The Ramblings of Dave

Karina and I have some huge, exciting news to share! We are expecting our third…Wal-Mart within 5 miles to open soon! Your congratulations and well wishes are appreciated.

I understand that Wal-Mart has become a controversial subject these days. Generally I do not like to step on toes or be too political, but heck, here goes: I love Cap’n Crunchberries for $1.98. Those of you used to shopping at supermarkets staffed by union grocers may think I am smoking doobies when I infer that a box of cereal can be purchased anywhere for less than $5. But I assure you, a $2 box of cereal is indeed reality at the utopia that is your local Wal-Mart.

For those of you who oppose Wal-Mart and refuse to shop there due to a personal stance against their unfair labor practices, let me tell you: I wholeheartedly agree! The pain, suffering, and humiliation the poor employees go through at the greedy hands of corporate Wal-Mart is obvious. So obvious in fact that the employees have banded together in a mass show of displeasure and demonstrated their disapproval in the most logical way possible: by showing up to their scheduled shifts each day. I know that may seem counterintuitive in that showing up daily would suggest that the work conditions are not as dreary as insinuated by CNN and Michael Moore, but if the media is saying the work conditions are bad, far be it from me to question the motives of the media!

In fact, I am the last person to suggest that CNN, the New York Times, and ABC are bastions of liberals whose main goal is to see the downfall of capitalism and a free market. No way would you ever hear me say those media companies distort facts and squash opposition in order to cast a negative shadow on any conservative ideas. Why, if that were the fact, my very trust in the media may be shaken forever!

So, regardless of the fact that workers at Wal-Mart are blatantly treated so poorly that they continue to choose to work there, I still shop there. The fact that I can get a DVD recorder for $50 is simply too good to pass up. Where else can you find one for less than $100? Nowhere, is the correct answer. Now, I must say, paying one-half to one-third the price for an item at Wal-Mart in comparison to any other retailer does lead to pangs of guilt. As much as I would like to support local stores and mom and pops, it’s hard to justify spending 2-3 times for an item when I have other priorities for my money: such as, oh, I don’t know, feeding my children.

It is obvious that all of the mom and pop stores are suffering at the hand of almighty Wal-Mart. Well, except the hoards of mom and pops that mysteriously pop up around a recently opened Wal-Mart. One would almost think they were benefiting from the traffic generated by Wal-Mart! Ha! Perish the thought. And I guess we’d also have to rule out all of the mom and pop shops that benefit from shoppers who enter a market at Wal-Mart and then are driven to the mom and pops for a more specific selection of a given product. Conveniently, I have a personal example of this. For Christmas a few years back, I bought my wife a sewing machine (she asked for one OK! And they were out of vacuum cleaners). She wanted to take up sewing as a hobby. Unfortunately, the machines at your various local shops were a little too pricey for Santa, if you know what I am saying. So, I bought an affordable model at Wal-Mart. Once Karina took up the hobby, she realized the selection of accessories and fabrics at Wal-Mart, while good for a starter, was not nearly as comprehensive as the selection found at JoAnn’s or any other local fabric shop (now, technically speaking, JoAnn’s may be more of a corporate congolmerate than a mom and pop, but doesn’t the name JoAnn just sound like a nice old lade selling needles…sewing needles). So, guess who benefited from Karina’s purchase of a Wal-Mart sewing machine? No, it was the local fabric stores. So, I suppose we’ll rule those stores and the countless others who have similarly benefited out as well. But besides them, there are a TON of mom and pops Wal-Mart is putting out of business. And after all, it is definitely my responsibility to pay 3 times as much as necessary for a product to keep them in business. Heavens knows there aren’t other places of businesses one could work at. But, I guess they wouldn’t be able to set their own hours and exorbitant prices for merchandise. And it is definitely rediculous to expect the mom and pops to purchase their products at reduced quantities by joining a buying group. Why, that would involve more work, the very enemy of a union-based society!

So, despite the guilt I feel personally and the fact that it sometimes seems as if the clientèle shopping around me just returned from a monster truck show during mullet week in Alabama (sorry that was offensive, I would never purposely insinuate someone was from Alabama), I look forward to having a Wal-Mart located within walking distance from my home. And I would suggest refraining from complaining to me about my patronizing Wal-Mart until after December 25. Otherwise, I may be forced to purchase my Christmas gifts elsewhere, possibly decreasing the quantity you get by 2/3!

I know the length of this blog borders on super-hugely-tedious, but I wanted to share one other bit of information. We took the kiddos to see Enchanted this weekend. It was a great movie. All of it except the part I missed when I took Lynsey out because she was screaming in fear. But far from being embarassed, I was proud! Not all fathers can claim their daughters are reduced to tears upon seeing Susan Sarandon!

Sunday evening turned out to be far more extraordinary than I was planning, or wished it to. And by extraordinary, I don’t mean an excess of ordinary as the word seems to imply, but rather much less ordinary than normal.

My wife was out of town for the weekend in Hawaii with her mother. She was flying back Monday morning. I was looking forward to hitting the sack (that’s a euphemism for counting sheep) and grabbing a solid eight hours of sleep before starting up another work week. 11:30 rolled around and I climbed into my cozy bed and turned on some Saturday Night Live (it was recorded). All of the sudden, Flopsy, our black mutt started barking. This in itself is not extraordinary as the dogs tend to bark at night rather frequently. But she continued for quite a while and as she was I could hear the dogs scuffling about in the backyard.

Out of the blue, I started to detect an odor (read: stench) that reminded me of rotten eggs. Odors such as this at night are not common in our house, especially after I’ve had burritos for lunch, but I knew I wasn’t responsible for the odor (I totally wish I was though, that would have been awesome!). My original thought was there were some kids behind our fence tormenting the dogs. Often the neighborhood youths will use the wash that our house backs up against to smoke doobies. However, I’d never heard of weed that smelled like mule poop. The odor became stronger and stronger to the point that it smelled like our house was lodged inside a giant elephant armpit.

It was at this point I decided to take action. Normally, that action would be to roll over and tell my wife to find out what’s going on while I scouted the perimeter. Of course, by scout the perimeter I mean cower under the covers. As Karina was gone, I had no other choice than to investigate the issue myself. I slowly crept to the side window in an attempt to see if anything was moving on the other side of our fence. To my surprise, the dogs were chasing something small and furry around INSIDE THE YARD!!

All of the sudden, the pieces started to fall into place: horrible stench, small furry entity being chased around the yard. It was clear, somehow a hairy midget who had eaten a burrito for lunch had gotten trapped in our yard. I stepped outside to investigate (using the plastic cover for the dog food as a stench-shield) and when I turned the corner outside my house, I was surprised to see a very frightened skunk! It was frightened because it was cornered by two dogs who smelled like they had been bathing in rotten milk, but only with a more garlic-breathy aroma .

As I wasn’t about to go near the skunk in order to “assist” it out of my yard, I had to segregate my dogs from that side of the yard. If it got in, it would hopefully get out by itself…as long as it’s limbs were still functioning properly (good news for the skunk, the anal secretion glands seemed to have been unaffected by the dog attack). I first tried to put the dogs in our garage for the night. I decided to check on them five minutes later to see how bad the smell was since there was no circulating air. Upon opening the door, I was hit with a wall of stench that seemed to approximate what I would assume a sewage treatment plant fire would smell like, but with undertones of limburger cheese. I didn’t have the heart to leave the dogs there…but they surely weren’t coming inside the house.

Eventually, I decided to bring out their dog crates and have them sleep in the backyard confined. My only fear was the skunk, bent on revenge, would see the dogs defenseless and proceed to douse the dogs in stink-juice. Thankfully, that did not happen and by the time I woke up on Monday morning, the skunk was gone. The odor unfortunately was not. But victories are victories and by the time Karina had gotten home the smell had subsided to the point that our house only smelled like that guy in the mall who didn’t put deodorant on before apparently running a marathon (I’m not sure what is at the mall that is so important a shower/bath is rendered pointless).

Speaking of Karina getting home…she hooked the family up with some sweet souvenirs. I must say, she did a fine job, obviously putting a lot of thought into them. My favorite was the shark tooth necklace she brought home for me. It’s sweet!

I did start to wonder about the point of souvenirs in general however. Frankly, it seems rather odd to bring home items to people at home. It seems like you’re saying “here is a daily reminder of something freaking awesome that you didn’t get to experience.” I know, I know: it’s the thought that counts, right? While on vacation, you were thinking about your friends and family back home enough to bring them back a native treasure. That may be the case occasionally (in Karina’s case it was, her gifts were very thoughtful and appropriate), but speaking as a guy, that thought usually ends up being: “oh crud, I’m at the airport and I didn’t buy any souvenirs…let’s see what’s at the gift shop…this Nevada flask should work for my dad…he doesn’t drink, but it’ll work for coffee, and this ‘what happens in Vegas DAYS in Vegas’ calendar will work for mom…check and check.”

You know, I think I may put together some souveniers from my little skunk excursion. It seems far more appropriate to give gifts that say: “here’s a reminder of something awful you didn’t have to go through.” Now, where would one find bottled skunk anal (or skanal) juice with a clever catch-phrase such as “stinking of you?”

Prepare to be blown away. I mean, clear your head and prepare to put your brain into “high brain synapse activity” mode. Ponder the following question: do flies hover? Actually, that question isn’t so mind-boggling, because they don’t (at least in the research I have conducted in my kitchen). But, CAN they? Let that percolate for a while.

Questions such as these are always popping into my head. I suppose you could probably call it “inspiration”, but the difference between me and a scientist is I don’t care enough to find out. They just tend to be a nuisance to me, or more particularly my wife. I try to bottle them up for her sake, but in some cases I have no choice but to let the questions pop out and reveal their brilliance. A hypothetical example: we’ll be driving down the road and I’ll think, “hmmmm…I’m going 50 miles and hour….what if I threw a baseball backwards at 50 miles per hour?” I do my best to forget about it and not bother my wife, but I’ll think “what WOULD happen?” So, as usually happens, I’ll cave in and ask her.

I’ll give her credit, the methodology she uses to scientifically dissect the question at hand is remarkably consistent. First, she breaks the query down to it’s base proposition and reveals the core concept at hand with the following postulate: “I don’t care.” So, thinking I must have obviously posed the question wrong as anyone in their right mind would be dying to know the answer, I’ll rephrase the question: “no, what if it was a watermelon…I wonder if a watermelon would break apart in the air at 50 miles per hour….ooooh, if so, would the seeds be going fast enough to crack a windshield?” At this point she usually turns her music up. (By the way, for those of you dying to know the answer, based on some quick internet research I discovered the ball will drop straight down….God bless nerds and their experiments).

Speaking of questions and music, why would anyone let their children listen to Kidz Bop? I know why they would since it’s a cute premise: kids singing current pop hits for kids. But after listening to a sampling of the music, I had to ask myself WHY? You may be asking yourself why I would be listening to Kidz Bop music. Well, the answer is mind your own business.

I found the songs like “Crazy” and “Bad Day” pleasant enough. Then, I got to the Kidz’ rendition of “1,2 Step”, a song I’ve never heard. There are few things more unsettling than listening to adults and children sing lyrics such as the following (for the benefit of kids of course): “Goodies make the boys jump on it”, “I shake it like jello”, “work my body so melodic”, and “we about to get it on”. The last one I have a particular problem with; it should be we “are” about to get it on. What kind of grammar are we teaching our children?!

But seriously, it’s songs like this that that are slowly whittling down the surprise I feel when I hear about kids getting pregnant younger and younger. (Doctor: “well, the ultrasound indicates your baby is healthy…healthy and surprisingly pregnant.” Mother: “How is that possible?” Doctor: “you haven’t been in proximity to any Kidz Bop music recently have you?”) Times sure have changed since I was young and children’s songs concerned innocent subjects like the sounds of farm animals, children falling from tree tops, and the collapse of iconic bridges.

I guess this just means I, as a responsible father, will have to pull up my parenting boot straps and persevere in protecting my children from the filth that our culture constantly throws at them. Those bootstraps will indeed be pulled…just as soon as my kids and I are through listening to this Kidz Bop CD.