Month: October 2018

You vs. Your Brain

Dear Diary …

Your brain is stupid. I mean … it’s a wonderful, powerful thing and a marvel of science and biology, but it is also stupid. Mainly because it has all these awesome powers, and never lets us actually use any of them. Sure … we can do things like … well … think. And invent … and love … and whatever. But ultimately, our brain is just one big tease about all these other borderline magical powers it’s capable of.

For example … when I drive to work, there is one specific place on the highway where my brain reminds me about all the things that I’ve forgotten to bring to work. It’s the same spot every single time … and it’s a spot that is JUST far enough away from my house that it’s the point of no return and it would take too long to turn around. And it doesn’t matter if before leaving the house I think to myself, “OK … do I have everything?” … I still won’t remember those things until I hit that spot on the highway.

So what we have here is clear proof that there is a way to trigger your brain to remember these things … since it does it at the same spot every time … but your stupid brain refuses to let you control that power.

Here’s another superpower your brain teases you with … you can be minding your own business, going through your day and feeling great. Then … somebody in your office tells you they just got over the stomach bug. And what happens next? You instantly feel like you’re getting the stomach bug. ONE second ago you felt fine, but your brain heard that, and now you feel awful.

So clearly your brain has the power to make you feel terrible … or great … with the flip of a switch. But again … your stupid brain doesn’t give you the ability to use that power. I mean, I genuinely do believe some people can will themselves through serious health battles like cancer … it’s just a question of unlocking that portion of your jerk brain that it does not want to give up.

I mean … c’mon brain … aren’t we in this together? Aren’t we supposed to be a team? Doesn’t YOUR life get better if the rest if the body gets to use the powers? Why are you holding out on us?

How is it that I can’t remember important details or fantastic memories in my life, and yet I still remember every single detail of something pointless and insignificant? My wedding day is a complete blur in my head … I basically remember getting to the church and then the day being over. At the same time … I still know every single word to “The Humpty Dance.” And I can still totally remember the time I accidentally saw my grandmother in her bra. Can’t forget that one! Why, brain, why?

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

Your Fancy Sausage

Dear Diary …

I never want to be that guy that turns into the stereotypical Dad that stomps around the house yelling, “You kids today … you don’t understand the value of the dolla! You’re always wasting my money!” … That guy is lame.

At the same time, “You kids today … you don’t understand the value of the dolla! You’re always wasting my money!” … Now of course the difference is I’m doing it in this segment on the radio and online … hip, cool, NEW … stereotypical Dad. So … like … um … yeah!

But you know what? I still wear my pants in the normal spot on my waistline and I still know who Post Malone is, so ain’t totally lame … but a fact is a fact, and man a family sure can plow through money sometimes, can’t they?

The one the always gets me is there’s always something that’s ridiculously expensive, that EVERYBODY in the family houses and just wants more, more, more! For us, it’s these breakfast sausages. And I know what you’re thinking, “Breakfast sausages? Ain’t Jimmy Dean’s super cheap?”

Why yes … yes they are, but they don’t eat Jimmy Dean’s. They gotta have [fancy voice] Applegate Farms organic chicken and maple sausage … and those things cost six bucks for a box. And not a box of 300 sausages … a box of 10 … and those 10 are way closer to cocktail weenie size than they are to big ol’ sausage size.

So needless to say … the family plows thru a box about every four days. “Can you get more sausage at store?” Good lord I’m gonna need a raise just to keep the family full of sausages.

I mean … $6 every four days for an entire year. That’s 91 boxes a year for $547 … in SAUSAGE! I mean … If I bought $500 of Netflix stock 10 years ago … It would be worth $26,000, but instead … it’s SAUSAGE!!

Man why can’t they like the cheap stuff? Why do they have to be all, “We want good quality and things that are better for us.” Things were so much easier back in the day when we thought Kool-Aid had vitamins in it.

And you know what? Even when the stuff is cheap, that doesn’t really matter, because then they just waste it. My kids like to eat marshmallows sometimes for dessert. Now marshmallows … yeah … they’re a dollar. So I’m cool with that. But what I am not cool with is when they open a bag of marshmallows, get their little dessert, and then the next morning what do I find sitting in the pantry? An open bag of marshmallows … sucking in all of the air of the world and turning into hard little sugar rocks. Thanks a lot you little jerks!

But they don’t care, cuz it ain’t their money. That’s why everything they own, they break. Cuz you’re the dummy that has to replace it.

Well you know what? I am gonna hike my pants up to my nipples and waddle around complaining about this … and you can’t stop me! Then I’m going to shout “You kids today!” … and I’m gonna sit in my old Lazy Boy recliner … fart … and fall asleep with the news on whether you like it or not!

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

First Come, First Served

Dear Diary …

There’s no doubt that our society and existence as humans is very complex, but at the same time you can also simplify things down to just a small handful of basic, instinctive human rules. For example … “I called it first” is pretty much the fabric of our existence when it comes to getting things. First come, first served.

If you show up before anybody else … you get to go first. You show up second … you go second. Think about it … most of the things you get in your life are simply because you got it before somebody else did.

So I understand that, but I am also thoroughly frustrated by that, particularly when it comes to the person who gets control of the TV in a bar. Now … if that person has good judgement. We don’t have a problem here. But … when have you known most people to have GOOD judgement? Yeah … exactly.

So that ended up being my problem recently as I sat in a bar, and the TV was on a football game that … let’s just say … was a blowout. I think Alabama was playing some sort of girls’ middle school in a game … and … yeah … it was over. Meanwhile … I knew there was another game going on where the score was something like … I don’t know … 85 to 84 or something with about 200 lead changes, 7 million touchdowns, and I’m pretty sure fireworks and dinosaurs running all around the field. That’s how exciting this game was.

So I asked the bartender … “Hey … can we change this TV to the other game?”

“Sorry … but somebody asked to have this game on.”

Where? I’m here at the bar. Nobody else sittin’ here.

“Yeah … it’s that table over there behind you.”

So I look behind me and I see a table … where not a SINGLE person is looking at the television. Zero!

Furthermore … there are TWO other televisions in the vantage point of that table … and guess what both of them are currently showing? Blank screens!!! Put the game on over there if they want it so bad.

Why are they gettin’ control of this TV? Their game is dumb and boring, and THEY’RE EVEN WATCHIN’ IT!!! But she still won’t change the channel!

And yes … I could’ve gone over there and asked them myself. BUT I DON’T WANNA! I just want this to be easier than it is! Why I gotta be the police of the whole world all the time? It’s exhausting!

I mean … just cuz they got there first? I get it … that’s how the rule works in the beginning, but that should eventually be overridden by the excitement level of the game. What if I get there first and I tell them I really wanna watch that NCIS marathon? Do I get to hog that TV all day? Probably not! And really … I shouldn’t.

First come, first served. I get it, and I agree with it. But I’d like to add “till boring” when it specifically deals with controlling a TV in a bar. We should all be able to agree on this, right?

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

You Can’t Defeat the Map


Dear Diary …

Now I will start by saying that I LOVE the technology we have to help map out your car trips … give you directions … let you know where the Po-po are hiding … all that stuff is great. That said, I got beef with the whole “estimated arrival time” because it’s one big fat hairy lie.

Man … back in the day when these map programs were suckier … it was great. The thing would tell you it was gonna take six hours to make your trip, and then you could put the pedal to the metal and make up like 45 minutes of time and totally get there way earlier. Now? This things are too dang precise and it is flippin’ impossible to get ahead of their estimated time. It just KNOWS. Even if I drive fast … it still somehow just KNOWS that I was gonna drive fast and had already factored that into the time.

So now the only thing it does is have you make WORSE time. If you stop to pee … forget it … now you’ve lost 10 minutes that you’ll never get back. Get gas? Yup. That’s another ten. And traffic? Yup … traffic is another lost cause.

And I take issue with the traffic one because the map robot should already know about the traffic … so why isn’t it factored into the time in the first place? You get my hopes up that I’m gonna be there in 20 minutes … next thing I know you’re adding another 20 minutes because traffic and I’m stuck in some sort of never ending loop of “estimated arrival time” sadness.

Again … the robot should already know about this delay … why is he tacking it on now to make me sad? I just wanna make good time … that’s the most important part of the road trip … even more important than whatever the heck you’re doing when you get there. If I don’t make good time, then the whole thing is a failure!

Moving on Diary … How is it that children manage to destroy themselves in such a short amount of time? I know it becomes cliche to dismiss a parent when they say, “But I only turned around for two seconds,” but that truly is all the time it takes for a child to ruin everything.

I recently had to take my son to an event at my daughter’s school … So we get out of the car and get ready to walk over. I turn my head for TWO SECONDS and I look back and my son is face down on the ground and his pants are ripped.

How does this happen do quickly? Actually … how does this happen AT ALL? I could throw myself on the ground a hundred times in a row and I’m pretty sure my pants would still not be ripped. Meanwhile we’re just trying to walk from a car to a stairwell and he looks I threw him in the lion’s cage at the circus.

Is it just the makeup of their DNA that a child sees you look away and instinctively they have the urge to just fling themselves off a table, or smash something on the ground, or whatever? “Oh … he’s not looking … DESTROY!”

And it’s the same lousy story every time … “I didn’t do ANYTHING!” Yeah, you’re right. You didn’t do anything. Must’ve been that Pants Monster again, attacking innocent children to feed off of pieces of their fabric. I’m sure that’s what happened.

Is it that hard to just stand there? Clearly it is.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye

Pull Up!


Dear Diary …

I’ve said this before, but clearly nobody is listening, so I will say it again … just louder … PULL UP!!!

That’s right … pull up. When you’re at the ATM and you’ve gotten your money … PULL UP. Don’t sit there … “Hey let me put this money in my wallet. Oh … then I gotta put this receipt somewhere. OK … Put the car in drive.”

No … no … no … no … NO!

You do all of those things AFTER you pull up and get out of the way, cuz I’m sittin’ here behind you twiddlin’ my thumbs. Oh don’t mind me … I have ALL the time in world to live by your schedule.

When you’re at the drive-thru … pull up!

I was behind a woman the other day at the drive-thru … and all I can assume is that it was the first time in her life that she had been to Taco Bell, because that’s what it felt like waiting behind her.

SO … many … questions.

Why so many questions?

“The number 4 … what’s in that?”

Ummm … the things on the screen next to the number four? How ‘bout that?

And God bless the person working the speaker, because they then asked the worst possible question … “Can I get you anything else?”

I know it seems like an innocent question that you could ask a normal human, but this was a cyborg who had never used a drive thru before because her response was …

[[SILENCE]]

Yeah this went on for a really long time … I’d say at least 10-15 seconds before she replied …

[[PAUSE]]

“Nah”

Nah??? After all that you deliver a “nah????”

Again … I understand that your life is absent of all meaning and urgency, but some of us wanna shove a beefy Frito burrito in our throats thank you very much!

And finally Diary … If you’re my wife … and you park in our driveway … PULL UP!!!

Look … I love my wife. She’s the love of my life … smart, beautiful, great Mom, business woman … but this chick leaves me hangin’ in the driveway all the time.

You see Diary … we have a driveway that has one row in, but then it splits to two spaces at the end so we can park our cars side by side. The only problem is … she never pulls her car up.

OK … not “never” … but enough times that I come home from work … and there she is … right in the middle of the driveway. “Oh I didn’t know you’d be home yet!”

Yeah … well … I am. And because she’s pulling back out soon to go back to work … now I gotta park on the street like some sort of peasant … or … get back outside and move my car when it’s time to go. Both of those are completely unacceptable first world problems, thank you very much.

Even worse are the times I get home first … park in my spot … only to wake up in the morning to have my car blocked in. Now I gotta play valet driver and move both cars … which at 4am … is torture. (Actually, everything at 4am is torture, but you get the point.)

“Oh I was going to move it later. I forgot.”

Here’s an idea … just PULL UP and park it in the spot to begin with!!! Why are we not just doing that?

Does your car feel happier parked in the middle of the driveway or something? Does it get scared all parked up in the corner?

And I’m sorry … but this is also a HUGE double standard here, because we all know darn well if me … the MAN … was the one doing this all the time … I would be considered the worst husband in the universe. But because she’s the one doing it, it’s more “Aw what’s the big deal? Just move your car and deal with it.”

No! I don’t wanna deal with it! You want equal rights? (And I absolutely agree that you should have them.) Then you gotta PULL UP in order to get ‘em.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.