AS IF I NEEDED ONE MORE REASON TO HATE HIM...

One night down....ten to go.

So this is what a "Vacation" feels like, huh?

Feels like a g-damned Saturday morning to me, dude. I expected parades and confetti and kazoos.

This is bullshit.

Heh. Speaking of "This is bullshit"...had something kinda funny happen yesterday.

My evil boss Wendigo had told me earlier in the day that she had been given permission to let everyone go at 2:00 rather than 5:00.

This made me giddy. Giddier than a pony on crack.

So at 1:45, I start cleaning up my desk...the desk I won't see for 11 days. At 1:55, I'm staring at my clock, watching the seconds tick down to Vacation '01.

At 1:59, I get an email from Wendi.

"Four people still aren't done with their work," she wrote. "And I can't let people go home until these four people get done."

Exxxxx-SQUEEZE ME?!?!?

I don't mean to brag here, but I hadn't done JACK SHIT all day long except wait for 2:00 to hit. I had Vacation Fevah (which is like "Fever", except much cooler). Now...at 1 fucking 59, you're telling me that we can't leave because four of my co-workers are incompetent boobs who can't meet a goddamned deadline to save their fucking lives?!?

...Or something like that?

Yes. That's the case.

Oh. Oh fine. Oh motherfucking fine. I will sit here on my goddamned ass and wait until those four people get their shit in gear so that I can start my vacation.

So I sit.

And I wait.

About 2:05, two co-workers come in my office wanting to know what the hell's going on. They were under the impression that we were all leaving at 2:00. And even though I may technically be New Boy, they know to come to me when there is scoopage to be found.

So I gave them the scoopage.

"THIS IS BULLSHIT!" one of them said.

I agreed. Granted, the fact that four people were still working dilligently was not REALLY their fault. Things had sprung up at the last minute and those four were busting their asses to get everything done so everyone could go home.

Now...the three of us were getting kinda loud in my office. All of a sudden, Evil Boss Wendigo shows up in my doorway waving her arms and QUIETLY saying "You are going to have to be quiet!"

I guess that we were upsetting the four people busting their asses.

My two co-workers quietly left my office and went outside, presumably to smoke.

I sat there at my desk...just stewing away.

A million thoughts went racing through my mind. I honestly thought to go into Wendigo's office and scream my damned head off that it wasn't fair that my work was done and I couldn't go home because four people out of 25 were still working.

I thought about quitting. Just walking in there, turning in a verbal resignation, and leaving.

But I just sat at my desk and stewed.

Twenty minutes passed by since Wendigo had come in my office telling me to be quiet.

I heard her out in the hallway, talking to one of the four people.

I happened to cough.

This prompted Wendi to stick her head in my office.

"You haven't gone yet?" she said.

"No," I said all snippy. "I'm waiting for you to tell me I can go."

"I told you that you could go," she responded.

"Huh?" I said.

"I came in here and waved my arms goodbye and told you guys to go, but keep it quiet. Don't make a big scene that you're leaving before everyone else."

Oh.

Heh.

Y'see...I thought you said "You are going to have to be quiet" when you said "You can go, but keep it quiet."

Ah.

Ah ha ha ha ha ha.

It's ummmmm...it's 2:30 now. I could have left 25 minutes ago. Like my two co-workers who just slipped out the door to go have what I thought was a smoke, but they were already home watching "Oprah" by now.

Ah ha ha ha ha ha.

Boy, was my face red!

I'm really kinda glad I didn't saunter into Wendi's office and quit all because I'm deaf.

I packed up my laptop and quietly left the building.

MORAL OF THE STORY: You stupid, punk-ass idiots with your loud car stereos....TURN THAT SHIT DOWN!! YOU ARE GOING TO GO DEAF AND NOT BE ABLE TO HEAR YOUR BOSS WHEN SHE'S BEING A SWEETHEART AND LETTING YOU GO HOME EARLY!!!

I had to stop and get groceries and was supposed to take Andrew to his daycare Christmas party, but got home too late to do that, so we skipped the party.

Got home and Grandma and my grubby, Diet Dr. Pepper-swilling (yes, when I had to switch, he switched with me...hey...it's free and cold...right?), $6,000-owing stinky brother-in-law were here.

My brother-in-law was dressed in his usual garb...dress slacks and a Styx t-shirt. He's really seriously trying to get this whole "Faded T-shirt and dress slacks" look a push in the fashion world. Sadly, he's stuck in the mud with this one.

He's babbling about every cute thing Andrew did that day, which, from what little I actually bothered to listen to, was the same shit Andrew does every day. He crawled. He stared at the dog. He banged on his piano and then clapped and grinned.

Yes, you fat, disgusting, bald-headed, ZZ-top bearded, $6,000-owing piece of shit. I'm well aware of the things my child does on a daily basis. Because I live here with him, you ass-smelling germ-infested fuck.

Finally, after regaling me with stories about their day with Andrew, they leave.

Okay.

Now then...I hate my brother-in-law, right? If there was one person I want eliminated from this planet forever and ever, it would undoubtedly be him. He is of no use to me unless he were to actually pay me back the six grand that he borrowed several years ago in order to help fund my son's college education.

I hate him.

You would think that he could not give me a single extra morsel of ammo in order to hate his very soul anymore...right?

I mean, he's been a thorn in my side for 15 years. What more could this stinkin' bastard do to ruin my life?

Hmmmmmmm...how about if I found out that he comes over to babysit my child with his mother and spends his free time surfing for porn on my computer?

Gee whillikers, Batman...I guess that'd be just one more thing I could hate him for!

It's called "History", you dumb fucking computer programming fuck. It's a button at the top of the webpage. You click on "History" and it brings up every webpage that has been surfed for the last day, two days or two weeks.

Susie gets home right before I find this out. She's walking in the door as I'm sitting at the computer with Andrew on my lap.

"What are my boys doing?" she says.

"I'm checking to see what your mother and brother looked at on the computer today" I answer.

Sure as shit. There it is. A website that starts with "X".

So I click on it. All of a sudden, I'm bombarded with pop-up windows of chicks sucking mules off and shit.

"Honey," I call to Susie. "Would you like to come see what your brother looks at when he comes over here to help watch our child?"

Susie comes out there and she's greeted with several pictures of people having sex.

Apparently, it was a site where you can order videos, sex toys, and other various deviant objects.

"Oh God," she said. "I don't want to see that."

"No wait," I said. "Look...your brother might have ordered the tape 'Young Babes Sucking'. Look! It says that they'll suck your cock and ride you until you're dry! Ooooooo...maybe he'll let me borrow it sometime!!"

That's when I turned off the sarcasm and the computer.

"THIS," I said as I pointed at the computer, "is why I do NOT like your family over here and I will NOT let them stay here while we are out of town. Your family is nothing but a bunch of perverts from your nephews to your brothers. They cannot wait until they get home to their own computer to look this shit up, they can't fight those primitive urges long enough and they have to use OUR COMPUTER to order their porn from. I hate your brother with a passion. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him."

"I know," she said wearily, because she's heard me bitching about her semi-retarded brother for years.

"This infuriates me," I kept pushing. "I don't know what to do about your family."

"Get a post-it note," she said. "Write 'Please do not use this computer to surf for porn' and stick it up on the monitor when my family is here."

"Can I put 'LARRY' in big letters at the end?" I asked, hoping she's allow me to humiliate and shame this fucking bastard during the holiday season.

"No," she said. "Then the nephews will think that gives them free reign to surf for porn."

Which is true. Every f'n nephew will be grabbing their crotches and doing the "I've gotta go peepee" dance while they're here, asking me if they can get on the computer and blow their little teenage loads all over my keyboard for four days if I don't make the note a generic one.

I'll tell ya what though...I'm still pissed about this. The guy is 39 years old. You would THINK that he could use someone else's computer and not have to check his shipping orders on his porn materials or ogle naked women while under the thinly veiled excuse that he's "helping" his mother watch my son. He couldn't give two shits about my son. He's over here to use my cable modem to quickly surf his porn sites.

This fucker.

He just took my hatred of him to a whole new level.

Switching gears completely...we had a wonderful time over at our preacher's house last night!

We had a little pizza party with just the six of us and played with the children. Their son is adopted and four months older than Andrew. He's worlds ahead of Andy as far as things he can do ... eat with a spoon, walk, dance, jump, say words.

It's kinda good because Andrew watches him like a hawk and sees how he does things. At one point, I really think Andrew wanted to try out this whole walking thing after watching Ethan ... but he quickly chickened out, plopped down on his ass and crawled over to us.

We got Ethan a Musical Activity Table for Christmas. Actually, I had bought it for Andrew and we had completely forgotten to buy Ethan anything. So we went through Andrew's stock of Christmas presents and pulled out the Activity Table. I had been in the mall and saw that there were plenty of these tables left and this way we could see if Andrew really liked it, we'd go back and get another one for him. If he didn't like it...hey...enjoy it Ethan!

Andrew loved it. Probably more so than Ethan.

BUT...Ethan is at the "Mine, mine, mine!" stage and didn't want Andrew playing with it. Each time Andrew would try to touch it, Ethan would take Andrew's hand off of it. This made Andrew cry each time. That got old quickly. Then at one point, Ethan slapped Andrew on the arm for trying to play with it.

World War III right there with the preacher's kid.

Andrew is not a fighter. This is painfully obvious. He's very passive and quiet. He enjoys his music as much as he enjoys a good book. So Andrew just wailed away after the little slap. If I hadn't seen the whole thing go down, I woulda thought Ethan had punched him in the nuts repeatedly, he was crying so hard.

Finally, Andrew quit being a lil' crybaby and the two played on the activity table together.

Ethan kept dancing which cracked us all up. He's really got some good rhythm for a 17 month-old. He moves his arms and legs and just gets into it.

"It's his heritage," Rev. Brian said. Ethan's one third black, one third Mexican and one third white. Apparently he's the result of an orgy or something. I've never bothered to ask. I'm sure if I asked, my brother-in-law probably had the conception on video somewhere.

So Ethan got down with his funky fresh self as we all laughed at him. Brian then put in an Arrested Development CD that Ethan LOVES. It's the only hip hop in the preacher's house, so Ethan can really groove out to it.

Man....that kid is hilarious! He did his arms like Batman doing the Batdance. He spun around and would stomp around. Even Andrew had to quit crying long enough to laugh at Ethan.

It made the night.

Ethan finally passed out on the floor about 8:00 which threw Andrew for a loop since his bedtime's not until 9-10:00. Ethan's is at 7. Well yeah...when the kid's wearing himself out dancing every night, he needs his sleep.

So with Ethan gone to bed, Andrew jammed on his musical table with a big grin on his face.

So I've gotta go get him his own table today.

Oh! Ethan got Andrew a tape of songs called "Andrew's songs". Each song on the tape works his name in there somehow. It's really cool and it gives us something new to listen to in the car, rather than that damned Bear in the Big Blue House tape that could break at any given moment from vagrant abuse.

All in all, a strange day emotion-wise.

Today, clean, clean, clean...shop, shop, shop....and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

Take care.