Lil Scooter, Yankee Doodle, and Coolio

aka "from the vaults"

Three very early Scooterfails involve inappropriate singing. I hereby submit:

Age Four

Scooter was JUST old enough to go into the Men's Room by himself. We were at McDonald's and Lil Scoots trots off to the potty. Ten minutes later I'm outside the door pondering every horrible possibility from 'he fell in' to 'child molestor'. Suddenly the door swings open and out comes a man laughing his ass off. I soon learn why: even from the door I could hear my son singing to himself --loudly-- as he took a dump.

Age Six
I got a call from Scooty's teacher saying that he was singing a song at school that she suspected his dad had learned at Coast Guard bootcamp and passed along to him. I asked what the song was. She said. "One, two, three, four, get your woman on the floor." Stifling a guffaw as I imagined Scooter busting a move in his first grade classroom, I explain to her that it was a popular song by Coolio "1 2 3 4 (Sumpin New)", and the floor he referred to was, in fact, the dance floor.

Age Seven

Lil Scooter came home from school one day and told me he learned a new song. Most songs he brought home involved some sort of violence done to Barney the dinosaur, but this one did not. Sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle":

Yankee Doodle went to town
Riding on a rocket
Stuck a feather up his butt
And called it Hershey's chocolate

I laughed. So did you. UNTIL I got a call from the school Principal, which went like this:

Principal: Scotty was singing a song in music class that was not appropriate.
Me: *sigh* What was it?
Principal: Something about Yankee Doodle.
Me: *clap hand over mouth to smother laughter*
Principal: (handing phone to Scooter) Sing it for your mom.
Lil Scoot: (miserably) She's already heard it.

The Handbag of Mom

Back in the olden days when the skies were filled with the shrill cries of Pterodons, I carried a small little handbag if any. I had a credit card, my ID, and the key to my apartment. That's all I needed.

As most moms know, the bags get bigger as time goes by. The ones you carry, the ones under your eyes, etc.

This is the stuff I pulled out of my purse today:

Not shown: my wallet, my Microsoft security badge, a big wad of keys, a ziploc with coins (?), the crumbs of a thousand Cheerios and an appointment card from my chiropractor.

The Diaper Holocaust

What's the difference between this morning's diaper experience and the Holocaust? The Holocaust had survivors.

The baby's first diaper of the morning is typically wet. I change that and it's wet again within a few minutes. Short story: baby saves up a lot of liquid during the night. So, this morning, expecting business as usual I untape the baby's diaper and find:

A small lake of thin poopy liquid. There is no solid matter at all. It is like brown pee. Oh! I say, in surprise, and reach for the baby wipes.

In the 12 seconds it takes me to lift up the container of wipes and direct them toward the baby's resting place, she pees again. This new piss displaces the poopy lake and causes it to overflow its shores and run out all over my bed.

Um. Okay, so I lift the baby out of the miasma with one arm while I gingerly fold the diaper as best I can while surveying the damage to my bed. Baby starts crying as poo syrup drips off her legs and back. I place the fragile sodden diaper on the floor next to the bed as I start babywiping the baby. I'm trying to remove as much human waste from her skin as I can whilst hoping there is nothing left in her digestive tract.

While holding a naked baby in one arm and attempting to take the crap infested sheet off the bed, I manage to step on the poo-swollen diaper on the floor. My hand to God it sounded like someone doing a cannonball in the swimming pool. If the pool was full of watery shit.

So now I have a splash zone of shit on my bedroom floor, a screaming naked infant and a pillow-top mattress that needs to be burnt.

In the kerfuffle I somehow lost my bra. I am also wearing dirty socks today because I could not find clean ones. But they are 'wore them yesterday' dirty, not 'doused in fecal matter' dirty.

Scott Island

My son has trouble. This trouble stems from his head being firmly lodged in his ass. This tale of woe comes in two parts.

Part One

A couple months ago my husband attempts to drive Scooter to school in Bellevue. I say, "Scooter, what exit do you get off the highway?" My husband shushed me. "I'm sure he knows how to get there." o_O

An hour later my husband gets home and tells me that Scooter was so busy babbling about D&D that he didn't notice the exit go by and they ended up in Downtown Seattle. They turn around and head back over the bridge etc and Scooter gives more wrong directions. All the times I've driven him to school his head is in his ass.

My husband programs the college into my GPS as "Scott Is a Fucking Idiot"

One day for shits and giggles I let the GPS direct me to the college just so I can hear the GPS bitch say the name. She says "Approaching Scott Island a Fucking Idiot...on right"

Part Two

My husband comes home for a week and I take time off work. Ergo I'm not driving Scooter to school on my way to the office.

Monday: Scooter gets dressed and sits in the living room waiting for me to notice him. Sits through his first class, then goes out to take the bus. Misses the bus because he forgot to wind his watch

Tuesday: My husband drives him to school without incident.

Wednesday: Misses morning classes again. I drive him to afternoon classes on my way to drop off the car for repair. I rip him a new one on the way.

Thursday: I warned Scooter the night before that the car was still gone and he needed to get up early etc to catch the bus. Scooter tries to catch the bus and fails. There is an elaborate story as to how this happened. He missed the bus and then it missed him.

Friday: I drive him to class.

And then this fine morning. Doocheroo just overslept and I left him there. But first, I took a picture:

Ponies, Lies, and Fat Cats

My children are liars. Not just Scooter, Doodlebug is also an unrepentent deceiver. I fully expect the baby's first sentence to be a lie.

Some examples of their mendacity.

Fat Elvis the Destroyer

I'm on my way back from covering a video game tournament in Mexico when I get a text message from the kids back home: Elvis had broken the coffee table. O rly? How did he accomplish this?

Kids: He jumped up on it and it broke.
Me: That's hard to believe since I was dancing on it while singing selections from "Evita" a couple weeks ago. I'm certain I weigh more than Elvis.
Kids: maybe he hit it at just the right angle?

This lie is so stupid. I get home and the whole house is spotless, minus a coffee table. I know they're full of shit but it takes them over a year to admit it. They told me they really really wanted a new coffee table and so they threw the old one away so I'd be forced to buy a new one. Riiiight.

My Little Crew Cut
I come home from work one day and my daughter is indignant. She has found her two favorite My Little Ponies under her brother's bed. And they've been scalped! Long flowing manes and tails --the raison d'etre of these toys-- are now brightly-colored bristles. Scooter can't stop laughing. "Why would I do that? How would that possibly benefit me? And why is she looking under my bed?" All good points. This wizard of deception even convinced me that Doodlebug had vandalized her own ponies and PLANTED them in Scooter's room to FRAME him. She of course denied this. Two years after the fact, (and after torturing his sister by revising the My Little Pony theme thusly: "My little pony, my litle pony, I cut off all your hair") Scooter not only admits to giving the ponies buzzcuts, but his reasoning was this: He had to make a video for Spanish class and it was his intention to use his sister's ponies to create a Spanish remake of Charlie the Unicorn. I still don't understand why Spanish unicorns have crewcuts.

Still Unsolved
A few days ago I noticed some scratches on the door that leads from the livingroom to my bedroom. The scratches are about a foot off the floor and appear to spell out HELP. As if some close-to-the-ground critter is pleading for entry. Both big kids deny doing it. The baby can neither speak nor write. Fat Elvis is both illiterate and too lazy to take on such a project. So what? Am I to believe there is some baseboard demon lurking? I guess someone will 'fess up in a year or two.

Pimptastic Scooter

Text Fail

I give Scooter a ride to school every morning. This is how it works: me, Scoots and the baby get in the car. As we head toward the freeway I unlock my cellphone and hand it to him to text the babysitter that we are on our way (we meet midway between my office and her house), I drop off Scoot, then handoff the baby to the babysitter, then go to the office.

THIS morning after dropping off Scooter, I get a text from the babysitter saying "Just making sure I didn't miss a text". I.e. she didn't get the text saying we were leaving, and she's still at home.

Dingleberry wrote the text and forgot to hit 'send'.

So I have 20 minutes to kill with a SCREAMING ANGRY infant in my backseat while the babysitter loads up her own kid and drives to [redacted] to meet me.

ScooterFAIL!

Girls Fail Too

Fail comes in flavors other than Scooter. And yesterday it came in the form of Doodlefail (my 14 year old daughter) and babyfail (10 month old).

Doodlebug was nostalgic for some taste sensation she'd learned of back at the Boys & Girls Club years ago. This something was called "Puppy Chow." She found a recipe, made a shopping list and whippped up a batch of this:

And there it still sits; a big bowl of poo-looking fail. By the way, this is a HALF BATCH. #doodlefail

Baby ate mac n cheese for dinner. Baby stuck her hands in the bowl and made a cheesy mess. Baby needed a bath. Mommy and Baby get in nice warm water. Splash, splash! Baby plays with ducks. Suddenly, a new friend arrives. A little brown friend who likes to float in the warm water. Mommy drains the tub. #babyfail

Scooter: The Gathering of Fail

How do I even begin this tale of woe and fail? Let's try something succinct and easy (for me). Bulletpoints ahoy!

• Scooter says there's a Magic: The Gathering tournament this weekend. Tournament.
• Scooter's friend the Professional Magic Player will be participating. Professional, I say.
• Scooter wants to go check it out. "I'd play, but there's a 30 dollar entry fee" Activate passive-aggressive sadface.
• Scooter does chores for me all weekend to the tune of 30 dollars plus a ride to Games & Gizmos. The Pro MTG Playa is going to give him a ride home, he says.
• I drop his ass off. (After he leaves the address on the table at home) #fail1
  Me: What time will you be done?
  Scooter: Probably at 2.
  Me: It's one. It costs 30 bucks to play for an hour?
  Scooter: Well, I'm new so I'll probably only play the first round.
• Get a text from Scooter: "Apparently it goes until 8" #fail2
• Uh... okay so what? Does he want to stay that long? Does he want a ride home? I text back "So how long do you want to stay?"
• No response. #fail3
• I pick up his sister in Everett and we swing by 7-11 for Slurpees and beef jerky. Since the game place is nearby I send her in to ask Scooter if he a) needs a ride home b) if so what time.
• She reports that it stinks OUTSIDE THE GLASS DOORS and refuses to go inside. We go home.
• 4 hours later I'm getting the baby out of a bath. I diaper her and give big sis the task of jammying her up while I check my phone in case Scooter ever texted back. it's 8:20 by now.
• Text from Scooter at 8:04 "we're done". Text from Scooter at 8:05 "do you think I could get a ride" #fail4
• I leave the baby (who is hungry and ready to be put to bed) with her sister, get dressed, and get in the car, texting Scooter: "on my way"
• I pull up in front of the nerd station, just as this text comes in: "Kk". That's his response to "I'm on my way". I text back "I'm outside".
• I can see him in there with his green tshirt and his puffy hair. He's like six foot two.... not hard to spot. He's douching about, oblivious that I'm out front HONKING THE HORN. #fail5
• I call him. He doesn't pick up. #fail6
• I'm about thirty seconds from busting in there in my shorts, knee socks, dirty tshirt and glasses and embarrass him, when he finally picks up the phone and gets his ass out to the car.

You may be asking yourself a few questions. What happened to his ride home from mister magic pro? He wasn't ready to leave at 8. Why doesn't Scooter have a driver's license? Because he thinks there's no point in having a license if you don't have a car. Why doesn't he have a car? Because he doesn't have a job.

WHY does his mother perpetuate his fail by giving him 30 dollars, dropping him off and then leaving a sweet freshly bathed baby and picking him up while he keeps her waiting? Your guess is as good as mine.

Blerp

The Starving Student

Scooter: I need to buy my books for school.

Me: Okay, as soon as I sell off some of this crack, I'll put money in your account. How much will your books cost.

Scooter: I dunno.

*more failery ensues. 2 days later I give him 400 bucks for text books plus a bus pass*

Me: I got a notice that your account is overdrawn. How much did your books cost?

Scooter: 275. And the bus pass was 120.

Me: okay so why are you 25 bucks overdrawn? What did you buy?

Scooter: Nothing! I don't understand it!

Busted!

There He Is... Miss Popchix

Ground Control to ScooterFail...

Dressed for Success

A year ago Scooter was a high school senior doing his first job interview (at a movie theater). I bought him some snappy yet cas duds as seen here.




Cut to last week.

Scooter: Hey I got an interview at [local Italian restaurant]. It's on Thursday.

Me: Awesome! Do you still have the interview clothes I got you?

Scooter: Yep!


Cut to last night.

Me: Get out your interview clothes and make sure everything is clean and ready for tomorrow.

Scooter: I can't find the pants.

Me: You told me you had them.

Scooter: Maybe I grew out of them.

Me: I thought I just saw them! You're telling me this the day before the interview when all the stores are closed?!

Scooter slinks off to take a dump which is how he avoids things.

Cut to this morning.
Still no goddamn pants. They have vanished into the fucking ether or have been abducted by gnomes with a fetish for Dockers.

Scooter: Okay I got the blue shirt (this is on the phone). Oh, there's a button missing. Oh! There are two buttons missing!

Me: Are you kidding me?! So when you said "Yup, Mom I still have my interview clothes" you really meant that you had no pants and a buttonless shirt.

Scooter: hornk.

Moron in a basket

This is my son

This is my son in a laundry basket

He put it on his head "for lulz" and couldn't get out. He had to sleep in it.

#scooterfail