The Friday Five

Five Things To Put On My Resume

5. I don't clean toilets.

4. What would Jesus do? He would hire me.

3. I will wear a tie to the interview but do not expect it everyday. I demand to work in an environment that cherishes tank tops and cut off jeans.

2. I can hang from a stripper pole.

1. I am a great speller and me use grammer correctly!

Ouch

Hossmom got fired.

Bam, there it is. There is the bottleneck. There is the subject that I haven't written about but also the one that I can't get around. Hossmom was given her walking papers.

But to be more PC about it, it actually wasn't a fire. She was layed off along with a whole lot of other people at her advertising company. The reason being is that they lost their big client, they lost thier big Scooner Tuna, the Tuna with a Heart. And when that happened, eventually my wife lost her job.

As you can imagine, for a stay at home dad, this is a problem. This is a very serious problem. I could understand more I think if Hossmom got fired because she sucked. But that wasn't the reason, she's freaking awesome at what she does. She got let go, along with 1/3 of her company, not based on performance but something completely and totally out of her control.

Now our one income? It's down to no income. This is going to seriously affect me.

We knew it was a possiblity when the client left her agency. That was right about the time that I started posting only once a week. Now you know why. It's hard to be funny when you get dick slapped.

But atleast they told her before Christmas, because that's always the best time to tell people that they are going to be let go at the end of the year. It makes the holidays oh so special and upbeat.

Hossmom didn't want me to write this one. And even now, she is a little nervous about what I might say. She was happy with the company and considered many of her superiors professionals and good at thier jobs. She was worried what I, a Texan, might write about this. She thinks that I can't be subtle and it might look bad on her.

So I agreed to shelve the idea but I couldn't get around it. What's the big deal anyway? I wasn't going to go on my blog and call her company a souless pit of dispair that uses people only to piss them away once they've gotten everything out of them. I wasn't going to go on and on about how we moved our whole family away from our own family to take this job. I wasn't going to call them a big bunch of twatwaffle dicksuckers (is that one word?) that have brought ruin to my little domain? I am way more subtle than that.

And besides, I don't blame them really for what happened. I know that it was a business decision. The money that was coming in to employ my wife left. So my wife had to leave. And as much as I am encouraging her, she is absolutely refusing to steal any office supplies.

I sympathize with the company. I know that it cannot be easy to let such a huge portion of quality asskicking staff go. That's got to be a difficult decision to make. And they said so, as they fired them in big groups. They told her that it was a difficult decision and that they feel so terrible about it. That it wasn't easy to cut off the arm that had given them an "iconic" advertising campiagn. Then they went home to thier paid mortgages and food and struggled with the decision even more.

I won't say who the client is that they lost, that wouldn't be cool. And when it comes down to it, it is because the client left that my wife lost her job. The company can only react to what the market does. So even though I feel like the client screwed us big time after all the hard work we put in as a family, I won't mention who they are. I might spit on a carhop though. I'm sure that will make me feel better.

The truly sad part of this whole thing though is that Hossmom will no longer be a part of a company that she really liked. As corporate gigs go, this one was a pretty good one. They gave mother's and father's day presents, they had a beer garden, they threw pretty good holiday parties. And she is going to miss being part of all that. She is going to miss being part of that culture. It was a good setup, both there and at home. They paid my wife and in return, she busted her ass for them.

Having a stay at home dad in the house allowed my wife to work long hours without hesitation. She could take the last minute project or fly to another part of the country without worry. The company got her best and I took care of the home front. It was a good system.

But here's the kicker. Since she got fired, in a sense, so did I. The family needs health insurance. The family needs dinner. So the whole stay at home dad gig might be coming to an end. And I thought I was doing a pretty damn fine job. How many 4 year olds can sing along to David Allen Coe or head bang to Black Sabbath?

The hope is that she will get a job before me and that we can continue this ride we are on. She's interviewing and there are some positive signs. Maybe it will work out, maybe it won't. But I've done my resume. The first one I've had to do in 10 years.

In my professional life, I worked for a single company for a little over 8 years. They kept promoting me and the "resume" was nothing more than a paragraph of why they should promote me. I haven't done a real resume since graduating from college.

So I ask you, the working people of the world, is it still ok to put "ASSKICKER" under qualifications?

Breaking Through the Block

Houston, we have a problem.

I can't write. I'm stuck. I'm shit. I am the proverbial artist that is pounding his head against the piano keyboard trying to jar loose the genus that is stuck between my ears but the only thing that is coming out is blueberry jam. Why blueberry? Because it's my favorite.

From the countless emails and comments I've been getting from friends and family and people I don't even know, this is becoming a problem that is affecting more than just me. People come up to to me and start small conversations but it usually leads to them saying "Man, you are a great speller."

After that, they ask what is going on with the blog. Where is the new stories? Where is my daily chuckle? Surly Little Hoss has wreaked havoc on something while my son continues to refuse to be potty trained. They ask these questions in small little hushed whispers, like they are saying "Look Hoss, I heard you got cancer. I'm sorry. You ok?" Like it's some big secret.

Then we'll talk about it a little more and sooner or later they'll let me know that the stuff I've written recently is worse than not writing anything at all. Again, in hushed whispers. It's tough telling someone that they suck so I sympathize with them and wonder myself what the hell has happened.

But I think I know and I think I'm going to work it out tonight.

I talked to some of my dad friends about this problem because after two months, even I have become concerned and I don't worry about anything. We threw out ideas of how to rectify this, how to overcome this mental road block to the stories that used to flow so easily. There were a lot of suggestions.

One was that I should go and run with the bulls. But I'm fat and slow and I'm sure I would get gored so that was out. Another was that I pay someone to pretend that he's me and make up shit on the spot. I considered that one for a while.

Papa Scrum suggested that I take it slow and small and just do the Friday Five's again. Then he made me do yard work.

But finally, another dad friend had a good idea. He said that a lot of famous old timer writers, that now have furniture collections named after them, would lock themselves away and get plastered. They would drink and force themselves to write until they overcame the great beast and tea bagged him on the chin.

This is an idea I could get behind and this is what I am going to attempt to do tonight.

The problem isn't the stories or the ideas, they are there. There's a ton of them. I keep a little notebook near me so I can write them down. But when I sit to write the stories, they die a horrible unheroic death near the third paragraph. I don't know why, but they do. I stop and look at what I wrote and I laugh. Then I have no idea where to go from there. The beast has stomped my brains to mush. And so the story remains unwritten, the adventure untold and it writhes in pain like a little tadpole without water.

Tonight it ends. Tonight I break through. I have put the kids to bed and have vowed to ignore them for the rest of the night. I don't care if they start a fire, I'm getting this done. Hossmom is setup with total crap chickflick TV, she's good. I threw meat at the dogs and told them to watch the house.

I have a case of Corona and a can of chew. I am going to write all the stories in my notebook even if it takes 12 hours. I am going to meet the beast head on and tell him to suck my balls. These stories are getting out. One way or another, they are coming. They may be crap, they may be awesome. One thing is for sure, there will be tons of misspelled words. Think I can't spell sober? Wait until I get into beer number 6. But they are going to come out, one way or another.

I know the problem. I'm an emotional writer. If something is on my mind, I can't think of anything else and so there is a bottleneck. Until I unclog it, nothing is going to happen.

Tonight I unclog it. At the very least, it should be a fun ride. Well, for me anyway because I'm drinking. This might suck for you guys.

Daddyshome

I have a new post up at Daddy'shome. It's about a stroller. There, that's all the preview that you are going to get. And if it's funny enough, if it makes your Monday a little better, go ahead and feel free to share it on your facebook thingy or whatever you kids are using these days.

The Trap

There's a cheese grader on the floor. It's a bit hard to see underneath the Mt. Vasuvious of stuffed animals but you might catch a glimpse of the shiny metal if you look just right. But of course you have to actually be looking for it. If you're not then you just see the toy salad that my children have made in our daily routine of freaking destroying the house. The walls are still standing, but just barely. The toy salad is topped with the Parmesan of the toy/crap world--puzzle pieces. Or are they the croutons?

This mound lies in the middle of the hallway, right at the bottom of the stairs. To the casual observer this placement may look arbitrary and almost haphazard. The kind of mound that any destructive 4 year old and 3 year old toadie would make. But I know my children so I should have been aware that this was some sort of Vietcong trap. I should have known.

I had to step over the pile for the 100th time, each time asking the minions to please pick your shit up. Each time they said ok then promptly ignored my request. Eventually, I lost my patience and my temper. This was their plan all along. Clever. My children are very clever.

Tired of them ignoring me, I thought that I would give them a show of force. Prove who the alpha dog still in in this beotch. I walked to the pile and kicked it, I kicked it hard. The plan was to send the arms and legs of destroyed toys across the room and smack sickeningly against the opposite wall. Then slowly they would stick and slide down while making a creepy sliding noise. The plan sounded very good in my head.

But I wasn't wearing any shoes. Or socks. Just my bare feet.

The top of my big toe hit directly on the cheese grader. An interesting fact: a cheese grader can also be known as a skin grader, although unless you are a 12th century dungeon master, you would never know it.

I am now missing the top of that toe. I have troll feet already, good for stomping at fires on my front porch and scaring small children that wander underneath any bridges. Now they have the addition of authentic "battle damage". All I'm missing is a spiky club.

What was meant as a show of force had ended up with me staggering around on one leg while trying not to get little drops of blood on the floor, blood that only I would have to freaking clean up. That's what we call in the business of parenting as "adding insult to injury." The stuffed animals didn't even fly that far and I'm also pretty sure that the cheese grader scuffed my hardwood floor to.

The minions either thought I was being funny or they were laughing because they have learned how diabolical they can be.

Well played children. Well played indeed.