My parents' haunted bathroom

When my sister and I were little, we were little bitches.  Always trying to mess with the other one, always succeeding in doing little more than pissing the other one off.  In some ways I idolized my sister...but she was the enemy and I never forgot that.  It was me against her, and I was going to win or die trying.  Sometimes I came very near to death: I'd poke her in the side, causing a tickle-seizure, laugh at her, and then she would punch, kick, or slap me.  I probably still have battle scares.

Of course, then she'd be sent to time out, but that was okay with her.  You see, our mother didn't really understand how punishments worked.  Putting my sister in time out for ten minutes for hitting me was like sending a murderer to jail for a year; yeah, you got in trouble for it, but the bitch was dead and you'd be free soon.

Still, she didn't usually beat me.  I was a professional little brother--yes, professional.  Which essentially means that I was WAY more skilled at annoying my sister than she was at getting back at me.

There was only one way for her to win, and she knew it.  The only trouble was that getting back at me caused her just as much trauma and fear, so she only resorted to it when completely necessary.

I've already told you one scary bathroom story, but I think it's definitely time for another. In our house, we had two bathrooms: one upstairs, one downstairs.  The downstairs bathroom was the most likely to have sewer snakes (because it was closer to the ground), so that would make the upstairs bathroom superior, right?  If only such things were true...

The upstairs bathroom at my parents' house has this creepy shelf/wall thing that is actually a door to the "attic."  I use the term attic loosely here, because the attic is not a real attic (much as the basement is not a real basement, but a cement-covered hole in the ground; I like to call the basement "spider hell" because that's all you find down there).  We can't store things in the attic, much like we can't store things in the basement, because it doesn't really have a floor.  Whoever designed this house was a moron and an asshole, but they're probably already dead so I can't go about threatening their life.

Anyway, this "door" to the "attic" terrified my sister and I.  We knew that there were bats and vampires and probably some zombies and spider demons up in the attic, and being in the same room as the door that lead there was so so so scary.  Thank GOD the door was actually in a bathroom, because the very thought of it now makes me want to piss myself.

The only thing that saved us from the monsters upstairs, oddly enough, was the bathtub.  We would get terrified, flail madly, and somehow end up cowering inside that porcelain fortress.  Of course, once we were in the tub, I would inevitably start panicking about sewer snakes climbing out of the drain because the water wasn't on shoving them back downstairs where they belonged.  I have no idea how much water I wasted trying to drown those goddamned snakes, but I'm sure my parents hated paying for it.

By now I'm sure you have some idea of what my sister's evil plan was.  It was always the same basic thing: I would be in the bathroom with the door closed, pants around my ankles because I couldn't be bothered to use the zipper on my jeans, peeing away and probably humming the theme to Barney.  She would sneak (I also use sneak loosely; my sister has all the subtlety of a five-ton gorilla with down syndrome...if you've ever seen the mumakil from Lord of the Kings, she sounds like one of them when she walks) across the hall to the door of the bathroom, press her face up against the crack in the door, and hiss:

"The bats are coming to get you! I can hear them; they know you're there. Oh my god, they're going to kill you!"

And of course, every single time, I would panic.  I would flail madly in a circle, remember that the bathtub could protect me, and race across the room, tripping over my pants I still had around my ankles like shackles.  Her plan was perfect...too perfect. As soon as she heard me screaming and flailing in terror, she would flee downstairs where the bats couldn't go, and all the while, I would be peeing all over the bathroom.

My mother would hear the commotion, come to see what the problem was, and find me huddling in the bathtub, pants around my ankles, soaked in my own urine. But I was safe.  Safe from the bats, and safe from the monsters.  And that was all that mattered.

Sewer snakes

Bathrooms are evil. I have huge issues with them and I just can't help it.  Public restrooms are the worst, especially if other people are in there at the same time.  When I'm standing up at a urinal, if there's someone else standing next to me?  I CANNOT PEE.  I could stand there all day, but as long as someone else is there, no pee is coming out.  I'm pretty sure my bladder would explode before I could pee.

But that's just a fun fact.  What I really want to stress is how my fear of bathrooms came into being.  This is the first of two posts which will explore the utter terror I felt as a child simply by walking into a bathroom.

One day, I was innocently eating a bowl of Grape Nuts because I thought they were cool for some retarded reason that escapes me. Perhaps I believed they would actually taste like a combination of grapes and peanuts, and I imagined it being like a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, just with milk instead of bread.

In any case, I was chewing a mouthful of milk-soaked dog food and sitting at the kitchen table, kicking my little legs back and forth and resembling a cherub.  My sister was sitting as far from me as she could while still being considered "at the table" and kept eying my cereal suspiciously.  From the looks she gave the bowl, it was as if she thought the milk might spring from the bowl at any moment and try to force itself upon her, or somehow sneak down her throat via some kind of anti-gravity osmosis.  She's allergic to milk, and back in those early days her tiny brain couldn't comprehend that being NEAR milk wouldn't kill her.  

While she stayed alert for milk terrorists, my father came into the kitchen holding the newspaper and started telling us about some story that he had read.  Normally I didn't pay attention when he talked about the news.  News was for lesser beings and it was boooooring.  If only I had ignored this story, all else might have been prevented.  Maybe I could have been a normal human being and retained my ability to pee in public...but it wasn't to be.

My father sat down at the table with us and, ignoring his food, launched into the scariest story ever.  It started out boring like any normal news article--"Apparently, there was some woman"--some woman indeed.  I began to turn on my ignore-powers when the news story took a drastic (and horrifying) turn.  "She was sitting on the toilet, minding her own business (lol!pun) when suddenly, she felt something poking her...from beneath!"  

That was it.  I was enraptured.  Had this woman accidentally given birth into a toilet? Was her feces seeking revenge?  My mind danced with all the hilarious things that could have been in her toilet.  How naive I was...

My father continued.  "So she stood up and looked down"--it was the moment of truth--"and there was"--I stared at him, cereal mush slowly sliding down my chin.  The suspense was killing me!  I had to know.

"A snake!"

Oh fucking Christ, no.  I hated snakes.  I'd seen one in the yard once; that was pretty much the last time I'd been able to walk in our backyard without fear.

And of course, as if it had been waiting for just the right moment, my body told me that it was time for me to use the bathroom.  And from that moment on, until my late teens, every time I sat on a toilet I was certain that snakes were going to come shooting out of it like machine gun fire.  The snakes would rip me apart, starting with my poor, exposed buttocks, and then move on to kill the rest of my family, all because I didn't flush the damn toilet quickly enough.

And thus it was that my childhood belief that bathrooms were safe, innocent places was shattered.  I knew then (as I know now) that bathrooms are evil. And that if you didn't flush the toilet quickly enough?  You. Would. Die.

Stick your giant nose in your giant asshole.

I can't stand it when people think they know my life.  They get all up in my business and start smearing shit all over the place and then seem shocked when I tell them to choke on a bag of dicks.  If I want your commentary on living my life, I'll ask you.  Otherwise?  Mind the gap.

I'm entirely capable of dealing with other people and handling my own relationships.  If I basically tell you to fuck off, then DO SO.  I obviously don't want to talk to you about anything at all.  Take the "hint" that I'm smacking you over the head with and stick your big nose back where it belongs: up your ass.

Thanks! :D

Shove your secret right up your ass

 I'm a gossip fiend.  I live vicariously through other people's drama.  I'm a freaking vampire or some shit, sucking entertainment and sustenance through someone else's divorce, money trouble, or basically any failure at all.  Maybe this makes me a bad person...maybe this makes me awesome.  I'm not sure which, but I am certain of one thing: when I hear a story about you flunking a math test, crashing your car, getting cancer, and walking in on your boyfriend cheating on you with your sister, I know I've had a good day.

There's just something satisfying about knowing the details of people's lives and knowing that your day went just a little bit better.  I mean, I also love bitching about my day but I'd rather listen to the sordid details of whatever trauma has befallen you, or someone you know, than bitch myself.  As much as I love the sound of my own voice, nothing sounds sweeter than a bucket full of drama.

HOWEVER.

There are some people in this world who like to inform you that they have a secret, some tiny bit of information that probably isn't even significant anyway, but they refuse to tell you.  At which point it becomes the MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD.  Everything else in your life is a distraction from your goal: you do not have to pee, you do not have to eat, you do not have to attend class and give a presentation about Nathanial Fucking Hawthorne.  You just need to fucking know WHAT THE HELL THE SECRET IS.  It consumes every fiber of your being until you are practically bursting with furious anticipation and desire.  You know that one of two things will happen in the near future: your friend will tell you the secret, or you will die.

I have a name for people who tell you there is something they aren't telling you and then refuse to tell you.

ASSHOLES.

Giant fucking cum-shitting assholes.  If you don't want me to know about your secret, then why did you tell me that you had one in the first place?  If there is something you are hiding from me, why would you arrange so that it became my life-fucking-goal to figure it out?  People do not realize that they are putting their lives at risk when they do this.  What if you were a spy and you let on that you had a secret?  You'd be a DEAD spy.  It doesn't work much differently for me.  I will threaten people at gun point if it comes to it.  A chain of events is set up when the words "I can't tell you" pass one's lips, and nobody is in control of it.  Could result in death, could result in torture, could result in lots of ranting and angry glares.  I can't really say which is more likely.

The worst part of situations like this is the secret-holders always act like it's noooot a big deal that I don't know. If it's not a big deal, fucking TELL ME ALREADY.  Clearly it's a huge deal if you won't open your mouth about it.

Though to be fair...it's usually nothing interesting.  Which begs another question: Why did you pretend that there was a secret in the first place? I have pondered all of this for quite some time and I have reached a conclusion.

All of my friends are dicks.

Cyborgs induce shitstorms because they're EVIL

Lots of people LOVE cyborgs.  Think they're really cool.  Want to become cyborgs, even.  Have a fucking gun instead of an arm like you're Barett from FF VII? GO AWAY I HATE YOU!  It makes my skin crawl, like there are 10329831231 tiny robot bugs dancing around figuring out ways to turn me into a machine.  I have seen way too many sci fi movies to ever think that cyborgs are a good thing.  They always do the same damn thing:

THEY END THE WORLD!

I cannot stand them.  I want to punch them all in the face, but at the same time, I'm fucking terrified of the fact that maybe if I touch them I'll somehow become a cyborg, too.  Even when I'm driving in my car and I hear about things like robot-assisted surgery and how AWESOME it is it makes me want to run over the old lady crossing the street with her grandchildren and puppies and then back up and run over them again before finally continuing on my way.  Of course, then I'd probably end up in a high speed chase running from the police and have to move to Canada and hide in someone's basement, but that's okay; I bet all of my Canadian friends would love to house a fugitive.

Over the spring and summer, I watched Torchwood and Doctor Who.  For the most part, everything is fine and dandy.  The Dalek are really creepy, but hilarious; Captain Jack Harkness is a pimp; Rose Tyler is the best companion of the Doctor; the Weeping Angels are EPIC.  But then there's the episodes that make me want to die.  Some of you might already know what I'm talking about..yes, that's right...

The Goddamned CYBERMEN.  The first ever episode about cybermen that I watched was the Torchwood episode where what's-her-metal-tits decides to turn her azn doctor into a cyberman but FAILS SO HARD OMG IT IS TERRIBLE.  Blood fucking everywhere, metal shit shoved through his head.  It's a disaster and it took sooooo much vodka for me to regain control of my bowels after watching it.

I was a wreck for so long.  Then I watched all of the episodes of Doctor Who with them and it was just as terrible.  Watching characters that you kind of knew, like otheruniverse Jackie, get turned into cybermen, you quickly learn that it could happen to you too!  GAWD.  FUCK ME. >_>  I DO NOT WANT TO BE SAWED APART AND THEN TURNED INTO A MACHINE GET OUT OF HERE NOW!

And then there was the time that I tried to watch Caprica.  I don't watch Battlestar Galactica, so I had no idea what was in store.  Everything was going great, I liked the plot line, kind of enjoyed some of the characters...and then this bitch gets her consciousness SHOVED INSIDE A ROBOT.  Not even a part-human thing like doctor who.  A FUCKING ROBOT.

People need to stop coming up with shit about cyborgs.  I don't give a flying fuck if you lost your leg saving an orphan from a man with a chainsaw or if you're too old to walk: YOU DO NOT NEED ROBOT LIMBS.  Cyborgs will be the end of humanity.  I know it!  So let's just forget about them forever, suspend all kinds of AI or other robotic research, and start trying to heal people with magic.  Everyone knows that magic is way safer than cyborgs anyway.  With magic, humanity always wins.  With robots, we die.

And now that I've written this, and thought about these effing shitbombs, I have to go curl up into a ball and reassure myself that everything is going to be alright and that cybermen aren't going to burst through my wall and try to convert me...and maybe pour myself a glass of vodka.

Life Goal #1: I want to become an alcoholic.

I know what you're thinking: "ADAM NO!  ALCOHOLISM IS SU BAD!"  Well, yeah, you're probably right...though not as right as you could be.  Thankfully for everyone in the world, I'm a MAD sober and a HAPPY drunk.  This leads to people trying to get me all boozed up quite regularly, and who could say no to that?  But that's not what my goal in life is...no.  I don't want to be a party drunk, though that's fun and I will continue to get completely smashed at least once a week until my liver finally gives up on me.  I want to be: a Functioning Alcoholic.

"THERE IS NO SUCH THING ADAM!  I MUST SPEAK IN ALL CAPS TO IMPRESS UPON YOU HOW SRS I AM!"  Yes, yes; I know how super serial you are, Al Gore.  But hush up for a minute.  It's not like this is a bad thing.  This really ties into one of my other life goals (becoming a professional housewife), but we'll save that one for later.

I want to spend every moment of the day with a glass of wine in one hand!  I think I'll become quite good at multitasking with it.  In fact, I'm planning on learning to type with one hand so that I can booze up while I troll the interwebs...totally not learning to type with one hand for any other reason.

Get out of the gutter!  I see you there, you filthy little bitches.  Now hush, I'm trying to tell you a story!

Anyway, I really can see myself flitting through a house, not a care in the world.  I flop down on a sofa, trashy romance novel in one hand, a full glass of Pinot Grigio in the other.  Of course, in this daydream, there's also five empty bottles sitting on the coffee table...because I'm starting on my sixth bottle of the day.  I look at the clock: three in the afternoon.  Time for Ellen!

So go ahead, be productive.  But I know you're not going to have as much fun as I will.  All of my memories will be wonderfully clouded due to an omnipresent drunken haze..but they'll still be clearer than Slughorn's.  And that's really all that matters, isn't it?

So yes.  I only want the essentials in life: internet and booze.  Is that too much to ask?  And hey, I might accidentally become a wine connoisseur along the way!  Booya.

My mother is the laziest chef in the world.

Thanksgiving!  Yay turkey, lots of delicious food.  Sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberry shit, stuffing, green bean casserole, turkey, and PIE.  It's one of the best holidays EVER, and super super American: a holiday that only involves stuffing your face and then sleeping the rest of the day.

But not in my house.  No, no.

Ever since my parents took over the duties of cooking Thanksgiving dinner, it's been a fucking disaster.  Now, I'm not trying to say that I'm an iron chef or anything like that...but when I cook or bake, I do it fucking correctly goddamnit or I don't do it at all!  Making things from scratch is the ONLY WAY TO GO.  It's not that hard to mix a bunch of ingredients together and make something delicious.

Take pie crust, for example:

• Flour
• Sugar
• Salt
• Water

YOU SHOVE IT ALL TOGETHER AND SHIT OUT A PIE.  IT'S NOT HARD.  And it tastes great.

My mother, however, is the LAZIEST PERSON I KNOW.  And considering I know myself, and I'm really freaking lazy...that's a telling statement.  She almost never makes anything from scratch.  Cookies, pies, cakes, potatoes...anything.  It's really quite upsetting.  And it leads to things like a TERRIBLE THANKSGIVING DINNER!

Usually she buys a bunch of the pre-made stuff from the grocery store that you just have to heat up and serve.  This year, she was exceptionally lazy.  My sister was only able to be here last night, so she decided that we would have Chinese food with my grandmother for Thanksgiving dinner.  It was bad enough that we were eating it on a Wednesday, but that we weren't even having AMERICAN FOOD was especially distressing.  I like Chinese food as much as the other guy...but not for a holiday.

And then there was today.  She bought all of our food...frozen.  And cooked it up.  We didn't have turkey...no, we had chicken cordon bleu.  Instead of potatoes, we had curly fries, and instead of cranberry sauce, we had that shit that comes out of a can.  To make matters worse, she didn't even buy wine!  WHAT IS A HOLIDAY WITHOUT COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF WINE?!

Now that might just be the alcoholic in me talking, but seriously.  I needs lots of booze to make being with my family even remotely entertaining.  And with my sister gone, I need freaking hard liquor or something.  I'm seriously considering leaving early and returning to my apartment before the weekend is even over, because spending time with my parents makes me want to slaughter a village of Amish people.

But hey, maybe I'll survive...with my store-bought pie.   Dx

At this rate, we'll probably be getting take-out McDonalds for Christmas instead of a fucking ham.  Maybe I should offer to cook the dinner...then again, I'm exceptionally lazy and this is not my job, since I'm still the child.  :(  Sad day.

UPDATE: Just thought of another thing to complain about. -cough-  With no turkey, that means tomorrow I'm not going to have delicious turkey salad to eat right out of the bowl because I'm fucking boss and don't need anything to put it on. ROAR!