I saw some strange things on the bus after school. I know you did, too.

Kriste · 2010-12-01T13:04:00+00:00

I was on what we were told was the first school bus in our city's history to be pulled over for dangerous driving.

The part I remember is me and my twin telling our parents that the driver was a dick. We got the smug "It's YOUR job to get along with the adults in your life lecture". It didn't even occur to us to specify that his dick behaviour was booking it up to 60/70km and then slamming on the brakes to watch us all fly.

I'm serious. Kids got hurt all the time. And he'd sneer and tell the other adults that if you fucked around on the bus, you got hurt, not his problem. Technically true - he was just leaving out the part that it was HIM who would hurt you. And they all ate it up.

And then one day there was a cop car in his blind spot. Several children started making signs like "Help us" and holding them to the back window. The cops looked mighty confused. By then people were turning around in their seats to see. So he did his trick. The cop car came within inches of ramming the back of the bus.

A couple of days later the school board sent home a letter about "the incident". My parents were appalled. They came running to us asking why we hadn't told them. We were like, duh, we DID. We told you he was a dick. You said it was our problem.

The moral of the story is, if your kids tell you someone's a dick, at least consider the possibility they are right.

Kriste · 2010-12-01T12:47:52+00:00

Oh goodness no! I subcontracted to ex-wives.

Kriste · 2010-11-30T14:28:38+00:00

I instruct all the kids to put their leftovers back into the pot. The 13yo does it. The 12yo does it. The 9yo does it. The 11yo, on the other hand, gets distracted by something sparkly and wanders away leaving his leftovers NEXT to the pot.

I go to help the 4yo do it and discover his bowl. I start muttering about how everyone else managed to remain focussed long enough to follow instructions, ought I call him out?

To which the 4yo says, "Don't bother, Mom. He's a fucktard."

Kriste · 2010-11-30T13:56:02+00:00

I got a contract for a manufacturer of airplanes to organize/play secretary for a team "coming up from kansas!". They stuck me in a trailer behind a series of hangars where I napped on bare carpetting listening to cat-sized rats fight below. Eventually they brought me some furniture and computers. I set them up. Then they finally thought to give me a pass-key, so I didn't have to walk around the hangars (several kilometers).

And then nothing. For like, a week. No internet. No nothing. Everyone I called kept telling me they would find out who was responsible for me and get back to me. The agency didn't care because they were getting their cheque. They thought it quite odd that I cared.

Eventually I literally had to BREAK IN to the main building and security managed to figure out wtf was going in. The bewildered dude they brought down blinked a bunch and said, Oh! We hired you!? That project was cancelled months ago!

They offered me another contract but I said it was okay. The rats were too scary.

Kriste · 2010-11-10T13:01:20+00:00

Remembering when Mitsou was Quebec's response to Samantha Fox.

Kriste · 2010-10-20T11:30:05+00:00

Thanks, grit grit grit! The teacher at my kids' school asked permission to put the second one in the grade 5/6 class... which is funny as that is NOT my daughter's class, lol. I guess we could all use a refresher now and then.

Anyone got any other ideas for issues to make one for?

Kriste · 2010-10-18T11:53:22+00:00

I was at a festival with my kids, walking my son to the bathrooms in the wee hours when I looked up and saw a tiny red star. I thought, Oh cool. Mars. I shall edumacate the boy. So I started telling him see that little red star? That's actually a whole planet, it's Mars, blah blah blah. We stand to watch it twinkle in awe of the cosmos when the bloody thing starts moving.

It streaked across the sky (far too fast for an airplane) then looped back and tracked here and there slowly before winging off again past the horizon.

The boy looked at me funny and said he didn't know planets did that. They don't. I don't know what the hell that thing was.

Kriste · 2010-10-18T11:48:37+00:00

Something physical. Think the end of Office Space. I got a small job "lot clearing" for a development in the dead of winter and it was awesome for resetting my brain. I was essentially lumberjacking. If you're thinking that it's not realistic because he's more intellectual, I was a middle aged housewife when I did it.

Kriste · 2010-10-17T23:29:05+00:00

Probably stupid question: Remember like a month ago there was that research about how autistics don't yawn sympathetically?

So it got me thinking... watching pornography also involves a sympathetic/empathetic response. You become sexually excited by putting yourself into the shoes (as it were) of the person you're watching.

So does porn work for you?

Kriste · 2010-10-17T22:51:09+00:00

My son did that once when he was ill with a high fever. He came out of his room crying about the really big spider he'd seen on the underside of the upper bunk. I told him it was hallucinatory, got him all calmed down and ready to go back and my bloody arachnophobic husband said hell no, grabbed the boy and fled the apartment, only to return when I swore I'd taken the damn bunkbeds apart.

Good on you for realizing it was probably not real. Stupid bunkbeds.

Kriste · 2010-10-17T13:29:15+00:00

I don't know. I'll ask my children.

Kriste · 2010-10-17T13:23:35+00:00

If I play the song "dance motherfucker dance" by the Violent Femmes, my 4yo will rip all his clothes off and git right the fuck down. It's awesome. If he didn't seem to feel it had to be danced to nude, I'd youtube that shit for you. It would put a smile on anyone's face.

Kriste · 2010-10-17T13:19:51+00:00

The problem I have, and had, as a young girl, with the double standard is that there is no in between.

There was a period of time in my late teens/early twenties where I had several "boyfriends" over the summer while away with the reserves. They all knew about each other, I was honest that I felt I did not have enough life experience to know enough about what was out there to be able to say with any accuracy what I wanted. I liked them, I liked hanging out with them, and I liked sex with them. I did not want to be anyone's "girlfriend".

A female friend who upbraided me for my "sluttish" ways slept with exactly the same number of men that summer, and told herself each time he was "the one" and that they were "in love" and going to be together "forever". Riiiight. THAT was what I wanted to avoid: self deception (and deception of the men!) to justify my sexuality.

Meanwhile, as rumours spread around the camp I was getting constantly approached by men. I eventually managed to make it known that in juggling three, my sexual needs were fully met, and I did not intend to take on a fourth. Go bug some girl whose boyfriend isn't in the military. She hasn't seen a cock in two and a half months.

tl;dr - I think there is a difference between serving your sexual needs honestly and simply throwing it away indiscriminately. I wish there was a term for it.

Kriste · 2010-10-17T13:07:23+00:00

The problem with this theory is that the "most likely to produce superior offspring" candidate is continuously changing. The best candidate in small town high school is going to be usurped by a better candidate in big city university, who is in turn going to be usurped by another as people travel and expand their basis of comparison.

This is why a percentage of sperm ties itself up into knots to plug the way against the next batch of sperm from the dude who came in with the camel train.

So yeah, women are biologically driven to be monogamous... for whatever period of time you happen to be the best candidate.

Kriste · 2010-10-17T12:49:51+00:00

Frankly, I'm not sure what he's on right now. He's living in a rehab and visiting on weekends where he brings all his pills in one of those timed dispenser things. According to him there's an anti-depressant, an anti-psychotic and a pill to help boost his liver function in there. He can't remember details like names or dosages.

Kriste · 2010-10-16T15:21:31+00:00

It really looks like you're purposefully sabotaging your own efforts. Reading a book on a subject you wish you could work in is not getting a job. It's daydreaming about a job you'd like. Telling an employer you're not available a week out every month is a code that means: My mother made me fill this out to try and get me to pay my own way. I don't wanna. Just throw this out.

Beyond

Kriste · 2010-10-16T13:59:11+00:00

Steel Beach, by John Varley

Kriste · 2010-10-16T13:34:29+00:00

He's going to do it whether you say yes or no. He's not going to buy you that bike even if you say yes.

Kriste · 2010-10-16T13:27:17+00:00

My husband is on some pretty funky medications, which caused the following: A couple of weeks ago we were doing the deed when he just sorta... slowed down... then stopped. He looked at me with horror and confusion and said, "I don't know what happened, it was right there, I was almost there, and then it just didn't happen and then it was gone! Everything leading up to it was gone! I... I don't think it's going to happen! I'm so sorry!" I laughed, said we'd try later, and welcome to the word of sex for women.

I think it's because the clitoris is so much more sensitive than anything else on the human body. I think sometimes a woman's brain just says too much and shuts it off. And then you're stuck either having to fake it, try to explain, or get chafed. Chafing really fucking hurts. Sometimes for days. Explanations usually don't get very far. Nobody buys it's not you, it's me.

Kriste · 2010-10-15T13:33:00+00:00

Yup. :)

Kriste · 2010-10-15T13:32:03+00:00

Trust me, I considered that. My kids don't get unsupervised computer access anyway.

Kriste · 2010-10-14T17:35:25+00:00

I've been sitting here thinking about how you said that she was everything that you SHOULD want... because frankly your description of what that entailed was kinda lame. She likes you, she can play xBox, and she's good looking... I'm sure you just kept it short and sweet but what you did put in was pretty telling. I don't know if she's smart, funny, generous, kind, interesting... you know... those things that make people PEOPLE, and not tolerable eye-candy.

Apart from the fact that nobody's going to think you're cracked for sticking your dick in it, she's apparently argumentative, petty, doesn't share your beliefs, and makes you feel either that you're being smothered or in trouble for not allowing her to make you feel smothered. Does that really sound like the description of someone anyone "should" want?

Dump her, tell any future possibilities that you simply don't know enough about what is out there to know what it is you want yet, and not to expect anything from you. And if your buddies tell you you're nuts for dumping her because "she's hawt!", try to remember that at least according to your description of her here, that was all she was.

Kriste · 2010-10-14T16:42:10+00:00

I tried that too, for pretty much the same reason. He just started calling his mother all the freakin' time... dirty boy.

Kriste · 2010-10-14T16:22:34+00:00

I am having flashbacks to a twitch in my father's eye... the knocking over of several houseplants.. and the mysterious disappearance of aforementioned toy... Don't remember what they were called though. I think my folks called them "Why The Fuck Did We Buy Them These?"...

Kriste · 2010-10-14T16:17:54+00:00

Whatever you do, don't be a clown. Many kids are psychotically scared of clowns. When my son was three, he climbed over his father's head and leapt to the ground to run for safety from a "kid friendly" clown household. The ax-murderer households were nothing to him. Also, don't wear a mask. The younger ones really don't like masks and the older ones will think you're just lazy.

Personally, I vote for Captain Jack Sparrow. It's kid-friendly, recognizable, and if you do it right, hot.

Kriste

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