What's in the box?

I finally cleaned out our garage yesterday. I had been avoiding the work because for one, it's a spider sanctuary--including many a black widow--and two, because since we moved in 5 months ago, we've heard strange rustling sounds coming from one dark corner.

The mysterious corner, in fact the whole garage, contains years of home-improvement leftovers. Twenty cans of paint, stains, sealers, and one large box of shingles. The sound was definitely coming from the shingles. I hadn't prepared myself for what was in that shingle box...

A dozen black widows wasn't even the scariest part, even though they scurried very close to my juicy fingertips when I peeled back their shingle front door. The cardboard top to the shingle box turned out to be an inedible wall for a colony of termites. Thousands of termites. With the top gone, it was like looking at...well, an ant farm. These termites had almost entirely devoured a bag of shingles. That's like 70 pounds! And I thought shingles were made of tar! Rock! Asphalt! Well, the box was nearly empty. The sound that we'd been hearing for months was that box of shingles caving in on itself.

After I disposed of the box like it was a bio-hazard (shovel, long gloves, lotsa termite poison), I called K to tell her we were safe now. She was very afraid that I had been bitten by a black widow, but hadn't realized it yet.

Like a zombie.

God, can that happen?

My children will be deviants

I was thinking about Alan Thicke, wondering if I'll be as good a father. But not a fictional one. A real-life daddy. No, we're not pregnant, but it's never to early to get distressed about your future. I'm just considering if I'll have the patience, the authority, and the camaraderie for my children the way Alan Thicke had for his kids Ben Seaver, Carol Seaver, and Kirk Cameron. Yeah, I know I'm being silly with my comparison. The point is that I was wondering if my kids will think I'm cool. And my immediate answer is "fuck ya."

Here's why: I'm empathetic. I'll preface this by saying that when I was a kid I didn't drink, do drugs, smoke, have sex, pillage, etc... I embraced my title as A/V Technician so whole-heartedly that I wore RCA cables like Rambo wears a sweatband. That pretty much excluded me from the high school, cigarettes-and-booze parties. The worst thing I ever did was race my '89 Beretta around Tacoma's tide flats. Or is that the best thing I ever did? Anyway, I wasn't a kid who got into the dangerous stuff, but if my kids do I'LL UNDERSTAND. I might even be happy about it.

I'm not so concerned with the smarts or looks of my kids. K will tell you that I actually HOPE my kids are ugly. (It'll build character.) All I want is for them to make good choices and to be confident. I think the worst thing to accumulate in life is a barrel of regrets, so what looks like a bad choice on the surface could be GREAT choices in the long run. For example, some parents would discourage their children from drinking or smoking, but if it's going to make my kid fit in--especially if he or she is ugly--I say go for it. Sex on homecoming night? If they're safe about it and have considered the consequences, sure!

I realize that asking teenagers to consider the future impact of all their choices is like asking Shamu to make me turkey pot pie. If I'm letting my kids smoke pot, they've gotta give me something in return.

(DISCLAIMER: The majorly-felonious/self-destruction/heroin/huffing caveat is in effect. I can't see how any of these would ever turn into great choices.)

What if my future kids find this post somewhere in the annals of Google's fusion-powered data banks, then use it against me? This will be their excuse to get reckless on some futuristic drug. I can only assume it's some hybrid of angel dust and Red Bull.

Uh oh. Now I'm considering retracting everything. Yes, yes, I've already considered what all you actual parents are saying. "You won't know how cool you'll be until you actually meet your daughter's boyfriend." But what kind of trouble is really, legitimately out there? Like, I know that blow jobs are popular (were they ever not in style?), and that kids are smoking pot, lookin' at Internet porn, being gay, stealing software, etc... I'm totally prepared for all of that. Because how much more extreme can kids go? BJ's and pot? Seriously. Even with my daughter and her burly, high-school boyfriend...

...oh my God, what if he looks like me?!

I'm considering the retraction because what IF things get more extreme? They certainly did for my parents. What's more extreme for a teenager than oral? Orgies? Oh God...incest?! Gay incest?! Don't say that can't happen because I'm sure there was a time in Roman and Greek societies when that was so couture and don't tell me that America isn't the next Roman Empire. And I can't even consider the future of the internet and the bounty of illicit activities that'll bring. Virtual murders? CYBER orgies? Holodecks? I'm not prepared for that. Don't tell me I'm blowing this out of proportion. I've seen Virtuosity.

Now I'm totally unsure. Pre-parenting is so hard. Now I see. It wasn't Kirk Cameron. It wasn't the kid who played Ben. It was Alan Thicke. Alan Thicke had the "Growing Pains." It was him all along. It was Alan.


This post was difficult to write because as I was composing it, a small man with a big hat was chanting to some birds in a nearby tree. It was at least a ten-minute session. Is he the bird whisperer? I smell buddy picture (again)!

Soliciti-zing!

A guy knocked on my door this afternoon:

Zach: Hi!
Guy: (out of breath) Ima...membera...organiz...(nonsense, nonsense) LA Times...
Zach: Slow down, dude.
Guy: Ima...neighbor...selling...subscrip...(totally incoherent)...subscrip...shuns...
Zach: Do you want to come inside? You look hot...
Guy: (paying no attention to me) Remehehehe...muhmuhmuh...
Zach: Like, would a glass of water help?
Guy: Forty dollars.
Zach: Ok, forty dollars...
Guy: Twenty Sundays.... muhmuhmuh...
Zach: Are you asking me if I'd like twenty issues of the Sunday LA Times for $40?
Guy: uh huh.
Zach: Well, I used to get the paper and I didn't read it as much as I should...
Guy: Okay, thank you!

And the guy BOUNDS off my porch and SPRINTS to my neighbor's house, like an out-of-shape Batman.

I love that I have a front door.

I yin your yang

Before I moved in with K, I used to cook for myself. Sure, they were the same four meals (meat loaf, chicken pot pie, meatball somethin', and some kind of rice thing with peas), but I cooked. I took time out of my day to make a meal. I made my bed. I dusted. I wrote thank-you letters. Now, I have a live-in wife. And I didn't intend on being a misogynist, but sometimes life just opens a door. Y'know?

I enjoyed cooking. I had some kind of knack for it. But now, it's completely lost. I have gone from cooking for myself to being on an unintentional raw-food diet. Unless melting cheese on toast is cooking, I only eat peanuts, fruit, spinach, Cliff Bars, and tuna. And crackers. And beer. And Subway Sandwiches. I don't mix anything, because mixing is like cooking. I don't even know what goes with what anymore. Another lunch of peanuts and spinach. I am not exaggerating.

This brings me back to a point I've often made: that I'm always trying to fill the gaps. What I mean is, if I'm in a group of perfectly normal people, I'll play the weirdo. And vice-versa. If everyone knows how to gather, I'll naturally be drawn to hunting. What's unfortunate for K is that she does everything. Which means I'm naturally drawn to the couch. And all those domestic skills I had before we moved in are gone because she was better at making the bed.

Simply put, I am a no-good husband, and this is all her fault.