Month: March 2016

My Kid the Con Artist

Dear Diary …

I have come to a simple conclusion … my son is a con artist. Now obviously I preface this with “He’s awesome and I love him so much and blah blah blah,” but he is also a liar, a cheat, and a scoundrel. And really all kids are con artists to some degree, but he is the Leader of the Liars.

Dinner time is a great example … because Little Shady McGee is a terrible eater. If it were up to him, he would just live off of milk and lollipops and never bother eating another food in his life. But obviously that can’t happen, so I’m gonna fight the good fight and try to get him to eat actual food.

So the other night my daughter is having scrambled eggs … and Little Liar says “I want egg too.”

Ok you’re sure? You want egg for your dinner?

“Yes.”

OK fine. I will make you an egg, but just to be clear, you gotta eat this egg otherwise there is no dessert. Understood?

“Yes.”

I make egg. And what does the con artist say?

“But I don’t want egg. I want something else.”

Oh hell to the no! You said you wanted egg. I made you egg. You’re gonna eat egg!

And then starts the lying. Throwing any con he can to the wall to see what sticks …

“It’s too hot.”

“It’s too cold.”

“My hands are itchy.”

“My tongue’s too small.”

MY TONGUE IS TOO SMALL???? You honestly think I’m dumb enough to fall for this one?

And there he is … hanging his tongue out of his mouth, trying to block the eggs from getting in.

“See …. It’s too small.”

This doesn’t even make sense … you’re making it BIGGER and then you’re telling me it’s too small. You are a liar and a con artist. People … gather round for the big liar … He’ll fill you full of promises, and then try to con his way out of all of them!

Here’s another one he likes to do that I know is very popular with children … I call it “The Dessert Swindle.”

This is where he eats his dinner (you know … on the nights his tongue is the appropriate food eating size) … so he eats it … and then asks for his dessert right away. And when he does this, he asks for an item, knowing full well that we have something better that’s coming up later.

Let me explain … The other night we’re gonna roast marshmallows on the fire pit. Fun activity for all the kids, and they get tasty roasted marshmallows for their dessert. So when the con artist does, is he comes to you before marshmallow time and says “I want a lollipop.”

OK … but we’re roasting marshmallows later … so you want a lollipop instead of a marshmallow?

“Uh huh”

And that means no marshmallows … right?

“Uh huh”

So he eats his lollipop, and then what does he do later? “Umm … maybe I want marshmallow for dessert?” LIAR!

Or last night … he eats his piece of candy, then comes in and says “I didn’t love that, maybe I want something else.” Yeah well, maybe you tell me that at the first bite, not after you’ve eaten the whole thing!

Big liar. Con artist. Playin’ me for a fool. Well I’m on to your game ya little turd. I will win! He only got two marshmallows. Wait … oh crap. I lose!

Till next time Diary … I say … goodbye.

Tiny Pieces of Plastic


Dear Diary …

Ultimately … we are all servants to one all-powerful ruler who controls all of us and everything we are able to do in life. It’s not a person. And not a spiritual being. It’s much smaller than that. And yet … despite it’s size, it has a power over virtually EVERY person on Earth. You are not in control … it is in control.

You see Diary … the entire world is run by tiny pieces of plastic.

I don’t care how big and strong and technologically advanced anything is that we use in this world … when it breaks … it breaks because it was held together by tiny pieces of plastic.

Every time something breaks on my car (and it’s an 18 year old car, so things break all the time). It’s not a giant piece of metal that breaks … it’s a tiny piece of plastic. I’ve replaced the door handle in my car four different times now. And the reason is the same every time … despite the fact that this door is 200 pound hunk of metal … there’s a tiny little nubbin’ of plastic that connects the handle to the actual door … and this tiny little nubbin’ breaks all the time. 3,000 pound car … totally held at the mercy of a 17 cent piece of plastic.

Recently my vacuum broke … and this is one of those schmancy ones with the big rotating ball on the bottom and the weird German guy in the commercials that tells you it’s the most sophisticated vacuum in the universe. Yeah … well … it broke. And I knew it! I was convinced it was some dumb little piece of plastic.

So I took that thing apart … and that’s exactly what I found … random tiny piece of plastic that had broken off. The entire vacuum held hostage by another evil little nubbin’. Fixed the piece of plastic … vacuum works fine. And here’s how dumb the plastic is … there was a piece of metal in that vacuum and I just took it out. Extra part! Vacuum still works fine. The metal doesn’t hold it back. The plastic does.

We are so dumb. We build these big, fancy, expensive things … and then we have them held together by tiny, fragile, flimsy little things. Stupid pieces of plastic. And we don’t do anything about it … we keep letting it happen. We’re not in charge … the plastic is in charge!

OK … moving on Diary … Here’s another reality we’ve all been denying … bananas suck.

And yet … they’re like the most popular food in the world. Why?

You buy bananas and they’re fine in your house for about a day and then they become fruit fly paradise once they insta-rot on your counter. One day … fine. Next morning … brown, mushy, and terrible.

And furthermore … lets be honest … I think we’re all trying to convince ourselves that we actually enjoy the taste and mealiness of a banana. I get like “instant stomach ache” when I eat one, and the consistency can best be described as “mushy chalkiness.” Not appealing!

Put ‘em in a fruit salad … they instantly make that fruit salad worse. And banana flavored things? No thank you.

And the banana split … what is by far the worst ingredient of the banana split? The banana! Ice cream, hot fudge, nuts … all tasty things … Sandwiched together by one useless piece of fruit that’s just there so we can lie to ourselves and claim there was something healthy in the bowl.

“Oh but htey’re so cheap. That’s why we get ’em.”

Well guess what? They’re cheap for a reason … they’re lousy.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

I’m Gonna Use the P-Word

Dear Diary …

Alright … I’m gonna do it. This is probably a terrible idea, but I’m gonna do it anyway. I’m gonna use the P-word …

Politics

[[[Insert panicked screaming and chaos that you would totally be hearing right now if you were listening to this Anger Diary as opposed to just reading it]]]

OH MY GOD!!! WHY IS HE DOING THIS??? I NEED TO FREAK OUT NO MATTER WHICH SIDE I’M ON AND WHO I’M VOTING FOR … AHHHH!!!

OK breathe …

We can do this.

And as shocking as it may seem … I actually think I have something to talk about here that we can ALL agree on.

This whole primary thing that we got going on right now … Can we all just band together and agree that this thing is stupid? Why are we dragging it out for so long?

Look … it made sense back in the 1800’s when the candidates had to take a wagon to each state just to go talk to people. Of course it had to be spaced out! Heck … it took three days just to “travel into town” to buy a goat pr whatever it was. They needed time for stuff.

But now … we don’t need the time. All it does is draaaaaag everything out … month of painful month of having to listen to these toolboxes fight with each other over every little thing. Nothing that’s been done in these past six month couldn’t have been covered in about two or three Skype interviews to the whole country.

And what’s worse … let’s admit it … most of us don’t really pay much attention to any of the actual facts or details of these different campaigns. So when one person does well in the first few primaries, we are all just a bunch of followers that fall in line and start voting for that person. And even if there’s another candidate you like better, you think “Well he doesn’t really have a chance, cuz he didn’t win Iowa, so I’ll just vote for the other guy instead.”

And by the way … the states that are leading the way … like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina … THESE are the states we are letting be in charge of picking the potential leader of the Free World?

What is wrong with us? If you were buying something online … you would never say “Well … let me look at the reviews of this product before I spend my money, but let me only pay attention to reviews from people who live in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.”

You wouldn’t do that!

And that’s for buying pants … meanwhile this is for PRESIDENT!!!!! We’re insane that we let this happen!

The amount of time … and money … WASTED by this whole stupid process that the majority of Americans would be happy to have eliminated anyway is ridiculous.

Two votes … two weeks apart. Half the country one time …The other half the next time. And two debates … one before each vote. There … done.

I just saved us all about a hundred million dollars and six months of aggravation.

It’s not that hard. The problem is … we have created a powerful legion of morons that run this country, and its virtually impossible to crack thru. So instead … you gonna just have to watch that one lady you don’t like take on that other guy you don’t like for the right to compete against some other guy that you don’t really like much either. ‘Murica!!!!

There .. I talked about the P-word and we didn’t go crazy, right? Oh wait … you’re already constructing signs and planning the anti-Zack rally? [[SIGH]] OK … nevermind.

Till next time Diary … I say goodbye.

Long Posts and the People Who Like Them

Dear Diary …

As you’re scrolling through your social media today … everything will be all hunky dory … Just your standard “Here’s a picture of my kid doing stuff” or “Here’s a little recap of the dinner I made.” Nice simple stuff. And then the evil phrase hits you …

“I don’t normally post long rants like this on Facebook, buuu.ut …”

Oh Lord.

First of all … yes you do … but whatever.

Second … [[SIGH]] … alright .. what is it that has SOOOOO wronged you? Or made you SOOOO upset????

Go ahead … hammer home whatever it is that you believe in that you’re soooo mad about because your kid’s teacher said something, or there’s somebody I’m supposed to vote for or against based on whatever it is you believe in.

You done yet? Cuz this is taking forever.

But here’s the thing Diary … I used to get mad at these people for their long, boring, ranty “pay attention to ME” posts. But then I realized … they’re not the problem. It’s the person who clicks “like” and comments on these posts … THEY’RE the problem because they encourage these people to post more things like this.

I’ve been mad at the wrong person. It’s not the poster … it’s YOU … the liker!

And it’s not just these long ranty posts … it’s also your fault that we get so many posts like “Just so tired trying to keep up with everything” because you post stupid things like “Keep your head up girl, you’re Supermom!” and that only encourages more posts like it.

Why do you think so many people update their profile pics with a new hoochie-mama selfie every other day? Because dodos like you immediately post “Ooooh … so SEXY!” Don’t you realize that this just gives them the taste of blood and makes them do it more and more?

Stop it!

That’s what needs to happen. You need to cut it out.

I can’t stop the poster … they’re gonna do whatever they want … but if you would just stop acknowledging these posts, I guarantee you they would go away.

So … I beg of you … call upon your willpower and resist the temptation.

The next time somebody in your life posts “Can’t go into detail … just having the worst day ever” … Resist the temptation to post “What’s wrong?” And on top of that, don’t send your prayer Army out for them either … keep those troops at home until they stop posting these cryptic cries for help! Only together will we get rid of all these posts.

You need to start thinking of Facebook as if it’s a scab. So stop pickin’ at it or it’s never gonna go away!

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye