Sneezy Holly-Toes

I was talking to my friend, Erik, tonight and he filled me in on some of his more devilish practical jokes that he used to pull on his friends. It got me thinking that I hope I'm never on the receiving end of his trickery. One of his favorites is to send a card to someone filled with very fine, almost powdery, glitter that tends to scatter when the envelope is opened.

Another idea that he clued me in on was to send one of our female online friends a Christmas card filled with clippings from his beard and saying that it was trimmed from his nether-region.

In the middle of the conversation, I ran his name through a randomizer that my Mom had found online, which makes your real name into one with a more holiday feel. Needless to say, his translated into Sneezy Holly-Toes.

After another 2-hour marathon phone call session of Dungeons and Dragons trivia, Internet-speak, Lord of the Rings stuff, Da Vinci Code facts and other things, my head feels all mushy and bloated, like it's filled with a 20 pound marshmallow. I think I'm going to go lay down before white goo starts pouring through my eyeballs.

Birthdays abound

Today is my son, Ryan's, 11th birthday. I would love nothing more than to spend it with him, but he lives about 2 hours away from me. That, coupled with the fact that he's in school and my work schedule what it is, make it impossible for me to spend the day with him. I just have to wait until Christmas break when he comes down for the week. Under the tree, I have both his birthday presents as well as the ones for the holidays, each wrapped in the appropriate papers.

It makes me think back to the times when I was still with his mother and we would go shopping for all of the kids. I would feel bad for Ryan because his other sisters and brother would get gifts from their mother and me, in addition to what they got from their fathers. We set aside the same amount of money for each of them, but when it came to Christmas morning, the siblings would have much more presents and Ryan had a little. When I asked his mother about the idea of setting a little more aside for Ryan, to sort of "even out the booty," I was shot down because it wasn't "fair to spend more on one than we did the other." I tried debating my point, but it was useless. So now, since his mother and I are no longer together, I tend to spoil him, as well as his other step-sister, my daughter, Emma. No longer will he feel left out or not as good as the others. He, as well as his sister, are worth it. Always.

In the meantime, I sit here waiting for the day to give him his gifts. It isn't too far away. I'll be picking him up on the 26th.

Nutty sweatsacks

Funny, funny, funny. That's all I can say about last night's trip to the mall. Fortunately, I was able to knock out about 90% of the shopping I needed to get done in record time, which let me be more focused on hanging out with my brother, Kevin, and our friends, Matt and Fawn.

On our way out of the toy store, we passed those chintzy vending machines and both Kevin and Fawn each got one of those plastic eggs filled with some colored slime. I should have known that it would set the tone for the rest of the night. While we drove to the electronics store, Fawn kept commenting that it felt wet and slimy and I finally asked if it felt like a sweaty nutsack, leaving all of us laughing uncontrollably.

After an hour more of shopping, repeated sayings of "sweaty nutsack" and giggles, I said to Fawn that she should stop playing with the "nutty sweatsack," totally goofing it up from the lack of oxygen to the old brain matter. Well, that set the tone for another round of hysterics.

At this point, we needed to get some food before driving home, so we decided to stop at a popular restaurant for dinner. As we pulled up to the light, I spotted a woman in the car next to us, who was facing away, so all I could see was her long blond hair. I did my best Butt-Head imitation of "Like, hey, baby" and Kevin said that I should wait until I at least see her face. All I can say to that is he was right, which launched us into another round of hysterics.

Ordinarily, it wouldn't have been so bad, but while we were giggling, the woman in the next car started reaching for her nose and, yup, you guessed it, put the finger where it doesn't belong. By now, I was practically turning purple from laughing so hard, when Kevin looked over and let out a half groan-half cry and exclaimed that she had the same digit in her mouth. GAH! Disgusting!

In between guffaws and chuckles in the parking lot of the restaurant, because it took us that long to regain our composure, Kevin simply stated that I "knew how to pick 'em."

I don't think I've laughed as hard as I did last night in a long, long time. I definitely have to do that more often.