People who know me in real life know that I recently moved to Portland, Oregon. Recently, meaning about 10 months ago. I used "going back to school" as an excuse to move out of the shit-hole more commonly known as Boise, Idaho. Now, don't get me wrong. There are a lot of things about Boise that I really liked, and still think about. For instance, Boise is pretty much central to a lot of outdoor activities that can be enjoyed by just driving (or cycling, in my case) a very short distance. Bogus Basin, a decent ski hill, is only about 16 miles away from my old apartment. While I'm not a skiier, I appreciated the fact that a short 16 mile ride uphill could essentially kick the ass of even the most seasoned cyclists. Boise also has a notoriously good record store, called The Record Exchange, which just happens to sit on the same block as the Neurolux (known to many as "the only bar in Boise that isn't filled with pricks and shit-heaps.")
Let's get back to my original point. Even though Boise has a lot of great things about it, it's still full of assholes. Also, there's really no cycling infrastructure, which makes it nearly impossible to NOT own a car. Public transit in Boise is absolute shit, and nobody who lives there would even bother arguing with me because they know I'm right. I'm always right. Fuck you.
In either case, I live in Portland now. Portland is a wonderful city. It's only about 4 times the size of Boise, population-wise. So, it's not nearly as big as San Diego or Manhattan, but it's big enough that there are a lot of entrepreneurs eager to make a name for themselves crafting unique trinkets and foodstuffs, and that keeps things pretty interesting for a consumer.
I'm going off on a tangent, here. My bad.
So, I lived in Lake Oswego for a while. Lake Oswego is a suburb that sits about 8 miles southwest of the heart of Portland, Oregon. My roommate was an aspiring actor who was roughly two years younger than me. He was a really nice guy and I have to say that because he put up with a lot of the shit that I did. And I think he would be forced to say the same of me, only because I put up with a lot of his shit, too. But about 3 months ago, I moved into the heart of Portland. Not downtown, because downtown is full of heroin addicts and muggers. But, I live in the kind of place that most people imagine when they think of Portland. I live about 30 seconds' walk away from an old asian couple's bodega, and I like that because the lady that works there speaks with a thick Vietnamese accent and calls me "hon." I love it here.
One thing I don't love, however, is that I live with 2 adult roommates, and one of them has two kids, aged 7 and 11. Now, I like kids most of the time. And, honestly, I like these kids most of the time, too. But I'm not used to dealing with kids like these.
These kids wake up at normal times, around 7:00 in the morning. Now, being that I'm a night person, I usually don't wake up until around 8 or so. Thankfully my job has very forgiving hours and it's essentially the perfect job for a functioning alcoholic. But, because these kids wake up before I usually do, it's pretty common for me to hear a lot of stomping and screaming that wakes me up before I want to be woken up. I'm okay with that. What I can't understand is how they think that they actually have problems that they need to yell and cry about.
The younger of the two is certainly the baby of the bunch. He's seven years old and, yesterday morning, I awoke to hear him wailing about how his dad is a "bad dad"because he was forcing him to wear jeans to school. Twenty minutes later, he threw yet another fit because "dad" made him turn off his iPod during breakfast.
Let me make this perfectly clear. The kid is 7. He has an iPod. If you don't see a huge problem with that, you're probably a parent who is so dreadfully inept that you just use electronics as a way to shut your kids up because you're not brave enough to tell them to shut the fuck up when they're doing something wrong. I'll cover that in a later post.
The older of the two is an authority figure.
When the 7 year old is having friends over, the older sibling makes them sign contracts in order to keep them in line. CONTRACTS.
But, living in this environment has taught me a lot of things. For instance:
1. "Milk ALWAYS makes you fall asleep." This is a direct quote, verbatim, out of the mouth of the youngest child.
2. A promise is a promise, no matter about which day the promise was made from, or for.
The 7 year old loves jumping on the trampoline. I told him on a sunday that, after work the next day, I would jump on the trampoline with him for twenty minutes. He was gone at a friend's house all day, and when I eventually left for work he was nowhere to be found. I assumed, naturally, that he no longer needed me to jump on the trampoline with him. I fell asleep later that night, unperturbed.
The next day, I was awoken by a knock on my door. In my groggy, half-drunken state I opened the door to see him staring at me, asking if I would jump on the trampoline with him. I replied "dude, I told you I would do that yesterday. Now it's today and the offer is off the table," to which he replied, "but you said you would jump on the trampoline with me tomorrow and that was two days ago and we didn't jump yesterday so now you have to do it today."
Are you following me, here?
So, this kid just doesn't understand that the offer was rendered invalid after the clock struck midnight that day. So, what I've learned from this is that, "tomorrow" is, in a 7 year old brain, essentially any other day that is not today.
To be fair, I didn't jump. He cried like a bitch and I asked him politely if I could bottle his tears because his sadness fuels me. He didn't know what to say to that, so he walked into the kitchen, drank a glass of milk, and left me alone. I sold 5 bikes that day because I was in such a good mood from seeing him cry.
3. Smoking a cigarette after 5 months of abstaining isn't "quitting, it's just taking a break."
Now, this one came straight from the mouth of the elder sibling. I have to say, the little fucker got me there. I was speechless when he said that to me. He's a smart kid, what can I say? I honestly have no way of reasoning my way out of that one. To be fair, I didn't WANT to take up smoking again. It just sort of happened. When you work 50 hours a week, you can't really sustain a social life. So my downtime was relegated to getting drunk and sleeping. When all you do in your spare time is drink and sleep, it's really easy to readopt old, bad habits. And unfortunately for me, smoking is a habit that I kicked for some time, and was readopted when I was working so much that I couldn't fucking see straight. Too bad. My liver and lungs will get over it eventually. They're a bunch of pricks anyway and that's why I don't talk to them anymore. I hope they die.
