Sometimes, You Just Gotta Flee in Terror.

I had fallen asleep putting Mini-Me to bed, and my wife comes in to wake me. “There’s something in the garbage.”

Figuring it was a raccoon, I grabbed my spotlight, slipped on a trusty pair of flip-flops, and went out in the rain to run the little vermin off. I shined the light on the garbage bin, less than 50 feet away and illuminated not a single raccoon, but three black bears.

Readers, I know some people are afraid of mice. Or snakes. Or even spiders. But when there’s nothing but a few yards of empty grass between you and six glowing eyes looking up from a shredded garbage bag? THAT is fear. The three of them skedaddled off into the night, although I didn’t see where, since I had sprouted wings and flew back to the house, leaving one of my flip-flops dangling cartoonishly in the air until it fell back into the wet grass.

A few moments later, I figured it was safe to go out and clean up the garbage.

Wrong. One of them was back. Armed with a pistol as well as my light this time, I was no braver than last time. My brain sounded ‘Retreat!’ …and I obeyed.

I went out a third time…and no bear. I headed to the overturned can, Only to hear a snort. Loud. Close. Up. Boo-Boo had climbed one of the trees along the driveway. I could see him with the light, and he was NOT happy with my being close. I withdrew, and was going to call it a night. I’d clean up the mess in the morning. Then, I remembered I was on Ambulance call. My car…was directly underneath the tree that Boo-Boo was currently in. I inched my way toward the car, hoping to move it. Boo-Boo snorted and growled in the tree.
Have you ever had a bear growl specifically at you? Hair-raising. To make matters worse, I then realized that Boo-Boo in the tree wasn’t my main concern. Where the hell were the other two bears?

Readers, do you know what ‘pucker factor’ means? No? You’re Welcome.

Mine was high at this point. I needed to get to that car in case I had to leave, but I could only account for one of the three furry death-machines. It was dark. It was raining.

Summoning all of my bravery and foolishness at once, I charged to the car and threw myself in. I backed it out of the driveway and parked it nowhere near the garbage can.

After I got the car moved and consigned myself to the fact that I’d be cleaning up garbage in the morning I went back inside. If they wanted the food bad enough, they could have it.

My wife and I hovered near the window and heard my friend coming down from the tree. We spotlighted him and were lucky enough to see all three. As an added bonus, his mother is a local celebrity. She’s been around for a few years, and is easily identified by the fact that she has only three legs. I went from miffed that I’d be cleaning up garbage, to extremely happy that she was still around, and flourishing. Her two cubs seemed well fed and healthy, and she moved with surprising agility for missing a leg. As my wife put it “She could still probably f*ck you up.”

So, we listened to them continue to destroy the garbage can. The sounds soon faded into the darkness, but I’m not going back out there tonight.

4th Time’s The Charm.

I mentioned a while back that our 6 month old Samsung Smart TV decided that working wasn’t on its list of things to do anymore. We has perfect sound, but no picture.

So, while I was at work, hopped on the online chat support for Samsung (ALWAYS use chat support if its available.) The support representative put me through some troubleshooting steps, which I relayed across the interwebz to my wife at home. When none of these steps worked, the online chat guy referred me to another web site where I could create a service ticket.

I go to the site and for the second time, inform Samsung of the issue we’re having. I submit the ticket….and wait.

A few days later, a phone call comes from Samsung. I return the call, and rather than send someone to fix it, the tech on the phone has me explain the problem AGAIN, and go through the troubleshooting steps AGAIN. Since I not only work in technical support for a living, but had already done this stuff, I laid on the floor of the living room staring at the ceiling, pretending to go through all the nonsense he was telling me to do.

At the end, satisfied that the damn thing is really broken, he became helpful and set up a service appointment. Er. No. Wait. He didn’t.

He told me to expect a phone call from a service center which would set up an appointment.

Last friday, my wife takes a call from Samsung to set up a time to set up an appointment. (Literally, that) They said someone would call us Tuesday of this week to set something up, since they were busy and Monday was a holiday.

Tuesday comes and goes. Wednesday comes and goes. Thursday, (yesterday) I got a voicemail from Samsung with a reference number. I planned to call them back this morning.

Before I did today, I checked my email and there’s a message from them. “Your service ticket has been cancelled.” Consumed with an ire whose heat rivaled molten lead, I called them again to find out exactly how they managed to magically fix my TV without ever coming to the house.

I would like to apologize to the poor phone guy who I got this morning, as I was a smidgen less than cordial to him…especially after he asked me to describe the problem with the TV….AGAIN. I informed him this was the fourth time I’d been through this, and the problem hadn’t changed. I may have also been searching Google for a way to summon a being from the underworld to consume everything Samsung in the entire galaxy. (Get it?)

Cyberdemon. PERFECT.

“Okay, expect a call from the dispatch center by Monday.”

So, here we are. Waiting. Again.

I know nothing.

Goodbye ‘Terrible Twos!’……

….and hello to something much, much more vexing. Readers, Our youngest turns three today. He’s a quirky, often hilarious little dude who is, I think- clever beyond his years.

His entrance into this world was a brilliant foreshadow of things to come. His birth was one of ‘exuberance’ …for lack of a better word. I don’t remember the exact times, since it doesn’t matter how many times you go through it, part of daddy’s job is ‘panic’ and things have a tendency to blend all together.

When his due date was getting close, we made the appropriate plans, packed the appropriate bags, and I kept change for the toll booth we’d need to go through on hand at all times. We’d done it before, we were veterans. We had this. As an added challenge, we had a three year old to deal with this time. We made arrangements with various family members to watch him while everything went down. In the event that we had to take him, we packed stuff for him too. I’m telling you, we had our bases covered.

Then it happened. We get the ‘all systems go’ sign and load up the car for the 30 minute trip to the hospital. (yeah. that’s the closest one.) No family is immediately available to hang out with The Narrator. He’s coming with us. My family, who was closest- would meet us there to watch him and await the arrival of his little brother.

We got to the hospital, and in very, very short order the doctor says something like “Oh. He’s on his way out.” Mini-Me wasn’t wasting any time. My poor wife wasn’t even able to be given sweet, sweet drugs and had to endure the whole process as naturally as it comes.

I took The Narrator to the waiting room in the maternity ward, which was just down the hall, slapped some cartoons on the TV…and realized he’d be all by himself. My family hadn’t arrived yet. I asked a nurse to keep an eye on him while I ran back to deal with his screaming mother, but she told me they were busy. She’d check on him when she could, but it wasn’t going to be often. At that point, another man in the waiting room said he’d watch him for me. I had no choice. The maternity ward is basically on lockdown, so I was pretty sure it was going to be okay. My sister was bearing down on the hospital at that moment, and my wife was bearing down on the baby who was doing everything he could to GTFO right now. I left The Narrator in the (hopefully) capable hands of a perfect stranger, and ran back down the hall to ‘the scene.’

THANKFULLY, my sister arrived less than ten minutes later and hung out with The Narrator while things went down.

Mini-Me arrived before my parents, or my in-laws could make it to the hospital. Within the space of three hours and forty five minutes, we went from “It’s time to go!” to “Here’s baby!”

He’s been an adventure ever since. And now that he’s three, and becoming more aware of the world around him and much more capable of articulating what he wants and needs, things are so much more fun. The energy with which he entered our world has not subsided either. He’s constantly on the go. Climbing, running, jumping, screaming, playing…he doesn’t stop. His little heartbeat feels something like a box fan at times, and I’m sure things won’t slow down from here.

You see, everyone talks about the ‘terrible twos’ but fails to mention what three brings. I’ve heard this period referred to as the ‘tumultuous threes’ or, more accurately the ‘f*ck you threes.’ The youngsters’ opinions become more formulated, and they’re more vocal about them. The Narrator, who has always been a pretty even-tempered kid, had a rough time at three, and as a result, we did too. If he had difficulty, I can only imagine what his more high-energy little brother will bring to the table.

It doesn’t matter though. As easy, hard, frustrating, or exhausting as it may be…I wouldn’t miss it for anything. He and his brother are major parts of what’s kept me grounded while bouncing between jobs and scrimping between paychecks. They’ve given me energy when I get home from long hours at contracting jobs and miserable hours at the IT work, and they give me a reason to get up and do it all again tomorrow while I wait for that holy grail of a job (that shouldn’t be too far away now…stay tuned!) 

It might sound ridiculous, but while I was in the academy we went through some pretty serious physical training. No matter how hard it got, no matter how miserable some pissed-off drill instructor tried to make things for us, my mind retreated to a happy place with two little boys who were waiting for me to come home. Seven mile runs at night through the back streets of the city, trying to keep pace with the instructor and several of the faster members of my platoon were made easier as I thought about the kids.

And today, when I come home, we celebrate the smallest of them turning three. We’ll do our ritual pumpkin picking, pizza dinner, cake and presents. There will be the usual bickering between the two kids, and the inevitable temper tantrum over something silly that will last a moment or two before everyone is back to laughter.

This is what I look forward to.

This is parenting.

This is where I want to be.

Why Daddy Keeps His Hair Short

Ever try to reason with a three year old? No? Give it a shot sometime. It’s akin to hostage negotiation with an offender who is out of his gourd on every mind-altering substance known to human-kind.

We packed The Narrator off to school this morning and made plans to go pickup some birthday gifts for Mini-Me, who turns three tomorrow. My wife finished her coffee and started her morning ‘get ready to go out’ routine. She was hampered by Mini-Me, who went full-on barnacle mode, and didn’t want to let her move.

Halfway through my own coffee and not quite ready to parent yet, I told him he could watch some TV while mommy and daddy got ready.

Me: “Okay, there’s not much on. You can watch Miles, Jungle Junction, or Baby Looney Tunes.”

Him: “I like the funny guy.”

Me: “Huh? What funny guy?”

Him: “Tom and Jerry.”

Me: “No, that isn’t on. The only shows that are on are Miles, Jungle Junction, or Baby Looney Tunes.”

Him: “Oh.”

Me: “What do you want to watch?”

Him: “The car show.”

I put on Miles from Tomorrowland and took an asprin.
I tell people I keep my hair short for work. In reality, if I didn’t, you could watch it as it turns gray.

What Are Little Brothers For?

Bear with me if this post seems a little more disjointed than usual. I’m battling the first head cold of the season, and I’m possibly over-medicated and under-caffeinated. It’ll be fine though, I’ve mistletoe and grass clippings over the sunset seventeen times alrea……

Ergh. Sorry.

Anyway.

The Narrator is in full ‘losing baby teeth’ mode. He’s lost four or five already, and has yanked a few of them out like a champion. His latest one though, has been hanging on by a thread for a few days already. The back was out, but the front was still pretty attached. He liked playing with it, so never bothered to ‘reverse direction of the wiggle’ so the stuck part stayed stuck. Every day I came home from work I’d ask him if he’d gotten the tooth out yet. “Nope!” he would say, then grin his gappy, goofy little grin, the tooth in question leaning like a derelict fence post in front of a haunted house.

Cue Mini-Me.

Mini-Me is a rambunctious little child. He can’t sit still for more than a few moments at a time. It is safe to say that if he’s awake, he’s moving. And if he’s moving, he’s MOVING. The kid is in full ‘action-movie’ mode most of the day. He’s spinning, leaping, running, crashing into things constantly. He also roughhouses. A lot. His idea of ‘being gentle’ is not head-butting you in the groin while you try to walk to the kitchen. He’s not being mean, he just throws himself at you like a stuntman trying to earn a pay raise.

His list of priority targets are:

Me. Many time of the day am I forced to contend with a screeching three year old hurling himself at me through space and time at velocities that would make superman envious.

His brother. Countless are the instances where the little one lets out a war-whoop which is immediately followed by a scream of terror, pain, and not a little enjoyment from the big one. If you happen to come into the room after one of these ear-splitting exchanges of sound, you’ll find the two of them locked in a tangle of elbows, knees, feet, heads, and hands, surrounded by a cocoon of even more noise. Laughter mostly. Sometimes sheer agony.

The cats. For some reason, we cannot get it into his head that the two cats we have are not fond of being tackled, squeezed, tugged on, or even bothered. He’s suffered a few nips and scratches, but the lesson doesn’t sink in.

On this particular day, our little dare-devil chose his brother to attack. As usual, he let out a screech that was half rebel-yell and half demon-bellow, and charged the unsuspecting Narrator. A tumult ensued, and a tiny knee rammed into the face of the six-year old.

“Ah! He knocked my tooth out!” 

The Narrator turned, holding a piece of his head in one hand, his mouth bloody and even more gappy.

Tiny immediately backed off.

“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Mommy, I don’t want a time out!” 

Nobody cried or got really hurt, and after we cleaned up The Narrator and calmed down Mini-me, I realized that this is simply another by-product of having boys. Constant, good-natured violence is blossoming into a frequent part of our lives.

I just home we don’t see anything more serious than a baby-took getting knocked out, but you never can tell can you?

Why I’ll Never Complain About the DMV Again.

The Department of Motor Vehicles has a reputation of being where souls go to die in an endless nightmare of paperwork and waiting in line. Even the employees seem to have been damned to their work, creating an atmosphere of agony, suffering, and despair.

Yeah….like that.

My own experiences at the DMV could never really match this description though. I’ve been in and out whenever I have to go there, and the employees have been beyond helpful on more than one occasion.

However, I have found a place that makes even the most disturbing interpretation of the hell that is supposed to be the DMV look a lot like a theme park with no lines and free admission.

Enter: The Department of Civil Service.

I was scheduled for a physical and psychological exam, both required by the state to make sure I was physically and mentally capable of doing the job I’ve signed on for. The HR person at the employer sent me an email that basically said “Your appointment is at 9am. Expect to be there until 4:30. Bring food.”

er….okay….How long could it possibly take for me to turn my head and cough, pee in a cup, and fill in a few bubbles on a scantron sheet?

Today me is shaking my head at Tuesday me. “Oh…you poor, foolish sap. You have no idea.” 

I arrived at 9am having poured several cups of coffee into me, and driven an hour and fifteen minutes to get there. When I got into the office, there were about a dozen people already there. Some in nice clothes, others in workout clothes, as they would have to take an agility test as well as a physical. See, there were employees there from all over the state and from numerous different agencies, all of which requiring different things from their applicants.

The tone was set for the day when I got there and walked up to the front desk. The lady, very nice, took my name and license, and told me to fill out a form. As I did, she wandered around looking for other paperwork I needed. She had no idea where it was, where I needed to go, or what I needed to do when I got there. Around fifteen minutes into my stay, her coffee must have kicked in because all of a sudden she came to life. I was given a key to a locker, told to empty my personal belongings, and follow her down a hallway that smelled so sterile that I think a fart would have triggered an alarm somewhere. The smell of rubbing alcohol and sanitation was so strong, I was getting light-headed….and this wasn’t even for the medical portion of the testing.

She led me to a meeting room and gave me two exams. I proceeded to fill out over 500 true/false questions that were designed to determine psychological health. Many of them were in regards to my relationship with my father as a child, some asking about my social habits, and one peculiar one that asked me if I’d enjoy fixing a door latch. (Read that again if you like. It is what it says.)

By the end of it, I was starting to wonder if the test hadn’t been designed to PUSH one towards psychological instability, rather than measure the level of crazy that was already there.

Selfie.

Those things over, I go back to the front desk where there’s a new crop of people waiting to be….’processed.’ It is now right around 11:30. I’m told to wait, my next appointment was going to be at noon. So, I sit. I can’t even play with my cell phone, since that’s locked in a locker.

Noon comes and goes, and I’m informed that they were running behind, it could be closer to 12:30.

As I wait, I take notice of the others in the room.

Readers, I’ve observed wakes and funerals with more energy and exuberance than I saw here. There was no life in the room. The brightest thing around was the vending machine next to me which hummed cheerfully, asking me for my dollars in exchange for various candy and drinks. They’d made me lock up my wallet too, so the machine was out of luck. As was I.

I ended up striking a conversation with another cop who had driven FIVE AND A HALF HOURS to be there. He and I talked and joked about the psyche exams, all the while getting glances and glares from the other patrons of the establishment. “How DARE you exhibit mirth while I suffer?!”

Finally, we were called in as a group of ten to the medical portion of the show. Mercifully, I get called first, except it was only to collect the cup I’d pee in, and take my glasses off until I was told to put them back on.

I sat back down, holding the cup, and damn near completely blind. My new friend was at the other end of the room, so we couldn’t talk anymore. They called me up for the drug test. I couldn’t take the maudlin silence anymore and HAD to crack a joke. I just…..had to. I stood up and proclaimed loud enough for the room to hear.

“That’s me…but lady, you’re going to have to lead me around unless you want me to start crashing into things.”

A twitter of life came from my comrades in waiting. I turned to them and said “I’m blind as a bat, and they want me to pee in a cup? This could get interesting.”

Laughter from a few now they WERE alive.

I did what I had to do, then went and waited some more. Still blind.

I took a drug test. They drew blood. I took a vision test. I took a hearing test. I took an EKG. I sat with a nurse who gave me an actual physical. Then….kicked out and told to wait again.

When I came out of the physical with the nurse, that was the last time I saw anyone. Back in the waiting room, I was all alone and it was after 2PM. I was hungry. I’d eaten nothing all day. They told me that the psychologist would see me shortly.

I started to get nervous. I’d never met a psychologist. I don’t even know WHY I was nervous. Perhaps I thought he’d look at my psyche tests and determine that I was completely insane and all this time…I’d never known it.

Maybe the hunger and exhaustion were just taking their toll on me, as well as it being my nature to try to prepare myself for the worst.

I finally went in to meet with the doctor in a room whose thermostat was set five degrees lower than every other room I’d been in that day. That’s not an estimate either. I’d had so much time to wait around, I had observed the temperatures in all the rooms, and this one was cold.

We talked a few minutes, he asked me to clarify a few of the answers I’d made on the psyche tests and some of the informational packets I’d been given to fill out while endlessly waiting.

There was no couch, no inkblots, no nothing. I really don’t know what I’d expected.

None of this.

He asked me a few hypothetical questions and seemed rather pleased with my answers. He was a very nice, straightforward guy, and when I left he shook my hand and said “Good luck with the new job.” I’m no detective, but I think that was a good sign.

I left there an hour earlier than expected. It was 3:30. It might as well have been midnight. I was exhausted. I think, overall- I’d spent less than two hours actually testing or meeting. Everything else from 9am to 3:30pm was waiting for something….ANYTHING to happen. The drive home was brutal, and completely ruined by the fact that I made up my mind I was going to try the A1 halloween burger from Burger King. After the hell I’d gone through, I deserved a little fast food, and I’d been looking for an excuse to get one of these. I anxiously anticipated the burger and pulled into a place.

This would be mine!

…..only to find out that after only a week, demand for the damn burger I’d started to crave had far outweighed corporate expectation and they’d discontinued it already.

I ate a regular hobo burger in the car on way home and immediately spilled ketchup on my pants. One last kick to the jimmies.

By the time it came to end the day, bed had never, ever felt so good, and i looked forward to the next time I had to go to the DMV.

AD Takes One to the Jaw From Mighty Monday

Good morning.

I trust everyone had a good weekend. I did. That is to say, I didn’t really do very much. It’s been cold and rainy, which has sapped most of the desire to do anything from us.

The weekend over, it came time to plunge back into the work week full bore this morning. My day started at 5am when I woke up freezing. I had to turn the heat on when I looked out the window and saw the temperature hovering right around 30. That’s -1.1C for my limey friends.

After that, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I went and checked my email and found an email that had come in over the weekend. It was from the ‘new job’ – my Holy Grail of employment.

“There’s a slight problem…the civil service list we pulled you from had expired before we interviewed you. We need to rerun the list and hope we reach you again.”

Essentially, since this is a civil service job, they have to hire off a list. The active list apparently expires every now and then and has to be rerun to reach candidates and there is a possibility that when they rerun it…I don’t get selected as an option for hire again. I don’t exactly know HOW it works, I just know that it is a possibility that the last month of preparation and planning, interviews and paperwork….could have all been for naught.

So I went to work this morning with THAT little nugget on my mind.

Then, a message from my wife. Our 6 month old Samsung SMART TV quit working. As in, no picture, plenty of sound. Their tech support was quite helpful, but it turns out the damn thing is shot and needs to be repaired/replaced. Thankfully we’re under warranty so it won’t cost anything but time, but still, what a massive hassle. I spent an hour on various chats and service requests trying to get it hashed out. I couldn’t leave my wife to do it, since she’s at home dealing with a three year old who is pissed off that he can’t watch “Paw Patrol” and a slew of shop orders that have to be worked on.

There is a glimmer of good news though. A follow up email from ‘The Job’ included the line: “…we want you so we’ll do everything in our power to get this done.”

…Nobody’s ever said that to me before. I’ve usually gotten the impression with my employers like they felt like “Okay he’ll do” or, like in my last job “Damn. We’re stuck with him.” The idea that there might be a job that wants me as bad as I want it? I almost can’t fathom that.

You won’t hear much from me tomorrow, I’m due for a pretty comprehensive physical and psychological exam in preparation for ‘The Job.’ I was told to arrive by 9 am and expect to be there until 4:30, so unless I get a string of down-time, I’ll catch you all later in the week.

Here’s hoping Monday’s a-holishness passes you by.

Just Breathe…

I’m beginning to worry about The Narrator. Actually, more appropriately, I’m beginning to worry about my ability to interact with him on a constructive and helpful level.
At 6, he’s an extremely bright child, but he’s also wound very tightly.

He is a highly sensitive child. The slightest things trigger an over the top amount of emotion with him. Sometimes when he’s watching a movie, slow music is all it takes to bring him to tears.

Yesterday, I was helping him with his homework. He had to make ‘addition sentences’ to demonstrate something like “Sally had 7 shirts she put in two drawers. Show two different ways she could do this.”

He quickly writes ‘5’ in one box and ‘2’ in another box. He needed a second example, and wrote ‘2’ in the first box and ‘5’ in the second. I told him he was technically correct, but I’d like to see a different way than that.

And he lost it.

Tears, yelling….red face and everything. It took me five minutes to calm him down and get him to write ‘4’ and ‘3.’

I don’t know if this is characteristic of all six year old kids, but when he has a problem….the world comes to an end. As I mentioned the other day, my mother-in-law likes to surprise the boys with toys…usually things she finds at yard sales. This time it was a knock-off lego table with two chairs. I found it on amazon, it is designed for ages 2-5. The chairs are WAY too small for him. I mentioned that we should get rid of them, and his entire universe exploded. Ten minutes later he was still sobbing and hugging the chair as if it was ‘Old Yeller’ and I was loading a rifle. He’d had the damn thing for less than a day.

He got sent to his room yesterday for not listening to us when we asked him to do something. Rather than yell, I decided to go in and talk to him. He got so worked up and anxious that I was worried about him. I tried to talk to him and get him to take a few deep breaths to calm down.

“Breathe in through your nose and hold for a second. Then let it out through your mouth. This will help you relax a little.”
“I can’t.”
“You didn’t try yet.”
“Yes I did.”
“Just try it again.”
“It doesn’t work for me.”
“How can you possibly know that if you haven’t tried it yet?”
“I CAN’T!”

…..followed by hyperventilating.

I was able to finally calm him down and get a laugh out of him, then everything was alright…but I really don’t know how to talk him down, and its frustrating to me.

I once was able to talk a mentally unstable woman out of her car after she tried to run me and an EMT over at work one night because she thought I was going to take her cat away. But I cannot seem to get through to a six year old kid.

It isn’t just the negative emotions either. He’ll get so excited about some tiny little thing that he ends up driving us insane over it. The worst though, are the shifts. Where he’s happy one minute, then devolves into a simpering mess the next over one teensy little detail or sad song on the TV.

I’ve accepted that this is what he does. I just need to know how to deal with it.
Someone already suggested we have him medicated, which pissed me off. He’s six. I don’t believe he needs medication, I believe he needs to be talked to and taught to handle these emotions properly…but man do I feel under-equipped to be the one to handle it. My first step is to not get so annoyed when he doesn’t respond to one approach, and find another. I’m working on it, but there are no signs of improvement yet. He still freaks out, and I still get frustrated.

Parenting…..is hard.