A Few of the Superheroes I’ve Become.
Lactose Intolerant Man
Walks Down Stairs Sideways Man
Black Socks with Running Shoes Man (Power: Able to repel 22 year old women in a single bound. Weakness: Actual running.)
Backs Into The Car Ass-First Man
Way Too Many Condiments Man
You’re Really Going To Wear That Rollneck Sweater Again? Man (And his sidekick, Captain Blue Gingham Shirt.)
Eye Roller
The Amazing Mister Adequate
The Human Tear Duct
Spare Change-ling
Immatureman
Indecipherable Post-It® Note In My Pocket Man
Captain Swears-Too-Much
Have You Seen My Fucking Wallet? Man
What Was I Saying Again? Man
Untucks His Shirt After Lunch Man
Makes His Wife Kill The Spider Man
Underachiever
Charmy The Bee
The Napper
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A Pop Quiz on Wrong History for Dads and Those Who Pity Them.
Tagged Chaka, Come On Get Happy, education, Fatherhood, Food, He looks like a taxi going down the street with its doors open, history, humor, lovely parting gifts, Music, My friend Bones has a dog named Freddie Mercury, Queen, quiz, Sweet-toothed Irish dudes, What do you think - Sock Puppet or something fancier like Kermit?, writingThis Day in Wrong (and, apparently, Republican) History…
Tuesday, April 10, O BC
Jesus kills all the dinosaurs.
More Wrong History Courtesy of Dads Everywhere.
On April 10, 1778, John Paul Jones set out to raid British ships, which is weird since I’m pretty sure they were all British, though I’m pretty sure Ringo’s from Philly.
Just Another Day in Wrong History.
On April 9, 1959, NASA introduced America’s first astronauts to the press: Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper Jr., John H. Glenn Jr., Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Walter Schirra Jr., Alan Shepard Jr., Donald Slayton, and Saul Tenenbaum, who never actually made it into space, dropping out of the program two weeks later after realizing it was, like, a real thing.
“You mean up there? On a rocket? Fuck that.”
This Day in Wrong History…
April 6, 1862, marked the beginning of one of the bloodiest engagements of the U.S. Civil War, the Battle of Shiloh. Today, any record of this somber yet important piece of our nation’s history would be lost were it not for the lone survivor, Neil Diamond, and that song he wrote about it. I think.
As a follow-up to a blog post no one actually read, the management presents, “This Day in Wrong History,” one in a series of probably, I don’t know, maybe six?
On this day in 1945, Yugoslav partisan leader and lead guitarist, Tito, signed the “Friendship Treaty” with the Soviet Union. I’m not sure how Jermaine felt about the whole thing, but you can be sure Michael was all, “Sh’mon!”
(Also on this day, in 1976, Howard Hughes died. Known for such seminal coming-of-age films as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles and Some Kind of Wonderful, it’s weird how he directed all those movies while already being dead for like five years.)
© “Totally Wrong History as Told by a Dad to His Kids,” from Random House. (Or any publisher, really. I’m not picky.)
Welcome to Blue Sky, Rhode Island. Population: One Moody, Lovesick Thirteen Year Old Boy and an Entire Town at Risk of Being Moped to Death.
And yes, young man, I do think it’s funny. When you’re grown and out and paying your own way, you can write about whatever you please.
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And then there she was.
Just a minute earlier, she didn’t even exist, at least not in his world. And then the next minute – right now – she was his world. (Or, you know, whatever. If you asked him.)
She was just standing there, as if she were a regular person or something. Leaning there the way a regular person leans when she leans right there against the stacks between Comparative Sino-American Literature and Self-Help. And no, he had no idea what a “Sino” was – mostly on account of being thirteen-and-a-half, and really, how can you actually help yourself? Or do they mean help yourself to, like, another helping of that sweet potato thing with the marshmallows? Probably not. But still… Mmm. Anyway, none of that mattered even a little at that moment right there in time and space and the Blue Sky Book Shop & Knickknack Emporium with its locally-made wind chimes and penny candy that’s actually more like a dollar and a half.
Now, from this angle, he couldn’t quite make out what she was reading, but he knew it had to be something big and smart and important with very few, if any, pictures. And so immediately and almost instinctually and without even turning around, he shoved the Mike Lupica Young Adult Sports Novella into the shelf behind him, where, later that evening, a confused part-time momployee would wonder what it was doing under Canadiana, and do they even play the basketball up there?
She – the girl, not the mom – seemed so confident and cool and nothing at all like him. (She had to be, what, almost six feet tall?) And all he could think was that he wanted to reach right up there and offer her his last strawberry twizzler, even though he was absolutely certain she would not be impressed that he forewent the standard cherry or more daring, though still expected, chocolate. She was the type of girl who was healthy and probably exercised all the time and was a “veege-in” and washed her face with that special soap that doesn’t even look like soap. And he just wasn’t that type of boy. Not that he knew what type of boy he was. Or would be. Or man.
And he certainly didn’t know the next thing about love, or even like-like, or even think about girls much at all. And even if he were to start now, he had no idea what he was supposed to be thinking. Still, right now, his insides were telling him something else entirely, like the time he and Double-J ate that whole and entire triple-cheese-and-sausage and split three Diet Pibbs and an xl order of rings with ketchup and mustard and malt vinegar and went on the tilt-a-whirl for three tickets straight, only in this case, everything smelled significantly nicer.
Yes. She smelled significantly nice. She smelled like candy buttons. She smelled like Saturday. She smelled like a dream wrapped in a wish dipped in a light batter and pan-fried in just a little canola oil on account of the whole saturated fats thing his parents are always talking about. (Geez.)
And why hadn’t he seen her around before? Or smelled her. Sure, he was new to Hamming County Combined Regional Exceptional Middle School. And yes, there literally hundreds of regionally-exceptional students wandering the halls. But surely he would’ve noticed her as she passed. He would’ve smelled her at least. And he would’ve spotted those knees. Those knees that didn’t look anything like the other knees he was used to seeing, with their bruises and blotches and grimy little band-aids. Those knees were, at the very least, nationally-exceptional.
She was the exception. All the way up. She wasn’t exactly white and she wasn’t blonde or wearing a tennis skirt like all the white-blonde tennis girls who flitted and fell around him like social-elite snowflakes that also do pilates and lunch and he was still learning about similes or metaphors or whichever one has “like.” Or “as.” But still, he knew she wasn’t that. And he liked that.
And he liked pizza. And, as you and I know, when you like pizza, you look down at your watch, remembering how Double-J had talked to you about going to Crusty’s to meet some girl named Belinda or Dormunda or something and she was bringing this friend and that you should come, too.
But right now, the only thing he knew was that the only place he wanted to be was right here looking up at her, even though he didn’t really know why. Though he knew it was better than a triple-cheese-and-pretty-much-anything.
And then there she wasn’t.
He must’ve looked away for, what, less than a second? Was that her walking out the door? And wait, what’s a Sino? And did her friend just call her fruit? That was weird. That couldn’t be right. But what if it were? That would be awesome.
But now she was gone. And maybe pizza wasn’t a bad idea after all.
(Because, you know, whatever. If you asked him.)
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