Blog of the FML

Part 1 of the 2007 Welch Turkey Day Experience 

This year Christina and I got the whole week off for Turkey day. It must have been a simple clerical error that went undetected to actually give Christina and I the same days off on a major break. We didn’t ask, we took advantage. Our glorious plans: Tent the house for termites and visit the family.

Yeah, that was right. Tent the friggin house. Mother Nature has sent a second assault on the abode. [The first assault was thwarted] She must have been pissed about the incompetent hooligans she sent the first time as They were easily prevented back in and the most damage was to force me to flap around the front yard in my underwear like a trailer park transplant. This time the ante was raised by going for broke.Drywood termites. The little bastards fled from failure from a neighbors home and decided to make the window to Sam’s room a bit bigger. The plan was to tent it, filling the house with some oxygen replacing heavy gas to squash the bastards lungs. Sounded easy, schedule on a holiday, write a big check for the work and come back bug free.

Nope. Seems scheduling is not the forte of bug killers. State mandated classes and other people’s homes got in our way eventually but we left with the hope that we would be bug free and stuffed with turkey soon.

The family goal was to help with some moving chores (the Mogg clan has taken up a new base of action), chill a lot, eat copious amounts of animal parts with a tad of vegetation and cap it all off with asSamabration (Sam’s big 1). That was the plan. And like all good plans, shit happens.

Immediately thrown into Sam watcher mode sucked. Everyone else had real jobs: packing shit, moving shit, stacking shit and organizing shit; such excitement. Me, I watched Sam. I know that I should have immense pleasure in uninterrupted time with my child. I know that as I am dying that moments like that will seem all too short and infrequent. I know this. But have you ever watched a nearly one year old for any extended amount of time. It is like a) watching paint dry b) a tortoise dry humping a tortoise shaped rock c) an old, lady in a walker cross a street d) … ah, fucking A, chasing a non-verbal, squawky, eating, pooping, crawling flesh bag of instant boredom sucks a big nut. Doing it for 6 hours sicks a bigger nut. I get token jobs like un-knotting rope. Things that will not impede on catching Sam the Man.

Saturday continues much in the same way. Dinner provides relief with a food drunk Sam providing entertainment and nifty camera fun. Poor bastard will come to believe that we only videoed him at dumb moments. I do believe that is what we are supposed to do. It says so in “How To Screw Your Child UpPermanently ” manual that came attached to him on the way out the hospital. Page 42 I believe. None the less, obligingly we let him nod off to a ham dinner and gawk family style.

I manage to confuse things enough the next morning. Sunday comes quick in Moggville. Something about Mass at 7:30 am. Jesus isn’t even up that early. WTF. I begin to mumble a bit about keeping Sam and a possible mass conversion to the Church of Tim (no services before 3:00 pm or after 3:28 pm). Some how the luck of the gods were with me and I get the extra hour of sleep while the family peeps. Chow on a old fashioned breakfast from Father Mogg. More work. More chill that evening.