fiction

Auto Renew

I hate auto renew just as much as the next guy, and in November word press automatically renews my blog, I keep waiting for the card they have on file to expire but it never does. That being said, I feel obligated to write something every now and again to justify the price I am paying for this blog. There were a number of other titles that were possibilities for this blog based upon what has transpired in my life over the last couple of weeks and the first possibility was Deuce. Last Monday I was multitasking by taking a shit and talking to my brother in law on the phone. My dump ended before the conversation and I chose not to flush. Not sure how my brother in law would have felt knowing I was pooping while talking to him, or if he would have even heard the toilet flush in the background, but not flushing was huge mistake. A number of times I told myself I needed to go up to the master bath and flush but never ended up getting around to it. That night I had dinner at the Chop House with co-workers and when I returned home and had comfortably positioned myself on the couch Shirley yelled down at me to come up and take care of what I had left in the toilet. She went on to tell me she knew it wasn’t the kids because she had asked them. How she knew I was going to blame the kids is likely due to the time I threw our Verizon hotspot at the ground and it hopped up and broke our TV causing the kids to wonder why the cartoons they were watching looked strange. Shirley immediately thought that it had something to do with the kids but I eventually fessed up. Upon my arrival into the master bath the first thing I noticed is that it smelled like the nursery at church, but a little worse, my turd had been marinating all day in the toilet bowl and the first flush did absolutely nothing to it, along with the second flush, the third flush was equally as ineffective as the first two flushes so I grabbed a hanger out of my closet and started poking at it like it was a possum playing dead, eventually dislodging it and flushing it down the toilet.

There is little hope of me having sex on a Monday night, but there was no way that was happening on this particular Monday night, the incident was so traumatic it even killed my insatiable sex drive. I’ve know my wife since 2006, there is little I can say or do that I am embarrassed by in front of her, but it’s somewhat refreshing to know there is still something out there that makes me embarrassed. On that note, her and Aiden share a birthday and it was this past Thursday. Not sure if other husbands go through this, but I imagine a lot of them do, my wife buys whatever she wants as evidenced by the 7 to 13 packages that are delivered to us on a weekly basis. Granted, one or two of the packages are dog food and kitty litter (that arrive monthly) but the other packages are things for her. So, I ended up getting something for me that was also something for her. She has had the same robe for quite some time, it’s about as sexy as the turd I left in the toilet so I ended up upgrading her robe and purchasing a perfume sampler from Alta. The robe isn’t sexy but it is nice and attractive unlike her current robe which screams I am an octogenarian. I knew when purchasing the robe for her that her fist inclination would be to return the robe because she already had a “perfectly” good robe and the one I purchased her was much too expensive (it was an Uggs robe and everything they sell is over priced). However, she didn’t immediately pull the trigger on the return and that made me glad I didn’t do what I did years ago when she was clinging on to some rather unflattering granny panties, just throw it away to get rid of it. She has worn the robe multiple times so I may be able to relocate the other robe to the trash.

The third possible title I toyed with was Party Foul. I invited some of Shirley’s friends and their husbands over for dinner to celebrate her birthday. I made lasagna and a couple of pies for the occasion but also made sure to return the empties in our garage that had been accumulating for at least a month. On my way I picked up Aiden and one of his buddies and Aiden said to his buddy “Russell, you’re about to find out how much my parents drink.” It was a lot of cans, some of which were Dr. Pepper and Coca Cola, but the vast majority were alcohol related beverages. When we arrived at the bottle return there was a line. My kids wanted to just leave the three carts full of cans and hit the road but that seemed like a way to have my worst nightmare come true, being black listed from Meijer. I’m not sure why Michigan still has the archaic bottle return policy, but I’d vote for Whitmer again if it met getting rid of the bottle deposit. While I had set up a party for Shirley for her birthday, I also had to take Aiden and Russel to Craig’s Cruiser’s for his birthday and on my way back home one of the I invitees to the party basically told me, instead of asking, that he was bringing a special guest, because had he asked I would have said no. He brought Tommy and Tommy doesn’t have an off switch, he was coming from the golf course where I knew he had already been over served. Sure enough, he spilled a glass of beer all over my kitchen floor, a thoughtful warning to all of us that he was about to go into full on annoying drunk person mode. I had a campfire going and people began to gravitate back into the house to get away from Tommy, he poured a wine glass to the brim, a move I have never seen, a move that tells everyone I’m here to get fucked up. Had I invited someone similar to Tommy to someone else’s party and showed up with him Shirley would have blow a gasket, but Chuck’s wife didn’t seemed to be bothered by Chuck’s party foul as much as she was bothered by Tommy himself. Eventually Tommy left and my wife, and all the other women at the party, realized it could have been way worse, they could have married Tommy. So in the end, Tommy showing up was actually sort of a good thing.

Get to the Point

In late April or early May my kids began to hound me about going to Cedar Point. I have fond memories of Cedar Point and after having gone there again, have no idea why. After over a month of harassment I finally caved and committed to a date to go and it morphed into an overnight trip where they each took a friend. This worked out because Shirley and I were able to justify our own room, now that my kids are older it’s super weird sleeping in the same room with everyone, which led to some sexy time before our second day in the park. Our plan was to leave around 1 on Tuesday and spend an evening in the park as well as the following day. Prior to leaving I stopped by the river to ski. I stated we would be leaving around 1 because I knew I would want to ski before we left. Aiden texted me around 11:30 informing me he was ready to go. I did not respond. Shirley texted me while I was skiing and I texted her when I was done that I would be home in 5 minutes. Initially, my gut told me to put my suit back on so that they would think I had been working. I didn’t and as I drove down the road right by our house I decided to pull over and put it on because I had to do a Zoom court hearing from the car on the way to Cedar Point. When I arrived home Shirley asked why I put my suit back on since I had just been at the river. I forgot that she can track where I am through the find my friends app, fortunately she rarely does this because she is typically too busy to keep tabs on me, and for the most part she doesn’t really care what I am up to.

The ride to cedar point was fairly uneventful and I was grateful that the Zoom sentencing I had kept me from noticing how Shirley was driving. I typically don’t ride with her so it is terrifying when I do. After my zoom was done I took over and we made it unscathed. That evening Shirley and I rode the gatekeeper, Ragnorok (sp?), and Millennium Force. I felt like I was going to have a stroke on all of them. Shirley and I ate in the park and also had a couple beers, each round for the two of us was roughly $40, seems like they would make a larger profit by lowering the price and having people buy more, with the added benefit of having more drunk people riding roller coasters, what could go wrong? However, the kids were too enveloped in riding as many coasters as possible so they did not eat. On the way out I was reminded that one of the kids (obviously not mine) was Vegan and that we needed to go to Burger King for an impossible burger. I should have made the kid eat some gravel in the parking lot so that we didn’t have to make multiple stops. My kids were insisting on Raising Canes because they think it’s amazing even though it’s just as over rated in my book, as Chick-Fil-A. We managed to talk all the kids into Burger King and then headed back to the hotel. Vegans are like no one else in America, everyone I know devotes most of their consciousness to thinking about food. But when the food you eat sucks, you don’t look forward to it, and you don’t think about it all that often. Probably similar with most women as to why they don’t seem to really be all that in to sex. My wife’s family typically will discuss lunch plans about 3 minutes after breakfast is concluded and after lunch they are typically on to dinner ideas before I can even start my afternoon nap.

Day 2 we were going to go out for pancakes but pancakes apparently aren’t vegan friendly either. Shirley wanted to create this magical memory of going out for pancakes before we went into the park and she also thought that this was going to be some magical family trip. I told her if she had planned on hanging out with the kids for more than five minutes on this trip she shouldn’t have allowed them to invite friends. We opted for McDonalds and the Vegan kid had a hash brown and may have licked some dust off the floor for additional sustenance. All of the kids were given fast passes and they were off. Shirley and I headed to the back of the park to ride steel vengeance only to discover it was temporarily out of commission. We decided to just wait for it to start back up and after an hour and a half our decision paid off. We jumped back in line to ride it again and after that we noticed that the skies looked ominous. The kids were not answering their phones, turns out their phones were in lockers as they waited to ride top thrill dragster 2. Shirley ended up going into the top thrill line to retrieve them just before the flood gates opened so we left the park to get lunch. Jersey Mikes was thought to be a suitable vegan option since they have a sub that is called a vegan sub but it was a no go. So, realizing there was a chipotle across the street after Shirley and I had put our orders in, Shirley did a mobile order for the vegan kid. Our kids ended up getting Raising Kanes right before we headed back to the park. The kids lucked out and rode Top Thrill 2 twice along with a few other rides. Shirley was on the fence about TT2 but I talked her into it and we went to get in line only to discover that the ride, and all other rides, were closed due to weather. Apparently, if there is a lightning strike within five miles they shut everything down and keep it closed for a half hour and if there is another strike the clock starts all over.

As we were leaving the park there was a set up similar to the 3 point contest in the all star game. It was $12 to try and get in the record books (high score according to the guy was 18 out of a possible 20). I envisioned myself getting at least 19 but didn’t account for the jankity rim, shitty balls, and pressure of the 6 spectators watching me (my wife, two kids, their friends, and the guy running the game). I hit a couple corner 3’s to start only to score 5 points. A crew of guys rolled up after I got done with my first round and they easily could have had some type of affiliation with OPEC, one of them, wearing an Aaron Donald jersey, managed to hit the back board on corner 3’s not once, but twice, I wanted to say to the guy, it’s not as easy as I make it look, but I kept my mouth shut and was going to let my next round speak for itself, but my next round was equally as abysmal as my first, and I notched another 5 points. I was tempted to go for round 3, but the Hollander in me didn’t want to blow another $12 so instead, I used that and more to hit the Dairy Queen outside of the park on our way back to Michigan.

Saturday Night Special

Brendon and George put their house up for sale early this winter. They live in our neighborhood, and although we are not particularly close with them, or any of our other neighbors, we were tasked with hosting their going away party once their house sold after months of sitting on the market. Shirley volunteered for the job and informed me while we were in Puerto Rico on spring break while I had my guard down. I didn’t put up a fight, even though I should have, and the party was on.

Brendon and George were married sometime ago and live adjacent to a lesbian couple. Brendon use to water his flowers in the nude. This was problematic for a number of reasons and led to a confrontation between him and one of our elderly neighbors named Jack who ended up calling Brendon a cock sucker. I’m still trying to figure out why this upset Brendon and George so much. Regardless, Jack was not on the invite list and the attendees were comprised of the lesbian couple, Carrie, who broke up with her long time boyfriend Bill and was forced to move out of our neighborhood as a result, along with Maggie and her daughter. To say I was dreading the party was an understatement, small talk, sign me up for that! People I don’t know at my house, sign me up for that! Max was excited, but mainly because he loves Maggie, who to her credit is attractive. How do I know our dog Max likes Maggie, because the red rocket comes out when Maggie is around, Max has a hump pillow and it doesn’t come out when he’s humping his pillow, but it does when Maggie appears.

To start the night I grabbed a high octane beer and then volunteered to bring Parker to his friend’s house so I could minimize my time at the party. After dropping Parker off I stopped at a party store and grabbed a tall boy of Jack Daniel’s punch and drove around for a while so I could consume it prior to returning to the party. Aiden was still at home, a casualty of not being as popular as Parker. He primarily stayed in his room to masturbate, but did come down for some food. When Aiden isn’t jerking off or staring at his phone, he has been working out at the Y in Caledonia. Even though he eats ice cream every night, tons of candy, and lots of chips, he doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him and is getting pretty toned. When he came down he attracted Brednon’s attention. Brendon began flirting with him which was quite off putting. (Shirley noticed it as well, it wasn’t my imagination) Brendon has a number of boyfriends and his older by 15 years husband George acknowledged at the party that he has to accept Brendon bringing another man into their relationship. As I was grabbing some food I heard George discussing the Jack incident with someone but had not had enough to drink at that point to come to Jack’s defense. Based on what George had revealed and the way that Brendon was eyeballing my son, I think some of Jack’s distrust in Brendon and George was warranted.

Jen and Peg are the lesbians who live adjacent to George and Brendon (I’m not making this up) or should I say use to live next to them. George and Brendon sold their house to a poly family, I had no idea what that meant, but now I do. It’s even more fucked up than being married to a dude and bringing another dude into the relationship. The reason I think it took Brendon and George so long to sell their house is that they were looking for a buyer that would really tell the neighborhood “FUCK YOU” and they found one. While I overheard a lot of stuff at the party, the fact that Jen and Pegg didn’t talk to Brendon and George for the first four years they lived next door was probably the most remarkable. I wanted to ask them, “how were you able to do that? That’s what I want to do, never talk to anyone I live near”. I have a general look of fuck off most of the time, but the fact that my wife thinks she is Miss Congeniality counters all the work I put in at being an asshole. But when you have two people who are together and they both give the fuck off vibe, it is how you don’t talk to your neighbors for 4 years. (wearing a lot of flannel and denim also must help). I’m still not sure which one is Jen and which is Peg, but one of them is so meticulous that they bought a separate mower to mow the property line because Brendon and George don’t give a shit about their lawn and don’t have it treated for weeds. They feared that if they used their zero turn on the property line it would infect their lawn. (Not sure if they did anything to prevent the spread of AIDS across the property line)

As the party was going on I put my drinking into high gear. This happens less frequently now that I am old, but I was on a mission. Brendon and George invited a couple to the party that we had never met and so I steered clear of them and talked to Jen/Peg quite a bit. I also talked to Carrie a decent amount but stayed away from Maggie for the most part so my red rocket wouldn’t come out. Eventually Brendon and George left along with the couple they had invited and Maggie had called it a night long before that, deeply saddening Max. I was in full black out mode at this point of the night and remember just bits and pieces, one of the things I remember was going upstairs. Veteran move by Shirley to stay downstairs and hope I would pass out. Unfortunately, I didn’t and according to her, I came down and demanded that she come upstairs so we could have sex. In my compromised state I was expecting that she would comply with such a reasonable request and make our guests leave, what wife wouldn’t want to have sex with their over served husband? I think there is something in the old testament about wives having to do that no matter how many guests you have to kick out of your house. The next day I felt what I always feel when Steve appears, anxiety and regret. Steve is my alter ego, when I begin dancing, get ready for Steve. The crazy thing about Steve is he is a fun loving guy who likes everyone. However, once Steve crosses a certain line everyone roots for Steve to go unconscious, which frequently happens. Should there be an apology to Carrie, Peg, and Jen? Probably, but Dutch people, especially this Dutch person, like to bury things deep, real deep, and not discuss them. By apologizing I would be acknowledging that there was something wrong. The good news is that Peg and Jen seemed to be fine with no apology, because since that Saturday they act like it’s business as usual, a cursory wave and that’s about it. I love my neighborhood.