Sunday, January 25, 2009

Legends Live On.

A little while ago, Pie had to take a picture of his family to school for a writing project. I'm sure many parents probably look forward to reading what their sweet angel says they love about being in The Perfect Family.

With my kids, I've learned to mentally prepare myself for the possibility of some loosely-guarded family secret becoming public knowledge, such as the little tidbits Tito has bestowed upon his teacher and God knows who else. Tito's kinda notorious for telling it like it is, as I wrote a few posts ago.

And really, it's not like I would care if he said something like "my family pees with the bathroom door open" or "sometimes my mom and dad lock the door to their bedroom", "mom blows her nose on the sheets", or even "my mom wears earrings in her boobies".

I mean, hell, obviously I share extremely personal stuff with total strangers on here all the time, but to me, there's a certain safety in the anonymity of it. I would NEVER be as open with the details of my life if I were introducing myself to a room full of strangers.

I know some people might know me if they saw me on the street, and I know that if someone recognized me it would probably be from my blog, and if you read my blog and don't think I'm a complete douche, then walk right up and gimme a hug and ask me if I've got my Power Panties on. Or tweak my nips or something. G'head, we're all friends here.

Anyway, back to Tito telling it like it is. Remember Mother's Day last year?

I have this masterpiece posted on my pantry door.





Here's what Pie said about our family. Oh, and here's the picture he used, from 3 years ago. At least it's a decent picture of all of us.



I love my family because they are funny. My family loves to have fun. We play games together. Our favorite game is Sorry. [NOTE: I should point out that this isn't the board game Sorry like you're probably assuming, this is punching each other in the arm on purpose and yelling "Sorry!!" It's fun.] We love holidays because Santa will bring presents. We also love bakeing (sic). My mom has made bad cakes but we love them anyway. My family is very very special. I love my family very much.

I'm thinking about changing my name to PENNY BADCAKES. What do you think? I created a Rock Band rocker named Penny Badcakes. And my band name? Kitchen Nightmares.

Apart from my culinary ineptitude, I'm also legendary for my Ubercompetitiveness. This weekend was our virgin Pinewood Derby experience. There are several things I learned along the way.

1. This Pinewood Derby thing is an ENORMOUS PAIN IN THE ASS. But honestly, a contest of who can win something that's an enormous pain in the ass to put together appeals to me even more than a contest that requires me to do something easy. (See, it's not about the winning, it's about the challenge.)

2. To begin, you get a BLOCK OF WOOD. That's it. The rest is up to you. You're supposed to make it aerodynamic and cool-lookin, or at least one or the other. And, as I mentioned, it is an ENORMOUS PAIN IN THE ASS.

3. Your extremely capable husband may do most of the work, but don't think you're going to be able to wash your hands of it completely. I had to go to Lowe's - by myself, with a list - and it took me forty minutes to locate two items. Ok, I admit I spent most of the time giggling at hardware-related terminology that sounds dirty, but I had a bitch of a time finding this shit.



How was I supposed to find Epoxy Putty when they don't call it Epoxy Putty??? Show me where on the tube it says the word EPOXY!!!

4. Your husband may become very, very difficult to live with during this process. This will be a MAJOR test of your relationship. Try not to be a twat, even when you hear power tools after midnight.



5. If you're not a rocket surgeon, go for the Design Category. We went for creativity. HERE is our original submission.



6. There are RULES. And they're inflexible. The maximum weight your car can be is 5 ounces. When R pronounced it Done and weighed it the first time, it was 5.7 ounces. The second time it was 5.3, the third time 5.1, and finally, about 30 minutes before the whole thing started, 5.0. Drilling holes in the bottom of your car will reduce weight, as will sanding the fuck out of it. By the time we made weight, the wheels were barely hanging on.



7. This event takes ALL FUCKIN DAY. We got there before 9am, and didn't leave until after 1. Each car races six times. Pie's car almost didn't make it. He had to push it across the finish line. Finished dead last in six out of six races. We figured that the design would be funny either way. Either it would be ironic if it happened to be fast, or if it was slow, what did you expect? It's a fuckin TURTLE.

8. It's really cool to see your kid win a trophy. Pie took third place for Funniest in the Design category. The son of the Den Leader took first (hmmmm...), so Pie was extremely proud. And so was R.



ANOTHER TEAM KARMA TRIUMPH!

12 comments:

Amanda said...

My dad and his stupid pinewood derby cars. Notice I say "dad" and not "brother" - bc the second the WORD came down, dad was in the basement and the boy was not allowed to do anything besides pick the number and paint color. Thou Shalt Not Fuck with the Father and His Racing and Engineering Crap.

Streamlined, weight-distributed perfection. Design contest? Screw that. This is WAR. And my dad...er...brother won the district every year he entered. Not the design contest though - I think Pie's car is way cuter than any of the aerodynamic wood blocks my dad made. GO PIE!

A little competitive? Nah.

Trillian42 said...

Pie better look out - Cristi's going to want to steal the Turtlemobile! :D

Anonymous said...

Ya' know something? I coulda TOLD you the Pinewood Derby was a major PITMFGDA. And you, Miss Penny McBadcakes, you know all too well that I am a veritable EXPERT in this field, having had two, count them, TWO cub/boy scouts who each partook of the Derby during their respective tenures. "Cars" that "we" made were:

The coolest car EVER, a stunningly realistic-looking hot dog, complete with bun, ketchup and grill marks.

A really cool car that looked exactly like an old wooden toboggan, complete with snowman holding on for dear life, and a little red padded thing for him to stand. Very Norman Rockwellian.

Another cool car that was supposed to be a bass boat, complete with fisherman casting his line

A "Louisville Slugger" baseball bat on wheels, signed by personal friend Andy Benes at a time when he was the Card's Ace. It was very cool. (Yeah, I know, what's the point of having a pitcher's signature on a bat? We heard a lot of that from the peanut gallery, but THEY were just jealous.)

There were more, but the painful memories have blocked them out.

I think it is AWESOME that Pie took home a major piece of hardware, and it is, indeed, something that R and Pie will never forget.

Sorry I couldn't be there to witness the car with the built-in ironic twist (Turtle trying to go either really fast or really slow, either one is funny).

Next year, borrow my postal scale, will ya'? Save you a lot of drilling on raceday.

turtlegirl76 said...

Dammit, Pam! You gave me away!

lynnm said...

I have so been there with the Pinewood Derby. We celebrated the last year we did those. For having the "Be Prepared" motto, Boy Scouts sure are unorganized!

JRS said...

My brother is 30 and still scarred from his Pinewood Derby experience. Seriously. It came up this past summer when he was having a breakdown of sorts about our dysfunctional familial relationships. I think his drug use and life of crime is a direct result of it all! I'm glad to see that Pie has a trophy and will escape the same fate!

Bezzie said...

Yup. I think that Pinewood Derby thing is the whole reason my husband never got past being a cub scout. He's a scout drop out.

Kashmir Knitter said...

Dude, how bad was this cake that he keeps talking about? What did you do, put in salt instead of sugar? That reminds me, my mom left the sugar out of the cornbread ONE time and heard about that from us for half a decade or so.

I feel your pain with the derby. We have The Science Fair this week and my son is beyond amped. The thing is from 5pm to 8pm on a Friday night and yet I still managed to convince half the family to come take a gander at his project, he's so proud. I'm sure I'll post about his triumph (or how he was robbed) at the end of the week.

Anonymous said...

So Saturday morning both Mrs. Speed Racer and I got the text about the bad cake making ability, and the very next phone call from Mrs. Speed Racer was "So, have you heard from Bad Cakes today?" (yes it was a phone call because I was out of town. Karma sucks - less than 24 hours after walking in nothing but swim trunks on the beach in Daytona, I'm driving home in 3" of snow)

Penny Karma will for ever be known as "Bad Cakes" at the Speed Racer house.

And don't even get me started on pinewood derby cars. I knew what it took to win, and dad would never do it.

Discoknits said...

I have no idea what a Pinewood Derby is, but I hear you on the fear of Lowes. I took Building Studies at school (it was that or Home Ec with all the other girls!), and I'm still terrified.

Seriously, a spade is not called a spade in those places!!!!

Kashmir Knitter said...

Hey, tell your kids this is what bad cakes really look like: http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Amy in StL said...

Holy cow, all I've heard at our back table is talk about the pinewood derby. Apparently there are closely guarded secrets on how to win. Of course, I don't have kids so they were telling me all these things that I don't give a shit about. Men, stupid, men....