Chips Or Chicks? ©

A couple of weeks ago I watched a movie with the kids and as I was watching I realized these were my kids.

Let me see, what was I like at their age?

At 17 I was still in high school.
I wore jeans, black leather vest with a black leather custom made leather coat.
I drove a 75 mustang
Split the frame in midair after first bottoming out at 100 miles an hour then launching off the top of a hill that is.
Stupid place to put a hill.

I worked from 4 pm until midnight then hit the strip across the border until 3 am to party and to make some fast cash.
Let’s face it, I made more money illegally in an hour than I did in a week where I worked and if you wanted to party like I did, you needed cash.
Coke was 200 a gram and I went through at least three of those a night
The pot, booze, lawyers.
Oh yeah, the bribes.
Fuck, I miss those days.

D2 is 17 and is almost as tall as me.
Inia says she looks like an Amazon
She goes to high school
She wears black skin sight pants like a lot of other girls.
They’re so tight they walk like they got hemorrhoids.
Her hair is jet black but is planning to color it black red with blue tips
She drives a bus pass, has lost it a couple of times and it costs two bucks one way to school.
You’re mad, that its going to cost you forty bucks extra for the last ten days of the month when she will get a new one but your happy she didn’t loose it at the beginning of the month.

She bugs me to get her a snake.
She’s been wanting a snake for a few months now so the other day she got her wish.
I was looking at snakes online and I came across this ad of a guy selling his snake and all the things it needs to live like the aquarium heater and lid for $100.
I’m thinking that’s to good a deal but I decided to make an offer.
I figure I would offer $70 and he would counter me to 80 or something so I send off the email and twenty minutes later I get a reply saying sold.
WTF.
I was just sending a feeler out there and here I was, getting a snake.

Ok, I sit back and look at it as a great deal and not as getting a snake.
It’s not like I don’t have any pets.
I have Frick and I just acquired an Oceanic 50 gallon aquarium not to long ago and it’s full of fish.
What’s one more mouth to feed?
It’s a little mouth.

So I send back an email to this guy saying I will pick it up and to send me his address and the best time for us to show up to get the snake.
In no time his response came back with the info but at the end of it he asks if anyone is experienced in handling snakes because it was to aggressive and was scared of it ever since it attacked him.
WTF!?

Now I am starting to wonder what I was getting into but it was still a good deal and I needed to see this killer snake.
D2 was freaking out.
She wanted the snake but she wanted a gentile one.
It’s a fucken snake for fuck sakes.
Inia has experience with snakes and said she would handle it so off we went to pick up the snake.

On the way there we wee conjuring up images of what a beast the snake must be until we pulled into the parking lot to where the guy lived.
I rang the doorbell and when it opened this skinny nerdy looking guy stood there.
He looked like Harry Potter for fuck sakes.
He tells us we can’t park the car there so Inia ran off to park the car while we went inside to see the killer snake.

The first thing he tells D2 and is to watch out for his Doberman.
When he said that all my senses went full on and D2 hid behind me as we made our way downstairs.
Where out of the corner charged out what looked like a three month old red Doberman with a cone around it’s head.
Harry tried to stop it but it bowled him over and started licking our legs.

Some other skinner nerd walked in and took the dog out to the next room.
First time I saw a guy wearing red lipstick too.
Harry then turned around to the shelf and there was this tank there with a log and a wooden cave next to it and a plastic bowl with water.
I could see the snake and asked him.
He said it was under the bedding but if I wanted to see it I would have to do it because he wasn’t going near the beast but standing on the other side of the room.

“Beast” WTF….. Well I had to see the snake so I opened the lid and slowly took out the log and the cave leaving the water.
Studying the bedding I reached in and grabbed what looked like a tail and lifted the corn snake hiding under there and it swung it head around and hissed in my face.
Harry ran for the stairs.
D2 stood there in shock.

I put the snake back in the aquarium and locked the lid back on.
Taking the money out of my pocket I passed it to him and asked for a garbage bag to cover the tank with as we walked back to the car.
He gave us a garbage bag, which I put around the tank then picked it up and walked for the door with him leading the way.
I walked out, as Inia was about to walk in.
She just threw her hands up, I smiled at her and said, “Lets go, we just pulled off a robbery” and off we went.
Inia asked what happened and D2 said, “Chicken shit nerd”.
Inia was confused so D2 pulled the garbage back from the aquarium and inside there was a snake no bigger than a fucken pencil and the great white hunter back there shit his pants at this worm.
WTF was he going to do when it got to be four feet long?
Who wants to lie bets down that in about a year I will be reading about some skinny geek who got eaten by his killer Doberman, Mothball?

On the way home D2 asked what we were going to feed it because Harry back there said he hadn’t fed it yet.
I know we had some lasagna at home.
What, Garfield ate lasagna as did Emme.

Inia said they ate dead mice.
OK, so off we went to Pet Mart.
Inside the store we walked around to the poor fuckers section.
D2 and I were standing in front of a large aquarium looking at a pile of white mice running around the bottom of it.
D2 looked at he and said they looked cute.
I told her yeah they did but they won’t look so cute after you beat their heads in with a wooden spoon to kill them.
She freaked out, she said she thought I would do the head bashing and feeding and all she would do is say she had a snake.
I said uh uh not happening, her snake, her turn to get dirty, my hands have done enough wooden bat spoon head bashing.

She protested and said she wasn’t beating a mouse’s head in with a wooden spoon.
It was cruel and inhumane.
Yeah, she was right and I told her she was right.
It would probably take about 5 good whacks to waste the little fucker.
Then it came to me.
I told her she could just use the walnut cracker and crush the little bastard’s quick and clean.
Ok, maybe not so clean but it would be quick.

Her eyes were popping out of her head when a clerk came over and asked if she could help us and I said yes.
I asked her for some pinkies.
Dead frozen mice.
You didn’t think I was going to buy and kill mice did you.
The snake better get used to eating frozen food because when he starts craving live food my skinning knife will make and appearance and I’m going to have a nice new wallet.
So now at the end of the month I have to buy cat food, fish food and dead mice.

When we got home I took the tank upstairs where we all stood around looking inside at the killer worm
D2 was still a little apprehensive as was I.
One, it’s a snake and how many good things have you heard about snake?
Two, Harry, even though he WAS a chicken shit, you can’t push aside his fear either.
There was nothing left to do but reach in and pick him up and I did.
D2 ran off a bit when I gently held him out of his home.
I haven’t held a snake in over twenty years.

After a bit, Inia took it and she let it wrap around her hand but when it was D2’s turn she took off downstairs and came back with gloves on then took the snake.
A couple of days with the snake D2 was more comfortable with it and didn’t wear any gloves any more but she has to sanitize her hands after every time she handles him.
It’s all been an interesting experience for the both of us.
She had to feed him and came down to the kitchen and went into the freezer for a small container with a plastic bag wrapped around another plastic back with a small bag with five frozen baby mice in it.
Yes, I have frozen mice in my freezer.

She opens the bag of mice and says they are all struck together so I tell her to pry one off and to leave it out someplace to thaw.
She was fumbling with the outside of the bag trying to pry one off when she squeals then lets the bag fall to the floor spilling frozen mice on the floor.
Great, what next.
Frick runs up to sniff one and in his mouth it goes then he takes off with me on his tail.
You give Frick a mouse Popsicle and he will make a run with it any time.

I asked D2 what the hell.
She said when she was trying to separate them a tail broke off and it scared her.

?!

Tail breaking off scares her but a snake in her bedroom is good.
At least she didn’t have to pry one off now.
I told her to leave it out for an hour before feeding it to her snake ands to call me when she does so I could watch.
About an hour later she calls me up and I go into her room and there she is with the lid off on the tank, dangling a dead mouse from the end of my salad tongs to the snake.
She’s keeping those now.
The snake grabbed it by the head and before you and boo it was gone.

It’s been two weeks now and everything has been ok……hold on.
Fuck I spoke to soon.
It’s what, 3 am now.
D2 left her door open and Frick went in and has now officially met the snake.
He can’t get into the aquarium but he was trying and they were both hissing at each other like pissed off drag queens through the screen.
As soon as D2 came down from the ceiling and pried Frick from the lid she tossed him out into the hallway where I just found him.
Yup things are getting back to normal around here.

When I was 21 I drove a 75 Dodge Dart Sport.
I liked cars from the 70’s and have owned a few.
70 Beaumont, 72 Continental, 76 Electra, 74 Plymouth Fury (My pimp mobile, HA HA HA), the 75 Mustang and of course the 75 Dart
I ran my own company and still delved on the seedy side of life.
Booze drugs and woman, only the good stuff
I worked twelve hours a day and partied for the other twelve.
We slept on Sunday, the day of rest and hangovers.
Friday nights I used to pick a restaurant I could go eat at that I had never been to before.
Did that for about 20 years until all hell broke loose.
Might be something I should revisit.
I loved to try different things in life, how was I to know some were married.

D1 is 21
Reminds me of Mary from the Mary Tyler Moore show.
She dresses in earthy color a little Goth
Beatnik Goth
She has a learners permit and knows the signs
But still uses the bus.
She wants a pink small car.
It doesn’t matter who makes it as long as it’s pink.
I’m not driving it

She has finished high school and collage
She came out with a botanist’s degree and works in an art store.
At least she’s not being busted for growing pot.
While living with her mother she was limited to her movements and hadn’t experience much other than their mother and her BF getting drunk and stoned then running off to the casino to loose the money she got to feed the kids.
Living here she has the freedom to do what she wants and I have encouraged her to go out, make friends and enjoy life.
It’s funny, D1’s nerdy friends are scared to death of me but D2’s brain dead friends think I’m cool.

D1 has a love for food and you can’t fill the woman up.
I mean, she eats a large combo pizza by herself and is a skinny thing.
My mother calls her “Pastra” which basically means, garbage disposal.
The other day my mother lost it and had D1, my brother and father lined up in the kitchen and was prepared to give one a colonoscopy with the toilet brush in her hand.
Seems someone when to the washroom and he or she ass exploded all over the place and didn’t bother to clean it up.
She only knew it wasn’t her.

D1 has managed to eat herself sick on a number of occasions.
The other day she went out for dim sum with friends and later that night she came here and was complaining about a stomachache and how she didn’t feel good but when she heard we were taking off for wing night she was first at the door to go.

As many of you know I am a big wing fan and as we sat thereD1,D2, Inia and I we ordered eight pounds of buffalo wings to start.
We all chose different flavors so we could share.
D1 was mowing through them like it was her last meal and after about 3 pounds she announced she was done.
The rest of us kept on eating but when I looked at her she looked a little pale.
She said her stomach wasn’t right and she hadn’t been to the washroom for a pump in days.
I figured that couldn’t be good but I can see why.
She is a meat eater and shies away from veggies so no fiber in her diet means stomach problems.

She drank down a couple of large glasses of ice tea and sat there looking like a science experiment gone bad.
Then she said she was going to the washroom and was gone.
Gone for quite a long time and I was beginning to wonder where the fuck she was.
I looked in the direction of the washroom stairs.
The washrooms were downstairs.
That’s when I saw a shadow coming towards the opening and figured there she is but it wasn’t.
It was two women helping a third from the alcove.
A man got up from a table to help and rushed over only to succumb to an invisible force that brought him down to one knee.
That‘s it I was going to go find out what was going on but then she came through the door.
She looked pretty green
She sat down and then she was up again and off to the washroom again.
She walked around the crowd gathering around the woman who was carried out.

Five minutes later people started coughing around the entrance of the alcove and got up staggering for the patio.
A few minutes later D1 appeared looking a lot better.
She sat down and took a sip of her ice tea and said she felt great.
She said she felt bad though.
She went to the washroom and all of a sudden everything in her body just poured out of her and into the toilet as a group of women walked into the washroom.
All she her were gasps and a loud bang.
I guess that’s where the woman fainted.

When she opened the door to the washroom and air pushed it all upstairs and into the restaurant sending customers running for air.
I figured it was the best time to leave and we paid out bill and held out breaths as we passed the stairs to the washroom and outside to the car.

At home when we sat there we all broke down laughing as we recalled the people gagging to escape the stench crawling up the stairs.
I don’t know,
Are they chips off the old block or are they their own Chicks.
Who knows, anyway, I got to go glue the caps on D1 tubes of paint.

Have a great weekend

Walker