Bitch, please.

My parents are from Brooklyn, New York.

If you’re a New York native, specifically Brooklyn, it’s pronounced New Yowahk. If you live in upstate New York, the silent “r” seems to disappear and most letters of the alphabet are back in play. Strangely, I have some upstate NY friends that speak with a harder “r” than most.

Maybe they’re compensating for their southern counterparts.

My name is Sean. The spelling of it has plagued me my entire life. If you were my mom or my dad, the correct way to say it was Showahn. And don’t rush it- be sure to get both syllables in where they belong.

Maybe that’s wrong- maybe it’s Shojaun with a silent “j” like in Jesus.

No, the other one.

Upstate, Boston, and beyond

Upstate NY natives always called me Shaan. I can only assume that they were being unknowingly sympathetic toward me because of how those nearer to the Big Apple said my name. Even so, they also missed it by just a smidge.

It was all in complete contrast to most of those in New England where I grew up. My friends all called me Shawn. I know, right? The nerve. A few rebels went with Shaun.

My Boston friends have their own spin on it depending on what part of town they’re from.

If they say Bahston they’re calling me Shahn. You can determine who those people are when they talk about Hahvahd. On the other side of town in Bowaston, I’m Showan. It’s a distant relative of my parents’ New York version.

I used to think that I was unique until I did a search and found 500 other Sean McCarthys in the Boston area alone. Maybe that’s why people have as many variations of how to pronounce it as they do clam chowdas.

Don’t even get me started on my friends from Rhode Island. They’re stuck in between Bowaston, Showan, and Harvard. Talk about not knowing where the “r” actually belongs. Pick a fucking consonant, people.

Sticks and stones

From teachers on the first days of a school year to anyone reading my name from a roster, you could see them all try their hardest to guess at the pronunciation. Over the years, I’ve just accepted being called Seen, Shane, Seehan, or Sheen.

You would think, though, that as people got older they’d have met a few people with my name and spelling and maybe figured it out.

Nope. No one gives a shit. As soon as people of all ages open their mouths to say my name I’m transported back to fourth grade with yet another fill-in teacher missing the mark.

There was one substitute who regularly took the reigns for numerous grade levels during my grammar school days. She got the pronunciation of my name wrong every fucking time. What a bitch.

Then again, the cheering change of attitude as the entire class entered the room realizing that we had her for the day may not have helped. Those of us that ignored our prior homework assignment quickly knew that we just got a lifeline. Our give-a-shit-ness as a whole quickly faded away and things were about to get pretty relaxed and unruly.

This all may have contributed to her less than pleasant demeanor and unwillingness to cooperate with how to properly say my birth-given name.

Roll call in the morning had her using guess number one. If she called on me to read aloud, she tossed out version number two. Watch out if she was trying to get my attention for me screwing off in class. It was like she was randomly throwing darts at a dartboard and trying to put my fucking eye out- Shane, Sheen, Scott!

Yes, I’m positive that at one time she actually called me Scott. It was clear by this point that she’d lost all faith in any potential humanity or capabilities of childhood students and said fuck these kids while throwing in the towel.

This all normally occurred within the first 30 minutes of the day every time she was our substitute.

The fact that she kept coming back for more over the years is pretty astounding and I’m kind of finding more respect for her decades later.

But then I think back to how well she pronounced the word asshole.

It was seemingly her preferred title for me as I’d regularly hear her say it under her breath when I was nearby. Maybe the trick to getting my name correctly was to say it quietly in the same manner.

Maybe the key was to just. settle. down., Mrs. whateveryournamewas.

Traumatized, or…Trammatized

My whole life reads like a Hooked on Phonics course.

Thanks, Mom & Dad.

I won’t even get into how I had to have speech therapy as a child because I pronounced the word orange as awrange due to being brought up around that same New York accent. People way up north apparently figured I had a speech impediment and they were determined to beat it out of me.

After perfecting it and nailing the citrus fruit every time from then on, I found myself at a friend’s house in Rhode Island years later where he offered me awrange juice for breakfast one morning.

For fucks sake.

At Starbucks I just tell them my name is Bahb because it’s easier. They still usually get it wrong and spell it Bob.

They probably went to Hahvahd.

Yawn.

In case you hadn’t heard, 2023 became yet another year for Hollywood writers to go on strike.

Pussies. Try being a songwriter and let’s compare royalty checks.

With some of the movies made in the past decades, it seems like they never went off strike. Or at least, they never wrote anything new.

Here’s my writer’s strike short take movie list shedding a little insight, aka spoiler alerts.

A Star Is Born

Female lead becomes more famous than her initially more well-known alcoholic partner who commits suicide. The writers probably thought they were being different by killing off the co-star in different ways each time.

Genius (eye-roll).

Some people say how much better the last version was than the earlier ones. No shit. They had 3 previous versions to learn from. This was made four different times since 1937.

The Great Gatsby

Rich guy throws good parties, screws around, and gets shot.

Money isn’t everything, kids.

Also made four times (1926). Maybe they think we all forget after a few decades.

Batman

Rich guy’s favorite holiday is Halloween even though he won’t admit it. He sucks in a friend to wear a crappier costume. It’s like going out with someone who you know isn’t as attractive as you are so that you get all the attention.

Cool stuff and gadgets were all named the bat-something, clearly cementing who the sidekick wasn’t.

Everyone seemed to get a chance to walk around in tights and a black cape at one point or another over the course of the remakes. It’s almost as if they draw names out of a hat every few years to see whose turn it is with the amount of Batman films that are available on whatever bat-channel you feel like watching.

Tell those bat-stards to cool it already.

Superman

Guy who flies around can apparently hide behind a single pair of standard eyeglasses or inside a clear glass-walled phone booth. He’s also afraid of green rocks and women.

Likewise, he enjoys tights and a cape, albeit a bit more colorful. He seems to be more into the whole look-at-me thing with his whole bird-plane shpiel vs. the previous dark knight’s philosophy of hiding in the shadows.

A Christmas Carol

Asshole cheapskate gets scared and finally shares his money on Christmas.

Pretty sure he’s back to being a dick once the new year hits. We’ll never know because no one ever comes out with a sequel. They just keep telling the same ghost story over and over again.

At least a dozen of these gems exist. Doesn’t ever get any more scary.

Peter Pan

Kids in tights without supervision. Pretty sure some psychedelics were involved.

This went on for over 20 movie renditions. Odd, no one in Hollywood seemed to mind a bit.

Robin Hood

Tights and men with bows and arrows stealing and being heralded by the locals.

Reminiscent of the government and capable people on disability.

From a silent movie in 1908 to 50 or so versions later.

Dracula

This one sucks.

Over 60 movies.

60.

Sixty.

About a dead guy who drinks blood and wears a cape.

At least he didn’t wear tights.

Tight spaces should be temporary.

The budget for the couple’s tiny house was $125k.

One-hundred twenty-five thousand US dollars for a roughly 200 square foot living space. For comparison, if your house has a bathroom that’s 8 x 12 feet, you’ve just used up about half of that. That’s not 200 square feet to live in, that’s the entire size of the pad.

Slap in a twenty thousand-dollar kitchen and you’re eating every meal on a flip-down table with bench seats.

Hmm, now, where have I seen this layout before?

Oh yeah, in a fucking campground. In a camper, trailer, RV, or whatever you want to call it. Half the price, twice the amenities and it hooks up to your friend’s truck easier than your overpriced shoebox on wheels.

Peer television pressure

I grabbed the remote and turned the TV on.

There it was, Tiny House Nation. Ironically titled, since every tiny house on the show seems to be located as far away as possible from civilization or any nation in general. Either that or it’s parked in someone’s backyard in exchange for a sizeable rental fee.

If I wanted to live in someone’s backyard, it wouldn’t include paying rent on top of my overpriced dollhouse mortgage.

I’m going to skip right over the incoming water and outgoing sewage requirements of that configuration.

I have only one question. Why?

The wheel exists

Each year in New England when the brutal winter releases its grip on your ball sack, yes, ma’am, even yours, springtime makes way for RV owners everywhere to prepare for the upcoming camping season.

They spend an entire weekend unpacking their beast of a temporary home on wheels. The annual pilgrimage then begins. Dozens of area husbands and wives will team up for one of the two times each year that their Reece hitch will earn its place on the tail end of their well-detailed pickup truck.

The amount curse words mumbled under the breath of each spouse during the backup ritual to connect truck to trailer will test most marriages. Each can do the other’s job better and they’re not afraid to let them know it. Still, they endure and persevere for the greater good.

Once the connection is complete, the trek to the local campground within a mile or two from home commences.

It’s an exciting time and everyone can almost see and hear the crackle of the outdoor fire pit and smell the burning wood smoke.

The women imagine themselves floating on a mattress complete with a cold drink in one cup holder and their phone in the other. It all takes place in a pool full of screaming kids that they’ve mastered being able to tune out.

They shoot for more of a sunglasses and single vibe than a married and miserable persona.

The men picture themselves being men. Drinking beer, being the grill master, and pouring lighter fluid on the firewood that they brought in from home against campground regulations.

Although, their primary job is to spend the summer running to the store or back to the house to grab something that was forgotten when their significant other got out of work before heading to said summer camp.

Mosquitos be damned. This. Is. Happening.

It’s a decades-old tradition that began long before the nationalization or rationalization of any tiny house television talk.

Cause for divorce, or worse

Any experienced married couple knows that a summer of weekend-only campground stays is temporary. Two weeks in a row with rain and everyone cramped inside even the most up-to-date RV playing UNO or Go Fish and you can bet your ass someone is staying home the following weekend regardless of the weather.

Honey, let’s build a tiny house and live in it forever.

It’s the conversation starter that precedes the best six o’clock news headline.

Save your money, save your marriage. Stop at your local RV sales center. Take out a 30-year mortgage for something on wheels that you can put away each year while enjoying space in what your other 30-year mortgage pays for the rest of the year.

Plus, if you have a tiny house out in the middle of nowhere, who’s going to be able to take heed of your “If the camper’s a rockin’, don’t come a knockin’” sign?

Ode to the chub.

My mother was a small woman and I was a nine-pound, ten-ounce vaginal birth baby.

It’s fine, you can say it. I was a fat kid. A pan full of dinner rolls had nothing on me or my belly.

Sorry, Mom.

Obviously, I was far too young to recall a single thing from those precious few years of my childhood. The pictures, however, believe me when I say that they tell a tale of their own.

It was clear that for each one, I was either perfectly propped up so that my own weight would keep me centered and anchored in place, or the camera caught me on my way to a face flop due to a failed proper prop. I used to smile a lot, but you could barely tell because my heavy cheek jowls kept my frowning mouth shape in check.

I didn’t know how much fun I was until I had kids of my own, both fat babies in their own right.

My daughter was first. I knew based on the first two words out of the doctor’s mouth when she was born that she was plump.

plump. adjective. slightly fat in a fairly pleasant way.

“Holy sh*t,” he said just loud enough for everyone to hear as he confidently accepted the initial responsibility of the bowling ball with limbs and neck-less head at the time.

I was proud, she weighed the same as I did when I was born. It was like we’d started our own club and she didn’t even know it yet.

Whether it was squeezing her into the kitchen sink for a bath, being stuck on her back unable to roll over, or being beached on the living room carpet face down. Tons of fun. I use the term beached to define her lying there with her belly preventing any hand or foot from touching the floor and gaining any traction toward an out-of-reach teething ring.

She. Wasn’t. Moving.

Fat kid.

A few years later it was my son’s turn. Bets were to be placed before the all-clear was given by the doctor and not a minute later. I don’t think anyone was even close. It’s almost like he let his sister go first so that he could see what he had to beat and win a prize.

Ten pounds, three ounces. Are you kidding me?

That kid basically popped out and asked where the f*cking fridge was.

I knew right then that it was going to be Lorna Doones by the case, and that sh*t wasn’t cheap. I’d say winner, winner, chicken dinner, but he’d have eaten that, too.

Let’s just say that the word Cheerio coming out of his mouth wasn’t him bidding you farewell. It was him sending you off to the kitchen to get a box. His hands were like little balloons and he could only palm two or three of the tiny, donut-shaped cereal bites at once before they all fell to the floor on the way to his lips.

With an extra nine ounces on him, he could easily take a few more cold and flu hits than my daughter or I could have at the same respective time in our lives.

Fat kid.

They both laughed all the time. You know, that happy, belly laugh that could only come from a kid that actually had one.

They were fun.

They’re all grown up now. No remnants of the pudginess that they wore so well from birth up through being toddlers. I was guilty of losing it all, too as a child. But if I look really close, there’s still a spark of it when they smile.

My beautiful roly-poly babies. If I listen, I can still hear their little voices saying, “Hey Dad, get me a cookie, and grab me a juice box while you’re in there.”