Have you ever had a long talk with a chicken? A sit-down. Like you do with your kid. When you have something important to discuss. Like how they haven’t washed behind their ears in 5 years, or why they thought drinking chocolate milk on a white sofa was advisable. That kind of talk. You pull in your chair nice and tight. You sit up straight. You have a look on your face that screams, “I just sat on a giant sandspur!” Serious. Perturbed. Authoritarian. “Here’s my message. You will get it.” This is the talk I must have with my chickens, Ruby and Louise. This is my life. I have hit rock bottom. Why am I’m resorting to lectures with poultry? Oh, it’s simple. My freeloading fowl appear to have entered into retirement. Their laying days might just be behind them. They’ve been at it for a little over three years and the whole egg laying thing doesn’t “suit them” anymore. They’ve hung up the coop. Wait a minute. What am I talking about? They don’t have a coop. They live in a poultry paradise. A big, cozy hen house that occupies part of my shed. And a run. And perches and rocking chairs and good food and 24-hour concierge service with free valet parking and timeshare credits in South Beach. The chickens have it better than I do. And the only thing — the ONLY thing — I ask of them is to produce nice, fresh, delicious eggs. But […]

“So, you’re a 41-year-old man sitting here watching ‘Star Wars’ cartoons,” my wife said. I looked around the room to see who she was talking to. It was a new Disney Channel animated series called “Star Wars Rebels.” Cue theme music. Laser blasters. General awesomeness! I had waited a long time for this show to come on, and now I had to deal with this peppering. “This is how you’re going to spend your night?” she asked. It was more astonishment than actual questioning. Maybe she just wanted me to turn on something more cerebral and sophisticated, like the “Real House Wives of Topeka, Kansas.” Maybe she was trying to understand my fascination. Either way, trashing “Star Wars” was not cool. The power of the Dark Side was strong in her. Because this wasn’t just some “cartoon.” Oh no, this was boyhood fascination and childhood wonder run amuck — a nostalgic, mythic roller coaster to a galaxy far, far away. I note that 6.5 million people around the world watched the premiere of this new “cartoon,” based on the greatest space odyssey ever told. In the U.S., 2.7 million viewers watched. Of that, 1.3 million were kids aged 2-11 and 918,000 were kids age 6-11. Hmmm … maybe those numbers don’t help my cause. That leaves a total of three adults aged 39-45. Two of them went into a coma midway through the show, nearly drowning in a puddle of their own saliva. Was I the third adult, sitting alone […]

The refrigerator in my house is so old that that you still stuff blocks of ice in the bottom to cool it. Well, not that old, but pretty darn close. It does the trick — chills food — but we’ve been thinking it’s time to replace the old boy. And I’m realizing the hard way that a lot goes into buying a refrigerator these days. Refrigerators might be the most technically complex appliances in the house, and you have to first understand the hundreds of different configurations, options, sizes and styles before making a decision. So I thought I would share a few of my tips to help other refrigerator buyers navigate these chilly waters: • For starters, don’t be afraid of all the new technology — the bells with even fancier whistles. In fact, choose a fridge that has more buttons and digital displays than a space shuttle. That way, if anyone from NASA ever visits your house, they will be duly impressed. • Don’t worry about budgets or what you can afford. PSHAW! Because the minute your wife sees the one with the wine chiller and foot massager that is $1,000 more than you planned to spend, that’s all out the window anyway. • Show off in front of the salesman by asking lots of well-researched and knowledgeable questions. Here are a few examples: “So, does this one get, like, really cold?” “What kind of gas mileage does this baby get?” and “If this one is shinier than […]

I think his exact words were, “Hey man, you’re about to rip your shoulder off!” Or maybe it was, “Hey man, that’s a good way to shred your pecs!” Or possibly, “Guy, if you have three brain cells in your head, you won’t do that!” I was “doing” what I don’t do: lifting weights. There are exactly three reasons I don’t. 1) I’m scrawny — like two string beans lashed together by a rubber band. 2) You can rip your shoulder off. 3) Big, huge guys who look like 12 sacks of potatoes strung together with mooring lines stand around and say things like, “Hey man, you’re about to rip your shoulder off!” “So what if I am, big potato sack dude?” I want to say. “Just go over there and dead lift a car or something.” He was right, though. I overloaded one side of the bar with too much weight. I pictured myself toppling over sideways while lifting it. Pinning myself to the floor. My shoulder running for the exit while I meekly called out, “Yo, potato sack dude … Little help over here!” November is no longer so far away. The Tough Mudder is coming. It’s part endurance race. Part obstacle course. Part insanity. There are big walls to get over. Ropes to climb. Things that require muscles and upper body strength. Things I don’t possess. All my life I’ve been a runner. My idea of weightlifting is grocery shopping. Even that’s a stretch. I ask old […]

In the early 1960s, John Q. Email revolutionized the world. He sent an encoded message across a computer network to a user 3 feet away. It said, “Hey, want to hear a joke about my cat?” After 42 messages and 18 cat jokes, email had been invented and John Q. was dead, victim of a co-worker who screamed, “I just want to do some work!” The weapon of choice: a letter opener. Rest in peace, John Q. OK, so I made all that up. But it’s how I envision the scourge we know as email getting its start. And how I picture the demise of the doofus who did this to all of us. Who unleashed this uncontrollable tsunami upon the world. Who figured he was doing everyone “a big favor,” yet really just created a communication vehicle for scams, credit card offers and cryptic messages from co-workers that read, “So, what do you think?” I think you shouldn’t have sent me that email!!! This was the fictional scenario I invented one early morning as I sat at the computer hitting delete as quickly as I could on work and personal email. It was a desperate attempt to keep my inbox messages to no more than six. Part of a pledge I made to always see a sliver of empty space, rather than an endless stream of unanswered messages. This was my solution after hundreds of messages backed up in an electronic junk jam. I feared warnings like: “Your email […]

It was some of the worst news I have ever received in an email. I slumped back in my seat, swallowed hard and contemplated crying. “You did this,” I scolded myself. “You have no one to blame but yourself.” How could I have been such a fool? “Howdy,” the email started out. I should have sensed right then it was bad. I should have Googled “cheap cave for sale Arkansas” and then gone into hiding like a hermit. I should have clicked “delete” straight away. But instead I read on: “Well, school is about to begin yet again and that means we only have 12 weeks from yesterday until TOUGH MUDDER.” AHHHHH! It was the dude at the college who “recruited” me for a team to take on a Tough Mudder — a masochistic series of physical obstacles spread across a muddy 10-mile course. One of those obstacles involves electrified wires dangling down. When you read up on a Tough Mudder, you notice startling similarities to Dante’s nine circles of the underworld. Unfortunately, you don’t notice these similarities until after you paid the non-refundable entry fee. I agreed to it months ago, and only because I was certain a giant comet was going to strike the Earth. I figured it would postpone the Tough Mudder for at least a couple weeks. That would give me time to come up with a proper excuse to get out of it: “Man, I’m on comet cleanup duty. Bummer!” Still no comet! (Stupid doomsday […]

It’s August. It’s hot. The most miserable month in Florida is upon us. People drag themselves about the streets like sloths, dripping in sweat. Our greetings grow more and more testy as the month goes on. “Your face offends me!” is often heard for no good reason. We all hate August. We all dread it. September can never come soon enough. August isn’t a month to “live.” It’s a month to “get through.” The best August is the one you see in the rear view mirror. “Fairwell! Nobody liked you!” But I submit that time is a precious commodity and that we should never wish it away. Not even a hot, horrid month like August. Because this is a month that defines us as Floridians. Without August, we’re just really tan people who like to wear flip-flops. But August is what makes us unique. Makes us tough. Makes us daredevils and warriors. We cut grass in this weather! We’re surviors! We’re Floridians! Hear our sweat roar! So I offer you poor, suffering Floridians a few reasons why we shouldn’t dread August, but instead embrace it and thank it for making us who we are: • Remind yourself that heat is good for the pores. In fact, heat will actually melt away your pores. Plus, people pay good money to have their hair curled. In our blistering heat and unbearable humidity, mother nature’s salon does it for free. I have curls on my head that could be used as springs on […]