Sock it to me!

I lost my sock. I woke up this morning and my left sock was gone. My left foot was naked, exposed to the world, like a hermit crab without its Dr. Pepper can.¹ That used to happen to me all the time between the ages of four and nine. Once I reached the fourth grade, it stopped happening for some reason.

It would always freak me out though, because my mom would tell me that if I walked around the house with one foot barefoot and the other foot with a sock on it, she would die a horrible, horrible death at the hands of the devil. I never really believed her until the day my aunt read me a story in which that exact scenario happened. Seriously. The kid woke up with a missing sock, walked to the restroom, walked back, and then found his mom in the kitchen, crushed by the fridge.²

Since then, I'd wake up and then hop around my room on one foot looking for the other sock. Usually I'd step on my Ninja Turtle action figures³ and fall to the ground, writhing in pain, but I never EVER stepped on the ground with my barefeet. Very rarely, I would find my missing sock. More often than not, the sock was gone, banished forever to the depths of hell. Satan probably sent his minions to steal it so that he could steal my mother's soul.

My mom also used to tell me the story of La Llorona.⁴ It was a story told mainly to scare kids into obeying their parents, but I was already a skeptical teenager when I first heard it so it didn't have the desired effect. I told Kayla this story a few nights ago because she was throwing sand at the seagulls and she has been on her best behavior since. Unfortunately, she's also been asking if La Llorona is going to eat her every fifteen minutes. I think I may have traumatized her.

Mexican folklore is all sorts of fucked up.

I didn't find my sock this morning, but I just took off the other sock and my mother seems to be doing just fine, so that seemed to fix that problem. Nice try, Devil-man, but it's going to take more than missing socks to take my mom away from me.

After the sock debacle, I prepared my skin for the harsh UV sun rays by slathering on about half a bottle of sunscreen.⁵ I used to hate rubbing sunscreen onto my deliciously brown⁶ skin because I hated the feeling of putting a shirt on afterwards. It was so sticky. And gross. Like the shirt just wants to hug you, but you're all like "No, shirt, you've got cooties!" I learned my lesson in 8th grade though, when I didn't wear sunscreen for five days. On the car ride back, I had to sit up for the entirety of the seven-hour drive because if I rested my back on anything, my skin would send neurons to my brain's pain center. It wasn't an enjoyable trip, but the peeling skin that went on for about a week afterwards almost made it totally worth it.⁷ I would pretend that I was a snake and I would slither along the floor, rubbing up against the walls and furniture, shedding my skin. My mom would yell at me because I was leaving skin flakes all over the couch.I was such a cute kid. (EDITOR'S NOTE: He was nearly fifteen. And fat.)

Once, I had some trouble reaching that spot in the middle of my back when I was applying sunscreen (EDITOR'S NOTE: Cus he was fat.), so I asked my cousin, Alex⁸, to rub some on. He spurted some sunscreen onto his hand and started rubbing it on my back. We were both shirtless, wearing only our swim trunks. Since I had been wearing the same shorts for about three days, they were kinda itchy, so I began scratching my leg. At that moment, the house keeping lady walked in on and us and said "Oh, God! OH, GOD! I'M SO SORRY!" and slammed the door. I can only imagine what it must've looked like.

A commercial for 'Hotel for Dogs' just came on. That movie looks stupid. You can't open a hotel for dogs. Dogs have no money. And if they have no money, you can't get paid. And if you can't get paid, how can you keep your hotel in working order? How can you purchase the Kibbles n' Bits that those canines so desperately need? How can you purchase the rubber bones and Beggin' Strips? Or the fire hydrants? It makes no sense logistically. And I'm all about the logistics. I mean, I guess you could find a way to make money off of the dogs somehow, but then you'd be exploiting your guests and the ACLU (or PETA)^8.5 will be all up in your grill, suing you for a violation of all sorts of things. And then what? You'd have to hire a lawyer, but you'd have no money because you wasted it all on a stupid hotel for guests who can't pay for your services. And then there's that one scene where there's like forty dogs sitting at a table, pigging out. That scene infuriates me because
a) half of those dogs would fighting
b) the other half of those dogs would be trying to make puppies
c) dogs don't sit at tables! That's crazy.
It'd make more sense to open a hotel for cows because, at least that way, you could get some dairy products out of it.⁹

I tried bull testicles two nights ago. I would describe them as "chewy chicken." Or maybe chicken tastes like tender bull testicles. It's weird how a lot of food stuffs taste like chicken. Frog legs taste like chicken. Alligator tastes like chicken. Hell, even tuna tastes like chicken.¹⁰

I stole a little jar of jelly from the restaurant where we ate breakfast this morning. I slipped it into my pocket and waltzed on out of there. They'll never catch me. I was going to steal the bathrobe from the hotel room too, but I wasn't ready to take my thievery skills to the next level. I probably won't because I feel incredibly guilty about stealing the jelly. And it was complimentary jelly, but still. I stole it. There's no going back. I'm a criminal now. An outlaw. I'm running from the popo, living my life on the lam, one day at a time. Someday, I hope the restaurant will be able to forgive me for what I did. I'll go back with a full-sized jar of strawberry jelly and say something cool like "It's finally time I got you out of that jam." Or "I did a not so grape thing a few years back. Time for me to fix it!" Or "Welch! Stop your straw-belly achin'! I've come back for my dessert." Then I'd pull my sleeves up, revealing my strawberry tattoo, pump my fists into the air, and then drive off into the sunset on my Harley-Davidson.

Later, Smuckers!¹¹

1. My cousin, David, has some hermit crabs. He pits them against each other, like Pokémon. This footnote has no relevance to the story. I just want people to know that I want a hermit crab for Christmas so I can battle against David. I'd name him Citizen Snips and take really good care of him. Promise!
2. Even though the mom in the story was crushed by a fridge, I was always scared that my mom would meet her demise by bending over to pick up a sock and then somehow accidentally break her back. That was also why I never stepped on sidewalk cracks as a child.
3. Usually Leonardo, which sucked cus he had sword and they'd poke my feet.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona
5. SPF 30, of course.
6. Brown like a lightly toasted chocolate croissant. Mmmmm.
7. Almost.
8. Alex happens to be David's brother.
8.5. Or BOTH!
9. Everybody needs more calcium.
10. Or it would if it didn't have that fishy smell about it.
11. EDITOR'S NOTE: There is no editor. I just want to look cool...