Snapperheads



why is this not ever the pirate at a biker bar?

 In a desperate rookie vacation move several years ago we waited too late to grab dinner at the beach.  There's a window of "leave the house at 4:30" or "drink until 9:00 - eat cheetos".  It's a science.   It was dead center of dinner hour and we knew better.  After driving around and being disgusted with ourselves we pulled into what we hoped was a hole in the wall hamburger place.    SnapperHeads.

We just wanted to eat.  We had 6 hungry children WITH no sense of humor.  Actually they had plenty of comic humor it was the adults that had reached the end of their ropes. 

As we walked inside the trailer (first red flag) past the guy with an eye-patch dressed completely in leather (second red flag) we encounteer the seating hostess/biker chick/ Marlboro woman/ with voice like gravel/and one arm ( third red flag) who escorted us to our table past the angry parrot. ( flag, flag, flag). 



We ordered from the menu.  I have to say it was my mistake to attempt to eat something healthy in an obviously Fried or Die environment - but I'm gutsy that way.  After ordering one's eyes start to wander, unless you're comatose which would have been my preference.   The small innocent children practiced their phonetic skills on signs they saw posted on the wall.   It was like being in a really dirty Spencer's gifts.  I found myself saying things like " eyes on  your plate", "No that's not about a kitty cat", "I can't breathe either, we all must make sacrifices", "Buddy system for the bathroom please", "EAT FASTER", "No, we're NOT going to shoot pool", " I don't know what happened to her other arm."

I had to send my salad back twice due to the amount of dirt still on the lettuce.  Twice.

Those were the days when I panicked easily.  I still panic easily but there's usually a tornado involved or my relatives from far far away have learned to use the internet.    Now I just pretend I'm in a sitcom. Which came in handy yesterday. 



Not Snapperheads.......but close





Once again we made a timing error thinking we'd grab a bite as we headed to the Panama City Beach airport to pick up our son's girlfriend.  The airport is in a place that will never as far as I can tell be landlocked.   Lots of wide open spaces.  With no quick grab a bite venue in sight..  At one point we spotted a billboard that said "BoonDocks" restaurant ahead.  That we missed, twice.  It was under a bridge.  As Bill negotiated a couple of turns the old panic crept up as I was certain we were being tricked by the troll under the bridge and he was going to eat us.  I'm always sure there is a troll under the bridge.  Which now that I think about it why would any parent in their right mind read a child a book about trolls under bridges that eat people. I still worry about the billygoats gruff.   As we got closer to the restaurant there were cars everywhere.  Panic subsided.  Bill dropped us at the door and the hostess ( both arms visible) said yes they had room for four.....in an hour and a half.   I think she thought that was funny.  I did.  We got back in the car.

Deciding now to just grab something somewhere to hold us over until we got back to "our" area,  we pulled into a diner.  You know, the silver cylinder shaped thing.  And went inside.   Frankly the only thing missing was the parrot.  Snapperheads - part two.

The waitress, with a voice of gravel , that was probably 40 but looked 70 ,seated us immediately.  No waiting. ( uh-oh).   She announced that she was suppose to tell us the specials and with great pride said " we got a steak dinner for two , now that's 21.99 but ya'll might want that".   The four of us silently agreed to hamburgers.   She managed to talk Bill into a chili-cheese hotdog.  ( oh gawwwd NO) and then asked him if he wanted onions on that or " was he planning on doing some smooching later?"  I assume she meant with me but maybe she had other ideas.  Hey, I'm just keeping an open mind here.  Then to my great delight she announce that if he didn't like his chilicheesedog to not kick her because ( and I'm not making this up) " my leg here's got a rod in it!"   My eyebrows shot up to my daughter's dismay who was silently mouthing to me " keep it together Mom".   It was killing me to ask her what happened.  But I didn't.  I may call later.

Stocking Stuffers ......no pun intended. Unless you think it's funnier

Before we left Katie and I braved it to the bathroom.  Katie started reciting the entire dialog from Christmas Vacation about the brother-in-law's metal plate in his head from a stall opposite mine.  Then she got silent and said what are you taking pictures of in there.  And I said "the gift shop vending machine, do you have 2 quarters?"  Katie , " Oh, please stop"         She claims she didn't have two quarters.  I was crushed.

Later the family decided to invest in Botox injections for me as I no longer have the ability to keep my thoughts and amusement from spreading across my face and exiting my mouth.  

SMOOCHING!!!

Skippy is not just a peanutbutter

Choosey Mutha !  My mother would have said "Big Chief is good enough for you", that's like baking soda instead of Crest toothpaste.

How we view things differently.  Like from completely different planets.



We were invited to a cookout / swim with some friends.  Friends (friend) my husband plays golf with.  I didn't really know the wife but thought this would be a nice break since we had two very small children at the time and they had a daughter the same age as our young son.

Now when I say we were invited I mean my husband said " Mark said to come by with the kids and we'll cookout and swim after we get done with golf."  I said, okay. The kiddos and I were to meet him at the golfer friend's house.

I dressed my small middle class suburbia rugrats in their swimsuits with shorts as cover-ups and headed out to the address my husband gave me.   Which turned out to be in a rather upscale neighborhood.   The kind you don't even pretend to house hunt in.  As I approached what I feared was the correct house in my ultra chic beat up Toyota Camry with 2 missing hubcaps on one side I realized there were cars more expensive than our current house lining their driveway. Like, lots of cars.  Like cars I'd have to be fluent in Italian/German/Spanish  to pronounce.   I'd like to point out that none of these cars were missing a single hubcap , much less two.  I marveled at their ability to miss potholes.  Which is why it took me 20 minutes of driving around the block and figuring out how to position my car where you couldn't see the less adorned side. 

After swearing an oath to kill the man I loved and adored and then explaining to his children that I wasn't really going to run over him in my ultra chic Toyota  we got out of the car and headed up the driveway.  Walking in their back gate I was immediately struck by the number of families  And then I was struck by the fact that they all color coordinated.   Like they had all fallen out of a Polo ad.  Not a hair out of place.  All the of children were called Buffy or Brinna or Skippy or  Jacksonhole or some other yacht club name.  Each with little monogrammed initials that matched what their mommies were wearing which matched perfectly with what Skippy Sr was wearing.  We had crashed a planned BBQ.  I'm not sure the wife even knew her husband had invited us. 

The pool was large enough to hold the Olympics in with a couple of floating islands and this was the first outside kitchen I'd ever seen. With real ovens and refrigerators.  Not like some of my relatives that had them outside for other reasons. Along with chickens and trucks on blocks.

I locked eyes with my beloved.  Who jogged over to greet me.  He was having a fabulous time.  He's smarter than me and has never , not once that I'm aware of, been intimidated by someone else's social or monetary status.  It's a blindness I wish I had.

I think I said it would have been nice to know there were going to other people here besides us.  He just laughed like I'd said something really funny.  Which I do all the time when he NEVER laughs.

As I was sitting by the side of the pool watching my kids swim Skippy Jr threw a ball at Skippy Sr while he wasn't looking and smacked him just above the eye opening a rather nasty gash complete with uncoordinated red blood flowing freely from said wound. Mrs. Skippy said something like "oh that Skippy Jr. , he's a wild one."  And my husband and the host ( who was a medical doctor) were so excited that they were going to take Skippy Sr. to the host's medical office and sew him up together. Men are weird.

Leaving me and the rugrats with fifty or so people I'd never seen before.  And after feeling unworthy to  park in their presence I knew that at least I didn't have to wear a helmet in fear of one of my kids nailing me with something.  So it became a people watching expedition.   

I found out that most of them had never even heard of Home Depot and one said not only that but that I would never see their name on a check written to that place.  I wasn't sure what that meant , but the umbrella drink made me not care as much.    Then one of the other Skippy Srs asked if I was a friend of the host's husband and I said yes.  And he said he figured I wasn't the wife's friend because my hair wasn't the right height.  ..........I had another umbrella drink because I could still see and hear.

I drug my walmart bathing suited body over to the bar and started ordering anything with an umbrella in it and sat and drank the afternoon away waiting for the self proclaimed EMTs to return. Fortunately my kids didn't drown which would have been a little hard to explain to my sweetheart - who'd left me for a bloody wound.  But I survived as did Skippy Sr. and I learned alot about Skippys - which is why I still choose Jif. 

Reasons I should be in therapy



seriously.



My mother once made me wear old raggedy tennis shoes to a doctors appointment because she believed he would charge us less if we were dressed like urchins. As ridiculous as this sounds as an adult I wore brand new tennis shoes to see my dermatologist who asked me upon entering the exam room if I was a runner because I was wearing awesome running shoes.   I assume he was not tipped off by the cellulite in my legs as I was not tipped off by the poster size picture hanging on the wall of him running the Boston Marathon. 

I still think about shoes before going to any doctor's appointment.  Even the gynecologist who has never seen me in a pair of shoes. 

How a real tree tried to kill me.

Bill just got our 3 cars out of the shop last week to the tune of " more money than ..." I usually stop listening because his metaphors confuse me.  He likes to make sure everything is in working order before any trips.  Or because he gets bored.  I'm not sure.  When we dropped off the van the mechanic asked me if there was anything new he should be looking or listening for and I said it's been running great ---- especially when it ran into the garage.  Bill was not smiling. Neither was the mechanic.  Tough room. 



Upcoming arguement in December.



In preparation of our upcoming trip I decided to actually clean my car out for the first time in forever.  Plus I find all the pine needles from our Christmas tree rather distracting because I start counting the days until I have to get another real tree.  Another arguement for another time.    Halfway through the vacuuming mission the front seats stopped working.  Both of them . At the same time.  Crap.  At first I thought maybe I had drained the battery from my intensive prolonged vacuuming agenda and having all the lights on and doors open.  I get rather OCD about getting every speck of dirt which is kinda weird since it's June and pine needles are still staring at me.    Usually I don't panic so quickly until I've exhausted every conceivable avenue that I can think of to fix it.  Which  consisted of screaming swear words at the seats and then begging them to move.  Two of my more  reliable methods. I actually did google fuse box in van and saw that it was under the hood and although I know how to pop the hood open I hate trying to find the little kick-stand thingy to hold it up and then there's all those metric wrenches which my mom once protested against in middle school as a communist plot.  True story.   But seeing that we were leaving in 2 days my panic mushroomed into terror in a matter of seconds.  Mostly because this shit always happens when I'm trying to be helpful , backfiring into "what the hell were you thinking?" 

I quickly texted a couple of my more understanding married friends for their support in the world of husbands that think you get up and actually plot to destroy their crap.  I was advised to just go ahead and say I did it on purpose.  And so I did.  By sending a group text to my entire family ( Bill at work, Andrew at work with Bill, Katie in Knoxville) that said this:

Dear Family, I've broken both the front seats in my car on purpose.  Because you'll think I did anyway.  Now neither of the front seats work.  The passenger seat is jammed against the glove compartment.  The driver's seat is in the back of the van.  To drive to the garage to have it looked at I'll have to tape shoe boxes to my feet and sit on three pillows and have a midget ride shotgun.  Which of course I planned this morning while you were all sleeping.    How do we feel about train travel?   Love Mom, the destroyer of all other people's crap.

P.S.- on the plus side I found a Bonefish Grill Gift Card.  Martini Lunch!

Bill loves getting texts like this from me.  I can tell because he types so fast to answer back it looks like this " *&$#@^".  He's so thoughtful.   

Andrew was the first to arrive home.  Laughing.  and plotting his escape. 

Katie texted a sad face.  : (   or she was distracted and never finished her parenthesis thought.

Bill pulled into the driveway and asked the following questions.

What were you doing? What did you touch? Why did you move the seats so far?  
I thought my text was pretty self explanatory.  Guess not.

While "my" car went back into the shop my son loaned me "his" car.  I use quotes because technically Bill's name is on everything.  So you can see it's nearly impossible to break my own shit.  I ran an errand and upon getting back into "Andrew's" car the visor fell off and pieces flew everywhere.  I'm pretty sure no one is going to believe this so I mass text my family again.  Although I had a hard time seeing what I was texting through the mascara in my eyes.  It said this:

"Omg- I got in Andrew's car and the visor fell down and I can't find the ****** pieces" ( I used bad language - on purpose to show how distraught I was over this most unfortunate and ironic turn of events.) 

Andrew texted back immediately.  Good to know what elicits an immediate response.  "Where are you?"

This may have been the text that got me in so much trouble.  " And I'm laughing so hard I can't see. In the parking lot at Patton Computer."   Honesty sucks at being the best policy , so is Laugh and the world laughs with you. 

When I got home after wiping my eyes clear on my shirt and finally finding the visor pieces, one in the passenger door side pocket and the other UNDER the floor mat in the back seat.  Really.  And I still had to drive with one hand holding up the visor.  Bill was not amused.  Mostly because I was. 

"My" car was having it's own hysterical breakdown. Another visit to the shop and trying to replace the fuses and having them repeatedly melt/blow/break they removed the seats and found that under the passenger side the wires had gotten pinched and were shorting out because the motor was stuck on "on".  When Bill told me this I naturally said " Wow , good thing they found it or the car would have caught on fire" .  I always think the car will catch on fire. 

Then we argued about the meaning and purpose of a fuse for half an hour. And who paid attention in physics class which turned out not to be me.  Even though I pointed out the definition of a short fuse showing him a mirror.  This didn't really prove my point.  Which by this time I'd forgotten if I was pro-fuse or anti-fuse.

Today I got in the car and the lights acted funny. Not ha-ha funny.   Thank God I have unlimited texting.

Things I don't understand

Stiletto heals with shorts.



single squirrel



Mustaches on everything.  Clearly I'm missing something here.

The word "gellin" from the shoe insert commercial.

Pregnancy Pictures.

Preschool/Kindergarten/8th grade graduations

Woman who do their hair and makeup and then bath in perfume before coming to the gym.  Just stop. Stop.

Frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Reasoning with a 2 year old.

Reasoning with a 92 year old.

Snakes as pets.  ( give me a hug)

Chartreuse.

Justin Bieber. 

Logarithms

3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon.

Why my car will tell me which door is open but NOT which tire is low.

Not returning the cart to the cart bin at stores

fuses

subways in Chicago

beeline ( bees never fly straight)


And this was just yesterday. 

The Happiest Place on Earth

Since summer vacations are in full swing I thought perhaps young parents everywhere might benefit from our personal Vacation Nightmares.                


Once upon a time there lived a mommy and daddy that loved their little prince and princess so much that they decided to spend megabucks on a family vacation in the land of the mouse.   The mommy and daddy remembered back in 1981 when they were first dating they went to the land of the mouse.  A little before Epcot and long before MGM or Animal Kingdom.   They loved it there.  And so with much planning and reading of every available trip guide they charted their course.  The itineraries were all printed out, tickets bought, reservations made and the little children were so pumped about going they could barely sleep at night.

No pants........this duck has issues.

When the very happy and excited family got to the land of the mouse they decided to go to the attractions that the mommy and daddy loved so much so long ago.  That proved to be a tactical error on their part.  They had not taken into account that their precious sheltered little children had never even been to an amusement park and especially an amusement park where everything and everyone looked REAL. Which proved to be a REAL problem when the happy family entered The Pirates of the Caribbean then the Haunted House. The two very very happy children were now NOT very very happy at all. So the mommy and daddy thought we'll just go see an attraction geared for younger children and chose Honey I Shrunk the Audience, which turned out to be even worse than being shot at by scruvy pirates or having dead people ride with you in your car , which didn't seem possible.  The little prince (who was 7 at the time) was so bewitched by the 3D movie in which a python strikes at the audience with a head as big as a bus, followed by mice that scurry throughout the audience and feels so real because of the air pipes that twitch things between your feet on the floor that he stopped breathing.  And the daddy could not get his attention to help him.  The daddy yelled and screamed and then did something that the daddy had never done before or since......he grabbed the little prince and almost had to slap him to get his focus off the big snake and mice.   There was lots of crying. ( mostly by the mommy )  Which indicated there was at least some breathing going on.

The unhappy family went back to their very expensive hotel room.  And the little children begged their father to go home.........after half a day in the land of mouse.

And then the daddy turned into Clark Griswald from Family Vacation and went into a tirade. And most of his speech had to be bleeped out. 

The next day after much apologizing for EVERYTHING the mommy and daddy  changed tactics and decided to spend the entire whole day just riding Dumbo and Teacups and visiting the castle, and doing everything they could to repair the damage. 

And it worked.  Except the little prince and princess would ask every time if the ride was 1. dark, 2. scary 3. would someone jump out at them 4. were there snakes.                     

On. Every. Single. Ride.

For the length of the line.

In stereo.

For the next 6 days.

The daddy took one too many photos of this princess.

The family that was happy then sad was all happy again.  They decided to come back every 2 years for more fun and happiness.   The prince and princess , who are now in the twenties, still despise the Honey I shrunk the Audience ride, even though they both will ride The Tower of Terror and Rockin RollerCoaster and everything else on the property.    Which may just prove the point it's better to expose your children to snakes and mice as early as you can.  Maybe even in the crib.   or not.

Stupid mouse.

Bill and Kelly go to the Opera

Bill's parents were season ticket holders for shows at the Orpheum.  We were poor newlyweds.  They gave us tickets to an opera that they wouldn't be able to attend.   We'd never been to the opera.   And so off we went.  Even though I was certain they wouldn't let us in without a tophat and cape.  And maybe one of those fancy fans.  And a dress with crinolines.  Bill said the tickets were enough.  Whatever.



everyone is out getting their sippy cup refilled



I can't even remember the name of the opera.  What I do remember is that it was in Italian.  And to our surprise they had subtitles that ran across the top of the stage on a screen.   Woohoo.  Which was great and very enlightening as to how much information was being exchanged at a decibel of one million in a foreign language.  Which turned out to be very little. In one act the subtitles read :

"We're going to war. There's a war. Let's go fight. Going to war.  Going to war.  yada, yada, yada. "  for the next ten minutes.  I swear.  It was ridiculous.

We laughed a lot.  Well snickered under our breathe as we were surrounded  by more serious opera going types. Who were wearing crinolines and top hats.  Well, just the one guy but still.

I'm dying here!

And just when we thought we'd lost all interest in being culturized ( it's a word now)  the most amazing thing happened.  In one act an actress had a dying soliloquy.  She stood alone on stage and belted out her song.  As she sung about dying like this:

"I will die . I will die.  I am dying.  I'm dying.  I will die. I"m still dying .........."

Someone in the audience a couple of rows in front of us , another woman, starting singing back to her.   And we thought cool, an interactive opera!  Like Rocky Horror Picture show!  

And then we noticed security.  Who drug this woman out of the audience AS she continued to scream/sing  back to the actress :

" No, No, don't die. Please don't die.  You mustn't die."  

So NOT an interactive opera.  Just too much lobby bar interaction.   

Best opera ever.    I think Pat Halloran should seriously consider a format change.