I am an excellent father and husband.
A true family leader.
As such, I often find it necessary to call Family Councils so that my wife Rachelle, and our three year-old son, Jones,
can discuss important issues as they arise. These are the minutes from a recent Council:
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Michael: Okay, Council #37 is now in order. I know that Jones has a matter that’s been troubling him. Jones, would you like to take Thor’s Hammer from daddy so that you might air your grievances?
Jones: NO!!! I WANT CAPTAIN AMERICA’S SHIELD!!
Michael: We’ve talked about this Jones, you wave Captain America’s shield when you want to be acknowledged by the Daddy Moderator, and you hold Thor’s Hammer when you have the floor. It’s sometimes hard to keep straight in your head, but it’s very important.
Rachelle: Why? Why is it important?
Michael: You see Jones, Mommy just forgot to wave Captain America’s shield to signal that she wished to speak, so the Daddy Moderator has no choice but to OWWW! Jesus Christ Rachelle! That thing hurts! You do know I’m on blood thinners, right? You know that’s going to bruise. It’s not just against protocol to throw the shield, it’s medically unsafe!
Jones: NO TALK DADDY!! JONES TALK!!
Michael: I cede Thor’s Hammer to Jones.
Rachelle: Jonesy, what’s the matter?
Jones: I want to break a chair.
Rachelle: Because of something daddy did?
Jones: Yes. Daddy did it.
Rachelle: What did daddy do?
Jones: I’M GREEN HULK!
Michael: (Waving Captain America’s shield ) Jones? Jones? Can daddy please have Thor’s Hammer so he can speak?
Jones: NO! YOU LIZARD MAN NOW, DADDY!
Michael: Ha, see?! He wants to break a chair because he’s green Hulk, not because I did anything wrong!
Rachelle: Oh, really? Jones, is green Hulk mad because daddy is always finishing Jones’ dinosaur puzzles?
Jones: Yes!
Michael: You know, I put our Family Council protocols in place for a reason. Without strict adherence to shield/hammer regulation the chain of evidence falls apart! And Rachelle, you should know better than to ask leading questions of a child!!
Jones: GREEN HULK SMASH DADDY WITH CHAIR!
Michael: No! Put that down! I’m not kidding, Jones. Put. It. Down.
Jones: You Lizard Man, daddy, green Hulk smash you face!!
Rachelle: Oh my, green Hulk is so strong, I think Lizard Man had best do exactly what you say and let Jones work on his puzzles on his own, and at his own pace!
Michael: Lizard Man is sorry to have finished your puzzle.
Rachelle: Lizard Man has OCD. He has it bad.
Michael: No. Lizard Man does not. He just thinks that if you start something, it is your obligation to finish it.
Rachelle: Lizard Man thinks no such thing. Lizard Man has seen about five minutes of every show on Netflix, before abandoning them. Lizard Man started driving lessons, but never took a driver’s test, and he’s been on page 36 of The Angel Effect for what? Four months now? Six months? Years, maybe? Lizard man is a liar! It’s his evil super power, green Hulk! You must smash the lies!!
Michael: This Family Council is now adjourned!!
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Rachelle: Pickle, I’m afraid we’re going to have to make some sacrifices in order to afford some help looking after Jones.
Rachelle: Well, I’ll be going back to work in the fall, and unless you think you can look after Jones on your own, we’re going to need somebody to help.
Rachelle: No.
Rachelle: No, I’m positive.
Rachelle: I can’t take Jones in to work with me.
Rachelle: For a million fucking reasons, okay?
Rachelle: Look, I’ve crunched some numbers and you’re going to have to get rid of your subscription to the Baseball Channel
and stop ordering lunch from Uber Eats each day.
Rachelle: Sigh.
Rachelle: I am not “busting your balls.”
Rachelle: Yes, you probably will starve.
Rachelle: It will be tragic, especially after all you’ve gone through, but at least there will be Jones to carry on.
Rachelle: I’ll make sure he knows of his father’s sacrifice, how you stopped watching baseball 8 hours a day and eating restaurant lunches so that you could afford to pay somebody else to look after him.
Rachelle: Look, I’m not harsh, just a truth teller. You knew that when you married me.
Rachelle: I don’t understand.
Rachelle: What’s a “side hustle?”
Rachelle: Oh, so it’s like a job, but it’s usually illegal, and you only do it when you want?
Rachelle: Why yes, that does sound like a perfect solution to our problems! What will your side hustle be?
Rachelle: Ikea Furniture Builder???
Rachelle: So, you would go to homes and personally assemble their furniture??
Rachelle: That is my favourite thing ever.
Rachelle: Yes, it’s even better than naming a ship Boaty McBoat Face.
Rachelle: So, just curious, how would you get to these homes?
Rachelle: Uber, of course.
Rachelle: Imagine, if you had a driver’s license you could actually be an Uber driver!
Rachelle: Yes, if you passed the security screening.
Rachelle: I know you have a “past,” ran with a tough crowd in junior high. It’s that edge I love, Pickle.
Rachelle: But let’s get back to your side hustle. Once you get to your “client,” how would you assemble the furniture?
Rachelle: Yes, I’m sure you would figure it out. Lots of evidence to support that.
Rachelle: You have a very good mind for all things mechanical.
Rachelle: You did a beautiful job on the crib, for instance.
Rachelle: Yes, it was as much a sculpture as anything else. As you say, Living Art.
Rachelle: But look, you could just get a job, a job could be your “side-hustle.”
Rachelle: You could work in a food court or maybe a discount shoe store.
Rachelle: The Bulk Barn, maybe? You might get a deal on nuts, that would be a bonus!
Rachelle: I don’t think Blockbuster exists anymore, dear.
Rachelle: I know those were good times for you at “The Block.”
Rachelle: Everybody came for the Pickle Picks, I know. You were practically a star!
Rachelle: Yes my love, times have changed.
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SINUS INFECTION
Definitely won’t be going back anytime soon! I could not smell a thing for five weeks, my face hurt and my temples were so swollen that my wife started to call me Frankenstein. The green discharge from my nose was oddly fascinating, and the occasional day off work was nice, but it’s still not enough to earn a recommendation. In the end, my experience with a sinus infection was very disappointing. (Also, duration of visit WAY too long!!!)
OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER
**********The condition makes me feel VERY, VERY, VERY safe and VERY, VERY, VERY focused. I think I do some of my VERY, VERY, VERY best work in this state. The condition makes me feel VERY, VERY, VERY safe and VERY, VERY, VERY focused.**********
Recommended.
Recommended.
Recommended.
INGUINAL HERNIA
It wasn’t the most painful experience of my life, but the weird, little bulge in my groin was a freak-out, and quite frankly I didn’t like thinking about the mechanics of it at all. I mean, my intestines were poking through my abdominal wall? That’s just gross, and it really doesn’t sound right. However, when I was having surgery done a nurse was required to shave my pubic area and she had to pick up and move my penis in order to do this. I’m not a freak or anything, but it was a real porn scenario and I have to admit to kind of hoping something was going to happen, so that was kind of thrilling.
Another up side of the hernia is that I was able to get out of doing TONS of stuff. As far as illnesses go, this one comes quite highly recommended, and depending on the doctor, you can get some excellent pain medications.
ANTHRAX
No walk in the park. STAY AWAY!!!
BURSITIS
Like the hernia, this is an excellent excuse condition. Although it sounds like it should really only effect old people, it’s something that athletes deal with the most, so it’s actually kind of cool—a “healthy sickness,” if you know what I mean. It can hurt like a bugger, but it usually doesn’t and the treatment is typically just rest, so if you want to get out of something (like walking around Ikea all Sunday) all you have to do is say that your chronic bursitis and your knee is just killing you. It’s kind of like having a handicap pass for your car.
TOURETTE’S SYNDROME
Not nearly as much fun as you might think—get something else.
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A sprawling outpost on the edge of the city, the place has always reminded me of an airport. It’s insanely busy, there’s a multiplicity of languages and cultures streaming through the corridors, and the store, the things that they sell, are never truly what the consumer wants.Ikea is more of a way station, a place in your life where you pause, and finding an acceptable but temporary solution, move forward from who you are toward the glittering horizon of the person you’ll one day become, a person who will eventually be able to afford the sort of “adult” furniture you might one day pass down to your children. And so, when you find yourself at Ikea on a Sunday afternoon, you discover, in both a figurative and literal sense, that you are not where you want to be. Ikea, is not your beautiful house.
Perhaps as a result, most of the people there, like commuters, have a slightly dazed and unhappily obliged expression to their faces. However, one couple looked happy, like they were starring in their own movie and the rest of us were just extras there to lend contrast. Located somewhere in their beautiful twenties, they were animated, as if playing games in an amusement park or falling in love while ice skating. Wearing a shiny, silver miniskirt that showed off a splashy array of tattoos, she was a platinum blonde with a kind of retro burlesque vibe, and he, well, he didn’t look quite as confident as he was dressed, but he was trying hard.
They were in Ikea as tourists, treating the place a bit like a museum where the exhibits weren’t the storage solutions and furnishings, but all the weary, humbled people shopping there. It was a cultural excursion for these two, an anthropological journey that was meant as symbol of the quirky, self-conscious lives they were trying to fashion for themselves. She, independent-minded and unpredictable, loved the carnival food on sale there, the secret passageways through the intricately designed shopping trails and the way that things were piled up like giant toys, and he was planning on getting a tattoo of the Ikea Monkey to commemorate the great day, both of them smiling secrets at one another, certain that they would never grow into the compromised, dream-beaten people they imagined blending into the background all around them.
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