It is all our fault and apparently nobody is immune.

My wife’s car has one of those rear entertainment centers. We thought it would be nice to have since when we bought it we knew we would take it on family trips and the bulk of the driving with the kids.

After a while the kids got used to the DVDs we had in the car and if they were good we told them that we would get them a new DVD. They really thought they were top dogs when they got a new DVD, so we started to use that as a reward system. Then one day I was noticing that the kids would laugh during the DVD when it sounded like nothing was happening. Then it hit me, we never actually watched the DVDs. For all we knew it could be some of the most graphic and vulgar things known to man as the video with a nice kids show audio track and we would not have known the difference.

So I have decided that maybe I should start to pay a little more attention to the things my kids watch, and most definitely the programming that I put on for them.

Take tonight for example. I was doing some work while my children where up in the play room and they where watching the ever popular kids show “Dora the Explorer”. I thought to myself “this is this is on Noggin, it’s part of the Nickelodeon family of channels, it’s got to be safe”, but I was wrong. It was filled with all kinds of insane things that seemed cute and maybe even harmless on the surface.

For those of you who don’t know, Dora is this little Hispanic girl with a football shaped head. And that’s about the most sane thing about this show. Dora has a talking monkey that wears shoes as her friend. In the episode tonight, Dora was talking with her grandmother and her grandmother was telling her about making some chocolate treat. And she told Dora that the chocolate grew on a tree and that this tree was her friend and that the tree gave her hugs when she was sad. WTF?!?! And this tree sings with her, yeah the tree sings.

So Dora decides that she is going to go find said singing tree, but she has to check her map to find out how to get there. But for some reason she can’t check the map, you have to check the map and tell her how to get there. Oh and the map talks. Anyone else think that the creators of this show are constantly on an acid trip? Well the map says that to get to this magical chocolate tree that you need to go through the jungle and then to a cave. Say what?!?!

While un-chaperoned laces out and her talking monkey are in the jungle she comes up to a toucan who tells her that there are snapping turtles, snakes and a crocodile in the jungle and that these animals wont let her pass unless she feeds them cookies. Let’s think about this shall we, teaching kids to hand feed wild and dangerous animals. Yeah, I can see why this show is wildly popular.

So maybe feeding turtles isn’t a big deal. And the snakes, while not a bright idea still could be done with some distance and you might be safe. But a fucking crocodile!! Come on.

Then after jungle it’s off to the cave, but not just any cave, oh no no no, it’s a fucking bear cave. Sure, let’s teach our children to go to bear caves. Makes perfect sense to me! The monkey asked what happens if they meet the bear and Dora advised him that they “would have to be very careful”, ya think? Then the monkey and ole football head meet up with a talking iguana, sure it happens all the time. But the iguana tells them that they just have to sing to the bear to put it to sleep. I know that is what they tell you to do in wilderness survival school, to sing and to do so loudly! You know, draw lots of attention to yourself. And they where wondering where the bear was when they got to its cave, almost like they were disappointed because the bear wasn’t there. Of course the bear comes while they are at the cave and they sing it to sleep… yeah.

One of the other episodes had a water skiing bull. In the same show the talking map sent extra point head along with the pronouncing primate to “Pirate Island” where they had to sing and dance for trees so that the trees would let them by. Who sends a kid, even with a monkey to any place called “Pirate Island”?

Oh and don’t forget about the talking backpack and the stealing (and talking, apparently everything talks in this show) fox.

No wonder that the younger generations are fucking stupid. Look at what is (was in our case) entertaining them. Just remember that these are the people who are going to be taking care of us when we get old. You know, WE ARE SCREWED!

Don’t get dead

A Brand New Car!!

With the price of gas skyrocketing and showing no signs of slowing down, a lot of people are looking into buying new cars. What a Mammoth, royal pain in the ass this is. I have pissed off more car salesmen than George W. Bush has liberals. I just hate the games and I have a solution, I don’t haggle with them. And no, I am not stupid enough to pay their asking price. I just get tired of the time-wasting BS that you have to sit through, so I don’t let the salesmen be in control of the deal.

While buying a new car one time I let the salesman approach me and we begin the process. Of course he wanted to know what I had to trade in. To which I told him not to worry about that part until we agree on the price of the new car. He didn’t dig this but it’s my money, it’s my rules. So he ask me to come inside and let’s “run the numbers”. What he didn’t know was that I had done my research and had the deal cost & the invoice pricing with me. I also had dealer cost on all of the upgrades on the car.

So we are sitting at his desk and he is going through his typical line of BS which I let him finish. Again he tries to get my keys to see what my trade-in was worth. You know, to “speed up the process” while we are doing the paper work. Yeah, we aren’t going to do that until we agree on a price and I tell him that if you ask me for my keys again before we agree on the price that I will leave. I guess he understood because he had this dog with his tail between his legs look to him.

So we are sitting there and he tells me that the car cost $X and I tell him, “You know, that is more than the sticker price on the car right now” and he actually thinks that I am going to fall for this line of “Well the price I gave you is the MSRP and …” to which I tell him to “Stop right there, that is not MSRP, you need to go check your facts. The MSRP on this car is $X”. This guy is already pissing me off but I figure I will see what kind of deal we can work. So he says the words I was waiting to hear “we can probably come off of that a little bit, but I will have to go talk to my manager”. I love this, because this is when my method is the most effective. I looked him straight in the eye and tell him “You got one time, you tell your manager to come back with your best offer if it is in the price range that I am willing to pay we will do business, if not I will get out of your hair.” He has this puzzled look on his face and gets up and goes to the managers office for a few minutes. When he comes back he says we were able to get the car down to $X (not quite three hundred dollars under the sticker price). To which I thank him and tell him that I will be trying somewhere else. He is stumbling and mumbling like a fool and all but begging me to sit back down. “Mr. Sweezey, wait … Mr. Sweezey, let me go back and talk to him some more. Mr. Sweezey, come on now.” To which I told him, “What did I tell you? I told you that you had one shot and that was it, I don’t have time for you to go back and forth all day” He was trying to tell me how it was a negotiating process and blah blah blah. To which I replied that I don’t negotiate very well and that at this rate it was going to take a LONG time to get to the price I am willing to pay. After a brief conversation on the sales floor I busted out with the invoice pricing and the dealer cost which dumbfounded him. He looked at the prices and said “well yeah, those are right”. To which he said how about you sit back down and let talk some more? How about I bend over and you lick my butthole.

Before I could get to my car FOUR people came up to me pretty much begging me to stay and deal with them. I explained the way that I do business and that their salesmen wasn’t willing to work with me. Tah tah.

So I go to another dealership in the area and see the same car and start the processes again. I give the guy the low down that I gave the previous guy. Same song and dance, and I even told him, if you don’t think I will walk out on you give this guy a call and gave him the previous guys business card. So we are sitting there and I was just in a pissy mood so I cut to the chase and said to the guy “Look here is dealer cost, here is invice, and here is what I am willing to pay”.

Brace yourselves because this is about to get good.

The looks at me and says “Mr. Sweezey, you don’t want me to make any money on this deal?” I motion for him to come closers and I lean in over the table and tell him “I don’t give a f&$k if you make a penny on this deal.” I wish I had taken a picture of his expression. You would think that I just violated his mother in front of him.

But I will give him credit, he lasted longer than most of the others. So I give him the speech about having one chance with his manager and if we could make it work great and if not I was going to take off. He did well, he came back and was close to what I was willing to pay but I guess he thought he was going to test the waters with me a bit. By that I mean that I thanked him for his time and wished him good luck on selling that car to someone else. In a feverish rush he was working some numbers and said “Depending on your credit that is like $17 a month, would you really walk away from this deal for $17 a month? My reply to him was “Yep”.

Then this assmunch actually had the audacity to say to me “Come on, you got 17 extra dollars a month right” and told him “Not only do I have $17 a month, I will be keeping that $17 a month.” Again he says I can’t believe you would walk away from this deal over less than $20 a month. Mister, I will walk way from this deal over a quarter. Then he says it’s not really that much difference, hardly anything. So I say “Ok, you pay it then!” He didn’t like that option either. So I take off from this dealership. Sorry buddy but it’s not my problem that you made a piss-pour career choice.

Don’t get dead

Summer Fun

Ahh yes, school is out and the youth of America have gone wild. All is right in the world. But isn’t that what you are supposed to do when you are out of school for the summer?

I remember one summer when I lived in Tampa that I am surprised I lived thorough it. Not that I did anything all that dangerous (well not that relates to this story) but that I just did stupid shit. If being a moron wasn’t going to kill me, the punishment from my parents or my friend’s parents should have!

It was one of those nights where everyone told their parents they were spending the night at someone else’s house and we went out to pretty much be a menace to society. We didn’t do anything “all that bad”, not that we went out and built homeless shelters either. I mean who does construction at 2 in the morning, right?

I remember this one Saturday night so clearly. Me, George, Jamie and Scott were going to go to this party. We heard that there were supposed to be some girls from a different school there and we wanted to go check them out… oh and something about massive amounts of booze.

So there we are getting ready to go out when a bomb was dropped on us like we were in Hiroshima. Jamie’s mom, who was supposed to be out of town, was home. She wasn’t felling well and canceled a trip, that bitch! We wanted to go out and be hoodlums and she’s going to make us be half-way decent kids. We will see about this!

You see since Jamie’s mom was home, Jamie had to be home by midnight. And since we were going to take her car without her knowing it, with her home this was going to be quite a feat. Seeing as how the oldest one of us was probably around 15 we had pretty much blown right by the paddle store and was about to put the canoe into shit creek.

This would be when George and Scott had an idea, which is ALWAYS (repeat ALWAYS) dangerous. Since Jamie’s mom was not feeling well she was probably going to take some medicine to get some sleep… oh hell, I see where he is going with this. He continues with “She’ll be out cold. All we will have to do is push the car into and out of the driveway and we cool!” Sounds like a great idea right, at least on the surface. The jury is still out on if they are geniuses or madmen.

Scott even goes as far as to off to go ride his bike to the store to pick up some medicine if she needed it.

About 9 o’clock we say that we are going to watch a movie in the living room, this should pretty much force Jamie’s mom to go to bed. Which is all part of the master plan. So she retires to her room and we are watching the clock like we are waiting on the Governor to call with our stay of execution.

About 10:30 Jamie goes to check on his mom and says that she is out cold with the TV on. This is perfect, background noise!

We rush into Jamie’s room and change clothes while Jamie goes and gets the car keys. Finally about 11:00 we are all ready to go and we have the car keys, the car in the driveway, Jamie’s mom is just short of a medicated coma and we have background noise, what could go wrong?!

Out the window we go, Scott gets behind the wheel turns the key and puts the car in neutral. We push it out of the driveway. At this point we decided that this was too close to the house and that we needed to push it down the street just a bit, then we decided it was still to close and we push it a little farther. Jamie thinks we are still to close, Jamie’s ass got out voted this time. Hell, we might as well have pushed the car to the party if we kept going. So we fire up the car and off we go to this party.

It was a good party, lots of people there, music cranked up nice and loud and the cops came twice. Not to bad at all.

Now the party has wound down and it’s evident that it is time to go home. It’s not evident because people are leaving or because the cops told us to go home, it is evident because Jamie is pacing by the door like a puppy who needs to go outside and pee. He keeps on doing the head flinch then motioning to the door as if to say “Let’s get the hell out of here”. I am not sure, but I think he might have been nervous. Of course being the kind, passionate, caring people that we were we would hold up the keys to the car, jingle them, hold up a beer with our other hand, point to the beer and then point to girls. Jamie was PISSED! It was quite funny.

We finally give in and head home around 2:30 in the morning. The closer we got to Jamie’s neighborhood the more freaked out Jamie was getting. We wanted to give him a valium enema just so he would chill out.

So we get to the neighborhood and turned off the car to push it down the street and into the driveway. You know those neighborhoods where every third or fourth house looks alike? Well this was one of those neighborhoods. So we are pushing the car down the street just before 3 in the morning and with a bit of a buzz. If you have ever had to push a car before, you know that when you are tired it’s always easier to push it with your ass while you walk backwards, which is exactly what we are doing while Scott (who was the smallest of us) is steering the car. So Scott pulls into a driveway and we proceed to make our way back into the window of Jamie’s bedroom, me first. So I take the screen off and start to make my way into the house. At this point I stop and turn back to George and say “I think we are busted” which George answers with “Why?” and I said because Jamie’s mom put a lamp here. Jamie says “WHAT!?”

This is where the story gets interesting. Right after Jamie’s oh so nonchalant outburst I hear something in the room moving and it says “DADDY!” actually it yelled “DADDY!” It was a young, maybe 8 years old, African-American girl. Right after that, I see hallway lights coming on and this mountain of a man, who must have played on the offensive line for the Buccaneers, comes FLYING into the bedroom wielding a Louisville Slugger. So there I am pushing back against the window frame yelling “LET ME OUT!!! LET ME OUT!!” while Jamie, George and Scott are pushing me in yelling “GET IN!! GET IN!!” You know how people say if you are in certain situations that your adrenaline kicks in and you have super strength? Like a mom can pick up a car if her baby is trapped under it. That must have been what happened because I so how ended up falling out of the window and Canseco swung for the fences barely missing me and making confetti out of that lamp. I swear I could feel the breeze from that bat.

So yeah, we screamed like little girls. And then just hauled ass. At first, I didn’t know where I was going, I just knew that I was getting the hell out of there and hoping that I could outrun just one of them. Fortunately Kimbo Slice decided not to pursue us. Somehow we all ended up on the side of Jamie’s house out of breath and crouching down for some reason. Feverishly looking over our shoulders. George says “Damn that was close, but we are home now. Everything is cool” I hate to break it to ya there Einstein but Jamie’s moms car is parking down the street at Andre the Giants house and I will be dammed if I am going back for it tonight. To which George replied with “Oh, yeah, forgot about that” and Jamie let out a round of “OH SHIT!” over and over again, about 30 times in a row. Well nothing we can do about it now and we are damn sure busted so I am going to hop my happy ass into the right window and get some sleep, later fellas! Did I mention that Jamie is still freaking out and telling everyone how it was a bad idea? Yeah, he does that from all the time to all the time.

Bright and early the next morning Mr Giant comes pounding on the door and we all collectively answer the door. Our asses were puckered up so tight that we could have been a diamond factory. But we explained what happened to both Jamie’s mom and the Jolly Brown Giant and prepared ourselves for punishment like had never been seen before. I think I am still on restriction.

Lessons learned from this are Jamie is NEVER to be part of any secret or Governmental affairs, The game Password, Surprise Birthday parties, Charades or anything which requires someone to remain calm. Scott can’t tell the difference between shit and shinola. And George and I drink too much.

Don’t get dead