Behold, Giant Octopus with his tasty, squeaky heart ripped out.
(Yes, those are my unmentionables drying on the lamp. I was going to edit them out until I remembered that I don’t have or know Photoshop, at which point I ate a cookie.)
He is also missing some legs.
Pentapus.
I have no idea how this happened, but I suspect MegaPuggle.
Who thinks that the only thing better than taking down Giant Octopus is the severed leg that turned sad, heart-free Hexapus into sadder, still-heart-free-with-a-giant-hole-in-its-head Pentapus.
Mmmmm. Severed tentacle.
In case you missed it, you should check out this movie. Debra “don’t-call-me-Debbie-when-referring-to-my-acting ” Gibsonand Lorenzo Lamasin the same movie. My friend Jeff actually got paid to work on this. Or else someone he knew got paid to work on it in the studio next to him while he was working on Borat. No, that was before. I can’t remember. I’d ask him but he’s expecting his first child any second. Unless you hate babies, check out this trailer. I promise it’s worth it.
When CC and I were on the road together years ago, back when he was just my boss, I used to ask him if we could get a sound department puppy. Preferably one that the props crew would take care of. Nobody went for it.
The kids started asking us when we were going to get a dog pretty much the minute they started living with us. We had lots of conversations about care and taking responsibility, but really it all boiled down to one thing: dog poop. We weren’t willing to talk seriously about a dog until all the kids unanimously agreed that they would handle the dog poop. It took longer than you might think.
I didn’t know this before, but puppies are contagious. All it takes is for one kid in the neighborhood to get a puppy and bam! everybody’s got one. There is apparently no vaccine.
Two years ago, a kid across the street got a puggle puppy and would bring it over to our house to play. It was summer, and CC was letting me sleep in until the puppy came over for its morning visit and then he would let it into our bedroom, where it would jump on my head and be all like “Oh my gooood! I’m a DOOOOG! Isn’t it GREAAAAT? I can’t BELIEEEEEEEVE it! YAAAAAAAY!”
It’s something, being around so much enthusiasm.
Before long I was online, looking for puppies. We did a little research and a lot of soul-searching and decided that more than anything we wanted a puppy that was happy. Enthusiastic, if you will. That led me to a puggle breeder about two hours away that had two puppies. They were the entire litter. I wrote a little about them here.
I packed four kids into the minivan one Sunday and trucked out on a road trip to look at some puppies.
We couldn’t decide. I’d thought that there would be some magical bond, some way that I would know The Right One For Us, but it wasn’t like that. Especially when there were only two to start with. It was more like eeny-meeny-miny-moe.
CC had to work and I sent him pictures, but he wouldn’t say which one he liked best. The kids were evenly split (#1 had opted out of the road trip). I wanted both of them, but that’s insane. Who gets two puppies? I picked the goofy looking one because he seemed to fit into our family the best:
He howled the entire way home, and he doesn’t look it, but he’s loud. That’s the Beagle in him. Then he pooped on my shirt. The kids thought that was hilarious.
As soon as we got him home, I realized the error I had made. Our puppy-to-kid ratio was way off. There was so not enough puppy to go around. Poor Jack was all tiny and blinking, cowering there with five kids hovering over him. CC admitted that he wouldn’t say which one he liked best because he wanted them both. I traded some texts with the breeder. They were willing to cut us a deal.
Three days later we went back for the pretty one:
When we brought her in the front door, Jack smelled her before he saw her and started dancing in circles around us. They were so happy to be back together. Then they immediately started fighting:
And it’s been like that ever since.
I will probably always refer to them as “the puppies” but today, Jack and Casey are two years old. They are ridiculous dogs. They are way more expensive than they should be. They are the one thing that we all agree on: we love them bunches.
Back when CC and I were just touring together, before any of this crazy stuff happened, I wasn’t ever planning on getting married to anyone or settling down on the east coast or buying a house or definitely not being a parent, but I did want a puppy.
I finally have a crew of five to take care of them.
You people are costing me a hundred bucks! Per kid!
To all of you parents out there who are leading your children to believe that the Tooth Fairy steals silently in the window at night while they dream, drips glitter in her wake and exchanges, via magic, five dollars for their precious, well-cared-for, and dramatically-parted-with teeth: STOP IT! What the hell is wrong with you? Do you know how many teeth children will lose before they have all their permanent teeth? Twenty. Twenty! There are multiple children in my house losing teeth at the same time, plus one in braces, and you people are trying to break me with your five dollars per tooth nonsense. Add it up.
The kids are constantly telling us how the Tooth Fairy left someone in their class five dollars, or seven dollars, or a Nintendo DS, or a pony. For five bucks, the Tooth Fairy better be sliding in some pre-orthodontia. Two bucks is the going rate in our house, unless the tooth has a cavity, in which case you get nada.
I am the world’s worst Tooth Fairy. That’s not entirely correct: CC and I together are the world’s worst Tooth Fairy.
The kids lose their teeth when we’re not around. I have never, not once, been present for the losing of a tooth when it wasn’t forcibly removed by the dentist. I don’t even know if they’re telling the truth about losing the teeth or not because I can’t keep the holes in their mouths straight and? The kids have this uncanny ability to actually lose the teeth that have come out of their mouths. When I was a kid I never had a tooth just up and go missing. It’s beyond my comprehension.
Believers don’t understand why they need to tell their parents they’ve lost a tooth because they think the Tooth Fairy has it all under control. Even when we do get notified, we forget, or else we don’t have any money on us because they already took it all.
Saturday #5 lost a tooth and didn’t tell us. I only found out about it when he woke up sad on Sunday morning. Luckily we have a whole backstory to cover the Tooth Fairy’s ass. Or throw her under the bus, depending on how you look at it.
#5: The Tooth Fairy didn’t come again.
CC: Son, the Tooth Fairy is the most unreliable of all the Fairies.
Me: Yes, she graduated at the bottom of her class in Fairy School.
CC: She totally would have flunked out if Santa didn’t help her cheat on the final.
Me: Because she never studied for her Fairy tests.
CC: She couldn’t; she was drunk.
Me: That may be why she didn’t come last night. She may have been too drunk.
CC: He. The Tooth Fairy is actually a man, did you know that?
Me: Yeah, he wears a cheap, ripped up tutu and you can see his leg hair through his tights because he doesn’t shave his legs.
CC: And his wand is bent.
#5: How do you know?
Me: Some nights he wanders in here when none of you guys have even lost a tooth, smelling like cheap whiskey and cigarettes and asks if I can break a twenty.
CC: Then he goes home to his tooth room and rolls around on top of his pile of teeth until he passes out. I’m sure that’s what happened.
Me: Why don’t you go put it back under your pillow and try again tonight?
#5 looked skeptical, but took his tooth in its little plastic bag and walked towards his room. Then he turned around.
#5: Do you think maybe the Tooth Fairy will leave three dollars for this tooth because it has blood on it?
Me: There’s blood on most teeth when they fall out. When I was a kid the Tooth Fairy left a quarter.
#5: Yeah, well I think money wasn’t worth very much back then.
I came to find out that in actuality, #1 pulled his tooth out for him. He told me this when the Tooth Fairy didn’t show up for the second night in a row. #5 is willing to place the blame anywhere else so as to exonerate the Tooth Fairy and preserve the money that he knows is coming to him, provided he can keep the Tooth Fairy sort of sober and not pissed off at him. It’s a valuable life skill and I am glad I can help him learn it at such young age.
#5: I bet that the Tooth Fairy has a calendar of when you’re supposed to lose the tooth, and because my sister pulled my tooth out, the Tooth Fairy didn’t know it was out yet. I bet that’s what happened.
Me: I bet you’re right. I’m sure that’s exactly what happened. This is all your sister’s fault, don’t you think?
#5: Probably.
Me: Right, it usually is. But I bet he comes tonight. There’s no way she could have pulled that tooth out of your head more than two days ahead of schedule.
#5: Right. It wouldn’t have come out, right?
Me: Right.
I’ve got to go out now and get change because it’s the third night, and even a drunk gets it right sometimes.
JM Randolph, accidentalstepmom 