My Greatest Accomplishment

I think I’m at that point in my life where I’ve begun to measure my accomplishments.  I stack them up like Lincoln Log castles.  As if one of them will reach so high that the weather will be different up there.  I try not to do that on a regular basis.  In the grand scheme of things…when you hold me up to gentleman like Trump and Gates and Sir Jobs, I don’t have a ton of high-flying log cabins.  I can’t really complain.  I’m comfortable, I’m in good health, I have someone who loves me, and my kids haven’t gone on a shoot rampage or injected themselves with designer drugs.

However, the other day I realized my crowning achievement.  In all my years, I’m happy to report that I have never walked in on my parents getting it on.

You laugh.  But I’m serious!!

Right now you’re thinking “that’s complete and utter mumbo-jumbo.”  But here’s the thing.  I have this very strong feeling that my life would’ve been permanently altered by an experience such as that.  There ain’t enough Ajax to wash that sort of dirt away, brother.  No sir, that is one sweaty mess of an image that would burn the back of my eye balls like a nasty light saber.

Here’s the scary part.  What if I DID walk in on my parents doing the hokey-pokey?  What if I stumbled upon their horizontal mambo and it was so traumatizing that I blocked it from my memory?  That’s the sort of thing that could fry one’s frontal lobe in a puff of ozone-blue smoke.

If that’s what happened, I don’t want to know.  DO YOU HEAR ME?  I don’t need the truth.  This is one bloke who is happy to not go through the regression therapy.

The Seasons Cometh

So I decided to get back in the swing of writing these blog posts.  I’m not sure why, to be quite honest.  I must like the abuse.  Maybe it has something to do with the time of the year.  My sister will account for this:  Growing up, the holiday seasons always brought on a high level of…uh… family anxiety?  I’ll just leave it at that for now.

I don’t want you to think that I had some dysfunctional up-bringing.  I’m can’t sit here and wine about wire coat hangers and cigarette burns.  Heck, by today’s standards, my life was freakin’ great.  We weren’t a well-to-do family.  We didn’t have money coming out of our cracks, but we rarely went wanting for anything.  Before my sister and I reached the age of 10, my Mom was left with the arduous task of raising us on her own. I’m half surprised she didn’t drop us off at a K-Mart somewhere and drive like Hell.

Anyway, I’m rambling.  Back to my point.

The time period from Thanksgiving through New Years Eve…yikes.  It was like sitting on a rumbling volcano and waiting for it to erupt.  Don’t get me wrong.  We were (and are today) very festive.  To borrow a phrase from Clark Griswold, we were whistling Frosty The Snowman out our assholes.

But there was always this unspoken question on all our minds.  My sister and I could literally utter it between us telepathically. One deftly-raised eyebrow would speak volumes.

“When was the shit going to hit the fan?”

I’m sure that if my mother is reading this (and she probably will), she will assume that I’m pointing my finger at her.  This couldn’t be further from the truth, my friends.  My mom’s fault in all this is that she is a fixer.  She loves to not get involved.  I’m sure that makes no sense but let me lay it out for ya.

Mom:  Michael, make sure you get the kids in their nice dresses for Christmas Eve
Me:  I was going to put them in skirts and sweaters
Mom:  What about the dresses I bought them last year?
Me:  The red ones with frosty playing the electric guitar?
Mom:  No not those.  The shiny ones with the snowflakes…
Me:  I like the sweaters better
Mom:  No, the shiny ones are nicer.
Me:  I’m not sure they fit them anymore but I can check-
Mom: Whatever, I’m not getting involved.

This could be applied to most actions.  But the end result:  She always got involved.

And it’s these sort of gems that need to be shared with the world… at least I think so.  Maybe we just don’t tell my Mom.  Deal?