Now comes the time when talk turns to getting out of town like you’ve robbed a bank. Travel books come home from the library. Credit cards are polished and prayed over — “Please have money on you! Please!” It’s vacation-planning season. Time to start thinking about where to go, how to get there and most of all, how to screw it up when you arrive. I love vacation-planning. Almost as much as the trip itself. So as we all ready for excursions, here are some planning tips from my years of experience: • Make sure you get your dates wrong. You know, make a hotel reservation in some far-off land with checkin the day AFTER you get there. I did this once. My wife and I were going to the Keys. We had booked a house in the historic area. (I say “we” liberally. I was the culprit.) When we got there, they told us “we” weren’t expected until the next day. Nothing is more relaxing than starting a vacation homeless. • Pick a place with lots of wildlife. Indoors! Like the cabin we rented in the North Carolina mountains a couple years ago. Beautiful place. Little stream running by. Luscious landscape. And at night, flying squirrels used the rafters for dune buggy races. Mountain avalanches make less noise. We expected to click on the lights to find base-jumping squirrels leaping off the giant deer antlers perched above the living room. “Yippeee!” My daughter still asks if we can go […]
How about a week of Mother’s Day
And now the day in which we give many thanks to moms everywhere. (And try to do something nice, like make a huge Mother’s Day mess in the kitchen that mom will feel obligated to clean up — she knows her family is a bunch of incompetent boobs.) Happy Mother’s Day! You deserve it! You really do, moms. You never get the credit you deserve. For taking on the challenge. Shoot, you would have been better off signing up for a polar exploration or a trip to Mars. It would be easier. Less physically demanding. And at some point the mission would end. There’s no retirement in motherhood! You took the job anyway. Thanks. But one day to celebrate you?!? Pshaw! It should be a week. A celebration of the stages of motherhood: Day 1 – For all you bore, lugging us around in the womb. A parasitic bowling ball. That’s what we were. We know it. But did you complain? Never to our faces. You did it with grace. Didn’t charge us rent. Acted like it was the most wonderful thing in the world. Day 2 – For giving birth to us. The “exit strategy” for bringing a child into the world reads like a horror movie. Doesn’t matter how you spin it. Shoot, I got a giant gumball stuck in my mouth once and just about gave up on life. But you went through with it. You got us out, and many of you still carry the physical […]
Never trust Little Joe
At 41, I’ve decided it’s finally time to start listening to my mother. At least on some things. Like Little Joe. Her cat. Little Joe threw his knee out. How he did this, no one knows. In fact, no one even knew cats had knees until this. My mother worried the vet would think she did something to him. Because how else can you explain a cat whose knee started popping out of socket. But take one look at Little Joe and you realize if any cat can do it, he can. He’s pure mischief. His coat is midnight black — like a bandit. You picture him with jewel thieves in exotic cities pulling off million-dollar heists. As they bask in their riches, they would always toast, “Here’s to Little Joe!” He has yellow eyes. He slinks about low to the ground. Like a panther. Or a snake! I think he knows how to do card tricks. I think he’s the one responsible for pickpocketing downtown. For global warming. For that wily computer virus that steals credit card info. Oh, and my mother reports he’s not using the litter pan anymore. He’s peeing on her favorite chair! That Little Joe. Who knows how he got injured. He climbs up on roofs and leaps off like he’s base-jumping. Without a parachute! He’s lucky to have knees at all. So he’s been housebound. Under strict doctor’s orders. Keep that miscreant inside. Make him rest. See if his knee heals up on its […]
All TV screened out
As I took it out of the box, I wondered if I had made a mistake. Another screen? What was I thinking? Until now, my house only had one TV. That’s far below the American average of 33.5 per household. (Why do so many Americans have half a TV?) No TVs in the bedrooms. No TVs in the bathroom. No TVs in the toaster oven. There was one in the living room, and that’s where all the fighting took place. Saturday mornings. When my daughter wants to watch cartoons and I want to watch soccer. “Mom!” I would say, stomping off. “She’s hogging the TV again!” I always lose, then trudge off to watch a game on the computer. It’s not the same. So when we took some toys and a little kid kitchen playset out of the loft, I decided to put a TV up there. Screen No. 2. The fighter preventer. Oh goody! But as I pulled the new set out of the box — a TV that could miraculously connect to the Internet all by itself, and patch into the Hubble space telescope, and tell me the future, and synthetically create a PB&J sandwich at the touch of a button — I wondered if I had made the right decision. Shouldn’t I be eliminating screens, not adding them? Because this wasn’t really the second screen in the house. There was also the computer, as well as the iPad. And the Kindle. Some days I bring the laptop […]
It’s not a sprint: The end of another college year
This is college. The end of the semester. Down to the final two weeks. Before summer sets in. Re-charge time. But for now — these last couple weeks — it’s mayhem. All hands on deck. Jostling and bumping and frantic paper writing and frantic paper grading. Student. Teacher. It doesn’t matter. It always reminds me of the inside of that tornado in “The Wizard of Oz.” Swirling. Cows flying. Bits of debris and wicked witches on broomsticks. If you look carefully at that scene, there’s a college student racing to turn in a final exam. Look carefully. When you work on a college campus, this time of year always takes you back. It was when you realized that the old cliché, “It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” was complete bunk. Because that was true three months ago, when there was an entire semester ahead of you. When you should have listened to old clichés. But with two weeks to go, it WAS a sprint! A 26.2-mile sprint! How often I hear someone say, “I have to write 15 papers, do 17 presentations, take 11 final exams, complete a portfolio that encapsulates my entire college career, find dark matter in the universe … and I have 20 minutes to do it. So … anyone for coffee?” Remember those days? And you always managed. Somehow we got it done. College students have the ability to bend the space-time continuum. To defy physics in an eternal quest for that miraculous Hail Mary. […]
An open letter to technology everywhere
Dear Technology, I am beginning to despise you. And everyone else does, too. Please don’t take it personally. It’s just you’re making us crazy. We really want to be friends — to get along and have picnics together. But you don’t make it easy. You’re always ringing and buzzing in our pockets. Crying out for attention. Take your “email,” for example. Who are you fooling? The “e” doesn’t stand for “electronic.” It stands for “egad.” Because that’s the reaction I have whenever I realize there are 472 new messages in my inbox. It’s only been 12 minutes since I deleted the last 472! Do you know that makes me wet my pants. I panic. I rush to my computer. I know something incredibly valuable awaits me. A message from the lottery about my millions … even though I don’t play the lottery. An invitation to join arctic explorers on a secret mission. A message from the president about an idea to solve world hunger using spare ketchup packets from fast food restaurants. Something good, right? But there’s nothing but junk. Explain that to me? Or this one: My house is “wireless,” right? So why does it have more wires than ever before? I had to have my phone lines upgraded for a new service that everyone in my area is being upgraded to. When the technician arrived he asked why he was there. “Why? Because your company said we had to wait here between 9 and noon so you could […]
The superhero housing … out by the interstate
My wife the pre-school teacher gets asked all kinds of questions. But I loved this one: “Where do all the superheroes live?” She didn’t know how to respond. I think it struck her as slightly ridiculous. “Little boys and their superheroes. Goodness me!” Yeah, I thought to myself as she told me, where do all the superheroes live? Great question little kid. Don’t you just love the mind of a child that age? That it’s so simple and unburdened by the problems of, say, a second grader: What am I going to wear today? Should I use this color of red Crayon or that color of red Crayon? Or my problems, which usually involve a bill, or a work project, or why I pressure washed the back deck before the oak trees finished dropping 17 tons of yellow mash. (I mean, what was I thinking!?!) Talk about not a care in the world. I so wanted to answer that question: “Well, a couple live out by the interstate, near the outlet mall. One’s on the island, in a cave, powered by … nuclear-powered … bat guano …” (My superhero stories are not very elaborate or good.) But it got me thinking like a grownup kid: Where DO all the superheroes live? Do they meet for coffee on Saturdays to compare stories and bat around ideas? “You know, these new corrective lenses not only help my nearsightedness, but also focus my eye lasers when I’m cutting through steel.” Do they do […]
The nighttime get-ready, get-ready
Is my will to get the kid to bed greater than the kid’s will to stay out of bed? That’s the age-old question, isn’t it? Question? Ha! Wrestling match. I was wrestling with it the other night. My wife was out, and I was on bedtime duty. Failing! “Please go start getting ready for bed so when your mother comes home she doesn’t think I’m an incompetent swallowtail buffoon.” I said this after I told my daughter to turn off the TV. At least twice. Maybe 15 times. “Fine,” she said. Not angry. Just resigned. She clicked it off. I was impressed. I’m a dad with superpowers. Kid just listened to me! I’m a commanding presence. Should have been a general with tanks and troops. Then she followed me upstairs … Huh? “Child, what are you doing!?!” I asked. “Following you upstairs,” was the answer. Ask a stupid question … “No, no. See, WHY are you following me upstairs? I asked you to go get ready for bed … downstairs … where YOUR stuff is.” But I made a tactical error: I asked it as we kept walking … up the stairs. When we reached the top she answered: “I don’t know.” I’m a swallow-tail buffoon! “Go downstairs and get ready before your mother comes home and decides to auction us off on eBay!” “Fine,” she said. Matter-of-fact. She marched off. Down the stairs. I’m not incompetent. It just takes a little time to get my message across. Get this […]
Trying to create a new ‘Star Wars’ generation
Dads often expect children to follow their favorite sports team. Or their college. Or even their favorite beer. It can be fanatical. Extreme. “You will get that Gator tattoo or you’re grounded!” “But dad, I’m only 7!” I’ve never been like that. Except … I do have one demand of my 8-year-old daughter. And it’s non-negotiable. She must be a “Star Wars” fan. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to make it happen. I was thinking about this while reading a story about the next installment of “Star Wars.” It told me nothing — only that it will be released in 2015 and is set 30 years after the original series. I read the story over and over again, hoping it held more information. Maybe a secret message. Maybe if I read it upside down. Maybe if I had a “Star Wars” decoder ring! In an instant I was blasted back to a galaxy far, far away. I was 4 years old in 1977 when the first “Star Wars” came out. I consider it my TRUE birth day. For the next decade I dreamed of light sabers. Millennium Falcons. Princess Leia sweeping me off my feet and feeding me grapes (imported from the Dagobah System, of course.) But my daughter couldn’t care less. So whenever I get the chance, I try to reel her in. Like when we’re buying something for a friend’s birthday. “We should get him a ‘Star Wars’ toy!” I suggest. “Oh yeah,” she says. “He’ll love […]
Goodbye to the Mustang
It was my first car. A white 1965 Ford Mustang. I was 15, and couldn’t even drive it alone. It had a puny 6-cylinder engine. It would have struggled to beat a sewing machine in a head-to-head race. And if it was uphill, forget it! My mother intended it that way. She didn’t want her boys to have speed. My brother had a nearly identical Mustang — just as glorious to look at. Just as slow. But, man, you felt good driving down the road in that thing. Like you were the coolest thing in the world. Windows down. Elbow propped on the door. Other arm stretched across the passenger seat. Maybe there was a lady over there. (Usually there wasn’t.) Cool wind through your hair. Good tunes on the radio. People watching as you rolled by. Man! Then a hubcap would break loose, sprinting into traffic and causing automotive chaos. Like all old cars, my Mustang had its quirks. It could lose a hubcap while standing still. There were other “eccentricities.” The carburetor was prone to asthma attacks. The car would leak even when it wasn’t raining. And when it did rain, the brakes flipped a coin to decide whether to show up for work. Tails you lose … goodbye red light! What a car. I’ve kept it all these years. For the longest time it had been parked at my brother’s house, unused and forgotten. Needing work. Needing love. Needing someone to drive with an elbow out the […]