Troy's Rants and Ravings

Well it has been a busy last week or so…

Cecily and I both turned a year older and, while she is even more incredibly smart, beautiful and talented, I am getting dumber and goofier all the time.

I guess that can go either way as far as you people can see. I mean I am more and more attached to my big ass recliner and mindless TV shows like Deadliest Catch, Mythbusters, etc etc. I am still trying to get myself an agent for THE BOOK, doing my wood working, and working at The World Domination MotorCar Corp.  And I have found, once again, an incredible affinity for orange 50/50 bars!

For those of you not privy to the most wonderful non-alcoholic frozen confection known to mankind, a 50/50 bar is an orange sherbet popsicle with a creamy vanilla center. I got addicted to these when I was a kid, just out of the Sanitarium where I was born. The Ice Cream man would troll for victims along our street and charge us the virtually unobtainable price of 10 cents for bars of frozen goodness. I would look at the side of his truck where all of about 10-15 frozen confections were displayed. Unlike today, where a virtual candy store on wheels drives up and entices you to drop 5 or 6 grand on guaranteed tooth rot and hyperactivity lasting a year or more, we were limited to the basics of mobile frozen treats…

There was usually great debate and personal torment involved in selecting a frozen treat. My parents struggled financially to keep beets, spinach and Brussel Sprouts on the table, so having a whole dime to spend on the ice cream truck was quite an event. Trying to decide between the dreaded Sidewalk Sundae (which, no matter how fast you tried to eat it, would melt all over your hand within 3.2987 seconds of opening the wrapper), the Malted Milk Shake w/included wax-paper-wrapped wooden spoon (guaranteed to snap off by the third attempt at chipping away at the harder than granite “shake”), there was the challenge of a “standard” Root Beer or Banana Popsicle (do you attempt to split it into two perfect “singles” with the attendant risk of having the dreaded “stick malfunction” and having your frozen treat end up in the dirt, or two hand it and suffer through a minor brain freeze by gobbling it before it melted into the very pores of your skin making your hands sticky for a month?), the challenge of a Push Up (which was for wussies!! Don’t even ask…) and the nuclear weapon of frozen confections the Welches Grape Bar (Usually strictly forbidden, under pain of death, the Grape Bar made attacks by bees a virtual certainty. “I haven’t see a bee in a year” could all be remedied by the mere opening of the kids version of a Doomsday Weapon!! Hell, the bare stick was known to subject whole neighborhoods to swarming masses of bees looking to carry away and sting to death the unwary).

There was always PICT (Post Ice Cream Truck) syndrome bragging, sitting there on the curb eating our treat, and insinuating that only you had made the correct selection and the totally scientific reasoning for such a selection.  PICT fortunately usually only lasted a few minutes as all manner of faux pas and disasters struck the unwary. Spoons breaking, brain freezes, sidewalk sundae goo, catastrophic stick failure, temperature differential causing Popsicle avalanches and all other manner of mayhem.

And for all that, memories of that time in my life remain some of my fondest.

Being 50, now I am realizing how much kids today have all their fun laid out for them.  They don’t have the righteous fun of playing hide and seek at night wearing your darkest clothes to avoid capture, having neighborhood wide water fights,  playing 3 flies out at school, kick the can and all the other mad cap fun we had.  So just when I feel like I am going to sink into memories and depression, my oldest son pulls me back to the present by giving me THE over the top birthday prize…

Allow me to refresh the memories of all my loyal followers who are also of an age where remembering your own name is a struggle. THE BOY and I  have for the last few years been struggling to top each other with bizarre yet useful birthday and Christmas prizes. At last count I was, far and away, running off with the crown for most spectacularly bizarre prizes including but not limited to the Wizard Hat, the Barrack Obama “Yes We Can” opener, a trebuchet kit, an angry mob, a chicken dancing chicken who has to be choked…

So anyway, I was rather unsuspecting in my complete and utter dominance of the prize rituals this year. After all, I had crushed his futile attempts at prize parity and simply awaited his feeble attempt.

My, my, my!! How wrong was I to think that THE BOY was unable to compete!! Upon reception of this year’s prize, well, let’s just say that, in one fell swoop, he has not only caught up, but, in fact passed me while whacking me in the back of the head as he went by…

Yes, THE BOY gave me a radio controlled helicopter. But being MY boy, the body of said helicopter is not like anything I had ever seen before.

I tipped over from laughing so hard. Now like most parents I feel a simple greeting card, email of phone call is more than enough, but this was stupendously over the top!!

STARTING RANT

Now you must understand that I never thought anyone gave a “Flying Fuck”.  I mean, I know have a 2 kids out of 4 who did the right thing and at least aknowledge me. (Danny has no clue about me so he does not count either way. I love him and that’s good enough for me.) Hell, even my “evil step-children” (kinda like Cinderella in reverse) managed to give me happy b-day greetings… But it is pretty much a pisser to know that 2 of my kids could not even be bothered to call or even email me on the weekend where my birthday and father’s day fell, but then again that’s okay. I realize they don’t think too kindly of me and no matter what I say or do it won’t be enough for them. Time to let ‘em go and move on…

ENDING RANT

So growing old and senile DOES have it’s benefits if I can continue to do “Prize Battle”… And now the search begins for the penultimate “Prize Race” One Upmanship… And you thought the Cold War Arms Race was bad!!

3 Words James:

DUCK AND COVER!!!!!

Troy Ok, So I'm an Idiot...