Frankencouch

There are big things happening in our house. We've been expecting big things for a long time now -- almost a year. It's been a long set of months, waiting and hoping and wondering what the new addition would look like, and then, finally, yesterday was the day!

It didn't even take as long as I thought; I was expecting to spend a couple of hours, maybe the whole day, but it only took a few minutes. It was over before it began, really. Somewhat anticlimactic. But I looked past that because I was excited about the new arrival, which won't actually be in our house for a few days.

No, no, no. It's not a new baby. I can barely handle the kids we already have. I'm talking about Frankencouch, the newest piece of furniture we've purchased.

You remember the furniture classifications, right? I am pleased as punch to say that I have advanced from the level of people who have to put their own furniture together to the level of people who can march into a furniture store, pick out a couch, and have it delivered, assembled and everything, just like one of the big shots.

It's like I'm Donald Trump or Jay-Z, assuming that Donald Trump and Jay-Z, when they march into a store to buy a couch, are looking for the least expensive possible couch they can get, and also assuming that Donald Trump and Jay-Z, when they march into a store to buy a couch, are so concerned that they might have to talk to a salesman, and so also concerned that the salesman will make them spend more than they want, since they don't really trust this furniture store ever since they bought a recliner for their then-pregnant wife Sweetie and paid for delivery at the store (they are sure they paid for delivery at the store) only to have the recliner delivered several days later and have the delivery guy tell them there, while he's standing in their bedroom in front of their very-pregnant wife, that they owe the delivery guy $50 for delivery, which they paid but which they were not very happy about paying, so now when they go back to that store, they don't expect to be treated fairly and they'd go shop somewhere else but this is really the only furniture store in town, so they go to this store but they take their iPod along and hope that encourages the salesmen to leave them alone.

If that's what Donald Trump and Jay-Z do, then I am just like them. Because that's what I did when Sweetie and I pulled the trigger on a new couch purchase this week, having finally decided that the old green loveseat we had in the family room had seen better days. "Better days" in that sentence means "days in which Stormy our middle cat had not peed on the couch and done so in some fashion that keeps the smell from coming out of it no matter what types of cleansers you use." Those were the better days the loveseat had seen, and you can't have that kind of couch in your house for more than, say, 1 hour after that happens without drastically reducing not only your own but your neighbor's property values.

Throwing out the green loveseat would have been a no-brainer, but we could not just throw it out and go on with our lives, much as we'd like to have done that. We couldn't do that because the green loveseat served the vital household purpose of standing in front of the bundle of wires and outlets and junk that was installed by the guy who owned our house before us, the guy who didn't know anything about electricity or wiring or, it seems, safety, but didn't let that get in the way of his trying to wire up everything himself. It's like he was trying to create the house of the future using the materials of the Amish.

This particular bundle of wires and outlets is so scary and unsafe looking that the home inspector told us "I wouldn't touch that," when he inspected our house. Not "I'd get rid of that" or "Have someone look at that" but Don't even touch it. So we put the green loveseat in front of it and left it that way -- which is an entirely valid way of running a household, and don't pretend that you don't have your own green loveseat in front of an outlet, somewhere in your life, maybe even just a metaphorical green loveseat in front of a metaphorical outlet-- until Stormy took out her anger or something on the couch.

So we had to do something, and that something was Get a new couch. Which is how I ended up taking a trip to the furniture store that I don't entirely trust, yesterday, pre-armed with a blank check, a budget, and my iPod tuned to "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" as the first song because that song kind of feels like shopping for furniture, you know?

It didn't help, by the way. I went in and there was a salesman, who I'll call Bob because that's what he told me to call him. Bob said something I couldn't hear because I was listening to my iPod, which was in my hand, with earplugs and cords and the whole nine yards and all. He also waved, so I waved back and said "Hi," assuming that Bob had said hi. Then he said something else, making me stop and in a very dramatic way take my earplugs out and say "Excuse me?" and he said "Anything I can help you with?" and I explained that I was just looking around.

He must have been able to tell that I was serious about buying, though, because he stuck with me, following me at about 30 feet. Maybe he could smell the blank check. I threw him off the scent by heading to the only department of a furniture store I ever really feel at home in, the Clearance Area. Bob didn't go in; salespeople hate when you head for Clearance.

But I had to head for there, because while I can afford to buy furniture that's already put together, I can't afford to buy furniture that's already put together and is furniture that other people might conceivably like; I have to buy the Clearance stuff that's either been returned or was a floor model or is so awful or whatever that nobody wanted it at full price, so now it's marked down to my range.

Plus, if I buy full price furniture, I'm afraid to ever let people, including me, use it, because it's so expensive that I don't want to wreck it. Our $400 coffee table now sits in an out-of-the-way corner of the family room, covered by a protective blanket that keeps anyone from guessing what kind of furniture it really is. It could be an orange crate under there. We have a $400 blanket-covered orange crate that I won't let anyone put a glass on, even with a coaster, because coasters sweat, too.

I ranged through the clearance, while Bob waited off by the furniture they hope you'll buy, and checked out the various couches that were marked down. I was not interested in style, color, material, size, or any of the usual criteria by which people gauge furniture. I was only looking for something to cover the outlet, and, also, I was replacing a 20-year-old green loveseat that smelled like a litter box; really, anything I picked out was a step up.

Style also didn't matter because while I'm now the newest member of the level of society that buys pre-assembled furniture, I'm still a member of the level of society that has to use wood screws to hold their grandfather clock to the wall so the Babies! don't tip it over, the level of society that has at least half their house filled with furniture they've had since college or which is a hand-me-down. The level of society, in other words, whose furniture does not have a "theme" or "style" unless "the theme is that all of our furniture is in our house and we use it and also there's a lot of cookie crumbs on it" counts as a style.

Our family room, for example, is made up of these stylistic elements: an orangish-pink couch that we got from an aunt for $100 and which everyone hates because the back cushions are too fluffy and the middle springs are saggy, a tan reclining rocker with wooden arms that Grandma picked up at garage sale, a sage-colored overstuffed chair and hassock Sweetie and I bought with our wedding money, the blanket-covered coffee table, a television, 100,000,000 DVDs, and a series of plastic fences that separate the Babies! from the TV. Also, there are cat toys and a large red rug.

It was going to be difficult to find a new couch that matched that, and I wasn't even going to try, but then I saw it: Frankencouch. It was perfect -- and by 'perfect' I mean it was the cheapest couch there.

But it was also perfect because it actually matched our house, because Frankencouch looked as though it was made up of parts from three or four other couches, put together haphazardly in as slapdash manner as possible. You know how sometimes you just see someone and fall instantly in... well, not love, because that's for people, but, like? That's what happened to me. It's almost like I heard music when I looked at the couch. (Which I did; I still had my iPod on, set to the playlist of songs that I call "upbeat" because they make me feel happy.) Haphazard? Slapdash? This couch was like a kindred spirit. It looked like something I could have built.

I motioned Bob over and said "How much for delivery?" He told me and I said "I'll take it."

"You will?" he asked, looking at me as though he was waiting for someone to tell him he was on television and this was all a big gag. I said I would, we rang it up, and I went home, the proud parent of not only five kids and three cats, but Frankencouch, too.

We've already made the room all ready for it, throwing out the green loveseat and bolting a bookshelf to the wall in front of the outlets temporarily. Just like the big shots do.

PS: I promise a picture of Frankencouch will be posted as soon as I can get one.

What we really need are more songs in the world with a "Yodel Outro."

Sometimes I worry about the future of the human race. That's because I am optimist who tries to see the best in people.

True, I don't particularly like other people and don't want to spend much time around anyone and get astoundingly frustrated when I'm driving along and someone in front of me has the temerity to go the speed limit, when I want to go 4 or 5 over the speed limit. But none of that prevents me from being an optimist and thinking that people are basically decent, albeit they are basically decent people who are usually in my way and slowing me down or otherwise bothering me somehow by making a special trip up to my house to use my computer so they can enter information in for their cruise so that all their activities are preplanned, thereby saving themselves a whole 30 minutes on the cruise, while simultaneously using up my entire Saturday afternoon.

All right, that latter example is not all people; it's just my dad. But he's a person. And because he's a person, I worry about his future the same as I do the future of all people because I'm an optimist who believes the best about people.

That optimism causes me to butt heads with The Boy a lot. The Boy claims he, too, is an optimist. The Boy's optimism was recently expressed to me like this: I was discussing a short story I'd written and my hopes that it would be published and The Boy said "Nobody's ever going to publish that." When I pointed out that he was being pessimistic, he said he was just being "realistic."

The Boy also told me then that he is an upbeat person, which he summed up in this exchange:

The Boy: I am too an upbeat person. Do you believe that people are basically good?

Me: Yes. Yes, I do.

The Boy: I don't. I think that people are all inherently evil.

Let's hope he never takes off those rose-colored glasses.

Despite my optimism, though, I worry about the future of the human race not just because someday The Boy will be in charge of at least a portion of it in some way or form, but because of the examples I see around me that we, as a species, are not really meant to be in charge of ourselves.

If you want proof of that, check out the warnings we need on the things we do. I'm not talking about all those dumb warnings that tell you not to put your toaster in the bathtub. I'm sure those are absolutely necessary. Nor am I talking about the warnings that came on the crib tents Sweetie and I purchased not that long ago.

"Crib Tents," in case you're wondering, are exactly what they sound like: a mosquito-netting type of structure that goes over the top of the crib for your Babies! to keep pets out, or, in our case, Babies! in. They look like this:

We had to get crib tents as the second safety feature on Mr Bunches and Mr F's cribs; the first safety feature was that they're bolted to the wall. (The cribs are bolted to the wall, not the Babies!.) Both safety features are necessary because Mr Bunches and Mr F have an addiction to jumping, which they do all the time. Mr Bunches greets me after work by jumping in place. Mr F jumps in his high chair. They jump on the couch, the chairs, the kitchen table, and especially their cribs, where they turned jumping into a kind of extreme sport for Babies! by bouncing so high they almost rattled the crib apart and, in Mr Bunches' case, bouncing right out of the crib and onto the floor in front of a shocked Sweetie.

We didn't know what to do at first. That is, we knew what to do first, which was pick up Mr Bunches, but then we didn't know what to do next, so I turned to the only source anyone ever needs in an emergency: Google. We googled a series of questions designed to (a) get us something to help keep the Babies! safe and (b) alert the child welfare authorities that something was seriously amiss at our house. Searches like my baby jumps out of his crib and how can I keep my baby from getting out of his crib and what will keep my baby in his crib will eventually end up in some government office and result in a social worker raid on our little house. Doing those searches, we eventually found crib tents, which we ordered and got shipped there as quickly as possible because our interim solution was -- and I am 100% serious -- using old belts to strap pillows and couch cushions to the bars of the crib, and then placing cushions on the floor in case they got over the fluffy barriers we'd set up.

Keep in mind, men, that when your wife tells you to get rid of old belts or shirts or shorts that don't fit, you could argue that you never know when you will need them as an emergency safety measure and if she gives you the fish-eye, ask her: Which is more important, throwing out my raggedy Kennebunkport sweatshirt that I bought in 1990, or keeping our children alive? That'll put things in proper perspective.

That's an argument, I've found, that works in literally every situation. Which is more important, Sweetie, that I stop watching this episode of Battlestar, or keeping our children alive?

The crib tents, when they came, had warnings on them -- as you'd expect, given how extremely dangerous all children's furniture is-- but the warnings took me back a little. The labels warned that "Crib Tents are not a substitute for parental supervision."

Who needs that warning? Is there someone out there who has managed to procreate but who is also still capable of thinking well, now that there's absolutely no way my baby can get out of her crib, I can go away for the weekend?

That, too, is not the kind of warning I'm talking about, though. The kind of warning I'm talking about is the kind of warning that lets you know that it's maybe 2 or 3 years until the human race is done and the squirrels take over. (People think it'll be cockroaches, or maybe dolphins, but who took over when the dinosaurs died out? Not the bugs. Small mammals took over. And the bugs blew it back even though they had a whole lot better chance to rule the world then, because bugs when the dinosaurs lived were like 4 feet long. Nowadays, they're maybe an inch or two in most cases. They've got no chance. So I'm betting on the squirrels.)

Anyway, the kind of warning I'm talking about is the kind of warning I saw on this commercial:

That commercial, as you saw, involved a guy walking through New York City, but it was a New York City that was bubble wrapped for his safety and enjoyment, leading him (naturally) to think Well, I'd better jump off the Empire State Building.

Note: I do not know if it was actually the Empire State Building. I don't have time to keep track of which buildings in New York City are the Empire State Building and which are not. Let's just agree that if there's a building in New York City and that building appears on TV or in a movie, then that building is the Empire State Building. You know, like how every building in England is Buckingham Palace, every building in Paris is the Eiffel Tower, and how there are no other buildings or cities or countries beyond New York, England, and Paris.

Note, two: I know that, technically speaking, Paris is not a "country." It's a smell.

Note, three: The reason I'm too busy to know what buildings in New York City are or are not the Empire State Building is that 98% of my time is spent on the Internet looking up things I remember from my childhood, like the song "Una Paloma Blanca."

What makes me worry about humanity from that commercial is that there's a warning, when they show it on TV, and that warning is "Do Not Attempt." It flashes just before the guy jumps off the Empire State Building/Buckingham Palace/Eiffel Tower.

Now, in what world is that warning necessary? In what world does someone even have the ability to bubble wrap New York City, which I know is a pretty big city because Sweetie and I went there on our honeymoon and we walked around a lot and saw a big chunk of the city -- concentrating on those parts that were not scary and especially concentrating on those parts that sold "I [Heart] NY" shirts-- and in what world can that person bubble wrap the city and then make it up to the top of the Eiffel Tower to jump off?

And, also, while bubble wrap is addictive and we all love it, blah blah blah, is there anyone out there that thinks that bubble wrap would break their fall from the top of a building? And if so, wouldn't the human race technically have a better chance of beating the squirrels if we let that person, um, test that theory?

And, also-er, the Youtube version of that video doesn't even have the warning, and I understand that upwards of a dozen people a day look at Youtube (in between updating Sinbad's status on Wikipedia), so now I have to worry, too, that the kind of people who would try to bubble wrap the entire city and jump off Buckingham Palace won't even get the warning that it's not a good idea to try to do that.

It's hard to stay optimistic under those conditions. But I've got something that really helps. Ladies and gentlemen, the George Baker Selection!

Have you checked out The Best Of Lame/Cool Month? Why not?

Squirrels
by

brianefp

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Don't stop believin'... in Birch Syrup and Spongebob Macaroni?

I may never contribute something great to society, something like a new syrup, but in my own small way, I think I've made the world a better place.

One way I've made the world a better place is to be constantly questioning and thereby improving the world around me. Like this week, when I was getting out the syrup for the pancakes on "egg night dinner" and began to wonder why we only have maple syrup. I've never seen anything other than maple syrup. But there's tons and tons of trees out there, trees like oak trees and birch trees and... other trees. I'm not a tree expert. But there are lots of trees.

So, I wondered, as I'm doing now, why don't we have "oak syrup" and "birch syrup" and things like that? And that led, as it always does, to two natural thoughts: One, google it, and, two, could I somehow turn this into a backyard industry that would take off and make me rich and I'd move to Hawaii?

After careful investigation consisting of googling such phrases as why do we only have maple syrup and can you make syrup from other trees, I found nothing. This led me, naturally, to believe that I had, through my genius, inquisitive nature, come up with the only remaining entirely unique idea -- since everyone knows that pretty much everything has already been invented and all the great ideas have been thought up already -- which meant, naturally, that my second natural thought would be correct: I could turn this idea into millions, differentiating this idea from the other great inventions I've come up with in my life, like the in-the-cupboard-dishwasher, and the EZ Mov-R.

But then, when I as a failsafe googled birch syrup I found out that someone had stolen my idea. And that someone is some people in Alaska, who claim to be the leading producer of "birch syrup," which I could also produce, I suppose, because the trees behind the idea-stealers in this picture:

look a lot like the trees in my backyard-- except the trees in my backyard have a lot of nicks around the base where I run into them with the lawnmower-- so the trees in my backyard are probably birch trees and I could probably make birch syrup, which the idea-stealers claim is very difficult but is probably so easy it's like picking money off the money tree. After all, if a couple of people who aren't smart enough to move out of Alaska could do it, so could I, right?

My imagination began to work. Starting a Birch Syrup business would have untold benefits even beyond getting rich and moving to Hawaii. For example, how awesome would this be:

I start producing "Birch Syrup" and it catches on here stateside instead of just in Alaska where nobody ever goes and where it's dark 11 1/2 months per year, the only exception being the two weeks that Al Pacino is there trying to catch Robin Williams for murdering someone, and after the syrup catches on here stateside, I become rich, and I move to Hawaii with my family, and then I fly in my dad and explain to him how I got there and then I say this:

So, I guess money DOES grow on trees.

That would be the second-best comeback on a parent ever. (The first best comeback on parents ever has already occurred when spinach started killing people. That showed parents. You know what never killed anybody? Ranch puffs.)

By the way, I took a break from writing this to read the idea-stealers' description of how to make birch syrup and it sounds totally easy, except for the reverse osmosis part, but I'm sure I could figure out what that is by having The Boy bring his science book home one day.

Still, I probably will not have time right away to build a Birch Syrup empire and get into a price war with those Alaska idea-stealers (a couple who, as it turns out, make up 78% of Alaska's population) because I have many other important responsibilities in my life, responsibilities which include inventing new sandwiches and deciding who in our family really doesn't stop believin'.

I have invented numerous sandwiches in my lifetime, most of them, I'm sure, destined for greatness just like me and my eventual Birch Syrup empire. The latest is the Bologna-and-Spongebob-Macaroni sandwich. Here are the ingredients for the Bologna-and-Spongebob-Macaroni sandwich:

Bread.
Bologna
Cold Spongebob Macaroni and cheese.
Bread again.

To make it, you put it all on there, mush it down, then microwave it for 2 minutes, then put it in the fridge overnight. That last part is the most important part of any sandwich: You've got to really melt the stuff together, then flash-freeze it so that the cheese conglomerates--

-- yes, I'm sure that's the right word --

into a gooey mass that will allow you to eat the sandwich with one hand while you watch "Weekend At Bernie's" on the internet at work the next day. If you need two hands to eat the sandwich, it's too much work.

And I have too much work in my life already, because I constantly have to be parenting. Take this morning: I was getting ready to head into the office for a while, like I do almost every Saturday because it's that or stay home and do housework, and I was getting out my iPod to listen to on the way in. The first song that came up was "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, a song I don't like but the kids do. So I said, to The Boy and Middle,

"Hey, it's The Boy's song, Don't Stop Believin'." And Middle took offense at that, and said it was more her song than The Boy's. I disagreed, and told her that The Boy, far more than her, doesn't stop believin', and so it should be his song.

Middle, though, pointed out that The Boy had stopped watching the Wisconsin Badgers' NCAA Tournament game against Davidson last night with a whole minute left, when Wisconsin was down by 17 and had no realistic chance to win. I asked The Boy if that was true and he said it was but claimed that it was just because he wanted to get started cleaning up after dinner.

Now, in our household, there are only a few unforgiveable sins. There are a million rules, but only a few of those rules are unpardonable when broken. The Unbreakable Rules are:

1. Leftover pizza is first come-first serve. In other words, Dad is under no obligation to not eat the leftover pizza for breakfast just because you wanted it for lunch. So quit complaining and get up earlier if you want it.
2. Never give up on your team.
3. We are on Jennifer Aniston's side.

That last one is really one of Sweetie's rules. It's so sad when celebrities break up and you have to choose sides, really, because once upon a time we were all allowed to watch "Ocean's 11" and "The Mexican" and enjoy them, but now I've never even seen "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" because when Brad and Jennifer broke up, we took Jennifer's side, so while we can watch "Friends" reruns we can't see "Beowulf."

But it's Unbreakable Rule number 2 that The Boy broke, and when he confirmed that he had, I had to reprimand him for it:

"I can't believe you stopped believin'," I told him. "I'm giving that song to Middle. It's now officially her song."

Middle looked pleased. And I left for the office, secure in the knowledge that even if I did not, today, begin my Birch Syrup empire, I had at least done my part to improve the world around me.

The Coolness Continuumbybrianefp
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