Crappy Toys and Book People

Dear Diary …

It seems like it was a billion years ago, but believe it or not we are still not even one month removed from Christmas. And I know we’re still in Christmas’ shadow because I see things like dusty old snowflake tins of stale fudge sitting on my kitchen counter.

Or speaking of dusty old things … the toys.

Yeah that’s right … they were glorious shiny new gifts from Santa Claus and his old lady just a few short weeks ago, but now they already look like crappy old hand-me-downs that are one step away from the yard sale bin.

So annoying. The kids get this straight up orgy of gifts … stuff they just HAD to have. And now what do they want every day? The iPad.

“Can I play the iPad?”

Santa brought you a thousand dollars worth of presents. Go play with those!

“But I wanna play the iPad!”

Why did we get them anything? I should’ve just got them 10 bucks each in the app store and called it a day.

Oh my daughter just HAD to have Ice Skating Princess Elsa. Diary, she’s played with it exactly two times, and now it’s missing an ice skate.

That’s the other thing … these toys are all cheap pieces of crap. Kids play with ‘em a handful of times and then they’re broken. Ooops …. Sor-rry … Can we go shopping at Toys R Us now? No we can not go shopping at Toys R Us now!

And let me just ask … How does anybody on Earth keep track of Legos? I swear I turn around for one second and there’s six pieces missing. Are my kids just worse than other kids? Or is it me? Am I too dumb to keep track of them?

I can’t even keep track of those big ridiculous Duplo ones. Regular tiny Legos? Forget it! But you know what Lego does have? An app. Can’t lose that!

OK … moving on Diary …

I like television. When I have some free time, I like to catch up on a show or watch a movie or whatever. Other people are book people. And that would be fine with me if book people would go ahead and keep their noses in those books, instead of constantly sticking them in the air when they’re around non-book people.

Oh you’re SOOO smart!

There’s nothing worse than being a non-book person who ends up trapped in a conversation with a couple of book people … because all they wanna do is try to prove to each other how many books they’ve read.

“Did you read Hunger Games?”

“Well yeah of course … I read all of those. But did you read Divergent?”

“Duh … I read it right after I read Wild and Factory Man, and the 50 Shades trilogy. Did you read The Fault In Our Stars?”

OK … enough with your scorecarding there bookworm!

And furthermore … You notice a pattern there in all those books I rattled off? They’re all now movies. Gloriously succinct two hour capsules of that book you spent a month reading.

I mean let’s be honest … we only have one life to live here people and we ain’t gettin’ this time back. So if I can watch nine movies in the time it takes you to read one book, I think I’m winning here.

Cuz Imaybe it’s not for you, but MY time is important. Really it’s one of the most precious things I have, and I don’t wanna waste it. And with that in mind … I’ve been making some changes.

For example … I said I was a TV guy … I’m a fan of The Bachelor. Actually, I should say I USED to be a fan of The Bachelor. Cuz I fired that show.

Why? Not because it isn’t any less saucy, salacious, or ridiculous, but because it’s too stinkin’ long.

The premiere this season was THREE HOURS. And then every week is another two hours … MINIMUM. So in a 16 episode season you’re looking at at LEAST 33 hours of this doofus and his harem of desperate skanks. This is not respecting my time!

Cuz what happens at the end of the season? They break up! So now I’ve just spent a day and a half of my life on a sham.

Now I’m no better than book people if I allow this to happen!

“Oh but the book is ALWAYS better than the movie.”

AHHHH!!! … Enough! I’ll give you a book recommendation … read a cookbook and make us all a pot roast. We’ll eat it while we watch Gone Girl in 90 minutes.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

Full Voicemail and Past Lives

Dear Diary …

Today … I’m gonna do two things. First, I’m gonna school ya. And them I’m gonna ask a ridiculous question. So first … DING DING … School is in session.

If you have a telephone … so you know … everybody. Here’s a simple request.

You know how when people call you, and you don’t answer, there’s this thing called “voice mail” where they can leave you a message? Yeah … have a voice mail greeting! Oh I can’t stand it when I have to hear that robot lady “The mailbox for 8 … 4 … 9 … 2 … blah … blah … blah”

C’mon! How hard is it to just say … “Hi … leave a message?” Instead I gotta sit through robot lady … who takes forever.

Oh and the best is when you sit through all of robot lady, and then you get “The mailbox of the person you are trying to reach is full.”

Unacceptable!

I’m gonna tell you right now … When you have a full voicemail box … I immediately judge you as an incompetent waste of space. I mean … get it together man! You can’t even keep track of a voicemail box? If I was a boss … I would hire you. You can’t be trusted

Potential love interest? Hell no! You’re never gonna be reliably there for me. And don’t get mad at me I’m assuming you’re useless … You’ve done this to yourself. Clean out the stinkin’ mailbox!

Oh and here’s another phone thing … If I call you and … heaven forbid! … You don’t recognize the number … You CAN actually answer the phone like a normal person. I know … GASP! … Not everybody on Earth is in your contacts list.

And when you’re not … You get one of two things. You either get somebody who’s immediately rude and suspicious of you right away.

“Who’s this?”

Oh well hello to you too!

Which brings me to number two … where you get people who answer the phone and then don’t say anything. They just pick up the phone and ……………………………………..

The word you’re looking for is “hello” … HELL-LOOOOOOO … That’s what you say! Answer your phone like a human, and not like a conspiracy theorist who thinks the CIA is trying to climb through their phone and into their ear hole. Just say “hello.”

It’s called manners. You ain’t got none. Start having some.

OK … moving on Diary … Ridiculous question time …

This has to do with past lives. You know … the people who believe “I was 17th century Duke in a past life.”

And that’s where my question lies … Why does everybody always think they were SO important in their past lives?’

So let me get this straight … you were a Duke in one life, and a famous painter in another, and a rich business man in a third … But purely by coincidence, you just happen to be normal boring you in this current life? What happened this time, huh? You just layin’ low and takin’ this lifetime off? Just chillin’ out?

You know who’s fault it is? It’s these so-called experts that tell you who you were in a past life … they’re layin’ it on thick and telling you exactly what you wanna hear. None of ‘em ever say …

“Yeah … In a past life you worked in a factory. Yep … 9-5. Retired quietly. Died.”

or … “I see here … you were a halfway decent looking housewife. That’s it. Grandma for a little while. Then you died. The end. Five dollars please.”

I mean … SOMEBODY had to be a normal boring person in their past life, right? Can’t all be famous people … not enough of ‘em to go around.

And I don’t know about you, but I demand answers to this ridiculous question!

Till next time Diary … I say, goodbye.

Evil Evil Children

Dear Diary …

I just got back from vacation. Two glorious weeks of vacation. And for the most part, it was exactly that … glorious.

No alarm clock. No bedtime. French Press fancy coffee int he morning. Don’t brush your teeth till noon. Whatever you wanna do! Everything about it was great … except for one thing … the children.

You see Diary … they were on vacation too, and now that they are five and two years old, I’m learning that two weeks with each other in the same house, is simply too much for these little demons to handle.

Much like a dog left in their crate for too long … The kids were simply going kennel crazy. And yes, I probably could’ve taken them somewhere, but this was MY vacation too, and I don’t wanna do no loser kid things. And furthermore … All you people had the flu! I saw all the whining on social media. I’m not messin’ with that. We’re in quarantine … I am NOT going out there with all those germs!

Man … the last few days of vacation … just brutal. These kids got all sorts of new presents and toys for Christmas, but the only thing they wanted to play was a game I call “Torment Your Sibling.”

“YNNNGHAAAAA …. NGGGEEEEE ….. NAAHHHHH!!!! I had it first! GNNNAHHHHH!!” [NOTE: If you’re reading this instead of listening to this, this part probably isn’t doing you justice right now. Go to 1:17 on the audio to suffer properly.]

That was the soundtrack of my house. The two kids were pretty much ready to kill each other, and my wife and I were basically ready to let ‘em. At one point on Sunday, she and I are sitting in the living room, and the two of them just start fighting upstairs.

So ask my wife … “Now what are they fighting about?”

She says “I don’t know. Just leave ‘em up there figure it out, or one can kill the other, or whatever.”

That ws it. We were done. And it was at that moment I realized how important school is … I mean sure for … um … learning or social blah blah … but mostly as a place … AWAY … to take them. A-WAY.

Here’s another thing I’m learning as the kids get older … they hate for Mommy and Daddy to have an actual adult conversation. At least I assume they hate them, because they destroy every single one we try to have.

It’s amazing … all you have to do is start having a conversation … and then magically one of those little bees comes … BZZZZZ … buzzing into the room. In this conversation my son was first … “I want milk.”

Which by the way, if you tell him no tot hat request, he thinks he can get milk by talking lower and growling his request. “Grrr … I want milk!” [Again with the reading vs. listening. Go to 2:28]

Fine … so the rabid raccoon gets his milk. I don’t care, just get out of here.

Start having a grownup conversation again .. and now my daughter walks in “Momma … let me tell you all the accessories they have for American Girl Dolls. They have shoes … and hats … and pets … and shirts”

“Ok thank you”

“…and wheelchairs … and tables … and a necklace”

“OK … THANK YOU!!!”

I mean … I love the heck out of these kids, but man they are SO annoying!

Diary, I realize that when I look at really rich people … and I’m kinda jealous of them … it’s not because they have fancy cars, or that they take lavish trips or anything like that … it’s cuz they have nannies.

Man I wish I had a nanny! I’m telling you … I would love my kids more because I could hang out with ’em, and as soon as I got sick of ’em, Helga could go give ’em a bath. THAT, my friends, is the life to strive for!

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.