All About Bono and the Laundromat Guy

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This video is amazingly funny to the nerd in me. The video is so well put together that it even appeals to the comedy snob in me. Today was alright. I did the laundry most of the day. The laundromat I go to has this guy and girl who watch over your 'style' of laundering. They make so many comments. I felt like a lion in a cage as I shoved obviously two loads into a one load dryer. The male who works there commented on my over packing the dryer, why did I almost explode at him? I wanted to tell him that there was a new issue of Washing and Drying on the newsstands, hoping that he would run out and buy said issue. This would have freed me up to use "too little detergent", "lavender dryer sheets late in the dry cycle", and a couple other indecipherable things he said to me, to which I just politely nodded.

Parenthood is a lot like my day today. You feel like you are constantly on display. Someone looks at you cock-eyed when they see you admonishing your child, and your immediate reaction is to feel like having your five year old read out loud from War and Peace. Maybe this extreme talent will somehow show that you are a good parent. Although it really just shows that somewhere, somehow a gene that you gave your kid must have mutated into something better. Perhaps the next generation of man is just harder to deal with as a child. That's why I get mad, yeah, that's it.

My wife is hard at work right now. Bringing in the clean laundry and stacking the baskets so that she may fold them tonight, a ritual that brings her inner cleansing :). Even as I write now I keep wanting to tell her better ways of carrying the stuff, or such. I am both the one on display in this world and the one watching. Isaac Brock says in a song, "Everyone is a voyeur as they're watching me watch them watch me right now."

Lyrics like this help me realize that I am not alone in my feelings of being watched. I by no means feel like I'm being watched more than anyone else, I just react to it more acerbically than most people. I get mad. I feel like raging against a machine that I've been told is bad. Advice, I think is not bad. I act heroically, I think, in defense of my own ideas, actions, and opinions. I stand up for myself. This often appears as if I am throwing out every bit of advice I get. Alas though, I remember most words of advice given to me. The gnawing bad advice that takes fruition within me is the worst. Such as, "why don't you just try listening to more U2, you'll like them." Why did I ever follow that advice? I guess maybe that I needed to find a favorite rock star to hate. Bono certainly fits that shoe.

My advice to Bono, the guy at the laundromat, and anyone who judges my parenting with a reproachful stare is 'look at me as you will, but please stop singing, get a new job if you feel your managerial skills are up to par, and raise your own fucking kids.'

thank you and goodnight

-raven russell
A tribute site for my fallen father-in-law