The Fluffy Movie: Unity Through Laughter Page #9

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of a collect call to my kid

is like trying to

explain rocket science.

He'll never have to deal with it.

He'll never know what it's

like to be out late somewhere

and have to use a phone.

First of all, to find a pay phone.

If you see a pay phone now,

you look at it like,

"Oh, wow.

They forgot to take it down.

"Get your camera. Take a picture.

"Cause that sh*t's gone.

Take a picture."

He'll never know about

staying out late at night

and having to use one

of those nasty phones

and taking off that receiver.

You know, the nasty one that has gum

and gonorrhea all over it, right?

And you got to keep it

far away from your face,

so you don't get infected.

And then you make that phone call,

you know, that freaking...

When you make a collect

call back in the day?

It was expensive. He's not

going to have to do that now.

Back in the day, if you made a

collect call, it was a mission.

It was a mission,

and it was expensive.

If you called my mom collect,

it better have been life or death

or that's what it was going to be.

You call my mom back

in the day, shoot,

we were on welfare and Section 8.

Every penny counted.

You call her up.

"Hello."

And then she'd get the presentation.

"AT&T.

"Do you accept a collect call from...

"Caller, at the tone,

say only your name."

You had to get creative.

"Mom, it's me. Pick me

up at 7-Eleven at 6:00.

"Hurry up. I love you. Bye."

"Do you accept the charges?"

"Hell, no. I'm on my way, mijo."

And if you couldn't get

the whole message out,

you had to call back, do that

whole process all over again,

and then say another sentence

until they cut you off.

I told Frankie we call

that "ghetto texting."

'Cause he'll never have to do it.

The problem is, is that

my son is very spoiled,

and I realize that it's my fault.

It's 100% my fault.

When he first came into my life,

when he was seven years old,

he was very appreciative.

Everything was, "Thank you."

Everything was like, "Oh, my God.

"This is so cool. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you."

Big old hug. "Thank you.

I love you. Thank you."

And what I did was, is that

I started giving him stuff,

and I never expected anything for it,

and, you know, with me,

I was always like, you know,

I work really hard

to have nice things,

and is it a crime that I want

my family to have nice things?

I figure, you know what?

I went through a lot.

I just want my son to have the best.

But you can't always

give 'em everything,

because then they don't learn

to appreciate and value things,

and I had to find out the hard way.

It takes a lot for me to tell

you guys that, by the way,

that I freaking messed up.

My girl pointed it out.

She goes, "You're messing up."

I go, "What am I doing wrong?"

She goes, "You don't let him earn

anything. You don't let him try.

"You don't let him make an attempt

"to try to work toward something,

"so of course he doesn't

appreciate things."

And it was very evident last month,

you know, birthday time?

I bought him a pair of Jordans.

Not just a regular pair of Jordans.

They were a special collector's

edition pair of Jordans.

You know, the kind of Jordans where

people wait in line the night before

just so they can buy these shoes.

Except I didn't,

'cause I got the hookup!

Yeah.

They were really nice shoes,

$180 pair of shoes, and...

Yeah. Hey, lot of jokes. So...

I didn't even wrap 'em, okay?

I put 'em on the box, and I waited

for him to walk in the room.

And I'm standing there,

and he walks in.

I go, "Happy birthday,"

and he sees the shoes.

He looks at the shoes,

and all he says is,

"Cool." That's it. "Cool."

Sometimes I'll get lucky,

he'll say it twice.

"Cool, cool."

And then he walks around to see

what other presents there are,

and I told his mom,

"Did you see that? Did you see..."

"Don't get mad. I told you,

you don't let him earn anything.

"Now that's why he acts that way.

He expects things."

I'm like, "Oh."

And I want to get upset,

but she's absolutely right.

He's at the point now of spoiled

where he walks up to me, and he goes,

"Dad, I'm really bored

with my Nintendo Wii.

"Can I give it to my friend Angel?"

I go, "What did you just say?"

"I'm bored with my Nintendo Wii.

Can I give it away?"

I go, "Is it broken?"

"No."

"How long have you had it?"

"Ooh, like, four years."

I go, "How many games do you

have for the Nintendo Wii?"

"Like, 300."

I could feel you

judging me over there.

I felt that. "Oh!"

You're freaking...

You're judging me right now.

I can feel it.

She's over there, she's like,

"This is some Dr. Phil

sh*t right here.

"He really messed him up."

Yeah, I heard you.

Let me just for the record,

let me set this straight, okay?

I did not buy my son 300 games.

Here's what happened.

I have a friend who's

a computer hacker,

and for 75 bucks,

he put 300 games on

my son's hard drive.

Yes, I have money,

but I'm still ghetto.

Oh, yeah.

So I tell Frankie, "Do you

realize how lucky you are?"

And then he rolls his eyes.

"Oh, lucky."

I go, "Yeah, dude, you are."

I says, "You got a

Nintendo Wii that works.

"You've had it for four years,

and it still works.

"If something happens to it,

loan take it back to the store,

"get you a new one,

because I got a warranty

"that'll last you

another four years."

"Why is that a big deal?"

"Because when I was your age,

I had a Nintendo."

"Wii?" "No.

"Frankie, in 1987,

"I had a thing called a Nintendo

Entertainment System, okay?"

Nintendo Entertainment System.

It didn't last four years.

It lasts 90 days.

90 days is what it took

for you to hit "Power,"

and start seeing a

flashing red screen.

You know the flashing red screen,

where you have to look at

the ground or look away,

or you have a seizure right

then and there? Oh, yeah.

And then what you had to do is

you had to flip the Nintendo over,

and there was a silver sticker,

a silver sticker with

an 800 number on it,

and you call the 800 number,

and they put you in contact

with someone in Japan,

who made you feel like a pendejo.

Oh, yeah. He made you feel stupid.

You call him up, and he's like,

"It cost 250 to repair Nintendo."

250 to fix it?

But it's 150 for a brand-new one.

And if you couldn't afford

150 for a brand-new one,

like we couldn't afford

150 for a brand-new one,

you had to become a technician.

At the age of seven,

eight, nine, 10, 11,

you had to go in the kitchen

and find the most messed-up

butter knife you could.

Right? The one that had

bend marks and rust stains,

and take that sucker

back in the living room,

because you were going

to perform an operation.

You were going to perform an operation

and bring that Nintendo back to life.

Yeah.

You had to work to play.

You had to unplug it,

plug it back in,

power, reset, power,

reset, power, reset.

It was like performing CPR.

You'd hold a cartridge

and it was like you push

it down, you push it up,

you push it down, you push it up,

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