Author: Chris

Inauguration Day made me think of a quick list of crimes that need to be added.  For the people.

If you walk into a sports bar during the playoffs and ask one of the TV’s to be switched to non-playoff sports, you should be immediately sentenced to having to play Monopoly with kids under 10 until you break down and cry for mercy.

If you send an email over three sentences, then call within five minutes or less to ask what the recipient thought about said email, you should have someone sent to your house every night for  a week.  When you fall asleep, they poke you and scream, “DID YOU FALL ASLEEP YET?” until you realize you just did the same thing in a different manner.  If you do that twice, life in prison.

If you don’t replace the toilet paper, you are hereby convicted and have to use TP for up to four days with a hole cut in the middle.

If you ask someone a question in person while you are still carrying on a conversation via bluetooth, five days’ hard labor while every guard you ask for food or water turns away because they’re taking a bluetooth call and they hold up a finger and walk away from you.  “Yeah, some guys says he’s thirsty.  Can’t he see I’m talking to someone?”

Lastly, anyone that abuses kids or animals should be allowed to go about their day.  They just have to wearing a metal box around their waist that traps all their waste inside until they get sepsis and everyone can smell them from a mile away.  It’s like a scarlet letter, but with their own filth.  A brown letter, if you will.

I’ll start my campaign committee in 2019 if you’re interested.

I realized something, when my wife left to run errands the other day – women are better at the kid stuff than men.  Example: when my daughter was born, I never once questioned my wife alone with her.  It took about four months for her to leave me alone with her for 20 minutes.  “You know where the milk is?”  Yeah, yeah.  “The diapers?  The blanket?  Her binky?  Is your phone charged?  Do you have a tactical response team ready?”  Sure, sure.  Five minutes after she left – damn, I forget what the baby needs.  I saw a bird on TV chew up worms and regurgitate them into the nest.  This is going to suck; probably should have paid attention.

Everything is good until there’s a problem.  Once my girl threw a meltdown fit.  Music works, right?  I searched my phone’s iTunes quickly.  Megadeth, Anthrax, Pantera, Machine Head, Black Sabbath…hmmm, not getting it done.  Thankfully I had John Denver as a rip cord.  Maybe I should bust out the whiskey; the pioneers used it and look how well they did with kids.

Even the small things like my daughter uses my wife’s shirts as security blankets.  The other day she grabbed one of mine off the laundry pile, smelled it and threw it down in disgust.  Guess my musk isn’t toddler friendly.  Maybe it was all the worms and whiskey.

My daughter loves dogs.  LOVES dogs.  Every time we pass one, she would at least point and walk towards, at most bounce and start breathing heavy and usually cry when they walked away.  It was a matter of time.  My mom sent an ad, so my wife went to check out the pup with G in tow while dad was working.  Needless to say, the purchase was completed pretty quickly.  (The good thing about not being there is I can say I would have picked one of the other ones when the puppy leaves a loaf in my wife’s shoe).

I was somewhat apprehensive, just for the fact I had such a hard time with losing my dog in February.  I came home to tell this new mutt how inferior it was to Stringbean, but I’ll be damned – when I got home it was waiting at the door for me and wagging her tail at light speed.  She followed me or one of my ladies around non-stop, so after some debate, her name became Merry (for the happiness) Polarity (since she’s like a magnet).

Of course, then the dog attacked my daughter’s Captain America Build a Bear and tried to drink my beer.  Terrorism is everywhere, it appears.  We also realized she was absolutely covered in fleas, just like my wife was when we met.  Memories.  Thankfully, they were all dead, but her skin was all jacked up, so that was fun.  The vet told us she had worms, like I did when my wife and I met.  More memories.  We got those taken care of too.

I learned some things since Bean – he was a fully grown stray that was housebroken when I got him.  This thing pees every five minutes.  Bean didn’t bark, play with toys more than five seconds a month and was always hot like me.  Merry barks when she gets excited, wants to play all the time (except when peeing thankfully) and is freezing like my wife.  I also realized how incredibly awful it is to housetrain a puppy when it’s 2 degrees the first weekend.  I hope the hypothermia doesn’t set it too quickly the next time there’s a BM on the schedule.  We like this little rascal though and hopefully she wears out my tornado toddler and not Mom and Dad.

My dad called me a short time ago.  “I’m getting Steelers playoff tickets.  Want to go?”  “Sure, let me check my schedule.”  We were all excited, then the forecast came out.  He texted me, “High of 21.”  Great, thanks.  Two days later – “Now high of 19.”  How about we stop with the weather updates, Al Roker?  It’s going to suck.

I’m a hot person.  I shoveled my driveway after a three inch snow and I got so hot I did the last 20 minutes in a tee shirt in 30 degree weather.  I can sweat without moving in 50 degree temps.  I knew this would be different.  Turns out it was high of 16, but don’t worry!  My weather app also said “FEELS LIKE 1.”  Well, terrific.  Here I thought the heat wave of 16 would ruin my day, but thankfully it’s one degree with the polar blast of wind coming off the three river confluence.

I pulled my phone out to take pics of the stadium in all its glory and the phone said, “Piss off, I quit.”  My phone shut off.  It was too cold.  I had to press it to my neck for ten minutes to get warm enough to take three pics, then it shut off again.

How cold was it?  The ref’s whistle froze.  I went to take a leak and guys were eating their food in the bathroom because it was out of the wind.  MY BEER FROZE BEFORE I COULD FINISH IT.  Do you know how fast I can drink a beer?  I actually thought this may be my final picture ever.

The Steelers won big, which meant we may have left a bit early, like oh, 86% of the fans there.  I probably could have made it, but my feet felt like someone was jamming needles into them and it took me 20 minutes to get my four pants layers off to pee, so there you have it.  It was fun, but next time I’m taking a huge barrel to start a fire in.  I’m sure they won’t care.

Since I never watch New Year’s Eve specials anymore – or not really ever, I watched Kathy Griffin for five seconds once and nearly killed myself – I missed Mariah Carey’s turd as it happened.  I checked it out the next day and made two determinations.  1) The lip sync backup failed and 2) She couldn’t deal with it.  Long story short, she wasn’t prepared.

Not that I am anywhere close to Mariah Carey in any aspect of my life, but I have a similar experience.  No, not that I told jokes and the tape cracked as I stood on Times Square in front of millions on TV and thousands in person…more like 30 people.  In rural Pennsylvania.  With no camera.  OK, it’s not very similar, but here’s what happened.

I hadn’t done a show in a month.  Early on, I prided myself on practicing my sets, but I got a bit lazy.  I also had a fiasco before the show.  I showed up at a Bed and Breakfast that was the room they booked.  For those that don’t know, that’s a house with an extra room.  I walked in and the family was going to dinner.  The guy was all kinds of pissed that I was there – turns out the dumb booker changed hotels and had emailed me, which I missed driving through the gaping hole of communication that is middle PA.  I thankfully ran out – the guy’s four year kid was hiding in the room, which was a nice surprise as I unpacked my bag that made me want to sleep in my car – and went to the hotel.

All that meant I had NO time to prepare and hit a cold, cavernous stage.  I realized instantly I was rusty as hell.  I flubbed and babbled my way through punchlines and stuttered for nearly ten minutes until I got back in my zone.  Luckily for me, the headliner that night sang parody songs for 45 minutes, so I looked like a champion, but I haven’t been that bad onstage outside of the first year I did comedy.

In summation, I think Mariah Carey was so ill-prepared, she couldn’t handle the screw-up, so she babbled like an ass and had no clue.  She’s got more money than everyone else in Times Square combined, so I get it – no exactly slugging out the rehearsals, but come on.  Of course, give me a couple million or so and I would probably be 400 pounds and drunk in about a week.  The production team would have to wheel me out on a hospital bed and slap the bourbon bottle from my hand to get me to tell four jokes.  Maybe I don’t blame her after all.

A story that went around the ol’ web post OSU vs. Clemson was an email that some lonely, unloved supposed Buckeye fan sent the Ohio State kicker.  In this email, he said various things, as in hoping the kicker’s scholarship was revoked and he was terrible, more or less.  WELL THAT HELPED, HE JUST MADE THE FIELD GOALS AND OHIO STATE WON.  Oh, that’s right.  The game is over still.  Never mind.

Ignoring the score, which I’ll get to, think on this.  Who knows more, dumb angry fan or coach that is making several million a year?  I’ll bet coach knows who his best kicker is, not blog reading sports fan psycho.   The score?  31-0.  The kicker missed two field goals.  For those who can do math and know 4% about football, YOU STILL WOULD HAVE LOST BY 25 FREAKING POINTS.  I don’t know if Trey Wiesman (the email was sent under this name) comprehends football, but if he made 10 field goals, Ohio State still loses.  Got it, stupid?

Lastly, who emails threats to a kicker?  The same type of pathetic that troll celebrities on Twitter, which is the heir to people who wrote Hank Aaron racist threats when he got close to Babe Ruth’s home run record.  Spineless.  Why don’t you be a real man, and threaten one of the offensive lineman who gave up a sack?  I have a mental image of this guy: haircut out of style, smedium shirt with beer gut, hangs out with four other guys for games that don’t really like him, but he’s been in the group so long they don’t know how to get rid of him, favorite band is a one hit wonder he makes everyone listen to in his car.  No one liked you before the email Trey, and we don’t after either.  By the way, the kicker, in his athletic prime in a college lifting program could still pummel you, not that you have the balls to confront him face to face.