Florida Trip: Part 2

Before you go any further, or farther, you should totally go read Part 1 of this opus otherwise one of the jokes won't make sense. In fact, it's probably the only part of the post that will make you laugh at loud, so should read Part 1 first otherwise when you get to the funny part you'll say something like "what an obscure reference. I've never known the ninja's humor to be so esoteric and self-referential, what gives?"

Have your read Part 1 yet? You lazy bastard! Oh well.

So during the plain ride I put my overpriced Kenneth Cole suede jacket in the overhead bin. Because it's too expensive and I have only worn it like twice, I was guarnteed to lose it sooner or later. Naturally, I forgot to take it with me when I left and didn't even notice I was missing it since I was in Florida and it was oppressively hot and humid outside...sorta' like a sauna, but without the disgusting old men with the disfiguring open heart surgery scars on their chest trying to make small talk with you. When I'm waiting for my ride, I hear "Home Improvement Ninja, please go the [airline] desk" over the intercom. What.The.Fudge? Then they repeat the announcement. I wrack my brain and can't recall any laws that I've violated on this flight, so I go inside to see what's going on. When I get there and see that someone's got my jacket. And he's wearing a uniform.

Let me take you on a little excursis before we go any further. Here is a random fact about me. I don't embarrass easily. Another random fact is that I don't eat olives...ever. But that's completely irrelevant to this to this story. When I say I don't embarrass easily, I mean it. I'm the guy who's not embarrassed to go to the store when his girlfriend runs out of tampons. I can order condoms from behind the counter and say stuff like "no, not the lambskin...the one next to it. Ribbed for her pleasure, 'cuz that's how I roll, baby". In fact, once when I got fired, errr, I "retroactively quit" a sucky job, my friends and I were out in Greenwich Village and my friend, who still worked at the sucky job, saw a shirt that said "Blow Me". He offered to buy the shirt and pay me $20 if I wore it to pick up my last check from the asshole manager. I said, "I'm unemployed and I don't give a shit. Gimme' $100 and I'll walk in with a shirt that says 'I Suck Cock.'" So I did wear it, earned the $20, got to see the look on the 70 year old manager's face and got to take a parting shot before I left. The old man had the nerve to tell me, dissaprovingly "young man, that shirt is very inappropriate!". So I said "what are you gonna' do about it? Fire me?" When he saw that everyone within earshot was laughing at him, he went and got my check and asked security to show me out. The security guard high-fived me on the way out.

Here is the actual shirt. I keep it around for sentimental value.




Easiest $20 I ever earned.











Now I don' t think that anyone over the age of 20 should walk around with an irreverent shirt. These shirts should only be worn by

1. assholes in a fraternity;
2. people who are too old to be in a fraternity, but not too old to be still be assholes.
   

What was the point of that story within' a story, you ask? Well, I asked the guy how they knew it was my jacket, and he said they found my e-ticket in the pocket.

Now, if you'll remember in Part 1 of this story when I took notes of all the weird book names I saw in the bookstore (like "Why Do Men Have Nipples?"). Well, I took those notes on the back of the e-ticket. The same e-ticket that this guy just read. So this guy who works in some kind of official capacity now knows my name, where I live, and thinks that I wonder why men have nipples and whether we can get pregnant. NOW I'm freakin' embarrassed. I don't want to end up on some no-fly watch list and have armed government thugs pointing guns at me and yelling things like "I'll cuff him, Smithers, but if he reaches for my man-nipples, shoot him!" Now, aren't you glad I mad you read Part 1?


An actual picture of a Federal agent trying to give a child a "Purple Nurple". In some parts of the country, this is often referred to, incorrectly, as a "Texas Titty Twister".







Well in case you're wondering the rest of the story is pretty weird too. After I meet up with my Dad and Bro, we go to the bank to get a cashier's check for the closing. A third of the people in the bank look like they're related to Larry the Cable Guy. Another third look like the Golden Girls, and the last third look like they failed the casting call for the Sopranos. I realize I'm in a bad TV show, but I just want to get my money and leave as quickly as possible...an hour and a half later and we are still there. The icing on the cake was the moron who was confused because my dad and I have the same first name.

[looking at the Id]

Cashier: Sir, this license looks nothing like you. The man in this photo has white hair.

Ninja: Yes, that's my dad, H. Repair Ninja. I'm H. Improvement Ninja. See, my I.D. is there too.

Cashier: But your ID says you're H.Ninja too. You're BOTH named H.Ninja?

Ninja: I realize that on your planet people don't name kids after their parents, but it's not that unusual, can we please move on.


Here is a pic of some cash. I don't why, but this is my favorite blog picture of all time. I think I got 50x more handsome when I dropped that bankroll in front of the bank teller. She was all up ons after that.


By the way, while we're waiting for the cashier my brother is standing in line with this wad in his hand. I told him "why don't you put that shit in your pocket, Rockefeller." I guess my brother never thinks someone would be dumb enough to try to take his money. He's probably right. My brother is really mean. I figured that out when we were kids and he used to pin me down, grab my wrists and make me punch myself in the face.


So we go to the closing and the seller couple is already there signing a stack of papers that is two inches thick. They had a baby with them and I complimented her on the kid (for some reason parents get very proud when they are complimented on their kids looks. It's as if they think there is some skill involved in the making of a cute kid rahter than random genetics. "Oh yeah, my wife and I screwed for weeks until we got the kid's ears right. My wife was in a hurry when we did the toes, but man, those ears are perfect...some of my best work.")

I should mention that I usually don't look at, play with or hold babies (except ones in my family). I like kids when they are 2-4 year olds, in fact being the favorite uncle to my neices and nephews is the one area where I feel that my brother can't hold a candle to me. But if they can't walk or interact I don't know what to do with them. I mean when a kid is older, if you drop them, you can give them candy to stop crying and the parents are none the wiser. But with a baby, the parents usually watch you like a hawk and if you drop them or something, man do they freak out. If the kid is related to you, at least you won't get sued for dropping them, but with some stranger's kid all bets are off.

Plus, the neck is really weird. It's usually not strong enough to hold up the head and the head is all floppy if you don't hold them right. And even if you do hold them right, they projectile vomit on you or poop on you. No thanks.

So anyway, I should mention that part of the reason I broke my usual "don't intereact with babies" rule was scientific. A friend of mine recently claimed that she has never seen an interracial baby that wasn't cute. Being the logical person that I am, I said that all babies of any kind are cute, but she swore that this was not the case. Since I wasn't exposed to other kids outside my own family (whose babies are freakishly good looking). I took a look at the kid to perform my own independant scientific analysis of the attractiveness of other babies that are not related to me. Good looking biracial kid = one point for my friend.

After the closing we went to Costco. It was my nephew's birthday and I needed to buy the kid an iPod because my quest to remain the favorite uncle for all my relatives at any cost knows no bounds. I had no idea they sell iPods there, but then again I never set foot in Costco. I live alone so anything I'd be able to buy in Costco would come in such a large size that I would be using it for the rest of my life. Since I am not sure if I like a product until I use it--and sometimes I'm not sure even afterwards--that seems like too much of a committment to make to something like toilet paper or mayonaise.

Costco was uneventful except that I saw what has to be the world's ugliest baby. Remember my friend who said that every biracial baby she ever saw was really cute? Well apparently this couple never got the memo. Maybe this kid is the exception that proves the rule. I don't know. All I know is I wish I had a camera phone so I could take a picture and send it to my friend and scare the bejeezus out of her. How two relatively normal looking people could produce a kid that ugly is beyond me. Big ears, bulging eyes. It looked like Gollum, with a jerry curl.


Like this, but with a Jerry Curl.









This confirms that the only sure fire way to absolutely guarantee that you will have a cute kid is to marry someone in my family or to adopt one from Vietnam. A lot of people say you can get cute babies from China, but those are just idiots who have never seen how cute a Vietnamese baby is. In fact, if you typed "ugly vietnamese baby" into Google, it would probably return some kind of error message. It might even crash your system...for studipity.


Actual cute Vietnamese baby.











In case you think making fun of an ugly baby is too low for me to stoop for the sake of comedy, let me say that I will stoop to any lengths for a cheap laugh, even shooting a kitten.



Laugh or the kitty gets it!











Okay, I'm getting tired of messing with Pix and typing, so there will be a Part 3. But in case you're wondering what the house looks like, here it is.


This is what the yard looks like...sweet. What kinda people mow their lawn before they sell you their house? My kinda' people! I'll buy that guy a beer next time I see him.









This is the second half of that double lot. The boat belongs to the previous owner. I'm glad he's taking it with them. If I had a boat like that, I'd be tempted to run for local office, kill my political opponents and use that boat to dump their bodies in the ocean. I know the everglades are closer and easier to dump the corpses of your enemies in, but I'm not so good with the mosquitos.




This a pic of the toolshed out back. This is actually one of my favorite parts of the house. The DC Ninja fortress doesn't have a yard so I can't have a tool shed. I bought some utility shelves for the basement, but it's just not the same thing. Having utility shelves instead of a tool shed is like going on a date with a girl you like and getting a kiss on the cheek at the end of the night. I mean, technically it's a kiss, and someday you might get something better, but for the foreseeable future, nothing but frustration and thawted passion fill your mind.



This is the kitchen. The cabinets are in good shape and we can probably get away with just changing the hardware. The stove and Fridge are new.









Here is a pic of the flooring I started in the MacGyver kitchen in DC. I don't know why I included it here.








This is what the house looks like. We're gonna close that carport off and turn it into a 3BR 2BA (currently it's 2BR 1Ba). The place is really nice, but only 800 sq ft so closing it off should help a lot and add about 400 sq ft more.






This is what a Dominican looks like.