Tons of Guns

"I got mines I hope you [got yourself a gun]" Nas - "Got yourself a Gun"

I'll be honest I don't listen to or really read the news. The reason being is because it's usually all bad news. So I can appreciate when ClnMike does his Good News Tuesdays. But last week I came across an article about a young 11 year old boy that killed his pregnant step mother with a gun. Well the twisted part is that apparently the gun used to kill the 8 month pregnant step mother was a youth 20-gauge shot gun that was given to the child. Just 2 weeks prior to this tragic event the boy won a turkey in a shooting competition. I just don't understand what some parents are thinking these days. This tragedy could have been prevented so easily. But now a woman and her unborn baby are dead, a young boy is facing life in prison for double homicide and a family is torn apart.

Now I know I started off with something a little depressing, but that story made me think about me and guns when I was a young boy. So on a lighter note I have a little confession. When I was younger like most young boys I had a fascination with guns. Upon saying that some may assume that I had plenty of toy guns to play with. Well actually it was the total opposite. My parents absolutely refused to buy or allow me to play with toy guns. Yep they were all off limits. Water pistol? Nope! Cap gun? Nope! Suction gun? Nope! Trust mom and dad vetoed them all.

So, as a young boy I was stuck at a crossroad. I mean how am I to play cops and robbers with no gun? What kind of cop or robber has no gun? So what was I to do? Well being the innovative young boy that I was (and still am) I didn't need an actual gun. Yes ladies and gentlemen I turned any and everything into a gun. I made guns out of legos, Lincoln Logs (that's old school for the younger readers out there. Lol), sticks, and of course my finger. Pow! Now as much as my parents tried to stop this behavior they just couldn't keep me from making more guns. As soon as they took one of my make shift guns away I would immediately grab something else, aim it at someone, and say POW! I think its just one of those things about little boys. Its somehow in their nature. Although I will admit I was an extreme case.

Likewise, my son's mother and I adopted the same philosophy to keep our son away from guns. But of course it doesn't stop him from running up on me with his finger or some other object and unloading on me. POW! Lol. Luckily for me his fascination is with cars and rarely thinks about guns or violent toys. As for me I eventually turned to sports cards and video games and my gun fascination died down some. However, when the super soaker was out I had to have one.
Again, the key word is it died down "some." I can recall at about age 12 a friend of mines and I bought these 2 toy guns. They resembled 9 millimeters. But what kept them from looking real was the fact they were painted in camouflage fatigue colors. Well in an effort to make them look realer we came up with the bright idea to spray paint the guns black. So, after spray painting the guns to the average untrained eye the gun really did look like a real 9 millimeter (similar to the toy gun to the left). Bright idea #2 came when we decided to actually carry these guns around. Yep just like they do in the movies in the waist band. Now we didn't do anything devious with these guns but we just carried them around to make us look or feel cool.

Fortunately, no one ever mistook the guns for real guns. However, there was one particular incident that I recall so vividly. Now let me first paint the picture. The year was around 1992 or 1993, the place Los Angeles, California (Technically the San Fernando Valley). So this was after the Rodney King verdict and L.A. riots. So tension between blacks and police were at an all time high. A 12 year old young black male walks out of a local mall. He has a toy gun spray painted to look realistic. A police squad car with 2 white officers in it passes by and they notice him reaching for what looks to be a gun. They immediately stop! They tell him to stop and one of the officers walks up to him and asks what he has tucked in his jeans. He pulls out a toy gun and immediately states "it's just a toy." Officer #1 replies "this thing looks real why are you carrying it?" The boy replies "for no reason its just a toy." Officer #2 states "don't you know we could have shot you thinking this gun was real?" The boy keeps quiet. Officer #1 says "we're going to give you a bag to carry this thing in."

Next, Officer #2 interjects and says "no better yet we're going to just drop you off at home. What's your name and where do you live?" The boy panics and tries to think fast. He gives his first name. They then ask him his last name. He attempts to think even faster. Well he didn't want to give his real last name, so the only thing that he could come up with quick enough was Mc Williams. "Mc Williams is your last name?" Officer #1 asks with a suspicious look on his face. He then sarcastically states "Okay then hop in the back we're gonna drop you off at home Mr. Mc Williams." On the trip the young boy realizes he can't be seen by his parents with a squad car dropping him off. So as they approach his apartment complex he tells them to stop at the building right before his. The officers let him out of the back and give him the gun in the bag. They leave him with a stern warning not to carry the gun out in public any more.

Well of course that young black boy was me. Whenever I think back to the incident I just think God was with me that day. Those cops could have shot me and would have gotten away with justifiable homicide because I decided to carry a fake gun. Then I laugh at me choosing the last name Mc Williams. There was a white girl in my class with the same last name so I guess that's all that came to mind in time. Back then I didn't realize that it was strictly an Irish last name. So the chances of a black man having that last name were the same of Rodney King still having some of the money left that he won in the civil trial. Although my brother once out drank an Irish man and called him self Dre Mc Williams, beyond that it wasn't a plausible alias. LoL.

I don't think my fascination with guns was quite the same after that incident. Pretty much non existent would describe it best. Although once my ex father in law (an ex-police officer) took me to the gun range once when I was about 21. That was the first real life gun I had ever held let alone fired. So I guess that allowed me to finally live out some childhood fantasy. Whatever the case may be a child does not have the mental capicity to handle real guns. Hell there are plenty of adults that shouldn't even be handling guns. So to purposely hand a child a real gun is a tragedy waiting to happen. Just my take on the story.

--C-Recks--

Myspace Madness

When we first started this blog our cousin made a comment. She said "if you're not making a personal diary on this blog then won't you eventually run out of things to blog about?" Well Cuzzo we're 9 months in and still going strong. As much as we try to not make this a personal blog, there are often times when certain things just get thrown in your lap. Well at that point you have no choice but to blog about them. I have a song I wrote called "Walk in my Shoes" and part of the chorus states "If you take a walk in my shoes and lace em' up/ you'll see that I'm for real man I can't make this up." So here is one of those situations.

Here's the background info: I'm not going to go personally into all of the nitty gritty, but let's just say due to certain circumstances my brother and I aren't the closest with our father. Now in recent months he's made attempts to rebuild the relationship. But to be honest, let's just say as Jay-Z said "It's a slow process and I ain't got nothing but time."

So a few days ago I get a weird text message. After reading it I realize it's a text message sent via yahoo messenger. The message happened to be from my father. So I'm in my head like "who in the hell put him up on yahoo messenger?" Not that he's too old or anything because my mom uses yahoo messenger at times. But for some reason it was just weird coming from him. So the message is general so I go ahead and reply. Then he begins to ask me about my music and when my cd is coming out. So I tell him and give him my myspace link www.myspace.com/crecksinkrowd. I think nothing of this innocent gesture as I felt if he was really interested he would appreciate seeing the site. He said he would check it out and that was the end of the convo. At least so I thought.

Well I got another of these texts from him last night. I was actually online at the time, so I just went ahead and IM'd him directly through yahoo messenger. He was going on saying how much he liked my myspace page and how professional it looked. Also, he stated that he was looking forward to hearing my CD. Now my father was into music way back in the days. But just like all musicians I guess you just never give up on the dream. So, he was going on about how he wanted to collabo with me (LMAO), how he can help me, about this artist he's producing, and how he knows so and so he can give my cd to. Blah blah, Yada Yada. So in parting he makes this statement. "Who are the ladies on your myspace page?" I'm like I don't know it's a music page everyone gets approved so it could be anyone. Some of them I know some are just myspace friends. So, he closes saying "Well I don't know which were which but Wow!! had me thinking... Never mind talk to you later son." I shook my head as he signed out of messenger and again thought that was that.

So not too long after that I go on to my myspace page to check my messages and play that damn Mafia Game I'm addicted to. LoL. So I notice I have a new friend request and a new message. I get all kinds of friend requests, so I never really pay attention to nor ever visit the pages of some of the clowns that send me requests. As I said everyone gets approved! So when I looked at this latest request. The name first stuck out. But I'm like Oh Hell No this just couldn't be. So I go to my messages and see I have a message from this person as well. I read the message and immediately start to "crack" the hell up like Bobby and Whitney. I go to the person's page and see the main picture and just begin to shake my goddamn head. I begin to read the profile and let out a WTF aloud. Can this nigga be serious?

I'm sure you guessed it by now. But yes my damn father had created a myspace page. Now my father brings about all kinds of hilarity just for no damn reason some times. I've referred to him as dad and father here, but trust he gets called a lot of names by us and neither of those are often spoken. Trust if I got down and personal I would have endless blogs that would have you dying a slow death from laughter. However, this officially took the cake. I immediately got on the phone and called my brother. When I tell him the story we're both damn near in tears. But wait here's the kicker. You ready? The nigga listed his age as 40!! 40? Are you serious? My brother is 30 and I'll be 29 this year. So you were 10 and 11 when you had us? Get the hell outta here. This so reminded me of the episode of Boondocks where granddad was on myspace meeting women. See the clip below.



See this is why certain technologies are dangerous when they fall into the hands of either young children or older people. Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong with older people being on myspace. So if any of your parents have myspace pages then more power to them. However, I do have a problem with MY parents being on there. In addition, I would have a problem with my parents frequenting the same club I hit up. I don't want to see pops trying to holler at young girls or mom's (not that she ever would) dropping it like it's hot. There just has to be certain boundaries that are set and respected.

So in an attempt to see if I was alone in this boat, I did some research and just did a quick browse on myspace for people ages 50 (my dad's real age) - 68 (the maximum age field myspace allows). Well apparently within a 250 mile radius of my zip code there were about 3000 people men and women that fit that search criteria. I clicked through a few pages and noticed the majority of them were white people. But I guess I felt a little better knowing that I'm not the only child being embarrassed by their parent.

I just find it funny that I just wrote a blog about being the cool dad to my son as he gets older. I mean I want to be up to date with slang and technology; however, at age 50 my son will be 26. By that time as cool as I would want to still be in his eye, I think I would have just embraced my old age.

I'm honestly still debating on whether to approve this friend request or not. The good thing with having over 1000 friends is that he would be buried in the pile. But there's absolutely no way in hell that he's going in my top friends. I'll keep a running update on how the new myspace adventures are going. I'm sure my brother will have to also state his take on the situation. So this definitely won't be the last you hear of this subject. All I know is if I get a friend request from my mom I'm closing that damn page down quicker than a buffet when a bus load of obese people pull up. LoL. Oh and to my cousin as long as I have gold like this I'll never run out of stuff to blog about. And by the way cuzzo you're in my top friends on myspace, so check your inbox. I'm sure that your uncle sent you a friend request too. So far he only has Tom and some unforsaken victim. LMAO!!

--C-Recks--

Child Abuse

By the title of this post you're probably automatically thinking that I'm referring to some sort of physical or verbal child abuse. First off I must say that I am in no way making a joke or mockery of child abuse. However, as horrible as those types of child abuse are, I think there is a child abuse that is over looked. Whenever, I see this behavior exhibited I want to immediately get on the horn and call DCFS. There are certain parents that suffer from what I'm going to refer to as: IknowyougotnotalentbutIdon'twannahurtyourfeelings. I would form that into an acronym but it would probably look like something my son typed. (IKYGNTBIDWHYF) LoL. For an example please check out the video below.



We've all seen it, season after heart wrenching season on the show American Idol. the new season just began earlier this month. I like some of you, used to look forward to this show just to see the opening weeks auditions. I just wanted to get a quick laugh at the talentless individuals that make fools of themselves. Well probably 3 or 4 seasons ago I could not take any more. I just had to ask myself where are these kids parents at? Although it's funny to watch, it's really more sad than anything. It began to feel like I was watching a child get beat over and over. I mean I've seen a kid or 20 get spanked before in my lifetime. Initially it's pretty funny (don't judge me for laughing), but to see them get spanked over and over and over eventually saddens me.

Whenever I watch the show auditions I'm always left wondering who let them go on this show? I mean who heard them sing and actually encouraged them to go audition? Well if it was friends I don't fault them. Maybe they just wanted a good laugh or something to blog about. However, when I see the parents consoling their crying kid after Simon rips them a new one, I just have to Shake My Head. Then it amazes me that the parents have the nerve to get upset and say that "the judges are wrong and can't recognize talent if it bit them in the ass."

Well I have a message to those parents. Yes we all love our kids and we want them to think they are the best and encourage them to be the best at any and everything they do. However, as parents we must be realistic. At a certain age (I would say by the teenage years) this has to stop. By this age you and your child(ren) should be able to understand that there are some things they're great at, some they're just average at, and some thins they just suck at. Therefore, when you hear them sing and you can barely stand it, what makes you think others will enjoy it?

Unfortunately, I don't know what all of my son's talents hidden talents will be 10 years from now. His grand dad taught him to play drums. So, I know at 5 he can already play a mean set of drums already. And when I say play I mean like really play not just banging them to make noise. I was amazed when I first saw him doing this. As a producer, I can play the hell out of a drum machine and make a tight beat (See Left). However, I'm not coordinated enough to play a set of drums. Lol. Also, I wish I could put it on here, but I got pics and video of him lip [rapping] syncing to a song and holding this microphone. Sorry, but I got a rule about not posting pics or videos of my son anywhere online. But trust me It's too hilarious. I've never taught him any of this showmanship, but I can see he's a natural performer.

In the end I think it boils down to if you love your kids you have to love them enough to be honest with them. Yes it may be hard for me to sit my son down and tell him that he's not that talented in a certain thing. However, I would rather him hear it from me someone that loves him, than someone that loves them. It's far better than letting him go on TV in front of millions of people to only embarrass his damn self. I would be more than glad to help him develop whatever the talent he lacks skills in. But to fill his heads with lies knowing he is no good to me would be child abuse.

Speaking of abuse. No offense but even Joe Jackson's non parenting ass had sense to beat his kids until their talents were flawless. LoL. Now that is truly not funny and of course extreme. But I tend to just think of it in terms of your child liking or being in love with a girl or guy that you clearly see just isn't into them. They obviously don't see it, but are you going to sit back and let their heart constantly be broken over and over as they get rejected by that person? Or are you going to Man Up and just say hey son or daughter they're not into you like you are them. But don't worry you're wonderful regardless and there are others [talents] that will appreciate you the way that you should be? But then again perhaps it's just me and my keep it real mind state.

Well to all you American Idol fans have fun watching the new season I'm sure there will be plenty laughs to be had at more talentless kid's expenses. But don't feel bad when you're on the floor breaking your back to laugh. Because behind it there is a parent to blame. So to those parents I must say Shame On You!

--C-Recks--

Any Given Son Day

November 28, 2008

Dear Son,

It was almost 5 Years ago to the day when your mom and I realized you were indeed on your way. It was November 29th 2003. It was around 1am in the morning. I was up late as always, but I can't recall what I was doing. I believe your mom was sleeping. However, something awoke her. I'm sure it had something to do with you moving around. She said she had to use the bathroom. So I helped her up and as she stood up she said I think I peed on myself. Well she then went to the bathroom to clean up. But she came out and said I don't think this is pee. After making a call to your grandmother and to the doctor she was able to determine that a portion of her water had broken.

So we packed up and drove to the hospital. Your mom did all the hard work I just tried to be supportive and not get on her nerves. But almost 22 hours later at about 10:50pm that night you were born. I remember when your head popped out, the doctor pulled you out, and your eyes were wide open and you looked right at me. In between tears I smiled, as the doctor wrapped you up and handed you to your mom. She quickly called me over to hold you as well.

It was hard to imagine that I had spent almost 9 months talking to you through a barrier of stomach that grew by the day. You used to kick whenever I talked to you. But then and there I was holding and talking to you in the flesh. I had overwhelming feelings of joy, happiness, nervousness and even fear. Yes me the self proclaimed fearless man was scared at that moment. The thought that your life was essentially in my hands had me scared to death. The thoughts of what kind of father I would be to you, and would I be able to do this job forever had me fearful. But I vowed to you even less than hours old that I would do any and everything to take care of you and be there for you.

Well it didn't take too long for me to get the hang of the parenting thing. However, there was trouble on the home front. I can and will explain to you the entire story as you get older and are curious as to what happen. But a long story short your mom and I ended up splitting up and eventually divorcing. I had to make some of the hardest decisions of my life during those rough times, but in the end I feel like I made the best decision when considering you. It was difficult to make such decisions and not want to be selfish. However, I had to take a look at a much bigger picture which went beyond just myself.

You may hear different variations of the story when you get older, but I have no problem being open and honest when you're able to handle it. You weren't old enough to remember your mom and I ever being together. Which in part I find a good thing most times. The way your life is now is how you have always known it to be. So you don't remember some of the back and forth and changes that took place back then. Regardless of what has taken place, just know it had nothing at all to do with you. And in many ways what took place forced me to be the man I needed to be. The man I needed to be for myself and for you.

When I think of you being five years old it is still hard to imagine. Time flies is all that I can say. I mean I can truly recall it all like it was yesterday. From your first words (which were da da don't let anyone tell you different), to your first steps, your first fall (I dropped you), and recently your first dentist trip (I took you, poor thing you shook like a leaf you were so scared). I've made sure that I have been there every step of the way. Not only financially, but also physically and emotionally there as an active father in your life. Besides a hand full of weekends out of town and when for whatever reason your mom had something else planned, I don't/didn't miss a weekend spending quality time with you. The same goes for calling and talking to you on a nightly basis.

Over these five years I've watched us begin a bond as father and son that is undeniable. I wouldn't give it up for anything or anyone in the world. It reminds me of how I was with my father when I was a kid. Unfortunately, that relationship slowly whithered away over the years due to some circumstances that I will reveal to you later as well. But I vow to you that I won't let anything get in between us remaining close and me being a constant in your life. In the next 5-10 years I'm sure you'll be experiencing many more firsts. Including, your first day of school (real school), first crush (Kim Possible doesn't count), first heart break (sad to say but it's going to come), first fight, etc. Just know that you will have me there for you and there to help guide you through each of those events and more.

I love you so much and I am so very proud of you. And even prouder to call myself your Dad. I wish you the happiest 5th birthday ever and so many more to come.

Love,

Your Dad.


--C-Recks--

We All Scream!!

So this past weekend I was at the Park with my Son. It's sort of a hot day out but not too bad in the shade. So we're at the corner end of the park and we hear that old familiar music playing. As soon as we hear it both of our ears piqued and we look at each other. Almost simultaneously we both say it. "ICE CREAM MAN!!" So I looked around and saw that the Ice Cream Truck was actually a good distance away. We would have had to run (I would run at least and he would ride his bike) to make it there before he left. As I stated it was hot so I told my son we're gonna miss it this time but I promised him that we'll make sure we get some ice cream the next time. Ironically, he was okay with that and we continued to play.

So, the following day my son and I find ourselves at the park once again. Of course we were playing the usual baseball, soccer, riding his bike, etc. As we're playing we hear that familiar sound of the Ice Cream Man driving past again. With the elephant memory my son has he quickly tells me "hey daddy there's the ice cream man remember you said you would get me one next time." Of course I hadn't forgotten it was only the day before when I made this promise. So I told him yes I remember and he's right there so we can get some ice cream this time. We proceed walk over to the ice cream truck and while standing in front of it I ask my son what he wants. He points to the picture of what he wants on the board (Image 1). I tell the man in the truck what he wants and he goes into the freezer, gets it, and hands it to my son. Then I tell him I want a strawberry shortcake bar (Image 2).

(1)

(2)

Well I'll be damned if the guy in the truck doesn't hand me my ice cream bar then say $5. I know the saying goes "We all scream for Ice Cream," but if my son wasn't standing there I would have screamed out WTF? (What The F**K for those that aren't familiar with the acronym). However, I caught myself and instead just said "What? $5?" Yes I sounded just like that character Chris Rock Played. Only thing missing was the "Good Lawd that's a lot of money." In true Chris Rock fashion I was tempted to say how bout you keep the cream and just give me the ice for $1. LoL. So I asked the man how much was each ice cream and he proceeds to tell me $2.50 each. I said $2.50 are you serious? I quickly handed my ice cream back to the man. My son immediately asked me "why did you give it back daddy?" I was about to do the same with my son's ice cream, that was until I looked at his face and I could tell he was ready to devour it. I just couldn't do it to him especially after I promised and he had already held it in hand. Plus when I looked at his it was the larger than normal size bomb pop. Whereas, the ice cream bar they handed me was just the regular size. Not to say it was worth $2.50 but I was willing to compromise. Alright go ahead and call me a push over, but I'd like to see you look into that little face and take away his ice cream on a hot day like that. I'm not that damn cruel. LoL. So, I paid the man the $2.50 and walked off.

Being the inquisitive little boy that my son is (he gets it honest) he again asked "why didn't you get anything daddy?" So before he can start running through possible reasons which he is known to do, I tell him that it was too expensive. He then accepts the answer and proceeds to devour the American Flag colored ice cream. He even asked me "How come no one else got any ice cream?" I answered probably because they knew the price and I was the only idiot to fall fall victim. As I said that another man there with his children walked past and I heard him snicker at my answer. Well as he ate the ice cream I watched as his mouth quickly turns a bright shade of red. He then hands me the ice cream and says hold this daddy you can eat some since it's melting then runs off to go play some more. So I'm sitting there holding a $2.50 ice cream bar watching pennies go to waste with each melting drip. What do I do? Well as not to waste money I do as my son told me and start to eat the ice cream before it completely melts. But all the while I'm thinking about the last time I bought one of those ice cream bars I wanted. It had to be a long time ago but even still I can't recall paying more than $1.25 for it. I mean in some bars I can get a pint of ice cold beer for $2.50. So my question is are times really that hard? Where the local ice cream man is ripping kids off like Big Worm from Friday?

Well I just couldn't let it go. So I had to come home and do some research to find out what was the price of a box of these ice cream bars. http://www.maxdelivery.com/nkz/exec/Product/Display?productId=260059709 As you can see the price of a box of 6 is only $4.89. Even after the new snake ass Cook County sales tax [10.25% The Highest in the country] that's is still only a total of $5.40. Which divided by 6 ice cream bars is only $0.90 cents each. That is the non-sale price. However, some times you can catch a decent buy one get one free sale at the local grocery store. Now I do understand that the ice cream man provides a convenience and therefore should be paid for that service. I mean he's right there with cold ice cream on that hot summer day so you don't have to drive to the store. Also, I know that gas is expensive as hell and to drive around the neighborhoods at 2 miles an hour [like Fresh Prince] stopping and going I'm sure burns a lot of gas. And I know it's gotta be hot inside the truck with the deep freezer in there and that with that side window open they most likely can't have the air conditioner on. But even with all that considered, to make $1.60 per ice cream bar is just highway robbery. The fact that they're ripping off kids makes it even worse. What's next? Chuck E. Cheese charging $20 entry fee and a 2 drink minimum? I mean come on what's the most you as a parent will give your kid to get something from the ice cream truck? I would say $1-$2 at most. So imagine if I sent my son there himself with $2 and he came back like daddy it's not enough. Back in the days our parents could send us to the ice cream truck with $1.00 and we'd come back with 2 ice creams and some candy. If this is the new trend for ice cream trucks I feel for the kids of today. When you can't take a few quarters and run outside when you hear the sound of the ice cream truck, but rather have to break open your piggy bank times are really bad.

But speaking of ice cream trucks and back in the day I'll close this with what is probably the most traumatizing story about ice cream ever. I'll try to make this as short as possible. Alright so I'm about 6 years old which would make my brother 8 and my 2 cousins Trice 7 and Kita 5. It was summer time and all the kids were out playing. Well the ice cream man happen to make a stop in the apartment complex that day. So, we all ran into the house to ask for money for the ice cream man. My mom and my aunt Mel aka Marilyn (Trice and Kita's mom) and my other aunt Phyl were in the house. As we all ran in asking for money for the ice cream they didn't hesitate to give us the money. However, Aunt Mel gave them the money with specific instructions to bring her change back. She may have given them about $2 I think. My brother and I got $1 to split. After receiving the money we all ran off to the ice cream truck. After standing in line we all got our respective ice cream bars. As I stated, prior the inflationary price increase of ice cream $1 could buy 2 ice cream bars. I don't recall what ice creams everyone bought but whatever my cousins got they had approximately $0.50 cent in change left over.

So as we're all sitting there enjoying our ice cream there was a boy that we all knew that had no ice cream. Well he proceeded to ask us if we had $0.50 cent he could have/borrow. As you know my brother and I had exact change so we had nothing to spare. But my cousins had the 2 shiny quarters. Don't ask me how or why but my brother goes and convinces my cousins to give the change to this boy. This amongst other incidents could be the root of my brother and cousin not getting along to this day. Lol. Now it seems like an innocent action and you're probably thinking it's only 50 cent what's the big deal? Well that is because you don't know Marilyn Williams. Next, we all begin to walk home as the boy proceeds to buy his ice cream. As we walked into the house all of us had a mouthful of ice cream. But as sure as sun rises and sets the first thing out of Aunt Mel's mouth was "where's my change?"

We all immediately stopped in our tracks and looked at each other and got quiet for about a minute. Finally my cousin Trice fessed up that they had given the money to a boy for some ice cream. The next thing I know there are F-Bombs and other expletives coming out of her mouth faster than a machine gun shoots bullets. Without having to put a parental warning on this blog I can't go into detail. But something along the lines of "why the F*&k did you give my money to some boy?" would be pretty accurate. So as we all stood there what would happen next would be stuck in my mind forever. After the verbal onslaught she gave, she then grabbed one of my cousins ice cream and wound up like Roger Clemens style and the next thing I know the ice cream slams up against the kitchen wall. BAM!!! Then she grabs my other cousins and it quickly meets the same fate as the first. I was utterly shocked, afraid, and prepared to lose my ice cream next. However, much to my surprise it didn't happen. She stopped at the 2 ice creams, and immediately demanded my cousins to clean up the mess. I remember my brother and I later finishing our ice cream of course out of the sight of our cousins. But I can't for the life of my imagine what would have caused my aunt to snap like that over 50 cent (in change not the rapper if it was Curtis Jackson maybe I could understand). However, I'm sure that if I think long and hard that there was an empty bottle of Sutter Home somewhere in the room.

Luckily for us (me, my bro, and cousins) ice cream prices back then were not as they are presently. I mean if she did all of that over 50 cent then I can't even fathom what may have taken place if she had just paid $5 for two ice cream bars. Lastly, the $2.50 I spent on the ice cream was already bad enough. But if you take a look at the picture below you'll see that my son's nice bright yellow shirt (I know the sidekick camera doesn't do the yellow any justice) quickly turned to yellow with green spots. You see the packaging from the ice cream wasn't even strong enough to hold the blue liquid in the bottom. So the blue part of the ice cream quickly blended with yellow to leave green spots on the shirt. I don't give a damn how much I Shout that stain is not coming out. So there you have it go ahead and add another $5-7 to my $2.50 for one ruined shirt. Basically an ice cream bar cost me close to $10. All I know is that if I happen to see this particular ice cream man again I may be liable to turn into my aunt an hurl something at his truck.

--C-Recks--