May 6, 2011 · 4:26 pm

Washing Dishes

“They” say one of the sexiest things a man can do is wash dishes.

I’m not sure who “they” is, and I’m not really sure what is sexy about washing dishes, but “they” must know what “they” are talking about. Maybe it’s all the bubbles and the slipperiness and the steamy hot water. I don’t know…

I will tell you I have been doing a lot of dishes lately because our dishwasher broke a few months back and we haven’t replaced it yet. There’s no particular reason that we haven’t replaced it, we just haven’t done it. It’s like a lot of the stuff on the “to do list” around our house, it’s part of old house living… stuff breaks and eventually it gets fixed but sometimes it takes a few years. In any case, for a family of four we use roughly the same volume of dishes and cups and glasses and silverware each day as a cafeteria on a college campus. The dirty dishes pile up high on the kitchen counter… glasses and silverware stacked precariously on top of bowls and plates, waiting for a cat to walk by and with a brush of a tail make it all come tumbling down. When the counter fills up, then the sink starts to fill up. It often culminates with a kid yelling out some inane comment like “there’s no forks!”

So, I wash dishes.  I usually turn the radio on to a nice classical station to get myself… you know… in the mood. We have one of those old cast iron sinks with two basins, so I fill one side with hot, soapy water and then transfer the clean and rinsed items over to the other side which has a dish drainer in it. Pulling each dish from the dirty pile is kind of like playing that kids game where each player has to remove a piece from a tower made of blocks… you pull out a block ever so gently and hope the whole structure doesn’t come crashing down.  Yeah, it’s kind of like that…

I won’t take all the sexiness credit here… my wife does her share of the dishes also. We split that chore mostly equally. The kids? They never do the dishes, because frankly they’re lazy and more importantly, they’re much too young to be developing sex appeal by washing dishes. I can tell you straight out though, that I’m not feeling any sexier than I did when we had a working dishwasher. Maybe I’m not doing it right.  Maybe I need to be washing dishes in a Hugh Heffner style silk smoking jacket or something. Then when my wife walks by I’ll say something like, “hey baby, welcome to my palace of sex and dirty dishes. Watch me chisel the dry crusted SpaghettiO’s out of this bowl.”

Okay, so maybe washing dishes isn’t really that sexy. Maybe “they” don’t really know what “they” are talking about. Maybe “they” are folks that don’t have kids and don’t have piles of dirty dishes lying all over the house, covered in cement-crusted food that requires power tools to remove. Maybe “they” are folks who are washing up a few pieces of fine china and crystal after consuming a four-star meal and a couple of bottles of wine and who end up having sex on the dining room table. Yeah, okay, admittedly that could be sexy… sex on the dining room table. Unfortunately ours is covered in… more dirty dishes… and mail… and kids toys… and folded laundry.

Hey, you know what “they” say about folding laundry… that’s one of the sexiest things a man can do!

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May 4, 2011 · 9:50 am

You Don’t Know Jack!

You don’t know Jack!

Don’t worry, I don’t really know Jack either.

In person, I’ve only seen Jack once.

My wife and daughter chose him.

But I am going to introduce you to Jack.

Because I’m sure there will be lots of stories to be had.

Jack is the latest addition to the Brown Road Farm.

This is Jack.

 Jack is still at the farm we purchased him from.

We will board him there for a short time

While we get everything on our property ready.

The barns and fences need some work.

Kind of like preparing a nursery for a baby to come home.

Except Jack is a lot bigger!

I don’t know much about horses.

He’s beautiful though, isn’t he?

Welcome to Brown Road, Jack!

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April 26, 2011 · 2:59 pm

The Intruder

“Steve, I think I hear someone downstairs” my wife said to me as she shook me and woke me up from a deep slumber last Saturday night.

“What… what’s going on?” I murmured still half asleep.

“Shhhh” she said. “I think I hear someone downstairs!”

Now I was wide awake.  It was the middle of the night and there was an intruder in our house.  I wondered why our dog, a 180 lb. St. Bernard, hadn’t woken up and barked.  I quickly remembered though, all the times I had come home from work, walked into the house and not woken him up. “Great watchdog” I thought to myself.

“Should we call the police?” my wife asked.

“Whoa there, hold on.  Let me sneak down there and see what’s going on.”

“Okay, but what if someone’s down there?”

“I’ll be fine.”

I crawled out of bed, adrenaline spiraling through my body, threw on some sweatpants and started heading towards the bedroom door.

“Be careful”, she said as I left the room.  I took a quick glance at the kid’s bedroom doors and both were closed.  I had been hoping it was just one of them awake and downstairs getting a snack or something to drink.  Two closed doors meant both kids were still asleep in their rooms.  I continued to the stairs.

The stairs in our 120 year old house are terribly creaky.  I’ve always thought that would be beneficial someday when the kids got older and were trying to sneak in after a late night with their friends.  But not now!  Not as I was risking my life to find out who was walking around our house in the middle of the night.  I desperately tried to remember which steps made the loudest noise so I could avoid them, but other than the bottom three, which I knew were loose, my mind was drawing a blank.  I gently took each stair, trying to be as silent as possible.

First step… okay.

Second step… okay.

Third step… CREAK!

“Shit,” I whispered under my breath jumping down one more step to try to minimize the noise.  I stood there quietly trying catch my breath and get my heart rate down a little bit.  In the deadly stillness of the night, I heard some rustling noise downstairs that sounded like it was coming from the kitchen. “This is fucking nuts” I thought.  “What the hell are you thinking?”

But something drew me on, so I continued down the creaky steps, one at a time and thankfully, mostly quietly.  Those last few steps could be a problem, but maybe a few loud creaks would scare off the intruder.  I moved quickly… CREAK… CREAK… CREAK… and I was in the dining room, heart beating out of my chest, but still alive, and having not yet come face to face with anyone.

The rustling noise was still coming from the kitchen which was the room next door to where I was standing. I guess my plan hadn’t worked! With my back against the wall, like one of those cops you see in a Hollywood blockbuster movie, patrolling a house full of armed thugs, I peered around the corner.  That’s when I saw him, this intruder that was invading the privacy of our house.  His back was to me and he was working fast and he quickly moved from the kitchen into our den and out of my sight again. 

I stepped back behind the wall to reassess the situation.  My heart was beating uncontrollably and I noticed that my hands were now shaking .  “I’ve seen him before” I thought.  “What the hell is he doing here?”  In just that  brief glance I had recognized his grayish white hair and his clothes.  Well, of course, as usual he wasn’t wearing much clothing… just that crazy paisley style suit vest… and no pants.  That’s what creeped me out the most… no pants.

But as quickly as I could blink my eyes he had vanished into the other room and my journey continued.  I tiptoed quickly through the kitchen to the next entryway where I was able to hide behind the small wall that separates the two rooms.  I stealthily peered around the wall once again and there he was, back still towards me, but moving fast… so incredibly fast… doing his business rapidly so he could get to the next house, to the next job.

For a moment I just watched in stunned amazement, afraid to startle him, afraid to interrupt him. Finally I couldn’t help myself.   “Pssst” I said, trying to gently announce my presence.  He didn’t hear me.  “Pssst” I said again, a little louder.  This time he whipped around rapidly, surprised at being seen, his wild eyes big and round, his huge teeth hanging out of his mouth, his long ears now clearly visible.

“Oh, it’s just you” he said with a relieved tone. “For a second I thought it might be a kid.”

“No, I checked and their still sound asleep” I reassured him. “But what the hell are you doing here?” I scolded.  “You scared the shit out of me.  My kids don’t believe in you anymore. I thought someone had broken into the house.”

He smiled a big grin that showed his teeth even more and tossed me a chocolate egg, wrapped up in a gold foil wrapper.  I could see a little orange residue caught in between his teeth as if he had been eating carrots or something.  “Eat this and go back to bed” he said as the egg flew across the room towards me.  “Lots of kids say they don’t believe anymore.  Most of ‘em still want to believe but there’s just too much peer pressure from their friends.  I’m not ready to give up on your’s just yet!”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense” I replied.  “Here, put this in one of the kid’s baskets, I don’t need it. I ate a bunch of chocolate before I turned in tonight.”  I tossed the egg back to him.  “Guess I better get back to bed.”

“See you next year, maybe?” I asked as I started to turn around to head back upstairs.

“We’ll see, that’s a long way off, let me get through this year first.”

“Yeah, okay… alright good night” I said and I walked back through the kitchen towards the creaky stairs.  For a brief second I wondered if I was sleep walking and I stopped and glanced back.  No, I was definitely awake, but our guest was gone, the dog was asleep on the floor gently snoring, and the rest of the house seemed deathly quiet.  I grabbed a glass of water and poured it down my parched throat as I pondered this late night encounter.

A few moments later, up the stairs I went, back into the bedroom.  My wife was asleep as if nothing had happened, but as I climbed into bed, the jostling of the mattress woke her up.

“You okay?” she mumbled, her now half asleep.

“Yeah, I’m fine” I said.  “I just needed a glass of water… I haven’t been sleeping real well tonight.  Must be all that chocolate I ate.”

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April 25, 2011 · 6:58 pm

Mommy, Mommy, What Do You Do?

Okay, here by popular demand (or more likely un-popular demand) is the Sequel to “Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?”  I’m not quite sure it lives up to its predecessor but you people were putting a lot of pressure on me and I felt like I had to churn something out.  It was like when my agent calls and says “Steve would you get that fucking book done!”  Oh wait, I don’t have an agent.  Anyway, it is what it is… but I have to say, it’s tough to write from the Mother’s perspective… seriously!

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a Teacher.  I teach children reading and writing and mathematics.  You can be a Teacher too and help kids grow up to be successful, responsible adults.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a Nurse.  I help take care of people who are sick or who have to spend time in the hospital.  I administer medications and check patient’s blood pressure and assist with other medical procedures.  You can be a Nurse too and help people who aren’t feeling well.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a Corporate Executive.  I work in an office and manage a department full of under-achieving low-life’s who probably aren’t really skilled enough to even be employed at a McDonald’s.  Most of my time I spend sitting in drudgerous meetings with other Corporate Executives discussing things we can do so we don’t lose our jobs. You can be a Corporate Executive too and get paid less than your male colleagues because you don’t have a penis.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a Construction Worker.  I help build roads and bridges and buildings. Construction work is very hard and very physical and I work mostly with a bunch of pig-headed men who think they are sexy, but are really just sexist morons. You can be a Construction Worker too and work very hard and develop debilitating back and leg problems.  Then you can be on disability.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a Financial Advisor.  I help people manage and invest the money they earn. Mostly I take calls from people whose entire retirement savings vanished when the U.S. financial system collapsed.  Then I help them invest the piddly amount of money they are earning from the job they had to take at the local Wal-Mart. You can be a Financial Advisor too and watch people’s money disappear and maybe even start a Ponzi scheme.  Then you can go to prison.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a Day Care Center Worker.  I take care of people’s children during the day so they can work to pay off all of the debt they have accrued on their 4000 square foot house and their new BMW and their flat-screen TV’s. Sometimes I’m called a pre-school teacher, but mostly I just chase bratty kids around and change shitty diapers and wipe snotty noses.  You can be a Day Care Center Worker too and take care of children whose parents are too self-absorbed to take care of them on their own.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a School Cafeteria Cook. I prepare and serve food at the elementary school. The kids at school call me “the Lunch Lady” and they complain about the food that we serve.  I call them disrespectful thugs and hooligans whose parents are trailer trash and who should be glad they are getting tax-payer subsidized food from the public schools. You can be a School Cafeteria Cook too and wear a nice hair-net. Then you can be laid-off because of state budget cuts.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a Clerk at the Dollar Store.  I have to stock and sell crap merchandise that is all imported from China and other third world countries.  Sometimes I get to run the cash register.  I have to work at the Dollar Store because there are no decent jobs left in the United States since we don’t manufacture anything anymore.  You can be a Clerk at the Dollar Store too and get paid minimum wage and partake in the precipitous decline of the United States economy.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is an Administrative Assistant. That’s just a big word for Secretary. I work in an office and answer phones and type memos and complete other office work for a man who mostly just sits on his worthless ass and drinks coffee and orders people around. You can be an Administrative Assistant too and wear sexy boob shirts and tight skirts and someday maybe your boss will have sex with you.  Then you can get a nice promotion and have a corner office with windows.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a Flight Attendant. I work on an airplane and take care of the passengers that are flying someplace.  I get to say the same safety speech several times each day to passengers that don’t give a rat’s ass and aren’t even listening.  I have high level training in flight safety and first aid and medical procedures, but most people just think of me as the lady that serves them drinks.  You can be a Flight Attendant too and travel all over to crap cities that no one really wants to visit and sleep in nasty airport hotels.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a Writer.  I write romance novels which are like love stories but with lots of trashy sex and infidelity.  I make truck-loads of money because lots of woman purchase and read my books so they can temporarily forget how crappy their own marriage is and that their husbands are overweight, beer swilling losers.  You can be a Writer too and write romance novels and then sometimes you can write about Vampires and Werewolves that like to have sex with regular people.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a Waitress.  I serve food and drinks at a restaurant to people who come in for lunch or dinner.  Mommy didn’t have to work until Daddy left me for some floozie bitch that he met at work.  You can be a Waitress too and get paid less than minimum wage and have to rely on tips to make a decent living, even though most people are too fucking cheap to even leave 15%.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is an Architect. I draw designs for buildings and houses that people want to build.  I went to college for a long time and spent an obscene amount of money so that I could learn to design incredible, awe-inspiring sky-scrapers. Now I get to work 80 hours a week designing strip malls and shitty, low-end cookie-cutter housing developments that are built on land that used to be beautiful farms.  You can be an Architect too and never see your family again.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a Librarian.  I help people check out books and look up information that they need.  I spend most of my time monitoring unattended children and homeless street people who come inside to get warm and drink the free coffee. I also get to throw out patrons that use our computers to look at porn. You can be a Librarian too and pretty soon the internet will make your job obsolete.  Then you can be a street person and walk around looking for a place to get free coffee.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you do?

Mommy is a Stay-At-Home-Mom.  I stay home during the day and take care of you even though I’d rather be at work earning a living and interacting with adults.  Sometimes I spend all day doing laundry and wondering how our family could have so much fucking clothing. Other days I spend picking up toys that you have left all over the floor.  You can be a Stay-At-Home-Mom too and work harder than anyone else in the whole wide world.

See, there’s lot of exciting things you can do to earn a living when you grow up.

THE END

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