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.

    

ROFLOL-BMH

    Three of my nieces recently added me as a friend on Facebook. This move posed little risk for my college-age nieces because I am old and my posts are soft and mushy - like my bones. Most of my status updates, for instance, involve napping. Also, I only know how to do two things: updates and clicking the little thumbs up button to show approval. There are no sharp edges to my Facebook updates. 

    The real risk is for people like me - elderly people in their early forties. Navigating Facebook for us is akin walking across the field during a rugby game. There's going to be injuries. Hips will be broken. But now that I've run across that metaphorical field for a few months, I do have some advice for newly-elderly people who want to befriend young people on Facebook.

    First, do not read young people posts. They like to describe what they're doing in college. You, as a relative who cares for them, their education and their safety, do not want to know what they're doing in college. For instance, one of my nieces might hypothetically post something like the following:

    "Skipping class today. I lost the car last night and need to find it quick before someone opens the trunk. Hope my parents don't find out."

    See? There's nothing constructive that you can do after reading something like that. It's best that you never read it in the first place. Embracing your impending senility is a lot easier without being confronted with painful questions on Facebook.

    Which brings me to my second tip. If you must read young people posts on Facebook, don't reply to them. Don't comment on them. You might think that you will fit in - that no one will know how old you are because the Internet gives you a measure of anonymity. 

    You would be wrong.

     I wish I had a dime for every time I've popped out a witty bon mot on one of my niece's pages only to have three of her friends comment:

    "Dude, your post smells like my grandmother's house."

    That's right. On Facebook, old people posts literally smell like mothballs.

    Sometimes, I can barely type ROFLOL through the tears. And that only intensifies the pain and irony - because I'm way too old to physically roll on the floor and laugh out loud like the youngsters do. Not without busting my hip. You know, ROFLOL-BMH.

    Finally, never use the phrase "bon mot" on Facebook. Or in a blog post. You'll just look like a tool.

Because I'm Enjoying It...

To new parents and prospective parents, I offer this bit of hard-earned advice about kids:

Don't teach them to talk. There's no upside to letting children communicate. Oh sure, all the experts drone on and on about the importance of talking children, but the experts leave out some important points. For instance, did you know what the first thing kids do after learning to talk?

They talk back.

And they parse your words. They challenge everything you say, no matter how innocuous. Living with talking kids is like hiring lawyers to come live with you and sue you every second of the day.

The other morning at the kitchen table, my sons had just started their daily harassment of their little sister. I wanted to shut this down quickly for a few reasons. First, I don't want my sons to grow up thinking it's okay to bully girls. But also, little Riley was starting to get mad - you could tell by the way she clenched her five year-old jaw. And her tiny fist. If this kept up, one or both of my sons was going to take a ride on Riley's Choo Choo Train of Pain.

"Stop messing with Riley," I said clearly and simply.

Six year-old Julian looked me squarely in the face, nodded in the affirmative to let me know that he definitely understood my instructions and then plucked his sister in the ear.

So, I elaborated. "If you don't stop bullying your little sister, I will take away everything that you enjoy. Every video game. Every toy. Every single activity that you enjoy will be taken away for a week."

All of the kids stopped for a moment and considered this. Riley was smiling in rich anticipation of her brothers' potential suffering, which I expected. She was, after all, on my side in this. But Julian was smiling, too, which I had not expected. And then he let me have it.

"I enjoy going poop," he said matter-of-factly. "Are you gonna stop me from going poop?"

And just like that - I had been rhetorically bested by a six year-old.

"You know what I mean," I snapped back. I jabbed my finger for emphasis.

This was some pretty weak sauce, as retorts go, and even Riley seemed embarrassed for me - so embarrassed, in fact, that she switched sides right in front of me. She started laughing along with the boys who had been tormenting her moments before.

But that's okay. Julian can think he's won for now. He's gotta use the bathroom sooner or later. And then I'll knock on the door.

"Julian?" I'll say quietly.

"I'm going to the bathroom," he'll answer.
"Julian?" I'll say again.

"I said I'm going to the bathroom, Dad."

"Julian?"

"What?"

"Julian?"

"Dad! Stop It!" Julian will yell. "I'm trying to go to the bathroom!"

"Julian?"

"What!" he'll yell.

And then I'll let him have it.

"Are you enjoying yourself?"

Pencils Down!

The new school year is here and parents KNOW what that means.

Paperwork. And lots of it.

This year is no exception. The teachers have again lobbed homework at the parents - giving us permission slips to sign, legal releases to initial and new rules to remember. And Bridget and I have three kids, which is like...cross out the two, carry the one...double the work.

I wouldn't mind except that Bridget expects me to help.

"Hypothetically speaking," Bridget said, "You're fifty percent of the parents in this house - not twenty-five percent of the kids."

"What that supposed to mean?" I demanded.

"You're one of the parents..." she started.

I stopped her. "No, I meant "hypothetically". What does that mean?"

I was going to continue watching "Cheaters", but then I spied the questions on one of the colored papers we had to fill out for Riley's kindergarten teacher. It was one of those questionnaires where you describe your kid to her new teacher.

"What," it asked, "is one of your child's favorite things to do?"

I grabbed a pencil.

"Riley enjoys installing NOX in her Power Wheels Barbie Jeep, heading down to Daytona for the weekend and racing for pinks. I guess you could say that she lives life a quarter mile at a time."

I was starting to enjoy myself now.

"What is one of your child's least favorite things to do?"

Hmmm. "Power washing the house. She always cries about how the power washer is too big and it hurts her arms but I think when she looks at the clean house and driveway at the end of those eight hours, she probably feels the same pride I do."

Bridget took my pencil.

Pee On It!

    I've been on vacation for the last couple of weeks. I live in Florida, so I don't actually have to fly anywhere to visit a tropical paradise filled with exotic locales, strange plants and fascinating animals. Basically, I just walk out my door and - bam! - I'm standing in a friggin' paradise.

    In turns out, ironically, that the only inconvenient thing about living and vacationing in Florida is the exotic locales, strange plants and fascinating animals.

    On my second day of vacation, for example, I stepped on a Sea Urchin while climbing onto the stern ladder of my father-in-law's boat. I don't recommend it. It really hurts. It kinda feels like stepping on 20 needles and then breaking them off in your foot. Mostly because that's actually what you're doing.

    I did learn something interesting about the Internet, though, as I sat on the boat wincing in pain. While my wife and mother-in-law used tweezers to pull urchin spines out of the sole of my foot, I used my phone to surf the Internet and pull up information about treating urchin spine impalements. And that's when I learned this:

    The cure for everything on the Internet involves peeing on it.

    Punctured by urchin spines? Pee on it. Sunburn? Pee on it. Jellyfish sting? Pee on it. Shark bite? Pee on it. Cancer? Pee on it.

    Because I'm one of those deluded fools who worships science at the cost of ignoring the homeopathic bounty that nature provides, I chose to go with antibiotics instead.

    My children are like-minded. The other day our lilliputian Boston Terrier bit into a toads in our yard. This started a mini-panic in our house because Florida is home to Bufo toads whose skin secretes a venom that deadly to small dogs. And our dog loves to chomp some amphibians.

    Nine year-old Gabriel examined our dog and pronounced everything okay. As he cradled the dog, he cooed to her.

    "You know what cures Bufo venom, Marnie?"

    The dog looked uncomfortable. I stifled the urge to yell out, "Pee on it!"

    "Love," Gabriel answered. "Love and lots and lots of drugs."

    

    

...And That's a Fascist Belt

The current political conversation summed up:

Obama: Thousands of people die every year because our current insurance system is inadequate. In addition, tens of thousands of families go bankrupt even if they have insurance. Both Republicans and Democrats agree that we need to discuss how to fix this before it breaks America socially and financially. What do you think?

Crazy People: That is a very, very important issue but your zipper is down.

Obama: Oh, thanks...no, wait, my zipper is up.

Crazy People: No, your zipper is down.

Obama: I just checked it. My zipper is up.

Crazy People: You've never shown proof that your zipper is up.

Obama:You and I are standing three feet apart and both of us can see that my zipper is clearly up.

Crazy People: (Pause) Those are socialist pants.

Burning Ring of Truth

Regular readers may remember that I recently mocked my eldest son because he wanted to learn how to play the recorder. Chiefly, I judged the wind instrument to be a less-than-manly instrument much unsuited to rocking out. Because I wanted Gabriel to lose interest in the recorder quickly - I did what any smart parent would do in order to force his kid to drop something like a hot potato - or in this case, a hot cross bun.

I fully supported him.

I bought him a new recorder. I forced him to play for me. I forced him to play for other people. And once my son sensed my enthusiasm, he walked away from his plastic recorder like it was radioactive.

Mission accomplished. And yet, a month later, my nine year-old would have his revenge when I came across a Julia Nunes ukulele-version of Weezer's "Keep Fishin' on YouTube.

To begin with, Julia Nunes clearly rocked the song. I liked it even better than the original Weezer version. But I was also dumbstruck by how much her little ukulele rocked. And more than that, the tingy melodies reminded me of the mandolin my grandmother used to play before she passed away. And that's apparently the recipe that gets me hooked - two parts rocking and one part dearly-missed grandmother.

So I bought a soprano ukulele, the smallest you can get, about a week later and tried to hide my new obsession from everyone including my family. I retreated to the tiny, dark re-purposed closet that is my office, shut the door and started practicing ukulele chords, some of which require only one finger to play.

Occasionally, my wife would knock on the door.

"Uh, Richard? What's that noise?" she would ask.

I would look at my beautiful 20 inch uke and back toward the door. I considered shoving aside my masculinity and admitting my fondness for the tiny four-stringed powerhouse in my hands - maybe even busting out some Cashian "Ring of Fire" to make my wife understand. And then I said:

"I'm looking at pornography on the computer! Could I have some privacy, please!"

The best lies have the ring of truth.

Later, when I finally sat down and discussed my ukulele problem with Bridget, she did something I didn't expect her to do.

She fully supported me.

Clever, clever woman.

Editor's Note : For those of you who want to see Julia Nunes' great cover of Weezer's "Keep Fishin""