The Skillz Report

Pine Cone Lizards, Psycho Cats, Weak Girlie-Men And The Creepy Perv I Called Friend

 

(originally written 6/16/11)

 

 

Remember the classic Simpsons episode where Homer had Bart donate life-saving blood to Mr. Burns? If you’ll recall, the stingy Burns failed to sufficiently reward the Simpsons in their eyes, so Homer wrote a nasty letter to Burns which eventually led to the family being “rewarded” with a giant Olmec statue. I bring this up because at episode's end, Homer stated “The moral of the story is…well, I guess there is no moral to the story. It’s just a bunch of stuff that happened.”

 

Today, June 16, consisted of “a bunch of stuff that happened.” None of it really strong enough to carry a blog by itself, but most of it worth sharing. (I’m sure you’ll tell me if I was wrong about that last part.)

 

We’ll begin with the surprising discovery of a baby lizard mozying near our front door late lastnight. Not knowing anything about lizards at all, I assumed all was well in its world and went on in to bed. When I left for work this morning, some 12 hours later, not only had said lizard remained fully stationery, but now its’ tail pointed at a weird diagonal upward angle—not unlike Rollie Fingers’ mustache. “Okay,” I tell myself. “I’ll be gone for 10 hours. Good chance the issue will handle itself, like that bird that committed suicide in our driveway when I was 15.”

 

(That really happened, but I'm not here to talk about the past.)

 

I am doing stop #84 on my 86-stop Berkeley/Oakland route. Not a hiccup to speak of. As I walk back to my van, out of nowhere, a crazed black cat charges down the sidewalk and right into my path at 100 frightening MPH. This one soon proves to be completely out of its’ mind, absolutely terrified of the no one and nothing approaching from all sides. It did its best Ruben Rivera, running this way and that way and in a circle or two before disappearing from my view—and totally heaping future crappy luck upon me. Thanks for that, cat. Hope you get that dynamite out of your anus.

 

On the long drive back to the 408, KCBS’ top-of-the-hour update fills us in on the latest surrounding Anthony Wiener’s resignation, the successor to Osama Bin Laden, and Jerry Brown’s historical budget veto. In that order. Says a LOT about our priorities, huh? I mean, sure, Al-Qaida has a “bloodthirsty” new leader, who’s been “itching for his chance” to take over and in all likelihood “is seeking to avenge bin Laden’s death”, but the horny Congressman is just a tad more interesting, apparently.

 

At around 17:00, I return home to find…my lizard problem unresolved. As the man of the house, I resign myself to the fate of carrying the responsibility of making this go away, icky as it may be. No matter how many decapitated birds you kick into the street, or full mousetraps you empty from your place of employment, removing the shell of a creature who’s joined God never gets any less dreary. I finally grab a broom and swat the creature in the direction of the bushes. Ever swatted a sun-baked lizard down a cement path? It sounds exactly like you are swatting a broken pine cone. I’ll never forget it.

 

Time for Giants’ baseball and a classic “piss off, turd” fan moment for the ages. You see it from time to time at games—a player/coach/ballboy tosses a ball to a particular (usually young) fan in the crowd, only to have some adult loser jerkoff intercept it. It happened to the son of my co-worker back in the 1990’s, and it almost happened tonight in Arizona.

A player tossed a ball specifically to a 45ish blonde sitting behind the dugout when out of nowhere, a bloated Steve Bartman-looking dude (thanks, D-Rock!) barrels down and tries to grab it himself. Despite being about 20 years younger and considerably larger than the blonde, he is unable to wrestle the ball away from her right hand USING BOTH OF HIS. It is pathetic, but he deserves the embarrassment he gets when she ends up with her ball and he ends up empty-handed on the ground. Get your own ball, losers!

 

Oh, and lastly, I found out tonight that somebody I’ve known for quite some time now is a creepy perv (or at least once was). Not joking. For those of you who wanna argue that “Skillz, you’re the biggest perv of them all”, listen and listen closely: my “perversion” is limited to those who know me well enough to know I’m no creep. This person’s was NOT. It was totally uncool. Part of me wishes I didn’t know cuz I’ll never look at them the same way again…
                                                         

Let’s close on a happy note, shall we?
My beloved daughter Josie, for the first time, looked me right in the eye and said “Nite nite” and puckered up for her goodnight kiss. And though her lips tasted of a weird milk, toothpaste, and aged drool medley, it is easily the #1 kiss I’ve ever gotten or will ever get. Nite nite indeed…