Okay, well that’s brilliant.

The Queen and I are a cheap couple of bastards, so we’ll dress The Squirrelly in pretty much anything that’s free. Hand-me-downs. Paper bags with holes cut in them. We’ll be set for life when we figure out how to knit sweaters from the hair our cat Edgar sheds. “Sweadgars,” we’ll call them.

We’re so indiscriminant that some of those aforementioned hand-me-downs were originally intended for — brace yourself — girls. That’s right: I have clad my infant son in pink. There may have even been some frills involved at some point, I couldn’t swear otherwise.

A few months ago my buddy M. was visiting from the East Coast, and he was so disgusted with The Squirrelly’s wardrobe that he immediately swung-or-possibly-”swang” into action. He went online, found a store that sold camouflage jumpers for babies, and had one sent to us posthaste. Here it is in action:

We’ve also been mixing PowerLifter IronMax 4000 into The Squirrelly’s formula to counteract the feminizing effects of the unicorn onsies.

Well, now that I’ve opened a can of worms by taking the cork out of the “baby pictures” bottle, I may as well go whole hog and mix my metaphors. To wit:

Erasure live in concert, Dublin 1988

Eureka!

Sneers and Ears

Baking soda contains no calories; eat as much as you want!

The other night I was picking up a few items in a nearly deserted supermarket. At one point I rounded a corner and espied a handsome orange cat halfway down the cereal aisle. He was milling around aimlessly under the Lucky Charms until he saw me, and then trotted to my side and began mewing for pets.

After ponying up, I sought out a cashier. “Excuse me,” I said, “but did you know there’s a cat in your grocery store?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “That’s Toby.”

“Is he lost?” I asked.

“No, his house is nearby,” she explained. “But he sneaks into the store on weekend evenings and just kind of hangs out.”

Awwwww yeah. Cattin’ around on a Saturday night.

Happy Thanksgiving, all. And as has inexplicably become a yeti tradition, here is your annual link to the “Basted In Blood” video. It’s the third down.

Christmas With The Kranks: “Egregiously mediocre and flagrantly ill-conceived in every department, this is, truly, the cinematic equivalent of finding a single solitary Saltine in your stocking and a pair of old tube socks beneath the tree.” — Marc Savlov, AUSTIN CHRONICLE

Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason: “All the charm of a canceled CBS sitcom.” — Robert Wilonsky, DALLAS OBSERVER

Alexander: “Both the sex and the battle sequences here look like football plays drawn by an NFL coach and shot by the wide receiver’s mother.” — Carrie Rickey, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

After The Sunset: “Utterly devoid of wit, excitement and any reason for being.” — Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

National Treasure: “If the Founding Fathers had known National Treasure would be the result of their efforts to forge a new nation, they might have reached for the Wite-Out.” — Jami Bernard, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Birth: “Might have qualified as dumb fun if they hadn’t left out the fun.” — Joe Morgenstern, WALL STREET JOURNAL

This evening’s “how was your day” conversation:

The Queen: I made a major faux pas in baby sign-language class.

Me: What happened?

Q: Well, all of the women in the class are super religious, and one of them asked what the sign was for “Jesus.” And the teacher said that you touch the palm of your left hand with your right index finger and then vice versa, like for stigmata? And I totally snickered.

M: You snickered at the cruicifixion of our Lord?

Q: I couldn’t help it! I just thought it was ridiculous. I mean, what if the sign for every famous person was the way they died?

M: You’d move your head back and to the left to sign “JFK.”

Q: Exactly. And to sign “Elvis” you would sit on a toilet.

Today I discuss fatherhood and canderflabble over at The Morning News.

Well, that’s reassuring. Cheesasaurus Rex is a reknowned deficit hawk.