I found it funny this morning to be walking through Kohl’s with a meat thermometer in my right hand and two toilet seats tucked under my left arm. There are some moments in life that are just serendipitous.
Boy The Elder and Wifey Poo are indirectly responsible for this little portrait you now have in your mind. The meat thermometer was a gift for Wifey Poo — one of those “just because” gifts that was needed because amateur-chef Boy The Elder absconded to his new apartment with our old meat thermometer. BTE was not supposed to buy her a new meat thermometer for a belated birthday gift. We had discussed that he was going to get her replacement salt-and-pepper shakers, the old ones falling victim to his newfound living situation as well, and that I would give her the meat thermometer because I love her and a family evidently cannot live without a meat thermometer.
Alas, the plans of 19-year-olds often change and sometimes do so without notice to Dear Old Dad. Our family is a lot of things, but one thing it is not ever going to be is the owner of two extremely similar digital meat thermometers. On this principle I plant my flag and am willing to die.
The toilet seats were a different matter. To say that I gave Boy The Younger a new toilet seat for achieving a personal best in cross country, without giving some context as to why that led to him screaming, “Yes! Awesome!,” would be to invite serious questions about how our little family operates. Come to think of it, the context might still leave those questions, but for what it’s worth, when we moved into New Home in August, BTY made it clear he did not like the wood one that was left behind in what he calls “his” bathroom. I can’t say I blame him. I don’t recall one situation in which I sat down on wood and thought, “Well now that’s comfortable.”
BTY is a big fan of those slow-closing toilets, and, truthfully, so am I. What I am not a fan of is sudden loud noises, and boys aren’t real good about gently doing anything, lowering a toilet seat included.
So I did what Good Dads do: I went on Amazon and ordered him a slow-close toilet seat, where I was immediately faced with a choice between round and elongated. Seriously, people. I know we can’t agree on much as Americans, but can we at least come together around the shape of our toilet seats? If anything in this country should be standard, I’d put forward the toilet seat shape is it.
Anywho, this uncertainty led to a trip into the bathroom, where, if you’d walked in at that moment, you would have seen me staring at the open bowl, tilting my head this way and that, trying to determine which type of toilet seat to buy. And yes, I know I could have solved this dilemma with a tape measure, but the toolbox was in the family room, a good 20 feet away and I can be incredibly lazy when I want to be.
Eventually, I determined our toilet seats are of the round family, which caused me to immediately start thinking of those with elongated toilet seats as pretentious snobs. So I ordered BTY a toilet seat and, while I was at it, I upped the quantity to “2” so I could replace the one in the master bathroom, as well. After all, I am a boy, too, and have no problem startling myself.
Plus, here’s the thing: It’s not a good idea to have a slow-close toilet seat on some of your toilets. If you’re going slow-close, you’ve gotta be all-in. Otherwise, you’ll end up forgetting which kind of toilet seat is where and just willy-nilly dropping the lid on a regular-close toilet, which leads to the sudden loud noises of which I was speaking.
Fast forward. Amazon gets me my toilet seats in 12 minutes, we give BTY his run-like-hell award, and then the seats sit there, awaiting a free moment for me to install them because, apparently, I’m The Toilet Seat Installer of the family. I’m not complaining about this de-facto designation. Wifey Poo is The Vomit Cleaner of our tribe, so we have a good thing going that I’m not going to mess with.
This morning while I was getting going with my morning ritual of contacts/vitamins/shave/shower, Wifey Poo sauntered (yes, sauntered) into the bathroom and casually said, “What color are our toilets?”
Marriage is a funny thing. There are a million things that I would have put higher on the list of “Things My Wife Will Ask While I’m Getting Ready For The Day” than “What color are our toilets.” And here’s the reality: I didn’t even know there were colors of toilets. My assumption, much like my assumption on the shape of toilet seats, was the color of toilets in America was something we as a nation had determined sometime in the past by a vote in Congress or act of the President or something. Never once in my 47 years of life have I ever stopped and actually looked at a toilet to ponder its color, and I think it’s incredibly arrogant of Americans to actually have different-colored toilets. In my world, toilets were one color: White.
Don’t get on my ass about home decorating options and color matching White goes with everything so just shut up. And if you’re too good to sit your ass down on a white toilet with a round toilet seat, well, go shit in the woods.
So I replied: “I dunno… white?” thinking that this might be her version of Quiz Show and if I nailed the answer I would win a new car or a trip to Australia.
Not only was I wrong about the intentions of the question, I was wrong about its answer.
“I don’t think they’re white,” she replied. “I think they’re more almond.”
I still wasn’t catching where she was going with this in-depth examination of our toilet color, and besides, if she knew what color our toilets were and weren’t, why was she asking me if I knew what they were? So I casually replied, “Oh. Cool” and actually thought that would be the end of it.
Oh, John, you fool.
“Well then the toilet seats you got are the wrong color,” she continued.
“The toilet seats are the wrong color? What do you mean the toilet seats are the wrong color?” I said, suddenly finding myself defensive about my carefully chosen toilet seats. Sitting here now, that I was defensive about toilet seats is probably a new low for me.
“I mean the wrong color,” she said. “As in, the lids won’t match the bowls.”
“And the lids matching the bowls is something we want?” I said, but since you’re reading this and not hearing how I actually said it, know this: You probably want to make that question mark kinda small and certainly changeable to a period because I was doing the Husband Trick of giving myself an out if what really was a question painted me as the stupidest human being alive.
“Exactly,” she replied.
“Yeah, exactly,” I said confidently, as if I knew all along that toilets were different colors and that lids and seats are definitely supposed to match bowls in every circumstance always and forever amen.
So I did what I do. I went to Amazon and searched for toilet seats that were the color almond. Now, I’ve seen almonds. And I’ve seen our toilets. And the former’s color does not match the latter’s. But who am I to quibble with the namers of colors?
No one. That’s who.
I was shocked when, in 0.0128 seconds, Jeff Bezos returned for me a list of a 5 bazillion toilet seats that were not white.
So there we were, Wifey Poo and I, with my phone, standing over the bowl, scrolling through pictures of toilet seats of different hues, trying to figure out which one would match our obnoxiously not-white toilets. As best we could determine in the poor lighting of the master bathroom pooping palace, the color was, as Wifey Poo had postulated, almond. Premium almond, to be more precise.
“Seventy-five bucks!” I screamed.
“What?”
“This toilet seat costs seventy-five bucks!”
“Well how much did the wrong-colored ones cost?” she asked, trying to get me to unwittingly concede that the ones I purchased were, indeed, “wrong” instead of just “different.”
“The ones I purchased cost twenty-seven dollars,” I replied.
“Oh. Well then I don’t think they’re almond,” she said.
And right there, I learned something. I learned, at the age of 47, that the color of an object can change based on its cost.
“What’s that color cost?” she asked, pointing to a shade called “Biscuit/Linen.”
Now the answer was $35, which is much more reasonable than $75 though still not low enough for the thing that cradles your ass while you’re pooping, but that’s not where I was at that point. Where I was, was in deep thought over how “biscuit” and “linen” got thrown together with just a mere / between them to denote a shade close to almond but more than 50% cheaper. And here’s the kicker: I’ve never seen a biscuit or any linen that’s that shade!
By this time, I was falling behind in my morning schedule, which was leading me up to an 8 a.m. Zoom call with a guy named Marshall to discuss a live chat and chatbot feature on my team’s website. So instead of furthering the discussion about shades of toilet seats, I simply said, “That’ll do.”
Two new slow-closing, round, Biscuit/Linen toilet seats will be here tomorrow.
So that’s what necessitated my walk through Kohl’s — which, in case you were unaware, takes returns for Amazon for just about any reason you could possibly conjure up on your most imaginative day — with a meat thermometer and two toilet seats in tow.
And you damn well better believe that, when I got to the counter and deposited the stuff in front of the kind be-masked woman, I said, “Yeah, my wife bought the wrong color toilet seat. Pshhhh. I mean, really? She couldn’t just look at the bowl and see we needed Biscuit/Linen and not white? But hey. I married her before I knew that about her, so whatryougonna do?”
Chimney Sweep Guy
There are three types of people associated with top hats:
- Magicians
- Abe Lincoln impersonators
- Chimney sweepers
I totally understand the first one. You’re not goin to pull a rabbit out of, say, a beret. And Abe Lincoln impersonators gotta do what Abe Lincoln done did.
Chimney sweepers, though? It seems an entirely inconvenient choice of headwear if your main task is to stick your head in a fireplace.
When we moved into New House, we knew the fireplace hadn’t been used in five years or more. FIL just got tired of hauling in firewood, I guess. We, however, are People of the Fireplace. I’ll make a fire in the middle of summer if I need a little comfort. We actually went to Old House on the day before it was officially sold and jammed my car trunk full of firewood we’d stacked there while it still was technically ours. Hey, shut up. Firewood ain’t cheap.
Before cold weather sets in, I wanted to make sure the fireplace was, ya know, safe, and seeing as how I am not going to be the one to stick anything up a chimney, I figured this was a job for someone with a bit more training and possibly better equipment.
Well, for the low-low price of $289, MadHatter Chimney Sweeps came out this morning and shoved a camera up there. And of course they found something wrong. Apparently, there are a few cracks in the tiles on the way up Santa’s passageway. “Don’t use it until you get that fixed,” said the chimney sweep guy, who was, sadly, not wearing a top hat. “It’s not that we’re the chimney police and are gonna come out and arrest you, but creosote can build up in the crack.”
“And we don’t want that to happen?” See above item about the question mark that’s really a pseudo-period.
“Exactly,” he replied.
“And how much would fixing a thing like that cost?” I asked.
“Oh, we’ll have to get a proposal together and send that to you,” he replied.
Here’s something I know: In the history of the world, nothing requiring a proposal has ever been cheap.
So I’m faced with three options:
- Not using the fireplace, thereby diminishing my level of home enjoyment.
- Getting the chimney fixed with whatever this pending proposal recommends.
- Pretending that the chimney sweep guy gave me a “You’re good to go” and hoping that creosote buildup, whatever that might be, isn’t going to kill me and my family with poisonous fumes or incinerate us in a massive blaze.
What would you do?
The ‘Don’t Blame Me, I Didn’t Say It’ of the Day
‘Dumboriss Smith has lips the size of michellin tires.’
JOn Gruden, 2011 email
Yikes, dude.
I Miss Baseball
My New York Yankees went out with a wimper Tuesday night — against the Red Sox, no less. My new-hometown team, the Cardinals, lost in a walk-off the next night. I’m already missing baseball that matters to me. There’s something about baseball the other sports don’t have. It’s a game meant to be savored, to be shared. Wifey Poo and I went to the Cardinals last regular game Sunday afternoon. We talked as we haven’t talked in years. I don’t remember much about the game, except for the fact that the Cards lost 3-2. But I’ll always remember it as the time Wifey Poo and I were at our best. There’s no time for that in hockey, in basketball… even in football, with its 35 seconds or so between plays. Baseball unveils itself slowly, like a leisurely drive through the countryside. I suppose I can jump on the bandwagon of a different team and jump in the deep end with its fans. But it’s just not the same.
Today’s Reasons to Keep Living.
- I have a whole weekend with zero responsibilities, and the mandate is to unwind and enjoy myself. So I will.
- Rediscovering old music that once was my favorite. It’s like catching up with an old friend.
- Maker’s Mark. I’m technically supposed to drink only dry red wine to stave off inflammation and the hell that is Longhaul COVID, but every once in awhile, it hits the spot.
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🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Shirt Stain 👔Score One for the Unabomber💣Oh Canada 🌈🍁 I arrived at work this morning, put my stuff down on my desk and hit the men’s room because evidently a 42-minute drive is too long for a man of 47 years to comfortably hold his bladder. I did what I do,Continue reading “What the Hell is on My Shirt? — Dec. 8, 2021”

Wifey Poo, The State Champ? — Dec. 7, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Baseball God(ess) ⚾Alice in Chains 🎸What About the Golfers!? 🏌🏽♂️ To say that baseball was my life when I was a kid is an understatement. I watched it as much as the scant channels we had at home would allow — the Yankees were on Channel 11 WPIX and the (ugh)Continue reading “Wifey Poo, The State Champ? — Dec. 7, 2021”

Off — Dec. 6, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Detached 💭Intentions for a New Year 📆Red is Deadly 😷 Today sucked. The problem is, I don’t really know what the hell happened. I woke up just after 6, later than I have been recently, and I felt so significantly off that I truly don’t remember much of the first 45Continue reading “Off — Dec. 6, 2021”

One Hundred Intentions for 2022
Circles are interesting things. They have no beginning and no end. They just keep going around and around and around. And yet we set Jan. 1 as the day to mark the start of our journey around the sun, a journey we measure so incredibly poorly that we have to add an entire extra dayContinue reading “One Hundred Intentions for 2022”

Bumper Car Aggression — Dec. 4, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Ice Violence ⛸️Movie Night! 📽️Most Popular Dog Names 🐶 Today was date day for Wifey Poo and I. We’ve been trying to do a date a week since, oh, back in 2018. That was interrupted for awhile by a certain African host child this year, but we’re back at it. TodayContinue reading “Bumper Car Aggression — Dec. 4, 2021”

The Song of the Year is What? — Dec. 3, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Top Songs of 2021 🎶Where’s the Snow? ❄️Thunder Struck ⛈️🏀 Because I didn’t already feel incredibly old and out of touch, I looked at the list of top 100 songs from 2021. It wasn’t until song No. 65 that I even thought I knew one of the songs, “Go Your OwnContinue reading “The Song of the Year is What? — Dec. 3, 2021”

Death to the Elf — Dec. 2, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Redemption 😊Spice-Lovin’ Tree Shrew 🌶️Mark The Freaking Elf 🧝 I spent the morning in a hotel conference room down in STL learning from a man named Jeff Glover about 21 ways to get 21 listing of homes to sell. Glover is a big fish in the real estate industry. He runsContinue reading “Death to the Elf — Dec. 2, 2021”

United States of Inefficiency — Dec. 1, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Maria and The Chickens 🐔Strange Cyber Monday Offers 🧪Bloody Gift 🩸🎁 I hate wasting time. I hate it hate it hate it. Everything about my life centers on efficiency — the routes I take when I drive, how I go about getting ready for the day, how I organize my workContinue reading “United States of Inefficiency — Dec. 1, 2021”

Return to the Dungeon — Nov. 30, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Paul 🧙♂️Slowest Speeder Ever 🐢Another School Shooting 🏫🔫 I found myself tonight in a dark jail cell surrounded by four zombies, some kind of wizard, and my son. This is not what I expected for my Tuesday evening. After a months-long absence, I returned tonight to the Dungeons & Dragons gameContinue reading “Return to the Dungeon — Nov. 30, 2021”

Let’s Talk Syrup — Nov. 29, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Canadian Oil 🍁Freaking Covid 😷Namaste, Yo 🧘🏿 Monday started out with the news that the Bosslady has Covid. This whole “living through The Great Plague” thing somehow has been incorporated into our lives to the point where we don’t really even realize that thousands of people are dying from it daily.Continue reading “Let’s Talk Syrup — Nov. 29, 2021”

Internet Outage Dispatch — Nov. 28, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Disconnected 🔌Worst Mom Ever 🦘Death to Autoplay 💀 Internet outage, Day 2. I’m sending this message via carrier pigeon. Or maybe it’s just some bird I caught with my greasy-fast speed. Things are looking bleak. We’ve been without internet service for more than 24 hours now. The weather outside is cold,Continue reading “Internet Outage Dispatch — Nov. 28, 2021”

Tree Haulin’ — Nov. 26, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Family Rituals 👨👩👦👦The Grinch Rocks ❤️Churros and Poke Bowls 🤤 It’s interesting to think about how family rituals actually become family rituals. There are some that are very intentional. You had something done for you as a child, so you do the same thing for your kid. Others just sort ofContinue reading “Tree Haulin’ — Nov. 26, 2021”

Pie Tweaker — Nov. 25, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Stable Family 👪Armed America 🔫🦅Good or Nickelback? 🎶 Thanksgiving was a quiet affair for the Core Four — my nickname for the entity that is Wifey Poo, Boys The Elder and Younger, and me. We had no family visit, and none of us left the house until BTE traveled to hisContinue reading “Pie Tweaker — Nov. 25, 2021”

Don’t Touch Armadillos — Nov. 24, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Coffee With Wifey ☕👱♀️Armadillo Lepers 😳Choice Cigar 🚬 To say Wifey Poo and I have been through some shit is an understatement. When we said “I do” back in March of 1997 as freaking twenty-two-year-olds (!!!!), neither of us had a clue how challenging the “or for worse” part of aContinue reading “Don’t Touch Armadillos — Nov. 24, 2021”

Boy The Singer, Nov. 23, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Self-Teaching 👨🏫Beer Flood 🍺🌊Space Mission 🚀 When I left the newspaper industry in 2009, I knew how to write, take decent photos, design pages and copy edit. I landed a job in which the mandate was, “Go make our communications program better,” something I’d assured those who interviewed me I knewContinue reading “Boy The Singer, Nov. 23, 2021”

The Costco Plaid Mafia — Nov. 20, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Beard Trim 🧔🏽Grunge Shopping 🛒Funny Animals 🐒 When you find yourself with a straight razor poised a millimeter from your neck, you realize this is probably what was going on when the Almighty said “Be still and know that I am God.” I found myself in this situation this morning, inContinue reading “The Costco Plaid Mafia — Nov. 20, 2021”

Family Matters — Nov. 19, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Wifey Poo’s Laughter 🤣Expensive Turkey 🦃🍗My Boys 👨👦 Walking back to my car last night from The Funny Bone comedy club in St. Charles, I got to thinking. This comes as a surprise to no one who knows me (not many people, as I’ve recently discussed) and no one who readsContinue reading “Family Matters — Nov. 19, 2021”

Wine & Chocolate — Nov. 18, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Drinking on the Job 🍷The Land of the Giants 🏀Joseph McCarthy Returns 🏴 It the past week, my job has taken me from a chocolate factory to a wine bar — all in the name of business, of course. Last week, Big Bosslady and I visited Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate, which isContinue reading “Wine & Chocolate — Nov. 18, 2021”

Who Needs Medical School? — Nov. 17, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Itchy Foot 🦶Pay Cuts ❌💰The Best Pen Ever 🖊️ Wifey Poo woke up around 4 a.m. itching, itching, itching her recently repaired foot. Underneath the Ace bandage and the gauze and the padding to keep it safe, she’s got a rash of some sort, and the foot is swollen. Doc saysContinue reading “Who Needs Medical School? — Nov. 17, 2021”

Warm November Day — Nov. 16, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Warm November 🌡️The Jaguar People 🐆Squid Game 🦑 I’ll take a 70 degree day in the middle of November, thank you very much. I spent part of my workday on my back deck doing the things I do for my real estate team — social media ads, flyers to promote openContinue reading “Warm November Day — Nov. 16, 2021”

Happy Covidaversary To Me — Nov. 15, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩A Year of Hell 😷Where’s Ben? 💔Profiting From Pollution 🏭 Happy Covidaversary to me. On this day one year ago, I had a Q-tip shoved up my nose to confirm what I already knew. Wifey Poo’s sister had been diagnosed with it. Wifey Poo’s mother had been diagnosed with it. WifeyContinue reading “Happy Covidaversary To Me — Nov. 15, 2021”

Big Buck — Nov. 14, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Oh Deer 🦌The Thought Gap 🧠Unplugged 🔌 I was sitting in my as-yet-to-be-named home office this morning when this big boy ☝️☝️☝️ walked out of the woods into my yard. It’s the opening day of deer season in Missourah, a day of significance for many local inhabitants on par with theirContinue reading “Big Buck — Nov. 14, 2021”

Homeschool Stuff — Nov. 13, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Picnic in November 🥶Happy Wife 👩Pour-Over Coffee ☕ Scheduling a picnic outside in Missouri in November seemed to me to be a very gutsy call. That’s until I stopped to realize who was scheduling it — Boy The Younger’s cross country team. These folks run everywhere, and, thus, I assume areContinue reading “Homeschool Stuff — Nov. 13, 2021”

Huckleberry Hoops– Nov. 12, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Hoops at Twain’s House 🏀Lunch With The Big Bosslady 🥪Breaking Up Is Efficient 💔 After a long week of work, I traveled north this evening with Boy The Younger for his second hoops game of the season. I missed the first because of an early start time, but this one wasContinue reading “Huckleberry Hoops– Nov. 12, 2021”

Toys in the Hall — Nov. 11, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Gross Photos 📷Sand? Sand!? ⏳Sleeping With Cheese 🛏️🧀 I had major ankle surgery back in 2008 to essentially reconstruct my left foot, which had a nasty propensity to roll over without the rest of my leg accompanying it on the journey. After a four-hour operation and two weeks, I went backContinue reading “Toys in the Hall — Nov. 11, 2021”

Absolut Curly? — Nov. 10, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Pizza Visit 🍕French Fry Vodka 🍟🥃Let’s All Move to Portugal ✈️ We were surprised at dinner time last night with the sight of a kid who’s really no longer much of a kid. Matthew, who’s been Boy The Elder’s friend since the two weren’t even toddling, stopped by, pizzas in hand.Continue reading “Absolut Curly? — Nov. 10, 2021”

Inventor Regret — Nov. 9, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Death List ☠️Doctor Day 🩺Stay Calm, Be Confident 🧘 Sometimes the internet does something useful. For example, in the early days, there was the site that was nothing but The Hamster Dance. I’m not making that up, kiddos. The only thing this website had was The Hamster Dance. Don’t believe me?Continue reading “Inventor Regret — Nov. 9, 2021”

Sloth Talk — Nov. 8, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩What Makes a Sloth a Sloth? 🦥Launch Day is Nigh 🚀Talkin’ Free Speech 🎙️ I find myself going down some interesting rabbit holes lately. For example, tonight I wondered why exactly sloths are so slow and how exactly such a creature could survive in a survival-of-the-fittest world, especially when they liveContinue reading “Sloth Talk — Nov. 8, 2021”

Early Morning Gaming? — Nov. 7, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Good Morning, Bank of America, How Are Ya? 🎮Woods Walk 🌲🌲🌲Big Bird’s a Commie ☭ I awoke this morning to a text from Bank of America about potentially fraudulent charges on my debit card. “Pshaw,” thought I. “Probably just a scam.” So I stumbled into the kitchen, made my coffee andContinue reading “Early Morning Gaming? — Nov. 7, 2021”

Adventures in Costco – Nov. 6, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Cute Pic, Dumb Response 📷A Musical Connection 🎵A Time-Change Analogy ⌚ My first solo venture into Costco today did not end up in familial bankruptcy, surprisingly. Oh, it could have. It just didn’t. I walked right past the $40 slabs of ribs and steered clear of the $2,000 monster TV thatContinue reading “Adventures in Costco – Nov. 6, 2021”

Punk! — Nov. 5, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Wrasslin’ 🤼♂️Wifey Poo 🦶Costco 🛒 Boy The Younger and I found ourselves this evening in the most difficult-to-spell-without-looking-it-up building in the Midwest, Chaifetz Arena, home of the Midwest’s most-weirdly named college basketball team, the St. Louis University Billikens. But we weren’t there for hoops. We were there to watch the oddContinue reading “Punk! — Nov. 5, 2021”

Wounded Wifey Poo — Nov. 4, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Role Reversal ◀️Work From Wherever ⌚People Talk Funny 📣 Today was Part I of Operation “Return Wifey Poo’s Ability to Walk Not Like An Old Lady.” We arrived at Barnes Jewish Hospital West, which graciously allowed us entry despite us not being members of the tribe, just before 10 a.m. toContinue reading “Wounded Wifey Poo — Nov. 4, 2021”

John’s Seal of Approval — Nov. 3, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩 📺 A Broadcast to Watch 📰 An eNewsletter to Read 📽️ A Documentary to Skip Here are two things that receive the official John The Storyteller-in-Chief’s Seal of Approval — and one that doesn’t. ✅ Peyton and Eli Do Monday Night Football I have been alive for many variations of theContinue reading “John’s Seal of Approval — Nov. 3, 2021”

Get Off My Lawn! — Nov. 1, 2021
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Good Journalism 📰Fish Farts 🐟💨Dystopia 🧟 I’m officially old. I say that not because of a birthday or a sudden recognition that I am, indeed, 47. Rather, I say it because I’m increasingly pining for “the good-old days.” Now, I get it, Billy Joel. The good-old days weren’t always good, andContinue reading “Get Off My Lawn! — Nov. 1, 2021”

Cleaning Out Memories — Oct. 31, 2021
🔻 What’s Below 🔻My Red Wagon 😊F’n Nightmares 💤I Hate Facebook 😠 I greeted the Halloween morning sunrise while taking every last thing out of the garage of my little country home and putting it in one of four sections on the driveway: Stuff to throw away. Stuff to give to Wifey Poo to tryContinue reading “Cleaning Out Memories — Oct. 31, 2021”

My Blue-Haired Medalist — Oct. 30, 2021
👎 What’s Below 👎Boy The Medalist 🏅Ricky The Trash Eater 🗑️Sweating It Out 🥵 Waiting for Boy The Younger’s blue-haired head to pop over the rolling southern Missouri countryside for the final sprint to the finish line this morning was torturous. He was running in his final cross-country meet of this, his first season, oneContinue reading “My Blue-Haired Medalist — Oct. 30, 2021”

Make Mine a Double — Oct. 29, 2021
What’s BelowShoulder Ouchies 😧Chris the TigWaBaFatu 💁♂️Murder Pods 🔪 I’d love to know what idiot thought it was a good idea to get a COVID booster shot in one arm and a flu shot in the other less than a minute apart yesterday. Oh, that would be me. I spent much of the night sleepilyContinue reading “Make Mine a Double — Oct. 29, 2021”

The Idiot Driver? Tis I — Oct. 28, 2021
👇🏻 What’s Below 👇🏻🚦 Red Means Stop 💉 Vaccination Ethics ✍️ The Many Voices in My Head I’m convinced that people in every state think their state’s drivers are the worst, and never do they count themselves among them. I learned to operate a motor vehicle in New York, whose drivers have a particularly bad reputation, butContinue reading “The Idiot Driver? Tis I — Oct. 28, 2021”

Christmas Road Trippin’ — Oct. 27, 2021
🔻 What’s Below 🔻Heading South for the Winter 🥶Laughing With Wifey Poo 🤣👩Americans Suck at Math 🧮Therapy 🧠 I love my role as the family’s vacation planner. I’m not sure exactly when I put on this hat, but I think it’s a generally recognized Family Truth that it’s something at which I’m good. I’ve planned everythingContinue reading “Christmas Road Trippin’ — Oct. 27, 2021”

Sitting on the Bench — Oct. 22, 2021
👇🏾 What’s Below 👇🏾In the dugout ⚾What if I’m … wrong? 😢Angry face 😡 I spent part of the morning in the St. Louis Cardinals dugout. The fam took a trip downtown to tour Busch Stadium. It was a good visit. We saw the owner’s suite (posh), the Champions Club (pricey) and peeked in on the battingContinue reading “Sitting on the Bench — Oct. 22, 2021”

So Many Damn Feelings — Oct. 22, 2021
👇 What’s Below 👇On Men and Crying 😭 Why I write ✍🏻Back Crackin’ 👨⚕️ So here’s a thing I sometimes hate about myself: I cry. Like, easily. And often. Or at least it’s “often” in comparison to how often men normally cry. At least, I think it’s often in comparison to the frequency men normally cry. IContinue reading “So Many Damn Feelings — Oct. 22, 2021”

Baseball is Broken — Oct. 20, 2021
What’s Below 👇🏼Nazis and Mongols ⚾Hippie writing ☮️Inside marriage 💍 The Astros playing the Red Sox to see who advances to the World Series is, to me, akin to the Nazis fighting the Mongols to determine who gets control of the planet — and if you haven’t heard about how the Mongols killed their prisoners,Continue reading “Baseball is Broken — Oct. 20, 2021”

Say ‘Cheese’ — Oct. 19, 2021
What’s Below 👇On being self-taught 📷The Bee Battle 🐝Ahhh, Ben Platt 🎶 I set up a little makeshift portrait studio today in a training room at my office. Lights, a backdrop — the color of which matches our new brand hue — and a tripod with my Nikon Z6. It all looked very fancy-shmancy. Here’sContinue reading “Say ‘Cheese’ — Oct. 19, 2021”

Technology Sucks — Oct. 18, 2021
Human beings of the modern age like to think of themselves as the pinnacle of all creation. Of course, this is not necessarily new to the modern age. It wasn’t all that long ago that some of the brightest minds of their modern age — guys like Sir Isaac Newton — thought women got pregnantContinue reading “Technology Sucks — Oct. 18, 2021”

Even a Bald Man Needs a Barbershop — Oct. 17, 2021
Being a bald man, I don’t have many reasons to be in a barbershop. And I miss barbershops. They are one of the few remaining oases for guys, and barbershop talk is fun. I took Boy The Younger to have his mop managed Saturday morning. Boy The Elder found Walt’s Barbershop a few years ago.Continue reading “Even a Bald Man Needs a Barbershop — Oct. 17, 2021”

Infant Loss Awareness — Oct. 15, 2021
Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, and even almost 21 years later, I’m not sure how I feel about it. So much of time is arbitrary. We screw it up so badly that we have to add a whole day every four years. So for me, today is just like any other dayContinue reading “Infant Loss Awareness — Oct. 15, 2021”

Fourth State of Being — Oct. 14, 2021
There’s this state of being that’s not quite asleep, not quite dreaming but definitely not awake. That’s where I found myself Thursday evening at Livin’ Sublime Wellness, my little yoga studio in Wentzville. Restorative yoga is a lifesaver for me. If you haven’t tried it, you should. Not to sound all Hippie-Dippy or anything, butContinue reading “Fourth State of Being — Oct. 14, 2021”

Losing Weight Wasn’t the Goal — Oct. 13, 2021
A vegan, a person on a gluten-free diet, and a person who does Crossfit walk into a bar. How do I know? Because none of them would shut up about it. If you haven’t heard this joke before, you can probably relate. I know I can. I remember meeting Sarah on Day 1 at aContinue reading “Losing Weight Wasn’t the Goal — Oct. 13, 2021”

The Family Writer — October 9, 2021
The one thing I know how to do better than anything else is write. I love it. But it’s also sometimes very difficult. Because I know how to tell a story, I’m tapped to do so in trying times. I did so when my father-in-law died in January, writing his obituary and helping my beautifulContinue reading “The Family Writer — October 9, 2021”

Painful Playoff Baseball — Oct. 5, 2021
I’ve been a Yankees fan since I was a small boy. Some of my best memories were born in the old Yankee Stadium. It’s in my DNA to not like the Red Sox. I can think of no good reason to despise the Sawx or their fans, but I still am repulsed by their logo,Continue reading “Painful Playoff Baseball — Oct. 5, 2021”