Give Me My Christmas Card Back

I have a spot on my refrigerator for your Christmas card….but it never came.

I held the spot reserved for your season’s greetings from your family…but it never came.

I held out for a week after Christmas thinking your well wishes just took the long way to my mailbox this season…but it never came.

I don’t know what happened. We’ve been exchanging Christmas cards for the better part of ten years. I have watched your family grow older and larger through your spoiled children’s holiday smiles. You have received news of our most recent additions through our pathetic December photos. I thought our exchange was a lifetime contract. I thought our Christmas correspondence would last forever.

But your card never came. So give me my Christmas card back!

And don’t try and tell me that you didn’t send out Christmas cards this year, because we went to the Parker’s two weeks ago for a holiday drink and there on their pantry door was the photo of your children in matching outfits. Then last night, again we saw your Christmas card. We were at a New Year’s Eve gathering at the Daulton’s house and there it was on the back of their front door, a picture of your children in front of that ugly fake tree of yours. 

Really, the Daulton’s? How long have you known them? Three weeks? Yet, we went to grade school together. We went to high school. We were in the same college fraternity and interned at the same firm. We live in the same neighborhood, on the same street.  You don’t even need postage. Just drop it off in our mailbox…but it never came.

It’s a relief really, to not receive a card from you. It’s just one less card that I need to feel guilty about throwing away. For years I saved all of the Christmas cards because I just couldn’t bring myself to trash all those little familiar family and friend’s photos. Mostly it makes me think of my own children’s Christmas card laying among the coffee grinds and cigarette butts of someone else’s  trashcan.

I suppose I understand. Christmas cards are getting expensive these days.  And sometimes you have to ask yourself, “Is that person really worth 39 of my cents?” And I guess that’s when my family missed your cut. Thirty-nine cents, huh? I guess you’re not doing as well as you claim to be.

We also eliminated some families from our Christmas card list in favor for some new families we met this year. The wife’s cousin, my former boss and those really shitty neighbors were all cut from our list. But I would never, ever cut you from my list. Except maybe now.

We have a method to our Christmas card madness. We have our standard list of addresses to send a card to. Then we have a secondary list and hold back some Christmas cards just in case. If we receive a card from someone on the secondary list or from a surprise, unexpected family then we immediately reply with our Christmas card. We retain these lists for future holiday’s to come.

So, I will give you one more day to send us a card. I’ll give you one more chance. It is not too late to get back on our Christmas card list. It is not too late to save our lifelong friendship. Until then, I will be waiting on my doorstep for your Merry Wishes…

A Drunken Christmas Carol

“Let me tell you a thing or two about Santa Claus, children! You think he loves you? Na, he don’t love you.”

The father knows that he has already said too much. He knows that he already caused enough damage with his opening statement. But he had enough. This was his And Justice For All moment, and damn to hell he was going to have his time to speak his truth, to shout his voice. So what if his audience was his four children, ages eight and younger. So what if it was Christmas morning.

“Santa Claus only comes around once a year and drops off a few hundreds of dollars worth of gifts. He’s just trying to buy your love. Then splits like some absentee father. But you know who stays around? Huh! I said ‘DO YOU KNOW WHO STICKS AROUND?’ It’s me! I stick around.”

The father thinks this last sentence has some weight on his four children. It should, but it doesn’t. All the children want is more toys. It’s December 25th and they are only four sweet, little innocent children. All they want to do is play with all their new toys under the Christmas tree. But that will have to wait until later, until after their father’s holiday temper tantrum.

It was a harmless statement, really, made by the oldest child that set the father off.  The father handed his children four small wrapped packages after the kids had demolished the sleigh load of presents given to them by Santa on this Christmas morning. “These are from Mom and me,” the father said proudly. 

After opening the gifts the children looked to their oldest sibling as a spokesperson, and she delivered their concerns. 

“That’s it?” the eight-year-old girl said with a bit of self-indignation. “All you and Mom got us was a puzzle, a board game of Sorry and some books. You’re our parents! You should’ve gotten us more. Santa got us all this, and you only got us this small pile.”

That little statement was enough to light the father’s ignition. Like any other time of year, the father had a short fuse and anything innocent could get him going. It didn’t matter that these were his children, his flesh in blood. It didn’t matter that it was Christmas morning and this was the celebration of the Lord. Anger and self pity does not take a holiday.

Is it okay to be jealous of Santa Claus, of a fictional character?  Is it okay to allow your children to think less of you to keep up with tradition of lying about the North Pole? Is it okay to allow children to be so self-righteous, so self- indulgent on such an otherwise perfect morning? The father didn’t think so.

The father has a hard enough time in this life comparing himself to the real people in the world, to the other parents and the kids’ teachers. He can’t possibly measure up to Santa Claus’ fictional philanthropy. The father was the one that worked overtime to afford that new bike for the toddler. He got a second job to purchase that Lego set for the six-year-old. He’s the one who stained his neighbor’s deck for Justin Bieber tickets and backstage passes. And he took a second-mortgage out on their home to pay off that Wii console.

And that fat, bearded, bloated son of a bitch from the North Pole wants to take all the credit. The father didn’t think so.

The father slammed down the basketball-sized ball of wrapping paper and quickly retrieved a can of beer from the kitchen. It’s only 8:30 am, but he has already downed two homemade ventis each with a double-shot Baileys Irish Cream. This coupled with his drunken Christmas Eve binge from the previous night and the father already has a Christmas load on that would make Dean Martin proud.

“Santa doesn’t care about you,” the father slurred. “ He’s just using you to make his name bigger. But listen to me. Listen to your father when I say, ‘If it wasn’t for me there’d be no god damn Santa Claus!’ If it wasn’t for me Santa Claus would be just another fictional name in one of those storybooks you’re always reading. You understand me?”

The father stops to wipe some foam from his the corner lip. He thinks for just a second trying to figure out if the foam is from the beer can or from his tirade. A good anger fit of rage demands a good timeout to gather one’s thoughts. This was his timeout. Standing above his children the father scans their faces for enlightenment…but he only sees fear. And that’s his next queue.

“You think you’re scared? Try fighting for your job day in and day out with a large family to support and Christmas right around the corner. You want to know fear? Try swiping your credit card at Toys R’ Us in the third week of December waiting to hear some teenager tell you that you’ve been declined. You think Santa Claus has to worry about bad credit? You think Santa ever runs out of money? You think Santa ever gets seven dollars worth of gas in that sleigh of his because he can’t afford to fill it up? Well, he doesn’t. And you know why? Because he’s not….”

The father stops right before he says the word real. The father catches himself in his children’s eyes and stops to think. He takes another drink of his can and surveys his audience. He catches his wife’s eyes. She looks at him then quickly looks to the beer. She raises an eyebrow and the corner of her lip in unison.

‘“Oh, come on? This little beer. What, Santa doesn’t drink? How about that red nose of his? How ‘bout that belly full of jelly? More like a belly full of whiskey sours!”

With this, the father takes the last sip of his beer can and crumples it with his fist. He tosses the can into the pile of Christmas wrapping and scans the living room landscape for another point of interest to shout about. He feels his tirade coming to a close and doesn’t yet want to let it go.

The father has always said that trying to reason with his children was like arguing with a bar full of drunks.  Now with his alcohol-soaked spree this comparison never seemed so real. Only the children were not arguing back. These children stopped listening to their father long ago and are more concerned with protecting their new toys from their father’s anger. They knew from history that one wrong move might mean a toy could be ripped out of their grasp and tossed into the nearest wall.

“See what happens, guys? All you had to do was be grateful for what you got and it would have been a great morning. Now look what you’ve done. Look what you made me do.”

The father knows even the youngest of his children, the baby, could see through his self-pity. The father knows that his reasoning has hit a wall. The father knows that this little angry monologue was coming to an end and running out of fuel. The children’s silence has woken the father up and his anger has subsided.

The father paces in his house like a beaten tiger walking from room to room. He intently stops in the kitchen making another quick stop at the refrigerator for another drink. The father returns to the living room and sits on the rug with his quiet family. He sighs as he cracks open another can of beer.

The silence in the room is broken up only by the beer suds foaming to the top of the can and each revolution of the cho-cho train ornament on the tree. The father succumbs to this silence and sighs again.

Credit. That’s all the father wants. Credit. That’s all any parent wants. Sure, the excitable smiling faces brought on by these Santa-bought gifts touches a parent’s heart.  But what any parents really wants is an adolescent thank you, some gratitude in the form of a tiny hand patting on a parental back.

Nowhere in any Christmas story does it mention the hard work of the parents. Nowhere is it mentioned the sacrifice, the sweat, the overtime, the long nights, the packed lunches, the over worn parental shoes and the aching feet.

Couldn’t some author, some illustrator somewhere magically weave into their Christmas story that Santa brings all these magical gifts on Christmas morning as a reward to all the parent’s hard work throughout the year. Is it too much to ask that Harper Collins Publishing partners with Rankin & Bass to whip up some fictional account that shines on both Santa Claus and the parents? Is that too much to ask? The father didn’t think so.

The father watches as the baby crawls along the carpet pulling at each torn pile of Christmas wrap. The father knows this story could only end one of two ways. Either he mans up and apologizes for ruining yet another Christmas morning with his selfishness, or he comes clean about the truth about Santa Claus. That’s when he realizes that there is only one way to end this. And it’s the truth. It’s about time for some real truth.

“Santa Claus is ….,” the father pauses and takes another swig. “He’s just not real, guys.” The father said it. He said it and finishes off the second half of his beer with one long gulp.

“Father!,” the mother abruptly shouts. Yet it was too late. He is committed to the truth and he cuts her off to continue.

“Santa Claus is just some made-up jerk, a mythical show-off,” the father goes on. “Santa Claus is just a charlatan. Fugazi, kids. Santa Claus is a big fucking fake!”

“Daddy! Daddy!,” the eight-year-old bravely interrupts pointing to the corner of the room. “Daddy, there is another gift under the tree.”

The father wipes his mouth of his last sip, and looks up to see another package peeking from beneath the dried, pine branches. He stumbles on his knees and crawls to the bottom of the tree pulling this last gift. In somebody’s best calligraphy there is a label attached: To: Father. From: Santa.

The father looks angrily, yet humbly at his wife. She shakes her head claiming nothing to do with it. The father knows his wife and knows she’s telling the truth. The father puts down his empty can of beer and begins to open the package searching for an answer. His face is illuminated by the shine of his eight-year daughter, who intently watches her father’s every move with a grateful glow to her smile.

At first rip of the wrapping the father immediately sees the words….BEERS OF THE ARCTIC. Another pull at the wrapping allows the full unveiling. It was a six-pack sampler from the North Pole.  There was a bottle of Santa’s Ale Suds, a bottle of Snow Wheat and a bottle of Blitzen’s Buzz.

The father looks up and reveals a drunken tear trickling down his swollen red cheek. He looks up humbly at his children for their forgiveness. And he knows all too well that these children are full of forgiveness. Someday, he knows, this forgiveness will run out. But he is happy that today is not that day.

“Daddy, Daddy. Santa didn’t forget about you!” the eight-year-old says as she hands over a bottle-opener to her father. “See Daddy, he is real! His is real, Daddy!”

The father accepts the gift and pulls his daughter to his lap. He takes that bottle opener and rips off the cap of a Sleighbell Lager. He takes it to his lips and it is magical. This little elf-potion is steaming his palate and pours over him a new life. Stillness arrives back to the family.

“Yup, Honey,” the father repents. “Of course, Santa is real. He is as real as they get.”

Lying: A Christmas Tradition

After five years of resistance, I finally decided to be part of the in-crowd and came home with The Elf on the Shelf.

I have known about this phenomnon since those two lady authors stitched their first pre-packaged elf, but year-in and year-out I decided against this tradition. So what took me so long? Well, I’m kind of a cynical, controlling scrooge who hates being part of the in-crowd.

As a parent I firmly try to have my children fall somewhere between followers and outsiders.  I don’t want my children to be lemmings jumping off each cliff following Justin Bieber to hell. I also don’t want my children to be the creepy outsiders who aren’t allowed to eat sugar cereal and  watch PG movies without proper parental guidance.  Lastly, there is nothing cool about being a trendsetter in the third-grade.

There must be happy medium.

For those of you who don’t know The Elf on the Shelf is a storybook that comes with a little elf that watches the children and reports their behavior back to Santa Claus in a magical overnight trip to the North Pole. Each morning the children discover the elf in a different location of the house. The box advertises “A Christmas Tradition.”

“But we already have a Christmas tradition,” I’ve said over the years. We already have our own set of December lies. We believe that some magical creature stares at our every move from a far off distant place. (I’m talking about Santa, not God. That’s a different blog for a different day.)

We also believe in flying reindeer, dancing snowmen during global warming , the width of the fireplace and an endless night that allows Santa to reach the entire world.  We also tell the children that their gifts depend on their behavior, even though we plan on spending hundreds of dollars to make them smile on Christmas morning in hopes that their smiles will last until Christmas afternoon despite their dirty bedrooms and sibling fighting.

What’s another lie to celebrate the birth of God’s only son?

So two nights ago I came home with The Elf on the Shelf and left it out on the kitchen table for the children to see the following morning.  Before I rolled out of bed the kids already gave the elf the name of Buddy. Original, I know, as the kids just watched Will Farrell’s movie Elf on Thanksgiving. But they’re kids and they’re simple.

Speaking of simple….so is dad as I just jumped right into this tradition without reading the book and almost ruined the magic.

 “Is it real?” my three-year-old son asked with this scarred, little quiver in his voice.

“No, he’s not real, Honey,” I assured him which was apparently the wrong answer.

“Of course, he’s real,” my wife corrected me.

Creepy, right? But if that’s the gig I’ll go along with it. If the gig is to scare the shit out of your half-knowing toddler then we’re going to do it up nice and good.

So I took the Elf out of the box and handed him around the table.

“We’re not supposed to touch him,” said my six-year-old, who watched The Elf Movie on TV last week.

“He will lose his magic.”

Well, if that’s the case than this little guy has already been completely shed of all his magical power as the kids tossed him around like a volleyball for five minutes. In reality, Buddy’s magic is only as good as my credit line and inability to make strong financial decisions at Toys R’ Us because the Waitresses are singing Christmas Wrapping over the loud speakers again….you forgot the cranberry too?

“Don’t worry honey, he doesn’t get his magic until we read the storybook,” I lied. I then put Buddy away before I screwed up the story even more.

Last night we’d completed out first night with Buddy as we all sat around and read the story of The Elf on the Shelf.  The kids were in awe and that tickled us parents. Sometimes I’m so busy trying to grow these children into big people that I forget how little they really are. I will miss it one day and should enjoy it while it lasts.

Ok, I’ll admit it. The Elf on the Shelf is cute. There I said it. It’s cute and we are really going to enjoy this new family tradition. Before bed we decided as a family which shelf Buddy would start on and left him up there to threaten us with toys.

I just hope that in the coming weeks that in some drunken eggnog stupper I don’t hide him on a shelf that we can’t find for years to come. This house still has Easter eggs rotting in its dark corners. That’ll really ruin Christmas when years from now one of the Buzzkills finds Buddy’s rotting body behind some unread Ralph Waldo Emerson hardcover. Then we’ll have a new C.S.I. Christmas tradition….Who Killed Buddy?

Why’s everyone looking at me?

Drinking Can Make You Sick

It was the middle of the week, my day off, and my six-year-old daughter dropped a bomb at our kitchen table. Apparently, her parents had a drinking problem…

And that’s what we get for sending her to school.

It started off with a second glass of wine. Maybe it was a chardonnay. Maybe we paired it with a wild salmon, some parsley puree, green beans, a brand new I-pod play list and the best company in the world. Maybe Rachel Yamagata was sharing a duet with Ray Lamontagne. Maybe my wife and I were so caught up with the happiness that is an idle Monday night. Again, my day off.

This is what I look forward to most during my week. Food, family, music, wine, dessert; all the indulgences of life. We spend too much on dinner, take too long ingesting it and enjoy the company too much.

 I reached to pour my wife a second glass and our daughter voiced her initial fears.

“You shouldn’t drink ‘cause it’s going make you sick.” We laughed it off. She has no idea exactly how much we would have to drink before we got sick. But she didn’t mean nauseous sick. She meant dead sick. We didn’t quite hear this…not yet anyway.

The next night it was tacos on Tuesday, my other day off. Ice waters for the kids, Corona of course, for the parents. My daughter put up any even bigger fight.

“Guys, you just had wine last night and now you’re going to drink beer!”

“Abby?! Mommy and Daddy are allowed to have a beer.”

“If you drink beer you’re going to get sick, and throw up, and die!”

Needless to say, this was a sobering moment. We heard our daughter loud and clear. She had concerns. Righteous or not, it was our job to hear her. We tried to talk to her about good drinking vs. bad drinking. Responsible drinking vs. problematic drinking. All the while toeing the line. This again, is a six-year-old girl not necessarily available to see the big picture of life. We talked this out a little bit. We pleaded for her understanding. We prodded her to find out where she heard such a thing, although Abby refused to give up her sources.

No second drinks that night, especially not around such a buzz kill daughter.

Later in the week, Abby exploded again. Only this time there was no drinking involved. We were late for bed and I used my dad voice to rush her upstairs.

“See, this is what happens when you drink! You get mean!” She was obviously cranky, and smart enough to know that she hit a nerve the other night. She’s an intelligent one, this girl.  

That night I talked with my daughter in her bed. Another heart to heart balancing the truth with her six-year-old grasp of the world. This is always a tight rope. We kissed and hugged then I retreated back downstairs to my wife. 

Now I’m pissed. My wife and I are both pissed. Who is telling her these things? Who is teaching my daughter such things. Who is turning our daughter against us? Who is scaring her this way?

We spent the next two weeks on the wagon, at least in front of our children. Like two true alcoholics, my wife and I waited for the boring sober little, buzz killers to go to bed before turning the cork on a bottle of red, or twisting the cap of a beer. We buried our empties at the bottom of the recycling can. We hid the beer in the crisper drawer next to the vegetables. And we used a lot of gum. I felt like I was in high school again.

This week Abby brought home one of her lesson’s from school. The Health curriculum is called The Great Body Shop. The latest lesson was called “Drinking Can Make You Sick.

Here’s the picture… Two teenagers drinking and smoking on the street corner. Beer cans lined up like bowling pins. A capsized vodka bottle. Cigarette butts a strewed. “Hey kids, come to our party! Ha, ha, ha,” the older girl slurs. “Come on kids, I dare you!,” taunts the teenage boy.

Younger children off to the side pointing, “Let’s go, Suzy. They are drinking.”

To get the full picture copy and paste the following link to your browser …http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyN24KJUQzU

I wasn’t present when this lesson was presented to the class. However, I’m more of a big picture type person who understands the dangers of displaying such small picture lessons to six-year-old children. I’ll say it again….SIX-YEAR-OLD children. First graders, damnit!

Can they really grasp this idea of alcohol to the fullest? Was this message extended to our children with certain qualifiers? Like parents are allowed to enjoy an occasional libation at home…Or adults have been celebrating life with intoxicants for centuries, millennium… Or countries are famous for their vineyards…. Or even Jesus like to turn water in to wine to have a good time. Or was this just a blanket message of Drink=Death.

I can just imagine these images being presented to my daughter. Her slinking into her desk in embarrassment. After all, her parents drink. She blushes red imagining her parents on the street corner collecting empties while enticing younger kids to do the same.

In her beautiful little head her parents are just one glass of South Eastern Australian Reserve away from breathing our last breath. What an image for a six year old, eh?

I don’t know why such a lesson is being presented to first-graders. We don’t live in a town where teenagers hang out on street corners. Our teenagers probably do their drinking in the woods or in their parent’s basements like we did when we were younger. My daughter is unlikely to stumble across these kinds of temptations. At least, not for another seven years or so. Until then I’d prefer to keep her a six-year-old girl with six-year-old problems.  

They say that our kids are growing up too fast nowadays and with these kinds of curriculum you can easily figure it out. Sometimes adults need to allow kids to be kids, children to be children. 

So does my daughter understand the message? You be the judge. On her activity sheet she was asked to

complete the following phrase.

I will stay drug-free because….My daughter’s answer…“I like to tickle my friend,” she wrote.

Oh yeah, she’s definitely mature enough to learn about drugs and alcohol. I am soooo wrong.

A Ghostly Secret

I think we have a ghost in the house. It’s the craziest thing.

Once my bride decides that she’s done with the new Victoria's Secret catalogue she puts it in the pile for recycling. For some odd, paranormal reason the silly catalogue never quite makes it to the trashcan, but keeps popping up in different areas of the house.

It’s just ghostly!

Which begs the question…Who’s catalogue is it? And how are we going to get rid of that ghost?

Victoria's Secret is the most gender-neutral, temperature-rising brand on the market. Picture a husband and wife walking through the local mall holding hands in love. Then walks by a woman (non-descriptive for the purposes of this example) strolling along with that little pink-striped shopping bag.  Both husband and wife turn their head in envy dying with curiousity to know what’s in that little bag of hers.

The Vicotoria's Secret shopping bag is the one shopping bag that my bride carries into the house that makes me happy. Every time she returns home with bags from Carter’s and Baby’s R’Us I lose one-tenth of my present measure of testosterone.  When she comes home with that cute, petite Victoria's Secret bag I have nothing but high-fives and chest-bumps for my bride.

Every time UPS drops off a five o’clock package at the front door I immediately roll my eyes at the pending credit card bill. But when I open the door to see that beautiful VS logo my heart is all a flutter. Better a package from PINK than a package from Staples. There ain’t nothing sexy in that box from Staples!

Every time I spend too much on my wife’s birthday after a shopping spree at Victoriassecret.com I can promise you that my bride doesn’t complain. It’s not like I come home with a new Bose surround sound stereo coupled with my favorite CD wish list from 2011. Victoria's Secret is the one internet tracking cookie men don’t have to worry about deleting from the family computer!

Wanna know my secret? I too love PINK.

(That being said…Ladies, please stop buying your young girls clothes with messages printed on their butts.  I’m not into looking at 13-year-old backsides. However, I love to read! I find these tween styling very confusing.)

Let’s get back to the catalogue.

When I bring in the mail and there’s a Victoria's Secret catalogue mixed in the bunch I have to remind myself that it’s just another piece of junk mail. (It’s just like when I’m tv channel-surfing with my bride in the same room. I need to be aware of what gets my attention and slows down my search. My bride is smart enough to know that I didn’t stop at Baywatch to see which episode it is.  My bride is smart enough to know that I’m not really interested in watching a Zumba infomercial.)

When I bring in the mail and there’s a Victoria's Secret catalogue mixed in the bunch I casually set it aside for my bride to find later. I want to cheer. I want to call her downstairs and tell her that the new catalogue is here like Charlie finding the golden ticket for the Chocolate Factory.  I want to do laps around the house Paul Revere-style. The Victoria's Secret catalogue has come! The Victoria's Secret catalogue has come!

However, I have to play it cool. I have to leave it aside for my wife to find at her leisure.

Is it wrong to circle the outfits that I won’t my wife to buy? Too subtle?

Is it wrong to leave the catalogue next to the laptop with my credit card? Too subtle?

Is it wrong to leave the catalogue in my bride’s dresser drawers next to her oldest apparel I can find? Too subtle?

Better, I suppose than hiding it in my own underwear drawer.

I’m not going to lie. I feel greatly disappointed when I find the Victoria's Secret catalogue in the recycling bin. But I wasn’t done with that! I want to argue. But I don’t because I’m smarter than that. I tried that once, but my bride pointed out that the catalogue had her name on it.

Sometimes I use the Victoria's Secret catalogue as a memo pad to write down important information like phone numbers and work schedules. This way we couldn’t possibly throw away the catalogue, even if I desperately wanted to clean the house.

But there is a simple solution, Fellas. Get your very own catalogue with your own name on it…http://www.victoriassecret.com/catalogue-request/. They’re like giving them away over there! Then you won’t have to feel guilty about prying into your bride’s belongings. After all, the catalogue will have your name on it. That’s not creepy at all.

Now let’s go find that damn ghost.

Nana's Trading Card

“Wanna see Nana’s trading card?” This was a coworker talking to me about a year ago, and I know exactly what’s she was talking about.

She had just come from her Nana’s funeral. The “trading card” would be the prayer card. I too call them trading cards and find this notion hilarious. I always have.

They’re the closest things to real life trading cards that we have. Each card represents someone, with some lifetime stats (DOB - DOD). Perhaps a picture, and possibly a prayer or prose. We are forced to collect these cards. The only alternative is to toss it. And how in good conscious can you toss Nana’s trading card?

If you are at a funeral and you pick one of these up, it’s yours for life. You may keep them in a shoebox with other old memories like movie tickets or birthday invitations, or in the upper chest pocket of your favorite suit. I prefer to keep my in the top drawer of my night stand. It’s what I call my junk drawer.

I have a dozen or so trading cards. I see them as death’s equivalent to Facebook. I am friends with…Um, I mean…I was friendly with Joe L, John F, John D, John R, Mary K, Dolores K, etc., etc. I’m really not looking for more friends, per se, but if the opportunity comes to pass, per se, then I will certainly take home another trading card to add to my drawer.

In Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut talks about one man’s circle of beings as his karass, “If you find your life tangled up with somebody else’s life for no very logical reasons….that person may be a member of your karass.” That would make my trading card collection members of my karass, if they weren’t members already.

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell further investigates how people are connected to each other citing that “we associate with people who occupy the same small, physical spaces that we do…. Proximity overpower(s) similarity.” What he’s saying is that we don’t necessarily like the people we are with…We’re just near them.

Like Facebook friends, these collections of souls say almost nothing about me as a person. These are lives that have somehow touched my life, directly or indirectly. Some are close family. Some are close friends. Some are friends’ family, and some are family’s friends. And some are people I have never met, not once while they were alive.

All the while I cannot allow myself to throw these trading cards away. I usually come home from the funeral, take off my jacket and stash the trading card away in my junk drawer. This latter motion is intentional at best, obsessive at worst.

I know the people are in that drawer. I allow them to live there. I believe that you are only dead when no one remembers you, and I refuse to let their memories die.

I find these memories both soothing and haunting all at the same time. I see them when I reach for my vitamins, my penknife, my matches, that ointment cream and my notebook.

There’s one that haunts me more than the rest; the most telling prose on the back, and a picture with the most telling smile on the front. It’s a death that is both close to me and miles away. I can’t say exactly how I feel about his death, other than to say it challenges me every time I see him smiling at me. It’s a reminder of my life, more than a reminder of his death. I feel more alive every time I see it, every time it sees me.  These are the types of moments that keep your blood running.

Most of the trading cards I have are ….well… kind of boring. The prayers are predictable, and too often reused. The dates say nothing but life’s mathematics. And the picture usually is of some man in a dress..Ok, well that’s not that boring.

Make no mistake; this death trading card business is a multimillion dollar venture. See http://www.momorialcards.com/ for background choices, sample fonts and preprinted sample cards.
I collected baseball cards when I was younger and if the industry contained some consistency I would still be collecting them. My favorites were the veterans. Take any rookie Topps card circa 1986. The back was empty of stats, mostly filled with large font of generic goodness. The font was big and the intelligence was vague and vain. However, take any veteran circa 1986 and you have a font so small it’s almost impossible for any 11-year-old to read. Take Bert Blyleven 1986 card, sixteen years of statistics. What a beautiful collection of numbers.

When I die I want my card to stand out. I want a picture of myself. Not a picture of how I looked just prior to my death, but a picture of when I was 11-years old. To say nothing bad about any other time of my life, at 11-years old I was more myself than I was anyone else. I was more pure, more innocent. I knew exactly who the hell I was and I was proud to be that kid.

And as far as my stats I would prefer just a listing of some major events/moments/quirks of my life. That would go something like this…in the smallest font available…as if they ran out of room on the card to accommodate all my greatness.
…he sliced a double down the right field line twice to win both the National League majors championship and township wide world series in the same week…. his wedding song was Van Morrison’s Crazy Love…he was in the 92^nd percentile of fatherhood according to http://www.usdaddy.com/. ….he visited one less city than he wanted to….cabernet liked him… he always had the right cards in his hand, he just often misused them…in hindsight he realizes dressing like a Drug-Free School Zone sign for his high school Halloween dance wasn’t a good idea…he could listen to music as good as anyone could play it…he could keep score of any baseball game….his first musical purchase was Whitney Houston’s initial self-titled cassette album, and he stood by it…he was always afraid of the dark…he was a Leo for you weirdoes who thinks that makes a difference… had a crush on Matt Damon…he won the heart of his high school sweetheart forever and that’s all that matters…he wore a size Medium T-shirt…he was a quirky, funny son of a bitch.

Originally published in April, 2010 at http://www.mypatheticblog.tumblr.com/

Advice to a Newborn (from a former baby)

First of all, drop the I wasn’t born yesterday attitude. You and I both know that you’re not fooling anyone. Maybe it was yesterday. Maybe it was last week. Either way, you’re still new to this world and have a lot to learn from someone like me. Christ, I have lunchmeat older than you.

Hey, don’t roll you eyes to the back of your head at me. The sooner you quit the crying and start listening the better off you’ll be. Right now you know nothing. Literally, you don’t know a thing.

Don’t believe me? Do yourself a favor and pick up Steven Pinker’s psychology classic The Blank Slate. You’ll find that Pinker writes how the mind is born to this world like a fresh piece of white paper void of all characters. Wait…you can’t read yet, can you? Damn, advising a newborn might be harder than I thought.

Anyway, Pinker describes epistemology…What? You say you already know what epistemology means…..No, you’re thinking of episiotomy. That’s a lot different. Wow!, that’s a lot different. LOL! You have so much to learn.

I’m talking about epistemology, the notion of how we come to the truth and knowledge as human beings. As a newborn, like yourself, you come into this world knowing nothing. Your mind is a sponge and will start absorbing any and all knowledge. So when I say you know nothing, I mean it. The sooner you realize that you know nothing the sooner you will allow yourself to know everything. Now I’m not going to tell you everything about this world, just a few bullet points to get you from there to here.

Here goes.

To start, you’re going to want to get yourself a nice hat. In this world appearance is everything and no one is going to associate themselves with anyone that still has a pulsating soft spot on their forehead. I never trusted anyone with a soft cranium, least not those who advertise it. Yup, get a nice hat. You can go a long way in this world with a nice hat… and a smile. 

Now let’s talk about choices. The world is filled with countless decisions. The rest of your life will be spent making choices, but they all don’t have to be made today. Rolling Stones vs. The Beatles. Bloods vs. Crips. Cabernet vs. Merlot. These decisions can be made in time, through real life experience.

However, you’re going to want to choose a parent right now. As in today. If you’re lucky enough you have two parents (and not everyone is lucky enough….no, seriously). Do yourself a favor and latch on to your mother. She’s the one with lumps on her chest. No, the bigger lumps.

She’s the one who’s spent a lifetime educating herself in child rearing. She’s read the entire parenting section at the bookstore. She’s listened to her girlfriends, asked questions of the doctors and probably has taken a class or two.  Meanwhile, your father’s only experience in parenthood is putting off the construction of the crib long enough to make it seem like a BIG deal when it was finally complete. She can write her master’s dissertation on “Keeping You Alive.” He, however, took the step of memorizing her cell phone number in case of emergency.

Yes, it’s true. Your dad will hold you for hours in the middle of the night. But your mom actually wants to hold you for hours in the middle of the night. Your dad will feed you. But your mom actually wants to feed you. Your dad will change your diaper. But your mom actually wants to change your diaper. She actually wants to clean your cracks, ointment you up, measure your stool and find its comparative percentile with other children your age. She wants to do this. Your dad’s not actually going to want to do anything with you (napping aside) until you’re old enough to hold a baseball bat or an American Idol microphone.

Until then, stick with Mom. Not for nothing, she’s also less likely to drop you.

Now let’s talk about money. Over the next few years you’re going to come across some charitable money just for being alive. Through religious ceremony, anniversaries, milestones, etc. The longer you live the less you’ll get. You’re going to want to ensure that you still have this money when you’re old enough to spend it.

Sure, you might think your parents are the smartest people in the world right now…but when it comes to investing they’re like the Clampetts of Beverly Hills. That new house and big screen television may seem like posh living compared to your previous residential quarters, but when it comes to true wealth chances are your parents are still working the chain gang. Get yourself a lawyer, financial advisor and possibly an agent. It’s never too early to declare financial emancipation.

Hey, lift your head and listen to me. Talking to you is like talking to a hung-over college student. Gosh, you have a lazy neck.

Finally, let’s talk about love. Right now, it’s all you have and it’s as real as it’s ever going to get. The love you experience right now, over the next two weeks is the purest, most genuine emotion that will ever penetrate your soul. The people around you are at their most innocent. Their kisses at their softest. Their stares at their most intense. Their touch at their most graceful. Take it all in, and take it with you for the rest of your life. This is your family. Let them in and they will be with you for the rest of your days.

Remember today, ‘cus you’re not getting any younger.

The post was originally published March, 2010.

He's Not Cheating...He's Just Disgusting

It was just an innocent shower.  But it turned out to be so much more.

After a particularly unfresh, unsanitary, rather unkempt Wednesday at work I came home and immediately took a shower.  I arrived downstairs like a new man ready for some wholesome family time. However, my bride wanted to know why I took a shower as soon as I got home from work.

As it turns out Frequent Showering is the No. 1 sign that a man is cheating on his spouse according to every women’s magazine ever published in the history of women. Who knew?

I laughed, flattered that my wife might actually think that a 36-year-old, middle manager with four kids and three dollars in his pocket is marketable on the dating scene. “I’m not having an affair, Honey. I’m just disgusting….Oh, and I had to burn another pair of underwear. Now, what’s for dinner?”

But this got me thinking. What other random acts and false signs am I putting out there that’s telling my wife that I’m having an affair? So I went online. And apparently everything I do is a sign that I’m cheating on my bride. According to online polls and women’s magazines I am unfaithful.

So here are the signs…But hold on, Ladies. Your man is not cheating. He’s just disgusting. Let me explain.

Changing Grooming Habits…Great! It’s bad enough that every time I do a little manscaping down under my bride makes me clean the entire bathroom with Clorox wipes, but now I have to also assure her that this grooming is for her benefit. Well, it’s not. Once again, men are disgusting. We grow hair in the strangest, darkest of places. Ladies, if the vacuum cleaner ever breaks all you have to do is roll your naked husband all over the carpet and watch how much lint and dirt his body hair collects. Then just pick him up, take him out back and shake him off the deck like a welcome mat.

Yesterday while changing my shirt my bride pointed out a collection of lint wrapped up in bellybutton among my own hairy welcome mat. “Hey, not a single thing in this house still belongs to me anymore accept that little, empty space in my bellybutton,” I demanded. “That empty space belongs to me and I’ll put whatever I want in there. Mind your business.”

If your man is grooming it doesn’t mean he’s cheating on you. He’s just trying to gain a little self-respect back. He knows how disgusting he is.

Protectiveness of His Gadgets…This is a common one, and I understand it. I do. But listen, I have no friends. As in zero friends. Not one friend! So when my cell phone rings once a month I want to be the one who answers it. As a father of four, I am so desperate for contact with the outside world that when my cell phone rings I am hoping to God that it’s not a wrong number, that it’s some telemarketer who I can spend five minutes chatting up….“No, I’m not interested in upgrading my credit card to a premium account. But hey, what are you doing later? Wanna meet up for a drink? Go play some darts or something. I can drive to Delaware in like two hours. No big deal…. Hello…Are you still there? …Hello?…”

Change of Smells…I’m getting older now. Which means at some point I’m going to start to get that old-man smell. And I’m going to have to mask that smell with some sort of perfume or cologne. Better transition now, I say.

I’m sure the smell that old people have is probably a product of daily medication and an all-bran diet, but some of that smell is likely to be just the natural digression of a rotting body. At 36, my body is about halfway rotten. Even I can smell it on me. Now where’s that bottle of Drakkar Noir I had in high school. It’s probably still good, right?

He is Distant…Really? If it seems like your man is only halfway there in the house it’s because mentally he’s on vacation in some far off distant place. Do you want to know why I’m so distant? It’s because I’m thinking of baseball. Yup, that’s right. Baseball, or something like it. Opening day is just 86 days away.  Oh yeah, I’m also thinking about what it might feel like to be an 11-year old boy again. Oh yeah, I’m also thinking about my retirement and sitting in a lawn chair on my driveway and watching people drive by and doing nothing all day long.

If it seems like I’m distant, like I’m not truly engaged with the needs and day-to-day operations of this household it’s because the day-to-day operational needs of this household are physically killing me and I’m not going to let those obligations take out my mind as well. I may have sore knees and an aching back, but mentally I’m an eleven-year old boy running a deep rout in a two-hand- touch football game.

Increased Sexual Desires….Decreased Sexual Desires…Initiates Sex…Freaky in the Bedroom…Not Responsive in Bed…Wow, according to the internet these are all signs that your man is cheating.  Ladies, your man has sexual needs, desires, frequencies, hang ups, bang ups, memories, expectations and scenarios running around that head of his that you won’t ever be able to comprehend so do not even try. Accept the unacceptable.

There are nooks and crannies in your man’s head that you do not want to visit. Even if you have a Google map, and some sexual GPS system, and a PHD and years of schooling in the male mind. There are places in that man’s head where you’ll get lost and confused, hurt and dehydrated, scared and scarred for life.  Don’t try and decipher your man’s sexual signs and don’t ask any questions. This is a no trespassing zone. Enter at your own risk.

Unexplained Behavior … So you found a coupon to the strip club in his glove box.  He’s not planning on using it, as it has since long expired. This was given to him in the parking of the last sporting event that he attended. He and about two thousand other men received this coupon.  He’s just keeping it as a reminder of the very last time a twenty-year-old girl made eye contact with him….Ask him, he’ll tell you… It’s been 521 days and counting…

There are things about your man that you just don’t need to know. There are things about your man that you don’t want to know. You think you do, but trust me you don’t.

You don’t need to know about that strange ointment in his sock drawer. You don’t need to know why he drives around with an extra pair of underwear in his car. You don’t need to know what he’s doing on the internet all day, because it will embarrass you both equally to find out that your man, an adult man can spend sixty hours per week on fantasy football.

Your man is not cheating. He’s just… well…he’s just a man, a desperate, disgusting, lonely adolescent man. But he is your man…So you better take care of him