This summer the Jansma family went to Colorado in August for a family vacation. We stayed outside of Breckendridge in a glorified mobile home park. The “trailer” we were in was ok but not conducive to business time. Our last night of the trip we stayed in downtown Denver because we were flying out the next morning. There had been some talk of getting a second dog, although I was fundamentally opposed to the idea. We hit dinner and on our way back I convinced Shirley we should send the kids down to the hotel pool by themselves, surprisingly she was luke warm about the idea. However, the kids were unwilling to go down to the pool until I said we can get a second dog if they agreed to give us a little bit of private time, which Shirley assured them would only take a little bit of time, she further explained that men want sex and women try to avoid it the best they can. When we got back home we scoured the Humane Society website and found Pretzel. Pretzel is a terrible name for anything, but especially a dog, I managed to look past the name and set up an appointment to get the ball rolling on adopting Pretzel. When I got there they put me in a room and made me sit there for a while by myself. I think they may have been observing me while I was all by my lonesome to see if I passed the first test. Eventually a women came in and started grilling me with all kinds of questions, as if I was trying to get approved to adopt an actual human being not some inbred mutt that looked like Sid from Ice Age (he looks like Sid from Ice Age). Finally they gave me the green light to go out and meet him as if an improper meet up with an inappropriate human being would be a scarring experience for Pretzel. Pretzel lived with 114 other dogs and his owner shot him with BB’s and pellets, so I’m pretty sure I could have kicked him in the balls and he would have thought it was a sign of affection.

Pretzel became Murphy, but he actually is more of a Murray, if anyone has watched flight of the concords (sneaky good) he totally reminds me of Murray from that show. This past Saturday Shirley and the kids went up to Fremont so I invited a couple buddies to watch the Michigan game at my house. I had to run out to get some stuff for the game and when I returned home I was greeted by the smell of dog shit, either that or our sewer had backed up, it was dog shit, and the worst kind, the runny kind. Murphy shit on one of our rugs. I cleaned it up but couldn’t find any candles to mascaraed the smell of dog shit so I had to spray bath and body work body spray, that I found in the kid’s bathroom, all over the house as a form of air freshener. Nothing quit like the smell of runny dog shit mixed with body spray, it makes you feel alive and like you are at some fucked up place that is a hybrid of the nursery at church and the mall. My buddies came over and one of them warned me that it looked like Murphy was getting ready to squirt, but it was too late and he left me a couple piles of pudding under our kitchen table. Eventually he made his way up to our room and left two puddles of shit on our bedroom carpet. The good news is that he lost his appetite, the bad news is it didn’t stop him from puking all over our house for the remainder of the night.

Having a teenager and a ten year old boy in the house led us to believe that they would be up for the task of taking care of an additional dog. Not sure why we thought that since they could give two shits about our original dog Max. They come home from school and do everything in their power to ignore our dogs. The weird thing is that they both feel the need to take a shower every night even though they do absolutely nothing but play on their devices. Aiden takes particularly long showers (he’s the 13 year old) and looking back I know exactly what the purpose of a long shower would be. Apparently Parker also knows, I was downstairs watching Tv and could hear Parker saying to Aiden “why are you masturbating in there Aiden?” “Quit masturbating in there Aiden!” It warmed my heart. When Aiden got out of the shower he told Parker he wasn’t old enough to masturbate. If there was an age limit on masturbating, I paid it no heed when I was growing up. On a trip out with the kids a day or two later I asked Aiden what he meant by not being old enough and told him that he probably was if he really put his mind to it. That led to the kids asking me if I masturbated, my response was that everyone does which led to them saying “even your mom?” Their grandma has been dead for two plus years and it was gross to think about, and even though I should have said “no but your mom does” I didn’t. The funny thing is, Parker was in Shirley’s nightstand for some reason and pulled out her vibrator, I give her credit, she was quick on her feet and played it off like it was a back massager, and rubbed his back with it (yuck). I definitely don’t want my kids growing up with the burden me and my friends did, we all jerked off like we were getting castrated on our next birthday, but were too ashamed to let on that we did. The needless guilt, oh the needless guilt. There are enough things to feel bad about, jerking off shouldn’t be one of them.

Last Thursday I had to be in Allegan for court at 8:45 in the morning so I told my kids I could take them into school. Normally they take the bus and have to be at the bus stop by 6:25 which means Aiden has to awake at 5:45 so he can spend 15 minutes taking a shit (while on his phone). I do believe that most of that time is spent shitting and scrolling his phone, where as I take 45 seconds to shit but still spend no less than five minutes perusing the internet on my phone with my pants around my ankles and my butt cheeks firmly seated on the can. Aiden claimed the night before that he still wanted to ride the bus because that got him to school early enough to hang out with his friends, but when his alarm went off at 5:45 and I told him I could take him in he immediately said he wanted me to take him in to school. Hanging out with friends is over rated, especially when you can get an extra 45 minutes of sleep. There is a sweet spot that is rarely hit when dropping the kids off at their respective schools. One of the problems is that all of the schools in Caledonia are on the same street except one, the same two lane street with no traffic signals and only once entrance and exit point per school. However, Aiden’s school is the exception and is up the road so I dropped him off first. His school never has much of a line and he was easy to drop off and get out of the parking lot. Parker’s school is much more problematic but I managed to get him dropped off and exited with little to no hassle.

Upon entrance to the driveway into Parker’s school I could feel a shit brewing, which I looked over to Parker and said “I have to take a shit”. That tidbit of information probably had no impact on his day, but it needed to be said. I had various options as far as routes to take to get to Allegan, and the smartest and safest bet for purposes of dropping a deuce was to go straight down 100th street to the J&H family store which I knew by experience had 5 star restrooms. However, for some unknown reason I went the rural route and ended up at the J&H family store on 144th street just outside of Dorr. The restrooms there were the equivalent of a Motel 6. I waddled into the gas station with my cheeks tightly clenched and when I looked under the sole stall in the restroom I discovered work boots, and knew that shitting my pants was a likely possibility. First of all, you never want to be the encore performer in a stall previously occupied by someone sporting work boots, secondly, the clock was ticking and my sphincter was within seconds of giving out on me. I decided it was time to give into the latest fad of identifying withe the gender that you aren’t and I headed into the women’s restroom. I quickly locked the door and took care of my business, this wasn’t going to be a scenario where I browsed my phone, it was going to be an in and out. However, mid dump there was a light knock on the door. After wiping and washing my hands I hastily exited the women’s restroom with my head down and hurried out of the gas station, crisis avoided.

I have probably mentioned this in prior blogs, but Aiden and Shirley were born on the same date, November 13 and this past weekend we went up to the Soaring Eagle water park to celebrate, Aiden took two friends and Parker took one. Mount Pleasant may be one of the most depressing towns in Michigan, which is saying quite a bit since we also claim Flint, Saginaw, Battle Creek, and Benton Harbor, just to name a few towns that probably have a higher suicide rate than the national average. The main three industries up there seem to be party stores, cannabis shops, and car washes. I get alcohol and weed but don’t understand the unusual number of carwashes per capita up there. Normally I would have dreaded a waterpark but I knew my kids were old enough that I would not have to get in the water and possibly could avoid entering the water park all together. For the most part that was accurate, I went into the water park twice, once on Saturday to let Shirley know I was heading out to get Starbucks and on Sunday to tell the kids it was time to leave. I also knew that there was a good chance there would be some sexy time since we had two rooms, however, when we arrived Shirley informed me that Parker and his friend were going to be sleeping in our room.

I ended up hanging out in the room and watching football while the kids were in the waterpark and they spent a significant amount of time, to my surprise, in the waterpark. Initially, we made reservations for two lanes at the local bowling alley (I brought my own shoes and ball, that’s what a pro does) for 7pm but pushed them back for 8 because the kids were having so much fun in the waterpark. We made our way to the bowling alley and ended up eating there instead of going out. Bowling was fairly uneventful, but we did have to stop at a gas station to grab waters for the room and for a couple kids to take a piss. You know you are in shitsville when they give you a key to the restroom and tell you it is on the exterior of the building. When Shirley was done chaperoning the kids who had to piss she ordered me to drive near the gas station so I could get a peek at the gas station attendant. It was obviously a guy, but he had Ginger on his name tag, even though he looked like Meatloaf, he also had acrylic nails according to Shirley, regardless he was doing a half ass job of becoming a women, but I’m sure that’s fine if you reside in Mount Pleasant. When we got back to the hotel the kids went over to the other room and Shirley indicated that we could fornicate because she discovered how to bar the door even though she gave Parker a key. We went for it and wouldn’t you know it, Parker tried to barge in because the hot Cheetos were in our room. Everything still managed to work out and the trip was a success.

Prior to heading up to Mount Pleasant I stopped at Meijer to pick up some additional supplies for the trip. The U scan by the groceries had an insurmountable line so I went to the other side of the store only to find a lady in a mask, older, and even more feeble (if that’s possible) than Joe Biden, attempting to navigate a Uscan. She needed assistance 3 times and when it came to actually completing the transaction she just stood there while the credit card was processing (surprised she didn’t try to write a check) instead of loading her groceries up as the transaction took place. When the coupons spit out at the top of the machine she appeared to be completely flummoxed. She needed her receipt, no shopping trip is complete unless you get your receipt, eventually she figured out the receipt comes out at the bottom, but at least 12 people who had entered the U-scan after her had completed their transaction before she headed for the exit. Why do they allow old people to do anything? especially use the U-scan. They need to have one U-scan away from everything and if you are 65 or older, you have to use that U-scan, no attendant either, because if one person was tasked with monitoring that U-scan they would likely blow their fucking brains out. Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber was wrong, Old people while slow and deadly behind the while, can’t serve a purpose.