I’ve had it with these balls of tar!

We just got back from a week in Florida. I am currently sitting at Cactus Carwash® getting the sand vacuumed from the interior and road wear and bug guts washed from the exterior.

(UPDATE): I am no longer currently sitting at the Cactus Carwash®. They were extremely quick, very thorough, and my number was called before I could finish this post. So, now, I am currently sitting on the toilet—as I am quite frequently when you’re reading these entries—and my laptop can’t find my AirPort Express®. Without the internet, I cannot sidewalk surf the web. Thus, even though a week has passed, I’ve got no choice but to go back and finish this post.

(UPDATE 2:) I am no longer on the toilet. If my memory serves me correctly, I received a knock on the bathroom door startling me to attention (shamefully, that was like a month ago). It was my wife telling me to hurry up. She needed to leave; the baby needed a guardian. So, I am currently sitting at the Library coffee shop. Many weeks later from the originally typed words: “we just got back from a week in Florida.”

Technically, those words are no longer true. But, the majority of words below this paragraph were typed when we did just get back from Florida. A week before Update #1 and long before Update #2. Sufficiently confused? Or sufficiently bored? Yeah, well, you’re sufficiently an asshole.

Anyway, without further a due….

Our vacation was a week long—-the longest vacation since our honeymoon. It also ended with a couple firsts.

1. It was the first time I left Florida WITHOUT a hangover.

2. It was the first time I left Florida actually bringing beer back home.

Never before have I not been on-the-verge-of-barf hungover as a stint in Florida ended. Probably because the night before we’d all be up late vowing to finish every last beer in the house/hotel/motel. God forbid we’d leave one behind.

This time, however, it was our first official vacation with a baby. It was a huge reality check for Chicken and I. Our days of slamming back beers all day on the beach, pounding ridiculous umbrella drinks at a bar all night, and waking to bloody marys in the morning are pretty much over. The baby just needs too much attention for us to be even slightly hammered. Until he can clean the slop out of his own diaper, feed himself, and actually sleep for longer than 3 hours at a time, our beach trips are pretty much resigned to a few warm Coors Lights on the beach and a potential margarita for dinner.

We went down with our friends, The Z’s. They’ve got an 18-month old daughter, so they’re perfect travel companions. Other parents of babies can’t get bummed when another couple’s baby is acting out of sorts. They’ve been through it. They know the drill…

Oh, geeze, I just said “drill.” That’s pretty insensitive considering all that is going on in the Gulf of Mexico right now. I apologize to the coastal states and the brown pelicans. Things are really hairy right now, and the last thing we need as a country is for me to remind everyone of BP’s recklessness. So, BP, you care about the “small people?” Like midgets? What do midgets have to do with oil spills, BP? What do you call a midget covered in oil, BP? A “slick dwarf?” No, that doesn’t work. How bout, “low-grade fuel?” No. “Elf Sheen?” Forget it… Oh, wait, what do you call an actor who holds a knife to his wife’s throat, stars in the comedy Two and a Half Men, and the brother of Emilio Estevez covered in oil? Wait, Emilio Estevez isn’t covered in oil, but the brother of Emilio Estevez—he’s the one covered in oil. What do call THAT actor covered in oil? “Charlie Sheen.”…Now that shit works.

One of the most annoying things about this whole disaster is that it’s brought back something I hated with passion long before the rig exploded, and now I hate it even more that it’s regularly used to as an eat crow cry in the faces of pro-drillers: “Drill, Baby, Drill!” Where did this come from? Did Sarah Palin say this shit first? I don’t care if you are for or against off-shore, on-shore, shallow-water or deep-water drilling. If you say this–-as a believer or with irony—you’re lame. That phrase sucks! It irritates me to no end. It’s too lame to even go into why it’s so lame. Actually, you know what, not so lame if you’re a dentist. If I was visiting a dentist, and he had a “Drill, Baby, Drill” sticker displayed behind his receptionist, I am gonna say to myself, “this dentist is all-right.” This dentist took a popular phrase about oil and applied it to his own practice! A practice which happens to be a huge phobia for a lot of folks. People fear the drill, you know? So, he’s leading you to believe that he readily enjoys going into your mouth to violently penetrate your gums. This sort of feigned insensitivity is not only creative, it’s down right funny. I love it. It’s like a lawyer driving around with a bumper sticker that says, “Ambulance Chaser.” That dentist is glorifying and celebrating what people dislike about him most. Drill baby, drill!

Nah, man, that phrase is still pretty lame. That dentist sucks.

Do you think there’s such thing as a midget dentist? I mean, a dentist that just happens to be a little person? That’d be a tough gig for a little person. He’d be standing on a chair through the whole procedure. And how many procedures does your average dentist perform on a good day? 8? That’s a shit ton of standing. Maybe the little dentist has a barber shop-like chair that increases in height via a foot pump. The dental hygienist probably pumps up the little dentist so he can actually sit down while inspecting your gums. By the way, calling little people midgets is derogatory, isn’t it? But calling somebody a dwarf isn’t? But not all midgets are dwarfs. Can’t make that mistake. Dwarfism is an actual deformity, correct? But, calling it a deformity seems harsh… This whole little person thing is a very slippery slope. You gotta be careful with this shit. Take note, BP. Small people aren’t down with your insensitive remarks.

Speaking of insensitivity to little people, I was just reminded of a hilarious story… 4 years ago, I was working in an in-house advertising agency, and we hired a lot of freelancers to help with the busy periods. One day my boss was in the back room interviewing potential artists. So, he comes out, face completely red, like super red as if he’s been holding his breath. He scurries past us and goes to his desk, throws his face down into his arms, and explodes into laughter. Full on laughter. We’re all wondering what the joke is, and we’re inquiring as to what in the hell is so funny. He doesn’t answer. He just keeps shaking his head trying to regain composure. Once he’s ready, he just casually gets up, literally doesn’t say one word, and walks away into the back room again. We were so damn confused.

So, I don’t know, maybe 20 minutes pass, and he comes back. He’s clearly holding back a smile. He’s walking toward us, and says, “Guys, I’d like you to meet Sam.” We all look around, and now we’re even more confused as there’s nobody with him. It’s just him. What the hell is he talking about? But just then, from around the corner of my cube tower, appears a little person with his hand extended. Oh, interesting. I lean over and shake his hand, tell him it’s nice to meet him. No biggy right. Just a small man here. As he was walking away, I came to the realization of why exactly my boss had come back to his desk and exploded in laughter! And, that thought, the thought of him in the interview room, desperately holding back laughter, caused me to explode in my own laughter. There’s no way that Sam heard me, but I still felt like an asshole…But, here’s the thing, I wasn’t laughing at Sam. I was laughing at my boss who was tying NOT to laugh at Sam. The idea that my boss thought introducing us to a little person was so damn funny that he actually had to leave in the middle of the interview is truly hilarious. He had to leave the interview as to not laugh in Sam’s face. Man. That’s good stuff.

In an effort to not make my boss look like such a prick, we talked about the situation after. He said he was laughing because he was picturing our reaction in his head. Really, it sounds terrible, but everyone was laughing because they were picturing everyone else’s reaction. Granted, nobody should react one way or the other, but that’s just expecting too much in today’s world. Seriously, if you introduced someone who had horrible fashion sense or was a drag queen or wore an eye patch, you’d still laugh picturing how the others you’re close with would react to the person, you know? Truth is, witnessing others visibly uncomfortable is a pretty funny phenomenon—there’s no other way around it.

Then again, my boss hired a guy with one arm. No shit. One arm and no prosthetic. We definitely didn’t laugh, but we were truly amazed at how he managed to use the both the mouse and keyboard. Impressive stuff. And, it turns out both Sam and the one-armed guy were regulars around the office. Both worked there for quite some time. I’ll tell ya what though, Sam was a bitter son of a gun. Angry as a cut snake. I kinda felt like the one-armed guy had more to be a bitter about.

But, what do I know about being bitter? My shit’s perfect.