Exes Ruin Everything

I hate exes. I don't hate all of mine. I'm actually still friends with a couple of them. I don't hate all of my wife's either. One of them helped me once when my car broke down and I needed someone with a truck and trailer to haul it to a garage to get it repaired.

When I say I hate exes I mean I hate the ones who ruin all the good things you once enjoyed in your own life for your significant other.

I've always been a fan of music. My taste in music is rather eclectic, but for the purpose of this we're going to focus on only a couple of bands and songs they performed:

Steve Miller Band - Fly Like an Eagle
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Higher Ground

I like those songs. I can't listen to them when my wife is around. Why?

An ex of my wife loved Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. He would watch the movie and TV show regularly.

By regularly I mean every single mother effin' day of this man's miserable existence.

WHO DOES THIS!?!

When I first met my wife and realized I was attracted to her I asked her if she had a history of mental instability. This isn't a joke; I actually asked her this. See, the last 3 girls I dated before her were, in order, 1) bi-polar with border line personality, 2) clinically depressive, and 3) bi-polar with clinically depressive. I'm not passing an arm chair diagnosis here - they were under the care of a state licensed psychiatrist.

Apparently I like fix-er-up projects.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with those needing mental health care. It's just that "mental instability requiring pharmaceutics" is a box I want don't need to see checked when I was accepting applicants for a significant other.

How about you? What have your significant other's exes ruined for you?

All My Stuff

George Carlin talked about stuff, and how we leave our house to go out and get more stuff. We then figure out we have too much stuff that we need a bigger place for our stuff.

My family is doing this backwards.

Years ago we moved from a large two story, six bedroom house into a 3 bedroom single level apartment. This required a lot of our stuff to be placed into storage. Luckily my father-in-law had some extra room in one of his garages and he built a 10x10 area for storage for us. We still had to rent a storage unit near where we lived for things like holiday decorations, seasonal clothing storage, and those types of things.

We later moved from that apartment into a smaller 2 bedroom house that was back in the town we wanted to live in. There was a garage that came with that house so a lot of our things ended up going into the garage, including the things from the rented storage unit.

We're moving again. This time we're renting two rooms from my in-laws; one of them for our kids, the other for us. We have had to, yet again, condense things down to the bare essentials. Clothes, beds, computers. The rest is being packed up to be placed into storage.

But it isn't going into the 10x10 storage unit that is already here with some of our stuff in it. It's being placed in a rented building which was formerly a bank about 8 miles away.

I now have things spread across a 10 mile radius in 3 different locations. And these are just the major things.

I have inheritable items at my grandma's and parent's homes. Desks, tables, and other assorted items are located 200 miles away from me.

Did I mention we're looking at moving AGAIN in about 6 to 8 months so that I can attend graduate school. This is on the condition I am offered a position, of course, but still...the looming task of repacking the things which we just packed and unpacked to move here is daunting. I hate the thought of it.

Right now it is almost worth however much it would cost to hire a moving company to come in to pack up all my shit, load it onto the truck, drive it down state, and unload the truck and move things into the apartment.

But the worst thing about all of this is that I don't know where anything is at anymore. Actually, I take that back. I know where just about everything is at. I've cataloged it all in my mind. I might not be able to lead you to the exact location in the unit, but I know which unit it is stored in.

Old pictures? 10x10. Sewing material? Old bank. Easter baskets? Old house.

The need for compartmentalization is key, otherwise it would be a tiring chore keeping track of the most unimportant items for all 4 people in our family.

Now that you've served as my therapist and I've unloaded all of this onto you - tell me about your moving nightmares. Do you have things scattered all across the state? Country? Globe?

...did I mention that I also have stuff that my best friend couldn't take with him when he moved to Germany? 12 years ago.

It's Not Like I Haven't Tried

My daughter is growing up. She turned 6 just a few months ago. I don't feel 6 years older, but it is obvious that time has passed and she is growing up.

She was my little girl until she started liking Miley Cyrus. Well, to be fair, she like Hannah Montana - but you say tomato, I say tomato. Wow...that phrase just doesn't have the same effect when it's in the written word.

Anyhow, M graduated from watching Nick Jr. to The Disney Channel a short time ago. This was a rite of passage that she initiated on her own. It was so much easier when I could turn the T.V. on for an hour in the morning, enjoy some coffee, check some emails, and know that Nickelodeon would not air something I wouldn't want M to see. Disney, on the other hand, isn't always appropriate for a 6 year old.



 A father doesn't mind (so much) their daughters emulating the image on the left. The image on the right, however...well, not unless you've always dreamed of your daughter posing with ducklips and looking like a whore.

I don't want my daughter to be a whore.

My standard reply to most things is "Not until you're 16." My wife says that's what her parents always told her when she was younger. Makeup, certain clothing, dating...all waited until she was 16. Who are we kidding - no it didn't. She would wear baggy sweatshirts in August weather to cover the tiny tank top underneath. 

My wife and I have exchanged stories of the things we did when we were younger. Through this sharing of information we hope that we have an adequate amount of counter-intelligence which we can use against our children. We also have an intricate network of spies planted throughout the city whose sole duty is to observe and report.

It's soon to be 14 years that our son has been on this earth. If we didn't catch him in the act of misbehaving, we found out about it shortly after it happened. More than once we've heard "How did you know?!"

Because, my dear boy, as hard as it is to believe, we were once your age too. We've either already tried it, thought of it, or came up with a better version than you.

So, because of all of this, I have come to the conclusion that M is simply going to be locked in the basement until the age of 23. This should prevent many duck-lip, parent shaming pictures from being taken 

Getting Back At It

Not that I have a great number of followers on Facebook, but the ones who have been around longer know a little about my wife's medical problems that we've been facing as of late. The outpouring of support and kind words by people who have only just began following be has been wonderful and a pleasant surprise. So, for that, I thank all of you.

I have a couple of things in the plans to write about, but today we've just finished a stretch of doctor appointments. Tomorrow is more of the same. This weekend I have to finish packing and moving things into storage. Next week things should slow down and I can begin posting more of my misanthropic adventures.

Again, thank you to all of those who emailed me, posted on Facebook, and texted me to let me know that me and my family were in your thoughts and prayers.

-TMF-