Better Angels and Sweet Potatoes

    So, this beautiful Thanksgiving morning I went to the gym early. It was open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m today - which was very convenient. On the way home, I stopped at Dunkin' Donuts and slurped up a coffee and sandwich, which was also very convenient. A few minutes ago, I picked up my car keys with the intention of heading to the grocery store and picking up some extra garbage bags - which also would have been very convenient.

    My wife refused to let me go.

    Her reason? She thinks that everyone should be off work for Thanksgiving and that by patronizing businesses today, you're encouraging businesses to force employees to work. I headed for the door anyway, but just before I reached it, I stopped.

    She's right.

    Businesses are forcing their employees to work on holidays. And more to the point, they're not forcing all of their employees to work today. Mostly, they're only forcing the unlucky bastards at the bottom of the organizational chart to come in when everyone else is staying with their families. I don't see a lot of executives and managers working today, but I do see a lot of people in uncomfortable polyester uniforms biding their time. And that, as the Pilgrims would say, does sucketh verily.

    I used to be one of those guys and I hated it, even when I didn't have a family. Usually, the company would give me some token for working the holiday - like time and a half wages - but what I really wanted was a choice about whether I came in or not.

    So, I've come to a decision. I'm going to avoid businesses on holidays. Which is not convenient. I'm going to fill up on gas the day before the holiday instead of that morning. I'm going to skip the gym. I'm going to make my own coffee. I'm going to make sure that we've got all the food we need the week before the holiday. The plan is not to buy less of anything. It's not a boycott designed to hurt businesses or employees. I just want to shift the buying to non-holidays.

    I realize that this will have almost zero effect on the problem, but that's not the point. Sometimes, you have to realize what even though you're willing to pay extra for added convenience on the holiday, you're not the only one paying the price.

    Once again, I want to thank my wife for being my better angel in this matter. And I hope like hell we don't run out sweet potatoes.

Like Good, American Raccoons

    My wife hates the raccoons in our neighborhood because they break into our trash cans in the middle of the night, eat the leftovers and leave food packaging strewn across our yard. It’s very festive, actually. It looks like a ticker-tape parade was held by Lean Cuisine.
    “What are we going to do about these raccoons?” Bridget asked me the other night as we picked up frozen pizza wrappers, fish stick boxes and empty juice boxes.
    Well, they’re eating our leftovers,” I said. “If we do nothing, they’ll eventually die of coronary heart disease.”

Did I Say Finesse?

    Talking with your kids about sex and sexuality requires a deft touch - a kind of "finesse" if you will. 

    Or you could just handle it the way I do.

    Yesterday, Gabriel stopped me in the kitchen as I gathered towels and sunscreen for the pool.

    "Hey, dad. What's a condom?"

    "A what?" I asked - even though I had heard the question clearly. I folded the terry cloth towels to buy myself some time.

    "A condom," Gabriel answered. "I saw a commercial for condoms. What are they?"

    I paused and looked at my ten year-old. I considered lying for a moment because that's...what's the word I'm looking for....easier.

    "It's a piece of rubber that men wear on their penises so that the women won't get pregnant."

    He considered this for a moment.

    "We live in a really weird world."

    "Yes, we do," I replied.

House of a Thousand Screws

    This Christmas, my in-laws gave my six year-old daughter Riley a stained wood playhouse. And this playhouse isn't one of those ten-piece plastic playhouses that you can pick up at Target. No, sir. This playhouse has a porch. This playhouse has an actual porch with white wooden columns. This playhouse has a bay window on one side, for god sakes. 

    And though this playhouse is magnificent and my daughter really, really wants to play in it, I haven't even contemplated building this architectural treasure before now. Why, you ask?

    This playhouse is held together by a thousand screws.

    As I looked at the directions over eggnog last Christmas, I noticed that the manual clearly states that building this playhouse requires two adults about six to eight hours of work time. And it occurred to me to ask myself:

    What have I done to piss off my in-laws?

    Clearly, I did something.

    I am famous in my town for not having tools. Hell, there are even some rumors flying about that I lack opposable thumbs with which to grasp tools. This is a lie, of course. I do have opposable thumbs. They just happen to be, God help me, on my feet. I sometimes even use my foot thumbs to pick up and eat Cheetohs that have fallen to the floor while I watch television. This is the real reason, if you must know, that my feet are vaguely burnished orange.

    Whatever. The point is that I never, ever build stuff. 

    And yet Riley got the gift of this house and I got the gift of...screwing. My in-laws have even let me borrow a drill with a phillips-head driver on it, so that I don't have to screw screws in manually. I am grateful for that.

    Because I am on hour seven right now...of screwing. All of the wood is pre-cut, so there is no measuring or cutting to distract you from, say, screwing screws into boards. Also, there's no painting of any kind, either, so you can pretty much just concentrate on the screwing.

    You get the idea, probably.

    This thing gets potentially worse, too. It's been raining in Florida, so I've been building the house inside of my garage. I've just realized that once I'm finished, I have to get this resined behemoth out of my garage, over a chain-link fence and into the back yard. I'm not even sure this thing will fit under the opened garage door. My 10 year-old son Gabriel suggested with a laugh that I might have to unscrew sections of the house in order to get it out the garage.

    "Heh.That's pretty funny," I replied.

    We laughed together for a moment.

    And then I taught him how to use the drill.

    

Burned-Out American Bulbs

    My wife and I built our kids from scratch. We started with the basic supplies, followed the time-honored blueprint and, after a period of incubation, manufactured three wiggly autonomous machines capable of intaking fuel in huge amounts and converting it directly into poop and frustration.

    We built these machines but we cannot program them.

    This weekend, for instance, I went into my sons' room. My 10 year-old son Gabriel sat on his bed playing a Nintendo DS game.

    "Gabriel," I said clearly. "Put down the video and clean your room. Breakfast will be ready in 10 minutes and I want your room to be clean by then."

    He gave me a look which, in retrospect, was very reminiscent of the hourglass I used to get whenever I started a Windows 95 program. I went back to scrambling eggs for breakfast. Ten minutes later, I walked back into the room and both Gabriel and his seven year-old brother were watching television. No work had been done. I decided to try another programming language.

    I yelled.

    Both boys jumped to their feet and started milling around their beds. They weren't actually picking anything up, but were confusedly making paths around the room, approximating the work of cleaning up. They looked like Roomba vacuum cleaners with broken sensors. I left them and went to eat my cold eggs.

    A few minutes later, Gabriel walked up to me. He had a light bulb in his hand.

    "Dad, what am I supposed to do with this burned-out light bulb?"

    I stared at him for a moment. I considered legitimately answering his question, but I was no longer positive that clear English was the solution to our dilemma.

    "Send it the Smithsonian Institute for their collection of burned-out American light bulbs."

    He gave me a suspicious look.

    "The Smithsonian has a collection of burned-out light bulbs?"

    "Nope," I answered. "They just throw them away."

    And then I walked away without waiting for his epiphany. When I imagine it now, I like to think the light bulb came on in his hand.

Wild Yorkies

    So, the Grim Richard family went home to Virginia for the Thanksgiving holidays, where we stayed with my brother's family. Prior to leaving Florida, our family prepared by going over a huge list of traits that we should hide in order to appear normal when in proximity to other people.

    I started by looking to my wife.

    "Bridget, we're already taking our dog on the trip. Do not adopt another dog while we're in another state, in someone else's house, for only four days...."

    Bridget looked outraged, so I continued.

    "... wait until we get home to adopt another dog against my wishes."

    She smiled and relaxed.

    "Kids, while we're in Virginia, you have to wear clothes. It's not Florida. You can't go "hanging brains" all over people's furniture and get away with it. Besides, it's 40 degrees there. Your brains will actually freeze to the furniture.

    The three kids glumly nodded their approval.

    "Finally, if someone hears my stomach rumbling, subtly waft your hand in front of your nose to remind me that most people hold their farts in."

    My family nodded. One of my kids began subtly wafting his hand immediately.

    "Nice try," I said and farted.

    Mostly, this worked. We passed as a normal family. No Virginia dogs were adopted and none of my kids got inappropriately nude. Gabriel, however,  did have one small hiccup. 

    Gabriel loves watching documentary-style shows more than anything else - even the Cartoon Channel. Unfortunately, his ten year-old senses can't yet discern the difference between a Ken Burns documentary and, say, Ghost Hunters. This means that Gabriel is constantly spraying facts, figures and trivia that range from the tested and accurate through the wildly inaccurate and all the way into the batshit crazy insane. He's like my own amazingly pale Fox News Channel.

    One morning Gabriel and I were sitting in the kitchen with Roger when Gabriel let loose with the following factoid:

    "Did you know that in Mexico, people will often let their dogs loose in the wild because they can no longer afford to care for them? Eventually, they stop being domesticated and return to being wild creatures."

    "I did not know that," Roger said in his best patient uncle manner. But Gabriel was not done.

    "In fact, a wild Yorkie can easily kill a domesticated Pit Bull." He looked very scientific as he said this.

    Uncle Roger stared hard at Gabriel. "A wild Yorkie?"

    Gabriel nodded.

    "Well, I don't believe that," said Roger, who is known world-wide for his tact and diplomacy.

    Gabriel looked to me for help.

    I obliged. "You know I'm going to kid you about this for a long time, right?"

    Gabriel let out a sigh.

    A few hours later, I kept my word. As Gabriel passed me in the hallway, I let out a soft rumble.

    He responded by waving his hand subtly in front of his nose.

    "That wasn't me, dude," I said.

    He looked at me.

    "I think it was a wild Yorkie."

    

I'll Have What He's Having

    I had to get a testicular sonogram recently. I mention this for a few reasons. First, it's absolutely pertinent to the potentially humorous story I'm going to tell. Also, I believe in frank discussion about medical issues. Especially if it gets my readers squirming in front of their computers.

    So, buckle up. This one's gonna be way testicley.

    First some background. A testicular sonogram is just like the sonogram that a pregnant women gets, except it's lower. Warm gel is used as a conductive agent, a wand is applied to the area or areas and a grainy black and white picture is produced. An uncomfortable time is had by all. 

    This much I expected. Here's what I didn't expect:

    When you're done, you get a DVD of the sonogram to take to the doctor who originally ordered the test. This DVD looks exactly like the "Hannah Montana" movie your brother-in-law pirated off of the Internet- a white-colored disc with the title written in permanent marker. Except it doesn't star Miley Cyrus. It stars your testicles.

    After you take it to the doctor,  you can do anything you want with that DVD. I, for instance, considered sending it to Netflix when I returned some of their movies - until I considered how angry this might make my wife.

    So, I did what any responsible person would do with his intensely private medical record. I left it in my car. So my children could find it on the ride to school one morning.

    "What's this?," Julian asked.

    As I said, I believe in frankly discussing medical issues. It makes me feel like a rational adult.

    "It's a DVD of my testicular sonogram."

    My kids were instantly mesmerized.

    "Can we see it?"

    I realized that they thought this was a regular DVD - an actual movie of me being sonogrammed. I pictured a director in the room with me, the technician and my testicles.

    "It's not a movie. It's just a black and white scan."

    All three kids looked at me expectantly.

    "You can't see anything."

    "Oh," they said in unison and looked disappointed. For a second, I thought I might be off the hook.

    "Did they have to scan your anus, too?" Gabriel asked.

    "No. No, they didn't, Gabriel."

    I looked in the rear-view mirror at my ten year-old son. "And where did you learn the word "anus"?"

    "Playground," he answered.

    Seven year-old Julian interrupted my next question.

    "Hey," he said. "I got one of these sonograms when I hurt my testicles playing football."

    "That's right," I said. "I remember that now."

    "Did it hurt?" Gabriel asked.

    Julian considered this for a second and smiled.

    "Nope. It kinda felt good."

    I must be going to the wrong sonogram place.