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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Hit By Pitch — August 3, 2022
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🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Change 🌀Me, Different 😷Bad Baseball ⚾ I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Most everything in humanity is governed by two intertwined forces. Supply and demand. Scarcity. Whether its the economy or human emotions, everything about us is geared toward responding to these two things. For example, when there […]
Hypocrisy — July 28, 2022
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Birthday Eve — July 27, 2022
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Angry Weather — July 26, 2022
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Big-Drop Thoughts — July 25, 2022
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Branson — July 24, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Date Day 🤟🏽Prison Justice 👊Universe Questions 🚀 Wifey Poo and I ended up having more than 12 hours to ourselves yesterday here in the Midwest Redneck Mecca of Branson, Missourah. Boys The Elder and Younger, along with BTE’s lovely girlfriend of nearly three years, and Wifey Poo’s baby sister and family […]
Told Ya — July 22, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩WFH WTF? 🧑💼Rebel Ball ⚾Psych Myth 🧠 As a writer/columnist/blogger/thought-spewer, I always enjoy when I get something out there before anyone else. I dug that when I was a newspaper journalist, and I dig it now. That’s why I’m happy to be hearing national publications and sites like Business Insider starting […]
The Muricahn Way — July 20, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Fahrenheit 🌡️Blindingly White ⬜Alone Time 👴 Muricah is very much a reactionary nation. Much of what we do and who we are is because we were pissed off about the way someone else did things. Monarchy? We’ll have a democracy, thank you very much. The metric system? We’ll measure stuff our […]
Baseball News — July 19, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Tryouts ⚾BBQ Sauce🍖TMNT🐢 There is cause for celebration in the Core Four: Boy The Younger has been drafted. Sadly, we’re not talking about the ongoing Major League Baseball draft. Rather, we’re talking about the sick modern world of Little League baseball. Not to get too “Get off my lawn!” on you, […]
Brakes & Boxes — July 18, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Growth 💗Dreams 💤Redecorating 🛋️ There are moments in a dad’s life in which he can see the growth of his sons quite clearly. Sometimes that growth is physical. One day, Boy The Elder was a short, stocky little boy and then, boom, he came home from his high school job at […]
Firestarter— July 17, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Burn Pit🔥Alaska Ass🍑Nose Hair🐽 Having a plan is a far different thing from having a plan work out. I’m really good at the former, yet the latter seems to be extremely elusive. Yesterday, my plan was to take the huge pile of chopped-down cedar-tree limbs that have been in my backyard […]
Future Wife — July 16, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Jewel💎First Kiss💋Slow Ahead🐢 Wifey Poo and I are headed out into the sweltering hell that is Missourah this evening to see the woman who, should she knock on my door and say “let’s go,” I am fully empowered to join in the next part of life’s journey. I jest. Sort of. […]
Population Growth — July 15, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Parenthood 🚓Alexa 📋Quick-Hitters 👋 Just about every statistic imaginable tells us we shouldn’t have kids — at least, not if we’re concerned about our own happiness, mental health, marriage, career, finances, time or ability to buy a really boss car instead of a freaking minivan. Yet here we are, still a […]
Ouchy Obituary — July 13, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Lawrence Pfaff Sr. Sucks 🚓Engagement Talk 🌯Quick-Hitters 👋 From what I know of Lawrence H. Pfaff Sr. of Belmont, NY, he was kind of a douche. The 81-year-old man died on June 27. I never met him. Never even heard of him. Until I read his obit. And about that obit? […]
HOV Lane — July 11, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Travelling Companion🚓Free Beans 🌯Unfollowed 👋 Brandy Bottone is either stupid or brilliant. Whichever it is, she’s also right. The Texas woman was traveling in the HOV lane — which, for the country folk out there, stands for High Occupancy Vehicle and is reserved for cars with two or more people to […]
Gamblin’ With The Judester— July 10, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Slots 🎰Dude Perfect ⚽Bye Bye Facebook? 👋 My mother-in-law (AKA The Judester) is nearly 81 years old and has knee problems that keep her from getting around too well these days. Watching her stand up from a chair is to feel pain yourself. Yet when I walked into the Ameristar casino […]
Grandma — July 8, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Reflections on Grandma 👵Kids & Death 👨👦👦Don’t Say It 🤫 My grandma died yesterday, four days shy of her 96th birthday. As it goes with people at that age, it wasn’t a surprise. She had been fading for more than a year and, though she still was breathing, that version of […]
Unproductive — July 6, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Sleepwalking 🧨DnD Gang 🎲Gas Idiots 🛢️ If there were a day-by-day measure of the collective output of workers in these here United States of Amuricah (and for all I know, there is), I would venture to guess that July 5 ain’t our most productive day. I base this on my observations […]
Stuck By Patriotism — July 4, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Stupid Parade 🧨Math Matters ➗What Amazon Reveals 🚚 Not being a hugely patriotic person at this point in my life, I made no plans to go to any Fourth of July parade this year. It seems mighty foolish to be celebrating freedoms that are eroding right before our eyes, though I […]
Div — July 3, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Alone Time, Girl Time 👩👧Picture Hanger🔨What Amazon Reveals 🚚 Wifey Poo and I found ourselves in an interesting position at home today for a little bit: Alone. Boy The Elder took off for Six Flags with his buds, and Boy The Younger left with a friend and his family (Chicken Owner, […]
Car Guy — July 2, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Oil Change 👨🔧Goose Lover🛦Church & State⛪ Based on my history, the last place anyone should ever look for me is underneath a car. Yet that’s where I found myself late this morning, side-by-side with Boy The Elder as he showed me exactly how stupid I’ve been all my life. I’m not […]
Objectively Speaking — July 1, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Media Bias 📰Rudy’s Sandals 🩴Lack of Faith ⚖️ I’ve watched with interest the blowback against newspaper tyrant Gannett following its reminder to its journalists in the wake of the Supreme Court’s undoing of Roe v. Wade that they are not to take sides on social media. “You cannot use social media […]
Booby Beep — June 30, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Censorship 🍈🍈Newspaper Talk 📰Toothbrush 🦷 I did my first actual “work” thing at my new job yesterday. The first two-plus days have been filled with meeting new people and learning about the kazillion awesome products we sell so I can talk somewhat intelligently about what we do. But then Nu Bossman […]
Decision Time — June 29, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Hitler Talk ⚖️Chicken Postscript 🐣Green Seats ⚾ I wonder when the average German in the 1930s/1940s said something akin to “Oh shit.” There has to be a point when the rational, sane sauerkraut-lover realized that perhaps his or her vote for a certain mustachioed politician was a really bad idea. For […]
Nu Job — June 27, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Take Me Away🛀Period Tracker🩸Choose Wisely💒 Arriving for the first day at a new job is kind of like showing up in a new town after throwing away your old identity. It’s a blank slate, and you can be anyone you’d like to be. Want to go by a different name? Go […]
America The Embarrassing — June 25, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Racist Billboard🐲Roe Silence😶Guest Bulldog🐶 Driving out of rural northern Arkansas today to return home after several days in a cabin in the boonies, I passed a billboard that was startling, to say the least. It starts off innocently enough with a very true statement: “It’s not racist to 💗 people.” I […]
PMS Boat Sales — June 23, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Uranus Sleeper🔭Cabin Rules🩲Taco Seasoning🌮 What does Cuba, Uranus, Sleeper, Doolittle and a billboard saying “If we don’t return to 2 Chronicles, than were finished” have in common? They all were on the route from my Humble Rural Missourah Home to the cabin in the boonies of Arkansas that is my home […]
Catalytic Converter — June 22, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Check Engine 🚗Declined 🥡Murder Suspect 🔪 Every once in awhile, life throws you a pleasant surprise that seems to even the score a bit. Wifey Poo’s car is up for an emissions inspection this year. Her “check engine” light has been going on and off for a year or so, and […]
Float Trip — June 20, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩River Thoughts 🛶Little Annoyances 😠Birthday Boy 🎂 I didn’t know what a float trip was until I met Wifey Poo. I’m not even sure today that the term “float trip” is used outside Missourah. But if you’re a Missourahn, when someone says, “Wanna go on a float trip?” you know a […]
Genetics — June 17, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩My Boys 👨👦👦Work Drinking🥃Feeling Good 😎 I’ve understood since seventh-grade science class how a child is a somewhat random and yet somewhat traceable mish-mash of his parents and their parents and their parents ad infinitum. It’s so cool to see that play out with my own boys. Boy The Elder is […]
Luchasaurus— June 16, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩The Stinger 🦂Inflation 🎈Housing Costs 🏘️ There’s something quite amazing about witnessing a human dinosaur be thrown through a stack of four tables. That was just one of the scenes from last night as Boys The Elder & Younger and I attended AEW Dynamite and Rampage. The biggest news from the […]
Relieved of Duty — June 15, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Shitty Goodbye 💩Bald Is Beautiful 👨🦲Housing Market 🏘️ It’s official: My duty ensuring the continued breathing of roughly 20 chickens for Wifey Poo’s and Boy The Younger’s vacationing friends is over. Success! All birds were present and accounted for this morning, as I said goodbye to my new friends — Gertrude, […]
Matt Damon — June 14, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩CrytpoStupidity ₿Coffee Seltzer ☕Chicken Update🐓 I like to make fun of Matt Damon. I know this comes from a place of deep-seated insecurity because Matt Damon is, well, Matt Damon and I am not. Yet it’s fun to make fun of Matt Damon, precisely because he is Matt Damon — all […]
STD Insurance — June 12, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Meatloaf🦎Ugly Fish🐟Chicken Update🐓 You can buy insurance for many things. Your car. Your home. Your boat. Your health. Your eyes, teeth or brain (which, for some reason, is separate from your health). And now, according to a Missourah court, you can buy insurance that pays you if you contract a sexually […]
Stupid Chicken — June 10, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Kentucky Fried Idiot 🍗Johnny Boy Marketing✏️Airplanes!🛦🛦🛦🛦🛦 There’s a scene in the 1979 film Rocky II in which the titular character (sorry, I’ve always wanted to write that …) is tasked by his trainer Mickey with chasing a chicken. Rocky was pummeled into oblivion — though somehow managed to eek out a […]
Golf Wars — June 9, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Rogue Golfers 🐝Nay Voters🐟Chicken Day🥤 Golfers are known as being a genial sort. Whereas a basketball player could maul an opponent driving the lane, leaving him bloody and unconscious, and still complain about the foul called on him, golfers actually call fouls on themselves! Yet the world of professional golf is […]
Buzz Off — June 8, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Bees Suck 🐝Bees As Fish🐟Cup O’ Pee🥤 I hate bees. Yes, I know they’re somehow the lynchpin on which our species’ survival will turn, but seriously, if we’re so fragile that we’re depending on a stinging invertebrate to keep us going, well, perhaps we’re not really so special after all. My […]
Chicken-Sitter — June 6, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Poultry Responsibilities 🐔Fine Dining🥩Crappy Year For Music🎵 I am many things. I am a husband, a father, a marketing guy, a storyteller, a jokester, a damn good parallel parker and a guy who played on a basketball team that lost 135-3. What I am not is a farmer. I left my […]
Crypto Candidates — June 5, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩NASCAR President ₿Creepy Coffee☕Chef BTE 🍖 We all know that just about every politician at any level is, in some way, bought and paid for, right? I mean, perhaps your local school board representative isn’t (though she might be owned by her kid), but when you reach the state and national […]
Snark News — June 4, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Dessert, Not Desert 🍨Happy Belated Birthday, McLovin 🎁Men Kissing 🏳️🌈 I started out my career in the news business and quickly learned that people suck. I mean, back in the mid-1990s, the internet was just becoming a thing — we even capitalized it … Internet … and wrote “e-mail” instead of […]
Promises — June 3, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩New Job🧑💼Happy Times🤗Small World ⚾ Buckle up. It’s story time. Today I made a reservation for Ruth’s Chris steakhouse on Sunday for me, Wifey Poo and Boys The Elder and Younger. The Core Four is getting dressed up. Keep in mind, we are not Ruth’s Chris people. It’s not that we […]
Suits — June 1, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Pants on the Ground👖Pimp Slap✋Pissin’ in the Wind🌬️ I had occasion to wear a suit yesterday. This was notable because I evidently hadn’t worn said suit in about a year. Over those 365 days, I’ve lost roughly 30 pounds. Thus, I showed up to the engagement necessitating a suit looking like […]
Blister in the Sun — May 30, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Chainsaws Suck🪓Early Arrival✈️Shrimp on the Barbie🦐 I awoke bright and early this morning, kissed Wifey Poo on the forehead and went outside ready to put chainsaw to felled tree. I live far enough out in the country that crankin’ up a chainsaw at 6:30 a.m. on a holiday morning isn’t a […]
The Indy — May 29, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Racin’🏎️Heat☀️Gorilla Guy🦍 When I was a small boy, the Indianapolis 500 was must-see TV. I’m not sure exactly how it started, but it must have been around 1978 — when I was a 4-year-old boy who loved Matchbox cars and big wrecks. It was around that time that Pops brought home […]
Ambulance Chaser — May 27, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩My Fullback 🚑Sicky Poo 🤒Helium Shortage 🎈 I don’t get paid anywhere close to enough to deal with St. Louis traffic when it rains. Not that St. Louis drivers are uniquely bad. I would imagine large swaths of drivers in other cities react just as poorly to the presence of moisture […]
Rubber Snakes — May 26, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Taking Toys Away 🔫Checked Out ✈️Windsurfing Kid 🌬️ Many moons ago, I had a toy rubber snake. That my parents would have allowed such a purchase is shocking, given that Mother Dearest was terrified of anything remotely reptilian and Sister wasn’t that far behind. Yet there, in the depths of my […]
Texas Tragedy — May 25, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Shut Up🤫Waffle House 🧇Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes🤗 So here’s something I don’t quite understand: Why is anyone, especially our political leaders, expressing “shock” over what happened in Texas yesterday. Dude … the sun rose yesterday. The sun has risen every single freaking day for the course of humanity. The sun will rise tomorrow. That’s […]
Sandwich Artist — May 24, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Subway Obsession😞Guard Dog 🐶Chainsaw John🪓 Every child is peculiar in his or her own way. It’s an early indication we all should recognize that none of us is normal. We’re all weird. And that’s OK. Boy The Younger has always had his peculiarities. As a small child, he was fascinated with […]
One-Piano Family — May 22, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Musical History🎹Why Write? 🖊️Loser Level😔 We finally have only one piano in our house! Now, don’t get to thinking we’re this uber-musical family. We’re not. Wifey Poo, from what I hear, was a helluva clarinetist back in her day and did, indeed, take piano lessons. Boy The Elder is really good […]
Knowing — May 21, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Beyond Tired😫Busting Ass 🐝Covid Sadness😔 Everything is knowable. When I look back at the pace of change in my life, I think that’s the biggest difference between my life as a child and my life as an adult. Back then, if you wondered something, you just … wondered it. I mean, […]
Grandpa — May 17, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Sad Anniversary😞My Back! 😳Dachau😭 Thirty-five years ago today, my first grandparent died. Grandpa was my favorite grandparent, and in looking back, I think it was because of his willingness to join my world. Grandpa played games with me endlessly. He taught me how to play rummy. He would spend hours on […]