Why We Suck_ A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid - Denis Leary [28]
The attic sucked 'cause we had to walk up three flights to get to the apartment and then another steep flight to get to the place where we slept. The basement sucked because we slept right next to the boiler room and the water heater would kick on and off and make one helluva racket. So when we did something wrong and my mom or my dad said "Go to your room!" it was a genuine hard-ass punishment.
Today? My kids each have televisions and giant computer screens and electric guitars and sofas and their own individual bathrooms and Xboxes and PlayStations and stack after stack of DVDs and CDs and video games. As a matter of fact when the kids get into trouble my wife and I say "That's it! WE'RE going to your room. You guys go sit in our bedroom and read actual books."
When I was growing up we had three TV channels and there were a handful of movie stars and only one or two kid stars plus Lassie and Mr. Ed and a dolphin who answered to the name Flipper. No one in my neighborhood ever even dreamed of being on TV. Not even me. Wasn't an option.
We knew Lassie AND Flipper were both smarter and better off than any of us could ever hope to be-not to mention the talking horse. We had clothes on our backs and homework to do and were expected to have paper routes by the time we were twelve and shovel snow off sidewalks in the winter and paint apartments in the summer if we wanted money in our pockets. I got a job in a diner twenty-five yards down the block from the local hockey rink as did my older brother my two sisters and almost all of my cousins and that was considered a choice place to work because they gave you free food at the end of your shift, which was very handy because in the house I grew up in there were no late meals. My mom served supper at six sharp and if you weren't there to eat it you just didn't eat. My dad worked two jobs so he would come home from his day job around four in the afternoon, take a quick nap and then eat dinner at six and go to his night job. What did we have for supper? Guess what. Supper. Meaning, whatever the hell she decided to cook that day. She served it hot and when they placed the bowls on the table you had to grab as much as you could and start forking it away 'cause once it was gone that was the end of it. No special meals for anyone. You didn't like what she was serving up you didn't eat. Plus-we lived in an Irish household so forget about food that tasted good. If you could taste it at ALL you were way ahead of the game. If you downed a forkful of potatoes and they tasted like dogshit your tastebuds did a goddam kitchen table jig. Irish people eat as though they were doing penance-it's punishment for your sins and just a way of laying a foundation in your stomach for all the booze that's about to follow it down your gullet. Here's an example of a few traditional Irish recipes my mom cooked up for us:
CABBAGE POTATO CHUCK ROAST
14 sticks of butter
Pinch of salt Cabbage
Seven hundred potatoes
2 pounds chuck roast beef
Place chuck roast, potatoes and cabbage into a very large pot of already boiling water. Boil for five hours. Turn heat down to a simmer. Drop in 14 sticks of butter and pinch of salt. Let boil for one more hour. Then another fifteen minutes. Then a couple more minutes. Make sure all germs and taste have been boiled out. Serve.
Here's her Thanksgiving recipe:
TURKEY DAY
47 sticks of butter
Cabbage
Six thousand potatoes
Fifteen cans of jellied cranberry sauce
65 boxes of Shake 'N Bake Stuffing Mix
Jar of Skippy Peanut Butter-Creamy Style
Two celery sticks
Five carrots
Some peas
Pie
One giant-and I do mean giant-turkey
Boil several really huge pots of water. Take all the stuff out of the inside of the turkey. Begin cursing in Gaelic. Stick the Shake 'N Bake Stuffing stuff into turkey. Slather turkey with