My 2012 Bucket List

Yesterday I had a guy come up to me and ask, “are you ready for 2012?”

Looking around to make sure someone was witnessing this insanity, I quickly said, “Ummm…yeah, I guess so. I mean, I’ve saved-up a few bucks so I can afford to see the flick.”

“No…the REAL 2012. We’re all gonna die. You know that you will die in 2012, right? We all will. You, your family, your neighbors, all the countries…literally millions will die. Humankind will be nothing but documents and badly done museum exhibitions.”

Then it clicked…you know, I COULD actually take a dirt nap in 2012. Maybe the Mayans had a little something something going on with their magical mystery calendar.

Twenty minutes later my man finished shoving my brain into the depths of depression and allowed me to frantically sit down, digest all that was said, and conclude: “I need a fucking 2012 Bucket List!!!”

So…without further adieu:

Yo…It’s My 2012 Bucket List!

1) I’ve got to spend at least one day wearing adult diapers. I mean come on…those things were engineered by wizards from another world. Un-cloth-like thingies that wrap themselves around your entire torso allowing you to wiz all day long without having to stand, lift lids, or aim for urinal cakes. AND they’re disposable!!

2) Huge fan of the Kinks. I won’t lie. I’d like Jager, a keg, and a karaoke machine rigged to place me on stage in front of 20,000 rowdy friends all singing “Lola” at the top of their lungs.

3) Is there really a place on this planet where you’re asked if you’d “like a happy ending?” I’d love to lie on a massage table just once and be asked “you want happy ending?”

4) Take Sarah Palin on the Maury Show and do a paternity test to reveal who the real “baby daddy” is for Trig. We all know how that’s going to turn out…

5) Drink a beer with Bobcat Goldthwait. But only if he uses his old-school “Police Academy” voice the whole time.

6) Start making love to a Porn Star, then get all Gordon Ramsay on her ass and scream, “it’s like crap, served up with crap, with a side of crap. SHUT IT DOWN!!!”

7) Walk through Grand Central Station singing “come on ride the train…hey ride it! Whoo woo” until I get at least a 100-person train going.

8) Find Erno Rubik (inventor of the Rubik’s Cube) and beat his ass to death with his puzzle.

9) Hear Super Nanny tell me to “get on my naughty step.”

And the final, most amazing feat I’d like to pull off before all human life as we know it rots into this sweet sweet rock in space in 2012…..

10) To go on a shopping spree in Victoria’s Secret with Jennifer Aniston then have her do yoga in front of me while wearing that Cheerleader outfit she wore in that one episode on Friends.

The-to-the-End

Focus Danielson

At what point during my boy’s life is he going to not need to be told things 3,428 times before he actually freakin’ does it? I’m just wondering?

Saturday, I told the boy to go get socks. Four minutes later, as I’m running around getting stuff together to leave, I realize he’s still upstairs. So I go check and he’s lying on his bed reading a fucking book!

“Grayson! Dude! That’s awesome you’re reading a book, but…get…your….socks…on!”

Shocked that I would be rattled by this, he says, “I am daddy, I just needed to check something!”

He appears five minutes later with his socks…in his damn hands and stands in the living room doing nothing. A small drip of drool appears on his lower lip as he’s looking out the window into nothingness. Apparently he has become a dog who only knows how to receive and accomplish one command at a time.

“Seriously Grayson? I mean seriously? You know we’re trying to leave to go into the city. You know all that is required in order for you to walk outside in a foot of snow and 10-degree weather, but yet, you need me to walk you through it step-by-step.”

As soon as I finish that last word, he turns and looks at me and says, “Hey daddy, you know on Wii, on Mario, on World 6 when you’re fighting Bowser. His hat is weird!”

I just had to sit down after that. In what freakin’ world does this kid live? Mario’s World I guess.

Can I please have a huge dose of whatever the hell he’s got running through him to where he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the time continuum?

“Focus Danielson!!!!” I yell. This has become his least favorite phrase from me.

“Stop calling me Danielson daddy!!”

“Then put your socks on, then your boots, then your hat, gloves and coat and come…on!!!”

“I ammm!!!”

Every time we leave to go somewhere or to get ready for bed, we deal with this. And it’s leaking into my everyday life.

I’ll catch myself telling wifey we should go ahead and go to the store, “so please go get your socks, your shoes, your gloves, your hat, your coat, put on those jeans that shows-off your ass so I can watch you as you walk in front of me. And please take that damn Snuggie off so you don’t end up on some random website for wearing it to the store, and consider having sex with me tonight. Now! Hurry!”

Maybe I take the “I’m only going to tell you this once” approach and if we spend the day waiting on the boy to get his socks, then so be it. Or maybe I need to make a chart? Shit…I’m going to need a chart aren’t I—a hardcore Supernanny Jo Frost-style chart complete with jars of reward stickers, high fives, and hugs. Or maybe I’ll just super glue them to his feet.

Or, maybe I’ll just chalk it up to the fact the boy’s head is constantly swimming with new information and is going a million miles an hour thinking about Mario, snow forts, biking, hating his sister, and whether or not his experiment in the freezer is done yet.

Maybe I should just go on Xanax.

You're a Meany!

So I’m officially a meany. How do I know? Well my son whispered it under his breath three seconds after I got upset at him.

“Meany,” he whispers while slowly glancing up just to make sure I was still drooling, sitting on the couch oblivious to everything around me.

I’m not really sure when that phase ends. The phase where you still believe if you’re not looking at someone, then they clearly can’t see you. Or if you mumble something, there’s no possible way in hell someone eight feet from you could hear it!

What my child is too young to realize is that I’m the poster child for ADD. I don’t miss a fucking thing. No….thing. If he rolls over in his bed at night, I hear it and wonder if he’s about to start puking everywhere. If the wifey sighs just a fraction harder than normal, the hairs stand-up on the back of my neck and I get queasy with fear. I can hear my neighbors two doors down having sex every other night…well…that might be because I have a video camera in the house, but I digress….

“Meany,” he mumbles, slowly looks up, and I can only imagine how badly he shat himself when he saw the look on my face.

“I’m mean?!! Really? I’m mean? Because I had to ask you four times to do the same thing and you wouldn’t do it so I raised my voice and now I’M MEAN?”

I remember as a kid getting in trouble and being chewed out and sent to my room. I’d be walking up the stairs and I’d stop and hold my middle finger up towards the kitchen where my dad had just reamed me. I was a totally bad-ass like that. I was all mumbling “fuck you!!!! Suck on this ya bastard!!!!,” while I grabbed my tiny package and shook it at him.

I’m still trying to figure out a way to rig a series of mirrors and cameras along the stairs to his room so I can catch him doing the same thing to me.

But then it sets in…. “damn….was I being a meany? I mean..he did kinda have a legitimate excuse. I know I said it four times, but in all reality, iCarly was looking pretty good on TV, there was a shiny object in the corner of the room, the cat did walk by, and old man Jenkins was cutting his grass creating some damn loud noises. So….there were quite a few distractions from him actually hearing me say the same thing four freakin’ times in a row.

So I start feeling bad…I want to call him back down, hug him and say let’s move on. But then what would that Super Nanny show woman say? In her British accent she’d be all, “you have to be consistent and stick to your guns.”

I always wonder if she’s like that in bed. “Paul…I’ve been naughty and you haven’t put my on my naughty stool yet. You won’t even spank my arse or give me a stern talking to. You must show me who’s boss of this house…and do it sternly, consistently, and while wearing leather.”

So I just let him sit up there and stew…while I stew…and try hard not to kick the cat.

And it’s always funny how the daughter acts like an angel after her brother’s gotten into trouble.

And then I let him back down…I do hug him…all’s good….we play, we laugh, and usually within 10 minutes I’m in the corner, naked, crying, and rocking back and forth….again.