Tweedle Dee and Tweedle DumbAss Go To Washington!

You guys may need to grab a pot of coffee or energy bar or something because this might be a long one!!

So back in February when I booked our hotel, I thought that the rally was going to start late morning and finish in the early afternoon .. or I thought it was going to be an all day thing.. or I thought something. I don’t actually remember because it was back in February but I KNOW I didn’t KNOW that the rally was only from 10am to 1pm..

I also didn’t know THEN that Chief wanted to leave on Friday night after I close the shop.

He’s worse then a kid at Christmas because when he gets excited about something his tail wags worse then a puppy’s.

There was no living with him if we didn’t drive down Friday night so fine.. it didn’t matter that we didn’t have a room for Friday and even if there happened to be one little room available ( which there wasn’t ) we wouldn’t have been able to afford it anyway.. But being the industrious man that he is *cough* he figured we would just pack a cooler and sleep in the back of the wagon.

Not as bad as it sounds.. We’ve done that before when we used to do flea markets so ok. I was down with that. It’s an adventure right? A one in a lifetime kinda thing? RIGHT???

So he packs a cooler with waters and juices and stuff to eat and snack on and is bouncy off the walls to CAN. WE. JUST. GET. GOING. ALREADY??? so much so that we forgot his better sneakers and my other sandals and a few other things that really did turn out to be minor but we did remember the toilet paper!!

We had been scrambling all day so you know.. we forgot to eat again and wound up driving through McDonald’s at around 8pm and then we were on our way to DC.

One thing I should tell you about Chief .. you know that saying WWJD? What Would Jesus Do? Yea.. well.. I say WWCS .. What Would Chief Spend? .. because he doesn’t like  paying one penny more then what he thinks something is worth. It’s a pain in the ass for someone who is just like “… just pay it already!!!!”

That would be me.

So when setting the TomTom, there is a question that comes up asking if you want to avoid toll roads. It’s preset to AVOID TOLL ROADS because the cheap son of a bitch I’m married too can’t part with the 15 cent or 40 cent or OH! MY! GOD! NOT 1.10!!!!!! to get on and off the turnpike!

I really DON’T  mind most times because MOST times I’m not driving at night. I hate driving anywhere at night where I’m not familiar because things look differently at night and I don’t see that well. Nice, right?

The first time we got off 95 it wasn’t so bad. We were basically put on a pike that was well lit and I only had two turns to make before getting back on the highway.

But the second time… OMG.. the SECOND time had us driving thru some of the seediest sections of Baltimore late on a Friday night. Now, I’m from Philly originally so there are very few things that will make my chin hit my knees but let me tell you.. yea.. I got re-educated!!

Next time I’m definitely digging under the seat for change to stay on the highway!!

We’re only not even 3 hours outside of Washington so the idea (I refuse to say plan) was to get there around 11, find a place to park the car.. sleep for a few hours.. eat something and then head to The Mall for the rally. Even with the little detour we were on target but that what? Where were we going to park? The hotel we had reservations at charged 42.00 to park even IF you were a guest so that left that out and EVERYTHING in DC is grossly expensive.

Chief wanted to just park on the street but I told him he was out of his fucking mind because there was NO WAY in HELL that I was going to sleep in the car on a street in another city where I didn’t know if it was legal or not.. just wasn’t going to happen. So we drove around and drove around and drove around until we finally found a parking garage that was not only OPEN but had a sign that said $10 Flat Rate.

So we drive in and guess what?

It was an UNDERGROUND parking garage.. I’m thinking it was definitely the third level of Dante’s Inferno because it was soooo freakin’ hot so add that to the exhaustion setting in and it wasn’t a good recipe. So Chief suggests we take a walk down to The Mall.. check things out and maybe find an open air garage where we can move the car to.

I should have known then that he wouldn’t waste the 10 bucks he paid for parking .. but I really wasn’t thinking.. so I set the TomTom to take us to the Lincoln Memorial. One thing that I didn’t consider… the route that popped up was the route we would need to DRIVE to get to the Memorial.. not WALK.

The red arrow is where we were parked.. the blue line is the route we took to get to the Mall. Go ahead. Call us idiots! We deserve it!!

By the time we get to the Memorial we were exhausted and our feet were KILLING us. Neither of us had proper shoes because.. oh.. um.. Tweedle DumbAss couldn’t WAIT to get on the road!!! We plopped ourselves under a tree with the intent of getting some winks. There were maybe about 500 people already there.. WAY more prepared then we were. They  had blankets and pillows and coolers and flashlights and entertainment and coffee!!

We just had a bottle of water and my handbag!!!

I ask Chief if he wants to walk back and get out cooler and stuff and he looked at me like I was NUTS. His feet had started to get really bad blisters.. my feet were feeling the walk too but at least my sneakers were a little bit better then his shoes.

Trying to do ANYTHING even resembling a nap was impossible. Personally, I can’t lay out on grass without thinking of that cable “Monsters Within” and being petrified of Bot Flies laying eggs in my ears. Impossible, I know but did you ever SEE that show??

Chief didn’t have any problems falling asleep but he gave me implicit instructions to wake him up as soon as he started snoring. Which he did.. in the first five minutes.. and every five minutes after he fell back asleep so that was usless.

After a while, a guy named George from California joined us. He came by himself, leaving his wife and kids in Cali because it wasn’t financially possible for them all to come. He was almost as bad off as we were but at least he had the good sense to bring an umbrella!! So we talked and shared and laughed and then we were joined by three ladies from Boston.

THEY were prepared. They had blankets and a cooler and again, we talked and shared and laughed.

Then the four woman from Ohio came.. and then the people from Delaware and Central PA. It was like having a family reunion with strangers.. only they didn’t feel like strangers. Everyone shared what they had with each other and someone even gave us their extra beach blanket to sit on.

Around 4am, we were DYING from caffeine withdrawal. If anything, y’all should know by now that me and Chief ALWAYS have a cup of coffee in our hands and the last cup we had had was like.. six hours prior. So George from Cali pulled out his iphone and used an App to find the nearest Dunkin’ Dounts.

According to his iPhone, the DD was less then a mile away and should only take about 15 minutes to get there.

Oh!! No fucking sweat!!!

Chief was reluctant to go because his feet were hurting so much.. you KNOW the man is hurting if he doI wesn’t want to go for coffee. I told him that I would go on my own.. it wasn’t that far and who cares if it was 4am.. there were so many people milling around the streets of DC that I didn’t think it was an issue. George from Cali didn’t want me to go by myself either but I was like, Please!! I’m from South Philly!!!

In the end, Chief came with. I’m still not sure if he was worried about me OR about getting a hot cup of coffee. I studied George’s iPhone map and knew exactly where we needed to go. Easy, right?

Um..

Have I introduced myself to you yet??

The Black Arrow is where Dunkin Donut's was SUPPOSE to be.. the Star? That's were a vending truck was. The purple path is what we walked going TO and the purple path is coming back

We walked WELL past where the Dunkin’ Donuts was pinned on the iPhone map and nothing.. we walked further.. nothing.. we asked security guards and other people.. NOTHING!!

When we first passed the vending truck, Chief wanted to get coffee there but I was like “… NOOOOOOO!!! I want a CHEDDAR BAGEL TWIST!!!” and so this man who loves me forged ahead on broken feet while I trailed behind swearing that my ass better raise 2 inches with all this uphill walking.

When we figured out that the damn iPhone app was wrong, we made our way back but took another street hoping that maybe the pin had been in the wrong place and we would see the purple and orange glow of their sign.

Nothing.

So we made our way back to the vending truck.. which was deserted when we first passed.. to find a line wrapped half way around the corner.

So we waited and got four cups of coffee ( literally the size of a demi cup).. 2 soft pretzels (which were so hot that it made you believe that they were fresh until you unwrapped the tin foil that was literally STUCK to it and found that they weren’t fresh.. they were stale and just stuck on a steam table to keep them soft until the unsuspecting customer bought it and let the air hit it. I may have broken a tooth trying to gnaw away at it.) .. and 1 skinny grey thing that they SWORE was a hotdog.

Total was 17.50

I kid you not.

We made it back to our spot through hoards of people screaming WHERE DID YOU GET COFFEE?????????????? and settled back in with our new found family.

When I tell you EVERYBODY was friendly… EVERYBODY was polite.. people were sincerely interested in each other.. where they were from.. what they did for a living.. what brought us all here. It was nothing short of amazing.

If you were there, then you know the feeling.. the vibe.. the spirit.. or whatever it is you want to call it that seemed to just hover in the air. I really have no words to describe it.

The people who took buses in started arriving around 7 and they kept on coming.. and coming.. and coming.. we literally watched the whole mall fill up as far as we could see.

By the time the rally started at 10, you could forget about your squatting rights. There was just way too many people with no where to go. And even when our little area became standing room only .. there was no way you could plop on the grass anymore.. and the sun started heating everyone.. people were still mindful of who was standing around them.

One older guy broke through our little group complaining that he felt like he was going to faint. He must have been in his early 80’s. He was there with his daughter who looked to be in her 60’s and she was in a virtual panic. Bottles of water came out from every direction.. someone offered him their lawn chair.. a young guy came through saying that he was studying to be a nurse and how could he help. No one was obnoxious.. no one pushed back.. no one was annoyed even though the rally had already started and people were straining their necks to see the stage or the jumbo-trons.

The speakers were amazing… the message was inspiring.. and even though I’m not going to go into the whole Martin Luther King, Jr. controversy here, I can tell you from someone who was in the thick of it.. that there was nothing said other then committing ourselves to the core principals of Faith, Hope and Charity.

After it was over, people started to leave and believe me.. if you’ve ever left a sports stadium after a game.. imagine that crowd times 10. But there was no pushing or rushing or shoving. Everybody just.. well.. walked.

Our adrenaline started to deplete.. coupled with sore feet, aching bodies, exhaustion, no food or anything to drink. We felt like shit! But we couldn’t do anything walk (again) to find the garage where our car was.

Do you know who Quasimoto is? The Hunchback of Notre Dame?

That was us.

No lie.

All we needed to do was start yelling SANCTUARY!!! as we walked. We looked like two broken down cowboy hunchbacks after a really bad rodeo.

And of course.. we couldn’t figure out how to get to the damn garage.. because if Washington is anything it’s badly planned!! LOL!!

The path we took to get back to the damn parking garage!

So we walked.. and walked.. and walked.. and walked.

And we walked some more.

I think we only stopped once.. across the street from the White House’s Rose Garden but it wasn’t because we wanted to SEE it.. we just didn’t want to collapse in front of it!!

But starting to walk again only made our feet feel worse so we plugged on and on and on until I saw the blinding glow of the Golden Arches.

I told Chief we should go into McDonald’s and ask them for directions. He said he didn’t realize how hungry he was until I pointeen d out the Mickey Dee’s. So we dragged ourselves in.. ordered food.. and then had to CLIMB A FLIGHT OF STAIRS to the seating area. The looks on our faces when we found that our were probably priceless.

But we forged through and sat.. taking off our shoes so that our feet could rest on the cold ceramic tile.

OMG I know what heaven is now!!!

We finished eating and still had about 8 or 9 long.. long.. LONG blocks to go.

Finally we made it to the car and if you ever hear me make fun of my wagon again, please knock me upside the head!! We sat in the wagon and just melted.

But the journey isn’t over yet.. because NOW we had to drive to the hotel which was about 8 blocks away ( actually it was ohsoclose to the McDonald’s we were at ) and before Chief could even THINK about the 42 bucks to park at the hotel, I told him that there was no way in God’s green earth that I was walking anywhere other then to an elevator.

He had the good sense not to argue.

So we got to the hotel and checked in.. made our way up to the room which had a bed that was made from a cloud.

No.. in all seriousness, it was a really nice room with really, REALLY good sheets and pillows and feather top mattress.

He just peeled off his clothes and fell out.. I wanted to take a shower first but then I did the same damn thing.

I don’t remember anything until about midnight when I woke up to Chief staring at me. “.. I’m hungry” he said jumping up and down like a freakin’ monkey in a cage.

My WTF???? expression made him tell me that it was a hotel room bed so of course you had to jump around on it like a freakin’ monkey in a cage.

I was hungry too.

All the sandwiches, potato salad and lunch meat we had brought didn’t hold up to being in the trunk of a hot car in the basement of a parking garage over night and the one bag of potato chips and Welch’s White Grape Peach bottle wasn’t going to cut it. It was too late for room service and neither of us could even dream of walking anywhere so what to do? Go back to sleep, of course.

One thing I need to mention here is that we stayed at the Capital Hilton. I made the reservation and paid for the room via Obitz so I really didn’t know what I was getting into. First of all.. there was no free WiFi. They charged 15.99 a night to access it. Everything on their menu was OBSCENELY priced. Like.. 9.75 for a bowl of oatmeal. 22.00 for a hamburger. 7.50 for a cup of coffee. I hadn’t realized that this was a dignitary hotel and that generally the people that stay there could care less how much anything was. Plus, it was an international menu.

So back to sleep we went and when we got up the next morning, we decided that it was just better off checking out then waiting.. hungry.. until noon. I did.. at one point.. BEG Chief to order room service because I was beyond starving but even I couldn’t justify spending that much money on something that we weren’t even going to be able to split.

So at 8am we checked out and made our way home.. finding yet another McDonald’s where we had breakfast.

I swear I have NEVER eaten McDonald’s so much in my  life!!!

Because it was early.. we had nothing but time in front of us so we made our way back ( again detouring through the seedier side of Baltimore and even continuing the tradition of turning the wrong way down a one way street because of the TomTom ).. we stopped at a fantastic reststop on I95 that was  ( and had bad coffee ) .. found an unbelievable flea market in Nottingham, PA that was in an old barn and had really neat stuff.. we drove the back roads through Maryland.. over the Conowingo Dam.. may have found a place to move to in Darlington.. wondered at Havre De Grace.. checked out used RVs ( come on.. you have to agree that we need one! ) .. drove through a covered bridge and wound up spending a few hours sitting on a rock and hanging our feet in Brandywine Creek watching people drift by on inner tubes with their dogs swimming along side of them.

We finally made it home feeling that after not really doing anything this summer.. doing EVERYTHING.

It was probably the best weekend I’ve had in a long time.. even with the blisters and aches and everything else doing all that with my best friend was awesome.

A Video Message For Ya…

.. because it’s  not like I had nothing better to do ( preparing for a two night getaway is HELL ) .. and considering how I put absolutely NO thought into how I was going to look you really must be convinced now that I am far left of center!!

Anyway…

enjoy

Did I Expect Anything Different?

.. ok.

So August 28th, Chief and I are going to Washington DC for the Restore America Rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

NOTE: Honestly, if you have anything negative to say about it then keep it to yourself. I’m way too busy to get into a debate right now.

This will be the first “vacation” we will be going on.. if you can call a one night stay two hours down the highway a vacation.. but realistically, driving to the supermarket with the kids is a damn vacation!

We did contemplate taking the boys with us for like.. oh.. less then a NANO second.. but whenever they tag along someplace it’s nothing but arguing and fighting and miserable. Beside, they have no clue what’s going on and I really didn’t feel like hearing Spaz whine and complain about being hungry or thirsty every 10 seconds.

So the Crack Whore was told WAY BACK IN FEBRUARY when we booked the hotel room that she was going to have to keep the boys for that night.

Both of them.

Or.. Bubba could stay with her brother (he has a son Bubba’s age that spends every other weekend there).

They just couldn’t stay HERE and I was personally going to make sure that everything was locked down tight so they couldn’t go in and out… or SHE couldn’t go in and out.

She likes to do that.

Or DID.. before I got hip to it and told her the next time she was in my house I was going to have her arrested for trespassing.

Anyway..

So since the summer, she’s been going away every weekend. She found another john “boyfriend” that has a place somewhere or other. I think she took Spaz once.. the weekend before school ended.

But anyway.. so today I text her and tell her not to forget that she has to take the boys Saturday into Sunday night.

And the response came back that she couldn’t because she was going away and then the little comment about me waiting for the last minute to tell her.

So I calmly text back that she needed to take the opposite of whatever color pill she already took because it ISN’T last minute.. it’s TWO WEEKS away..

Nope.. she still won’t do it. We’re going to have to take them and wow!! What kind of people are we that WE would go on vacation and NOT take the kids.

I told her that OBVIOUSLY we were the SAME kind of person SHE was because SHE goes away every weekend and DOESN”T TAKE THE KIDS.. oh.. my bad, I said.. we AREN’T like you because WE NEVER GO AWAY.

Then she says :: and this is where her manipulation talent kicks in :: that is she WAS going to take them, then we were going to have to provide food and drinks for them to which point I told her that she was ALREADY two months behind on her child support payments .. going on three.. and I’m sure her case worker at welfare will be very interested in knowing that she’s still getting 700+ a month in food stamps for a SINGLE PERSON WITH A JOB.

Oh.. and I know that the job is under the table and since, yknow, my brother is a big wig at the IRS who investigates small business I’m just SO sure he’ll be interested in knowing that her boss is paying people off the books.

She’s going to take them.

With people like her, black mail is the only option.

Catching Up With The Crazies…!

.. so I’ve been gone a long time.

I mean.. a REALLY long time. And not for any reason. Well.. there was a reason but not a reason like, moving to the middle of Montana with no internet service.

I can blame it on my iPod Touch. I mean.. if you don’t have one, you may want to get one if you’d like to curl up in a ball and play endless hours of Tap Tap Revenge.

OR I can blame it on the fact that I had an opportunity to actually get paid to write. Like in money. Like the kind of money that you can actually spend :: well.. while it’s actually WORTH anything anyway :: and once that opportunity presented itself, I had no desire to write. Not even a check.. which, yknow, I’m not that fond of doing anyway. But yea.. I had an attack of self doubt which completely shut my brain down.

And then there’s that blasted family tree thing I’m doing.. which basically sapped up my brain cells.. time.. and desire to write. Sort of like replacing one addiction with another. Cuz, yknow.. my family’s hobby IS breeding and my over-achieving self had to do BOTH sides of my family at one time.

Honestly, I didn’t really think too much about it until Tosha @ THAT’S WHY left a comment on an old post asking if I was ok and it dawned on me that I miss you guys.. and I miss writing.. and I miss throwing all my shit out there for the world to see… read.. whatever.

So here I am.. sitting on my bed with the good ol’ laptop.. after having to clean up all the wrappers and crumbs from three boxes of cupcakes that the dogs plowed through while I was at work :: I know two little dogs that are going to have the major runs tonight :: bringing everything up to speed.

So the highlights:

VALENTINE’S DAY

We were still dealing with tons of snow and winter weather but on Valentine’s morning, Chief got up early.. walked.. like in putting one foot in front of the other.. roughly three miles THROUGH THE THIGH DEEP SNOW and bought me flowers.. a bag full of SweetTarts and a locket.

Definitely an AWWWWWW!!! moment.

INTERNERNATIONAL FOOD SHOW

On The Way To NYC Via The NJT

On Feb 28, the two morons :: that being me and Chief :: decided to take Manhattan and attend the International Food Show at the Javits Convention Center… an industry thing with a lot of vendors and products and samples.

Gotta love the samples!

It wasn’t so much a LAST minute decision because we had registered like, a month and a half before but because of the weather and because the wagon was inspected and registered :: still isn’t :: and the van was having transmission problems :: still is :: I wasn’t really that confident in getting there and back without incident.

‘Cause.. yknow.. whenever WE do ANYTHING, there’s “incidents”.

International Food Show

But armed with Chief’s confidence that he can fix anything that went wrong with the van, we made our way up the New Jersey Turnpike armed with coffee and a Tom Tom.

Did I tell you the story about the Tom Tom .. how I don’t like them.. don’t trust them.. and didn’t want one but got one for Christmas because Chief wanted one? Yea.. well.. let me tell you something about that fucking Tom Tom. First of all, you can’t help but argue with it when you actually do know where you’re going and it tells you to go in a different direction. But the worse.. is when you DON’T know where you’re going and the fucking thing tells you to make a left onto a FOUR LANE street with traffic going in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION from the way you’re facing.

Like it did in New York City.

Thankfully.. THANKFULLY .. when we turned the wrong way down the street, traffic was stopped at a red light so I was able to pull over IN FRONT OF AN NYC COP CAR.. :: thankfully unoccupied :: .. and turn the car around. We pulled into the first parking garage that we found and on wobbly knees, walked the six blocks to the Javits.

Yes.. that is a pig WITH it's head still on

I had never been to an industry food show before. Chief had been to this particular one before as a seller not a buyer. I can’t tell you how hard they suck your ass. They must give a class on it or something.

I’m not adventurous with food so I wasn’t doing a lot of tasting. He was.. which was good because the only thing I kept thing was “.. did you SEE how much the hot dog vendor was charging????” But we did come away with a few products that we wanted to start carrying in the shop so it served it’s purpose.

FOOD!!!

We had gotten there early and the good thing about that was by the time the place was filled to capacity, we had seen everything and were ready to chug it back home.

So we make our way back to the parking garage and contrary to everything I’ve heard, it really wasn’t too expensive. Notice I said “too” and not “that”! It was around 25 bucks and considering we almost got KILLED by the evil Tom Tom, I could deal with 25 bucks.

More food

Chief tells me he’ll drive back because I’m like FORGET DRIVING THROUGH THE LINCOLN TUNNEL AGAIN and while we’re driving through the tunnel, we lose the satellite connection to the Evil Tom Tom. I guess it didn’t like me cursing it out because when it finally connected again, it directed us to take an exit with was NOT the exit to the Turnpike.. even though I clearly SAW the exit for the Turnpike ahead, Chief was like NO! NO! The Tom Tom said to go THIS way.. which put us in the middle of someplace like Seacacus or something and on a highway with a 2 car red light every 100 feet. Which considering how the transmission REALLY started to act up, may have been a good thing.

But as he promised, he pulled over and did some McGuyver-ing and put us back on the road.

We finally found our way back to the Turnpike :: I had turned the Tom Tom off :: and after almost getting into two.. count them.. TWO car accidents, we pulled into one of the numerous rest stops on the pike and had a wonderful lunch of Burger King nuked by a Mexican who could only say “Whopper”.

Don’t ask.

PROTESTING HEALTH CARE

Chief had this bright idea to drive down to Washington DC on the Sunday that the Health Care bill was going to be voted on. That’s something we’re both passionate about and really, I’m not going to get into a debate with anyone who is for it on here. We will just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

The plan was to get up around 5am.. drive down to DC.. protest.. and then drive home.

That was the PLAN anyway.. we were SO committed to going down there that we didn’t get to bed until 3am :: no kids at home means long hours playing Call Of Duty :: and then the gorgeous day we woke up to mandated that we hit various flea markets.

We’re such bad protesters!!

WEED

Weed turned 21 on March 1st.

Honestly, I have to say that he seems to be coming around. Not only has he been coming to work when he’s suppose to but he’s actually doing work. His attitude has become a little more mature but I know he still does what he does.. he’s just less obvious about it.

For his birthday we got him a cell phone. He had one from when the Crack Whore settled her bogus lawsuit but of course, by the time the first payment came around she had blown threw the money and the service was turned off.

If I had known that he could have just re-activated his old one, I would have saved myself a lot of money and aggravation.

And of course, the aggravation has to do with….

BUBBA

Let me just say that I have not had an actual conversation with Bubba since the day of his birthday when I told him that he wasn’t getting the grossly expensive lap top computer he wanted because he didn’t do anything he promised to do.. that being committed to his school work.

Did I also post before that I finally got my dryer because Bubba complained about not having any clean clothes because he never put them in the hamper?

I’m not going to rehash everything that went on, but I will say that this kid needs to be knocked down a few pegs. He still isn’t doing a damn thing in school.. does not have ANY hygiene at all.. stays out all hours of the day / night / weekend .. and I would be doing the pigs of the world a great disservice by calling him one. He’s beyond that.

And I’m over it.

I’m over his lies.. his manipulations.. him calling me a bitch because I call him out on his lies and manipulations.. his use and abuse.. He’s just an ugly person inside and out.. an unhappy person.. someone who couldn’t give a shit about anything or anybody but himself.

I don’t surround myself with that kind of toxin as a rule.. and the fact that this kid lives under my roof doesn’t change that.

Things kind of came to a head about a month ago when Chief told him that he was grounded because he hasn’t done ONE IOTA of schoolwork. Not that Chief makes sure he does his work.. not that the Crack Whore makes sure he does his work either. But as Chief said, “.. he wasn’t going ANYWHERE” that weekend. I told Chief that he was going to have to be the one to tell him that because I was done with being the one that has to issue the punishment only to have it renigged by the Crack Whore.. or worse, Bubba just not paying any damn attention to anything I say.

So Chief assured me that he was going to tell him when he came home from work. In the meantime, Spaz was had made plans to spend the weekend at the Crack Whore’s but as he was waiting for her to pick him up, Bubba started saying that HE was going to stay over there too. Spaz reacted in pure Spaz fashion.. which was to, well, spaz. He go SO upset and started crying and saying that he wasn’t going to go and that all he wanted was to have a weekend away from Bubba.

I tried to stay out of it but things escalated to a point where I had to get involved and told Spaz that Bubba wasn’t going anywhere.. to just calm down.

Immediately Bubba started saying shit to Spaz and to me so I called Chief and told him what was going on. He told me he wanted to talk to him so I gave Bubba the phone. I don’t know what the conversation was but at one point, Bubba said something about me not letting him use the PS3 head phones :: a long story :: and I called him a “Little Fuck” to which he started whining to his father like a little bitch.

I get back on the phone with Chief and he tells me that I was right to do what I did. I told him that I didn’t give a fuck whether or not he thought I was “right” or not .. he wasn’t here and it isn’t fair to Spaz to be tormented by Bubba the way he is.

I hang up with Chief.

He calls me back about 15 minutes later and asks me if I can pick him up from the shop because it was pouring out. I told him I would then went back to getting ready to go out because I really just wanted to get out of the house.

A few minutes after we hang up for the second time, I hear Bubba leave the house. And I’m like, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

And when Chief calls me about a half hour later to tell me that he was closing the shop early and that I can pick him up at any time, I cut the call short because I was in the bathroom.. almost getting physically sick over this fucking kid.

I go down to the shop and I don’t know what made me say this in the way that I did but when I walked in I said, “… you know that Bubba left the house, right?”

He says, “.. oh yea. He went to stay at his mother’s.”

When I tell you that I have NEVER felt like a bigger asshole in my life. HE was the one who INSISTED that Bubba was NOT to leave the house for the weekend which made ME make an issue out of it earlier when he was tormenting Spaz and then he let him go to his mother’s?

Where’s your fucking balls, man?

So I got torqued beyond ever being torqued before.

And I couldn’t look at him.. be near him.. talk to him.. breath the same air as him.

So I stayed in the living room while he tanked out in the bedroom and remained there until the next day when I had had it SO up to here that if I had a box and some place to go I would have packed all my shit right then and there and left.

We had it out the next day.. big blow out.. and when he tried to blame it on the kids I told him all about himself and told him that it’s HIM. That he says one thing and does another and doesn’t give me a heads up. Like the cell phone.

Remember Weed’s old cell phone? The Crack Whore wanted it back so that she could have it reactivated for Bubba. Chief went on a looooooonnnngggg tirade about how Bubba doesn’t deserve one.. that he can’t have one until he brings his grades up.. blah blah blah. Not five minutes.. FIVE MINUTES after he told me that on the phone, the Crack Whore texted me and told me that she had just left the deli and that Chief said he didn’t have a problem with Bubba having a cell phone as long as he doesn’t have to pay the bill for it.

And I called him out on that. And called him out on a million other things that I’ve been holding down. When I tell you that that was the closest that we’ve come to breaking up.. then that’s the closest we’ve come to breaking up.

I told him that if he still wanted me in the picture then he better prepare himself for me not doing anything for Bubba. That I was going to treat Bubba the way that he treats me. No more driving him to school in the morning.. no more doing his clothes.. no more driving him here or there or to his friends. That I was going to email his teacher’s and inform them that from now on, they would have to contact him and the Crack Whore and when Bubba gets into the trouble he’s on the path to get into, don’t expect me to be sympathetic or supportive. Wasn’t going to happen.

So that’s the way things have been and to be honest, Bubba is rolling off my back by rain on a duck.

SPAZ

He’s still having his issues but nothing worse then normal 11 year old shit. He, at least, understands why I’m hard on him about school.. about being neat.. about brushing his teeth and taking showers. Knowing that I don’t want him turning out like Bubba is his big incentive. And as sick as it sounds, knowing how I feel about Bubba is giving him the cujones to stand up to him.

BUBBA: Dad doesn’t love you.
SPAZ: At least he doesn’t have to by me Comet to scrub my neck with

NOTE: Because Bubba doesn’t take regular showers, his neck and knuckles get BLACK. At one point, Chief told him to use Comet to scrub his neck with to take the dirt off.

I almost pissed myself laughing and was like You Go Spaz!!!

The only thing that I can’t really explain to him is why the Crack Whore will buy Bubba a laptop .. will buy him an iPod Touch.. will get him a cell phone when he does nothing to deserve it but when Spaz asked her to contribute to help pay for the two trips he’s going on with the church group ( one is 400 the other is 65), she started yelling and screaming at him that she isn’t made of money and why am I not paying for it.

So that’s basically what’s been going on.

Now that I got this post over with, I’ll get back to my old routine :: 2800+ words will do that to you! :: so buckle up, I’m sure it’s going to be a bumpy ride!