Sock Soup

On my way to pick up the kids at their daycare I ran into a thick wall of smoke caused by a wall of flames that was burning on the side of the road. It was a grass fire, probably caused by some stupid-ass smoker tossing a butt out of the window. After I picked the kids up, I once again had to drive through the smoke and made it home safely. When M came home I said: “I had to drive through a wall of flames to pick the kids up.” To which she replied without shock: “That sounds bad.” And then bypassed me to say hello to the kids.

It’s been a week of driving through fire as the kids continue with Teething 2005! Combined with Parent Authority Test 101. We had a couple of good nights but usually at around 10, z wakes up and then it’s all over. If m wakes up, you can usually bribe her back to sleep, but not z. She wants painkillers, rocking, an inside stroller walk, car seat rocking, DVD of Baby Einstein or just plain cash.

Speaking of cash, m broke my fucking glasses (actually it was my fault for letting her hold them): “Thanks kid, that’s $200 out of your college fund, That will be at least one keg party you won’t be having.” If only I won the lottery. M Hates when I talk about winning the lottery because I never buy a ticket. I tell her that my odds of winning are probably the same without one. I remember the day a guy in my office won 23 million dollars. I was downstairs and we all heard. “Oh my god!” and stuff like” I won the lottery! Oh my god!” We rushed to his desk and he was reading his ticket and freaking out. We asked him to check again. He read the numbers off and compared them to the numbers on the lottery web site. Sure enough, they matched the piece of paper he was holding. Most people were silent. I gave him a goodbye man-hug (sideways, genitals not facing each other) and said it was nice knowing you. He then looked at his ticket and threw it to the ground. I resisted the urge to dive for it. Was he insane? “This isn’t my ticket.” He said picking it up and throwing it down. “Okay?” I thought. This is where I really do grab the ticket from the lunatic. If anyone else sees me grab the ticket and run out the door, I pay him or her off with a million bucks. I hand it back to him and it felt like a scene from Lord of the Rings: Bilbo, tired of the burden of carrying the all-powerful ring, throws it to the ground. One of the secondary characters picks it up and has to return it. In the process, their skin turns green and eyes bug out. A voice tells them how powerful they could become it they’ll just make a break for it. “My precious!” I slur and drool trough sharp teeth before returning it to the guy. “Are you insane?” I ask. “This isn’t my ticket.” He repeats. Is this some weird psychological guilt for winning enough money to have a view of Gods backyard? I wonder. “This is a printout of the winning ticket.” He says. Apparently the guy had got a lotto machine printout of the winning numbers to compare them to his ticket and had been reading the wrong one. We all had a good laugh (except him).

I discovered a few things on that day. 1), I really can feel good about other peoples good fortune and 2) The chances of you winning the lottery are like 500 million to one. The chances of you knowing the lottery winner are probably 1 in 80 million. The chance of you murdering someone and getting away with it are like 1 in a million (unless you’re O.J. and have a lot of money so it’s probably 1 in 10). Therefore, no matter what, you have a better chance of finding the person who won the lottery, beating their ass, taking their ticket and getting away with it then playing the regular way.

M also really hates it when I call us poor. Yes we own a house in the most expensive real estate market in the country. Yes, if I was making what I make in the Bay area and I lived in Mississippi or Bangladesh, I could live in one of those big white plantation houses, sit on a porch, big enough for a 8 mules and drink mint juleps. Or call myself sultan, live next to the Taj Mahal and bathe in saffron water. But I don’t! Everything is relative: Gas and houses are bloody expensive here! So I am relatively low middle class or upper lower (I get confused which). When I think of poor, I don’t compare it to what you have, but what you have left. Sure you can pay for your rent and car, but what do you have after that? How much are you putting into retirement? Do you really believe social security will pay for more than a Twinkie dinner in the cockroach-infested vending machine at the cheap retirement home? So after paying for everything, I have jack shit take home. I’m living on fumes and it’s not the twin’s fault, Its my job life. Why the hell did I choose art? It pays shit if you’re lucky and even then, the shit is thrown at you by some greedy art director. I’m in the highest paying art job I’ve got and yet I feel like I’m still working at an art supply store. All that’s missing are milk crates, cinder block shelves and a 12 pack of Ramen noodles.

When I was in art school, I worked in an office for a work-study program. Everything I made was going into buying art supplies, which are fucking, expensive. They should have called it a work-food program. One week I had no money for food and had already ate all of my Ramen noodles and packs of instant, peaches and cream oatmeal (which is the worst thing you’ll ever put in your mouth next to a dentist drill or a convict’s penis). I was literally a starving artist. I remember sneaking into a pizza restaurant and stealing their condiments–Crackers and Ketchup soup. Mmm! Bon Appetite! In the break room at work, they had only two things, coffee and instant creamer. So. I sucked that stuff down on an empty stomach. By the time I got back to my apartment, I was shaking and freaking out. I felt like I could vibrate trough walls. I lay down on the floor to die or at least calm down. When I looked over to the right, I noticed that under my roommates bed, was an onion. Why was there an onion there? Was he stealing food or is this some kind of voodoo thing. I took the onion, ran downstairs and tried to make onion rings.

Recipe:
Slice onions and dip in water.
Flour.
Fry in hot grease until everything breaks apart and turns into hot, brown grease soup.
Eat and thank God for this bounty because after all, people in Bangladesh would kill for Brown Onion Grease soup.

I never could figure out where that onion came from. My friend A from art school claims that I was hallucinating. It wasn’t really an onion but a rolled up white sock. Mmm! Sock soup. Maybe it really was a voodoo thing. My roommate was from the deep-deep South and he did literally just disappear after I took the onion away, never to be seem again. Maybe it was because my other roommate was a maniacal freak who threaten his life for stealing his food. More likely, that.

I do feel very rich with the girls. It is like winning a personal lottery of sorts.
But like winning the lottery, you may not have to eat Sock soup, but you may have to adjust your old unsolved problems up a level. If I won the lottery, coming home could be: “My private jet flew through a wall of flames at the London airport.” Without shock, M says: “That sounds bad” and bypasses me to get to the kids. Then m takes my $50,000 glasses I got from Sir Elton John and throws them to the ground.

That’s it
E.M.