There are many who walk among us who fear aliens are coming to Earth under the cloak of secrecy, stealing us and submitting us to heinous examinations like anal probes, and such.  Collectively, I refer to these people as crackpots. 

What could possibly inspire a being, who is evolved enough to venture across the galaxy, to come here and study our colons? 

And vivisection?  Please!  After the first couple studies they’d have seen pretty much everything there is to see. 

If a being is evolved enough to make this intergalactic trek undetected, my guess is it would be as bored with us (as a lower species) as we might ourselves become with goldfish or box turtles.  Similarly, much as some of us create imaginary scenarios for our pets, or even try to train them and control their environments, I think hyper-evolved aliens are more likely to mess with us than study us.

My theory is aliens come to Earth, abduct random samples of our species, reprogram them, and then watch the devastation their minions create.  Case in point?  How about the “Respectful Workplace” phenomenon.

Back in the good old days, a martini-laden executive could rouse himself from a nap at his desk, walk outside his office door, adjust his secretary’s breasts (just to make sure they’re level) and then tell her she’s getting a little chunky before meandering off to the kitchen to grab a beer and a pack of smokes from the office supply cabinet. 

The secretary had three choices:

1) accept the comments and keep working

2) quit in outrage, or

3) stop eating meatball hoagies at lunch and drop a few pounds so her master wouldn’t think she’s fat and subsequently replace her with a younger, sexier secretary. 

These days, there’s no liquor in the office place.  We’re all self-sufficient, what with our computers, and e-mail and cell phones, etc, so nobody even has a secretary anymore, let alone the means to harass one.  

Regardless, if anyone so much as speaks to another co-worker, there’s an immediate threat of legal rebuking for harassment of some sort, and the guidelines for this behavior are so completely grey, that the instructions from highly compensated consultants is “well, just be professional, and you should be okay.”

What the … ???

Office workers today fear for their employment every time they open their mouths.  As a result, the workplace is becoming a haven for homogenized behavior – any attempts to interject personality, humor or sarcasm may be met with immediate legal action and employment termination.  Social interaction, friendship, comraderie?  Those are the antitheses of acceptable professional behavior, and at some point, offices will close entirely, and worker bees will stay home, interacting only with their goldfish and box turtles.

No matter how fervently we fantasize about the good old days, they’re gone forever.  Still, must we knee-jerk 180 degress to such an absurdly strict extreme as the one in which we find ourselves today? 

In today’s workplace, the work product is far less important than the successful navigation of the social minefield that exists in the office.  An employee could be a money-making machine for the company, but if he accidentally bumps into a $5/hour intern, he’s immediately fired for imposing himself physically on a co-worker. 

What has happened to our society to make it so hysterically over-sensitive to everything?  It’s quite simple, really.  As noted above, aliens have abducted simple human beings and converted them to their minions … lawyers!!!

Pestilence, the plague, terrorists, swarms of locusts, airplane peanuts, these things are all child’s play compared to the mass devestation being imposed on our planet by lawyers. 

Lawyers wordsmith their way into the psyche of potential victims, convince them they’ve been wronged and then assure them someone will pay them tons of money to make things right.  Battle lines get drawn; money changes hands; other potential victims watch what transpires, and more law suits are filed.   

Need an example?  How about this one: A friend shared a story the other day about a Christmas party where suggestive photos were taken and then taped to the office manager’s door.  The office manager then sued the company and was awarded nearly three quarters of a million dollars for her pain and suffering. 

My bet is, the next day, every employee came in early, taped suggestive photos to their own doors and then sued the company for similar paydays.  Why not?!

Somewhere in the heavens, aliens are zipping across the skies in their undetectable flying contraptions, laughing hysterically each time a productive member of society drops the F-bomb in frustration and gets sued by an underling whose feelings get hurt and whose lawyer is on speed-dial. 

It’s probably true that forcing a subordinate to concede to having sex with you in exchange for career advancement is wrong on some level, but telling someone their haircut looks nice probably isn’t worthy of a multi-million dollar law suit.  If it wasn’t for the minions, there would probably be some common sense within our society deciding where a reasonable line should be drawn, but until those damned aliens stop meddling, we’ll all continue to succomb to the lure of lucre and sue one another for anything at the drop of a hat.

At some point, I think we’d be better off with anal probes and vivisections than lawyers.

So, my wife received an invitation to go out for drinks with a friend tonight.  As a working mother, my wife’s social calendar leaves a lot to be desired, so whenever an opportunity for her to hang out with a friend arises, I encourage her to pursue it.

That leaves me at home with a ten-year-old boy, an eight-year-old boy and a four-month-old Springer Spaniel named Fenwick.  How have things gone?  Well, if the United States had not discovered the A-Bomb in 1945, they could have dropped these three on Japan, and Hirohito would have capitulated within ten minutes.

Watching one’s own children should be simple, right?  Every parent reading this probably knowingly smirked at that question, but honestly, how difficult should this be?

Let’s consider the question rationally.  The total period of child-sitting will be about five hours.  Sometime after the third hour, the children will be sent to bed, so really, we’re talking about three hours of actual engagement.  There’re video games to occupy the boys, and we all know their soft little minds turn to tapiocca when confronted with video games, and hours pass like seconds.  All I really needed to do was leave them alone, therefore, and I’d be home free. 

The dog’s a little tougher.  Without opposable thumbs, or a penchant for gaming strategy, Fenwick’s really not much for X-Box, or Wii (unless she can chew on them), and since she’s only four months old, there is no relaxation to be accomplished within fifty feet of her.  She’s a teething machine with boundless energy.  Fortunately, unlike the case with the children, I can lock Fenwick in her kennel and fear no legal ramifications if Child Services happens to stop by.  Her incessant whining and howling can be distracting, but it’s far more tolerable than having my flesh rendered from my body.

So there.  See?  – piece of cake!  The boys will play video games, and the dog will be confined to her kennel.

- perfect plan, except all three will need to eat, and that’s where the proverbial wheels fell off the train.

“Dad?  What’s for dinner?”

With his younger brother in tow, my oldest asked that question a few minutes after seven o’clock.  I was an hour from being home-free!

Until that moment, I was quietly relaxing in front of my TV at the other end of the house from my children and dog.  Now, they had penetrated my defenses, and were invading.

“What would you like?” 

It seemed like a logical, and reasonable answer.  After all, I was actually looking forward to having fun with the boys tonight – the three of us sitting in a restaurant somewhere, eating unhealthy comfort food and talking about bodily functions, and why girls are icky, but the entire world took a cataclysmic left turn at that moment, and there was no rescuing the evening.

In unison, both boys responded with polar opposite choices.  The only point of agreement was that they each hated each other’s choice.

I proposed a fair and equitable solution – best of three coin toss – but knew, in the back of my mind, that neither of these monkeys would accept a loss valiantly, and the odds were good we weren’t going to survive this conflict without some carnage.  It took all three flips of the coin, but in the end, my oldest prevailed.  At that moment, my youngest went into his familiar whining routine, then passive-aggressively sitting in a chair when instructed to find his shoes, and basically turning into a defiant, contrary, miserable monster.

As I awaited the imaginary steam building up in me to explode out of my ears like a fire whistle, I yelled for everyone to get in the car, grabbed my keys, and made my way into the garage.  The car rumbled to a start, and as I backed out of the garage, my youngest made one final whiney remark. 

The camel’s back had been broken.

Apparently, the brakes in my car are pretty good, because as I slammed my right foot into the brake pedal, our bodies all convulsed.  Silently, I put the car back into “drive,” returned the car to its rightful position in the garage and turned the engine off.  The boys tensely awaited my next words.

“There’s no way on god’s green Earth I’m going to spend a single nickel tonight in a restaurant, just to suffer through a meal with you two.” 

Yup.  That’s what I said.   There would have been a slew of profanity thrown in too, but I exhausted what was left of my self-control to edit what my brain wanted to say before it left my lips. – lucky save.

Then, I announced we were staying home for dinner, and suggested to my oldest that he find something to eat.  I sent the younger one to his room without supper, at which point he elevated his game from whining to full-on wailing and blubbering.

Upon entering the house, I released the puppy from her crate, and she immediately bit my leg and peed on the floor.  It was at that precise moment that I, like Hirohito, accepted … no, welcomed defeat.  

This all brings me to my question: if aliens exist, why the hell don’t they abduct fathers of young children? 

We always hear about livestock, typically of the bovine variety, being unwittingly levitated into a space craft via a beam of light, or of children being abducted from the depths of slumber, but you never hear of, oh, say, a 40-something father of two getting whisked away to salvation. 

Did I say salavation?  Yes, I did, and here’s why.

To be frank, I doubt there’s really all that much anal probing going on anymore.  I mean, how many examinations does it really take to learn everything there is to know about the colon, bowels and intestines?  Two?  Three, maybe?  – Certainly, fewer than ten.  By this point, I suspect aliens have discovered everything they could possibly want to learn from that particular procedure.  That same logic applies to every part of physical examinations, too.  For the most part, men are all the same, and women are, too.  The aliens have had years and years to abduct and examine us, so, again, I suspect they’ve moth-balled the whole body-cavity search wing of their space ship, and have moved on to other things.

I’ll bet they never really did any such examinations at all, anyway.  I think they abduct stuff for a reason.  For example, why would I abduct a cow?  Answer: Because I’m hungry.  Why would I abduct a woman?  Answer: Duh!  Why would I abduct a man?  Answer: two reasons: first, to have someone to explain the nuances of reality TV to me, and second, out of pity.

These aliens may actually be fathers themselves, and when they see us struggling to hang on to what little self-esteem and sanity we have left, they swoop in, whisk us up into their ships, and watch Cinemax and share nachos with us.  At least that’s the story I’m going with!

At this point, I think I need a compassionate alien to fly over my house and abduct my sorry ass.  Maybe, like anything else, I need to advertise to attract my target market.  Do aliens have Craig’s List?  I can see the personal ad now: Married male with children seeking long quiet ride in space ship … introverted, mute, deaf aliens prefered.

There’s an insideous illness out there that is both debilitating and contageous.  It’s called “an Ironman Triathlon.” 

Unlike an ordinary triathlon, which incorporates three different legs of a single race, most commonly including swimming, biking and running, the Ironman version is the ultimate in extreme perversion, requiring a 2.4 mile swim, and 112 mile bike ride and a 26.2 mile run, which is a full marathon.  All of this must be completed in 17 hours, but worse than that, each individual leg of the race must be completed within a set amount of time, or the participant will be disqualified. 

The swimming must be completed within 2 hours and 20 minutes, and the biking must be completed within 10 and a half hours after the overall event began.   The balance of the time can be spent running, as long as that’s completed by the 17 hours deadline.  Simply put, if the event begins at 7AM, it must be completed by midnight, and the first two stages must be completed by 9:20AM and 5:30PM, respectively.

This is not an endeavor one takes on casually.  A friend of mine is training for an iron man competition that’s only a couple weeks away.  He’s been training for a year – running, swimming biking, etc. – and by last report, he can’t wait for this nightmare to end! 

There’s only so much one can do to prepare for such an untertaking, though, because training doesn’t include preparing for the actual race conditions.  For example, every day when he practices swimming, he goes to the YMCA, dives into the heated swimming pool and starts banging out laps. 

On the fateful day a couple weeks from now, he’ll dive into a mountain lake that is probably not much warmer than 50 degrees, and his eyes will be met, not  by clear, chemically-balanced, chlorinated pool water, but by murky, dark, lake water that’s filled with tree-limbs, nymphing bugs and various forms of other organic matter, including fish, and their poop.  Oh, and there will be wind.  There’s no wind in the YMCA, so not only will he be swimming in miserable conditions, he’ll probably be introduced to fighting water current, too.

After 2 hours of that hell, he’ll get to hop on his bike and start riding to who the hell knows where.  We don’t live near this event, so the road course for both the biking and running will be completely unfamiliar, not to mention uncomfortable.

When you were a kid, did you ever get out of a friend’s pool and then ride your bike home?  Do you remember the unpleasant feeling of being wet, and trying not to stick to your bike seat, or develop a rash?  If you were anything like me, that bike ride home sucked … that whole, entire ONE mile.  These nuts are going to be riding like that for 112 miles, and then they’re going to change shoes and run a full marathon.

There are people who train for years to run marathons.  I remember watching footage of people running the Boston, or New York marathons and thinking “these poeple have lost their minds.”  Well, Ironman competitors must look at marathoners and think “pussies.”  Wouldn’t you?

It’s human nature to scoff at someone else’s inferior accomplishments. 

“Oh, you got your GED?  Whoopty-do.  I’m an actual high school graduate.”

“High school, eh?  Well I completed junior college.”

“Junior college?  You’re lookin’ at a college graduate, right here.”

“Yeah, I was one of them too, and then I got a real degree – a masters.”

“I’m a Phd and I eat masters grads for lunch.”

“Oh, really?  Well, I’m an MD, so while you and your Phd are waiting tables, I’m driving home in a Ferrari after performing surgery on a clumsy GED!”

“Hah!  You all suck, because I … AM … an IRONMAN!!!”

… and then there’re are the crazy long-distance runners.  Did you ever hear of Dean Karnazes?  Look ‘im up.  He runs ultramarathons – as far as 226.2 miles in one trot.  To accomplish this, he’ll run all night, and actually sleep-run.  When he runs, he brings a cell phone and a credit card so he can order a pizza and have it delivered en route.  This guy probably looks down his nose at Ironmen competitors as slackers and n’er do wells.

And then there’s … oooh … I think I just got a cramp in my index finger from all this typing.   I quit.

The easiest part of being a parent is making the baby.  It’s pretty much downhill from there!

Speaking of “downhill,” I was on a ski lift this past weekend with my 10 year-old son.  Those of you who have ridden a ski lift know what it’s like, but for those of you who have never been on such a contraption, I will attempt to describe the experience.  

To start, imagine yourself seated on a chair that is suspended fifteen or more feet above the ground, and is gently swaying forward and back as it gradually drifts up the mountain toward its destination.  The gentle rocking back and forth is hypnotic, and as long as you’re not acrophobic, your blood pressure starts to drop as you slip into a pseudo hibernation. 

It’s extremely quiet, too, so your mind can’t help but begin wandering.  The only sound is that of the cable overhead being pulled through the pulleys mounted to the support towers that are spaced a hundred or so feet from one another, like soldiers marching in a line. 

Even though you’re bundled in layers of clothes, it’s not unusual for a brisk breeze to be blow a quick chill at you, so you’ll instinctively bury your chin into your chest, as if you’re balling yourself up for protection. 

Visually, the scene is spectacular and serene all at once – cobalt blue skis contrasted by the brilliant white snow flocking the trees, covering the rocks and smothering the Earth beneath you.  Saplings and underbrush poke through the top of the snow blanket, if only to remind you that there will be life again on these hills in a few months, but for now everything is dormant, and peaceful, and quiet.  In these modern times of constant interruptions from cell phones and white noise, it’s the serenity that is most intoxicating.

For some, the ski lift ride is a necessary evil – an obligatory bridge between their last downhill run and their next.   For others, though, it is a time of refuge, for soul searching, for recreational streams of consciousness and daydreaming. 

For me, it’s a time to be whacked in the nuts by my sons errantly swung ski pole.

“Hey, buddy, you wanna watch where you’re swinging those things?  I may not need these anymore, but I’ve kind of grown attached to them.”

Oops.  Once again, my mouth started working before my brain, and now I’ve potentially opened Pandora’s Box in front of an inquisitive 4th grade boy.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, buddy,” I replied, hoping to God he was going to ask about anything but what I had just said.

“What are our nuggets for, anyway?”

… aaaaaand there it was.  Crap.  How much longer is this lift ride?  I know.  I’ll make this simple, and hope he drops it.

“Well, buddy, they help make babies.”

“Huh?”

I really wasn’t prepared to have this conversation, especially since I’m not very good at thinking on my feet when it comes to biology, but I was officially so deep into this hole, a spelunker with a search light, a thousand feet of rope and ten gallons of Vaseline couldn’t pull me out unscathed.

“Well, to make a baby, you need an egg - the girl has that - and you need a little swimmy thing called a sperm - and the boy has that.  Sperm come from your nugs, and look like tad poles.  The boy has to give the sperm to the girl and fertilize her egg so she can make a baby.”

“Ew.  So that’s why you kiss when you get married?”

I have to admit, I paused when he said this for a moment or so, as I quickly went through the plethora of one-liners his innocent little straight line had offered me, but once I regained my composure, I suppressed my smirk and replied simply: “No.  Kissing isn’t necessarily part of the process.  You see, your weiner delivers the sperm to the girl.”

That was it! He looked at me like I had just told him that Legos are actually small aliens who pee on his toothbrush when he’s sleeping.  He blurted out: “OH MY GOD! Could we please stop talking about this now?!”

… there have been times in my son’s life when his words have evoked the deepest possible emotions from me – saying “daddy” for the first time, telling me how much he loves me and why, telling me the Phillies have just won the World Series – but never before has he said anything that has brought me more relief and joy than when he asked to stop talking about sex.

By this point, we were nearly at the top of the lift, and were preparing to disembark.  We hopped off the chair, turned quickly to the right, and started joyfully skiing down the hill. 

Have I ever told you how serene and wonderful it is to ski?  It’s particularly peaceful because it’s virtually impossible to carry on a conversation with a ten year-old.

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act (aka: Public Law 90-363), which was passed in 1968, is an Act of Congress that amended the federal holiday provisions of the United States Code to establish the observance of certain holidays on Mondays.  It took effect three years later, on January 1, 1971.  This not only affected Washington’s Birthday, but also Columbus Day, Memorial Day and Veterans Day. 

Basically, instead of celebrating those holidays on specific dates (like New Years, or Christmas), they were moved to specific Mondays (Washington’s Birthday being moved from his actual birthday of February 22nd, to the 3 Monday of February, for example).

I wonder how long it took Congress to draft, review and act upon this critical piece of national business.  Does our federal government really need to spend this much energy on such trivialities, and when it does, must a three year runway be required for implementation?

Because Washington’s birthday (February 22nd), and Lincoln’s birthday (February 12th) were so close together on the calendar, many states decided to eschew Washington and Lincoln specifically, and bundle all the Presidents into one, generic Monday holiday. 

This sounds like these guys are getting a raw deal, but (a) they’re both dead, so they probably don’t care, and (b) none of the rest of us probably really care, either.  Personally, I hold little affinity for any of our former leaders, not because they were good or bad, but because so little is known of them beyond folklore and publicity.  Their stories tend to be fascinating (how an individual rises to such an elite, elevated office), but their true selves are often clouded by fanciful legacies.  Consider George Washington and Valley Forge.

I grew up near Valley Forge, and, to this day, people still dress in colonial outfits there and re-enact the crossing of the Delaware and the winter’s encampment in Valley Forge.  Suffice to say, winter near Philadelphia is extremely unpleasant.  It snows, sometimes a foot or more at a time, and it’s not light, fluffy snow like ski havens like Utah boast.  It’s wet, heavy snow that weighs a ton and doesn’t go away until sometime in June.  The humidity there is very high, so when temperatures get down into single-digits (which they do; trust me), it feels several degrees colder than what the thermometer reads.  And then there’s the wind-chill-factor.  This is the gauge of how cold it FEELS versus how cold it actually is, relative to the velocity of the wind.  It’s not unusual for the wind-chill-factor to be several degrees below zero in the winter there.  Sounds like a great place to go camping.  Doesn’t it?

Now let’s consider the actual troops’ living conditions.  Some men lived in cabins, which only differed from sleeping outdoors in that there was an actual door separating the inside from the outside.  There were huge gaps in the walls and roof, and the wind basically blew right through the structures.  The lucky guys got the cabins.  The ones outside were worse off.  Some had tents, others didn’t.  Many didn’t have shoes. 

We have been led to believe that George Washington walked among the troops in his immaculate uniform, looking regal, fatherly and sincere, contemplating his Spring attack on the British forces.   History would have us believe his resolve was unwavering, and those who fought for him held him in the highest esteem, almost as if they were following Jim Jones, waiting for their cups of Kool Aid.

That has to be complete bullshit.  Right?  The troops were freezing and starving.  It was probably all Washington and his officers could do to keep any of them there.  I’d be shocked if the attrition rate wasn’t nearly 50%.  I know.  History books would never support that speculation, but honestly, would you stay?

And what about Washington?  He was married to a wealthy woman, and was a decorated war hero.  He had a lot to lose if this revolution went sideways.  How many times every day do you think he thought to himself “What the hell am I doing?! I have a big house in Virginia with a rich wife and a bunch of slaves.  Why am I freezing my rear-end off with this hodge-podge of troops who collectively smell like the business-end of my horse?”

Well, he didn’t quit, and after a series of absolute miracles, Washington and his troops vanquished the British, and a new republic was born.  Then his trouble really started. 

Try creating an entirely new country from scratch some time with the help of a bunch of self-serving politicians. 

Come to think of it, maybe I should have an affinity for Washington, after all the angst he had to endure.

Anyway, very few of us know the real facts about our former leaders, and painfully few even know the propagandist stuff that’s been generated about them over the years. 

Like any other profession, I suppose, there were effective leaders and bumbling fools.  There were probably charlatans and men of piety,  geniuses and morons, and everything in between.  The fact is, the President is only a single cog in the wheel of government, and their success or failure must certainly be a result of the willingness of the supporting casts to cooperate with them.    How many could have done better if their advisors, or congressmen, or senators worked better with them?  How many would have been worse if they didn’t have such good support?

In the end, it’s probably good that many states lumped the bunch of them into one, non-date-specific day every year.  For most of us, Presidents Day is less about the presidents themselves, and more about the allure of a three-day weekend.  I, for one, intend to spend my extra weekend day re-memorizing the names of all the presidents, and then learning little facts about each of them … 

Who am I kidding?  I’ll actually probably spend the day walking around the mall enjoying the requisite 25% off on all sheets and comforters at the Washington’s Birthday Sale.  Maybe I’ll even spot some guy dressed up like George Washington! – sure hope he looks dignified, and has wooden teeth.

Before we had kids, my wife and I would take annual ski trips to Vermont or Quebec every winter with friends.  We had no idea how easy we had it.

We’d stay in ski-in/ski-out condos, so every morning, all we’d have to do is dress, step out the door, click into our equipment and slide our way down the mountain to the first lift chair of the day.  We could even ski home in the middle of the day for bathroom breaks or snacks.  It was the ultimate in luxury – no public restrooms, no $8 rubber chicken sandwiches, and no changing clothes in sub-freezing temperatures.

Wow!  Those days are LONG gone.

This week, we are on a ski trip with our kids – two elementary school-aged little boys.  The resort we’re visiting doesn’t have ski-in/ski-out.  We stay in town, a twenty minute drive from the lifts.  Between the added wrinkle of inconvenience resulting from having to drive to the hill, and the incomprehensible inconvenience of trying to get children ready to ski in the morning, we’d probably be better off just staying home and burning dollar bills by the bucket-full, and then holding the refrigerator door open with one hand, holding our head in the open refrigerator where the gasket is, and then repeatedly slamming the door closed against our heads.  That would provide basically the same result, but wouldn’t require leaving the home.

Every morning is greeted with the same level of enthusiasm from the boys.

“- ready to go skiing guys?”

“I just want to stay home and play my DS.  Can I just stay here with Mommy?”

“What makes you think mommy wants to stay here with you?  Stop your whining, get up, get dressed and get to the breakfast table.  In that order.

… ten minutes later.

“You’re still not out of bed?!  GET UP!!!”

… five minutes later.

“Daddy, stop pulling me out of bed.  Ow!  You’re hurting me!  I don’t want to go skiing!  I hate skiing!!!  STOP!!!!!”

After a few more tender, verbal exchanges of affection with one another, the children are typically finally at the kitchen table, heads in hands, grumbling, and abjectively refusing to select what food they’ll eat.  At some point, none of us care anymore if they eat or not, and we give up on breakfast. 

After breakfast concludes, the clothing begins.  I think this factor alone is why people take their children to the beach instead of ski hills. 

When we’re at the beach, wardrobe is simple: strip the kids naked, but on a pair of swim shorts, and they’re ready to go (except for the excessive spraying of sunblock on them).

Skiing requires long underwear (top and bottom), a fleece pullover, fleece pants, long ski socks, ski pants, a ski jacket, mittens, a ski helmet, goggles, snow boots (for walking to the hill) and ski boots (for actual skiing).  Invariably, once all these garments are found, and forcibly outfitted onto the child, he decides he has to pee.  – everything comes off, he relieves his bladder, and the outfitting begins again, in earnest. – never fails, even if you insist they pee before they start getting dressed, they will always have to pee after they’re fully clothed. 

While in the past, my wife and I traveled with nothing more than what was on our backs, we now arrive at the ski hill resembling pathetic, old pack mules. 

Driving up to the resort is only part of the journey.  The next part requires driving 1/4 mile away across the parking lot to ditch our car.  In the olden days, we’d have been able to park closer to the hill because we’d have arrived a few minutes before the lifts opened.  Now, with kids, we’re lucky if we arrive before lunch.  Latecomers take what parking is left for them.

Once the car is parked, the long, arduous trek to the lodge begins.  My wife and I carry everyone’s skis, poles, equipment bags (which contain boots, helmets, mittens, goggles, etc), and we steer the children across the snow covered lot, dodging swerving cars whose drivers are seeking a place to land, and aren’t paying attention to pedestrians, and make our way to our destination.

Once at the lodge, we change the kids out of their snow boots, and into their ski boots.  We put on their mittens, we tuck their little ears into their helmets, we hand them their skis and then we proceed to dress ourselves – putting on boots, helmets, goggles, gloves, etc.

By the time all of this work -waking the dead, and dressing them at home, driving to the resort, trekking across the lot and the outfitting of ourselves and our children – concludes, we’re too exhausted to ski.

And without fail, at the moment we’re about to ride the first chair lift of the day, one of the kids has to pee again.

I know I’ll return to the office after this trip, and my colleagues will ask me how everything went.  They’ll mean well, but I’ll still be inclined to murder them where they stand just for reminding me of what a ridiculously inconvenient pain in the rear-end it is to travel with children. 

It’s times like these when I keep reminding myself: we had children on purpose!

According to Merriam Webster, definition 7(a) of the noun “order” is: the state of peace, freedom from confused or unruly behavior, and respect for law or proper authority.  7(b) defines it as a specific rule, regulation, or authoritative direction.

My interpretation is that order is the implementation of the law.  In its most extreme, rigid context, order is the antithesis of freedom, and in recent decades, order has been so vigilantly pursued by our society, that we are on the verge of becoming a police state.  Sometimes peace on the surface creates distress down below, and trying to force order is just another way of creating havoc!

Think back to the 1990s.  In those days, it was perfectly permissible to smoke a cigarette on an airplane, or in a train, or in a restaurant, a bar, a shopping mall, or a friend’s house.  In the decades leading up to the 1990s, even non-smokers used to keep ash trays on their coffee tables for when guests would stop by for a visit.  We had all become painfully aware of the health risks associated with smoking cigarettes for at least thirty years by that point, of course, but we still accepted smoking as a choice in our society.   

By 1998, all smoking on US flights had been forbidden.  You’ll never guess why.

A bunch of flight attendants sued the airlines because they contracted lung cancer and cited second hand smoke from passengers as the cause.  The case was settled for $49 million, and the airlines ceased all smoking on domestic flights.  Try lighting a cigarette now on an airplane, and you’ll be arrested and Federal charges will be filed against you. 

At various intervals before and since smoking was prohibited from domestic flights, smoking was prohibited from restaurants, most public places, office buildings, even bars.  Now, no one seems to even own an ash tray, let alone permit that disgusting behavior in their homes. 

What the heck happened?  Well, between ridiculous law suits, and the media’s repeated condemnation of smoking through manipulated statistics and veiled peripheral attacks – blaming the cost of health care, the effects of smoking on others, and how smoking is actually a violation of everyone else’s rights – society decided smokers needed to be stopped, and everything possible, short of prohibiting it all together, was pursued, including excessive taxation and ostricizing.

How extreme has this new order become?  People smoke outside of their own homes.  Smokers have basically become the leppers of modern US society.

Well, good for them.  Right?  It’s a filthy habit, and it’s reportedly unhealthy, not merely for the smoker, but everyone around them who inhales their exhaust.  And why should we all have to pay for their health care when they don’t care about themselves to begin with?  Am I right?  It’s not our fault they contract lung cancer, or heart disease, or anything else.  – serves ‘em right!

Or does it???

What’s to stop society from using the same arguments to control any other behaviors various groups consider unhealthy, filthy or subversive?  How long will it be before the government begins to control what we’re allowed to eat?  Fast food is fattening and unhealthy.  Why should the rest of us be stuck footing the bill for the health care costs associated with obese people?  It’s their fault they’re the way they are, not ours.  If we have to pay those bills, we should have a say in whether or not they can eat that stuff.  For that matter, they should be required to exercise, too!

Seem far fetched? 

Have you noticed the law suits being filed against restaurants like McDonalds because they make their food too enticing, and it’s their fault their patrons are getting fat?  How long will it be before lawyers recruit health care companies to join the law suits?  Once settlements start to get paid out, those precedents will be the loose thread that unravels the fast food industry.

The targeting is already well underway.  This year, to ensure consumer knowledge, California fast food restaurants are required to provide detailed calorie information on their menus for all their fare.  Sort of reminds you of those labels on cigarettes all those years ago, doesn’t it? 

And California has taken their efforts to another level by banning trans-fat-containing cooking oils because they clog arteries and cause heart disease.  Violating restaurants will be fined $1,000 per occurrence.  How long will it be before we’re forbidden from eating steak that is cooked less than medium-well, or that contains more than 10% fat?  How long will it be before every food deemed to be unhealthy is hit with a sur-charge or special tax (like cigarettes) to disincentivize consumers from eating it?

Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying here.  I’m not suggesting we should eat unhealthy foods, or smoke cigarettes (even though I wholly condone such behavior).  I am merely condemning the government for deciding when, where and if we should be permitted to do so.  We should have the freedom to choose.  And for the love of all that’s holy, no police force should be jack-booting us into submission every time we step over this line that affects only us.

Do we really need someone policing this stuff?  Doesn’t anyone else see our rights eroding before our eyes without so much as a peep from any of us to prevent it?

Try “lighting up” in a restaurant, and see how quickly you’re assaulted and either forced to extinguish your smoke, or vacate the premises immediately.  Chances are, you could have a screaming match with your date and not be disturbed, but if you strike a match and place it to the end of a cigarette, LOOK OUT!!!  It is not far fetched at all to believe, if you resist, the proprietor will call 9-1-1; the police will arrive and if you’re still there, you will be arrested.  There’s no logic or reason there.  It’s a black-and-white issue: you broke the law, and you’re under arrest. 

This sort of myopically ludicrous law enforcement is running rampant in our society these days, and it’s truly troubling.  In the old days, we’d expect a cop to arrive on such a scene and try to reason with the violator in an attempt to diffuse a potential situation and have everyone separate and get on with their lives.  Not these days.  Today, if the cop comes, he’s performing an arrest.  Period.  – even if the situation doesn’t warrant it, and the circumstances are completely misunderstood.  Johnny Law is coming down, and he’s coming down hard. 

Here’s a good illustration of how things were in the old days, when cops were people, and not automotons.

One of my friends is an attorney, a husband, and a father of two boys.  By all indications, he’s a productive, conservative member of society.  Thirty or so years ago, he was working as a dishwasher in a restaurant, and became friendly with the cook.  When he turned 18, the cook gave him a bottle of some god-awful flavored schnapps, and the two of them proceeded to celebrate the  birthday after work.  Back then, 18 was the legal drinking age in this state. 

 After this adolescent foray into adulthood, my friend, let’s say his name is Paul (it really is Paul, but let’s act like he’s anonymous and we’re giving him a fake name to protect his real identity) drove home.  Based upon society’s programming, you probably just made an “oh my goodness” face and made an inhaled sighing noise.

At the time, Paul lived in an extremely rural area – the kind with two traffic lights, both of which only flashed yellow in one direction and red in the other.  He reached one of these signaled intesections and passed out at the wheel.  Sometime later, a cop pulled up beside the sleeping Paul and his rumbling automobile, tapped on the glass and winced when Paul woke up, opened the window and blasted the cop with massive stink-breath.  The cop reviewed Paul’s ID, realized he lived about a half-mile away, had Paul park his car on the side of the road, drove Paul home, and made sure he got inside without puking on the front step … or the cop’s boots.

This is a terrific example of the logic officers used to use before knee-jerking into action.  Yes, Paul was driving drunk, but it was an isolated incident, he wasn’t harming anyone else, or putting anyone else at risk, and a little compassion from the officer resulted in Paul getting home safely, and ultimately becoming a productive member of society and producing a very lovely family.

These days?  If 18 year-old Paul was caught driving under the influence (let alone shit-faced), he’d be arrested and his license would be suspended, at the very least.  At that point, his chances of leaving that po-dunk little town and going to college and especially law school would be pretty much shot to hell.  His life would be permanently marred, because he would have a criminal record … because of one night of stupidity at the age of 18. 

None of us condone drunk driving, but can any of us really condone this excessive punishment for a first time offense, either?  No matter how lily-white we like to believe we all were, the fact is, we all did stupid things when we were metriculating from adolescence to adulthood, and if we were held permantently accountable for those actions, none of us would be where we are today.

What ever happened to the police using a little common sense instead of coming down on every offender like a bag of hammers?  Yes, the media has sufficiently convinced us that “drunk drivers = road fatalities,” but believe it or not, those occurrences are extremely rare.  The fatal statistics have merely been heavily publicized to achieve an end.

How many traffic fatalities are the result of people falling asleep at the wheel, or being distracted by someone or something, or being temporarily blinded by the sun when it’s low on the horizon, or by the failure of a poorly maintained vehicle?  How many accidents are caused by someone who was too old to properly function behind the wheel, or someone who had the flu and shouldn’t have been behind the wheel?  Are we going to legislate and strictly enforce traffic laws against all of them as well?

The media skews facts to make them sensational.  We, the viewing public froth at the mouth with excitement and demand action.  Lawyers file law suits to make money, and legislators try to garner votes by exploiting and supporting popular social agendas.  The cops step-up their enforcement, and crack down on violators, and we sit back and smile as yet another one of our hard-fought liberties falls by the way side.

It’s time for some good old fashioned aluminum foil to be placed on top of our heads to keep the influences from the propagandist media out of our brains.  We need to resist the urge to sue everyone for everything when we screw something up ourselves.  We need to stop citing peripheral reasons in an effort to steal someone’s liberties.  We need to stand up and protect our rights, each and every one of them, even if the one at risk doesn’t matter to us personally, because the next one might matter, and by then there may be no more support left to give.  We need to teach our legislators what’s really important, and instruct them to stop passing laws that deprive us of our rights and freedoms.  Most of all, we have to address those squeeky wheels among us who feel that the actions of others are violating their own rights, respectfully tell them we appreciate and support their rights to speak freely, and then kick their asses off our blessed shores!

Man’s fascination with his own, let’s say “manhood,” begins at an early age.  I recall watching my youngest as he was potty training become awestruck by the remarkable metamorphosis of his once flaccid phallus into an erect, little twig, which he summarily swirled around in circles, giggling uncontrollably.   He was so impressed with his magical abilities, he tried to perform his act for our friends’ daughters whenever they would come visit.  It was laughed-off as cute and naïve when he was three … probably won’t get the same reaction from girls’ parents when he’s in his teens, though.

As we mature into puberty, we begin receiving visits from the boner fairy, often at very inopportune times, like when we have to stand up in class and read something, or the school bus arrives at our stop and we have to stand up and walk the full length of the aisle to disembark, all the while holding our books or book bag in front of our laps for cover.  These are the same years we awake in horror in the middle of the night with sticky, messy bed linens, and desperately try to remove all evidence for fear our mothers will discover whatever the hell is going on with us when she does the laundry.

Ask a teenager what “Erectile Dysfunction” is, and he’ll tell you it’s either the fact he gets more wood deliveries than a lumber yard, or he orgasms as soon as his girlfriend reaches to unzip his fly!  Ah, how times change.

When we were kids, we learned how our bodies were going to change in the near future, and what to expect as a result.  Ideally, our fathers would have taught us those things, but let’s be serious.  What man, let alone parent, is going to sit down and talk to a boy about puberty and what to expect?  We can’t even agree on a word for our “you-know-whats” because every term makes us uncomfortable.  If we can’t name it, how the hell can we discuss what it does, or how to use it? 

Every guy I know learns about this stuff the same way – innuendo, heresay, and sneak peaks at porn.

Wouldn’t it be nice, then, if someone figured out a way to teach middle-aged or older men what to expect as they age?  I can see it now, flipping through channels at 2AM and finding an infomercial where two people are in bed and the guy can’t perform.  A narrator speaks in a low, assuring voice “does this happen to you?  Well, you’re not alone.  Many men have difficulty performing as they mature.  See your doctor to examine possible causes like latent testicular injury, an enlarged prostate, poor blood flow, boredom with your partner, or maybe you’re gay and can’t get aroused around women any more…”

We need something like that, because primetime television commercials just don’t work.  Seeing two people sitting (supposedly naked) in separate bathtubs in the middle of their backyard does not say “successful erection and intercourse here” to me.  It says “I freakin’ give up and am resorting to sitting naked in a bathtub in my backyard.  Can you hand me the luffa?”

And exactly how insipid must we consumers seem?  Pharmaceutical marketers play soothing melodies and show people picking flowers in a garden, or holding hands with partners as they walk along a beach, or through a flowery pasture as the soothing narrator regales listeners with a litany of potential side effects ranging from constipation, diarrhea, depression, anxiety, four-hour long erections, heart attack, stroke, to some, or all of the above.  The only thing I’ve never heard mentioned in those disclaimers is exploding “ball sacks,” and I’m pretty sure I only missed that because I was screaming too loud from the rest of the list to hear much else!

A friend of mine just began taking a medication called Flomax.  I assume he is suffering from an enlarged prostate, because I looked up reasons why this medication might be prescribed, and that’s what I read.  I didn’t know why he would be taking this stuff before I Googled it because (a) guys don’t discuss medical stuff with one another (remember, we’re the ones who can’t even name our … you know … thingy), and (b) if I relied on what I’ve learned from Flowmax commercials, I would assume my friend is having trouble with his Mustang convertible. 

According to the cautionary leaflet included within a box of Flowmax, those who take the medication may experience some side effects.  In fact, a sexual side effect was reported in clinical trials: abnormal ejaculation.

What Is Abnormal Ejaculation, you ask?  Well, Abnormal ejaculation is a term used to describe several problems which may include:

* Not being able to ejaculate (at which point, why would anyone want to live, thus rendering the medication completely irrelevant, anyway),

* Decreased amounts of ejaculate, and

* Retrograde ejaculation — ejaculate enters the bladder instead of leaving the body through the penis. This problem is usually painless and harmless. Men with this problem may notice cloudy urine after sexual intercourse.

Again, harken back to a typical man’s teen years when he could fill a condom from 100 feet away at a moment’s notice, and then flash forward to when, even if he can orgasm, he’ll barely produce a enough to matter, and it may not even come out. 

Son of a b … why didn’t anyone warn us about this eventuality?! 

As a male, we learn over time we’re really not good for much – spouses, children, bosses, they all reinforce our sense of uselessness over time.  The one thing we always figured we could rely on was our ability to become physically aroused, and produce and launch a batch of semen.  Call us simple, but some days, that’s what keeps us from turning the gas on in the kitchen and taking a nap.  The possibility of losing that one, primal skill is grossly disconcerting. 

Personally, I think aliens are to blame for this whole thing.  They’re coming down to Earth, and are messing with our man-stuff while we sleep so they can step in and provide surrogate services to our women.  My guess is aliens all look something like a very slimy-surfaced version of Abe Vigoda and really have no chance of wooing an Earth female into propagation.  Their best bet is to eliminate the competition.  Females will feel an evolutionary compulsion to continue the species, and will agree, as a last resort, to reproduce with these butt-ugly creatures.  Meanwhile, the remaining Earth males will be driving around in old convertibles, scrambling to find port-o-potties while their buddies all sit in the car acting supportive.

DAMN YOU ALIENS!!!

They can’t get all of us, though.  Through sheer numbers, I believe we will prevail (well, that and wearing aluminum foil on our heads to protect us from these space devils). 

Consider Tony Randall.  He became a father in his 80s.  I won’t want to father any more children at that point in my life, but it sure would be nice to know I can.  Way to go, Tony.  Even though you’re dead, you’re an inspiration to each and every one of us who have reached middle age and recognize that the next orgasm could be our last. 

Boy, I sure hope he wasn’t an alien …

My wife and I started dating each other when we were teenagers, nearly 30 years ago.  On our first Christmas together, probably to the chagrin of my parents, I spent dinner and the evening at her house with about forty of her relatives.  While we dined and celebrated, there was a blizzard; several inches of snow landed and temperatures dropped below zero by the time I was set to head home.

When I tried to leave, my dad’s car wouldn’t start, and among others, my wife’s father, brother-in law and uncle all came to my rescue, helping me dig the car out, and then pushing it to where it could be diagnosed.  The car was a VW with a stick shift, so, in thick heavy snow, we all pushed the car to the top of the driveway and I tried to coast back down to jump start it.  That attempt failed and I almost slid the car through the fence at the bottom of the driveway.

We spent about an hour trying to get that car running.  Most of us were out there without gloves or hats.  A couple guys were even out there without coats, but they were so heavily lubricated by the evening’s libations, that they hardly noticed the cutting chill in the air.

Spirits that evening were high, and even though conditions were atrocious, we actually had fun.  We laughed, teased each other, threw a couple snowballs to scientifically test the snow quality, and had a hell of a good time reviving that v-dub.  Ultimately, the car started, and I slowly navigated my way home; everyone else went in and continued to celebrate together.

Although it’s been decades since that night, I remember it clearly and fondly.  These days, I also remember that my father-in-law was the same age then that I am today, and that my brother-in-law and my wife’s uncle have each been gone for more than fifteen years.  Most of the others that night have either passed away or left the family for one reason or another as well.

Regardless what happened since then, that one night was one for the ages.

So what’s the point?

Well, it could be that on that frosty evening, I learned the importance of owning a reliable car and that I’ve never been stranded once since then.  Of course, that would be a lie.  I’m not that Pavlovian, and have owned a couple cars even shittier than that VW since then, so that can’t be the point.

If that’s not the point, perhaps it’s that excessive alcohol consumption makes people jolly and helpful.  That hypothesis could be true, but I’ve seen enough cranky, argumentative, unhelpful drunks to know it’s probably not a hard-and-fast rule.

So what’s the point?  Do we really need there to be a point?  Well, in this case, yes.

The point is that Holidays are an enigma.  They’re fun and festive, but they also tend to remind us how fleeting time is.

Remember when we were all the youngest ones at holiday functions, running around like wild people, being chided by adults for getting our dress-up clothes dirty or damaged?  How about eating at the “kid’s table?”

It wasn’t long, though, before our older siblings or cousins started bringing dates to holiday functions, and then we did, too.  Then those dates turned into spouses, and baby high-chairs started appearing around the table again, but this time, we weren’t the ones occupying them.  As a new batch of children started filling the kids table, we became parents; our parents turned into grandparents, and our grandparents departed.

Not to be cliché, but this evolution through the holiday hierarchy is an annually recurring smack of reality that can actually help us re-focus on what is truly important in our lives – our personal relationships.   It’s a reminder that no matter what monetary or career success or failure we experience, our time here is finite, and all the riches in the world can’t change that.

Now, all this talk about mortality probably sounds like I’m trying to pee in your Cheerios, but I’m not.  I’m actually acting as a purveyor of hope – hope that we can all find purpose in our lives and achieve fulfillment within the time we are each allocated. This self-actualization won’t come easily, however.  It’s going to take diligence, focus, effort, and probably a little more diligence.

It may seem a bit paradoxical, but our mortality is an asset.  When resources are finite, they become more precious, and our time together is very finite, and infinitely precious.

Aside from some serious over-crowding on this planet, the main consequence of immortality would be that we’d never have a sense of urgency.  We’d never have to worry about prioritizing our time, because we’d have all the time in the world to do everything.  As a result, we’d probably never end up doing anything. We’d also probably run out of money after a while, but that’s a financial planning discussion on an entirely different blog.

Mortality, and the simple progressive passage of time is omnipresent.

Every night I lament the fact my children are one day closer to growing up.  In a few years, they will grow away from me and my wife – as they should.  They’ll find their own paths, spend time with their own friends and pursue their own lives – spouses, children, careers, etc.  Until then, my priority is to teach them, help them become adults, and have fun along the way.  The memories of that journey will be my reward.

The same logic holds true for friends and family.  Even though we may expect to catch up with them “one of these days,” they won’t always be around.  If we’re not proactive and focused, our procrastination will leave us with regrets.  This is where the diligence comes into play.

How often do we find ourselves torn between obligations at work, and seeing our kids play little league, or perform in a school pageant?  How many times, even when we are home, do we talk about work?  How frequently do we remotely check our e-mail from our phones when we’re standing right in front of our kids at a park, or a movie, or dinner?

Our lives are naturally hectic.  Most of us need to work to survive and pay the bills, but sometimes, I think we lose our way.  Distractions from work seem to take on greater and greater importance, and we tend to prioritize those distractions above spending time with our families.

For many of us, our work defines us and it makes us feel indispensible, but in the back of our minds, we all know damned well that there will always be work distractions, and that when we retire, someone else will step in our shoes and manage everything without us.  We are not indispensible at work, but we are indispensible at home.

And what about the pursuit of money?  Don’t we all want money?  Of course we do, but at what cost?  Luxuries and toys and self-indulgence are enticing, but in the end, inanimate objects and selfish experiences won’t share our memories, only our families and friends will do that.

Don’t get me wrong.  Not only am I not perfect, I am guilty of everything written here, and even though I’d love a Ferrari as much as the next guy, I’m pretty sure once my kids have left the nest and my parents have passed away, I’ll gladly trade that Ferrari for one more family dinner with everyone around the table, laughing and sharing a meal.

Christmas is only a few weeks away, and as it approaches, I’ll spend a lot of time remembering the great Christmases my parents gave us when we were little, and the laughs and camaraderie we enjoyed all those years at my in-laws, and finally of the few, but spectacular Christmases we’ve spent thus far with our own kids.  I’ll definitely reflect on that frigid, snowy night nearly 30 years ago, too, and I’ll remember my youthful father-in-law, Uncle Ed and Tom, and then I’ll remember my wife as a teenager, and I’ll smile.  Those memories are invaluable and irreplaceable, and I hope to make a lot more of them for myself and others before my time here runs out.

Hey, didn’t Charles Dickens write something like this once?  I tend to remember he was much longer-winded about it …

Instead of trying to do something productive with my life, I studied marketing in college, hoping to make it big in advertising.  Like most people, what I studied in college ended up having very little to do with the course of my actual career, but I still remember a thing or two about some of my coursework, in particular, product naming.

A friend from Canada reminded me of how much international manufacturers struggle with the cross-cultural impact of product names .  In particular, he shared with me that he recently intended to purchase a Buick LaCrosse for his wife, but ended up with an Allure instead.  They’re actually the same car, mind you, but GM decided to rename the car they sell in the States (the LaCrosse), as the Allure in the great white north.  Why, you might ask?

It’s very simple.  In America, LaCrosse is recognized as an athletic endeavor created by its natives.  Buick wanted to imply athleticism with the name of their fine sedan, so they called it the LaCrosse.

Athleticism was not going to be inferred in French-speaking Quebec, however.  There, LaCrosse is a colloquial for masturbation and, well, when Buick’s ad gurus suggest you “grab the stick,” they really mean the gear lever and not …well … anyway, they punted and named the car the Allure.

GM has made a practice of changing car names north of the border for years.  When I was a child, my parents owned a Pontiac Catalina.  I was shocked during a car trip through Canada to see our exact same car with slightly different tail light lenses and the name “Parisienne” glued to the trunk lid.  Even as a 6 year-old, I knew our Pontiac had more in common with Cleveland than Paris, but since I hadn’t read Ogilvy on Advertising yet, and was clearly not sophisticated enough to understand GM’s mastery of focus groups and market analysis, I kept my mouth shut.

I think they sold 12 Parisiennes in 1970, by the way.

Also, back in the ’70s, GM wanted to sell Chevy’s mid-sized coupe , the Nova, in Mexico.  The problem there was “No va” in Spanish means “doesn’t go.”  In retrospect, this was actually a completely honest name for the car, but it wasn’t going to help GM move product, so they named it something else in the land of Pancho Villa.

Ironically, Nova wasn’t such a great name in America, either.  After all, a nova is a cataclysmic nuclear explosion, and hardly a connotation one wants its customers to infer when purchasing a vehicle destined to cart around their families.

Ford was probably disappointed that Chevy had already trademarked that name, since it was clearly descriptive of one of their own products which they decided to call the Pinto, instead.  You may recall, Pintos had a nasty habit of getting bumped in the rear bumper and then exploding into flames … like a nova.

By the way, in Brazilian, Portugese, Pinto is slang for penis.

Auto manufacturers have been fixated for eons on the belief that we consumers will somehow be swayed, or dissuaded by the inferred images of a snazzy product name.  Instead, the marketing wonks could have followed the teachings of Shakespeare over Ogilvy.  After all, it was Shakespeare who said “a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet,” – a name is less important than the product itself.

Of course, judging by the turds-on-wheels Detroit has rolled out over the past few decades, they probably need to keep thinking up slick names to distract us from the door handles that fall off in our hands.

Mr. Goodwrench, long-time, iconic mascot of General Motors, and purveyor of reliable auto service worldwide has succombed to bankruptcy reorganization.

Since 1974, through various hairstyle and wardrobe changes, Mr. Goodwrench soldiered on, maintaining GM products of all kinds.  He was the master of nuts and bolts, but now, he’s merely screwed.

For decades, GM paraded Mr. Goodwrench to the buying public to cement an image of reliability, but ultimately, the automotive giant came to realize that no amount of folksy advertising could disguise their abysmal array of products.

Because of the powerful UAW (United Auto Workers union), many believed GM couldn’t touch Mr. Goodwrench, but once the Obama administration took control of the once-proud automaker, the union’s negotiating power all-but disappeared, leaving Mr. Goodwrench exposed.  Not only did Goodwrench lose what he thought was guaranteed lifetime employment and a ridiculously over-stated hourly wage, he also lost his medical benefits, pension, identity and, let’s face it, his very existence.

Goodwrench was preceded in death by Rusty Jones who, in 1988, was euthanized when his after-market undercoating employer bit the dust in financial ruin.  Goodwrench is survived by the ideal mascot couple, Ronald McDonald and Betty Crocker.  Chef Boyardee is expected to deliver the eulogy.

Last night was Halloween, and as I had mentioned previously, because very few people make the effort to trek up the hill to our home, we do not man the front door.  Instead, we fill a basket with candy, leave it on the front step, and venture off with our young children to canvass the neighborhood for treats, and basically remind ourselves that we’re too old and fat to chase after wee children for three hours after dinner in the chilly, damp darkness.

When I, myself, was wee and bounded my own costumed-way across my childhood neighborhood, it was a rare sight for anyone to leave what has become known as an “honor basket” full of candy in front of their house on Halloween.  When we spotted one, we were immediately inclined to empty the basket into our bags and anonymously dash off into oblivion with our good fortune, but we never did so.

There was something inside us discouraging such behavior.  Perhaps it was the fear that one of our compatriots would “blow us in;” maybe it was the reality that if our mothers found out, we’d never live to see another Halloween, or maybe we were just raised to know it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do.  Whatever the reason, we took a piece or two of un-monitored candy, and left the remainder behind for the next trick-or-treater and his or her own moral compass.

What the heck happened to that childhood decency, or fear, or respect, or whatever it was back then?

Not five minutes after we embarked upon our pedestrian excursion last night, a minivan pulled up in front of our house, a miscreant of indiscriminate age stepped out, grabbed the basket and emptied it into his bag.  He tossed the basket back on our step, got back in the van and was driven off to his next conquest.  That simple, selfish act sickened me.

Don’t get me wrong.  I hoped the basket would be empty when we returned home, but I had hoped it would be empty because it brought joy to many who happened upon it.  Instead, one person’s gluttony deprived others of joy.  That act really made me wonder about the mindset of some people.

It is my purest belief that if our society is ever going to evolve, the basis for that evolution will be mutual compassion and respect.  Sadly, when I’m aware of such selfish behavior as that of the minivan misanthrope, I don’t think we’re anywhere near an acceptable level of enlightenment.  If we were, the candy-glutton would have only taken a piece of candy to satisfy his own desires, and left the rest behind for others to enjoy and partake.  Instead, he acted with a total disregard for everyone else in favor of his own avarice.

Had the culprit been a youngster who acted alone, I wouldn’t have minded.  Kids are immature, and although we’d hope the lessons we imbue will be heeded, unattended children may simply not be equipped with the necessary maturity to control the urge to grab as much chocolate as humanly possible.  This is not, and cannot be the case for an adult.

If one is old enough to drive, he should be old enough to discern between being sympathetic to those around him, and being a greedy jackass.  Even though the driver himself may not have been the one to empty the basket, he should have had the presence of mind to direct his passenger not to take everything.

Have you ever wondered what type of people spawned the politicians of the world?  Look no further than the role models who fail to impart positive human values to their progeny.  The person who emptied the basket last night is likely destined to a life of selfishness because those responsible for parenting him failed to teach him otherwise.

All ranting aside, Halloween night was awesome.  Our newly carved jack-o-lanterns glowed in the dark in front of our home, and our children collected enough candy to fill a Hershey warehouse.  Spirits of all kinds were high, and everyone collapsed into slumber the moment their faces hit their pillows – children and parents alike.  The incident with the candy basket was a minor distraction and had no impact on our evening overall.  It’s only been these past several hours of reflection that have caused me any distress.

There are an abundance of people in the world who are genuinely good, and who look out for one another.  It has been my great fortune to know quite a few of these people.  Sadly, there is also an abundance of selfish assholes whose behavior diminishes the quality of life for the rest of us.  We really need to figure out a way to stop these people from procreating.  Maybe next year I’ll lace the candy with saltpeter …

Halloween is something of an enigma.   Is it a harvest celebration?  How about a religious one?  Maybe it’s some sort of annual, supernatural crack in time.

Well, whatever its origins, Halloween, like virtually every other ritualistic celebration, has been pirated by the secular world and converted into a profit center.   Believe it or not, Americans alone spend nearly $6.9 BILLION each year on Halloween – the most on any holiday except Christmas.  Maybe we should do this a couple more times per year to spur-on our economic recovery!

Although only some adults “get” Halloween, nearly every child does.  Our boys start planning their Halloween costumes in the middle of July, and change their minds about 6,000 times per week before the fateful moment when a commitment needs to be made, and a costume needs to be ordered.

Back when I was a kid, we would impatiently await the Sears Christmas Catalog to begin scanning those pages for Halloween costumes.  Local toy stores and 5-and-dimes of the day carried the cheap stuff (the translucent, paper-thin masks that disintegrated as soon as the rubber band was stretched around one’s head, and the body of the costume that seemed to be constructed of something slightly less durable than toilet paper).

In our town, there was a man with a costume shop that was open year-round.  His store specialized in theatrical garb.  He rented his masterpieces, and was about 90 years old when I was a kid, so he’s probably long gone by now.  But, according to Google, his store still lives on.

Unlike most kids, I never wore store-bought costumes.  My mother made my costumes every year when I was of trick-or-treating age.  One year, I went as a four-foot-tall witch’s hat.  Another year I went as a ghost.  One year, I was Willy Wonka.  To this day, I feel bad for my mom over this, because every year, she really worked hard assembling these costumes, and every damned year back East, it rained, and the costumes were mangled before I left my driveway.

Regardless the fate of these costumes, though, I will always remember my mom making them for me and, I guess, that’s sort of the point of the whole thing anyway.  Right?

Flash forward about forty years, and we now have our own elementary-school-aged kids to take trick-or-treating.  We live in a huge development of about 800 homes, and nearly all of them are closely abutted to one another on flat, gridded-out streets.  Those of us who live up in the hills don’t see many trick-or-treaters (why walk up hill for a half-dozen houses when there are hundreds down below?), so we usually leave candy outside in a bucket for the honor system, and we head out as a family to traverse the community.

As a child, trick-or-treating is simple.  It’s all about volume.  - hit as many homes as possible in the least amount of time, and be sure to bring a large, durable bag for toting around the booty.

As an adult, trick-or-treating takes on a different hue.   We’re not much more than beasts of burden who double as a GPS.  We point the kids in the right direction, let them know which houses aren’t participating, help them find honor-system candy bowls when they exist, and otherwise carry candy bags when they get too heavy, masks and accoutrements when they become too cumbersome, and usually trick-or-treaters when the walk home is just too much for little legs to endure.  As torturous as this sounds, it’s quite the contrary.  I wish these days would last forever.

Like Santa Claus and birthday parties at Chuck E Cheese, Halloween is not merely a holiday for the young, it is for the very young.  At some point in time, our boys will no longer want us to go trick-or-treating with them.  They’ll want to go with their group of friends, or skip trick-or-treating entirely and hang out at parties.  Like our parents before us, my wife and I will be left behind, romanticizing about the days when we would walk the streets with our boys, and then make an exaggerated fuss over every other youngster who comes to our door for treats.

But for now, we can still enjoy the magic.  So, when the boys wake up on Halloween morning, we’ll have breakfast, and then carve our pumpkins.  We’ll all bide our time before it’s time to suit-up, and then we’ll venture out on what will likely be a cold, damp excursion.  We’ll pass friends along the way, whine about how tough this night gets the older and fatter we become, and we’ll laugh as our kids innocently dart from house to house, arguing over who gets to ring the doorbell, and who needs to wait for whom because they’re going too fast.

Finally, we’ll reconvene at home, empty the bags and count and categorize all the booty from the night’s conquest.

Six months from now, we’ll end up throwing most of this candy away, once it’s been forgotten, but on Halloween night, our boys will fall asleep, dreaming of their new riches, and licking their lips in their sleep, waiting for the first light of morning to beg for their treats.

Summer ended officially more than a month ago, but the weather around the Aluminum Foil Hat homestead has been pleasantly mild and sunny since then, so the transitional solstice went by unceremoniously.  This weekend brought an end to all of that.

Saturday started out rainy and cold, and pretty much stayed that way all weekend.  By all predictions, it’s going to continue to be wet and cold for at least the next week, and possibly longer.  Unlike when weather like this settles in in the Spring, and we have summer to look forward to once we come out of this funk, at this time of year, we’re burdened with the reality that, once this weather passes, it’s going to get colder and wetter. – hardly cause for optimism.

In the Summer, we yearn to be outside, tossing balls, riding bikes, socializing, swimming, barbequeing, camping, etc.  We’re constantly busy, and full of energy.  Personally, by this point in the year, I’m sick of all that activity, and want to hibernate.  Maybe there’s more to this than just my own personal desire to be lazy, though.

Once Fall arrives, the days get shorter and our enthusiasm for activity wanes right along with the sun.  This is the perfect segue to a life of sloth.  No longer do we need to respond to the urge to get outside and be active.  Now, we can submit to our urge to nap, eat chips, scratch our burgeoning bellies and daydream about sitting around and doing absolutely nothing.

Even food changes with the weather.

In the Summer, we eat hot dogs and hamburgers and cole slaw and baked beans and ears of corn.  In the Fall and Winter, we eat hearty foods like stews and soups and mashed potatoes.  It’s as if somewhere in our genetic code there’s still a caveman preparing his body for the cold harsh Winter and the scarcity of food.  Of course, these days, as long as there’s McDonalds and we have $3 in our pockets, we’ll never go hungry, but millions of years of evolution have indelibly scratched survivalism into our psyches and that means conserving energy and eating for the long haul.

Over the next several weeks, the weather will continue to degrade into winter here above the 43^rd parallel.  We’ll turn on the heat in the house, pull out the Snuggies and spend hours on end watching Mork and Mindy reruns, and trying very hard to laugh between spontaneous naps.  We’ll celebrate Thanksgiving with about 6,000 calories of food in November, and then spend like drunken sailors, buying Christmas presents for our kids and then celebrating with more 6,000 calorie meals between Christmas Eve and New Years.

Come Springtime, as the ice thaws and our internal calendar reminds us to begin waking up and preparing for outdoor activity, we’ll grab our distended bellies with both hands and fling ourselves out of our recliners, squeeze into our jeans and start preparing the lawn for weekly cuts.  In the mean time, I’m keeping the remote control close by, and wearing my aluminum foil hat, in case one of the networks or cable decides to try poisoning my mind while I’m watching sit-coms and made-for-TV movies.

I was having a football catch with my 9 year-old son, a few minutes ago.

He’s only recently become interested in football, but like any kid his age, once he gets started on something, he wants to do it all the time.  Every day when I drag myself into the house from work, he runs up to me, grabs me and begs me to go outside that second and have a catch.  He’s even started wearing football jerseys around the house and outside when we’re playing.  Best of all, he provides play-by-play and “color” when he’s catching, telling me how good he is, and what a good receiver, or linebacker or punter he’d be.

Today is a gorgeous Fall day – sunny, 65 degrees, no breeze – and by 11AM, I decided the kids had played enough X-Box for one weekend.  So, ogre that I am, I forced them to shut off the TV, get dressed and get outside and play.  It didn’t take long before my oldest and I were tossing around the pig-skin.

As you can imagine, I’m not drilling his belly with 50-yard laser beams.  I’m tossing the ball softly 10 – 15 yards so he can get under it and make the catch.  On one fateful attempt today, though, I lobbed one to him.  It had a beautiful graceful arc.  He put his hands up to catch it and, THUD.  The ball went through his hands and smashed him right in the face.

As he collapsed in the front lawn, the ball bounced about ten feet away from him, and his shoe, which had been knocked off him in the collision, landed about as far in the opposite direction.  The whole thing took about two seconds, and looked like a combination of a stunt man getting blown out of a bunker by a grenade, or Charlie Brown flying through the air after Lucy pulls the football out from under him.

His hands covered his face; he curled up like a ball and started crying.

As a parent, my mind was flooded with thoughts: I hope this didn’t knock out one of his brand new adult teeth.  I hope nothing is broken on his face.  I hope he’s not bleeding, or in need of stitches.  Most importantly, I hope I can contain my laughter.

At this stage of life, kids gain and lose passion for things in an instant.  Sometimes the change is the result of a cataclysmic event.  Other times, nothing causes the change except the direction of the breeze, or a whim.  My goal now is to help my little boy get over this painful event and want to try playing again.

Philosophically, it’s a life lesson.  How many times in life do we get knocked down figuratively or literally?  At some point in our lives, we learn we must get up, turn our collars to the wind, and trudge on, whether we want to, or not.

My son is learning this lesson before my eyes, today.  He just asked me to go out and have another catch.

If you lived in Rome a couple thousand years ago, you probably would have spoken Latin, and if you were literate, you would have had a very difficult time emphasizing comments, because Latin text employed only upper-case letters, and no punctuation.  Imagine how many different interpretations any sentence could have without punctuation.

Come to think of it, “Et tu Brutus,” could have been a poor translation of what really occurred.  Maybe Caesar and Brutus were catching a ball game at the Colliseum, Brutus got up to get a hot dog, and Caesar called after him: “Eh!  Two, Brutus!”

We may never know the truth.

Fortunately for us, languages have evolved and we, in particular, have the benefit of a bevy of various punctuation marks to use to pause, stop or combine sentences.  We can even change the tone of a sentence with periods, question-marks, and exclamation points, but is that really enough?!

The differences between a period and an exclamation point are pretty apparent, but what do you do when you can’t commit to an extreme, and you need something in the middle, something that says “heck, yeah” instead of “HELL yeah!”  We’re trapped like Romans!

You may be thinking this isn’t a really big deal, but for some us, it’s paralyzing.  Many find it difficult dealing with hypocrisy.  We may agree with a friend’s comment, but we’d feel disingenuous if we concluded our comment with an exclamation point because it just goes too darned far, but a period is too subtle.

Clearly, our language has not evolved far enough just yet.   It seems we may need to nudge things along, so I suggest we establish a new foundation, conduct a telethon, create a think tank, organize focus groups, employ the scientific method, and develop a “sentence-ender” that we can really get behind. (!)

National Punctuation Day is September 24th, so we have nearly a year to come up with a solution for this.

Who’s with me?