Atomictumor

Bask in the glory.  55 mighty gallons of water, all protected by Iron Man and bubbles coming out of the eyes of skulls.

Oh hell yes, its AT’s new fishtank, and the culmination of my fishtank aspirations.  Simply because anything bigger would be, well, damn expensive.

The cost of this bad boy was offset a bit by that Franklin that MastaG conned Papaw out of, so he paid for a good chunk of it.  Setting it up, well, it was a busy day.

First, I had to work, as is my usual wage slavey wont.  After work, off to Realtorchick’s house to pick up MastaG, where he gets off the bus, on account of if he rides the bus here its like a 50 minute ride, and I wouldn’t want to wish 50 minutes on a 100 degree middle school bus on a dog.  I swung by there, he was working on homework with RC’s kid (can’t remember his super awesome internet name).  I fell asleep to a Pearl Jam concert on the TV (what normally happens to me when I hear Pearl Jam), woke up, went to pick up Pigpen from Eave’s house (I have kids scattered all over this town, lemme tell ya), swung back, got G, and then busted ass out to the east of Knoxville to acquire MastaG’s mighty trombone.

Lemme tell ya, that was an ordeal.  I can’t say I was unprepared for the rush hour traffic, both on the road, and in the unairconditioned music store, but it still had me grinding my teeth.  Still, moods were light (as has been my light-mooded wont lately), and we got the thing.

MastaG’s comment: “What the heck have they been DOING to this thing?  Couldn’t you have gotten me a NEW one?”

My reply: “whack”

So, busted back home, where I had to be on account of my ladyfriend, who happens to be the manager down at the pet store that sold me the fishtank (woot, got a connected ladyfriend), was expecting a tasty filled dinner in exchange for setting the tank up.  And lemme tell ya, she did a damn fine job.  That tank is wicked awesome.

In my defense, dinner was nice too.  There was one weird moment where Pigpen and MastaG decided that they would be Daddy and Pigpen, respectively, looked at me, asked who I was (I decided to be Pootytater, our catfish), and then turned their glance at Ladyfriend.

Pigpen started saying “And you can be M…”, but she jumped in and said “Mailman!  I can be the mailman!”

Whew.  That was almost awkward…

Crisis averted.

—

What?  Why are you all looking at me that way?  Is it the fishtank?

I haven’t really been living in my house much lately, been spending a lot of time at friends houses, or out and about, and all that kinda stuff, and over the month of July and the first part of August, the house has been in a fairly constant state of trashed.

It drives me crazy to have a messy house. I get stressed, I’m in a bad mood, I snap, and it makes me lazy, because I see this big ass mess, but its so daunting that I just don’t know where to begin, so I pick up a book, or beat a hasty retreat, or bang my head on the wall until blissful sleep comes to me (which doesn’t help the mess at all, what with all the bloody head marks on the walls in the house).

I guess I’m lazy, but its so much nicer to spend the days that we wind up at the house unwinding, or decompressing, or something else, because cleaning up is an ordeal. Pigpen requires constant supervision and micromanagment to get jobs done, and MastaG requires a lot of patience, because he tends to whine about how hard his life is when he’s cleaning, which quietly infuriates me. If I yell at him, it makes for an ordeal, because now he’s sullen because I yelled at him, and I’m kinda seething because yelling at MastaG, well, its like crack. I mean, that first time you yell at him, its so nice. You get all this pent up stuff about how your little baby is growing up and turning into a (very occasionally) whiney assed little guilt wielding 10 year old, let it out on the boy, and it kinda just wants to keep coming out.

I’m good at yelling at kids, and for that reason I don’t like to do it very often. I guess I’m a sucker for the guilt thing.

I digress.

So, anyway, point is yesterday it came to a head, of sorts. It was made perfectly clear to me that the house looks like 3 boys live there. The bathroom was, well, ugly. Toys, clothes, trash, scattered all over the bedroom and living room, and the hall, and the playroom, and the kitchen. Week old dishes were sitting out.

It was time for action. Time for men (and boys) of true grit to get out there and clean it the hell up.

And we did. I picked MastaG up, met his band teacher to find out what path of instrumentation he’ll be going on (trombone, just like his old man, woot), and brought the boys home, under the understanding that IT WAS ON.

3 hours later, it was. The needful had been achieved. I scrubbed out the bathtub, even. Something that hasn’t been done since, well, before November (I’m not gross, I mean, I washcloth it down before Pigpen’s baths, but we’re talking scouring the bastard with some Ajax).

The result? Its like another freakin place. The immense peace I got, just from going to bed and waking up in a house that doesn’t look like 3 boys live there, was undescribable.

And then I managed to catch a showing of “Gorillaz: Live in Harlem”, with Dennis Hopper presiding, on the high def music channel, at damn near the beginning. Ahh, rewards.

So here it is for you people:

Now I don’t mind inviting you people over…

Woke up late today
Now my shoulders are all sore
And I’m dragging it

The house is a mess
The kids yell and irritate
Easy fix for that

Now they give me glares
MastaG takes out the trash
Pigpen clears table

Man, had a good time
Went to Katie’s and Knoxjon’s
Met a bunch of folks

Thanks for the invite
To your big old kickass house
And for the chicken

Gotta go right now
Kids whining about cleaning
Need to crack some heads

What gives?

Two weeks ago the washing machine went kerpootz, now the drier won’t heat. It runs and runs and puffs and puffs, but there’s no fire in it’s belly. Perhaps it just can’t live without the old washing machine.

I’ve got a repair book coming from the library. We’ll see what happens. I hope I can at least read my fortune off its entrails.

I see over in the shout box that I’m one half the reason for the sucky nature of the intarwebs today. I have to disagree as I think it’s a conspiracy on the part of the foul force that slayed our twenty year old washing machine. What lowlife would kick such an elderly machine? It’s wrong, so wrong.

Really, I think the machine gave up the ghost after the second load of cloth diapers because it saw the writing on the wall. It realized the loads and loads of crappy laundry in its future spelled the end of its leisurely existence. So it fell on its own agitator cycle and died.

The new washing machine is supposed to be delivered sometime between 11am and 3pm tomorrow. We should have it by eight that evening.