Okay, So Maybe I Am Not Funny, But My Life Is Hysterical!

Okay, so I finally realized today why it is that I have such a hard time writing humorous blog posts (did you even realize this was supposed to be a humor blog?).  The problem is that I am not funny.  Damn it.  As hard as I may try, I really am not a funny person.  I have a great sense of humor, but I have never been able to tell a good joke.  What I can do better than most people though, is find the humor in life.  With a life like mine I had to learn to find the humor in it or I would have gone crazy, in that bad, "lock you up and throw away the key",  kind of crazy way, instead of the harmless silly ridiculous way that I went.  That would not have been good for anyone!

So, now that I finally figured out that I am not really funny, now what?  How does a not funny person write a humor blog?  Now, that is a damn good question!  And I really wish I had an answer for it!  But seriously now, how the fuck am I going to pull this one off?

I guess, since I am not funny, I will just have to start telling you all stories about the people, and critters, and other things that life has thrown at me that are funny.  I have told you a little about my wonderful husband, the asshole who worships me, and my psychotic dog, Jack, who shows his love and affection every morning by trying to annihilate my slippers while my feet are in them.  I guess I should introduce you to some of the rest of my band of merry misfits.

 Well, there is Baby Kitty, the cat, she is the last surviving furry child of the eight that my husband had when we met.  Yes, EIGHT!  He had four cats and four large dogs when I met him!  Baby Kitty, is 13 years old, but her name is still "Baby".  And like all the critters I have shared my life with, Baby is weird.  Baby is a vegetarian.    Cats are not supposed to be vegetarians!  WTF!?!  She loves green beans, and fresh pumpkins are her all time favorite!  You should see this cat with a freshly hollowed out pumpkin!  She will spend hours, rubbing against it, licking it, climbing inside for a quick nap, and then starting all over again!  She does not like tuna fish, or any other kind of meat.  She turns her nose up at milk, or eggs, however she does have an incomprehensible fondness for cream cheese and butter for some odd reason.  Oh, and she Loves to take a bath!  No, not in the tub, or the sink.  No, she takes her bath in her water bowl!  Every morning she sits by the bowl and waits until I refill it with fresh water, so that she can dip her paws in the clean water to wash them!

I have talked a little bit about some of my strange and bizarre offspring before so you probably know that I think the world of most of them.  For some over-protective, paranoid reason I am not comfortable using my children's names on the internet, so I am just going to refer to them by their first initials from this point forward, so that you can tell them apart, and I have something to refer to them by besides numbers.

 My oldest son, "T", also known on Facebook as my #1 fan, is my best friend and one of the finest men I have ever had the privilege to know, but he is still fucking weird.  Its not his fault, he gets it from his Mother, but he is still weird, and he always has been.  When he was 18 months old he had an extensive vocabulary and was not afraid to use it.  He was carrying on "adult" conversations, and contributing intelligently to the discussion before most kids knew what the word "discussion" meant.  My friends used to play a game with him to see who could teach him the most outlandish words and phrases, and he loved every minute of it.  We used to tease him that he was actually a midget, because he was never really a child, he was just a very short grown-up.  Now he is 25 years old, and not so short anymore, but it is kinda nice to look up to him now, in more ways than one.

When my third son, "J", was born, he was 7 weeks premature.  The hospital kept him in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for five weeks after he was born.  My oldest son was 4 years old at the time, and the hospital would not let him in to see his brother due to some ridiculous "rule" that said siblings had to be at least 5 years old to get in.  As I said, my son was more mature at 2 than most kids are at 10, but that was apparently not relevant when there were rules to be obeyed.  So, since the hospital wouldn't let "J" out, and they wouldn't let "T" in, "T" decided to paint an escape map for his brother, so he could break out of the hospital and come home. Now how a premature infant was going to manage this feat was not really a consideration, but making sure that his brother got the map was of the utmost importance.


That map turned out to be an omen I think.  As "J" got older he developed the greatest disappearing acts of all time.  That child was virtually impossible to keep track of.  It was actually a family joke when he was little that we could not get divorced because that child required not only two parents watching him at all times, but an older brother as well.  We went to a local park one day, "J" was about 4 or 5 at the time, and he did not talk.  He could understand everything we said, that was clear, but he didn't have any interest in talking to us yet.  What he did have an interest in, was cartoons.  He wouldn't usually pay any attention to the tv if there were real people on it, but he was fascinated by cartoons.  And one of his favorite cartoons at the time was called "The Magic School Bus", so of course he was fascinated with school buses.  So we are at the park, and there is a group of local school kids having their annual school picnic at the park.  We went down to the pond to feed the ducks, but "J" was never really interested in animals so we went on across the park to the playground.  All three kids were on the playground having a grand time and then "R" (my daughter), who was about 3 at the time, slipped and fell down and started crying so I went to help her, and her dad went to help her, and in that split second,  "J" disappeared!  Now usually when we were out in public my oldest son was assigned "three step duty" where he was never supposed to be more than three steps away from "J" at any time for any reason, because the boy was really good at disappearing, but when "R" got hurt, he was distracted as well.  It was not more than 5 seconds that our attention was diverted, but in that 5 seconds he totally disappeared in a huge wide open park!  My first thought, knowing "J", is that he has gone to the school buses parked about 150 yards away, but there is the extreme terror ringing in the back of my head that he is drowning in that damn duck pond!  So I tell my oldest son to go to the buses, "J" is on the bus, I tell him, but I have to check the duck pond!  So I ran to the pond and he was not there, thank goodness!  So I ran back to the buses where my oldest son tells me that "J" is not on the buses either!  He said none of the drivers saw him get on and they were all sitting in their seats the whole time.  But I KNEW he was on one of those damn buses, I just KNEW it.  So I went onto the first one and the driver tells me that he didn't see any little boy get on the bus, I said "I know, but he is here anyway."  And there he was.  He was sitting happily in one of the back seats just as quiet as could be, where he had been all along! 

That danged kid was more than a handful, hell he was more than six handsful!  But his disappearing acts were always amazing!  Usually as much for where he ended up as for how he got away.  One time we were all going to visit some friends in a new place.  I think "J" was about 4 and a half at the time, so "R" was around 3 and "T" (my oldest) would have been 9.  So we are all getting out of the car, I let "T" out first to watch "J" while I am helping "R" out of her car seat.  I turn my back to get her and almost immediately hear "J____!  NO!" as "T" is running after him up the sidewalk, right up the stairs, and right through front door of a complete strangers house!  The kid ran right in, headed straight for their couch and had a seat before we could even get to the steps!  By the time I made it to the door he was actually reaching for the remote control on their coffee table!  So here I am apologizing profusely to these unfortunate people who are in a complete state of shock at the current commotion occurring without warning in their home, trying to get my son off their couch and not let him make off with their remote which by now he has custody of and is not the least bit happy about relinquishing! 

Not to be outdone, my youngest son, "D", is the one I refer to as my "Hoarder in Training" because he really would be one if I let him.  He Loves to collect things.  The problem is he will collect EVERYTHING if I let him.  And I mean EVERYTHING!  Paper clips or stray artificial flower petals from the floor at the dollar store, yep he collects them.  The paint chip displays are absolutely irresistible to him, its almost as if they have some magnetic pull on him that just will not allow him to leave the area without acquiring at least one of those spectacularly fascinating color sample card of his very own.  Sticks, check.  Rocks, well of course, but that is a prerequisite in my house anyway.  Rubber bands, check.  Random pieces of scrap paper, double check.  I am serious, the kid will collect EVERYTHING if I let him.  And every single object in that collection is the most precious item in the entire history of all mankind don't you know.  At least, it is while he is collecting it.  A couple of months later when Mom is cleaning out his room again and takes 4 garbage bags worth of actual trash out of his room, he doesn't even notice what is missing. 

And how could he?  The damn kids have more toys than the law should allow.  You know, its funny, I used to say that about my older kids, and they didn't even have a third of what the two youngest ones have!  For being poor my kids have always had a shitload of toys!  And video games.  And movies.  And books, of course.  My kids have always been spoiled rotten, but they have also been taught to appreciate that fact.  They know how lucky they are, and a big part of the reason they have so many things is because they take care of them.  There are toys in my boys' room that were mine when I was a little girl, and they are still being played with.  They have toys that were bought for each of their siblings, some of them more than two decades old and still being played with.  Of course, then there is this :

That's the two of them standing behind their Christmas hauls a couple of years ago.  And that's about average of what they get every year.  Plus there are birthdays, and "just because" days, and "ohmygawd thatissofreakincool itsthemostawesomestthingever canIhaveitpleaseDad pleasepleaseplease?!" days, so it all adds up. They have so much crap it doesn't even fit in their room!  Their video games are all in my bedroom, and they have taken over half of the garage with boxes upon boxes of more crap they don't even remember they have.  You would think that since we barely have room to turn around in this house for all the stuff we already own that it might slow down the purchase of new stuff, but you would be wrong.  Hell, even the fact that they never play with 90% of the crap they have doesn't slow down the purchase of more crap that they won't play with! 


Well, I don't know about all of you, but I think that worked pretty well.  I am laughing at the shit I typed, so hopefully somebody else out there finds it as funny as I do! Like I said, I may not be a very funny person, but my life is freakin hysterical!