06/11/2005 - 1:26 a.m. | she mouthed, "is everything OK?"

Day 2 at the Barmanns, and I have realistic battle damage. It is the color of grape juice. Don�t let the size of the wound fool you; you might think it was about the size of the mouth of, oh, I dunno, a 5 foot 3 dominatrix, but I swear, a wolverine leapt from the bushes and lunged at my jugular. A swift kick to its windpipe was the only thing that saved me.

Relations amongst the ranks here are pretty tumultuous; both Missy and her mom seem ready to bite one another�s head off at any moment. Mr. Barmann and I have the good sense to stay out of the way, and Amy is pretty busy writing about foods she likes. I spell words for her so I maintain an aura of usefulness.

We run errands and eat mostly, as those are the things we know how to do the best. I�m pretty sure �Olathe Ford� (Olathe, Kansas) is running a pretty serious racket. Every single person in the waiting room with us, getting their tires rotated and oil changed, was surprised to hear that their windshield wipers had each �gone bad.� I don�t think that is even a thing that happens to windshield wipers; it is a myth, like Zeus, or the Holocaust. But they wait until sort of drizzly days to pull it on you, so then you�re all vacillating (new word!) in your nasally inner voice like, �Well, they said they were only going to do the tires, but it is raining almost, and I�d hate to lose crucial visibility� and so you cave. That�s fine. My windows look someone coated them in a fine layer of sugar, but I just soldier on. We walked to an Osco, and I got this crazy Mexican Coca-Cola I later learned had little floaters in it. And sand or rust or something about the bottle lip. Good show, our dark-skinner neighbors to the south!

Missy has been farting so bad lately, guys! I don�t know if it�s the soy or the cheese or what, but these are the deadliest things I�ve ever encountered. The smell is so pungent it puts even Spritz to shame, and they are heavy, man! They will not leave an area, and you can not try to put a stop to them. She laid one down in her room, and I ran to grab some body spray of her mom�s to hose down the area. Nothing � the spray just combined with a fart to make it smell like Melissa had been consuming a particularly toxic variety of raspberries.

It was a very special �Step-by-Step� followed by a very special �Boy Meets World.� I am now well-prepared to battle the real world dangers of both marijuana and cults with cute girls in them. You�ve given me the words I need to fight off those demons, ABC Family. My prayers of supplication have been replaced with those of gratitude. Bless thee. Bless thee.

�Gilmore Girls� taught me nothing, however, so fuck you.

Other avenues were explored this evening, including those of pizza and those of sporting goods. The pizza place I remain mostly stoic towards, except to say that I do not think that the Food Network needed to take the time to specifically point out Waldo Pizza (Waldo, Missouri). I let the conniving bitch waitress talk us into getting mozzarella on our pie instead of solely the feta as I wanted, and it was not to my satisfaction. As such, when it came time to calculate the tip (Melissa always relies on me for this part), I intentionally rounded down and did not say a word. The sporting goods store left a bad taste in my mouth. As expected. But, because of Missy�s purchase of some $50 water bladder backpack, I now get the shitty generic version she had originally. It shall be taped onto my chest, the valve snaked up my lapel and into my mouth, delicious spirits available at a moment�s notice. �Open container, officer? I see nothing open at all, sir, let alone a container!� HA HA HA

We also ventured to the local overpriced candy store. Damn it, the knowledge remains, but the demand for it is lost! Besides, if I had been the one to work for the squeaky voice demon they had there, she would have been strangled a long time ago. And I would have been jailed.

It�s fun to write entries weird sometimes.

In 1988, Missy�s sister Amy made an appearance on �The Bozo Show,� Chicago�s very own children�s entertainment hell and a favorite of yours truly when I myself was very young. And by �favorite� I mean it was the only thing on at 6:30 in the morning. And be �appearance� I mean she sat in the front row of the audience with her mom (Mrs. Barmann), usually staring off in the opposite direction of the action on-screen (much to my own amusement). For they made a VHS recording of this episode, you see. And what a trip back in time it was. For one thing, �The Bozo Show� was apparently not the well-oiled machine I once believed it to be. Clearly, about half the games they made up for the child volunteers were created on the spot � often leading to grievous errors of functionality. For instance, during the game where lines of kids would take turns tossing balloons at the pin-equipped hat of another child volunteer, they left the microphone on and you could actually here Bozo discussing things with the staff, such as �Joe, move those cue cards out of the way.� And �I told you those balloons were not heavy enough to pop on their own.� Bozo, you tremendous asshole. But he would just do his nutty laugh (�Huh-HA!�) and hum a little ditty and try and move those damn retard pinhead kids to a better position so that the balloons could pop, and we could get on with our damn lives. My next design for a t-shirt will be an exact duplicate of the one the boy with blush wore onto the Grand Prize Game, �I LOVE BOZO� scrawled above in marker just like his. How�s that for esoteric, Urban Outfitters?

The commercials were particularly interesting to me, being entirely directed at children in an age where children were still stupid enough to believe things they heard the television say. If I were more militant, I might say the Honey Comb cereal commercial with the black genie was just a teensy bit racist, but the jingle was fucking awesome and the thing that struck me the most was how dated every single one of the products were. They had that floor piano thing from Big (pre-Big appearance, however) and �The Real Ghostbusters� action figures (I will not admit to being spoiled on many things, but Ghostbusters toys were my exception, and they showed like every one I owned in this commercial: Egon with his tie all standing out when you pressed the button and the headquarters building and the yellow VW bug that turned into a monster � man, I had all that shit!) and the Atari 2600 with a testimonial from Don Neuall, the same member of the United States National Video Game Team that Seanbaby makes fun of (if you remember that sort of thing� I certainly don�t). I watched in awe and batted off Missy�s attempts to get all kissy face with me. �Woman, I have work to do here!� But then that damn wolverine attack.

I�m sorry that old television shows are more interesting to me than actual things that were said and done today, but I am not without flaws. Tomorrow Missy is actually to work almost 8 hours, which leaves me pretty high and dry for companionship. There is supposed to be some sort of paper dragon festival or something (�I will be there, screaming, and they will not be able to tell if the screams are from joy or agony�), and Missy sadistically drops hints to her parents that we should be bonding when in fact I am perfectly fine with no bonding at all. Ever. Whatsoever. So I will do my best to tuck away in here and play my little Nintendo RPG until it is time for me to leave again. Wish me luck.