When Life Gives You Lemons...

Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been six days since my last post...

I hadn't said anything sacrilegious in a while so I figured it was about time. It is not a great piece of blasphemy but bear with me as I am rusty and bound to get better.

Moving on to more important things, the Sons of Pitches have not had a game in several weeks. First, a holiday, July 4th, interfered with the game. The week after that, the weather had turned the terrain unplayable and the two games we had that day were cancelled. This leaves the SOPs with an 0-2 record. We have a game on Sunday so let's hope we do well.

For those of you that helped name Dirty Willie, I must say that I am satisfied with the name and the more I live with it, the more I like it. I think it suits her and that she appreciates it. It may not be indicative of a prim and proper lady, but those kind of ladies hardly ever have any fun and DW is all about fun. I have a feeling that if she could speak, her lexicon would be composed of curse and risque words which would reflect her libertine take on life. In short, I like her more with this persona than when she used to be a tabula rasa that even failed to properly portray her gender. I shall keep you posted on the many adventures that D-Dub will undoubtedly have.

About The Unwanted, they are gone! Last Saturday night, as I watched rent and enjoyed a few cherry vodka sours, my mom asked me to come help her find bus tickets for The Unwanted as they were wanting to leave the next morning. I happily obliged and, come Sunday morning, I even drove them to the bus station in Dallas myself. I believe that was actually the most time I spent with them at once, the forty-five minute drive to the Dallas station. It appears that not spending long, extended periods of time with them was a good idea for in that short span of time I was ready to pull over and leave those kids stranded in the middle of the road. Fortunately, I did not and thus The Unwanted are back at their own home, away from me.

I have been meaning to write for a couple of days but I was unable as I was house-sitting and dog-sitting for a friend of mine. Although I had internet access and my laptop with me, I never had any time to write as I was too busy watching movies in her awesome theater room. On top of that, she gave me some money for helping her. I wisely spent part of this money buying a digital camera and the picture you will see later in the post would not be there if it weren't for my friend's generosity. I am now going to review the rest of the post, as it had been pre-written a week before it was posted, and I am gonna try and fix any incongruities. I apologize for any mistakes that may slip through. Now, on to the post.

This actually happened a few months back. It might have actually happened before I started this blog. I know I sent a text message to a lot of my friends and even posted a comment on facebook about it when it first happened. I think it's now time to share it with the world.

I work at a front desk with a clear view of the outside through the clear glass doors.  In fact, thanks to my new camera, the image above is what I see out my front door. I get really bored and usually just sit there looking for things to amuse me. Unfortunately there is not much to see.  I have seen a cock or two lounging around our front lawn. (Of course, I mean roosters. I just thought the wordplay would be a nice touch.)  There has been a mangy, small, dirty dog, prancing around the flowerbeds and resting under the trees. I have seen spiders and other insects making a living out there as well. I have even seen a homeless man open the cigarette butt container and look around the discarded old cigarettes looking for, and sometimes finding, something to smoke. Which reminds me, I have to stop him from doing that next time as he usually throws the useless butts on the ground instead of leaving them in the receptacle where he found them. Again, nothing too unusual. Usually.

On this particular day, I looked up and saw two brothers playing around. Not unusual at all, or so I thought. I wasn't paying much attention until I looked up and saw that one of the kids was walking on our lawn. Well, maybe not the lawn, as it was not the grass part he was walking on, but this kind of really low shrubbery type of plant that is part of our landscaping. I guess I should have looked up the name of said type of plant but that's too much work and I am lazy.  Still, since it is not really grass, people don't usually walk on it. Yet, this boy was walking through it in pursuit of his brother. Not a fast pursuit mind you. He was moving at about walking pace and had his arms outstretched before him. His brother, however, kept moving from place to place calling out to him. I could not understand what their game consisted of until the brother that was moving all around the place came close to the front door and I heard him shout, "Polo." I almost fell out of my chair when the reality of what was happening dawned on me. The kid in the weird landscaping lawn was blind and he and his brother were playing "Marco Polo." I could not stop laughing. I tried calling a few people so that they could come see what was happening but everyone was on the phone. I kept staring at the events unfolding right outside the door and kept seeing the blind boy trying to find his brother. The brother, meanwhile, kept moving around so that the blind kid kept having to walk on all kind of weird surfaces, like the weird lawn thing he was on. He also kept calling his brother from behind a tree to try to make him walk into one. I secretly kind of hoped the blind kid would have walked into a tree because it would have been hilarious. Unfortunately, and I am guessing this is because this was not their first time playing this particular game, the blind kid was too good to fall for it and walk into a tree.

To quote the comment I posted on facebook the day I saw this happen, "You haven't lived until you see a kid playing Marco Polo with his blind sibling on your front yard." This is proof that god, or whoever is in charge, has a sadistic and dark, yet hilarious, sense of humor. Talk about finding a silver lining, you know? I mean, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If life gives you blindness, play Marco Polo with your siblings anywhere. It's instant fun. This is proof that happiness is where you find it, as long as you don't mind what people think of you. Besides, laughter is a great thing to share and I can tell you for sure that those two kids made my day that day. Hope you enjoy the story as much as I did. Ciao.

Reason Number 78 Why I Am Going to Hell

As you all know by now, there have been some relatives staying at our house. Less than I originally thought, yet still more than I feel comfortable with and definitely more than I want to have here. You also know that I call them by the affectionate name of "The Unwanted". Well, the damn Unwanted are the cause for reason number 78 why I am going to hell.

As any normal person trying to make a passive aggressive point about not wanting to have any interaction with some people and wishing they had not invaded his house, I have kept to my room most of the time since the Unwanted got here. However, that does not ensure that they will not bother me and get on my nerves as I do have to leave my room on occasion. One such occasion was the other day. I walked out of my room to get some dinner and found the Unwanted sitting at the dinner table. Of course, I have been having all my meals in my room to allow for minimum interaction but while I fixed my dinner the Unwanted Boy started asking me questions. It went as follows:

Unwanted Boy: "Do you wanna play soccer?"

Me: "No."

UB: "Why not?"

Me: "Because I don't like it."

UB: "Why don't you like it?"

Me: "I just don't."

UB: "So, when do you wanna play?"

Me: "I don't wanna play."

UB: "But there is grass outside so it's gonna be nice for us to play."

Me: "I don't wanna play."

(At this point, his sister, Unwanted Girl 2, chimes in)

Unwanted Girl 2: (to UB) "You don't even have a soccer ball."

UB: (to UG2): "Well, we can go buy one." (to me) "When we get a ball, will you play soccer then?"

Me: "I don't like soccer and, regardless of whether you ever get a ball or not, I will never, ever, play soccer with you. Ever!"

So I might have been a bit brusque, but keep in mind that during this grueling grilling, their mom, the Unwanted Aunt, just sat there saying nothing. The next day, I was airing my grievances out to The Co-Worker and she asked me how old Unwanted Boy was. I do not know his age, but my immediate reply was "Too old already, he should have died at birth. Unwanted bastard should have been a stillbirth." Upon uttering those words, I realized that I had stumbled into one more reason why I am going to hell. Not only had I wished that someone had been a stillbirth, but I had wished a relative of mine, and a mere boy at that, had been a stillbirth.

This is great therapy and, probably, the best idea I have ever had for short posts. Hopefully, you guys won't get to hate me. If anything, this should make me more human. Till the next installment of the reasons I am going to hell.

Random Thoughts and Other Things

I woke up this morning not feeling well so I had to call in to work. Yes, that made my weekend a four day weekend, but I did not enjoy not having to work since I was throwing up all morning. I am feeling better now but I felt like I had wasted my day and, in order to do something productive, I decided to write a post. Unfortunately, I really did not have anything to write about so I decided to take a page from Crazy Texas Mommy and do a post with just some random thoughts. I am unsure why she always tries to have her random days be Wednesday, but since I have no discipline and/or follow through on anything, I shall just post them when the mood strikes. So here are my random thoughts of the day:

• It's kind of hard to be random on command. We'll see how this goes.
• I spent several hours yesterday playing super nintendo. It was awesome.
• My thumbs hurt today as a result of yesterday's super nintendo playing.
• I am still planning on playing again later. Quitters never win.
• I am thinking of writing a drunk post one day. I wonder if it will make much sense.
• I just found out a couple of hours ago that I will not get paid for yesterday because I did not work today. It sucks.
• My friend Preggo just found out she is having a girl.
• She hasn't decided on a name for her yet so, until then, I am calling her "The Thing."
• I would ask your assistance finding a name but I doubt she'll want to name her kid Wilhemina.
• I am definitely sure that she would not like her baby daughter to be referred to as "Dirty Willie."
• Or any kind of nickname with the word "Willie" on it.
• Arrested Development is the best show ever!!!
• Days off are just not the same since the Unwanted are here. Even hearing their voices ruins my day.
• I just realized I suck at writing random posts. This may be my first and last.
• Or maybe I will keep at it until I get good.
• I don't have to decide now so I won't.

Well, I guess I did not have that much to say. Sorry for the crappy post. I feel bad even posting it but I already wrote it so I might as well. Hope you all can forgive me. For now, I gotta go because the nintendo is calling my name.

The Unwanted

Well, this post has been a long time coming. For those of you who know me, I have ranted about The Unwanted for a long time now but it is time for me to share this with the rest of the world, or all 9 of you who actually follow this blog. But first, I gotta catch up on some things so give me a minute.

First of all, Happy Fourth of July!!! There, I have used up my patriotic spirit for the year. Come back next year and I may be able to summon one more. I may even be able to add an exclamation mark.

Second, I am giving up on ever getting the clipboard back. It has been too long and I am sure I am not getting it back now.  I should have kept that thief's phone number. Oh well, you live and you learn... and then you stop trusting strangers. A lesson, I feel, I should have learned earlier in life. I guess it is better late than never.

Third, I have come up with a name for my car. Thank you all who commented and provided input as to what the car's name should be, whether you did it online or in person. After much consideration, I am following GunDiva's advice and have decided that my car is a girl. I have also decided to call her Wilhemina. It is an awesome name and everyone that read her comment seemed to agree. However, a friend of mine who reads this blog yet never comments, and thus will be known by the moniker "He Who Reads from the Shadows", gave me the idea of giving it a nickname on top of the name. He provided many suggestions and I finally settle on one. Therefore, my car is a girl who shall henceforth be named Wilhemina and shall be known by the nickname "Dirty Willie". Yes, it's kind of a weird nickname but it is kind of fitting since I hardly ever wash it and because Wilhemina is too long a name to say so it's easier to shorten it to Willie. Also, Dirty Willie just sounds good because it lends itself to many puns and double entendres. You can like it or not, my mind is made up.

Fourth, for those of you who have been wondering about the Sons of Pitches, our softball team, and our progress, I must say we have been doing great, even though we have lost both games we have played so far. It does not matter, we have only lost by one run every single time and we have had a blast playing. Also, sometimes it is better to lose than to go on to extra innings. I am just saying. I am also proud to announce that so far I have only been responsible for three outs. I have been struck out once and, though I have hit the ball twice, I have been tagged at first every time. If nothing else, we have an awesome name. The last team we played kept saying how much they liked the name "Sons of Pitches" during the hand shaking at the end of the game. So, we might have lost the game but our name was cooler so I think that makes us winners. I shall keep you updated on the progress.

Fifth, and last, I hope you guys enjoy the little mini post series of reasons why I am going to hell. As you can tell, my blogs are usually too long so I am glad I have a way now to post something small every now and then. I hope you enjoyed the first installment on the series. I have the next one ready to go but I needed to write today's post before posting the next one or otherwise it would make no sense.

Now, today's topic, The Unwanted...

A couple of weeks ago, on a Tuesday to be exact, I came home from work and took a nap. (Stick with me, the story picks up after a while.) This to mean that I did not talk to my parents until about nine at night when I left my room in search of sustenance. While talking to my mom, she casually states that aunt, one of my dad's sisters, had called to inform us that they, meaning her family composed of her and her husband and their three kids, would be arriving on Friday. Count the days, that is only a three days notice. I groaned and complained and whiningly asked how long they were gonna be here. I was given the good news that their stay was of an undetermined length because they were coming to try and find a job. Remember, this was only a three days notice they gave us. I went into freak-out mode.

I started thinking of all that I had to do and how I did not like kids. The first thing out of my mouth was "Well, I am going to have to start taking my laptop to work."  My dad seemed to be a little upset at this and told me that they were not going to allow the kids in my room when they were here, which I had already assumed was a given. I happened to point out, and my mom backed me up on this, that we had to work during the day and those kids are not the most disciplined kids we know. He seemed to understand a little more and said nothing more on the subject.

I was also informed that I was gonna have to clean my room before they got here. I was flabbergasted at this news. Cleaning my room is usually a full week's undertaking. I am not dirty, per se, but my room does tend to get cluttered. I call it organized chaos. My room may look like a mess, but I know exactly where everything is. Now I had to clean and organize everything in two days, since they were arriving in the third day.  I was just daunted by such an undertaking. Usually I would employ a three day weekend from dawn til dusk to do so and I had to do it in two evenings.

Needless to say I was pissed off. I may or may not have wished they would have a car wreck on their way here so they would not make it. Yes, I know how horrible that sounds and that is one of the reasons I am going to hell that comprise reasons one to seventy-six. They would have had it coming though. It is just plain rude, if you ask me, to give someone such short notice for moving in. They must have known for a while that they were gonna do so. A decision to uproot your family is not made overnight. It's not like we could deny them shelter. They are from El Paso and we have stayed with them plenty of times on our way to Mexico. We have never, however, stayed for more than a few days and we have always given them at least two weeks notice.

As time drew nearer to their arrival, I kept thinking of ways to safeguard my stuff.  I even asked my parents if I could use a padlock. They mentioned that a padlock would not look good on a bedroom door. I guess they did not understand that I meant to use the padlock on the front door. Apparently, you can't lock out your relatives. I don't see why not. Stupid societal rules.

They arrived on Friday evening. Thankfully, I had practice with the Sons of Pitches and was not there when they arrived. When I got home from practice, I said hi, took a shower and left for my best friend's house where I spend the weekend. I came back on Sunday for the first Sons of Pitches games, against a team by the name of "The Shockers", which cracked everyone in our team up. We still think they have no idea what their name means. For those of you reading this that are also in the dark, urbandictionary.com can clear things up for you. After the game, some of the players went to the pool and, despite it being Father's Day and my family having a cook out, I went with them because I did not want to deal with The Unwanted. This is also included in reasons 1-76 of why I am going to hell.

I had been told how I would have to be social and nice. So far, nice for me has been not yelling at the unwanted kids for daring to talk to me. I have stayed in my room for the most part since they have been here. Luckily, my aunt's husband went back to El Paso a few days after arriving. I was not aware of this for a while but it made my day when I found out. Not that I don't like him. Let's just say that if there was a world catastrophe, he would not be very high on my list of people I would make sure survived. I think he would make the list, I just am not certain of it.

As for now, The Unwanted consists of four people:

The Unwanted Aunt is my dad's sister. I have never really liked her much. I remember a Christmas, a long time ago, when she got everyone of my cousins and my siblings really cool toys as gifts and yet I got a notepad and some pencils (not colored pencils, just pencils). I was actually really happy to get a gift so I did not mind. It was not until later that someone, maybe Medea, told me that the reason I got such a crappy gift was because my aunt had forgotten about me completely so when she saw me at the Christmas party she wrapped the first thing she could find. I was not even aware that my gift was crappy but leave it to Medea to burst a young boy's bubble.  I guess I should be upset that Medea told me that, but I was never really close to my aunt so I just have never felt really close to her or cared much for her.

The Unwanted Boy is the Unwanted Aunt's oldest child. I think he is about thirteen but I am not sure because I could ask but I could not care less. He is annoying in that way in which kids who never know when to shut the hell up are. He is the constant questioner with the "but why?" questions. He is a thorn on my side and one of the main reasons why I stay in my room. So far, he has asked to use my iTunes account and annoyed me beyond belief when I said no because he did not understand why I would not. A simple, because I don't want to did not suffice.

The Unwanted Girl 1 is the middle child of the Unwanted Aunt's family.  She is kind of quiet and possibly the one I can deal with the most. Not that I want to deal with but if they were all to die and I was asked, forced, to choose one to live, it would probably be her. I have no clue what her age is either but she is younger than 13. The one thing I have noticed about her is that she giggles a lot and I can't stand her giggling. It is still better than the relentless questioning of Unwanted Boy.

The Unwanted Girl 2 is the youngest of the Unwanted Clan. She is spoiled beyond belief. She is about 8, though I may be off on that. So far, I have heard her whine instead of talking when she wants something and it took everything in me to not reach out and slap her and see if she stopped. What's interesting is that I am not usually a violent person. I also heard her cry once and I couldn't stand that either so I guess I am glad I did not slap her because she would have gone from one annoying sound to another. Oh and because it would be wrong to slap her, regardless of how much she deserved it. I think.

So these are the people I have been having to deal with. Four new and annoying people all crammed into the one extra bedroom we have. They have been hogging everything. They ate all my oreos! (In case you are wondering because of that last statement, I am 26 years old at the time I am writing this.) They have been using my internet because I was asked, forced, by my dad to give them the key for the wireless modem. I have not stopped being spiteful though. Every morning before going to work, I start downloading videos on my laptop, which I decided to leave here to see if they dare face the consequences of touching my stuff, so that it will slow down their internet access. Yes, I know I am evil and a master of passive-aggressiveness thanks to Medea, but as He Who Reads from the Shadows said to me when I was telling him of my woes, "Family are like fish, after three days they start to stink." I may have misquoted but you get the gist of it.

So far, I have survived but keep me in your thoughts because if they push me the wrong way I am not responsible for my actions. That is my defense and, though it may not hold in court, I am sticking to it for now. As usual, I will keep you updated on any new happenings. Write to you guys later!