I’m a married man!

I have the pictures.  I have the license.  I have the ring.   But nothing has served as a reminder of my semi-newish married status quite as much as the box of feminine hygiene products which has apparently been in my back seat for the last 4 weeks.  

Despite making a whispered phone call from an aisle at the grocery store which I have successfully avoided for the first 37 years of my life, I bought the wrong pink and white box.     

Over the last 10 months, there have been a few “pink and white boxes,” but I have tried to learn from my mistakes and make my way through a crash course in being married.   Like a total immersion French class which drops you off on the streets of Quebec, my wife Jen and I have spent the last 10 months getting to know everything that makes the other person tick.   And while we haven’t had any issues conjugating verbs, we have had more than one conversation about my misuse of kitchen dish towels.  

It is in the common everyday things, cultivated over many years of living by myself, where I can truly drive Jen nuts.  

For instance, Jen does not subscribe to my trailblazing  and non-discriminatory style of laundry, in which everyone goes in together.  Colors and whites.  Beach Towels and dress shirts.    All are welcome.   And I stand behind my record of never turning any shirts pink or filling the basement with suds in a hilarious “Mr. Mom” fashion.  I live on the edge.  I don’t know how to live any other way.  

And for me, the living room coffee table seems like a perfectly acceptable place to leave a baseball cap which looks like one Steve Kline would have worn on a deep-sea fishing trip.  

It's Kline time.

Most recently, Jen has discovered that my version of cleaning the bathroom involves enough chemicals to cause a OSHA violation in most states (excluding New Jersey).  If it isn’t making me woozy, I’m not doing it right.  

A few weeks ago, I got a glimpse back into my bachelor life, as Jen went out-of-town for business.  And to say that things got crazy would be, well, a lie.  I was reminded that my actual bachelor life didn’t resemble the TV show of the same name.  Unless they have recently substituted the scenes of the bachelor being surrounded by women in a hot tub with one of him watching “Mythbusters” by himself and preparing a dinner in which the only serving of fruits or vegetables is included in a Hostess Cherry Pie.  

Fruit Pie the Magician appears nightly at Binion's in Downtown Vegas.

 To say that I wasn’t exactly knocking it out of the park as a bachelor is an understatement.   At the bars, the only conversation I ever had in which the young lady approached me  started off with her saying, “It stinks over here.  Did you throw up?”  Ahh, the one that got away.  (And to answer your question, no, I had not thrown up.)  

The one good thing that came from my bachelor weekend, was that the proprietor of my local pizzeria was very happy to learn that I was still alive.  However, rising tomato prices and the loss of my weekly business has meant that his daughter is just going to have to live with that overbite.  

Someone asked me recently if I thought being single was much easier than being married.  In some aspects it was, but making a frozen burrito for your dinner is pretty easy too.  Sure, you can get by on frozen burritos (and, trust me, I have) but when it comes down to it I would much rather put in the effort on a great meal that I can share with someone else. 

Jen has truly changed my life for the better, and I wouldn’t trade my married life with her for anything.  And despite raising the level of sarcasm in her life by roughly 300%, I think she would say the same about me. 

I know that I am only 10 months in, but I think that you will get the same answer if you come find me in 10 years.  I shouldn’t be hard to find, I will be the guy in the pink shirt.

Sister Act 2: It’s Punny

31 years ago today, I received the sort of “end of the world”-news that every 5-year-old dreads.  I had just become an older brother.  To make matters even worse, that younger sibling was a sister.  And to put a cherry on top of that, she decided to drop in just 6 days before my birthday. 

As friends and relatives congratulated me on my wonderful birthday gift, I chose to make my feelings known to my Mom by declaring, “I was your baby, why did you have to have her?”  A sentiment that colored our relationship for years to come as only I could see that this blue-eyed, blonde-haired bundle of joy was a ticking time bomb just waiting to confound me at every turn. 

For the first year or two, she presented only a minor annoyance.  Being forced to keep it down while she slept, putting up with her crying while I watched “The Incredible Hulk,” etc.  But as she got older, like a cat, she sensed my dislike for her and sent it back to me times ten.    Others saw the dimples and the sweet personality but I saw pure evil in a Polly Flinders dress. 

If I have ever had an arch-nemesis in this world, it was my sister Megan.  The Lex Luthor to my Superman was a little girl who was referred to then and (ironically) now as “The Baby.” 

Have you ever looked into the face of pure evil?

Any older sibling learns to hate any parental plea that ends with “he’s/she’s just a baby.”  “Just let her play with your toys.”  “Let her watch her cartoons.”  For a 5-10 year old, being the bigger person is a concept that makes as much sense as Particle Physics.  And it stings even more when your parents seem to miss every one of your younger siblings outbursts like a WWF referee paying too much attention to the crowd.   

My sister could go from being a proponent of Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent protest, in an epic 30-minute struggle to get her to put on shoes (which ended, conveniently, when my Mom walked in the door) to bashing me over the head with a majorette’s baton.  Bending the blunt instrument around my head like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon. 

The trouble didn’t stop at home either.  She puked in my Cardinals hat at a picnic, had a penchant for wearing Marine Corps hats with Sunday dresses, and wore so much of my Mom’s old make-up at dinner one night that I said she looked like “a hooker” and refused to sit at the table with my family.  I wouldn’t have wanted to soil my reputation among the patrons of the fine dining establishment Long John Silver’s. 

Through our early years together, I will admit that I didn’t always like my little sister, but that I always loved her.  When an ill-conceived “light saber” duel with baseball bats led to our neighbor cracking Megan in the nose, I was the first person to come running when I heard her cries.  Nobody was going to mess with my little sister…..unless it was me. 

As my older brother headed to high school, Megan and I moved into the relative peace of a Cold War détente.  We would walk home from school together and spend the next few hours watching Duck Tales and preparing dinner.  During the summer, we might even put aside our differences and ride our bikes down to Dairie Queen and catch a matinée of “The Goonies.”  

Maybe I did like my sister. Shocking.

As I moved onto high school and then college, Megan and I got to spend less time together.  When I would drop in, I would find that she wasn’t such a little kid anymore, and that she had her own life.  As we crossed paths on her way to college and my way back home, I discovered that she had become a young woman who was still just as feisty as the little girl I had sparred with.  Even in her hippie phase, she wasn’t beyond getting lippy with a woman built like a longshoreman who cut in line at the DMV. 

As we got a little older,  I discovered that this person that I had spent so much time with had actually become someone who I liked to see.   We were able to look back and smile at the good times and laugh at the “bad” times.  All of our shared experiences had become the inside jokes of old friends. 

It is hard to believe that the little girl my parents brought home all of those years ago is now 31.  She is now a wife and a mother herself.  But for me, she will always be my “little” sister.  And now, I am happy to say, my friend. 

Happy Birthday Megan.

Twihard: With a Vengeance

I consider myself a fairly well-rounded individual, as I enjoy learning about all sorts of different subjects,  but of all the things that remain a mystery to me (e.g. how the Hoover Dam was built, algebra and the surprising longevity of Howie Mandel’s career) , nothing has come close to my complete lack of comprehension of the tween-to- Cougar phenomenon that is “Twilight.” 

I don't even know what to say about this.

I will be up front right now and state that I have not read the books.  I have, however,  been subjected by my wife to the first two films, and from that experience I cannot  understand why the rabid fans of this  story make the girls in the crowd at a Duran Duran concert in 1985 look like the audience for an educational lecture on the dangers of sunstroke.  I have to keep coming back to the realization that as A.) a man and B.) a man who is old enough to make references to Duran Duran,  Twilight simply wasn’t made for me.   Much like soy burgers and recumbent bicycles. 

From what I have gathered so far, the story seems to revolve around a vampire and a werewolf fighting over a girl (Bella) who has as much magnetism as that giveaway from my Dentist’s office which struggles to hold my phone bill to the fridge.   But as much as a dud as she seems to be, I still think that she could do better than these two guys.  Both of whom seem like the sort of d-bag a girl would wonder why she dated so long when the relationship ended. 

The vampire is a wishy-washy moper who has a perpetual “It’s 4:20 at Tommy Chong’s house” -look on his face.  He breaks up with Bella about every 15 minutes because he doesn’t want her to get hurt, never hangs out with her friends and still lives with his creepy parents even though he is about 1,000 years old.  But he sparkles in the daylight like a stripper walking to her car after closing time.  So he’s got that going for him. 

The werewolf has a unpredicatable temper which will most likely end with someone needing stitches. But if you got to know the real him you would see that he is really sweet when he isn’t throwing your Precious Moments figurines through the tv screen because  you taped over “The Ultimate Fighter.”  He rarely wears a shirt and has abs that look like a topographic map of the Andes, so I guess that makes up for a lot. 

Women seem to fall into one of two camps with these guys.  My wife has let me know on many occasions that she thinks the actor who portrays Captain Six-Pack is the bees knees.  (In all fairness, she probably didn’t use those exact words)  After seeing this young man, I can say without hesitation that the only thing that I have in common with him (looks or otherwise) is that we are both currently living on Earth. 

The thing that I find most amusing about this Twilight craze is that if I had asked my wife to watch a straight-to-DVD quality movie about vampires and werewolves 5 years ago she would have told me to get lost.  But she called me after seeing the latest installment at the theater to let me know that it was “soooooo  good.”  

I am an admitted nerd, but I guess I just don’t understand being a crazed fan of anything.  I once attended a 12 am opening night showing of “Star Wars: Episode 1,” before which a portly Jedi tore his ACL having a light saber duel with a Sith Lord who may or may not have spent his days working at Kinko’s.  Witnessing that event changed me.  I think, now, I could only reach the Twilight fan’s level of excitement if Elvis delivered a pizza to my house in the Batmobile. 

I don’t begrudge the fans for their enjoyment of these stories.  I think it is great that it gets people so excited and maybe gets them to read something.  But this isn’t my thing.  So, for now, I will let others have their fun as I steer clear of this craze in the same way that I do with man-capri’s….or the Mercury Capri. 

Where was the government oversight of the Big 3 when this happened?

Daddy’s home!

Me, my brother and my Dad on what I hope is Halloween 1974.

As Father’s Day approaches, my thoughts turn to the man who has done, and continues to do,  the most to shape who I am today.  A man who, over these last 36 years, has made me laugh, taught me my values and occasionally driven me nuts.  A true original.  My Dad. 

My Dad isn’t like a lot of the other father’s I knew growing up.  Unlike some friend’s dads who seemed to consider their kid’s lives as an afterthought, my Dad always took an interest in what my siblings and I  were doing.  He knew our friends,  he was our biggest fan in whatever we chose to do and was always very willing to give the gift of his time. 

From the day I was born until I was in my mid-20’s, my Dad was a police officer.  It wasn’t uncommon for him to be called away in the middle of the night or to find out that the guy who said “Hi” to him at Burger King was someone who he had sent to the penitentiary for burglary.  My Dad took a great deal of pride in his work.  He loved it and I think he did it because he truly wanted to help people.  (Although the guy at Burger King may have had a different opinion.) 

My Dad is a very kind man but, as an ex-cop, he can also be a little intimidating.  He once avoided potential road rage when the belligerent driver of another car followed us into the parking lot of a Putt-Putt, only to apologize and drive away when he saw my Dad get out of the car.  My brother and I have decided that if we ever had to take on my Dad, we would have to surprise him, and at least one of us would have to be wielding a pillow case full of door knobs. 

While my Dad sometimes refers to me as the wheelbarrow, in that I only work when pushed, he has a work ethic that won’t quit.  In all his years as a policeman, I can only recall him calling in sick once.  A day on which he passed a kidney stone that, judging from the sounds I heard from the next room, was roughly the size of an avocado.  

Although his sense of humor has gotten goofier and goofier over the years, my Dad is a very funny man.  Full of stories and jokes, he is the center of most every party that he attends.   My Mom often says that friends make sure that he is invited to their parties and then let her know that she can come too.  While we may roll our eyes at the same old jokes, when he has a fresh audience….watch out. 

My Dad is like a human waterboard.  He can get anyone to talk.  If you meet him, be prepared for a barrage of questions the likes of which you have never seen.   Questions that run the gamut from “What do you do for a living?” to my family’s favorite, “Did you get any surprises for Christmas?”  (Which was asked of someone in May)  People tell him things within the first 20 minutes of meeting him that they have probably never told anyone in their life.  If you put my Dad in a room with Marcel Marceau, he would walk out with a vacation invitation.  People don’t open up to him because of some Dale Carnegie tactic or self-help book trick, it is because my Dad is truly interested in what they have to say.  My Dad makes people feel special because he listens.   

He treats everyone he meets like a friend and is the least self-conscious person I know.  I am fairly confident that he hasn’t purchased a single item of clothing for himself since he got out of the Navy, and will wear the same promotional giveaway t-shirt for years until my Mom mysteriously loses it in the wash.  He once cut the grass in a “Me So Horny” t-shirt that someone gave him as a joke for his 50th birthday and greeted some high school friends of my sister that had come to pick her up.  That t-shirt was never seen again. 

My Dad grew up with parents that he could never count on, and at some point he decided that he would be the type of parent that you can always count on.  I can call on him any time day or night and I know that he will be there for me. His word is gold.  If he tells you that he is going to do something, it will get done.  Unless it is an ill-conceived Father/Son project to revive a junkyard Camaro which came and went on the same tow truck, and spent the two years in between as wheeled storage unit in the garage.   My Dad’s self-taught automotive skills and my brother’s and my proficiency at holding flashlights and handing over screwdrivers just wasn’t enough to bring it back to life.  In all fairness, I would have probably just ended up sideswiping a Wendy’s drive thru anyway. 

As an adult, I can now look back and really appreciate all of the sacrifices that my Mom and Dad made for our family.  In addition to being a cop, my Dad worked a never-ending array of part-time jobs to make sure that my siblings and I could go to private school and to always be able to go somewhere on vacation.  There may not have been 4-Star accommodations, and my sister may have had to tell theme parks that she was 11 until she was well past voting age, but I have been all over this great land.  You have not truly witnessed the majesty of the Rocky Mountains until you have seen it from the back window of a beige Datsun 210 puttering up the side of Pike’s Peak. 

My brother says that if my Dad ever became famous, I could get rich impersonating him. At the very least I could be doing two shows a night with Tony Orlando in Branson.  What started as a trick that I sometimes used to startle my brother when he wasn’t looking or to generally annoy my sister (but unconvincingly sold to my Dad as a loving tribute) has, over the last several years, turned into an involuntary action.  I sound more and more like my Dad every day.  But as I have recently gotten married, and look to start a family of my own, I only hope that I can continue to do the best impression of my Dad that is possible. 

Happy Father’s Day Dad.

So what? So let’s dance.

As a 36-year old white guy, there are a lot of things that I can’t pull off: 

• Either of the hawks (faux or mo).   (It’s one of the things that kept me out of contention for a role in the A-Team remake.)
• Skinny and/or baggy jeans.   (Nobody needs or wants to see more of what I have going on in the slacks-region.)
• Any use of the phrase “Bieber Fever.” 

These are all things that I can, and do, avoid. But there is  one thing which keeps bringing me back for a humiliatingly one-sided showdown again and again.  My old nemesis: dancing. 

Fast or slow.  Jazz or tap.  Popping or locking.  I cannot dance.   Not only do I have two left feet, but aside from my regular left foot, I seem to have another left foot which was injured in a misguided foray into the world of rodeo clowning. 

I have one move, and one move only.  I shift from one leg to the other while slightly swaying my arms.  A move that reminds my wife of an “As seen on TV” exercise slide, but slowed down for rehabbing Seniors.  My only variation is that I speed it up for a fast song (i.e  Morris Day and the Time’s “Jungle Love) and awkwardly grab onto someone for a slow dance (i.e.  Jeffrey Osborne’s hauntingly beautiful “On the Wings of Love”). 

The guy in this still picture is already moving more than I usually do.

Maybe my non-existent dancing skills are due to a lack of strong dancing role models as a kid.  Without the constant bombardment of C-level celebrity dance programs on network TV, did I ever really stand a chance?  Despite my proclivity for gold lamet headbands, I knew that no matter how hard I worked I could never be a Solid Gold dancer.  Instead, I saw Bruce Springsteen’s moves in the “Dancing in the Dark” video and decided that they most closely matched my skill level. 

Solid Gold dancer was the number one career goal for pre-teens in 1983 according to Bananas magazine.

In grade school, my lack of dancing prowess came head to head with my lack of skills with the ladies, as my gym teacher decided to focus less on my inability to do a pull-up and create a more hoedown-centric curriculum.   Square dancing was the perfect storm for the 12-year old me, as it combined the mind-blowing nervousness of physical contact with the opposite sex and down home choreography.  I think I would have rather done push-ups.  Girly style. 

Things didn’t improve much in high school, as school mixers leaning up against the bleachers in the gym led to my first formal dance, when I awkwardly swayed to “High Enough” by the Ted Nugent led super-group Damn Yankees.  I don’t know it is possible to sweat through a blue blazer, but I think I came as close as humanly possible. 

No one sums up the feelings of young romance like homemade jerky proponent Ted Nugent.

Most of my displays of fancy footwork these days come at weddings,  the event which comes as close as most adults will ever be again to attending prom.  (I hope)  I got married last year, and the part of the day that had me most nervous was the dancing.   Having my picture taken repeatedly or meeting loads of people whom I have never met?  Child’s play.  Dancing with everyone watching?  Horrifying. 

We outlawed the Duck Dance and the Macarena but, as the wedding approached, a highly choreographed wedding party dance became an internet sensation.  Wisely, Jen realized that having a husband that looks like he is doing the Robot even when he is trying not to may create an internet sensation of a completely different kind.  So she let me stick to my one move.   I love her because she knows that I will always dance when asked but she accepts the fact that my dancing will only continue to get worse.  Much, much worse. 

So, I will continue to dream of a world in which John Lithgow has outlawed dancing, “Footloose”-style, but in my heart I know that I will be called on to dance again.  Just as long as it isn’t “The Cha Cha Slide.”

He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.

Looking good and feeling good in leisure suits that couldn't get too close to an open flame.

All of us have friends that we have made because we shared a class or a neighborhood,  but there is nothing like a friendship with someone with whom you have shared pair after pair of hand-me-down pants.  For me, that friend is my brother Sean. 

There is an old saying which states that you can’t choose your family, but somebody up there was sure looking out for me when they chose my brother. 

Like most younger siblings, I have followed Sean in just about everything I have done.  I followed him as we walked to grade school.  I followed him to high school and college.  When he started wearing parachute pants…..well, I stayed behind on that one.  

This Sunday, he is leading the way to a place that the little kid in the picture above never saw coming.  He is turning 40. 

Last week, I wrote about watching Sean’s two sons, and while I was with them I couldn’t help but look back on my relationship with my brother.   While most kids can’t wait for their younger siblings to stop pestering them, there was never a day on which Sean wouldn’t make time for me.   With his friends, it was always understood that his weird kid brother was part of the deal.   (And I was most definitely weird) 

Why would the 6 Million Dollar Man have a picture of himself on his chest?

He is someone who I always looked up to, even if he would change the rules of Freeze Tag mid-game if he was losing or always make me play Tonto to his Lone Ranger.    As kids, he was the good one, and didn’t always make the greatest partner for youthful shenanigans.  He would roll over on himself (and me) in a second if our parent’s discovered that we had peeked at the racecar set they had bought us for Christmas.  I played dumb, despite the fact that there were really only two possible suspects in the house. 

This may be damning him with faint praise but, of the two of us, he was most definitely the cool one.   Whether he was going through his preppy “Sweater Boy” phase or his skater look which led to my Dad sending him back to the barber when he came home with a feathered mullet, Sean was the Theo Huxtable (or insert a current cool kid reference) of 622 Lynn Haven Ln. 

He has always treated everyone like a friend.  When he was young,  he would ask kids that he met in line at the store if they would like to come over to our house. As a teenager, he brought over kids who didn’t have any family in town to join us for Thanksgiving. As an adult, he makes his living by helping people. 

My brother is a devoted father and husband, a great friend and the hardest working person I know.  As he turns 40 this weekend, I can only hope that I can continue to follow in his footsteps. 

You are my brother.  I love you.  

Happy birthday Sean.

Adventures in Babysitting

I risked my life to get this fuzzy Bigfoot-esque photo.

I have watched infants.  I have watched toddlers.  I have even watched “Uncle Buck” at least 10 times.  However, nothing could have prepared me for this past weekend, in which I watched my 3 and 6 year-old nephews from Friday until Sunday.  A marathon event which, had it been filmed, could have easily been used as a Scared Straight program for at risk teen mothers and baby daddy’s. 

Let me just state, for the record, that my respect for parents has never been higher.  I will never again ask my brother why he hasn’t found time to listen to the new Wilco album or watch “Community,” since I can’t figure out when he and my sister-in-law even find the time to shower or eat a decent meal.  

Within my family’s babysitting depth chart, I fall slightly higher than leaving the tv on and the windows cracked or hiring a birthday clown from Craigslist, so my previous babysitting experience is limited at best.   Babysitting  for two days when my previous record had been six hours was like training for the Boston Marathon by once running across a Dunkin Donuts parking lot to avoid getting hit by a car. 

Before getting married last year, I had lived on my own for a long time,  so the concept of co-habitating with anyone is still new to me.  After seven months, Jen and I are still figuring out each other’s quirks , but I can be pretty sure that, unlike my nephews,  at no point will she kick me in the face or bust into the bathroom while I am taking a shower to ask if she can eat some yogurt. 

I learned a lot over the course of the weekend.  I learned that a 6-year-old can eat his weight in chicken nuggets and that he is not a very reliable source when you ask what his mom would usually do in a certain situation.  I also learned that my 3-year-old nephew talks in his sleep.  A fact that I discovered after the third time his words woke me from a dead sleep and I found him to be out like a light in his room but apparently having a very vivid dream about teaching a dog to tie his shoes. 

I also fell for one of the classic babysitting blunders by asking the kids what they wanted me to fix for dinner, as they waffled more than I did on the Science portion of the ACT.  Then, after getting together an entrée, fruit, milk and a side, my dinner consisted of Totino’s Pizza Rolls that I scarfed down over the sink as I washed dishes.    (By the way, if the molten filling for those Pizza Rolls were any hotter they would be in danger of causing flight delays in Europe.) 

Rain came down like a gift from the heavens to cause the cancellation of two t-ball games, but I still had to stick the landing on two separate karate classes on Saturday morning.   Since I like to live on the edge, I cut the schedule way too close by letting my older nephew sleep in until I had to practically wake him up via megaphone.  He awoke with the gusto of a 75-year-old man and ambled to the breakfast table wearing boxers and wrapped in a blanket.  I would have not been surprised had he asked me for a cup of Sanka. 

I found that when he did not want to do something, a mystery malady was soon to be discovered. 

Here is a list of his symptoms over the course of the weekend: 

• My legs hurt
• I have an upset stomach
• I have a fever
• I have cold hands
• My leg is bumpy
• My tongue is bumpy
• The back of my heart hurts

The WebMD results were inconclusive, but I’m not ruling out Yellow Fever.   I won’t know until I can ask him if he has recently spent any time in South America or sub-Saharan Africa. 

On Sunday afternoon, despite the Wii, the Nintendo DS, dozens of DVD’s and a mountain of toys, he let me know that he had never been more bored.  I told him that I didn’t have any of that fancy stuff when I was his age.  To say that this “back in my day” speech garnered no sympathy from him would be an understatement. 

As the day wore on, and I found myself saying things like “Oh, this is a funny episode of ‘Fanboy and Chum Chum’,” I knew that I was losing it.  I longed to speak to another adult and let them know all about how unappreciated I felt as I spent my day picking up hand towels and sweeping up crumbs. 

When my Mom came to relieve me on Sunday night, I don’t know if I have ever been happier to see anyone.  (Mom, look for a little something extra in next year’s Mother’s Day card.)  I was very happy to go home to my wife, who has never once taken credit for a Lego spaceship that I built. 

To my nephews, you guys really were pretty great all weekend.  But Uncle Scott needs to take a break.  It’s not you.  It’s me.

So lame that it’s cool?

I know some of you are going to have a hard time believing this, but I am a nerd.  No, really.  It’s true.  The guy who pads out his blogs with pictures of random sitcom stars of the ’70s and ’80s is not now, nor ever has been cool.  

No reason for this.

In grade school, I didn’t even get any respect from the kids younger than me.  While in the 8th grade, 2nd grader Pete Guntli was able to goad me into a race by claiming that he could run faster than I could ride my bike.  After leaving him in my dust, I felt that it would be a good idea to stop and taunt the 8-year-old unmercifully, so I slammed on my front brakes.  After being  launched over my handlebars onto the pavement, I realized that accepting challenges from kids with Garfield lunch boxes probably meant that I wasn’t making much of an impression on the ladies.  

The first time that I really tried to impress a girl was in the sixth grade.  One of the popular girls in class told me that she liked a drawing that I was working on for art class and I took that as an opportunity to get cocky.  I told her that art came easy to me and that I could help her out sometime if she was interested.  She politely informed me that I had a booger hanging out of my nose.  With that, my dreams of becoming a pre-teen Fonzie were crushed,  and not even the purchase of a jean jacket at Colonel Days in the 8th grade could put me back on track.  

Ayyyyyyy

As I have mentioned before, I have been cleaning out my basement recently , and all of the G.I. Joe’s, comic books and decorative, crocheted Darth Vader art doesn’t paint the picture of a kid who had a lot going on.  I feel like an archaeologist uncovering an ancient civilization of pale white kids who wore tube socks pulled up to the tops of their calves.   Unfortunately, my priceless collection of  “Star Wars” iron-on decal t-shirts have been lost to the ages.   

I did, however, find the script to a grade school skit that I wrote in which I appeared as a sportscaster named Spud Wack.  That sort of edgy comedy was groundbreaking and way ahead of its time for 1984.  (You’re welcome Dave Chappelle.) I don’t know what is more sad?  That I, at one time, thought this was comedy gold, or that at some point over the last 25 years I thought that the script would be worth saving for later.  

One small thing I can be proud of, is that I was aware of the fact that I was a nerd.  So at the very least, I knew what I couldn’t pull off.  Consequently, I don’t have suffer through any pictures of me in parachute pants or Z Cavaricci’s.   A white Miami Vice sweatshirt?  Maybe.  

I would like to think that I am a little better today but, deep down, I know better.   My wife Jen is going to love that Darth Vader wall art in our new house.

Do you know how to use anything “high tech?”

Last night, I received a phone call from my father asking for assistance in posting a car for sale on Craigslist.    These calls have become more frequent over the years as I have become the default IT expert for my Dad and his friends based on the fact that I:  a.) own a computer and b.) will generally not kick over a table  if they ask me how to cut and paste for the 4th time.

Let me point out, for the record,  that I think I know next to nothing about computers as I come from a generation in which the most high-tech discussion I had before turning fourteen was how to beat level 5 in Burgertime on the Intellivision.

Don’t get me wrong, I try to keep up.  I have an iPod and a Blackberry, and even 130 friends on Facebook, despite the fact that I only talk to about 4 friends in real life on a regular basis.  I look forward to re-connecting with the other 126 in 15 years on whatever is passing for social interaction at the point when I receive the message “I haven’t talked to you since Facebook . Will you join my Mafia Wars gang?”

I have no formal computer training.  In fact, the first time I even used one was in a high school typing class in which the teacher was awfully fond of giving back rubs.  That may explain why I start crying whenever I exceed 20 wpm.

I hadn’t even heard of the internet until I was a senior in college, when on one glorious day a friend showed me a message board containing a text-only list of “Simpsons” quotes and then spent 30 minutes waiting to download a picture of Terri Hatcher wearing a short skirt.   It is good to know that the internet has come a long way from providing nerds with pictures of scantily clad women and cartoon references.

I look at the kids today as I’m sure my Dad looks at me.  I know that their knowledge on these thing has already passed me by and now I am just trying to stay afloat.   My wife no longer needs to remind me that I need to lose when I play my nephews on Wii, because they spend every waking hour on-line and I never stood a chance in the first place.  “When I was your age we only had one button.”

I won’t throw out the old “In my day we played outside until the sun went down” bit since the most high energy game that I played as a kid was TV Tag, in which yelling out “Benson” was considered a solid defense.  I was such a lazy kid that I once hid the remainder of an unwanted hamburger from my lunch under a dresser instead of walking the 15 feet to the kitchen trash can.  To say that my Mom was a little upset when she found what appeared to be medical waste stored in a Glad sandwich bag 3 months later would be an understatement.   

As I continue to clean out my basement, I continue to find a never ending supply of dead technology and I am faced with the tough decision of whether or not it is worth keeping  A-Ha 45’s or a seemingly endless number of episodes of “Moonlighting” on VHS.  To kids today, I may as well be looking for handlebar mustache wax while riding one of those giant front-wheeled bikes.

My first iPod was a pair of bright yellow AM/ FM headphones that made me look like I was part of Korean War tank crew and could only pick up KHTR if I put my head up against my bedroom wall.   I blame their heft for me not reaching 6 feet tall.

Functional and stylish.

And who needs a PSP when you can play an almost recognizable, black and white version of Pac-Man while still being able to tell the time.

I was already pretty cool before I got this watch.

I just found out that my 2-year old niece will begin taking a computer class when she starts going to daycare soon, so at least I know that someone will be around someday to roll her eyes and answer all of my questions when I ask how to set up whatever nano bluetooth contraption I buy 5 years after everyone else.

I have met my replacement, and she wears Pamper’s Pull-Ups.

You should see the other guy.

A while back, I wrote out a list of words that have never been used to describe me, and one word that I could not add to that list was “bruiser.”  That’s right, either due to my size or some mis-construed bad attitude, I am occasionally perceived as some sort of Steven Seagal-esque tough guy.

For example, while attending a concert last week, a guy walked up and stood directly in front of a table full of college guys seated next to us.  When the guy finally walked away, our neighbors wondered aloud why the rude hipster did not choose to stand in front of me.  Implying that this imaginary showdown would have ended with me connecting on a roundhouse kick to his carefully manicured sideburns.

Let me state for the record that I would only be capable of kicking Billy Barty in the face if he was kneeling and that the only thing I really remember about the karate class that I took for three years in grade school is that one time my Dad took me to Arby’s afterwards because I had missed dinner.

It is sad that Billy Barty is still the most famous little person actor I can think of. For shame Hollywood.

Despite what I think of as my relatively peaceful demeanor, not one, but two, homeless people have led off their requests for spare change by asking me if I was going to punch them in the face.  That didn’t stop them from asking but, hey, times are tough.

I’m guessing that part of the misperception has to do with my body language, as  I apparently give off an initial vibe that led my now-wife to refer to me as “the angry loner.”   But underneath that stoic facade lies the heart of a man who at 21 would ride his bike the long way back to his apartment to avoid the line of buses in front of Jarret Junior High at 3 pm so that he wouldn’t be viciously berated by 13 year olds.

The second factor in this perception undoubtedly comes from my size, as my relatively Tom Arnold-esque physique is sometimes mistaken for muscle. 

When I was a kid,  I suffered the indignity of getting my Toughskin jeans  from the Husky section at Sears.   I believe the ACLU successfully sued to have the word Husky banned in 1979, so chunky kids can now pick out slacks from the far right side of the racks that everyone else gets to use.  I’m not sure what became of the Husky section at Sears,  since I no longer buy pants from stores where I can also purchase a bandsaw.

I have only been an active participant in one fight in my entire life, and it stemmed from me calling Tony Pavia Tony the Pony on the walk home from school in the 4th grade.  No punches were actually thrown, but I would like to see any of those UFC tough guys wrestle while wearing a winter coat and a book bag.

My only other altercation was the result of my friend Jeff yelling something unflattering at a pre-OJ White Bronco as we walked to the mall after seeing “Robocop.”  Teens poured out of the Bronco like it was some sort of juvenile delinquent  clown car and we foolishly decided to hold our ground.  A shirtless young man who was apparently only a  few years older than me,  yet built like a 35-year-old ex-con roofer, punched me in the face after making the statement “I like you.”  In retrospect, he may have been lying.

Maybe this is the first step in correcting my image, but I don’t know if I want to go too far.  I enjoy not having people stand in front of me at concerts.