Notes, from the Upper West Side. A novel by Dan Wrench. Chapter 5, SpongeBob Interlude. Just so you know, life didn't stop for me so I could write up this book this summer.
I typed out that last chapter about a day ago during a SpongeBob marathon with the kids. And SpongeBob takes us all. When I lived in Brooklyn back in Williamsburg was a slum, there was this alley the building superintendent used to call Cat Scrooge Alley because every summer night you could hear some cats in heat screaming to get porked and then screaming even louder during the pork proper. It was easier concentrating in an apartment over Cat Scrooge Alley that it is in an apartment with that asshole SpongeBob.
I know what you single kids are thinking, you're thinking SpongeBob sounds good to me and some babysitter. Sure, as long as you can tell yourself that SpongeBob isn't really melting the kids brains, which let's face it, he probably is. Don't forget what SpongeBob might be doing to the boys. The point is I get to overhear the whole marathon and it's definitely melting my brains.
I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready! Is what I hear bouncing around inside my skull even when I'm out trying to get some cigarettes, even when I'm listening to my remones. I'm in New York. I should be in a nightclub downtown with a drunk but hot chick, somebody wised up with realistic expectations, hearing a saxophone moan like a woman about to pop.
It's not like the wife is here to watch the boys this summer, which I think I might have mentioned. I'm kinda laid off and trying to write this tome out with barely more than two fingers pecking away, so get off my back. And it's hot here too. The air conditioning is just for shit when you have virtually no wall padding, you know, insulation.
But I love New York. Here's how desperate I got last week. My boys are 7 years old, Harry, and 5 years old, Sam, and I tried to get them interested in watching the movie All About Eve. Don't laugh.
You may not admit it, but if you're a grown up who lives with small kids, I know you've tried something like this. You can't break out of the playpen they've turned your home into, so one day you get this brilliant idea to bring the outside inside. It's a sanity move. It never works, but you keep getting the same flash of inspiration year in and year out, never remembering until you fail that you've had the same idea a dozen times before.
So all about Eve. Of course, we didn't even get through the stage door. Eve didn't even get her ring coat and hat off before the carving began. Harry.
We have to watch this. It was really quite a point. Sam. It's too talky for our movie.
The Brockheimer fallacy. Me. You kids are lucky Daddy doesn't make you watch Kind Hearts and Coronets. I was putting Grave of Five U-Tensals in the dishwasher.
Ew. Ha. Wait a minute. Harry, you know that movie?
No. Then why did you say who? I don't know. Is it talky?
Uh huh. Yuck. Said Sam. I bet it's all grey.
Is it all grey Daddy? As Kerry. Like he just heard a rumor he was going to have to work his way through community college because his Daddy is a deadbeat. Yup.
I said Sam. Yuck. Harry. I like color.
Sam. What does Mommy coming back? Time for bed kids. That was what I say last week.
Well, last night they got brain melting SpongeBob because they remembered not to ask Daddy when Mommy was coming home. So I left off with me and my therapy and Dr. Jessica. Fasten your seatbelts.
Notes from the Upper West Side is a work of fiction. The people depicted in this work do not exist. Notes from the Upper West Side copyright 2013 to 2014 by Dan Wrench.