THE MANSONS WANT TO LIVE NEXT DOOR TO ME

Hello operator?

Yeah, I'd like to report a robbery.

Somebody broke into my house and stole my weekend and replaced it with a hazy blur.

Yes ... I'll hold.

Friday night, I came home hellbent on fixing my home theater system because I was tired of staring at a $3,000 piece of shiny metallic shit in my entertainment center. It was time for this bitch to give me some sweet, sweet six channel stereo lovin' ... and not just serve as an ice breaker.

HOUSE GUEST: "Oh. I see you have a home theater system."

ME: "It doesn't work. Unless you want to turn it on and listen to the sounds of dogs barking in the distance. It's great for that. Other than that...you can't hear a damned thing on it."

HOUSE GUEST: "How much did you pay for it?"

ME: "$3,000. Couldn't you tell by the huge letters spelling out "LOSER" branded into my forehead?"

So I take every component out of my entertainment center and check out the roughly seven billion wires hanging in the back of it.

I check all the wires on the back. Everything's connected properly.

I ask God is he's screwing with me. He assures me that he's been way too busy trying to talk some sense into George W. Jr. and doesn't have the time to screw with me right now.

As a last resort, I start pressing buttons on the remote controls, trying to find an "Audio Setup" for this thing on my TV screen.

I find it. And I switch the mode from "Distant Dogs Barking" to "Stereo Surround".

Voila.

Instant stereo surround.

I'll tell ya ... this is a whole lot better than dead silence, having to read the lips of people on screen while you listen to dogs faintly barking in the distance.

So now comes the undaunting task of cramming everything BACK into the entertainment center so that I can close the glass doors and have everything looking presentable.

After about two hours of this, I decide that I never liked those glass doors anyway and remove them with a few smashing blows from a sledgehammer.

There. Complete.

Just as I finish this, Susie walks in with our neighbors from across the street. They're good people...a young couple with a seven year-old boy and a three year-old girl.

The kids wanted to see Andrew's playroom. They had heard so much about it that they were practically peeing themselves with nervous anticipation to see this home version of Toys 'R Us.

I guess it's pretty anticlimactic when you hear all about Andrew's huge collection of toys and then you see a bunch of stuffed animals and some books. Let's just say the kids weren't all that impressed. They walked in, scanned the room for anything cool and left.

Their dad, who seems to be a nice guy ... is a bit on the effeminate side. He talks like a woman and acts like a woman. I don't mind gay guys, but effeminate guys give me the heebie jeebies. I'm not asking that you be all macho and shit, since I'm the furthest thing from macho once you get to know me.

But this guy...well ... he sounds like Judy Garland after a few too many valiums. He's got a high, slow voice.

No ... I'll tell ya who he sounds like...Mr. Garrison on "South Park".

I'd give him more grief, but I feel pretty confident that he got enough grief in high school with that voice. It's going to be tough living across the street from him for several years if he doesn't do something about the way he speaks.

I get the feeling I'm going to be Professor Henry Higgins with this guy, making him say shit like "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain" and beating him with a ruler when he fucks it up.

Ahhhh...maybe we'll get cooler neighbors on the other side of us.

We can only hope.

Speaking of cooler neighbors ... after Mr. Garrison took his kids and went home, I gave Mattie Gee a call and asked if he wanted my old DVD player since he's living in the stone age and has been quite happy with that old Beta VCR of his for the last 25 years.

He agreed to take it off my hands.

So I walked over there with the player and some DVDs for him to watch. Then he and the lovely Miss Cate came down to our house and looked at my massive DVD collection to see if there was anything else they'd like to watch.

There wasn't.

So they left.

I seriously don't remember much more about Friday night after that. I think I watched "Planes Trains and Automobiles" while Susie played Marbles.

Yeah...that's it. Because I went to bed about midnight and at about 1 a.m. I stumbled around the house in my sleep until I found Susie, still on the computer and playing Marbles. I told her that she needed to come sex me up and get off the computer.

Then I stumbled back to bed and resumed sleeping.

It's pretty sad that I'm now walking in my sleep and demanding sex from people playing computer games.

What's even sadder is ... I'm not getting any sex after demanding it.

I just pray to God I don't waltz into Mr. Garrison's home at 1 a.m. demanding sex in my sleep.

I'll probably wake up all bloody butt in my driveway.

Saturday, I went to pick up the leather breakfast chairs while Susie went to a Southern Living party thrown by my former evil boss Wendigo.

(She's my former boss, not formerly evil. She's still evil. Just trying to clarify here...)

Didn't have any problems with getting the chairs. They were there and waiting on me.

Got home, tried to feed Andrew some lunch, but he was nodding off in the high chair so I laid him down for his nap.

I then tried to watch my home theater as quietly as possible.

The explosions in "Die Hard" lose their cinematic appeal when they sound like mouse farts.

Susie came home all hot and bothered after spending a few bucks at a party and wanted to know if I was still demanding sex.

Uhhhhh...no. I'm watching Bruce Willis save the Nakatoma Plaza. If I wanted sex, I'd be standing here naked, rubbing myself and drooling like a retarded caveman.

You know...like normal.

Still ... you do not deprive the Suzemeister of Saturday afternoon sex after she's spent some money. It's some sort of power trip to her.

So I let her assault my testicles for about 30 minutes (yes naysayers....30 minutes) before we both passed out from a rousing bout of married sex.

Which is a lot like normal sex except all the fun is taken out.

We then napped until Andrew woke me up and wanted to go outside and blow bubbles.

So he and I blew bubbles for the better part of the afternoon. Then I assembled our new leather chairs which made me all full of testosterone because I'm about as mechanically inclined as a dead beaver and for me to actually put swivel bases on chairs, secure them AND adjust the tilt mechanism....well damn....just call me Bob Vila with an exceptionally small penis, baby.

Saturday night, we went and bought groceries which is about as fun as it sounds.

Came home, ate fish sticks for dinner, wondered where did my life go and I went to bed while Susie stayed up playing Marbles.

Sunday I woke up and decided that I still didn't want to go to church. Two weeks ago we didn't go. Last week we went but I was soooo not into it. Now that Brian's gone, I'm just not enjoying it like I did.

So yesterday, I got up early with Andrew and he and I went out to the garage to start unpacking boxes out there.

We let Mama sleep in because she had been up all night playing that godforsaken Marbles.

At 9:30, I went inside and roused Susie up with "Soooo...I guess we're not going to Church today."

"Why didn't you wake me up?" she asked.

"Because I didn't want to go to church today. We've got too much stuff to do around here. When you become part of the living, come on out to the garage...it's nice outside and Andrew and I are cleaning it out."

She got dressed and came out there to help us.

Six hours later, we had done enough arranging and moving so that we could pull her van into the garage.

She was ecstatic.

She wanted more married sex but I just didn't have it in me.

Well...I had it in me. It's not like I'm not walking around with a sperm factory between my legs. But I just didn't feel like having sex after being all sweaty and brutish all day.

Susie went to church to teach Children's Choir while Andrew and I watched "Monsters Inc." which we borrowed from Mattie Gee.

She came home several hours later and was all excited that "our new neighbors are walking through their house!!"

Y'see...there's houses being built to the left and right of us. Susie saw some people out there and ran outside to talk to them while I played Mr. Hermit and stayed inside with the boy.

Finally, after she was out there for 15 minutes, I went out to be sociable.

They weren't our new neighbors. They were just looking at houses. Their house was on the market and they were trying to decide where to live.

Susie acted as the subdivision's Welcome Wagon, extolling all the great things about the place even though we've lived here less than two weeks.

But we've learned that it's deadly quiet here. That you don't have to lock up your car or your house at night because there's no theft. And that everyone is very nice here.

The couple admitted that they had a 13 year-old son who had been getting in a lot of trouble at school and with the law and that they were trying to find a change of scenery for him because they were sure it was the environment making their kid a hellion.

Ummmmm...if you'll excuse us, we need to go eat dinner. Our neighborhood is a horrible one to move into. The people are hateful, there's always shootings going on and 13 year-old boys are constantly being sacrificed to Satan around here. You may want to go find some other subdivision with your little hell-bastard.

The thought of living next door to a rambunctious and hell-raising teenager does NOT appeal to me at this stage.

We love this neighborhood for the quiet and the serene atmosphere that it provides.

I do NOT want Marilyn Manson moving in and disrupting things.

That was my weekend.

How was yours?