Papa K Almost Blows it-most embarrassing moment with a significant other

Shelle Edit with Papa K also talking about himself! : I somehow found Papa K or he found me, either way, he's hilarious and one of my favorite reads.  Here's what he has to say about himself.  (Definitely check him and his blog out!) Papa K is a freelance blogger and the self-proclaimed “Writer Of All That Is Good And Hilarious”. Papa K enjoys writing more than showering and insists that you visit him at his site: www.whoispapak.com, where he talks just about anything including fatherhood, his beautiful wife, general silliness, baseball, and boobs among other things.

When I met my wife for the first time I felt as though I didn’t stand a chance. She was WAY hotter than any girl I’d probably ever breathed the same cubic foot of air space with.

I was a pasty college graduate who hadn’t quite figured out what I wanted to do with myself and consequently was working at the mall in a clothing store called “The Equivalent of Hemorrhoids”… I mean, “The Buckle”. It didn’t take a genius to derive from my situation that I probably wasn’t the best fish in the pond at the time.

My future wife on the other hand was a sexy college student who was about to graduate with a degree in “Dangerous Curves” (I know I know… “Gag me with a spoon Papa K”). Seriously… she needed to come with a warning label. She was the hottest woman I’d ever talked to. It didn’t take a genius to derive from her situation that she WAS THE BEST catch in the pond.

After an evening of getting to know each other (and me taking mental snapshots down the low-slung collar of her shirt) we finally exchanged numbers.

Who got the better end of the deal? Hmmmm… I know!! ME!!

I finally got the nerve to call her several days later with the hope that she hadn’t realized how large a douchebag I actually was.

Thankfully… she hadn’t.

I arranged for us to go to dinner and then go to the local comedy club for a few laughs and hopefully, if the stars aligned perfectly, I’d get to see her boobs… but I wasn’t counting on it.

I met her at her restaurant of choice, a place called “Bahama Breeze”. It wasn’t a fine-dining establishment but it wasn’t a Waffle House either. I had worn the best ensemble of clothing I had in my closet at the time: a blue plaid, short sleeve shirt (that I still have) with khakis and Reeboks. She was wearing a tight, blue tank-top with hip-hugger jeans and flip-flops.

We sat in a booth amongst the masses and began with the tedious task of “getting to know each other” with small talk. I’m never one to talk too much so I blanket this fear by asking an excess of questions.

“If you could have your dream house… what would it look like?”

“Tell me about your family.”

“What’s the square root of Pi?”

“Who’s your celebrity crush?”

Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Things ran smoothly. I had made her laugh a few times. She was answering all my questions. My plan for the date was working out great.

Amongst all these questions, we ordered our food and drinks and before too long our salads came out.

I casually adorned my salad with ranch dressing and croutons while asking her more questions about her life and how hard it must be to be so damn hot. With my eyes locked on hers, I diligently kept asking these questions while I began stabbing at my salad.

I don’t remember what the question was I was asking her about. It apparently required a long intro because as I the seconds ticked I continually stabbed at my salad until what constituted THE WHOLE SALAD was run through with my fork.

I was unaware of this development because my eyes were locked on her. I didn’t want to seem uninterested.

It wasn’t until I was done saying whatever it was I was saying and she began to speak that I happened upon this “entire-salad-on-a-fork” situation. The only problem was that I didn’t happen upon it until it was halfway into my mouth. I had remained locked on her the whole time I had stabbed at my salad so what I had assumed was a bite size portion of lettuce, croutons and ranch dressing turned out to be THE ENTIRE SALAD!

Now that the entire salad was beginning to make its way into my mouth and I had noticed my date was looking at me in a particularly confused state, there were only two options that ran through my head:

1. Remove the bite from my mouth and start over… but risk grossing out the babe across the table from me!

2. Continue shoving the head of lettuce into my mouth and hope against hope she wouldn’t be repulsed by my apparent lack of manners!

Either way, the outcome looked bleak.

Ultimately, in those few seconds, I decided that perhaps it would be better if I just continued along with shoving it down my gullet as if, “I eat like this all the time” rather than removing food from my mouth.

So, in much the same way a snake swallows a dead rat, I dislocated my jaw and opened my mouth to its extreme limit and jammed that whole forkful of salad into my mouth. It was so much salad I could barely chew it. I had to reopen my mouth just to make some progress on it.

Eventually, after a few silent moments as she watched me, I was able to reduce the bite to a manageable amount of bolus and swallow it without choking myself. What remained of the bite were a few drips of ranch dressing slowly making their way down my chin and onto my shirt. I wiped what I could from my face and shirt as fast as I could.

I feared the damage had already been done though.

“Well… I have effectively screwed any chance at a second date.” I thought to myself.

But what happened instead surprised me: my date was smiling at me.

“You have no idea,” she said, “How often I do that!” And then she started laughing.

I laughed along with her even though I was still worried this might be a ploy to get herself out of this disaster date… but she never did.

In fact, a few moments after I shoved that entire head of lettuce into my mouth, she dripped a healthy amount of spaghetti sauce onto her shirt. Even though the drip hadn’t resulted from shoving an entire bowl of pasta into her mouth I still felt as though somehow… we were even.

If anything, the incident left me more relaxed and more confident that anything short of shitting my pants wouldn’t be enough to scare this girl away. Hell… she even acted like she liked me!

Incredibly, eight years later we’re married with a two-year-old and still talk about our first date frequently. In our entire eight years of being together… I don’t think I’ve been more embarrassed than that first date where we hardly knew each other.

Who’d have thought a dislocated jaw and a forkful of salad could have brought us together

I think if more guys knew how endearing it is to accidentally make themselves look like a complete idiot in front of their dream date… they might actually hit it off.

Hey… it worked for me (and I got to see her boobs too… eventually).

Papa K

Dear You: Papa K Verbally Assults His Old Boss To The Blogosphere

Shelle Edit: I did internet bleep out the curse words in his letter for those people with sensitive eyes or are wearing the proverbial "ear muffs" :)  PapaK is doing an awesome thing on his blog where if you leave a comment he will donate a dollar to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.  So hop on over to his blog and leave a comment on THIS post.   

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Dear You:

I first met Vicki during my job interview for a sales position at a staffing company.

I had struggled after graduating college to find my place in the work-a-day world. I had stumbled through several lines of work (retail, restaurant, insurance, etc.) and this interview with her was my opportunity to get a “real” job! Something with substance! Something with incentives! Something with a base salary! Something with benefits! Something with career potential!

She was a tall, middle-aged looking woman with a nose that more resembling a beak than a human breathing apparatus. Her fingers were long and boney and reminded me of something that might belong to a vampire from a silent, black-and-white movie. She fiddled with her hair during the interview like most high school cheerleaders do when they’re talking to the Varsity quarterback.

I could tell she liked me and I freakin’ killed that interview.

She hired me.

Then I killed that d*** job.

Despite having a penchant for not really wanting to talk to people, I was a newly married dude with something to prove to my newly minted trophy wife. I won all the “Top Rookie Salesperson” awards you could win and was responsible for raising the branch I worked for to new heights previously unmatched by past sales people.

I proved myself beyond a shadow of a doubt to everyone… except to that beak-nosed, vampire fingered, cheerleader wannabe b**** of a boss that hired me.

As it turned out Vicki was a power hungry, man-hating divorcee with an unconscious need to belittle her worker bees and conveniently make her marriage to her job THE ONE AND ONLY priority to everyone.

She also:

-Stole sales from me and reaped the benefits of commissions on how well the branch was doing
while depleting me from extra money that should have been mine.

-Remained an active “selling branch manager” which enabled her to extract both a salesperson’s
commission check and a branch managers commission check from the company

-Falsely accused me of going “behind her back” when in reality I couldn’t wipe my butt without her
knowing about it

-Made me keep a journal of what I was doing every 15 minutes for a month only to file it away never
to be seen again

-Made me draft every email and let her read it before I sent it because she didn’t think I “wrote good
emails”

-Wouldn’t allow me to leave AT 5 O’CLOCK ONE DAY A WEEK in order for me to attend a bible study

-Accused me of taking credit for her ideas

-Gave credit to others on employees I found, screened and placed at jobsites

-After I left, she denied me my last commission check valued at around $2,000.

-Did not allow me to contact my customers to let them know I was leaving when I handed in my
notice

The list goes on but at the risk of sounding too much like a whiny little b****… I’ll stop right there. I’d never met, and hope I’ll never meet again, a boss like Vicki.

After enduring nearly two years of her never-ending stream of crap… I found a way out by getting
another job.

After getting into a normal workplace setting, I was able to start the healing process and realize how
much sooner I should have just walked up to her and barfed this random stream of thoughts:

“Hey Vicki… You constantly bemoan the fact you’re divorced and how much of an a** your ex-husband is but I’m here to tell you that if I was married to you I would have left your a** too because you’re bat-s*** crazy! He was probably sick and tired of your narcissistic personality and false accusations! Do you know that everyone who works for you quits? Look around you! Everyone who has worked here since I got hired or after I got hired is gone! That’s not a problem with them… that clearly points to a problem WITH YOU!! Do you know your nose looks like a beak? Instead of getting that boob job you were hoping none of us noticed then perhaps you should have gotten some rhinoplasty to change that beak into some sort of tangible nose! If you were a dude… I’d go ahead and help get the process started by breaking your nose with a tire iron! I helped make this branch over a MILLION DOLLARS! If you want to b**** at me for not placing a period where a comma should have been in an email then I’m just going to take a huge s*** on your desk because everything else in this world is secondary to your pathetic managing skills. You just lost the best employee you’ll ever have… I quit.”

Well… I feel better now.

Anyone else had a boss they wanted to eviscerate?

Papa K

I believe Sex can be used as a tool

Shelle Edited:  First of all... I still need more pictures of you guys and your awesome relationships!!!  If you don't know what I'm talking about click HERE.

Secondly, Chris is no stranger here... he wrote about his bout with depression right HERE.  But I still wanted to put in this edit, because he did a VLOG the other day, and well, he did some interpretive dance, and I think everyone should see it.  It's a 5 star must see.  Just make sure you don't have any liquids in your mouth before hand... Just sayin.

I was aimlessly perusing the blogosphere a few short weeks ago, trying to drum up something to write about. Since I’m not dedicated to any one particular subject, I scrolled through my list of blogs ranging on subjects from fatherhood to baseball to Kim Kardashian to movies to the highly addictive hobby of scab collecting. I came across this blog, the only one I visit regarding relationships, and was struck with excitement as Shelle was looking for contributing writers on a number of different subjects.

Since I look for as many legitimate opportunities I can to talk about sex and boobs (particularly my wife’s), I zeroed in on this subject.

By no means am I a “relationship expert” but I am a typical man full of testosterone and ready to drop everything (meaning my pants) at any moment, in any situation if it means I might be getting lucky.

So… without further adieu…

While I wish I was writing this about how, “I believe sex can be used as a tool to get what I want out of a relationship”, I’m going to be writing from the perspective of how it “can be used as a tool to get what she wants out of a relationship!”

I say this because I (and most men) cannot use sex to my advantage... that is, unless you’re Ryan Reynolds (lucky six-pack bastard). It just doesn’t work:

Me: Hey babe, can you pick me up a Red Bull on your way home from the grocery store?


My Wife: Well… I’m in a real big hurry and I don’t think I’m going to have time. I’m sorry.


Me: Okay… well… what if I let you touch my butt for a good five seconds?


My Wife: Uh… what?

Now let’s see what happens with the role reversed:

My Wife: Honey, I know we’re in the middle of a giant electrical thunderstorm but will you fix the lighting rod on top of the roof?


Me: Are you crazy? No! I could get electrocuted!


My Wife: If you go do it right now… I’ll have my naughty cop outfit on for you when you get in!


Me: Where’s my rain jacket?

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I’d be hard-pressed to think that most relationships have the “horny-male, not-as-horny-female” dynamic. From the time a guy turns thirteen, sex runs through his brain about every millisecond!

So… if you’re a woman, here’s an idea: exploit our weakness.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using what you have to get what you want.

Now… I’m not promoting the idea of turning a relationship into a barter system 24/7 but I am saying if you want MORE of the little things done around the house (i.e. dishes, laundry, fixing the squeaky door) then they WILL get done by feeding a man’s sexual appetite.

I don’t know that I’m the only one that’s particularly privy to this information… all women are pretty familiar that a man’s brain pretty much revolves around sex all the time (and when I say “sex” I don’t just mean “the act of it”… but everything pertaining to it as well). But not many of you realize the shamelessness of using it to your advantage! Us men will shamelessly “cash that check” whenever given the opportunity!

So, if you can think of something creative… I think he’ll hang his clean laundry or take out the trash just a little bit faster than he did last week.

Papa K.

Depression-you have to work on cutting it free.

Shelle Edit: PapaK is one of my daily reads. Love his writing because somedays he's witty and makes me laugh out loud and sometimes he's really serious and makes me use my brain, and I'm not always against that. He's also ambitious--which goes against everything I believe, he vowed to type 30 posts in 30 days... and get this, he's STUCK to it so far!!! I KNOW!!! Crazy right? Plus he featured me and this blog on his blog and linked up so I'm endeared to him forever! Another reason why you should love to hate him... his wife, GORGEOUS, his little girl, beautiful. Just sayin...you should check his blog out and follow him. You will thank me later.

Topic: My spouse or I deal with depression. How it effects the relationship. What we do. How we cope or not.

I used to see people who suffered from depression as weak. Sure it made sense to be depressed if a loved one died, you were a victim of some horrific crime or any other varying degree of the hideousness that can happen on this planet. But what really got me were those individuals who had everything… and were still depressed.

I really couldn’t identify with it. I really couldn’t understand. I could never suffer from depression… because my life was perfect!!

Then I became a father.

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not at all saying that becoming a parent isn’t the most wonderful, life-changing, spectacular moment of your entire life!! But from the moment I looked into the eyes of Daddy’s Little Girl (DLG) a trigger went off and from that day forward I struggle on a daily basis with varying degrees of stress, anxiety and guilt... which all lead to depression.

Now… I’m blessed with an incredibly sexy wife and a gorgeous (nearly) two-year old daughter.

Money isn’t tight… but we don’t use it to blow our noses into either. We’re all in perfect health. DLG isn’t a “rowdy hellion” by any means. We have lots of friends. I’m able to pursue the hobbies that I enjoy.

So… by my “pre-depression” calculations I shouldn’t be depressed! I should be thanking my God for all the blessings he has bestowed upon me!

And I do.

But I am horribly imperfect and fall victim to the struggles in my mind all too often.

I remember rocking a six-month old DLG to sleep one evening and I couldn’t shake the horrible feeling that she was going to die. The more I tried to push the thought out of my head the stronger it pushed back. I eventually wound up in a pile of tears in the rocking chair before my wife came in and took over.

I would go to work knowing fully that DLG absolutely was not in the baby seat behind me. But after a couple hours at work… this fear would creep into my head that maybe I left her back there and I just didn’t remember! This would require a trip out to my car just to ease my mind.

As time passed on my obsessions and thoughts became more invasive and vastly more horrific. I truly began to think there was something wrong with me.

“Am I going crazy?” I’d think to myself.

I never knew depression to the point where I wanting to end my life… but there was times where I wished I’d rather have been dead than to go through the mental torment I put myself through.

During this whole time, my wife stood there and held me in my most desperate times of need. It was a truly weakening moment that brings tears to my eyes this day to know that she knew I was going through all of it and there wasn’t really anything she could do.

“You’re here with us… but your mind is somewhere else.” She’d always say.

I felt as though I were the only person in the world going through what I was going through.

I eventually swallowed enough of my pride to admit that I couldn’t work this out on my own and sought out a professional therapist who I could talk to. This was only after I had hit rock bottom, after I’d wake up in the morning counting down the hours until I could go to sleep again and after I couldn’t look at DLG without my heart jumping into my throat in fear she was going to be taken from me.
My tears were in short supply after leaving the therapists office.

The fix was not as immediate as I wanted it to be… but it got fixed.

We talked about my childhood, about my life, about my marriage, about my spirituality and about anything relevant to me at that moment. Without getting too far into the folds of my gray-matter… the therapist and I slowly chipped away at the wall I had built up. I tore down every “tough guy” wall I’d built and reduced it to a sniveling pile of rubble.

The evenings after my appointments would involve me sitting with my wife and telling her what I was comfortable in telling her. She’d sit and stare intently and tell me how proud she was of me for conquering my issues… and my deepest fears.

After several months of hour-long conversations, homework and doctor appointed reading, my therapist asked that I bring in my wife for a session. I was finally able to see the fruits of everything I’d been working toward: to become myself again.

“I’m just so happy he found you,” my wife told the therapist as tears streamed down her face, “I’ve got my husband back… and I thank you.”

I was interested in volunteering for this writing assignment because when I was going through my depression… I felt alone. I felt there wasn’t anyone I could talk to and I felt like my situation was the only one like it in the world!

I’m here to tell you that’s not the case because EVEN I have been on the wrong end of a depressive state of mind.

I’m also here to tell you that you’re not “weak” for admitting to yourself that you might have a problem you have to work out. I can tell you that you’ll ultimately become stronger for working through your issues rather than wallowing in them.

My stress, anxiety, obsessive tendencies and depression have all greatly decreased as a result of my wife standing by my side through the whole ordeal. When I was being reduced to nothing more than a limp rag as a result of my depressive thoughts she held me and just listened, held me, kissed me and told me how much she loved me.

Depression can be extremely scary and I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that until I went through it. The best thing you can do if your spouse is depressed is hold them tight, offer up your ears to listen and tell them how much they mean to you. It’s amazing how far a little bit of love can go.
I can’t say that I’m glad I go through my bouts with depression but I can look back on them and see what I’ve gained from the experience.

The love for my wife evolved into much more than just physical attraction… I realized in those moments she really did love and care for me! I’m not saying that I hadn’t noticed it before but it was “hard core” evident now. She wasn’t going to abandon me in my most difficult time of need.
I hug my daughter much tighter now, without those twinges of doubt that made those moments so unbearable… and there’s nothing greater.

Bottom line: if you or your spouse has ANY of the vast and varying degrees of depression… you’ll first have to admit to yourself what you suffer from and then work on fixing yourself. Depression doesn’t just go away on its own… you have to work on cutting it free.

PapaK- HandstoWar