Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 12:02 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
I didn’t play soccer again this weekend, probably the last time I’ll need to rest this stupid, stupid shin for my stupid, stupid, injury. Instead of soccer, which at least is fun, I went to a BD party for a 75-year-old at my sister-in-laws' house in Jersey. This party involved about 6.5 hours of standing around (not sitting and resting my shin), occasionally chasing the stray three-year-old nephew who had wandered too close to the pool and was not being watched by his responsible party. I can’t stomach three-year-olds wandering perilously close to large, in-ground pools. I just can’t.
On one such occasion, I distracted a three-year-old lad by playing a game wherein he was controlling my legs and making me walk away from the pool. He guided me over to a plastic storage bin and I feigned crashing into it because three-year-olds are universally delighted by such chicanery. As I completed my dramatic flourish, I felt a hot needle in my leg. Then another. Then I noticed that the three-year-old, who only moments earlier was precariously standing on the edge of an in-ground pool, was now surrounded by a cloud of angry bees. One of these bees stung him in the hand. Yet another stung me right on my now-infamous shin contusion. I whisked him away and into the house, feeling additional hot needles in additional body parts, so that we could both get ice. My sister-in-law comes in behind us laughing that “Oh yeah, there’s a bees nest in that bin.” That might’ve been good information to have had earlier in the afternoon. You know, before my nephew and I had become welt-ridden pin cushions for the Rural New Jersey Bee Cooperative.
Although I could say this about just about any other activity in the world, I’d have been better off playing soccer. Without shin pads.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 1:39 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
I had a parallel experience to your In-law Party for the Advancement of Child Safety. On Saturday I played a show out in a rural area just outside Eugene that contains many farms and wineries. We played the show in a covered horse arena. Outside the arena there was a barbecue area and further on there were more fenced-in horse fields and goat pens – a really quaint, well-kept farm. The flies were bad, but that’s to be expected when you mix the errant spillage of Ninkasi with shredded, horses**t-tinged bark.
I was told to advertise said party as “kid-friendly.” But in retrospect, I would not have complied. When we got there (early) there were already a bunch of filthy kids running around everywhere, petting and feeding the horses and goats, unattended. Our singer was particularly appalled that some little kids were feeding and petting the Shetlands and the two stallions, which can apparently be mean and aggressive, and was telling me so when she realized the pens in their entirety were surrounded by electric fencing. No one was injured, thankfully, before we could get the word out.
When we walked back into the arena, we noticed a couple handfuls of obviously underaged kids hanging out by the kegs and drinking beer. As I poured my first, I was introduced to the host’s oldest daughter, possibly 15 years old, who was quick to proclaim her hatred for beer and take a greedy gulp from a Smirnoff pint that had some kind of stawberry mixer poured into it only enough to change its hue to a wan pink.
While the bands played, the marijuana abounded. Kids ran in and out and from between the legs of parents who passed more joints than I can ever remember seeing in one place at one time. Outside, having fed everyone, the BBQers did bong rips and got the late-night snacks ready. From the stage, I saw a guy with no hair on top of his head, but dreads down to his knees, with a lit spliff in his mouth, swinging a 3-year-old girl (presumably his daughter) in time with the music.
It was bizarro world. The only person to get mildly hurt was a 30-something who apparently drunkenly stumbled into one of the lit grills. He disappeared after that and we’re not sure how he got home. Maybe they fed him to the pigs.
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From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 2:21 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Your Deathtrap for Children sounds like it was a lot more fun than my Deathtrap for Children.
Interestingly, I’d have brought toddlers to a “kid friendly” party at a winery-farm, but not my teens and preteens. Toddlers like farm animals, and the farmers usually structure the kid-animal interactions in a safe manner. Preteens and teens don’t need to see adults making drunken/stoned a$$e$ of themselves as they’re starting to make their own decisions about how to behave at parties. Unfortunately, the party I went to over the weekend featured adults making drunk/stoned a$$es of themselves and I had my teens/preteens there. I was able to occupy them with babysitting tasks, which helped. I’d have pulled it all off too, if I’d known where the bees lived ahead of time.
Remember: always scout out the locations of major beehives when watching other people’s brats at parties you didn’t want to go to in the first place. Also, don’t swing your child while holding a giant spliff in your lips. You could put out someone’s eye.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:05 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Naw, these guys are lifers... real pros. He probably rolled the thing with one hand while playing with his kid with the other. Anyway, who would want to be responsible for wasting that dank, Yreka stuff on their kid’s eyeball? (Note: if this really happens, make sure said child goes to detox).
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From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:15 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Unless the kid has REOG (Really Early-Onset Glaucoma). Interestingly, scientists have found a link between REOG and dreadlocked parents.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:29 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Maybe so, but REOG is treated by smoking the spliff, not inserting it into the maladied eye. Liquid LSD on the other hand... in the Northwest they refer to the ocular dose as “the ladder.”
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From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:46 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
As a parent thoroughly experienced in administering medicines to 3-year-olds, I’m not sure how you get a child of that age either to smoke a medicine or take it in directly through the eye. It’s hard enough to get a liquid dose in through the mouth if the child is at all finicky and the medicine doesn’t taste like bubblegum. I’d think you’d need a suppository form of LSD to assure that the child actually received the dose. They could call the suppository form “the chute.” Or “the brown acid.”
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From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 4:22 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
To get a child to smoke their medicinal cannabis, train them with cigarettes. Show them a TMZ video of Miley Cyrus getting caught smoking. Make sure you supply the proper smokes to the child: Marbs or Camels or any brand that is thoroughly and purposefully addictive (stay away from American Spirits and Winstons). The child will be begging you for his/her maryjane in no time! [Surgeon General’s Warning: Quitting Smoking When You’re Five Or Six Greatly Reduces Serious Threats To Your Health]
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From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 5:07 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
I think there’d be an entire new market for Dora the Explorer nicotine patches. For boys, of course, there’d be the Diego nicotine patch. The picture on the patch could be Dora (or Diego) smiling broadly and saying “No fumar!”
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From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 6:21 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Your organic garden and The “No Fumar!” Patch® are two ways to start a healthy lifestyle change that’s easy and fun!!
If we get Michelle Obama’s endorsement, we’re rich.
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