealing from and destroying their homes, raping and killing the villagers all to give them their Lebensraum, their living room. Their living room, (such a presumptive, disgusting phrase) which is filled with Ukrainians and Russians, Slavs and Romani, and which they have no intention of sharing. According to the survivors from the last village, they kill those that resist and they kill those that surrender.

The context has changed and the stakes have climbed. Now, the question: What would you do?

My Mom Got A Lousy Birthday Present

2010-01-03T08:05:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year from Salem Hospital!

Yes, Salem Hospital, land of nine hour waits between doctor visits for non-life threatening emergencies. The gorgeous, wireless-signal blocking architecture. Grouchy admissions staff who are too busy being upset they have to work on New Year's Day to notice that the people they are admitting probably had better plans for the day too.

I kid sarcastically, but I'm glad they're only a fifteen minute drive away because my Mom couldn't have been driven much further and retained consciousness through all the pain.

About half an hour after calling her to see if she could sit for Oliver so that Amanda and I could go to a movie with our friends, she calls me back, crying, saying, 'I can't, I can't, I can't!' Wailing in pain, she tells me that she can't watch him after all because she's in so much pain.

Probing a little deeper, I ask what's wrong and find out she has excruciating pain down her left side and in her kidneys. Doubled over in agony, vomiting from the pain, the biggest emotion she has, by far, is the sadness that this means she won't get to come see her grandson today.

What a classy lady.

I kiss my wife goodbye and run to the car, driving faster than I should to pick her up. I make the ten minute drive to her house in about six minutes, where she is waiting at the door for me. I help her stagger to the car and buckle her in, and we drive off.

'Don't speed,' she whispers through the pain.

The drive is quick for me, most of the traffic lights being green, but it was a lifetime for poor Mom, doubled up in pain with eyes closed.

'I wish I was just in labor,' she says. 'Labor wasn't this bad.'

We arrive at the emergency room, where we approach the admissions desk. We are met with a vaguely appraising stare, which is attached to the face of a dowdy admissions nurse. Nurse Dowdy looks us up and down, this middle-aged woman leaning on her son for support, whispering, 'It hurts, it hurts, it hurts...' and shows the world why she is just an admissions nurse by asking, 'Need something?'

'Yes,' I say after punching her in my mind, 'we have some pretty intense pain in the kidneys and wondered if anyone could help with that.'

Nurse Dowdy is not impressed. 'Last name?' she asks.

We give her all the vital information, which she enters into her system with the speed of a DMV line. Her sole duty in life fulfilled, she raises her head from her computer screen and, compassionately, nods her head for me to turn around.

'Wheelchair,' she offers.

I smile my best, 'Maybe-your-son-wouldn't-care-about-you-but-I'm-a-little-worried-about-my-Mom' smile and thank her. Seating Mom in the chair, I tell our savior that I parked illegally outside to get her in here, and would like to move the car now. Nurse Dowdy says she'll take care of her and begins to wheel her away, behind The Swinging Doors. I return to the car and park at the nearest spot, which is only technically still in the Pacific Northwest, geographically. A quick seven-day journey back to the emergency room from the car, and a different nurse is taking Mom's blood pressure and asking her about her allergies.

We are admitted, and wheeled back to a room separated from the triage ward by a sturdy curtain. This room, we will soon discover, has been stripped of most of its comforts and supplies by other nurses.

"Salem Hospital: Where Someone Else Will Always Be Our Priority."

The nurse we get to help take care of Mom is actually very nice. Nurse Becky talks with my Mom about the joys of grandchildren between bouts of pain and does her best to accommodate Mom's general weirdness of conversation.

Over the next two hours, Nurse Becky and our doctor determine that Mom is passing a kidney stone. I present an excerpt from the conversation:

Doctor: 'Well, the good news is, the stone is almost done with its journey, so most of the pain is behind us.'

Mom (heavily medicated): 'Ooh, thaab gwoo.'

Doctor: 'The bad news is, there are still a few up there.'

Mom: 'Whhhhhh...'

Doctor: 'But they're much smaller than the one you just passed!'

Mom: 'Ahhhm.'

Doctor: 'Except for one of them. It's actually much bigger.'

Mom: (collapses in agony)

Some different medication was brought in by a different nurse, and it put her to sleep pretty quickly. The administering nurse must not have been paying close attention to my or Mom's face because she surprised me, as she was filling out some paperwork, by asking, 'You're the husband?'

'Excuse me?'

'I asked, are you her husband?'

Disbelievingly, all I can manage to say is, 'Son.'

'Oh! Well, yes, I guess you would be,' she stammers as she gets a closer look at our thirty years-separated, clearly related faces. 'Sorry. All I saw was the wedding band, and I...I assumed.'

'It's okay,' I answer, deciding that if a nurse is going to have such a large lapse in judgement, I was glad it was about our relation instead of accurate dosage or procedures.

After three hours, by far the shortest visit I've ever had to Salem Hospital (Where Even the Visitors Have to Work Eighteen Hour Shifts), we are excused and sent home with medication and strict cranberry juice requirements. Mom stays with us for the night in case of a relapse.

I bring her home and Amanda greets her with Oliver in her arms. Oliver smiles at Mom, then reaches out to grab her face.

'Thank you, little man. I needed that.'

She really did, too.

Happy birthday, Mom. Feel better.

Boss Fight Strategy: Feeding the Baby Its Breakfast

2009-11-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, I know a lot of people have been having trouble with this one. It's probably one of the most challenging fights in the game, so don't feel bad if you're not able to get it right on the first try.

The Baby event starts as soon as he's strapped into the high chair. His enrage timer starts up right away, so you'll only have a few minutes to prepare the food and start into the first phase of the encounter.

PHASE ONE-----------------------------
Fairly simple: You're just trying to get the food into the Baby's mouth. This is still the introductory stage to the encounter, so it's not too challenging.

For this round, feel free to hold the bowl of food in one hand and to feed the Baby with the other. The Baby isn't very fussy at this point, and will usually just eat whatever's in front of him. Use this time to your advantage, because as the encounter progresses it will become increasingly difficult to do so.

Simply approach the Baby with the spoon full of food, stick it into their open mouth, and scoop the food off with their upper lip as you remove the spoon. Repeat until the Baby starts waving one of his arms around, signaling the start of phase two.

PHASE TWO------------------------------
A lot like stage one, you're just getting the food into the Baby's mouth, but now you've got a gimmick to deal with. No good Boss fight is without at least one gimmick.

One of the Baby's arms will start waving randomly in front of his face, blocking anything that approaches. Make sure not to get hit with this attack as it can cause the entire spoonful to be spilled onto the tray. Sometimes the Baby will also grab the spoon as it passes, which can cost you a lot of time trying to get it free. If the Baby grabs the spoon more than once, I would recommend reloading from your last save and starting over.

The best way to avoid the swinging arm is to set the bowl of food down on a nearby table, freeing up one of your hands to run interference. I usually just grab the swinging arm with my free hand when I'm approaching with the spoon and let go after he's eaten it.

DO NOT HOLD ONTO THE BABY'S ARM FOR MORE THAN FIVE SECONDS AT A TIME OR IT WILL AUTOMATICALLY SKIP TO PHASE FOUR OF THE ENCOUNTER!!!!

Once you've gotten a few spoonfuls through, phase three begins.

PHASE THREE----------------------------
The Baby will still be swinging his arm, but now he'll also avoid eating the food. You need to either distract or trick the Baby into a position where his mouth will be open and you can continue feeding him.

A lot of people try making it look like the food is delicious by pretending to eat it themselves, but this is a waste of time. The Baby doesn't care if food is delicious. The best strategy is to try to make it look like the Baby is not supposed to have the food, and that you'll be unhappy if it ends up in his mouth. This will guarantee the Baby will eat the food.

Sometimes the Baby will move its head just as you're about to feed it, and the food will end up on its face or nose or, if you're lucky, just to the side of its mouth, where you can scoop it in after another pass. If the food drops onto its bib, don't worry too much, but if there is more food on the bib or on the Baby's face than you actually got into the Baby by the end of the encounter when the Mom comes in, you'll lose the encounter and have to start over.

PHASE FOUR-----------------------------
Just like phase three, but now both arms are swinging. So, you'll have to use one hand to block one of the arms like before, but you'll also have to dodge the other one. Again, the Baby's arm can grab onto the spoon if you're not careful, spilling it onto itself or onto you. Remember, YOU WILL LOSE IF THERE IS MORE FOOD ON THE BABY THAN IN THE BABY.

You should be almost done with the bowl by now, so of course things are going to get more difficult for the final phase.

FINAL PHASE----------------------------
At this point, the Baby's enrage timer has reached zero, and it begins to scream and cry, while continuing its attacks from the first four phases. Check your food at this point: If you've gotten at least 80% into the Baby's mouth, the Baby's Mom will come into the room and congratulate you and give you your experience points and the encounter will end.

If you haven't fed the baby at least 80% of the food, though, this phase is really challenging. You'll only have a couple minutes to finish before the screaming wakes up the Mom and she comes in. Usually, I will just start over if I'm not able to get the Baby fed before the enrage kicks in. If you want to proceed, just use the same strategies as before, but you'll need to be faster and more careful.

Besides screaming and shaking his head back and forth, the only new attack the Baby has for this phase is coughing when his mouth is full of food, so even if you get some food into its mouth, it doesn't mean it will stay. Just keep at it until you've gotten 80% of the food into the Baby's mouth.

If you don't get at least 80% of the food into the Baby by the time the encounter is over, the Mom will come into the kitchen and demand to know what you are doing, and then finish feeding the Baby for you. It's a pretty funny scene, so you may want to lose just once to watch it. After that, though, start the encounter over, because if the Mom has to finish feeding the Baby, you'll get no experience for the fight, and you won't be allowed to try it again.

My Boy

2009-10-01T21:52:00.000-07:00

I remember pacing around our room waiting for the nurse to come get me. I remember it distinctly, because Grandma Christie was laughing at me. It was a nervous laugh, a laugh that was hiding its own anxieties about the day, a memorable laugh. We were wearing our ugly blue scrubs and hair nets.

Quick theory: Newborn babies are kind of weird looking, so hospitals try to make everyone around them dress up in the most ridiculous looking outfits available to make the babies appear cute in comparison. This strategy works.

We had been awake for hours. I think we got up at four, but your Mom would know for sure. I'm already forgetting the easiest details: What time did we get up? What time did we leave for the hospital?

I can tell you one detail for sure: the nurses were dead wrong about how long it would take to get your Mom ready for the birth. I know this because it was the reason for my pacing.

We had come into the hospital about two hours early, (Or maybe just ninety minutes? Ask your Mom.) so they could get her prepped for the operation. You were, as the ultrasound technician lovingly put it, 'Enormous,' so you were a scheduled delivery. The plan was, we would come in to the hospital and meet the nurses who would help with the delivery, your Mom would be taken to the operating room while Grandma and I waited in our room, and then after they got her all hooked up to the machines and anesthetic, the nurses would come and bring us to her. They said it would take fifteen minutes.

At ten minutes I was already pacing. Not frantic, just trying to move, trying to get some energy out. Grandma had already started laughing at me at this point. I was laughing back a little bit. We took pictures of each other wearing those ridiculous outfits to lighten the mood, but we were both watching the clock as it ticked over to fifteen minutes...sixteen minutes...seventeen minutes...

By twenty minutes, I was withdrawing a little into myself. Still pacing, but less interactive with Grandma, less interested in joking and talking. I was starting to prepare myself for the news the nurses were sure to bring me: That your Mom had died, that you had died along with her. That the reason they had taken so long to come get us was because they were drawing straws to see who would come deliver the bad news.

Twenty-five minutes in, your Grandma caught on and told me everything was fine, they were just taking longer than expected, that nothing was wrong. What a sweet thing to say. This is how it works in a family crisis: One person is allowed to freak out at a time. I had started pacing and being nervous first, so by default, Grandma had to calm me down and be rational. Poor Grandma. I had stolen her jitters.

Finally, finally, finally. The nurses came through the door and asked us to follow them. We walked, a little behind, down the hall and through two swinging doors to where your Mom was laying. Her eyes were closed, her expression was pained, but her tears were drying. I swept in heroically (Don't listen to your Mom if she tells you otherwise) and held her head in my hands. I whispered to her that we were there, that everything would be okay, that we were about to be parents. She was breathing heavily when she opened her eyes and looked at me.

'I love you,' I said. 'I love you,' she said.

You will hate that part of the story, but it's true. Your Mom and I were stupid for each other.

We heard you before we saw you. Your voice was deep and it rattled, crying out for us to help you. The nurses cleaned you, and weighed you, and checked to make sure you were safe. Then they wrapped you in a blanket and stuck a small knit cap on your head to keep you warm. Then they handed you to me.

I remember thinking how unfair it was that, after all the work your Mom had done over the last nine months, I was the first to get to hold you. Here she was, lying on a bed sweating and crying, and I was holding the thing she had given up her body for for the past year.

I didn't mind, of course. I just thought it was unfair.

I brought you over to her, and we spent some time looking at you, and you spent some time crying at us. Then a few days later you started staring at us, and crying at us. A few months went by and you would smile at us too, when you weren't staring and crying. You learned how to laugh about two months ago, and I never want you to stop.

I know this isn't a big philosophical point to make, and it's one that I always get tired of hearing other parents talk about. Your Grandma Watson talks about it every time I see her, and I think every other parent in the world has already had this revelation, but this is the first time it has really ever hit me: You are older than you used to be. You are six months old tomorrow.

I look at your face now, and I already have a hard time seeing the baby that the nurses gave me to hold.

Stop.

Please.

When we meet new people, this is Amanda's favorite story to tell about me.

2009-07-30T19:19:00.000-07:00

I am not a cat person.

When I was very small, four years old or younger, my parents gave me a kitten. More accurately, they let me name it and think it was mine, but they took care of it themselves.

'What's his name, Jeffrey?' they asked me.

'Konk-Konk!' I shouted.

Konk-Konk was a small gray tabby. As far as I'm concerned there is no other type of cat. He was tiny and timid, and I treated him like any child treats a kitten--with forceful love.

I grabbed his legs when he would run away, I pet him roughly as he squirmed and clawed against me, I threw things and demanded he play with them. I was four, and he was a kitten; this was the way it was done.

It was after one of these play sessions, back in my bedroom, that I picked up little Konk-Konk and held him close to me, giving him all the love a four-year-old's attention span could give. I squeezed him tight, then held him out in front of me to look at him.

He had fallen asleep! What a silly cat!

Laughing to myself at the notion that a kitty could fall asleep in the middle of a good strong cuddling, I tightened my grip and marched out to the front room where my Dad was reading. I held him out for inspection. I laughed.

'Kitty ni-night!'

Dad glanced over. 'Yes, Jeffrey, kitty ni--'. He stopped mid-sentence and looked closer.

I was holding Konk-Konk tightly, yes, with both hands gripped firmly around his neck. He dangled limply from my hands, swaying like the weight of a grandfather clock. He ticked away.

Tick, tick, tick.

'Kitty ni-night!' Dad agreed, rushing to take the little cat from me. 'Kitty sure is ni-night, Jeffrey.' He hurried away to another room, closing the door behind him. When he returned, Konk-Konk had been woken from his nap, much to my delight. I reached for him, expectantly.

'I think kitty has played enough today, Jeffrey. Maybe next time I can show you how you're supposed to play with him, okay?'

'Okay!' I yelled. I held my hands together and jumped excitedly. Play with kitty again!

But kitty was never very eager to play with me again after that...never very eager at all.

Probably because we had woken him from his nap.

Mad dogs and Englishmen

2009-07-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

If the weather were a league of superheroes, Heat would be a villain.

Heat would storm the mighty compound of the Temperate Climate Brigade, flaming staff clutched in his terrible fist, and stand in the doorway, radiating pure temperature. Storm Cloud would begin thundering in dismay as convection currents rose and drove him mad. Rainfall and the Cumulus Twins would evaporate into nothingness, damning the name of Heat and swearing to rise again when level-heads and reasonable climates once again prevailed.

And Heat wouldn't be doing anything. Just standing there, ruining everyone's day. Heat, by nature, is evil.

We are trapped in our room by Heat right now, exiles in our own home, ruined specimens of human beings. It's the only safe room in the house, being conditioned to a relatively cool 76F degrees. 76F is relatively cool? What a world!

We venture outside only for the direst of circumstances: Diaper changing, medication, or escape. We step outside our room and it's like we've been punched in the face by the heat. Outside the room is hot lava. Don't step in the hot lava.

I wonder at times like this, out loud and angrily, what has snapped inside a person's mind that would cause them to look at a thermometer, see 80 to 100F degrees, and exclaim, 'My, what nice weather!'

NICE WEATHER DOESN'T KILL THE ELDERLY.

NICE WEATHER DOESN'T MELT ICE CREAM.

NICE WEATHER DOESN'T CAUSE CANCER.

NICE WEATHER DOESN'T CREATE DROUGHTS.

I would write more, and more clearly and comedically, if my brains hadn't already been fried by the sun. I believe that 90F degrees is the boiling point for sanity. So I'll just say, if you truly enjoy this kind of weather, then we have nothing to say to one another.

Oliver's To-Do List

2009-07-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

Wednesday-

3:03 AM- Wake up; make enough noise to wake up Mom and Dad; fall back asleep.

3:50 AM- Flip self over onto stomach; cry loudly.

3:56 AM- Have diaper changed by Dad.

4:00 AM- Breakfast.

4:04 AM- Abruptly stop eating and cry for twenty minutes; possible spit-up opportunity.

4:22 AM- Pretend to fall asleep; wake up immediately upon contact with bed; cry loudly.

4:50 AM- After thirty minutes of trying to get me to sleep, Mom gets up and takes me to the front room- at this point, fall immediately back asleep on Mom's chest.

8:10 AM- Pretend to still be asleep; shove entire fist into Mom's mouth.

8:12 AM- Punch Mom in the face while she tries to get me back to sleep.

8:13 AM- More breakfast.

8:45 AM- Lay on playmat and smile; kick legs against ground; spit up.

8:46 AM- Have outfit changed; shove fist in mouth; spit up immediately after.

9:00 AM through 2:00 PM- Arbitrarily switch between loudly crying, napping, and spitting up.

2:15 PM- Nap with Mom.

5:00 PM- Dinner.

5:33 PM- Spit up entirety of dinner.

5:35 PM- Replacement dinner.

6:00 PM- Spit up while having diaper changed; place fist in mouth; spread spit-up all over outfit.

7:00 PM through 9:00 PM- Fuss ceaselessly.

9:16 PM- Evacuate bowels loudly into diaper; while being changed, place foot into full diaper.

9:18 PM- Swallow lower lip into mouth; go, 'Mmmmmmmmmm' for forty-five minutes.

10:03 PM- Spit up on Mom, Dad, Mom, Dad again; place bib in mouth.

10:56 PM- Resist all attempts to be put to sleep; scratch faces if necessary.

11:14 PM- Fall asleep while smiling; listen to Mom and Dad say how this one thing makes it all worth it.

11:19 PM- Let Mom and Dad fall asleep; spit up; immediately begin crying.

Broken Wing

2009-07-07T12:56:00.000-07:00

I was probably sixteen. I could have been seventeen, though. I was at the point that teenagers reach where they've stopped listening to advice and started giving it; where they have a desire to tell everyone around them how smart they are, how witty they are, how mature they are.

Sitting at home one summer, (reading or watching or playing, I don't remember which) my older sister Stephanie came in from the backyard. She held something in her hand, gently, and looked carefully at it.

'I found a bird,' she said. 'It's hurt.'

I stood and walked over to her to see for myself. Not that I doubted her; my sister was as good with animals and nature as anyone I knew. She, more than any of our family, preferred the outdoors and the solitude she could find when away from people and the noise of civilization.

I looked in her hand and saw it, a small bird not yet ready to fly. It had the sickly look of a baby animal just born. Eyes only sometimes open, peeping and screaming in pain and confusion.

Its wing was broken. I poked at her hand and watched him move, unnatural in his position. 'Yeah...he looks hurt.'

My expert opinion.

'I'm going to take him to Jeanna,' she said, referring to a family friend of ours who had once owned an exotic petshop; as good as a vet, sincerely. 'She can probably help.'

'More than we can,' I replied, sitting back down. She filled a small plastic pet carrier with scraps of newspaper and set the bird down into it. I could hear it still, noisily protesting its fate, as she walked out the front door and to her car. I watched her drive off.

When she came back, still with the carrier, I was surprised by my surprise. I suppose I had expected the bird to stay with Jeanna, or for her to take it to someone else. Maybe she would have helped put it down, or taken it to care for herself.

The bird was to be Stephanie's charge until it healed, she told me. They had splinted the wing and would wait for it to mend. Then, whole and happy, the bird would be released back into the wild and live out its life to the fullest. A happy ending to a short story.

I've always liked animals, but not really in a participatory way. I like animals the way people like art, as things to be appreciated, but not to be taken home. There have been some notable exceptions to this feeling, but overall I have always felt animals were more to be appreciated than personally cared for. Whenever I go to the pet store to pick up more dog food, or to get crickets for Amanda's gecko, I can't help but stop by the small lizards or rodents. The way they move and look about their surrounding is fascinating to me, but never fascinating enough that I want to be responsible for their care.

That said, I am very soft-hearted regarding their well-being. If I find a spider in my house, I will leave it alone. If Amanda discovers it, I will catch it and put it outside. I've always felt that we are responsible for animals, that we are caretakers. Animals are to be cared for, never hunted, never hurt. And I've felt this way for as long as I can remember.

Which is why it was so hard for me to kill the little bird.

It had been a week. Stephanie had cared for the bird, feeding it watery meal through a syringe, changing its paper, and tenderly checking its wing every day, every hour she was awake. The bird was not doing well, however. It was growing thinner and more sickly and its cries of pain were becoming harder to ignore, from anywhere in the house. The wing itself refused to heal.

She approached me again after she had called Jeanna. The bird wasn't strong enough to heal, she told me. It only was barely surviving through its suffering, and there was little chance it would ever fly or live on its own. If it ever tried to fly, it would cause itself so much pain that it would be debilitated. It would spend its entire life as an invalid, fighting against its instincts to soar.

The bird had to be put down. It had to have its pain ended, but she couldn't do it. She asked me if I would be able to. She wanted to know if I could help her help the little bird to no longer be in pain.

'Yeah,' I said. 'I can do it.'

A person may know much, but still know very little. It's a truth that is very difficult for people to hear, especially as a teenager. There is no substitute for experience; not even in particular tasks, but experience in life and in living. When you have done much and lived long, you come to know yourself in a way you only think you do in your adolescence. You learn your limits, you learn what you can do. You learn what you absolutely cannot do. But, this was me: Brash, overconfident, eager to help.

I took the little bird from its carrier as Stephanie said goodbye to him. She left the room and I walked with him to the hearth and the fireplace. On the red bricks by the glass screen, there was a large, flat piece of wood that looked like it had been cut from a tree trunk. I took the bird and set him gently onto the wood, on the red bricks, talking to him, apologizing to him. I reached for the small camping hatchet we kept nearby.

The little bird was crying.

I tried to think of the best way, the quickest way, to do it. I could chop his neck with the hatchet, the way you would a chicken, but the bird was small enough and the hatchet light enough that I feared I would miss; the idea was for there to be no pain. The little bird had had enough of that.

I settled on the plan of placing the hatchet carefully over its neck, then pressing my weight down quickly. I would sever its head, I thought as clinically as I could, quickly and cleanly. There would be no pain for the bird, and my task would be done.

I placed the hatchet over the bird's neck, nearly touching it, said I was sorry, and leaned.

I had miscalculated the position. Blood spurted from the place where I had cut the bird, and it snapped its head back and forth in pain. Blood spattered onto my hands and flowed up onto the blade, dripped onto the wood and the bricks. I had severed its artery, but not the bones, not the neck. The bird cried and I panicked. I came down again, again, watching the little bird writhe and scream. My own mouth was gaping open, horrified and voiceless. The moment lasted and lasted.

The moment lasted, and lasted.

I saw my sister later that day, delivered the tiny bird's body to her in a small box she had given me so that she could bury it. She thanked me for what I had done. I told her that it had not gone well. She began to cry and asked me not to tell her.

That was my last summer at home.

I've always felt that, no matter what becomes of my life, no matter what I make of myself, no matter how my children fare in their lives, that I will have to answer for the little bird. Why did we not take it to a vet? Why did I offer to help when I knew I couldn't do it? Why didn't we give it more time?

I imagine that I will stand and say, 'Look at these great things I have done. I was honest and kind, I was helpful and generous, and I taught my children to be the same.' And I will be asked, 'What of the bird?'

'I don't know,' I'll answer.

REVIEW - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

2009-06-23T01:54:00.000-07:00

Jerry Bruckheimer: So, that last one we made, the uh...

Michael Bay: The Transformers?

Bruckheimer: Yeah! The Transformer things. You know, we need this next movie to be even bigger, right?

Bay: Yeah! I was thinking that!

Bruckheimer: So you know what we're gonna do?

Bay: Yeah?

Bruckheimer: In order to top all those awesome robot fights and special effects?

Bay: Yeah? Yeah? What are we gonna do, Jerry?

Bruckheimer: Two words, bro: More. Humans.

Bay: Yeah! More...more humans?

Bruckheimer: And not just any humans! One-dimensional humans that fall into easily stereotyped categories! We'll have the bumbling government suit guy, the horny college kid computer whiz...and that's not even counting the ones we're bringing back from the other movie!

Bay: I'm...I'm sorry, Jerry, I just don't see it.

Bruckheimer: Well, you will, Mike, you will! I mean, if people thought those kids and his parents were funny before, well just wait till they see the wacky stuff they'll be doing in this movie! And none of it to do with robots! I mean, people will forget this movie has anything to do with robots at all, they'll be so busy laughing at these hijinks!

Bay: Jerry, I don't know, I think what people want is more robot fights.

Bruckheimer: I hear you, Mike, I hear you, and I like what I'm hearing. More robots. Well, I'll tell you what we're gonna have, Mike: More. Robots.

Bay: Yeah!

Bruckheimer: That's right, Mike! More robots that are all the same color and therefore difficult to distinguish from one another in the few fight scenes we're gonna have!

Bay: Wait. Jerry, did you say fewer robot fight scenes?

Bruckheimer: Oh, yeah, you heard me right, bro! What did we have, like, about one third of the last movie was robot fighting? The audience, they've seen that stuff already! It's old news, and this movie is gonna be all about moving forward. So, we're gonna have the robots on screen a lot, but they'll probably only actually be fighting for about, eh...say fifteen minutes of a two and a half hour movie?

Bay: What?

Bruckheimer: Oh, yeah. I mean, the robots are gonna be busy talking to each other, making bad puns, almost saying naughty words that we can't put into a PG-13 movie, creating gross ethnic stereotypes...

Bay: Are you kidding me? Jerry, do you not remember Jazz the black Autobot?

Bruckheimer: Remember him? Buddy, I designed him! And you know what? He might be dead, but we're gonna do him one better. We're gonna have two robots who perpetuate offensive stereotypes of the black youth in America! They're going to be vulgar, they're going to be annoying, and maybe we'll even shoehorn in a pointless reference about them being illiterate!

Bay: Why would we have something in there about robots needing to read?

Bruckheimer: So we can point out the ones that can't, Mike! I'm telling you, these two robots are going to be even better CGI creations than that Jar Jar Binks guy! People'll be watching them going, 'Wow! These guys are way wittier and more contemporary than that Jar Jar! More offensive, too!'

Bay: Well, Jerry...

Bruckheimer: Robot balls!

Bay: E...excuse me?

Bruckheimer: I was just thinking, that's what else was missing from that first one, was a big, silver pair of robot balls hanging down between the legs of one of the bad guys!

Bay: You're kidding right?

Bruckheimer: Nah, it'll be great! And they'll be big wrecking balls, like from a construction vehicle.

Bay: Gosh, Jerry, you don't think that's being too subtle?

Bruckheimer: Hmm...You're right again, Mike! We'd better have a character point them out to the audience in case they don't notice the ENORMOUS SILVER ROBO-BALLS!

Bay: Jerry, I mean this is starting to sound-

Bruckheimer: Maybe an old robot that walks with a cane...

Bay: What?

Bruckheimer: And a little robot that'll hump a girl's leg!

Bay: Okay, Jerry, that's enough!

Bruckheimer: There'll be so many robots that serve no purpose other than to be funny and not fight, it'll be the greatest-

Bay: JERRY!

Bruckhemier: ...Huh? What?

Bay: Jerry. I can't let you do this to this movie. I mean, you've gone on long enough with this. More humans? Almost no robot fighting? Robo-balls? Jerry, people care about this franchise. These are characters they've grown up with, characters they've shared with their kids, we can't just crap all over them like this! We need some integrity, we need some copy-editing, some...

Bruckheimer: Did I forget to tell you we're paying you $10 million dollars to make this movie?

Bay: ......

Bruckheimer: Michael...?

Bay: ......Robo-balls, you say?

------------------------------------------------

THE MOVIE IN FIVE WORDS OR LESS: Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible.

Kicking teenagers out of the store isn't my favorite part of the job, but you wouldn't know that to work with me:

2009-06-13T23:29:00.000-07:00

In my younger days, specifically my summer-between-junior-and-senior-year days; my twelve-hours-awake-twelve-hours-asleep days; my walk-four-miles-to-my-friend's-house-to-watch-anime-until-it's-late-enough-for-all-of-us-to-go-to-Shari's-and-drink-soda-for-five-hours days, I recall a moment where a waiter friend of ours had a conundrum.

My friends and I were, as the previous sentence implies, hanging out at Shari's late at night, drinking soda and ordering food as needed. We were, to understate the situation, regulars. Nearly every weeknight, from about 9:30 PM to 2:00 AM, a group of no more than eight but no less than three of us would make the trek and hang out at the restaurant, talking about video games and movies, repeating ridiculous catch-phrases we had created for ourselves, and sarcastically discussing everything we could think of. It was exactly what we would do at our houses, but with free refills.

We had outlasted several rounds of management and waitstaff in our heyday, and at this particular time in our layabout careers we were pretty good friends with most of the employees. One particular night, a friendly, funny, completely insane waiter named Travis was helping us. He seated us, took our drink orders, and came back with a question.

'Guys,' he said, pulling up a chair to the table, 'did you see that group of teenagers by the door?'

Craning our necks out of the booth to see, we implied that, Yes, we did.

'I hate them,' he said. 'They are being rude, and they are being loud, and they are being-'

'Teenagers?' one of us offered.

'Yes! And I hate them!' He sighed. 'And I just wanted to come over here and vent really fast, so thanks.'

'Wanna get rid of them?' I asked as he turned to leave.

He spun on his heel and brought his head down to the table, 'GOD, YES.'

'What you need to do,' I told him, 'is go over to them with a box of crayons. Like the ones you give to small children so they can color their menus.'

'Crayons? Yeah?'

'Crayons. Yeah.'

'Why crayons?'

I smiled. 'Inside of five minutes, those little punks will be throwing their crayons at each other, at other patrons, and at anything that walks by their table. You'll be able to toss them for disorderly conduct.'

He gave them their crayons, and before ten minutes were up, we watched them walking out the door, swearing and glaring the whole way out.

I mention this not because I think it's a great story (though I do), but rather to show that I have, for some time, had a healthy disdain for teenagers. I don't know when it started, but I think it stems from when I was in the eighth grade and I started spending more time with my oldest sister and her friends than with people my own age. She had recently (a few years prior) graduated from high school, and so she was officially a Grown-Up, she and her friends. And the fact that they let me tag along and do things with them, and even laughed at my jokes and listened to what I had to say, made it so that I began to associate myself more with them and their general age group than with my own.

I began to look at teenagers scientifically, as subjects to be studied, rather than as my peers. There were exceptions (I did have some friends through high school), but by and large, I spent my time with people older than myself, and took on their prejudices and opinions. Specifically: Teenagers sucked.

Looking back, no matter how much I tried to distance myself from the general jackassery and solipsism of adolescence, I still succumbed to the impossibility of it all. Just like every teenager. And while my lack of self-awareness during adolescence is a wonderful subject, one that I'm only too happy to go into painful detail about, it is not the purpose of this writing.

The purpose of this writing is to say that I still can't stand 'em. I just wanted to make it clear that my distaste for teenagers started long before I worked in retail.

We had a group of about five of the little worms visit the toy department this evening, and I make no bones about the fact that when I see a group of them I enforce as many rules as possible in the hopes of driving them away from my workcenter. Call it social profiling if you like.

At first I didn't see them; just the evidence of them. Playground balls scattered through the aisles, candy wrappers on the ground, like animal droppings in the wild. Finally, a small Nerf football came flying over an aisle and one of them ran around the corner to catch it.

He saw me and stopped. I showed my lack of enthusiasm plainly on my face. When I am helping or dealing with teenagers in any way, they have already exhausted any benefit of the doubt my virtue of their age. This was clear to the young man who encountered me.

I dropped my arms to my side, raised a disdainful eyebrow at him and asked, simply, 'Really?'

'Umm...' he began, truly testing his vocabulary, 'I guess not.' He picked up the football and walked back to his friends.

I saw them more and more over the next few moments, always limiting their horseplay when they knew I was just around the corner. They seemed to have gotten the hint and so I went about my business.

Moments later, I saw them tossing giant play-balls amongst themselves, bouncing them off shelves, targeting display signs. One of them got a bullseye and a signing display came crashing down.

'You see, guys?' I yelled at them (yes, yelled), coming down the aisle to them, not caring about the other customers watching us. 'This is why we tell you not to play around in the store.' One of them began making a show of cleaning up the mess and I snapped at him to leave it. Another had been zipping through the aisles on a small scooter.

'Is that your scooter?'

'Yeah...'

'Get off it, now. Don't ride it in my store. Is that your basketball?'

'No...'

'Put it back on the shelf. Next time I have to tell you guys to stop doing anything, you're leaving the store. Got it? Stop being stupid.'

'Man, who's being stupid?'

'You guys are. Stop.'

They left minutes later, taking their brilliant futures with them.

I know...I know that someday my son will be a teenager. This is why I spend as much time as I can with him now; because I know that someday I will have to stuff him into a barrel and feed him through a hole in the side for ten years.

And I will miss him. But I know that, someday, he will understand.

Someday.

A lot of people have come into our store to crap on the floors this year:

2009-06-12T16:20:00.000-07:00

A middle-aged woman came into our store a year ago, walking with a purpose. Her face showed intense discomfort as she approached the service desk.
'Where is your bathroom, please?' she asked quickly, her voice sinking lower by octaves.

'Just around the corner!' is what the helpful employee had been about to say, pointing in the general direction, but all that was said was, 'Just around the...' and the friendly smile turned to horror.

Abject horror.

As the woman walked away towards her destination, the intensity in her face became desperation, until she disappeared behind the door marked 'Ladies.'

Our plucky employee, eyes still stinging from opening so wide, shakily reached towards her walkie-talkie; somebody had to warn the store , she thought, and this was her hour.

Her voice quivered with fear as she pressed the talk button and, barely above a whisper, said, 'Clean up. Clean up to Guest Services. Clean up to the front entrance. Clean up to the women's restroom.'

The attendants approached with caution, because they could smell it before they saw it. As they rounded the aisles, paper towels and sanitizer bottles in hand, their fears were confirmed. From the front entrance of the store to the guest service counter and looping around to the restrooms, following the path of the woman, were several small trails and mounds of human waste.

They leaped into action. Wet floor signs sprung up as if from nowhere, sanitary gloves were donned with the skilled knowledge of a surgeon.

Backup was requested.

But not a sound came from the women's restroom. Five minutes passed. Then ten, then twenty. Employees would venture boldly inside to ask if anyone needed help. They would return, broken, speaking of the horrors that awaited those foolish enough to do the same.

After nearly half an hour, waiting and hoping, the door opened and she emerged. The swing of the door brought smells which promised chaos and death to the poor women unlucky enough to be deemed 'The Cleansers.' The woman made no eye contact, and her face was a mask; neutral, unspoken. She gathered her skirts about her and made for the door, where she disappeared into the mid-day breeze, never to be seen again.

And those men who saw her leave that day all say the same thing: That no woman had forearms that large, or legs that muscular and defined. No real woman's hair came up and showed netting and false colors beneath it, a wig of lies. No true female had an Adam's Apple so pronounced, nor a voice so deep.

Indeed, it was the sound opinion of all who bore witness to this harrowing tale that the woman who destroyed the serenity of the entry-way that fateful afternoon had not been a woman at all. She was a he. A transvestite.

A weirdo transvestite.

Weeks later, the call goes up over the walkies: Clean up to Grocery. Clean up to Pets. Clean up to Health and Beauty. Clean up to the Checklanes. Those of us who had weathered that fateful day, whose scars were still raw with rememberance, braced ourselves and responded.

It was as we had feared.

We grimaced and got to work. This was our lot in life- to clean up the hazards of retail that threatened to destroy our profits and sales forecasts; to remove the horrors not meant for our customers. Mutterings of, 'They don't pay me enough for this,' could be heard throughout the store. And those whispers and complaints were right- they did not, could not pay us enough for this.

It was a dirty job. But, as they say...

The evidence came forth minutes later when one of our cart attendants found a motorized cart in the parking lot with a pool of filth in its seat, overflowing onto the side, then the wheels, then the ground.

The tale of how it was cleaned is not one for the weak of heart, and it shall not be recounted here. But there were tears that day, gentle readers, and they were wept most bitterly.

The months passed, and while the scars were still strong, the pain of the memories faded away. Stories became legend, and our lives, somehow, went on.

Until a day, one week ago, when one of us came upon a re-sealed box, on the floor in the infant department.

Its contents were sealed from sight, but not from smell. The scent wafted through the air, telling its wretched tale to all foolish enough to wander into its domain. Many fell to this ill breeze, having neither the constitution nor the desire to defeat it. Until...

A hero arose. Walking deftly to the box, he took it quickly in his gloved hands, fearlessly opening its hideous maw.

Inside, there was a child's toilet training seat, befouled by its intended demographic. Besides the matter, however, another sight met our hero's eyes- an opened package of wipes, which had been used for its purpose as well. 'How,' he wondered, 'does a person have enough time to open this box, the wipe package, the plastic clamshell around the training seat, and fill it to the brim, but not have enough time to reach the restroom? And how do we never catch these fiends in the act?'

He knew the answers would have to wait; that there may, in fact, never be answers to these burning missives.

He moved quickly to the night manager's location, and in a voice that brooked no argument, declared, 'We need to go to the trash compactor. Now.'

They hurried to the backroom and hurled the foul thing into the depths, where it lay with its kin until the day it would be taken away forever. And he went away, seeking neither praise nor compensation. He was simply doing his job.

And so I did today, as well. I didn't seek praise or thanks for cleaning the stains we found at the front lanes. I simply grabbed some gloves, sprayed some sanitizer, said a prayer, and got to work.

I would have only come up empty-handed if I had tried for sympathy. We are retail workers.

And we've seen it all.

A conversation between two retail workers that will never, never happen:

2009-06-07T16:38:00.000-07:00

Ricardo- Hey, I saw the parking lot was pretty full. Busy day so far?

Gus- God, yes. We're getting killed in here.

Ricardo-All right. What do you need me to start on?

Gus-Well, we've got an awful lot of product on aisle N3 that isn't out of its packaging yet. Coffee makers, blenders, toasters...

Ricardo-Wait, what? They're just sitting on the shelf? Sealed?

Gus-Yeah, I know.

Ricardo-It's, like, three in the afternoon! What have you guys been doing all day?

Gus-I told you, man, we're getting killed! People just keep looking at merchandise, using the graphics and item description on the box to determine if they want it, then putting it neatly back on the shelf when they're done!

Ricardo-Aw, man!

Gus-Tell me about it. So, over on N3, we've got all those sealed boxes, so you could probably start over there. Just rip open the boxes, and make sure you tear up the cardboard so it can't be properly resealed.

Ricardo-Okay. Do you need me to randomly lose the insructions and warranty information several aisles down from where the product normally goes?

Gus-Yeah, that would actually be really cool. I had asked Raphael to get started on that earlier, but I'm not sure where he is.

Ricardo-I saw him on the way in. He had a cart full of half-empty drinks with him, taking them around and leaving them on shelves so that people could knock them over onto merchandise and the floor.

Gus-Good. I was going to do that myself later, but if he's got that, then I can focus on chewing up these sunflower seeds, taking the soaking gob of chewed shells out of my mouth, and hiding it behind these comforters.

Ricardo-You need a hand with that?

Gus-No, I should be able to take care of it.

Ricardo-All right. Well, then I'm going to head downstairs really fast, knock some signs off of the sales merch, then put the sign back up on a similar product that's not on sale so that people can swear at us over a thirty cent price discrepancy.

Gus-Cool.

Ricardo-And then I'll get to work on N3.

Gus-Thanks, man.

Let me be clear: IF WE WANTED THIS TO HAPPEN IN OUR STORE, WE WOULD TAKE CARE OF IT OURSELVES.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is frequently wrong, and here's why:

2009-06-07T13:22:00.000-07:00

'Changeling' arrived in our mailbox a few days ago, and it took me that long to work up a desire to watch it. There's something about a period piece starring Angelina Jolie as a hysterical, not-without-my-baby Mother that just screams into my ear, 'OSCAR BAIT!!!'

I tend to be biased against those kinds of movies- Benjamin Button, Atonement, Memoirs of a Geisha...each fine movies, but I can't imagine that they were a labor of love the way a movie ought to be. When I watch any of those (and dozens of others...more every year, it seems) movies, I have a hard time seeing past the sweeping scores, the exquisite costumes, the method acting, and the clear metaphor to a good movie. All I see are the already-written acceptance speeches and inevitable critical acclaim written on the DVD cover.

That's the right word, now that I think of it.

Inevitable.

Movies like that seem to tell you that you're not allowed to dislike them. 'Can't you see what a fine job these actors are doing? Didn't you look at who wrote this? It can't miss! We scientifically engineered it to be the best picture of the year!'

And all too often, it works. Crash beat Capote. Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction. Looking back, I wonder how many Best Picture winners really stand the test of time.

So, on that subject, we watched 'Changeling.' And about 3/4 of the way through, Mandy turned to me and asked, 'How was this movie not given more attention? Why did Slumdog even get nominated when this movie was out at the same time?'

And she's right.

We've seen four of the five 2008 nominees,
including Slumdog, and even before watching 'Changeling,' I didn't understand all the fuss. Milk was great. Benjamin Button goes on the list of movies that tried too hard. Frost/Nixon was perfect, and may still get my vote (of the nominated films) for Best Picture, 2008. Changeling was at least as good as Frost/Nixon, and still, Slumdog won.

Did the academy not watch Danny Boyle's 'Millions'? They clearly didn't, because then they would have known exactly what his best work looked like, and told him to try harder, better luck next year.

So. 'Changeling.' Good movie. Check it out.