Saturday Night Live did a beautiful job on this parody of a technical review show, and the uncomfortable and ridiculous distance that exists between the folks that make phones and the folks that use them. It’s aimed at Americans but I think Canada falls into this rather directly.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJh2eylm5BY
The final kicker joke is the money shot for sure.
So, for those of you who don’t already know, I was laid off from my job at Deloitte in June. An absolute gift really as now I’m at home with the kids for the summer with a nice severance and enjoying them tons more than my 2-3 weeks holidays would have allowed… not to mention the hours were less than desirable at busy season and the manager I directly reported to did not appreciate my lust for life, as I’m pretty sure she loathed her own. A wonderful work environment. No?
So as any stay at home mom can attest to, when the house is full all day long the cleaning is much greater than when the house empties for the day. More meals to prep, more traffic, more activities.(No slight to the working mom, I was one of those too, and there are different struggles with that dynamic, no question – for example, “For the love of God and all that’s holy, why can’t I require less sleep and gain 6 hours in my day?”)
With that in mind, there are things that Court would do while I was working like the composting for example. He’d empty it every other day and from my perspective, magically the composter would be empty whenever required and I never had to manage it – Awesome! I never realized exactly HOW awesome that was until recently .
Like I said, there is more food prep and more activity now that we are all home, so our indoor composting bucket needs more dumping than it ever has before. As a result I asked Quinn to go dump the bucket a few days ago and he did. He said nothing of the event until I asked his brother a day or two later to do the same thing.
Q – “Cael, there are these lichens in there.”
Me – “what?”
Q – “Little white worms.”
Me – “Oh, maggots, I better go and check it out with you Cael”
So off the three of us go. Yes the three of us. I head out of course, as the leader, to see the degree of the situation (there is probably 30 or 40 in there, and I make a mental note to talk to Court about that). Cael was tasked with the dumping, so he is taking his job very seriously, and Quinn, our “lichen” expert is joining us out of sheer morbid curiosity.
Like the three musketeers we begin our adventure to the composter that is now in the middle of the driveway, and in plain view of the entire neighbourhood because it is city compost day. We all cozy up to the composter, and I show Cael with care how to maneuver the latch on the bin and I flip it up.
….
This is the part where I scream louder than I’ve EVER screamed, to the detriment of my own eardrums. The boys in suit scream like the girl that is their mother, and with new compost flinging everywhere from the bucket in Cael’s hand we all run to the front porch and cling to it like grim death. This became the unspoken “home base” we all needed.
What scared us? Maggots. There was no green to be seen inside that bin. They literally, no lie, swarmed out of the sides as daylight shone upon them, and when I released the lid in my screaming panic, it actually squished hundreds that poured out onto the rim. It was a horror show in a bin. I am gagging as I type this tale to you all.
…
Quinn is the first to break the silence that fear has imposed upon us as we all stare at each other through eyes like dinner plates.
Q – “Mom?”
Through thick swallows and a heaving chest providing the cleansing breaths that only a “home base” away from the maggots can provide I reply with a strong and solid “yeah?”
Q- “Um, you’re the parent…and you screamed and ran.”
Not a proud moment for sure. Thanks, and here’s a shout out to Captain Obvious for pointing that out. All I can do at this point is start a nervous and uncontrollable giggle at my epic fail to be the strong force that should protect my kids. “That’s right kids, every man for himself! Run like the wind, and GOD HELP YOU if you bring one in on your shoe!”
Quinn, who is always ready with a comment (not unlike his father), “I’ll bet that was really funny for anyone watching.”
We all of course laughed hysterically reenacting our ridiculousness because there is no way in hell, every neighbour would miss running to their windows to witness the display that followed three blood curdling screams. We all shone that day. Even Courtney. Go ahead … ask me how he also shone. Oh you crazy rapscallions have convinced me. …
Me – “Court, you wouldn’t believe what happened!” (I regale him with the horrific story over the phone)
Court -[snort, chuckle, guffaw] – “Um, [snicker snicker], honey…[snort snort]… it’s a COM-PO-STER”
…Think Sesame Street on that last sentence.
Me – (Another shout out to Captain Obvious) “I KNOW Huh-NEE…. but we have Kanata’s full maggot population in just OUR bin! What are we going to do?”
Court -[snort, chuckle, guffaw] – “Well sweetheart if you think you can singlehandedly circumvent the circle of life….[snort, chuckle, guffaw]”
….
So it was decided that I would NEVER do the composting again until winter. In my defense Quinn will attest that when he went to the composter originally there was only about 30-40 in there.
On another note… with the support I received from Court… there will be a surprise for him to follow. Perhaps one that will make it to the blog in the near future. Muhwahahahahaha!
Parenting is hard. There are so many possible ways that you can screw up, it’s a gauntlet of therapy-inducing phobias that you can pass on to your kids that will really mess them up forever. Some parents try to avoid these pitfalls, but really it’s only a matter of time before your kids will just find one on their own and latch on, riding that sucker right through to middle-age or later until they (maybe) finally address it with some aggressive shock therapy in a grungy abandoned hospital basement in New Jersey with a “Doctor” they found on the net. Or something like that.
Or you can just shortcut all that crap, and just give your kids pant-shitting fears of your own choosing. A lot faster, easier and then there’s none of that constant worrying. It’s pretty attractive, you have to admit. Anyway, that’s the kind of thinking that I assume has gone into this awesome company: Evil Birthday Clown
Essentially, you hire this guy who will dress as an evil clown and STALK your child for a week. He will send menacing text messages, set traps, make phone calls to your child, and generally make damn sure your kid will ALWAYS remember what their worst fear is. The game of it all is he is trying to hit your kid in the face with a pie (of dubious origin). If your kid manages to avoid 1) getting hit with the pie and 2) becoming a raving gibbering lunatic, why then the clown will give your child the pie. Sounds like a GREAT birthday.
What in the ever-loving world would make you do this to ANYONE, let alone one of your own kids? (Lockrey excluded) This is some scary messed up shit right here.
Thanks Boing Boing, for warning me.
In a move that anyone with an actual brain could have predicted would “go badly”, the Catholic church shows up to indoctrinate the senior class at a Minneapolis high school about what a proper marriage should be. The presentation disparaged adopted children ( “sociologically unstable”), kids with only one parent (“a ‘normal’ family is the best family”), and naturally the whole presentation got entirely out of hand and erupted into anger when the topic of gay marriage inevitably was addressed:
“When they finally got to gay marriage, [students] were really upset,” said Bliss. “You could look around the room and feel the anger. My friend who is a lesbian started crying, and people were crying in the bathroom.”
Bliss was one of several students who stood up to argue with the representatives from the archdiocese. One girl held up a sign that said, “I love my moms.”
…..
At one point, Bliss raised his hand and, “as politely as I could,” began to argue with the presenters. He used his knowledge of history to refute many of their points, and explained that various cultures have accepted and embraced homosexuality going back hundreds of years.
“I think they were surprised by the history I gave them and surprised that I was so calm,” said Bliss. “I don’t think they expected the response they got from the students.”
They were so upset that the priest and school officials abruptly ended the assembly. Students who were angry were allowed to stay there and talk with the archdiocese volunteers. It was more civil, for a while, but the more questions the presenters tried to answer, the worse it got.
“It was a really awful ending,” said Bliss. “It was anger, anger, anger, and then we were done and they left. This is really a bad idea.”
The presentation was a very thinly-veiled attempt on behalf of the church to control the outcome of an upcoming vote on same-sex marriages, which the students were quick to pick up on:
Hannah said students were anxious when they heard about the program and were suspicious because only seniors were required to go. “We put two and two together,” said Hannah. “All of us will be able to vote next fall [on the constitutional amendment that limits marriage to same-sex couples].”
This kind of thing is exactly will inevitably end the power of these kinds of institutions. As it turns out, these kids prefer to think for themselves for the most part, and while there are exceptions to every rule, for the most part young educated people won’t stand for this kind of blatant discrimination, and they aren’t afraid to talk about it, and ultimately take action when something is wrong.
You stay classy, organized religion!
Call me idealistic, but for some reason I never cease to be amazed at the depths folks will go to. Certain Christian groups in our wonderful southern neighbour are actively lobbying AGAINST anti-bullying laws because they want to include terminology that would make it perfectly ok to bully if the kids were TAUGHT that being gay/different/whatever was wrong: “…would have exempted bullies who acted out of “a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.”
I’m speechless, can’t really believe this crap. So I won’t even bother writing my own thoughts on this particular topic, but instead I will use quotes from the following links to write this post:
Christians Fight for Their Children’s God-Given Right to Bully Gay Kids
The Bully Backlash: How the Christian Right Is Attacking Efforts to Help Kids
“In Michigan, lawmakers attempted to insert a provision into an anti-bullying bill that would have allowed bullying only on the grounds that it was being done based on a “sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction”. Thankfully it was tossed out after a national outcry.Â
“A number of groups that claim to represent the “Christian viewpoint” have come out in vigorous opposition to anti-bullying initiatives, and their opposition has to do with a fundamental question about exactly what we think bullying is.”
“Senate minority leader David Schapira, a sponsor of his Senate Bill 1462, called her a “legislative terrorist”. “Cathi Herrod, an unelected lobbyist (from a Christian right-wing group), killed a bill that would protect all Arizona kids purely because of her intolerance of gay kids.”
“To be sure, the notion that the anti-bullying initiatives are driven by “the homosexual agenda” – a phrase that conjures the vision of gay hordes aiming to seduce children into lives of abomination – is preposterous. But the sense that anti-bullying initiatives involve teaching children “acceptance” of LGBT peers, to use the word of the Concerned Women of America, is not. If you want the school to tell students to stop harassing kids like Jacob Rogers because they are gay, you have to let them know, at some point, that the school thinks it’s OK to be gay.”
Is anyone else really tired and depressed right now?
There’s no way this guy is still married. The reality of the situation is that this girl either really really doesn’t understand math, or is putting us all on very convincingly. I can’t decide if I am cynical enough to believe that she really doesn’t know the answer.
It’s still entertaining as hell, and this guy’s obvious glee should have tipped her off, right? I mean, come on.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhm7-LEBznk
From Boing Boing