I don’t ask for much each Christmas. Just a few essentials, a couple luxuries … and a pony! (Still don’t have that last one.) The little kid in me just can’t help but make a list, so here’s a sampling of this year’s: • Stank-O-Matic 3000 Gas Mask and Hazardous Materials Suit — As the father of a little girl who turns 1 on Dec. 26, I can honestly say the first year of dealing with diapers has not been as bad as expected. Sure, it’s never a pleasant experience, but I can’t recall a single Category 5 diaper — the kind with smells that will warp glass or make the threads of your clothes disintegrate. But that said, I know the Dark Lord of the Poops — who can burn nostrils and devastate the land in more ways than one — could pop up at any moment. I need to be prepared and sure could use a Stank-O-Matic, just in case. • Hope — In the coming year I would like to finish at least one project around the house. But the truth is, I have no hope. So I just need a little of it to keep my spirits up. Everyone needs hope, and I need a little extra for my wife, too. (Also, please disregard the large club she has penciled in on her list.) • Sense — I could use a big bag of it. Recently, thanks to my co-worker Mike Horn who had to go […]

If this column seems unusually, I don’t know, crappy, I blame the research paper. Yes, the research paper ate my column. I’ve begun a graduate program in media management through the University of Missouri’s Journalism School. It’s all online, designed for working-class stiffs like me who don’t have the time to move up to the frozen tundra of Missouri and who have always preferred going to class in their boxer shorts at all hours of the night. That, in fact, was the marketing ploy that sold me on the program — “midnight in your underwear.” Anyway, I’m really enjoying it, but it takes a bit of adjustment to become a student again. At Flagler College, I’m surrounded by students all the time. But they look up to me as a mentor, a genius and a dashing man of wisdom, which is what the sign on my door reads. I say things to them like, “look here, whippersnapper” or “at what point did you realize your brain had fallen out?” I coach them, and scold them, and they on a weekly basis let the air out of my tires.

It’s always been a fine shed, capable of holding immense quantities of bolts I’ll never use, bags of solidified concrete that I figure scientists of the future will bring back to life and every piece of odd-shaped wood the world has ever known. My shed is a modern art do-it-yourself kit waiting for assembly. But the last year or so, the old girl has developed some problems, namely that the plywood floor in the back started rotting, collapsing, and swallowing anything in those farthest, deepest, darkest regions of the enclosure.

So, our little boy is all married off. He found a woman who would take him, and he’s a husband now. How funny to think of my brother as a married man. My family has always been good at the divorce thing, but not as proficient with the marriage. Or at least the staying married part. They seem all right with the marriage, but the glue just doesn’t stick that well. But this boy has taken the plunge, and looks like he’ll be just fine. This is the same little kid who used to bring home bottle caps and cigarette butts, infuriating my mother because he kept them all in his desk drawer. This is the kid who used to be a model train fanatic and would dig holes in the backyard to see how much dirt-per-square-inch he could pack on his body. (If only there had been a category for him in the Guinness Book of World Records. He’d be the record holder to this day.) And look how I talk about him: Nostalgically like he’s gone. Like he’s been married off and then moved to Pascaloosa. Like he’s not around anymore and isn’t the same ole’ Scott who’s still digging holes in the backyard and collecting cigarette butts. He does both and he’s still around.

The big day is here. My brother is getting married. Family are coming into town, last minute arrangements are being tended to, I’m trying to write a speech, and my mother is starting to talk like a hyena with a caffeine overdose and a good gulp of helium. All her words run together into one long sentence an auctioneer might utter: “Brian I need you to get with the National Weather Service and make sure it’s going to be warmer than 65 degrees because I don’t want to pack my sweater and I’m not wearing stockings so do whatever you need to including paying them off because you know how I hate the cold and it will ruin everything and I won’t be able to dance with Scott which means he will get a divorce …” To me it sounds like one long answering machine beep and my mind wanders until I hear a voice on the end of the other line demand: “Brian! Did you get all that?” “Are you kidding me?” I ask. “I’m still trying to figure out who you are!”

Goodbye to the Jeep Funny isn’t it how you can get attached to a car. And you don’t even realize how much until the guy from the car dealership drives it off for good. That’s when you think, “I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.” And what would you say anyway? “You’ve been a good one to me, little fella’. I hate to part, but you’re going to a better place. Somewhere where you’ll have a good family, an open field to play in and all the mid-grade fuel and proper oil changes a youngin’ like you can stand.” Funny, isn’t it? You make a decision to get a new car, you’re all decided on getting rid of the old one, and it’s not until you go to get all your stuff out that you realize how much you’re going to miss it. We bought a new car this past weekend after thinking on it for months. The old 1993 Jeep Cherokee was perfect for what it was — a beach vehicle, a dog limo, and ideal for hauling loads of lumber and other materials that snooty models would turn their noses up at. “Monsieur, you will not put that stinky rubbish on my fine carpet. I’m going to Starbucks. You find other transportation.”

If you’re like me, you’ve been consumed by the news recently, and especially politics. It’s become something of an out-of-control sporting event, and I think we’re all kind of feeling it as the mid-term elections approach. Combine politics with Iraq, House E-mail scandals, North Koreans with nuclear weapons, and that mile-wide chunk of rock hurtling toward Topeka (OK, I made that last one up), and you’ve got a good case of information overload. Or, maybe you’re just overloading on the wrong information. Either way, you need a break. We all need a break, and to get away from the hard news. So I’m here to help you purge. To serve as a kind of mental Liquid Plumber for cleansing the mind. You have to get out all that gunk and sticky stuff crammed up there, and the only way to combat serious news is with the exact opposite — ridiculous, outlandish and totally absurd news. Are you up for my simple program? It’ll help! Nothing makes you put it all in perspective better than the grand realization that while the world is full of madness, at least you never crashed your car because the electronic navigation system told you to. Feel better already? This is actually true. Reuters reported that in Germany a motorist was following directions from the global positioning satellite system in the car when it demanded, “Turn right now!” So the driver did … even though there wasn’t a street to turn onto. The car crashed into […]

I read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal everyday just to be dazzled by the riches — both liberal and conservative — that I will never know. News? Who cares about the news? Not when there are $350 bottles of French wine to drink (only not by me) and $2.2 million mini-jets to be flown. (I stare at the pictures and say, “Cool!”) Politics? Who cares? It’s all about money and I have none. These two papers prove it every single day, and it gives me great pleasure to read about it so I can be envious and drool. In the Times’ style section last week they had a feature on cardigan sweaters. I don’t personally like cardigan sweaters. In fact, I pretty aggressively hate them. But that was before I saw one for $500 in the newsprint. Now I want a cardigan. In the Journal, I saw a house in the West Indies on a cliff overlooking the sea that is starting at $10 million. It had a home theater, observatory with retractable dome, grotto with waterfall (I don’t know what a grotto is, but I bet you could put a tiki bar in it) and a dance studio. I ran to the computer to crunch a few numbers, just to see if there was some way I could squeak it out (maybe by cutting out red meat or gas for the cars.) But even if I could get a 30-year loan with a .001 percent […]