Nice Day for a White Wedding

Sorry, for the long ass post amigos, but it was a loooooong weekend…

The Wedding’s Rockin’ Eve
The ride to Pennsylvania went relatively smoothly. No tickets, very little traffic and being Mr. classy I consumed a bottle of Chateau St. Michelle Riesling from a Gatorade bottle. Sometimes it really is hard to believe that I’m 37 and not 17.

Anyway, we arrived to find everyone out on the patio drinking like it was nickel beer night at a frat house. We were at a golf resort, so one of the non-wedding attendees stumbled over to our table. Obviously, unaware of how much the family likes to fuck with people, he struck up a drunken exchange with our group.

By the end of the conversation we knew that his name was Paul, he was from south Buffalo, he liked Amy’s cousin’s legs and the blacks in Buffalo were only good for emptying garbage cans. In turn, the grandfather of the aforementioned cousin with great legs, informed Paul that she had five kids by five different fathers and that one of them would qualify for emptying garbage cans in south Buffalo. Feeling a little embarrassed, he bought us a pitcher of beer and stumbled back inside. Then, we all laughed and laughed because we totally lied to him, she only has four kids by three different fathers and they were all Hispanic, not black. High-larious!

Our little party started to break up, leaving just a few of us guys to finish off the beers. As we were about to call it a night, he showed back up with his buddies, whom he must of told there were a bunch of hot chicks on the patio. The look on Paul’s face when he realized that it was just a bunch of dudes at our table was priceless. His buddies started crushing him as if they’d caught him on his knees in the men’s bathroom.

The Wedding
Trying to contain my two year old in a big church during the ceremony, was a lot like wrestling a midget covered in baby oil, only my daughter didn’t have the stubby sausage fingers and oversized head to grab onto. In addition to being uber-squirmy she also took the opportunity to test her outside voice by constantly yelling, “I see Kenny! I see Kenny!”

I think I spent approximately eight minutes inside the actual wedding, and the rest of the time I was in the lobby trying to keep my little anti-Christ from desecrating everything sacred that was below four feet high. Honey, please take Mickey Mouse out of the holy water. Yes, I know he’s dirty but that’s not a bath. C’mon baby, please stop pounding on Jesus’ feet like you’re taking part in his crucifixion. Sweety, it’s cute how you sang happy birthday before blowing out all of the candles, but those are prayer candles and beloved Uncle Steve is probably not going to survive his motorcycle accident thanks to you. Darling, I know you’re a big Kathy Griffin fan, but this isn’t the place to be yelling “Suck it Jesus!”

After we went up and down the church steps 19 times, I marched her into the men’s bathroom, so that I could shake the dew off the lily. As I was taking care of business, the anti-Christ walked up to the urinal next to me and proceeded to grab the urinal cake. I screamed NOOOOOOOO! Then, I zipped up and turned around to see her putting a goldfish in her mouth. I immediately turned into an audience member at the Apollo. “Ooooh damn baby, no you di-int just do that. Ohhhhh snap! Yo mamma’s gonna kill me.” I immediately took her to the sink and scrubbed her hands like I was Lady Macbeth, but by then the damage was done and I could only pray that the confessional upstairs was open for business.

Maggie, Someday you will be on your therapist’s couch and you’ll have this nagging memory about something bad happening to you involving a father and a church basement bathroom. For the record I want you to know that you weren’t touched inappropriately by a priest. You gave yourself First Communion using the water and a deodorizing cake from a urinal while your father stood next to you pissing and screaming at you like a little girl. Um, yeah, good luck with that.

I’ll give you all a minute to choke down that little bit of throw up in your mouth before we move on.

The Reception
The Crown was flowing and the band led by a cross between Patrick Swayze and Richard Dean Anderson AKA MacGyver, was pumping out your standard list of wedding favorites. After the festivities started to wrap up the party moved to the patio where a man sporting an accordion got the Polish version of the reception underway. Standing across the way was a woman who had one of those disposable cameras and she was just cranking out the pictures of her accordion hero.

Like J.D. in scrubs, I had one of those cutaway moments in my head to the drug store photo counter, where the sarcastic teenage clerk was like “It’s Monday, here comes Alice again. I’m guessing it was another crazy weekend. Wow, what a shocker, 24 glossy prints of a man playing an accordion. These are going to look great in her scrapbook next to the other 685 photos that we’ve processed this year of her musical idol.”

Also, I’m pretty sure someone said the guys name was Jim, so for the rest of the night the phrase “Accordion to Jim” was running through my head. For the record, how has that show been on the air for eight seasons? I don’t know a single person who watches it, yet every week I flip through the channels and there’s Jim Belushi saying something not funny and collecting a nice fat paycheck. Hey Jimbo, I bet you’re glad that your much more talented brother did himself in. Now you and Joaquin Phoenix can toast to your success at your brothers expenses. What? Still too soon?

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go give my daughter her penicillin bath, while saying a few Hail Mary’s.

Here's your moment of zen. Mr. classy rockin' the Pens jersey at the reception:

Excuse Me Please, Just One More Drink

Memorial Day weekend is now within reach, so we will be packing up the family truckster and heading to Pittsburgh for a wedding that has the potential to reach epic proportions. I like to think of this event as the alcoholic Super Bowl. Some of the best drinkers in the family will come together in one place to push their imbibing limits. Instead of a guest book they are just going to have a sign up sheet for a liver transplant. Yeah, it’s going to be that kind of weekend.

The only part of the trip that I dread is driving on a holiday weekend. Gas is more expensive, the po-po will be out in full force and so will the slew of pain in the ass drivers. You know what? I think I need to make an executive decision right here, right now. I am just going to let Amy drive, while I pre-game in the front seat. That my friends, is a money fucking call. Strap in the knee-biter, hand the keys to the Mrs., pop the cork, and enjoy the ride.

One of the best road trips I’ve ever had was the drive we made to Atlantic City a few years ago. My brother-in-law and I sat in the back of his Jaguar with an iPod in each of our hands and a cooler between us. We proceeded to get tanked while going song for song for three hours straight. When we got to the hotel, I ran inside to get the room keys and the manager asked me the color and make of the car I was driving. I told him to hold on, that I had to go outside and look.

Then, we proceeded to head up to our room on the illustrious 30th floor. The elevator door opened and we heard a bunch of loud loud voices coming from the penthouse next to our room. As we turn the corner, BAM! A pod of large black hookers looked at us like Maury just announced that we were not the father of their babies. We headed into the room and chilled for approximately 12 seconds and then headed back down to get another room.

Back on the elevator, we found ourselves in a rap video, starring the Three 6 Mafia and a couple of women with questionable morals, sporting dresses that required two hair-do’s to wear out on the town. I’m wedged in the corner with my pillow in one hand and a blue Igloo cooler in the other, not making eye contact with anything but the floor. In my mind I went through my survival techniques, but I couldn’t remember if you make yourself look bigger or play dead when confronted by rappers and ho’s. Ahhhhh, the good times of road trips past.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go create my big-baller playlist for the ride to the Keystone state.

You know it’s hard out here for a pimp
When he tryin’ to get this money for the rent
For the cadillacs and gas money spent
Will have a whole lot of bitches jumpin’ ship

Cult of Personality

Keep your hands and feet inside the rant ride at all times because it’s go time!

What’s up with women and these product parties they have all the time? The old standard used to be Tupperware, but now they have parties for jeans, jewelry, purses, lingerie, make-up and even sex toys. Although, my wife never gets invited to the sex toys party, she really needs some sluttier friends. I digress.

Last night the wife came home from one of these scarily cultish gatherings with $40 worth of protein shakes. MFWTF? My wife is like 5’ 5” and maybe a buck-twenty soaking wet, which is exactly how I like her. I don’t want to come home from work and find her bench pressing the couch, roid-raging on our daughter and getting zits all over her back. It’s not like my wife even enjoys these parties, she just has a hard time saying no to people, which is what these organizations count on.

The thing that really sucks about these cults/pyramid schemes is that they pray on the naïve and use them to exploit their friends and family. Amway used to be the worst. These people would hold meetings at the pizza place where I worked, and they would give these motivational speeches like they were the goddamn coach in Remember the Titans. The people at these meetings would lose their shit. You could see in their eyes that they were totally brainwashed, kind of like the attendees of those mega-churches on TV. After witnessing a few of these meetings, the Manson murders suddenly started to make a lot of sense.

And surprise, surprise, my military career having, bible-thumping, everyone’s going to hell, Aunt used to sell Amway out of her home. She had an entire basement full of these totally shit products. Every time we visited we got to go into the basement and select something. Ooooh, what a treat! Thanks for the chocolate bar that tastes like an oompa-loompas asshole.

It just blows my mind that so many people have this need to belong so badly that they’ll participate in these scam-driven organizations. I hate to sound misogynistic, but it’s mostly women who buy into this bullshit. I’ve never been playing soccer and had a guy say to me after the game “Hey Erik do you want to come over next Tuesday I’m having a wallet party. It’s going to be great. Just us guys drinking beers, hanging out, and you can pick yourself out a nice new leather tri-fold for only $60.” You don’t see guys driving around in Cadillacs with company messaging all over them and a personalized license plate that says something clever like GR8SALZ, and if you do, then you know their douche-baggery is boundless.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put on some porn and crank up the volume to scare the shit out of these Mormon kids that just came to the door. It’s always a good time when you have adolescent kids dressed alike on bikes talking to you about the joys of finding Jesus with Jenna Jamison screaming "Oh God, fuck me” in the background.

Hey Man, Nice Shot

I was rolling down the highway at lunch today when an old Collective Soul song came on the radio. So I started thinking about one of the many “Wanna Get Away” moments that I’ve experienced throughout the years.

Back in the mid-nineties I won this radio contest for an autographed guitar from the radio friendly, guitar driven band, Collective Soul. The wife and I arrived at the venue a few hours early and ended up waiting backstage to meet the band. Sitting across from us was a mother and her ten year old son, who had a bandage on his arm and staples in his scalp line. He was one of those kids who had zero athleticism, the kind of kid who strikes out at tee-ball. Skinny, big ears, glasses, buck-teeth, you get the idea. Well apparently he had been mauled by a dog and through some welfare version of Make-a-Wish he was afforded the opportunity to meet his favorite band.

Because I’m an asshole and have very little empathy for goofy kids who get eaten by dogs, I sat there and feigned concern, while they told their story to anyone who would listen. Finally, the band was ready to meet us, so we went into the main concert area as they were finishing up their sound check. “Whoooaaaaaooooaaoooooaaaa heaven let your light shine down….” One by one I made small talk with each member the band and had them sharpie up my new guitar. Then it happened.

As I was getting my last autograph, I blindly swung the guitar around and cracked this kid right in the fucking head. I’m pretty sure he took a tuning peg to one of his staples. Wanna get away? Everyone gasps, my heart falls into my shoes, and his mother looks me in the eye and says “Don’t worry about it, he’s so hopped up on drugs he probably didn’t feel a thing.” I wanted to just give this kid my guitar on the spot, but in addition to being heartless, I am also selfish, so I just apologized profusely and quickly made my way out to the car.

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to dress Maggie up as a steak and have her antagonize the Rottweiler down the street so that I, I mean, so that she can meet her favorite progressive rock band, Rush.

Saturday Night and You’re Still Hanging Around

Saturday night might be alright for fighting, but this past Saturday night it was all about rocking out. I joined a cover band called the Herndon Thugs and we played from eight to midnight at Payne’s Billiards and Lounge. In fact we were so well received we ended up playing a special impromptu set on Sunday for all of the fans who didn’t get enough of us the night before. We tore through a set list that included everything from Duran Duran to Radiohead to The Killers. A lot of you might be thinking to yourselves, “Erik in a band? He is virtually tone deaf, has the vocal skills of Linda McCartney and his formal musical training ended with him playing ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ on the recorder in fourth grade, how could he possibly be in a band?” I’ll tell you how, through the magic of Rock Band for the Wii.

That’s right folks, I channeled my inner rock star for two days of peace, love and music in a basement in Herndon this past weekend. I started off the evening drinking my new concoction “The Crawdaddye” (Absolut Citron, Peach Schnopps, Mailbu Rum and Cranberry juice) Yes, it’s a foo-foo drink, but it’s perfect for sitting on the back porch on a warm spring day. Don’t judge me people! As the darkness descended upon us we put the little one to bed, mixed a few more adult beverages, did a shot of Goldschlager and the rock band was ready to get come out swinging. Then we all dropped some peyote and went out the desert to become a tribe of musical warriors. Oh wait, that wasn’t us, that was The Doors in that Oliver Stone flick.

For the next four hours we all took turns wailing on guitars, thumping the bass, pounding the skins and shrieking out the vocals to popular songs from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. As a general rule, when the entire family is eating pizza and wings at midnight on a Saturday to avoid the morning hangovers, you know it’s been a good night.

As good as the evening was, I would like suggest a few upgrades for the next Rock Band release.

1. A Keyboard. WTF? Without a keyboard you basically eliminate all Billy Joel and Elton John tunes and 90% of the hits from the 80’s. I certainly can’t run so far away without a keyboard. At the very least hook me up with a keytar!

2. A Cowbell. You just can’t give “Don’t Fear the Reaper” or Mississippi Queen” the justice they deserve without a cowbell. Besides I have the perfect look and musical prowess for cowbell rock. Is there anything sexier than a burly, bearded guy wearing sunglasses and a wife-beater while synchronizing his cowbell beats with pelvic thrusts? Of course there isn’t!

3. Backup Singers. What Motown song is complete without backup singers? At the very least hook me with a second microphone so that we can add an Oates to the Hall, a Ridgely to the Michaels and a Captain to the Tenille. Please give me the option to do a “Your Kiss is On My List” – “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” – “Love Will Keep Us Together” medley.

Finally, on the way home there was this car in front of us with two guys in the backseat wearing cowboy hats. The car was swerving a bit in my estimation, but the wife said that maybe my eyes were swerving because she didn’t see it. I told her that anytime it’s after midnight on a Saturday and there are cowboys packed into the back of a car, they’ve definitely been riding the Red Bull and vodka for more than eight seconds and singing “It’s Five O’ Clock Somewhere”.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go purchase some makeup, leather and spandex for the next Herndon Thugs gig.

Return to Sender

Now that the trees have bloomed and the temperature has steadily climbed, it’s time for that late spring tradition, playoff hockey. To celebrate the Pens run in the playoffs, the wife and I agreed to get a new TV, and by agreed I mean I held a pillow over her face until she tapped out. Obviously, two iPhones, three iPods and three flat-screen TV’s are not enough for two adults, we needed to get just one more. The Sharp 52” Aquos had become to me, what the Red Ryder Ranger Model Air Rifle was to Ralphie in A Christmas Story.

Ever since my brother-in-law picked one of these bad boys up last summer there was an indescribable tingling in my nether region every time we walked by it at Costco. With the permission slip from my wife in hand, I proudly walked into the warehouse grabbed the “big” slat cart, you know the one reserved for all of the Asians who own restaurants, where they pile so much food on them they look like they’re preparing for a UN mission to Somalia. Then, I rolled over to the TV area where a gaggle of dudes were just staring like 10 year old boys seeing their first pair of boobies. I loaded it up as the rest of the men looked at me and then started the slow clap like at the end of Revenge of the Nerds. I’m pretty sure I even heard one of them yell “Way to go Paula” as I walked away. (That was An Officer and a Gentlemen reference in case you aren’t up on your Richard Gere movies. I celebrate his entire catalogue.)

After checking out, I wheeled the big dog to the car only to discover that it didn’t fit in the backseat. Bitter! With the rain pouring down on me, my joy turned to stress. Fuck it, I shoved two thirds of it into the back of the car and then left the hatch up for the drive home. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a big deal, but the rain was soaking the box and the Lexus beeps constantly if you leave a door open. If this weren’t annoying enough, getting out of the Costco parking lot on a weekend is like playing Frogger while navigating the maze of hedges in The Shining. Fucking move people!

Finally, we get the holy grail of TV’s into our house and like a Geek Squad tech on crystal meth I have it set up in the basement in a matter of seconds. I plop down onto the couch, hit the on switch, and then it happened. Just like Ralphie, I shot my eye out. As much as I wanted it to work, this TV was just too big for the room. Then, I started trying to re-arrange the furniture to force the issue. If we just move that desk, scoot the couch, get rid of the recliner, knock down that wall and look through binoculars backwards we can do this. C’mon people work with me!

In the end, even though the hoo-oars tits on Rock of Love looked spectacular, we decided to box it back up and return it. Watching a grown man return a big flat-screen TV is like watching Vada at the end of My Girl yell “His glasses, he needs his glasses!”. You try to choke it down, but you just have to tear up a bit.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and re-write my theme on what I want for Christmas. “What I want for Christmas….Well, I wanted a Sharp Aquos 52” TV, but we just couldn’t make that work now could we? So instead, I am getting granite countertops. I’m pretty sure that I can’t watch hockey in HD on a granite countertop, but I can dice some onions and peppers, so at least I got that going for me.”

I Eat More Chicken Any Man Ever Seen

The 14th wedding anniversary was quite the special one for the little lady. To kick off the evenings festivities we had a guy come in to measure our countertops. Which you’d think might take 10-15 minutes at most, and you’d have thought wrong. First off we told the guy at the store that we wouldn’t be home until 4:30. When the appointment was confirmed the day before, we told the guy we wouldn’t be home until 4:30. Then the day of the measuring he calls me at 3:30, “I’m at your house!”. Uh, yeah dude, I have a meeting and have to pick up my knee-biter, so I’ll see you at 4:30, like we discussed. Then I get home at 4:30 and this jagoff doesn’t show up until 5:00. MFWTF?

After he gets there, I’m thinking he whips out a measuring tape and bickety-bam it’s done, not so much. He measures and measures and measures and then brings in this laser thing and measures some more. There are questions about backsplashes, overhang and sinks. All of which I am unprepared to answer, because this is the wife’s project. Per the handyman’s guide to procrastination, he goes to his truck five times, and each time Maggie says “Buh-Bye!”, then I explain that he’s coming back and she goes “No coming back!”

Finally, he rolls out and Amy rolls in with some KFC, and not just any old KFC, but absolutely free KFC thanks to their internet promotion. This high society, black tie affair has just been taken to another level. We inhale the dead bird, taters, slaw and biscuits like we were in training to be competitive eaters.

After Maggie went to bed the romantic evening continued down in the man cave. We cuddled up on the couch, stared into each others eyes, and settled in for a quiet evening of playoff hockey! I whispered little sweet nothings in her ear like “The last time I saw a fucking hook like that it was in a fishes mouth!” “C’mon Eaton force him to the corner and bend him over like the little bitch he is!” “Billy G is not my lover, unless he scores the game winner!”

Once the thrilling overtime game was in the books, we headed upstairs to find that Maggie had soaked through her diaper onto her bedding. We sprang into action like Dale Jr.’s pit crew. “You get the bed and I’ll get the kid. Grab me that fitted sheet! Diaper is on, jammies are in progress. Bed is ready! Drop the kid in the crib. Done! Go! Go! Go!”. We are a well oiled machine when it comes to late night bedding changes. I think Amy might have been a maid a La Quinta in her previous life. Of course it took us 8 years to get pregnant, so then again maybe not.

Well that about does it for the big 14th anniversary. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go practice my hospital corners and try to get the maid to fluff up my pillow. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.