In which things get really fucking petty and more than a little creepy.

The last twenty four hours have been filled with a ridiculous amount of horseshit, but two things stand out as particularly effulgent beacons of fuckery that just must be shared, both of which revolve around Signore Flailing Retard and his wonderful fiancée leaving for the weekend to go to another fucking LARP.

The two of them left last afternoon at around 2 o'clock or so; I remember the time pretty clearly because I was working upstairs in my little Anne Frank Apartment at 1 when that chucklehead stuck his head through the door and bellowed that they were getting ready to go, and I was still banging away on my work assignment when his cock holster girlfriend did the same thing approximately an hour later. Normally the event of them leaving for a weekend is met with much rejoicing, even though we have to watch their two coprophagic little flea buffets, but there's already so much shit going on with me thanks to relatives coming out of god damned nowhere that it was just one more thing to do.

Still, the two of them are gone, and everyone seems to breathe a little easier. My relative shows up at about 3 and I give him a quick tour of the filthy locale before heading out for some free food, and on the way out I notice the Benefactor (Who Simply Does Not Give a Shit) seated not at his usual computer station but at his daughter's. I file it away in the part of my brain that isn't salivating at the prospect of food I don't have to pay for and don't give it a thought until my return later that evening.

The house is empty; as usual on a weekend any time after 5 PM, the Great White Beast of a pickup truck is parked, probably across three spaces, at the nearest bar. Knowing that the dogs have been in their little crate for a few hours, preparations are made for releasing them and letting them careen down the stairs, probably shitting the whole way, and I pass by Little Miss Tripping Balls' computer screen.

There I find the web browser open to a hardcore porn site, complete with bare asses and tits and giant sloppy cunts.

Now I know that Little Miss Tripping Balls isn't getting her rocks off from Signore Flailing Retard, since they're about as passionate a couple as a pair of dead god damned squirrels, but I highly doubted that she would take the morning and schlick her way to happy times in the middle of the day with her father 10 feet away from him. This means that Daddy's probably been cutting his coke with Occam's razor and decided to plop himself down in the chair his daughter was sitting in only a few hours prior, pull out his fucking dongle, and rub one out while amidst the accumulated garbage on the desk in front of him, which I know for a fact includes several pieces of mail where his daughter's name is prominently displayed.

So yes. 58 year old man sitting at his daughter's desk and chair and masturbating while ostensibly looking at porn but also his daughter's full name.

I can think of only one possible reaction:

The other thing, well, it seems absolutely paltry in comparison. Maybe because it doesn't involve implied incest. It does involve some direct bullshit from both cuntwrangling douchenozzles, however, in that I got a call this morning from a mutual friend. It turns out that Signore Flailing Retard had called this friend, who I will code-name The Mexican, and bitched to him about inviting myself and Third Party to dinner without inviting himself and Little Miss Tripping Balls along.

Really.

The Mexican and his wife, two awesome people with something like 14 children each, have been trying to make tentative plans with both myself and Third Party for a few months now. They've come out to Chucklehead Estate many times over the summer, their brood in tow, to use the pool, hang out, and unfortunately be pressed into slave labor from time to time by Signore Flailing Retard (they were noticeably absent until the late evening at the recent party, most likely to avoid that fate). They're pleasant, down-to-earth people, excellent cooks, and in general just a blast to be around. It helps that the Mexican's wife has some nice god damned tits, too.

We all met this summer, and Third Party and myself hit it off with them pretty damn well, beginning to develop a friendship between the four of us. Recently they invited us out to where they live, just across the border in the wilds of New Jersey, for an overnight stay, and we've been either postponing or rescheduling for a few weeks now, between having no reliable transportation and no money and a myriad of things that just make life fucking complicated, like trying to keep two dogs in a bathtub. Or two testicles in an asshole.

Apparently Third Party mentioned these plans to Little Miss Tripping Balls in passing, stating that it would be rather difficult for us to watch their little bastard dogs overnight if we go out to Mr. and Mrs. Mexican's hacienda sometime in the future. It got back to Signore Flailing Retard, and he placed a call directly to the Mexican to complain that both he and his lovely "girl"friend weren't invited as well.

I was informed of this earlier today by a puzzled phone call placed to Chucklehead Estate, informing me of the new development. The Mexican related the news to me, and I could envision him scratching his head in wry confusion. I simply informed him that our mutual friends were jealous about missing the opportunity for a free meal.

In which a massive amount of douchebaggery is distilled down to a few hundred words.

Once again it has been several days between now and my last update. Once again, I am thoroughly unapologetic; I've had other shit that needed dealing with. Some quick highlights from the past two weeks have been:

• preparing for, attending, and then cleaning up from Little Miss Tripping Balls' birthday party
• battling a flea infestation brought on by two neglected dogs and one neglected cat, neither of which belong to Our Hero
• extended caring for said dogs and cat in light of the fact that Little Miss Tripping Balls, Signore Flailing Retard, and Our Glorious and Illustrious Benefactor (May His Blood Alcohol Level Never Exceed the Legal Limit) have all been out of the house for extended periods of time

Let's break these down, shall we? The day of my last post was the Monday after a middling-large social gathering to commemorate the eventful day when Little Miss Tripping Balls slid down her mother's vaginal chute into a pile of drugs and money, of which one or the other has she been steadily consuming since that date. There were several key players in attendance, along with several more who just couldn't be bothered to come all the way out to the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania for the privilege of having a shitty time. The farm was in relatively good shape, thanks to the ministrations of Our Hero and Third Party, who had been steadily maintaining the work done on the side patio in addition to the backyard pool and deck areas (despite the giant dogshit landmines everywhere).

Additionally there was a flurry of cleaning and preparation that had taken place that previous Friday when, after an indefinite amount of prompting and and encouragement from outside sources, both SFR and LMTB actually got off their fucking asses and cleaned their shit up and out of the first floor. Of course, their version of "clean" is rather laughable; all the loose pieces of personal property were trundled upstairs and deposited into their dumping ground on the second floor, a dog-shit encrusted room that used to also be their bedroom until they actually moved their bed to a smaller, adjoining room in some asinine bid for World's Most Stupid Couple. I think they're still in the running.

So the pool room was cleansed of all their ridiculous mess, and the shared living room and kitchen space was given a once-over as well. There was some work done outside in addition, such as the vile, reeking cooler hosed out and disinfected before being filled with cheap, evil-smelling beer and the pool cleaned within an inch of its life, but alas they cannot take credit for all of these things themselves; as people began arriving early for the party, they were actually put to work on these tasks. Can you fucking imagine? Later I discover this is why so many people arrived either later in the evening or not at all, as this kind of behavior has occurred several times in the past.

Another reason some people were reticent to come is because their two hosts would routinely, in addition to making their guests clean their filthy house and environs for them, also neglect to purchase adequate amounts of food and drink to actually entertain their guests. Well, in a stroke of altruism and goodwill that is surely forgotten by now, both Third Party and myself got together, pooled our resources in regards to food and drink easily purchased with government aided funds, and went food shopping for the party. We were determined to at least be able to offer some sort of recompense for all the poor assholes that got suckered into coming over for this noxious celebration, and since Signore Flailing Retard and Little Miss Tripping Balls now have no money since Il Benefattore (Lui Che Non Parla Italiano) took his credit card back from the clutches of his vapid little daughter. Hell, TP and I were even the ones who paid for her fucking birthday cake.

But that's neither here nor there; the actions weren't taken for her or her vile fiancé but for their guests, several of which are friends or at least people that don't deserve a slow, painful death. So we did a mitzvah, so what? No expectation of gratitude. Which was not really all that forthcoming.

Behavior displayed during the party was of the head-scratching variety, of course. The general demographics of the party broke down in two ways: close friends of approximately the same age, or newer, younger people known through some retarded LARP game both the Birthday Girl and her remora of a fiancé frequent once a month. The two of them spent the majority of their time with the teenagers over on one side of the house, while the adults were all gathered on the other side, as far away as possible from the kids. There was little to no overlap, save a frightened little boy or girl scurrying outside to grab something from the cooler (which was luckily placed in our demense). Occasionally our Host and Guest of Honor would grace us with their single or combined presence, but we were mostly left to our own devices. From all accounts, it was more preferable that way.

After the weekend was over and everyone had gone home, things went back to normal, of course; this means that the place was slightly rumpled and in need of being policed for empty cans, bottles, and cigarette butts. I personally had to rescue any perishable items from the cooler while there was still some ice left in there keeping it cold, as I wasn't about to let a full gallon of orange juice go bad. I knew that if I didn't pull it out of there and stick it in the fridge, we'd be buried in rot and filth by October when it's opened again for the next ridiculous party.

So as soon as that was done and taken care of, the next week and a half have been a constant struggle to contain and eliminate a massive flea infestation brought upon us by neglect: the decision was made to bring an absolutely wonderful indoor-outdoor cat upstairs and away from the dogs because both I and Third Party would continually find that he had terrible scratches and scabs from when the dogs would play with him much too roughly. As the cat weighs about 10 pounds and the dogs weigh around 35 pounds each, it was an easy decision on our part.

Unfortunately both he and the two dogs were teeming with fleas, which spread to not only any other animals in the area but also any human beings. This resulted in a massive expenditure of funds and effort in such things as two kinds of flea medication for cats, thoroughly vacuuming, cleaning, and linen-washing the contents the entire attic from top to bottom, and giving a bath to four cats.

Think about that. Four cats. Not all at once, thank God - that would have been absolute Bedlam - but one at a time, right after the other. It was a miserable experience, and not just for the cats. Only now have things started to show improvements; last night was the first time in two weeks where I hadn't woken up with my legs teeming with flea bites.

All of this effort could have been avoided by the owners of these God damned pets actually taking care of them, of course. The cat has unofficially been adopted by me and Third Party, so we're comfortable in seeing to his needs, even though he's not fixed yet and we'll have to figure out a way to pay for his neutering, but there's no way in Hell we can take responsibility for two very rambunctious growing dogs. We have been reassured time and again by their owners that the dogs have been given all sorts of preventative flea medications, and while that may be true, unless someone actively cleans the locations where the dogs frequently inhabit indoors, they can become re-infested and start the cycle all over again.

Guess who hasn't taken any efforts to clean the living room, where the dogs are constantly whenever they're not outside, looking for delicious chunks of their own shit to eat? That's right, Little Miss Tripping Balls and Signore Flailing Retard. I'm doubly sure that they haven't cleaned their living space on the second floor as well. This means that even sitting on the couch downstairs to watch television is an impossibility when you constantly feel fleas swarming out at you from the seat cushions.

The only solution would be to not go downstairs unless when absolutely necessary, of course, but not only does that make this little room up here into a prison, it's just not practical, especially since once again the dogs' "owners" have left for the weekend, leaving it to other people to care for the little abused bastards.

And I do mean abused; I had taken them outside Friday night so that they could urinate and defecate outside for a pleasant change when I noticed the fur had all been chewed and scratched off one dog's hindquarters, leaving large patches of exposed skin. Of course this was brought to my attention when he squatted down to expel his foul excrement all over the patio I had just scoured within an inch of its life, but I praised him for shitting outside, like a normal dog, and began to walk towards him to reach the long-handled shit scooper nearby.

He jumped up fearfully, his sphincter still clutching a half-deposited doggie log, and scrambled out of reach of me. He then squatted back down and released his putrescent load, all the while watching me warily, like I was going to rush him and beat him severely for shitting all over the place.

Like it had happened before or something.

It's times like these that make me wonder why I don't drink.

In which our hero awakens with a headache and cottonmouth, without the benefit of a good time the previous evening.

I woke up this morning at roughly 7:30, my head pounding like a kettle drum and my tongue feeling as if it was a giant wooly caterpillar crawling about my mouth. I found this perplexing, of course, because I had done nothing the previous evening that would account for such physiological abnormalities - no drinking, no smoking, no fun of any kind in fact - so I merely stumbled downstairs in order to pilfer two Excedrin Migraine from the shelf above the desk of Little Miss Tripping Balls.

When I performed this nefarious act of larceny, I noticed that her computer screen had been left on, presumably all evening. Additionally it looks like she had been playing The Sims or some other such irrelevant refuse, most likely for hours at a time, instead of doing something useful like looking for a job or training her dogs not to either shit uncontrollably over the highly expensive hand-sewn Persian rugs her father had bought once upon a time or to viciously attack each other over the slightest provocation.

It's come to the point where I don't know what will set off these bouts of spontaneous homicidal rage with the dogs; I merely know that they are usually triggered whilst the dogs are in close proximity to each other. I've taken to only petting them when there is at least a few feet of daylight between them in order to avoid becoming collateral damage and getting my face torn off. This is frustrating because not only are they wonderful dogs taken one at a time, I'm the kind of person that routinely prefers the company of domesticated animals over people and I'm unaccustomed to being fearful of dogs. Every animal either I or my family has ever owned has been incredibly gentle and well-behaved, up to and including my parents' current 85-pound behemoth. He moves lightly for a rhinoceros, to quote Jim Butcher.

Adding to my frustration is the fact that these two dogs aren't mine. On the one hand, this frees me from any technical responsibility in regards to their general upkeep and well-being; on the other hand it bars me from any direct say in how the dogs are raised, trained, and treated by the two vile, soulless homunculi that are their "owners." I find it difficult to watch two perfectly good, loving, ebullient, highly intelligent dogs get utterly and completely ruined through neglect and mismanagement.

It's indicative of the both of them, both Little Miss Tripping Balls and Signore Flailing Retard. Shortcuts, neglect, lack of forethought, poor mental hygiene, whatever you wish to call it. Just like leaving the computer monitor on all night, letting the image of some vapid game burn itself into the LCD screen, not only are their acts wasteful but destructive to boot.

Another fine example of this behavior is Signore Flailing Retard's plans for the near future, shared with me a couple of days ago whilst I feigned interest in his ramblings. He's currently employed as an independent contractor for a tech services company (in other words, he's a fucking IT temp), and the contract with his current employer is up in a few weeks. As that contract ends, his plans are to apply for a loan from the government, co-signed by his mother, and return to school in order to gain his MCSE certification, a very long, very expensive course of study. School will be two 8-hour days, twice a week. While he does so, instead of working a part-time job to help pay the bills with the remaining 3 days of the work week like a normal, responsible human being would do, he'll be filing for unemployment benefits. Again.

Now I've done the work-and-go-to-school thing. I know how much it sucks. Hell, the stress of working 40 hours a week and then going to law school for an additional 20 probably contributed to my cancer diagnosis, but you know what? I fucking did it for two-and-a-half god damned years. I didn't go on fucking unemployment, taking bread out of the mouths of people who really needed the cash to help pay mortgages, or to buy food for their kids, or keep the gas tank filled so they could get to doctors' appointments because they're fighting for disability benefits. There are people in this world who need that money more than I do. That's something that Signore Retard just doesn't seem to get, and that sense of entitlement makes me want to start biting the heads off chickens in some sort of snarling, animalistic rage.

I've been on fucking Food Stamps. I know the shame and anger you feel at having to resort to a governmental safety net program. I also know the relief and gratitude you feel when you can go to the supermarket and buy food that doesn't consist of Maruchan Top Ramen and mustard. I don't wish that situation on anyone, but I do know that when programs like that are abused by people who can avoid using them by engaging in just a little hard work, it makes me sick to the pit of my stomach because somewhere, someone just got denied absolutely priceless help because the funding ran out. Especially now, when the unemployment rate is so god damned high.

Doubtless Signore Retard will make more money on unemployment than he would working some shit job down at the Gas'n'Sip cleaning the bird jism off car windshields. In that way it makes good financial sense on a microeconomic level. But what about the other 37.5 million people on unemployment in this country currently? If even 10% of those people did what this jackwagon was going, that's a huge amount of government funds being eaten up by selfishness.

Seinfeld can go fuck himself; there is such a thing as a truly selfless act.

In which positive news is relayed and passive-aggressive hijinks are praised.

I had a "business call" this morning at 9:30 with the UK banking guy. I feel my skin crawl at the sheer prospect of attempting to communicate in a cogent manner prior to 11 AM, so it was only by a supreme harnessing of my willpower did I not degenerate to pre-verbal grunts and other strange lizard brain rumblings; the Green Lantern ain't got shit on me.

The meeting was to discuss the possibilities of taking on more work for my intrepid internet marketing compadre across the pond; he wants me to increase the number of articles I re-write a week to around 25, bringing my haul to a lofty $100 weekly. Considering how the most time-consuming part of the job is finding articles of sufficient length to swallow, partially digest, and then regurgitate, I readily agreed. In addition he was interested if I would write email autoresponder campaigns, about one a month, for around $100 a pop as well. So apparently I'll be earning about $500 a month from this yahoo, which is more than double what I was earning currently.

Combined with my transcription proofreading gig, which could be as much as $250 a week if my handler would just quit jerking me around and send me pure proofing jobs, I could potentially earn around $1500 a month before taxes. Of course I'd have to withhold a portion of my own pay for Uncle Sam at the end of the year, but it's better than being out of work completely. Hell, making that kind of scratch, I could easily afford some shitbox used car in a couple of months maybe. Just in time to visit the more miserable members of my family circle that still reside in the great state of New York. Maybe for the holidays; there's nothing like a dose of passive-aggressive bullshit to teach you the merits of family members that don't live around the corner.

Not that passive-aggressive bullshit can't be highly entertaining. A story was related to me earlier today by A Third Party, whose name, gender, height, weight, eye color, hair color, skin color, ethnicity, religious affiliation, shoe size, sexual proclivities, and whether or not they were a member of the Communist Party will remain confidential in order to protect their identity.

Third Party was venturing outside to get the mail this afternoon when they encountered Our Benefactor (He Whose Name Must Be Said Reverently and with at least Half an Erection) outside. He had asked Third Party if Little Miss Tripping Balls had spoken to TP. TP said no; in fact Little Miss Tripping Balls seemed particularly frigid this morning (judging from the collection of sexual enhancement herbal supplements strewn about the living quarters of her and her fiancé, I'm not surprised).

TP made mention of this, and was graced with the following story: late last night after everyone had gone to bed, The Great Benefactor (Whom Even Chuck Norris Would Not Fuck With), in an inebriated stroke of genius, broke off from his current project (transforming a whole sockeye salmon into approximately 10 pounds of homemade lox) and ventured into the adjacent room to the kitchen.

This room, known colloquially as the Pool Room due to the full-size Billiards table that is typically covered with a mountain of detritus, is also known as Where Dog Shit Goes to Die. Prior to their current little shit machines, Little Miss Tripping Balls and Signore Flailing Retard were in possession of an incredibly old, sickly, bitchy little American Eskimo dog with dingy yellowed fur. The dog was old five years ago; it would constantly lose control of its bowels and proceed to shit absolutely everywhere. His favorite spot was the Pool Room.

The dog died in March. There was dog shit still in the Pool Room as of about 1 AM last morning.

I used the past tense there for a reason: apparently Our Magnificent Benefactor (Who Sparkles Even Though He's Not a Vampire) decided to gather up each piece of fossilized canine excrement he could locate and proceeded to tie a neat bow around each one with baker's twine. He then laid them lovingly upon the chair in which Signore Flailing Retard sits while he's using his computer as a tribute to the man's recently deceased pet.

"For some reason I don't think he was very appreciative," he then told Third Party, feigning hurt and bemusement. "I thought it would be a fitting memorial."

"Well," Third Party replied, completely deadpan, "that may be why your daughter seems a trifle upset this morning."

Sometimes I think I can really come to love that man.