POKE YOUR MOM? WHY, I HARDLY KNOW HER

Apparently, it is now our honor and duty to have to babysit my porn surfing nephew each and every Monday evening while the rest of the family goes to Bible Study. Because I'll be damned if I wasn't standing outside last night, grilling some hamburgers and chicken , grooving to some tunes on my fantabulous outdoor stereo system and making some HUGE ASSED bubbles with Andrew's HUGE ASSED bubble wand when my brother-in-law's clunker of a mini van pulled up in our driveway.

"What the fuck?" I screamed inside my head. "Did you scavengers actually SMELL the food cooking from the ghetto side of town?"

"Hey, Uncle Bob," my brother-in-law said from the front seat of the van while the Porn Surfer jumped out of the back of the van with an armload of crap in his arms.

"Hi," I said, all confused and shit. "What's going on?"

"Oh ... same old.....sh....tuff," my brother-in-law said. This is his patented line. He makes it sound like he's going to say "Same old shit" but always draws out the "Shhhhh...."and ends it with "tuff" so that it comes out "Same old stuff". He's been saying this ever since I've known him, every time I see him. Apparently someone must have politely chuckled when he said it back in the 70s and he's used it every day since then.

But when I said "What's going on?" I didn't mean "How's it going?" I meant "What in the navy blue FUCK is going on here??"

My brother-in-law put the van in reverse and said "See you in a couple of hours" leaving the Porn Surfer standing in my driveway like a horribly disfigured prostitute.

Y'see...Susie...even though she was supposed to be home at 6....still wasn't home at 7. No phone call...nothing. I had no earthly idea that the Porn Surfer Babysitting Service was now a weekly thing. I later found out that it is.

So he walks through the garage with me to the back patio.

"Something smells good," he said. "What is it?"

"Charcoal," I muttered. "I'm about to put some hamburgers on the grill."

"Mmmmmm," the husky little fucker says. "I like hamburgers."

I almost said "Well had I known you were coming, I would have entertained the idea of actually making you one, but since I didn't know, it looks like you'll be eating whatever Andrew decides he doesn't want."

Instead, I said "Yeah."

So I'm rushing around, clearly disturbed by this. The fact that he's here means that we have to entertain him or else he pouts. He wants to do what HE WANTS TO DO and that's all there is to it. And in order to clear my brain from actually wanting to decapitate both he and my wife for not telling me this was happening, I was rushing in and out of the house, checking the hamburgers inside and the fire outside, trying to get my wits about me.

"Do you want to see this new card game I've got?" he asked.

"Well, I would," I said. "But I'm kinda busy cooking dinner right now."

"It's anime," he said, referring to that Japanese cartoon crap that has poisoned the minds of American youth and several socially retarded adults.

"Oh," I said. "I don't like anime."

"Why not?" he protested, with his husky lower lip pointing out like he was about to break down into 15 year-old porn surfing tears.

"Because I'm an adult," I said. "Adults eventually abandon the idea of fantasy cartoons as entertainment and begin concentrating on things like mortgages and grilling hamburgers to satisfy their entertainment needs."

"I have several adult friends who like anime," he said.

Huh??

You're 15 years old and you have ADULT friends???

Okay...this kind of worried me. Not so much the whole "He's an impressionable kid who would suck some pervert's dick if it guaranteed him extra attention" factor, but the "Adults actually want to TALK to this kid?" factor.

I'm sorry. I'm an adult. And this kid bores the holy crap out of me. He's interested in things that your average 10 year-old would be interested in and those things are worlds apart from the things that interest me.

I'm not into Pokemon. I know the name "Pikachu" only because the few times in my life that I actually get a tinge of horniness while my wife's in the shower, I open the shower door and say "Pikachu!" like "Peek at you!" and we both get a chuckle out of it, similar to my brother-in-law's rampant overuse of the "Same old ... shtuff" phrase.

I'm not into anime. It all looks the same to me and it's about as interesting as dog shit on the bottom of my shoe.

I'm not into the Backstreet Boys. Mainly because I have a refined taste in music and like for my music to actually be good enough to stand the test of time, not be some kind of fluffy pop crap that's as disposable as a Lady Bic.

But apparently, according to the Porn Surfer....there's some adults out there that not only appreciate these things, but they want to CONVERSE with the kid about them.

"What adult friends do you have?" I asked him.

"I've got two teachers who collect Pokemon cards," he said. "We talk about them a lot."

Huh?

One more time....he knows two teachers that collect Pokemon cards that want to TALK about their collection??

I'm actually kinda proud of the kid. He's apparently found two people on this earth that are even bigger geeks than he is.

Keep in mind, I know NOTHING about Pokemon. But here's what I imagine the conversations sounding like:

PORN SURFER: "Sooo...do you have the Takemon card?"

TEACHER #1: "No, but man...if I had the Takemon card, my life would be complete!"

PORN SURFER: "Soooo...do you have the Pockakoo card?"

TEACHER #2: "Yes, I have that card. It is my favorite."

PORN SURFER: "Did you guys get beat up every single day of your life for being uncool nerds when you were 15?"

BOTH TEACHERS: "We still do!!!"

PORN SURFER: "I love you guys."

BOTH TEACHERS: "Then let's all have sex and we'll give you lots of Pokemon cards to keep quiet afterwards!"

It's safe to say that I don't think teachers should have relationships with the students past the textbooks. It's not only socially unacceptable but it's unprofessional.

I'm willing to bet that these "adult friends" aren't nearly as much friends to him as he leads me to believe.

But at one point, he said that during this past summer, one of the teachers wrote him a letter and sent it to him in the mail. I'm guessing that the letter was innocent, but I really have no idea if it was or not.

Anyway...blah blah blah....the kid brought over a shitload of anime cards, an anime game and a Pokemon notebook full of cards that he swore would be worth "thousands of dollars" to any Pokemon card collector.

Uh-huh. Sorry...I have no smart assed comment to add to that.

Susie got home with Andrew and I asked her what in the hell was going on with the Porn Surfer being there and if this was an every week thing now.

"I guess it is," she said, lifting Andrew out of his car seat.

We ate dinner. Porn Surfer even got a hamburger himself and regaled us with stories of the latest adventures of the cartoons that he watches intently every day after school while we fought desperately to pay attention to him.

I retired to my office afterwards to unpack more boxes and was joined by Pornie.

"Do you want to see a website that has cheat codes for every single game console available?" he asked.

"Not really," I answered. "But I'm sure that you do."

So he sits down at my desk and finds this website that has cheat codes for every game console available.

Yay.

This would interest me greatly if I played games. These days, I couldn't even tell you where my Play Station games ARE, let alone how to play them.

He then asks if he can play games on the computer. I told him as long as he didn't download anything he could. He went to Shockwave.com and tried to get me involved with some kinda Spy Hunter game. I politely said that I was unpacking boxes and didn't have time to watch him play a game but for he to knock himself out playing the game himself.

I had to stay here in the office with him to make sure he didn't "accidently" start surfing porn, foiling any plans of his to see Asian teens cavorting with ten inch donkey dongs.

His dad and brother came to pick him up at 9:45.

His dad (naturally) had to grab one of my Diet Dr. Peppers on his way out. It was kinda funny, because he was trying to be sly about it. Susie was talking to him in the kitchen while I was in the bedroom. I came out the bedroom door and could see the refrigerator door being shut. I KNEW he had grabbed one without even bothering to ask. But when I entered the kitchen, he held that can next to his hip and turned his body so I couldn't see it.

The man is 45 years old. If he would just ASK I'd say "Sure, grab you a soft drink." But it's not in his psyche to ask for a drink....he and Susie's other brother have to take it and then try to hide the fact that he took it.

It's theft. Surrrrre...it's only a soft drink and I doubt I could press charges. But if you take something that's not yours without asking for it ... it's theft.

Just f'n ask, you buffoon.

Anyway...look at me....all bitchy and shit.

I didn't come here to bitch. I came here to be all sweet and gentle this morning and talk about my love for each and every one of you.

It's amazing the effect that a little Pokemon can have on me.