Happy Memorial Day

Nothing says Memorial Day like thousands of bikers...

...and babies drinking Jack Daniels.

Mike Franzione Gets Married

Remember the show Silver Spoons? Remember, Mikey Franzione, the kid that lived across the street from Ricky Shroeder? Of course you do – little overweight kid who’d come panting into Ricky’s house with big news and deliver that timeless catchphrase “You’re not gonna BELIEVE this!” And the crowd would just erupt with laughter because they just knew that line was coming? No? Think hard now. That's him, on the left. Ringing a bell yet? No? Then you must not be drunk on Bourbon Street.

Let me back up.

I’ve known Josh for twelve years. When I met him, I liked him because he was fat and poor and therefore made me look good by comparison. Sadly (for me, anyway), he has shed his extra pounds (through both rigorous exercise and shaving his back) and become a lawyer (in fact chief council at a major DC lobbying firm). He has also gotten digits from a stripper and been hit on in a crowded pool hall by a hot woman who, for whatever reason, was there by herself. These are all accomplishments that have thus far eluded me. Yet despite his apparent superiority (and my hatred of superior people) we remain friends, mostly because we have criminally immature senses of humor and the social graces of a drunken orangutan. Both of these came in handy at his bachelor party, for which we travelled to the Big Easy.

I’ve been to post-Katrina N’awlins quite a few times but only for business. I was pleased that because the shackles of the business world were thrown off, I could drink heavily, eat expensive meals, ogle woman like I was Bill Clinton, and throw money at strippers like you’d throw bread to starving ducks. Come to think of it, it would be exactly the same as my business meetings. The only major difference was instead of staying at a company-bought hotel in the French Quarter, we would be staying in a large mini-mansion in the Garden District. The mini-mansion turned out to be purple. And there were dozens of small handwritten notes from the owner pasted in various locations, warning us about flushing only toilet paper and not using certain balconies. Since we found no signs about having naked women dance in the living room or leaving massive piles of crawfish pieces all over the backyard, we weren’t too concerned.

There was far too much comedy to recount in one blog entry, so I shall present the highlights. However, we must begin with the story of Mikey Franzione, or else, to paraphrase Dickens, nothing that follows shall seem wondrous.

1) Mikey Franzione

Josh spent his youth trying to make it big in Hollywood, finally landing the coveted role of Mikey Franzione. He played the role for two years, until Alfonso Ribiero took over the role of Ricky’s best friend. Franzione had a catchphrase, a unique style of dress that was copied by pre-teens all over the country, and a very popular haircut. Unfortunately, after leaving the show, his had trouble finding work as an actor, so he finished high school and went on to become a lawyer.

Now reread the last paragraph with the understanding that only the last twelve words are true. The rest is crap. The picture is from Josh’s bar mitzvah. But damn if we didn’t tell that story to nearly every attractive woman we met on Bourbon Street, as well as some very unattractive ones. I would say that 95 percent of the people we told this story to claimed to remember Mike Franzione and his catchphrase (which we made Josh repeat ad nauseum). In a stroke of pure genius, one of Josh’s friends printed copies of the atrocious bar mitzvah picture on card stock and handed them out to people to help jog their memories of this character that didn’t exist. Most didn’t even need it. “Oh YEAH!” they’d yell. “I REMEMBER that kid!” There were a hundred hilarious moments that developed out of our ruse, including:

• Asking any restaurant or bar that had pictures on their walls (and some that didn’t) to add one of Josh. Most happily accepted. With those that didn’t, we just put one up anyway. For example, here is Josh on the wall of Pascal’s Manale, right below Bonnie Raitt:

I would imagine that if you were to hit Bourbon Street right now, at least half the bars would have a picture of Josh somewhere. I’m headed back in July, and I’ll report back.

• Several people asked Josh to sign the pictures, and some were not joking. Josh happily accepted with an “aw shucks, I’m just a regular guy” humility, writing “All my love” on each photo.


• We ended up giving a photo to a tall tattooed gentleman who was in a band that, he claimed “was opening for David Allen Coe’s nephew.” He said it with the same reverence that a musician in mid-1992 would say they were opening for Nirvana. After his girlfriend showed us her recently pierced nipples (yay Bourbon Street!) he began asking Josh about his agent. Fortunately, Josh’s friend Carlos stepped up and claimed to be said agent. Musician guy immediately asks for phone numbers and claims he can get us VIP treatment at one of the lesser strip clubs. Apparently it didn’t occur to musician guy to ask why, if Carlos was such a good agent, Josh hadn’t had any work since 1984. I get the feeling that opening for David Allen Coe’s nephew doesn’t get you a lot of exposure. (And for the record, we did get VIP treatment at the strip club, if only because we made up 80 percent of the crowd the moment we walked in. As one of Josh’s brothers observed, the women dancing in this place would be on the Sunday 10 a.m. to noon shift at any other establishment.)

2) Shooting
Friday night at about 12:30 a.m. we wandered into a club that had a live blues band downstairs and a DJ upstairs. After being there a few minutes, Josh and some other folks wandered out onto the balcony, a beautiful view of the sea of humanity that is Bourbon Street on a Friday night. Then gunshots rang out. As Josh told it, the crowd below parted like the red sea, and the people on the balcony ran back inside. Immediately rumors started circulating, the most common being that a young woman was shot in the head and that right there, see that stuff? That stuff was her brains. No, really, gray matter. You can tell from up here. And look at the blood. Gross, huh?

The area was promptly cordoned off and a fire truck came, but the amazing thing is life just kinda went on on Bourbon Street. People found their way around the roped off block, found another bar and more booze, and the music continued. The resolve of the true partier is amazing – it’ll take more than just a girl caught in the crossfire to ruin their good time. Turns out she was only shot in the leg and ended up fine, but it did provide a story. Probably not as good as the story she’ll be telling in HER blog, but still.

3) Food
Josh is a true epicurean and I suspect that half the reason he chose New Orleans as a location for his bachelor party was that, beyond drinking and carousing, there is nothing to do but eat. Which is what we did. We at K Paul's on Friday night and Pascal's Manale on Saturday night. Massively over sized portions of good Cajun food. However, the highlight may be on Saturday afternoon, when after consuming massive amounts of hangover-curing food at a Garden District diner, we ducked into a small fish market and bought several pounds of boiled crawfish and andouille sausage. By the time we were done, the back deck of our mansion looked like the beach at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan if Spielberg had opted for crustaceans instead of human actors. There was crawfish shrapnel everywhere.

4) The Hour-Long Hora
At some point during the weekend, Josh revealed his plans to do an hour-long hora at his wedding. (The hora is a traditional Jewish dance in which the wedding guests dance in circles while lifting family members up in a chair.) This was agreed upon ages ago by his fiancee and him, and was ironclad and unbreakable. Josh's brother Mitch, the best man, spent the better part of the weekend trying to put a stop to this. Bad enough we had to were tuxedos, Mitch told his brother, but to make us lift you up and down in a chair for an hour...well that's just torture. Mitch began an email dialogue with his future sister-in-law, and pleaded to anyone who would listen about the insanity of this request.

But we knew Josh. We knew that if Josh's fiancee told him that he was to come down the aisle wearing a leopard-print loincloth and riding on a wild boar, he would ask if he was allowed to wear synthetic leopardskin or if he needed to book passage to Africa to hunt down a real one. Thus, this one-hour hora was happening no matter how much protestation was to go on. But that didn't stop us, the future wedding guests, from trying. Every time something of difficulty arose, it was met with "at least it's not an hour-long hora." When one of us dropped out of a Hold 'Em tournament early, he was met with "you lasted about an tenth as long as Josh's hora." As we waited for strippers to arrive, we asked if we should get a chair so Josh could lift them up and down for an hour. Josh became increasingly agitated as the weekend went on, which made it all the more funny. At one point, he "threatened" to walk out of a diner at which he had just ordered an omelet with chili on top and a milkshake. Unfortunately, he came back.

5) Strippers
The beauty of the successful bachelor party is that, no matter where you choose to have it, no matter who you choose to invite, no matter how classy you pretend to make it, there will always be one constant. At some point at least one, and usually more than one, woman will get naked in exchange for money. Without that, you just don’t have a bachelor party.

Surprisingly, given the post-Katrina economy, strippers were hard to come by. We ended up getting two women, one of whom claimed to be 29. If you know anything about strippers, you know their ages are distorted in proportion to how old they actually are. It’s a complex mathematical formula, but by way of example, if she says she 29, she’s 36. If she says she's 18, she’s 54. It’s complicated. We perused dozens of websites and called dozens of phone numbers, looking for just the right ladies. Most of the ladies we called had names like "Princess" or "Diamond." I'm always amused when strippers name themselves after inanimate objects like Diamond or Platinum; essentially you're telling me that you look expensive but in truth are going to lie there and not do much. A stripper calling herself "Gyrating Whore" would get a lot of business. One of our strippers was named "Judi," a name that I felt was better suited to a librarian or flight attendant.

We decided to have our entertainment perform on what was left of our pictures of Josh, so we scattered them on the floor:

The image of two strippers gyrating all over pictures of a young Mikey Franzione is the stuff of True Hollywood Story. Luckily the strippers asked that towels be laid on the floor; otherwise Josh’s attempt at a comeback may have been thwarted.

Here’s the other funny thing about bachelor parties (or at least the ones I’ve been to): men, despite all their bravado and boisterousness and bragging and testosterone, usually go a big wet one in front of two strange naked women. The 14 gentleman attending Josh’s bachelor party, who up until then had been howling-at-the-moon wild, sat and stared as if they were watching a Truffaut film. All except Josh, who was very busy being alternately mauled, tortured, and abused by the ladies. For me to do what they did to Josh would require much more money than what we gave them. I almost felt bad. They may have given him a discount, however, as he is a former child star.

News From the Brook

When will the good people of West Brookfield address the obvious nepotism of the Nadon family? More importantly, when will they once again have pigs on their farm so my kids can see them? Get it together, West Brookfield. The town is falling apart.

WEST BROOKFIELD— Town Water Commissioner Barry J. Nadon Sr. has sued the town and the Board of Selectmen to recoup his legal costs and possible other damages in defending himself last year against charges by the state. The town contends the suit, which does not specify an amount of money sought, is without merit and has requested its dismissal. The state Inspector General’s office last year accused Water Superintendent Ronald J. Marchessault of Wickaboag Valley Road of allowing Mr. Nadon and fellow Water Commissioner Lester J. Paquette Sr. to be in charge of local drinking water in non-emergency situations.

The state Board of Certification of Operators of Drinking Water Facilities said that action violated board regulations, because the two commissioners were not licensed for such activity. Mr. Marchessault agreed to a $2,000 civil penalty and a year’s probation. Mr. Nadon and Mr. Paquette were each assessed a $250 penalty.

Barry J. Nadon Sr. is the father of Selectman Barry J. Nadon Jr.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

And now we present a new feature called Your Tax Dollars At Work. I know it's an obvious title, but if we called it Your Elected Officials Are Fucking Useless we'd probably end up on some sort of government watch list. We'll start the feature with a number of interesting tidbits from Congress over the last few months.

1) The Congressional Record from Tuesday, March 18, lists the Senate action for the entire day as: "Senate convened at 12:00:02 p.m. and recessed at 12:00:33 p.m., until 11 a.m. on Friday, March 21, 2008."

You read that right. According to the official record of the Senate, they were in session for less than one second. Senators showed up so there would be a quorum, someone was chosen to be President Pro Tempore, someone picked up a gavel, and the whole thing was done in three-tenths of a second. Imagine if everyone could have that kind of schedule. Drive all the way to the office, head upstairs, find your boss, and say "heyit'sgoodtoseeyouhopethingsarewellanywaytimetoclockoutI'llseeyoutomorrowbye." Come to think of it, that's about what I do now.

2) From January 22 to March 14, there have been only 85 roll call votes in the Senate. Only 85 times in two months when they felt the need to actually take action on something. Of these 85, a few are completely incomprehensible:

Upon Reconsideration Specter Amdt. No. 4189; To repeal section 13203 of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 by restoring the Alternative Minimum Tax rates that had been in effect prior thereto.

And a few are just effin' silly: "Allard Amdt. No. 4246; To raise taxes by $1.4 trillion for the purpose of fully funding 111 new or expanded federal spending programs."

Even more amazing, more than half of those 85 votes occurred on March 13 alone, when the Senate began voting on the FY 2009 budget resolution. There's only one thing Congress absolutely has to do in an election year (or any year), and that's figure out how to spend the people's money. That whips them into shape in a hurry. Even Clinton and Obama took a break from traversing the country to vote on March 13. Not McCain, though. It would be hard to rail on incessantly about the spending habits of the Federal Government if you actually had a recorded vote on the subject.

3) Bear with me on this one, it'll take you a minute. First, read this. It's just the one page, and trust me, it's worth your while. These are the words of Congressman Rob Bishop of Utah who, I can only hope, was speaking off the cuff, because if he actually took the time to put pen to paper and create this long, rambling, incomprehensible diatribe against who-knows-what, the people of Utah should demand a recall. It reads like an 11th grader's history report that was cobbled together at 6:25 a.m. after a long night of sucking whipped cream cans and watching Superbad.

The Constitution is not a living organism. It is a legal document. It says some things and doesn’t say other things. The Constitution is a piece of paper that has words, but each of those words have a meaning.

Let me see if I've got this straight. The Constitution is not, in fact, alive. That's just a figure of speech. Okay, I'm with you. It says some things. Now that's true, there's words all over it, I've seen them. I just don't understand most of them. But, according to Rep. Bishop, it doesn't say other things, for example "All male Americans shall have the right to pharmaceutical help if they can't get their dick hard. We'll even come up with a fictional disease to make men who can't get it up feel better."

And each of those words have a meaning. I kind of disagree with that, actually. For example, Article III, Section 3, says this: "The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted." I suppose, technically, each of those words does have a meaning, but they become gibberish when they are strung together, like a Miss America contestant's speech.

Then Bishop goes into something about Fawlty Towers (it was good that the editors of the Congressional Record knew how to spell "Cleese," unlike the Worcester Telegram and Gazette), which leads into something about George Burns, which leads into the fact that kids these days don't know how to make blonde jokes. For a supposedly serious discussion of the Constitution, the non sequiters are pretty overwhelming. It's like watching Mystery Science Theater. My favorite quote, however, is when Bishop says:

When (Lincoln) gave the Gettysburg Address, he talked about an indivisible Nation that started four score and seven years ago. That was a reference back to 1776 and the Declaration of Independence. To be accurate, he should have said three score and 15 years ago was when we became an individual nation, because that was the ratification of the Constitution of the United States.

It appears that Bishop is attempting to either A) make Lincoln sound stupid, or B) make himself sound smart. Hey, I can add better than Lincoln! I should be President! I can find fault with one of the greatest speeches in the English language! Love MEEEEEEE!!!!

4) Proof of the separation of church and state: the phrase "God bless" has been said by a Member of Congress on the House or Senate floor 446 times in less than a year. Let's delve into this a little further:

4a) Sometimes when Members of Congress get bored, they give shout-outs to friends and loved ones while giving speeches on the floor. I assume that they call the person and tell them to watch, much like when you're sitting behind home plate at a baseball game. "Hey dude, I'm totally on C-SPAN right now! Turn it on! Tape it man!"

So it was that Rep. Steve Pearce used his time on the House floor to wish a happy anniversary to his wife. Keeping with the separation of church and state theme, Pearce said

We have been richly blessed with health, home and happiness. We have freedom, good mental acuity, spiritual fulfillment and peace that flows through our lives. Our abiding joy in our Father, the Creator, our pleasure in our grandchildren, our sense of pride in our daughter, and our sense of love and respect for our son-in-law, all are deep wellsprings of cool water that refresh our lives and renew us daily.

Sounds like Pearce has been taking writing lessons from Rob Bishop. Don't be too sure about that mental acuity, Congressman. He should have added "Oh, and honey, if you think of it, stop at CVS on the way home and get me wart remover and some Gold Bond powder."

I also like that he has a "sense of pride" in his daughter, and a sense of "love and respect" for his son-in-law. I understand you don't want to be repetetive in your speechwriting, but the implication is that he A) Doesn't love his daughter, and B) isn't proud of his son-in-law. Although if you're being technical you could argue he doesn't love or feel pride for either of them, merely the "sense of love," and the "sense of pride." Personally, I love my son. I feel a "sense of love" for my dog. I'm proud of my daughter. I feel a "sense of pride" when she makes it a whole night without urinating in her bed.

4b) One final point on this theme. Read Congressman Paul Broun's speech about why separation of church and state is bad for America and, apparently, washing machines. It starts in the middle of this page and continues on this page. Four things about this speech struck me funny. The first was his admission of "several broken marriages." That's funny; the biography on his website only lists one marriage, apparently thusfar unbroken: "Dr. Broun has been married to his wife Niki since 1985 and has two grown daughters, a teen-aged son and two grandchildren." I guess in the interest of space he opted to leave the first two or three marriages out.

The second thing I love is this section detailing how he found religion:

I was watching a professional football game, and as the cameras panned the crowd, there was a banner hanging over a railing up in the stands. And the big banner was there. The gentleman had this big rainbowtype of hair wig on, and the banner said John 3:16. At that time, it piqued my interest.

That's right; he found religion from seeing a guy in a rainbow wig at a football game on TV. Compared to that, the Jehovah's Witnesses that come to my house look like Tibetan monks. What if the rainbow wigged gentleman had had a sign that said "Hail Satan?" Or "Fuck Jesus?" What would have happened then? I'll bet there'd be more "episodes of broken relationships and financial problems" if he'd seen that sign instead. I suppose I shouldn't poke fun; I converted to Judaism after seeing a shirtless guy at a hockey game holding a sign that said "Red Wings Suck."

Third, Broun asks his fellow members to "read the Constitution, read what our Founding Fathers who were Bible-believing Christians believed, that every aspect of life should follow the dictates of God’s inherent Word." Granted, you can't really expect that a man who found Jesus via a drunken football fan to know too much about history. But if Rep. Broun had decided to pick up a history book instead of, say, watching football, he'd know that many of the Founding Fathers were not exactly true believers. For example, John Adams:

I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!

Or Thomas Jefferson:

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

Or Ben Franklin:

But scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself.

There you have it, Rep. Broun. The three principle drafters of the Declaration of Independence. Clearly "Bible-believing Christians."

Finally, Broun ends his sermon by saying "So I rise today to support Him (Jesus, that is) first and foremost and support the Bible as the basis of our Nation. I look forward to serving the Lord Jesus Christ." Seems to me you should be serving the good people of Georgia's 10th district before anyone else. But the Bible as the basis of our Nation? Which part? If you're talking Old Testament, you want a nation that's hastily thrown together in seven days, has names too long to pronounce, and could be wiped out by flood at any given time. And the New Testament is hardly a book to base a nation on so much as it is the story of a guy who was broke, cavorted with whores, and had some good ideas that not everyone listened to. In fact a lot of people thought he was an insane man, spouting gibberish and making an ass out of himself. Come to think of it, Rep. Broun may well be the messiah.

New Theme Song for the Working Man

Let us sing our glorious song of freedom.

Your A'Peein'

We live deep enough in the woods to be serenaded by coyotes and owls at night, but close enough to a major highway that we can hear helicopters and sirens at all hours of the day. I can sleep through all of those noises as if I’ve mixed Nyquil and Demerol. However, if my daughter so much as whimpers in her sleep, my wife and I are as wired as meth addicts within seconds. Parents have an almost supernatural ability to hear their children in distress in the middle of the night and spring to action when they need us. Thus, when our daughter popped out of bed a while back complaining that the bed was wet, we took charge. We did our duty as parents to clean the mess and ensure her that everything was okay.

She has since wet the bed every night. EVERY NIGHT. Usually between 2:10 and 2:50 a.m. EVERY. FUCKING. NIGHT.

Here is how things have changed over that period of time:

Night #1: Within seconds of opening her door, Debra and I are in her room, comforting her and telling her that accidents happen. Debra changes her pajamas, tops and bottoms, because we can’t have Abby wearing Ariel pants with a Tinkerbell shirt. Debra also makes sure she uses Pjs with pants rather than shorts because Abby gets cold at night. Meanwhile, I take off the wet sheets, flip the mattress, and put on clean dry sheets. I even put on a new pillowcase because God forbid someone comes over in the middle of the night and sees that we’ve got a Little Mermaid pillowcase on Cinderella sheets. We make sure she has a cup of water, we tuck her in, we make sure her music is loud enough. We each give her a kiss, and quietly slip out. Damn, we’re good parents, we think to ourselves. Despite these occasional middle-of-the-night inconveniences, having kids is wonderful.

Night #2: Again we spring into action. This time, though, the mattress doesn’t need to be flipped, because of course the other side still has drying pee on it. I change the sheets, of course, but the pillowcase is fine as is. Debra changes the pajama bottoms, but the top isn’t wet, so it can stay on, despite the fact that she’s now wearing a Tinkerbell shirt and Little Einsteins pants. Hey, they’re both Disney, it’s all good. We kiss her goodnight and slip out, checking the volume of her Backyardigans CD. Ha ha, we say nervously, let’s hope this doesn’t happen tomorrow night. Ha. Ha ha.

Night #3: Abby’s door opens and we both sit up very slowly. I’ll get it, I say. Debra doesn’t object. Quite the contrary - she flops back down like she's been shot. I take the sheets off and flip the mattress, noting the stain that is still there from two nights prior, but at least it’s dry. The new sheets don’t even have cartoon characters on them, that’s how far into the linen closet we’ve gotten. I change her into Jo Jo's Circus pants, again keeping with the Disney theme. Abby is asleep the second I put her on her clean sheets and I’m tempted to just crash right there with her. Her music has turned off, but I'm really not in the mood to fuck around with her radio at the moment.

Night #4: Abby’s door opens and we just exhale in frustration. Your turn, I say. I did this last night. Debra takes off the sheets but is too tired and/or not strong enough to flip the mattress because there’s about nine gallons of piss inside of it and it’s like moving a waterbed. We are down to shorts now because we haven’t had time to do laundry. So Debra puts on the Little Einsteins shirt that should have gone with the pants we changed her into the other night and generic Old Navy shorts. Luckily Abby is asleep as Debra changes her so she doesn’t object, but the next morning Abby will come into our bedroom stark raving naked because she doesn’t like the way those Pjs look together at all.

Night #5: Abby’s door opens and I shout an expletive. It’s my turn in the rotation and I realize we are out of clean sheets, so the only thing I can do is put a towel over the pee. I change her into a pair of shorts that probably fit her nine months ago, but now make her look like she should be riding in a French bicycle race. In an adorable little tired voice, she says “I’m cold,” and I say “that’s because you keep peeing in your freakin’ bed. It’s cold to sleep in pee. If you stop peeing you’ll be warm.” I think if she’d been more awake she may have argued, but she just falls back asleep.

Night #6: Debra just screams “OH MY GOD WHY DID WE HAVE CHILDREN GODDAMMIT THIS IS YOUR FAULT SHE HAS YOUR BLADDER FUCK YOU.” I start doing the math in my head - if she does this every night until she is, say, twelve…how many sheets is that? How many mattresses? How many pairs of Little Mermaid pajama pants? Yes, I know they make those little plastic diapers, but isn’t it worse that she’ll be sleeping in her own pee? At this point, do I care? At any rate, Debra makes her way into Abby’s room, but I’m not sure what transpires because I’m asleep by the time she gets back.

Night #7: I don’t even bother looking for sheets, I just get a towel from the linen closet and put it over the pee. “Sleep on the other side of the bed,” I tell Abby, but she’s already unconscious so she doesn’t hear me. I can’t find any clean pajamas at all, so I put her in a pair of ballerina tights. I figure what the hell, they’re probably warm. The mattress is starting to smell like Gary Busey, but I don’t give a crap because I don’t have to sleep on it.

Night #8: The maid has come, so in theory I’ve got a closet full of clean sheets that I could put on her bed, but there aren’t words to describe how little I give a shit. Changing sheets involves lifting the corners of the mattress and pulling them over and...I mean, fuck that. I put a towel on the pee and STRONGLY debate whether or not I really even need to change her pajamas since most of the pee seemed to drip down her leg and out the foothole. But again, God bless the maid, she’s got clean Pjs so we might as well use them. Only I can’t find them. Our maid has a strange habit of washing, drying, and folding laundry and putting it in random places. It’s not in Abby’s room, it’s not in our room…but I find a pair of our son’s sweatpants and even though they look like clown pants they seem comfortable. She’ll probably appreciate being able to take a leak on someone else’s clothes anyway.

Night #9: Change pants. Towel on the bed. Pray to God to strike me dead.

Last night: Debate whether or not to call the pediatrician to ask if it’s legal or even possible to render Abby surgically unable to pee. Do they have foster families that take kids only at night? Can we stop giving her liquids altogether?

I suppose it could be worse - she could be shitting the bed every night. At this point I’d probably just throw a towel over that too. On an unrelated note, if anyone needs a slightly used mattress for a toddler bed, I can get you one for a VERY reasonable price.

News From the Brook

Forty students escaped paying a $50 school parking fee for a good chunk of the school year at Quaboag Regional Middle High School. Of the 52 students who requested a parking permit, only 12 paid the fee before the start of the school year, Principal Michael B. Rooney told the regional school committee last night. James M. Kordek of Brimfield Road, a former deputy police chief in town, came before the board to complain about the situation. It is unfair to those who paid, he said, if so many other students who had not paid were allowed to park at the school off Old West Brookfield Road.