Annoying Jesus

I never thought I'd use my blog as a place for a eulogy, but there's a first time for everything, I guess.

I had an opportunity to spend a week with a guy named Marcus Crow on a mission trip to Louisiana last spring.  (Marcus is the guy on the left in the picture.  I'm beside him, along with his son Calvin and Calvin's friend Katie.)  Marcus was quite a character, to say the least.  We made the trip with a group of United Methodists with the goal of helping people who had been affected by hurricanes over the past couple years.

While helping the people of Dulac, LA, was certainly a goal for Marcus, I think he was there more because it gave him an opportunity to spend some time with his son.  Marcus and his wife had divorced, and it was obvious that he cherished any amount of time he was able to spend with Calvin.  Normally he only had weekend visits with his son.

I learned quite a bit about Marcus during that trip.  He had been a Marine, and fought in the Persian Gulf.  He enjoyed cooking, and was really excited about the "Bad Ass Hot Sauce" he bought while we were in New Orleans (he let me try a dab on my finger, and I spent the next half hour gasping at a water fountain).  He had been in a very serious car accident several years earlier, and was lucky to have survived it.  He had numerous surgeries and many physical therapy sessions since the accident, and seemed to have constant pain as a result.

And I must say Marcus was rather fond of the f-word.  I have to admit that I have never seen a person who felt right at home dropping f-bombs in the presence of numerous pastors, apparently never thinking that this was inappropriate.  Marcus was a lay pastor at his church, and occasionally delivered sermons when his pastor was away.  I would imagine that people filled the pews on those occasions, because it's not every day you have the possibility of hearing obscenities during a sermon.  Like I said... he was quite a character.

As lucky as he was to have survived the car crash six years ago, he was not so lucky early Christmas morning this year.  A fire broke out at his house, apparently as the result of a space heater he was using at his home near Blairsville, PA.  A neighbor smelled the fire during the early morning hours and tried to get into the house, but the smoke was too thick.  Firemen later found Marcus, who had apparently come just a few feet from escaping the blaze at his back door.  You can read more details about the tragedy here.

I took a trip yesterday to pay my respects to Marcus at his church in Blairsville.  While most of the service was as serious as most funerals, there were lighthearted moments where people shared their memories of Marcus.  A woman from his choir recalled reminding Marcus "please don't use the f-word in front of the children in Sunday school."  Another woman sobbed as she recalled details of our Louisiana trip, and in between tears she said, "I bet he's up there in heaven, annoying Jesus right now."

Since our mission trip, I have kept up with Marcus thanks to Facebook.  Most of his status updates were along the lines of "Calvin is coming tonight -- I can't wait!"  Or "I'm chillin' with Calvin tonight."  Or "I'm sad that Calvin is heading back to his mom's tonight."

Despite his quirks and his tendency to take nothing very seriously, there were two aspects of his life that meant the world to him:  God, and his son.  I'm sure that when he's not busy annoying Jesus, he's doing a fine job in his new role of guardian angel for Calvin.  My deepest condolences.

Not Cool Enough for the Fist Bump

On behalf of all of us in Smootville, I sincerely hope you had a wonderful Christmas!  Now that we have that holiday behind us, it's time to get back to the pressing issues of the day, like whether or not it is proper to "fist bump" someone.

There are two types of people in this world:  those who fist bump, and those of us who just aren't that cool.

Perhaps you have seen this fist bump thing growing in popularity these past few years.  Instead of simply saying, "hello" to someone, or offering a handshake, or even a high-five, cool people will stick their fist out directly at you, and the expectation is that you will extend your fist and bonk it against theirs.  Kinda weird when you think about it.

I remember a couple years ago someone had gotten into the fist bump stance in front of Little Smoot, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do.  I think she just waved at them.  I remember trying to save the awkwardness of the situation by showing Little Smoot how to do the fist bump with that person, so she'd know what was going on the next time.

The truth of the matter, though, was that I would have preferred to simply wave at the person like she did, because I'm just not cool enough to do the fist bump.

There's a guy I see on the sidelines of Steelers games who is a big time fist bumper.  He's a former Steeler player himself, and is part of the team's radio crew nowadays, and he's a really nice guy.  He's clearly cool enough that he can fist bump whoever he pleases, and no one thinks anything of it.

But when he greets me and wants to fist bump, I always feel weird about it.  Oh, I definitely fist bump him, because he's a rather large man and I don't want to insult him, but I know that if anyone sees me fist bumping, they'll start whispering because people know I'm not that cool.

Oh, and this particular guy wears his wedding band on his thumb.  I am obviously nowhere near cool enough to pull off that kind of stunt.

Even worse amongst football players is the full body bump.  You see players doing this after pretty much every touchdown now.  They used to spike the ball and do a little dance, but now it is mandatory that as soon as they cross the goal line, they have to find the closest player on the field and leap into the air directly into one another.  Otherwise they incur a 15-yard penalty upon the kickoff, I believe.

In a matter of a few years, I suppose that when we greet people, we'll just smack the crap out of each other.

Wrap Crap

If there's one thing I'm just terrible at (ok, there are lots of things I'm terrible at) it's wrapping Christmas presents.  I always put it off as long as humanly possible because I really don't want to look at the end result any longer than absolutely necessary, for fear of causing permenant eye damage.

This year I actually got things "wrapped" a little early, rather than waiting until 11:59 on Christmas Eve, as per normal.  I guess I just wasn't born with the Martha Stewart Gene.  And I suppose I find the whole thing a little pointless.  Who came up with this idea of wrapping gifts in the first place?

Think about what a waste the whole process is.  We take all this time to wrap the presents in paper to disguise them, and then we shred it all to pieces on Christmas morning to see what's hidden beneath it.  Woop-de-doo.  The end result is an indoor snowstorm of wrapping paper, flying all over the place, with some pieces still being retrieved from behind the couch as late as Labor Day.

If I hadn't mentioned it previously, I'm also terrible at buying gifts in the first place.  You know how some people have a knack for coming up with the perfect gift ideas -- the ones where people gasp with excitement when they open them?  I never think of those.  People always try to be polite, but I can tell they look at my gifts and immediately think, "I wonder if I could get anything for this piece of crap on eBay.  Nah, probably not."

Well, as if it's not bad enough that I stink at buying gifts in the first place, I have to narrow my selections down to things that come in rectangular packages.  Otherwise, I'll just never be able to wrap them no matter what.

As I was spending the better part of yesterday afternoon wrapping just a few gifts (thank goodness, Mrs. Smoot takes care of the vast majority of things, so I really just have to wrap her stuff, mainly), it occurred to me that surely by the time a person reaches age 41, surely they should know how to operate a pair of scissors properly.  But no.

When I cut the wrapping paper (undoubtedly at the wrong size), I always manage to cut it severely crooked.  I would be much better off if I just left the roll outside and waited for deer to gnaw on it.  It would undoubtedly be more presentable.

Oh, and I can never seem to use enough tape.  I don't know what my obsession is with tape.  Even though my gifts end up looking like they were wrapped by escaped mental patients, the wrapping would undoubtedly stay on the packages with just a tiny percentage of the tape I ultimately wind up using.  Sometimes I have more tape on a gift than wrapping paper.

Wrapping things as poorly as I do, there is at least one advantage.  I really never need to use those "To: From:" labels.  On Christmas morning, everyone can simply look at the quality of the wrapping and say, "Ah!  This one must be from Hank!"

Anyway... From Smootville to your neck of the woods, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a swell 2010!

A Christmas Conspiracy

I enjoy conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, so I'm going to create one of my own.  I think that a town near Smootville specifically designed their community Christmas lights in such a way that they allow the local police to collect more traffic fines.

Ok, I suppose I should explain that one.

This particular town apparently has Clark W. Griswold as its mayor, given the number of lights strewn up and down the street.  In addition to all of the small, multi-colored lights, they also have these big bell-shaped lights that are strung across the street.  And these lights are the same color as the regular stop lights that are tossed into the mix, and they're positioned pretty much in the same way as stop lights.

So as a result, I find myself driving down the street, slamming on my brakes, thinking that I'm seeing a red light above me, and then finding out that it's just a Christmas light.  Meanwhile, other people are breezing through the real red lights, assuming that they're simply decorations.  It would be very interesting to stand there with a video camera just to capture the various driving oddities that take place on any given night during the holidays.

I can almost hear the discussion during a borough council meeting earlier in the year:

"But how are we going to pay for all of these lights?"

"I've got it!  We can make 'em look like traffic lights, and then arrest every other car for driving erratically!"

Of course I'd like to think that this is merely a theory, but part of my brain really has to wonder...

Psychology 101: Vehicular Personification

Ok, we're in the midst of crappy winter weather, so I thought it would be good to write a cruise-related blog entry today.

I would like to announce my official opinion of the new Epic class of ship being introduced by Norwegian Cruise Lines:  It's hideously ugly, and I'm afraid of it.

We love to go on cruises, and we recently got together with some folks with whom we'll be cruising to Hawaii in a few months.  Some of us began chatting about this new ship, and some of the people were talking about how exciting they thought it was.  I had to offer counter-testimony, because this truly is the ugliest thing in the ocean, and I am including octopuses and squids in that assessment.

At first I couldn't quite put a finger on why I hate this ship's design so much, but I finally did a deep analysis, and I came to some really insightful conclusions.  If you happen to be a psychology major, please feel free to steal this idea for your thesis -- I promise you'll get an A.

Ok.  Here's the deal.  I believe that we have a natural tendency to personify our modes of transportation by giving human characteristics to various vehicles.  Think about the movie The Love Bug, for example.  Herbie is a cute, lovable VW Beetle.  His headlights are his eyes and his front bumper gives him a bit of a smirk.  Same sort of thing with the more recent movie Cars.

When we look at a car, we subconsciously think of it as having a human face, and we can either like it or dislike it for those features (are you psychology majors writing all this down?  Good).  My Prius, for example, has a bit of a round head, but has a sophisticated elegance about him.  He's witty, yet restrained in his personality.

Anyway, I strongly believe that the same thing goes for ships (and airplanes, too, for that matter).  When we look at a ship, we can sort of think of the bow as a giant nose, and the decks above it make the eyes, etc.  A quick glance will make you feel good about it, or it will perhaps scare the crap out of you by having a menacing appearance.

Well, that's where the problem lies with the Epic (pictured at the beginning of this entry).  When you view this ship from the front, it looks like the poor thing has some sort of severely malformed forehead.  It could be a tumor, or some sort of monsterism.  Whatever the case, it has this bulging forehead area that just looks disturbing.  I just know this ship has some sort of mental issues, and I would be afraid that it would start veering all over the place, possibly in search of smaller ships that it could eat.  I dunno.

Epic is scheduled to enter into service next June.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Peer Pressure at 14,410 Feet

You know that, as loving parents, we would never make fun of our child.  That would be tasteless, and it would come at the expense of her self-esteem.  So we would never do such a thing unless she said something that was really quite inadvertently funny.

Little Smoot was at a Girl Scout meeting recently, and they were talking about peer pressure.  Her Girl Scout leader asked the group, "Have any of you ever experienced peer pressure?"

Well, Little Smoot put her hand up, knowing that she has indeed experienced this, and she wanted to share her experience with the group.  "I felt it when we were at the top of Pike's Peak in Colorado last summer," she offered.

"No, sweetie," the leader responded.  "We're talking about peer pressure.  Not ear pressure."

"Oh."

12 Step Cat Program

I think Feline Smoot needs an intervention.

Mrs. Smoot went out and bought our cat these little sticks that contain catnip as a Christmas present.  They were in a bag in our bedroom, along with a whole bunch of other Christmas-related bags.  Normally we don't allow the cat to hang out in our room, but I apparently inadvertently left the door slightly ajar and he made himself at home.

Not only did he enjoy the comfort of our king-sized bed, but he also apparently detected the smell of the catnip and made it his mission to hunt through each of the bags until he located it.  And the evidence suggested that he was quite successful in doing so, considering I found the sticks scattered all over the room, along with the remains of the plastic bag they came in.

For someone who has no opposable thumbs, he did a remarkable job of opening these things and flinging them all over the place.  And I won't even mention the mess he made of the rest of the bags, which had contained non-cat related gifts.

Since the "cat was out of the bag," so to speak, we decided to just give the cat his Christmas present early.  He is usually fairly rambunctious as it is, but now he has been running around the house, bonking into things, and looking unusually gleeful.  And there have been times when he'll be rolling around on the floor, pausing for a moment to say, "Duuuuuuuuude" with his eyes all glassed over.

I'm gonna keep him away from the car keys for a while.

The Red Kettle of Guilt

Ok, I feel guilty.  All the time, come to think of it.

This is the time of the year when the Salvation Army people are right there in front of every single store.  I was doing some online shopping this morning, and a Salvation Army lady and her kettle materialized right beside my computer desk, for heaven's sake.

I toss a few bucks into the kettles from time to time, but it would simply be way too costly to attempt to give them money every time you pass them.  I spent some time with my calculator and realized that if I donated $1 every time I passed a kettle during the holiday season, it would cost me $77,438 in December alone.

So, much of the time I have to walk past the Salvation Army people without making a donation, and I always feel like a cretin when I do that.

They give you those big, puppy dog eyes (sometimes in the form of an actual puppy), and they'll ring those bells right at you as if to say, "Sure.  I'm sitting here in -58 degree weather, getting repetitive stress syndrome from ringing this damn bell, as we attempt to help people at this blessed time of the year.  Feel free to walk right by me.  I can see that you're doing your best to avoid eye contact, you cretin."

I wonder if we have an extra $77,438 around here somewhere.

Little Smoot's Croonin' Debut

Ahhhh.  We're breathing sighs of relief here in Smootville.  Little Smoot had her Christmas concert at school last night, and she did a great job with her solo.

She came home from school just a couple weeks ago and announced that the director had asked her to do a solo.  I remember my jaw dropping down to the floor as I asked her, "And you said yes!?"

I can admit it:  Smoots are not generally gifted when it comes to singing.  I don't even sing at home when I'm alone.  The last time I did that, we didn't see the cat for several days.  Ok, I will admit that after six beers I will do karaoke, but that's entirely different and carries with it no expectations of being in key or anything.

So Little Smoot said she had agreed to do this solo, and for the longest time she did not know what song she was being assigned.  And when she did find out what song it was, she didn't seem particularly concerned about practicing it.

Finally, she came home one day and said she knew all of the words, so I asked her to sing it for me.  Let's just say that if she had been singing this on American Idol, Randy Jackson would have described it as being "a little pitchy, dawg."  And I honestly wouldn't have wanted to hear Simon's critique.

I was definitely a little apprehensive when it came time to go to the school last night.  I considered a few different options, in case she ended up being really, really bad.  I thought about sitting next to the exit so I could sneak out.  Or maybe I'd sit near the fire alarm so I could trip it if things got really out of hand.

But sure enough, our little girl got up there and did a very nice job with it, and I didn't have to sneak out the exit after all.  We were very proud of her; she did something that no other Smoot would dare to attempt!  Good job, dawg!

Microwave Mystery

It bothers me greatly that I don't understand how microwave ovens work.

I mean, I get the gist of how most of our main appliances work.  You stick bread into the toaster, and you can see those little red things get hot, and that's how the toast gets burned to a crisp.  The blender has a little propeller thing in it, so when you turn it on it makes a really loud, annoying noise and it makes things mooshy.

The stove is easy enough to understand because you can actually see flames making stuff hot.  No problem.  But microwave ovens don't make any sense at all.  Nobody seems to understand them.  You stick stuff in there, and you can't see that anything is happening, but sure enough, your food quickly becomes heated.

Microwave ovens have been around for a long, long time, too.  According to Wikipedia, some dude named Percy figured out how to microwave stuff way back in the 1940s.  This is remarkable for a couple reasons... back in the 40s people didn't know a whole lot of stuff, considering Al Gore had not yet invented the Internet.  And even more remarkable is the fact that this guy's name was Percy.  Who the heck names a kid Percy?  Even in the 1940s, that couldn't have been cool.

When we were growing up, my mom would never allow us to have a microwave oven for fear that they'd melt our brains, or something.  So my only exposure to them back then was when we went to visit my grandparents.  Most kids were not as amazed by microwave ovens and their miraculous abilities to melt cheese over Doritos as I was.

Ever wonder what would happen if you were able to keep the door of the microwave open and turn it on?  I mean, would everything in its path start bubbling and melting all over the place?  I've never heard of anyone attempting it, but surely I'm not the only one who wonders such things.  I would certainly be tempted to open the door up and aim the microwave at our Swearing Neighbors as an experiment.

Oh, and another thing: why can't we put metal in there?  Just another microwave oddity, if you ask me.

Anyway, if anyone can explain to me in simple terms how these things work, I would be tremendously grateful.  I would assume that the real answer is something along the lines of "alien technology."

Ice Ice Baby

We had a bit of an ice storm here in the greater Smootville area on Sunday.  People were freaking out, as per usual, driving their cars into one another, sliding down embankments, etc.  I saw a picture of one car that was firmly planted in a vertical position in a creek.  Only people in this area could be that bad at driving in inclement weather.

Anyway, two of our three major TV stations were doing wall-to-wall coverage of this amazing event on Sunday morning (who could have envisioned such a thing:  ice... in December!).  I always get a kick out of watching our news stations cover stuff like this.  Ok, the driving conditions were a bit hairy, but they made every effort to put the movie 2012 to shame by blowing things completely out of proportion.

Here's what cracks me up.  The newscasters spend most of their time pointing out what a bad idea it is to be out on the roads.  "Even if you absolutely have to get to work today, or you're having that life saving heart-lung transplant, for the love of God, stay at home!  Do not go outside under ANY circumstances!  It's not even completely safe to be watching our televised pictures of the weather!"

They'll go through this whole spiel about how moronic it would be to go out and drive in these conditions.  And then in the same breath they'll say, "And here's Kent Brockman, standing along I-279 with a live report!"  Obviously these reporters are out driving on the highways themselves, as if their presence on the roads somehow makes us safer than if they were doing the entire broadcast from indoors.

And you can be pretty sure that their giant TV vans are sitting there, blocking part of the road.  According to the IIYRSS (Institute of Imaginary Yet Real-Sounding Statistics), 78% of accidents on bad weather days are actually caused by news vans blocking the highways.

Mistakes on the Lake

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's seeing happy people from Cleveland.  Clevlanders are not supposed to be happy.  They're certainly not supposed to be jubilant. And most certainly not ecstatic.  But that was indeed the scene last night as the Steelers lost to the Browns.

The Steelers absolutely suck this year.  There's no doubt about that.  They have obviously opted to take this season off after winning the Super Bowl last year.  I get that.  No big deal.  We lost last night, and that was that.  But the Cleveland people acted as though they had just won every major award given to people on planet Earth.

They were dancing around, kissing each other on their putrid little lips, and in general acting like barking morons.

I honestly hope that many of them are waking up today (probably on the street, covered in their own bodily fluids, I'm guessing), and they're coming to the realization that they really don't have a whole heck of a lot to be excited about.

I mean, woop-de-doo... they are now 2-11!  They have won two games this year.  Get out the champagne!  The Steelers suck, sure, but 2-11?  I could probably get a better record with a team consisting of myself and some of my high school friends, while under the influence of NyQuil.

As I was walking back to my car (while wearing a Steelers coat), I had a few unnecessary encounters with some of Cleveland's finest thinkers.  As I was crossing a street, a guy rolled his window down and said, "HEY!  When is your next playoff game!? Ha ha ha!"  I immediately considered several witty comebacks, including:

-- "I'm surprised you're familiar with the concept of playoffs."
-- "You're 2-11 for heaven's sake.  If I were you, I'd continue driving straight into Lake Erie."
-- "C'mon... your team was mathematically eliminated from playoff contention during the pre-season."

I kept my response brief, though:  "When was your last playoff game?"  Of course, that confused him and he went speeding off down the street, presumably to splash into Lake Erie.

As I was driving out of town, another guy made a point of rolling his window down (it as 14 degrees out) so he could offer me a popular obscene hand gesture, apparently based on the fact that my car has a Pennyslvania license plate.  I assume that another mile or so down the road his arm probably froze off, but I'm sure he was still very proud of making such a witty and though-provoking statement in my direction.

Anyway, I would like to think that things are getting back to normal up there on the Mistake on the Lake.  The Steelers may stink at the moment, but we know it's a temporary thing.  Cleveland will always be... well... Cleveland.

I Gnant Galk Gnow.

I had my dentist appointment yesterday, and that's always a good time.  I was already in a great mood, because I woke up and learned that my damned Christmas lights had been blown off the highest gutter of the house overnight.

Someday the police are going to knock on my door after I throw one of my Christmas light-related fits ("Uh, sir, we received a report that someone at this address was dancing around the yard, screaming 'fa la la la la' while throwing lights and plastic clips all over the place.").

So anyway, I got to my dentist appointment, full of Christmas Cheer, and God bless our dental hygienist lady, but why does she ask me all of these open ended questions while she has my mouth pried open and she's poking me with that pointy metal thing?

That really drives me a little bonkers.  She's a really, really nice lady, don't get me wrong, but surely she is aware of the fact that her fist is half way down my throat, and it would be pretty hard for me to carry on a whole lot of a conversation.  Yet she asks me questions like, "What do you think about this... what do you think about that...?"

So I can either ignore her, which seems like it would be rude, or I can attempt to come up with an answer, either using sign language or a series of word-like grunts.  I used a combination of these techniques today, and I have no idea if she understood anything I was trying to communicate to her.

It would be cool if they'd give people little keyboards to hold on their laps so they could type in an answer to whatever small talk we're trying to have.  This would also solve the problem of what I should be doing with my hands during my appointments.  I usually clinch them together hard enough that I could probably squish coal into diamonds.

So now my teeth feel nice and squeaky clean, and I'm able to communicate again.  But guess what?  I have to go back in a couple weeks.  Wanna know why?  Because I brush my teeth too well.  Yep... I have managed to brush my teeth to the point where I've eroded some of the enamel, so they have to paint some pretend enamel back onto my mouth for me.

We live in a very strange world.

Another Facebook Member

Little Smoot is now on Facebook.  Now it will be much easier for her to tell people about her various academic and social accomplishments, like dancing on the stage with Flo-Rida.

She had been bugging us for a good while about getting a Facebook account, and we successfully avoided it for quite a long time.  The other day she told me, "But everyone in my class is on Facebook!"

Suuuure, they are, I said.  Just like everyone in your class has their own cell phone, and everyone in your class has their own pony, and everyone in your class has a vintage Corvette, etc.

Well, I got a friend request from one of Little Smoot's classmates the other day, and this gave me access to see this girl's list of Facebook friends.  And, oddly enough, practically every other member of her class was indeed on Facebook.  Go figure.

Not wanting her to be a social networking outcast, I helped her set up her account.  I figured it would take a bit of time to explain all of the intricacies of Facebook to her, since it took me several months to really understand it.  I wanted to help her learn how to ignore some of the stupid crap on Facebook, like Farmtown (part of the site where you can manage your very own pretend farm...  the heck with that), and whatnot.

But, like most things, she caught onto Facebook pretty much immediately.  And as we speak, she is busily messing with her stupid Farmtown application.

Calling All Shawties

My taste for music has never exactly matured.  Granted, I haven't matured in most any other way, either, but anyhow...

I have done a pretty good job of keeping up with current music, long beyond most of my contemporaries, who have either adapted their listening habits to age-appropriate music, or they have actually already died, or whatever.  My brother was rather dumbfounded at Thanksgiving when I told him I'd rather listen to Kanye West than Dave Matthews.

Nowadays, Little Smoot has been getting into Top 40 music pretty heavily.  She can sing all the words to pretty much any song we hear on the radio, and we enjoy listening to these things together.

Mrs. Smoot has taken her to several Christian concerts over the past couple years, and they've both really enjoyed doing that.  These are obviously nice, wholesome outings, where they're surrounded by nice, wholesome people, even though the concerts have a rock edge to them and are much like any other rock concert.

Well, to balance her out a bit, I took Little Smoot to a Flo-Rida concert last night in Pittsburgh.  Even most fuddy-duddies who have no idea who Flo-Rida is would probably recognize the song "Low," which you'll almost definitely hear if you ever attend a wedding reception nowadays:

"Shawty had them apple bottom jeans (jeans)
Boots with the fur (with the fur)
The whole club was looking at her
She hit the floor (she hit the floor)
Next thing you know
Shawty got low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low!"

We managed to get seats in Row 4, which was nice because Little Smoot could actually see for a change.  At age 11, it's often hard to see what's going on at things like this, especially once people start standing up and dancing.  And before I knew it, she was not only in the front row, but she wound up on the freakin' stage, dancing with Flo-Rida.  They had invited around 25 or so "Shawties" (I had to use my official Rapper to English Dictionary to look that up... it means "girls") to join them on the stage, and of course Little Smoot was right there.

I must say, it was a rather surreal moment to look at a stage where these gigantic rapping dudes were singing, and beside them was my own little Shawty, who for the record sang along to every word of the song.

We made it out unscathed, thankfully, and Little Smoot had some very jealous Shawty friends at school today.