Only If There's a 20 In It

Is it just me or do greeting cards suck these days? No matter what the occasion, you cannot find a good one. It’s getting to the point where nearly all of them fall into just three categories – cards for kids play music, cards for adults are long, drawn out diatribes about how the giver of the card has a hard time expressing his/her feelings so the stream-of-consciousness epic does it for them, and the last kind is a recent development where readers send in family photos with funny captions and the greeting companies turn those into cards in lieu of creating cards themselves. Outsourcing, basically.

These categories – music, diatribes, outsourcing – are all terrible and the individual results of these categories are terrible. Even the few remaining cards that don’t fit one of these descriptions are lousy. You just can’t find quality cards anymore.

The rambling feelings-dump cards, which also happen to be filled with bad metaphors, are my least favorite. When you open them, they usually sound something like this:

To my wonderful wife on our anniversary…

We’ve sailed some rocky waters together over the years, but I love the course our relationship has steered us on. I can always count on you to be there and I hope you feel the same way about me. I don’t always know the right words to say, but you always seem to know exactly how I feel, which makes it weird that I was compelled to buy a card filled with a frank discussion of my feelings written by someone else.

The last 10 years with you have been the best of my life and I can’t wait to see the adventures we take over the next 10. Perhaps we’ll scale the peaks of all of our hopes and dreams, but even if we slip along the way, I know we’ll be there for each other to properly secure the ropes of our love to the mountain of life.

Before you, I felt lost and unsatisfied (and I don’t mean that in a sexual way, but I guess I kind of do to some degree). Thank you for finding me and giving my soul life, love and happiness. As long as your brother doesn’t try to borrow thousands of dollars from us again, I know we’ll be sharing our golden years together.

And that’s just the left side.

In the age of dying newspaper subscriptions and 140-character tweets, it seems counterintuitive that cards like this not only exist, but are practically the only ones you can find anymore. The card industry has to be hurting. I mean, does anybody buy cards anymore? The post office is nearly extinct and no one under the age of 45 communicates by any means other than texting and tweeting, right? Hallmark can’t employ a lot of writers given what I mentioned earlier about card companies relying on the general public to create the few remaining adult cards that don’t double as novels (unfortunately I’m not talking about “adult” cards, which we need way more of, by the way).

Since people are buying greeting cards at the same rate they’re buying VCRs, you’ve probably never even seen these publicly-produced cards unless you’ve sent one into Hallmark and they used it. But trust me, as someone who still buys cards, they’re out there.

Fortunately there are some different genres of cards that you can find for the proper birthday celebrations. Like a half-naked chick or dude on the front of a card, always looking oiled and bronzed, with a message that says something like, “She/He really, really wants you…” and the inside says, “… to have a great birthday!” And of course there’s no shortage of old people talking about their latest body part that aches, sags or fails to hold in gas. These started popping up around the time that we became interested in oily, naked members of the opposite sex and farts. I believe this time period is called ‘The Dawn of Man’.

Come to think of it, I guess I should stop complaining about a lack of quality cards. Flatulent old ladies, half naked dudes… those are sure to brighten anyone’s day.

He Drinks "Five Year Energy"

I’ve written a lot about my kids lately, particularly my five-year-old son. I try not to do that too much because I don’t want this to morph into a “mommy blog,” especially since I’m a dad. But I can’t help it this time because I’m jealous of something. My son has something I want. As a parent, I shouldn’t pine for something that one of my kids has, particularly when he’s this young and virtually everything he has is dictated by what I or my wife give him. But this is different. Nobody gave him the thing I want, he just has it.

It’s his energy level.

And I’m not the only one who wants it. You want it too. We all do. That’s why, as I wrote a few years ago, energy drinks are so popular. That’s why Starbucks charges $4 for a small cup of coffee. That’s why we get addicted to soda and mayors feel the need to outlaw the sale of soda containers that could double as lawn mower attachments. That’s why meth fans are willing to forgo their teeth in exchange for it.

But none of that can match the potency of simply being five. He doesn’t need sugar, caffeine, naps or meth in order to go full throttle for 14 hours. The only way to get my son to sit still and be quiet for more than three minutes is to play that game where you see who can be quiet the longest. Luckily his competitiveness is the one thing that exceeds his energy level. Most kids, however, couldn’t care less about exceeding at that game because the sacrifice (being quiet) isn’t worth it.

To be fair, there are quiet times that don’t involve him trying to win a contest. But the energy is always there, bubbling under the surface, just waiting for the right time to erupt. The other night he sat quietly through dinner, ate his entire meal and then, like a perfect gentleman, very politely said, “I’m finished. May I please be excused?” My wife granted his request and then he slid out of his chair and immediately started playing air guitar. Put on a show right there at the kitchen table. Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer,” I think.

Other times when he’s not bouncing off the walls are the few seconds it takes to move his peg around the Trouble board. However, during the few seconds it takes me to move my peg, he usually sways back and forth, shakes his arms in the air and sings only half of the lyrics to a song correctly. Lately it’s been “Living on a Prayer.” We all went through a Bon Jovi phase. Don’t judge.

If I did the same thing, I would never get through the game. I would absolutely pass out from exhaustion a quarter of the way through. For my son, though, conserving his energy while it’s my turn never crosses his mind because he’s not in his mid-thirties and he doesn’t need energy reserves to play a board game. He doesn’t need energy reserves to do anything.

And for all the things that are wasted on kids (food that hits the floor, clothes that are stained after one wear, education), energy is never one of them. The excess energy that isn’t used while eating or pushing the Trouble button is simply exerted later on top of other energy that's already being exerted. For instance, running up and down the soccer field doesn’t adequately squelch all the energy, so a lot of times you’ll see kids running up and down the soccer field AND playing air guitar at the same time. You’ll rarely see professional athletes do this because they’re limited by their age and pathetically low endurance levels. But you’ll see kids do it.

What my son doesn’t understand is that the energy will run out. Not today, but years down the road. I’m not sure if holding onto some of the energy will ensure that he can summon it again 30 years from now, but one thing I do know – all the Starbucks in the world won’t bring it back.

Sports Headlines or Weather Reports?

Heat Rolls Over Thunder

Avalanche Buries the Lightning in Six Games

Hurricanes Rip Tide

Eclipse Blots Out the Suns in Front of Record Crowd

Hail Pounds Rising Ocean Levels

High Pressure System Topples Low Pressure System to Win Championship

Tornadoes Do More Damage than Earthquakes in World Cup

Pollen Count Overshadows Humidity in Playoffs

Fog Blankets Cold Front After Coach Gets Ejected

Severe Thunderstorm Warning Dominates Severe Thunderstorm Watch

Heat Index Raises Its Game Over Mercury

Sleet Sends Rain to the Showers Early to Win Arm & Hammer® Baking Soda Bowl

Premature Pomp

So my son is a graduate. He didn’t exactly finish at the top of his class, but he graduated. Actually, maybe he did finish near the top. Maybe he graduated magna cum laude. Hell, maybe he was even valedictorian. His school kept pretty crappy records, so it’s hard to know for sure. Honestly, I don’t think they kept records at all. We never saw a report card or a transcript or class syllabi’s. I’m pretty sure his only requirements for graduating were the fact that he’s five and will no longer be a paying customer this fall. You know, cause it was preschool.

The concept of graduating from preschool is… quaint. Cute, even. You probably thought the word I was going to use was ‘stupid.’ Some people might use that word, but not me. The concept is cute and the actual “ceremony” was cute. Assuming it’s ok for a man to refer to his son’s preschool graduation as cute.

But here’s the problem… it’s also kind of stupid. I can’t help it. He looked cute (there’s that word again) in his $25 cap and gown, but he didn’t really achieve anything. Nice weather days consisted of round-the-clock recess, broken up only by lunch and nap time. And he failed miserably at nap time (Aced lunch, though). If I may take just a moment to brag - the director of the preschool did say quite regularly, “Your child is so smart,” which felt great, even on those occasions when she was looking at other parents while saying it (I felt bad that she rubbed it in their faces like that, though). But my son was never required to prove it through quizzes or tests or book reports or anything. Sure, he excelled at identifying colors, writing numbers and letters, and performing basic math, but even if he did those things poorly, they still would have given him a diploma.

As proof: at the ceremony the kids all sang a song in unison. Unfortunately it wasn’t decipherable until the second verse because the singers were the exact opposite of ‘in unison.’ That hardly seems diploma worthy.

I promise, though, I’m not a jerk. It was very thoughtful of the school to take the time and effort to make them feel special. And, as I said, the ceremony was cute, the caps and gowns were cute, and the free food was cute. I laughed when I was supposed to laugh, and I said my allergies were bothering me when… you know… I was supposed to say my allergies were bothering me (see, I have a heart).

But have we gone a little off the ranch with things like preschool graduations? For one thing, none of the kids have to earn passing grades in order to graduate. You don’t have to “pass” the first 4-6 years of your life in order to get into kindergarten. You have to go (yes, even in Kentucky). Which brings me to my second point: the kids aren’t allowed to stay at the preschool. We’re legally obligated to enroll my son in an actual school, or at least purchase home-school curriculum, in a few months. It’s like throwing a retirement party for someone who’s being forced to take early retirement.

So what are we celebrating and/or congratulating, exactly? Was the ceremony a way for the teachers to thank the parents for our money over the last five years by asking us to pay another $25 and take time off work?

Ok, that sounds angry. I’m certainly not angry; amused more than anything. And even a little proud. So I’ll just say what you’re supposed to say after graduations. Congratulations Son! You earned it, I guess.

Everything Is a Thing

When you’re a kid, that is. I’m talking about the title, of course. When you’re a kid, everything is a thing. Everything you see is a thing, everything you do is a thing, everything someone says to you is a thing, and everything someone says to somebody else is a thing. If you don’t have kids, those statements probably need clarifying. If you do have kids, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Getting ready for bed, for instance, is more than just putting on your pajamas, brushing your teeth and climbing under the covers. Much more. It’s first asking, “Who has to go to bed?” after one of your parents says, “Time for bed.” Then it’s standing in front of the mirror and seeing how many goofy faces you can make while singing whatever is floating around in your head. It doesn’t even have to be a real song. It can just be a series of random words said in a sing-songy tune. Like, “I like to toot. Toot, toot, toot. You like to toot. Toot, toot, toot.”

Then it’s turning to whomever has walked into the bathroom to ask you to stop singing and start brushing your teeth, and saying, “Look at my belly!”

This continues in a number of similar scenarios for roughly 45 minutes before the child is finally in bed. But you’ve heard all this before. Kids have short attention spans, they don’t like to go to bed, they act silly, blah, blah, blah. But what you may not have heard is what I led off this article with. I wasn’t exaggerating. Everything - not just going to bed - is a thing.

Washing your hands, for instance. An activity that, for an adult, takes 15 seconds at most and requires little thought. For a kid, however, it can take 15 minutes. And helping them speed up the process only leads to elevated blood pressure. Don’t turn the water on for them because they can turn on the water. And they will turn it off and then back on to prove it. Don’t hand them the soap either because they can get the soap. And they will put it down and then pick it back up to prove that as well. But there is something they would like help with – knowing what soap consists of, where it comes from, why it smells so good, etc… So be sure to have the answers to those questions.

Then there are rocks. Holy shit, rocks are awesome. And sticks! They’re even more badass than rocks. Which is great. I love my kids’ passion for things that don’t impress most people past the age of 10. But did you know every rock and every stick has to be picked up? Every single one. No matter how much of a hurry you’re in. And when their arms are full of rocks and sticks, you have to hold the overflow. Even if you need to get to work or to a hospital or to a space shuttle that is rocketing off the planet because aliens are about to blow it up.

"Why are there so many rocks?" they'll probably ask. And they'll ask it when you're trying to hurriedly get them in the car so the line of vehicles behind you can finally pull around the jerkoff that is clogging up the parking lot by waiting to take your spot.

“Why do they want our parking space? Why do they want to be close to the building? Why don’t they want to walk far? What’s a lazy asshole?”

See? Getting into the car is a thing. And rocks are a thing. And parking spaces are a thing.

If you don’t have kids, there’s a chance you’re thinking that mine might have A.D.D. If you do have kids, you know that everything I’ve described is perfectly normal behavior of an average child with average attention-paying abilities. I knew kids that had A.D.D. and I know parents of children who have it. My kids aren’t within an Everest climb of even approaching it. Something to consider if you’re considering having kids.

Not that that should stop you. Kids are great. And a ton of fun. Just know that everything is a thing.

Rejected Course Curriculums at Various Schools Around the Country

Dante’s Seven Deadly Sins and Their Shaping of Religion in Modern-Day Europe – University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Making Waves as the Unaffecting Bystander: Introduction to Apathy – University of California, Berkeley

Advancements in American Culture, Post Civil War – University of Mississippi

The History of Brewing – Brigham Young University

Computational Astrophysics – Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Pride in the Family Business: Taking Over Your Father’s Air Conditioning Repair Company - Harvard University

Back to the Basics of 20th Century Business: Surviving the Internet Fad – Stanford University

Math Theory – Smith College

Advanced Surfing – Oklahoma State University

Modern Dance – Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

The Depiction of Human Sexuality in 16th Century Italian Renaissance Art – Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Microeconomics Lab: Lowering Gas Prices Through Offshore Drilling – University of Oregon

Study Abroad Program – University of Hawaii

You Think YOU Like Beer?

For some reason or another, I’ve been doing a lot of research on beer lately. Perhaps I’m developing a problem. It feels oh so good, though. Actually, I’ve done a lot more reading than I have drinking. And most of my reading has focused on how our ancestors viewed beer, so I don’t think my liver has much to worry about. For now.

To tell the truth, what I’ve found is that no matter how much drinking you or I take up, no matter what lengths we go to to acquire beer, no matter how much money we spend or how many barrels we start brewing in our basements, beer won’t mean nearly as much to us as it did to our great-great- great-great-great grandfathers.

Now you might be saying to yourself, “Hmmm… I don’t know. I saw last year’s fourth quarter earnings for the world’s largest brewer – AB InBev – and they sell a crapload of beer.” I saw those too. And you’re right, that is a lot of money, especially just for one quarter. Don’t forget too that they’re not the only brewer by any stretch, and lots of beer companies, despite all their profits, still feel compelled to spend huge sums on advertising. Apparently all that profit still makes the corporate suits ask themselves, “Do you think people will remember that they like beer next year?” So they dole out $2.5 million for a 30 second ad during the Super Bowl, just to remind us that beer is pretty cool.

But nevertheless, all that spending doesn’t necessarily equate to people feeling passionately about beer. For passion, you might look to all the Oktoberfests (original and knock off versions) held around the world. Or the fact that so many young people try to secure it illegally. You might even say that the fact that people pour it into bags and tape those bags to dark places of their body in attempts to smuggle it into sporting events speaks volumes about our passion for beer. But all those asses full of beer are nothing compared to how people felt about beer thousands of years ago.

Consider the following…

In the game of love, Modern Man tries to use beer to achieve any number of goals. The ultimate one being to get a woman to agree to come back to his house or apartment and… “organize his music collection,” if you catch my drift. He hopes the “organizing” takes place over a single night or maybe even up to a week if it’s Spring Break. But anything more than that and he begins to not appreciate her criticism of his Scorpions phase.

On many other occasions, however, Modern Man is happy to exchange a beer for a phone number, even if it turns out to be fake, just so he can show his friends that he can in fact ply a number from a member of the opposite sex. Then there are times when Modern Man is happy to buy bottles and bottles of beer for a lady even if it only means she’ll talk to him for five more minutes.

But not Ancient Egyptian Man. His standards were much higher. If Ancient Egyptian Man gave even a sip of beer to a woman, it meant she’d have to do a whole lot more than just “organize his…” ok, you know what? Sex. I’m obviously talking about having sex. And offering beer to a woman meant that he hoped for a lot more than just getting her into bed. It meant she would become Mrs. Ancient Egyptian Man. And you know what came next: in-laws, kids, Pictionary parties, weekends antiquing. Of course back then there weren’t any antiques. All of the quilts and tea sets were the latest, state-of-the art productions, so people went… now-ing, presumably. At any rate, an offering of beer was not made lightly.

The Babylonians didn’t have this same practice, but beer did play a role in marriage for them as well. Babylonian fathers of Babylonian brides sent beer to their new Babylonian sons-in-law for a month after the wedding. So beer may not have been viewed quite as highly by the Babylonians as it was by the Egyptians, given how much of it they were willing to part with, or maybe it was and fathers were just ecstatic to get their daughters married off to whomever would take them. Either way, husbands fared well no matter what their wives looked like (at least for as long as the beer lasted).

I didn’t find much on the changing alcohol content of beer through the ages, but I think it can be presumed that beer has always been fairly potent because the ingredients, for the most part, haven’t changed, and the taste isn’t really the selling point. So given that alcohol has certainly always been a reason to enjoy beer, it was interesting to read that George Washington gave daily rations of it to his troops during the Revolutionary War. Seems counterintuitive to winning a war in which you’re outmanned and outgunned (which I guess goes without saying if you’re outmanned). Then again, keeping morale high is an important factor in fighting a war, and what better way to do that than with some suds?

Going back to the Egyptians, they didn’t let diminished capacities interfere with their love of brewski either. Earlier, I only scratched the surface of the passion the Egyptians had for beer, given that they also used to brew batches of it to bury with their dead so it would travel with them to the afterlife. The only problem is that this passion for brew may have impacted their passion for rewards in the afterlife, since part of their beliefs about receiving rewards in the afterlife (other than beer, of course) involved “the ability to recite spells, passwords and formulae of the Book of the Dead.” So there’s a good chance that your buddy in college who always thought he did better on tests after he had a few beers in him is at least ¼ Egyptian.

But the Egyptians weren’t the only early civilization that tied beer into its religious beliefs. The Sumerians are believed to be the first to brew beer (even though it was most likely by accident) and, appreciating what a glorious thing they discovered, they had a goddess of brewing. When is the last time you heard of anyone praying to a god of beer? The “shrine” of empty beer cans your drunk test-taking friend built in his dorm room? Please. It may have been shaped like a pyramid (I told you that guy had Egyptian in him), but beer-can pyramid building was only the first step toward admittance into preschool back in the days of his ancestors.

And you’ve probably heard a thing or two about Catholics being particularly fond of beer. This is true, but much like their Egyptian counterparts, their fondness has waned. Used to be that Catholics would canonize people for beer. Nowadays you have to do things like “minister to the poor, sick, orphaned and dying.” And even that only gets you ¾’s of the way there.

But to be fair, passion for beer has waned among all religious groups and ethnicities. How could it not? Shortly after beer was discovered, people’s passion for it could only go down. Consider the fact that upon learning of the process for making beer, early man pretty much changed his entire way of life. He didn’t merely spend his nights and weekends drinking it, he didn’t suddenly have something cool to give his friends for their birthdays and hut-warming parties, and he didn’t just have something besides his own urine to drink. Well, he did. But he had so much more than that. As this quote from anthropologist Alan Eames points out, courtesy of Beer100.com, "beer was the driving force that led nomadic mankind into village life...It was this appetite for beer-making material that led to crop cultivation, permanent settlement and agriculture."

The Discovery Channel even devoted a documentary to that very topic. And not only did beer farming prompt man to stop gathering berries and hunting more advanced species, but the documentary goes into how his passion for beer pretty much led to reading, writing and arithmetic. No joke. (You’ll have to watch for a few minutes, but it’s worth it.) Today, when people change their way of life for beer, they usually end up flunking out of school or losing their job, their relationships and everything in their savings account. Yay alcoholism!

But the most telling evidence that we’re not so gung ho over beer anymore is that we don’t do morally abhorrent things in the name of it. Not like we used to, anyway. Oh sure, people may steal it from time to time, and they may do terrible things after drinking beer, but we rarely see others killed over beer. If you long for the days when you could have seen people killed for stealing beer or even the crops used to make beer, you would have enjoyed living under King Wenceslaus (around 900 A.D.), who had people killed for stealing hops. Were theses maniacal orders of a king who became drunk (pun intended) with power and no longer cared for those he ruled for? Probably not. I imagine he was always a fan favorite, given that he would go on to be canonized.

Then there was the Code of Hammurabi. Hammurabi was the King of Babylon during the 18th century B.C. Remember how I wrote earlier that the Babylonians may not have valued beer as much as the Egyptians? Well if you wanted to disagree, you could certainly point to Hammurabi’s Code, part of which stated that owners of beer parlors would be drowned for overcharging. The SOB didn’t order death just to those who stole the shit, he ordered death to those who charged too much! I’m looking at you, every pro sports owner in America.

And I’m sure we’ve all had the misfortune of being around beer that’s gone bad. It’s usually due to negligent behavior of another person (or maybe yourself). Have you then felt obligated to give that person crap for leaving beer out for too long and thereby causing its skunkiness? That’s what you do, right? You give that person crap. Not literally, I hope. You tease them, you belittle them, you shame them for letting good beer go bad. You let them know they’ve ruined everybody’s evening, but all in good fun. You ultimately, unless it happens a second time, remain friends with that person.

Well, if that person lived in the 1500s, and was a woman, they would have been tied to a stake and used for kindling. Actually, if that woman had nothing to do with the beer going bad, but was simply close by when the bad beer was discovered, she would be sent up in flames. ACTUALLY, even when no one was at fault, which was most likely all the time, mob mentality would still find someone, nay, a woman, nay, a “beer witch” to blame.

You see, beer went bad constantly back then because all the processes we know today to keep beer fresh – dark storage, refrigeration, pasteurization – either weren’t as well known or as widely practiced. And when the skunky beer was discovered, the villagers hunted down the beer witch, yelled “Bonfire!” and got out their S’mores. You might be saying, “Yeah, but back then a woman was believed to be a witch if she produced an inaudible fart. They burned so-called ‘witches’ for everything.” True, but that’s still some serious hatin’ for a bad batch of brew.

Thankfully we don’t act so violently today when beer goes bad, but it’s possible we’ve gone too far in the other direction when it comes to impure beer. Everyone knows that criminals, or in this case heroes, bootlegged beer during Prohibition. Now that’s an example of some serious passion for beer during the last century. However, bootlegged beer was “often watered down to increase profits,” (did I say heroes? I meant assholes) and this watered down, tampered with, “light” version is what Americans came to prefer. That’s right. All that light beer we consume, that we choose over the real thing, started because of what we became accustomed to back when hoodlums were ripping us off. Not only did we tolerate it, but we enjoyed it and continue to enjoy it today. Granted, there weren’t many options during Prohibition, but there certainly are today.

So save your stories about the number of consecutive St. Patrick’s Days you’ve passed out in the gutter for your nieces and nephews. Kill a beer witch and then I’ll believe that you know how to enjoy a cold one.