Clowns part 2

“So you want to build a website, Mr. Kansas, about clowns?”

The 20-year-old Dial a Geek worker stood in Harvey’s doorway. The sunlight exposed the acne on the man’s left cheek.

“Yes,” said Kansas. The door was only partially opened. It blocked a Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun held in Harvey’s right arm. He surveyed the boy and relaxed.

“Come in then. Don’t stand idle.”

The boy stepped into the home. “We’re offering a hosting and domain name special…” He stopped talking when he noticed the shotgun. Kansas placed it on the foyer table.

Kansas saw the boy’s eyes. “You could have been a clown.”

“You would have shot me?”

“That’s the shotgun’s function, yes.”

“Me?”

“If you were a clown.”

The boy seemed perplexed.

Kansas said, “How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“It ain’t unheard of but you’re probably safe from clowns. They prefer boys between the ages of 8 and 14. And occasionally girls.”

“Our package price is 29.99 a month, which I think you’ll find competitive.” The boy’s voice sounded unsteady.

“That’s reasonable,” agreed Kansas.

The boy looked down at a clipboard. “My notes say you want the website to have a hand grabbing at you.”

“A clown hand,” said Kansas. “Scooping you up like ice cream.”

“We could do that,” said the man. He was perking up. Enthusiastic. “We could do a splash page, where the hand comes forward, right at you.”

“It’s a different anatomy.”

The boy raised his eyebrows.

“The clown hand,” explained Kansas. “The fingers are of varying lengths. It’s why they wear white gloves.”

“Our designer can definitely do a misshapen hand. We can do it in Flash.”

Kansas nodded. “Sure. Make it flashy. I dislike anyone who wears gloves for that reason.”

“Did you have a domain name picked out? I’m assuming it would have the word ‘clowns’ in it?”

“I make a point of looking at a person’s hands and feet,” said Kansas. “Clowns don’t take care of their feet. They have bunions and dead skin and calluses and ingrown nails. Their skin is milky pale. Unnatural. That’s why they wear big shoes, on account of comfort.”

Harvey stopped talking. His eyes focused on a vehicle slowing in front of his house. A courier. He picked up his shotgun and pulled the boy aside, out of his line of sight.

The car stopped. A moment later a courier walked toward them holding a box.

Kansas leveled the shotgun. The courier was almost at the front door. His eyes went wide. He dropped the box at Harvey’s feet and sprinted back to the car.

“Get back!” shouted Kansas. He ripped open the box with his hand. “Could be anthrax or an incendiary device!”

The Dial a Geek employee jumped behind a lamp.

“Cheeses Christ,” said Kansas. “I said Cheeses!”

“What?” asked the twenty-year-old. “What is it?”

Harvey Kansas turned toward the boy and held out a human arm.

“A hand,” said Kansas. “Severed at the elbow.”

The boy’s face did a hiccup.

“I know whose it is too,” said Kansas. “Rip Waychild. He worked for me once. Then the clowns got him. This is their message to me. This is the fourth package.”

“It’s an arm,” said the employee. He vomited a little into the plant.

“Them clowns are dismembering him piece by piece and sending me the parts.”

Harvey Kansas stared at his friend’s arm. “We’ll put that on the website too.”

It's not fair when God punishes us.

I don't think it's fair when God punishes us for the very same traits that he gave us.

If he gave me trait of being lazy, why punish me by holding me back and not allowing me to excel? If he gave me a trait of a bad temper, why punish me by making me lose my friends when I rage?

I'm not even going to mention how unfair it is that God punishes children by giving them cancer or heart defects or genetic disorders.

I think God should not punish people for having a positive trait, and then still failing, despite the trait. For example, God should punish intelligent people who fail school. Or he should punish beautiful people who can't find a spouse.

Clowns part 1

The principal stood on stage and looked at his students over the top of his glasses. The auditorium felt cold.

“Children, it pleases me to introduce a very important dignitary.” He surveyed their heads for a moment and continued.

“Please applaud for mister”… he consulted a cue card… “Harvey Kansas.”

The children clapped and the sound echoed off the polished floors and cinder block ceiling.

A large man stood from a chair and stepped to the centre of the stage. He wore heavy cowboy boots and a worn jeans jacket. A hush fell over the children. All eyes went to the Belgium-made FN F2000 assault rifle with telescope sight and 40mm FN EGLM grenade launcher. He held it loosely in his hands.

“Scholars,” he said. “I thank you for your welcome. I’m here to talk about an imperative matter. Imperative.”

Not one child even fidgeted.

“Clowns,” he said. “They’re a menace. Dangerous and treacherous.”

He pointed a thick finger at the children. “We need to come together as a society to eradicate clowns.”

Still no one moved.

“To terminate them.”

A boy raised his hand. “Do you mean kill them?”

The principal looked at the boy over his glasses. “Say sir.”

“Do you mean kill them, sir?”

“That’s perfectly right,” said Kansas.

“With that?” said the boy, awed by the weapon.

“Often.”

A girl raised her hand. “My dad’s a clown when the carnival comes to town in August.”

“Your dad is not a clown young miss.” He spoke with authority. “You’re dad is only dressing as a clown. Like when you children dress as the devil on the Halloween holiday.”

The girl wasn’t finished. “But my dad…”

“Your dad is not a clown because clowns don’t have children. Clowns steal children and turn them into clowns when they get older.”

Many of the pupils nodded their heads.

The principal stood and told the students that Mr. Kansas would give each student an important flyer.

“You are to call me,” said the man, “when you see a clown. And be hasty about it.”

A bell rang and the principal said a few more things before dismissing the students. They hurried to the exits, chatting, fidgeting and staring at the large man.

Mason had his first immunizations.

A few days ago Cindy drove Mason to the local health unit.

She walked into the nurse's office and chatted about breast feeding and babies. The nurses like to talk.

The nurse pulled out three long needles and jabbed them into Mason's leg.

He screamed.

The nurse advised tylenol or advil. Then they waited in the office for another 15 minutes or so and chatted, while the nurse watched Mason out of the corner of her eye to make sure he didn't have an allergic reaction.

Cindy brought Mason home where he was grumpy all day and demanded that you walk around while holding him. He screamed the instant you sat down.

Mini-mini wheats.

Mini wheats is a cereal that has taken a block of wheat, and made them small and bite-sized. Thus the name mini.

Now they have even smaller mini wheats, mini-mini wheats. I bought a box from the grocery store yesterday.

The box says these mini wheats are "nearly HALF THE SIZE". I interpret that as smaller, but not quite 50% smaller. Perhaps they're only 40% smaller.

But then again, when you think about it, the sentence could mean that they're not quite half the size they're smaller still - they're almost half the size. Perhaps they're 55% smaller and the manufacturer couldn't quite get them to be 50% so they added "nearly" to the box.

Yet those interpretations are opposite. How can "nearly or almost half the size" mean bigger than half the size and smaller than half the size?

I'm going to go with my first interpretation.

My friend called me a clown.

My friend called me a clown because I have funny feet, red hair and white skin.

I said that I would show up at his house and murder him in his sleep. I'd blow a small horn at the exact moment he expired.

Maybe I'll get my friend Ronald McDonald to rape him before I kill him. I haven't decided yet.

He said that he was not afraid of clowns.

Jake doesn't like to hold hands anymore.

Jake used to like holding hands when we walked.

Then I started letting go of his hand, encouraging him to walk on his own.

Now he hates holding hands.

If you hold his hand, he will tantrum by boxing his ears, standing in front of you to block your path, whining, sitting in the middle of the street, or throwing himself on the ground.

What our babysitter said.

Our babysitter said that she had never seen the inside of a pair before because she is "allergic to fruit". She's allergic to them because of the "pesticides". She is not allergic to organic fruit, however.

Our babysitter said that she failed her essay, despite her thinking that it was the best essay she's ever written. A few days later she told us the whole class had failed. Everyone received an F.

Cindy told her that Jake's teeth were so white because they were extra calcified - and this could lead to future cavities. A few days later she told us that she had extra calcium in her teeth and the dentist said this was a problem.

We had ants in our house one morning. A few days later she said that they had ants in their house, in every cupboard, in every box of food.

When the painter came to paint our house, she said she and her boyfriend were painting their house this summer - and her boyfriend's house.

When Cindy said my feet were dirty, the babysitter said that she noticed Jake's feet were dirty from his play mat and that her feet were also dirty from his play mat. The play mat is clean. My feet were dirty from walking around outside.

We ate a large Dairy Queen cake in 2 days.

We went to Dairy Queen to buy Jake's ice cream cake. We wanted a small cake, but they only had large. We reluctantly bought a large.

I had all these plans. I was going to give our babysitter a piece. Our neighbours. Our painter.

But we ate the entire cake in 2 days. Even Jake had 2 pieces.

The cake was over 4000 calories.

China has all the money and USA doesn't have any.

Just read The end of influence : what happens when other countries have the money by Stephen S. Cohen, J. Bradf.

It says that America will not be able to wield as much power and influence on the world stage because it no longer has the money. It's mostly in debt to China.

"We Americans spent more than we earned; we consumed more than we produced. We borrowed the money to buy the stuff from the people who produced it abroad and sold it to us. We paid them in dollars; they took the dollars and lent them back to us, so we could do it again. It worked well all around. They sold more, banked the money, and felt richer; we bought more and felt prosperous." p91.

Since a huge percentage of China's riches come from USA debt, China can't let the USA fail. They're in a sort of sick, co-dependent relationship.

Mel Gibson is not a nice man.

Mel Gibson hates Jewish people. He said this to a police officer who arrested him for drunk driving in 2006.

He's racist. He hits women when they're holding his kids. He said this to his then wife in a tape-recorded phone call released in 2010.

This was his apology in 2006:

After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed. I drove a car when I should not have, and was stopped by the L.A. County sheriffs. The arresting officer was just doing his job and I feel fortunate that I was apprehended before I caused injury to any other person.

Obligatory new baby comments.

When you meet someone with a newborn baby you must say how cute the baby is. You must compliment the baby's name.

You must tell the parents how quickly you were able to train your own newborn to sleep through the night. Or you must complain that it took you a long, long time to train your newborn through the night.

This is obligatory.

I almost acidentally killed our babysitter.

Our babysitter has told us a number of times that she's deathly allergic to nuts - especially peanuts. If a peanut particle touches her arm, she breaks out in hives.

If she eats a peanut she has to be rushed to the hospital immediately.

The other day I asked if she wanted a coffee. She said yes so I poured her coffee and handed it to her. I said, "It's flavoured."

She said, "Oh, what flavour?"

I said, "Hazelnut."

She put the cup down and turned away. Cindy said, "Good thing she didn't drink it!"

"I'm sorry," I said to the babysitter. "I really wasn't trying to kill you."

I would have served 10 years in jail for involuntary manslaughter and the kids would have grown up without a father.

When Jake gets angry.

When Jake gets angry or frustrated he takes his baseball hat and off his head and throws it as hard as he can on the ground.

Like a baseball player losing his temper with the umpire.

It's funny, but you can't laugh. Other people also find it funny.

Switching Jake's schedule.

We changed Jake's schedule to a later one and he's happier.

He used to wake up at 7am. The last two days he slept in until 9:00am.

We used to put him down for a nap around 1pm or 2pm.

Now it's 3:30pm.

He used to go to bed at 8pm. Now it's 9pm.

He seems to like it better. The only problem is we have one hour less time for ourselves at night.

I would hire the girl who works at McDonalds.

The other day we went through the McDonald's drive thru to buy $1.00 drinks. At the drive thru window we asked if the deal applied to ice tea as well. The girl said yes.

We got our drinks, paid and drove away.

I said to Cindy, "If I had a business, I'd hire that girl."

She asked why.

I said, "Because she's confident and talks in a loud voice."

We had ants.

The babysitter discovered ants coming in our front door. I spent 15 minutes stepping on them all and then I sprayed the front door with ant poison to block their entrance.

I waited about 10 minutes and stepped on all the other ants that I had missed. I swept up their carcasses and dumped them outside in the grass.

Then I mopped the floor with Mr. Clean.

Cougar at Jake's pre-school.

A few months ago when we were enrolling Jake in pre-school for this coming September, the teacher told us that the kids often go outside and feed the goats. A couple goats neighboured the pre-school.

A couple days ago in the paper I read that a cougar killed two goats in Maple Ridge. Conservation officers were hunting it. Guess what? It's the same two goats that Jake would have been feeding.

The owner came out at 9:30am in the morning to feed them and they were dead. She saw a cougar poke its head out of her barn.

Later, a professional houndsmen treed the cougar with his dogs and they shot and killed it. The city wanted it killed because they didn't want a dangerous cougar hanging around a preschool and daycare. Well done city!