Advice for if your friends have children

These are quick tips for anyone that has a friend who has children.  I wish I would have known this long ago.  I’ll pass it along none the less…

1.)  If your friends get a baby sitter, it means they want to go out and party like its 1999.  They want to take the night and go to a make believe realm where they’re back in college and have no responsibilities and their friends are crazy party animals.  They want to wake up and have a new tattoo that says “best night ever.”  Can you cram dinner, a movie, ice cream, dancing, riding a mechanical bull, hanging out at friends’ houses, playing games, and another movie into ONE night???   That’s what they want to find out, and if you punk out because “you’re tired” they will have ZERO sympathy for you.  Too tired… you don’t KNOW what “too tired” is.  And they just forked over serious cash so someone else can watch their offspring.  This is the night they’ve been waiting for.  Step up to the challenge because if you don’t, the next time they have two free hours in their month they’re not going to spend it with you.

2.) Not all of your friends have a good looking baby.  It happens.  The most important thing is to keep your facial expressions to a minimum.  Before you go see them and the baby, prepare your face.  In the next few minutes you may see the next Gerber baby model OR a tiny hairy troll.  Your eyes are the biggest tell.  Your soft, slightly squinted eyes with a tilted head means “awww…he/she is soooo cute!”  While large eyes with a raised brow and a drawn back head means “ oh my gosh you have just given birth to Gollum.” 

For instance:  The following facial expression is probably not good.

Regardless, if you find yourself face to face with an ugly baby, the following phrases are great for deflecting:  

        Look, it’s a baby!!  

       Oh he looks just like you…  

       He/she is just so tiny.    

The next few phrases are not acceptable: 

      What is it? 

      My gosh you have a hairy baby. 

      Why your baby’s eyes are are so far apart? 

      At least he doesn’t have jaundice.

3.)  On a similar tangent, your friends may call their new baby something totally ridiculous.  When you find out the name, no matter WHAT it is, keep your facial expressions to a minimum and your comments to yourself.  Yes, “Rizicatu” is the WORST name EVER.  But when you hear it, try not to show that you hate it.  Here’s something you can say in the moment that will hopefully clarify what the heck they were thinking: 

       Oh, that’s unique.  Is that a family name? 

This gives them a chance to explain their stupid thinking.  If at the end it STILL doesn’t make sense, just say “cool” and make fun of them later.  This is personal for me.  We named our son Rowen.  One of my friends when he heard that said “Isn’t Rowen a girl’s name?”  No one has seen him since that day.  (and since I’m a forensic scientist, no one ever will…. )

 (on a side note, do not bring up that you had “Lemonjello” and “Orangello” in your class when you were young.  That story is old and stupid and false.  If you find yourself right now saying “no I totally did have them in my class”, please stop reading and close this window.  You are no longer my friend.

4.)  Some people get upset when their friends with children keep telling really boring stories about what their child did today.  “Timmy then said “uh oh, my truck go voom. Hahaha… isn’t that great?!”  I used to be one of those people that would roll my eyes and walk away from my friends when they told stories like that.  Now I totally understand.  The only reason they’re telling you that is because LITERALLY, that’s the most interesting thing that happened this week.  It’s difficult to squeeze quality conversation out when the only adult interaction you have is when you’re watching the Wiggles.  If you find yourself trapped in the vortex of boring Timmy stories, start laughing and bring up something the two of you did in the past. 

     I.e.  “Timmy then said “uh oh, my truck go voom.” 

      You interrupt them and say "HAHAHA… that reminds me of the time when you and I were trapped in that elevator for three hours… "

 Which will then allow y’all to recount the fun memory you had together while simultaneously diffusing the boring story bomb. 

 

5.)  There’s a good chance your friend’s house is not clean.  If you happen to just drop by unexpected, try not to judge.  Feel free to help pick up.

6.)  Your friends new bed time is probably 9:30 to 10:00.  Do not call after that. 

Not meant to be funny. Just an observation.

Apparently I’ve gotten old.  I didn’t even realize when the transition occurred, but I’m confident it’s happened.  When you’re young, you look at your parents and think “there’s no way they were ever cool.”  Then as you get older, you hear them tell radical stories of their youth and ask yourself “Well, when did you decide to give up on having fun?”  I understand now.  It’s not as if you break down and tell yourself that you have to hang up your hat.  It’s a slow fade that goes mostly unnoticed. If you’re like me, you have a moment in time that you have a self evaluation and come to the conclusion:   well…apparently I’ve gotten old.  There was no greater example of this realization than this past weekend.

I have a core group of guy friends that try to get together as often as possible to hang out.  Some of the guys I’ve been friends with since elementary school.  The group grew in numbers in both junior high and high school.  Four of us all went to college together and were roommates and housemates.  We picked up a few extra guys in college to complete the man-group.   There are about 8 of us total.  Like most college guys, we did STUPID things constantly.  I can truly say if not for the protection of God, we would all mostly likely be dead. 

Examples: 

-There were times where we were driving down the interstate and one of us would hang out the window and try to open up the door to the car next to us.  Aw, dude, you almost had it, try again!  Look at the expressions on their faces… priceless.

-Going down the interstate and need a CD, but the guys in the car next to you have the CD… not a problem.  Edge your cars close enough to each other and pass it across.  Slow down you ask?  No.. Make it happen at 75mph.

-We built a potato gun that was incredible, but we didn’t want to fire it outside cause we lived in a neighborhood.  SO, we got a pizza pan and taped it to the bathroom door.  The plan was that we would use a ball of wet paper towels as our first bullet.  The THEORY was that we would fire the ball of wet paper towels at the bathroom door and have the pizza pan catch it.  What we didn’t realize was the FORCE the wet paper towels would have when shot out of a potato gun.  When it hit the pizza pan, it bent the pan into a bowl and shot the pan through the bathroom door, hitting the cabinets in the bathroom and breaking them into shards.  In-credible!  Let’s do it again.  You’d think that we would have taken the hint, but nope.  We shot it through the bathroom door about 20 more times.  There was a giant 3 foot hole in the door by the time we got done.  No worries.  We just hung a towel up over the hole.  Hey, we were five guys in a one bathroom house.  Privacy?  Overrated.

-We lived on a VERY steep hill, I would say probably 40-45 degree decline.  One day we decided that we needed to see if you could make it down the hill in an office chair.  The thing is, you could make it MOST of the way down the hill, but at some point you would be traveling too quickly for the tiny office chair wheels to keep up, so you’d go tumbling over in a crash suitable for nascar.   The goal was to make it farther down the hill before you crash than the other guys did.  Stupid, but FUUUUN.

Anyway, during college and slightly post-college we would get together for “Man trips” or “Man weekends.”  The goal was to find new and more ridiculous things to do.  This came easy with the amount of alcohol that was consumed during these trips.  One time we went to a local bar and by the time we left our bar tab was 1400 dollars.  To this day we can’t understand how some of us didn’t die.  By the end of the night the shots were just straight Wild Turkey and Vodka.  (And that was without my addition to the tab, as I had stopped drinking alcohol after college).  Guys would take a shot, SLAM the shot glass down on the table, make a “Tim the tool-man” kinda yell and demand to know what’s next.  One guy always ended up without a shirt somehow, one guy would unnecessarily curse all the time, one guy would throw up no matter what.

But NOW.  Now our man-trips are completely different.  We’re all married and most of us have AT LEAST one kid.  Now instead of going to concerts and possibly getting in a fight, we go tubing down a lazy river.  In place of the conversations about the hot chicks we met, it’s about our kids or our 401K.  “Yeah, she just learned to crawl.  It’s the cutest thing ever.”  “Your son looks just like you, man.”  “Oh, we’re thinking of having kids within the year or so.”  “Well my company will match my 401K contribution up to 6… “Really man, ours only matches up to 4.. You got it good.” 

Most of us don’t have the quintessential cigar because our wives don’t like us to stink when we come home.  Before it would be around 11 o’clock before we even left to go out.  NOW by the time its 11 o’clock, some of us start fading and yawning.   No one is willing to go to bed first for fear of being made fun of, but pretty much everyone is thinking about it.    When we go to the token bar, everyone just has a couple beers rather than 15 beers a piece.  In place of straight vodka, the shots are mainly fruity and have really feminine names.  “We’ll have seven apple plinkies, please.”   No one throws back the shot and yells out anymore.  It’s more like a slow sip and then gently setting the shot glass down, hoping and begging no one orders another. 

We all want to seem like we haven’t changed, but the reality is that we have.  Before it was more important to DO something crazy, but now it’s fun just to hang out with those guys. The old cliché is true, it doesn’t matter what you do so long as you like the people you’re doing it with.   It’s kinda funny to think that one day my son is going to grow up and think that his dad is SUCH a BORING guy…   Son, I’m not boring, I just decided to give my guardian angel a much needed break.

M-PMS

I am currently having MPMS (male PMS).  People say men can’t have PMS, but they’re wrong.  Men may not go through the physiological cycle, but they clearly go through the emotional cycle.  I’m not talking about crying during a commercial about Huggies pull ups (although the only commercial where a man is allowed to cry is that commercial with the homeless dogs and cats where Sarah McLaghlin is singing in the background… that commercial is BRUTAL).  I’m talking about the “I'm MEAN, everyone is STUPID, give me CHOCOLATE or get out my way” kind of cycle.  I totally understand “that time of the month” now.  There is NOTHING you can say that will make me feel better.  I just want to be alone. 

The following things have bothered me today:

1.)    The overuse of LOL.  Do people not understand what that means?  It means laugh out loud.  Which further means that something has caused you to literally laugh audibly.  It does not signify the end of a sentence.  I.e. I just finished a sentence, LOL.  There is NOTHING funny about that… If I see people use this on facebook on something that isn’t funny, or can’t be misconstrued as funny, I hide them or delete them as friends. 

I need a vacation, LOL.   (you are now hidden)

I just ate lunch, LOL.   (you are now hidden)

I’m so tired, LOL   (you are deleted as a friend)

My dog is barking, LOL  (we were never friends, the only reason I accepted your friend request was because we went to the same high school and have 32 friends in common, but I don’t know who you are, goodbye)

I have decided to write out that I’m laughing.  “Man that was funny.  I laughed audibly.”  Yes, it takes away from the humor of the moment.  But outside of calling you and letting you hear me laugh, I don’t know what to do. 

2.)    Old men bother me.   I don’t know when the disconnect happens where you don’t care about social norms, but I don’t want to get that old.  Old men do things that are completely unacceptable but people let it go because they’re old.  I don’t like public bathrooms in general.  If I’m there, I don’t want to be there for long.  I’m like the navy seals of bathrooms.  I want to get in, handle business, and get out before anyone knows I was there.  I do NOT want to linger.  I do NOT want to have conversation.  If I walk in and see someone’s feet under the stall, I will leave and come back later.  I don’t care how many stalls there are.  If ONE stall is occupied, the whole bathroom is occupied as far as I’m concerned.  I WISH old men would do the same.  NOPE…  In the brief time I’m there, someone will come in and sit in the stall next to me and unleash hell.  DUDE…seriously… wait literally two minutes and you can have this WHOLE PLACE to yourself.  But now it’s all about you cause I clearly can’t go anymore.  And now I have to wait it out, which only makes this whole awkward situation worse.  And it sounds like you’re having to strain, which means this situation wasn’t based on necessity as much as it was you just WANTING to do this NOW…  Did you just get on your phone?!?  What the heck?!  BRO, there’s SOMEONE ELSE IN HERE, or did you not see the shoes in the stall next door???    I hate you.

They must teach this disregard for bathroom etiquette at the same place they teach the “naked single leg-hike” for locker room benches, as every old man seems to know this faux pas too.

3.)    The phrase “That’s NOTHING!”  Normally, this phrase doesn’t bother me terribly.  But today….today I can’t take it.  Today my MPMS is acting up.  My nerves is bad…  I could tell a story about how I bought a painting of an old woman sitting in a chair reading a book.  Then tell of how I accidentally dropped the painting while loading it into my car and tore the canvas.  It was then that I realized behind the canvas was a copy of the United States Constitution and a map of where Jimmy Hoffa was buried.  Odd right??  Regardless, at the conclusion of my story, I will hear those heinous words shouted emphatically by the “one upper,” as he is called.  He will then tell a story which attempts to best my torn painting/ Constitution story.  “No kidding, you once found $20 in the parking lot of Wal-Mart?  That’s cool…And clearly better...”  Most times though, his story has NOTHING to do with what we were talking about and totally kills conversation.  

Females say they get bloated during this time.  I totally get that too. Mine is mainly because I’m an angry eater.  When I’m frustrated I eat everything I see.  The problem, albeit cyclical, is that somewhere in the midst of eating everything I see is that I get mad at myself for eating so much.   But again, I’m an angry eater.  This leads to me getting mad at myself and eating more. 

The best/worst decision I’ve made about “that time of the month” was to start keeping track of my co-workers cycles.  I would make a notation in my phone about the “crankiness” of my co-workers and see if it correlated roughly 28 days later.  When it did, I would make a little star and begin keeping track. 

(I’m a scientist, so I considered this an experiment)  

 Not surprisingly, the females at my work all seemed to hit the week at the same time.  “Sync-ing” is what they called this anomaly…  The men at the lab referred to it as “HELL WEEK.”  Some poor male co-worker would come stumbling in after being reamed by some females and wonder what just happened to him.  I then checked my phone and told him he shouldn’t take it personal… It’s “that time” for her.  You could see the panic and confusion leave his face…   My former manager heard that I had such a chart and asked if it could be shared with other men for the benefit of the lab.  There’s where it went wrong… Once the females found out such a chart existed, the gig was up.  We were all dead (Even though they were totally impressed on the accuracy of the chart).  I tried to convince them that this was advantageous to ALL, but it didn’t work.  What was funny is that EVERY FEMALE I’ve EVER MET has said “aww, you can’t even tell when I’m on mine… I don’t get moody like other girls.”   Oh really?  Lemme check my phone…. You are on the 11^th this month, correct?  I would usually get replies like “How tha…?  I mean…, Paul, You’re such a JERK!” 

Hey, don’t mess with the science… 

Arg, for some reason I want a chocolate chip cookie.

Family Gathering: Terms and Conditions

Berry Family Gathering Agreement

On this day (______,2011), I ____________(state your name) understand that a family gathering will happen in the unforseen future.  I therefore, willingly or unwillingly agree to the following terms and conditions as stated:

I.  I will not compare myself to any of my siblings in any of the following ways
    
    A. Intelligence.  Though mother has deemed one child as "the smart one," each sibling will refrain from calling this person "the smart one" even though that person continues to remind everyone of the title.  Test scores mean Jack.  Therefore, we will each agree to discontinue the use of the following words or statements:
       1.  "Actually"   When one uses the word, it implies that what was just stated is in fact, wrong, stupid, and childish and will now be corrected.  For instance:  "Did you know that the sky is blue?" "ACTUALLY,  the sky is not blue, it's simply white light filtered and refracted where blue is the only color we see..."  Ooooh look, look how smart you are.   I wish I could be that smart.
      2.  "Intelligence ORB"  This was a failed attempt to quantify one's intelligence.  ORBs would be hypothetically worn above a person's head like those creatures in SIMS computer games.  If one had a large ORB, he was deemed smart, if one had a small ORB he was deemed my brother... It only failed when Paul's wife asked Paul if he thought his ORB was larger than hers.  Paul should have replied quickly but instead paused, ensuring an arguement would be near.
   B.  Creativity.  We shall all agree we are all creative in our own right.  Just because one person was deemed "the creative one" by our mother does not imply that all creative genetics were passed in one conception.  Yes, one sibling when asked about her day can instantly contrive a story about ninjas and butterflies that has everyone sitting at the edge of their seats.  But that doesn't mean that the rest of us have no creative juices. We just think art is stupid.
   C.  Athletics.  We all agree that "in our day" we were all amazing athletes.  Those days are behind us now.  We are Berrys.  We probably shouldn't be even discussing this.  We watch the Biggest Loser and think "I can SO do that..."  Yeah, that's not something we should be saying.
   D.  Humor.  Paul is "the funny one."  End of story. 

II.  I will refrain from using key words or phrases that I know will cause fights including:
    A.  Instinctal.  (Also used as Instinctive) I know from previous experience that Paul will freak out if this word is uttered.  He used it one time inadvertantly and people will NEVER LET IT GO.  Do you remember the last time?  Dishes were thrown, streams of words were put together that didn't make sense, he went missing for days.  Don't use it in jokes.  They aren't funny. 
    B.  Get off your butt and help me.  Never once in the english language has that phrase EVER caused anyone to truly get off their rump and offer aid.  Rather, it causes the inverse reaction which usually starts off with "Shut your face!!  I've already done more than you have all day." 
   C.  You ruin EVERY %$@# Christmas!! This one is mainly for Mom.  Yes, holidays stress you out.  Please refrain from letting it get to you where you throw this phrase out, again...  Cursing at your children can never be erased from their memory.  See Christmas 2001, 2003, 2004, and 2010.  Lets make this the year...

III.  We all agree now, before the remainder of the Berry children are born that we will not:
   A.  Get "Berry Family Reunion T-shirts.  Family T-shirts are creepy and tacky.  Gross
   B.  Go on any more family vacations.  Does anyone remember Ireland?  Screaming in the airport like red-kneck white trash morons... all about 50 bucks.  How airport security didn't arrest us BEYOND comprehension.  They were problably glad to rid us from their country.
  C.  Go on any more family vacations.  This one needed to be said again.  Does anyone remember Colorado ski trip?  Screaming in the condo like cold red kneck white trash morons in the snow... Brutal. 

This is a legally binding contract.  Ask the family lawyer, she'll tell you. 

I'm that stupid

I recently took the GRE.  I took many practice GRE exams and each one came back basically telling me I'm not as smart as I think I am.  That's a pretty hurtful realization.  It was confirmed when I took the ACTUAL GRE exam.  I didn't do terribly bad, but I did bad enough to where I got up, walked out, and immediately bought a "regular" coke -not diet- and a bag of tear and share M&Ms. (I did not share)  
   Here's a little food for thought:  A recent study showed that 80% of people believe they are smarter than most of the people around them.  80%....  This brings about two thoughts. 
1.)  20% of people thought to themselves "ya know, I'm probably stupider than most of the people around me."  That's kind of sad right?  Who would say that?  Even if you thought you weren't the brightest crayon in the box, you would certainly look around and say "well I gotta be smarter than THOSE guys..."  Bad self esteem, party of one, your table is ready.
2.) Clearly 80% of people CAN'T be smarter than most of the people around them.  It's a mathmatical impossibility.  If you don't realize that, it's because you are in the 20%... don't get your feelings hurt. 

Anyway, I took this test thinking I could wing it and do pretty well.  I would like to blame my scores on having graduated college seven years ago and just being "a little rusty", but that wass obviously not the problem.  The problem is that I have no vocabulary.  I was going to say I have no vernacular, but that would be pretentious.  Some of the questions on this test looked like this:

Find the antonym to the following word

Blagotivational
A.  Herpatomival
B.  Zappatoe
C.  Pip
D.  Dogmitavion

Not only do I not know what the word means, I don't know the meaning of the answer choices either.

Another question looks like this:

Analogies...

Mouth is to Tree as:
A.  Bird is to Knot
B.  Chair is to Tissue
C.  Hip is to Hop
D.  Herpatomival is to Dogmitavion (see previous question for meaning)

What?!?!?  Keep in mind, you only have 15 seconds to answer each question.  So then I start justifying my answers.  Well, I wouldn't put my mouth on a tree... or so I wouldn't put a bird on a knot.  Oh dear lord, I'll just come back to this one...

If I wanted to have someone tell me I'm stupid, I would just go to more family reunions. But it adds a little to have someone quantitate your stupidity though.  "Hello, Mr. Paul, you are _____ % dumb."
 I almost expected the computer to have a follow up question after the test:  Please type the name of your school again, we need to have that school audited. 

The test kindly reminds me that I can take the test again in a month.  Hey guys, there's NO WAY I will increase my skilz enough to make a difference.  And my ego can't take the hit again in a single calendar year.  I need it to be built up again by my wife telling me "I love you no matter how stupid you are...." Gee thanks, babe.  I feel better already.  Pass me the M&Ms. 

We made it six months!

It's been six months since my son was born.  Some days have flown  by, others (espescially those where he was screaming) seemed to last forever.  I've learned a lot though.  I will sum up my more important thoughts in my typical numerical format:

1.)  Baby vomit tastes terrible.  When you can finally find that thing that makes him giggle, you do it over and over again.  Then tell your spouse to go get the video camera so we can get this on tape.  Thank God we missed that window.  I was playing that game where you "slightly" throw your child in the air, never REALLY letting go of him, saying "WEEE" while you do it.  He was laughing hysterically.  It was so much fun... Until he vomited.  It was literally a scene out of the Exorcist.  Where in the world did ALL THAT come from??? He hadn't eaten that much food to create THAT MUCH vomit.  It came out like a stream of evil.  I thought the next thing was for his head to spin on its axis.  Being that I was in the middle of saying "WEEE," my mouth was wide open in a stupid looking smile (you can picture it).  So when that happens what does a loving wife do?  LAUGHS... LAUGHS until she cries while I'm screaming "Take him!  NO take him NOW!"  The only thing that made it tolerable was that he was still laughing.  No but seriously, you can't get that smell off you.  It's like herpes, once you get it on you, you can never get rid of it. (so I've heard).

2.)  Baby poo defies physics.  There are some diapers that are so easy you almost feel bad that THIS one was my turn to change.  Then there are others where you think "how did that happen???"  And you can easily tell the difference in the sound.  If it sounds like a tire just blew out on the interstate on a rainy day...then you know you're in for a treat.  Then when it's time to change him you peek with only one eye, hoping that what you see is not as bad as the sound.  It usually is. You can generally tell this when you peel back the diaper to see what's there and immediately get "IT" on your fingers.  I've also learned the phrase "Heather... I need help." Is the only phrase my wife CAN NOT understand.  She literally can't hear it.  I can scream it and she never even acknowledges I've spoken.  I'm starting to question... 
BUT, the fun thing to do is make a game of the explosions.  My wife and I play a couple of games.  One game we call "How did it get THERE?!"  It's a game where you figure out what had to have happened for poo to get behind his ears, or under his arm pits.  Best story wins.  We also do a rorschac test on the splatter patterns.  "Well Heather, what does THAT look like to YOU?  Is it a butterfly or is it the face of Satan?  Hmmm... tough choice."

3.) My wife has a buzzer in her head that goes off when I sit down.  I can walk around for six hours, go outside and plow the field, give a filibuster before congress, wander aimlessly around the house for an hour looking for something, ANYTHING to do.  But it's not until I FINALLY sit down and sigh in relief that Heather asks "Hey can you go get the (___) from the kitchen table?"  Woman, I literally JUST sat down.  You could have asked me ANY-TIME in the past few hours, but your buzzer went off when I sat down and NOW you need it?
Then she gives me that guilty "I have a baby in my lap" look and of course, I then have to get up.  I see her innate "mother guilt trip" genes have kicked in.  First it's go get me a bottle from the kitchen, then it's telling our son how he doesn't come home from college enough (with a slight, red-nose cry which causes him to say "Aww, don't cry mom, I'll come home next weekend...")  I may have some residual anger towards the "mother guilt trip" genes...

4.) My mood is directly related to the amount of sleep I get.  If I get a full night’s sleep, I'll pick up cookies for people at work.  If I don't get enough sleep... EVERYTHING EVERYONE says is STUPID.  I willingly admit I am irrationally judgmental towards people.  "Hey Paul, a couple of us are going to grab a coke from the cafeteria, you want to come?"  NO I don't want to go! I don't want to be around people who have a STUPID FACE! (again, I know it's beyond rational)  But at the time, I feel like they are purposefully testing my patience.  "Do I want a coke?"  I SAY GOOD DAY!

I hope the next six months are as fun as the past six....

Just can't wait to get on the road again

So the trip started when I reserved a 17 foot Uhaul truck for the move to Austin, only to show up and have them tell me they had already given out all the 17 foot trucks but they "upgraded" me to a 72 foot truck (it wasn't that large, but it might as well have been- this thing was GIGANTIC.  It needed an old school tree house rope ladder to get into it) It literally was like piloting the Hindenburg oh wheels.  It has TWO steps to get into the cab of the truck... not one... two.  I was 18 feet off the ground. 
--- On a side note, I now know why rednecks like trucks jacked up off the ground, it gives you a sense of power.  I looked down in pity at the small Honda hatchbacks scurrying around like dung beetles around my giant truck.

Couple things I learned about this particular UHAUL truck on my 9 hour drive:

1.)  It had no CD player, no tape deck, and apparently a malfunctioning radio antenna.  It wasn't COMPLETELY broken however, as it clearly picked up four hispanic radio stations along the way.  For the first few hours I just sat in silence, but after I broke down mentally, I dialed in to 91.1 "radio caliente y picante de música."  Which I assume has something to do with trumpets and banjos.  My spanish isn't too good, but I'm pretty sure that I heard the same song 42 times.  I could even start singing along.  What I was saying... I don't know.  Somewhere around Houston I actually caught the end of a Madonna song.  Never before in my life have I EVER been happy to sing loudly along with Pappa Don't Preach..

2.)  Top speed = 65mph.  And it sounded like the engine was going to explode just getting it up to 65mph.  I can assume that people were passing me by giving me "verbal and symbolic signs of disapproval" but again, I was 18 feet off the ground so all I saw was the tops of cars.  I felt it though.

3.)  It leaked gas.  I couldn't find out where exactly it was leaking, but I pulled over TWICE to check for leaking gas because the gas gauge was going down so fast that there MUST be a leak somewhere and that could be dangerous.  I never found the spot, but I'm sure it was there because there's NO WAY I averaged 7 miles per gallon.  I was only going 65mph (see above)

But the BEST part of the trip was not the time, or the radio stations, or paying 300 dollars in gas.  The BEST part was somewhere outside Katy Texas, Piper (the dog I took with me) started crying a little.  I stupidly thought she just missed her mommy.  I was like "ahh,it's ok buddy, she'll be here in a couple days." 
That wasn't the problem.

The problem was that I ran out of her dog food the day before and PetSmart didn't have anymore of it.  Sooooo, I just grabbed the next best dog food.  Anyone who has done this or heard about this elementary mistake, mixed with the volatility of my dogs digestive track knows how BAD of a mistake that was.  (Now, I know... some are saying "Poop was in your last blog," but NOT like this.)  Last time wasn't in a confined space.  Last time didn't sound like a tire blew out on the interstate.  Last time didn't look like a Jackson Pollock painting.  I was trapped in slow moving traffic.  The only thing I could do is roll the window down and drive like Ace Ventura until I could get to the next gas station. 

I bet that's the first time the gas station attendant has seen someone walk OUT of the bathroom with a wad of toilet paper.  A little group of ladies with their kids saw me take Piper out the truck and were like "awww, look how cute she is!! Can we pet her??"  --I let them-- I needed someone to hold her while I put on my Hazmat suit.  I snuck children's Benadryl into a portion of a gas station hot dog and gave it to her.  She passed out, but then I thought "did that nasty hot dog just kill her?"

She eventually woke up. 

We made it.