Our five CD changer here at home is broken. Oh, it still plays like a champ. Problem, is the tray will no longer open, meaning barring a financial windfall, we’re stuck listening to the same four CDs for the rest of eternity. Our choice of music will now consist of (and only of) Wayne Potash’s Yodel for a Fish (kids CD), two Django Reinhardt discs, and one Blind Melon CD. Not really that bad of a selection, all things considered. All the same, I’d still like to have the option of swapping out one or two discs again someday so as to avoid any unpleasant pyschotic episodes that may occur from hearing Down on Grandpa’s Farm one too many times. Unfortunately, I’ve already used up my entire bag of fix it tricks, including, but not limited to: cursing at it, banging on it, pleading with it, and ignoring it. What else could a man do, I ask you?

In an unrelated matter, I now have a Gmail account! Try it out: chumworth at gmail dot com.

Who’s your daddy?

Next week we’re going to have the floors in our house sanded. Oh sure, we could’ve done this the easy way, like when we first bought the place and were having that floor gutted. But what fun would that be? It’s no challenge when you only have one child and all of the furniture is already moved off the floor and the place is already a mess. Real men wait until you have multiple young children and lots of heavy furniture on the floors before calling in the flooring guys.

I need a drink.

My four-year-old daughter got me again this morning. After explaining to her why she has to drink all of her orange juice each morning (“fruit is good for you”) she hit me back with the kind of simple yet mind twisting logic that only a little kid could conjure up: “Then why don’t I get to eat Fruit Loops every day. Those are fruit.”

Touche! She’s good.

I’ve been watching lots of the Olympics this week. I’m particularly fascinated with the beach volleyball. I’m not sure who thought up this sport but I must say, it’s pure genius! It’s a deceptively simple yet brilliant formula: take a well known sport, completely ignore the fact that it’s already in the Olympics, play it on sand, weed out all of the ugly people and make the athletes wear just enough skimpy clothing to get it by network censors and – voila! – instant ratings winner!

This really falls into the “why didn’t I think of that?” category. Is it too late to suggest female beach Greco-Roman wrestling?

On the other hand, you have Olympic ping-pong (you people can call it table tennis all you want, but I’m not buying it). Whoever picked this one really needs to review the “weed out the ugly people” rule above. Olympic ping-pong – please.

I’m 34 years old and the only thing that gets me through the days are looking forward to lunch and the next episode of Survivor.

My fingers smell like cheeseburger.

For those who didn’t catch it, long time “60 Minutes” pit bull and 86-year-old Mike Wallace was hauled off to the klink in NYC last night. Apparently, he got into it with some parking cops who were hassling his limo driver for double parking while the old coot picked up some take out meatloaf. After being taken down to the police station, he was released with a summons for disorderly conduct and was home gumming his meatloaf later that night.

On one hand, it sounds like those traffic cops went a bit overboard by cuffing the old man. On the other hand, I must say it’s nice to see that a celebrity like him doesn’t get special treatment for once in his life. I’m guessing if some average Joe Loser like me had done the same thing (albeit without a driver and with my 1994 sedan with 130,000 miles on it instead of a limo) and I had copped a similar attitude with those cops, I’d still be trying to bail my ass out of jail. Equal (in)justice for all, I say!

Besides, what kind of man takes a chauffeured limo to pick up take out meatloaf? What kind of man gets take out meatloaf in the first place?

If there is a god, he’ll get a few months of hard time along side some big, tough tattooed con – like Martha Stewart.

To all you dudes out there who feel the need to not use your hands whilst standing at the urinal, please stop. You know who you are. You stand there relieving yourself while resting your hands on your hips or your back, admiring your handless handy work. It creeps me out. Urination is a dirty business, so get your hands in there, do you job, LOOK STRAIGHT FORWARD, and get out. And remember, if you tap more than twice you’re officially playing with it.

And by the way, handless urination does not – repeat NOT – relieve you of your responsibility to the rest of humanity to wash your damn hands when you’re done.

Yesterday I almost killed myself by painting my garage door.

Now, normally, painting your garage door isn’t considered a life threatening activity, unless, for example, your garage door is in Fallujah. Or, as in my case, you’re repainting a 6′x8′ white garage door (using a nice latex semi-gloss) in 85 degree weather with the sun beating down directly on the door in front of you. In that case, you might as well be sunning yourself on the surface of Mercury during the warmer months using coconut oil and a liberal amount of aluminum foil.

After I was about one quarter done, I was starting to wonder if this was such a great idea. One half way through I was dreaming of applying cocaine slivers directly to my eyeballs to alleviate the snow blindness. Three quarters of the way through I was naked from the waste down in a desperate attempt to cool my head with my sweat soaked underwear and shorts. By the end, barely alive, I was almost wishing I were at work instead of home.

Almost.

This project now joins the long list of seemingly innocuous home improvement projects that I’ve undertaken through the years that have darned near killed, maimed or otherwise permanently incapacitated me, including (but not limited to):

Closing my garage door (I’m starting to think that door hates me)

Assembling a swing set (big thanks again to my local fire department for saving my chestnuts on that one)

Oiling the hinges on my mailbox (long story)

Home ownership. Love it.

I recently went o the skin doctor for a check up. She tells me there’s a fungus on the bottom of my right foot. This seemed odd, as my foot didn’t itch and I couldn’t see any fungus on there. Are you sure there’s a fungus there, I ask?

“Oh, it’s there,” she says.

Fine, I say. Is it a problem? She says it could be a problem if it “jumps to a nail.” Great. What do I do about it? She gives me a prescription for some cream to put on it. Turns out under my stellar medical plan, a tube of this stuff (that will last about two weeks, after which I will need to refill it two or three times) costs $45! Oh yeah, and she says even I after use the cream there’s a good chance this will just keep coming back.

I’m pretty sure that all of my toenails combined aren’t worth $45.

Go to town, fungus.

I don’t mean to rock anybody’s world, here, or anything but I’ve got a bit of disturbing news to share. Fair warning: it might shake your whole faith in humanity, it might make you question everything that you thought you could believe in, it might make you just plop down and start bawling like a baby. But share it I must. If you can’t handle such news, then I suggest you surf elsewhere now. I’ll give you 30 seconds to vacate the area.

Hmmm hmm hmm.

Ok, for those of you left (hi mom!) here I go.

My oil provider has screwed me.

That’s right. BIG OIL, who was right up there with my wife and children in terms of having my love and trust, has royally boned me. Shocking? You bet. If a man can’t trust his oil company then who can he trust?!

In a nutshell, I switched oil companies last year because my current company was offering a nice low “capped” rate on their oil. Meaning, if I signed on with them, my per-gallon oil price would never go above the capped price and would actually go down if oil prices went down. Sounds great, no?

Well, sure, it would be great, just so long as after you say “Wow, that sounds great! Sign me up for the capped price plan!” they actually SIGN YOU UP FOR and KEEP YOU ON the capped price plan. After consummating this relationship that was seemingly made in heaven, I was pleased to note that on my first oil delivery the price was, sure enough, capped as tight Tom Cruise’s teeth. After that I figured, hell, I’m all set, so, brilliantly, I never bothered to check the per-gallon charge with each subsequent delivery.

Turns out, after that first delivery, they jacked the per-gallon price up by, oh, THIRTY F’N PERCENT OVER THE CAP PRICE. I’m now in the process of trying to get this straightened out. I’ve gone through the whole range of emotions: shock, denial, anger, sadness, betrayal, etc. How how HOW could the good people who bring petroleum-based fossil fuels right into my basement have deceived me like this all this time? Why, WHY, Big Oil did you do it? I just need to understand why.

In any case, I’ve decided that, despite my own feelings, I won’t tell my two young daughters about this until they’re quite a bit older. No need to destroy their illusions about our beloved Big Oil just yet. I may, however, discreetly remove Halliburton from our night-night prayers.

Another illusion shattered.