Kobayashi Maru

Considering the content of this particular post, I should have probably done some kind of segue post after the whole Valentine’s Day thing…but, alas, I did not. So you will just have to believe me when I say that this post is not some awkward continuation. I am not Johannes Brahms, and this is not variations on a theme.

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And that is, far and away, the closest to class and highbrow content we will find in this post, and it is with the utmost confidence that I tell you we have nowhere to go but down from here. SO let’s quit wasting time and start the intellectual free fall, shall we?

I have a dog. Ok, we have a dog. Alright fine, we bought the Muppet a puppy. My consistent reader(s) knows this of course. For the rest of you I ask that you turn in your hymnal to page 169. I can say that the puppy in question, Ruxpin, is barely a puppy anymore and now looks like a chocolate mop. Why one would create a mop out of chocolate and then push it around their hardwood floors is a post for another time, but suffice it to say, that should you ever make it over to my house (and bring wine if you do) you would think that I had somehow sculpted a mop out of chocolate and then brought it to life.

He had just finished attacking Frosty and letting him know who’s who in the pecking order when we took this photo. Sorry for the gore on his moth and shirt. It was a very one-sided fight.

His hair is even longer now and his eyes have gone missing. It’s very strange. He gets around with some hybrid from of sonar that he’s adapted, because there is simply no way that he can see. It’s like 100 years of evolution happened over the course of 4 months with this guy. In that way he is completely amazing and ahead of his time. In other ways, he is about as base as one could get. Case in point..well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?

Before I go too much further, I need to give you a little background. Think of it as a chance to get to know me a little better. This is me being open and transparent. How else can we have an honest relationship if I am not forthcoming with the details of my life? I wear house shoes. It’s true, I do. Ferf gave me a pair of fleece lined Crocs for Christmas. They’re black and I admit, very comfortable. Ferf has a pair too. I bought them for her first. Her’s are pink. They look like this:

The Muppet, on the other hand, has a pair of Scooby Doo slippers. They look like this:

This will all become important later…trust me. In the mean time, just rest in the knowledge that these are the house shoes that are worn in our house. I mean really, I don’t know what kind of footwear you have on your feet at night in your home, so you actually have the upper hand on me. But that is the burden I bear…

Back to the story at hand.

The setting: I was working on my computer the other night. I was on my bed. No, I was not nekkid. You’re horrible…

I was working on my computer. I was on my bed and my wife was working down in her office and the puppy was laying on the floor on the side of the bed. And when he lays on the floor he thinks he’s a porn star. Seriously, he lays on his back with his back legs splayed like a nasty yoga master. I’m not kidding. His legs touch the floor on each side. He’s the basis for spread eagle comparisons. And his wee little puppy testies are right there in the middle. I know this, not because I was intensely looking you sicko, but because the Muppet looked at him in repose the other day and said, “Daddy, he’s got bumps on his body” and pointed at his man lobes. I told her that it was nothing to worry about and to leave the dog alone. I have no intention of letting my child and dog get into some weird quid pro quo relationship. But I digress…

So I was thusly working on my computer when I heard a sound that was new to me. Now it is not that I have heard and mentally cataloged every sound. I admit this. But in one’s own house, one does feel like one should know the normal sounds. And this was not a normal sound. Now, I get that “fully functional” dogs have a certain learning curve as they grow up. In fact, dogs that have been neutered have also been known to, as Merf so eloquently put it when she was a little girl, “do hanky panky with a blanky.” The sound that I heard did not, at first blush, have that shall we say, rhythmic quality to it. So I furrowed my brow and listened a little more carefully. I tilted my head to listen harder. And there was nothing. Then I heard it again. I leaned over and look and see nothing but a single Scooby Doo staring at me from the floor. He was not making any noise that I could discern. So, I went back to my work. Then I hear it again. I look over, and again, nothing but a glazed over look from Scooby Doo. It was almost like he was mocking me, so I slapped him and watched him flip over. “Take that Scooby”, I thought, and I went back to my work. A little while passed and I had heard nothing more and was just starting to think that it was the old “house settling”, when I got up to do a fluid level check (yes, that means I had to pee, but I was trying to be polite) It was then that I noticed Scooby Doo sitting back up-right on the ground. Staring at me. MOCKING ME! I went to kick him, cause he’s not real and it’s okay to kick not real things, but it dawned on me that not real things don’t set themselves back up-right when you slap them over on their butts. So I hesitated. Cause it is not so okay to kick real things, and I was starting to question. Then I decided, nope, he’s not real and I booted him across the room. After the fluid level check, I realized that I would need to rehydrate so I jogged downstairs to grab a 64oz mug of ice water cause that’s how I roll. And when I came back, Scooby was not across the room where I had kicked his stuffed arse. In fact, he was sitting in Ruxpin’s bed…upright. I almost got a little nervous at this point. I watch Supernatural and so the possibilities of possessed stuffies are hidden in my psyche. I get that. But I overcame the fast twitch mental muscles, and decided that there had to be another possibility.

It was about this time that Ruxpin sauntered over and sat down next to Scooby Doo. He had a look about him like the star football player cozying up to a freshman cheerleader. His body language was all, “how YOU doin’?” I kinda smiled and again went back to work. Then I got the sound waves crashing against my ear drums again. And this time, I look over in time to see Scooby Doo getting Scooby DONE. Yep, Ruxpin made Scooby his bitch. I started to intervene, but then figured that I do want to pimp this guy out later in life, so maybe I should let him learn on a Scooby Doo slipper. What could it hurt. Of course, to the best of my knowledge, Scooby is a boy. That would make it less okay - not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I won’t get paid for that kind of stuff by the breeder, if you get what I am saying. Then I thought about him dry humping Scooby Doo while the Muppet was wearing the slipper, and realized that would definately be bad. Only one person should be slipping into Scooby at a time, if you get my drift…

SO I snapped my finger and he stopped mid-thrust and spun his head towards me. I SWEAR IT WAS LIKE SEEING A KID GET CAUGHT WITH THEIR HAND IN THE PROVERBIAL COOKIE JAR. I actually laughed out loud. I told Ferf about it, and she too saw the wisdom of segregating Ruxpin and Scooby Doo. So we moved the Muppet’s slippers into her room, and have started shutting the door.

On a side note, when I came home tonight, I found one of my house shoes alone by the back door. It was not with its pair where I left it. I looked at Ferf and with raised eyebrow…

said to Ferf, “my house shoe is being deflowered…which is fine as long as my sock stays dry when I put it in. But the day that it gets wet when I do that, somebody gonna get kicked.” Which I think is fair. Cause my crocs are gender neutral, which has got to be better than Scooby Doo have to take it for the proverbial team. I mean yes, Scooby and Shaggy do have an uncomfortably questionable relationship that leaves more questions than it answers. But that doesn’t mean that he has to be humped by a chocolate mop. That’s kind of like Scooby being molested by a Scooby snack. It’s just wrong. And, on the upside, I have another sound tagged and cataloged. So I got that going for me…which is nice.

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This little piece of PSA musical history is for everyone.  Cause evidently Valentines Day is for everybody.

FYI, I am not one to buy into commercially driven “holidays”, but I do special things for Ferf on Valentines Day every year cause why not.  Of course, I do things the other 364 days as well - which proves I am no romance rookie - but I do my own thing on Feb 14th that makes the Mallmark Mafia no revenue at all.  (one day I will wake up with a valentine’s horse head next to me in bed when those wiseguys catch up to me, but until then I shall mock them unmercifully and wave my private parts in their general direction.)

That being said, Ferf and I will be joined by Hamie and his South African Hottie for an stay at home double date.  Hamie and I will be preparin dinner from scratch and the ladies shall be ordering off the menu.  Of course it is a 3 course meal and they are allowed to order 3-4 items per course.  Unfotunately for them, the names of the items on the menu have absolutely nothing to do with the actual foodstuff, so they could end up ordering coffee, salad dressing and a pat of butter for the first course - but that, my dear friends, is the fun part.  Eventually they will get everything that we made, but only over the course of the dinner and in the order that they requested them from the menu.

Dinner will be good, hilarity will ensue and I will get laid.  Hamie, on the other hand…well, lets just leave it at “on the other hand” cause this is a family show…

Happy VD!!!  It’s for everybody!!!

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Enough with the emails and late night phone calls.  Enough with the letters and text messages.  Enough with the smoke signals and Morse code - I KNOW I HAVE NOT WRITTEN IN A WHILE.  Cut me some slack here, I’ve been busy.  Yeah.  Busy.  Ok?  What do you mean “doing what?”?  Stuff.  Business stuff.  Family stuff. Stuff!  And yes, as a matter of fact, it has kept me too busy to write.  But because I love you so much - no not you, you’re a guy, I meant the chick - I have abandoned all other duties and shirked all other responsibilities in order to give the smallest smidgen of meaning to your color needing existence.  I am the color guy.  This blog is like a freaking 64 box of crayons with the sharpener in the back.

(only I took out eggplant cause it’s ugly, so maybe it is the often talked about, seldom seen 63 box of crayons). And by the way, Happy 51st birthday box of 64 crayons.  You made my childhood awesome!

But I digress.  The point is not that crayons have brought so technicolor dreams to children for half a century.  The point is that the Maru is a small patch of color in a sometimes dreary virtual world - or real world, depending on how you are doing.  How are you doing?  Whatever, I don’t have time for small talk.  I’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there.  So today I am like the Smokey and the Bandit of blogs.

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SO much to cover and so little time.  Let’s see.  VD is coming up this weekend - the hallmark-induced holiday not the STD.  But you know my thoughts on this particular “holiday” (in case you have forgotten see this.)  But as it is, I was treading the waters of other people’s blogs.  (I know, me visiting other people’s blogs is like a 5 star chef deciding to sample fast food fare, but hey, whatcha gonna do?)  I came across this particular post that I thought was worthy of passing along.  It’s all part of the service I provide.

Personally I will be spending the evening of the anniversary of the St. Valentines Day Massacre with my ever-lovin’ wifey of 10+ years and my great buddy Hamie and his newly minted “girlfriend.”  I know that newly minted might be a strange way of saying it, but their relationship is strange (in a cute and aww puppy love beginnings kind of way).  He’s American, living in Canada, working in Swaziland.  She’s South African, working and living in the UK and they met in Africa, are dating long-distance and spending VD here before their next soiree in the Greek Isles.  Yeah.  I know.  Keeping up with their burgeoning relationship is like being back in high school government class and coloring world maps…  But, the four of us will be hanging out on this most inauspicious of days.  There will be much wine and laughter and I’m sure I’ll end up in bed with my date.  Sucks for you Hamie!!  Maybe you’ll get some lip if you’re lucky.

So, enough with all that.  I could go on making fun of him for days.  Literally.  Days.  But most of you don’t know him and what fun is that for you?  I am not so selfish as to simply think of my own amusement but not yours.  At least not all the time.

Alright.  I have been avoiding this particular story for quite a while cause I was not sure that I should even share it.  But it is, while truly disturbing, so very blog worthy.  And this is a semi-private blog and since my daughter still can’t read yet, I figure I can still get away with it before she ends up on Oprah one day blaming everything on me and my blog.  For those who might be new to the Maru…well, sorry.  For those who are semi-regular attenders…well, sorry.  For my loyal reader with rss…well, sorry.  There.  Did we cover everyone?  Good.  Quick background reminder:  I have a amazing wife and a 4 year old daughter who is quite possibly the greatest thing in the entire world.

Ok, that’s enough background.  I am not really sure how to build up to this story.  Honestly.  Sometimes, I can write 3 pages just to get to the payoff cause that’s just how I roll.  But this time, I am just not sure.  So here’s how it went down.  It’s morning.  I’m freshly showered and primped.  Yes, primped.  Don’t mock.  Anyway, I was almost fully clothed.  All I needed was to pull a shirt on over my undershirt and head downstairs to make a “complete breakfast” that would make the American Medical Association proud.  Ferf is in the en suite (bathroom attached to the bedroom for those not familiar with the term) doing something with her hair - seriously, the fact that I remember anything from that morning is fairly impressive.  Most people would have forgotten every moment about it - either through natural shock or through medically induced amnesia, but not I.  I still have vaguely specific flashes in my mind.  Anyway, I am getting ready to put said shirt on, when Ferf calls out and is saying something to me that I cannot really make out.  So, I walk over to the door of the bathroom and, like a warm and caring husband who hangs on every word that flows from the honey lips of my wife, say “huh?”  To which she says, “The Muppet…  Did you hear anything I said?”  To which I reply honestly that I did not, but in retrospect wish with every fiber of my being that I had lied.  Thus she begins again, for my “benefit”.   “How do you think we should deal with this?”

On a side note, whenever your spouse asks you how “we” should deal with something, it usually means that whatever it is already happened and she has done nothing, but feels like she should have.  As a supportive spouse and co-parent of a child, it is usually in your best interest to have a handle on all things that might need your input.  So, it makes total sense, considering this, that I walked in and sat down to hear the specifics of whatever had happened.  It is also why, being a guy, I silently switched into “solve it” mode.  The place in our brains that as guys we can go to find solutions to anything and everything in the world almost anything and everything in the world.  Hence, I was focused and ready to solve the problem, be a hero to my wife, and most probably ensure some physical gratitude for myself when I got home that night.  Oh yes, how at the time everything seemed to be lining up perfectly…

Back to the story…”How do you think we should deal with this?” was the question at hand.  In response I said, “deal with what?”  A seemingly innocuous question really.  At this point my wife says to me, “the other day I was giving the Muppet a bath…”

Again, I am already finishing that sentence and putting together answers in my head…

• the other day I was giving the Muppet a bath…and she poured all the shampoo into the bath
• the other day I was giving the Muppet a bath…and she refused to get out
• the other day I was giving the Muppet a bath…and she refused to get in
• the other day I was giving the Muppet a bath…and she got soap in her eye and now won’t take a bath

Honestly, I was ready for so many of the standard possibilities.  But, alas, standard was not on the docket that day.  Instead of any of these I get:

“The other day I was giving the Muppet a bath, and on her way to the bath, she took off her clothes and threw them in our dirty laundry basket.”

There was a pause here.  Long enough that I was thinking how well behaved my offspring is that she is putting dirty clothes in the hamper.  But, the pause was short lived.

“The other day I was giving the Muppet a bath, and on her way to the bath, she took off her clothes and threw them in our dirty laundry basket.  Then she bent down to pet the dog, and the dog started licking her vagina.”

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*blink blink*
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*twitch*
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At which point, I stood up, looked solemnly at my wife of over a decade and the mother of my child and the love of my life, pulled my shirt over my head and said, “That is so your department!  I got nothing.  Nor do I really want to know how to handle that.  Ever.”  Then I went downstairs wondering if I poured bleach in my ear if it would clean my brain.  I walked by the cutlery drawer and considered a home lobotomy.   Then I just figured that I would share it with all of you and then wait and see if you gave my any ideas of how you are going to get that story out of your head.

If we have a boy, I promise I will handle the conversations about the skin mags we find under his mattress.  When the Vaseline jar goes missing - that’s my area.  I’ll happily deal with ALL that stuff.  God, Please give me a boy…

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