I'm Living in a Bad, Old Sitcom

    I swear, the thing I'm going to tell you about tonight has happened on dozens of old TV comedies, with the main difference being that in the end, what they thought had happened actually hadn't. That was a very awkward sentence, but you'll get over it.

   On February 29th, 2004, Mrs. Snarky and I were married. In our living room. By one of our neighbors. Let's take those statements one at a time. Yes, I realize that February 29th only happens every four years. We decided that in non-leap years, we'd take our anniversary on the 28th, or March 1st, depending on which day looked better. If the 28th was on Friday, then the 1st would likely be better since it fell on the weekend. In leap years, we pledged to do a little something extra. A special anniversary every four years. It's worked out quite well so far. 

    Next. We got married in our living room in front of our three children who lived with us at the time. Also, Mrs. Snarky's sister, and if I remember correctly, two of her her kids came. That's it. We didn't want to make a big deal of it, not because we took it lightly, but because, in our eyes, we'd been married since the day I moved to Oregon and merged our families. We'd each been married once before, and felt no need to spend a fortune to pledge our love in front of the whole world.

   Finally, our neighbor was an ordained minister and good friend. He agreed to join us together and let no man put asunder and all that other stuff. He then pronounced us Man and Wife... which is weird, because I was already a Man... why isn't it Husband and Wife?

We were just like these two, only just a little happier

    So, we were married for several years before Mrs. Snarky finally decided to make it official and change her name on her driver's license, because of course she waited because that's what we do. Nothing is EVER simple for us. There's gotta be some kind of ordeal involved, usually because we didn't do what we were supposed to do.

    DMV tells her that she has to go to the bureau of vital statistics and get a copy of our marriage certificate. We go there together, probably 6 months later because, again, this is what we do. Wait in the line, which I believe is required by law at all government offices, regardless of how small and insignificant the office happens to be. I think they might have people on the payroll who wait in the offices for an actual customer to come in, and then they pretend they've been waiting in line for the important service this office provides. Finally, we reach the head of the line and give the clerk our information, and request the copy of the marriage certificate. After several attempts to pull us up on her computer screen, and several faces made by said clerk at said computer screen, she let us in on our dirty little secret. According to the state of Oregon, we are not married. She sees a marriage license issued, but no record of the marriage actually occurring.

   

At least when these two thought they weren't married, they had separate beds

    I was shocked. It meant that I'd been living in sin! It meant that I had 4 illegitimate step-children. It made my children illegitimate for Mrs. Snarky. WAIT A MINUTE! She's not even Mrs. Snarky!!! Oh, the humanity! My entire life for the last 13 years has been a lie!

    Well, that happened about a year ago. Maybe longer. I don't know. Because of course it did. Waiting is what we do. I've actually been into the office on three separate occasions, but the person who handles this sort of thing (maybe it happens more than I think it should?) is out of the office and "Will call you back," which he or she (I can't remember) never does. So, I'm still living in sin. I guess I'm okay with that. Nobody better call our kids bad names over this or I'll have to find them and beat them up.

You've been warned.

 

 Me

Basketball, Beauty and a Beast

    Happy March Madness, everybody. Or, as Snarky Rachel would say, "Yay, SPORTS!" What she'd mean by that is, "Oh my gosh Daddio, are you really watching sports again?" and I'd say something like, "I only watch sports during Baseball, Hockey, Football, and Basketball season. Oh, yeah, and Golf... and sometimes there's the Olympics." I never learned to like NASCAR or Soccer though. I've tried them both a few times. NASCAR bores me to no end. For those of you who love it, sorry. I mean no disrespect. It's just not my thing.  As far as soccer, one time I turned on the game, I think the U.S. was playing some South American country but I forget which one, but what was amazing was, the U.S. actually scored a goal within five minutes of me turning it on the TV. It was incredible. At least that was what the announcer said. I was channel surfing within another five minutes. Sorry Soccer fans. Not my thing either.

Yes! Australian Rules Football! Now THERE'S excitement!

    For those of you who couldn't care a lick about sports like my Rachel, you might want to skip down two paragraphs. Either that, or just skim through them.

    Back to March Madness... the NCAA basketball tournament. I used to love it. It was one of the highlights of the Sports year for me. You'd sit down on Sunday and watch the selection show, taking note of where and when your favorite team was playing, hoping that you wouldn't have to call in sick to work again this year because maybe they were onto you. You bought the paper as soon as possible on Monday morning to look over those brackets and wonder, could this be the year you won the big pool at work? Here's part of the problem for me... up until a few years ago, you had until Thursday to study and waver back and forth on some of your picks. Now the tournament starts on Tuesday for 8 of the teams. These days most pools still wait until Thursday morning before you have to fill out your bracket and turn it in, but somehow, in my eyes, these extra teams have made it harder for me to be interested.

    "You? Not interested in a major sporting event?" you might ask. And I'd reply, "I'm not, not interested. I'm just not AS interested." There are still some great upsets and buzzer beaters that occur every year in this thing, and the drama is much more captivating than the NBA, in my opinion. I did love watching Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and the rest of those great Bulls teams, but the NBA is mostly a yawn for me these days. Anyway, I made my picks and so far, I'm leading my son's pool, but it's small and there's no money involved. Back in the 80's and 90's, I used to work on a large trading floor. The tournament pools were HUGE. Hundreds of people would get in on them. To win one of those was a big deal. Maybe the fact that I'm no longer involved in those is part of the lower interest for me as well.

   

I won't say what trading floor... but its initials were CBOE

    HERE RACHEL. START READING AGAIN RIGHT HERE.
  
    So tonight we went to see Beauty and the Beast in the movie theater. I was only mildly interested in watching, but several of the ladies in the family were excited, so I decided to go along. I'm not ashamed to admit that I enjoyed it very much. Many of the lines were exactly the same as the animated film, songs included, and many new lines  and songs were added. I thought they did a wonderful job, and as a Harry Potter fan, it was cool to see Emma Watson in a different role.

    Now, I've promised that I wouldn't get political here. I'm treading as lightly as I can. There has been a bit of controversy over the fact that LeFou is portrayed as openly gay in this film. I get that some people want to limit their children's exposure to things of this nature, while others don't feel it is anything to worry about. For those of you in the first group, first, know that I am not judging you AT ALL. What you feel your kids should be allowed to see and not allowed to see is your business and yours alone. Not mine, or anyone else's. That said, I felt that the uproar over this character is unfounded. It was very minor, only mildly suggested, and most children will not even notice it. This is a very child friendly film. If I remember right, the Disney cartoon had some scenes of blood and gore. This had only suggestions of it. I hope you go see it.

Th Thi The Th That's All Folks!

Snarky

And The Beast

21 Drinks

    My son turned 21 today. My youngest child... is now an adult. I had a shot with him at
Buffalo Wild Wings. Mr. Snarky feels REALLY old today.

Like this guy, with those eyebrows that just... whatever his are doing there. WOW

    I said I do some things today so I could write about them, but all I did was watch basketball, hockey and have a few drinks with my son. So I'll have to reminisce a bit. Remember when you were 21? It's a bit different for my son than it was for me, although I lived with his mom back then, and now he does. We were married already though, and my boy is nowhere close. I think that might be best for him though. I had to grow up fast. It was good for me though. Forced me to become a man, even though I didn't want to.

    But the year I turned 21 was nothing but a party every weekend. Sometimes, his mom and I would be out shopping, or visiting family, and we get to our apartment to find out we were having a kegger party. That was fun... mostly. Occasionally, we wanted to have a quiet night, but it rarely worked out that way. The keg would usually show up on Friday night, and be done by Sunday morning, so we'd have to go out and buy a couple cases for Sunday afternoon and evening. It hurts my liver just thinking about it.

Okay, so maybe it was more than a couple of cases, but who's counting?

    The thing I remember most was the feeling that the whole world was ours. We were young and good looking and strong and there was no telling what we could do. Then we grew older. And most of those dreams went out the window. Why? Where did they go? Did I just give up? I don't know. I do know this though. I wound up with 4 amazing children, 4 step-children and 11 grandchildren with more expected to come over the next several years. If I had to choose between the things and career I thought I'd have and my descendants? I'd choose the descendants every time. If I could make my first marriage perfect and no fights etc. leading to divorce, but it'd mean I would never get to have step-children and to call their kids my grandchildren, I'm choosing to go through the pain of the divorce with no questions asked.

    I had a few beers and a shot, as I said earlier, so I'm not extremely lucid right now. In fact, the bed is looking more inviting every minute. I am not really coming up with a fantastic finish or anything. I just want my family and friends to know that I have no major regrets, no matter where this life takes me, and that I wouldn't trade you for anything.

Now it's time for bed.

Goodnight world,

Snarky

Breaking Snarky?

    My month of posting every day is nearly half over. Which also means that it's not quite half over. WTF am I gonna write about for 16 more days? This is a lot harder than I thought it'd be. Days like today make it even harder because I didn't do much of anything. Woke up with a headache, again. Felt better after a bit. Went with the Mrs. to her babysitting job for a little while, went to pick up two other little Snarky family members from their respective schools, and then went to their house to wait for their mother to get home. While waiting, I watched an edited version of Breaking Bad. Someone took the entire series and cut it down to 2 hours, 7 minutes. It was quite well done, I expected it to be really choppy, and maybe if I'd never seen the actual series, it would've been, but as far as I'm concerned, it played fairly well. Of course, a TON of story lines were cut out, including several key characters. Considering that they took a series consisting of around 3100 minutes and turned it into a movie of 127 minutes, it couldn't be helped.

They did manage to keep this guy in the edited version

    I highly recommend checking it out, although I hear it's getting hard to find because the studio (Sony I believe) pulled it from anywhere they could find it since it's technically a copyright violation. Well, not technically... let's go with actually.

    I drank WAY too much caffeine so I wouldn't end up falling asleep on my daughter's couch. Needing a nap on my days off is becoming too much of a habit and I'm trying to break it. I feel like I've suddenly developed an advanced case of narcolepsy.

Yes, hon. Dinner izzz zzz zzz

    Other than a couple of phone calls, and a couple of trips to a pretend doctor's office, that's my whole day. Doesn't give me much to write about, although this doctor has some amazing alternative medicine. For instance, did you know that a headache can be cured by a head cast? Or that a sore on your nose can be cured using an extendable back scratcher?

It works wonders

Neither did I until this afternoon.

I'll try and do some things tomorrow so's I can write about 'em.

Talk to you then,

Mr. Snarky

Why Does it Always Have to be About Hair?

    On a short car ride with Mrs. Snarky and one of the Little Snarkys, (Ezra, who is 5 and will start kindergarten in the fall) Mrs. Snarky asked the little guy to tell me about decades, something he had just learned about from a YouTube video. Some of his facts were quite amazing to me, like for instance, did you know that in the 20's, everything was in black and white? Just about every kid thinks that, but it's always funny to hear one say it out loud.

Also, all cops were stupid, and everyone had a mustache... even the women.

    "What other decade do you know about?"

    "The 80's. That decade was AWESOME!"

    "What was so great about the 80's, buddy?" I asked, hoping to keep him talking.

    He then said something I couldn't understand, but finished strong with, "And people had amazing hair in the 80's."

Yes. Yes they did.

Well, some of them did.

     "Do you know any other decades?"

    "Yes. The 70's. It was all about peace and love and flowers. Oh and people didn't take showers."

I can almost smell them from here, over 40 years later.

     The ride was over and we got to his house, and as we went in, he showed me his "Time Machine" for traveling to all the different decades. I then asked him if he wanted to see his Grampa's hair from the 80's. He was excited... and then...

"That's not a good look for you. I don't like it." OUCH!

    I think he was hoping I'd have a mullet or something. Anyway I showed him my 7th grade pic and he was more impressed by that one. To tell you the truth, so am I. I'm hoping he gets his time machine to work. If he does, I'm not going to do anything special for mankind like try to kill Hitler early or stop the Kennedy assassination. That sounds WAY too hard. No, I'm just going back to 1986 and getting in on the Microsoft initial public offering at 21 bucks a share. 10 grand invested back then would now be worth about 3.5 million. I'll take it. I'll also be going back to 1983 and making that guy with the 'fro get himself a haircut.

Catch you tomorrow,

Love, 

 

 P.S. Be sure to check out past articles you may have missed. Just click on the dates under the "Crap we've written" tab along the right side of the blog. Buh Bye!!

Not Your Normal, Everyday Snarkiness

   If you only come to this blog looking for amusing little stories or anecdotes, you might want to skip this one. It's okay.

   A customer asked me how I was doing today. I said, "Not bad. How are you?" She replied, " You're just 'Not bad'?" (Not quite sure on my punctuation there, but whatever) So instead, I gave her a nice smile and said, "I'm doing very well, thanks for asking," which was very much a lie, but I didn't want to converse. I just wanted her to leave me alone. What I truly wanted to say was something more like, "Lady, I'm at work, it's a Monday morning, it's rainy and dreary outside, I'm tired, and I'd rather be sitting poolside somewhere warm right now. I'm not in prison, drug rehab, or digging a ditch, which are all good things, but 'Not bad' is about as good as you're gonna get from me. Thanks for asking!"

    I also didn't want to tell her what I was really feeling. I'm an empath. I always have been. If you aren't an empath, you should consider yourself lucky. It's hard. Mr. Snarky's first wife was a nurse. She thought I was squeamish because I couldn't handle her stories. Although I didn't really like the gross things she said at dinnertime, that wasn't what truly bothered me. No, it was the pain and suffering of her patients that made my insides hurt. Over the years I've learned to turn that down a bit, but it's still there.

    Two of my customers, an elderly man and woman, were in this morning chatting within earshot of me. The man, one of my absolute favorite customers, said something to the woman about how ill his wife has been. He's 82 years old, and walks more upright than I do. His mind seems to be just fine, thank you very much, and he will talk with me about anything and everything. His brother and sister-in-law both died recently, and I feel fairly certain that his wife won't be with us much longer. Now this man could be grumpy. He could be a complainer. He could be tired of it all and nobody would blame him. But what does he do every time he comes in? He smiles at me. Says hello. Talks with me if I'm not too busy, and then goes on with his day after having slightly brightened mine.

    Today, my heart hurt for him. Today I thought about how he told the lady customer about his wife's poor health so matter-of-factly, so lacking feeling that I could tell he was shutting off the pain. I know he loves her; this isn't just two people that have stayed together out of habit. He's either hurting so badly inside that he doesn't want to show it in public, or he's given up hope that they'll be together much longer. Either one of these makes me hurt for this kind gentleman. Hearing this kind of thing makes me not really want to live to a very old age. I don't want to outlive my family and friends... I don't know if I can bear it. The only thing that bothers me about that kind of thinking is that my not living to old age would cause others pain.

    Don't get me wrong; I'm not remotely suicidal. I get mildly depressed about things, but I'm fine. No... I just wanted to tell this little story about a kind old gentleman who makes me smile quite often, and I'm not one for excessive smiling. And I wanted to say to the world that I see him, I care about him, and I hurt for him.

Thanks for reading this. I really love you guys.

Really.

This Blog Post Could Literally Save Your Life!

    Happy Daylight savings day! (excluding those in Arizona, Hawaii, portions of Indiana, and the rest of the world who, I'm guessing aren't stupid enough to implement this stupid time change every 6 months or so. Is there a limit on how long you can type in one set of parenthesis? I don't think there is) Did you know that the switch to daylight savings has been proven to increase traffic fatalities that Monday as compared to an average Monday? Also, the time switch back off daylight savings causes more fatalities that Sunday night? It seems crazy, but it's true. The Monday after (tomorrow morning for those of you still awake tonight) causing the accidents because we're so used to our schedule, we just can't seem to get to sleep a little earlier the night before and the Sunday night because, "Woo friggin' who!!! We get an extra hour tonight! Let's party down and crash our car and kill someone... maybe even ourselves! Yeah! We're so stupid!!!

 

All this because of 60 minutes difference? Humans can be pretty pathetic sometimes.

    Switching gears, did you know that getting married will help you live longer? Or not, depending on who you believe. I could go through and study it, but I don't really have time. I googled, "Do married men live longer than bachelors," and the first article says yes, while the second says no. The article that said no was from Psychology Today and written under a column called, "Living Single." Is it possible that Miss Living Single has a slight bias? That is a distinct possibility, but she seemed pretty confident in the half a paragraph I read on the subject. I guess the entire point of this paragraph is...

If honest Abe said it, it must be true.

    And finally, did you know that I searched through around 50 random Wikipedia articles and found absolutely nothing of interest to anyone that might be reading this post? I didn't think so... but now you know.

Tell me something I didn't know. In the comments I mean.

And drive safely. It's dangerous out there.

Snarky