a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. adopt you

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. 37 years in 5 minutes

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. finish pooping please

several years ago, marty and i were lounging on the futon watching tv. i had an abdominal pain and kept massaging the side of my gut, groaning painfully.

what's wrong?

i have this damn stitch in my side. it hurts like hell.

it's probably just stuck poop. push on it, it will help work it loose.

she never even looked away from the tv nor did she stop popp...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. warrior, part II

hey cocker.

hey jack.

what can i get you?

pastrami, hoagie roll, provolone.

what kind of soup you want with that?

no soup today, but thank you.

hell with you! go to the back of the line. (then to the decrepitly old lawyer standing behind me) what can i get you young man?

this is how the lion-share of my transactions began at two...

TROY
yes there was a hiccup and the archives didn't happen for about four months.

EXECUTIVE
four months! that's one hell of a hiccup.

TROY
true enough. let's call it more of a wet belch.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. go hide

the teachers at bella's pre-school send a note home in her backpack every school day. these notes typically share what was done that day or plans for the next day.

earlier this week the note home read ... if you think anyone in our home was checked before me, you'd be horrifically mistaken. fact of the matter is marty had to pick through my hair while the letter laid at my feet with me repeatedly saying "do you see any? are there any? what is a nit? what do they look like? what do they do? oh my gawd, have you found any!!!!!?"

during my tremble-voiced questions bella stood in front of me, innocently looking up, saying ...

BELLA
dad, they're just like white ants and if we find some then we look for the mother or father and try to get them first so they stop making more babies in your hair.

TROY
white ants! babies! bella please stop talking while mommy checks daddy. and this is different than how mommy checks daddy on saturday mornings but all the same you got to give us a minute. marty are they really like white ants? please tell me they aren't really white ants! marty! have you found anything?

MARTY
just a little bit of dandruff. but i think you're lice-free.

TROY
dandruff! oh great. so instead of live ants i just got a bunch of dead debris living on my head. this is great. i'm going to go take a shower. and no more notes from school! i don't want to know!

BELLA
what's dandruff?

i used to work with a Jehovah's Witness. during this period i was reading the bible on my palm pilot while riding the metro to work. every now and again he would ask what most recently happened so i would tell him and he would try to guess the chapter and verse. for any ex-sunday-school stars this may sound like a no brainer but there is a catch and that catch is my descriptions came in troy-speak and troy-speak sounded something like this: to his credit, chris was quite gifted at deciphering these modern translations.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. be a warrior

i was talking with a guy, he's an older guy, as in over 60 older. he expressed an interest in cycling. i told him to just do it. he said he had a problem. what? bad knees? gimp back? tweaked shoulder? whatever it is, biking is the sport for you. it seems i'm a suck guesser because i learned his specific problem is he sits on his testicles when he bikes (yeah, like you would have guessed that). wel...

i met a new girl recently and asked her the question i ask all new girls i meet; has she ever seen an uncircumcised penis? her response: i feel as though if i could have gotten her to continue for seven more seconds she would have told me that she, herself, had an uncircumcised penis.

and god knows what i would have gotten with fifteen more seconds, the opportunity to see it for myself perhaps?

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. you rang

i believe to get a representative feel for what life is like somewhere you have to capture the unceremonious words and images around you. the following snippet i overheard between marty and bella offers some insight into life in our home.

BELLA
can santa say words like dammit and stupid?

MARTY
i imagine he can but i bet he chooses different words.

BELLA
i bet he doesn't choose different words and does say dammit and stupid. a lot.

and, in the event you're still a little fuzzy on the scene, this conversation might sharpen the picture a touch more.

here's the short sound bite:
and, here's the longer sound bite:
troyscript : the lie

after watching sleeping beauty for the first time, the following conversation took place between bella and marty in front of grandma nat ...

BELLA
lay down on the bed mom and i will put a prick in you.

MARTY
excuse me.

BELLA
i said, lay down on the bed and i will put a prick in you.

MARTY
and, that would be what i thought you said.

bella went from absolutely loving baths to finding them acceptable to loathing them to the point that if water touches her skin she will shriek in a mad terror that brings the neighbors to our windows, hands cupped to the glass.

most recently she went on a three day jag of refusing to bathe. to put her in forcibly, while an option, was to put yourself in harms way. three days is a long time for an american to not bathe, especially when they live in my home. and especially when they pass the time playing games called DIRT and WORMS.

before having children marty vowed to not have one of those soiled and buger encrusted toddlers that other people were afraid to touch or be touched by. 86 hours into the water fast i asked marty about this missive. she half raised a hand in dismissal. upon seeing this gesture my mind placed this parental ideal in the junk drawer, next to 'will not throw food in restaurants' and on top of 'will not play in own feces' (that's one of my own).

hours later marty was sleeping in some part of the house. i in another with alex on my chest. i was stirred from sleep by someone poking me in the arm and talking to me. i began nodding in agreement and handing the remote over and promising to handle it, whatever it was, later if i could just snooze for five more minutes. bella continued to speak and i continued to lie there with closed eyes:

dad, i don't need to take a bath tonight.

bella, you haven't had a bath in three days

but ...

skipping tonight would make it four, so no deal.

but, i put special scasoli on so i don't need to.

you put what on?

i put special scasolee on so i don't need to.

what is scasolee?

no dad. vascolee?

bella, i don't know what you're saying.

vascoleen dad. vascoleen!

what? Vaseline?

yes. dad. i put Vaseline on.

where?

everywhere.

(i squint my eyes open to see bella naked and every visible shred of skin shiny, slick. and i'm talking from hairline to the tops of her feet.)

ok bella, go tell your mother.

ok dad.

(as she turned to leave i could see that even her backside had sludgy streaks of petroleum coating it.)

last weekend we celebrated bella's third birthday. what's the difference between a two-year old and a three-year old? you can have conversations like this with a three year old at the dinner table:

marty
so what part of today did you not like bella?

bella
when Isaac was touching our dolls.

marty
oh. and what ...

everytime i turn around this week, i'm hearing someone talking about wal-mart. not wanting to get left behind, yet again, i thought i'd throw my wal-mart experience into the ring, even though it's not exactly my experience.

me at wal-mart, pah-leeze.

i wasn't the first on the block to get tivo. i was the second. the first was darkman. darkman is the first to try a lot of things. darkman is like the older brother some of us didn't have. and when he's not that, he's the older brother some of us wish we had.

the number one question most have asked about darkman; why's he called darkman? as with many nicknames, the story is not half as sexy as the moniker itself. we must go back many movie releases to the opening night of a modest film i like to call spawn. it is here i first met the as-yet-un-nick-named fella. after the film, he commented on how that was the worst (or maybe he said best) movie he'd seen since darkman. little did he know that this simple comment would forever brand him darkman, to at least one person walking around that is.

in the early days of knowing him it was not uncommon to catch me saying "yeah, call up that guy, you know, that one guy, darkman." and, there were other times i'd call his home where his wife would answer and it would occur to me that i didn't even know his real name. by the fifth time i could no longer discern her mumblings. she'd just say "one second", set the phone on the counter and call out 'that guy who calls you darkman is on the phone.' i guess she didn't know my name either.

once darkman informed me that he didn't like being called darkman.

me: and ...
dm: and, so i want you to stop calling me that.
me: i'm sorry but that's not how it works.
dm: look i'm telling you i don't like it and i want you to stop!
me: in young guns do you think chavez got to pick chavez as his nickname or did they just call him chavez?
dm: but HIS name WAS chavez!
me: and, therein rests my point.

we all know you can't defend a young guns offensive. it's just not done.

the next nickname dissertation will dissect my accountant-looking, human resources manager friend dubbed snake.

i heard an interesting person interviewed on the radio. she is a party motivator. more simply, she could be called a party ringer. someone with guaranteed charm, charisma and a way of bringing people out of their shells. yesterday i was bemoaning how i'm not a party guy, but this i could do. it's all about the objective. if i was being paid to interact i would have an excuse to interact and could then justify it even if not fulfilling.

her core skill involved stimulating conversation. i could stimulate conversation. i've been known to do this many a time. only difference is she would ask questions like...

what did you want to be when you were in high school and what do you do now?
who is cuter, justin timberlake or leonard dicaprio?
who here thinks mud baths don't renovate a woman?
don't you just love wearing capri pants in the early fall?

where i would ask questions more along the lines of ...

are you circumcised?
will you circumcise your children?
have you ever seen an uncircumcised member?
don't you think men should be able to wear capri pants?

while getting my own party motivator business off the ground, i think you'll find my rates to be quite fair. but i suggest you book me before demand becomes too great.

thursday morning i woke up, took my shower and then went downstairs to the kitchen wearing a towel around my waist as i'm like to do. bella was already down there sitting at the counter eating her breakfast.

b: good morning daddy.
d: good morning sweetheart.
b: there's another daddy in the basement.
d: oh is there? that's nice.

one quickly adjusts to the rocketing imagination of a young child and learns to nod and 'uhm-hum' with great frequency. so i got my breakfast together and sat next to bella at the counter eating. then the 'other daddy' emerged from the basement appearing in the kitchen doorway.

o: good morning.
d: oh, good morning.
b: there's the other daddy, daddy.
d: yes, i see the other daddy.

turns out the other daddy in the basement was the exterminator marty had let in while i was showering. marty entered the kitchen and started rapping with the guy. i decided to quickly finish my breakfast and head back upstairs to get ready for work. but, the conversation he and marty were having proved interesting enough to draw me in. it's not often that i stand in front of strange men in nothing but a towel and jaw for 20 or so minutes but (1) i didn't know he was here and (2) it is my house and this is what i do. one may ask what can be learned in such a short span between a man holding a can of bug spray and another wearing a plush green towel. here's a sample of what i now know about this other daddy.

our exterminator ...

1. was one of eight children. four boys. four girls.
2. had a nun ram a pencil into the palm of his hand when he was in first grade. the lead tip is still there.
3. is a book-writing, painter.
4. grew up on a farmhouse built where a lake used to be. in addition to several feet of water they would routinely find salamanders swimming around their flooded basement.
5. went through a horrible divorce where he sold his bar in attempt to get his two sons. he lost the petition and was instructed to give them up and pay child support. when he and his wife exited the courtroom, she pushed the two boys to him and said you take them, but i still want the checks.
6. cried when he dropped his oldest boy off at college. he almost made it out of there but as he was driving away his son looked back and waved. it was here he lost it.
7. almost died from internal bleeding after having colon cancer surgury.
8. wished he had learned to play the piano in his youth, but feared for his safety given his three brothers.
9. tried to domesticate a flying squirrel, mole and just about anything else he could catch in the woods.
10. knows a guy who looks a lot like me.

i had no choice. i told the guy i had to go to work but he would absolutely have to come over for dinner in the very near future. once at work i had the following conversation:

g: hey troy. so what's up?
t: not much. although, i just met the most interesting guy this morning.
g: who was it?
t: my exterminator.

this modest piece of banter culminated with the following life-lessons being passed down to me by a half-circle of the hunting, scratching, full-time-uber-males i work with ...

1. the man of the house should always know, and i mean always know, when another man is in his home.
2. men do not walk around their home in a towel.
3. men do not talk to strangers while in nothing but a towel.
4. men do not invite perfect strangers to their home for dinner.
5. men do not wear boxers. (one guy)
6. men do not wear briefs. (another guy)
7. men switch between boxers and briefs. (and yet another guy)
8. men shower before going to bed and not in the morning.
9. men do not run outside in their underwear to grab the paper.
10. sleeping naked is left to hippies and perverts.

i fear these guys are three minutes away from dragging me to the bathroom to prove to them that i'm actually a member of their gender club.

the bar scene. this is something i don't do a whole lot. correction, this is something i don't do at all. i used to but was broken by the spouse of one of marty's high school girlfriends. you've yet to meet the guy who could tell more stories about being smashed, hammered and wasted in a single sitting. he was your all-too typical card-carrying, ankle-tatooed, window-decaled, bulky sweatshirted fr...

a favorite pastime of mine is to get people talking about, in public, things they ordinarily would not talk about in public. over time i have found a few topics which make even the most stalwart squeamish, but conciliatory all the same. i'm not sure how this came to be. i think in that people seem more authentic (not to mention interesting) when you can get them off of their typical and canned con...