The Black Hole©
Your Source of Nosey News©

Wednesday July 26, 2000

Mean Parents - ha!

Welcome to Issue 10 of The Black Hole©, your source of Nosey News©, and here we are at week two of summer vacation. Lou-Ann sent me this e-mail and I just had to share it:
We loved you enough... Someday when our children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates parents, We will tell them:
We loved you enough... to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home. We loved you enough... to insist that you save your money and buy a bike for yourself even though we could afford to buy one for you.
We loved you enough... to be silent let you discover that your new best friend was a creep.
We loved you enough... to make you go pay for the bubble gum you had taken and tell the clerk, "I stole this yesterday and want to pay for it.
We loved you enough... to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes.
We loved you enough... to let you see anger, disappointment and tears in our eyes. Children must learn that their parents aren't perfect.
We loved you enough... to let you assume the responsibility for your actions even when the penalties were so harsh they almost broke our hearts.
But most of all, we loved you enough... to say NO when we knew you would hate us for it. Those were the most difficult battles of all.
We're glad we won them, because in the end you won, too. And someday when your children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates parents, you will tell them..... Were your parents mean? I know mine were. We had the meanest parents in the whole world! While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast. When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches. And you can guess our parents fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too.
Mom and Dad insisted on knowing where we were at all times.
You'd think we were convicts in a prison. They had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them. They insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less. We were ashamed to admit it, but they had the nerve to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work. We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think they would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do. They always insisted on us telling the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By the time we were teenagers, they could read our minds.
Then, life was really tough! Mom and Dad wouldn't let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so they could meet them. While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16. Because of our parents we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced. None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other's property or ever arrested for any crime. It was all their fault.
Now that we have left home, we are all educated, honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mom and Dad were. I think that is what's wrong with the world today. It just doesn't have enough mean parents. 

Disclaimer: There is no intention of maliciousness involved with this newsletter, only the pursuit of the comedy and tragedy of our everyday lives…

Issue 10

  Faces in the News 


"The Millennium Force"
(95 miles per hour, 80°, 300 foot drop...)

Hot Links

Easter Eggs
(hidden games, surprises in movies, software...)

iVillage-WomansNetwork

email the editor with your Nosey News, complaints, compliments...
[email protected]

Quick Wit...

Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.

On the Home Front...

We just arrived home from a three day trip to Cedar Point, where the fun never ends. We arrived at our hotel around 9:30 pm, only to be told that we were at the wrong hotel. We quickly argued as loudly and obnoxiously as we could. We stayed at the hotel we wanted...
On Wednesday, we spent a "FUN"-filled 13 (yes Thirteen) hours waiting in line-ups, eating crappy food, listening to very loud music, and generally having a great whoop-up (not whoopee, you pig).
The Millennium Force is all that its cracked up to be, the kids and Mike all got free face lifts.

Thought for Your Sanity

Don't suffer from insanity. Enjoy every minute of it.

Life in the Big City
by Julie Bradshaw

So...Nick (the latest victim) and I went out for coffee. Woulda gone to my house but Nick's afraid of dogs...oh and allergic. (This has the makings of a match made in hell) Coulda gone to his house but I'm allergic and afraid of
little Greek Momma's who let there 39 year old son's live with them.
FYI, SHE is the reason that Nicky (5'8) is 300 lbs. It's all that good Greek food!!! Has absolutely nothing to do with lack of self-control or a sedentary lifestyle. No, not at all. Oh, and Nick lives with Momma 'to help her out'. I have no doubt whatsoever that it assists her a great deal having multiple pairs of men's x-large briefs in her laundry every week!! (I've often wondered why underwear is referred to as a 'pair', perhaps the size of Nick's butt holds the answer. One brief just ain't enough!! And for that matter, why should they be referred to as 'briefs'??) 
I'm so glad I went out with Nick. I now know what perfection looks like. (Finally, I've met a Greek God). Wanna know how I know that Nick is perfect? COZ HE KNOWS EVERYTHING!!! (And he's not afraid to admit it either).
On the up side, Nick doesn't have any ex's to ruminate over (gee, I wonder why?) Baggage?? None that's visible. (He must carry it in his trunk! (Shame on me.) 
Now I know why they call them 'Blind Dates'....you gotta be blind. I think I'm gonna start calling them 3 Senses Dates...as long you can't hear or see and have no interest whatsoever in talking, I'm sure they're loads of fun!!!

Life in the Small City

Laurie is anxiously awaiting the sale of her next-door neighbor's house, before her car gets sprayed by paint again, her kids toys get slashed, or she gets in another screaming match with the woman who lives there, while standing in the driveway with the twins and 10 bags of melting groceries... 

Joke of the Week
(from Lou-Ann Tedesco)

Things-To-Do When You're Bored

1) Glue some quarters to the floor and watch people try to pick them up.
2) Page yourself over the intercom. (Don't disguise your voice.) 
3) Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
4) Decorate with bouquets of dead flowers.
5) Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair dancing.
6) Put your garbage can on your desk and label it "IN."
7) Develop an unnatural fear of staplers. 
8) Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
9) Put mosquito netting around your cubicle. 
10) Reply to everything someone says with, "That's what you think." 
11) When leaving the Zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling "Run for your lives, they're loose!" 
12) Adjust the tint on your monitor so that the brightness level lights up the entire work area. Insist to others that you like it that way.
13) Don't use any punctuation.
14) As often as possible, skip rather than walk. 
15) Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.
16) Specify that your drive-through order is "to go."
17) Sing Along at the opera.
18) Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.
19) Find out where your boss shops and buy exactly the same outfits. 
20) Send e-mail to the rest of the company to tell them what you're doing. For example: If anyone needs me, I'll be in the bathroom.
21) When the money comes out of the ATM, scream, "I Won!, I Won! 3rd time this week!!!" 

Brag Box

Happy 1st Birthday to Kailee Ann !

You may be a geek if...

You have ever sent E-mail to someone sitting next to you.
You have ever had a dream involving computers.
You have ever modified an ini file.
You would sell your grandmother for more bandwidth.
You start tilting your head sideways to smile.
You get up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop to check your E-mail on your way back to bed.
You've entered that USR X2 contest so many times you get e-mail saying "Forget it, Mike you are not going to win, just go buy the modem".
You know what the USR X2 contest is.
If you have ever dozed off while at the computer.
Have ever e-mailed yourself .
The tech support folks at your ISP call YOU for the tough ones.
You have more than one copy of the same version of software on your machine.
You have ever submitted a tip to windows95.
You have ever chatted with someone while talking to them on the phone.
You are surprised that there are other real foods besides pizza.

Down on the Farm...
by Karen Barnert

So, here it is only day 4 of summer vacation. ARE WE HAVING FUN YET???
Blake was at pony club tonight...fun was had by all...at least for a little while...we watched as Blake WALKED his horse over the jumps...we watched as Blake JUMPED his horse over the jumps...we watched as Blake's horse FLEW over the jumps...we watched as Blake FLEW over the horse.......we watched as the doctor at the hospital wrote a requisition for X-rays on Blake's foot.....and so I repeat....ARE WE HAVING FUN YET??????
It turns out that Blake is just fine except for his badly bruised foot and a badly bruised ego, nothing that a little rest and then practice won't cure.
Wait a minute...did I say PRACTICE??? We still have about 9 more weeks of riding....ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?????

Prozac™ Moment of the Week

Thursday morning, 10 am, we entered Cedar Point for our second day of fun, and headed  straight to the Millennium Force® as you needed to have a reserve time to ride it. We saw the line-up and proceeded to find the end. We walked, and walked, and kept walking. Finally, at the far end of the park, we found the end of the line, only to be notified that the wait was expected to be 7 (yes... 7) hours. Yeah, right! Where is the Merry-go-Round?

The Black Hole Archives