* Happy Halloween, everyone!
I couldn’t help it: Virginia Tech was playing Virginia again in football. I HAD to leave the house for another chunk of five hours, in the middle of the day.
Of course, when I came home at eight, I really should have noticed that my fly was open. Also, the carton of milk was left out, which Eric shot a hole in with his bee-bee gun, leaving it to drip out empty.
Felicia, of course, was over in the corner applying more black eyeshadow. Just as yesterday, my two children had been subsisting entirely on Ritz crackers and Tang. The thought of buying them food for sustenance hung over me like an irksome black shroud, but unfortunately I had sprung for like four rounds of Grey Goose and vodka for the guys down at the bar. Hey, they were real cool dudes. I had to do it.
Walking into the bathroom, I went to brush my teeth, mostly out of vanity, and noticed that my fly was down. I decided to leave it down… it might be covered with germs. Glancing, then, into the mirror, wondering whether or not Virginia Tech even won the game I’d spent the last five hours watching, right through its entirety, I let the salve of toothpaste permeate my mouth, and ruminated over the deep, meaningful look I always had in my eyes. It’s just like that time I took Felicia to soccer practice last year. Always being there for them. There’s no doubt, I was quite the Dad.
I came out of the bathroom and remembered, gosh da**it, I have twizted kidz. It was Eric who came at me first, and with my ex-wife’s butcher knife of all things. She’d died five years earlier ‘cause I’d left the car running in the garage while she was sleeping in it. God da**it if this little squirt didn’t dig this knife right into my throat, at which time I immediately lunged for my car keys to drive myself to the hospital, wondering how much this da** wound would cost to fix. Then came the bite from Felicia: right in the thigh. She really sunk those incisors in. “That’ll teach you to make me quit soccer!” she yelled. “Christ!” I thought. Soccer, who needs it. I lunged for the front door and the car outside like a sleek nighttime bat, with the fire in my eyes all over again, ready to do battle with this world and make my stamp loud and clear. But then I saw the worst part, on the TV in the garage: Virginia 33, Virgnia Tech 28. Da**it, I thought to myself, maybe I should’ve bought another round after that THIRD score.