The letter from my daughter’s first grade teacher said: “We will be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with a special project. Each student will be asked to build a ‘Leprechaun Trap!’” A Leprechaun Trap! Hot diggidy dog! It’s supposed to encourage her imagination and ability to write about a sequence of steps. But I don’t know why it kept talking about her. I GET TO BUILD A LEPRECHAUN TRAP!!! WOOHOO!
40 wishes from a newly-crowned 40-year-old
Forty years old. Four big decades. Whew! A major milestone like this is a chance to look back and remember where you’ve come from, and all the things you’ve been through. It’s also a time to look forward — to not dwell on the past, but to focus on the future and where you’re going. Life is meant to be lived, by golly, so in honor of my 40th birthday, I give you “40 wishes for my 40th year.” 1. To invent something really revolutionary and world changing. Like a manly boa, or a Swiss Army shoe. You know, a shoe you can use as a can opener or to fight off bandits.
The ‘genius’ idea that undoubtably wasn’t
Everything seems like an amazing idea when it’s just that … an idea. In its infancy. Still formulating. Percolating in the recesses of your mind. Where you roll it around a bit, think it over and finally scream, “Daggone, this is genius!” Sometimes it IS genius. Look at da Vinci, Einstein, the guy who came up with “Rocky and Bullwinkle.” They shook that bag of rocks atop their head and out popped ideas that changed the world. But here’s the rub: How do the rest of us schnooks recognize the difference between “genius” and cockamamie ideas dreamt up in a bout of deliriousness, or a mild-overdose of cough medicine? You know, ideas we THINK are genius — Einstein-squared kind of stuff — but are more like Bullwinkle droppings.
When it rains, it pours broken stuff
Grrrrr! I’m mad. Mad at the universe. Because the universe is mad at me. It’s the only thing that could explain it. The only thing that makes sense. All the things that have broken or gone wrong in the last couple of weeks. One right after another. A waterfall of malfunctioning mayhem. Not quite Murphy’s Law — “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” No, this strange phenomenon needs a new term. Something like: “Simultaneous Broken Crap Syndrome.”
On a quest to become a hopeless romantic … by Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is in February. I had to be told. I had to be told by my wife. That’s not good. “You mean it’s not in May?!?” I said. “I thought for sure it was in May! Did they move it this year?” “No … um … it’s kind of always in February,” she said. “That’s awfully close to Christmas,” I told her. “Someone should look into that.”
The life-robbing, ‘Boardwalk Empire’-watching marathon
My wife said: Every hour spent watching television takes 22 minutes off your life. She told me this while we were watching television. I almost choked on a cookie. Nearly proved her right. Twenty-two minutes. Could it be? She had heard this somewhere. Some study. It looked at how many hours of television people watched. How this sedentary, slothful activity affects our health. (I wanted to know what “sedentary” meant, but couldn’t find a dictionary in the digital TV listings.)
BDE: Getting in touch with my ‘Best Day Ever’
There’s something post-apocalyptic about January. Maybe it’s because Christmas is over. Maybe it’s because a new year is always a little bit scary. It stretches out toward the horizon, long and endless, full of unpredictable twists. Maybe it’s because summer and vacations and swimming pools seem so far away. The weather is miserable. Usually. And when the weather is great — it’s been pretty great! — something still comes along to ruin it. Does any other state get pollen blizzards in January? Not like Florida. Gesundheit!
Denial, and the 40-year-old kick in the keaster
Whew! Whew! Whew! Breathe. Slowly. Deeply. Whew! Whew! Whew! Isn’t that what they teach you in birthing classes? And Yoga? And if you’re about to jump out of an airplane? Or be run over by a herd of buffalo? Control your breathing. Take slow, deep breaths. Relax. Whatever you do … don’t freakin’ freak out!
Attack of the new car bells and whistles
To buy a new car or not to buy a new car? That is Shakespeare’s great cliché … I mean struggle. Because I don’t really want a new car. And I don’t entirely need one. But it’s beginning to look like that’s the future. Yeesh! I don’t drive all that much. A trip to the grocery store is a long journey for me. The mileage on my cars is so low that mechanics wonder how I managed to roll back the digital odometers.
You want predictions? I’ll give you predictions
No Mayan apocalypse, eh? And I was really banking on that one. Had been prepping. What am I going to do with all these cans of soup, dried beans and gas masks? Darn the world for not ending like it was supposed to! Now I have to go back to work, actually buy new socks and figure out why my motion-detecting floodlights no longer detect motion. Frammer jammer!