Category: Uncategorized

Dear Diary …

I’d like to suggest a new slogan for the Commonwealth. Now I’m sure a lot of people are attached to the whole “Virginia is for Lovers” thing … and that’s cool. There’s merch and stuff. But I was on a road trip this weekend … and when I crossed the state line on 81, I realized that we are missing the full description of our slogan.

You see Diary … Virginia is not just for lovers. Virginia … is for LEFT LANE loves. THAT should be our true slogan!

I have no explanation for it, and it defies all rational thought and reasoning, but EVERY single time I’m driving back into Virginia on 81 … and you can drive on that same road in New York … Pennsylvania … Maryland … whatever … the SECOND you cross into Virginia … every slow driving dingleberry is hanging out in the left lane.

Every other state … things are pretty normal. Every now and then you get a left lane hugger … but nothing out of the ordinary. But cross into Virginia and suddenly it’s like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is taking place in the left lane of the highway and everybody wants to participate.

So I’m starting to think … maybe the left lane in Virginia is just really inviting … maybe ours is like smoother … or wider … or something. I mean there’s GOTTA be a reason why everybody loves it so much, doesn’t there?

I kid you not … within 5 minutes of entering Virginia there was a guy driving a HOUSE in the left hand lane. Not an RV … not a camper … an actual little tiny house. Our left hand lane is so awesome in Virginia, people wanna live in it!!!

So let’s just embrace it … make shirts … hats … maybe paint the thing red so it feels like a VIP carpet or something. That’s right baby … Virginia is for Left Lane Lovers!

OK … moving on Diary … I went to a concert over the weekend … and while I’m not a “stand there and film everything with my cell phone” concert going person … I’ve come to accept their existence. Personally, I’d rather just be in the moment and enjoy the actual concert, as opposed to taking some video that’s gonna have lousy sound quality and I’ll probably never watch it again in my life. But hey … I’m not gonna tell somebody else what they can and can’t do.

But what does give me anxiety about the whole thing? I see these people with their phones in the air … and I see what they’re filming … and I see that every single one of them is on like 16% on their battery power.

Oh for the love of God!!!! How are you not freaking out right now??? We’re like two songs into the night … how did this happen?? How are you already on 16%?

You have planned very poorly, and there you go … still filming! Next song … still filming!!!

I mean … don’t you need to call an Uber at the end of the night? What if you get separated from your friends?

Oh my God my chest hurts just looking at your battery!

And by the way … why is it that all percentage points aren’t created equal? I mean … when my phone is on 100%, I’m not stressed at all about it getting to 84%. But 16%? Ten seconds later and it might as well be on zero and powering itself down.

Oh … God … Is this what thrill seeking is? If it is, I don’t like it.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

Dear Diary …

I tell you what … I can’t remember anything anymore. If it’s a to-do list, or a meeting, or a … ummm … uhhh … SEE!!!! See what I’m talking about? If it ain’t programmed into my phone … with at LEAST two notifications … I ain’t rememberin’ it.

And while it would be easy to say … “Welp … I reckon I’m gettin’ older and the ol’ brain don’t work like she used to” … I don’t believe that.

And here’s why … I can’t remember to bring my lunch with me to work … but I of course still know all the words to the “Humpty Dance” and that up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A-start gets you 30 guys on the old Nintendo game “Contra.”

So clearly I can remember stuff … so it leads me to one explanation … my brain hates me. He CAN work perfectly fine .. he just don’t wanna. He’s a lazy, hateful little jerk that wants me to forget to call my Dad on his birthday, but can still remember all about the time I was running around in the backyard and tried to jump over a branch and …. Pfffft … ruined my underwear.

Thanks a lot you stupid brain!

And further proof that age has nothing to do with it … my children are young and they can’t remember to do anything. Or at the very least … they act like they can’t.

“Hey don’t forget to bring those dirty dishes down from your room.”

I KNOW!!!!

Actually … no you don’t know … because when I go back upstairs the next day, all those stupid dishes are still in the exact same spot.

“Oh I forgot”

OH BALONEY!

Or this one …

“Hey buddy … did you brush your teeth this morning?”

“Nooooo”

“Why not?”

“Nobody told me!”

Oh I’m sorry … I didn’t know I needed to tell you every single time. So how about this … brush your teeth every morning and every night until the day you die. There … that cover it? Does THAT count as me “telling you?”

And one more thing … I … uhhh … oh forget it.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye

Dear Diary …

I’m sure some people are having it rough today … and I feel for you. I really do. But I had to eat salad the other day with a boo boo on my lip! Can you believe it? The humanity! Every time that vinegary salad dressing hit my lips … It made my boo boo all hurty!

And I know what you’re thinking … “Zack … why were you eating a salad in the first place? Salads are dumb.”

Well guess what … you’re right!

Salads are the worst. None of us wanna be eating ‘em in the first place … we’re just doing it from time to time because we’re supposed to be eating healthy. And don’t you give me this “oh I like salad!” … oh whatever. You might not MIND a salad … But if any human alive was given the choice of salad or pizza and they were both considered “health food,” ain’t nobody picking salad. Ever.

So it tastes stupid … and then it’s quite possibly the least sexy food to eat. Slappin’ and slorpin’ all over the place. Lettuce hittin’ you in the cheek …. Tomatoes sploogin’ their juices all over the place. Drippy salad dressing just trying to ruin your clothes. The whole thing is awful!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … when I die and I get to ask Jesus some questions … I got a lot of ‘em about why all the best foods aren’t good for us. I mean c’mon God … throw us a bone and at least make Cheetos a superfood or something!!!

Moving on Diary … since we’re already talking food … let’s just keep talking food …

And I understand that everybody has different tastes. That is perfectly fine. Not everybody has to like the same stuff. But I will say this … there are certain food rules that should never be broken.

For example … if you take a cheese stick and just bite right into the top of it … you need to go to the doctor because there’s something wrong with you. Who hurt you and made you do such a thing?

And while it may be goofy to sit there and peel off that cheese stick and eat the fuzzy little strings, it just tastes WRONG when you bite straight into it. Now don’t get me wrong, you’re not a mass murderer like somebody who bites into a Kit-Kat without breaking it apart, but I still don’t trust you.

Same goes for “all bite cutters” … I just don’t trust someone who sits down to eat and proceeds to cut every single thing on the plate into tiny bites before they do anything else. And hey … you can do it if you want … but if I was sitting there and you were my financial planner … and you cut your meat into a bunch of little pieces … I’m taking my money elsewhere. You can’t be trusted with my future … you still eat like Mom cuts your steak for you! NO!

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye

Dear Diary …

Now I know you’re gonna think I sound old when I say “back in the day” … but to be fair … “back in the day” for what I’m about to say was from about 6 months ago. So unless you’re a brand new baby, you’re all just as old as I am because “back in the day” nobody asked their friends to send money to their CashApp when it was their birthday.

I mean … when you were a kid you had a party and you got presents. But then you turned 12 and that didn’t really happen anymore.

And then as an adult … MAYBE you went out to dinner with some friends and MAYBE they would all chip in and cover your food. OK great … happy birthday to me … thanks! But never in my adult life did I think, “Hey everybody, it’s my birthday … now give me money” … so I’m not sure why tossing your CashApp out there makes it any better or different.

Would you expect your friend to hand you $8 just because it’s your birthday? Then why would you think it’s OK to have them send you money online just because it has a nifty little dollar sign in front of your name?

And let’s speak the truth here … anybody who begs for CashApp donations on social media for their birthday is also gonna be the person who conveniently “forgets” to return the favor on YOUR birthday. “Oh sorry man … just a little short right now … I’ll get you next year!”

And why do people think that their birthday is something that anyone else should care about in the first place? It’s your birthday … that’s great … but people sit here and complain, “I can’t believe I have to work on my birthday.”

That’s because it’s “a day,” and if we all took a day off for everybody’s birthday, nobody would ever work. You want the day off for your birthday? Cure cancer … cuz then we’d happy to have a holiday for ya.

Moving on Diary … Why does science gotta be so stupid?

I mean … science can be good for … like … you know … medicine and stuff … but then there’s very simple things that are just dumb.

Like for example … one teeny tiny drop of coffee hits your shirt and immediately it’s a stain. One second later you could dump 4,000 gallons of water on it … nope … doesn’t matter. Stain is still there. Too bad … so sad … look like an idiot all day at work.

Why science gotta sabotage you?

Or how about this … think about the times in your life where you felt totally fine and then all of a sudden … you sneeze … or you just move a little bit in one direction … and boom … instant back pain.

And here’s why this is extra stupid … everything goes wrong in one second, and then it takes three weeks to try to work it back to normal … gotta spend hundreds of dollars at the chiropractor … do a bunch of noodle shaped yoga poses … and then pray for it to go back to normal.

And you know what never happens? You don’t ever sneeze again and … laaaaa! … it feels totally normal. If it can go bad in one second … why come it can’t go GOOD in one second??? Stupid science and all your book learnin’!!!

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye

Dear Diary …

There’s some things I just don’t understand. Actually … It’s also some people I don’t understand. Buuut … people are weird … so I can totally understand why I don’t understand. Understand?

I mean picture this scenario that I’m sure you’ve been in. Somebody calls you. A coworker maybe. You don’t answer the call because you missed it, or you were busy, or you simply didn’t wanna because it was a coworker and you have no idea what their motive is. So you let it go to voicemail.

And then … nothing.

No voicemail. No text message. No second call to try to get you to answer. No follow up email.

Nothing!

So my question is … why the heck did they call in the first place? If it was something important, wouldn’t they need to eventually get in touch with you and figure it out? And if it wasn’t important … then why you calling me in the first place and wasting my time? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE???

I don’t understand!

Here’s another thing I don’t understand … Rainforest shower heads.

You know … those big gigantic shower heads that rich people have in their bathrooms. And they hang in the middle of the shower and it’ll “rain down upon you like a warm summer’s eve … ahhh.”

Guess what? They’re awful!

I stayed in an AirBnB recently with one of these things. And yeah … it feels like being in the rain … if by “rain” you mean a violent thunderstorm that catches you off guard and you have no umbrella and you feel like you are choking to death.

There’s no middle ground with these things. You’re either standing right on the edge … trying to barely stick your head in there while the rest of your body is cold and dry, or you’re drowning. And this stupid show I was in was also set up so all your soaps and shampoos were on the other side of the water … so it was like trying to pass thru a hurricane just to get some body wash.

So good news fellow peasant … your pathetic “regular” shower head is way better … so don’t be jealous of Mr. Rich Guy and his awful thunderstorm shower.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

Dear Diary ….

I love cooking dinner. Taking quality ingredients … spending time preparing them … listening to music … enjoying a cocktail … and then serving a delicious dish.

With that said … dinner itself … I HATE IT!

And as you just heard … it’s not the actual preparing of the dinner, it’s the fact that dinner happens … every … single … NIGHT. It’s a relentless monster. As soon as you eat it, it’s immediately .. “Well what are we going to have for dinner tomorrow?”

And you can argue “Well just get takeout.” Yeah sure … that’s fine … but it’s not like you can do that all the time unless you wanna spend a million dollars and weigh a million pounds. And even if you do … you still actually have to figure out WHAT you’re gonna eat.

See … that’s the true beast of dinner … the choosing. I don’t mind cooking it, but it’s exhausting trying to figure out WHAT to cook day after day after day. And you know how I know this? It’s because when my wife offers to make dinner … which I greatly appreciate … the first thing she says is … “I don’t know what to make. What should I make?”

Oh no! If you’re gonna make it … then you gotta choose it. If I still gotta pick it, well now the hard part is over and I might as well be the one who cooks it.

And the worst part about dinner is that it happens even if you don’t wanna. Like compare it to going to the gym … you don’t wanna? Well then you just don’t go. End of story. But with dinner … even if you don’t wanna … you still gotta eat food.

How do these people pull it off where they just don’t have to do it? Because I’m convinced my family has figured it out on the night’s I’m not around. I went out of town for three and a half days last week, and when I came back all the same stuff was still in the fridge. Even the old leftovers that totally should’ve been thrown out long ago. The same dirty dishes were still in the sink too. It’s like they figured out a way to survive for multiple days without ever having to enter the kitchen.

What is this voodoo wizardry they have figured out and how do I learn these magical skills?

Is this like one of those yoga/Zen things?

“Visualize … the dinner you think has to happen … does not have to happen. Annnnd …. [breath] … you are full.”

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

Dear Diary …

Let’s just get right to the point and put this debate to bed once and for all … Thin crust pizza is stupid and doesn’t count as real pizza. And I don’t know why this is even a debate, but some people refuse to accept reality and keep ordering this trash.

And I’m not gonna make a lot of friends when I say this next thing … but that’s OK … I don’t really want any more friends anyway (may even be cool with dropping a few of the friends I have). This feels like a woman thing to me.

Ladies … I got all the respect in the world for ya. You’re strong and powerful and beautiful and awesome … so for the love of God would you stop ordering thin crust pizza!!! That’s gotta be what keeps it on the menu, because I’ve never been with a group of dudes who are ordering pizza and had anyone say … “Make sure we get a thin crust pizza!”

This is why I gotta be in charge of ordering the pizza in my house. Last time my wife did it … thin crust. And ONLY thin crust … so I didn’t have any “real pizza plan B” to go to instead.

And here’s the thing ladies … you’re being duped. You’re getting tricked into thinking that thin crust pizza is somehow “healthier” or “not as bad for you” as regular pizza because the crust is thinner. Well it ain’t! I just looked it up … a serving of regular cheese pizza at Domino’s is 200 calories. A serving of thin crust? 310 calories!

Wait … you hear that? That’s everybody’s brain exploding because I just blew your mind.

And not only does it have more calories … it’s also thin and stupid … so we all end up eating twice as much pizza to try to get full. So NOW how do you feel about thin crust pizza? Cuz you know how I feel? Fatter!

I mean for as think deep dish pizza is just excessive and heavy and gross … at least it embraces what it is and tries to give you ALL the pizza. Thin crust pizza sits over here all full of lies and deception. Really … thin crust pizza is like a man. Fills you with all these empty promises and claims, tricks you into thinking he’s a good idea, and then leaves you in way worse shape then when you first met.

Don’t let that loser man in your life anymore! You’re better than that! REGULAR pizza is better than that. Just order it the way God intended and enjoy a slice. You deserve it. We all deserve it.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

Dear Diary …

“Remind me” … I hate that phrase.

And time somebody says “oh remind me to” … it doesn’t matter what “to” is anymore … I’m instantly furious with them.

Because what this person has managed to successfully do is eliminate any kind of responsibility or accountability on their end. Now … when they “forget” … they can simply say “Well I asked you to remind me!”

So here’s my question … who reminds ME to remind you? Why am I somehow the rememberer of all things, and yet you can blissfully wander thru life and do nothing until somebody “reminds” you?

I mean … if only we all had some sort of device. One that was small enough to fit in our hand … and it was sort of like a phone … but it also had way more features than a regular phone. Like we could call it a “smartphone” and it could have a way of reminding us of things when we needed to be reminded of them.

Oh wait … we have that? Well I’ll be darned!

So yeah … this is me saying … I ain’t your Siri … have her to do it for you!

Same goes for anybody who says … and this is a popular one at work … “well just let me know what you need and I’m happy to help.”

Let me translate to you what that actually means … It means, “I’m going to sit here and do nothing until you ask me to do something. Then I’ll do it so it looks like I’m a good worker and stuff, but as soon as it’s done I will go back to doing nothing again.”

You want me to let you know what I need? I need you to … on your own … figure out what needs to be done … and then you just … oh I don’t know … DO IT! No waiting around for me to tell you, no acting like you’re too dumb to figure it out on your own. Just … DO!

Kids in particular have perfected this one too, but they will do absolutely nothing unless you remind them Then … when you remind them … they reply, “I know!” in the snootiest and most attitude filled way.

“I was going to do it!”

No you weren’t ya liar! You were gonna wait for me to say something, then make me feel like a idiot for even asking in the first place. (And yes I’m jealous that they’ve figured it out.)

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye

Dear Diary …

Lately I‘ve been trying to do some new things … and many of them have been “outdoor things” … camping … hiking … stuff like that. And in theory, it’s all great.

“Yay … nature! It’s all, like, nature-y and stuff.”

But I have one big question … and it specifically deals with hiking. And that question is … why is hiking trying to kill us?

I mean … call me crazy, but I would think having hikers die would be bad for business, wouldn’t it? Tough to sell fancy hiking boots if they come with the slogan, “You might die” written on the side of the box.

And you may be thinking to yourself … that’s not their plan … they want everybody to be safe and have fun and be hugging trees and stuff, but I tell you this … every hike I’ve ever been on has had just a whiff of “Good luck … don’t die!”

And the reason I say this is because every single time I go traipsing down the ol’ hiking trail, there is a eventually a fork in the road, and the sign says … um … sign … where is the sign? I tell you where the sign is … NOWHERE!!!

SOMETIMES there’s a sign. A lot of times there’s a sign. But at least once on the hike … ain’t no sign.

Two trails. Both looking equally cleared yet not cleared and safe yet dangerous. So which way do you go? Because it’s not like you can just say “oh we wanna go left,” because most trails wind to the left … right … up … then down a little … then what feels like backwards … and then back around to the left again. Ain’t no magic compass gonna help you with that.

And good luck checking a trail map on your phone because … ain’t no signal. And even the little maps at the beginning of the trail … they just have a bunch of little dots and dashes that may be actual measurements, or may just be the approximate scribblings of an 11 year old they let draw the picture back in 1962 when the sign was made.

Oh and just remember … watch out for bears!

So you tell me … that sound like somebody that wants you to live or die? Cuz I have my suspicions!

Now I have no doubt that for the MOST part they want you to live and have all this nature fun, but it’s almost like they enjoy screwing with you just a TINY bit to teach them city folk a lesson about what it means to walk in the woods with your fancy backpacks and your walkin’ sticks.

And their difficulty classifications are equally as vague. If a trail says “moderately strenuous,” what does that even mean? Moderately strenuous for me? My grandma? Bear Grylls? Those are all VERY different answers.

You know who never steers me wrong? The couch! Doesn’t steer me anywhere. Just lays there all nice and soft and comfortable with the TV right in front of it. Plenty of hiking videos on YouTube … just sayin’

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

Dear Diary …

Warning. We are being invaded by an evil spirit.

It lurks in your home … it hides in the shadows … and when you least expect it … it attacks. [scream]

That’s right my friends … I’m talking about the “forward creep.”

The “forward creep” is a beast that exists all throughout your home … the cabinets … the fridge … the dishwasher. And it is when people who don’t know how to do things properly are asked to put things away. Because what do these people do? They immediately stick an item in the nearest possible place … the front … and then leave it there.

So inevitably what you end up with is a shelf … a fridge … a dishwasher … or whatever … that looks like it’s TOTALLY full … but in fact there’s TONS of space in the back … it’s just that nobody ever bothers to put anything there.

My family loves the forward creep. You can be rest assured that if there’s a space in the front … they will fill it up immediately. But if there’s a space in the back? I’m not even sure they know if there is a back to things.

And I say this because even if there is stuff in the back … like say … an OPEN box of Cheezits. You can be rest assured that they will open a brand new box if it’s closer to the front. So I think they might actually be “back blind” or lack some sort of spatial recognition, because I’m not sure they can even see past the front of anything.

But it won’t stop them from complaining … “Oh the fridge is SO full!”

No. No it isn’t. Just the front 11% of the fridge is full. The rest is barren.

Here’s your life lesson people … you load from the back. I don’t care what it is … trunk … shelf … or underwear drawer … LOAD FROM THE BACK!!!!

Moving on Diary …

I understand that some things in life are going to be annoying, but can we at least get some consistency in the way things operate? There’s no reason why one direction should be completely uneven from the other.

And what I mean by this is pretty simple … if it is very easy for you to TAKE … then it should be very easy for you to RETURN. When I pay for something … you seem to be able to process that payment IMMEDIATELY and take that money from my account. But if I need to return that same thing? “Oh well sir it’s going to take 9-12 business days to process that request.”

And exactly why is that? You have the technology to immediately TAKE … so you should have the technology to immediately RETURN.

And further … if I can opt-in to something with a quick click of an “OK” button … then if should be just as easy to opt-OUT of that same thing. But NOOOOO … you wanna cancel something? You gotta call … you gotta sit on hold … you gotta fill out a form.

Look … I ain’t stupid … I know you do it because you know people are lazy and they’ll just keep paying for longer than they want to because they don’t feel like jumping thru all the hoops … but that doesn’t make it right ya scam-bag.

Oooh … “scam-bag” … I kinda like that as an insult. I’m gonna start using that more.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.