Kapow!

  • by Drew

Recently I’ve been rediscovering an old habit. I’ve been really getting back into comics. That’s not entirely accurate, I guess, because I’ve always loved comic storytelling, but it was only for a very short period that I actually considered myself a comic collector. I can remember the handful of early comics that hooked me some time in 1985, leading to some intense collecting behavior through 1987. Beyond that, I picked up a handful of titles, but I was short of cash and was a little self-conscious about the whole thing.

Yeah, I was a little embarrassed about the whole thing, particularly during and after the whole puberty thing. Still, since that time I have continued to be a comics fan, though my collecting shifted from individual monthly titles to graphic novels. Occasionally in High School and College I would pick up a book. And in the last 15 years, those purchases have not abated. Every year, at least a bit of my birthday Amazon gift certificate goes toward the purchase of graphic novels.

So I’ve kept up to date, at least to some degree, with the goings on of a few favorite heroes. I’ve got a lot of Wolverine and Batman and Punisher books. Maybe I’m a few years behind the monthly mags, but I still enjoy the stories. And I’ve got a pretty wide collection of Marvel Essentials, these huge collections of classic titles they reprint in black and white to save money. There’s nothing like those early Stan Lee Spider-Man and Daredevil titles. And The X-Men collections cover the classic Chris Claremont stuff from the 80’s.

Since my birthday, a couple months back, I’ve been getting more and more back into it, and finally, I’ve taken the plunge and subscribed to a couple of titles. I’ve also purchased a stack of storage boxes and bags, and I’ve spent the last several nights refreshing my old collection and anticipating the new additions.

Maybe it’s because I don’t care anymore about walking into a comic shop. Have I finally put puberty behind me? Let’s hope so. It also helps to have a 7 year old in tow. I mean, as I’m scanning titles I can pretend I’m really in there for him, right? As soon as he’s finished looking at the scantily clad heroines and razor-clawed heroes in all their brilliant color, we can move on to the big box store and browse for patio cushions and gas grill utensils.

Talk about flawless cover, right?

Body art?

  • by Drew

I have nothing against tattoos. I have  a number of friends who are inked, and many, if not most, have something going on. I mean, thoughtful, creative, colorful expressions of self. And that’s cool. I’m all about that.

I, personally, remain unmarked. I’m not a needle wuss, I actually don’t mind them at all. Partly it was something of a committment beyond what I was ready to consider back before mortgage, marriage and parenthood (in that order). Now it seems a little frivolous…I mean, at my age… But to be brutally honest, the main reason I’ve never seriously considered getting inked is that I’m hairy. Yup, chubby and hairy. There is really no reasonable spot of flesh on my body that is not so covered in hair that a tattoo would require regular shaving. And that, like back waxing, is a relationship I just can’t see myself entering into.

So, it’s not for me, but it works for some people. The thing is, lately, I’ve been seeing some seriously bad work. SERIOUSLY bad work. There has always been way too much flash on the chunky trailer girls and their 90 pound boyfriends (with those wispy starter mustaches and trucker caps) but I’m talking about something altogether worse. The names of children and boyfriends and girlfriends and spouses on necks and wrists and other overly visible spots is not really that endearing to me. It’s up there with memorial t-shirts for deceased children in my book. Just not very original.

But to each his or her own. I won’t judge. If you want to have the names of your children written in script down your boob, that’s your prerogative. Although I suggest you plan better than this one woman I saw who had three names on her left boob and one on her right. It appears she was cataloguing her offspring on lefty, and then she ran out of room. Maybe number four was a bit of an oopsie, so I guess we should give her a high five for getting him on there somewhere. What a mom.

The disturbing trend, in my mind, is the really wretched work I’ve been seeing. Did Walmart start selling home tattoo kits and no one told me? I was on line at the store the other day and I saw a young woman buying prenatal vitamins, folic acid, and assorted creams and powders. What was most noticeable to me, was the tattoo on her arm. She was sleeveless, so it was very clear. It said ANN. All caps, written in a thin line that looked like pencil. There were 8 or ten lines drawn away from the name. Kind of like how a little kid draws the rays of the sun. It looked, in fact, like a little kid had written it. Shaky handwriting, sun rays looking a little bit like Sunday comic stink lines.

Who puts this on their arm? It was hard to believe it was real ink, but it was. Don’t you need some sort of training or certification to be a tattoo artist? Don’t you at least need to show photographs of past work or something? Maybe she was some dude’s first try or something, because this was pathetic.

Oh, and the funny part. It wasn’t her kid’s name or her girlfriend’s name or her mom’s name or sister’s name. How do I know? Her companion, another young lady, used her name several times while they chatted online.

Yup, Ann had ANN tattooed on her arm, apparently by a second grader with poor penmanship. What is this world coming to? How much Cisco did she have to drink? My girl is lowering the bar for white trash ink the world over.

Sigh.

Suddenly Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes) peeing on a 24 seems a hell of a lot more clever than it did a year and a half ago.

More than just coats…

  • by Drew

I was at Burlington Coat Factory in Kingston. It’s the only Burlington Coat Factory I remember going to (maybe I was dragged into one as a kid when I needed a Confirmation suit or something, but I don’t really remember) so I can’t say if this BCF is representative of all BCFs, but this BCF is seriously ghetto. Yeah, g to the h to the e-t-o. I don’t think you have to spell it correctly when you’re doing that letter to the letter to the rest of the word lazy, pseudo-rap, rhthym ‘yes I gots my GED so’s I knows my letters’ thing.

Anyway, as I say, the Kingston BCF is rather on the trashy side. You know what a whigger is? Yeah, they got a whole lot o’ those. You ever see a guy with a flattened nose from mulitple breaks and only one tooth in front. That’s right, one. Maybe the guy had molars, but he was smiling a lot and in the whole frontal region there was one single canine. That’s it. Top and bottom. This is the guy to go to when you need to open a soup can without a pop-top. Just don’t let him hold the can himself, because he had at least one hand and sometimes both jammed down the front of his sweatpants the entire time he was on line.

Clientele aside, there is occasionally a deal to be had. Not often for me, though I got a good checkerboard tie once on clearance. If its not FUBU, there’s always a chance that it will make it to clearance, because I’m probably the only person who would even consider buying it. And still, the opportunities are rare. Maybe it’s my fault for refusing to pay $40 for $150 jeans that are stained, ripped, bleached, bearing some sort of vaguely gang-like tattoo art on the ass and gold stitching. I know, I’m such a snob.

Okay, I know I sound kind of like a dick, but you should really check the palce out next time you’re in Kingston. It’s definitely good for a chuckle. And if you get a chance, cruise the big and tall belts. I did, kind of by accident. I was making rounds with the boys, one holding each hand, when I caught site of something that looked like a peep show curtain. Since I knew there was no actual peep show at the BCF, at least not yet, I let curiosity get the best of me and investigated. Turns out, it was a wall of belts. Massive belts. I mean, MASSIVE belts. I mean, if there are diets for quick weight loss out there, anyone even casting an eye at needing one of these belts better start on the s to the l to the i-m-fast. Holy Guacamole.

The smallest belt hanging on this wall was 56 inches.  56 INCHES! How many cows can you rip 56 inches off in 2 inch strips? I love my burgers, but this was enough to make me consider going vegetarian. And then I saw it. The master stroke. The belt to end all belts. It was, I kid you not, hanging from a peg above my head and just barely touching the floor. I had to reach up to take it down.

And yes, I HAD to take it down. Why did I have to take it down? Because I had to wrap this thing around my waist two full times. Dude, it was a more than six foot belt. Now, I’m no slim jim here, but…damn. that’s a lot of Twinkies.

And I’m not talking the cream-filled golden snack cakes. I’m talking about the chubby pole dancers named Twinkie in the employ of your lesser quality strip clubs all across North Jersey.

I think I need a delicious shake for breakfast, another for lunch, and then a sensible dinner. Not for me, just in honor of the dude who is filling out that belt. I mean, seriously, if you are so large that I would not be tall enough to be your belt…I don’t think I can mock you. I think I can only applaud, with an almost silent golf clap, for you, large sir, are a true champion.

Where there’s smoke…

  • by Drew

I’m heading to the dentist today. Just a checkup, along with my 4 year-old’s first cleaning and my 7 year-old’s second filling. I don’t really mind going to the dentist, even when I need work done, but I am a little hesitant this time.

Like I said, it has nothing to do with fear of pain or anything like that. It’s actually because I have a health savings account. Weird, huh?

Yeah, usually I love this thing. I have pretax money set aside form my paycheck and when I have any medical expense, I just use the special debit card. The problem is, whenever I get dental work done, I start getting letters form the provider. I need to prove that it was a legitimate medical expense. And thus begins the paper war.

See, my regular health insurance provides Explanation of Benefit forms, my dental does not. And without these EOB forms, it is a struggle to find the correct piece of paper to make the debit card people leave me alone. I have gotten itemized lists of services with handwritten notes from the providers, all kinds of stuff, but they want that EOB. and I can’t get one.

Want to know what is so special about the EOB? Even though they say it is proof of “legitimate” expenses, the EOB does not necessarily itemize the work. It’s actually pretty vague and often coded. What it does show, however, is a crucial few numbers. It shows the cost of the procedure, the amount that insurance paid, and the amount that I paid. See, they don’t want me to attempt some sort of fraud by double-dipping and getting reimbursed, tax free, for something that was covered by insurance.

OK, yeah, like I’m going to risk my job and insurance and serious medical fraud charges to get a few hundred bucks pre-tax. I mean, remember, the only way to get access to this money is to put it aside from my paycheck. It’s my money, the only benefit is that it is essentially untaxed income. And there’s a $5000 cap or something like that, so what is my maximum takeaway possible? A few hundred? Maybe a grand?

Yeah, that’s worth it.

Anyway, I don’t begrudge the provider because they are supposed to police this stuff and make sure the expenses are legitimate…but that’s not what they’re actually doing. That’s what everybody says they’re doing, but it’s not true. They’re not interested in the legitimacy of the procedures. Refusing my itemized list of services proved that. They are only interested in making sure that I’m not trying to get away with income tax-avoidance on $150 or so.

How’s that for  valuable use of time?

Is there anybody here…

  • by Drew

who’d like to change his clothes into a uniform?

No? Don’t know the old protest songs. Well, kid, keep wearing your wife beater tee and you sideways baseball cap. Keep doing 60 on our little country street, blasting Eminem and Slipknot. Keep coming home with new dents on that ridiculous import with the Battlestar Galactica spoiler. Keep shooting nasty looks at the neighbors who shake their heads at your pathetic, juvenile display.

Pretty soon getting an auto insurance quote or polishing your spinning rims will be the least of your worries. Pretty soon the cops are going to get tired of cutting you breaks. Pretty soon your teachers and counselors are going to write you off. Pretty soon your parents are going to throw your delinquent ass out.

Then what are you going to do? You going to try and run with the big boys or are you maybe going to turn your wife beater and baby banger kicks in for a pack and a bayonet. Gonna put some decent kids’ necks on the line while you try to figure it out in the big boy sand box?

Please.

I wanna see him. I wanna wish him luck. I wanna shake his hand, wanna call his name, put a medal on the man.

Relapse

  • by Drew

I was writing about my last bout with poison ivy, and yeah, it sucked, but there’s more to the story. I guess I shouldn’t say it was my last bout, it was just my last confirmed bout. Or, maybe semi-confirmed. The thing is, in the years since, I have had these relapses.

I haven’t been able to confirm another contact with the vile weed, but these annual relapses made me suspicious. It seems that whenever the sticky heat of summer descends for the first time, I get a recurrence of the rash. I have chalked it up to heat rash in the past. It is far less severe than my episode 5 years ago, but it seems to manifest in all the same places. I get a few bumps on my wrists, a concentration of bumps on my calves, and a few other spots.

This year, however, my annual relapse is a little out of control. It seems to be waning now, and I have a scheduled doctor visit in a couple days where I plan to discuss it all, but I am not a happy camper. I am covered, literally covered, in little red dots. Even the skin on my face and neck feels dry and leathery. Thankfully there are no bumps on my face, but my forehead is bathed in red splotches. I’m seriously surprised that someone in public hasn’t yet suggested a treatment for acne. Even without bumps, I’m looking rough.

The worst part of it all is that the closer I get to the end of the rash (at least, it seems the end is near) the worse it looks. Particularly on my hands and arms and legs and feet. The bumps have gone dark red while my surrounding skin looks exceptionally pale.

Did you ever see Steve McQueen in the movie Papillon? There’s that scene where he’s in a leper colony and the leper tests him, but Papillon knows the leprosy is no longer contagious. I feel like that leper. Totally. So Steve McQueen can come chill with me anytime he wants.

An itch…

  • by Drew

Five years ago I was digging and planting. We were in our new house with new challenges, but I took to the gardening chores with the same gusto as I had in our earlier home. Of course, the significant increase in acreage, not to mention the fact that the builder has barely conditioned the yard, made it a significantly more challenging task.

And it still is, though I’ve learned a bit about the battle with the yard over the last few years.

Anyway, five years ago I encountered a strain of poison ivy or one of its relatives that climbed a couple of trees near the road. As someone who gets really bad poison ivy whenever I come anywhere near the vile stuff, you’d think I would have been able to avoid it. No such luck.

Now I shouldn’t complain. Poison Ivy is one of the few things I can say I am truly allergic to. I know other people who have terrible hay fever and seasonal allergies. I know people who are terrified of dust mites and require specialized allergy bedding. I don’t even want to contemplate the medications and shots some sufferers must endure.

So I try not to complain much when I get a good solid bout of poison ivy. But man, it is a miserable thing. And five years ago was no exception. I had that ugly, itchy rash all over the place, but it was centralized on my calves. I’ve seen photos of people with advanced leprosy that was far more palatable than this. Forget about flu shots and all that, somebody give me an itch vaccine. I’ll be all over that bad boy.

Love Potion #9

  • by Drew

Alright, now that I’ve made my wiseass anniversary post, I feel compelled to be straight. At least a little. So, no jokes about hair loss treatments for women or naughty bumper stickers for a moment.

So here it is. I am pretty lucky. My wife is my best friend (and not just because she’s my only friend…that’s not really a joke so I’m still keeping my promise) and she makes me laugh. She’s a great cook with some odd specialties like tacos and Indian dishes (especially for a Polish Princess). She has even become the grillmaster, so much so that I do little more than light the ancient Char-Broil (I have less hair at risk when the propane flares up).

She’s a wonderful Mom and all three kids love her. And she has a sense of humor about it. She understands that talking about baby defenestration is not only normal, but therapeutic. She is also irritated by hypocritical fundos and understands the core message of every major religious and political figure of worth throughout history has been this: Be nice to people.

She’s a looker and a hugger and she makes the fire on cold winter mornings when I want to stay in bed.

Yeah, I like my wife. She’s pretty swell. That mentally handicapped guy who stopped and chatted with us in the middle of his bike ride when we were on our first date…he was right. We are a great pair.

Let’s have a high five for Billy!

Cloud Nine

  • by Drew

It’s my anniversary today. Nine years. Nine long, hard, blending together in a dark cloud of confusion and occasional gastrointestinal distress.

Just kidding.

Actually, it’s been a pretty good ride and I’m a lucky guy. A really lucky guy  seeing as how I can get away with a joke like that on my ninth anniversary with my gross anatomy intact. In fact, Carol is probably laughing right now, reading this. Laughing and sharpening the straight razor.

Ha ha ha
<metallic ring of metal on strop>
Hee hee hee.

And I know I’m no peach to live with, always talking about the best slimming pill and vanity license plates. What a bore. Then again, if she hasn’t figured out how much better she could have done after all these years, well, maybe we were meant for each other.

The Drive-in Hangover

  • by Drew

In spite of the lovely day we had attending the parade, followed with grilled turkey burgers and cold beverages, I was kind of beat today. The culprit you ask? The big screen.

The biggest screen in fact. Last night I took the boys to the drive-in. There are two within 20 minutes or so of us, actually, so I routinely check the weekly listings when they are updated on Friday mornings throughout the Summer. This week was an interesting double bill: the new Shrek movie followed by Iron Man 2. With the day off from work and school, how could we skip it?

I must admit, I love the simple pleasures. Sure, I can appreciate the niceties of a Redenvelope.com  gift like anybody else, but the drive-in is pretty high on my list of minor pleasures. It’s a cheap ticket for the double feature, and I don’t have to worry too much about my chatterbox boys getting us thrown out. Sure, I have to deal with a squirming 4 year old on my lap behind the steering wheel – and he really doesn’t stop moving the entire time – but there are a lot of worse things than a 90 minute hug. Even if it is a hug of necessity.

But the price must be paid the morning after. Early in the season it doesn’t even start getting dark until after 8:30. The second feature didn’t start until 10:30 at least, and summer blockbusters being what they are…Yeah, I got to bed just before 2.

I mean, I did sleep in way past the usual wake up with the kids. Yeah, it was almost 7 when I rolled out of bed. But it was all worth it. Movies with my boys, popcorn and sodas in the front seat with the windows rolled down and the soundtrack coming from the radio. I’ll get some sleep tonight, and on Friday morning I know I’ll be crossing my fingers for another kid-friendly first feature followed y a rock ’em sock ’em summer smash in second place…when they finally pass out from exhaustion.

We’re gonna have some fun this summer.

© 2026 Drew Bancroft. All rights reserved. Totally.