Table Grating for Brainiacs

Einstein's brain was 15% wider than average.

David has quite a big head.

Einstein never wore socks because they would get holes in them.

David loves to run around barefoot.

Einstein is believed to have suffered from Asperger's Syndrome, which is an autism spectrum disorder that is characterized by a reluctance to listen, social skill deficits, and demonstrating odd behaviors.

David still refuses to grasp the concept of 'no', he continues to ask all of our heavy-set friends if they are pregnant, and today I caught him cheese-grating our table.

'Holy shit, Angie - Davey's a freakin' genius!'

Free Fallin'

Normal humans walk down steps. Angie apparently found this too boring for cool and risked life and limb to spice things up.

As she tumbled down the stairway to pain, headfirst and carrying Tom, I'm sure one thought occurred to her: 'Hey, cool! Shoes on sale on isle 5'.

Somehow, Angelina the step ballerina managed to topple down the entire flight of stairs without dropping Tom on his head. Move over Heisman.

Did anyone help her as she lay crumpled on the ground at the bottom of the steps? Maybe the long-haired guy who was walking directly behind her before her tragic fall? No, Fabio just stood there, rolling his eyes at the newly formed obstacle in his urgent rush to get home to his oversized mirror.

Angie groaned and caught a glimpse of her mom, who was busy helping the boys refill their drinks at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Mmmm...dinner and a show.

'Mom? .... Mom? Uh, hello? ...Hey Mom! Over here! Could use a little help here, Mom!'

Judy was oblivious to her first born's pleas for help as she explained to David for the 5th time that 'No, you cannot have Coke.'

Eventually the Indian manager came over and helped Angie up.

'I don't speak German - do you speak English?'

'You do realize we're in Germany?'

'Are you okay?'

'Yes.'

With that one word answer, Angie blew a perfect opportunity to have a little fun with the non-German speaking manager.

'I don't think I should answer that without my lawyer present' or 'a new pair of shoes would sure help make my swollen foot feel a lot better' or 'I see dead people'. Anything but 'yes'.

It's too bad I'm not a clumsy klutz; I could have really had some fun.

Look Ma, no hands!

Angie went to pick up David from Gym class and got to talking with the teacher.

'Ah, so you're David's mother? Well, he certainly is, uh...energetic.'

Before Angie could ask for a further explanation, David came running up naked and started hopping on one foot.

I get the hopping on one leg bit - he learned this amazing trick only yesterday and he can be quite the show off.

I didn't fully understand the whole 'running around naked' part, but I have long ago accepted that there are many, many things about David that I will never understand.

Angie is apparently unaccepting or just overly curious - possibly both. She started chasing the giggling streaker throughout the gym, tackling him by the benches.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?! Why did you take your clothes off?'

'Chiara did it.'

Oh, of course. That explains it. I completely forgot about Chiara's bizarre tendency to run around and strip our children down in the middle of gym class. Sarah - we need to talk.

Under pressure

Yes, today was Angie's birthday.

No, I did not forget.

Yes, I have a birthday present; I just need to find twenty minutes to actually pick it up.

No, I did not give her a card, flowers, candy or whatever other lovey-dovey shit that husbands are apparently supposed to dish out when they are unable to deliver on time.

Yes, Angie was completely understanding and did not put any pressure on me whatsoever.

'It's just, you know... I thought since it was my birthday and all, you might have brought me flowers or something. You didn't even give me a card! You draw all these mean cartoons where I'm bald and you can't even ...'

'You weren't bald - I gave you four strands and ...'

'That's not the point, Steve!'

She continued explaining for another hour or two, but in the end I think I finally got the point.

It's all in your head

There are some things that, according to Angie, I just shouldn't blog about. I'm surprised that she hasn't figured it out yet, but I don't listen very well. My mom can certainly testify to that.

Peter had lice last week. Disgusting? Yes. Gross? More than slightly. A royal pain in the ass? Absolutely, but the important thing here is that his school learned a valuable lesson. Hopefully.

See, all of the kids are required to wear yellow baseball caps, which they throw into a box when they enter the classroom. That's right - a box. Not 'boxes', as in the plural form that might indicate that they actually do hygienically separate garments to avoid widespread outbreaks by human disease agents like, hmmm, I don't know - lice!

Needless to say, Angie freaked out and not in the gentle, loving kind of way. No, General Mama declared martial law and immediately went ballistic.

All breathing humans within a four-room radius were stripped naked and quarantined to the bathroom. The first phase of decontamination involved a special shampoo that I'm pretty sure was not tear-free. Then, crazy woman whipped out a comb made of pointy needles that might do it for Freddy Krueger but did less than little for the kids. At this point, it was clear to everyone that phase two would involve pain and torture. And more tears.

The General kicked off phase two of the decon party by scrapping off a few layers of skull from three kids, one adult female-type, and a hairy man-beast. During the interrogation, four out of five of us were told 'this is gonna hurt me more than it will you'. Yeah, complete bullshit.

The final phase was thankfully more passive. The recently dehumanized were allowed to cower in a corner while the General ransacked the apartment for any item that might have had any contact with Peter's head. Hats, coats, scarves, pillows, sheets, blankets, stuffed animals and the kitchen sink were tossed into trash bags and sealed shut. According to chapter five of the General's War Book, three days of lockdown should be sufficient to neutralize any head-buggies. With prejudice.

After three days, the General initiated 'the cleansing' phase. The cool thing is, I can't remember the last time I saw the bottom of the hamper. The not-so-cool thing will probably come when Angie reads this post, but after last week, I'm confident that I can survive just about anything.

I must admit, Angie didn't handle the post traumatic stress so well. In the past week, Angie has needed to cleanse her scalp and check for lice at least sixteen times daily. It became borderline certifiable and trust me, she doesn't need that big of a push. Yesterday, I caught Angie ripping out chunks of her hair and holding them up to the light for inspection.

'Do you see any little buggies? I feel them. My head is SO itchy. They're all over. I know they are. Get them out! Aaaarrrgghh!'

'Calm down, woman! You've checked your head now about eight bazillion times - you don't have them. Stop ripping your hair out - it's just psychological, okay? Relax! It's all in your head.'

'I knew it! Aaaaaggghh. They're in my head! Aaaaaaaghh!'

E you, too!

You may have gathered from Peter that he started school this week. Unless you are lucky enough to be me, what you didn't gather was that Peter also needed a new desk, a new chair, a new backpack, new notebooks, pens, rulers, et cete-f-ra. You might wonder what the 'f' is for, but you shouldn't. Just assume it has something to do with the Financial costs of schooling your first born. Acts II and III coming soon to a wallet near me.

Peter tends to take things too seriously sometimes. Angie does too, but I tend to file this under 'naggin'. I guess Peter can just be lucky he's not a chick.

Peter's first homework assignment was to cut out beginning word 'sounds' and match them to various pictures. Peter did an excellent job of cutting and matching until he got to this lovely gem.

'Eu' were the cut-out letters, but the picture clearly depicted money. At this point, Peter freaked out like an Egyptian.

'Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no....I have 'money' left, but the letters are 'EU' - that means everything else is WRONG! I didn't do anything right! Aaaaaagggghhh!!!!'

Whoa. Calm down, psycho. EU stands for Euro, which is money. Money begins with 'M'. You're fine - chill out!

Peter smiled and Mama mentioned something about me not calling our children psychos for showing an interest in their homework, but I didn't hear much beyond blah.

Time for a pick-me-upper

Don't get me wrong - I love Opa. He, along with Grams, has been super-mega helpful with watching all three boys while Angie and I play work. It's just, well... it was Peter's first full day of school and, well, you know... he was kinda nervous anyway, so I just thought that....well, HE WOULD BE PICKED UP FROM HIS FIRST FREAKING DAY OF SCHOOL! Hello.

At least Peter took abandonment in stride. Kinda. He waited around at the playground for a while, trying to play it cool for the 'bigguns' that were beginning to wonder why the new fish was still hangin' out.

After about an hour, he reluctantly started walking home. Along the way, he ran into Myriam, our neighbor from across the street.

'Hey, Peter - what are you doing all by yourself?'

'Have you seen my Opa?'

'Yeah, he's down at the playground trying to get Tom to go to sleep.'

'Is he mad ?'

'I don't think so, why would he be mad?'

There was no logical reason why Opa would be mad, but Peter is Angie's son and Angie is Opa's daughter, so we can't skip over the whole lack of logic thing too lightly. See, Peter was worried that HE had gotten things wrong and thought that maybe HE was supposed to walk home instead of being picked up.

In Opa's defense, he quickly apologized and reassured Peter that it was his 'faux Opa' and not Peter's. He then unsuccessfully tried to convince Peter not to mention any of this to me out of some irrational fear that I might blog it.

Tub dumplings

Not much to say here. Tommy was getting a bath when David's brain commanded him to stop eating in mid-bite, walk to the bathroom and spit his half-eaten meatball across the room and into the tub. Tommy laughed, which made David giggle, which worried Mama, which made her come running to see the floating aftermath of David's tub dumpling, which made her scream, which made me come to see the fuss that soon after made me crack up, which made Mama whip out her 'evil stare' on me. What?! It was David!

Keyless

Lately, David has taken to hiding keys. I don't know why, but I am a realist and have learned not to question such things. I accept them and just hang my keys up higher. Angie is a pluralist, though, and refused to move her keys because David is not supposed to touch them. I was at work when reality laughed at Angie's world.

'Where are my keys?!'

'Uh, good morning to you, too.'

'WHERE ARE MY KEYS??!!'

'I have no idea - you didn't leave them on the desk again, did you?'

'Yes, they were there last night. I know they were there. What am I going to do?'

'Two options - take a taxi to work or go get David out of kindergarten and force him to find them.'

'That doesn't help me!'

'What would?'

Click....

I had a meeting to go to and I swear to you, I cracked up the entire hour thinking of how Angie was frantically panicking around the house. The image was funnier than watching Bush dodge a shoe. After the meeting, I called the keyless.

'Did you find them?'

'Yeah.'

The fact that she offered no explanation told me that she did not find them. I said nothing, though, and after a long pause, she reluctanly explained.

'Yeah, so - After tearing the place apart, I finally gave up. I dragged David out of kindergarten and asked him if he knew where my keys were. He ran into the bedroom, went under his bed, opened a box, pulled out a treasure bag and 'found' my keys. He then explained that Tommy probably put them there.'

'Damn it, when is Tommy going to learn?.'

Dude, where's my phone?

In case the name of the blog and the cartoon still leave you wondering, you're a moron. Luckily, I'm used to dealing with your kind, so I will try and explain using simple words.

Angie lost her cell phone. Again. She then used our home phone in an attempt to find it. This by itself was a rather intelligent approach to finding one's phone. Not so smart was running up to me after doing so.

'Steve, you're so hot. Have you seen my cell phone? I can hear it ringing but...'

Butt was right; I spinned valley girl around and fished out her missing phone from her back pocket. She turned beet red and mumbled something about not blogging something, but I didn't quite hear it over the ringing.

Laundry Pile Attacks Innocent Blogger

I remember the events of the tragic day unfolding something like this.

'Hey honey, if you decide to do laundry this year, I need socks, underwear, pants and shirts. Thanks, you're a gem.'

'You have everything clean.'

'Uh, that's not what my empty dresser says.'

'I haven't folded everything yet - they're in the baby room.'

When I opened the door, I felt something breathing on me and I could swear I heard grunting. I nervously flipped on the light switch and was suddenly attacked by the most vicious pile of clean laundry I have ever encountered.

'Clean', my ass! It was horrible! I can barely write about the whole ordeal. That heap of clothes pounced on me and did things to me that will haunt me forever.

My muffled screams went unanswered, as did the many questions running through my head. Why me? What did I do to provoke this attack? Why did this woman spend the entire winter break washing and not fold a single sock? Why couldn't she just fold the damn clothes like a normal human?

Has anyone seen my keys?

I have often wondered what mysteries are locked up in Angie's brain; I just never tried gouging my way through with a key.

When I came home from work today, Scarface explained to me how she had nearly lost an eye getting out of the car. I am sure her explanation made perfect sense to her, but I was cracking up too hard to really get all the details. It's called IQ, sweetie, not eye key.

The Destructo Dave Smackdown

It all started with a thump. Followed by some mild wailing.

'Honey, did you drop Davey on his head again?'

'Yes, but it was an accident.'

'Yeah, they always are. Should I call child services now or are you going to endulge me?'

Angie rarely makes sense, but I've lived with the woman long enough to not let this get in the way. I struggled, but finally I got her version of the truth.

Apparently, David had run up to his caring and loving mother, complaining that his foot hurt.

'Your foot hurts? Aaah, you poor thing. Let me just ignore gravity for a sec and yank your feet up here so I can inspect them.'

[Disclaimer: I was slaving away in the kitchen when Mama decided to pile-drive David into the floorboards, so I can only rely on her testimonial, which was not fabricated in any way, shape or form.]

Homemade fire salad

I love Angie for many reasons, but knowing her way around the kitchen is not one of them. See, she tends to set things on fire, and this just frightens our cat and angers my wallet. Knowing this, you would think that a salad would be a relatively safe thing to leave within Angie's reach. So did I.

At some point during the course of the dinner that she was not allowed to cook, Angie started craving greens. I passed her the salad bowl and returned to watching David eat. It's fascinating, really. He can make an entire bowl of food disappear without getting a single morsel into his mouth. Move over, Copperfield - there's a new David on the scene.

Anyway, as I was admiring David's meatball hairdo, I smelled fire. Unfortunately, I know this odor all too well and whipped around not really that shocked to see the salad bowl going up in flames. Shit!

After years with Angie, my reflexes have been honed to smother first, ask questions later. I snatched David's glass of apple juice and doused the blazing inferno. I did have a beer in my hand, but come on - get real! Through the smoke, I saw Angie's red cheeks and heard her muttering something over and over again. I ignored this for the moment and put on my Fire Chief hat to investigate.

Hmmm. Very interesting. One smoking salad bowl, with two plastic spoons hanging over the edge. Four burning candles on the table next to the salad bowl. Judging by the angle of the melted spoon, someone really stupid must have placed the salad bowl right next to the flammable centerpiece. The cute blonde dame over there with the red face is the only one with green crap on her plate.

Before I could crack the case, Angie's muffled chanting got louder and louder. Eventually, I could make out what she was repeatedly repeating:

'Please don't blog this, please don't blog this, please don't...'

Klepto Grams

Christmas day started with a frantic search to find my camera. We were at Grams and Opa's and their freaky house has a way of making things 'disappear'. Opa had spent most of last night searching the house for Grams' camera, so it was clearly my turn to go hunting.

I almost gave up, but for some reason, I ventured into Grams' bedroom and discovered the biggest stash of stolen cameras I have ever seen.

Okay, it was actually just one. Mine. It was on her desk. But that's not the point. She's got sticky fingers and I am quite certain that somewhere in that possessed house of theirs is a secret closet packed with 'lost' cameras. Nice try, shifty - we're on to you.

If you ever visit their house, leave your camera behind or bring a disposable. It might not be a bad idea to slap a GPS tracking chip in it, but I would still keep my eyes on Grams.

Temper Tom

Santa was a real dumbass this year. If he had paid attention at all, he would have known that a HAMMER is the last freakin' thing this kid needs. The other day, Tom wanted to stick a fork in our kitty. I said no and I shit you not - he picked up a serving tray and threw it at me. A SERVING TRAY! What the hell do you think he's going to with a hammer? Someone get me out here.

Nice horn!

It's never funny when you bash your head into the sharp pointy corner of a shelf while bending over to throw a snotty tissue into the waste basket. It is, however, freakin' hilarious when your lovely wife does it. Isn't it?

Get a job, Hippychick!

Lately, I've been a little worried that Tom might change his name to Moonbeam and run away to some grassy commune for what would surely be a mind-altering upbringing.

With his long hair and lack of a job, I'm sure he would fit in just fine in Hippie-ville. What worried me even more, though, is how the boy's mother could completely ignore the fact the he was looking more and more like a little girl each day. It was almost as if she wanted this. The other day, I caught her braiding his hair into pony tails. Bring me the scissors and get me the classified section!

We got ourselves a jumper!

When I came home from work last week, Angie had just gotten out of the bath. She was wet, half-naked and only had a towel on, but I checked her out anyway.

'What the hell happened to your knee?'

'What...uh...I don't...uh...what was the question?'

'Your knee - the one with the pancake bruise on it. How did you get that?'

I've known Angie for over a decade. After five years, you start to know when the other person is lying. After ten years, you can also tell whether they're lying to avoid getting caught or to avoid embarrassment. I smell red cheeks.

After many indirect questions, several direct ones, and one threat to snatch her only clothing and towel-snap her in the ass, I got a version of the truth.

'I took Tommy to the indoor playground today and they have trampolines, which he found fascinating. I didn't really want to go and jump on them; I just did that to make Tom happy. Yeah, tt wasn't for me at all; no. Tom was having such a ball that he wanted to jump higher. At least that's what I think he wanted. The funny thing is, when you jump really, really, REALLY high on a trampoline, you sometimes start to flip. And so the next thing I knew...'

My pointing and laughing somehow interrupted her 'explanation', but I think that even Paul Harvey would not need the rest of the story. To make a long story embarrassing, Mama's knee was the saving grace that kept Tommy's face from smashing into the frame of the trampoline. The bruise was black, it was blue and it looked extremely painful, but I laughed at it anyway.

Shit happens

So, okay - I'm a little behind on The Johnson's Zoo. I guess Peter felt I was little constipated with The Toilet Roll as well. Shit happens.

I normally sketch these things while I'm on, imagine that, the toilet. I then use a magnet to 'post" them on the washing machine for the family to enjoy (or not) until I get around to uploading them.

Peter apparently got tired of weeks of checking the washing machine in vain and decided to create his own crappy art. I crack up in the bathroom all the time, but seing Peter's obvious portrait of Mama really made me laugh.

I got the message, Peter. Now, if you will all excuse me, I need to go make something happen.