Doing the Math

Yesterday morning CC and I were sitting at the table, improving our minds via the internets on our laptops after the kids had gone to school. This week I came across a really funny blog that I started following, and then it got picked up on Freshly Pressed. I was reading the follow-up post out loud to CC because it was totally cracking me up. I clicked back twice on my browser and Freshly Pressed refreshed.

And there was Brickie, staring up at me with his purple curlicue and really goddamn big smile.

I cracked up all over again.

Wow and thanks are all I have to say. Because really, The Good Greatsby is way funnier than me and you should read his acceptance post. I tried to commission him to write my FP follow-up post but he’s wisely put multiple layers of protection in between his greatness and everything else, and he wasn’t willing to be paid in candy, which I feel is remarkably short-sighted of him.

Y’all left me a billion comments and I think that’s way cool. I am reading them, and checking out your stuff.

#5 is our resident math genius. He assured me, when I presented him with yesterday’s statistics (even though I claimed they were “just numbers” and refused to say anything else), that I got forty times the best traffic I’ve ever had.

I would use a calculator, but the kids have broken them all. I could find one on my computer, but I believe him for two reasons:

1) One time we came home from work and saw that the kids had been outside drawing with chalk on the driveway. Upon closer inspection we discovered that it was completely covered in numbers. The powers of ten, to be precise. It’s a rather large driveway. The babysitter mentioned that while they were all outside #5 disappeared. He had finished filling in our driveway and had started in on the next door neighbor’s. He was six at this time.

2) At the beginning of this school year, I was checking all of #5’s homework every day when he finished with it. One day I paused to check the math sheet he brought me in between loads of laundry and told him that all were correct except the last one. I carried on folding clothes. He came back and said, “What’s wrong with it?” and I snipped, “It’s the wrong answer.” I went back downstairs to switch laundry again. He came into the laundry room. “But which part of it is wrong?” and I snapped, “The answer part! The answer part is wrong!” It was typical early 3rd grade stuff, adding up a series of three numbers that were in the ten thousands. Finally he came back to me and said, “I’ve added these up every way I know how and still get the same answer.” So I looked at it again, and of course he was right. Because when I did it I didn’t carry the one.

There are moments as a parent when you can’t hide your assholery, and there’s only one thing to say.

I said, “Don’t ever let me check your math homework again.”

I have to break it to him tomorrow that he’s doing our taxes this year.

I don’t understand anything anymore.

We came home one night to this:

Sitting on the stairs.

It’s a brick, in case you can’t tell that from the picture. A brick with a purple construction paper curlicue, ostensibly representing hair, and a really goddamn big smile.

#5 made it. I do not know where the brick came from, or what possessed #5 to name it Brickie and give it the sentience equal to his most favored stuffed animals. All of #5’s stuffed animals at this time were named what they were, with an “ie” on the end (believe it or not, this is an east coast man thing).

Some nights he slept with Brickie.

Several times Brickie joined us for breakfast.

Brickie took part in many games and outings and blended right in with all the stuffed animals as if he were one of them.

But eventually, as always happens with talismans of childhood, Brickie was set on a shelf and not taken down again. Which is understandable, being that he’s heavy. And a brick. (Also at some point his name changed from Brickie to Bob the Brick. I have no proof, but that stinks of #4, because she names all of her stuffed animals Bob.) Brickie, a.k.a. Bob, was practically forgotten.

Then we moved.

#5 packed Brickie, a.k.a. Bob, carefully away in his pillowcase, then in a box. He pulled him out of the box first thing at the new house and slept with him every night. That bears clarifying: #5 was sleeping with a brick for his pillow. It took some top-notch maneuvers from a favorite babysitter, but Brickie, a.k.a. Bob, was eventually freed. Liberated, if you will. He joined some other bricks in a pile at the edge of an outside wall at our new house. I would see him out there sometimes when I was taking the puppies out, or pretending to garden.

He certainly looked happy.

He spent an enjoyable twenty-one months in the fresh air, surrounded by his own kind.

Until this week, when suddenly and without explanation, he was buried.

I don’t pretend to understand anything anymore. I just take pictures.

Snubbing Calvin Klein

I have bad celebrity karma.

Famous people come to my work sometimes. Mostly, I have no idea who the hell they are. If I manage to get the TV off of the inane shows the kids like, I prefer to either turn it off or watch something gory like shows about forensics, animal predators, or people of my culinary skill level trying to cook. This is because we don’t have Showtime and I can’t watch Dexter, which I think is unfair, being that I pay the bill.

I don’t see many movies either, unless there’s a vampire, wizard, or talking animal featured.

My sub, the other guy who does my job, has good celebrity karma. The famous people that I have heard of come when he is working instead of me. Betsey Johnson has been there twice. Once when I was on my honeymoon and once when one of the heathens was sick.

The only one who came while I was there that I cared about was Alice Cooper. I got all school girly. It was bad form, truly. But I got a picture. My friend John thinks he looks like Henry Winkler.

My kids were livid with me because when John Stamos (my Blackie; their Uncle Jesse) came, I didn’t get his autograph. Likewise a Jonas Brother. And Zack Effron.

Actual text exchange between me and #3 (yes, I spell out all my words and use punctuation in texts):

Me: Apparently, Zack Effron was here today.

#3: OOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGGGGG PLEEEEEEEEESE TELL ME U GOT HIS AUTOGRAPHHHHHH!!!!

Me: I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. I followed him out the door but I didn’t know it was him. And don’t all your extra letters defeat the purpose of your abbreviations?

#3: NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! Wait what?

When former President Bill Clinton came, he came backstage at intermission. Intermission serves one purpose for me: pee break. A large crowd of our company gathered to meet him. In front of the bathroom. Blocking me. I tried to gracefully edge around the former President and the star-eyed musicians and actors waiting to say their piece and get a picture. I made it to the other side. I waited until what I thought was the right moment and went into the bathroom.

Of course someone tried to come in. Of course it was Bill Clinton. Thwarted from relieving himself by a locked door. A whole new kind of cock block. Ah, c’mon, you’d totally go there if this was your story.

Once a man and a woman came up after the show. The man held out his hand and said, “Hi, Calvin Klein.” I shook his hand but was all, yeah right, in my head. He introduced his companion and asked if he could come backstage. I told him he could go to the stage door and talk to the doorman.

The look on his face was my first indication that he may have been telling the truth about his identity. He said, “Yeah, I don’t do that,” and walked away. I related the story to CC later that night.

CC: Did he kinda look like Lyle Lovett?

Me: Yeah, totally!

CC: You idiot. That was Calvin Klein. They’re related.

Me: Crap.

Calvin Klein came back on a different night when I wasn’t there and my sub took him backstage. I’m pretty sure he gave him the entire spring line and a private cruise on his yacht as a thank-you.