I learned two new things at dinner tonight:

#1) My mother collects (among many other things) temporary tattoos from gumball machines. Tonight at the dinner table she just happen to conveniently whip out a stack of temporary tattoos (rubber banded together the way the mafia and rappers keep $100 bills). You name it, she had it; dragons, flowers, crosses, crosses surrounded by flowers, skulls, "little homies," gang tagging, rainbows for the gays, skulls with guns, skulls with snakes coming out of the eyes, naked women, naked men - you name it, she had it in a temporary tattoo. I think she must have "invested" thousands of dollars worth of quarters into this "collection."  This discovery generated two different emotions; 1.) admiration - for the kind of fervor one must have, in order to continue to build such a wealth of unique specimens, and 2.) shock and terror - that someone would waste so much of their life and money purchasing, and then idolizing, such pieces of absolutely worthless shit. At that moment I seriously pondered my mother's sanity....

What the fuck, man! My mom has this omnipresent delusion that there will be some sort of catastrophic disaster and the fate of mankind will lay in her possessing a magical, celestial,  last-of-its-kind low rider el camino tattoo, which she alone will possess somewhere amongst the stack of other priceless artifacts.......

and

#2.) Mikey likes to make announcements. Sporadically, at random intervals, Mikey made a number of announcements; when we sat down at our table he announced he "had to go pee, NOW!" When our food came he announced to all who could hear that Jared and I were "eating disgusting food." When he was done eating his rice, he announced it was "time to go home." When my mom pissed him off because she wouldn't share her temporary tattoos with him, he announced that she was a "caca jerk caca" . . . . and then his departing announcement as he walked out of the restaurant - "I just farted!"