White Like Movie Star Teeth

We live near the beach, so the end of May is a time to perform sacred rituals. Pools are topped off, beach chairs are dusted off and barbecue grills are scrubbed roughly with stiff wire brushes.

I have my own ritual. I wait for the first Saturday with a temperature that rises above 80 degrees. I peek out the windows until I see the street filled with the right mix of neighbors washing their cars and playing with their children. Then, with a jumble of confidence and trepidation, I march outside, doff my shirt and expose my white winter belly for the first time in the season.

I believe my neighbors look forward to this annual event, the same way that other people anticipate Groundhog Day. I have no evidence of this, but I like to think it anyway.

Later, before I’ve achieved my inevitable Flounder look – fierce, bubbly red on my back and titanium white on my front – I’ll march down the neighborhood streets in shorts and flip flops. Children will gasp in amazement when they see legs so white that they look like movie star teeth.

Summer, my friends, has officially begun.

Coming Clean about Golf and Cockroaches

I’ve been spending a great deal of time hitting golf balls at the driving range lately.

It embarrasses me to even write that sentence, actually, because I’ve never respected golf on any level. I’ve dismissed televised golf as boring. I’ve chided people who referred to golf as a sport. I’ve unfairly adjudged golfers as well-off snobs with too much money.

Then I played a round. I learned two things from that afternoon. First off, I really, truly suck at golf. Second, despite my nearly divine suckiness, I had to play again.

This is difficult for me to admit, even to my friends. Remember that Kafka story where Gregor Samsa wakes up to discover he’s a cockroach? I feel like that, but even worse. I feel like a Republican who wakes up and realizes he’s a Democratic cockroach – a gay, Democratic cockroach that lives in San Francisco.

Actually, given the price of actually playing golf, it’s more like a gay, Democratic, San Franciscan cockroach waking up to discover he’s a Republican.

Yeah. That about sums it up.

While I’m at the driving range, I watch other, more experienced golfers to improve my swing. Here’s what I’ve learned:

• Before you swing, spend time selecting the proper club. This will help you forget that there’s only one other demographic that thinks that wearing a single glove is cool – and that’s the Michael Jackson demographic.
• After completely hosing a shot, look around to see if anyone saw your shot. If someone did, hold up your club vertically and examine it as if to say, “Who put this piece of crap in my hand?’

If you think I’m kidding about this last one, keep your eyes open the next time you’re at a driving range. Also, if you see a guy in a t-shirt and shorts desperately trying to pretend he’s not playing golf, say hello. That’s probably me.

The Dinosaur Button

I got a nasty surprise while driving with my three kids this morning. Out of nowhere, Julian, the three-year old, busts out the question:

“Dad, where do babies come from?”

Naturally, I was taken aback. Like most parents I assumed that television was teaching my kids about sex and I could avoid having this uncomfortable conversation. I mean, what’s the point of letting my small, impressionable children watch “The OC”, if it’s not going to be educational?

Once I got over the shock of hearing the question, I think I handled the situation with aplomb. First, I steered off the sidewalk and back onto the road. Not only was this, strictly speaking, the “legal” thing to do, but the screams of the pedestrians were making it hard to formulate a good answer to my son’s question.

Inspiration hit me and without turning around (because, strictly speaking, facing the rear while driving forward is not “legal”), I said this to Julian:

“Julian, what’s your favorite dinosaur?"

In the rear-view mirror, I could see Julian doing something that can only be described as rebooting. I think I actually saw his eyes counting RAM.

“I like raptors!” he blurted out.

“Me, too.” I said. We talked about dinosaurs for an hour, but the subject of babies did not come up again. I had lucked into an amazing, new child rearing method. Potentially, I could avoid the baby discussion indefinitely.

I called Bridget to tell her about my amazing new breakthrough but she was not impressed.

“It’s called the Dinosaur Button,” she said. “All males have it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

“What’s your favorite dinosaur?

“Nice try,” I laughed. “I’m not a three year-old.”

Bridget waited.

“I like raptors!” I blurted out.

I don’t remember the rest of the conversation.

The Cosmo Wife Fu Test

Last week, we discussed my wife’s use of something called “Wife Fu”. Essentially, Wife Fu is a series of techniques designed to render men incapable of attracting other women when out of the wife’s visual range. Does your wife or significant other practice Wife Fu? Take this test and find out:

Does your wife encourage you to over-eat before you go out?

Think it’s a coincidence that chili night always falls on night you’re going out with the guys? Before you have that fifth bowl, consider this; studies show that only 20% of unmarried women are attracted to men who look like they’re pregnant. That number drops to nearly zero if the guy with the swollen stomach is actually farting.

Does your wife buy your clothes?

My dad once came to a family cookout wearing a tiny Garfield the Cat shirt stretched tight over his stomach. My brother and I knew instinctively that he did not buy that shirt. Poor, ignorant bastard. It made us want to grab him by his rainbow-colored suspenders and yell, “Wake up!”

Does your wife insist that you take the mini-van when you go out?

Forcing you to drive the mini-van is like forcing you to wear a second wedding ring – a 20 foot wedding ring. Look behind you. Is there a child’s car seat? Congratulations, your “mac” game has been completely neutralized.

Does your wife insist that you take your child with you when you go out?

I find this to be one of the toughest Wife Fu techniques to deal with. Some of the finer strip clubs simply won’t let you bring in a toddler. But this Wife Fu can backfire on your significant other if you actually seem to be a good father. This is called the “Baby Daddy” principle. It means that you can actually be in a strip club with your kid and, as long as you seem to like your kid, you will actually be attractive to women – because you’re a good father.

I don’t make this stuff up, I just report it.

Extra Credit

Does your wife insist that you take blood pressure medicine – even though you don’t have a heart problem?

Are you rich? If so, this has nothing to do with Wife Fu and everything to do with Life Insurance Fu.

The Marital Arts of Wife Fu

So my friend Matt and I went to a movie the other night. While we waited for the movie to begin, we discussed the kind of things grown men usually discuss – quantum physics and Sharon Stone.

My wife encourages me to hang out with Matt, who I’ve known since I was a kid, for exactly this reason. Left to our own devices, we usually end up loudly discussing something like comic books or video games.

My wife says that this effectively neuters me and diminishes the chances that other women might talk to me while I’m out. This, in turn, prevents these women from seducing me and breaking up my marriage. And this is just one of the many techniques my wife employs in her combination of science and mysticism that I call Wife Fu.

I’d scoff, but I’m just not getting seduced out there. It’s either Wife Fu or that fact that I’m thirty-nine now, sporting some grey hair and regularly need to shave my ears.

It’s gotta be the Wife Fu.

Let’s get back to Sharon Stone and quantum physics. Some quantum theories posit that the universe is filled with infinite alternate realities where all possible outcomes occur. There is, for instance, another reality where I don’t have ear hair. There is yet another reality where I have the ear hair but don’t shave it. I call this the “Reingold Reality” in honor of an art teacher I had in junior high.

It occurred to me the other night that if quantum theory is true, there is some reality where I actually saw “Basic Instinct 2” – and liked it.

Matt visibly shuddered and said something even more chilling.

“If quantum theory is true, then there’s an alternate reality where you spend your entire life doing nothing but watching “Basic Instinct 2”.

While we walked, I swear I saw women actually repelled away from us, like positive particles fleeing the orbits of positive electrons.

Next Week: The Top Signs That Your Wife is a Master of the Marital Arts of Wife Fu

The Dilla

I went for my annual battery of medical physicals recently. It usually takes me about a month to cycle through all the various medical, dental and dermatological appointments. It’s an odd way to spend your time because these appointments usually consist of hours and hours of magazine reading punctuated by brief bursts where you have to get naked in front of strangers.

And that’s just the dentist.

I try to be positive about this process, but it’s not like the news is getting better. This year I learned that I have high cholesterol levels. This means that not only do I have to change my diet, but I have to acclimate to the new kinds of conversations I’ll be having.

For example, there’s the conversation that I had with my mother.

Mom: What are you having for dinner?

Me: Well, Bridget and the kids are having cheese quesadillas.

Mom: Why aren’t you having cheese quesadillas?

Me: I’m trying to watch my cholesterol. Cheese is bad for your cholesterol.

Mom: You could always have a quesadilla without the cheese.

Me: ?

I believe I actually said “?”, which I’ve never done before. Then again, I’ve never considered eating only the outside of a quesadilla – the “dilla” – before.

Still, I have to ask, has my mother stumbled on to something? Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers have been trying in vain to make tasty diet food by substituting new-fangled but bland ingredients for the unhealthy but deliciously dangerous ingredients. What if your line of diet food just left out the bad stuff completely?

I’d write more about it, but I just ordered a Supreme pizza from Pizza hut – hold the meat, hold the cheese and hold the crust. I’m paying $15 bucks for a layer of peppers, onions and olives in box. Yes, I’m on a low cholesterol diet. But on the bright side, I still get to eat pizza.

I think my mom may be a genius.

King Kong and the Alan Thicke Incident

di•dac•tic adj.

1. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively

I love to know stuff. I love knowing stuff so much that I went to school an extra four years just to know more stuff. I even have a special plaque on my wall just to let other people know I did go to school for those four extra years and because of that I have mad skillz when it comes to knowing stuff.

You better recognize.

My brother Roger has the same skills. Many times at parties, we’ve discussed and debated a subject for hours, each of us elaborately offering up bits of stuff we know, until someone points out that a) we’re both saying exactly the same thing, and b) the party is over and everyone else has gone home. That’s how important knowing stuff is to me.

At the moment, Bridget is recovering from surgery. Since she’s stuck on the couch, we decided it would be nice to make some snacks and watch the new King Kong movie with the kids. At about an hour into the movie, the cast of adventurers had just been captured by skull-wearing islanders when Gabriel asked me an unusual question:

“Dad, why do Canadians hate us?”

Wow, I thought. What an odd question from a six year-old. It certainly deserved a thoughtful answer.

“Gabriel, the Canadians don’t hate us. And we don’t hate them. In fact, Canada is one of our largest trading partners.”

Bridget spoke up. “Gabriel isn’t interested in hearing about Canada, Richard.”

Obviously, the pain medication was affecting her. Gabriel wouldn’t have asked about Canada if he wasn’t curious, so I continued.

“Canadians are just a bitter than we have both the NFL and the NBA, while they only have hockey. Plus, there’s the infamous Alan Thicke incident.”

“He doesn’t mean “Canadians”, Richard,” said Bridget. “He means “Cannibals.””

“Cannibals?” I looked at the television where skull-wearing natives were industriously killing off the cast members of King Kong.

“Oh,” I said and turned bright red. It seemed that the teacher had been taught a lesson. This was a turning point, a moment when I could re-evaluate my need to overwhelm people with facts.

Or not. Knowing stuff is always better than self-awareness.

“Cannibals don’t really hate us, Gabriel. Their dietary choices are often a result of limited food resources or superstition.”

Gabriel looked at me. “Are they mad about that Alan Thicke thing, too?”

“Who isn’t?”

Lost in Transition

My grandmother has Alzheimer’s. I saw her recently at a get-together celebrating her fiftieth wedding anniversary. She looked exactly the same as I’ve always remembered her, a short woman with the kind of silver, curled hair only weekly visits to the beauty parlor can give you. I think she called me Mike or some other name, but that didn’t bother me; I knew what she meant.

Usually, I avoid thinking about my grandmother’s illness. I have this feeling that I should be doing or saying something more. Until this morning, though, I had no idea what that might be.

As I do almost every Thursday morning, I buckled all of the kids into the car and headed toward Gabriel’s school. We had twenty minutes to kill, so I decided to explore the old Thoroughgood neighborhood around the school.

Our detour bothered Gabriel. The further we drove away from our established route, the more bothered he got.

“Dad, we can’t be late for school,” he said. “Let’s go to the school like we’re supposed to. You’re getting us lost.”

Gabriel was right, actually. We were lost at one point, but I didn’t tell him that.

“We’re not lost,” I replied. “There’s more than one way to get there.”

Sure enough, I eventually guessed at the correct turn and we threaded our way back to more familiar streets. We made it to the school with minutes to spare and Gabriel relaxed instantly when he saw the brick building.

The second Gabriel relaxed, I thought of my grandmother and her fiftieth wedding anniversary. I wished I had taken Gabriel up to my grandmother and said:

“Gabriel, this is my grandmother. Sometimes, she doesn’t remember me, but I remember her. She used to be a school teacher. When I was a kid, she told me that it was okay that I liked books more than I liked sports. She told me that being smart was way better than being popular. She told me one day I would do something important, right and good. She told me who I was, back when I didn’t even know. She doesn’t remember, but I remember enough for both of us.”

And even though I don’t think it would make a difference, I should have said, “Grandma, I know you’re lost. I know you’re confused. I know you can’t remember how you got here. But try not to be scared; I think we’re all going to the same, good place and there’s more than one way to get there.

Desperate Onions

My wife is so serious about marriage and monogamy that we’ve actually come to the following understanding:

If she dies before I do, I am not allowed to re-marry.

And it gets worse. Not only is re-marriage out of the question; so is sex of any kind – for the rest of my life.

“What happens in heaven if you get re-married?” Bridget asks me. “Which wife would you be with?”

Bridget has given much thought to the issue, apparently. And now, so have I.

“If it’s heaven, then I doubt I’m married,” I say.

This is both a really, really funny thing to say – and really, really the wrong thing to say to Bridget.

Bridget woke up one morning recently and announced very seriously that she had dreamed that I had adulterous sex with Teri Hatcher from “Desperate Housewives.” My wife seemed to want an explanation.

Whoah. A husband should not be held accountable for his wife’s dreams. More importantly, my wife is clearly having the dreams I’m supposed to be having. This is amazingly unfair to me – and Teri (We’re having dream sex, what do you want me to call her? Ms. Hatcher?).

A week later, Bridget dreamed that I had sex with three female ghosts which, unfortunately, is only slightly less likely than me sleeping with Teri Hatcher. That same night, I think I dreamed about…onions. Again, this was unfair. But her dream did give me an idea.

“Bridget, if you die before I do, I think I can promise not to re-marry or have sex with anyone else…” I said. “…on one condition.”

“What’s the condition?” she asked.

“You have to have ghost sex with me.”

Laugh all you want. We have a deal.

Somewhere in California, Teri Hatcher is meeting with her therapist and saying, “I keep having these dreams that I’m having sex with a strange man while his wife is watching.”

“Do you recognize the man?” asks the therapist.

“No,” says Teri Hatcher. “But he smells like onions.”

Insane in the Membranes

My wife is near insane with hypochondria – for my children. If six year old Gabriel develops a cough, I usually think, “Hmm. Gabriel’s getting a cold.” If my wife hears the same rough hacking, she automatically escalates the diagnosis to pneumonia or pleurisy. This is important because:

Yesterday, Gabriel kneed his younger brother in the, ahem, testicles.

I apologize for the bluntness. I know the official Southern Family rulebook demands that my family come up with cute euphemisms for body parts i.e. “kiki”, “tatas”, “cha chas” or my personal favorite, “tallywhacker.” I, however, enjoy the horrified look that neighbors get when one of my kids busts out the word “vagina”, so we stick with the classics.

So, anyway…yesterday, accidentally or not, Gabriel hit three year old Julian way, way uncomfortably low in the stomach. Julian told his mother, “Mom, my testicles hurt.”

I’m sure it did. Heck, my testicles hurt just typing the sentence. But it’s one of those things that every boy learns the hard way. Bridget, though, was worried. First, she called me. When she couldn’t reach me, she did what any rational mother would do – she called her stepfather in Florida….to ask about my son’s testicles.

Now, whenever I’m bored, I like to imagine that awkward conversation.

This morning, though, my smugness was tested when Bridget rushed Julian over to me. She was frantic.

“Julian says there’s something wrong with his penis.”

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked. Panic rose in me. What if Julian’s testicles had really been hurt yesterday? What if, God help me, something was broken and I had just smugly blown it off?

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it. I can’t understand him,” she said.

“What’s wrong, Julian?” I asked.

He said something about his penis, but I couldn’t hear it clearly. I leaned in closer.

“Dad, my penis…”

“Yes, Julian?”

And then he said, I swear to God…

“Dad, my penis is big….”

Instantly, Bridget’s face went from anxiety to irritation and she stood up. I looked Julian in the eye with as much commiseration as I could muster.

“So is Dad’s, Julian. So is Dad’s.”

My Other Niece Proves Me Wrong

A few months after the humiliating AIDS/ice cream incident detailed in my previous post, I sat at my brother’s house with his family and my new girlfriend.

I liked this particular girlfriend and she wanted to meet my family, so I willingly ran the risk that my brother’s kids would embarrass me again. Plus, I had naively hypothesized that my eldest niece had humiliation-proofed me.

My previous post laid out this hypothesis of mine- namely, that kids can only humiliate you so much. There was, I thought, an absolute bottom to an adult’s humiliation that no mere child could take you below. My eldest niece had taken me to that limit and now I was safe.

There were two things wrong with that hypothesis. First, it was postulated at a Ben and Jerry’s under the influence of Chunky Monkey ice cream. Most serious scientists know that chunks of anything can retard the scientific process; there’s no telling what actual chunks of monkey will do to it.

Secondly, I assumed that kids have some sort of control over what they say. I understand now that there is a hidden force that moves kids to embarrass adults. This same force, I believe, also forces kids to spill red juice on white carpets.

I sat next to my girlfriend on the couch and my youngest niece jumped into my lap and hugged me. I knew I was safe with this niece. There would be no talk about immunity-suppressing diseases and skin rashes. She was four years-old. She would spend most of her time talking about colors, numbers and cartoon characters.

As it turns out, I was right.

She looked at me lovingly and intently for a few seconds and asked me this:

“Uncle, why are your teeth yellow?”

I stopped smiling immediately so that my yellow teeth would not clash with my bright red face.

“Are they dirty?” she asked.

“It’s the coffee,” I cried out, but she had already moved on to counting the number of pimples on my face.

I was at the dentist the next day.

Amazing But True Stories, Part 3

While we’re on the subject of my hapless conversations with kids, I’m reminded of an incident that occurred before I had kids of my own. This conversation involved my brother’s eldest daughter. She was, I think, about seven years-old at the time.

Looking back, it seems like a kind of warning.

Back then, my brother would invite me (his wayward, bachelor brother) to vicariously experience family life by tagging along when his family went to, say, Ben and Jerry’s to get ice cream.

While standing in line for ice cream one humid night, I decided to show my eldest niece the case of Poison Ivy I had on the back of my right hand. I am still a little fuzzy on why I made that decision, but I think it went like this:

“Hmmm. Kids like gross stuff. The Poison Ivy outbreak on the back of my hand is definitely gross. I think I’ll show my niece my Poison Ivy rash.”

Seeing my mistake in retrospect is easy. I had used the very same reasoning that has launched a billion pull-my-finger jokes. I had aimed squarely for cool uncle territory and instead doddered into embarrassing granpa territory. This could end in only one way.

Humiliation.

My niece did not disappoint me. She looked at the bubbly rash on the back of my hands for a few seconds. I waited for her mouth to form a kind of fascinated smile, but it didn’t. Instead, her entire face screwed up into, well, a horrified look. And then she yelled at the top of her lungs:

“Ooooooooh. My Uncle has AIDS!”

Did I mention how loud she said this? Have I mentioned how quiet the Ben and Jerry’s store got? You could hear nothing but crickets outside and the ice cream coolers inside. To this day, I have never seen people staring as intently at their bowls of ice cream as the people in this store did.

While I calmly, noisily and repeatedly explained to my niece that I did not have AIDS, part of me was happy. Once you’ve been that intensely embarrassed, I hypothesized, nothing can ever embarrass you again.

Next: My Other Niece Proves Me Wrong

We Are Bald-Headed Robots

I know that five year-old kids ask a lot of questions. As a parent, I’m prepared for that much. Prior to getting into this parenting gig, though, I imagined that my child and I would have, well, Socratic conversations. I imagined that occasionally my darling naïf, full of wonder at the world, would ask questions and I would gently hand down wisdom accumulated from my world travels.

I wasn’t prepared for the interrogations. And, to be honest, I wasn’t prepared for the stupid crap we’d be discussing. Don’t get me wrong. I like discussing stupid crap; I’d just rather be inflicting it than enduring it.

A recent conversation in our car went like this:

Gabriel: Dad, are we bald-headed robots?

Dad: What?

Gabriel: Dad, are we bald-headed robots?

Dad: No.

Gabriel: Dad, are we bald-headed robots?

Dad: No.

Gabriel: Dad, are we bald-headed robots?

Dad: No!

Gabriel: Dad, are we bald-headed robots?

Dad (exasperated) Yes, Gabriel, we are bald-headed robots.

A few moments of silence:

Gabriel: Dad, why are we bald-headed robots?

Clearly, my kid has future in Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency or some other bureaucratic hell agency where they prize circular, painful conversations – perhaps the customer service line at my cell phone company, for instance.

It's Not You, Dude, It's Me

My friend Lindsay is going through one of those slow-motion breakups that everyone has to go through at one time or another. Naturally, she’s reading the new bible for confused women – “He’s Just Not That IntoYou” by Greg Behrendt. Essentially, the book explains that if a guy is sending you mixed messages, he’s probably not that “in” to you.

“Duh,” I said, when Lindsay explained the premise of the book to me. I said this because I’m a guy, and when guys are given the chance to display actual compassion, we’ll opt for ridicule every time.

“You needed a $20 book to tell you that if your boyfriend won’t spend time with you then he’s probably not into you?”

Lindsay didn’t take my sarcasm well. “Maybe the book is stupid, but I’ve put two years into this relationship. I don’t want to just throw it away.’

Not Long After…

I was talking to my friend Kieth about a mutual friend of ours named Matt.

“Hey,” said Kieth, “Did Matt call you yesterday to tell you that we’re all going bowling tonight?”

This took me by surprise. I didn’t realize that we were bowling kind of guys. I’ve known these two guys for twenty years and never once have we bowled. So this was similar to Kieth casually mentioning that we were Buddhists – only that’s not weird enough. It was more like Kieth mentioning that we were Buddhist German Shepherds.

“Nope,” I said looking at my caller ID box. “I don’t think he’s called.”

“Hmmm,” said Kieth, “That’s strange.”

Only that’s not strange for Matt.

“Usually,” I explained, “Matt doesn’t call me unless I call him.”

“Really?”

“Really,” I replied. “It makes me feel kind of stupid. Even worse, I called him last Friday to see if wanted to come over to a little dinner party my wife and I were throwing. You wanna know why he didn’t come over?”

“Why?”

“He said he was gonna watch some television.”

“Oh,” said Kieth understandingly. “Well, he does watch “Enterprise” on Friday nights.”

“C’mon, Kieth! Why would he ditch our dinner party for “Enterprise”? It’s not like he’s missing “Next Generation” or even “Voyager”. And why do I have to call him first every…holy crap.”

Holy crap, indeed.

I had just realized something. Matt was just not that into me.

Duh.

So, I may just buy a copy of that Behrendt book. I have, after all, put twenty years into this relationship. I’d hate to just throw it away.

Star Trek and Sparkly Sashes

It’s a basic tenet of science fiction dogma that there is a universe parallel to ours. This universe is a replica of ours in every way except that it contains evil, negative versions of us regular humans.

In the Star Trek universe, these negative versions are easy to spot. They wear sparkly sashes and goatees and incorrigibly try to seduce anyone who moves. Ironically, this is very similar to the way conservatives view gays – as negative people who wear sparkly sashes and goatees and incorrigibly try to marry anyone who moves.

But I digress.

Regular readers know that in my last post I joked the hell out of my wife’s bad moods. I took great pains to portray myself as a hapless and bemused victim who anticipates the storms and rides them using only my plucky wit and resolve. I even coyly inferred that maybe my wife’s menses had something to do with it.

Heh. I’m a stitch.

Today, though, I did something embarrassing. I yelled at my wife on the phone. Real loud. It had to do with money and absolutely none of it was her fault. Exactly two seconds after I hung up the phone, I had a few epiphanies.

Yelling at my wife is bad, for instance. Also, I’m pretty sure I’m not having a period. It is, I deduced, possible that being an ass is unrelated to whether you’re having cramps or not.

But it also made me think about evil, parallel Star Trek universes and the evil, negative people who live in them. At any point, does one of the negative people look down and have a moment of self-awareness? Does he look down and say, “Oh, great. I’m wearing a sparkly sash. I’m an evil guy!?”

I think it probably does happen. And it’s probably a jarring moment. But it’s reversible. All the evil guy has to do is apologize to his wife.

Oh, yeah. And take off the sparkly sash. They may be completely wrong about the gay thing, but conservatives are definitely right about sash wearing.

Grim Richard's First Contest Ever...

Every now and again, I get into real trouble with my wife. Peculiarly enough, this trouble usually lasts exactly 48 hours, starting promptly on Saturday mornings and ending suddenly on Monday mornings.

It reminds me of an episode of “24”, the television show where each hour-long episode equates to exactly one hour in anti-terrorist Jack Bauer’s day. My personal television show, however, is called “48”, and each minute feels like an entire day.

That Jack Bauer is a lucky bastard.

If he was working with my wife during one of these “episodes”, here’s how life would go at the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU):

Jack (on phone to CTU): I’m gonna need you to cross-index the phone records of our plutonium-theft suspect with the phone records of the possible double agent secreted in our group.

Wife (at CTU): Do it yourself. I’m tired of cleaning up the database after you.

Jack: But I’m currently undercover with a Columbian cartel in another country. The CIA, unaware that I’m only pretending to be a double agent, has pinned us down with heavy weapons fire. Plus, my cell phone is down to, like, half a bar. And I’m pretty sure I’m running over my minutes.

Wife: That’s not my problem. Maybe if you showed me a little respect, things would be different.

Jack: Listen, for the sake of America and rest of the world, you and I need to work together on this. We can’t get into fights every couple of weeks.

Wife: Now you’re blaming this on my period?

Jack: What?

Wife: You said this happens every couple of weeks. You think I’m irrational because of my period.

Jack: Huh? Are you on your period?

Wife: You know I am, Jack. See, that’s the first thing a man assumes when a woman’s legitimately angry.

Jack: Omigod! I’ve been shot. The bullet pierced the thermos full of radioactive plutonium I’ve been hiding in my underwear. I need CTU backup, now!

Wife: Now you’re yelling at me? (She hangs up on Jack)

Like I said, Jack Bauer is a lucky bastard. This season, he’s even found a new love interest. I wish I’d seen that first date…”I’m currently widowed because I had an adulterous affair when I was separated from my wife. My adulterous lover turned out to be a vicious psychopath and she murdered my wife. But don’t worry, I’ve already killed her.”....

The Lenny Kravitz T-Shirt Conspiracy

Every morning at 6 a.m., my wife and I roust our three kids from their warm beds and dress them.

Mostly, this is not fun. Julian, our two year-old boy, starts to cry from the second he’s awakened and continues until we leave for the babysitters. Roughly, that means that he cries without cessation for an entire hour – every day.

His talent at nursing a whine would be amazing if it weren’t so irritating. My wife and I have dubbed Julian’s voice a frustrato – a high male voice incapable of shattering glass but fully adept at busting your last freaking nerve.

To combat this, we like to use a dash of Spock and a pinch of “The Super Nanny”, which means that mostly we’ve just begged Julian to stop and attempted to bribe him with Pop-Tarts. None of this works.

All of the preceding explains why my five year-old son, Gabriel, has been dressing himself lately. Often, Gabriel will mistakenly put on his younger brother’s smaller clothes. I will walk into Gabriel’s room to find the following scene - a really thin kid wearing tight pants that barely button and a tiny, two-sizes-too-small shirt that comes down to just above the kid’s navel.

In other words, my son looks like a really pale Lenny Kravitz.

Except Lenny Kravitz would probably be wearing his younger sister’s clothes, too.

I think a lot about Lenny Kravitz on those mornings while I dress myself. Why won’t anyone buy Lenny a shirt that fits? Is it some kind of shirt conspiracy? After America finishes freeing Iraq, should we consider a mission to free Lenny’s pectorals?

Usually, my thoughts of concern are broken by Julian’s amazing unstoppable whine and I look down to see that I’m getting ready to put on one of my wife’s t-shirts. She walks by in a pair of my boxers.

Lenny’s probably okay, I think.

The World is Full of Fingers

I understand almost nothing my two year-old son Julian says. This makes for some awkward circumstances. Over the last week, for instance, he has been pointing at different people and earnestly calling them a “Fu#@er”.

Except he used a “ck” instead of a “#@”.

I moved quickly to stamp out this behavior because a) it was the correct thing to do from a parenting perspective, and b) if I don’t get to call people fu#@ers, he doesn’t get to call them fu#@ers.

Fair is fair, dammit.

I had reprimanded Julian maybe 20 times before my wife explained to me that Julian was saying, “finger” not “fu#@er”. And he wasn’t actually pointing; he was just displaying his finger.

Imagine my chagrin. I felt like a total finger.

The Most Fired Man in America

Editor’s Note:

For years, workers have suffered through the advice of pundits, over-achievers and corporate lackeys, some of whom have had only three or four jobs in their entire lives.

Wouldn’t it be better to get career advice from someone with experience at literally thousands of jobs?

Baz Truman thinks so. Since the early 1980s, Baz Truman has been working at and getting fired from more jobs in a week than most people get fired from in a lifetime. Baz’ single-minded determination to excel at his career - no matter the cost – has gotten him fired from some of the world’s biggest and brightest companies.

Look here for Baz Truman’s weekly career advice on matters ranging from sexual discrimination to Christmas parties. We hope you enjoy it.

The Most Fired Man in America
By Baz Truman

Q. We have a customer service rep that insists on going bra-less when she comes to work. This wouldn’t be a problem except that she’s extremely well endowed and our staff finds it distracting. Is there a tactful way to suggest that this woman reconsider wearing a bra?

Distracted in Denver


Dear Distracted in Denver,

We have exactly the same situation here at my current job and I think I’ve learned a few valuable lessons.

To begin with, I suggest that you refrain from yelling, “Man, what a rack” whenever the woman walks into the room. I just tested that approach on a co-worker – and though it seemed like a good idea at first, I can see the Human Resources director and a security guard walking toward me. I’ll need to be quick with my advice.

Before you make any move, it’s important to ask yourself a few honest questions, the most important being, “What are my chances of sleeping with this woman?” If the answer is “not likely” or “I’m not interested” then ask yourself another difficult question, “What am I? Some kind of gay guy?”

Just for the sake of conversation, let’s assume you’re not gay and you’ve just got some kind of twisted idea of what constitutes a good working environment. A good example may be all that this chesty woman needs, so try this:

Start wearing a bra on the outside of your clothes at work. Make a point of approaching the woman and saying things like, “Boy, my breasts feel much lighter when I’m wearing a bra” and “This coconut hammock is the only thing that’s gonna keep me from looking like my grandma in five years.” Keep this up until she gets the idea.

I have two cautions, however. First, if you put the bra on and your chest actually fits into the cups, lay off the donuts at the morning meeting. Second, if you start to feel really sexy with the bra on and start to wear it at home – I've got news for you: You are some kind of gay guy.

Q. One person on my staff is consistently leaving work early or coming in late. When I question him about this, he invariably has some excuse about a medical appointment or visit by the cable repair guy. I don’t want to be difficult, but should I ask him to start bringing a doctor’s note in when he misses work?

Tired of Excuses

Dear Tired of Excuses,

Doctor’s note? Do you care if this guy actually has scurvy or something like it? Hell, no. You just want him to stop biting into your two-hour lunches and golf meetings.

You can nip this behavior in the bud by following these simple guidelines:

Whenever an employee asks to leave early for a medical appointment, insist that you go along for moral support. If he’s lying, he’ll fold like a card table. If he’s telling the truth, a couple of medical visits with his boss will likely encourage him to take care of his scurvy on his own time. Bam! You’re back on the golf course and lunch trysting with that Navy wife in accounting.

A few words of caution, though. This approach usually results in you spending a lot of time in gynecology offices with the female members of your staff. Never ask to go into the examination room with them. My experience shows that even though you’re just trying to be helpful, chicks are weird about that kind of thing.

Also, though doctors insist they have the patient’s welfare in mind, they have absolutely no interest in discussing home remedies you found on the Internet.

Finally, though this is a great time to catch up on your “Cosmopolitan” reading in the lobby, they really get spooked if you take the magazines into the bathroom.

Bears, Hot Tubs, Bubble Bath

My brother, Roger, teaches computer security for a company in the Poconos Mountains. The Poconos area – long famous for honeymoons and mirrors on the ceiling – is mightily working to change its image from something like a bad Rod Stewart song to something more tourist-friendly and corporate. Me, I’d stick with the sexy image.

For instance, I have always assumed that my brother teaches all of his courses from a heart-shaped hot tub. Though the hot tub is filled to the brim with tasteful, flesh-covering bubble bath, Roger is always wearing his suit.

This is because nothing ruins a fantasy quicker than picturing your brother naked in it.

Roger’s class, however, is made up entirely of hot women wearing pajamas. Every now and again they stop to settle Windows vs. Linux debates with impromptu pillow fights – the way God intended Windows vs. Linux debates to be settled.

One night last week, my brother and two other instructors walked to their apartments after a night class. It’s cold in the Poconos this time of year, so they walked briskly and hunkered down in their coats.

Then they saw a man in a bear suit under a nearby street light.

This surprised Roger and he turned to ask one of the other instructors the most obvious question that comes to mind:

What is a guy in a bear suit doing on a Poconos street at ten in the evening?

Then, the guy in the bear suit stood up. His head came to about two feet below the ten foot street light.

Man, my brother thought, that guy is huge.

Then the thing snorted and a humungous cloud of vapor blew from its nose. This was not an eight foot tall guy in a bear suit. This was an actual bear.

So, the instructors ran. My brother describes it as something more akin to steady tactical retreat, but it involved moving away from the bear at a high rate of speed. Make your own judgment.

I love this story because I think it’s a telling one. I’m no ecology freak, but how separated are we from nature when three intelligent college graduates see a bear – in a mountainous, wooded area – and their first logical thought is…

What’s a guy in a bear suit doing on a Poconos street at ten in the evening?

Indeed.

Once safely away from the bear, the three men did the exact thing I would do in the same situation – they called animal control and alerted them to the bear’s presence.

Why?

Because nothing ruins your fantasy of civilization quicker than seeing an actual bear in the mountains.