"I'm fucking crawling out of my skin. I should've left you at the flea market".

My head hurts and I fear that I�m not feeling inspired to write at the moment, but I�ll give it a whirl.

So much for being done with the shopping by Wednesday. I went out again yesterday and last night, and I�m heading out this morning, too. Last minute bullshit. And tomorrow, Christmas Freakin� Eve, I agreed to take Beavis out to do his shopping. He wants to go to The Mall. The Mall! On Christmas Eve! Ack! But I�m taking him, only because I�ll only have Hub to buy for at that point, so I won�t be all stressed out, and I can laugh at the people who are all stressed out. Fun!

Today is Butthead�s 17th birthday. 17! The other night we were over at Nina and Jay�s and a couple of their friends were over, and they couldn�t believe Hub has a 17 year old son. �You don�t look old enough�. That�s what happens when you crank out a kid 10 days after your 18th birthday. If I could find the pictures of when he was born, I�d scan them and post them, because even though Hub was 18, he looked about 14.

I can remember what I was doing on this day in 1988 at the time Butthead was being born, and it had nothing to do with having babies, that�s for sure. That was the first time I took acid. What a night. I was hanging out with my friend Nicole and this guy Dube (pronounced �doobie�) and Dube and I popped a hit each. Nicole didn�t because she had to work. I was giving her a ride to work, and since she worked at The Mall, I was going to do some shopping, too.

Hee hee, I was fine when we first got to The Mall. Dube and I separated and I hung out with Nicole for a bit, then walked with her to her work. During that walk, the acid hit me.

Now, ya kinda have to know what It�s like to be on the shit to understand the predicament that I was in. On a good trip, acid will make you smile so hard your cheeks hurt, and you will laugh at everything and anything. �Ugly� people become totally freaky looking and it�s hard to look at them (an example of this, one guy I remember back then wasn�t so hot, but when I was tripping, he turned into The Elephant Man right in front of my eyes!). On the other hand, and this was true for me at least, attractive people are fascinating. Also, lights become a show in themselves, especially colorful ones. And it�s hard to form a coherent thought, trying to remember things becomes impossible.

So, there I was, tripping my face off in The Mall, by myself, two days before Christmas. The place was packed. Somehow or another, I had to find Dube in that mess. I was all kinds of distracted by the lights they had set up throughout the place. I wandered around, aimlessly looking for my trip buddy, and smiling like a moron.

This is how I remember finding him. It was like the crowd of people parted like the Red Sea, and there was Dube in the middle of them all, walking with a girl that we partied with sometimes. (Dube was a fat guy who mooched off of everyone, but still managed to be at every happening party and always had hot girls for friends. Ie; me back then).

Once he saw me, he busted out laughing, claiming he found me from the sparkle of my smile that I had on from ear to ear. We decided to leave The Mall (no shopping got done), which became a problem In itself. (The Mall�s parking lot is huge. Since it�s so close to the border of MA, part of the parking lot is actually in MA, and this time of year It�s so packed, that they have a shuttle bus form the MA portion of the parking lot to the entrance of The Mall). We couldn�t figure out where we parked my car. We had no idea where to begin.

Finally, we decided to go ask Nicole, since she was straight. Except, we couldn�t remember how to get to her work, even though it was in the damn mall! Finally, we walked by JC Penney, and I actually had a thought. �Dude! I always park by JCP!�. Sure enough, we got out to the parking lot and found my car. Scary fact, I drove the damn thing!

I still don�t know how the hell I made it to my next birthday with that sort of behavior.

Anyway, I don�t think I�ll be sharing that story with Butthead. Maybe next year, when he�s 18.

So, he went to his GF�s for gift-giving last night. Her parents got him a nice pair of winter gloves. He called me on my cell to find out if I�d gotten him gloves yet, because he just got some. Rrrrr. I had found a nice NICE pair of snowboarding gloves for his birthday present. Fucking $40 for the pair, but nice. I was really proud of that find and I thought he�d love it, and now he was asking for no gloves!

When I got home last night, he showed me the gloves they got him. Not as nice as what I got, but they were a nice pair. I said, �Just to let you know, the gloves I got for you, that I�ll be returning, are WAY nicer than those�. I had his and Beavis�s attention. Beavis pulled me aside and wanted to know what kind of gloves and how much were they? I told him and then after Butthead went back to his secret lair, I showed him. He was Impressed with my choice.

Well, then Butthead comes back up, with his new snowboard boots on to show me, and me and Beavis were hiding in the bathroom with the gloves. We wouldn�t let him in and he knew we were up to something. I peeked out to see his boots since he was dying for me to, and after he said, �So, can I see those gloves�, at which point I was like �fuck it�. So I showed him.

Clearly, he was impressed too. He liked them better than the other ones. And then he was in a quandary about the gloves because he wanted the ones I got him, but didn�t want to give the other ones back to Jen�s parents. Which, duh, you don�t do that.

Finally, Beavis and I pressured him into keeping both pairs. So, he got his birthday present the night before his birfday, unwrapped and with the price tag still on it. Despite that, the kid was psyched.

Snowboarding is the theme for this holiday, as far as the boys go. Butthead also wanted snowboard goggles. Beavis got a snowboard from Linda when we were in NY last month, because her step-son Mike knows the owners of the skateboard/snowboard shop in town and bumped into a great deal on a used snowboard. And yesterday I found a pair of snowboard boots for $37.50. When other new pairs I saw were $90 and more. I mean, they�re not top of the line, but they�ll do. It�s not like the kid is going to be spending all his time up north at the ski areas all winter. He might go once. Anyway, he found the store I went to get them and told me about the deal. He didn�t know, though, that they were an extra 25% off, a fact which pleasantly surprised me when I got to the register with them.

I had taken Mickey with me yesterday on our shopping expedition. He was a great help in that I was searching for a gift for my dad and coming up with no ideas. I asked, �What the heck are we gonna get for Pepere?� and Mickey said, �A phone�. Brilliant! My dad still has the same corded land line phone that we had ten to fifteen years ago. So I got him a two cordless phone set. They sell them in twos now, which is awesome, as the second one doesn�t need a phone jack. So, Mickey was a great deal of help with that. Other than that, we were out for three hours and he did nothing but talk and ask questions the whole time. Mostly about �ET�. He�s seen the trailer for it on one of our videos and is fascinated with it. So, I had to endure countless questions like this: �ET Is an alien, right? Aliens have telephones, right? Why did ET say �ET phone home�? Why did ET want to go home? How come his friends left him here? Did they forgetted him? Was he nice? Why did the little boy have to hide ET from his mom? Why would they take him away? How come they didn�t be nice to ET? Why did ET say �I�ll be right here�? Was the little girl afraid of ET? ET is not scary, right?� etc, etc, etc.

Bear in mind, after every �right?�, I have to say, �Right� or he will just repeat the question over and over AND OVER until I say, �Right�.

He was being such a good boy while I dragged him all over, butt he questions were making me crazy. It was cute, but after three hours of it? I was wiped. I haven�t seen ET in about 5 years and I can�t remember all the details of it, so I had trouble answering all of his questions. Plus they just got annoying. I told him, �Mickey, you are making me crazy. B-A-N-A-N-A-S!� and he would just laugh at me. (Btw, thanks to Gwen Stephani, all of the kids know how to spell bananas).

Never mind that I know we have the movie on tape, and yesterday I�d told him that if he could find It in the endless cabinet o�tapes, he could watch it. Instead, he found that we have Star Wars Episode 1, �The Phantom Menace�. I did NOT know that. The search ended with that tape and we spent yesterday morning watching it. Mickey is a huge Star Wars fan, and it�s something special between us to watch those movies together.

Oh! I forgot to mention something. Thanks to my husband, the Grand Propagator of Misinformation, I gave you all some bullshit yesterday. Not on purpose. The principal of Hilda�s school has NOT, in fact, notified DCYF about The Hilda Situation. She was �considering� it, depending on Shauna�s response to the issues. Thanks, Hub, thanks a lot. On the other hand, I should KNOW better! My Fact Check staff sucks royally sometimes. They keep forgetting that Hub is not a good source of accurate information. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Okay, well, I must depart now. I�m off to the Pheasant Lane Mall. You know you�re jealous.

Happy, happy!

Listening to: Commercials.

Currently reading: "Guilty As Sin" Tami Hoag

Thinking about: Getting the hell out of here.