THIS IS NOT MY BEAUTIFUL SON ... THIS IS NOT MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE

Soooooo...

Susie gets home late last night. About a half hour late.

By now, this is expected of her. If she came home on time, she'd probably catch me running around the apartment naked, clucking like a chicken with a feather duster jammed up my ass. Simply put ... I DO NOT expect her to be on time ever again and have began to plan accordingly.

I greet her at the door of the apartment with a smile. As I said, I expected her to be late. It's the new me. Why worry over something as trivial as the fact that my wife is forever late and never calls to tell me why?

And is it proper to begin and end a sentence with the same word?

Aren't I supposed to be some kinda fancy pantsed writer who would know these kinds of things?

"Honey," she says. "Your son had an accident today."

I figured the kid shit his pants. Except my son is at the age where if he shits his pants, it's not called "an accident". It's called a "stinky". So obviously ... whatever happened is worse that shitting your pants.

I didn't see Andrew anywhere.

"Where is he?" I said, with just a hint of alarm in my voice.

"Over here," she said, pointing toward some bushes.

That's when my son emerged from behind some bushes.

I covered my mouth to hold in my gasp.

I stared at him and mouthed half of the title of today's entry. The first half. My wife hasn't been beautiful since the day we got married so the second half of the title is a given.

(I kid....I kid....)

I asked what happened and Susie began explaining to me.

She went to pick him up at daycare, and as always, she stood outside, gabbing to Andrew's daycare lady about absolutely nothing, but she has to gab with her, thus insuring that she will be late getting home to me.

Meanwhile, Andrew was playing on some steps near the side of the Daycare home that he apparently "always" plays on when Susie goes to pick him up.

Apparently, while Susie was admitedly "not paying attention", Andrew misstepped and took a tumble down the steps and did his very first somersault onto the ground.

End result??

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No, that's not Frankenstein. That is my son.

The world's most handsome baby.

Now ... horribly disfigured.

He's in great spirits. As I said later ... he doesn't even know how bad he looks.

He's a tough cookie. She said he cried when it happened but it was more a cry of fear than of pain.

Naturally, being the loving, caring partner in our relationship, I thought the kid might have a concussion.

So I'm waving my fingers in front of his eyes, asking him how many fingers I'm holding up.

"Apple," he said.

"How many now?" I asked.

"Ball," he replied.

"And now?" I asked.

"Mama," he said.

Thank God. He�s fine. I'm no doctor, but it didn't sound like a concussion to me.

So we go out to the house to check the progress made yesterday.

The walls are now completely painted. It looks better than I thought when painting began. The color is actually "eggshell white" and not "diabetic piss yellow" as I originally reported.

We left the house and went to the local pharmacy to pick up prescriptions for our various prescription drugs as well as some antibiotic ointment for our son's mangled puss.

The girl behind the counter at the pharmacy gasped.

"What happened to you?" she asked Andrew.

"I fell in your parking lot and I'm suing your ass," I said in my best squeaky ventriloquist dummy voice.

She gave him a big orange sucker. Lollipop. Whatever you call it in your neck of the woods.

He was tickled to death.

Afterwards, we stop by Zaxby's for dinner, since it was now 8:00 and neither of us felt like going home and cooking.

The girl behind the counter gasped.

"What happened to you?" she asked Andrew.

"I was in the parking lot and one of your employees beat me over the head with a blackjack and took all my money and I'm suing your ass," I said in my best squeaky ventriloquist dummy voice.

She gave him a Rice Krispies treat thing. Whatever you call it.

Andrew realized one thing. If you tumble down some stairs and land on your head, it's not a bad thing ... it's a good thing.

Because then the world turns into one big Halloween party where everyone gives you free candy.

We tried to eat our food, but Andrew kept diving out of the booth, face first onto the floor, trying to hurt himself bad enough for a new Wiggles videotape.

No such luck, kiddo. We're out of here.

Went home and passed out.

Earlier in the day ....

Alright....I did a bad, bad thing.

I made a very sweet, but dimwitted woman cry.

But it wasn't my fault.

One thing I don't think I've ever shared with you guys ... I'm a pretty damned good prank phone caller.

I've had years of experience and my closest friends always are goading me to prank phone call somebody.

Let me give you a quick back story on this prank.

A little over a year ago, some local high school cheerleaders got drunk at one of the girl's houses and got naked and started simulating sex and actually having sex with each other.

Naturally, the whole thing was photographed. And, as is the case these days, these photographs ended up on the internet.

ALL OVER THE INTERNET.

I know for a fact that they wound up on a porno site at one point.

Don't ask how I know. I just know.

Ahem.

So anyway, it was a big stink in this town. All of the girls were thrown out of the private school and their families tried to sue the school for kicking them out over something they did on a Friday night away from the school.

It didn't help the parent's case that in some of the pictures they're wearing parts of their cheerleader outfits which have the school's name on them.

Anyway, all of the girls are suspended, but I understand that one of them was admitted back into the school and actually made a member of the cheerleading squad once again.

This gal's got guts. The whole school has seen pictures of you slurping on your buddy's genitalia and you WANT to come back and be an active member of that school???

Whatever.

So yesterday, the newspaper that I used to work for ran an innocent story on the school's cheerleading squad and how they did in a recent cheerleading competition.

They came in first in Creative Cheering and second in Home Pom Competition.

Home Pom Competition has something to do with pom-poms, that's all I know.

Well....guess what got printed instead of "Home Pom"??

Yep.

"Home Porn".

Those wacky scanners!! You scan something in with an "m" in the word and it comes out "rn".

Naturally, the school is furious that this innocent mistake got printed. Not once. Not twice. But THREE TIMES in the story.

So I call over to the paper to razz my buddy Drunk Assed Jamie about it.

He's laughing about it and says it's all Jill's fault.

Jill's the sweet but dimwitted woman that proofs the newspaper.

Jill apparently just skimmed the article and didn't really read it because everything at the newspaper is now done half-assed since I left.

So Jill feels like crap about this. She has been taking phone calls from people all day, screaming about this discrepancy.

Jamie, in his infinite wisdom, begs me to call back and pretend like I'm one of the cheerleader's parents and I'm upset about this.

I tell him "hell no". I would never do that to Jill.

He convinces me that she's over it now, she's been joking about it and she'll think it's funny.

In a moment of cloudy judgement, I agree to do it.

I hang up and call back.

Jill answers the phone and I try to disguise my voice.

I told her I'm Andrew Young, the father of one of the cheerleaders there and ask if she's the person who proofs the newspaper.

She sounds wary. Like she's trying to decide if this is a prank phone call or not. But she says she's the person and she knows why I'm calling.

I adopted a quiet, fuming tone to my voice. I told her that she has caused my daughter and my wife and my entire family a lot of grief. And that my daughter shouldn't be held accountable for something she did off of the premises of the school.

She agrees and admitted it was an honest mistake.

This was not the greatest of prank phone calls. I didn't know what else to do except make her grovel.

Finally I said something along the lines of "You say you feel bad about this...but you haven't apologized once for it."

She says she's terribly sorry and has been beating herself up over it all day.

So I said "Well, you haven't beaten yourself up enough. In fact, I think you need to have your ass whupped. Tell you what...you sit there and you look out that front window. And when you see Uncle Bob strutting up the sidewalk, woman...be prepared for the ass whuppin' of your life!"

I expected her to exhale and laugh. She and I are good friends.

*CLICK*

She hung up on me.

I call right back and Drunk Assed Jamie answered the phone.

"Maaaaan," he drawls in that thick southern accent. "What the hell did you SAY to her?"

"I did what you wanted me to do," I said.

"Man, she got up and ran to the bathroom and is in there SOBBING."

Oh shit.

"Go knock on the door and tell her it was me and it was just a joke," I said.

"Hang on," he said.

I heard him knocking on the door and explaining it was a joke. He then came back to the phone.

"She is PISSED!" he whispered.

"Lemme talk to her," I said.

"Man, trust me...she doesn't want to talk to you right now," he said.

"C'mon Jamie...lemme talk to her."

"Man...just send her some flowers. That's the only thing that will make her feel better right now."

Okay.

I feel bad about this. But I would have NEVER done it had Jamie not put me up to it and assured me that she would be okay about it.

Plus, I never got the vibe that she was taking the call seriously. She didn't sound all that solemn and sincere. She sounded wary, like she knew it was me pulling a prank.

I do have to apologize to her somehow.

But flowers?

Shit.

I don't send my WIFE flowers when I screw up this bad.

I'm not sending this woman flowers for this.

Maybe if she had sex with me, I'd send her flowers.

But getting all emotional over a prank phone call?

Ain't happenin'.

I don't have $50 to blow on a crybaby.

Hey!

I got AWESOME tickets for Springsteen!!!

They're on the 14th row just out in front of the stage on the side.

I'll be within sweating distance!!

Yahooooo!!!

Trust me ... it pays to have buddies in the radio business.

Even if they're an asshole. Because assholes get AWESOME tickets to Springsteen!!!

That's it for me.

I've gotta skedaddle out of here.

Peace.

...Out.

(You thought I was gonna leave you hanging on the "Out" part...didn't you?? HA!!! MORTAL FOOLS!!!)