Chuck E. Cheese is the Root of Terrorism

The other night, my mom received a text message from a family member talking about being at Chuck E. Cheese, then going home for dinner, and commented to me about the unfortunate situation of being at Chuck E. Cheese.  Hours later, after we had conversed about literally many other things, the following conversation took place:

Mom: “I wonder whose birthday party they were at?”

Me: “Um – the hell are you talking about?”

Mom: “She said they were at Chuck E. Cheese, and then going home for dinner.  Nobody just goes to Chuck E. Cheese, so I assume they’re at a party.”

Me: “Untrue.  Used to go to visit the rat with Heather and the boys alllll the time without eating there or attending parties.  Good way to get out of the house in bad weather or just to do something different.  In fact, that’s how I got stopped by airport security that time.”

Mom: “Um – the hell are you talking about?”

Me: “Oh.  Did I never mention that?  Yeah.  That is a thing that happened.”

So, rewind several years.  I lived in Cincinnati with my cousin Heather, her husband, and 3 kids during the summer between my junior and senior years of undergrad.  Best.  Summer.  Ever. 

Like I said above – every now and then, Heather and I took the boys just to play around at Chuck E. Cheese.  On one occasion, she purchased what she thought was 30 tokens, but what turned out to be $30 worth of tokens.  Whoops.  Neither of us was in the mood to put in a marathon session at House of Chuck, and quite frankly, the giddy gleam of insanity in the eyes of the then-six and three year old boys over the prospect of SO MANY tokens was fairly terrifying.  So I figured, no big deal – I’ve got a small bag inside of my purse, I’ll pocket the extras and we’ll use them next time.   There were more tokens than space in the bag, so they were crammed in pretty tight – no room to even jingle about!

Fast forward.  Like, weeks forward.  We were flying back to San Antonio to visit for a week or so.  And let me just tell you – two adult women, taking a six year old boy, a three year old boy, an infant boy, the double stroller and everybody’s respective carry-ons, was an Event with a capital E.  That’s ten pairs of shoes and two sets of hands with the ability to tie.  We may or may not have also been smuggling a small animal.  Anyway - the point is, we were BUSY.  People and babies and backpacks all over the damn place.  The last thing in the world you want to hear in such a situations is . . . 

“Ma’am?  There is something suspicious in your bag that we can’t scan through and we need you to step over here so we can search more thoroughly.”

Awesome.  Of course.

I immediately thought, “OK, what did these tiny little turdburgers slip in my purse?  A toy gun?  Bullets?  A machete?”  I was a teensy bit nervous.

One by one, they took everything out of my purse.  If anybody knows me, I have a big purse.  This was going to take a while.

Then they took out a small, obviously heavy bag.

Oh, for the love of all that is good and sacred in this world.  I forgot about the sack full of goddamn Chuck E. Cheese tokens.

Very Large Intimidating Security Man Digging In My Purse: “Ma’am, what’s in this bag?”

Embarrassed As All Hell Me: “Ahem.  Erm.  Well.  Chuck E. Cheese tokens.  A lot of them.”

Slightly Confused Still Scary Security Man: “ . . . I’m sorry?”

Only I Could Manage This: “Me too.  I am so sorry.  That is a bag stuffed full of game tokens for Chuck E. Cheese and it is probably the reason you’re having trouble scanning my bag and yes I imagine a giant misshapen chunk of metal would look suspicious on your screen and please let me get on a plane now and pretend I wasn’t this stupid.”

Bemused and Scary Man in Uniform: “Carry on.”

And God love Heather, after that summer she let me come live with her for three years while I went to law school.  And it never seemed to bother her that she was harboring a suspected terrorist.

Sarcasmo

Deliver Us From Tebow

I don’t want to get in to religion with you guys.  I really, really don’t.  Most of you really wouldn’t like what I’d have to say.  I do take pride in that I actually have researched and given thoughtful consideration to several different religions before settling my beliefs, and I am open to conversation on the topic.  I absolutely do not judge people on the basis of religion, but it genuinely surprises me how often people try to be staunch, stubborn supporters of their respective religions, yet they really know nothing about them.  But this isn't a post to start a debate about various religions and their merits, and I promise you I am not trying to start an argument.

That said, I am almost 100% certain that in no religion is God or Jesus portrayed as a frigging genie that comes out of Aladdin’s lamp to grant you wishes when you ask nicely.  

I don’t care what Saturday Night Live told you (in what was one of the best sketches they’ve done in years, just FYI), Jesus does not win football games for the Denver Broncos because Tim Tebow asks him to. 

I have nothing negative to say about The Good St. Tebow himself.  He is free to believe whatever he wants, however hard he wants to believe it, I’m only interested in how he plays football.  But for Pete’s sake people.  He might have prayed harder and longer than most of us, but I’m still pretty sure that no religion magically grants him a direct line to Jesus to ask special favors for himself.  Some of the reactions to Sunday’s game seriously alarm me.  People actually believe that the Broncos won because Tebow chats with Jesus!  Where do people even learn that this is a possibility?!

It’s getting a little out of control.  It seems like nobody realizes that there are ten other guys out there on the field with Timmy T, and quite frankly, I am completely bored with hearing about him like he’s the second coming.  He’s good, but he’s not THAT good, not by a long shot.  That one set of footprints in the sand isn’t Tebow carrying an entire football team on his back.  I respected the hell out of Ben Roethlisberger when he was interviewed last week about playing Tebow, and he answered by saying he wasn’t playing Tebow, the Steelers were playing the Broncos. 

I don’t want to take away from the Broncos win Sunday, even if I, as a Steelers fan, am a tad bitter.  Alright, fine, I’m a shit-load-crap-ton  bitter.  But while that OT pass from Tebow was glorious for sure, let’s call a spade a spade – if you want to credit holiness for the Broncos win, it was the holiness of the Steelers’ offensive line (see what I did there) that really sealed the deal. 

And, anyway, aside from all that?  If God was a genie that popped out of Aladdin’s lamp, that would make him Robin Williams.  And everybody knows damn well that if anybody here on Earth is God, it’s Morgan Freeman.

Sarcasmo

Hamlet Makes a Terrible Bedtime Story

Probably this isn’t want Shakespeare had in mind . . .

But . . .

To pee or not to pee.  That is the question. 

Every freaking night it’s the question, and I still haven’t mastered it.

You know what I’m talking about, don’t act like you don’t.  You do your nighttime routine, whatever it may be, and you get in bed.  You wallow into your little you-shaped indention in your mattress (your “Jennifer-hole,” as I like to refer to mine), and burrow under the covers like a molerat.  And then . . . you start thinking you kind-of-maybe-might-sorta-have-to pee.  And the debate begins.

On the one hand, it’s not an urgent type of thing.  You know you don’t HAVE to get up right now and handle things.  You know that even if you did, it would probably take forever to actually coax your pipelines into commencing operation.  PROBABLY it won’t be an issue until morning.

Or it will wake you up in an hour and become a lot more urgent real damn quick.  Maybe you should just get up and handle it, seemingly unimportant though it may be.  But jeez . . . it’s just starting to get warm and cozy.  That new down comforter is super comfy.  Just forget it.  Roll over and go to sleep, it’s not that big of a deal.  Just go to sleep.  Sleep, dammit.  Stop thinking that there is a slight chance you might have to kind of tinkle, and just sleep.

Youdon’thavetopeeyoudon’thavetopeeyoudon’thavetopee.  Just sleep already!

Except you CAN’T.  There’s no forgetting it, no ignoring it. 

And now, not only do you have to pee, and not only have you forfeited your hard-earned cozy spot and subjected yourself to cold tiles and cold porcelain, but you just wasted 30 minutes of your life arguing with yourself about it, when you could have just taken care of business when the idea first occurred to you.  You could have been sleeping this whole time, you fool. 

Sarcasmo