There Will be a Quiz Later

We’ve all had those jobs from . . . well, you know. If you haven’t, you’re either very peculiar or the son/daughter of a politician – and in many cases, that could be both. At any rate, as I look back on my job history, I find that my mind goes to what I did to put up with the conditions to avoid running into the night stark, raving mad.

My first job out of college was working for an insurance company as an adjuster for workers’ compensation claims. I hate to break it to you, but as sexy as that might sound, it wasn’t. After I got over dealing with people who were slightly off center – claimants, clients, co-workers, bosses – I found that a Black Hole had formed near the base of my desk, and it was sucking the very desire to enjoy life itself out of me. And upon discovering this phenomenon, I looked around at others in the office and determined that they, too, had Black Holes at their desks. Be that as it may, I started looking for any and all chances to step away from my desk and reclaim my joie de vive – I believe that’s French for “white hole” – which still sounds creepy but far better than a black one.

Each morning, I would put together a three-question, multiple-choice quiz for my co-workers. It was just random bits of information I would pick up from the radio on my drive to work that morning or some other arcane reference I somehow remembered learning back in college. At first, I had about four people who humored me in this exploit, but before long, I had people walking up to me asking for the quiz if I didn’t have it “distributed” by 9:00 a.m. At the height of it all, I was passing out 40 or 50 quizzes each day – this was before e-mail was widespread (yes, I’m old), so the copy machine got a good workout. Had my immediate supervisor found out about this little endeavor of mine, I’m convinced that she would have chained me to my desk and increased the sucking capacity of my personal Black Hole – I believe she had the power to do that.

Leaving the exciting world of workers’ compensation insurance, I ventured into forklift sales. I know, I know. Sexy. But oddly enough, it wasn’t either. In this type of job, you were out of the office left to your own devices. In my case, I had a geographic territory about the size of a postage stamp with the potential for forklift sales slightly less bleak than a snowball’s chance in . . . a really hot place. Needless to say, when I wasn’t out looking for another job, I would go to a Barnes & Noble and take a nap in one of those really soft, oversized armchairs. My manager had the habit of roaming around and calling you out of the blue to see where you were, so I found the Barnes & Noble location ideal because it was in the center of my territory and the chances that he would walk in were, well, even bleaker than the aforementioned snowball’s prospects. I say this because I was fairly certain that his “reading material” was limited to magazines with lots of pictures in them – if you know what I mean – and those were delivered by mail to the office.

So, if you find yourself in a less-than-ideal work environment, you have two choices: find a new one or start fantasizing that you’re an undercover agent who is looking to expose the company’s use of motor oil as the secret ingredient for its special sauce. Failing that, there’s still time to run for President – most of those people have spent years avoiding a real job.

Expand the Mind, Empty the Wallet

They say that art is in the eye of the beholder. I’m not sure when that phrase was first coined, but I would be willing to bet it was around the same time the first used-car salesman was born.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of visiting a large art museum with my wife, and I saw some very famous pieces up close and personal. And I saw some real “pieces”, too.

One piece in the Modern wing was a polished fiberglass plank approximately seven feet long leaned up against the wall and painted bright red. Next to the plank was a small card detailing the name of the artist, when he painted it, the name of the piece, and a brief description of what stood before me. I’m not making this next part up: the card told me that this piece of art was “the archetypal example of the blurring of the line between traditional art and utility.” As I read this bit of hot air, I pictured a cravat-wearing balding man with a monocle and aristocratic English accent looking down his nose at me. And just as soon as that image vaporized, I had another materialize of a guy in a black leather trenchcoat and a porkpie hat with a toothpick cocked to the side of his mouth. “I swiped this from the bleachers at the high school football stadium, painted it red, and sold it to a snobby Brit for five large. Now that’s what I call art! I’m no Van Gogh, but I sure am good at shellacking, if you know what I mean.”

In the Early American wing, I noticed that all of the paintings of women looked like men in really bad wigs and ill-fitting dresses. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they looked like drag queens because drag queens try much harder to look like women. Either there was a movement afoot in those days to seek out and only paint extremely homely women, or cross-dressing had much earlier (and uglier) beginnings than I had originally thought. Failing those theories, the artists must have been much more talented at painting a picture with words than with oils: “My lord, I believe I have captured the strength of my lady’s character through the dominant and handsome lantern jaw. And if you will notice, I subdued my lady’s bosom to assure you do not attract the attention of ungentlemanly oglers.” Perhaps in that exchange, the patron might say, “Fine. But could you ‘subdue’ the Adam’s apple on her neck?”

Sculptures was another area that had me scratching my head. More than one of the female statues was dressed in a traditional robe slipping off one shoulder and exposing a breast. This isn’t like the Super Bowl and Janet Jackson’s split-second “wardrobe malfunction.” To the best of my knowledge, an artist will spend weeks if not months transforming a chunk of marble into a lifelike representation of the model – during that length of time, don’t you think the young lass is going to notice a draft and do a little adjusting?

As I was walking out the door of that revered institution, I felt inspired to go home and see if I have anything that I could, perhaps, blur the line between someone’s checking account and my own. Do you think there would be a market for a lawn chair painted black – I’d be willing to model in it . . . and let my bathrobe wander.

All Thumbs, and That's Cool

There are many reasons we humans have opposable thumbs: opening doors, holding a pen or paint brush, gripping the steering wheel, and flipping through the channels on TV faster than a cheetah can close the distance between it and a three-legged warthog. These are but a few of the reasons, but they all boil down to the simple fact thumbs separate us from the animals. (True, monkeys and apes also have opposable thumbs, but until they can demonstrate that they can balance a checkbook and order a Led Zeppelin t-shirt off the internet, I’m keeping them in the “animal’ category.) Now, more than ever, is it important that I make this point because many of our fellow humans are blurring the line.

Thought to be a great convenience for a pet owner, the doggy door was merely the beginning of “humanification” of animals. Do you realize the message you’re sending to Fletcher or Fang (both names of a dog and a cat I had as a youth) by giving him free access to your abode? We make fun of the IQ of a caveman, but he was at least smart enough to understand the significance of the “Thumbed” v. the “Thumbless”. Although you don’t read about cave people having doors with twisting knobs, neither do you read about Thag coming home from the hunt one afternoon in search of a nice rock to sit down on and kick up his feet only to be gobbled up by a Tyrannosaurus Rex who let himself into the living room through the dog door.

I was on an airplane one day when two people behind me were talking and I heard one of them say, “So, I had the rest of the afternoon to argue with the cat.” The ensuing conversation confirmed that I had heard correctly. It took a great deal of restraint not to turn around and say, “In the name of all that is holy (and human), what are you talking about? It’s a CAT. What do you think Mr. Tinkles is going to do if he’s not happy with your decision – write a letter to his Senator or call Oprah? He has no thumbs with which to hold a pencil, he can’t talk, and – oh, yeah – HE’S A CAT!”

I’ve had people tell me that they get the impression that their animals think they’re superior to them. That statement in and of itself sends chills up and down my spine: these people are enabling an animal – the same animal who licks its butt, drinks out of a toilet, and eats its food with the same tongue – to impose an inferiority complex on them! All the while, they’re revealing this to you as they’re shopping for dog food that costs more per pound than the prime rib they fed their family for Sunday dinner.

The blurring of the line I mentioned earlier may be too late for some – have you seen the recent roster of “persons” running for President next year? Be that as it may, I have a solution that may seem to be completely contradictory. You’ve seen those misguided individuals who dress up their animals in human-like outfits and take them out in public or include them in family photos. Taking a cue from them, this is the answer to all our problems. Train your Shitzu to walk on her hind legs and make her wear three-inch heels all day; force your Tabby to wear a heavily starched collar and a tie from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. If everyone were to do this, the animal kingdom, in its own non-verbal and thumbless way, would beg us to allow them to be put outside and fed kibble – the politicians may not know that’s an option for them, too.

Plumbing the Depths of History

Traveling on a regular basis presents certain challenges. In addition to the fact you’re hoping that the airplane will physically get you to your destination, you also hope that your luggage will arrive at or near the same time. Also, you’re always wondering who will be your seating companion and whether he/she used deodorant that morning and if he/she will be civil when it comes time to share the arm rest. But those challenges are minor in comparison to some of the other things that await you at home when you’re off “gallivanting” (it’s a word my mom always uses) about the country.

While it is distressing to be sitting in a remote hotel room that seems to get smaller each night you’re there and hear your spouse recount to you over the phone the rainbow of colors your son spewed all over the new carpet – four times – there’s nothing quite like coming home to a toilet that is mere centimeters from spilling over the brim with a substance that looks like only Hollywood special effects artists could create. And come to find out, it’s been like that for the last three days!

So, as I am delicately trying to insert and work the plunger without upsetting the “water” – I have to put that in quotation marks because I’m not exactly sure it can be called that – my two sons are standing behind me absolutely fascinated with the process. Of course, they want to help, and the first instinct is to shoo them away with a rubber-glove-clad hand. But that’s when it hits me. Not the malodorous muck brewing in the commode but an economic epiphany of the same magnitude as the inspiration for Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. The money in our public school system would be far better spent teaching our kids plumbing skills than about the diverse cultures that dot the Saharan region of Africa.

Rather than paying a guy $75.00 just to show up at your house, plus materials, you could call one of your kids into the bathroom and say, “Have at it, champ.” They would love it, and they might even offer to pay you or waive future allowance for a crack at the next stopped-up toilet or the installation of a new garbage disposal. And all the while you have the peace in knowing that your kids are up to the task when they bring home their report cards.

“Mason, I see you got an A in pipe fitting, and an A- in septic systems. I know you can pull that up to an A, too, son. Just remember, it’s all about routine maintenance.”

Not only would such training in early childhood be an economic boon to us, the taxpaying adults, but I believe we would see a payoff later on down the line, too. For instance, had this training been instituted back in the early twentieth century, we wouldn’t have seen the rise of Communism or the aggression known as the Korean War. In both instances, they were just looking for the right to affordable indoor plumbing for the masses.

The Naked Truth

At the age of three, my brother was outside one afternoon building a sand castle and fielding bids from developers to subdivide it into condos. In the midst of this flurry of activity, he spied the family cat, Sam, from the corner of his eye and noticed that the Siamese was in need of cleaning. (How he determined this “need” is still an open debate at family gatherings.) He scooped up the filthy feline beneath his arm and started toward the house. (Most cats choose the time and place that they’ll allow a human to pick them up, and this is usually done with both arms cradling them. So, being hooked under the midsection with a small and somewhat-less-sure arm was surely an affront to this cat’s dignity.) My brother entered the house and made for the bathroom.

Kicking open the bathroom door, he noticed the air was warm and steamy. Someone had already run a bath. Happy day! So, he slid open the glass door on the shower/bath and discovered my dad was already in the water with soap bubbles floating on the surface – someone to whom he could delegate the cleaning chore and get back to the sand castle! Gathering his wits about him, my dad greeted my brother and asked if there was something he needed. My brother simply looked at him, cat still squirming to get free from his captor’s devilishly tenacious grip, and said, “Sam needs a bath.” Before this could register in my dad’s brain, my brother flung the helpless feline into the water with my dad and summarily closed the glass door.

This little family vignette touches upon a number of issues: real estate development, early childhood education, animal rights, hygiene, the fact most grown men won’t admit to indulging themselves in the quiet and therapeutic pleasure of soaking in a tub – my dad will probably kill me for telling this story – and the need to have a fully stocked first-aid kit readily available when you have small children around. However, the most interesting thing about this story is what it tells you about yourself.

1. Concern for the cat: If your thoughts went immediately to what became of the cat after being tossed into the tub with a naked man, you like long walks on the beach by yourself (because you know your cat’s not coming close to the water), you prefer to work in a cubicle, and you tend to pick your toenails on the couch.
2. Concern for the dad: You fall into the category in which you and others like you like to watch sports on big-screen TVs, you’ll eat anything if it’s covered in Ranch dressing and/or cheese, and you will drive ten miles out of your way to get gas for $.01 cheaper.
3. Concern for the son: This indicates that you are most likely under the close supervision of a physician, you identify most with Batman (the only major superhero with no real super powers), and you have a proclivity for crème-filled treats.

Although you must agree that this analysis is dead on the numbers, I won’t be so cruel as to not tell you what happened to the parties involved in this little fiasco: the cat had to be brought down off the ceiling by two men wearing body armor and the gloves you see worn by people who handle hawks and eagles, my dad proved far more agile than we had ever seen him in the past or since, and my brother refused psychotherapy and went on to West Point and later to Harvard for an MBA – that explains why so many CEOs are just plain nuts!

Names: The Ultimate Birthmarks

(Author's note: the idea of this was originally written and placed on my blog as "Hortence's Revenge", but I've changed it enough that it takes on a new life.)

I recently received an e-mail from a reader wondering if I was the same Grant Greene who attended school with her. My response to her was that, although I have always wondered what would possess someone to name a man-child "Grant", coupled with the fact I have met very few people who spell "Greene" with the "e" on the end, it's hard to believe that there is more than one Grant Greene out in the world – and some of my school teachers might be wishing that there wasn’t even one out there.

My first name, when employed by small children, is a disaster waiting to happen – but we’ll get to that in a moment. However, when you marry it up with the last name of “Greene”, it takes on a whole new dimension of bad choices. Take a moment and say “Grant” and “Greene” together with no pause in between. It’s the sound you would think a frog with indigestion would make, isn’t it?

My parents tell me they named me after a man they really respected - personally, I think my dad lost a bet of some sort. With a name like Grant, my adolescent years weren’t exactly easy. The cute girls would call me names such as "Granty", or they’d all get together (and I swear they had a choreographer help them with this) and dance this little jig as they chanted, "Grant, Grant, the big fat ant!" Some thirty years later, those chilling words still echo in my mind. Can you imagine what it was like live? I’m not even going to go into the things people did, and still do, with the extra (but silent) “e” at the end of my last name.

Looking to the dignity of generations to come, a government bureau should be put in charge of giving an OK on names. These offices should be located in convenience stores so while you wait, you can get a burrito and a slushie – wouldn’t the Motor Vehicle Department experience be better with that? The application paperwork would consist of the child’s name-to-be, the names of the parents (for obvious reasons), and an essay of 50 words or less about their choice of that particular name. Having quite a sense of humor and a very haunting laugh, a clerk reviews the paperwork and decides if the parents are allowed to give their child that name. For example, if the parents were trying to name their child "Hortence", they would need to include in their essay the fact she kicked a lot in the womb and the labor was 175 hours long – you know, justification. If approved, the clerk simply stamps OK on the application and the parents go on their merry way. However, here’s where the haunting laugh enters the picture (you know, the Vincent-Price-horror-movie laugh that makes the nipples on your chest quiver). If the name is found to be truly absurd or spelled in some needlessly exotic way, the clerk walks over to the parents, throws the application in their faces, and delivers “the laugh”. I suggest that people with pace makers and anxiety disorders have their spouses do the filing.

I have to admit it would be tempting to play with the names of your children. In my younger days, I always thought it would be cool to name my first son "Gang", and if I had a girl, "Salad." It would be interesting to see if "The Bureau" would pass them, but I don’t think my nipples could take it. E-mail me your unfortunate naming stories at grant.greene@gmail.com.

Silly Putty: The Eighth Wonder of the World

Emily Post I am not. In addition to the fact I lack years and years of experience with manners and etiquette, I don’t have the hips to wear those high-brow society dresses either. Well, now that we have any and all identity (and perhaps gender) issues out of the way, we can move on with the matter at hand.

From some of your recent letters and e-mails, I find comfort in the fact I’m not the only one out there who finds the whole thank-you-note issue a bit confusing. One astute reader shared the phenomenon of having given a simple gift to someone and in return receiving a thank-you card that could rival War and Peace in the number of words employed. Me, too! I remember one such instance, and the whole time I was reading their literary litany, I kept wondering, “How can a container of Silly Putty bring so much joy to one person? It’s simply inhuman.” Conversely, that begs the question of when you’re the recipient of, say, a gift card from a local retail establishment, what more can you say than “thanks for the gift card”? You feel silly saying anything more than that, but the vast dead space on the thank-you note taunts and dares you to expound upon your gratitude.

Your letters have also indicated that there are some situations in which it either feels weird sending a thank-you note or you plain don’t know how to “thank” that certain someone. Although I’m still not going to try and put on one of Ms. Post’s dresses, I’ll wear her hat for a moment and give you some guidance in just two areas:

Gift from a boss: Regardless of the form of the gift, you feel a bit icky sending a thank-you note because you don’t want to be thought of as a suck-up, but you know that if you don’t you’ll be labeled as the office ingrate. Whether it’s a gift that seems to have an agenda – you’re in a customer-service-related business and your boss gives you a book titled How to Give Great Customer Service – or a loaf of banana nut bread that tastes like an armpit, you have to acknowledge it. And while you may be tempted to give him a book titled How to Stop Being a Crappy Boss, or give him a note saying that you’ve donated his gift to the local food bank, take gratitude to a new level and pen a short note that says, “Thanks for keeping me around long enough to receive your gift. Let’s do this again next year.” Ha ha!

Gift card from a store you never frequent: This is a tough one, no doubt! As it’s highly likely that you’ll never use the gift card for yourself or someone you love, the best use of this card is to turn it back on the giver of the gift. Let’s say the card is for Beads, Clogs & Pool Sticks. Given the fact you’re not dealing with a conventional person, there’s no need for a conventional thank-you note. Go all out and make an outfit for their cat (these people always have cats, take my word for it) using as many different colored beads as possible and send along a short note that says, “Your generosity was so inspiring, I made this for Chudwick. I can’t wait to see him in it.” Ask for photos.

Next week we’ll see how Ms. Post weighs in on what to wear to a jello wrestling match.

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Now that “the holidays” have passed, you find yourself in that strange limbo-like stage between the vacation mind set and the harsh reality of being back at work. While you float between fantasy and reality, your mind ponders whether you really did eat your body weight in Cheez Whiz – don’t deny it – and if there’s some way you can convince your neighbors that your Christmas lights are actually up in celebration of Ground Hog Day (so you’ve got until February to take them down). Inevitably, these musings – spurred on by heartburn and the anticipation of having to get back to work – cause us to look inwardly and decide we’re, by darn, gonna make some changes in our lives! And so begins the list of New Year’s resolutions.

Let’s be honest here: the vast majority of us aren’t going to try to scale Mount Everest or swim the English Channel (whether it’s for reasons of laziness or sanity). We are, for the most part, trying to kick a bad habit or get out of a rut into which we’ve let ourselves fall over the year. I’ve been there, and I’ve made my share of lists – that have gone, probably, 98% unfulfilled. But that’s not the point. The point here is that we all need to come up with resolutions that will enable us from forming bad habits in the first place. Here are but two resolutions that I promise to devote my full energies to throughout the year:

1. It never fails. Whenever I sit down in a doctor’s office or wait to board a plane with a good book or magazine to read, somebody in my general vicinity decides now is an excellent time to call someone on their cell phone and proceeds to speak at a volume that a 60-year-old fading rock star could hear. Mark my words: in all of 2007, I resolve not to begin reading my book aloud so I can drown out the caller and be sure I’m following the intricate plot. Although I might be confused about why Harry Potter’s been sent to detention again by Professor Snape, it would be rude of me to intrude on the caller’s peace.

2. Driving along the great highways of our nation, more often than I would like I find myself in the far left lane (some dare call it “the fast lane”) applying the brakes and then following a much slower car ahead of me. I follow closely in the hopes that the driver ahead of me will notice their error and get over. Oddly enough, they don’t. Flashing the lights doesn’t help because they’ve demonstrated that they’re either not looking in their rearview mirror, or they have a vitamin deficiency that precludes them from seeing my car. It is my resolution for the upcoming year that I will not affix a large metal plate to the front of my car to help me in pushing these people out of the way. Obviously, these metal plates are needed for these drivers’ heads.

I hope this helps you in coming up with your own list of resolutions. If you need further help in deciding what needs to be changed in your life, call a friend. Might I recommend you do so on your cell phone in the middle of a movie just when the plot twist is being revealed – you’ll get plenty of people telling you what to do.

These Stones Weren't Rolling

Not too long ago, I had the chance to spend a week with the Stones. For those who know me, it may be hard to believe that during that time I freely popped my fair share of pills and found myself seeking the sweet relief of a good puking more than once. It was an experience that few men my age get to have, and it’s certainly one that I won’t soon forget. Unfortunately, though, Mick and Keith won’t ever recall these events because they weren’t there – the Stones to which I’m referring were of the kidney variety, and the drugs were prescribed to me by a real doctor. No brush of fame here – just the need to brush my teeth each time my stomach decided to tell everyone to get out of the pool.

This wasn’t my first bout with these little buggers that cause so much pain and misery that kicking the neighbor’s dog – no matter how yappy it’s been in the past – won’t bring any satisfaction. When I first passed kidney stones about three and a half years ago, numerous people told me that the pain was equal to that which women experience during child birth. After careful consideration, I concluded that these people were (a) full of crap, (b) more highly medicated than I was – and perhaps not by anyone formally recognized by the American Medical Association, or (c) high school biology class dropouts. Let’s take a moment and review the mechanics involved in each process, shall we?

With kidney stones, you’re trying to push a small grain-of-sand-like object from your kidney to your bladder – yes, a little grain of sand. The pathway between these two bodily repositories is very narrow and lined with muscles, so the pour-some-acid-in-an-open-wound pain comes from the muscles trying to push the stone down a skinny tunnel. My doctor, in describing this process, took a rubber glove and stretched out one of the fingers while simulating trying to push a grain of sand through the glove finger. He was fortunate that he had previously pumped me full of some really great feel-good drugs, because the entire time he was going through this educational process with me, he had a huge smile on his face. In retrospect, he was either an unusually friendly human being (unlikely, because we were on a really bad HMO), or he was the Marquis de Sade – my mind was on other things so I didn’t check for a name tag.

I don’t believe I need to go into detail about the birthing process. Suffice it to say, in this scenario, the grain of sand is the size of a watermelon with arms and legs, and you don’t have to worry about how much it will cost to put the grain of sand through an Ivy League college or whether it will grow up to be the next Adolf Hitler once it’s out. Nor with kidney stones does one run the risk of having stretch marks that resemble a relief map of the Amazon.

It would seem reasonable to presume that women are far better equipped to handle a higher threshold of pain in all aspects of life, but the next time your wife or significant other starts to cry because of something you deem to be no big deal, I would caution against saying, “Come on, honey. You shouldn’t cry over this. You went through childbirth – this is nothing.” If you do find yourself making such a statement, heaven help you because the pain you’ll soon experience will be far worse than kidney stones!

Appetites of Destruction

When our two sons get home from school each day, the first thing on their minds is food. With their ravenous appetites, one might think the boys attend a school with Ghandi as their principal. At any rate, the moment they walk in the door they make a beeline to the kitchen to rummage through the pantry and sack the refrigerator. And if something doesn’t tickle their fancy immediately, they turn to my wife with a look in their eyes that I could only describe as “wild”. They’re still young and considerably smaller than my wife, so she can handle them on her own at present. But in the back of her mind there’s a little voice saying, “Someday, they’re going to be bigger and taller than you – and there are two of them.” (At this point one might argue that we have bigger problems if my wife is hearing voices, but that’s another issue for another day.) At that very moment, she must find something that will satisfy them until their next feeding – because if she doesn’t act quickly, she’ll have to pick up a kitchen chair and keep them back with a whip while she finds large sides of beef to throw to them.

Quite often you see a story on the six o’clock news about a mountain lion taking a dip in someone’s pool and then walking off with some of the neighborhood pets (between its teeth or in its stomach). And every story seems to end the same way: “Well, Bob, Animal Control naturally had to put the creature down.” It had always seemed strange to me that this was the “natural” solution to the problem. That’s a bit of an extreme punishment for “trespassing” and “theft”, isn’t it?

Then, looking at my boys one afternoon as they were licking the chocolate frosting off their lips from an after-school snack, it dawned on me: Animal Control’s trying to “send a message” to the other animals out in the wild – you know, make an example out of these feral felons and put the fear of God in them. And if we don’t find a way to control our children’s appetites, we could be running into the same problem in our own homes.

I can see it now: a news story about a standoff in a quaint suburban town with helicopters buzzing overhead and police cars surrounding a modest three-bedroom house. With a very concerned look painted on her face (looking as though she’s either very serious or seriously constipated), the reporter will say, “The details are still coming in, but here’s what I’ve been able to piece together so far: an eight-year-old boy – who we believe lives three doors down – came home from school today to find his own pantry completely free of Twinkies, cup cakes, or any other snack food. It appears he eluded his mother who was trying to get him to eat a carrot and made his way into the home we’re standing in front of now. Preliminary reports have come in that the boy is currently into his second box of Pop Tarts, and he’s halfway through a two-liter bottle of soda – Mountain Dew, I believe. If the police can’t talk him out, we could be in for a long night – that sugar rush isn’t wearing off any time soon.”

I think we’re all beginning to see the enormity of the problem here: if this happens, we’ll have more than seemingly endless slow-motion car chases to interrupt our favorite television programs.

Race With the Devil

The first time I ever saw a Rubik’s cube, I wasn’t that impressed. Somebody had slapped six distinct colors on as many sides of the cube – nothing a sixth-grade art student couldn’t accomplish. But when I saw someone mix up the colors and then put them back in order (without taking a hammer to it and reassembling it), I was convinced I was witness to the introduction of something so dark and evil, the Ouija board had nothing on it. Then, someone taught me how to solve the cube, and I saw it for what it was: a toy.

Sudoku, the number game from Japan, had the same effect on me. And when I learned how to play the game and solve the puzzles, I stopped cursing it and wishing it would return to the inner circle of Hell. I’m sure many of you out there could name similar experiences.

At this point, I’m going to recommend that the children leave the room because I’m going to tell you about something that seems, at first, innocent but quickly reveals its diabolical nature: pinewood derby. For the uninitiated, this is an annual activity in which Cub Scouts participate by taking a chunk of wood, four nails, and four plastic wheels and carve out a car to be raced down a track. I was involved in a handful of these “derbies” as a young boy, but my naiveté protected me from being sucked in by this ugly monster. Now, in my adult years, I have been subjected to two of these events, and I am prepared to expose its black underbelly.

As background, we blithely and innocently took on the task last year of building a car and preparing for the race. My son’s car came in dead last in every heat. He was awarded the “Sportsmanship” medal, and I was more than happy with that. My wife, however, apparently took a solemn oath at that moment that this would not happen again. So, in preparation for this year’s event, my wife insisted that we get some expert help. While I can’t tell you what advice/guidance we were given in the “building” of our son’s car, I will reveal that we consulted with an engineer from General Dynamics and a pharmacist. Our son’s car (which he named “Red Hot & Blue”) came in fourth this year – I tremble to learn who my wife will have us seek out next year: perhaps a ninja.

In the months leading up to this annual race, you interact with the parents and various adults associated with the Cub Scout program, and they all seem to be normal and sane. Not a single one of them, in my experience, has been featured in an episode of “Cops” or turned up on the evening news driving a white Ford Bronco. However, on derby night, you don’t want to get in their way or you might risk losing a limb.

As I entered the hall where the race was to be held, I noticed that each car but my son’s was being carried and cared for by an adult – an adult with a very determined and driven look etched on his/her face. Some were wiping down the bodies of the cars (no doubt to improve the aerodynamics) and others had a pocketful of assorted tools to make the necessary last-minute tweaks and adjustments to assure maximum performance. One father brought his laptop to enter every car into a spreadsheet and track the results of each heat!

As we awaited the start of the race, I couldn’t help hearing snippets of conversation buzzing around me like mosquitoes. One mother had admitted to her friend that she spent twelve hours on the internet searching for the perfect car design. Someone else rattled off the name of some place in Cuba where you could get a guaranteed winning car for only $500.00. The one item I overheard that keeps me awake at night was a man claiming he had to bite off another man’s ear to get the last “piece” for his son’s car.

Clearly, this would make for a far more simple psychiatric test than ink blots or word association. If you want to gauge a person’s mental stability, hand him a chunk of wood, a handful of nails, and some plastic wheels, and tell him he has three days to prepare for a pinewood derby – then cover your ears and run!

Season's Readings

By a show of hands, how many of you send out a family holiday letter? Okay, put your hands down. By a show of groans, how many of you have been the recipients of those letters? That’s what I thought.

Not a year goes by that we don’t receive at least a dozen of these merry little missives, and about 90% of them are either outright lies (which isn’t all that bad – we’ll get to that later) or they make you want to curse your elementary school teachers for having taught you how to read. The end to this insanity begins with you.

I’m not against sending out the family letter. It’s great to keep in touch with those friends and family members you may have not heard from or spoken with over the year. And with that being the case, this is your one and only chance to reconnect with them. Do you want this little “reunion” to induce sleep or cause nausea?

For the sake of all your involuntary recipients out there, I’ve compiled a few guidelines for you to follow when you sit down to pen the family epistle:

1. Comedy is best employed by professionals. If you’re not getting regular gigs at The Improv, don’t take this moment to try out your material. This doesn’t mean you can’t employ some humor at your own expense – poke some fun at yourself. For example, if you bear a striking resemblance to Condoleezza Rice, you might want to open the letter with, “I tried to become a body double this year for the Secretary of State, but they thought it would be unwise to employ a man in that role.”

2. A little white lie can be very effective. One year, when our oldest son was about three, I wrote that he had found one of those hairless cats in the neighborhood and thought it looked cold. So, he took some shag carpet remnants and glued them all over the feline’s physique. I went on to finish the story by saying that sealing the pores on the hapless cat caused an unforeseen side effect: death. We received calls and letters from people we hadn’t heard from for years!

3. Save a tree. By all means, keep the family letter to one side of one page – 8 ½” X 11”. (If you have more than twelve children, then you may employ the back of the single page.) Even the Declaration of Independence was limited to one page – granted, it was slightly larger than letter-size, but it was written by hand in a really huge font, and John Hancock took up some major real estate with just his signature.

4. Don’t brag! One year, some friends of ours sent us their letter highlighting all of the wonderfully expensive items they were able to buy and exotic trips they took. Upping the gag factor by about three hundred points was the fact they tried to do this through rhymes. I didn’t think it was possible, but they found words to rhyme with Chevy Suburban and pearl necklace. These are the same folks who subsequently reported that their children were brainiacs – and yet those same tots sat next to mine in preschool eating paste and running into doors with their heads.

Please bear in mind that there’s only one person who’s qualified to call himself the Leader of the Western World, and best-selling authors make a lot of money because they do really well what we can’t. Have a safe and happy holiday, and keep the home fires burning – with all those family letters that really blow!

Political Cleansing

Back in college I was required to take a couple of political science classes. Being the masochist that I am, I took them both from the same teacher (over two different semesters, mind you) – better the devil you know than the one you don’t was my thought process. At any rate, I remember two main things from this cat’s classes: (1) he liked to ramble on about the great price he got on some large ceramic pots at a flea market, and (2) he was always talking about how things affected the body politic. Now, allow me to digress for a moment.

I grew up with a guy named Dave who would move heaven and earth to make sure he didn’t throw up. He’s now 36 years old, and I believe he has only tossed his cookies once in that entire time. To make matters worse, whenever he hears someone talking about throwing up, he gets physically ill – but he won’t let himself do it. I remember a night when we all sat around taking turns peppering the conversation with one reference or another to the act of vacating one’s stomach just to watch him turn green. Truth be told, we were waiting for him to explode.

Personally, when I’m sick to my stomach, I welcome the opportunity to heave. The moments leading up to the act are not pleasant, and they seem to take an eternity, but once I’m through with it I feel one hundred percent better. It doesn’t mean that I’m no longer sick, but I’m feeling good at the moment.

I bring this up as a means of gaining some perspective on what happened here in our country this past Tuesday. The body politic felt sick so it decided to stick its finger down its throat and let lunch fly. The problems they perceive still exist, and the possibility that they could get sick again or sicker is very strong, but they’re feeling settled at the moment.

It will be interesting to see what will happen in the coming days and months. Will we seek out proper “medical” advice, or will we continue to “self diagnose” and become political bulimics?

Fate Takes a Holiday

I’ve never been a huge fan of turkey – the food, that is (I can honestly say I’m pretty ambivalent on the country, but that’s neither here nor there). Whenever possible, we have a ham at our get-togethers with family and friends. However, for some strange reason, there’s a ginormous segment of the population that is either gaga over the almost taste-free fowl or feels it their patriotic duty to serve the bird on Thanksgiving Day.

One might ask how turkey came to be the centerpiece of the holiday meal, and that question bears one simple answer: the Pilgrims were from England. English cuisine has never been known for overwhelming the palette. When was the last time you watched Emeril and heard him say he was going to kick it up a notch by going British? Our English cousins may be known for their spicy wit and their saucy comebacks but not for culinary wonders. Also, why do you think it’s served with mashed potatoes, gravy, and yams? Very few people I know are clawing their way into the kitchen to get a mouthful of the naked bird. It’s very likely that the Native Americans who were invited to the first Thanksgiving feast could smell the turkey smell wafting through the air long before their arrival at the party – that’s why they brought some of their own food.

As many of you know, Benjamin Franklin wanted to make the turkey our national symbol rather than using the bald eagle. In denying Mr. Franklin his wish for a federal emblem, fate dealt us a mixed hand: had he succeeded, we would most assuredly be free from having to eat turkey on Thanksgiving; however, with that success would have come the embarrassing specter of standing before the world with a turkey, perhaps one of the dumbest birds to walk the earth, as the face of our nation. Nothing says “tough” like a turkey.

Along with the culinary challenges presented by Thanksgiving, this holiday carries with it many different meanings and memories. And they usually depend on the age of the person. Generally speaking, when one is young, the holiday means the sheer exhilaration of seeing cousins and other relatives. For the teens, it means having to face all those same relatives who pepper you with about a thousand questions about your latest choice of hairstyle or clothing; this grilling continues on through the end of puberty and into young adulthood, but the questions turn on college choice, career path, marriage, etc. And then once you’re married and have children of your own, Thanksgiving means traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles to visit those same relatives you moved so far away to avoid – I mean, come on, it wouldn’t be fair (to you) for your kids to miss out on all the fun you had when you were their age.

It’s also odd that Thanksgiving conjures up so many memories – more so than many other holidays. For example, at the mere mention of the Thanksgiving holiday, someone in your immediate vicinity will suddenly break into a “I remember one year when . . .” story. However, you don’t get that same waxing of nostalgia for other holidays with statements like, “Hey, Phil, remember that wild Arbor Day back in 1986? Wow, the mayor’s cat was never the same since.”

Regardless of your memories of or feelings for the Thanksgiving holiday, I would recommend you reflect on one thing for which we should all feel grateful: Ben Franklin’s discovery of electricity – because without electricity, there would be no way to watch the football game from the comfort of your family room. And without the football game, you might be forced to make small talk with Aunt Fern about the removal of that hideous mole below her lip. Happy Thanksgiving!

Survival

One might wonder at the origin of the term Smart Alec. I can’t speak to the specific reasoning behind that term nor do I know the identity of the particularly sarcastic man (or boy) who earned himself this nickname. However, I believe it’s safe to say that it was, in fact, a male member of the human species and not a representative of the fairer sex.

My brother-in-law, Mike, went on a hunting trip recently, so my wife’s sister came to stay with us for the night with her two children. We had a very pleasant visit, but that’s completely unrelated to the topic at hand. (Sorry.) Mike called to check in with his wife while she was staying with us, and in the "goodbye" phase of the conversation, my wife’s sister said, "Be careful." Mike’s reply, in classic Smart Alec form, was, "Don’t worry. I took the deer’s skin and draped it over my shoulders and placed the head on top of my hat." When my wife’s sister recounted this to us, my wife rolled her eyes along with her sister, and the two of them laughed at Mike’s Devil-may-care attitude.

As I reflected on this, I came to the conclusion that Smart Alec-hood is man’s defense against going criminally insane. This stems from the dawn of time. Picture Eve handing the tempting apple to Adam and just when he’s about to chomp down on the luscious fruit, she says instinctually, "Be careful." Caught off guard, Adam bites his lip and starts bleeding. "How’d she know that was going to happen?" he muses. From then on, men have been trying to stay one step ahead of "be careful", and sarcasm is the most effective mental diversion.

Speaking on behalf of the men in this world, the need to admonish us occasionally and remind us to keep safety in mind is well deserved in a lot of cases. Were it not for the general stupidity of the male gender throughout the ages, we wouldn’t have guys trying to take a kayak over a 200-foot waterfall "to see if he can." Come on. Who was the first person to climb Mt. Everest? A man. Why? Because it was there! Who was the first person to sail around the world when the general consensus was that the ship and its crew would most likely fall off the edge and plummet to their deaths? A man. This isn’t one of those "hey look how much cooler we are, and by the way, we can pee standing up and write our names in the snow" kinds of rants. It’s intended to demonstrate that men throughout history haven’t exactly done a great deal to prove they’re careful. So, from birth, females are hardwired to look out for the males of the species.

Now, back to combating the possible onset of criminal insanity: because of this hardwiring, many of us men have loving wives, girlfriends (not at the same time, of course), mothers, etc. who tell us to "be careful" regardless of the circumstances. When I’m departing for a business trip, I get the "be careful" just after the peck on the cheek. Men around the world, in similar circumstances, are getting the same directive from the women in their lives. With a constant diet of "be careful" – if we dwelt on it – we would begin to wonder, "Does she know something I don’t? Should I check under the car to see if brake fluid has pooled under it from a severed line?" Instead, we lapse into survival mode and become Smart Alec: "I haven’t had anything to drink; and besides, I won’t be the one flying the plane, honey." Ha ha!

But after the laughter has died and I drive off to the airport, I pump the brakes a couple of times just in case.

The Sounds of Insanity

I have to start off by stating I’m not a very musical person. When I was about twelve years old, I wanted to learn to play the drums. My parents, with a combination of financial savvy and foresight, already had an upright piano and decided the best course of action would be to cut a deal with me: take two years of piano first, then I could take drum lessons. (As a friend of mine has said numerous times, I might have been born at night, but I wasn’t born last night.) I spotted the stall tactic a mile away, and I called my parents on it. They denied the stall and tried to convince me that the piano would better enable me to learn to read music and to develop an ear for melodies. Melodies, schmelodies! I wanted to bang on those drums and get the chicks. Of course, those weren’t my exact words to my parents, but I did try to convince them that the piano truly wasn’t necessary.

At the age of twelve, my business acumen wasn’t that well developed, and my negotiating prowess was – how shall I say – wanting. Mom and dad knew they were holding all the cards, so they stood firm. They signed me up for piano lessons with my brother’s girlfriend and dug in for the protracted battles to come: getting me to practice. Fortunately for everyone involved – especially my brother’s girlfriend whom he later married – it was a short campaign and I held up the white flag after two months. Peace and serenity were maintained in the Greene home, and drums were never purchased nor pounded.

With that said, despite my lack of musical talent, I was quite the singer as a young boy. I heartily belted out the classics either by myself or along with a group. Let’s see. “London Bridges” was one of my favorites – what a great tune to teach young, impressionable members of society. In the song, we bemoan the structural weaknesses of the bridges of London, but that’s okay because we have a good-looking woman (“my fair lady”) by our side. That had to be confusing for a lot of little girls. It also has to put nerves on edge for the citizens of and visitors to Lake Havasu, Arizona – taking the London Bridge apart, transporting it across the ocean, and reassembling it can’t exactly improve the strength of a relic of that size and magnitude.

“Ring Around the Rosie” was another oldie but a goodie. We would merrily chant away about how to take care of the body of someone who had fallen victim to the Bubonic Plague. Sunshine all around! Is it any wonder that so many of today’s adults are so heavily medicated?

I foresee children one hundred years from now singing about the fall of Enron with the same blithe and glee one feels when thinking about the arrival of Santa Claus.

Little Kenny was so clever
All had bought what he had to sell
Keeping the world hot and cold
He’d never see Graybar Hotel

Even farther in the future, after the world is taken over by cyborgs who are immune to disease and bad jokes, the young will sing about E.coli and wonder why spinach got such a bum wrap.

Bacteria, bacteria all wrapped up and bagged
Conveniently deadly, others just gagged
Pretty and green for Popeye’s delight
Gripping the world with terror and fright

You laugh now, but do you think our ancestors – two hundred, three hundred years ago – would have thought we’d pay for water in little plastic bottles?

The Sky's the Limit

All told, I believe there are at least 764 shades of the color blue that are completely indistinguishable to my eyes, but my wife has the innate ability to differentiate each and every one. Stranger still, when I tell her that Cerulean and Celestial look identical to me, she’ll say things like, “Oh, come on. The Cerulean has way more red in it, and the Celestial tends to be more yellow.” How can “blue” be red or yellow? Aren’t we talking about the three primary colors, the basic building blocks of all other colors?

I would like to say that this truly shouldn’t matter to me, but I just spent my afternoon painting an entire wall Blue #429 – it has a name, I’m sure, but I dare not mention it for fear that one of you out there will send back to me a twelve-page thesis on the distinguishing characteristics of this particular shade of Blue. Exhaustion has overtaken me, and I just couldn’t take that. I’m not so exhausted from the physical labor involved; my arms are a bit fatigued, but that’s most likely due more to my personal lack of muscle. The exhaustion, quite honestly, stems from my watching a non-stop virtual tennis volley between my wife’s two minds on the subject of the color. “I think that will go really well with the couch and the black chairs.” “That’s way too nautical blue.” “It really softens up the room.” “I was going more for the color of that pillow.” Just when it seemed like one side had smashed it over the net to decide the match, the other would make an unexpected comeback that seemed just as devastating. Am I rooting for the side that likes the color as it is? Of course! More to the point, though: I just want it over. As I write this, I believe Erin’s in bed right now muttering pros and cons in her sleep.

Earlier today, before the paint was purchased and ushered into our home, I went on a hike with our oldest son, Jack. While we were out communing with nature and swatting at mosquitoes, I decided it was a good time to spring “the Birds & the Bees” talk on him. As I finished the short discourse, I asked him if it made sense, and he said, “Sort of.” I could tell from his befuddled response that I had taken him completely by surprise, and the topic of discussion was so far from his view of the world, he thought I had been out in the sun too long. I got that. So, I gave us both an easy out and said, “Well, when you start having questions along those lines, just ask me.” His response to this was calculated and well delivered: “You wanna throw rocks at that flower on top of that cactus?”

I can honestly say that the details of my explanation were pretty straightforward but limited to fit the audience. However, maybe the approach was all wrong. Granted, I don’t want my children getting their information from other kids at school, television, or a former President of the United States – so I do need to get them the facts. But while I’m preparing them to embrace the responsibilities of adulthood and married life, I should begin the discussion with the question: “How many shades of blue do you think there are in the world, son?”

Defining Normal

I had dinner with my cousin and her husband recently, and the mealtime conversation invariably turned to family, both immediate and extended. The different points of discussion were usually kicked off by an innocent question: “Whatever happened to that girl he was dating?” “Didn’t you say he retired from that job a year ago?” “Was that wart really the shape of Abraham Lincoln’s head?” And with each topic came a flood of memories and interesting stories that caused me to sit back and look at my family and relatives with a bit of detached perspective.

Dysfunctional is probably too strong a term to use to describe them – that word carries with it way too much negative baggage. Connoting more of a whimsical and somewhat genius-based gallery of personalities, eccentric is a little off the mark, too. Putting it in proper context with the world and society in which we live, normal is perhaps most fitting.

I should place myself first under the microscope in the spirit of fairness. Had you told me at the age of five or six that thirty-something years later I would be working for a company that sells crumpled-up kraft paper, I would think you’re either insane or demonically possessed. Either way, in my mind, your powers of prognostication were way off: I was going to be a helicopter pilot or the next Bionic Man. Nevertheless, while in the process of veering off the aforementioned career paths on my way to today, I’ve developed a mildly manic compulsion of checking if my wallet is still in my pocket every ten minutes or so. I also have this weird habit of looking for and plucking out ingrown hairs from the stubble on my face. (A psychiatrist would probably have a field day with that.) So much for the self-disclosure. On to the cast of characters who populate the ranks of my genealogy.

One member of my family believes she saw her cat in a vision the night before she passed through the Navajo reservation when she found the stray feline. She gave the cat a Navajo name in honor of the circumstances of their meeting. I believe Peyote would have been a better name because that would explain the “vision” and the continued practice of taking her cat for walks in a stroller. Yes, you read that right: she takes her cat for walks in a stroller.

A late member of my family used to sit down at the family piano and play two songs over and over. Were the songs “Moonlight Sonata” and “Green Sleeves”, I might have had a better appreciation for the subtleties of musical composition. But no. They were “Sweet Georgia Brown” (perhaps better known as the Harlem Globetrotters theme) and a tune whose name I still don’t know today – we just referred to it as the Stripper Song. I will say this, though: when she played those two songs, she did it with flair and gusto!

Although not a particularly athletic individual, another relative was very fond of throwing things. When the family cat was trying to sharpen his claws on a lampshade, the “thrower” picked up the billiards cue stick that was close at hand and hurled it across two rooms missing the cat by mere inches – the cue stick embedded itself in the wall like a spear. Another incident involved our trying to seal up garbage cans filled with wheat for food storage when the lid wouldn’t quite fit; this prompted his hurling it across the garage like a giant metal Frisbee. The flight was impressive!

In addition to these personalities, I have a one-legged used-car salesman who can drive a golf ball a country mile, an exercise nut who eats only broiled chicken breasts and salmon, a self-proclaimed shopaholic who’s as regular at The Gap as Norm was at Cheers, a paranoid who thought Communist agents were following her, a lesbian who only eats vegetables that can be grown in the dark (or something like that), and a kleptomaniac.

By comparison, this slice of American Pie is representative of probably 95% of the population’s own backgrounds. The other 5% are either freakishly pristine, or they’re fresh off the boat and have no ties to the Kennedy family.

As you can see, the names have been withheld and their relation to me has not been specified for one main reason: to protect the innocent – me!

Carolina on my Mind

Traveling with my family is never boring; add to that the fact we chose to go to “the South”, and you have the makings of a fairly entertaining sitcom episode.

We flew into Raleigh, NC, and made our way southward. As were heading down I-40 to Wilmington, NC, our youngest, Sam, announced he had a foreign white powder on his sandal. I was fairly certain that it wasn’t anthrax so I kept driving. My wife, however, turned in her seat with a duly cautious look on her face intent on helping Sam determine the nature of this substance. Before this alert could develop its full potential for panic, Sam declared, “Oh, I know what it is. It’s powered doughnut. I just tasted it.” That opened a whole new potential for disaster as I nearly ran off the road while I tried to contain my laughter. The oddest thing about the whole incident, in retrospect, is I don’t recall any one of us admonishing Sam’s free-wheeling willingness to taste something on his shoe. Oddly enough, about an hour later, as we were looking for a place to have lunch, Sam made it very clear that he didn’t want any of the suggestions we were throwing out – this coming from a kid who eats sandal doughnut.

Our ultimate destination was Hilton Head Island, SC, and we decided to take the scenic route (read: really long), which took us through Myrtle Beach. What amazed me about this seaside burg was that within a 12-mile stretch on Highway 17 (the main strip), I counted 32 miniature golf courses. Stranger still, passing through this surreal scene on a Monday evening, every single one of these places was packed! So, next time you’re playing Trivial Pursuit and you’re asked, “What’s the miniature golf capital of the world?” you heard it here first.

Just after passing through Charleston, I rolled my window down to take in the pleasantly cool evening. Much to my disappointment, I didn’t hear the sounds of dueling banjos emanating from the stands of trees just beyond the road’s borders. So, Erin (my wife) turned on the radio and found a rather format-free station. We began our journey through the musical spectrum with Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.” Making the song “their own” Erin and Sam decided to whistle along with the opening guitar solo – unfortunately, both Erin’s and Sam’s whistling sounded more like someone with a tracheotomy was trying to sing along. Following Deep Purple was Milli Vanilli, Lady Marmalade, Grand Funk Railroad, and Eddie Rabbit.

After checking in at the resort, I dropped Erin and Sam off in our room and took Jack back to the car to retrieve our luggage. (Yes, you read that right: I was far too cheap to have the bellhop do this.) Upon returning to the room, Erin informed me that housekeeping was on its way up to change the sheets on the boys’ hide-a-bed – apparently, when Erin opened it up she discovered a liberal sprinkling of unidentifiable crumbs all over the bedspread. When housekeeping arrived (it was actually the bellhop I had shafted on the tip), Erin pulled back the bedspread to get to the sheets underneath and found a pair of young girl’s panties. Erin made a very interesting point at this juncture of our evening: “I don’t know if it’s better or worse that they were girl’s panties.” Jury’s still out on that one!

Our stay at the resort was very uneventful – just as we had planned – except for the shark sighting. As the boys were off making sand castles, Erin was reading, and I was eating Wheat Thins straight out of the box, I spied a small stir of activity directly in front of us where the sand and water met: it was a shark! I bolted up and made it down to the spot in seconds. A group of three young men from Australia were being menaced by this killer when I arrived. Not taking thought for my own safety, I grabbed the shark with one hand and threw him out into the depths – I’m not heartless. That shark wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon! As I made it back to my chair, Erin said, “It would have been more impressive if the shark were more than 12 inches long, and you had put down the box of Wheat Thins before you went out there.” Needless to say, I didn’t make the evening news.

On our last day, we decided to make a side trip to Savannah, GA, and then head back to Raleigh via I-95. As we were entering South Carolina from Georgia, the interstate was laid out like the gates of a high-end country club: beautifully manicured shrubbery setting off marble-capped brick pony walls and the South Carolina flag flying proudly in the median. Erin and I were extremely impressed. Only later did we learn that this display of Southern gentility was to belie the sights of “Café Risque” (a 24-hour adult diner/novelty store) and “South of the Border” (a garish, electricity-eating, neon-festooned amusement park/fireworks mall).

The capper to the trip was our Southwest Airlines flight crew. As we were taxiing toward the runway, one of the flight attendants sang the safety lecture to us to the tune of “Ice, Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice. I couldn’t make any of this up, I swear!

The Boston (rhymes with Tea) Party

Now that Tax Day has come and gone, enough time has passed to allow an objective view of our government’s revenue-collecting process. And tempers have cooled sufficiently so I won’t be accused of starting another tax payers’ uprising.

Not only do we get large chunks of money taken out of our checks, but the government goes to a lot of trouble of making sure you know how much they’re taking – they require your employer to print it right there on your pay stub. Adding insult to injury, you’re forced to “settle up” at the end of the year. It’s the government’s way of telling you how valuable you were to the American economy that particular year.

Before April 15, you gather up your W2 – although, you’re not quite sure whatever happened to the W1 – along with the other necessary documents (mortgage interest, business receipts, an IOU from your cousin Wilbur, etc.). You then trudge off to an accountant so you can have even more money taken away from you. After meeting with the accountant you’re told one of two things: you owe MORE or you paid TOO MUCH. The latter is always the preferred option, but that’s not the point. We’re forced to wait all year for the government to get back to us and let us know how valuable we were to them.

What are we smoking? How many of us would go to work for a company and freely accept the possibility that at the end of the year our boss could come to us and say, “You know, I think your work was a shade over mediocre. You need to write me a check for $11,769.52.”

That’s what’s happening with the government. One would think that our ever-changing tax burden is the direct result of our local and state representatives working hard on our behalf to “make a difference.” Ha ha ha! Now that’s funny.

Take the Big Dig in Boston as an example. This project started out as a tunnel to divert traffic beneath the city and remove the elevated roadways. After all was said and done, the Big Dig came in five years late and billions over budget. Yes, billions! Do you think the contractors ate that? Ha ha ha. That’s funny, too.

We blithely go throughout our days believing that our taxes are going to pay for schools, roads, the occasional geothermal energy plant, and so forth. And this would be fine if our politicians were professional contractors and project managers who understood what it meant to stick to a budget and keep their word. But what’s the number one profession of our politicians? Attorney. I have no qualms with men and women of the bar, but the last I checked, law school curriculum doesn’t include a single course on, say, managing multi-lingual construction crews.

Looking back on when I met with my accountant to prepare our 2005 taxes, the term “one hundred monkeys with typewriters” kept coming to mind. (I believe I may be using that out of context, but it seems to fit.) Despite Hollywood’s depictions of cute and cuddly monkeys, they really are vile creatures for the most part. I remember watching a monkey at the Bronx Zoo standing above another monkey in a tree and peeing on the one below. He had a knowing smirk on his face while doing this. I often get the same all-over icky feeling when a politician makes campaign promises. That being said, the point is clear: neither monkeys nor politicians should be allowed to write the tax code.