Jon & Kate Plus 8 Disabled Children
So after several years of not having cable and not really watching tv, I am back in the game. One of the best parts of having cable is that you can just sit around doing nothing but watch tv until 3 or 4 in the morning even though you have to work the next day. Channels like TLC and Discover Channel encourage this with huge blocks of the same show starting late at night. A few nights ago I got sucked into a marathon of Jon & Kate Plus 8 which I imagine is known to it’s fans at JKP8DC. Oh wait those children aren’t disabled. See that’s what drew me in. I saw all these downs syndrome kids and though, “how do they take care of all 8 of them? Man this is gonna be good.”
Well as it turns out all the kids are healthy, and for a reality show it’s a nice break from all the drama a lot of these shows concoct. I watched several hours of this and was quite interesting to see how these humans interact with their children. No snapping his belt, or telling them “I’ll give you something to cry about.” Not even an accidental burn on the arm from a cigarette or a butt blowing in through the back window on their laps. I mean it was actually kind of boring. No trips to the dumpster behind radio shack to get remote controls that the employees were “throwing away.” And the parents don’t even yell at each other or at the kids.
These kids are yelling and crying because they can’t hang out with their dad. They are having cupcake making parties and doing projects. I watched it long enough that I sort of felt like I was raising the kids myself. What a great parent I turned out to be. I think that was enough to hold me over for a few more years.
It’s like the time I was in my kitchen and heard this crying sound for like 10 minutes. I couldn’t figure out what it was. I was looking all around. Then I noticed that a kid was crying below the tree in my neighbors yard. I felt pretty bad for him and thought, “shit that kid fell out of a tree, I wonder if he’s hurt?” I watched him cry for like 5 more minutes, then I went out there and was like “are you okay?” He cried out a yes and something about some kids pushing him off a wall. Sounds like some of the friends I had when I was a kid. I identified with him. So I said what my dad would have said. Where’s your mother? He said the mother and everyone else were away. He said he fell on a big rock and hurt his back so I was like alright let me see? It looked kind of bruised up and whatever, but what could I do? I just said “It’s not too bad. Well you better go home. Lay down for a while and you’ll feel better until your mom get’s home.”
I was proud. I think his own dad would have handled it the same way. Plus I couldn’t hear that annoying crying anymore.
That kid is actually alright though. My dog ran away once and he caught him for me. A few weeks ago his dog ran away. I saw it running all around the neighborhood, but couldn’t catch it. As I went past their house I told the father “your dog ran away, I cant’ catch it.” He said,”not my dog.”
He was looking right at his own dog and didn’t even recognize it. 5 minutes later the whole family was after it. The mom and dad went off in their cars. The kid took to the streets. He came back carrying the dog. I was proud of the kid. I think maybe when he grows up he’s going to be a dog catcher.
Man, kids are fucked up devil tools. I remember this one time it was the first week of school starting and I was looking out the window as all the little children were climbing that big ass hill from the bus stop and there was this one scrawny kid dragging a big ass tuba case up the street, he was all sweaty and looked like he was going to cry any second, and there was this other kid following him calling him names but the scrawny kid just kept dragging that big ass case up the street and wouldn’t even give the asshole kid the time of day.Well the asshole kid followed him a good bit of the way and I guess got tired of the whole mess so he stopped following. When the tuba dragging kid was halfway up the street the asshole kid was twirling around a telephone pole and yelled, “You’ll die naked and alone!” I pressed my face against the screen to see the little scrawny kid’s reaction. He didn’t even turn around, he was toiling on with his case like some kind of crazy Tolstoyan Sisyphus. That was the most shocking and profound thing I’ve ever heard a kid say.
That was a particularly assholey batch of kids. Some kids are funny and cute. Some are monsters. I was walking past the school the other day. These kids were playing a game. A few of the kids were standing by the fence and I overheard them talking. One kid was like this game is boring. The other one was like yeah. Don’t you want to be chased? I want to be chased?
I started thinking. Is that what makes you an adult. At whatever age you cease to want to be chased, you are officially a grown up.
I think sometimes grown ups like to be chased like when they eluding police speeding down the highway, they know there is no escape and the whole thing is really pointless they just want to be chased because everyone is always like man we are all grown up now novbody chases anybody anymore, it’s just not done, but there are some people who really do want to be chased and they go on living a lie but they can only do it for so long and then one day they snap and they are taking 57 cop cars on a 90 mile an hour chase down the freeway. Maybe if someone said to them hey do you want to be chased I do, let’s go! the world would be a better place
Excellent point.
who is getting custody of all those little downies?
i must lack the parenting gene. kids just make me nervous as hell, i hate having them in my room. they’re always breaking things or spilling stuff.
when i was a kid i was afraid to touch anything. i guess i intuitively knew i’d either break it or spill it if i did.
Probably. Or maybe kids just don’t like you.
eh. i wish. they seem drawn to me. its a curse.