Homer lives!
D’oh! We both love beer. We both were tipping the scales at 239lbs. We both admired Ned Flanders wife’s boobies… before she passed away of course. However, last week, the Homer/Fat Tom coincidences got a little downright eerie.
When I found out one of my kid’s had a high IQ (a la Lisa Simpson), I immediately wanted to scream, “NERD!” and then have the mailman take a paternity test. Instead, we went the hoity-toity route and checked out some private schools. Maybe it was being in public schools my whole life that made me agree with Homer when he ditched English class and said, “Pffftt… English…I’m never going to England.” But our child had been chosen for a school voucher, and who was I to not maximize her future income potential… in the hopes she would put me in a nice rest home when I am drooling on myself… next year.
Our appointment at the private school didn’t get off to the best start because I could swear that while stressing the importance of being on time for once in my life, “blah blah blah,” “are you even listening?”"11:30″ ”Hello, can you beer me?” Mmm… beer. So I took that if I ever wanted to see my precious beer again, I better be there by 11:30. Luckily, when she called at 10 minutes after 11, I was only 5 minutes away but that didn’t prevent her from yelling at me, “I told you it was at 11 and how important it was, why don’t you ever glisten?” I just assumed she was having her Mr. Clean fantasy again and stepped on the gas pedal to ensure I wasn’t even later than I already was.
The clock said 11:15 when Fat Tom Andretti burned rubber the wrong way up the 1 way exit. Unfortunately, the principal waited for me instead of starting the boring stuff without me. Like I usually am at 11:15 (or any other :15 for that matter), I was starving. “Do you have ANYTHING I can eat, I’m withering away over here” I whined to my wife. She dug through her purse and offered me a female hygiene product (which I passed on) and a chocolate chewy dip (which I wolfed down in about .02 seconds). Perfect timing too, because it was our turn to shine for the principal.
As we sat down in her furnace/office, I: 1. sweated profusely and 2: thought of ways I could impress her. I was a little confused when she started by handing me a napkin. I knew it had to be some sort of IQ test, so I immediately made an origami dragon/ kitty-cat that could pass as a scrunched up ball. When my wife shot me a look that said, “All of my relatives EVER were right about you,” I knew she wasn’t impressed with my work of art. “Uhhmm.. honey, I think you might have a tiny little bit of that melted chocolate chewy dip ALL OVER your ENTIRE face.” I still didn’t get that my origami art was just supposed to be used to clean my face… and nose… and ears. So instead of completely wasting my napkin, I went the smart route and used the now saturated armpits of my shirt. So after mumbling something about feeling sick, the principal just stared at me. She may or may not have had the hots for me.
She started with a seemingly benign question like, “Can you tell me about your little gifted kid?”
I’ve never been one to pass on the opportunity to tell a funny, so I let her know that I would tell her all about my kids, if I hadn’t just dropped them at the pool. It quickly became apparent that this woman had no sense of humor and I better impress her with how smart I is. I thought she was just having trouble reading my chicken scratch when she pushed the application back to me and asked what a word said. Maybe it wasn’t my best writing, but I thought any idiot should have been able to tell that I wrote, “YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” on the application next to where it said, “Sex.” At that point, she looked at me and said, “Do you mind if just the adults talk? I told my daughter to beat it, but the principal didn’t say anything and just kept looking at me like she was waiting for me to do something. I didn’t know if she was looking for weakness, so I just kept staring back at her. When I started to feel that familiar droopy eye feeling, I stood up but still didn’t back down in the staring contest. My wife whispered, “XYZ!!!” and I corrected her to the principal, “She means E=MC sextupled… our little nerd discovered that Einstein made a mistake with that whole squared stuff.” I slowly walked out backwards with my head held high… and my zipper stuck low.
The good news was that they accepted my daughter anyway. The bad news is that we just got an email on Friday stating that the voucher program was revoked. And after I worked so dang hard to get her in! There was only one thing that could help…. Duff… or its equivalent. Luckily my town had a Scottish festival this weekend that offered plenty of beer. It allowed me to get drunk, lift up men’s kilts, and ask in my best Scottish rogue, “Where’s Willy?!?!”
