Big Ugly Man Doll

So there I was, innocently driving home this past Friday night, when I remembered – tonight was the night I was taking the Human Tape Recorder to her Theater Sports competition. 

“Her what?” I hear you ask.  Short version – it’s a bunch of kids on school teams competing to see who can do the best improv.  Think “Who’s Line Is It Anyway” with 7th and 8th graders, and you’re there. 

These 7th and 8th graders are better than average at this, albeit none of them is exactly that dreamboat Ryan Stiles, so I can’t say I’m dreading the trip.  Oh wait, yes I can – it’s not the show I’m dreading, it’s the trip to get there.  Why?  Because I’m not driving the HTR to the show, I’m driving the HTR and two of her friends, who are also with her school’s Theater Sports teams, to the show.  For 45 minutes.  In traffic.  In the dark. 

Three 13-yr-old girls on any given day will not be even close to quiet.  Three 13-yr-old theater girls on their way to an improv competition is like listening to the Stooges rehearse with a “Beach Boys vs the 1812 Overture” battle of the bands competition in the foreground, while trying to read 10,000 Twitter updates out loud at the same time.  OK, now try to drive without hitting anything.  After 10 minutes, the problem wasn’t “not hitting something with the car,” the problem was not WANTING to hit something with the car. 

We made it in one piece, sanity notwithstanding, and I disgorged my young wards into the host school, Rocky Run Middle School.  I paid my ticket and took my seat, finding a friend (the mom of one of the HTR’s friends) and commiserating with her.  The show started shortly, and we watched.  There were two games – first, your team is given 2 minutes and a nightmare thing to be scared of, and you take it from there.  Second, your team is given a “In a… With a… While…” scenario, and you have 2 minutes to create a plausible reason for someone on your team to yell “I can’t believe I’m in a thing, with a thing, while thingying,” inside 2 minutes, whereupon your skit is over. 

There were two MCs, presumably past masters of this craft and currently high school students.  They had been doing this kind of thing for a while.  I won’t say that they were both very much into theater, but one of them was Kurt Hummel.  I’m not kidding. 

One of the first teams up was afraid of exit signs – all the prompts were pretty random, which I suppose is the point – and they had fun with it.  One kid lead off with being obviously afraid of exit signs, and the rest teamed up to taunt the first one in a dream sequence.  One of them walked out, stopped dead center of the stage, and pointed out a-la an airline attendant all of the marked exits in the room.  He then had the chance to do what so many of us only dream of – he looked at the kid who was afraid of the exit signs, looked out at the audience, and yelled, “Fire!  Fire!” 

I turned to my parent friend and said, “Did that kid just get away with yelling ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater?  That is so cool!”

By the time the “In a… With a… While…” part of the show started, deep vein thrombosis was setting in and I was really thinking about yelling Fire myself, just for a chance to get up for 30 seconds.  Some of the “In a… With a… While…” skits were good, some were odd but good, and some were just odd.  One of the first teams up managed to roll through 2 minutes without getting to the line, running out of time and knocking them out of contention. 

The audience, getting restive at this point, all perked up with one of the skits near the end of this round, when a team was given the prompts of “In a Shoe, With ABC gum, While Poking the Homeless.”

Poking the homeless?  WTF, over? 

The kids, to their very real credit, did the best they could, and in 2 minutes made several references to “now you know it’s not right to poke those less fortunate,” et cetera.  Still, more than half the audience was very clearly muttering, “WAT?”

I can’t believe I’m in a public school theater, with adults in supervisory capacities, while listening to this.  Someone in Rocky Run Middle School experienced a very real lapse in good judgement Friday night.  The kids competing obviously knew it, and did what they could to compensate, but still – not funny. 

The first part of the show wrapped up and neither of the teams we were there for had advanced, so we collectively decided to relieve the pressure on our legs and brains, forestall the impending thrombosis, and make like drums.  We beat it out of there, discussing things that are funny sometimes and things that just usually aren’t.  All the teams did well, even the ones who did poorly, and I’m even looking forward to the next one.  I hope they have real chairs.

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Here it is already Friday – how time flies when you’re struggling just to breathe.  The Big Ugly Horoscope needs a better title – The Daily Dose of Destiny has a nice ring to it, but I’ll be damned if I’m posting this daily.  Weekly Walk With Wisdom?  I dunno, send ideas.  Fridays around noon, assuming this server and I ever agree on what timezone we’re working with, you’ll have a chance to catch up with your own personal astro-illogical future for the weekend and next week.  To wit:

Aries (The Ram):  You’re going to rock this week!  Just kidding, your Monday will suck like everyone else’s.  Deal with it.

Taurus (The Bull):  Taurus, Aries, Aries, Taurus, ya’ll look so much alike I can’t really tell you apart.  And you know what?  I don’t care.  Both your weeks are gonna suck, doesn’t matter.  Your week will suck more if you wear the red shirt on Wednesday; you should just get rid of it.  It’s bad luck.  Didn’t you ever watch Star Trek?

Gemini (The Twins):   Sunday, drink two bottles of sparkling water and eat nothing but a banana.  Monday, hit the ice cream like it’s that Capricorn who stole your girlfriend.  Take Tuesday off.

Cancer (The Crab):  You know that really funny dick joke you just can’t wait to tell?  Take a pass on that one for now – your boss eats in the same restaurant and is sitting in the next booth over.  She hasn’t found dick jokes funny since the surgery. 

Leo (The Lion):  Monday afternoon looks good for that coffee you’ve been meaning to get with your old boyfriend.  Don’t wear the same dress you’re wearing now; it’s ugly.

Virgo (The Virgin):  A virgin?  Get the sacrificial knife!  Quick, get the – what?  What do you mean we can’t – oh.  Yeah, well, of course they’re an endangered species. Nevermind, um, you’re going to have a nice week.  

Libra (The Scale):  You keep dreaming of food.  Thursday you will dream of meat pies made of IRS auditors and topped with fine-grit sandpaper shavings.  Skip the sauce, it’s bastard. 

Scorpio (The Scorpion):  You really need to lower your standards.  You think a good week includes trips to New York, Disney, and Stockholm, or haute five-star burger joints.  Let me tell you, a good week is one where NOBODY DIES and trips to the ER are kept to a minimum.  Got it?  Try to have a good week.

Sagittarius (The Archer):  Your boundless ambition is tempered only by your, your, um – nope, your ambition knows no bounds.  You are an amoral saber-toothed tiger, moving through this concrete Savage Garden like a bullet in butter, and no one can withstand your force.  This week is the wrong week to break off the affair with the boss’s admin’s daughter’s best friend.  Your lucky number is six hundred forty-three.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):  It’s on!  Capri-corn, Capri Sun, Capri Pants! Let your inner nudist shine this week.  Leo is large in your future on Wednesday.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):  The guy you were dating?  You need to give him one last mercy fuck and then ditch his ass this weekend.  He’s not what you need, and you know it.  He knows it too, he’s just with you for the sex. 

Pisces (The Fish):  That noise you keep hearing in the bathroom is the mirror sighing despondently for lack of your reflection.  You really are that good looking – you don’t need to lose that weight, you look fine.  You carry it well.  And you deserve that chocolate you’re going to eat on Monday, after the day you’re going to have! 

Tags: Children // 7 Comments »

The Reigning Queen of Pink, High Duchess of Fluff, and Protector of Barbies was sitting in her room this evening, in her pink chair, next to her pink lamp and under the pink curtains, writing in her journal, when I knocked and was admitted into the royal pink chambers.  I noted aloud that it was pushing a quarter to ten, and that despite the evening’s pretty snow, there was pretty much no chance that school would be delayed or called off – time for bed.

“OK.”  She really is a good sport about going to bed when told, I don’t know why.  She hopped down, closed the journal, and walked to her desk, where she put the journal away carefully in the second slot of the journal/magazine/paper holder thingy.  She then took the pencil, a large feathered (yes, pink) thing, and walked 2 feet down to the pencil/pen holder purse thingy, unzipped it, placed the pencil inside, and zipped it back up. 

She then turned to me, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “I think I got the organizational genes.” She took a step toward the bed, thought for a moment, and said, “Except neither of you really have the organizational genes.  I don’t know where I got them.”

Oh, snap.  That would be grounds for grounding if (A) I weren’t laughing, and (B) she weren’t dead right.  She’s an organizational sport, that’s all there is to it.  We agreed that she had a very useful random mutation, and I put the little pink mutant to bed.

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This is not a photoblog, and I don’t want it to become one.  But, since SOBUMD last year took 365 pictures, one per day, and it seemed interesting, I’m trying it this year.  On the other hand, I figure if I post the damn things every day, you’re going to get pretty tired of seeing them – so, I’m aggregating them week by week, Sunday evenings.  We’ll have 366 days this year, but I figure the weeks are pretty safe:  I can run Sunday through Saturday and not miss a thing.  Right?

I tend to aim for larger pictures, so I apologize if they’re huge.  I’ll try to use cut tags for my LiveJournal friends, and use thumbnails on the main site.  Mind you, I say “try” – I’m not as technical as I let on.

Ready for Week One?  Let me know what you think?

Tags: Children // 2 Comments »

So there I was, minding my own and just popping in for a few things on my way home – not like I was still on the clock, you know.  The grocery store isn’t too crowded at my hour, couple of stiffs and junkies, geezers getting out for their daily fiber and trying to cop a feel from the checkout chicas, the usual shuffle of the old, the bored, and the employees, most of whom were both.

I had just checked my list for the sixteenth time – hey, a drinking man’s memory’s got gaps – when I heard the loudspeakers crackle to life:  “Security, aisle 6.”  As I kept moving, it said, “Security, please scan all cameras in aisles 4, 5, and 6.”  I looked up to see where that was in relation to me, not being too familiar with the store, and I realized I was right next to those aisles. 

Being in the profession I am, and trust me that you do not want to know, my friend, I have a healthy enough sense of paranoia that I was perfectly happy to turn the heck around and not get involved or even be standing too close to something unpleasant.  In my line of work, “Cleanup on Aisle Nine” can be code for “kill all the witnesses and invoke the Patriot Act if anyone asks.”  So, I removed myself from the area of aisles 4, 5, and 6, and went over to the produce section. 

“Security, please scan all cameras in Produce.”

I looked around.  I was, for reasonable definitions of the word, alone.  It was me. 

I turned around to look for the cameras and realized I wasn’t as alone as I’d thought.  On the other side of the Produce section was a knockout redhead with the biggest melons I’ve seen this side of Chiquita.  I noticed the celery, the carrots, and the parsnips all standing a little straighter as she walked toward me, and I’ll admit she had my undivided attention as well.  It was a good thing, too, because she set the melons down on a display and pulled a loaded banana out of her purse.  This was looking less appealing.

I ducked as her first shot went wide, winging a turkey in the frozen food aisle.  Since I was pretty sure they were out of season, I assumed the turkey hadn’t been her target.  I took a good jump for the safety of the roughage, and her second shot slammed into the lettuce.  Heads rolled.

There was less yelling than I would have thought there would be, and I could hear the Muzak version of The Cure’s Lovecats as I watched a grocery staffer running pell-mell down the nearest aisle.   She took a shot at him as he made an endive into the dairy section.  She missed, but he got creamed all the same.  I took advantage of the distraction and threw a cabbage at my assailant.  “Head’s up!” I yelled! 

She turned it to mid-air cole-slaw with one shot and kept stalking forward, past the celery, toward me.  “Who are you?  What do you want?” I yelled.  “Why are you trying to kale me?” 

“Stand up, you sniveling collard,” she spat bitterly. 

“Only if you put the gun down – I don’t want to get chard.”  She lowered the gun, and I stood facing her.  I’m not a religious guy, but right there in that produce section, I don’t mind telling you I made the sign of the cress. 

As I got a better look at her, I saw she was sporting a black eye over her sorrel sweater.  “Some tough legumes give you that, ginger?”  It was the wrong thing to say, because she flipped the gun over and beet me with it.  My split lip was leeking and I was more than a little worried, when she stopped and said, “I knew you’d turnip somewhere, chickweed.  Admit it, you’re a rabeist.” 

“Lady, you’ve got the wrong Swede!  I don’t know what you’re talking about!” 

“Don’t give me that horseradish!  You were in Brussels that night, I saw you!” 

I gave her a quick poke while she was yelling, and she dropped the gun.  Store security swarmed her, and I took advantage of the confusion to roll under the garlic and split.  Besides, I had to pea.  As I was leaving, I heard the loudspeakers crackle again.   “Cleanup On Aisle Nine, I repeat, Cleanup On Aisle Nine.”

Oh, snap.  Time to run.

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