Vox Nihilim

As I sat there debating whether or not it was a good idea to write a blog about doing Google searches for semi-pornographic words and tracking how many pages in I had to go before I found actual porn*, the phone rang. It was The Girl and she was in a tizzy (and I don't use that word lightly. Very few creatures are capable of reaching the epic state of anxiety required to be deemed "in a tizzy". Luckily, teenage girls TOTALLY can. I win.)

"DAD!!INEEDTOPRINTOUTSOMEPAPERSFORSCHOOL ORELSEI'MGOINGTOFAILLLL!!!"
"Who is this?"
"DAD!!!"
"Heh. Just settle down. What?"
"I need to print out this paper I wrote for school and mom's printer isn't working and the library is closed and now I'm not going to get it turned in on time and I'm going to get a bad grade because he takes off 20% for each day late and I'm never going to go to college and it's all your fault.**"

I'm always amazed by how little she needs to breathe when she's vomiting these sentences out at me. It's like the panic slows her metabolism or something. I guess you could say she is hibernating from sanity. That would also explain the growling.

"Okay. I'll bring my printer over. I'll be there in a few."
"Please Hurry!"
"Well...What if I am in the middle of something?"
"You're not. Come On, Dad."

Her disbelief that I might have a life is unnerving. And creepy in it's accuracy. I think she might be a witch.

So I get over to my ex-house, and there she is, still a-tizzy. I set up the printer, but right away I can tell it's going to be a problem. Not because of any technical issue that is making itself readily apparent, but because The Boy is running around me in circles asking questions in the machine gun staccato he has when he's had entirely too much sugar. I can feel my blood pressure starting to rise.

"Dad! Is it set up yet? Can we print? Are we going to print animal pictures? Have you seen the flying penguin ad? Are we going to keep this printer here? Is Mom's printer broken? Can I go to Webkinz.com? Are you done setting up yet? Is it easy to set it up? Mom says you don't like working on her computer? Why don't you like working on her computer. Ugh. I'm dizzy."

It's not working. It wants Windows. It wants a current Mac OS. It wants to be snuggled. I don't know what the hell it wants. I want to set it on fire by the time I have successfully managed to not set it up an hour later. I wish I had just gone out to the garage and hit my thumb with a hammer one too many times. It would be less painful.

The Girl is pacing behind me and humming nervously. There are many ways to motivate me to do something. Cake. Pie. Cookies. You'll notice the utter lack of "walking behind me and making annoying noises" on that list. That's on purpose.

It took me an hour, but I finally ended up taking the printer back to my house (I managed to drag my USB cable all the way down the street without noticing it hanging out the car door), hooking it up to my desktop, installing the drivers, and printing out the necessary sheets which I then delivered to my grateful spawn. When she was done hugging me and telling me I'm the best dad in the whole world even better than that cool guy on Gilmore Girls, The Boy comes leaping out at me from somewhere. Once again over-stimulated and pantless.

"DAD! Did you print my Christmas List too?"
"Huh? No."
"BUTIHAVETOGETITINTHEMAILTOMORROWOR SANTAWONTBRINGMEANYTOYS!!!"

It was a long night is my point.



*For example: if you Google "explode" with Moderate SafeSearch turned off, it isn't until page 4 of the images that you see anyone naked, and then it is just a naked woman, and there is no "exploding" going on, just her kneeling provocatively. I wasn't aware that kneeling was necessarily a provocative activity. But it turns out it is. Bonus points for you, Catholics. In the blog I would have had a graph. Because graphs make everything official.

** She didn't say "It's all your fault.' This is just implied in all teenage communications.