The Kitty Cat Game

I tend to be a "yelling" type dad. I am a quiet person but do come from a loud culture where it is OK to berate kids in public. I have never berated my kids in public but we have done lots of "We need to go the car" or "Come here" and then its the usual awkward hissing negotiating in corner of a restaurant booth or crouched in some abandoned aisle of Costco. Usually the aisle with the school supplies by the jewelry, where they also sometimes have oddball video games.
I also tend to lose my cool and never get physical but yeah get dramatic. Taking away toys is a premium strategy and I have often said "You will never see motorized Thomas again. He goes in the trash!" and then fake toss him in the garbage like you fake out a dog playing fetch. I did once smash some plastic happy meal toy because the kids were going apeshit over how (even though they each had the same one) the others was better. I also once popped a balloon they were fighting over because fuck be QUIET!

This is where I have I love my kids and they do wonderful in school. My son began kindergarten and all the teachers are "He is so great. He always listen to directions the first time and is so sweet" Well I am glad he is good at school because he is a pain in the ass at home. I would be mortified it is was the other way around, however.

Nothing gets me into a major angry dad yelling mode than the "Kitty Cat Game." It is the only thing outright banned in our house. I rather my kids smoke a pack of  cigarettes and cat call people in the street then play the "Kitty Cat Game." Would you kids rather play Russian Roulette? Or Desert Bus?

What is the "Kitty Cat Game?"

Well it starts as roleplaying where my kids get on all fours and pretend to be kittens. It always begins 'Oh, Im a little kitty! A little baby kitten" and then drop down (regardless of the flooring. I don't know how they have not busted knee caps Kyrie Irving style yet) and start to mewl and meow. And its pretty damn convincing. My son does a purr meow combo that i want to sell to a foley mixing studio but I pretty sure they got cats covered.

This then proceeds to the kittens either need to play or get in trouble. Both end in tears and yelling.

The Play Option is...the kittens roll balls and find "yarn" (usually a toy. Oddly enough Paw Patrol vehicles are top choices) and whip them around the floor. The kittens start playing in their own corners but slowly gravitate towards each other until they are in middle of the floor and then "accidentally" the toys get mixed up and the kids/kittens outright brawl for it. Oh, the brawl begins innocently. "That is my toy pretend ball of yarn! Wah! Meow! Hiss. Im going to jump on your back!" Which is what a cat would do (Save for the talking) but then it becomes a tangle of toddler arms and legs.

The Trouble Option....the kittens go on an adventure! We need to go to Grandpa's House. And as soon as they start..."Oh no. We fell into a mine" or "A scary bear has trapped us" and the kittens are frozen in fear save that one kid rolls into the other (For comfort you see) and it then becomes a God damn brawl. The peril can go on for a bit and even when we, as parents intervene, (Don't worry kittens. Daddy will save you from the mine) they just get right back into trouble. "Thanks for saving us from the mine, Daddy! Kittens are back on the road to Grandpa's! Meow meow...oh no fell into the mine again!" So it can take a while for it to build to a climax.

This makes it sound very BDSM and i think my son's peril fascination is due to this but then I remember feeling certain ways in certain scenes of Sailor Moon and I am aghast at the Hundred Years of Solitude sense of how families can never escape themselves. We are doomed to become our parents. My son also likes earthquakes and disaster news coverage so it could also be much more technical in terms of its mischief level. Rescue 911 was one of my favorites shows as a child.

All the brawls end the same with me or the wife needing to separate the mass of toddlers. My son likes to bite (Is this part of the cat game as well?) but he only bites us (Again the "good at school" phenomenon) and all my kids love the passive aggressive jab of "I don't like you anymore. You are not my friend." I really wish sometimes my kids would just call me "stupid" because that kind of verbiage makes me wonder if they are growing to grow up to be little master manipulators. I don't want my kids to be Ben Linus from Lost.

It really is a form of ritualized combat but I am not having any of it. No one is crowned king or queen after it ends.  I rather them say "Daddy, can we go beat the hell out of each other with sticks in the backyard?" then engage in the "Kitty Cat Game"

 Every August I have these stretches where i get 12 hours of sleep in a 4 day span and we are in the thick of it. To stay awake I drink a lot of water (An old '"Indian" trick as I was told by a girl I knew in high school) and listen to music since I am past the point where caffeine has any effect on me beyond the Pavlovian need to drink it.

Sheepishly I heard a song on a mix that really got me jazzed. It sounded so damn true. WTF is this song?! And then I saw an ad for the new Mission Impossible movie and I was "Oh yeah it has that pseudo tense percussion! Did they make this for the movie? WHO IS IT"

It's Imagine Dragons...🤷 Friction to be specific from an album called Smoke and Mirrors that came out 3 years ago. I could swear it was made specifically for this movie.

Hey, I ain't throwing no shade. If/when I sign I sound like a series of metal bowls spinning on the floor of an haunted asbestos mine. And...hey they make hits and pay the bills. One of my favorite bands is Linkin Park and in college I did not like being chided by all the hippies and hipsters in town over their phony sound. That is great you love zydeco and blue grass but not so much for me.

But...it was a surprise. Like those commercials where they are "This coffee must be gourmet!" and then they pull back the curtain and they say "You think that but its actually Walgreen's brand Nice! Breakfast Blend" Well...you got me indeed.

Any Key

My job (and I know I said I would not talk about work but this is harmless) often involves having to explain to people "technology." And it reminds me of an adage someone I worked with (Well it was a client but whatever) said..

"All it takes to be an expert is knowing more than your audience"

So then I'm the specialist albeit internally I am "Huh!?"

One thing is that the word "technology" as short hand for anything "computer" irks me. A spear used to hit a wooly mammoth is technology. But most people also aren't maniacs who blog so I get it. Its also trifling and petty. Like those people who say "Well we are not really a democracy. We are a republic." Yes, I get it John Birch Society person! You know what I mean.

Anyway this often finds me having to describe things in an easy to understand way. For example, my father in law (and no I don't work with/for him. I know I started with the work thing but bear with me) asked me to explain what "Twitter" is. And that is a tricky one. He once asked me to explain what a podcast was and I said it was like  pay per view radio show. And that worked!

For Twitter I stuck with the radio motif and said "It is like hitting scan on the radio console. You get a tiny taste of everything. But you can set your scan to hear only those stations you want and those stations sometimes play music other stations played. Like station 1 says 'Hey check out what station 3 played!' so they play it also. And its always going"

And damn that seemed to work!
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Old Telephone

My mom has saying when something is very dark. Or dirty like a really grimy greasy thing. She will say...

"That things is blacker than an old telephone"

I used to think it was because all the old rotary phones in old time PR were that shiny black color. Like the kind of black that Felix the Cat is. Does anyone remember or ever hear of Felix the Cat?
But I realized it is because those phones are all grimy and covered in years of sweat and skin caking onto the cradle and receiver. Like it is probably white underneath but it is black now an taking a simple rag to it will cut a streak down the middle. Like people will be "Holy shit. This stuff really cleans. Thank you, Magic Erarser! Fuck you, you filthy damn old telephone!"

My mother also has certain English words she uses in Spanish conversations. For about 20 years I honest to good thought that when she said something was dirty she was actually saying "This thing is guilty!"

Like it is so damn dirty that it needs to go to court.

But no...it is a guttural mispronunciation. of "Filthy"

Why she chooses to say this instead of something in Spanish is beyond me but it is part of her lexicon.