Spiders

I post the following story strictly because I know that it will freak out Hossmom. We live in Dallas and she hates spiders although hate may be to polite a word for how she truly feels about them.

"In August, entomologists found a spider web in a state park about 45 miles east of Dallas, covering trees, shrubs and the ground along a 200-yard stretch. The originally white web had turned brownish because "millions" of mosquitoes had been trapped in it. [Dallas Morning News-AP, 8-30-07]"

My Birthday

I have a Christmas birthday. You may think this sucks and you will want to pity me.

Good, you should because it does suck and I will gladly take your pity.

I mean, come on, how am I supposed to compete with Jesus. Sure, I think that I can be a pretty great guy most times but the last miracle that I performed was getting Little Hoss to cram one more green bean down her piehole. And it’s not like I just snapped my fingers to do that either, I had to work at my miracle. It was done with full on chants of “just one more, just one more, just one more” as I twirled the green bean in front of her mouth like a magic wand. I find it amazing that when it comes to dog food, that little trap of hers can open up and chomp down like a croc. But when it comes to dinner time it’s like she is reminding me that I have forgotten to get her a tetanus shot and this lock jaw is the result. Good times.

It’s hard to say if my birthday has always been overshadowed and I don’t want you to take this blog as me whining, even though I fully acknowledge that I am. I’m just trying to tell you where I’m coming from. As a kid my mom went to great lengths to celebrate my birthday. For my parties, we usually had them on Dec 1 so that the kids would come to my party. Otherwise no one would come during the Christmas breaks. I would just be that sad little kid with the cake and a hat and the mandatory present from my parents. Umm, pity, umm, soak it in buddy.

Around the age of 13 is when I realized that my birthday could no longer compete. I was no longer kid cute and slumber parties for teenage boys are usually a bad idea. Shit gets broken and someone somewhere is going to find some inappropriate porn. It got to the point that I made my own balloons for myself and woke up and sang my own song.

My mother has always tried though but even after a while you have to ask, What’s the point? Just give me my birthday presents with my Christmas presents and we’ll call it a day. Not only do I have a Christmas birthday but I have the unfortunate placing of having my birthday between Christmas and New Years. So as an adult I can’t even go out and get plastered because everyone knows that the good parties are just a couple of days away.

You would think that these moments would be enough to shape me and they were but they weren’t the worst. The worst is thanks to Evil Queen Kate, good bless her evil ways.

In college I still held onto the hope that my birthday was important and special and that at least someone outside of my mother would remember and make it special. I should also point out that my first couple of years of college I was a very pathetic duddard. I have no problem admitting that. I wasn’t a nerd, I wasn’t cool, women didn’t want me, men didn’t want me, the next door neighbors dog wouldn’t even want me. But on my birthday I held out the hope that maybe this year it would be great.
The evil queen promised it would be great and followed up by some sex. I love sex. It’s great. In fact, it’s fantastic and I couldn’t think of anything I would want more especially since the queen had been holding out on me. I didn’t know why but it would appear at the time that she was busy getting penicillin shots due to her midnight rendezvous with homeless people.

So over Christmas break I make sure that I have no plans on my birthday, which wasn’t hard for the stated reasons above. The queen said she would call, we’d go out and then rent a hotel room for freaky action. I’m in.

I get up and decide to start a tradition. On my birthday, I buy myself a present. This is not as pathetic as it sounds. Ok, it is but I still don’t care because I shop great for myself. I see a movie by myself to kill time and come home and wait for the call.

I wait, wait, wait, play some monopoly by myself, check the dog for fleas, eat some dinner and wait. I wait for something that never comes. She never calls. There were no messages. There were no “I’m sorry I missed you” on the answering machine. There wasn’t even a freaking card that came in the mail from her to say “sorry you are such a chump, have a coke.” Nothing.

I wasn’t furious because pathetic guys don’t get furious. We just wallow deeper in our crapulence. Hello my good friend, do you mind if I spend the night with you one more time as the evil queen does this yet again to us? This is what I had been reduced to. I even called her, very bad idea. 20 phone calls and no answers. Pathetic and creepy, is there any better combination??

The night ended with me getting extremely drunk which would basically continue for several months in which I failed a class called The Care and Management of Companion Animals. The final was an open book test and I still failed the class. It would appear not going to class was a very bad idea.

Christmas break is about over and I finally get a call from the evil queen. She wants me to ride back to college with her because she is afraid to go on road trips by herself.

I inquire as to why I have not heard from her and perhaps she would like to explain why on my birthday I was drinking gallons of scotch.

“Oh yea, I forgot about that. I went to a club with someone.”

Really I say. With who?

“A guy she met a couple of days ago.” “He’s in a show and asked me to come so I went.”

What kind of show?

“Well” she says “It was a show of drag queens and he’s in it.”

That thud that you may hear is the last shred of my dignity and confidence falling through the floor and being sucked in by the evil queen overlord of the 9th circle.

So just so I get this straight, I got stood up for a drag queen that she just met before coming home. Jesus, at least lie to me. Tell me something that wouldn’t make me not only question our relationship (ha!) but also my manhood. In one shrewd move she was able to castrate me and make me look like even more of a pathetic ass. Honestly, you gotta respect that kind of ingenuity. And to make it even better, being the doormat that I was, I still took her back to college. I pretty much decided that then and there that I would no longer count on anyone to celebrate my birthday with anyone else, ever. Fuck em.

And I did this for quite a while. But what I see now was that this was necessary for me to go through because it made me the spineless blob that Hossmom would one day find passed out in tighty whities on my dorm room bed. For some reason she thought that I had hit rock bottom enough that I could be rebuilt in her image, which she did. And it gets better because Hossmom has never forgotten my birthday, not once, and has always made a big deal out of it. It kinda makes you appreciate her even more.

On my birthdays now though I always count on one person to be there more than anyone else. Little Hoss hasn’t let me down yet and I doubt she ever will.

Moment #3: I am a Rock God

For moment #3, let’s again go back into my distant past.

Picture it: Senior in High school. I had hair and a letter jacket—hands down the best combo to picking up chicks that age short of being a misunderstood 21 year old rebel that could buy beer.

I was cocky beyond belief but did not know it yet. If I had a rock band, which I didn’t, I’m sure I would have described myself as a rock god because I have always wanted to be described as a rock god. I wouldn’t describe myself as popular by any means. But I wasn’t unpopular. In truth, I don’t know what I was because my entire world was consumed with playing High School football.

You’ve got to understand high school football in the state of Texas to understand my mindset. We were coddled and worshiped like you wouldn’t believe and I wasn’t even any kind of prospect. I would say that I was decent but not a player that college scouts were waiting to see play. But it didn’t matter because in the state of Texas, if you are on the Varsity football team, you are loved without question.

I was assigned a little hottie who’s major job each week was to make me cookies and other assorted goodies. People knew who you were around our town. People that you had never even seen would know you. Before each game hundreds of people would surround you and cheer you as you came out of the locker room. And on Fridays, sweet Fridays, we were allowed to skip glass for the entire morning after the pep rally so that the local church could get the privilege, yes privilege!, of cooking us a 20 course breakfast. And all this was school sponsored and encouraged.

In short, the hero worship was disgusting but good lord do I still miss it sometimes. At least I’m honest.

I took it all for granted because I was 17 and did not realize how good that I had it. Pretty much all I cared about was playing football. I devoted my entire year to it. I dropped out of other sports, I worked out year round. I ignored just about everything else. I had 2 friends ( they didn’t play football) that I hung out with and that was about it. I don’t think I was a snob or even a “jock”, I was just unattached to the other people. Fuck it, sure, I was an ass.

Everyone though wants popularity in High school and I suppose I was no different. As a peon freshman I dreamed that one day the entire school would want to be me, to know me, to touch me in the bathing suit zones. Who wants to be my friend, the line starts to the right. That was the dream.

As a senior, I was as close as I ever was going to be to being that person. All I needed was that final recognition, that final acknowledgment of my greatness that would be shattered so soon the moment you step on a college campus and realize that you are nothing but shit.

I got the chance when in the middle of the year I was asked to speak at a pep rally. I’m sure you have seen this in countless movies. The football player gets up to the microphone while the band plays kick ass drums. You hold your hands up as if to say People, I am hither, flock to me!!

This was my moment. This was the time where I would finally get to be that guy that everyone loved and wanted to be. Women would not only throw their panties at me, they would bring their mother’s panties to throw as well. Rock God, here I come.

The appointed day comes and we I slip on my letter jacket even though it is close to 90 degrees outside, as is our custom among dipshit high schoolers. We line up just outside the gym and the doors fling open. The light blazes on us as we enter, boy gods. The crowd is screaming, the band is playing those kick ass drums that celebrate our greatness as we strut to our places of glory in the middle of the floor.

Our school had about 2000 people. Of course not all of them attended the pep rally because I am assuming they could not bear the sight of such magnificence in person but it was a good turn out none the less. We take our seats and the crowd is still screaming in ectasy. These are my people, these are my subjects. Please ladies, hold the panties until I speak.

The principle and the football coach gave their speeches which I knew were just a warm up to the onslaught of school spirit that I was about to spew fourth. Yes, little ones, get yourselves into a frenzy for the Hossman!

Finally our moment came and I and 3 others strolled to the microphone. I spoke first, best to start out with something strong so as to keep the people entertained.

This is what I came up with: “We’ve worked real hard to bring in a win. Come out and support us. Keller High School football rules!”

That’s all I had. It’s one of the major disappointments in my life that with all my quick thinking that that was the best I came up with. Christ, it’s straight from a cereal box. But I couldn’t help it because as soon as I got up there the crowd just looked so massive, so huge. The Rock God in me had not realized that public speaking could be such an issue. For some reason I thought that maybe I would have something meaningful to say, something on the same level as say Chaucer. If Braveheart had come out by that time, I would have given the Mel Gibson speech. That would have been cool. But nope, I came up with the cliché speech and couldn’t say another thing as the crowd waited. And waited. And waited.

But then I passed the mike off to one of the lesser Rock Gods as is to signify that I was to good to say anything else. The crowd erupted, they were satisfied with the speech and in hindsight I don’t think they expected anything else. The rest gave their speeches, pretty much saying the same thing.

We were done with them and started the required strut back to our places of honor. I was looking at the floor, trying to relish the moment and realizing that I was an idiot and in way over my head with the whole Rock God thing. I was immersed in my own thoughts.

That is probably why I didn’t see the cheerleader doing the back handsprings right towards me. And it’s also probably the reason why I didn’t slow my speed down or at least avert my path so that I wouldn’t collide with her. I just kept on walking straight while she wind milled towards me.

I didn’t even realize what happened until it was to late. It would appear, if newspaper reports are accurate, that the cheerleader’s foot kicked me in the side of the head on one of her final handsprings. The result being that she lost all kinds of balance and went uncontrolled 30 feet into the air with arms and legs flailing about like she was a rag doll. I’m also assuming that there was a big thud when she hit the ground, but again, I have blacked all this out so that I cannot be sure.

My moment, my time to shine, and I bull over a cheerleader in front of 1000 people. There was a collective moan from the crowd and then a hush as people were seeing if she was hurt. I would have no idea if she was because I didn’t even bother to go check on her as I just fast walked back to my seat to hide. I left her lying on the ground, agreed—not very Hoss.

I have no idea if she was ok or not because I have never asked and rarely speak of that moment in my life now. 20 minutes later the whole school knew about it and knew who had did it. Even my mom heard about it for Christ’s sake. My moment has now become a nightmare but one that I have used since that time.

Because now I am no longer afraid to speak in front of crowds. I relish the opportunity because I pretty much know that it can never be that bad again. All I have to do now after I speak in front of crowds is to keep my eyes out for cheerleaders doing back handsprings.

I will once again have the opportunity to have my Rock God moment and when it comes, I will watch where I am going.

Moment #2: The Bottles and Being a Grown Up

Empty bottles. Thousands and thousands of empty bottles.

And not the cool type of bottles. Not the bottles that tell everyone that visits your home that you just had a kick ass party and that the assorted stank bottles are evidence of your greatness. None of these bottles contain the worm. Not the type of bottles that contain some herbal supplement because you are a believer in alternative therapy—at least then you would have something to talk about even if you are a nut job.

My bottles are baby bottles. And there seems to be thousands of them staring up at me from the sink. Smug little bastards, that’s all they are.

It wouldn’t be so bad maybe if there were only bottles in my dirty sink. You may not know this, but bottles come with accessories like some Machiavellian Hillfiger designed these fucking things. Each bottle comes with a nipple that is entirely separate. And each bottle comes with a cap that attaches the nipple to the bottle itself. They all have to be washed, every single piece of crap that comes with the bottle has to be washed.

Why don’t you just put them in the dishwasher you may be saying? Blow me, that’s my reply because you have no idea. Babies eat all. The. Freaking. Time. And if you supplement on occasion, like my wife and I do, that means that you have enough bottles that if they were currency you would be loaded. I want to move to that land and hire someone to wash my bottles.

When we first started using bottles we thought we were going to be those responsible uber parents. We were going to sterilize everything, all the time! We would boil everything, every time! I had a big pot! We had a stove! Nothing would stand in our way!

Except for the massive amount of bottles that you use.

We quickly abandoned this idea when we realized that we would have to be constantly sterilizing, by the hour rather than by the week. If I was an army sergeant, I would force those on KP to wash bottles rather than peel potatoes.

Now I will freely admit that I have never been the cleanest person around. In fact, I’m sure that some of my friends will tell you horrible stories about disgusting things that may or may not include a glass of milk being under my bed for a year before being thrown away. They lie, just keep that in mind. But other than that, sure, I don’t like to clean. I pity those that do like to clean. Seriously man, that’s all you got? Go outside and look up, that’s called the sun. Get to enjoy it a little.

I even hired a maid to make up for my lazy ways. It’s win, win. She gets to clean my house and go through my underwear drawer and I get to lay around, how could you not love that?

Every parent has taken that parent short cut from time to time. It’s nothing to be ashamed about. I’m sure that every parent has let their child have cake for dinner rather than just fight it out. Or I’m sure that every parent has decided fuck it, let the kid run around naked instead of fighting to get them dressed. If you haven’t then it’s obvious that you don’t have kids and you make me jealous because that also means you don’t have bottles.

So soon after we discovered that we would need a hospital sized sterilizing machine we decided to just wash the bottles by hand because they would accrue so fast that there is no way you could run the dishwasher 4 times a day with only 3 bottles and accessories at a time.

But sometimes life gets in the way and the bottles stack up. Maybe you go a day without washing them or maybe you find one that was stuffed in the cushions of the couch for a week without your knowledge. They stack up and soon you are asking yourself how in God’s green earth does a kid eat this much? Where the hell is she putting all this stuff? There is no way all of it is going down that gullet because if it was then she would be as big as a John Deer tractor. But she is and you are stuck with your bottles.

And so comes that moment when all the bottles are in the sink and you have no more clean bottles. This takes about a day and a half in our household and I never seem to notice it until around 8 pm at night when I’m exhausted and ready for bed. And yes, parents of children under 2 go to bed that early because we have nothing left. Sleep, once nice but was a luxury is now rarer than the pink diamond.

There comes one of those defining moments again, almost like the lesbians, that shapes your outlook and who you are. Do you A: wash the bottles so your kid can eat at 3am. B: go watch the football game and unwind. C: sleep, sweet precious sleep.

Basically, this is the moment in my life when I truly realized that I had to grow up and be the responsible adult. Sure I had played at before and maybe even gave the appearance of responsibility. I paid bills, I got married, I bought a house. But I was basically just doing what my wife told me to do and still screwed around a lot. It was great.

But now I was at the point where I had to make a conscious decision. Do I want to become that grown up and wash the bottles or do I want to be that teenager that just goes back to the couch and finishes Monday Night Football while holding my junk. The teenager mind then comes out fighting when it sees a chance to be irresponsible. It says, hey man, this ain’t no big deal. When the kid gets hungry just use a bottle you already used. I mean, what’s the big deal, it’s his spit anyway, why not? For a second you listen to this voice. Is it really a big deal? I mean, who ever heard of a child getting a disease from a once used bottle? It’s not like I’m sharing needles here man, maybe it’s not to bad.

And then you realize that you have never heard of a child getting sick from this because they are all dead. You make your choice: I am now an adult and a grown up strictly because I have a kid that forces me to. If I were single, I’d be a screw up, I have no doubt. But I’m not and someone relies on me and I am very big on not letting my kids down. Dad = Hero, that’s what I want them to always grow up knowing.

So you dive right in to the massive amount of bottles. And each one you open stinks like 2 dollar hooker crotch and the fumes burn your eyes. It’s not a pleasant job and you are a little bit disgusted that you even considered using this bottle again without washing it. So you scrub each bottle in near boiling water as you attempt to scrub away your failures. Your hands blister but this is justice and you accept it.

You make the choice to be the adult but you didn’t realize that there are benefits that come from being an adult rather than a teenager. An adult is smarter and knows the importance of multitasking. So using my adult sized brain I came up with a solution that would placate my teenager self.

Our kitchen is directly across from the living room and TV. To wash bottles I have to turn my back to the TV and I vow to one day by a TV with cable in the kitchen. But until then, I use my plan B. When it is dark outside the kitchen window is very reflective. So reflective that I can open the blinds and have the TV reflect off the window. Now I am able to wash the bottles while I watch my football. I also find that it’s nice and quiet in the house and I can do this in peace and quite, which is what all fathers really want. If you want to get your father a good present for father’s day, just be quite. That’s all. It’s free but yet priceless.

We may go back to sterilizing everything in the future but I don’t want to be that grown up yet. Give me a decade or two first.

The Lesbians

Sex sells. So here is my story.

I have never been much of a party type person. If the truth really be known, I secretly hate them. I hate them because like a lot of people I can be socially awkward and a massive tool. I hate mingling because I never have anything good to say. As such, I have decided that from now on when I met someone at a party that doesn’t know me I will introduce myself as Johnny Ringo, stunt car driver.

But for some reason when I was 19 several friends and I decided that we would throw a party on our summer break from college. This has some precedent and I think we were trying to relive our glory days. The summer before college we threw a party but it was a special party. It was special because we had a stripper. Now that I am older I can tell you several things: 1—as strippers go she was butt ugly. 2—what she lacked in looks she made up for in inverted nipples. 3—the uglier they are the more they like to touch. This was pretty good situation for a bunch of 18 year old igmos. 150 bucks and she came to my house. I was working delivery pizza at the time and so my pockets were full of 1 dollar bills from a week of tips. It was great.

So this time we thought we would recapture some of that. Not that the first party was legendary, but it was. People would talk about it. I also think that I wanted to throw a party to feel like the center of attention because like a lot of people, I was a nobody in college. I had no identity and was basically a pathetic hanger-on type person. It may be shocking, but I was no good with the ladies and felt very out of place. For the most part, I thought a lot of the guys that I was hanging out with were a bunch of dicks. None were Hoss, none had any sense of loyalty and most of them were banging the evil Queen Kate, my girlfriend. It had not been a good year.

But this party was to get me back on my feet, back in the swing of things. It would rock, my old friends that didn’t go to my college would be there and once again I would be a legend. So sad, so pathetic. Looking back now I want to punch myself for being a pussy.

We had a year to revise our plans for this party. First and foremost, we knew what a quality stripper looked like. It wasn’t good enough to have just a stripper, we needed a good stripper. Second, we needed more space than the last time. It just so happened that one our friends parents were going out of town, so that was taken care of. Finally, through the experience in college we had learned about the great and powerful Keg. Yes, this time we would get a keg of beer. It would be great. I would be great. Bards will compose epic poems of me and our little band of brethren. In hindsight—group of pathetic guys trying to be cool. But seriously, a stripper, that was cool.

So we began to make preparations for this party. Another thing we learned in college was that strippers and kegs were expensive. We decided that the select few people that we had invited we would ask for donations. This was said with tact and taste: “If you want beer and a stripper, give me money.” We thought that a 10 buck cover charge at the door would pretty much cause us to break even.

We spent the whole day preparing for the party. We got someone to get the keg. We took the entire afternoon putting up the assorted glass knick knacks that mothers gather and placing them with anything of value in a locked room. We moved furniture and cleaned the pool incase any sexy ladies wanted to go skinny dipping. This was no half assed effort, this was a full on organized assault. All contingency plans were covered.

We were so stupid. God help us, we just were.

The party started off pretty good. 15 guys showed up. 15 of our most trusted friends who would have a great time, give us money and then sing our praises tomorrow morning. We hoped the chicks would come after the stripper had done her thing. This party was to be in stages, we are party Gods.

Even our surprise guest showed up behind door #1: The Lesbian.

I had never met a real Lesbian before that time and was interested to see her. Mainly because she was freaking hot. Seriously man, she was like porn Lesbian hot. Of course, I was 19 so maybe all young Lesbians were hot then that didn’t have a mullet. This is Texas, after all. But no, I refuse to believe that, she was hot.

And she brought her girlfriend which made her doubly hot. A lesbian is hot. An actively practicing lesbian is even hotter.

One of my co-sponsors of the party worked with her and was on pretty good terms. He invited her just on the off chance that she would come. I don’t think I would have had the stones to invite her, I’m a dork. I didn’t have very much confidence at the time because of Evil Queen Kate and her Saturday morning circle jerks with my college friends. Hello Pathetic, I’m Hossman, glad to meet you.

But back to the Lesbian, she was hot.

We had gathered enough money to pay for the beer and some of the stripper so we were pretty much feeling good. We knew we would lose out on some of the money but that is the price you pay for immortality.

An hour into it is when things got out of hand. Bad. It would appear that the 15 or 20 of our most trusted friends should not be trusted. Because they let everyone in town know that we were having a party and that party would have paid for nudity.

However, we were a flexible bunch so we turned no one away at first. Just give me your 10 bucks and you can come in. That worked until we reached about 50 people. But people kept coming and coming until the point I was starting to turn people away. Mainly, out of spite perhaps, I turned away the people that didn’t want to pay. They said they would just mingle. I called bullshit and told them to go mingle down by the 7/11 and to get gone. In hindsight, I should have just said Hello Madness, welcome to my party and wreck my shit.

Which is what happened. People started climbing the back fence until they got to tired to do that and just tore ½ the fence down. While they were tearing up the fence they thought they might as well tear down the basketball goal as well. And just for good measure, let’s break your Mom’s glass top patio table as well, how would that be? Fucking seriously people, this is why you were not invited.

I wish that would be the worst of it but it wasn’t. By now the stripper was 3 hours late and we did not appear to be delivering on our promise. The crowd was pissed. So pissed in fact that several decided to try and steal the keg. Now I’m not a small man and I was at the point where I had just decided to start punching people. The night was a disaster already so I didn’t really care who got in the way of my fist. They had the keg in the back of a truck before I was able to get there. I threw a couple people aside and then threw MY keg back out. Choice words followed. No stripper, a tapped keg and a riot brewing. My plan was to punch a couple of small guys first and send them down thus sending a message. It would be my Spartacus moment and at least I would always have that.

It was go time. Time to man up and lay down the law. I was in over my head. We all were. This was going to be bad and even I, in all my Hossness, could not hope to whip 20 dudes.

“Dude! The Lesbians are making out!”

That is the statement that saved us, the house and our legacy.

Immediately the fight and keg was forgotten as we all rushed back inside. This stuff only happens on Penthouse Forums, not in real life. No way this could be happening.

But it was. The two Lesbians were making out, right on the couch. Right in front of all of us. It was like we weren’t even there. There was groping and kissing and butt grabbing. Clothes stayed on, but still. Can you imagine? Let me paint the scene. The 15 original guys sat silently around the room. No one said anything for the fear that if we did we would ruin this magical moment. No one even breathed as we all took in the scene that would sustain us all for the next 10 years through lonely nights and scrambled cable porn. The Lesbians were making out. 15 of us, 18 to 19 years old, now reduced to peeping like 13 year olds, which truth be told is how we acted anyway.

Suddenly all grudges were forgiven. All bad blood melted away as the Lesbians got it on. It counts as one of the top five moments of my young life. I put it higher than my college graduation. One word folks, amazing.

The Lesbians stopped and laughed. We didn’t move for the rest of the night for the fear that if they decided to go at it again we would miss it. We didn’t talk, it was just understood that no one was leaving their spot.

The party broke up and eventually everyone went home. We spent the next two days repairing or replacing everything that was broken. We built a new fence and passed it off as just a couple of guys helping out their parents. We were the all American boys. We spent all of our money that we had made and then some. Unfortunately one of the douche bags broke into the locked room and stole credit cards and other valuables so we were eventually found out. But I don’t think his parents were all that upset since, they did have a new fence after all.

Like any good story this one to has a moral and a lesson:

Lesbians are superheros. God bless them. God bless them all.

The Experiment

Each man’s life is defined by a series of important events. These events may not seem to have any significance to anyone but the person that they happen to but these events mold our minds and personalities until what you are left with is a 32 year old Adonis blogger who is bald.

Some are your personal victories, no matter how small, that have somehow given you that drive to be who you are. Some are the failures that you wish would hide away forever so that you can forget that you were ever that screwed up. Maybe the events that shape you are embarrassing moments that you will always remember but others forget shortly. Or maybe some of these events are so mundane that no one even thought about them in the first place besides you.

Either way, these are the experiences that make each of us unique and shape our outlook on life. When recounting such things, they can be painful as you look back and wonder how you were ever such a dumbass in the first place. You may see yourself in a more pathetic light than what you portray now. But deep down, you still have to own up to what you did or what happened. This is what makes your victories sweeter. And life is about the victories. The big or the small, that’s what we all strive for.

I’m going to try a little experiment over the next week, beginning at 4:00pm today. I’m going to get some of my victories, failures or other events that I believe have affected me over the years. I invite all of my readers to leave tidbits of their own stories in the comments section. Or, if you wish to truly go all out and write 3 pages worth, email them to me and I will post them with your permission. At the very least our collective Oh Crap moments will serve as daily entertainment to everyone else as they muddle through their work week looking for something to distract them from responsibility.

My email is Zounka@hotmail.com, send what you got when the topic is up and running.

And as a teaser, as my advertising wife says works, today’s story is titled “The Lesbians.”

Why being a Dad Kicks Ass

A friend once told me being a Dad was one of the greatest things in the world.

He said that he couldn’t really explain it. He tried and we talked about it for awhile. At the end of it, my response was “Well, that’s good for you.” I could tell that he didn’t think I understood. As I was a bit younger and a hell of a lot more cocky, I thought no problem man, I get it, you like being a Dad. He talked about how his daughters would run to the door for him when he got home and hug him. Secretly I thought, hmm, my dog does that. That’s pretty good I suppose.

Now I realize that the truth is that you can never fully explain the greatness that being a father is to someone who hasn’t been through it. You just can’t explain the all encompassing emotion that hits you no matter where you are at. Even at work, all I have to do is look at my daughter’s picture and I feel like a freaking stud. Yes, I have made that and she is greatness.

But how to explain it to someone? How do you convey the true greatness of fatherhood? As a perceptive dude who feels like he can communicate with many dudes on many dude levels, I think that I have found a way. It’s gonna be simple. Being a dad is great because:

When my daughter watches football with me and sees me yell at the screen, she yells “touchdown” and throws her hands in the air. I know that she will grow up watching every game with me and loving every team that I love. As no one else in the house has the passion for sports that I do, this kicks major ass. So basically, I have created my own bleacher section of rednecks who yell “You gotta make that play!”

4 or 5 times during dinner my daughter will grab her glass and smile up at me. I say “cheers” and then we toast. She laughs, I laugh. Dinner with a child seems much more refined when you toast the dog several times in 30 minutes.

When we brush our teeth at night and I take off my shirt, my daughter flexes her muscles and growls. I then flex my muscles and growls. We spend the next 10 minutes doing this.

A friend taught my daughter how to do a fist bump. We do this constantly.

When my son was screaming last night. I said, “Let me see your war face.” Every boy needs a war face and I am happy with his. It terrifies me.

My daughter was sitting in my lap yesterday and farted. She started to laugh. It was freaking hilarious. I took the opportunity to show her the pull Daddy’s finger game. I am nothing if not a teacher first.

My son’s farts make my daughter’s sound like a flute. Seriously, that boy has some volume. He sounds like a Tuba through a megaphone.

I shoot my finger at my daughter’s feet and say “Dance!” She does and then does the same to me. We could do this for hours.

My daughter took a header off the footstool. I thought we were in store for a screaming fit. She got up and laughed. It’s good to see that she is in fact Little Hoss.

My son had to get a biopsy and some of his skin was peeled off of him like an orange. He barely cried. The Hoss gene runs deep.

My daughter tries to ride the dog. He out weighs her by a good 30 pounds but she keeps on trying to live the dream.

When my daughter gets pissed she scowls and it looks like mine. Together we could intimidate the Pope.

My daughter was trying to teach my 6 week old son how to high five.

No one will ever rock out to White Zombie except for my daughter. And when she does it, she goes all out. Head banging, mosh pit with the cats, the whole 9 yards.

My son has monkey toes but has promised to only use them for good.

My daughter will cause havoc when I get in trouble to distract Hossmom from my actions.

My daughter likes to play video games with me. We go online and dominate.

Yesterday my daughter wanted to wear her Halloween costume again, all day. We let her.

When salesmen call the house, I give the phone to my daughter and she says “poop” over and over again.

I know that my son and daughter will never be communist pigs.

I have a plan that when my daughter is 13 and having a slumber party, I’m going to walk out in my worst pair of tight underwear and belch constantly as I go drink milk from the fridge. She understands that this is only pay back for the countless hours of sleep that she took from me.

My daughter loves to sweep. Thank you Jesus, I will never do this chore again.

My daughter has this uncanny ability to find the remote no matter where it is hidden. I will never have to look for it again for as long as I live.

My children do not like Barney and I make a sacrifice of goats to the gods for this gracious gift.

Next week we are going to give a shot at finger painting. I’m going to let Little Hoss attempt to paint her little brother to see what sort of abstract Picasso we can get. Then I’m going to let Bubba Hoss roll around on a canvas for about an hour. We will then sell this human art for millions.

Chicks dig guys that are good fathers, especially to little 2 year old girls. I’m not saying that I am looking, but it’s good to know that I can still get the panties to drop.

My daughter grabs crayons and tries to color in my tattoo. I like her version of it better than mine.

My son gets more boob action than I do at the moment.

I like it when I do my daughters hair and dress her. We look like we just stepped off a life boat after 2 months in the Pacific. I think it’s funny.

I hope that I have done an adequate job of telling you why it so great to be a Dad and why I love it so much. In a nutshell, you have a mini you that you can actually have fun with. There are no inhibitions or embarrassments. It’s like you get to do all the fun stuff that you can’t do as an adult anymore, just with minions that you can send out into the world to spite people.

Although maybe I’ll do some finger painting by myself next week