Monday, February 28, 2011

addendum

if you are (which seems very likely) stumbling across this post by sheer happenstance, please take a moment to read the previous post, as this one will otherwise make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

well, if i am not one to trifle with when it comes to threatening my family, my wife is that times a gazillion.

after i recounted everything (she was out of town for work), and spurred on by this woman's negative reaction and a serious lack of any kind of apology or explanation as to what was to be done to prevent this scrawny little dungheap from building pipe bombs in the garage and torturing small animals, she decided to text a friend who worked for the local police. that friend recommended to get it on paper (as in file a report) in case anything else was to happen.

as she was doing this, i was chatting with the friend living on their cul-de-sac, who informed me that the dad's way of "handling it" was to leave the kids with a sitter that very night and take his screaming banshee of a wife out on a date; meanwhile, the sitter lets the kids tear around the neighborhood till well past dark, and eventually locks them out of the house. then on saturday, he banishes [charles manson] to his bedroom for a half-day by way of punishment. sunday, the entire family goes out kayaking. cause nothing says, "i aint fucking around!" like good clean family fun on the water.

sunday night, after we filed the police report, and while we are having dinner with the friends from that cul-de-sac, and shamelessly badmouthing this family and their ill-fated offspring, the doorbell rings.

it is another mom from that circle, who wanted to let me know that she too had had problems with this kid. he had been saying sex-related things to her sons, and she (like me, and i fear this might be a bit of a disturbing trend amongst parents world-wide) had told her boys to just ignore him. until the day they came home and said he had suggested to them that they "fuck their mom."

at which point she dealt with the mother in no uncertain terms.

the interesting detail in this bit of information is that she did not swear or lose her cool with this other mother, or try to blame her kids, or in any other way display the kind of behavior she displayed to me friday night.

odd, right? because if one parent had already complained about my kid's gobshite, and i had sort of accepted that story, i surely wouldn't tell the next parent to complain that my kid hadn't done anything and it was their "fucked-up" kid's fault.

i told the busdriver this morning that i didn't want either one of my boys sitting within two rows of this brat. i said that if he had something to say to my sons, i wanted him to have to shout it so that everyone on the bus could hear it. i also suggested that perhaps the sweet girl who corroborated my son's story should be included in this seating shift, as the future serial killer might try and harass her as well.

she simply nodded in a knowing way, and called out his name as i was getting off the bus.

my wife and i have an appointment on friday to talk with the principal as well.

essentially, she and i agree: you don't threaten my family, stand there and lie about it, and then act like it is my kid's fault and just walk away with a slap on the wrist.

or as my wife said over and over the whole weekend: "that bitch fucked with the wrong family."

oh, yeah, she did. and her pestilent progeny as well.

darth sardonic

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Friday, February 25, 2011

i handled it

i frequently (maybe too frequently) joke in here about how much my kids aggravate me. it is a fact of my nature, and the nature of a parent/child relationship in general. and my way of handling stress is to joke. and raising kids is a big stress under the best of circumstances.

but i like to think that if you, the beloved non-existent readers, have been reading here regularly for anything longer than a few months, you will know that i really love my kids and my wife. i also like to think that you know that despite being verbally very violent on occasion in this blog, i am a big softie.

you will also know, however, that i have a thick core of raw kiss-my-ass steel and battery acid.

and i will not let anyone fuck with my family.

now, a few months ago, no. 1 got off the bus very upset. crying, in fact. i asked what was wrong, and he replied that [worthless waste of sperm and egg future serial killer] was telling him that he, [serial killer], was saying on the bus that he had escaped from jail after killing a manatee and a cop.

now, i think i handled this bit of info improperly. i told no. 1 that [sociopath] was a jabbering little idiot in need of a.) attention, and b.) some good adhd medication, and that no. 1 should not believe anything he said, and do his very best to ignore him, or at the very least, not get upset at the twaddle that this puling little whelp shat out of his gob.

in a way, no. 1 took my advice, as today when he was recounting what this kid had said, he seemed almost scarily calm.

"um, dad, you know what [check the crawl space for bodies] said today? he said that on my birthday he is gonna kill mom."

the record skips, everything on the planet gets immediately cut down to super slow motion.

"he said what?"

no. 1 repeats back exactly what he had just said again.

if i had not needed to immediately get no. 2 to a therapy appointment, i would've been at this slug slime's parent's door. lucky for me, and no. 1, and them even, i had that appointment.

in the car i tell no. 1 not to sit by this syphilitic boil anymore. i tell him i will talk to his parents. i tell him i will talk to the bus driver, and make sure she knows he is not to be anywhere near either of my kids. i tell him that if this kid ever tried anything with my wife, she'd fuck his world up beyond his ability to comprehend.

the drive, and hour long appointment work in my favor in several ways. i text my friend that lives on the same cul-de-sac as the offender and his family, and make sure i am thinking of the right kid. she confirms, and even says i am not the first parent with complaints about this diseased little pustule. i also get extremely angry. something i am gonna need to tackle this situation just as it needs to be tackled. but i also get extremely calm. something that ended up working to my advantage when i finally stood on these people's front porch.

i told no. 1 to let me do the talking, and i had to remind him a couple times. i was firm. i didn't want the parents of this larva to see me being wishy washy with my own kids. when i pulled up, the dad is sitting on the porch, and it is like he already knows something is up. so do his kids, who come over from playing catch, and his wife, who appears at the door from somewhere inside the house. even the neighbor kids come over, standing around in a semithreatening semicircle.

there we are, me and my boys, like last stand at the ok corral.

when i explain why i am there, he says, "well, that sure doesn't sound like anything [jeffrey dahmer] would say." (it never sounds like something our sweet little angels would say, does it, o my beloved non-existent readers? so many parents own property on a river in egypt.) and his diseased hole of a wife says the same thing, attempting to imply my kid made it up.

i say, in a no uncertain terms kinda way, say, "well, it sure isn't something no. 1 would make up."

the putrescent womb that shat out this gobbet of rotten okra is so incensed she declares this whole conversation "bullshit" and both of them are insisting that unless an adult can collaborate my story, it didn't happen.

of course their lying pond scum of a son denies it completely. even before he knows what he is accused of (which i point out in a voice that cuts through the other chatter happening around me.) they call in the boy who sits next to [john wayne gacey], and he says that the kid talks to my son, but he doesn't know what he says. we drive down two more cul-de-sacs to find the girl who sits next to no. 1. the mom has declared my kid "fucked up" and gone inside. but the dad is gonna ride this thing to its end, either to rub my face in it, or (i like to think) because he secretly knows that this shite is, in fact, the sort of thing his cesspool of a kid would say.

the girl who sits next to my son is older, and a bit of a chatterbox. i ask if her mom can come out so that her mom can kind of chaperone the conversation, and once her mom figures out exactly what's going on, she kind of keeps her daughter reigned in.

the girl says that the only one who really messes with my son is [ted bundy], and that he does in fact say some "sorta mean things." it is clear she doesn't want to say what sorts of things exactly. but after we tell her we need to know, and without any prompting at all, she says, embarrassed, "he said like he would kill no. 1's mom."

the father says he'll handle it.

i take my kids home, and tell no. 1 good job, and thanks for telling me.

now that it is over, i stand in the kitchen fucking shaking with rage. i smoke. i text my wife. i fill in the friend that lives on that circle on the outcome.

but, o my beloved non-existent readers, my droogs and only friends, i handled it. i never swore. i never implied that their kid was "fucked up" like that female goat had done about my own son. i never implied anything about him matter of fact except that he had said this to my son, and that i wasn't going to back down in the face of their apathy and hostility.

and i still won't. not sure what the long-term repercussions of this will be, but i am ready, and i am readying my kids.

because you do not fuck with my family.

darth sardonic

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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

life is unfair

sometimes i think it is unfair how deeply i feel these things. perhaps i should've never had kids. perhaps i should've never fallen so deeply in love. perhaps i should've never kidded myself about my own worth in this vast universe. perhaps i should've listened, and accepted these dark moments that well up in my life.

now, allow me, o beloved non-existent readers; allow me to wallow. if you've been listening to this discordant little note in the great symphony of the world wide web for any length of time, you know the bend in the corner is coming soon.

and no, because some of you will worry, nothing is wrong between me and the wife.

but i am feeling the stresses of my life, o my beloveds, my droogs and only friends, o thou ptitsas and malchicks who keep coming back here and tolerating my incessant whining.

the oldest, apparently, is too smart for school. he can't be fucking bothered. schoolwork gets in the way of more important things (i.e. video games, drawing, writing stories, and building lego creations that are mind-boggling in their detail.) and while all those things in and of themselves are also amazing and have their place, i have to sit across the table from a surly, glowering nine-year-old and explain to him that if things don't change, he will be repeating the third grade, and then watch him shrug like it's no big deal.

and after futilely fighting that battle, i get to drag myself, exhausted and sapped of energy, to my own classes where i was promised several hours to work on a project to find out the teacher changed her mind, and in fact, i will indeed be going back to the school for most of tomorrow to get the project where i want it to be.

it is time. it is time for the overwhelming sense of failure to bear down on me like a stone might weigh upon a swimmer's back. i will flounder. i will sink. i will accept my fate.

perhaps i don't deserve these gifts. perhaps i am not one to the task. perhaps i never was.

and i have always secretly held that when the drowning man accepts his fate, he reaches an enlightenment beyond our ken; a simple peace and glory in knowing that he will in fact die at the bottom of the ocean with lungs full of water. and he will smile as it happens.

but you know what? i also believe in some supreme spin doctor who is turning this universe on its axis. and i believe that that motherfucker, for whatever reason that is beyond my ability to comprehend, that bastard believes in me. that son of a bitch gave me all these goddamn gifts in the first place.

and i don't fucking believe in going down without a fight. ok, maybe the sinking swimmer reaches some fucking enlightenment. good for him. i am just too fucking thick for that shit. i am the dumb cunt who will fight it till the very last breath is ripped from my lungs and then spend the first few weeks in heaven bitching about it.

fuck these tears that course my cheeks. a means to an end, nothing less. and i am not drowning, i just need the sun to shine again, i just need to feel that this momentary lapse is over and i am standing upright and tall again.

life is unfair. that might be the whole fucking point. and i don't have anything i have without being the luckiest dumb twat who ever walked the face of this whole green marble in all its history. westley said it best, in the princess bride: "life's not fair, highness. anyone who says differently is selling something."

a few more hours of listening to codeine, and crying, and i will have sorted which parts of the stone belong to me, and which parts i need not carry, and i will kick strongly to the surface, and exuberantly shout: "look at the pretty rock i found at the bottom of the ocean!"

thanks again, o thou, the long-suffering, for allowing me to get there on my own.

darth sardonic

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Friday, February 11, 2011

emptyhead (more commonly known as darth sardonic by himself) covering codeine's "cigarette machine" (this blog's namesake)

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

mathematics suck

no. 2 brings me his math homework to look over. he is in the latter half of 1st grade, and they have moved from adding to subtracting.
any time no. 2 brings me his math homework to check, i have to take a very big deep breath. i have to let it out slow. i have to consciously register my voice at a level that is tolerable, pleasant, and upbeat.
because no. 2 does not get math. he does not get math like i do not get nuclear physics, or quantum theoretics.
i have already told him numerous times that you cannot subtract anything but zero from a number and get the original number as the answer. this is a hard and fast rule of subtraction. and yet when he brings me his homework to look over, he has gone through everywhere and put the first number as the answer: 4-1=4, 6-2=6, 3-0=3. i calmly go through and erase all the answers where zero is not being subtracted and patiently tell him (yet again) that you cannot subtract one or two from a number and get itself. to help him, i say, "ok, this one here. three minus one. what is one less than three?"
he stares at me for a moment as if i have asked him, "donde se entero el cuerpo de hoffa?" then he says, "umm, three?" i sigh, and try a different tack. "what is the number that comes before three?" again, "quantos dientes tiene el tiburon grande blanco?" "umm, one?"
now he is just hitting all around the number hoping to land on the right answer. still cool as a cucumber, i go over to the whiteboard and draw him a numberline, as i have numerous times before, and explain that you count to the left in bumps however many you're subtracting and the number you land on is the right answer. i remind him (yet again) that he himself can draw this numberline right there on his paper and use it to correctly answer the problems.
then he uses the numberline efficiently, and answers the other problems correctly.
but here's the deal, o my beloved non-existent readers: no. 2 appears simply unable to understand that, for the sake of his first grade math homework at least, numbers are constant and unchanging. he seems completely unaware that three comes before four and will always come before four. that five plus five is always ten, and that one of his own hands always contains five digits, and the other always five as well.
and the reason that i must travel into some zen fugue state to help him with his math homework is this: one particularly bad bit of addition homework, on a day when no. 2 was particularly tired and lazy and not wanting to think, ended up taking us two hours to do. two. with tears. with shouted guidance that was neither constructive nor helpful. with exasperated declarations of, "fuck it, i just don't fucking care! turn it in all fucked-up, and fail. i don't give a shit!" which we all know is straight up bullshit because i would go stomping back in there within seconds to try and explain it again in a different way, to be met yet again by the same (teary) blank stare of incomprehension.
and the bigger disconnect that is there can be tied to before, after, above, around. for no. 2, things just seem to happen willy nilly without rhyme or reason, devoid of connections to one another of any sort. "how many days is it till friday, dad?" "well, today's thursday, so how many days?" ("cuantos anos tenia methusaleh?") "umm, three?"
and on that day when the homework was finally in the backpack, and the kids were playing more or less harmoniously and i was outside shakily smoking, i called a friend from high school who i had been venting to about the math. a friend who struggles even to this day with dislexia. a friend who does not do her budget because she is never sure she has done the addition or subtraction right, or even gotten the amounts entered correctly in the first place.
and though i am sure that he will outgrow this, it is yet another by-product of being born early, of getting sick, of being pumped full of narcotics. here he is, 8, and still suffering delays that find their seeds in a four-months hospital stay that started at 30 weeks gestation.
i don't expect him to necessarily be a rocket scientist. or an engineer. then again, maybe he will. i just want him to be a productive, active member of society.
and i want him to one day realize without thinking that three comes before four, that one of his own hands always contains five digits, and that friday always follows thursday.
darth sardonic

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