Day 124
Things are more or less back to normal in the Snowman household.
Small Child has spent the day screaming, vomiting and creating havoc in the living room, the current Mrs. Snowman has been posing the kind of questions that would have Albert Einstein scratching his head, mother-in-law tested my patience to breaking point and Surrogate Daughter just baffled the hell out of me.
Apart from the antics of Small Child (which I’m sure you can visualize even if you don’t really want to) I shall give you some fairly standard examples.
Surrogate Daughter sheepishly asked me earlier in the day to have a look at her laptop that for some reason had ceased to function properly. As luck would have it, I immediately knew the problem as I’d had the same fault a couple of months ago. The solution required a simple program to rectify it and as I still had the relevant disc in my case I offered to get the thing going again. She disappeared for a few minutes while I inserted the disc, tapped a few keys and let the program run. I also took the precaution of taping two large sheets of paper across the screen and keyboard and wrote “Program running. DO NOT TOUCH” across each one before retiring to the bedroom to complete an article I’d been writing.
Five minutes later she appeared at the door with the laptop in her hand telling me that it still wasn’t working. I enquired what part of “do not touch” she found tricky to understand; and her answer?
“I didn’t think you meant me. You should have made it clearer”
Somehow I don’t think intelligence is her strong point.
Just to prove that it’s a genetic problem, the current Mrs. Snowman was in the kitchen about half an hour later when I strolled in to grab a drink.
“Hi darling, I’m just getting a beer”
“Ok, but don’t open the fridge because I’ve just put a mousse in there to set”
“But the beers are in the fridge”
“Ok, get one; but don’t open the fridge door”
“Er…how am I supposed to get it out then?”
“Don’t bother me with stupid questions, I’m busy”
Answers to this problem can be sent to me at the usual address as I’m fucked if I could work it out.
Mother-in-law made her contribution when I was relaxing in front of the television later in the evening. I was watching the last ten minutes of a live rugby match when she flopped into a chair and switched the television channels.
“Um…I was watching that and it’s almost over”
“Well if you’ve seen most of it, you don’t need to see the rest”
Rather than getting into a screaming match about it I simply asked how I was supposed to find out the final score. Her answer left me feeling quite dizzy…
“Go and watch it on the radio”
There can be no doubt that at some time in their infancy each of them was dropped on their heads causing irreparable brain damage.
In some respects I was glad to get back to the poker, at least that would hold no surprises. Hopefully.
After a couple of days where I inexplicably managed to do rather well in a couple of freeroll tournaments I entered the first of the cash games.
You would think that after battling for hours to reach the final all the players would be playing focused, text book cards and engaging in fascinating mind games with their opponents.
Nope, it was full of the usual donkeys that infest the tables of the freerolls and low stakes tournaments.
I made it to the first break with about 3,000 chips before losing about a third of them to a furry beast who called my Kings up pair with 8-7 suited and hit trips on the river. Determined it wouldn’t happen again, I bided my time and waited while my stack was depleted by the forced bets. A-K duly arrived; I raised three times the big blind and was confronted with an all-in from a maniac player under the gun. Obviously I called and, sure enough, his pocket 2’s held up.
The Southern Comfort was opened soon afterwards.
I noted the events of today as nothing more than an indication of the kind of thing I have contend with every day. I now look on it as a kind of mental and emotional exercise. After a few hours of trying to figure out sentient responses to such things I find myself with a clarity of mind where quiz shows and crosswords become a breeze, although every now and again they throw me a curved ball to push me off balance.
For example, a couple of days ago, Surrogate Daughter popped her head up from the computer and asked me a question that left me in despair. With complete seriousness she said:
“Where were the Nuremburg Trials held?”
For fucks sake.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $0.48
Small Child has spent the day screaming, vomiting and creating havoc in the living room, the current Mrs. Snowman has been posing the kind of questions that would have Albert Einstein scratching his head, mother-in-law tested my patience to breaking point and Surrogate Daughter just baffled the hell out of me.
Apart from the antics of Small Child (which I’m sure you can visualize even if you don’t really want to) I shall give you some fairly standard examples.
Surrogate Daughter sheepishly asked me earlier in the day to have a look at her laptop that for some reason had ceased to function properly. As luck would have it, I immediately knew the problem as I’d had the same fault a couple of months ago. The solution required a simple program to rectify it and as I still had the relevant disc in my case I offered to get the thing going again. She disappeared for a few minutes while I inserted the disc, tapped a few keys and let the program run. I also took the precaution of taping two large sheets of paper across the screen and keyboard and wrote “Program running. DO NOT TOUCH” across each one before retiring to the bedroom to complete an article I’d been writing.
Five minutes later she appeared at the door with the laptop in her hand telling me that it still wasn’t working. I enquired what part of “do not touch” she found tricky to understand; and her answer?
“I didn’t think you meant me. You should have made it clearer”
Somehow I don’t think intelligence is her strong point.
Just to prove that it’s a genetic problem, the current Mrs. Snowman was in the kitchen about half an hour later when I strolled in to grab a drink.
“Hi darling, I’m just getting a beer”
“Ok, but don’t open the fridge because I’ve just put a mousse in there to set”
“But the beers are in the fridge”
“Ok, get one; but don’t open the fridge door”
“Er…how am I supposed to get it out then?”
“Don’t bother me with stupid questions, I’m busy”
Answers to this problem can be sent to me at the usual address as I’m fucked if I could work it out.
Mother-in-law made her contribution when I was relaxing in front of the television later in the evening. I was watching the last ten minutes of a live rugby match when she flopped into a chair and switched the television channels.
“Um…I was watching that and it’s almost over”
“Well if you’ve seen most of it, you don’t need to see the rest”
Rather than getting into a screaming match about it I simply asked how I was supposed to find out the final score. Her answer left me feeling quite dizzy…
“Go and watch it on the radio”
There can be no doubt that at some time in their infancy each of them was dropped on their heads causing irreparable brain damage.
In some respects I was glad to get back to the poker, at least that would hold no surprises. Hopefully.
After a couple of days where I inexplicably managed to do rather well in a couple of freeroll tournaments I entered the first of the cash games.
You would think that after battling for hours to reach the final all the players would be playing focused, text book cards and engaging in fascinating mind games with their opponents.
Nope, it was full of the usual donkeys that infest the tables of the freerolls and low stakes tournaments.
I made it to the first break with about 3,000 chips before losing about a third of them to a furry beast who called my Kings up pair with 8-7 suited and hit trips on the river. Determined it wouldn’t happen again, I bided my time and waited while my stack was depleted by the forced bets. A-K duly arrived; I raised three times the big blind and was confronted with an all-in from a maniac player under the gun. Obviously I called and, sure enough, his pocket 2’s held up.
The Southern Comfort was opened soon afterwards.
I noted the events of today as nothing more than an indication of the kind of thing I have contend with every day. I now look on it as a kind of mental and emotional exercise. After a few hours of trying to figure out sentient responses to such things I find myself with a clarity of mind where quiz shows and crosswords become a breeze, although every now and again they throw me a curved ball to push me off balance.
For example, a couple of days ago, Surrogate Daughter popped her head up from the computer and asked me a question that left me in despair. With complete seriousness she said:
“Where were the Nuremburg Trials held?”
For fucks sake.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $0.48