The Best of Blogs: 2009-2010 - Leslie Thompson (reading fiction txt) 📗

Like Drunken Monkeys

Let me start by saying that I have three young children ranging in age from three to nine. My kids are precious to me, and I cannot imagine my life without them. How could I live without having known their sweet laughter, their gentle natures, and their inquisitive minds? I take great joy in their triumphs and simple pleasures, and I feel their struggles and pain like a knife in my heart. I am lucky since I have not made any choices on my children’s behalf that I regret, so far. But none of them are teenagers yet, so I’m sure I’ll be changing my tune in a few years. As much as my children have been a source of fulfillment, I have discovered that my little crew can be enigmatic.

For instance my daughter, (whom I will call Julie at her request) is a vivacious nine-year-old who can make grown men weep as she plows through the Halo universe on Xbox. She cackles maniacally and throws down some shocking trash talk as the digital bodies pile in her wake. She frowns on public dancing and condemns it as silly and too sexy. Meanwhile she thinks nothing of breaking wind in the food court of our local Mall and calling it humor. Julie can clean a kitchen until the chrome sparkles like the sun, but I need hip boots and a snake bite kit to walk through her bedroom. Julie is often found trying to interpret Homer’s “Odyssey”, but can’t seem to spell ‘tree’. Julie is adored by all who meet her, but came home one day covered in cuts and bruises. She explained to me that these injuries occurred when she looked the neighborhood bully in the eye and asked, “Does it hurt to be so dumb?”

My oldest son Kwiss (the name he requested for this article) is a quiet and reserved child with a significant speech impediment. So when my sweet natured boy goes off his nut, my husband and I often so flabbergasted by it that we cannot bring ourselves to punish him. Several days ago, our family woke to find the spare bathroom completely flooded. The water that covered the floor was two inches deep, and it poured through a crack in the floorboards to the laundry room below. We raced downstairs to find the cat box overflowing with…stuff. Harvey the cat was tip toeing about and looking perplexed. Kwiss readily admitted to the flooding with a confident frankness uncommon in six-year-old boys. He explained that the flood was achieved by plugging the overflow hole in the sink with toilet paper and covering the drain with a cup. When I asked him why he would do such a thing, Kwiss replied in quite a matter-of-fact tone, “It was an espearamint in gwabbitty, Mom! An’ I was bowed.” I still haven’t figured out what he said, but it sounded reasonable at the time.

Sonic (again the name suggested by the child in question) is my youngest and has the nastiest case of the ‘Look at me!’ syndrome I have ever seen. He insists on wearing all of his pants backwards and spikes his hair with Vaseline. He has never taken a picture with his tongue in his mouth, and likes to ‘die’ when total strangers point at him and tell him he’s cute. He leaps out of closets and screams, and then he laughs when mommy falls down the stairs. And it is not just my pain that Sonic takes delight in, but the pain of his siblings, friends, and himself. He cackled when he threw a baseball at Kwiss and hit him in the head. (Kwiss is fine; he has a head like a cinder block). He roared with laughter when his ‘girlfriend’ from down the street stubbed her toe running from the ants. And he nearly passed out with hilarity when I found him with his head buried in the drywall. My husband is considering a career change to home renovations due to all the Sonic sized holes in our walls. Meanwhile, the Pediatrician is confounded by Sonic’s odd behavior.

While I wait for my children to break new ground in the next stage of their childhood, I have learned that I need precautions. I’m stocking up on home repair tools and sheet rock. There’s always band-aides and antiseptic ointment in the first-aid kits. And I’m always on the look out for helmets to protect the children’s heads.

The upside to the downturn

Being broke is not the same as being poor. Simply defined, "broke" is an economic state in which and individual's debt meets or exceeds his income. It's a matter of money management, not tax brackets. That said, there are a number of benefits to the lifestyle of the perpetually broke that are rarely considered.
Long term goals

No one has much to say about this particular virtue. Fact of the matter is, long term goals provide a number of advantages. They provide hopes and dreams to those who might otherwise live without those luxuries. They help move the economy, and put a hop in your step and whistle on your lips. Goals provide sweet dreams to the sleepless, and allow couples to communicate without choking each other. It is true, the dreamer is often 80, wrinkled, ugly, bent, and broken before he can bask in the warm Caribbean sun, but at least he got there. In the wise words of Miley Cyrus, "...it's not what's waiting on the other side, it's the cliiiimb!"
Reasonable expectations

Only the rich and vapid (you know who you are) can afford to have psychotic and convoluted standards. To be fair though, they don't have anything better to do. However, hard working, salt of the earth men and women of smaller means, have a more realistic view of reality. None of these hardy souls care if their spouses are fat and ugly; so long as they warm the heart and bed, and aren't the fattest and ugliest around. It matters little to them that they don't have the biggest or fanciest house in the world. They are just grateful to have a roof over their heads that doesn't fall down on them. So what if the kids aren't Kobe Bryant, Einstein, or Megan Fox? There is meaningful satisfaction in knowing that the under-achieving little monkeys will eventually move out.
Entertainment

A man doesn't need a fancy car or loads of money to have a good time. All a person needs to do is regress back to toddler hood, and dumb down the IQ to that of a howler monkey. In this state of mind, a person can truly appreciate the value of a good fart joke, and watching people fall down has been the universal favorite for eons. If all else fails, there's always Bubba. Many a happy evening has been spent watching the village idiot attempt to teach his equally addled child to use an air rifle. Sure it's a little dangerous for anyone sitting in range, but hey, it's all part of the fun.
Educational opportunities

The chronically broke always has a new opportunity to expand their education. Many a man and woman has learned home repair, car repair, lawn maintenance, first aide, and survival techniques; all without the benefit of a teacher, or in the case of Bubba, half a brain. Sure a man might occasionally lose a limb, but hey, chicks dig scars. And while the heap they drive does smoke enough to keep the fire department on speed dial, and people can hear you coming for miles, at least there is the satisfaction of being able to do it yourself. Not to mention, there is the added bonus of expanding a person's (expletive deleted) vocabulary you (expletive deleted)!!!!

Undead love

With the popularity of Stephanie Meyer's 'Twilight' series, HBO's 'Tru Blood' and the CW's 'Vampire Diaries' (premiering this fall), America's renewed love affair with undead blood-suckers has been rekindled into a blazing bonfire. Everywhere I look, I see pale, beautiful young men smiling fangily at me while they embrace a chronically anemic young woman. And there isn't much that is very inventive about these stories either. They are as formulaic as the recipe for dynamite. Basically, a lovely young and virginal woman becomes infatuated with a handsome and morose vampire. After a few tedious (and damn near fatal) encounters, the vampire finally succumbs to the woman's charms. At which point, the sex and angst flows freely with just a splash of gore for flavor.
These two characters are quite possibly the stupidest figures in the gothic horror genre. And here's why.
Lets start with the vampire. If you are a vampire snogging a human, you have two major problems. A) Your mortal lover is suicidally stupid, and B) other vampire's homicidal disdain for your newly developed food fetish.
If there's anything vampire stories have taught us, they have shown that any woman willing to spend a large portion of her personal time with the undead, is completely out of her mind. These chicks are flaky, prone to life threatening accidents and mishaps, and have absolutely no sense of self-preservation. These daffy creatures don't even display the brain capacity required to listen to a 300 year old dead guy when he gives her advice. Then there is the constant temptation to eat your one true love. And don't even get me started on what the religious fanatics would like to do to you.
And while you are trying to keep your human lover out of her grave, you have to consider the disdain of your peers. Simply put, no one likes the guy who diddles their steak before he eats it. It's kinda gross and there are precious few who can appreciate the tendency. There are even fewer who even want to. Think of it this way: humans don't doink their cows or their pet pigs. So its easy to see why vampires might get all worked up about it.
If you're a human, you have plenty of problems of your own. Besides the brutal hickeys that appear in the oddest places and the lag of chronic blood loss, you would have to contend with becoming a social outcast when your neighbors call you a necropheliac. Your taste for danger and damaged undead people keep you hospitalized often enough that the doctors keep your room open. Your health insurance premiums are through the roof, and no insurance company will sell you a life policy. In the end, you're stuck spending your days, lethargic from blood loss, and alone because your smart friends won't have anything to do with you, and your dumb friends are all dead.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal of the tortured soul who longs for love. I get the allure of the overpowering demon lover, and I definitely appreciate how immortality can be sexy. But as I examine the situation, I find the idea extremely impractical. Especially when there are more than enough human men around who are more than happy to make my life miserable, without the threat of wanting to eat me.

The questions asked of me

Let me start by saying that I love my husband with all my heart and soul. For the last 13 years, he has been a good provider, a dear and loyal friend, a pillar of strength, a wonderful father, and a faithful and considerate lover. He has been a true and genuine partner in my journey through life, and I pray everyday that I do as much for him as he has