Narishkeit

In my mind the headline reads Cancel Christmas Because I Beat Up Santa Claus but I know that part can’t be true because headlines don’t use ‘I’ in them, or at least I can’t remember any that did.

But then again after recent events bits and pieces of my memory are a bit of a blur so maybe I am wrong.

It Is Hard to Say You Beat Up Santa

There are relatively few good ways to tell most people that you beat up Santa Claus.

Most of them start with “he was drunk, aggressive and getting too friendly with my wife/kids” but those are hard to come by.

My story isn’t quite like that. The jolly old man wasn’t making eyes at my woman or doing bad things to my kids so I don’t have any reasons other than I just don’t like him.

Something about that guy just chaps my hide. Maybe it is because as the Jewish kid I know he automatically puts me on the naughty list.

Once upon a midnight dreary when I found myself in a state between weak and weary I started thinking about how unfair it was not to be gifted with whatever sort of gifts are given to the other team.

Since I am a peace loving fellow I figured the best way to go about this was to figure out who Mr. Claus reports to. Once I had that information it would be easy to “encourage” him to share some loot with me.

When I began my research discovered the 1-800-Ask a Gentile hotline. I dialed the fine folks over there and much to my chagrin learned it didn’t work. Every time I called I got one of those ‘error messages’ about the line not being in service.

Since my one track mind isn’t easily dissuaded I called the Vatican and asked to be connected with the pope.

Apparently he isn’t available to take calls nor is he willing to return them, especially when they are of a ‘frivolous or silly nature.’ I don’t know about you, but a guy who wears a funny pointed hat shouldn’t chew on the butts of other people who enjoy silly.

Anyhoo, time passes and I am stumped. Mrs. Hackleshmackle, the librarian from my high school called me an idiot and said she don’t have to put up with my nonsense no more.

There ain’t no one at the Library of Congress who will answer my question nor is there anyone at the Smithsonian. But like I said, I am determined so I figure I’ll go to the local mall and ask the guy who is playing Santa Claus if he can help me out.

So I head on over to the Short Hills Mall and find myself talking to an elf who has a real Jersey attitude. I say, “Snooky, I got no time to deal with an elf who smells like she doused herself with a combination of kerosene and Chanel Number Smellslikecrap. Just tell the fat guy I need to talk.”

I don’t even want to tell you what sort of response I got, but it was pretty vulgar. Fortunately Santa heard us talking and he waddled over and what he said shocked me.

That fat old man used a series of four letter words in a fashion that cannot be described as friendly or jolly.

Well, no one gets a free poke at me so I told Santa that if he didn’t apologize I was going to kick his ass.

‘Jersey Santa’ didn’t take too kindly to that so he vaulted over the candy cane fence and came straight for me.

“Santa, I ain’t one of your elves. The sarge told me he loved me because I am a hard charger with head full of rocks. Step back or risk having your bag of coal shoved so far up your ass a match and a burp will start a fire.”

Needless to say ‘Jersey Santa’ didn’t take my advice but he did take five fingers in the mouth, a boot to the ass and a hard right to the gut.

Had there been a window he probably would have been defenestrated, but sadly luck was not on my side.

I’d like to say I got through the moment unscathed and unharmed but that wouldn’t be true.

Two of Santa’s elves jumped me from behind. One of them bit my shoulder and the other grabbed a hold of the kind of package that requires more TLC than they gave it.

And Santa, well he surprised me with a hook shot that almost knocked me on my ass. I have to give him credit for that one, it was almost as good as he got.

Twenty-five years later I still don’t get anything on Christmas nor have I ever figured out who Santa’s boss is. But I got some good memories and I didn’t get arrested, so I guess I got that going for me.

Editor’s Note: This post has appeared in various forms on this blog and elsewhere from time to time, most recently here. Based upon comments from the past I’ll remind you it falls under the narishkeit category and may or may not be true or exaggerated.

If you enjoyed this you might try It Wasn’t Worth Getting Arrested and  The Flying Clown.

The last person who asked me how to defeat ISIS didn’t understand when I said we needed to grab Horus, Ra, Thor, Shiva and Zeus to win that particular fight.

So when they screwed up their face and asked me what I was talking about I told them that we could unleash hungry tigers upon those crazy bastards or set off an Ebola bomb in their midst.

I probably should have been concerned when they told me that sounded like a good idea and that they were certain Ebola was part of a government plot to take over the world. But when you walk amongst the people who take public transportation you never know who you are going to encounter.

This Is What Happens When You Deal With Crazy

Or maybe it is more accurate to say this is what happens when you deal with crazy dad bloggers like myself. You never know what they are going to say or what they are going to write about.

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They tell me Mercury is in retrograde and that this affects people. They say I should be aware it might impact relationships and plans. Don’t want to get into whether it is making people crazier than normal or if it makes life any harder because it doesn’t matter much to me.

That is because I am exhausted and don’t have the energy to figure out why life is crazier than normal now. For the moment I need to focus on getting my house in order and not getting caught up in the mania surrounding things like Ebola and ISIS.

Some people have told me I am lucky that I am not back in Texas yet. They say I should be happy because if I was in Dallas I might get sick. I tell them I worry about it as much as I worry about being beheaded or blown up by one of the terrorists.

Different sort of crazy person tells me that President Obama is part of the Muslim Brotherhood and that I should be worried. I tell him I don’t like his foreign policy and that I don’t believe he is part of the Muslim Brotherhood.

He tells me about the Ebola thing in Texas and says it is part of a plot. I silently wonder how I managed to find another crazy conspiracy nut and remain silent. When he asks me if I know how long it takes to go from Dallas to Austin to Washington I ask him if he wants to go by plane, train or automobile.

When he glares at me and tells me I ought to be serious I tell him there are other people to talk to. He tells me I am part of the problem with America and I tell him if he bangs his head against a wall it might fix whatever is loose inside.

I am my favorite flavor of crazy and not partial to some of the other colors that have chosen to paint inside the train we are sharing.

That Feeling of Wanderlust

My favorite friend has come back to visit. That feeling of wanderlust and sense that I need to start moving sooner than later has reappeared.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath and center myself because if I don’t that sense that something is chasing after me is going to grow.

Let it grow and it makes me feel uneasy because I feel the distant presence of whatever it is that seeking me. I feel it searching and want to turn and stare back.

Want to look it in the eye and dare it to come for me.

Ready to put on my armor, grab my weapons and saddle my horse. If it won’t come than maybe I’ll go looking for it. Why give it time to enjoy life and grow more powerful when I can go after it and rid it of its ability to harm.

That malevolent gaze needs to be reminded that pressure can be applied in multiple directions. When you push my way I can let it go by and use a venting system to relieve it or I can turn it around and let it work for me.

Fear Fights Rational Thought

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I hear someone saying fear fights rational thought. Don’t know who or what I hear but the echoes have been with me for years so I make an effort to fight fear.

Better to stay calm and ask what the source of my fear is. I look at the terrorists and ask what is the probability of being hurt by them and the answer is it is low.

Unless I let the wanderlust take me to some places best left not visited for now the likelihood of an encounter is limited. Strange to think that at the moment there seems to be a greater likelihood that I might encounter Ebola than terror but off the top of my head that is how it feels.

Maybe it is because of the patient in Texas and the concern that if not managed properly it could turn into an epidemic and go racing through cities and states.

But rational thought says though it is possible it is unlikely and I choose not worry until there is a reason to do so.

And with that we say goodbye to silly free writing…for now.

How many blog posts have headlines that reference Mel, the chef on Alice. Actually I am not sure if Mel actually said the best defense is a good offense or not but if he did Flo would have said to kiss her grits.

But for the sake of the post I’ll share a story about my youth and one about the present.

My mother tells me when I was a wee lad I went through a phase where I would walk up to other children, introduce myself and then hit them. I’d say I was a hit on the playground but it is an awful pun and my mother wouldn’t appreciate it.

There are still a few moms who think I am an awful child but as a kid of the 7os I am happy to ask if any of them actually paid attention to what we kids were doing because in those days you could send your kid outside while you popped a couple of Valium and smoked Virginia Slims with your box of wine.

I’ll let you decide if I am exaggerating or not.

When my mother asked me why I hit those other kids I told her I was worried they were going to hit me so I hit them first. No, I wasn’t paranoid at all, they were out to get me.

Anyhoo…

About The Offense And The Defense

Earlier this week a dude decided to mix it up with another dad blogger and we unleashed the hordes upon him. Let me tell it is a frightening sight to see 983,322 men wearing cargo shorts and carrying parenting gear come running at you.

The sounds of the huffing and puffing from the well padded are barely heard by those bastards who still wear the same size 32 inch jeans they wore in college.

We carry a variety of armor and ordinance with us. The diaper brigade is armed with biological weapons while the Toddler crew uses Thomas The Tank Engine rifles that uses fat conductor caliber shells.

Those are pretty nasty, but not as bad as what happens when you step on one of the Lego mines with a barefoot.

But none of that compares to what happens when the older fellas roll out the angry teenage girls brigade. I have seen grown men run in the opposite direction of those eye rolling, laser eye glaring look of death throwing girls.

Anyway, your old friend Jack not being of sound mind or body doesn’t always exhibit the common sense or maturity a crotchety old men has earned so during these dust ups you can sometimes find him at the center.

This week was no different.

I know. I should hang my head in shame for jumping over the bridge to troll the trolls but sometimes an almost middle aged man feels the need to show the young bucks he can still run with them.

And that my friends is part of the reason why the picture from my statcounter is up there.

One of those trolls spent almost two hours checking out my blog.

The Past Meets The Present

It is possible it was an innocent visit and that the dude was just curious to see who the unhinged lunatic was. Perhaps they were trying to ascertain if I was in a beserker rage.

You can’t blame them. How many times have you seen a father wield strollers in either hand with the sort of skill I do.

It would be pretentious to say it is all natural so I won’t say it but I do have lots of practice. I have been known to change diapers one handed, while holding vomiting toddlers and keeping a watchful eye on the three other kids that are having a pretend lightsaber fight.

I was prepared in advance for such a thing, so the kids knew that when dad said he was using the Force on them they had to pretend to be frozen in place for at least 90 seconds.

Of course 90 seconds is 30 seconds more than I need to change a diaper so that left me with ample time to enter the fray with my own lightsaber.

I was a whirling dervish out there which is probably why that other parent’s kids entered the battle. Everyone wants to take on the best and if they hadn’t been cheaters they would have acknowledged I won.

Anyhoo I thought about the visitor and wondered if perhaps they were going to launch their own attack upon me. The one they unleashed upon the other dad blogger was a poorly written and pathetic attempt at parody.

So I thought that maybe they might try the same thing with me and then I decided they would never do such a thing. Except there was this little voice that yelled at me that maybe I was wrong.

Echoes from more than forty years reached through the decades and said “better safe than sorry” so I shrugged my shoulders and screamed “BATTLE!”

Ok, I didn’t scream but I thought if he did try to launch his own poorly written parody of me I would be ready for it by putting out a post that showed I own real estate inside his head that I picked up for free.

No one spends two hours plotting unless they really like the reading in which case ignore all the stuff that came before this and accept my gratitude.

Either way I win. Woohoo!

I am beginning to wonder if I should be allowed to walk freely among people or if perhaps I need to wear a sign that warns people that I my bite is worse than my bark.

You’d think that a guy who wrote “You never want to look back upon your day while sitting handcuffed in the back of a squad car and wonder how it could have gone to hell so quickly” would be cautious about how he behaved in public.

Surely he wasn’t interested in wearing a pair of silver bracelets again. You’d think he wouldn’t want to explain to another judge how it is not his fault he got into another fight.

It wasn’t worth getting arrested for beating a man with a salami. Sure it makes for a great story but when you realize that it is not the only tale of you engaging in fisticuffs you have to accept that people begin to question your self control.

You can try to distract them with 69 Reasons Why Fathers Make Better Lovers but eventually you touch upon the time you beat up a surly, drunk and horny clown at a birthday party and people wonder if maybe you have self control issues.

Can’t blame them for asking, especially when you talk about blogging without shame.

It’s The Dumbest Way To Get Arrested

If you ask me to pull a card from any deck I can promise you I am going to pull the Joker every time. Can’t tell you if it is good luck or a curse because there is enough black in my ledge to balance the red.

But then again that is what it looked like before this last incident.

The only thing I hate more than food shopping is doing it in a crowd which is why I chose to hit my local establishment for a couple of beers and some wings.

I figured by the time the game ended the grocery store would be mostly empty and I was mostly right. Mostly because I chose to hit the produce department at the same time as a group of college boys did.

Don’t ask me to explain why they were staring at the lettuce and checking out the melons and not buying beer because I don’t get it either.

I can’t explain that any better than I can tell how two of them and I started exchanging artillery fire in the aisles. What I can tell you is that if you ever get into it in the store don’t try throwing cantaloupes at your adversary, especially if he is me.

That is because I can throw green apples harder, faster and more accurately than you can. If you are smart you’ll take cover or if you are young, dumb and stupid you’ll let me come at you and eventually I will use a pile of watermelon’s to destroy you.

You can’t imagine how dumb you’ll look after you get hit by several 8 pound melons.

The thing you have to remember is that eventually someone is going to call the police because you are fighting in the market. Said police will come and give you silver bracelets and you’ll think that a watermelon war is the dumbest way to get arrested.

Later On

Later on your public defender will ask you to explain yourself so he can provide an adequate defense and you’ll quote Sean Connery’s character in The Untouchables.

Malone: You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That’s* the *Chicago* way! And that’s how you get Capone. Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that? I’m offering you a deal. Do you want this deal?

And then your PD will look cross eyed at you and you’ll try to explain that you were minding your own business and that it started when these other guys made fun of you dancing.

When your PD asks what you were dancing to you’ll say you started with Paul Revere by The Beastie Boys and explain that what really set you off was when Barry Manilow’s Weekend In New England came on.

The PD will ask why that song is on your phone and instead of giving him a civil answer you’ll jump across the table and start slapping him because you think he questioned your masculinity.

And when push comes to shove you’ll admit that maybe you lack impulse control but demand that you aren’t charged with assault because you are entitled to defend your person and your taste in music.

Epilogue

My shrink says I shouldn’t talk about these moments in the third person because it makes it easier for me to disconnect and not be accountable. I told him that he shouldn’t talk to me that way and he asked if I was going to hurt him too.

I told him talking like that was a good way to get a beating and he kept doing it so I proved I am a man of my word. I don’t think my Freud wannabe will do that again.

Editor’s Note: This was 32 minutes of flash fiction I wrote just for the heck of it. I have never been arrested or beaten anyone up with fruit or processed meat.