Category Archives: Pop Culture

Family Fight Night IV: Dog Days of Summer Smackdown

Posted on August 13, 2025 | 1 comment

Hello, hello and welcome everyone to what is shaping up to be our biggest battle of the year so far here at Family Fight Night! We’re your announcers for the evening, Stan Boomvoice and Tucker McThundercords. 

Big is right, Stan. It’s the dog days of summer and this family of four has spent entirely too much time together. The seasonal strain is showing and it’s clear that the Dogged Dame of Daytime Daycare is done. 

And don’t forget, Tucker, school is still a few weeks away. August may be hot but the temperature outside is not nearly as scorching as the flaring tempers inside. 

And it looks like things are about to take a turn for the worse. It’s getting close to bedtime and we all know what that means, Stan. Pure. Utter. Pandemonium. The Savage Siblings have had free reign for months but now this Miffed Mama is desperately trying to get them back on some sort of schedule. 

They’re not liking that, Tucker. 

No, they are not, Stan. Oh! And we’re off! Meanie Mumsy is making the first move, starting out strong and throwing down the hammer with her dreaded Clean Your Rooms Reminder. 

But here comes the Pre-Pubescent Prince, aka The Elevenator, coming in hot with his classic countermove, the Proclamation Indignation Dispensation. You know she had to be expecting this, Tucker. It’s been his go-to move ever since he cleaned his room back in early June. 

Oh! But would you look at that! Bet the Missus of Mayhem didn’t see this coming, Stan! In a rare show of alliance, Little Sister Seether, fresh off a Talking To after lunch time’s Tit for Tater Tot Tiff, is joining Belligerent Big Brother with some Defiance Drama of her own.

But it looks like the Maligned Matriarch is not backing down, busting out The Cutthroat Countdown! It’s surprisingly early in the fight for this move, Tucker. Which just goes to show, she’s as over summer as the overdue library books she can never find.  

What happens when she gets to three, Stan?

No one knows, Tucker. No one knows. And it looks like the mystery will remain, with the Chaos Kiddos tromping in retreat to their rooms. Which begs the question, she won the battle, but can she win the war?

I think we’re about to find out, Stan. It appears her victory is short-lived and a Sibling Squirmish has surfaced over a shared spirograph kit, which is swifting spiraling out of control. 

A completely unexpected turn of events, considering neither of these Juvie Jackals has played with it in years. Do you think Mom can count on an assist from Dad here, Tucker?

It’s not looking good, Stan. Daddy Dearest is already deep in a Dissociation Doomscroll Dodge after another day of drudgery at work. 

And it looks like the Primary Caretaker is stepping in before she becomes the Primary Undertaker. It’s all fun and games until these Feral Fledglings gain the upper body strength to actually kill each other, Tucker, and after yet another growth spurt, it looks like they just might this time. Lil Miss Nine, who is anything but benign, is ready to end the bloodline, while the Minor Macho Man with the Overworked Glands is throwing hands!

Oh! But would you look at that! This Wine Mom is unleashing some candid Cabernet Savagery, her patience dissipating faster than the morning dew on a sun scorched lawn, Stan.

She may have started imbibing at 4 pm, but this Put Upon Parent has definitely earned those glasses of wine. The Tedious Teenybopper Trash Talking began early this morning and hasn’t abated since, Tucker.

Oh! Oh! But would you look at that? Her Bitchin’ & Twitchin’ Eye combo is met with a perfectly executed one-two Whatever/Eye Roll from the Bruh of Duh, followed by the Femme Fatale Fourth Grader’s Flared Nostrils of Annihilation. Oh, the humanity! These Wilding Whelps are pulling out all the stops! 

They’ve got her on the ropes, Tucker. It’s clear she’s already depleted after dealing with the back-to-back Leggo My Lego and Spilled Kinetic Sand Scream Storm earlier today. 

My ears are still ringing from the Twin Kin Keening, Stan. Oh-ho! But what’s this? It looks like the Slouchy Grouch is off the couch and ready to cause some major ouch. Father Fatigued is finally stepping in and stepping up as the Harbinger of Hygiene, heralding that it’s time for the habitual ritual of teethbrushing. 

Wow! Truly a Hail Mary Hall Pass! You can visibly see a sigh of relief from the Sapped Senora but Sister Sloth is still deadset, coming out swinging with the Sun Is Still Out Excuse. 

The Elementary Eldest is chiming in as well, with his Maturity Manifesto, Stan. Looks like we have us a Dynamic Duo Dual Dramatic Dialogue Drop! 

But the proof is in the pudding, which no one got tonight after the classic parental maneuver of Just Desserts Means No Desserts, doled out after dinner’s French Fry Fracas. The Pissed Off Patriarch is having none of it and executes the Slightly Raised Voice power move! 

And would you look at those scamps scramble! He hasn’t even hit wonky refrigerator decibel levels yet and they’re already tucking themselves in. Looks like we can chalk up another win for the Tired Tyrants tag team!

But wait, Tucker, isn’t it bath night tonight?

Sshhhh, I think Mama Maim just heard you. She’s staring right at us with her patented Glare-N-Growl. I’m scared, Stan.

Well, that’s all for us here at Family Fight Night, folks! Until next time, everybody! …Go, Tucker, go, go, go, go…

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Posted in Family, funny, Humor, Marriage, Parenting, Pop Culture, Sports, Women, Writing

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Claus and Effect

Posted on December 11, 2024 | 2 comments

Gather ‘round, parents. Your Auntie Aprill wants to tell you a story. A beautiful Christmas story about childhood and the magic of Santa. And what happens when it all goes horribly, horribly wrong. 

It was a few years ago on a night just like tonight, with the warm glow inside the house keeping the cold and darkness at bay. My eldest child came to me, the very vision of childhood innocence in his pajamas, a smile on his lips and a slight twinkle in his eye. 

And it all went sharply downhill from there. 

In my defense, flimsy as it is, he asked me point blank. 

“Is it you?” he asked. 

It’s time, I thought to myself. He had been hinting for weeks that he knew The Truth. Luckily I was prepared. You don’t gaslight your own children for a good chunk of a decade without having an escape plan. And mine was a doozy. A Christmas narrative so beautiful and heartwarming, Dickens himself would bow to my obviously superior skills. 

I put on my most serene and saintly smile, motherly wisdom practically radiating out of my pores, and began. 

“It is, sweetie, but now that you know…”

I got no further. 

“What!?” he cried out. “It is!? But I didn’t really want to know!”

Oh. Oh. Oooh.

“But listen!” I said, a bit too loudly, desperately trying to swallow my panic. “A long time ago, there really was a Santa Claus that gave presents to poor children and when he died…”

“Santa’s DEAD!?” he gasped. 

Son of a Blitzen. 

“No! Baby, no! Well, kind of…the point is he inspired millions of people for hundreds of years to keep the Christmas magic he started alive by…”

“By lying to kids?”

He had me by the sugarplums there. 

“It’s not lying…per se. It’s…more like an untruth. A glittery, shining untruth that makes children happy.”

The Grinch himself couldn’t have produced a more withering stare. I could literally see my son’s heart shrink three sizes that day. 

“I think I need a minute, mom,” he finally said, throwing a blanket over his head, his preferred method of dealing with Uncomfortable Things. 

And there it was. The moment where I ruined his childhood. The moment where the downward spiral begins. First he’ll start acting out in school, carving candy cane shivs in detention. Then moving on to spray painting “Scrooge Had It Right The First Time” under bridges. Eventually there will be jail time, where he’ll emerge with a homemade tattoo of Krampus featuring comically warped proportions across his entire back. 

Devastated, I headed to the kitchen in search of comfort. But standing in front of the 40 proof eggnog was my husband. 

“He knows. About Santa. It was supposed to be you that he hated!” I told him with the sensitivity and subtlety I’m known for. “I’m the favorite parent!”

To my husband’s credit, he still tried to console me but it was useless. The image of me as the Infallible Tower of Matriarchal Love and Knowledge had been shattered. 

Faintly, I heard my son calling for me from the living room. I gave my husband one last desperate look and turned to face my punishment. 

As I approached, my son climbed up onto the ottoman so we were almost eye-to-eye. The better to headbutt me, I figured. 

“Does keeping the Christmas magic alive mean that someone has to eat the cookies left out for Santa?” he asked. 

I laughed in spite of myself. 

“Yes. Yes it does. And I think I know the perfect person for the job.”

We both smiled as I gently wiped the last of his tears away.

“Now, mom, about the tooth fairy…” 

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Posted in Family, funny, Holidays, Humor, Marriage, Parenting, Pop Culture

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Honestly, 18 summers together sounds like A LOT

Posted on August 9, 2024 | 3 comments

As the golden light of an August afternoon sun filters in through my window, I can’t help but feel it’s all slipping away. Another summer with my children is almost over. We only get eighteen with them, I’m repeatedly and aggressively told by my social media algorithms. 

Eighteen summers. 

It’s a stark reminder. And so I pause as I unload the dishwasher yet again, swallowing my rage and staring wistfully off into the middle distance. Reminding myself that I’ll miss this eventually. That someday there won’t be 167 half full cups littering every room in the house. That years from now, I’ll look back through the hazy, nostalgic-filled, choking mist of sunscreen and bug spray and realize what a blessing it was to constantly clean the pee off the toilet seat and army crawl my way under beds looking for yet another missing library book. 

But it’s not over yet. So, for now, I will hold on tightly to that unique summer feeling of warm, sun-kissed skin against a cool, wet bathing suit. Of pools and lakes and long stretches of ocean. Of giggles and splashes and squeals that turn into screams because one of my kids is attempting what looks like incompetent manslaughter. Of the beautiful, neverending chorus of “Mom, I’m cold!” and “Mom, I have to pee again!” and  “Hey mom, watch this!” over and over and over again, even though all they’re doing is holding their nose and dipping their faces chin deep into the water. 

There will come a day when I yell for the last time “Where the hell did all this sand come from? We got back from vacation a week ago!” I just hope I’m present enough to remember it. 

Because one day there will be no one to feed 11 times a day. No light switches covered in Doritos dust. No house full of blanket forts and entire Lego cities and a baker’s dozen of abandoned board games and what looks like a Barbie and Monster High Doll civil war in which no one was the winner. A messy house full of beautiful memories that I am ready to burn down because it will be easier than trying to clean all this crap up. 

Someday I will miss meticulously planning a picnic that is abandoned early because there are apparently bugs outside. And the barbecue we tried to have but my kids don’t eat hotdogs or hamburgers or potato salad or corn or watermelon and why can’t we make chicken nuggets on the grill and can we eat inside because there are bugs outside? And the beautiful hike that ended in tears (mine) because I cannot explain again why there are bugs outside. 

How many more days are left where both my children accuse me of not listening because they are talking to me at the same time? How many more eyerolls and puking noises will I get to enjoy as their response to the dinner I just spent over an hour making? How many more times will they beg me to watch them play Minecraft? 

Five thousand? A million? That’s it. 

What I would give to have them call me ‘bruh” forever. To freeze this remarkable age where they wake me up at 6 am by jumping on my most sensitive bits asking if they can play Nintendo, and yet also wake me up at midnight to tell me all about their nightmare that somehow divulges into an hour long monologue about why Roblox is, like, really awesome. 

So these last few weeks, I am going to revel in the long lazy mornings watching cartoons, and the long lazy afternoons watching movies, and the long lazy evenings of them watching whatever it is they watch on their tablets that I really hope is child appropriate, because it’s been an unrelenting heat wave since mid-July. At this moment, right now, I am wholeheartedly embracing the simple joy of Googling the symptoms of rickets because I honestly can’t remember the last time I took them outside. 

I know it’s coming. As sure as the seasons change, that moment will come when I’m sitting in my clean, quiet home, with a full bank account and a well-stocked fridge with a gallon of milk that isn’t missing its lid, and I will long for the days when I walked around the house in a blind rage because every surface was covered with those little plastic thingies from juice box straws. That moment when I can leave my house without hollering at someone to get their damned shoes on, we’re already running late. 

And when that moment comes, I suppose I’ll have to take solace in the fact that during our 35th summer together, I will get to watch, giant margarita in hand, as my beautiful children scream at their own children. And I will laugh and laugh as I skip from room to room, throwing the plastic straw thingies I’ve hoarded in my pockets like so much confetti. 

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Posted in Family, Food, funny, Humor, Parenting, Pop Culture, Travel, Vacation, Women

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Family Fight Night 3: Sibling Summer Slam

Posted on July 16, 2024 | Leave a comment

Hello, hello! And welcome everyone to what is sure to be the most legendary Family Fight Night yet. We’re your announcers for the evening, Stan Boomvoice and Tucker McThundercords. 

Legendary is right, Stan. It may be hot outside but it doesn’t come close to the temperature inside. Summer break is in full swing and tempers are flaring higher than the flames on Dad’s gas-soaked grill. 

Speaking of Daddy Doomed, he’s still at work and the Married Matron is looking pretty harried, Tucker. 

This muggy air has nothing on Mama’s mean mugging, Stan. I don’t know about you but I’d steer clear of this Miffed Missus. She’s already behind on dinner prep and potatoes aren’t all she’s ready to whip. 

Looks like she’s regretting the Tablet Time-Out she instituted after the Blanket Fort Fracas, Tucker. These Wilding Whelps haven’t given her a break since breakfast. 

And they are showing no signs of slowing down. Big Brother Bash is currently baiting Sister Seether with his infamous Toy Pile Driver, refusing to leggo those Legos even though he knows some of them are hers. 

Oh! And it looks like the Rising 3rd Grader is rising to the occasion. She’s going in hard with her patented Honeybadger Hurricanrana, Tucker. Just a feral flying mass of tangled hair and untrimmed nails. 

It’s not looking good for the Prepubescent Prince, Stan. I believe the Spare is ready to dethrone the Heir. 

Not looking good at all, Tucker. That growth spurt she had last month is really paying off here. He might be older but this youngest is ready to yeet him out into the yard. 

And it looks like the disturbance is dragging the Depleted Damsel into the drama, and she is clearly in distress. What do you think her play here should be, Stan?

Grounding is hardly groundbreaking, Tucker, but it might be Mama’s best move. Sometimes the classics are classic for a reason. 

Oh! I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! A Hail Mary hailing from Hell’s Kitchen! In a surprise move, she’s busting out A Moment’s Peace, letting them play video games! I did NOT see that coming, Stan.

It’s a risky move, Tucker. Risky move. The Tween Titan has been on a hot streak during this heatwave, dominating the action on the Nintendo Switch. He’s already gotten several reprimands for trash talking. 

But it looks like the Sus Sweetie has something up her sleeve, Stan. She’s been secretly practicing while The Bruv of Shove was at camp last week and has managed to eke out a win! 

Oof! That’s gotta hurt. Unsurprisingly, the action is now spilling over from the screen into real life. The Super Smash Brothers have nothing on these Super Shriek Siblings! Oh, the humanity! 

And here comes all 15 pounds of the Round Mound of Pure Hellhound, always happy to add to the bedlam. This little doggy has a bone to pick and as you well know, Stan, the Chaos Canine rarely gives up easily. 

Talk about a tongue lashing, Tucker. His bark might be worse than his bite but his lick is far from lovable. 

Do you hear that, Stan? With her signature primal scream, it’s clear The Frazzled Femme Fatale has had it and is stomping out of the kitchen again, flinging F Bombs like a F5 tornado! Daughter Dearest at least has the decency to look demeaned but the Savage Son remains defiant. 

Oh and would you look at that timing! Father Fatigued is finally home, unwittingly headed right into the eye of the storm. There’s a lot to take in here, Tucker, but he immediately executes his go-to move, The Raised Eyebrow. 

The Pint-Sized People Producer is beyond peeved at this point and not afraid to project! She ain’t having none of it, gesturing wildly at everything! It’s clear she’s ready to tag him in, Stan.

But Daddio is coming in hot with the Decompression Defense! Looks like Bro-Dad just wants a brewski, Tucker. 

We might have a Sweaty Stare Down on our hands. Do you think his Killer Commute can compete with her Caretaker Collapse, Stan?

Not likely, Tucker. Not likely at all. But wait! What’s this? He’s busting out the Meatlovers and Movie Maneuver! 

And on a Tuesday! Unbelievable! Papa Peacemaker saving the day with Papa Johns! And will you look at that turnaround? They went from throwing hands to clapping hands.

What a bout, Tucker! What a bout. 

Indeed, Stan. Always nice to see a Happy (For Now) Ending here at Family Fight Night. Until next time, everybody! 

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The Tell-Tale Candle

Posted on July 21, 2022 | Leave a comment

(Based on an Actual True Story)

(With only Minimal Exaggeration)

(…And Mild Plagiarism)

You’ll fancy me a madwoman. But the event in question I am about to relay has sharpened my senses–not destroyed–not dulled them. 

Above all was the sense of acute hearing. Even prior to this dark episode, my ears have long been able to detect a baby’s snuffle during the darkest parts of night, suss out a dog preparing to vomit on the only carpeted room in the house, and predict the utter destruction that is about to occur in the sudden space of a toddler’s silence. 

Alas, it was upon the happy occasion of my youngest child’s 6th birthday that this ability of mine took a nightmarish turn. My beloved, in the throes of a celebratory whimsy, purchased a musical flower candle to place atop our daughter’s traditional confectionery treat. One small flame, and the candle burst into abundant light and song, mesmerizing us all with its electronic birthday tune. 

A short while later, our faces besmirched by frosting, we went our separate ways, mine to the kitchen to confront the towering heaps of dishes that were in dire need of a soapy hand. I had yet to even roll up my sleeves when I first heard it. The familiar song sung by the unfamiliar electromechanical voice. It was the candle, now darkened, now purposeless, waiting for me while still robustly wishing many more upon a child who was now absent. 

My blood ran cold. I searched, searched again, oh how I pursued the button that would end this tedious melody sung by no one. Swallowing my panic, I brought the accursed object to my good husband, who had no better luck than I turning it off. On and on it sang.

Cautiously, oh so cautiously I carried it back into the kitchen. 

What to do? 

You should have seen how wisely I proceeded–with what foresight–with what dissimulation–I went to work. Oh, you would have laughed at how cunningly I hid that candle inside the fridge. Behind the milk, to the left of the spicy pickles. Ha! Would a madwoman have been so wise as this? 

That night, however, the devil’s hour itself and none other, there came to my ears a high-pitched cheery sound, such as a haunted candle would make when enveloped by refrigerator staples. Slowly, the sound became more distinct. ‘Ere long I felt myself getting pale. It continued and gained definiteness. I gasped for breath yet my family heard it not.

For seven long nights this continued, keeping me awake, frantic. It grew louder and louder! Every night, louder than the last! And yet my children would not let me throw the demon torch out for they had grown attached to the unnatural artifact. I even began to hear its sinister song during the day, my children’s endless foraging for snacks (as is the custom during the summer season) bringing fresh sound waves of horror to my senses. 

Upon the eighth night, I discovered what I must do. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. That it would all end soon. That I could MAKE it end. To think that there I was, slowly lowering the knife, no one in the house even dreaming of my secret thoughts or deeds. I fairly chuckled manically at the idea, which is perhaps how my husband heard me and upon seeing my form bent over the still singing candle, and knowing my personality intimately, immediately figured out what was going on and grabbed the knife from my hand. 

“What the hell are you doing?” quoth the husband. 

“Making it stop,” quoth I. 

“How do you even stab a candle?” 

“You can stab anything if you’re sleep deprived enough.”

“I’m getting worried about you.”

“Nevermore!” 

The husband led me gentle back to the bedchamber, assuring me the battery would run out soon. By morning he proved correct, the unholy candle making sound no more. I heard it not that day.

But as darkness fell, there it was again. Plain as day. (But at night.) How the candle mocked me. Have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but an over-acuteness of the senses? It grew louder, I say, louder every moment. Oh god, what could I do? I foamed, I raved, I swore! A LOT. Still my family continued living as though nothing was amiss. Was it possible they still heard not? 

Now a new anxiety seized me. It would never end. Thus, I dug out the waxy corpse from the trash, removing it, examining it. Yes, it was stone, stone dead. And yet…

“Nevermore…” I whispered to myself. 

“Where the hell did you get a crowbar!?” quoth the husband when he found me with the crowbar.

“NEVERMORE!” I shouted gleefully, still hunched over, trying to figure out how a crowbar actually worked. Because anything was better than this agony. Anything more tolerable. I must bury it beneath the floorboards!

“Here, honey, have some wine,” quoth the very handsome, smart husband. 

Swiftly I gave in, dropped the crowbar and had a glass (two). For what else could I do? 

Alas, I can still hear it. That cursed thing. That melodic device from the bowels of Hell itself. Even now, three (four) wine glasses in, I hear it. 

Perhaps I am a madwoman afterall. 

But at least now I hum along. 

Happy birthday to you. 

Happy birthday to YOU ALL.

*laughs in demonic voice*

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Posted in Books, funny, Humor, Parenting, Pop Culture, Uncategorized, Writing

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Bye Aprill Brandon

Posted on March 21, 2021 | 17 comments

I didn’t realize it at first. It dawned slowly as I stared unblinking at it. Three little words but they were all mine. They were all I had ever wanted. My name. An actual byline. In print. 

That was 20 years ago. Since then I’ve seen it in newsprint, glossy magazine pages, slick media websites and my own shoddily constructed blog site, Chick Writes Stuff. All these years later, I still feel a bit of a thrill when I see it. 

But this is my last one. I’m ending my humor column. 

No one is more surprised than I am. I planned to write my last column on my deathbed. Laughing defiantly until the end.

But as the old saying goes, humor is tragedy plus time. And there is no time anymore. It’s all just one tragedy piled on top of another piled on top of another. There doesn’t even seem time to take a breath let alone process the broken world that won’t stop fracturing. 

Which is funny because that’s how all this got started. As a preteen I was overwhelmed by everything. Every day felt like the world was ending. I’d lay awake at night, trying to think of all the awful things that could happen because I believed if I thought of it first it couldn’t happen in real life. Because I was an 11-year-old girl and the only power I had was superstition. 

And then, like a deus ex machina by way of Florida, I discovered Dave Barry. I devoured every column of his I could get my eyes on. It was remarkable. Possibly even witchcraft. He taught me that if you could make fun of something, if you could laugh at it, it lost some of its power. 

This was doubly true when you could find a way to laugh at yourself. Laughter seemed to quiet the inner demons. 

I wanted to wield that magic like he did and make the world a slightly less awful place. To be a tiny flicker of levity, no matter how inconsequential, in the crushing darkness. 

But I can no longer write my way out of this darkness. I’ve tried. I’ve sat down before my computer every day for months. Whatever does manage to come out is forced. I am too angry. Bitter. Sad. I didn’t realize how much faith in humanity I had until I lost most of it. 

And without hope I can’t find the humor anymore. 

I wish I had a better exit than this. I mean, 20 years. Half of my life. This dream job of mine deserves a proper eulogy. 

But honestly I just want to get this last one over with. It hurts too much to linger. 

And so, let me end this ending by saying it has been my immense privilege writing for you, whoever you are out there reading this. I was never hugely popular, only ever with a small following (and even then that is stretching that concept to its limit) as I moved across this country over the years. But I loved it, all of it, none more so than when someone told me I made them laugh. I cannot thank you enough for reading so I won’t even try. 

And to my editors, I still can’t quite believe I found actual live human beings to publish my words. Thank you all for letting me live out my fantasy. Especially to Editor Bob, my Bobbert, Bob Robinson, the man who gave me my very first column when I was 20. And especially to my editors over the years at the Victoria Advocate, who will be publishing my last as I am on the cusp of 40. You took a chance on me. You believed in me. Every writer deserves editors like you. Every person deserves people like you in their corner. 

I hope one day to write again. To laugh again. To type something immeasurably witty about the Grim Reaper right before he takes me. 

But for now I just…

…don’t know how to end that sentence anymore. 

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Posted in funny, Humor, Politics, Pop Culture, Writing

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Dungeons & Dragons for Delinquents & Dummies

Posted on March 2, 2021 | 2 comments

In a misty corner of the Forgotten Realm, on an old road leading into the city of Neverwinter, three strangers meet at a crossroad. Each is coming into the city for the same reason, having been summoned by a dwarf named Gundren Rockseeker. 

“Greetings. I am Anneke, an Eladrin Ranger.”

“Hi! My name is Princess! Princess the Princess Daring!”

“I’m Orko and I’m a wizard. But you can’t see me because I cast a spell of invisibility. And I have lasers in my eyes.”

Alas, the wizard was wrong. He had neither the spell for invisibility yet nor did he have lasers in his eyes. 

“Aw, man. Not fair.”

The quest is a seemingly simple, if mysterious, one. The adventurers are to bring a wagonload of provisions to the settlement of Phandalin, with Gundren offering ten gold pieces each. The dwarf is secretive about the reasons for the trip but ten gold pieces has put no one in the mood to ask questions. 

And so, the ranger, the wizard and the cleric…

“What’s a cleric?”

The ranger, the wizard and the priest are walking along the High Road when they veer east along the Triboar Trail. Soon they spot two dead horses in the road, each riddled with arrows. 

“How many arrows? Where are the arrows?”

“What color are the arrows?”

The arrows are numerous and normal arrow colored. They have hit the horses from behind in the rear.

“Rear means butt.”

“Hahahahaha! You said ‘butt!’” 

“We approach the so help me if you don’t stop picking your nose go get a tissue dead horses.”

Suddenly four goblins run out of the bushes and attack. The adventurers…

“Hit them in the eye. With an arrow. Two arrows! Ninety-seven fifty eight arrows!”

Princess the Princess Daring hits a goblin in the eye with one arrow. 

“I throw more arrows at his face!”

The goblin with the arrow in his eye is already dead. 

“But I want to do more things to the goblin!”

“Since I’m a wizard, can I do magic to bring the goblin back to life? So we can kill him again? Using the spell Banana Poop Poop?”

“Hahaha…poop.”

Orko the Wizard tries to cast the spell Banana Poop Poop to bring the goblin back to life but the goblin is still dead. 

“That’s not fair!”

“YEAH. I WANT TO DO MORE KILL-Y STUFF.”

“Alright, well, I’m going to make a side quest to the kitchen to get more wine.”

While Anneke goes off on a noble side quest to refill her comically and unnecessarily large wine glass… 

“…I heard that…”

…the remaining goblins continue to attack. Princess the Princess Daring…

“Can I throw art supplies at them?”

“Art supplies? That’s dumb. You’re a dumb princess.”

“You’re dumb!”

“No, you are!”

“I throw eighty billion forty twenty seven arrows at your eye!”

“I’m back. What did I miss?”

“I throw an ax at Princess the Princess Daring’s head!”

“I punch Orko in his stupid face!”

“Oh yeah, this is definitely bringing us closer together as a family.”

“Can we play this again tomorrow?”

“Where did Daddy…I mean the Dungeon Master go?”

“If I roll a 20, you guys want to see me chug this wine?”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah!” 

To Be Continued…

Probably. 

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A Cozy Covid Christmas

Posted on December 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

Coming soon to a streaming service near you, a magical new holiday movie!

“A Cozy Covid Christmas.” 

Starring Sage Periwinkle as Holly Merriweather and Chadwick Strongjaw as Logan Bennett. Featuring Judy Greer as The Quirky Best Friend, Tom Skerritt as Someone’s Dad, and Candace Cameron Bure as the Evil High-Powered Boss.

Meet Holly. A busy and adorably neurotic interior designer living in an undefined big city. When she’s not busy walking determinedly across a crowded crosswalk, she’s busy talking on the phone while signing various documents people hold out for her, followed by busily sipping wine at a hip bar with her best friend. 

Judy Greer: “How did your date go last night?”

Holly: “Terrible. I shouldn’t have even gone. I’m so busy with my career as a successful bakery chef.” 

Judy Greer (whispering): “Interior designer.”

Holly: “Oh. Right. Anyway, I don’t have time for romance. All I care about is this upcoming Very Important Business Deal.”

Judy Greer: “Holly, you need to live a little! Let’s have more wine. Where’s that hot waiter?”

But while Holly may not think she has time for romance, 2020 has different plans. Especially once she runs into Logan Bennett, the charming but damaged hometown bachelor who dresses like a fancy lumberjack and who happens to have a positive test result. 

For reasons that are flimsy and never fully explained, these two strangers must quarantine together over the holidays in a quaint Vermont inn surrounded by picturesque snowy mountains. 

Logan: “Look, let’s just make the best of this. How about we order some food. What do you like? Sushi? Thai?”

Holly: “I guess I could go for a cheeseburger and a beer.”

Logan: “Wow.”

Holly: “What?”

Logan: “Nothing. It’s just…you’re not like other girls, are you?”

The only thing they have in common is their endearing stubbornness and apparent access to unlimited top quality hair products. But when a frozen pipe explodes, forcing them to work together until they end up soaked and laughing on the kitchen floor, they find both of their hearts starting to thaw. 

Judy Greer (via Zoom): “Listen, sweetie, if you don’t go after that hunk of a man, I will.” (sips from giant wine glass)

Holly: “How can I? My career comes first. It always has. Besides, Karen needs those proofs by Christmas Eve…”

Judy Greer: “Oh, it’s a pandemic, Holly! Take a day off, for Pete’s sake! Find you some love in the time of corona.”

Both: (laugh impeccably white toothy laughs while sipping more wine)

But it’s only when a blizzard sweeps through, knocking out the power and forcing these two star-crossed and asymptomatic would-be lovers to huddle together under a blanket surrounded by candlelight, that they truly learn no mandate can force two hearts to socially distance.

Luke…Liam?…Logan!: “It’s just, my parents divorced on Christmas Eve when I was 13 and my fiance left me at the altar at our Christmas themed wedding three years ago and I never got over my childhood dog dying on New Year’s Eve and since then it’s been hard for me to get close to anyone, especially during the holidays.” 

Holly (gently grabbing his hands): “Logan, you may not be an essential worker, but you’re essential to me.” 

Then a bunch of other melodramatic stuff happens after the quarantine ends and they have to return to the real world, all of which is sloppily tied up in the sappy ending on Christmas morning. 

Holly: “Do you think you could ever love me, even though I betrayed you to get the scoop I needed for my Big Magazine Article?”

Logan: “I thought you were an interior designer.” 

Holly: “Oh. Right. Well, do you think you could ever love me even though I’m a mess but always somehow impeccably dressed?”

Logan: “Only if you can forgive me for that sleazy, sexist bet I made with my super rich best friend when I first met you but then changed my mind about once I got to know you.”

(passionate kiss set to rising music and an absurd amount of falling snow)

This holiday season, get ready for “A Cozy Covid Christmas.” Coming to a streaming service near you. 

Probably. 

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Posted in Family, funny, Holidays, Humor, Love, Pop Culture, Women

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Stickin’ it to the man (and everything else)

Posted on November 17, 2020 | Leave a comment

Hey, here’s something you might not know. According to historians it was the ancient Egyptians who invented stickers. Archaeologists have actually found remains of sticky paper plastered on Egyptian market walls that were used to display the price and description of goods.

Here’s another fun tidbit. Modern stickers got their start from a man going by the very fancy moniker of Sir Rowland Hill. He invented an adhesive paper in 1839, which eventually led to the first postage stamps. 

Oh, and, amusing little fact, another man with an excessively fancy name, R. Stanton Avery, is credited with inventing the first self adhesive label in 1935, leading the way for the sticker as we know it today.  

All of which is a very long way to say I don’t know why all these people listed above hate me and want to ruin my life. All I know is that they have been very successful in their endeavor. Because stickers are indeed destroying my life. And my home. And my wardrobe. And whatever little bit of my sanity that is still sticking around. (HA! GET IT! “STICKING”! HA! HA!). 

OK, fine. Maybe you’re right. Maybe all these people had no idea the destruction and havoc their invention would wreak on my small little world. But even so, just because you can invent something, doesn’t mean you should. So screw you, anonymous, innovative Egyptian merchant! I hope you drowned in quicksand or however ancient Egyptians typically died back then. 

They’re just everywhere. Stickers on the walls, the floors, on every stuffie, on at least half the books. Oh, and on me. All over me. My arms, my legs, my clothes, my shoes. One minute there is a child sweetly asking to sit on my lap and the next I am covered in stickers from head to toe. With everything else, they have the fine motor skills of a drunk baby panda, but give these kids a sheet of stickers and they suddenly have the dexterity and rapidity of a seasoned neurosurgeon. They could cover the entire world in stickers in roughly 45 minutes. 

I don’t even know where these stickers are coming from. How are my kids keeping their supply line going in the middle of a pandemic? They’re not even in school. We’ve been doing remote learning since September and the city has been on some level of lockdown since March. Is there a neighborhood black market for stickers that I am unaware of? Did they finally figure out my Amazon password? 

WHO KEEPS GIVING MY CHILDREN STICKERS?

That last question isn’t rhetorical. I want names. Addresses. Lists of weaknesses and biggest fears. I will have my revenge. 

You know, back in my day, we had respect for the sticker game. We played with them the way God intended, by moving them from the sticker sheet immediately to our sticker album. And there they would stay for all eternity. There was none of this free range sticker nonsense the youth believe in today, just putting stickers wherever they feel like whenever they feel like. 

And I hear you. I do. It could be worse, you’re saying. It could be the dreaded (*whispers*) glitter. But nope, I disagree. I would actually prefer glitter. Because while glitter never, ever goes away, the worse that will happen if it gets all over me is that I will look like either a stripper or a fairy and honestly, I’m fine with both. 

But stickers? I get covered in those bad boys and 1. when I rip them off it also rips off my body hair and 2. they always end up still stuck on my clothes after I put them in the wash, leaving their weird residue all over everything. And this may come as a shock to some of you, but I am not the type of mother who is going to Google “how to get sticker residue off of clothes” and then actually try to get the sticker residue off of the clothes. I am the kind of mother who gets angry and curses and then just walks around in clothes with permanent sticker residue on them because I am tired and lazy. 

I don’t really have an ending for this rant. Other than I WILL FIND YOU NEIGHBORHOOD BLACK MARKET STICKER DEALER. You can run and you can hide, but I will FIND YOU. 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go take a butterknife and try to scrape the stickers off our hardwood floors and the ceilings because the little one has discovered she can climb all the way up to the top of the unsecured bookcase now. 

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An evening with Stephen King

Posted on August 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

When it comes to long-term relationships, it’s important to surprise each other every once in a while. If you’ve been together long enough, this can be done as easily as accidentally listening to your partner when they’re talking. Which is how I heard the following last night. 

“If you weren’t so scared of spiders, I’d take you down into the sewers by my mom’s house.” 

An actual sentence uttered by my husband of ten years. I haven’t listened to a damn thing the man’s said in at least three years (the “Hamilton” soundtrack just blaring in my mind every time he opens his mouth), and yet, somehow, this is the one thing that got through. Blame it on the pandemic and our isolation, but so help me, I heard it and I couldn’t unhear it, which meant I was about to get to know my husband better whether I wanted to or not.

“Say what now?” I replied, as the sound of a record scratch reverberated through my head.

“Yeah…have I never told you about when I used to hang out in the sewers?”

“You have not,” I responded, while looking around futilely for anyone else who could corroborate that this was happening. 

“Yeah, you know the drainage ditch across from my parents house? If you follow that down to Farmington Avenue, there are these two concrete tunnels, side by side. You know the kind I mean?”

“I do not. I did not play in the sewer as a child,” I said, unable to hide my smile. “But by all means, continue.”

“Well, one was big enough you could crawl through and after about hundred yards, you came to a room down there. It was a roughly seven square foot concrete room, with a bunch of drainage pipes. My buddies and I, we’d go down there with flashlights and hang out.”

You think you know someone. You think you know all their stories. Only to find out that their childhood was apparently written by Stephen King. 

“What is your life, dude?” I asked after a long pause. 

“Oh, that’s nothing. We once made a hideout out of an abandoned foundation for a house.”

HOO BOY. 

“Hang on,” I said. “I’m going to need another beer.”

I grabbed two. If Stephen King has taught me anything, it’s that stories that begin with children in sewers tend to be long.  

“It was about three feet down, with steps built in and a dirt floor. We made a roof out of broken down tree limbs so it was hidden from view. We’d steal cigarettes from the Circle K and go down there after school,” said the man I formerly knew as my mild-mannered husband. “We had a little radio we’d play. Our one buddy, he had a rough home life, he’d go there when he needed to get away. It was great for about three years and then some high school kids discovered it and kicked us out.”

“Please tell me at some point you guys poked a dead body with a stick.”

“No.”

“Did you pull a gun on the high school punks? Because they tried to steal your dead body?”

“No.”

He let out a long and well earned irritated sigh. 

“But we did build a treehouse one summer,” he added. 

“Of course you did.”

“Well, what was your childhood like?” he asked.

“Normal. Not some combination of ‘IT’ and ‘Stand By Me.’” 

“Like I already said, there was never a dead body. Seriously, what did you do in the summers?”

Oh, because apparently we were getting to know me now. I took another sip of my beer. 

“You know,” I said, “running around feral in the woods and cornfields. Minimal adult supervision.”

“So you were ‘Children of the Corn’?” 

I laughed hard. Which might also have been because I was now on my third beer. 

“I was also prom queen,” I snorted.

We both started laughing. We laughed so hard, in fact, that we woke up our young son. He shuffled out of his room in that terrifying way small children have late at night. 

“‘The Shining!’” we both shouted while pointing at him.

“What are you guys doing?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Nothing,” said his father.

“Redrum,” said his immature mother.  

He very wisely turned around and went back to bed. 

And so, the point of all this is that, one, the world was a Stephen King novel long before 2020. And two, I think I’m going to start listening to my husband more. Especially while we are living through this diet version of “The Stand.” 

Turns out getting to know your family is worth it. They have lives worthy of books. 

 

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Posted in Books, Family, funny, Humor, Marriage, Pop Culture, Writing

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