Post
by Larry Mal » Fri Aug 19, 2016 6:01 am
Whenever I change the strings on my guitar, I always make sure that I take the old strings off, one by one, and then I locate my new strings. That's the first step, don't skip that.
Then I take the strings from the package, and then my son Max usually looks over from whatever food he's been spilling and runs over and takes the strings or the guitar or the chair I'm sitting on from me. If I don't let him have it, he'll start crying like a crazy person so I just hand it over. He runs off with the strings, or gets the guitar all sticky so I have to put it away, or he gets on the chair and climbs over me anyway. I give up temporarily.
Then at that point it's quite likely that Baby Henry needs a diaper changed, and my wife glares at me until I cheerfully volunteer to change that diaper. "But I'm in the middle of something," is what a stupid person would say, and what a stupid person did say until I learned to be a little less stupid. So I take Baby Henry into the bedroom, and get his diaper off, but the baby wipes aren't on the nightstand that has the alarm clock on it that I look at all night instead of sleeping. But I don't notice that until I get the diaper off, and am now- pretty literally- up shit creek without a paddle.
Baby Henry decides it's time to work on his core by rolling around.
At some point the panic in my voice inspires Max to come in and start doing something dangerous, and beads of sweat fall from my forehead onto Baby Henry as he rolls around in his own excrement while I yell at Max to "sit safe", an order he has never acknowledged in any way, and then my wife brings me the God damn wet wipes that should have been on the nightstand anyway but she had to put them in the diaper bag because Max didn't nap and kept Baby Henry up all day and my wife agreed to baby sit for Jenny even though Mrs. Larry is totally exhausted herself with her own children and I wonder if I could claim there's an emergency at work of some kind.
Baby Henry has, at this point, suffered such an incredible blowout that I think there's no alternative other than a complete reset in the form of a bath. I draw the bath, my wife hassles me about the temperature of the bath but I tell her what does she know, and then I get in the bath with Baby Henry. Baby Henry looks at me and gives me his big smile that makes me feel everything is all right. It's nice and peaceful in the bath for about ten seconds, until Max comes in and begins hurling his toys in the bath at me and Baby Henry and splashing the water and then Henry cries, his shrieks reverberating off the cheap tile wall of the bathroom wall and piercing my very soul.
My wife comes in and tells me that I might as well get Max washed also, so I agree, but she doesn't want Max to bathe in the same water as Baby Henry, so I drain the water and sit there in the tub like a fool, then I fill it all back up while Max yells about why isn't the bath ready. Then I realize that Max Max is a big guy now, and doesn't need me in the bath anymore, so I get out, and put Max in. Max give me that smile that makes me feel that everything is all right, and then he yells and splashes water all over me and everything else while I tell him to "sit safe" pathetically and try and read about some asshole's guitar on this here guitar forum.
Finally I have to take Max out of the bath and he doesn't wanna so he cries and howls and then tells me he wants "mum manoo bowl" which I interpret as being a bowl of yogurt and fruit, so I chop up some fresh strawberries and mix those and the yogurt with honey, cardamom, cinnamon and vanilla but I guess I get it wrong because he won't eat even a single bite of it instead chasing the cat and shrieking in a supersonic fashion.
At this point my wife storms out of the bedroom with Baby Henry and says to me accusingly that Henry won't sleep. I used to protest that I wasn't really at fault with that, but now I'm numb to the core, so I just take Henry mutely and load him in the stroller. Fuck, I dunno. I take Henry down the street to the supermarket where I buy two 25 oz cans of cheap domestic beer for three dollars, and this cheers me up, and then I walk around with Baby Henry in the hot summer night until my wife sends me a text an hour later telling me that Max is asleep and I can come home. Luckily, Henry has fallen asleep, and if I'm really careful, I can get him up the stairs and right to bed and then I can spend a little time with my wife, which I seem to remember liking very much.
But Henry wakes up of course, and my wife is angry but what can she say, and she takes Baby Henry and drags herself off to bed, claiming that she'll come out and watch a TV show with me but she won't, she just falls asleep nursing Baby Henry.
I sit down with a 25 ounce can of domestic beer, try and open that as quietly as I can so no one wakes up. I look down at the floor, and there, amidst all the wooden blocks, toy trucks, and half eaten bananas from breakfast, is my set of guitar strings. So, I have located the guitar strings again.
That's step one. The rest can wait until tomorrow. I drink my domestic tallboy in silence and darkness, alone.
And that's how I change guitar strings.
Back in those days, everyone knew that if you were talking about Destiny's Child, you were talking about Beyonce, LaTavia, LeToya, and Larry.
Shit man, sounds exactly like my house! I have four.......
