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Like most tots, I luuuuuvvveeeddd Halloween. Of course in those good ol days when we lived yonder in PG Canny a kid could run all night sans parental units. Anyhoot, my favorite Halloween special was, is and will always be “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!”. There are so many classic lines in there it never gets old.

Linus, “I thought little girls always believed what they were told. I thought little girls were innocent and trusting.”
Sally Brown, “Welcome to the Twentieth Century.”

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Sally Brown, “If you try to hold my hand, I’ll slug you!”

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Lucy Van Pelt, “Bleach! My lips touched dog lips! Bleagh! Poison lips! Bleagh!”

My second favorite “scary” choice is “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken”. Being a huge Don Knotts fan this is right up my wheelhouse. This was the height of his popularity in the 60’s. This was also the first movie I got to see at Oxon Hill Theater by myself! I was only 6, so maybe I wasn’t alone? Oh well, it was plenty scary then and I still love it.

Joan Staley played Don Knotts love interest Alma Parker. Did I mention that Joan appeared in Playboy in November 1958? (Ahem, I uh . . . actually have that issue) And the movie was set in a fictional town in Kansas. Hey my Mom is from Kansas. It’s corny and I love it all the more for it. Netflix that baby, it’s worth it. Of course I own it on DVD, and have several black and white movie stills, some lobby cards and a 6ft high drive-in movie poster I got on Ebay a few years ago for the incredibly low sum of . . . can’t say, my wife reads this thing.

Happy Halloween from TheDadReport!

Oh God.

Just about every morning I go to Einstein Bros Bagels to get a bagel and the elixir of the Gods commonly known as Diet Coke. I then stroll into Starbucks next door, sit down, eat and read.

Also just about every day I pass 1, sometimes 4 people asking me for money. I try to discern whether these people really need my help or are just attempting to get money for another purpose. I have no way of being sure. Admittedly I use a flawed system of simply looking at said person, euphemistically called “hobos” by my young daughters.

Again, this is a flawed method, but one of the hobos has a cell phone, thus she don’t rate in my mind. The others wear different clothes every day, are super clean and have shoes, good decent shoes. I know, I know, describing people that way is lazy and uninformed. I’m describing the regulars to contrast with the guy I call “The Einstein Man.” I call him that because he has wild grey hair reminiscent of Albert.

I see The Einstein Man every once in a while. He is completely and utterly filthy. He has no shoes, only rags tied around his feet. He talks to himself. He never asks for anything. The few times I’ve see him he’s invariably digging through trash cans looking for food. Man. That does rate in my book.

So, a few weeks ago I buy him a bagel, take it outside to where he was laying down and give it to him. He said, “Thanks.” I felt pretty decent. Read more »

Yeah, that Intervention. That’s where I’m headed if I can’t stop my addiction. I guess I’m halfway to being cured cuz I recognize I have a problem. Big time problem. Damn it though, it feels so good when I do it. It puts me on another plane, I just can’t explain it. I can score just about whenever or wherever. Got my latest fix today in Burtonsville, yesterday, College Park. I find myself justifying reasons to be in certain parts of town.

To look at me you’d have zilch-point-shit idea anything was going on. I look and act normal, for the most part. Forget about the money I’m blowing, I just don’t care. Wasting gas at plus $4 a gallon, who gives a shit. I’ll drive anywhere to get what I need.

It goes something like this:

Me, “Hey baby whassup?”
Connection, “Whassup with you playa?”
Me, “You know, it’s your world I’m just living in it.”
Connection, “Whadya need? . . . got a new ship in, limes are killa yo. Get some reds on, they da bomb . . . blues are . . .”
Me, “Stop it. You know exactly what I want.”
Connection, “Damn, you do need this, you all jumpy an shit.”
Me, “Yeah, yeah whatever, I got a problem, blah, blah, blah, hurry up.”
Connection, “That’ll be . . .”
Me, “I know how much, damn.”

Rinse and repeat. That’s me now. That’s my life 24/7*. It’ll stay like that until the end of the summer when things seem to change. I get a little more rational through fall and winter. Come spring, it starts all over again. That’s when Rita’s opens and I can get my mango ice on once again.

*OK, maybe that was channeling The Wire a bit too much. OK, a lot too much. But, every time I get my mango ice on I do channel Clay Davis, “Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiittttt.”

I’ve got my eyes (and hands) on a much larger concern. There exists a staple that I absolutely cannot live without. I can drive less. In our household that priceless commodity is toilet paper. TP, Toilet Paper, The Big Wipe, Ass Cleaners, Dook Scrubbers, Sh*tBegone, you get the picture.

I never really thought about toilet paper before. Before a wife and two girls entered the picture. Now, it is one of my obsessions. It is a minor obsession I assure you. A major obsession would be those Cottonelle flushable wipes. More on that in a bit.

With 3 gals (1 adult, 2 fast growing kids) in the house I started to notice a pronounced drain on the tp supply. Hhhmm? Must be my imagination. I could’ve sworn I just changed that roll yesterday. Oh well. A day later, no mistake, another new roll. Should have been more alert to the clues. Kids, as many know like to use the bathroom, then leave sans flushing. Me, “Hey, who left the foot high mound of toilet paper in the toilet? Is that much paper really necessary for a pee?” I shudder at the number of trees needed for a “number 2″ natural event in my house. At this rate, my family is denuding forests at a clip that would make rainforest/slasher farmers look like they were moving in quicksand. Read more »

I was lounging in my fave Starbucks yesterday (I don’t drink coffee, I just like to use their place to read and eat my Einstein Bros. breakfast) when I started to listen as the drink orders poured in. There were a few “coffee of the day” orders, but most were some incomprehensible bullshit that went on forever.

It goes like this: Starbucks employee: “Hey there (dumbass), can I get a (overpriced) drink started for ya?” Rote-memory-cattle-type-person, just prodded awake: “Uh . . . yeah . . . uh . . . CAN I GET* . . . uh . . . (now this person has ordered the same fricking drink for years but we gotta play this I’m kinda undecided game) . . . uh . . . a grande . . . double shot, decaf, double hot, two-pump vanilla, two percent caramel, wave two whole, unwashed beans above my cup, gingerbread, 37 degree to start then steamed to exactly 56 degree soy milk, one rounded not square ice cube, cappuchino, tazo, chai, latte . . . oh . . . and leave room.” Read more »