Did you hear it?

Not the sound of traffic rolling or the chirping of nature out the window. No, that was a distinct sound. It was a rip. I’m sure it was a rip.

I don’t dare look down. I can’t be positive it was me that ripped. It could have been someone nearby – or if it was me, maybe it was a piece of my shirt. That kind of thing happens all the time.

Shirt tails spontaneously rip when exposed to direct light. It happens to guys over forty mostly because they don’t ever tuck their shirts in. I think they feel better if the curve of their belly isn’t accentuated. That way, people don’t know they’re wearing a 2XL. Sorry if that is rude. I’ve been there. I know what it is like to wear a 2XL. I don’t want to be mean, but HEY! You’re interjecting yourself into my stream of consciousness and trying to subvert the point. The issue at stake isn’t even whether I tuck my shirts in or not! The issue is whether the sound I heard was MY pants ripping.

I swear they aren’t too small. I’ve never been one of those guys to wear tight jeans. I certainly couldn’t pull off the whole skinny jean thing. Reason number 328 that makes me glad I’m not a girl (#1 being that we guys can pee anywhere). I hate tight pants. Okay, so I’m not dead, I don’t mind them on some people, but there should be a government application you have to fill out before you can wear your pants too tight. Mine would get rejected instantly!

Besides, I hate wearing anything tight or constricting. I remember when I first joined the working world and business casual had not yet become acceptable. I had Walter Mittyesque daydreams about wrestling a bear and being drug around by my necktie. Well, they weren’t actually daydreams, I fell asleep at my desk often because I wasn’t quite used to being out of college. So I guess they were just dreams.

HEY! There you go again. Stop it!

Will you look down? I don’t want to. I’m afraid.

NO!

If you look down, and my pants are ripped, then our relationship could enter a very awkward stage. Our friendship would never be the same. Kinda like when the strainer from the faucet flew off and sprayed water all over my pants. I lost a bunch of friends that day because everyone at work thought I’d peed myself. And when I said I loved that guys can pee anywhere, I wasn’t talking about the break room at work. I was more thinking in the woods. The great outdoors – manly stuff like peeing on trees or a fire.

Who says we have a relationship anyway?

I mean, you won’t even tell me if I have a large gaping hole in my pants… which would be bad. Real bad. Why does it always happen in public? Why not when you get them out of the dryer and you put them on in the privacy of your own home? A rip there would be much more pallatable. More forgiving. I could laugh it off and change clothes without anyone else knowing. But it never happens that way. Pants have a way of telling a story unlike any other article of clothing.

Uh Oh! I feel a breeze – and not a natural breeze unless you live in a special colony or ride a boat and stick your leg up on the side.

Oh well. Here’s to a rip-roaring New Year. Now that we’ve got this embarrassing sequence finished on day 3, maybe we’re covered on humility for the balance of 2015

I consider myself a war buff. I love reading historic accounts of combat. I don’t discriminate between time period or conflict. Because of the volume of material, I have probably spent more time delving into World War 2 than any other. When I was in the Army, I drove a beat up WW 2 era Deuce-and-a-half and always wondered about its history.

Historians argue about which battle is the greatest – Waterloo, Stalingrad, Hastings, Yorktown, Thermopylae, Guadalcanal, The Battle of the Bulge, the list goes on. Like everything else in life, no one can seem to agree. When compiling such a list, the qualifiers become important. Things such as lives lost, duration, strategies, and conditions all come into play when deciding which is supreme.

It’s not that I don’t have an opinion, I’ve got plenty of those. I just don’t like to argue in general. I get distracted or flustered and lose my place like when I drop my book and reread the same pages over and over again before I figure out where I left off. Only an argument is live, verbal combat. When I lose my place, I sit there open-mouthed wondering if I look as stupid as I feel. So like everyone else on the losing side, I hone in on one point and try to drive it home even if I am totally wrong and know it.

The Baltic Sea is in New Mexico. It isn’t? I will repeat that thirty-seven times, forcing you to get out your phone and Google it, which allows me time to escape the fracas unscathed. I’m gone, therefore I win.

This leads to my opinion of the greatest battle which I believe is a conflict going on today – right now! RIGHT NOW!

You might think I am waxing philosophically about a moral or ethical conflict for the hearts and minds of people. Think again, I’m nowhere near deep enough for that. No, I am talking about the Battle of the Christmas Tree going on in my den as I type.

This battle has two combatants: The cats vs. the presents. The cats investigated the tree the minute it arrived. They united their forces and conquered it quickly. It is now their territory and they are very protective of it. The two of them alternate on watch and have made a formidable occupation force. Their confidence never waned… until the presents arrived.

As presents do, they marched in slowly but steadily. They landed through the front door and also surprised the occupiers from the garage entrance. Strange men in brown uniforms delivered them, but some were brought in by the woman-thing who seems to be working for both sides. She pets and feeds the cats, yet adds to the stack of presents assaulting from every flank. She is a crafty sort. Worse yet, she puts little ribbons on top to lull the cats from their strategic high ground. They can’t avoid the ribbons, which are almost as alluring as the ornaments with bells.

I have no idea who will win this battle. Epic is too small a word for it. The cats seem to rule the night while the presents hold the day (sounds like a Billy Joel song). It is a seesaw affair likely only resolved by the Take the Tree to the Chipper Treaty.

That landmark agreement is coming soon. Until then, may peace reign in your home unlike mine – where it appears to be an elusive dream.

My technophobic wife has taken an increasing shine to internet shopping.

Point, click, receive, wrap… Point, click, receive, wrap…

At this point, you might be thinking this is another husband-rant about all of the clicking activity and the bill that will come due in January. Well, that may be a subject for another post (I hope the title changes), but right now I’m trying to wrap my mind around the amount of email spam that her clicking has brought us. You see, we share an email account. Mistake? Maybe… but it has worked thus far.

Here is the problem, cleaning my inbox is the one thing I’m OCD about. I need it to be current or I lose focus. At work, I churn through emails faster than a Gopher on balsa-wood. If I can answer it immediately, it is gone. If it makes me mad, gone. If it is ambiguous and may not pertain to me, whoops, I hit delete. My inbox is squeaky-clean. The one at work, that is.

The shared inbox at home gets bogged down in December with order confirmations, shipping information, and advertisements. Oh the advertisements. Did I mention my wife is a technophobe? So, while she has mastered the checkout function of two hundred seventy-four websites, I can’t convince her that they won’t think any less of her if she unchecks the little box that says, “Would you like us to send you an ungodly amount of emails that are irrelevant, obnoxious, and likely to cause enmity between husband and wife?”

I should be working a second job to prepare for the aforementioned bill, but I spend my December trying to unsubscribe from every mailing list known to mankind. Only they lie to you when they allow you to hold the illusion that leaving them is an option. It’s a web of deceit – an impossibility. You cannot be removed from mailing lists. “You have been removed from our mailing list. We are sorry to see you go” is a lie from the bowels of the earth.

What the little button should say is, “Thank you for verifying your existence, I will now torture you every fifteen minutes with a blinking email reminder of your incompetence.”

♦

After trying unsuccessfully to remove our email address from yet another list, I marched to the den, bowed out my chest, and sternly gave my wife an ultimatum!

“Either you learn to uncheck the subscribe button, or we are changing our email address!”

Women don’t like ultimatums.

Of course, our email address remains the same and though wounded and alone, I am off to fight a MailChimp.

I dislike parades. Not a little, a lot!

I don’t care about the pageantry or the spectacle. I just get bored. A.D.D.? Maybe. Every time I’m stuck watching them, I can’t find an ounce of enjoyment – I just think about two dozen other things I could be doing. This couldn’t be truer than when I’m at Disneyworld.

My kids, on the other hand, love parades. So when people start lining the streets, they want to stop riding roller coasters and wait. UGH…

Wait for what? Floats. No thank you! If a float doesn’t contain root beer and ice cream, I don’t want it.

I figure with half of the eligible riders standing along the parade route, the lines to the cool things are shorter. Not my family. We wait – and not for the good stuff.

A funny thing happened on our trip last week. We were headed to a ride at the back of the park while people were lining up for the parade. No one with me suggested we stop to watch (miracle), so I powered into the street. We must have been the last ones let out before they closed the rope because we found ourselves about 20 paces in front of the parade with all of its flags and music.

Maybe it was the fact that I was pushing my daughter’s wheelchair, or possibly because I looked so stately and official, but it became apparent that the spectators thought we were supposed to be the ones leading the parade. We all realized it at the same time as they clapped and waved at us.

My kids became confused.

They grouped together.

“Should we pull off and get out of the way?” they wondered.

The oldest asked, “What do we do?”

Of course they looked to me, the leader, the head honcho, the alpha male for direction and what did they find me doing?

Waving

With a dopey grin on my face, I waved back at all of my adoring fans.

♦

When life puts you at the front of the parade, smile and wave!

♦

The kids laughed at me, but it caught on. All of us began waving to the crowd.

You know what? Everyone waved back. The people didn’t think we looked out of place – they just waved at us. I wonder what they thought when the real parade came and they realized we didn’t belong. Oh well, we were gone by then. We walked over half of the parade route unencumbered by the bustling crowd until we got near the ride we wanted. Then we simply ducked into the masses and became one of them – anonymous once more.

I still hate parades… But for a moment, I was the grand marshal.

I remember distinctly the last time I held it in my hands. Shiny, yellow, beautiful – a huge exhaust pipe rolling out the back billowing imaginary smoke as my hotrod peeled rubber and raced away topping speeds of 210 miles per hour. I set my favorite Hot Wheels car on top of my dresser one night, went to bed, and never saw it again. I’m sure there is a logical explanation – factory recall, aliens, jealous friends, Hot Wheel collecting criminals. I looked for it everywhere to no avail. Whenever I read Robert Frost’s poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay, I think of my car. It was just too good for this earth.

Did you ever lose something and it drove you nuts?

I lose stuff a lot. Big stuff, little stuff.

I had a jean jacket once. When I wore it, I was invincible. Cool like James Dean. All of my friends had them. When we felt cocky, we’d flip the collars up. In truth, we always felt cocky so they may as well have been starched. Those were the days

.

By the time I settled down into a job, that jacket had lived a pretty good life and didn’t really fit into a young professional wardrobe. It hung in the closet alone. Every once in a while, I would get it out just to smell it. It had the scent of autumn, the great outdoors, cheap perfume, debauchery, friendship and youth all rolled into one. I never dared wash it, lest I forget.

Then it was gone. On a chilly night, my girlfriend took it from my closet to warm her on her way home. I married the girl, but never saw my jean jacket again.

Was she jealous of the jacket? I don’t know. There are two predominant theories:

1. She tried to wash it but couldn’t make the smell go away or the collar go down.
2. She washed it and realized it would never be the same. Ruined.

She swears she never took it. (It’s not like I have a history of losing stuff…)

And then, there are these polka-dotted shoes she owned. I hated those shoes. Somehow, in a move, they disappeared. Although I shoulder the blame, I will go to my grave denying I had anything to do with their demise.

What happens to the stuff we lose? When we get to heaven, will there be a pile of it waiting for us? If so, I fear my pile will be huge. However big my mansion is, the closets are likely stuffed full already. Maybe when I show up, St. Peter will hand me jean jacket so I can inhale it in pure oxygen while I vroom my little yellow car across the clouds. I hope it smells the same, although they probably filter debauchery scents.

My wife can dance through the mist in her shoes I did NOT destroy.

Who knows where all of the stuff goes. One of the great mysteries of life.

The question is: does it matter? Am I the poorer for losing stuff?

Nah… Stuff is just stuff and most times, the memories are better than the stuff ever was. I never filled out that jacket as well as I remember. The collar should have stayed neatly down. But in my memory and a couple of pictures I have yet to lose, I was legendary.

Who would have thought a 5k race could nearly lead to an arrest? I guess if you’ve been reading my blog long enough, you’ve figured out I can blunder my way into anything.

So it was Sunday when I ran a 5k for a benefit. The issue was not the run, I breezed through that with a typical mediocre time. The problem was that my daughter was one of the benefactors of the event and we needed to stay a long time after. A run on humid day for one who sweats profusely can lead to smells that disgust even my dog. I needed a change of clothing before I could reenter society.

Unlike most of my life, I planned ahead and brought a few towels along with a change of clothes. The race was held in an upscale shopping center that didn’t seem to accommodate porta-potties or any other proper facilities for a sweaty runner to disrobe. I couldn’t traipse through a fine dining establishment, dripping along the way and my planning stopped just short of a reconnaissance walk to find a bathroom.

Here’s where things went awry – the only thing I could think of was the back seat of the mini-van. No problem, I had towels that could allow me to be properly covered the entire time. When I got in the backseat, I looked around and noted I was in full view of the patio of three crowded restaurants. Again, no problem, the windows are tinted.

My problem? The key fob. Some people butt-dial and make innocuous phone calls. Not me. No, that’s not nearly stupid enough. No, I butt-press both sliding doors to the van open while I’m well into the disrobed portion of the clothes change. Fortunately, my posterior wasn’t into multi-tasking and didn’t hit the panic button.

There I sat, wide-eyed under a towel wondering why my display coincided with the dismissal of church leaving a sea of blue-haired ladies waiting for tables at the nearby restaurants. Members of the local fire department, who were standing by in case of a race emergency, took note of me also and began speaking into their radios. The police couldn’t be far behind.

I fumbled for the elusive key fob, cursed myself for laying it on the seat, and closed the doors. In a matter of seconds, I threw on my new set of clothes and wound my way through the gaggle of old women with my head held high. During the rest of the afternoon, I kept a paranoid eye out for the long arm of the law that was sure to be clamped on my shoulder at any minute. But it never came. The firemen must have been phoning friends to laugh about my situation and not alerting the police.

In today’s day and age, these things aren’t ever over. Someone could have been fast on the draw with video and my hiney might be splattered on Youtube. Until then, let me give you some advice – if you are doing something dicey in your car, know where your key fob is at all times. Those things are evil!

I remember flirting – they did it back when I was in college, I think. It’s like penmanship – I was never any good at it. I was also bad at recognizing the few times it happened to me.

Case in point, I was at a party one time and a girl confided in me that she was having trouble with her boyfriend back home. She said it would be nice if she could find someone to make him jealous and gave me a long and rather odd look. I assumed the look meant she might be gassy or something, so I offered to refill her drink and plodded away.

Upon finding my friend, JC, I told him what had just happened. He gave me an equally odd look and said, “Dude, she wanted to make him jealous with you. Are you stupid?”

I refused to answer his charge, but rushed back to the young lady in question, only to find JC glued to her hip. In fact, he must have told every eligible male in the room because there seemed to be an impenetrable force field of testosterone around her. I have no idea what her intentions were and never saw her again.

Now I’m old and married. I flirt with my wife sometimes. I’m so bad at it that she mostly laughs at me when I do. I am a believer in wearing my wedding ring and I don’t frequent bars – so I don’t see much flirtation anymore. If I was bad at recognizing flirtation back in the day, I’m totally out of practice now.

Which brings me to a recent lunch where a lady half my age at a table nearby seemed to be peeking my way. It got downright embarrassing. I kept my head down – no sense leading her on with my charm and good looks (Ha!). After all, I am not available. I often wonder what a man in his 40’s would even talk about with a girl in her 20’s. Most of the time when a person that young talks to me, I feel like I’m watching Telemundo – I understand every third word and just nod a lot.

I felt the weight of this young lady’s stare all through lunch. My mind was ablaze with ways to tell my wife about it – that was going to be fun. The old man still has it! I couldn’t get in trouble for this. After all, several witnesses could testify that I didn’t initiate or encourage the situation. I was just a pawn in her game of lust.

At some point, she appeared two feet away from me. I had no desire to hurt her feelings. After I spurned her advances, I hoped she wouldn’t be crushed. Now that I saw her up close, she was a very attractive young lady who could easily find love with an available man closer to her age.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m sorry I was staring at you.”

“That’s okay,” I answered gently. “People say I look like Opie Taylor, so I get that a lot.”

Her look of confusion betrayed that she had no idea who that was… So young.

“No, that’s not it,” she said. “You just look familiar to me.”

The oldest pick-up line in the book. Here we go.

“I don’t think I know you,” I said.

“Oh, I know that. But you look exactly like my dad if he were bald. Do you mind if we take a selfie so I can send it to him?”

Crap…

I smiled as best I could as she took the picture with my friends laughing wildly. My boastful story to my wife died with the flash of her phone, as did a piece of my self-esteem. I really gotta stop shaving my head.

***

Artwork:  The Flirtation by Eugen de Blaas

I remember flirting – they did it back when I was in college, I think. It’s like penmanship – I was never any good at it. I was also bad at recognizing the few times it happened to me.

Case in point, I was at a party one time and a girl confided in me that she was having trouble with her boyfriend back home. She said it would be nice if she could find someone to make him jealous and gave me a long and rather odd look. I assumed the look meant she might be gassy or something, so I offered to refill her drink and plodded away.

Upon finding my friend, JC, I told him what had just happened. He gave me an equally odd look and said, “Dude, she wanted to make him jealous with you. Are you stupid?”

I refused to answer his charge, but rushed back to the young lady in question, only to find JC glued to her hip. In fact, he must have told every eligible male in the room because there seemed to be an impenetrable force field of testosterone around her. I have no idea what her intentions were and never saw her again.

Now I’m old and married. I flirt with my wife sometimes. I’m so bad at it that she mostly laughs at me when I do. I am a believer in wearing my wedding ring and I don’t frequent bars – so I don’t see much flirtation anymore. If I was bad at recognizing flirtation back in the day, I’m totally out of practice now.

Which brings me to a recent lunch where a lady half my age at a table nearby seemed to be peeking my way. It got downright embarrassing. I kept my head down – no sense leading her on with my charm and good looks (Ha!). After all, I am not available. I often wonder what a man in his 40’s would even talk about with a girl in her 20’s. Most of the time when a person that young talks to me, I feel like I’m watching Telemundo – I understand every third word and just nod a lot.

I felt the weight of this young lady’s stare all through lunch. My mind was ablaze with ways to tell my wife about it – that was going to be fun. The old man still has it! I couldn’t get in trouble for this. After all, several witnesses could testify that I didn’t initiate or encourage the situation. I was just a pawn in her game of lust.

At some point, she appeared two feet away from me. I had no desire to hurt her feelings. After I spurned her advances, I hoped she wouldn’t be crushed. Now that I saw her up close, she was a very attractive young lady who could easily find love with an available man closer to her age.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m sorry I was staring at you.”

“That’s okay,” I answered gently. “People say I look like Opie Taylor, so I get that a lot.”

Her look of confusion betrayed that she had no idea who that was… So young.

“No, that’s not it,” she said. “You just look familiar to me.”

The oldest pick-up line in the book. Here we go.

“I don’t think I know you,” I said.

“Oh, I know that. But you look exactly like my dad if he were bald. Do you mind if we take a selfie so I can send it to him?”

Crap…

I smiled as best I could as she took the picture with my friends laughing wildly. My boastful story to my wife died with the flash of her phone, as did a piece of my self-esteem. I really gotta stop shaving my head.

***

Artwork:  The Flirtation by Eugen de Blaas

Going to the grocery store is akin to walking down a city street where a guy in a pinstripe suit says, “C’mere… I needs to have a word witcha.” If you follow him down the dark alley, you’ll stumble back out pennyless.

A grocer is just a gangster in an apron. They act like your friend, but they are only there to rip you off.

Take toilet paper. We all need it, but they stymie you with choices and ridiculous descriptions that make no sense! Double rolls, triple rolls, soft, extra-super soft – what does all that mean? I got the Delicately Quilted Super Cuddly Teddy Bear Soft one time and it felt so good the whole pack was gone in a day. The kids wiped when they hiccuped just to feel it and our septic tank backed up from all the quilting. Forget that, now I buy the thinnest, coarsest paper I can find – single ply and unscented. The stuff lasts forever because it’s almost a punishment to go to the bathroom. Some kids refuse to use the toilet at school, mine hold it until they get there.

Another hang-up I have is laundry detergent. It’s so stinking expensive! It’s just soap! When did they start charging by the fragrance? My wife is very particular about her lavender scent. Me? I’m just partial to clean and really not immovable on that point. So, while at the store, I made the command decision that we needed a new scent at our house. Out with the lavender and in with the wonderful smell of whatever the store brand that’s half-price. It’s gotta be good, it says it is Trustworthy right on the box.

I worked out savings on paper products, hygiene, and hair care all before tackling food. There I found some pretty good bargains in meats. The store has this whole refrigerated section of half-priced meat. Some of it seemed slightly discolored and the expiration date was fast approaching. But as long as we cook it real well and have 3 – 5 pounds with every meal before Friday, we should be fine.

Yesterday’s bread – check.

Dented cans – perfect.

Brownish bananas – Viva Variety!

By the time I had my cart filled, I noticed the apron-clad robber standing in the dairy section watching me. He worked a toothpick with his stumpy fingers as he sized me up. The plethora of orange clearance labels in my cart told him I was onto his little game. We squared off like gunslingers in the Old West. Time stood still. Mothers pulled children out of the center aisle in slow motion, afraid of the impending showdown. From the back of the produce department I heard the signature ominous whistle and somehow, the slap of saloon doors. I cracked my neck, rolled my fingers, and readied for the call to draw.

But the old grocer was yella. I had him beat and he knew it.

I checked out to find I had shaved $87 from our weekly bill. Genius. Street genius. The little old lady behind me nodded proudly as she fingered through a thick wallet of neatly cut newsprint. Intrigued, I inquired about them and learned all about these things called coupons from my new friend, Mildred.

Turns out they save you even more money! Who knew?

“Hey Guido the Grocer, I’ve got a coupon-cutting date with Mildred on Saturday… After that, I’m coming back to town. And it ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

(This story would have ended happily if I hadn’t have changed scents. Turns out, my wife didn’t feel threatened at all by my new 84 year-old coupon girlfriend. She just really likes lavender.)

Photo by: By Bill Branson

I’m just curious, do you think someone’s true personality comes out when they get behind the wheel or does the protection of a ton of metal magnify some suppressed aggression?

Everyone knows “that guy” – the one who is too good to wait in line to merge with the rest of us. So he goes as far as he can, perhaps driving in the median or passing over a solid white line before entering traffic.

Do you think he cuts the bathroom line at the fair or knocks down the old lady at the self-checkout line because she is taking too long? I always wonder.

Yes, I have a specific driver in mind. He drives a white BMW and takes the same route as me to work every day (Although I do so legally and courteously). I am a mellow driver and don’t wrestle with road rage often. When I happen to see him cutting people off, I don’t fume. Rather, I have this dream scenario where I am at the perfect angle to wedge my old truck in front of him and seal off his escape. Then I hop out and interview him like Bob Barker on a game show. Oh, I don’t pummel him (probably), I just humiliate him into contrition – showing him the error in his ways and giving him opportunity to apologize to me as representative of all of the drivers he has treated so rudely over the years.

Funny how life plays out sometimes. I was sitting in the exact spot I had envisioned when I saw him coming up on the shoulder. As fate would have it, the line in front of me started to move at precisely the right time and I had what I think was the voice of Ferris Bueller whispering “Do it” in my ear. So I lurched my truck to the right and cut the imbecile off.

He slammed on his breaks and pounded the horn as I got out of my truck. I wish I’d had the skinny microphone and cheesy tie on – that would have been too perfect. I rounded my truck while he sat red-faced in his ultimate driving maching about to explode in rage. This was gonna be good!

Wearing my best disarming smile, I walked slowly toward his door. I wonder what he thought about the 6’, 3”, grinning, bald guy headed his way. Whatever was going through his dense mind, he didn’t feel compelled to roll down his window as he did in my dream.

Not surprisingly, he was kind of a little fella. I felt like I was forgetting something even though I knew my line was,“Tell him what he’s won, Johnny…. Well Bob, This rude driver will be late to work today!”  (cue applause)

I have to say it got a little awkward with me standing there waiting to talk to him and all the rubberneckers around us wondering what was going on.

What had I forgotten?

Oh yeah, BMW’s go in both forward and reverse. They actually go pretty fast in reverse and spit up all kinds of roadside crap on any wannabe gameshow host who might happen to be standing in front of the car. In a matter of seconds, he was gone. He zoomed around me with a final honk and a proper salute while I watched, dirty and alone.

It was too late for me to go home to change and get to work on time. I just told everyone at the office that I had helped an old lady change her flat tire and let them think I was a saint instead of an idiot…

It’s better that way.

I’m just curious, do you think someone’s true personality comes out when they get behind the wheel or does the protection of a ton of metal magnify some suppressed aggression?

Everyone knows “that guy” – the one who is too good to wait in line to merge with the rest of us. So he goes as far as he can, perhaps driving in the median or passing over a solid white line before entering traffic.

Do you think he cuts the bathroom line at the fair or knocks down the old lady at the self-checkout line because she is taking too long? I always wonder.

Yes, I have a specific driver in mind. He drives a white BMW and takes the same route as me to work every day (Although I do so legally and courteously). I am a mellow driver and don’t wrestle with road rage often. When I happen to see him cutting people off, I don’t fume. Rather, I have this dream scenario where I am at the perfect angle to wedge my old truck in front of him and seal off his escape. Then I hop out and interview him like Bob Barker on a game show. Oh, I don’t pummel him (probably), I just humiliate him into contrition – showing him the error in his ways and giving him opportunity to apologize to me as representative of all of the drivers he has treated so rudely over the years.

Funny how life plays out sometimes. I was sitting in the exact spot I had envisioned when I saw him coming up on the shoulder. As fate would have it, the line in front of me started to move at precisely the right time and I had what I think was the voice of Ferris Bueller whispering “Do it” in my ear. So I lurched my truck to the right and cut the imbecile off.

He slammed on his breaks and pounded the horn as I got out of my truck. I wish I’d had the skinny microphone and cheesy tie on – that would have been too perfect. I rounded my truck while he sat red-faced in his ultimate driving maching about to explode in rage. This was gonna be good!

Wearing my best disarming smile, I walked slowly toward his door. I wonder what he thought about the 6’, 3”, grinning, bald guy headed his way. Whatever was going through his dense mind, he didn’t feel compelled to roll down his window as he did in my dream.

Not surprisingly, he was kind of a little fella. I felt like I was forgetting something even though I knew my line was,“Tell him what he’s won, Johnny…. Well Bob, This rude driver will be late to work today!”  (cue applause)

I have to say it got a little awkward with me standing there waiting to talk to him and all the rubberneckers around us wondering what was going on.

What had I forgotten?

Oh yeah, BMW’s go in both forward and reverse. They actually go pretty fast in reverse and spit up all kinds of roadside crap on any wannabe gameshow host who might happen to be standing in front of the car. In a matter of seconds, he was gone. He zoomed around me with a final honk and a proper salute while I watched, dirty and alone.

It was too late for me to go home to change and get to work on time. I just told everyone at the office that I had helped an old lady change her flat tire and let them think I was a saint instead of an idiot…

It’s better that way.

And so, the wheel turns. My eldest has moved to college. Although my Lovely Wife (LW) tells me we have to keep her room intact because she will still come home, I remember that I never lived at home after I left for college. I am somewhat sad about that, but we’ve been prepping for this and hoping she would take flight someday. It’s just hard to watch the baby condor drop off the ledge knowing the perilous plunge that awaits.

I’m taking it pretty well, actually. LW, not so much. Everything in the house seems to remind her that one of her babies has left the nest. Tears, oh there have been tears. I don’t understand tears, nor do I deal with them very well. I remind LW that she’s always got me… forever…  Somehow, that doesn’t seem to help.

After moving our collegian, we had to take our little patient in for treatment where she and mom stayed a few days. While they were gone, I happened into the pantry and realized LW must not have been there since baby condor left. If food packaging could form a face, every piece of junk food in there conspired to draw our missing daughter – even to me and I’m oblivious to the most obvious of things.

This was bad! I couldn’t let LW see this, she would cry for days. It all had to go, but the cheapskate in me said I also couldn’t throw out all of the food. Only one option remained. A 24 hour binge of Munchos and Dr. Pepper.

Have you ever read the nutrition label on those things? DON’T! You can gain 3 pounds just from holding the bag too long. They don’t list things by proportion, otherwise the label would read something like this:

Lard 70%

Air 27%

Salt 2.5%

Potatoes 0.5%

How they bond the ingredients I will never know. Anyway, I polished off the first bag for breakfast and washed it down with three Dr. Peppers. I checked the remaining inventory and was disheartened to discover that LW must have decided to stock up to try to lure the girl to forsake college and stay with us. Either that or she suspected a Y2k15 disaster and wanted to be prepared. Our pantry was like a saferoom.

This is where having many offspring should pay off! I enlisted the help of the remaining children. When I explained the dilemma, I got more “Oh, Dad” eye rolls than the average game of nine-ball. One took a Dr. Pepper before she left, so I was down to hoarder’s surplus minus one. Alone, I dug in for the day.

In the late evening, I was sure a trip the emergency room was in order. The pantry was reverting back to a faceless state, and my stomach was screaming something in Idahoan. I was sweating a substance that looked like maple syrup, which can’t be good. I put in a call to Poison Control where a kind gentleman told me there was no known toxicity in the combination, but urged me to go to the hospital if I felt light-headed. That’s the last thing I remember before passing out amongst the crumbs of the last bag.

When I came to, it was time to go and pick up LW and the youngest. I used the shower squeegee to remove the syrup-sweat and when I arrived, they were ready to go. The trip home was uneventful, I successfully hid the tick and slurred speech caused by sugar intake. While I was unloading the car, LW stopped me.

“Where are the snacks for the party?”

I shrugged my shoulders and grunted. I didn’t ask ‘what party’, I’m sure I’d been told.

“The pantry was full of them.”

“I dunno,” I replied without making eye contact.

“Well, we need more for the party Saturday. Can you go to the store?”

“Uh, sure.”

They say never go to the store hungry. I went full! And I bought $57 worth of Dr. Pepper and Munchos, feeling bloated and quite resentful. Even after all the sweets, this was a bitter pill to swallow.

And so, the wheel turns. My eldest has moved to college. Although my Lovely Wife (LW) tells me we have to keep her room intact because she will still come home, I remember that I never lived at home after I left for college. I am somewhat sad about that, but we’ve been prepping for this and hoping she would take flight someday. It’s just hard to watch the baby condor drop off the ledge knowing the perilous plunge that awaits.

I’m taking it pretty well, actually. LW, not so much. Everything in the house seems to remind her that one of her babies has left the nest. Tears, oh there have been tears. I don’t understand tears, nor do I deal with them very well. I remind LW that she’s always got me… forever…  Somehow, that doesn’t seem to help.

After moving our collegian, we had to take our little patient in for treatment where she and mom stayed a few days. While they were gone, I happened into the pantry and realized LW must not have been there since baby condor left. If food packaging could form a face, every piece of junk food in there conspired to draw our missing daughter – even to me and I’m oblivious to the most obvious of things.

This was bad! I couldn’t let LW see this, she would cry for days. It all had to go, but the cheapskate in me said I also couldn’t throw out all of the food. Only one option remained. A 24 hour binge of Munchos and Dr. Pepper.

Have you ever read the nutrition label on those things? DON’T! You can gain 3 pounds just from holding the bag too long. They don’t list things by proportion, otherwise the label would read something like this:

Lard 70%

Air 27%

Salt 2.5%

Potatoes 0.5%

How they bond the ingredients I will never know. Anyway, I polished off the first bag for breakfast and washed it down with three Dr. Peppers. I checked the remaining inventory and was disheartened to discover that LW must have decided to stock up to try to lure the girl to forsake college and stay with us. Either that or she suspected a Y2k15 disaster and wanted to be prepared. Our pantry was like a saferoom.

This is where having many offspring should pay off! I enlisted the help of the remaining children. When I explained the dilemma, I got more “Oh, Dad” eye rolls than the average game of nine-ball. One took a Dr. Pepper before she left, so I was down to hoarder’s surplus minus one. Alone, I dug in for the day.

In the late evening, I was sure a trip the emergency room was in order. The pantry was reverting back to a faceless state, and my stomach was screaming something in Idahoan. I was sweating a substance that looked like maple syrup, which can’t be good. I put in a call to Poison Control where a kind gentleman told me there was no known toxicity in the combination, but urged me to go to the hospital if I felt light-headed. That’s the last thing I remember before passing out amongst the crumbs of the last bag.

When I came to, it was time to go and pick up LW and the youngest. I used the shower squeegee to remove the syrup-sweat and when I arrived, they were ready to go. The trip home was uneventful, I successfully hid the tick and slurred speech caused by sugar intake. While I was unloading the car, LW stopped me.

“Where are the snacks for the party?”

I shrugged my shoulders and grunted. I didn’t ask ‘what party’, I’m sure I’d been told.

“The pantry was full of them.”

“I dunno,” I replied without making eye contact.

“Well, we need more for the party Saturday. Can you go to the store?”

“Uh, sure.”

They say never go to the store hungry. I went full! And I bought $57 worth of Dr. Pepper and Munchos, feeling bloated and quite resentful. Even after all the sweets, this was a bitter pill to swallow.

The wifi in my eldest daughter’s laptop died recently. Being the home’s Chief Technology Officer, I worked through the handy troubleshoot on the system which told me it was working perfectly. Of course, the inability to connect to the internet and the distraught look on my poor daughter’s face told me it wasn’t. No worries, I bought a USB dongle and she was up and running.

Little did I know that my trouble-shooting skills would soon be needed again. A week ago, she informed me that her dongle wasn’t working. Of course, at 11:15, my system was shut down, so I didn’t pay much attention and went to bed. When I awoke, I realized it wasn’t her computer – there was a wholesale internet outage in the house!

I think that is mentioned in Revelation, isn’t it? The Mark of the Beast and the inability to access High-Speed Wireless is in chapter 13, if I remember correctly. I looked outside and it didn’t appear the Battle of Armageddon had begun yet. A check of the beds told me the wife and kids were still here, so the rapture hadn’t left me behind (Whew!)

But I still had no internet.

This has happened before and I fixed it. What did I do? Oh yeah, I unplugged it and it rebooted itself. So I pulled the plug and let it regenerate. Unfortunately, the light blinking was still red long after power was restored. So I called my ever-helpful internet service provider and got stuck in the web of automated attendants who sound helpful, but are very patronizing. Don’t they know I am the CTO? That should give me some status, I would think.

My biggest problem wasn’t the self-righteous know-it-all computer voice on the other end of the phone, it was the fact that my cell phone service is spotty in the basement where the router resides. So I put the phone on speaker and listened as best I could. Like a rat pushing through a maze, I found the tech support cheese after seventeen minutes and the new, smarter sounding Tech Support Weenie voice tells me we are going to have to restart the system.

TSW: I will now tell you how to restart your system. This is a medium level procedure and will take approximately 3-5 minutes.

Okay

TSW: Can you see your internet router?

Yes

TSW: Please find the power cable on the back of the router and say yes when you’ve found it.

Got it

TSW: I didn’t understand you.

Er…  Yes

TSW: Trace the cable to the electric outlet. Unplug the cable and wait 10 seconds before plugging it back in.

Well, that’s what I did before, but okay

TSW: Did this solve your problem?

NO!

At that point, my spotty cell service affected my ability to clearly hear the next steps in the process. What I am pretty sure it said was for me to disconnect all cables, kick the box across the room, plug it back in and see if any lights were blinking. Repeat until no lights function.

Done!

After I hung up, I went to work early and left this note on the floor:

The good news, there is free wifi at the hotel, but I really wish they would call.

I don’t have a grand list of phobias. But of the things I fear, I’m pretty sure sharks top the list. As a child of the seventies, Jaws really did me in. I love going to the beach and being in the ocean, but constantly find myself scanning the horizon for a fin. I have been deep-sea fishing and enjoyed it even when I heard the eerie music in my mind and braced for the impact from the imaginary megalodon shark about to ram us from underneath.

I’ve been reading the book, In Harm’s Way, which is about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis during World War II. A few years ago a survivor of the event, Edgar Harrell, spoke at my children’s school on Veteran’s Day. His story was amazing. If you don’t know what happened, the ship was sunk by a torpedo and since they were on a covert mission, no one knew to rescue them. This led to the largest recorded shark massacre in history. While I am fascinated by the situation, it leads to all kinds of issues. Could I survive such an event? Take the sharks out of the picture, am I ready to float in the ocean for days?

Then I remembered! I have been trained to use my pants as a flotation device thanks to the Uncle Sam. That was over twenty-five years ago, though… can I still do it?

I decided to test my skill. After all, I fly over the ocean sometimes, I might need to use this someday. It pays to be prepared. The weather is perfect – why not? To my closet to fetch a pair of dungarees. In order to do this right, I have to be wearing them. If I survive the wreck, I won’t have my carry-on. Into the pool I go fully clothed.

First observation, it is hard to tread water with shoes on. You would think they would be an aid as paddles (especially my size 13’s), yet they tend to be more of an anchor.

Second, it is difficult to stay afloat and remove your shoes. Always wear slip-on shoes or flip-flops if there is a high probability of emergency flotation.

Third, taking off your pants in the water can lead to some rollovers – it is tricky to both hold your nose and disrobe.

Forth, tying off your pant legs is fairly easy. Inflating them while staying topside is not. I am not asthmatic, but I must have the lung capacity of a baby armadillo.

Fifth, you should always wear a Jethro Clampett belt. I am ditching leather for rope immediately. That will be the only way to secure the waist tight enough to hold air.

I am happy to tell you that should I ever find myself in the ocean with pants, I will likely live to tell about it unless I see a circling fin. The trial was a complete success. Quite proud of myself, I exited the pool and would like to share just a few more observations. Unlike me, you should probably choose a friend, relative or close neighbor’s pool, not a nearby community pool. The reason for this is you will find wet pants that have been used as a flotation device are nearly impossible to untie and put back on, which makes for a disquieting two-mile walk home.

Oh, and you should probably notify the police or get a permit as if you are having a fireworks display or parade. They take a dim view to a wet, pantless man walking home late at night.

If, by the title, you are expecting to read a philosophical debate about the origin of man, you have come to the wrong place, my friend. Portsong isn’t that deep and neither am I. Being somewhat near the ocean, one cannot dig in our fair town without hitting marshy, useless saltwater. Likewise, if you dig into me, all you get is blank stares, a shrug of the shoulders, and an incoherent grunt or two.

I do like blogging, though. It’s freeform nature resonates with me. If someone stood over me and gave me specifics (AKA – school), my pen would quickly run dry. With my blog, I can do whatever I darn well please. Sometimes what I write strikes a chord with people and sometimes a piece stands on an island of loneliness – a masterpiece waiting to be read and appreciated (or not).

I don’t obsess with stats, but I have my favorite thing to check. I like seeing where people come from in the world and how they got here. Many times, the only listing is “unknown search terms”. But every once in a glorious while, I get to see what people Googled to get here… and I laugh at them.

It’s all in the title.

ob·fus·cate [ob-fuh-skeyt, ob-fuhs-keyt] verb (used with object)

1. to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy.
2. to make obscure or unclear: to obfuscate a problem with extraneous information.

Everything in red is exactly as typed (misspellings and all)

Take for instance some poor kid doing a report on the civil war. He typed: colonel and from yhe south and got to a post about Colonel Birdwhistle from my books.

One kid wanted to know if andrew jackson electable today and found out that I think Andrew Jackson was a presidential man’s man.

Women still Google Tom Selleck:                did tom selleck have curly hair & are there a lot of women who don’t like tom selleck?   I wonder what they thought about:  Tom Selleck owes me an Apology.

Here are some other funnies:

you like a pirate                     He’s a Pirate 

thou shalt now curse          Thou Shalt Not Curse at Missionaries

what dogs get fined when they get runned over              A story of my dog, Winston

leggings via brazil            Prospector Dances & Brazilians in Leggings

stuff under sink at hospital         Hospital 101 for the Incurably Immature

what is irony ice cream     Irony & Ice Cream

I find this one alarming: touching sleeping teen. If their intent was bad, I hope Don’t Poke a Sleeping Teen pacified them.

I have no idea where this person went: meat loaf progeny

By far, my two favorite were these:

This is one search, so I don’t know why the phrases were paired together:

“job physical” “prostate exam”   Either way, I’m sure he enjoyed Shaking Hands with your Urologist

♦

And the chef d’oeuvre! A real gem! The Magnum Opus!

Yes someone got to my blog by typing:

youfart  

Although he hasn’t found the space bar, I feel like Can You Fart at Cotillion was written just for him.

Subterfuge? Prestidigitation?

I don’t know, I just like coming up witty titles.

Photo Credit: Michael Keen

If, by the title, you are expecting to read a philosophical debate about the origin of man, you have come to the wrong place, my friend. Portsong isn’t that deep and neither am I. Being somewhat near the ocean, one cannot dig in our fair town without hitting marshy, useless saltwater. Likewise, if you dig into me, all you get is blank stares, a shrug of the shoulders, and an incoherent grunt or two.

I do like blogging, though. It’s freeform nature resonates with me. If someone stood over me and gave me specifics (AKA – school), my pen would quickly run dry. With my blog, I can do whatever I darn well please. Sometimes what I write strikes a chord with people and sometimes a piece stands on an island of loneliness – a masterpiece waiting to be read and appreciated (or not).

I don’t obsess with stats, but I have my favorite thing to check. I like seeing where people come from in the world and how they got here. Many times, the only listing is “unknown search terms”. But every once in a glorious while, I get to see what people Googled to get here… and I laugh at them.

It’s all in the title.

ob·fus·cate [ob-fuh-skeyt, ob-fuhs-keyt] verb (used with object)

1. to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy.
2. to make obscure or unclear: to obfuscate a problem with extraneous information.

Everything in red is exactly as typed (misspellings and all)

Take for instance some poor kid doing a report on the civil war. He typed: colonel and from yhe south and got to a post about Colonel Birdwhistle from my books.

One kid wanted to know if andrew jackson electable today and found out that I think Andrew Jackson was a presidential man’s man.

Women still Google Tom Selleck:                did tom selleck have curly hair & are there a lot of women who don’t like tom selleck?   I wonder what they thought about:  Tom Selleck owes me an Apology.

Here are some other funnies:

you like a pirate                     He’s a Pirate 

thou shalt now curse          Thou Shalt Not Curse at Missionaries

what dogs get fined when they get runned over              A story of my dog, Winston

leggings via brazil            Prospector Dances & Brazilians in Leggings

stuff under sink at hospital         Hospital 101 for the Incurably Immature

what is irony ice cream     Irony & Ice Cream

I find this one alarming: touching sleeping teen. If their intent was bad, I hope Don’t Poke a Sleeping Teen pacified them.

I have no idea where this person went: meat loaf progeny

By far, my two favorite were these:

This is one search, so I don’t know why the phrases were paired together:

“job physical” “prostate exam”   Either way, I’m sure he enjoyed Shaking Hands with your Urologist

♦

And the chef d’oeuvre! A real gem! The Magnum Opus!

Yes someone got to my blog by typing:

youfart  

Although he hasn’t found the space bar, I feel like Can You Fart at Cotillion was written just for him.

Subterfuge? Prestidigitation?

I don’t know, I just like coming up witty titles.

Photo Credit: Michael Keen

I came home the recently to find this at my doorstep.

I know!  This is an outrage!

It may seem innocuous initially with its flowery packaging and appealing colors, but read between the lines.  Oh, can’t see it clearly? This, my good readers, is a box of scent.  Why is that a big deal, you might ask?  Because, consider the implications of someone giving you a scent meant to cover your current odor. That’s right! Somebody thinks I stink!

Where did this come from? What dastardly knave would leave such a foul gesture on the front step of another?

I know my wife didn’t order something so frivolous when she already has an olfactory sensation in me! I’m like a bed of roses, just ask me.

Did the UPS guy drop it off, and if I so, what does he think of me now?

Is there a scent fairy that didn’t make it into the legend books or that movie where they all teamed up?  A Santa Clause for the nose, as it were.

Why does a box of fragrance smell an awful lot like cardboard? What kind of rip-off is that?

These were the questions I asked myself as I sat beside my box, my anger growing every minute. I began plotting how I would discover the origin of this unwanted gift. I figured it had to be one of my neighbors. We have two that come to mind when anything suspect happens on our street. Two doors down on either side are families that each have their own quirks. We all have those neighbors, so I won’t detail their eccentricities. Suffice it to say that when the media shows up at my door because the police are leading them off in chains, I will NOT say, “Oh, they were normal folks. I can’t believe they found eleven bodies in their yard.”

Since I couldn’t be positive it was either of them, I spent the better part of the afternoon parading up and down the street holding the conspicuous box in my arms so all could see. I watched the eyes of everyone I met – it’s all in the eyes. Each neighbor I encountered looked at the box suspiciously as we engaged in meaningless small-talk, but I never ran across the guilty expression that would pin-point the offender. All-in-all, it was a wasted effort and most likely branded me as neighborhood weirdo number three (if I don’t already wear that label).

When I arrived back at home, I expected the usual June Cleaver welcome. I did not receive anything so grand, my wife was more focused on the box in my arms. For all the attention I got, I may as well have been the UPS delivery guy – whose opinion of me is now as questionable as my odor must be.

“Oh good, the plug-ins are here. Every one in the house has run out,” she said as she took the box and repaired to another room with nary a kind word for me.

What kind of marriage of deception is this? For twenty-two years I lived under the delusion that I was responsible for the lovely smells around here only to discover that in the opinion of my beloved, I stink.

Oh well, even though I now know it isn’t me, I do like the smell of Warm Vanilla Sugar wafting from every outlet in the house…

Portsong will never host a World Cup. Our only stadium is open air, mowed by livestock, and has no bleachers.  It would take too long to mark Hargit’s Field and we simply aren’t prepared for the crush of humanity that such a tournament would bring. I’m not one of those Americans who hates soccer. I really have no problem with it and would be okay if it took hold. With all of the kids playing and international flavor in the U.S., it really is amazing that professional soccer can’t seem to get off the ground.

So what’s the problem? Why does the average football or baseball fan have such a disregard for the sport? Some say it is too slow. Okay, I get that – we like things fast and instant. But nothing is slower than baseball. When you have the league itself changing rules to speed up the game, you know you are in the paint-drying business.

Last week, I watched a little bit of Ghana vs. Germany and think I stumbled on a few things.

First, what is the deal with the goaltender wearing a different uniform? What makes that guy special – either you are on the team or you’re not! If they do that so the ref can tell who gets to touch the ball with their hands, they need new refs. Can these guys not identify one guy quickly enough to call a handball? They usually wear Mickey Mouse gloves anyway, which kinda stand out. No, the refs aren’t the problem. There is clearly some socialistic motive behind the goalie’s garb.

Second, the flopping. It has become a big topic of conversation around here. I have never seen grown, athletic men act like such drama queens in all my days. It is crazy how when their shin gets touched, their arms fly up wildly before they flop, drop, and roll. Have you further noticed that each victim assumes the same paralyzed position holding their knee until they realize the call didn’t go their way? Then instantly, they pop back up and resume play at full speed as if a good, old-fashion faith healer has smacked them on the forehead and made them well. Hockey and Basketball have instituted rules to punish such behavior. Since they have yellow and red, maybe soccer could give a pink card for flopping.

Lastly, it’s the low scoring and the fact that a game can end in a tie. Nobody likes that. Ties are like whacking off the last five minutes of a movie and saying The End. Somebody has to win!

I’ve come to the rescue with a simple idea that kills all three objections. Here is what soccer should do. If a player flops, he has to stay face-down on the ground motionless like a kid playing freeze tag until the guy with the big gloves comes over and tags him. Think about that! Empty nets while the goalies run all over the field bringing players back to life means higher scores. Motionless players make for built-in impediments – therefore, more contact – which leads to additional flopping and more speed bumps. Soccer has just become a high-scoring, contact sport, with frozen men lying face down all over the field! Genius.

And if anyone shows up in a different uniform, they have to lay down in the center of the field and balance the ball on their lips as a tee for kick-off. That’ll teach him teamwork.

If I can get to someone with this idea, we’ll have a thirty team mega-league in the United States by 2016.

Photo credit: Leon Rugilo

I had a dream!

Note my declaration is past tense meaning there is no similarity in weight or profundity to Dr. King’s Dream. No, I had a dream that scared me enough to rouse me from my deep slumber to ensure the security of my homestead. You know, that hazy stumble to check the locks on the doors, ignoring the fact that if someone wanted in badly enough, a locked door wouldn’t stop them.

Because I didn’t fully wake, I don’t recall the entire dream, mostly just the impact it had on me – then later, the impact it had on others. I am a very deep sleeper. For years I have said that comes from having a clean conscience. I’m not sure that is true, I just say it to make myself sound righteous.

This dream involved a thief. But he wasn’t just any thief, he was after one thing: our light bulbs. I have heard of houses being stripped of all their copper tubing, never their bulbs. We switched to compact fluorescent long before the government told us we had to. I wonder if I harbor a subconscious grudge about paying more for light bulbs now and my dream was anti-government.  Or maybe I’m against the technology that takes ten to fifteen seconds to brighten the room whenever I flip a switch.  I’m like everyone else, when I want light, I want it immediately. Who knows, but this thief had the old time black mask. I somehow saw him in my mind before I got up, which should have been my first clue that he didn’t exist.

Retrieving my trusty Louisville Slugger from behind the bed, I slowly walked out to the den and checked one door, club at the ready. (Yes, I am an Army certified expert marksman who doesn’t keep a weapon in the house – unless you are a bad guy, and then I have an arsenal.) Door one, secure. Stumble on to door two – secure. The kitchen is declared safe. Front door, fine. Back door, copacetic. Even in my foggy state, something told me not to try the stairs…I didn’t listen to myself.

I stormed downward, ‘Old Hickory’ at the ready, around the strategically positioned sectionals all facing the TV screen, all the way to the door which was tightly locked. Hmmm, nothing to worry about. A yawn. A scratch. I drag my old bat like the Mighty Casey trudging back to the dugout and went to sleep.

Little did I know that to the television watchers in the basement, I had become the entertainment for the evening. I never realized they were there.

Two things to preface the story:

1 Because I rise so early. I typically fall asleep long before the rest of my family. Often in a chair or on the floor where I pick myself up from a puddle of drool, then wearily migrate to bed…which is a problem because:

2. It’s kind of a nightly crapshoot as to whether I have the acumen to dress properly….

I don’t know who was in my basement, or what stage of dress I was in. I haven’t heard from the sheriff’s office, so I assume I was covered. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the bulb thief himself was down there eating my chips and drinking my Dr. Pepper!

If I had had one brain synapse firing, I could have just flipped a switch and known if my bulbs were gone.

But I would have had to wait those accursed 10 to 15 seconds!

“I can only find three leg hairs” observed my youngest from the back seat. The chemotherapy killing her tumors also attacks any fast-moving cells – thus the hair loss, fingernail lines, and white blood cell reduction. She is twelve and had kind of fuzzy, blond legs a couple of months ago. Her smooth legs weren’t troubling to her, just something she noticed.

“Well, that would come in handy if you cared about that stuff yet,” I said, glad she didn’t.

“Why do girls shave their legs anyway?” she wondered. “I mean, who started that whole thing?”

A very interesting question. Who did start that? I assume Eve had leg hair when Adam popped the question. Do you think when they ate from the tree, not only did they figure out they were naked, but Adam also noticed her furry legs for the first time? Did he made a snide remark about Eve being only a slight step up from his former companion, the chimpanzee? Every guy knows the remorse of SCS – Stupid Comment Syndrome. The moment you say something to your wife and immediately wish you could turn back time to retract it. Adam’s comment sent Eve into a tizzy trying to scrape the hair off with a stick while stitching together the fig leaf bikini we see in all the pictures. If God created enmity between woman and serpent, imagine the enmity Adam created with his wisecrack.

Ah, here is where I began a quest for knowledge. I had no interest in important knowledge, anyone can get that. The learning I sought is practically irrelevant outside of bar bets, board games, and trivia competitions. When did women first start shaving their legs?

Any thoughts?

Where do I turn? My best friends and cohorts in the immaterial: Google and Wikipedia, of course. Google brought me facts that I have to believe. It seems that women were so covered before the turn of the 20^th century that it wasn’t necessary for them to shave – their body hair was kind of a honeymoon surprise. But as hemlines raised in the early 1900’s, razor sales increased. I can buy that.

The more compelling facts I found were about why women began shaving their underarm hair. They involve motion pictures, flappers, and old western women of ill repute. I would explain, but everyone likes a cliffhanger. My true audience is only twelve and wanted to know about leg hair anyway.

Besides, while on my search, I found a website called Mental Floss. It is like a Mythbusters of the inane. My evening was shot. I learned why bacon smells so good, 15 reasons we love Mr. Rogers, and why baby names have become increasingly female-sounding. Forget Wikipedia, some of that might actually be true. I have a new homepage!

After about three hours of copious research into absolutely nothing worthwhile, my daughter asked me why women started shaving their legs and I had to admit that I could tell her all why cows moo with accents, but had crammed so much useless knowledge into my finite brain, I had forgotten why women shaved their legs.

She left disappointed. Back to Wikipedia to start over…

But wait – an article titled, Do Racehorses Really Pee All That Much simply has to be read!

I read an interesting article about Spanish royalty this week and it got me thinking about monarchies.  The article specifically mentioned the king’s 8 year-old granddaughter who was soon to become a princess. She won’t rule yet, but there have been many examples in history of children leading countries. Have you ever thought about that? I think of my kids when they were eight and would be very concerned about the consequences of them having absolute power. Worse yet, what would I have done as a reigning monarch at seven? (Or now, for that matter)

It happened all over the globe! Seriously, did any of their subjects think these good ideas?

Henry III assumed the throne of England when he was nine.

Puyi became Emperor of China when he was two years-old.

Ivan VI became the Czar of Russia at two months old

Alfonso VIII was named King of Spain the day he was born.

2 Kings 22-23 tells us of Josiah, who became King of Judah at eight.

According to Dennis the Constitutional Peasant, subjects lived in a dictatorship – “a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working class…” Before he was repressed, Dennis was reminding us that peasants had no choice in who became their king. Sounds vaguely familiar, but I’m not political, so I will move on.

I know all of these children had advisors, but do you wonder what laws were transcribed inside the inner walls of the castle? Some might have been enacted, most were probably transcribed, agreed upon in the ruler’s presence, then discarded knowing the little king wouldn’t remember after his nap.

Edicts like these come to mind:

“The mere mention of peas, green beans, or brussel sprouts will be cause for eight lashes!”

“If I call for a toy and it is not handed to me in less than 10 seconds, the entire court shall have to walk like frogs for a day!”

“Bed time is when I fall asleep on my throne and not a moment before!”

For most child rulers, there would have been a whole legal treatise for passing gas. In fact, it would have been so overwhelming and encompassing that given the proper historical context, it could have replaced the Magna Carta as the defining law of the modern world.

We have rules in our house. You probably think that since I have all girls, our parental charter hasn’t needed gas addendums. You would be wrong. In fact, the doctor where my youngest is being treated completely shot any control over our gas emission laws with one simple, medical edict, “Gas is good.” In his opinion, it is more advantageous for the body to expel gas than hold it in. In the immortal words of Dr. Shrek, “Better out than in, I always say.”

Huh? So now, any hope we have of spending time in the absence of foul clouds is ruined. Our patient is the queen right now subscribes to the good doctor’s manner of treatment…when it suits her. We peasants bow down, joining in when nature calls under threat of law. All of us except mother, who is medically unhealthy, but socially proper. Even the doctor’s advice can’t woo her to the dark side.

In the absence of a real point to this post, I leave you with two thoughts:

1. Gas is good.

2. “Strange women, lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for government!”