My mother's incredibly stupid ex-husband

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The rules for that one never were written down to our satisfaction.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 6 June 2004 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

"You rolled a 5; no crullers for you, kiddo!"

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Sunday, 6 June 2004 14:28 (twenty-two years ago)

"WAAAAAA. Hey wait, this is a four-sided die!"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 6 June 2004 14:37 (twenty-two years ago)

ok sure the googler is clueless but any excuse to hear more Matos's mom's ex-husband stories is a good thing

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Sunday, 6 June 2004 14:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I completely agree with you, sir.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 6 June 2004 14:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Ok the Maltos thing is inexplicably KILLING me here... hahaholy crap!

― Kim (Kim), Sunday, 6 June 2004 18:25 (twenty-two years ago)

many thanks for reviving. I've always said a sense of humor is a necessary survival skill, but I had no idea...anxiously awaiting the Matos autobiography. Seriously: this is as funny/painful as David Sedaris.

― lovebug starski, Sunday, 6 June 2004 19:00 (twenty-two years ago)

http://stwi.weizmann.ac.il/g-junior/nutrition/milon/ART/MALTOS.GIF

― donut bitch (donut), Sunday, 6 June 2004 19:01 (twenty-two years ago)

The random googler who posted as "Mother of three" is probably better known as "incredibly stupid mother of three who is bitter about paying child support" in her neighborhood.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Sunday, 6 June 2004 19:25 (twenty-two years ago)

seven months pass...

23. Actual quote: "I'd give my left arm to be ambidextrous."

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Saturday, 15 January 2005 02:12 (twenty-one years ago)

addendum to 7. Chris didn't actually get fired for smoking pot in the cooler. He got fired for having a flask in the parking lot.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Saturday, 15 January 2005 02:16 (twenty-one years ago)

24. One day Chris was driving on the freeway with me in the passenger seat. Another car cut us off, and Chris honked and gave the guy the finger. So the guy pulled over, opened his car door . . . and Chris took the exit right behind him. "I showed that fucker," he said.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Saturday, 15 January 2005 02:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Man, i missed this thread first time 'round. It's awesome! I think David Cross based Ronnie Dobbs on this 'chris' guy.

― papa november (papa november), Saturday, 15 January 2005 02:33 (twenty-one years ago)

25. Chris brought one piece of furniture to the apartment when he came to live with us. (He destroyed several of mom's items, but that's another thing entirely.) It was a ratty thirdhand loveseat I wasn't allowed to sit on or touch. Neither, it turns out, was my mom half the time. Her nickname for Chris's sole piece of furniture? "Precious."

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Saturday, 15 January 2005 02:34 (twenty-one years ago)

26. My friend Eric used to call Chris "Vanilla Chris" because (a) we were twelve and (b) because Chris liked the band Vanilla Fudge at a time when Eric and I made fun of them because we were incipient snobs. Chris's response? To refer to my friend, a Beatles fan, as "Cockroach Eric."

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Saturday, 15 January 2005 02:36 (twenty-one years ago)

chris wins that one i'm afraid!

― j blount (papa la bas), Saturday, 15 January 2005 02:50 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, it's very important for adults to win against 12-year-olds

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Saturday, 15 January 2005 02:52 (twenty-one years ago)

grand funk matos!

― j blount (papa la bas), Saturday, 15 January 2005 02:56 (twenty-one years ago)

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Saturday, 15 January 2005 02:57 (twenty-one years ago)

(these were brought to you courtesy of my friend Eric calling and reminding me of them, btw)

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Saturday, 15 January 2005 02:57 (twenty-one years ago)

This thread is awesome. I have to ask, is Chris still living?

― I Am Curious (George) (Rock Hardy), Saturday, 15 January 2005 03:10 (twenty-one years ago)

yep (hi!)

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Saturday, 15 January 2005 03:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Was that "hi" to me or -- OMG CHRIS READS ILX!!!

― I Am Curious (George) (Rock Hardy), Saturday, 15 January 2005 03:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Her nickname for Chris's sole piece of furniture? "Precious."

Well, that's that, I'll only be able to think of Chris as Gollum from here on in.

(Mr Matos, will send you an e-mail about something tomorrow when my brain is less relaxed.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 15 January 2005 03:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Many many times I have considered hitting this thread with the big REVIVE! but then I always think "well, it's no good to revive it until Matos has collected more recollections."

So now... REVIVE!

― martin m. (mushrush), Saturday, 15 January 2005 03:54 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, it's very important for adults to win against 12-year-olds

Defending Vanilla Fudge is a man's job! [high-fives]

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Saturday, 15 January 2005 04:28 (twenty-one years ago)

You get high like a kite.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 15 January 2005 04:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm too lazy to scan through this thread, but is there anything in here about how a number of Matos's stories from this thread were reprinted in some random zine (submitted by him, I assume) that I found in Quimby's recently?

― n/a (Nick A.), Saturday, 15 January 2005 05:09 (twenty-one years ago)

First time that I've read this thread after nearly two years of being on here. My fianceé and I have been taking turns reading this since we've both had "Chris"'s come thorugh our life.

It's also kind of weird to read I would like the best threads to be compiled into book form some day. Trucker Cap Guy On Couch With Flatmate would be there, Cheese Fry would be there... and this one obviously... on this thread with a J0hn Darn1elle coming after it. TEH IRONIC FORESHADOWING.

I don't have 26 stories about anyone. My mom dated this fucking loser once who liked to tell the following riddle:

Q: What do you get when you cross a rabbit with a cat?
A: I don't know, but it sure smells like shit!

I hated that guy.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Saturday, 15 January 2005 05:34 (twenty-one years ago)

vanilla fudge were great. :-(

― cathy berberian (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 15 January 2005 15:04 (twenty-one years ago)

the 'zine is The Lowbrow Bathroom Reader, edited by my friend Jay Ruttenberg; I've written other stuff for it before. and yes, it's the first 18 stories from this thread, pretty much taken directly from it.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Saturday, 15 January 2005 20:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm still upset I didn't get my ILX book.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Saturday, 15 January 2005 20:42 (twenty-one years ago)

This is still one of my fav ILX threads.

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Saturday, 15 January 2005 21:29 (twenty-one years ago)

27. Mom and Chris are dining in a steakhouse. The waiter brings over a bottle of wine.

CHRIS (sniffing, swirling, sipping): Ah! Excellent vintage!
MOM: What are you talking about? You wouldn't know good wine from last week's Kool-Aid.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:30 (twenty-one years ago)

28. My uncle's name is James. One day, Chris and I drove him home from our house. We got into the car and the Rolling Stones were on the radio. "Hey, that's you," said Chris. "You're Jimmy Shelter."

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:31 (twenty-one years ago)

29. "You're stupid," my mother said. "Oh yeah?" he responded. "Well, I have an IQ of 156."

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:33 (twenty-one years ago)

30. As noted above, Chris was quite the drinker. And like most folks with similar proclivities, he swore he could stop anytime he wanted. So Mom took him up on it: "I bet you can't go a day without having a drink."

"Oh yes I can," he said. "Twenty bucks says I can."

That night, Chris paid Mom $20.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:36 (twenty-one years ago)

31. Mom and Chris fought a lot, and kicked him out of the house a couple of times. The most ridiculous example of this would have to be when they had an argument over--I am not making this up--what time the sun rises in the morning.

CHRIS: I was up with the sun today, at four o'clock.
MOM: Chris, that's impossible! The sun doesn't come up until between five and six even in summer.
CHRIS: I fucking know when the sun comes up, because when I woke up today it was up.
MOM: So you were up at 5:30?
CHRIS: Fuck you!

Etc. The argument was settle when she produced a newspaper that had the sunrise time on it. The argument then became personal and all hell broke loose.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:39 (twenty-one years ago)

32. Chris believed in conserving energy. How did he go about doing this? By telling me, "You know, you're wasting electricity by turning the lights on and off when you leave the room, because it takes more power to do that than if you just left the light on all the time." He was also a proponent of, when we had the air conditioner on during the summer, of not turning the machine on and off, but unplugging it and re-plugging it back in entirely.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:42 (twenty-one years ago)

[mad props to my man Eric for remembering these]

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:43 (twenty-one years ago)

33. As demonstrated with the multiple "Mick"s story above, Chris did not have a nimble way with a phrase. Perhaps the nadir of his personal lexicon involved a boss at a prior job of his (well, right, most of his jobs were "prior" by the time he lived with us), named Perry W. Apparently, whenever his (presumably permanently stoned) coworkers heard the boss coming down the hall, which I'm guessing made them stop doing whatever they were doing besides work (like, uh, posting on ILX, but these were pre-Internet times), the call went out: "Big trubs! Purry Dubs!"

This in itself isn't anything like a big deal--we all have stupid work in-jokes. But we don't all bring them home. And we don't all say those phrases in mixed company whenever anything happens--say, a bad hand in a bridge game--at every available opportunity. Chris, however, is not like the rest of us.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:49 (twenty-one years ago)

34. Before my sisters were born, my mom had a second son named Jake; he died of a heart condition at 15 months old. Not long after this happened, my mother was understandably distraught. What advice did Chris give her? "You've gotta calm down," he said, lounging on their bed, smoke aswirl," and just smoke a joint. It's not that big a deal."

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:51 (twenty-one years ago)

35. Here's how I found out my brother had been born: I came home from school one day, and Chris was home but Mom wasn't. I went in and thought I was alone; he emerged from his room, and instructed me, "I'm really tired, I've been up doing shit all day, and I don't want you to make any noise while I'm trying to sleep." He went into his room, began to close the door, and said, "Oh, yeah--your mother had the baby." Then he shut the door and went to sleep, without knowing which hospital she was at, whether the baby was a boy or a girl, what its name was, or whether it was healthy or not.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm speechless.

― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:56 (twenty-one years ago)

This is my favorite long-running series on ilx.

― papa november (papa november), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:57 (twenty-one years ago)

re 34: JESUS FUCKING DAMN

― What's this place, Biblevania? (natepatrin), Friday, 21 January 2005 05:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Dare I ask... this was Chris' kid? (you don't have to answer if the issue is too personal)

― donut christ (donut), Friday, 21 January 2005 06:01 (twenty-one years ago)

36. My mom's family--most of it--has played bridge since they were teenagers. (Our great-grandaunts and uncles were avid players, and they taught them as kids.) When Chris moved in and married Mom, they taught him how to play, too. The way my family plays is more than a little unschooled--if you're familiar with the game, you know you can double anytime, but my family had a rule where you could only double after the main bidding was finished. (I don't understand it, either--the rule, not the game, which I've played since I was 13.)

Another rule is that when you bid your hand, you and your partner attempt to come to a contract you can reach: Book, which is six tricks out of a possible 13 (there are four players, each dealt 13 cards) plus whatever number you bid, with the suit you bid holding rank, or "trump." It's a frugal game most of the time--it's rare to get an extraordinary hand unless you're playing competitively; usually, the cards go out fairly evenly.

So what was Chris's rallying cry during bridge? "Bid 'em up!"--which is a little like hollering for more distortion at an acoustic folk show.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 21 January 2005 06:06 (twenty-one years ago)

DC: yes

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 21 January 2005 06:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I'm with Nate. 34 is the mindkiller.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 21 January 2005 06:09 (twenty-one years ago)

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