Bob's Son

Apparently, my parents are moving. Seeing as I still live at home, this means that I am moving as well.

They actually announced that they were going to move when I began college five years ago. Our current house is too big for their liking, they say. It is true. With both of my sisters moved out and me attempting to find any possible way to afford to move out, there are too many rooms, too many things to clean. Also, they want a house with fewer stairs because they are getting “old.”

They are nowhere near immobile and I do not foresee them having any issues climbing stairs for the next twenty years.

What is most amusing to me is the fact that their beach house, with which they are perfectly content, requires them to walk up twenty steps just to get into the house, then another fifteen to get to their bedroom level.

The fact that they have not found a new house is something that doesn’t really surprise me. They have two basic criteria for the choice of their next house (at least criteria that they say aloud): it has to be a rancher, because of rancher’s inherent lack of staircases, and it has to have a two-car garage, because of two-car garage’s inherent ability to house two cars. I know that their standards go much deeper, however, and that even the slightest imperfection turns a perfectly fine rancher into an unlivable dwelling. The kitchen requires too much work. Or, the garage, while very spacious, opens up to a small driveway. Or, one of the closet doors squeaks. Or, the overhead fans spin counterclockwise. Or, the doorbell only goes ding instead of ding-dong.

You know, the basic stuff.

I have not-so-secretly rejoiced in their failures to find a new home, not just because this is the house in which I have spent my entire life. Not because I have had countless joyful memories between the bricks that have surrounded me for 23 years. And not because moving would require me to say goodbye to a life I once knew.

I just don’t want to have to box up all my shit.

I have a lot of shit.

As I said, though, I didn’t have anything to worry about due to my parents’ indecision. That is, until very suddenly, my parents decided to redo the kitchen. This was a red flag.

“Youngman, we are going to redo the kitchen,” they said one Sunday night.

“Mmm hmm,” I said.

“We want the house to look nice when we start to show it.”

“Okay.”

“You should start to clean up your room and pack up some of your stuff so that your room looks presentable.”

“Okay.”

Two weeks later, we had a new floor, countertops, sink, stove, and refrigerator. I suddenly knew the feeling that old people with arthritis and healed broken bones get when it is going to rain soon. A storm was coming in the form of realtors and potential homeowners.



And so, I began the long process of boxing up all the stuff in my room.

I did it fairly haphazardly. My room was a mess, so the boxes were destined to be filled messily. Instead of being packaged categorically they were boxed by sections of my room. Whatever fit. Trophies and ribbons mixed with books and shoes. Old shirts and sweatshirts put together with knick knacks and paddy whacks.

I was just finishing up “Southeast Corner of Room” when I came across my senior shirt from high school. Senior shirts were simply shirts that were made at the end of Junior year. The front read, simply, “SENIORS” and the back was a custom moniker or epithet that each individual upcoming senior got to pick. Some had some very creative names. John Ball’s shirt read “BALLS DEEP.” Matt Botta: “BOTTA BING.”

I went with “BOB’S SON.”

My dad taught at my high school.

All four years. He was there. At the most socially stressful time in a young person’s life. Right there. In the same building.



A decade or so prior, I attended kindergarten at the same high school. Back then, it was the coolest thing to have your father come in and play Rubber Ducky on the piano for the class. “Your dad is the coolest,” the other kids would say.

In high school, they would say, “Your dad is a dick. He gave me a detention.”

Our house would get egged. That always hurt, especially when my dad would spend countless hours powerwashing it off.

I always defended him. I would complain to my friends about my dad not letting me go to a concert or some other insanely unfair and unjust form of parental imprisonment. But when one of my friends complained to me about a bad grade, I wouldn’t hear it. “Well, did you deserve it?” I would ask, eerily echoing the words and tone generally used by my father.

It was a tough life: high school with one of your parents in attendance.

I found that the best way to cope with it was to embrace it, hence “BOB’S SON.”



And it did have its rare perks. If I ever needed help with any math homework, he was right there in the same house, and would not only help me get the right answer, but help me to understand all the concepts involved. At school, if I forgot to bring my lunch, I had my own personal ATM sitting in Room 213. One time, he even signed a hallway pass for me to go home so that I could drive home and pick up a paper I had left sitting in my room. This was a strange aberration from a very by-the-rules kind of guy.

Unfortunately, the drawbacks vastly outweighed any benefits. Especially senior year, when I had the pleasure of taking Calculus with the only teacher who taught the subject in the school. Who was that, one might ask? Let’s just say that a parent-teacher conference could be held inside my teacher’s brain. Unless he wanted to talk to my mom.

As I said, my dad was a very by-the-rules kind of guy, so he made sure to randomly call on me when I wasn’t paying attention. He was also the provider of my first and only detention, for being late to class one day. It worked out fine, because my car was in the shop and I had to wait for him after school anyway to hitch a ride. But seriously, dad? Two weeks before graduation you smear my pristine disciplinary record?

I also had to deal with indirect criticism from other students in regards to my successes. I got an A in Calculus. I am sure that most of my peers asked, “How could he not?” I ask the same question, but for a different reason. How could I not do well in a class where I have no possible option of hiding a test score from my parents or being able to not do my homework? If I failed the course, I certainly would have been failed. And grounded.

At graduation, four awards are given to seniors for their academic achievements and involvement in school activities. I was honored with the most prestigious of these awards. Thank you, thank you. You can stop applauding and read on.

Afterward, my dad relayed reports to me of some parents complaining that I won because of him, as if he was the one who made the decision. There was a whole committee of faculty who voted on the recipients of these awards, and my dad made sure he was not one of them.

That was probably the worst part of having my dad as a teacher at my high school -- the feeling that my hard work in class and my involvement in the school meant nothing, and the only reason I was recognized for anything was because my father pulled my apparent inept ass above the ranks.



While I felt as if I was burdened with a lead weight for my four years of high school, in hindsight they offered me with a real glimpse into my father’s life. Now I know, all too well, the shit that he has to deal with day in and day out, both from administration and from the little devils that are America’s future. Now, out of school, I can certainly relate to him better, considering the bond that we shared.



For my dad’s birthday one year, he got one of those catalogues where you can pick one or two things. He probably would have preferred cash, but this was the scenario he was presented with. He picked walkie-talkies. The good kind that can reach two miles and have different channels.

One Mischief Night, he took one of the walkie-talkies and parked his car down the street. I took the other and parked my car across the street in our neighbor’s driveway. Our goal was to catch the eggers in the act. He made it clear that we would only get their license plate numbers or their descriptions. But I had other plans. I would chase them down in my car and beat the shit out of them. Then perhaps make them climb a ladder and lick the egg off of our siding.

Of course, that was the one year that nobody came to defile our house.

I still loved that night.



I figure that once my parents finally move out of their “too big” house, it should make everyone’s lives easier. The little shitheads, for one, won’t have to throw their eggs as high. But Bob, in his old age, won’t have to reach as high to powerwash the mess off or climb any ladders. Either way, all he needs to do is tell me a license plate number.

Bob’s son always has his back.

Unemployment

When you enter my house through the basement, there is a freezer. On it is one of those mini dry-erase boards that we got years ago from a failing pizzeria. It was free, but the catch was that their logo was prominently displayed smack-dab in the middle of the thing, making it difficult to read any message one might choose to scribble on it.

This board has been clinging to that freezer for a decade now, and while it permanently haunts us with the memory of the now-extinct pizzeria, a seasonally changing message can always be seen on it. My mother adopted it as her way of updating the status of our immediate family or world around us.

“Welcome home Chrissy!” it would read during my sister’s college’s winter break.

“Merry Christmas 2000!” it said, two thousand years after Jesus was born.

“Congratulations Youngman! The world awaits you!”

This, after I graduated.

A year ago.

Today, it still says the same damn thing.

Apparently the world has not been holding its breath.

Anyone who has read the previous entries of this blog knows that I have not had much luck in obtaining a job. I have been led on, screwed over, almost scammed, ignored, and rejected. Rejected, mostly.

Today, I got a new kind of rejection. Unemployment.

No, not the sobering realization of your jobless status upon receiving your first unemployment check.

No. I was denied unemployment.

I am unemployed and got rejected for unemployment.

I suck.


It is one thing to be a year out of college and not employed. But to not even be able to fully embrace my status as one of The Unemployed is just wrong. I am living in some kind of weird middle ground -- not skilled enough, apparently, to get a job, yet evidently not in a situation where my joblessness merits any form of help from our government. Thanks Uncle Sam.

I hereby consider myself a resident of Youngman Browntown, where I am president. I would tell you more about this magical place, but in Youngman Browntown I am also my own boss, and I just sent myself home early for the day.

Bad Dentistry

Like most Americans, I have always been afraid of the dentist. It is not a vague fear of the entire “experience” of the dentist. I take great care of my teeth, and have never had a cavity. I have had baby teeth pulled. I have had my wisdom teeth taken out (by Dr. Wank, who gave me a shirt that says, “I Got Yanked by Wank.”) I went through all of the orthodontics and have had braces, spacers, retainers, and even that ridiculous night brace. While these experiences were not necessarily pleasant, I still went through them relatively unfazed. My dentist, orthodontist and even Dr. Wank were extremely friendly fellows.

You might be confused as to why I have a fear, or even if it is real. I assure you, it is very real. And it has a name.

Hilga.

Hilga was a bitch of a hygienist that I had the unfortunate luck of meeting as a young boy. Since the first time I sat in her reclining torture chair, I have had nightmares. Nightmares of her coming into my room late at night, wearing black latex and ripping my teeth out.

I’m not sure what her real name was, but Hilga seemed like an appropriate name to coin for her. More specifically, Hilga the Horrible. The Goddess of Pain.

Hilga was one of those perfectionists who cleaned her victim’s teeth out a little too well. Whether she did it for her own fulfillment or because she was trying to impress the dentist, I am uncertain. What I do know is that when she was done, my entire body would be sore and sweaty from clenching during the entire cleaning.

As I previously stated, I have never had a cavity, so clearly I had done something correct in terms of dental care up until that point. Yet, Hilga was able to find even the minutest traces of plague, extracting it with that pointy scraper thing. She would even scrape my gums with that sharp torture device, producing a large amount of blood. Often times, in her fervor, she would miss and literally stab me. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I couldn’t wipe them away with my bib, as it was already soaked with blood.

The worst part of a session with Hilga was the brushing. In my previous experiences at the dentist, the bad tasting paste was generally laced with some kind of flavoring such as mint, bubble gum, or cherry. Hilga never offered such flavorings. Shit-vomit was her only flavor.

Another aberration from the good ol’ days of dentistry was the fact that Hilga didn’t let me rinse. Previously, I had been permitted to rinse the bubble gum tasting paste out of my mouth four times during the cleaning, once for each quadrant. Hilga finished my top left and moved right on to the top right, and then went directly to the bottom. All the while, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to puke, choke, or faint.

I lost a piece of my innocence that first day that I met Hilga. And I haven’t trusted hygienists since.

Perhaps that is the reason that I waited over a year to visit the dentist, once being knocked off of my parents’ dental insurance.

* * *

Sitting in the waiting room of Dr. Saul's office, I nervously awaited Hilga’s familiar voice to call my name. I pretended to read ESPN Magazine, but stopped when I saw a picture of a toothless hockey player. Would my mouth look like that after today? I mean, how much scraping can a tooth withstand before being chiseled to nothing?

“Youngman Brown?” It was a man’s voice. A very large man. “This way, please.”

At first, I felt relief. Relief that I wouldn’t have to endure the pain that only Hilga could provide. While this man was built like a linebacker, he had a friendly voice, and I could tell that he would be kind to my pearly whites.

I had no idea that I would be experiencing a completely different kind of torture.

“Not working today?” he asked. I already didn’t like him. I am still bitter and embarrassed about not being able to find a job.

“Nah,” I said, hopping into the chair.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“I just graduated,” I semi-bluffed. “Still looking for work.”

“You and the rest of the world. What are you looking for?”

“I got a degree in Digital Media. So anything with graphic arts.”

“You know what you should do? You should become a heli-logger.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh my God, man. I just saw it on the Discovery channel.” He shoved a plastic piece into my mouth for x-rays. “These loggers cut down trees and then they lift ’em out with a helicopter.”

I raised my eyebrows in feigned interest, but wondered what that had to do with graphic arts.

“It’s like the number-one most dangerous job,” he explained. “More fatalities than in Deadliest Catch.”

He was not selling this job very well. “Thatch crachzy,” I spit.

“Seriously, man. Google that shit. H-E-L-I-hyphen-L-O-G-G-E-R.”

“Okay.”

“Did you catch The Unit last night?” he asked, as if this is a standard question to ask strangers.

I shook my head. “Uh uh.”

“Oh man, really good ep. Hulu that shit. Do you watch House?”

I shook my head again.

“Oh man, that’s a great show. You’d eat it up, man. It’s not like any of those other doctor shows because he is just such an ass. Like, he doesn’t give a shit. Real smart, too.”

This hygienist is just standing there, leaned against the wall, talking to me. Ignoring the fact that I have had a plastic piece clenched between my teeth for a few minutes.

“You look like more of a family guy.”

I assumed he meant “Family Guy guy,” and I shrugged, then tried, “I don’t watcsh Foxch schows exschept Twenty-Four.”

“Eh, I don’t watch that shit.” He put the lead jacket on my chest and started the x-rays. Apparently, I had hit a nerve with the mentioning of 24, as if he just had a messy break-up with Jack Bauer. From that point on, he literally did not say a word except for “open” and “bite.”

As he began violently cleaning my teeth, I had unsettling flashbacks to Hilga the Goddess of Pain. He poked and prodded, scraped and scratched. It hurt. And I swear to God, his eyes were glaring, not at my open mouth, but right back into my eyes. I feared that one of his metallic torture devices might find its way to the back of my throat, rendering me incapable of screaming for help when he inevitably decided to kill me.

And then there was clapping. Clapping and singing coming from the hallway. It was one of the receptionist’s birthdays.

My bulky hygienist stopped cleaning my teeth to yell, “No cake for me!” and then, turning to me: “Oh man, bro, I just had the biggest lunch. Like if you weren’t in that chair, I’d be napping right now, no lie.”

He was back.

“Seriously, I went to that Thai place down the street. I got chicken noodle soup. Man, but the bowl was huge. This big.” He held an invisible bowl in his hands for me to see, approximately a foot and a half in diameter. “It had huge pieces of chicken. So I ate that up, and that wasn’t enough for me, so I got a cup of rice. Bro, they brought me a family size and I ate it all. And now all I wanna do is sleep.”

I offered an impressed nod. “Like aftuh Thankshgiving dinnuh.” There was one of those Sucker tubes in my mouth, making it quite dry.

“The other night I was at the bar, telling this nutritionist that I wanted to drop down to two-sixty. I was actually trying to score, but whatever. She’s like, ‘How much do you weigh now,’ and I told her three-forty and she goes ‘Oh my God, you must have a really high calorie intake,’ and I go, ‘Yea I do.’”

I began discovering all the different noises that I could make with the Sucker, simply by moving my tongue to different parts of my mouth.

“Man she was hot. But I’ll tell you something man. Before my lunch break, there was some girl sitting where you are sitting. You wouldn’t believe it. Blonde. Twenty two. I swear to God, bro, if she were fourteen days older."

I had no idea what that last part meant, but I nodded, knowingly. “Schweet.” Finally, he resumed his job and continued cleaning, giving me the silent treatment once again.

“We’re done,” he said, taking my bib off and exiting the room. I coyly got out of the chair and made my way to the front desk, where the mass of a man stood, eating a piece of birthday cake. “You should come every six months,” he said, more of a statement than a suggestion. Then he walked away.

“That’ll be seventy-five dollars,” the receptionist informed me. “Would you like to schedule your next appointment?”

“I’ll have to call to schedule, once I take a look at my calendar.”

I don’t have a calendar, and if I did, it would be completely blank for November. I knew that the next time I would go to the dentist wouldn’t be until the next time I had some kind of unbearable pain in my mouth. These checkup visits to the dentist always left a bad taste in my mouth.