CUT!

CUT CUT CUUUUUT!

OK, c’mere. Do you see this script? Do you? Look right here, genius:

“The Boston Red Sox, who were down three games to one and came within seven outs of being eliminated, complete yet another stunning and historic comeback to claim the 2008 American League pennant; World Series starts at Fenway Wednesday night. ROLL CREDITS.”

Now, listen, jackass—who are you again? Tampa who? Tampa Bay? And you think you can just waltz in here and start ad-libbing? I don’t think so!

Why not? Well, not that I owe you an explanation, Mr. Johnny Come Lately Tampa Bay Rays, but we’re the fucking Red Sox! That’s why not! This is what we do! We snatched a World Series berth out of your smirking, toothless, manta-ray mouths the other night in one of the most historic comebacks of all time! Now, riddle me this, smart-ass: why the hell would we do that if we weren’t predestined to advance to the World Series?

Not only that, but Zan and I? We remembered to do the cheer! And—OK, OK, aaaaand I wore my magical Red Sox apparel. What exactly makes you think you can flout the power of my superstitious, OCD-induced rituals?

I mean, I was pumped—PUMPED!—for a Red Sox vs. Phillies World Series … and I guaranfuckingtee you that so was just about everyone else who follows baseball and doesn’t live in Tampa fucking Bay!

Tampa Bay! I mean, the nerve of you people!

Now I have to wait for this feeling to pass … this sick lump of defeat, disappointment and sorrow that’s been knocking around in my stomach for the past 11 hours. Granted, it’s nothing like the state of shock I was in after Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS … but, in the wake of our championship wins in ’04 and last year … well, frankly, I’m no longer equipped for dealing with failure.

To be fair, I will readily admit that I am extremely spoiled and fortunate; this was only my seventh full season as a diehard fan … and the Sox have gone to the postseason for five of those, and won the World Series twice. I saved myself 32 years of pain and disappointment by not giving a rat’s ass about sports until 2002.

Of course, that realization makes me think that I may be setting Zan up for more than he bargained for. The kid’s five years old and he’s already been around for two World Series victories. His frame of reference is completely skewed. What if they don’t win another one for 86 years?

And it’s not like following this team is a casual undertaking. Seven months and 173 games, this season encompassed. More than half of the year here at Casa de Scratches includes a daily undercurrent of Red Sox fandom … which is fine when your team is a juggernaut, but what happens if we slip into a decades-long postseason drought? I’m almost 40, and I feel like my puppy just died; how can I subject a little kid to this kind of (potentially long-term) disappointment?

Fortunately, he’s still too young to be truly broken up about this year’s demise … and half our family lives in Philly, so we still have a horse in this race.

But, still … Tampa Bay wins Game 7? Stop it. Just stop it.

Next year.

Second greatest comeback in postseason history … and you all have me to thank for it.

It was the fifth inning and the Sox were getting blanked, 5-0. It was a funeral. Sox hitters looked like zombies, and Sox pitchers were helping the Rays hold an impromptu home-run derby. The TBS announcers had shovels in hand and were tossing dirt on top of the almost-closed coffin.

Wonder Woman had seen enough.

“I’m going to bed,” she said. “I’m sorry honey,” she added, trying to comfort me as my team rolled over and played dead.

And then I had an epiphany: the pre-game cheer! Zan and I forgot—again—to do our planned pre-game cheer!

Before Game 1 of the ALCS, we were in his bedroom, and we took all of his stuffed Red Sox toys—three bears; a disturbing-looking baseball with a face, arms and legs; and a little stuffed Wally doll—and, while I clustered together one hand from each of them, we placed our hands on top and did the “One, two, three: GOOOOOOOO RED SOX!!” thing. And they won.

Then we forgot … before Games 2, 3 and 4. When I broke the news to Zan each morning following the losses, he would say, “We forgot to do the cheer!”

So there we were: the Sox were about to get eliminated, and it was, of course, all because we forgot to do the cheer.

And not only did we forget to do the cheer, but I was dressed entirely wrong. I had to act fast.

I dashed into the bedroom, shed the non-magical duds I was wearing, and threw on my authentic Jason Varitek Red Sox home-game jersey, my 2004 World Series Champions hat and the same shorts—now tattered—that, along with the aforementioned jersey and hat, I had worn for last year’s ALCS Game 5, when the Sox were down three games to one, and rebounded for a three-game streak that sent them to the World Series, which they then swept.

As I emerged from the bedroom and passed the soon-to-be-slumbering Wonder Woman in the kitchen, she gave me the look … the one that says, “Dear god, I married a crazy person.”

“I’m pulling out the big guns,” I told her before grabbing the stuffed Wally doll and heading upstairs.

I entered Zan’s room and, by the dim glow of his nightlight, gathered the rest of the stuffed-Sox crew. I sat on his bed, clustered their hands together in my left, grabbed his right wrist, placed his limp hand on top, then covered it with my right. He stirred a little bit and, for a split second, looked at me groggily.

“Gotta do the cheer, buddy,” I said, then whispered, “One, two, three … goooo Red Sox.”

Wally in tow, I headed back to the family room, stopping first in our bedroom to say goodnight to Wonder Woman, who had just crawled into bed.

“We’re all set,” I told her. “We did the cheer.”

Another scornful look. How dare she not buy into my neurosis?

Back to the couch. I sat Wally down on one side and planted myself on the other. Tampa Bay scored two more runs in the top of the seventh, making it 7-0, and then had the Sox down to their final out in the bottom of the seventh. The Rays were seven outs away from going to the World Series, and the TBS announcers were essentially reading the Sox’s obituary.

“There is, we have just been told, champagne on ice in the visitors’ club house,” one of them said.

Clearly, they were unaware that I had just shifted the entire balance of the game by changing clothes and collaborating in the dark with a group of stuffed animals and a sound-asleep 5-year-old.

The accompanying photo was taken at around 12:30 a.m. on Oct. 17, minutes after the Sox executed the greatest postseason come-from-behind victory in 79 years.

You’re welcome.

Game 6, tonight, in Tampa.

(P.S.: Here’s what I stayed up doing till 2:30 a.m. that night/morning, which also was featured on the Dirt Dogs website.)

The children understand the call-response concept of the “knock-knock” joke, but the actual humor part? That escapes them.

Here’s Jayna’s latest attempt, delivered while at the dinner table this evening:

“Daddy, knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Knock knock.”

“W h o    i s    t h e r e?”

“Knock knock.”

“W H O ’ S    T H E R E?”

“Apple in your underwear, I won’t get your orange juice!”

Eat your heart out, Chris Rock.

Fifteen years ago this weekend, I went to a party thrown by a childhood friend of mine and, while there, struck up a conversation with this cute hippie chick in a black sweater and a flowery, ankle-length skirt, who, it turned out, had gone to college with my childhood friend.

When I first saw her, she was sitting at a table by herself, and looked rather gypsy-like, so, being the suave, debonair guy I am, I decided to dazzle her with my razor-sharp wit.

“Are you the palm reader?” I asked her. (Good stuff, right?)

“Actually, I am learning to read palms,” she said. Hmmm. Weird.

“For real?”

“Yes.”

I sat.

“Read my palm.”

She started by telling me that my parents were divorced—which, in retrospect, might have been nothing more than a good guess based on what a basket case I am; someone so damaged most likely came from a broken home, right? Nonetheless, I was impressed with her clairvoyance, enough so that we spent the rest of the party hanging out together.

At one point, she stepped away for a moment and some other guy started talking to her, so I walked up and held her hand. The Lone Wolf marking his territory. El Lobo Solo. [growl] She apparently liked this, because she let me continue holding it.

Quite a few of the party guests decided driving would be bad, and chose to sleep over. Hippie Chick and I were among them.

The next morning, Hippie Chick said she needed to go home, so I, being the chivalrous kind of guy I am, offered to give her a ride. She declined, and with good reason.

“No, I mean I have to go home to Philadelphia,” she said.

We had talked at length since meeting each other roughly 12 hours earlier, and to this day, I still don’t understand how the “I live in a completely different, non-adjoining state” thing didn’t come up by, say, hour number four.

By this point in my life, I had already done the long-distance relationship thing—more than once, in fact—and my experience with that type of arrangement was, shall we say, unsavory. (It’s amazing who your girlfriend will sleep with when you’re 3,000 miles away and only see her a handful of days out of the year … but that’s another story, and one that I may or may not ever share with you.)

“Are you planning to come up again sometime?” I asked.

“Yes, definitely,” she said.

“Well, let Childhood Friend of Mine know when you’re coming up and we can try to get together,” I suggested.

“OK, I will.”

She then set off on the 350-mile journey home to her parents’ house, and I was left wondering how, out of all of the women in the greater Boston area the previous night, I had managed to find one who lived five hours away.

A week went by, and I decided I should give her a call to let her know I was serious about wanting to see her again. Minor obstacle: I didn’t have her phone number, and I don’t even think I knew her last name.

I called Childhood Friend, who, upon answering, said he had been meaning to call me, because Hippie Chick had sent to his residence a card addressed to me. I was living about a half-hour away from him at the time, so he said he’d scrawl my address on it, slap a new stamp on it and drop it in the mail.

Another week went by, and the card didn’t arrive. I called Childhood Friend again.

“Oh, man, I’m sorry; I forgot to send it.”

Thanks, dick.

Finally, I received the card, and she had included in it her phone number, so I gave her a call … a call she, at this point, assumed wasn’t going to come based on how long it had been since she mailed me the card.

“Hi,” I said. “It’s your long-haired friend from Boston.” God, was I smooth.

She asked me to hold on while she switched phones, and I later learned that she repeated the phrase “Oh my god” several times as she walked down the hall to the preferred phone.

As it turned out, she had a close friend who had decided to move to Boston and was looking for a roommate. She had accepted her friend’s offer to be that roommate, and we went on our first date when she came up to hunt for a job.

I was a long-haired, leather-motorcycle-jacket-wearing, unemployed, 23-year-old sophomore in college with a 1985 Ford Escort, the driver’s-side window-handle of which fell off when I attempted to roll it down in order to pay a toll on my way to pick her up, and the passenger-side door of which only opened from the inside.

She was an even longer-haired, unemployed, semi-homeless, pseudo flower-child who didn’t mind what a colossal trainwreck I was.

We started out pretty even.

* * *

Ten years ago today, Hippie Chick, a.k.a. Wonder Woman, and I got married in Philadelphia. It was a Friday-night wedding in the heart of the city. It rained. I didn’t much care. She was breathtakingly beautiful, the ceremony was truly special, the reception hall was spectacular, and friends and family from all over the map cared enough to travel great distances to be with us.

Ten years, one student loan big enough to bankrupt a small country, seven jobs, one cross-country move, two apartments, one astronomically overpriced house and two kids later, we’re still together.

I’ve realized that wedding anniversaries become a bigger deal as the years stack up specifically because, as anyone who is married and has children can attest: THIS SHIT AIN’T EASY. The longer you’ve been married, the more work you’ve had to do to keep things intact.

Planning a wedding seems stressful when you’re doing it. Ten years later, I can assure you that having a multi-thousand-dollar, fairy-tale-like party largely paid for by someone else, after which you set off on a romantic vacation with your new spouse, does not qualify as stressful.

Stressful is getting laid off just as you and your wife are attempting to conceive a child.

Stressful is hearing the midwife use the words “brain” and “cysts” in the same sentence while reviewing the findings of your unborn child’s first ultrasound.

Stressful is watching your pain-consumed wife push another human being out of her vagina—twice.

Stressful is thinking that your agonizingly long day is finally over, only to have your infant child projectile vomit all over himself, your wife, and every exposed surface in his room just as you’re putting him to bed.

Stressful is sitting in the waiting room while your six-month-old son undergoes a hernia operation.

Stressful is holding your sick, screaming, 9-month-old daughter down on a hospital bed while two bumbling nurses make multiple, unsuccessful—and apparently painful—attempts to catheterize her.

Stressful is being forced to stick your kids in daycare so that you and your spouse can both work, even though doing so makes you feel like a guilt-ridden failure—because not doing so means the inability to meet your financial obligations.

Stressful is barely having the time or energy to connect with your spouse in a truly meaningful way that helps you both remember why the two of you were willing to go all-in together in the first place.

Tonight, we held each other and danced to our wedding song. I remembered why.

I love you, honey.

My 20-year high-school reunion is coming up next month, and I simply can’t suppress the urge to say “Whoopdeefreakindoo!”

I keep waiting to feel bubbling up within me some desire to attend this event, but, so far, when I imagine waking up on the Sunday morning after it takes place, I have no premonition of regret about having skipped it.

See, here’s the thing: I hated high school. When adults would say, “Enjoy it! These are the best years of your life!,” I could only assume that life was really gonna suck after graduation. (I am very happy to report that each of the 20 years I’ve lived since graduating high school have been better than any of the four I spent there.)

Admittedly, a big part of why my high school experience sucked was the fact that I looked like a short, skinny, mulleted bobblehead doll. I mean, look at that picture. Sweet Jesus. Let’s just say that the ladies weren’t exactly lining up for dates. (I remember telling Wonder Woman years ago that I had been the second smallest kid in my high school until my junior year. She said she knew I must be telling her the truth about that, because I knew there was one kid smaller than me.)

To be fair, I did have a lot of close friends who were female. Developed some serious crushes on a few of them, too. Unfortunately, when you look like Farmer Ted, teenage girls don’t want to date you; they want you to be their cute, harmless-as-a-puppy-dog guy friend who can serve as an emotional tampon while they cry to you about how the jerk-off hockey player they hooked up with at that party last weekend hasn’t given them the time of day since.

But I’m not bitter.

Of course, it didn’t help that, throughout much of my high-school years, my parents were going through an ugly separation and divorce—which, at the time, I saw as a bit of a blessing, because having my father move out meant that there was one less person in the house with whom I had to argue on a daily basis. Still, that’s a pretty bleak silver lining in a fairly large, extremely dark cloud.

It also didn’t help that I almost flunked out of school on more than one occasion. (When I was 31, I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, and that diagnosis was made, in part, by report cards and teachers’ comments dating back to elementary school. Back then, they didn’t diagnose ADD; they called you lazy and said you didn’t apply yourself.)

One week before my senior year started, I enlisted in the army, with my departure set for one month after graduation. I was one of maybe three guys in my entire graduating class who, instead of going off to college, entered the military. I knew that I hated school, I knew that I would have flunked out of college, and, regardless, I just wanted to get the fuck out of Dodge.

I spent four months in Alabama for basic training and military-police school. During that short time, I grew two inches and gained 26 pounds. When I got out of the army, I went to college, made Dean’s list every semester and graduated with honors.

So, no, I don’t for a moment miss high school.

Most of the people with whom I was truly close during high school, I have remained friends with since—and before we all had kids and enormous mortgages that we couldn’t afford and lives that were completely unmanageable, we actually saw each other once in a while.

As for the more distant acquaintances—well, can’t we all just agree that Facebook eliminates the need for a high school reunion? It’s the perfect compromise. People whom you’ve forgotten about come out of the woodwork, but are kept at a safe distance. Pictures allow you to see how well or how poorly they’ve aged. Don’t really wanna reconnect with a particular person? Just click “Ignore” on that “Friend” request, my brotha. (“The user will not be notified.” Perfect!)

On the other hand, attending the reunion would mean a night out of the house without the kids, surrounded by adults—and alcohol. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll go. If nothing else, it’ll give me something to blog about.

[UPDATE: No, I didn't go. And I don't regret it.]

You know what would be great? It would be great if someone could help me get the steel-toe-boot-wearing month of September to stop repeatedly kicking me in the balls with all of its might. Anyone?

We knew this was going to be a difficult month … a “transitional” month, if you will. Zan started kindergarten (which he still loves, thank god), and Jayna started preschool (which she doesn’t still love, dear god), and both have to spend a few hours per week in daycare. In other words, we have all of the necessary ingredients for a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old to meltdown in spectacular fashion at least once a day.

Today is Tuesday. Tuesday is the day on which we tackle the nuttiest schedule of the week: WW drops Zan off at daycare and drives to work; I drop Jayna off at preschool, and, two-and-a-half hours later, pick her up, transport her to daycare, swap her out for Zan, and chauffeur Zan to kindergarten; WW then gets out of work, picks Zan up from kindergarten, picks Jayna up from daycare and returns home. (During today’s midday taxi service, I was headed to daycare when I realized I first needed to go pick up Jayna from preschool. Thank god the kids are old enough and vocal enough that I can’t forget they’re in the backseat, or I’d probably end up being one of those assholes who accidentally slow roasts their child in an unattended automobile.)

All of this leads up to the daily 4 p.m.-8 p.m. routine, which is basically one big blur of playing, fighting, crying, whining, bathing, feeding, reading and, finally, putting the children down for the night.

So, roughly 14 hours into our day, WW and I, at long last, have a few moments alone … which we generally use to collapse on the couch and talk about what we’d do if we had any energy left. We’ve even thrown a monkey wrench into that, though, because, after finally realizing that we just aren’t going to be getting to the gym any year soon, we have begun a nightly fitness program (Tony Horton’s 10-minute Trainer, which is exactly the kind of cheesy-looking thing I would never have even considered before my life turned into an all-consuming clusterfuck—so it is with no small degree of surprise that I must confess Mr. Horton and his overly dyed hair have been thoroughly kicking my ass). Do you see any time in there for marital bliss? Me either.

Oh, and blogging! Yes, of course, blogging. Must blog. Must not let blog die. Must stay up well past a sensible bedtime in order to piss and moan about a lifestyle that roughly 90 percent of the planet wishes they could have but instead they’re busy looking for clean drinking water and fortifying their dirt-floored huts.

OK, I’m done bitching now.