I was sitting in my favourite bodega when a woman walked in, shrieked like bloody hell, grabbed her hair, and sat down. Mother, said the tender, I told you not to come here.
It's fall though she responded, I can come in the fall, you promised.
Right you are, I'll eat my words mother.
What time is it? 2:30. Not it's not, it's 6. Right you are mother, he said again. I don't know why but her dark eyes and firey red hair told me something was about to go down. Out of nowhere, a bat flew through the window and nestled in her hair. Oh dear me, hello Albert. What do you have planned for today.
This was what the woman said. The bat kept nestling. Ha! You're crazy, Albert.
Let's go for a walk. The autumn leaves
w-h-ill w-h-istle,
the kids will come by and scream, and the tea kettle will boil over, once the summer begins to fi-ss-ss-s-s-le. Ha! This was a song she sang. Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit (she continues). A frog is not a toad. Ribbit, ribbit, a-b-c apparition in the road. Ha!
This is what I was thinking: Oh man, this is great, she's totaly nuts. I haven't seen a crazier person, like, ever. Ok, continue.
GST? A faithless endeavour, take the minus, plus the plus and you'll be feeling better.
HA!
Ha!
HA! (She's nuts).
Spill the soup, boil the beans, a drink is what you need. Take a seat behind her my friend and she'll get you up to speed. Alright mother, said the tender,
that's enough, not again until spring. Well, ok, let's go Albert.
She left the bodega and went somewhere else, I asked the tender about his mother. He said it wasn't his mother, he was just being nice.
Hey,
There's a bunch of stuff going on right now. We're getting ready to drive over to Toronto and record our new album. We just got some live tracks mixed. Last night we went out with our friend Heather and she took a bunch of awesome pictures of us that we'll show everyone soon. We did an interview with Tracy at Shaw a couple days ago (you can see some of it on our myspace site).
We hung out with Sons of York last weekend. It was so fun I left my phone and my sobriety in their basement. Oh, and I found out the best video game on earth is a Mario Bros. version of indoor soccer. Lot's of Bob-Ombs and shells and stuff. Wonderful.
We hung out with Brian, The Morning After, Sons of York, Rob from The Grenadiers, Joel from Awesome Town, at Shannon's two nights ago. Not terribly interesting, it was a lot of fun, but since you weren't there, probably not terribly interesting for you, I know, but check this out: I was so hungry by the end of the night that I went home a little earlier than I would have otherwise. When I got home I decided to eat an enormous bowl of spaghetti and homemade sauce. The spaghetti made me so tired I went straight to bed. I woke up at 5 in the morning thinking I was going to die. Don't eat a heaping bowl of spaghetti before bed. It's a terrible idea. Supplement your hunger with something lighter, like a fruit snack, or a bowl of cereal, those are reasonable night snack options. Also don't mix jagermeister with wine and beer, but espeically don't mix all of that with a bowl of spaghetti. Spaghetti scares me a little now.
Ummm, we're practicing tonight. I went for a walk in the park today, there is shit everywhere. Seriously everywhere. It's pretty gross. Atleast kick your dogs shit into the bushes, where another unsuspecting owners dog can eat it or something.
That's enough already.
Ok, go. So I recently had the pleasure of observing a parent attempting to discipline their child on TV. For those of you who are unaware of the popularity of this trend, let me tell you, it's pretty great. A nanny shows up at a home that is in shambles, a mom tearing her hair out, a dad who works 16 hours a day at an advertisement firm, and little she or he-devils running the joint*. Apparently the parents are having a hard time disciplining little Johnny Satan. This is where my confusion grows, and the thinking part comes in. So, here's the situation (I've changed their names and the circumstances, but I think you'll get the point):
"JOHNNY SATAN!!!! You stop that right now!!!!"
-child continues behaviour
"JOHNNY!!! Listen to me! If you don't stop that this instant I'm taking away your six chocolate bars for dessert tonight!!!"
-child looks nonchalantly over shoulder, considers threat, continues behaviour.
"JOHNNY?!?!?!!! That's it! No more six chocolate bars!!!"
-child turns, looks nonchalantly over shoulder, and suddenly, in what is an absolutely spectacular performance, metamorphasis's into a psychopath, screaming, turning purple, and hurling random inanimate objects at his mothers head.
"JOHNNY!!!!!! STOP!!!!!! JOHNNY!!!! Ok, ok, ok, you can have the chocolate bars, just be nicer next time, ok?"
-child returns to the task of tearing his father's computer apart.
Ok, so the Nanny shows up and works her magic and the family ends up happy and respectful of one another. I think it's great, here's the thing. I don't get how they got there. Just think logically. Now, before I continue, I want to make it clear that I don't have kids, and I don't know a lick about being a parent, but I have been a kid, and a few specific situations from my childhood popped into my head as I was thinking about the stuff involved in disciplining children. Here's my account of one predicament my brother and I found ourselves in (I've changed the phrasing as I don't honestly remember how it all went down):
"Jason, our parents are having a party downstairs and we're supposed to be sleeping, and we're 8 and 5 years old, let's sing 'O Canada' super loud and be obnoxious little brats."
"Ok, David, good idea."
"O CaNADA, WE BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. TRUE PATRIOT L... uh-oh, here comes Dad."
"Jason, David, we have people over, could you please go to bed and stop singing so loudly. If you don't, you're going to be in trouble."
-dad leaves.
"Ha! We didn't even get in trouble!"
"O CANADA.... Uh-oh."
"David, Jason, come with me."
-So we were marched downstairs, I was placed on the front porch, Jason on the back porch, and that was that. Apparently, what we did was wrong. Twenty minutes later...
"Go to bed now."
"Ok."
-We went to bed.
Now, I may be off base on this one, but I suspect the main reason parents have a tough time discipling their kids is their burning desire to be their kids' friend's. You wouldn't really want to be telling your friend that if they drink your last beer they're going to have to sit on the naughty mat for their age in minutes. You're not really allowed to discipline your friends. But, you don't have to be their friend, you're already their parent, so they rely on you to live, and that's a pretty important thing in the pysche of a child, and kind of makes you something more important than a friend. As much I like my friends, at the age of eight, or even sixteen, it wasn't Sandy who made me dinner or bought my clothes. Chances are also pretty good, that later on in life, like when they're 24, you'll be better friends with your kids anyway, and you'll have been in the fortunate position of not having lego blocks thrown at your head and allowing all of North America to watch it. So don't be a pushover.
-Nanny Pankratz
*I should mention at this time that I completely appreciate the work these nanny's do. Seriously, it would be a really hard job.
