Tag: Target

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

My what smooth hands you have

At least three people in our house show the signs of having a shoe fetish (I’ll let you Postulate on which three). As such, we have a LOT of shoes. Many of these shoes tend to congregate in the garage since that’s where we generally come in and out of the house.

I dropped by my friendly neighborhood Target and picked up one of those cheapy metal cage things with dividers to store your shoes in. In addition to it being quite cheap, it is also constructed using those little plastic clips like they use in IQ tests to see if you can figure out what shape something will be in once you put it together (well, OK, in IQ tests they use origami, but it’s still just as difficult).

I finally got the thing together,IMG_2433 but it remained tenuously intact. The slightest bump, such as the one from MLE’s big plastic car flying down the driveway at 10MPH, just destroyed the thing and I’d have to spend 15 minutes looking at it like Curious George looks when he’s trying to figure out a thorny problem concerning Hundley and one of the building’s residents.

Now, a couple of years ago, I discovered the BEST glue on the planet–Gorilla Glue. If you’ve never used it, it’s this thick brown stuff that expands for about an hour after you squirt it out of the bottle. It foams up to about three times its normal size and is about as strong as…well, I don’t know, but the stuff is STRONG.

So, I whipped it out yesterday and started gluing all the shoe rack’s joints. It was getting close to the time for me to leave to pick up the boys from Daycare, so I got a tad careless with the stuff and by the time I was finished, I had it all over the garage floor, and all over my hands (later that night, I found huge clumps in my hair).
“No worries,” I thought. “I’ll just rub some turpintine on it.”
But…turpintine didn’t work.

Soap didn’t work.

Even some very caustic paint remover didn’t work, but my hands did enjoy a nice chemical peel.

The glue is so tough that it stuck to the green scrubby thing I used when trying to scratch it off my fingers:

IMG_2435

But, what all my efforts did do, was remove the big chunks of glue on my hands and spread it around my the entirety of both of my hands. It’s so thinly spread, that you can’t see it, but I can feel it. It filled in my pores so it’s like I’m wearing silk gloves. Everything I touch just sort of glides away from my grasp thanks to a lack of fingerprint texture.

When I touch my own skin (here, here and…nevermind), I can feel the pressure and I can sense the warmth, but I can’t actually feel the texture. It’s very odd.

You know…you’ll never get back the 2 minutes you spent reading this, but at the very least, I’ve informed you about the wonders and dangers of Gorilla Glue.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Life in these United States Marriage

It’s that craaazy time of year again!

birthdayEach year around this time, I go into scramble mode for gifts. With Mother’s day falling usually on or around my birthday, it’s easy to forget that there’s other stuff going on–like CareerMom’s birthday! (she’s older than me by three days) And when you have kids, it doubles your responsibility.

For example, instead of just getting her a birthday card and present, I instead need:

  1. A card for her birthday (from me)
  2. A present for her birthday (from me)
  3. A card for Mother’s day (from me)
  4. A present for Mother’s day (from me)
  5. A card for her birthday from the boys
  6. A card for Mother’s day from the boys
  7. Some kinda somethin’ from the boys for her

It’s a wee bit crazy all the things I have to get done by early May. I’m still not sure what to get her from the boys for Mother’s day. I know the idea is to get the kids to do something, but I don’t have that kind of time without her here to do it and anyway, the last time I tried, I ended up doing it myself thanks to that zero attention span thing kids have.

But what I really don’t like about this time of year, is the inevitable contemptive vibe I get from women whenever I venture into a greeting card store. You can almost feel it oozing out of the other customers and the ladies hovering around. It never fails that someone asks if they can help me and it’s all I can do not to say, “Um, I’m looking for a card! DUH!” (Here’s your sign!)

But this year took the cake.
Let me set the stage:

I walked into the Hallmark store, because last year I did Target and ended up spending like $4 for some generic card anyway and I figured I might as well get a name-brand one for the same money. Anyway, I was one of the only people in the store and after waving off the ever-so-helpful worker-bee, I finally found several cards that weren’t too sappy, but had enough truth and love to them to be keepers.

As I walked over to the counter, one lady was off to the side straightening things up while another lady, presumably the manager, stood behind the counter talking to her:

Manager: Has it been busy?

Worker-bee: Eh, it’s come in waves.

Manager: It always does.

I walk up and say, “Here comes a small wave,” which elicited chuckles from both.

Now, as I went to put my cards up on the counter, there was a bottle of Windex sitting there and the worker-bee rushed over to move it like it was a copy of “Playgirl” magazine that, if I saw it, might scar me for life. Attempting to put her at ease I said, “Don’t worry, I’ve seen that kind of thing before.”

And she says…

“Have you just seen it, or have you actually used it?”

When I was in the 10th grade, I had this vile woman for an English teacher. Her name was “Mrs. Davis.” The things that came out of this woman’s mouth were astonishing. Once, after she said something snide about my parents in front of the class, I actually called this woman out on the front porch and gave her a tongue lashing such as most 10th graders can only dream about giving a teacher. Since she knew she was in the wrong, and in front of 30 witnesses, I knew I could get away with it.

Suffice it to say, I have a hard time holding my tongue. And it took everything I had not to let this woman have it. Instead, I just said, “No, I’ve used it quite a few times. In fact, more than my wife.”

And I took my stuff and walked out of the store.

Looking back, I wished I HAD said something a little more barbed, but then I probably would have just earned myself some bad juju and I don’t need anymore of that right now.

But couple this woman’s attitude with the fact that I didn’t even get any gold stars for my envelopes and I just may have found enough reason to never visit Hallmark again!

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Dad Blogs Family Marriage

Who said love was “free”?

cards.jpgUnless you’re unattached (physically, not emotionally) to another person, you are probably aware that today is Valentines Day (should it be “Valentine’s Day” in the possessive form?). That means for the last few days, commercials have bombarded us with portrayals of lazy, procrastinating boyfriends and/or husbands busily running over to Target and/or the Hallmark store to find some last-minute doo-dad for his lover.

Generally speaking, I pride myself on not falling into this bucket. And since CareerMom and I sort of celebrated V-Day at the Ritz-Carlton last week (see: Wouldn’t You Like to Get Away for a complete play-by-play), I didn’t put too much thought into getting anything for actual Valentines day until I realized that I should probably get something for the boys to give to Mommy. She’d like that.

So, I trotted over to Target yesterday figuring I’d get her a card from me and one from the boys and if I was lucky, I’d find one of those candy ring-pops CareerMom had explained to me last week was her favorite candy as a little girl.

I walked into Target and the cards are pretty much the first three rows you encounter as you come in and let me tell you folks, the commercials leading up to Valentines day are waaaay off. There wasn’t a single guy there yesterday. It was all women, who, one would assume, were all getting their last-minute Valentines Day shopping done. And pushy! I darn near had to get rude just to get near the rack. Between the plus-sized models covering several square-feet of rack space, to the purse-laden carts that women won’t let get more than 8” away from their bodies, it was like trying to touch Sammy Hagar at a Van Halen reunion concert! It just wasn’t happening.

I muttered, “Forget this!” and walked around to the other side where they keep the nondescript cards that just say, “Love” on them and grabbed one, figuring I’d just fill in the rest. I also grabbed a card from the boys that they could color and give to her.

Having gotten my cards, I looked all over the store for ring pops—couldn’t find any. As I was walking back to the other end of the store to the one checkout open on the side that didn’t sell groceries, I peeked in all of the candy racks at the checkout counters-to no avail. There was one open checkout on this far end of the store and as I got in it and moved closer to the checkout, VOILA! There was a small box of ring pops. I triumphantly grabbed two of them and moved up to the counter. The clerk rang up my two cards and ring pops and announced, “That will be $11.37 sir.”

Eleven dollars for two ring pops and two cards! After paying, I scrutinized the receipt and realize that the generic “Love” card I grabbed in my fit of exasperation, cost $6 even! Wow!

Either they have some REALLY smart people over at Target, who knew that guys like me would get fed up with the crowd and opt for a more generic card—without even looking at the price—or cards have just gotten waaaay expensive. But, like I’m going to complain to CareerMom about it right? Fat chance!

Happy Valentines Day all!