Cold Toilet Seats

We have finally had three consecutive days that exceeded 50 degrees outside, so I think it's officially time for some serious reflection on winter before we bid it a final adieu.

Thought the first: If it's super freezing outside, there may as well be some snow to play in. Super freezing plus no snow equals sadness. There is no silver lining. It's like getting sick but still having to go to church.

Thought the second: At least there were fewer spiders.

Final thought: I for sure have finally decided that I am glad I am not a woman. When I watched my wife give birth, twice, I thought I was pretty sure then. But then I see how much more my kids like her than they do me, which makes me jealous. Not to mention all the free hospital food they give new moms. Maybe childbirth is worth it. I was still debating this possibility, when suddenly, this winter happened. It lasted an eternity. And approximately once every day, I got to experience the deeply unsatisfying experience of sitting on a cold toilet seat.

Holy cow, ladies. How do you do that a dozen times a day? I became somewhat retentive for quite awhile due to this. I threw all things fiber out the window into the frozen tundra for the sake of achieving some irregularity.

Good news is, I now know how to get rich. Heated toilet seats. Maybe they are already invented. I'm not going to Google it because if they are already invented, I will just be depressed that I don't have one. And if indeed they already are invented, why on Earth isn't there one in my house? Have they just not made it mainstream yet? If not, how is this not at the top of the priority list of every person with a bum and a toilet?

I used to think world peace could be achieved if not for spiders. Now I'm thinking warm toilet seats, along with no spiders, and no one would ever utter a violent word again. Such as, "I would kill to not have to sit here and make poopsicles every day."

Until next time, winter. Now bring on the Metamucil.

Spiders

The weather has turned cold. The days of wearing pants to bed have returned. Time to dig the ice scraper out of the trunk and brace yourself for freezing nose hairs. But cold weather does mean three beautiful things: hot chocolate, Santa Claus in the malls, and disappearing spiders.

I hate spiders.

Don't we all. And why shouldn't we? They are hideous, terrifying, flesh-eating beasts. They are all out to kill you. They have no friends. They want no friends. I don't want to go to Hell for the sole reason that Hell is probably full of flying, growling, man-sized spiders. 

Have you ever had a spider dream? I hate spider dreams. I've been chased by a dinosaur-spider, found a nest of spiders under my pillow, and squished a tarantula with a Kleenex. There is only one thing worse than a spider dream: a real spider. Do you think spiders dream? No. Spiders don't sleep. They are too busy being ugly and trying to kill you.

Here is a picture that defines my life:

Have fun getting that image out of your head. You are a little girl, too.

In our house, my wife and I have a rule: whoever sees the spider first tells my wife to get it. And why shouldn't she? She is tough. She raises kids. Surely she can take down a ferocious spider.

I used to think it was cool to be tall until I realized that my head was easier accessed by spiders. Nothing like being slammed in the face with spider webs every time you walk into a carport. My neighbors probably wonder at the shrieking they hear which accompanies my daily panic attack in our carport. You know the word "flail?" That must have been invented by the first guy who saw his buddy walk his face into a spider web. It's embarrassing to flail. But you've got to flail. Better that than certain death.

The other day my wife started screaming in the bathroom. She does this sometimes. When I went to investigate, I started screaming in the bathroom. There was a dead spider. It blended in with the rug and my wife had picked it up thinking it was a wad of trash. I don't know how she made this mistake seeing as the spider was the size of a boulder. Neither of us dared dispose of the body. So we put a cup over it and it's still sitting there. Maybe our two-year old will take care of it. Actually I know he will, because he has this deranged idea that spiders are fun and innocent and not out to kill him. We've caught him a couple times touching a spider and talking to it all playful-like. That behavior certainly did not come from my genes.

But hey, good news: it's all cold outside now and the spiders are disappearing. Every time I want to curse my frozen nose hairs or cold feet in the morning, I will remind myself of this simple fact. And this year I will ask Santa and Jesus to give me the gift of eliminating all the spiders ever. I don't want them dead, per se, as I like to believe I am a respecter of life. But maybe turn all the spiders into Oreos, or something. Yes. Then we'd really have peace on Earth and goodwill toward men.

But then I'd be afraid of Oreos.

Skittles

It just occurred to me that I am extremely hungry. This happens now and again. To most people, I reckon. It also occurred to me that I am nowhere near a source of food. Home is several miles away, I'm not carrying any money, and the vending machine downstairs is carefully monitored by security cameras. So that's no good. What is to be done? Well I'll tell you what I done.

Earlier today, a peer of mine walked in with what appeared to be seven kids'-worth of Halloween candy bulging from a giant bag. Skittles, Airheads, Smarties, and Double Bubble. Everywhere. I was quite hungry at that point of the day as well, so I subtley grabbed a huge handful. When that was gone, and the giant bag was being passed around the room for a second time, I thought to myself, "Hey. You can't just eat candy." But then I thought to myself, "Hey. You can't just not take free crap." So I grabbed another handful. When that was gone, and the giant bag was being passed around the room for the third time, I thought, "Lunch is in ten minutes. I don't want to be spoiling that." Plus I had a frosted sugar cookie waiting for me in my lunch, and even I know when too much is too much. But for good measure, I grabbed one more tiny little package of Skittles and tossed it into my bag.

Now here we are. Six hours later. I'm about to eat my hand, I'm so hungry. Not remembering the Skittles, I wept for a minute. Then I drank about a gallon of water to see if that would trick my stomach. Then as I replaced my water bottle in my bag, something red and beautiful flashed its saucy little packaging up at me. My existential dilemma was over.

I have now eaten all the Skittles. Except for one purple one that fell on the floor. Normally that's no big deal, but I don't trust this place. The dudes here don't wash their hands after using the bathroom. I'll put the Skittle in my pocket though. Just in case. It's a long ride home.

Goodbye, Halloween

When I was a kid, Halloween was the best day of the year. Christmas was for children. Halloween was for awesome. There was the year when that one guy dressed up in a gorilla suit and scared all the neighborhood trick-or-treaters. Or the year I carved the word "DONATE" into my pumpkin and made four bucks in change. Or the year I scored a full pillowcase of candy then topped off the night by watching Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds with my family.

Fast-forward fifteen years. I'm still afraid of birds. It's not even nine o' clock and I'm the last person awake. The rain and wind are continuing in torrential fashion, much like they have been all day, thus preventing anyone from going trick-or-treating. Some frosted pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies are growing stale on the counter, the result of an attempt to do something pumpkin-esque in the wake of there being no actual pumpkins left in town to carve up in true Halloween fashion. The only attempt at getting decked out in a costume that I saw today was the bus driver wearing some devil horns. And she's super mean anyway, so that hardly counts.

But you know what really killed Halloween? The trunk-or-treat. Even if it wasn't hurricaning outside tonight, it is doubtful that the volume of trick-or-treaters would be enough to put a dent in the bowl of assorted Tootsie Rolls we had waiting for them––thanks to the trunk-or-treat. At least now I get to eat all those delicious vanilla-flavored ones myself. The advent of the trunk-or-treat has put traditional Halloween door-to-door madness in serious jeopardy. Where is the adventure in trunk-or-treating? Kids finish up with that charade in about six minutes. Then what? A kid can only do so many laps around a church parking lot before the candy-givers get suspicious. Why the trunk-or-treat? Are parents afraid of their kids getting kidnapped during Orthodox trick-or-treating? As a kid, the thrill of possibly being kidnapped was half the fun! And let's be serious: If I were a kidnapper, the most obvious place to hide a body is in my trunk. No one thought of that, did they.

Halloween used to be about hoarding candy and dressing up like a Power Ranger all day. It used to be about building gory haunted houses and letting the inner sadist run wild. It used to be about trick-or-treating amok with your cadre of buddies who knew which places in town gave out the soda pops and king-size candy bars. Halloween used to be magical. And now it's about trunk-or-treats and frosting sugar cookies and watching the spooky episode of Thomas & Friends. Maybe next year I will be sure to buy a pumpkin before the night before Halloween. Then I won't be so bitter.

The Alarm Clock

Alarm clocks are evil. Fact. I dare you to find someone who enjoys his or her alarm clock. I'm not talking about setting an alarm on your phone to play the smooth sounds of Enya to rouse you in the morning. (Though I did used to have my stereo set to play Pirates of the Caribbean music to wake me in the mornings, which made me leap enthusiastically out of bed with the determination to pirate and pillage the world.)  I'm talking about hardcore, old-school, ear-shattering alarm clocks. The kind that send you into minor cardiac arrest. Every single time. Do people even use those anymore? I do. It's unfortunate. Neither my alarm clock nor I benefit from our relationship. My alarm clock has been hurled against the wall so many times I'm amazed it still works. (Actually it stopped working once and for old times' sake I hurled it against the wall, then it magically started working again. Yeay.) And my heart has been racing so many times because of that infernal beeping that I have become slightly neurotic. And jumpy.

What does my alarm clock sound like? Terrible. It sounds terrible. Think of the worst sound you can possibly fathom. In Hell. Now times it by ten and smother it in celery. There is only one alarm clock that sounds worse: my little brother's. His is truly old-school. It's a gold-colored wind-up clock with a ringing bell alarm. The kind you see in Little House on the Prairie and think to yourself, "Man, I'm so glad I didn't have to live back then." Luckily for my brother, he never could hear his alarm clock. He slept like a tranquilized bear. I, however, having created a life for myself of neurotic jumpiness, could hear his alarm clock go off from clear across the house. Complete with minor cardiac arrest. My parents knew my brother slept like a rock (he often slept through the smoke detector false-alarming, so we're lucky he is still with us), and they knew I was instantly aroused from sleep by the slightest noise, so since they very intentionally gave that alarm clock to my brother, I'm pretty sure they hated me.

Now I have kids, and they have become my alarm clock. The other morning my 4-month-old baby started shrieking which caused the cardiac arrest which made me hurl her against the wall. No I didn't. But I did cry a little. I was so terrified.

When I am king of the world, there will be no more alarm clocks. People will just sleep as long as they like. If they insist on having some way of being woken up, too bad. The world tried that alarm clock thing for far too long. Do you know when the alarm clock became a mainstream household item? The same year World War I started. That cannot be coincidence.