Oh, Linda…
I recently rearranged my office because I bought a new reading chair, and frankly the feng shui was all wrong. Did I get that right? Feng shui is that thing that the Chinese use to make sure their bedrooms don’t piss off spirits or something, right? Frankly, I’m not convinced. Look, China, you had one shot to win me over with fortune cookies, and you fucking blew it. “Today would be a good day to make a new friend”? Thanks a lot, China. That guy gut-stabbed me and took my watch. Fortune cookies are bullshit and so is feng shui.
Not that I’m above using it to my advantage, mind you. I commonly trot it out when trying to knock prices down. “You call this a day care? The feng shui is all fucked up! You’ll be lucky if dragons don’t descend upon the goddamn baby room before lunch. I’ll pay you $4.00 a day, and you have to provide snacks.” I’ve had mixed success with this.
Anyway, my daughter was of great help during the office makeover process. I mean, she didn’t do any of the heavy lifting, or any of the medium lifting either. And I’d be lying if I said that she did any light lifting. Look, you know the amount of effort it takes to raise a Dorito to your mouth? That’s the kind of lifting she did. Call it snack lifting. She did the snack lifting while watching me bust my ass.
And bust my ass I did, because my office contains the Dogs on Drugs Bookcase of Doom, which weighs approximately 47 1/2 tons and contains books, knick-knacks, mementos, keepsakes, doodads, whatsits, and just plain crap. There is a plastic biohazard bag containing the port-o-cath that was attached to my heart from when I had cancer. And that’s just for starters. When I started taking the damn thing apart so that I could move it, the FBI showed up and spent a few hours looking for Jimmy Hoffa.
Two hours later, my office had been transformed, and I think I did a great job because now my kids don’t want to be in any other room in the house. They want to sit in my new reading chair, play with the ottoman (which opens up to reveal a storage space that would be perfect for hiding a severed head), and play with the lighting remote. Yeah, I have a remote to control the lights because they are ALL THE WAY OVER THERE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE OFFICE (15 feet), and in my book it’s not really an office unless I can do everything from one spot. If I had a mini-bar fridge and a toilet, I’d never leave this room.
Having the kids in my office on a constant basis can be trying, of course. I can’t do any Dogs on Drugs related research because two of my three kids can read. “Daddy, why are you searching for ‘Is Kenny Loggins a hermaprhodite?'” And I dare not write anything, for fear that I will ask them for advice.
“Hey, which do you think is funnier: Calling someone a ball-cradling shaft-master, or telling them that their eyes look like assholes?”
On the other hand, I always enjoy spending time with them, and I appreciate every minute that I have. This afternoon my five year old and I laughed ourselves silly at an old Tom & Jerry cartoon. Do you know how funny it is to see a cat get his teeth smashed in with a golf ball? Way funny.
Once the boys had gone to bed, my daughter and I hung out in my office, and that’s when I ran across our video of the day, which is from a concert performance of Hey Jude in which Linda McCartney’s microphone is isolated. Poor Linda, rest her soul… She may have provided a bonding moment for me and my daughter, but she couldn’t sing for shit.
(By the way, you need to hang around until at least the 2:25 mark, when Linda really shines. She sounds like she got a tit caught in a wringer.)
My office is sort of scrunched into the corner of my dining area. It doesn’t have enough space to even consider feng shui, so there could be evil spirits all around. But it is close to the fridge, and the bad juju has never prevented me from reaching that.
I made it to 3:18. Linda should have stuck with photography because that performance was really, really…unfortunate.
I made it to 5:00, but had a seizure. During the seizure, I sang just like Linda!
That Bookcase of Doom sounds like a good time. I’m curious as to what books you keep. I’m assuming you’re a kindle kind of guy. What type of book does Dogs keep on his shelf?
That video. I laughed and cried and vomited simultaneously.
First three books I found at random:
* The Oxford Book of English Verse
* The Naked & the Dead – Norman Mailer
* Growing Up Brady – Barry Williams
It’s, uh, a mixed bag.
People that believe in Feng Shui deserve to be distracted by ghosts while they attempt to enjoy things like new reading chairs.
Next time I get pulled over by the cops for speeding, I think I will blame it on the highway’s bad feng shui. Then I’ll say, “Look! Ghosts!” and haul ass outta there when the cop is distracted.
Foolproof plan.
This is better for torture than like, hanging out with my MIL while she’s out of breath and either listing the contents of the freezer or telling you what the high and low temperatures for the next 10 days will be.
Still, beats being married to Yoko Ono.