Your Weekly Antics, Free Teddy Edition...9/26/24

Well kids, hope you've all had a great week. We are almost at the beginning of October which means Halloween season. All you Halloween loving people out there who have been trying to control yourselves from prematurely throwing your Halloween decorations out on the lawn, now's the time, go crazy and decorate away…don't let anyone stop you. Here's what I've got...

1.  Big news here down on our corner. The three-legged dog Harley had her annual vet checkup today. Good news is, she’s healthy. Bad news is, she was fat shamed and is now on a diet. As we always do, we will blame Al for this infraction because he changed the dog food. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the donuts she’s been receiving regularly at the Dunkin’s drive thru and the weekly bacon treats from On the Rise Bakery. Nope, we’re blaming Al.

2.  We don’t have any say in what our parents name us, let's take Diablo in Exhibit 1 for instance. That includes our middle names. The youngest Kap kid got her middle name after her Great Aunt, and she rarely uses it. In Meri's much younger years, she thought her middle name was a swear, because it tended to be used most when she was being reprimanded for bad behavior. Fast forward to years later when she experiences PTSD when her new teacher calls out her full name while taking attendance in class a few weeks ago. “ It was so embarrassing - he called me out by my government name..." Who knew when choosing her middle name with such care, that it would cause her such distress in her teenage years...so much so, I've been asked not to mention it here. 🙄 Is it a name? Is it a state? You all may never know.

3. The fish pet world has lost their damn minds. Did you all know that they make “fish hammocks”? Yup, that’s a thing. Of course one was recently purchased for Captain America, because God forbid the animals who free load here in the Kap house should have to do any work for themselves, like float. When I asked the middle and youngest Kap kids what the hell sense it makes to buy a beta fish a hammock, the immediate response I got was, “can you imagine having to swim around all day and all night long? You’d be tired too...." Okay, let's break this down. This guy's only purpose in life is to eat and to friggin swim, but let's make sure he's as comfortable as possible doing exactly what it is God created him to do. And there you have it folks, the entire world has gone mad. Exhibit 2, Captain America, apparently taking a much needed nap.

4. Last weekend we made our way to Cumberland Maine and found ourselves at the Cumberland Fair. I know some of you out there reading this are fair people and this is fair season and all that, but I’m not one of them. I was there to support this little guy in exhibit 3 in his quest to be more fabulous than he already is, and this event just happened to be at a fair, 2.5 hours away in Maine, but I digress. In between his events, we perused the fairgrounds and of course stopped in to see the many animal exhibits. These exhibits just validated for me why I would never be able to be a farmer because this is what I saw.

5. Exhibit 4 is Teddy. Now Teddy was not happy to be in this pen. He made that point perfectly clear when yelling at people passing by in between chewing on the gate and planning his escape. Being a city kid I thought okay, there are a lot of people, I wouldn’t want to be stared at and petted all day, no wonder he's all worked up, so of course I told him so and let him know I understood where he was coming from. But alas no, that was in fact not Teddy’s problem. Teddy was looking to break his ass out of there and run for the hills, and this would be why…Exhibit 5. Teddy knew what the long-term plan was for him, and that would be bacon. He wanted no part of that.

6. I did inquire how much it would cost to purchase a whole, still living pig thinking how bad could it be? Gibson and his 100 lb self, running around the yard having already destroyed what we had left of the grass, why not add a pig to the mix? I'm sure animal control would love that. This was of course until I was told that these guys can eat up to 10 lbs of feed per day, which puts us at 70 lbs of feed per week. I’m no mathematician, but that’s 280 lbs of feed per month. That and Al said no, absolutely not. What made matters worse was right outside the pig exhibit was Smokin Phil’s Belly Bustin Barbeque food truck. I’ll never eat bacon again.

7. Once coming to the realization that Teddy would be going over the rainbow bridge sooner than later, and would be feeding a family throughout the winter once transformed into bacon and sausage, I came across this. Laugh if you will, but when I’m out watering the plants in the summer, I always have a few potted flowers and tomatoes on the front porch. That’s all well and good but it’s a pain in the neck to drag the house out there to water them and instead, I work with what I’ve got. I try my best to water them from the front yard which involves a steady hand to strategically get the water through the railings of the porch about 20 feet away, and into the pots. I’ve gotten pretty damn good at it if I have to say so myself and have been telling my family this newly honed skill would one day be put to good use. That time came at the fair on Sunday when we stumbled upon the water game - you all know the one I’m talking about…You sit down at a counter and shoot the water gun into a tiny little target about 15 feet away, balloon bursts, or some games there’s a race car or another object that has to reach the top, first one to the top wins and you win a prize. That’s what I’ve been training for all summer long and Sunday was my chance. Another opportunity lost when Al and Meri told me to keep it moving, deciding nothing good was going to come from me participating in such carnival events. I surely would have wiped out the competition that consisted of little kids under the age of 10, sending them all home crying. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon? Exhibit 5, I could’ve dominated that game.

8. Exhibit 6. Sometimes it’s just not worth asking about. What I will say is this…if I go missing, check the packing peanuts.

9. During my 5am googlings, I run across all kinds of DIY’s and think to myself, who in the fresh hell has the time for that? Well kids, I’m here to report that unknown to me until this week that Sue Miller’s cleaning lady makes time for these little extra’s because why you ask? Because Sue Miller is the greatest, that’s why, and her house is probably the cleanest house any cleaning lady has ever had the pleasure to clean. See that Joe Burns, one of the mysteries of the world answered…there are people out there who take the time to decorate paper goods.

10. There is a lot of pressure involved with dropping Sue Miller off after the cleaning lady has been to her house especially now that I viewed first-hand the extra special touches and efforts she puts forth. This would be why, when unloading her groceries and a stray grape got loose and fell into and under the burner on the stove, I had to make sure I retrieved said grape so not to get myself in trouble with my mother and the cleaning lady, both of which I’d prefer not to piss off. Much to my dismay, every time I thought I had hold of the grape, it rolled further and further away eventually resulting in my having to lift the whole top of the stove up to get it, all while thinking, imagine if I had to explain to the Worcester Fire Department that my Mother set her kitchen ablaze as the result of this stray grape catching fire? I don’t need that kind of pressure people, so I began the chore of finding this grape that was happily making its way rolling around inside the top of the stove. I’m calling it as it is, this is just not normal. No person who cooks and bakes regularly should have a stove and an oven this clean, it’s unnatural. Exhibit 7, the cleanest stove you’ll ever see.

And last but not least, think of my friend Teddy next time you’re biting into a BLT.

RIP Teddy.

Have a great weekend!