Fart Broadcasters

Dear Diary …

It’s time we all band together and fight back against a very evil group of people. They’re bullies … they think they’re better than us … and they cause unwanted drama and conflict. They are a group of people I call “The Fart Broadcasters.”

Look man … fartin’ ain’t ideal, but it happens. Medical fact of life. And the last thing you need when you unfortunately have to drop one is some holier than thou know-it-all shouting “Ewww … who farted? Gross!”

Why you gotta call attention to it by attempting to publicly shame somebody? I mean … correct me if I’m wrong … but you ain’t perfect. So why do you think it’s OK to call out the imperfections of somebody else?

If you’re hair is all jacked up and ugly, you don’t hear me yelling “Ewww … who has nasty hair? Gross!”

And don’t give me this … “Oh well you can just hold it in!”

Yeah … well you can also just not leave the house lookin’ all ugly with your jacked up hair either, can ya?

Plus … hold in a fart and you might explode. Nothin’ happens if you hold in bad har.

OK … that analogy doesn’t make any sense, but you get my point … there’s no need for you to be a Fart Broadcaster. The farter is embarrassed enough that they did it in the first place, no need for you to pile on with your terrible fart play-by-play analysis of the whole situation.

And listen here Fart Broadcaster, if you do it … I can promise you this … there WILL be a time that something happens to you that makes you look less than perfect … you’ll have a stinky burp or a dangly booger or a leaky zit … and I will be the first person to broadcast to the world … So get ready!

OK … moving on Diary …

Summertime is officially here, and many of us will be lucky enough to go on a vacation. A lot of people will go to the beach, which is great. I like the beach. OK … I actually like “near the beach and not actually ON the beach,” but that’s still the beach.

Anyway … here’s my one thing about the beach … When you go there you do beachy things. One such thing is to rent a bicycle. Most of us haven’t ridden a bike since we were 12, but apparently we go to the beach and we think, “Yeah I’m gonna ride a BIKE!”

That’s fine. My only problem is, why they gotta give you the biggest, dorkiest bike you’ve ever seen in your life? Big dumb wheels, long dorky handlebar … they’re ridiculous. When you were 12 you wouldn’t be caught dead riding that thing, now you’re tooling around the beach in your big ol’ dorkmobile with pedals.

Dornga-dornga-dorng … I’m at the beach! And the biggest kick in the gut … you’re payin’ for that! Usually a lot!

I mean … they might as well put a basket and a flag on them, give you a helmet, and let you ride around like the town weirdo. And actually … they do usually have baskets and flags on them, so that’s not really even a joke.

And really Diary … I don’t know who I’m even pleading to here … the bike companies to not rent these things … or the people on vacation not to buy them. Either way, it’s wrong and it needs to stop. Friends don’t let friends ride dork bikes!

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

2015 Graduation Manifesto

Dear Diary …

Here we are … at the time of year when many of the young minions of Zackmerica make that fateful walk down the aisle away from childhood and into young adulthood. Graduation season is here. And notice that I don’t say “Dads and Grads Season” … cuz as a father … Father’s Day gets the shaft as it is compared to Mother’s Day, and I re-FUSE to let you lump me and all the other Dads in with grads just because it happens to rhyme. But that’s for a different Anger Diary … back to the graduates.

Because another thing you see this time of year is different celebrities giving graduation speeches at colleges and high schools throughout the county. And since nobody’s offering me these speaking gigs … I’m gonna just do it here.

For the record I’m not angling for an invitation to speak … I don’t really like leaving the house … so don’t offer. Also … I’m gonna be the one that tells the truth … the cold hard truth … so your school probably wouldn’t like the dose of reality I’d give you anyway. Plus … I’d hate it if only one lucky school got my wisdom, and I would deprive all the other schools. So if I give it to you here, then EVERY school gets it.

So without further ado, here’s my advice to graduating seniors everywhere … DON’T LEAVE!!!! The world is a terrible place where they make you do responsible things and fun goes to die! OK first I should probably … breathe. Second … I should probably clarify before we go any further … that advice applies to college. High school? Adios suckas! You’re on to bigger and better things. Forget that place!

I mean … high school was FINE … but college … I don’t wanna bum you out or nothin’, but those are the best years of your life. It’s all downhill from there baby!

I mean … yeah … you get to do all these exciting things in your life like get married, have kids, have a career, blah blah blah. But college really is this glorious time where you have minimal responsibility mixed with just the right amount of independence that allows you to play video games 7 hours a day, as well as two or three solid nights a week of beer pong. All while not really being bothered by anyone.

And your metabolism? Oh my God, I might miss that more than anything. Come home from a night of fun .. eat a calzone at three o’clock in the morning … wake up at noon … do it all again the next day. Now I inhale the smell of a calzone … “Oh that acid is gonna give me heartburn!” And not just the heartburn, let’s not forget the general fatitude that it’s going to cause on my Dad Bod at the same time. College … you can eat calzones three times a day and you look exactly the same. Adulthood … you know what you get? Diabetes.

The other thing that college has that you’re never gonna have again is immediate access to a social circle with a seemingly endless supply of new friends and love interests. College was that time where I felt like you met new people ALL the time. Some of ‘em became lifelong friends, others just became topless friends that you saw once or twice and then can’t even remember their names today. Yeah … that all gone.

Now you to go places like “work” … and then you go home. So the friends you got … that’s all you got. Now I’m not saying it’s IMPOSSIBLE to meet new people, but they aren’t just layin’ around all over the place like they used to. Now you gotta actually make an effort and say things like “Hello … Perhaps we should hang out socially some time? That would be lovely.”

And later you have kids …. forget it. Now you only hang out with the parents of kids that your kids are friends with. So you barely even like these people, but you have no choice because your little booger eaters are on the same soccer team, and they have a trampoline in their backyard and your kid wants to jump on it. So now your conversations are even worse, “Oh and what do you do for work?’ “Oh that’s nice … um … OK that’s all I got.” That’s what your life becomes.

Now I know what you’re thinking … “This is terrible advice!”

But it’s not. This is what the real world is like kiddoes. And the reason I tell you this is not to scare you, but to make you realize that you don’t need to be in such a darn hurry to grow up. I hear it all the time from these college kids “Oh I can’t wait to get out of here … I’m so done with college.”

Oh you precious … precious little … IDIOT! You have no idea what you’re leaving right now … stop trying to leave it so quickly! You got your whole stinkin’ life to grow up … sit back and enjoy the awesomeness that is your time right now and you can deal with the rest of it later. That, my friends, is your REAL graduation advice.

Till next time Diary .. I say … Goodbye.

Facebook the Sewer

Dear Diary …

Facebook is an amazing thing. It has revolutionized the way we communicate, and really has helped make the world become a better place. Oh who am I kidding? It’s a sewer! Like straight from the sewage treatment plant, festering full of every human germ of the world, and all the horrible things we say and do. It’s terrible!

Diary … I don’t even like talking to people, but Facebook has made even ME long for the days when all we did was talk face to actual human face, and not on some cesspool of a website that has become this place for everybody to spend all day whining and complaining about every little thing in their life.

And the biggest problem I have, is that it’s made people feel WAY too important. They think they’re like, Kings and Queens of their own little Kingdom … lording over their flock of dedicated Facebook friends.

Acting all important … like we’re all sooooo privileged to hear about your daily whining about your sinus infection, or about how one of Logan’s teachers was mean to him, or how it’s 32 days till your big beach trip.

Look … it’s fine if that’s the stuff you wanna post. I don’t care. The problem is that you THINK I care. That’s what always drives me nuts when I see this message …

“Just a did a big Facebook purge on my friends list. Congrats on making the cut.”

You know what? When I see that message, I’m actually BUMMED that I made the cut. And what are all of us supposed to say … those of us that made this magical cut?

“Oh thank you Lord of the Facebook for allowing me to still see your posts about how you wish it was Friday already and how you only got 3 hours of sleep last night. Rejoice to thee that I can be one of your chosen ones!”

Need I remind you that there’s only one true King … ME. King Zack. Nobody else.

So go ahead and post your little insignificant things. Just remember that’s exactly what they are … insignificant.

OK … moving on Diary …

The warm weather is finally creeping in, and soon we’ll be smack dab in the middle of the hot days of the summer time. So with that in mind, I offer everyone a piece of advice … especially men.

When inevitably somebody comes to your door … pizza guy, FedEx person, random kid selling coupon books for his school … can you please do us all a favor and put a shirt on before you open the door?

What sane person answers a door shirtless?

Immediately the whole normal balance of society and social interaction is thrown off. You have no shirt on!

I know you might be hot … but human beings put shirts on before they answer the door. Especially for strangers!

I really do feel for delivery people … the stuff they have to see .. stuff they don’t even wanna see … stuff they can’t un-see. Why are you doing this to them?

And they must be amazingly strong individuals, because how is it that we don’t hear more stories in the news like “Longtime pizza delivery guy decides he can’t take it anymore and stabs his own eyes out?”

I don’t care what anybody does in the privacy of their own home. Sit around shirtless … smoke weed … marry a goat … whatever. As long as it don’t affect me, then I don’t care. But when you cross that plane … the doorway of your house … that’s the threshhold to the outside world and society. Put a dang shirt on!

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

Build-a-Bear Hell

Dear Diary …

I’m all about making this world a better place. So this is a teaching moment. Cuz you are doing it wrong, and I’m gonna teach you how to stop doing that. And this time … you mean well … but you’re screwing it up … so I’m gonna help you.

See … cuz … I have kids. And most of you that I’m trying to help … you don’t have kids. And you’re buying things for my kids … which I’m totally appreciative of … but you’re buying them the complete wrong things. I thank you for your generosity, but I’d also like it if your generosity didn’t turn into a big fat headache for me.

So … here’s the three things that you non-kid havers shouldn’t be buying for kids …

1) Anything loud or messy.

This is pretty self explanatory. Musical instruments, moon sand, Play Dough … ugh Play Dough. That’s the one you think “Oh I LOVED Play Dough as a kid!” … I stupidly thought that myself when I bought my daughter the Play Dough Burger Maker, and was then tortured with all that dried up nastiness stuck in the fibers of my carpet. And then I thought about, all my memories of Play Dough as a kid come from like … one experience. And then I figured out why … I played with the Play Dough Burger Maker one time, and then my parents threw that monstrosity in the garbage and I never used it again.

2) Things that take batteries.

You know me, Diary. I have a long-documented hate of toys that require batteries because they use to many of them and they die too quickly. No batteries!

… and this is the big one …

3) Gift cards.

Now I know what you non-kid havers are thinking “That doesn’t make any sense. A gift card is PERFECT because then they kid can get exactly what they want!”

Yeah well … you’re wrong.

Because the first thing a gift card does is make the child hate every single toy they currently own.

My daughter has too much stuff as it is … and on her birthday she got even more stuff. So now she really she NEEDS nothing. Problem is, somebody gave her a Build-a-Bear gift card. So now that’s all her little brain was focused on … “When do I get to go to Build-a-Bear to use my gift card?”

I’m still cleaning up the carnage of your birthday party. You’re surrounded by an orgy of toys … hundreds of dollars of toys. This should be enough for you!

“Yeah … but when do I get to go to Build a Bear to use my gift card?”

And then the extra problem … Non-kid haver says “Oh they can get anything they want” … Yeah well I can guarantee you this … whatever they want costs more than whatever you gave them.

$20 to Build-a-Bear … That’s like giving somebody a $100 gift card good toward the purchase of … oh … an entire house. $20 gets you nothin’. It might as well say “Guaranteed headache for Daddy” on it instead of gift card.

Look … I applaud these people for coming up with amazingly successful businesses … but when they depart this Earth, I confess that at least part of me hopes they end up in a place where they get attached to one of those giant Build a Bear tubes, and they gotta put their mouth on that tube, and then all that stuffing just BRRRMMMP right into their insides with that machine. And all the while with that awful loud Build-a-Bear music blaring into their skulls.

Diary … they sell underwear there. For bears!

Poor kids in Africa don’t have food, meanwhile we buy underwear for stuffed animals with our Build-a-Bear gift cards. ‘Murica!!!!

Oh and let’s not forget … you got a gift card for my one kid. But I got two kids … and my son is three … so the explanation “Well you don’ get anything because you don’t have a gift card of your own.” Yeah … that’s never gonna work.

So now I gotta buy him something. And he’s in full sensory overload in this explosion toys and goodies. Practically foaming at the mouth. And they’re too stinkin’ nice there! He picks out a bear, fills it, brushes it’s hair … because, yes, they have beauty stations … and then completely changes his mind as we’re going to pay.

“Oh that’s OK sir … We’re happy to accommodate your child whenever he changes his mind.”

Don’t do that! Now he’s just gonna think he can change his mind for the rest of his life … at the register, in the parking lot, at home the next day. No!

You’re like the grandparents of stores. Mommy and Daddy try to do the right thing, get the kids to eat his vegetables, and then you just fill ‘em full of candy when we aren’t looking.

You see what your gift card does to us? Now I’ve got a sobbing child, writhing around on the floor of Build-a-Bear. Happy Birthday!

Till next time Diary, I say goodbye.