#chumbolex

I kinda always imagined myself being a house spouse. Even before having a kid, I pretty much saw adult Chumbo Lex being a stay at home dad who goes to the gym or coffee shop every morning while my high-powered executive wife goes out and brings home some delicious bacon for me to cook. I’d watch the kid, do the housework, walk the dog, and write children’s books all while staying ruggedly handsome in my free time. You see, I have always hated the idea of going to a job I barely tolerate to do a bunch of useless paperwork and have conversations about nothing with people I can barely stand. The life of domestic leisure… that’s the life for me!! That’s why I’ve been looking forward to this vacation all semester! So, today Melissa Badillo got to have a couple of hours of high-powered “me time” while I got to live my life’s dream.  What I did not know was that kids lose their fucking minds during the work hours of the day. As if powered by some kind of internal alarm, as soon as mommy leaves the driveway the kid starts screaming bloody murder. Also, since he (like his mother) has less than negro skin tone, he turns beet-red as tears flow from his eyes. It was like a scene from the unedited version of Children of the Corn. While this is all happening, man’s best friend decides to have some sort of weird panic attack. So, as I’m trying to calm the next generation of Lex family, the dog urinates in the dining room, an act that I can only interpret as the poodle version of “fuck yo couch, nigga!!” All of this is happening as the house seems to be magically cluttering itself. After I finally get the kid calm, the dog cleaned and disciplined, and the house straightened, I laid down on the couch and passed out. I dreamed of a place I could go to get away from all this. A place with easy stuff like filling out paper work and having casual non-screaming small talk with adults, and I knew that in 3 short weeks my new dream would come true… and I smiled.

My biggest criticism of most the people I know who always wanted kids was that they just wanted "a living doll". I remember my cousin Tyheshia, when we were younger, always playing dress-up. I would ask what was interesting about putting clothes on a doll, looking at it, taking them off, then putting on other clothes. She would always be like "well, she was a princess!, now she's a disco diva!, and soon she'll be a cowgirl... it's so much fun! Anything is possible! You don't know what you're missing!!" As we got older, Tyheshia actually did have some daughters of her own. She would dress them up and bring them to family functions and say "look! isn't this cute!". Honestly, I simply didn't get it.... So, this weekend Melissa Badillo and I went to Target to get some Christmas ornaments for our progeny's first Xmas. Lil man doesn't like to sit in a non-moving stroller for too long, so while my lady-love was picking decorations, we went for a stroll through the toy section. Nobody had told me that Target has a section dedicated to comic book toys for kids that has everything from action figures to games to....... costumes! Man!!! First I dressed him as Spider Man!, Then he was the Hulk!, and after that he was Captain America with an actual plastic shield!!! It was like a fantasy land where everything was possible!! It was sooo much fun! As we left the toy section, I thought about what my cousin Tyheshia had told me when we were younger and realized she was right. I really had no fucking idea what I was missing!

Job Rules: 1. Be respectful. This includes peoples cultures, beliefs, and opinions. 2. Be courteous. Do not be aggressive or demeaning to your coworkers or students. 3. Be professional. Do not use any language that can be deemed inappropriate in or out of the class. So, today at work, the teacher before was still in the room when I began my class. She was still getting her stuff... then this conversation happened. me - (talking to class) Research papers need facts. facts are things that can be proved or disproved. For example, biological evolution is a fact. other teacher (for some reason) - no, evolution is an opinion. me - what? ot - evolution can't be proven... it's just your opinion. me - {nervous laughter} uumm... what? Are you serious? ot - Yeah! if people came from monkeys, why aren't there half human half monkeys around? me - You're ridiculous. just get the fuck out of my classroom. ...and with that, Chumbo Lex broke every rule of his job.

Probably the only thing my frat brother Mateo D. Villareal and I disagree on is the role of the police in society. For my part, I think they are racist, lazy, good for nothings who harass me by asking for "my ID" as a reason to get me close enough to them to plant drugs on me and put me in jail. Yet he (as a police officer himself) disagrees with me. One time he told me "you know, people get mad when we stop them and ask for ID's. They say we're harassing them. But, if something happens and we can't identify who did it, they say we're lazy and want to speak with our supervisor." Sounded like BS to me, but whatever. So, this weekend I went to hospital to witness the birth of my first and only child. Security was so tight that every time you left the floor, you had to show an ID to get back behind the doors where the new babies were. However, after the slight unpleasantness of pushing a human out of her vagina, my baby mama found herself a bit hungry for food only found on the third floor. As I returned to where she was, I approached the officer on the floor to show him my ID. That's when it happened...This man looks at me dead in the eyes and says "I remember you, it's ok" and tries to let me through.  IT'S OK??!! IT'S OK??!! The fate of my family is on the other side of that door, but officer Trust-alot over here can't even be bothered enough check the ID's of the people going through? The only thing between the utter chaos that is the outside world and my precious seed are these two doors but this fucking guy will let any terrorist with a familiar face just walk through? NO SIR!! So, I take out my ID and force him to look at it anyway as I give him the meanest face a black man has ever given a police officer without going to jail. I was furious!!... I hope this lazy asshole still thinks it's ok when he's in the unemployment office after I talk to his supervisor!

So, anyone who knows me knows that in my normal life, I'm far from what anyone would call "professional". However, the way I stay professional at work is by looking at the signs around me that keep me clued in to the fact that I am at work. I notice things like the time, or the fact that everyone around me is either a lot older than me or a lot younger than me, the fact that no one around me is dressed like me, or even the fact that I simply don't work with many black people. All of this keeps my mind at alert to think "don't say exactly what you are thinking, or you will be fired".  Then, Wednesday as I'm leaving work, one of my student stops me and asks me a question: "why do you think there are so many young black men in prison in America?" The problem is, there were no signs to be seen!! This was an hour after I usually leave work, asked by an African student in his late twenties, wearing a t-shirt and jeans (basically, my not-at-work uniform) and speaking with a pretty American sounding accent. So naturally I said "man, it's that perfect combination of old white men making blatantly racist laws and young niggas being stupid enough to break them anyway."  It happened so naturally, I didn't even think about it. Needless to say, today on presentation day, the first thing out of this fucking kids mouth is "Today I'm going to talk about crime. According to our teacher, Mr. Chumbo Lex..." followed by a direct quote from yours truly. *sigh* I'm not going to have money to feed my children.

One of the reasons I never really liked going to church was given assumption that old people could do whatever they wanted. It was always presented as "you have to respect your elders. You say yes or no sir and yes or no ma'am". The reason I hated it was because, well, old people are fucking crazy. Everything makes them mad! If I get tired (because you know... it's fucking early sunday morning) they just slap me in the back of my head and say "boy, wake up!!" or if if I get a bit distracted from what the preacher is saying (because you know... I was a child) they would slap me in the back of head and say "boy, pay attention!!". All I could ever do was say "yes, ma'am" even though I was only doing the most natural thing in that situation. So, I stopped going. I mean, I'm a grown ass man; I don't have to take shit from nobody. So, today I'm in the gym going ham as usual. I just lifted the weight of like a whole African village or something, and I decided to cool down by running a half marathon on the upstairs track. As I am running, to my delight, I am surprised when spotify decides to play one of my old school jams that I haven't heard in hot minute! Of course I get extra crunk and before I know it, I'm singing along. So, I'm jogging along proudly proclaiming "I MAKE IT RAIN ON DEM HOES!!" and out of nowhere this old lady comes up behind me, and slaps me on my shoulder (she couldn't reach my head, short ass!). I take my headphones out of me ears and before I can say WTF, she looks at me and yells "BOY! THIS IS A PUBLIC PLACE!! YOU KNOW BETTER THAN TO SING THOSE KINDS OF SONGS!!" With all the rage built up over 32 years of obedience, this was my opportunity. I stopped running, stood directly in front of her, looked at her dead in the eyes and said... "yes, ma'am"... and jogged away. I guess you take the boy out the church..

The thing about moving in with your girlfriend is that you learn a lot of new things about her that you can make fun of. For example, lately I have been making fun of her need to specify the use of everything. She’s all like “this is a dish towel, this is a face towel, this is a blah blah blah” to which I reply in my arrogant and sarcastic tone “hahaha… It doesn’t matter! Due to the anti-bacterial nature of detergent and the purifying effects of hot water, a towel is a towel. If I use it on my face one week, wash it, then use it on the dishes the next week, it’s all good. Don’t you believe in science? Hahaha” This clearly bothers her, which makes it all the more funny to me. So yesterday, after a good towel washing the weekend before, I see my girlfriend drying a plate using a small yellow towel. You see, despite what I said before, this towel DOES have a specific usage, and she knows this! I always keep this towel (and only THIS towel) next to my computer to clean up what I refer to as “auto-erotic messes” that sometimes occur due to my love of Internet cinema or "duo-erotic messes" that sometimes occur due to my love of her. So, as I notice her drying one of the 4 total plates that I own, I look up and instantly have a look of disgust on my face. Right away I get up, grab the towel, throw the plate into the trash can, and walk off clearly bothered by the incident. Her: “what’s the matter, don’t you believe in science? hahahaha” Me: “fuck science, don’t touch my towel. By the way, you owe me a plate.”

I've always considered myself a somewhat fearless person, never afraid of what may come to pass. Not only do I speak publicly, I've given entire speeches in front of hundreds of people about subjects I know nothing about. I purposely move into crime ridden neighborhoods because the rent is cheaper. Even when I go to the zoo, I always feed the lions... ALWAYS. So, when people tell me "hey, you're gonna have a kid? Keeping a kid safe is a big responsibility! You better be ready" I'm all like "ppfftt! Whatevs! I got this. No worries." I had the same uber confident attitude today I when I taught my first kids capoeira class. It was to 2 groups of elementary aged kids, and I was like "no worries, I'll teach them the ginga, a cartwheel here and there, and I'll blow their little minds in 120 minutes!"... or so I thought. The first kid to attempt the cartwheel did so by sprinting 5 feet, jumping about the same distance straight into the air, and diving head first into the ground. Before I could say "whoa!!! chill bro!", another 3 kids all did cartwheels directly into the giant yet fragile window to the right of me that I assume was load bearing. One girl just looked at the others cartwheeling and simply started screaming. One by one each of the 30 or so children did something that resembled what I assume cartwheels look like to a crazy person. It was as if they all had their own unique and extremely dangerous way of doing this simple move. I've never been so unsure of the possible outcome(s) of any situation in my entire life.  Eventually, I calmed them down and decided against doing anything acrobatic for the remaining 110 minutes. As I walked back to my car I thought to myself "starting in October, and for the next 18 years, I will be responsible for keeping one of those things alive and safe."... and for the first time in my life, I was scared.