Author: Gary

It is that time of year again.  The weather is growing colder, the days are getting shorter, and best of all, Halloween is just around the corner.

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday.  I know most people prefer Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or even a great big barbeque cookout on the Fourth of July, but as many of you have probably learned by reading this blog, I am not like most people.  I love horror movies and dark tales, vampires, zombies, haunted houses and creepy creatures.  And, yes, I don’t object too much to having bowls of candy placed strategically throughout the house, either.

When the kids were little, I tried to instill in them my love of Halloween and all things macabre.  I would decorate the house with cobwebs and realistic-looking spiders.  I hid speakers that played the sounds of something scratching inside the walls of the house.  I dressed up like a zombie or a vampire and leapt out of closets when the kids walked by.  October was always a lot of fun in our home.

In retrospect, perhaps I should have waited until the girls were a bit older.  It’s a little difficult to sleep at night with all the lights on and a shivering five-year-old in the bed next to you because she’s afraid to sleep in her own room.

But, after the screaming and the crying had subsided, we all had a good laugh.  I think they really enjoyed it.  At least, that’s what I hope they tell their therapists.

When the girls were little, on Halloween night I would dress them up and carry them around the neighborhood, going door to door and begging for candy from the same people I barely waved at during the rest of the year.  When their little, plastic, pumpkin bowls were full, we would head home, and I would let them each pick out three pieces of candy to eat before they went to bed.  The rest of the candy was put away so that they could eat it later.  And by “later,” I mean after mom and I had the opportunity to pick through it to find our favorites.

By the following morning, the only thing left in the plastic pumpkin for the kids were a couple packs of sweet tarts and whatever the hell those nasty, Neapolitan coconut square things were.  Most of the time, the kids were too little to notice the theft.  When they did, we just told them that rats had gotten into the pantry.

As the kids got older, it became more difficult to get candy away from them after Trick or Treating.  Difficult, but not impossible.  The process had to evolve, however, from a simple theft to straight up, strong-arm robbery.

You may be asking yourself right now, “Why steal candy from kids when you can just go buy some for yourself?”  The answer is simple: I think it’s funny, and I am a horrible, horrible person.

Those days are over, however.  EM1 and EM2 are both too old to go out Trick or Treating.  Halloween is now a night where they would rather go to parties and hang out with their friends than go door to door, begging for handouts.  And, I think that is the way that it should be.  As much as I love Halloween and everything that goes with it, I believe there should be an age limit on who can go Trick or Treating.

For example, a few years ago, on Halloween night, a woman in her forties came to my house.  She wasn’t even wearing a costume when she did it.  I told her that she was too old to be ringing my doorbell, and that she had better get off my porch before I called the police.

She said, “I forgot my keys.  If you don’t want to sleep on the couch tonight, stop acting like a moron and let me in.”

Well, I let her in.  But, I didn’t give her any candy.

This year, I am in a sort of Halloween limbo.  I don’t have kids young enough to want to Trick or Treat, and I don’t have kids old enough to have grandkids that want to Trick or Treat.  Although I am not in any hurry to become a grandparent, I am looking forward to someday having a new generation of kids to terrorize and steal from.  Especially since, when they start to cry, I can pat them on the head and send them home to keep their parents awake all night.

For now, I will just have to be content with being the old guy that all the neighborhood kids hate because I gave them apples and toothbrushes when they came to my door.  And just so you know, I’m not doing it because I believe that it is healthier than handing out candy.  I couldn’t care less if the kids eat themselves into a diabetic coma on Halloween night.

As I said before, I think it’s funny, and I am a horrible, horrible person.

Happy Halloween!

Recently, my wife went out of town for the weekend and left me at home alone.  This is not normally a big deal.  She disappears on me a few times each year for various reasons, so it was inevitable it would happen again.  Only, this time, things were a little different.   This was going to be the first time I was absolutely, completely alone.

My youngest went off to college in August and, up until this year, she was always around to feed me and keep my water dish full when I was without adult supervision.  I suppose it gave my wife a great sense of comfort knowing that there was still somebody in the house with enough sense to lock the doors at night or turn the oven off after completely ruining a batch of macaroni and cheese.  But, no more.

The training wheels were coming off, folks.

There was also the small matter of who was going to take care of the dog while my wife was MIA.  My wife is the one who normally feeds the dog, takes her for walks, spends time with her, plays with her.  My interaction with the dog usually consists of tripping over her in the morning because she likes to hang out right next to the couch.

My wife did the only logical thing she could do under these circumstances.  She called both of our daughters and asked them to come home and stay with me during the weekend while she was gone.  Apparently, she was worried that I might get lonely.  That, or she was worried I might get stupid and burn the house down.

Both girls immediately agreed to come hang out with me.  I don’t know if I should have felt glad that they still liked spending time with dad or upset that they both agreed that leaving me alone would be a bad idea.  Regardless, the plans were made for EM1 and EM2 to come home Friday evening and stay with me until mom got back on Sunday afternoon.

So, what does a weekend with my two adult children look like?  It went a little something like this:

I got a phone call Friday afternoon at about 4 PM.  EM1 said she had just finished her last class for the day and was on her way to pick up EM2 at her campus dormitory.  I figured that meant that they would both be at the house sometime around 7 o’clock.

I was incorrect.

EM1 picked up EM2 and the two of them decided to go out to dinner, do some light shopping, hang out at a coffee shop, then show up at home at 2 o’clock in the morning.  They were at least considerate enough to send me a text to let me know not to wait up.

I got the text at 1 o’clock in the morning.

Saturday morning, they both slept in until almost noon.  As soon as they woke up, they immediately started consuming everything in the pantry and the refrigerator.  It was like watching time-lapse photography of a swarm of locust destroying a corn field.  When there was nothing left except one empty cereal box lying on the kitchen floor, they wrote out a list, handed it to me and said, “There’s no food in the house, dad.  You need to go shopping.”

I asked if either of them would care to join me at the grocery store, but they informed me that they were too busy.  EM1 then proceeded to pull out every article of clothing she owned from the back of her car and start to do laundry.  EM2 said she had homework and locked herself in her room.

When I returned from the store, I found both children sitting on the couch watching the TV, which, by the way, is where they spent the next two days.  I did not have the opportunity to even hold the television remote control in my hand for forty-eight hours.  On the bright side, I’m now all caught up on the current Japanese anime and Korean K-dramas.  So … there’s that.

At one point during the weekend, I asked if either girl would like to help me outside with some yard work.  They both politely declined.  At least, I think they did.  EM1’s actual words were something to the effect of, “I still have salsa in my bowl, but I’m out of chips.”

I’ll let you decide for yourselves what that means.

Despite the frequent trips to the store, monopolization of the TV, and the ungrateful guests, the weekend wasn’t a total loss.  I actually had a bonding moment with the dog.  She was standing over her empty food bowl looking depressed when she glanced up and our eyes met.  I could clearly hear her thoughts as she stared at me:

Dude, if these kids are going to be responsible for taking care of you in your old age, you’re screwed.

I told her, “I know.  I’m already worried about that.”

That was when EM2 said to her sister, “I think we need to start looking into care homes.  Dad’s talking to the dog again.”

Somehow, I made it all the way through to Sunday.  I must admit there were moments I wasn’t sure that I would.  When my wife arrived home, the first thing she did was ask why the dog looked like she had lost weight.  Then, she asked the girls if they had a good a time spending the weekend with dad.

EM1 said, “Yeah, it was okay.  Dad just kind of ignored us all weekend, and there’s never any food in this house.”

Based on this experience, the dog and I have both decided that if my wife ever leaves again and the children volunteer to come over and spend time with us, we are both checking into a hotel.  At least there I can choose what to watch on the TV, and the dog can have whatever she finds in the mini-fridge.

This week marks the one-year anniversary of Deep Dark Thoughts.  I wasn’t absolutely certain when I started this blog a year ago that I would still be writing it after all this time; mostly, because I’m lazy and rarely have the drive to stick to a project this long.  Also, because the more I write about my family the more they threaten to steal my computer and bury it in the backyard.  But, here we are twelve months later and still going strong.

Well, okay.  Still going.

When I first decided to make this a weekly project for myself, I had no idea what I was getting into.  I didn’t know if I would be able to find something new to write about each and every week.  I knew I could write about my opinions of the same topics over and over again without any problem.  I’m very good at complaining about one thing over a long period of time.  Just ask my wife, she’ll happily confirm that for you.  But, I didn’t want to do that in this blog.  Writing (and reading) about the same topic ad infinitum eventually just gets tedious and boring.

I know there are people that will disagree with me on this idea, but if you are really looking to read the same complaints about the same people without change or variation for years at a time, there are plenty of political blogs out there that are happy to accommodate.

And speaking of political blogs, that is exactly what I did not want this website to become.  I freely express my opinions on these pages, but I do it solely for entertainment purposes and I do not claim to be an expert in any of the areas I discuss.  I may at times get a little dark in my writing, and I may even offend someone while addressing certain topics, but my goal has never been to attack any groups or individuals, or to challenge anyone’s personal beliefs or ideologies.

Religion and politics are the two fastest ways to create enemies.  I avoid those topics like the plague.  Although at times, when I meet someone new, I will ask them “What god did you vote for?”  This is just me being an ass, not actually looking for an argument.  I don’t care how you live your life.  It’s none of my business.  Really.  Please stop telling me about it.

The opinions expressed here are my own.  This blog started out as, and still is, a creative outlet for me as well as an occasional opportunity to vent and rant about truly unimportant stuff that everyone around me is tired of hearing me talk about.  My poorly supported, deeply flawed arguments are not an attempt to take a stand for anything or start any kind of a grass roots movement.  (Except for school fund raisers.  Dear God, I really want those to stop happening.)  If you agree with me, great.  If you don’t, also great.  I just hope maybe I was able to make you smile a bit while you were reading.

As far as finding new material to write, I have discovered over the past 52 weeks that I will probably not be having much difficulty in that area.  Although there are certainly weeks where I struggle just to find time to write, coming up with subject matter has not been a huge problem.  My family has been very generous in their efforts to piss me off, humiliate me, and in general provide me with topics to bitch about.  I am not concerned that this will change any time soon.  This particular well seems determined to never run dry.

To any new readers out there, please do not gauge my blog based on this post alone.  This one was just a tad more serious than normal.  I am usually much funnier.  At lease, I think I am.  I suppose ultimately you will have to be the judge of that.

To my older readers, let me know if the font is large enough for you to read this post.  I can make it bigger if necessary.

Kidding.

To any older readers who have been with me from the beginning, who have continued to make the trek back to this website week after week:  Thank you.  I hope you have enjoyed the journey as much as I have.  I hope I have put a smile on your face and even, on occasion, made you laugh out loud.  I also hope you have forgotten all about the weeks where the blog, frankly, completely sucked.  As they say in show business, “they can’t all be gold.”

And finally, to my most dedicated reader: thank you for being there.  Thank you for laughing at all the right times and stroking my fragile ego when I was beating myself up with my own insecurities.  Thank you for encouraging me when I was ready to give up, and for kicking me in the ass when I was just being stupid.  And most of all, thank you for coming home night after night, even though you knew you were going to find me locked in the den and the house a complete wreck.

I hope you’re willing to stick it out for another year.

Welcome all, to the beginning of year number two of Deep Dark Thoughts!  I hope everyone comes back next week, when I will be discussing … well, I haven’t actually figured that out just yet.  I just hope everyone comes back.

Don’t be that guy that brings cups and napkins to a potluck.  The hosts have already gone to great lengths to make sure all the guests have plenty of plates, utensils, napkins and cups.  They probably even spent a little extra to make sure that everything was color coordinated or matched a particular theme.  When you show up with your roll of paper towels and red plastic cups, they are just being nice when they put them on the table.  They really want to throw the stuff away.  Next time, if you don’t want to prepare something buy a bag of chips, or show up with nothing and endure the judgmental looks of your peers like a grown up.

Don’t be that guy that forgets how to merge on the roadway.  It’s a simple process: left car, right car, left car, and so forth.  It should look like a zipper closing.  When you push ahead to be the second car into a space, that’s sort of a dick move.  You aren’t saving any time, and everyone around you is secretly hoping you are going to lose control of your car and crash into a tree.

Don’t be that guy that has to be the smartest person in every room.  I know you think your comments sound intelligent and well-reasoned, but more often than not, they sound suspiciously like the same thing we all read in a CNBC article on Facebook that morning.  You aren’t impressing anyone.  In fact, we are all talking about you behind your back.

Don’t be that guy that can never compromise or acknowledge someone else’s point.  We can all pick out the guy that is so afraid of being wrong, he won’t admit that 2 plus 2 equals 4 unless he said it first.  We all have our opinions on the latest events in our world, and your failure to recognize something other than your own beliefs doesn’t make you passionate, it makes you blind.  You don’t have to agree with me, but if you can’t even recognize that there are two sides to an issue you are part of the bigger problem.  I don’t want to play with you anymore.  I’m taking my ball and going home.

By the way, don’t be that guy that takes his ball and goes home.  You ruin the game for everybody else.  Besides, we are just going to get another ball, and you won’t be invited to play next time.

Don’t be that guy that invites all his friends over to help him move and then offers pizza and beer for compensation.  If you are in your twenties and the sum total of your personal possessions is two cardboard boxes full of clothing and a particle-board coffee table, then okay, I might be up for that.  But, if you are in your thirties or older, stop being such a cheap bastard.  Blow the cobwebs off your wallet and pony up for a moving van.  I have no desire to tear a muscle trying to move your refrigerator onto the back of a pickup truck, then spend the rest of the afternoon sipping on a warm, light beer between debilitating back spasms.

Don’t be that guy that has nothing to say during the commercials, but when the program comes back on suddenly remembers that really funny thing that happened at work last week.  I’m tired of spending two hours to watch a half-hour program.  Besides, the pause button on my remote is starting to wear out and I need to save it for when I have to go pee.

Don’t be that guy at the bar sucking up free drinks and then disappearing when it’s your turn to buy a round.  You’re not being clever.  Everybody saw what you did.  This is why we don’t pick up the phone when you call.

Don’t be that guy that uses the bathroom at someone else’s house and doesn’t flush.  Do I really need to elaborate on this one?

Don’t be that guy that posts a political comment on social media and then acts surprised when somebody doesn’t agree with you.  Public posts are just that: public.  You wanted others to see it, so don’t pretend you are shocked when they react negatively to it.  Just because you played George Washington in your local community theater production of “Hamilton,” doesn’t mean you have a better grasp of political nuances than everybody else.  If you are fishing for a good, heated discussion on current events, it’s your time to waste.  Knock yourself out.  But, if you are just waiting for an opportunity to personally attack someone with different beliefs from your own, you are a troll.  Stop pretending you’re not.  There are plenty of bridges currently unoccupied, so go find yourself one.

Finally, and most importantly, don’t be that guy that spends all day dwelling and obsessing over every single negative encounter and perceived slight. Being angry at someone that doesn’t even know you’re mad at them is pointless.  The target of your ire is peacefully living his life while you drive yourself closer to a stroke or heart attack.  You may come up with the perfect insult or comeback at two o’clock in the morning while you stare at your bedroom ceiling during another sleepless night, but it is still twelve hours too late to use it.

Don’t be that guy that has let his own frustration and exasperation at meaningless people and situations build up to the point that he feels he has to write it down and post it somewhere; like in a blog or something.

Don’t be that guy.

Nobody wants to be that guy.

This weekend, my wife went out of town to hang out with a few hundred people, dancing and drinking beer.  She will do this again next weekend.  And the weekend after that, and so on for about six weeks.

My wife has a problem.

She belongs to a German band.

No, that is not a euphemism for anything.  She actually plays trombone in a band that performs German music.  She has played with them for a couple of years now, and they get hired regularly on weekends in September and October for Oktoberfest events.  She will travel all over the Sacramento region (and further on occasion) to play Roll Out the Barrel for a crowd of drunken revelers over and over again until it is time to chase everybody out of the venue and mop up the vomit on the floor.

To be fair, they play many different songs during the evening; they have quite an impressive repertoire.  It’s just that it all sounds like Roll Out the Barrel to me.  There are only so many sounds you can get out of an accordion played with brass accompaniment.  It gets a little repetitive after a while, especially when you get a few beers in you.

They don’t just play German music while wearing street clothes, either.  They dress the part.  My wife grabs her trombone and heads out the door every Saturday in her wide skirts, fluffy white underwear, push-up half-vest, and open white shirt.  Yup.  My wife is the St. Paulie Girl.

If only I could get her to wear the outfit and stay home for a weekend.  But, I won’t dwell on that since I’m trying to keep this blog PG.

Generally, I don’t go with her to these events.  The reason I stay home every weekend instead of going to the performances is two-fold.  First, I don’t really like German music.  Second, I can’t stand German music.

When I say, “German music,” let me clarify that I am not referring to the compositions of Bach and Beethoven as well as dozens (perhaps hundreds) of others of classically trained musicians.  Germany has a long, rich history of amazing composers and artists that all contributed a great deal of beauty and incredible music to Europe and the rest of the world.  From the 1600’s through the late 1800’s, Germany was the pulse of the classical movement and the go-to place for devotees of the arts.

And then some son-of-a-bitch invented the Polka.

Now, before you start firing off e-mails telling me that Germany didn’t invent the Polka, I am aware of that fact.  It was born somewhere in Eastern Bohemia, created by Czech peasants.  It was probably created by a bunch of brooding teenagers with long hair that wanted to torment their parents.  The older generation probably complained and told their kids to stop making so much noise, and the kids would say stuff like, “Mom!  You just don’t understand my art.”  Then they would throw their accordions on the floor and lock themselves in their rooms using those big metal keys that take two hands to turn.

But I digress.

Although the Germans did not invent Polka, they embraced it like a baby embraces its mother’s breast.  Like a cancer, it spread through the body of central Europe eating away at the healthy music until there was nothing left but Polka.  Europe, sickened and wasting away, tried everything to cure itself, but the Polka was too aggressive.  Too invasive.  By the mid 1900’s the disease … sorry, music, had even spread to the United States.

More recently, Polka has gone partially into remission, but it is not completely gone.  There was a brief reoccurance in the 1980’s and 90’s, thanks to a comedian with an accordion named Weird Al Yankovic.  Why he named his accordion Weird Al, I’ll never know.  (*Sorry, obligatory Groucho Marx joke*)

And here we are today.  With proper medication and a healthy lifestyle, Polka can be managed, but there are still unavoidable flare-ups in the early Fall.  Which brings us back to my wife and her merry band of polkateers.

I don’t mind that she leaves me every weekend for two months.  She genuinely seems to enjoy it and I want her to be happy.  She can run off with her rowdy, beer-drinking friends and play the devil’s music; I will just hang out at home and celebrate October the way it was originally intended to be celebrated: by eating junk food and watching horror movies on television.  And, I am comfortable knowing that when she is done carousing with the Austrian rabble, my wife will come back to me.

When the sun rises on Sunday morning, she will wake up in her seedy hotel room with a hangover and a vague memory of what happened the night before.  Too ashamed to risk making eye contact with anyone, she will slink out of the hotel, spend a few hours wandering through the parking lot looking for her car, then drive herself home, where she will find me waiting patiently for her return.

I just hope she washes her hands thoroughly before she comes back home.  I don’t watch to catch a bad case of Polka.

In our current atmosphere of mistrust and social divisiveness, I have recently felt compelled to take a good hard look at my own personal beliefs; a spiritual journey of discovery, if you will.  What I found might surprise you.

Or, probably not.

The dictionary definition of prejudice is: “a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.”  And – although I would argue that they are not completely without reason – I must admit that I have my own biases and irrational views about certain groups of people.  There is one group in particular that I have found I dislike intensely, and despite my attempts to be more accepting, I still can’t stand being around them.

I call them “others.”

Who are others?  Short answer: If they are “not me,” then they are “others.”

Others are terrible people, and they have no goals in life except to make me miserable.  I try to stay away from others, but they always seem to turn up no matter where I go.  They are everywhere.  If I drive somewhere, others are on the roadway trying to crash into my car or merging into my lane just to slow me down.  If I go to the grocery store, they park their carts in the middle of the aisles so I can’t get by.

When I go to the movies, others show up.  Not just the blockbusters and new releases, either.  I go to movies that have already been in the theaters for months and are currently being screened in a janitor’s closet with three swivel chairs to sit in.  But there is always an other in there with me.  Usually talking on his cell phone or unwrapping candy he snuck into the building in his pockets.

Others find me in gas stations, restaurants, stores, and even public bathrooms.  Apparently, they have an amazing communications network, because they always know where to find me, no matter where I attempt to hide.  It is as if they have some kind of psychic ability that tells them where I am and how they can best irritate the crap out of me.  It can’t be coincidence.

Last year, I took a trip to Norway.  I figured if I left the country I might finally get a brief respite, but no such luck.  The plane I took to get there was absolutely packed with others.  And, when I landed, guess what I found.   Yup.  They all spoke a different language and pretended not to know me, but that didn’t fool me for a second.  I knew who they were as soon as I saw them.

Others.

There is no avoiding them.  And, believe me, I’ve tried.

People come over to my house all the time and comment how much they like the pond I have outside in the front yard.  They think it is decorative and pretty, and they ask me why I decided to build it.  I never tell them the truth.  I never tell them that it isn’t really a pond at all, but rather an incomplete moat.  I had to stop digging it when I foolishly left my blueprints for the drawbridge and portcullis sitting on my desk where my wife found them.  I think there were also some notes on the front page about the pros and cons of crocodiles vs. sharks.  She made me stop the project immediately.

Now, we have a pond.

And ducks.

My wife is an other, by the way.  There is no disputing that.  She clearly fits the category, however I have had to make allowances for her.  Just like any good parasite needs a host, I need her.  She completes me.

To clarify, I do not mean that sentence to sound like some sappy movie, pick-up line.  I literally mean that she keeps me from falling apart and shattering into little mental pieces.  She frequently reminds me to eat, to bathe, and to occasionally leave the house.  She is also the one that, when I take what is left of my fragile sanity and toss it in the garbage can, takes it out, dusts it off, and places it back on the shelf where it belongs.

Without her around constantly telling me to stop acting like a complete psycho, I would probably end up living alone, boarded up in a cabin in the woods, and writing my manifesto.

Or, maybe a blog?  Well … let’s not delve too deeply into that one.

As far as the kids go, they only get a pass because they are literally part me.  They are, however, also part other, so they are walking on thin ice most of the time.  And, now that they are both going off to college in the fall, they will probably be more like others than ever before.  It has already started happening with the older one.  She is more other every year and, if she is not careful, she is going to come home one day to find all of her belongings in the moat … er, I mean, the pond.

Anyway, it is clear to me that others are not going to go away anytime soon.  After all, there are way more of them than me.  I have to learn to accept this and, although they don’t deserve it, I need to be more tolerant of their presence.  It won’t be easy, but I know that it is the right thing to do.

At least until I figure out how to keep sharks alive in fresh water.