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Look on the Bright Side — There’s Only One of Me!

So, I’m an only child. I’ve mentioned this before, but I thought it might bear repeating.

(See, for you ‘siblingers’ out there, it explains a lot of strange behavior. Like… oh, I don’t know, wacked-out interview questions, for instance. Posting my dog’s ass on a mousepad, maybe. Perhaps even writing this.

Yeah, okay, so maybe not that last thing. You can only push the envelope so far before you have to start blaming this shit on the ‘dropped on my head’ thing, rather than the ‘only child’ thing. Meh.)

Anyway, growing up an only child certainly wasn’t all bad, despite the odd stares and concerned whispers. For one thing, I got everything I asked for from my parents.

(No, really — ‘beaten’, ‘thrashed’, ‘pummeled with a ski boot’… all of ’em. At least, they told me I was asking for it, every time it happened. I’ve been so blessed. Really.)

But life as an only child wasn’t always wine and roses and painful raised welts.

(Oh, come on, I’m kidding. I was only beaten as often as I deserved it, and probably a lot less. The head-dropping thing — that was uncalled for. But the beatings were very reasonable. And conveniently scheduled, too!)

Where the hell was I, anyway? Ah, the downside of life without siblings. Right.

So, the worst part about being the only kid in the house is that I had no one to blame things on. The best I could do was trying to play my parents off each other, and that hardly ever worked. (Those ‘adult’ douchebags really stick together, you know?)

Occasionally, I’d get away with something — if Mom was way off in the kitchen, I might be able to tell Dad:

‘Well, I didn’t break the lamp. Maybe Mom did it.‘

Or, you know, if I was coming in from playing while Pop was working in the yard, I could try:

‘No, no, you’ve got it all wrong, Mom. It’s was Dad that peed on my pants!‘

(Yeah, that one was… unfortunate. Dad went ‘away’ for a while after that, before we got things cleared up. Said something about Turkish baths when he came back, or candlelit cells… I forget. I’m sure it’s not important.)

Anyway, the ‘rents kept a pretty close eye on me growing up, which could be pretty inconvenient. The only thing I could consistently get away with was passing gas around the house. That I could always blame on the dog. And I suspect Mom and Dad must have, too. Seriously, if you believe them, they didn’t fart once for an entire fourteen-year span while I was growing up. Yeah, right. They’d have ballooned up like friggin’ zeppelins within a week without letting off a little steam now and then. Not to mention that they don’t seem to be able to go more than seven minutes without a tootle these days.

(What the hell do these people eat, anyway? I had no idea they were already part of the Metamucil and stewed prunes crowd. *shudder*)

But back to the dog — she was quite the convenient scapegoat when it came to disavowing the ‘air biscuits’. As long as she was within a thirty, maybe even forty, foot radius, any foul odor in the room automatically became her doing. And it was easy to believe — even without our help, that dog had downright eye-popping gas. Seriously, she was a veritable fart factory. she once tootled in the kitchen with the freezer door open — the ice didn’t taste right for a month.

(Of course, I’m not sure what it says, exactly, that we continued to use the ice for a whole month. You know, rather than just throwing it out and making new ice cubes. I suppose we just weren’t that bright, to be honest. Or else we were too busy chasing the dog around, trying to stay in range so we could fart with impugnity.

Come to think of it, those two options really aren’t particuarly mutually exclusive, are they? Two sides of the same coin, some might say. Or two cheeks of the same ass. Damn.)

What was I talking about again? Oh, the old family dog’s intestinal prowess. Gotcha.

Of course, our current dog has the same paint-peeling, mind-melting, toe hair-curling abilities. I suppose we can’t really blame dogs for their explosive, noxious gassiness. Hell, you try eating nothing but horse meat and whole grains for six years, and see how your ass smells. You’ll have the putridest pooties this side of the Tom Arnold Family Reunion and Chili Cookoff, I can tell you that.

(Hey, if it’s any indication, I started seeing results after only three weeks on the ‘oaters and oats’ diet. And the horse meat tastes like chicken!

Well… okay, so it tastes like sunburned roadkill chicken, mostly. With, um… gangrene. Or something. Not good chicken, certainly. That much is certain.)

All right, I don’t know where the hell this is going any more. First, it was about being an only child; now, it’s degenerated into diseased flattened chickens. I’m sure there’s a moral in all of that somewhere, but I’m just as certain that I’m not going to find it without some serious self-medication. But it’s too late for that now, so I’m just gonna go to bed. Maybe it’ll make sense to one of us in the morning.

And if not… well, just remember: I’m an only child. You really shouldn’t expect anything I say to make any damned sense. I’m lucky if I can type all the friggin’ words in the same language most of the time. Screw it — I’m going to bed. Ciao!