Life was much simpler when the one and only way to communicate remotely with someone was through a land line phone.  The rules of etiquette were fairly simple when it came to talking with someone on the phone and telephone protocol was pretty straightforward.  It’s hard for me to pin point a date when text messaging became popular because I spent years resisting texting as a form of communication.  Honestly, I didn’t realize what the fuss was all about and was somewhat proud of the fact that I refused to text.  However, it was only a matter of time before I realized that the fuss was legitimate and that texting was a form of communication that was not only incredibly effective but also quite efficient.

While texting opened up new doors for me, allowing me to send succinct messages to people in order to relay a message without having to get into an all out conversation, it is not governed by the same rules of etiquette and the protocols that phone conversations  are governed by.  First of all, texting allows communication between groups of people to communicate with one another, often times not even knowing who exactly is part of the conversation.   The “Group Text” could be compared to a conference call but for the fact that people can be put on a group text who don’t want to be part of the conversation and are unwillingly subjected to the group’s continued communication. In a conference call if you don’t want to be involved you just hang up.  While I realize there is allegedly a software upgrade that allows an individual to “opt” out of a group text message, I have never actually known anyone who is utilized this supposed software upgrade.

One particular group text I was a party to ended up continuing to the point that one of the people who was an unwilling party began to object to the text.  Once this occurs there are two ways the text can go, it can either result in a barrage of text messages in a further attempt to piss off the objecting member of the group text or it can completely kill the group text.  In my mind neither one of these possible outcomes is a bad thing, but I have a hard time relating to the person who feels the need to object, because it really isn’t that difficult to ignore text messages, they pop up on your phone for two seconds and then they go away.  Unless, there are still people out there who have a certain limit of text messages per month, but if that’s the case that’s on them and I say let the text messages keep coming.

Another thing that is unique about text messaging is the fact that there is never a clear way to end a text messages.  On a phone call you merely say good bye and hang up, but on a text message rarely does someone actually say good bye.  Furthermore, in a phone conversation the person on the other end is obligated to respond to whatever statements you make whether they be innocuous or highly offensive, you will get a response letting you know where that persons stands regarding whatever statement you made to them.  In a text message your text can just be left hanging out there like an 88 mph fastball right down the middle of the plate.  Was that person offended by what I texted?  Will they still be my friend?  Are they ever going to speak with me again, in person?  Should I apologize?   I have way too much self doubt to do this texting thing!  And then a text comes through and you see “LOL”.  Oh yeah, I still got it, I’m a witty and clever texter, this person totally gets me.

Similarly, I have run into situations where a text exchange is going along splendidly, I’m on my A game and the shit I am texting is pure gold.  All of a sudden there’s no reply, crickets, it’s as if that person had to do something work related, pay attention to their family, or actually concentrate on driving.  How dare they!  You’ve got a guy who is probably in the top 5% of all texters on this planet texting with you and your just going to give him the Heisman?  I’m sorry I’m the one who was leading this text exchange, providing witty and insightful comments, and you have the nerve to just end it out of the blue,  sorry it shouldn’t work that way,  I call the shots here.

An additional difference with texting as opposed to actual conversation is the fact that sometimes people will text me and instead of texting them back I immediately call them back.  When they don’t answer it gives me the feeling that that person feels the need to keep our relationship at the high school girls level, we can text but you just aren’t significant enough that I’m going to waste my time actually speaking with you.  Immediately all my insecurities come rushing to the surface making me feel worthless and  causing me to question why that person doesn’t want to speak with me.  (I’ve run into a similar situation  with my wife where she will actually call me, I miss the call and immediately call her back but she doesn’t answer, this drives me crazy because she just called me, it’s like WTF did she just throw her phone out the window of her car as she was driving down the highway?)

Lastly, when I get into group text exchanges I’m typically providing most of the A material in the group text, but when someone else contributes, even though their comments are rarely on par with mine, I feel the need to affirm their comments so they don’t feel rejected or that they are being left out there to twist in the wind.  Maybe it has something to do with my birth order, I’m the oldest and was always doling out affirmation to my siblings so they would have a sufficient amount of self esteem.  On top of that, when I have hit a home run in a group text I feel like there should be someway to end the text with a sign off acknowledging that I am fully aware that I just knocked one out of the park and there is no need for a response from other people on the text because it will merely fall short in light of my textacular text.  Maybe something like ending the text with WO for “Walk Off” would work as a signal that no one else need respond.

On a completely unrelated note I have found myself really liking Justin Beiber’s latest hit, well he actually has two out right now, but I really like “Sorry” but I feel really bad about it.  When it comes on the radio it’s not like Michael McDonalds songs where I turn it when I realize who it is, I actually turn the volume up.  Should I be ashamed of myself for this?  Is it wrong of me to like Justin Beiber?  I need some feedback from the four people who read my blog, I would have sent out a group text on this subject but you know how that goes.

 

 

“Hello, is this Sharon?”

“This is, who am I speaking with?”

“Mrs. Peters, this is attorney Jason Jansma, I have been retained by your husband.”

“Oh, goodness no, I didn’t see this coming, is he filing for divorce?”

“First of all women never see it coming, men are much better about hiding their displeasure with their spouse.  Typically when I contact a husband about his wife filing the first thing out of his mouth is “what took her so long?” where as men can live in misery for years without saying a peep.  But that’s not why I am contacting you.  I have been retained to represent your husband as his agent.”

“Agent?  He’s an engineer for a plastics company, what does he need an agent for?”

“He needs an agent to represent him regarding domestic negotiations.  You see, you have the one thing he doesn’t, a vagina, and his pre-occupation with that one thing gives you an  inequitable amount of bargaining power.  So, the only way to level the playing field is to bring in a professional.”

“I guess I am relieved that he isn’t filing for divorce, but him needing an agent to negotiate with me is a bit troubling.”

“Listen, divorce may have been an option two or three years ago, when you only had one kid, but what person in their right mind would want to be a single parent to two kids, especially two boys? I’d rather take my chances raising a family of raccoons by myself.  Granted we did discuss divorce at one point but here’s the deal, I’m one of those guys who tells it like it is, and I told him, all women are crazy, you think divorcing this one and marrying another one is going to make you happy?  Grass is never greener on the other side of the pasture.  That was years ago when I gave him that advice and he came back to discuss what his options were now.  I’ve been offering this service to men for quite some time now.  Men are typically controlled by one thing, and that’s who my client’s are, those who are not controlled by one thing don’t need my services.”

“So, how is this going to work, are you going to be involved in every single decision that needs to be made by the two of us?  Like if he want’s to go to Arbys and obviously I never want to go to Arbys, am I going to be immediately contacted by you?”

“For the most part it’s up to him what he want’s to bring me in on, I’m guessing he’s not going to cave on his desire for Arby’s just so he can get some hanky panky, because Arby’s is that good, so he may bring me in, but that could get awfully expensive.”

“He did want me to get the ball rolling on negotiations though, it’s more at this point pointing out things that bother him right now more than anything else.  When your monthly visitor is in town can you please make sure the aftermath is taken care of, as in flush it all down, nobody needs to see that.  He also wanted me to negotiate something that he thinks you may be willing to agree to.”

“I’m all ears”

“Ok, he indicates that he is willing to take over all laundry duties, including folding and putting away all the kids and his clothes, he’d never even dare fold your clothes.  Apparently, and he didn’t say this, but it has been implied through the course of your marriage that that is your responsibility for the most part, not necessarily the washing, but the folding and putting away of the clothes.  Lately, like the past six months, he claims you have been neglecting the laundry and most weeks he finds himself routinely going into the laundry room and sifting through piles of clean clothes to get something for the kids to wear.  Nobody should live like that.”

“I can’t wait to hear what he wants in return.”

“He’d like sex twice a week and once on the weekends.  One of the weekly times can be where you just lay there and count the seconds until it’s over, but at least once a week you have to kind of pretend like you are into it.  Obviously on the weekend it’s all out, we need 110% out of you.”

“And he will take care of all laundry duties, all I have to do is just fold and put away my own clothes?”

“Yes, pretty much, you do have to actually put away your clothes though, you can’t just leave them in piles around the bedroom, he wants them actually put away, oh and he is also requiring that you get rid of all your granny panties, he realizes the utility of the granny panties and that they also act as a warning sign that Aunt Flo is in town, but he just can’t bare to see you in them anymore, they are all stretched out and some of them even have holes in them, not even men wear underwear that are that dilapidated.”

“No laundry duties is quite compelling, but getting rid of my granny panties…., do I need to get rid of all of them, I am really attached to them.  I’m just going to have to think about this.  Is there a time frame for when I need to get back to you?”

“Ok, there’s one more thing that he wanted me to begin negotiations on.  He is looking to schedule a four day golf trip next month and he’s wondering what it is going to take to pull that off?”

“Well, if he will take one act of coitus per week out of the laundry negotiations that will get us headed in the right direction.”

“Ok, I can run it by him.  He wanted me to throw out the possibility of a reciprocal trip for you with your girlfriends.  Would that do the trick?”

“Maybe if I had girlfriends, I mean I guess I kind of do, but none that I would want to go on a trip with.  A bunch of girls going on a trip together away from their kids, what would we even do?  That sounds awful.”

“It sounds like heaven to me but if you don’t have any friends you want to spend that much time with that’s understandable I guess.  Well, I have to get with another client, I’ll touch base with your husband and see if there are any concessions that can get this deal done.  It was a pleasure speaking with you and don’t go buying any new underwear for the time being, not that you would, I think we are making real progress here.”

 

 

Not entirely sure if there is a time of year where fund raising attempts are higher than other times of the year, but based upon my experience on Saturday I am on guard when going to the supermarket. Granted, the Salvation Army people are always prevalent during the Christmas holiday, but who feels bad about not giving money to those people? On top of that, is there even a chance that any percentage of the donations made to what they would want you to believe is the Salvation Army actually go to fund a charitable cause? And I don’t really feel all that bad for them because they have a terrible approach to trying to pilfer money from people. They ring bells giving everyone advanced notice that they are trying to get you to donate money.

What does this do? Well for me, it does a couple of things. First of all, it allows me to find an alternate entrance to the store where there isn’t someone asking for money. Secondly, if they have every entrance covered I pick the bell ringer who most closely resembles a homeless person (because I never give money to homeless people, it’s like feeding seagulls at the beech, once you give them money they won’t leave you alone) and just walk right by them as if they weren’t even there.

Unfortunately for me, the Girl Scouts are much brighter in their approach to peddling their terrible cookies. I was running into the D&W on Knapp’s Corner for a Starbucks Coldbrew and thought to myself “it looks like there maybe someone in there trying to sell something, you really need to proceed with caution.” I’d been burned quite a few times by those people who give you a free Grand Rapids Press expecting that it will get you to immediately subscribe. Have you heard of the internet? Yeah give me a hard copy of the Grand Rapids Press and while your at it could you get me a copy of the Yellow Pages? Granted  my online newspapers do me no good when I want to start a bon fire at my house, but I’ve found gasoline is a perfectly acceptable substitute for newspaper when it comes to starting fires, and much more exciting.

Did I proceed with caution as my inner voice had instructed me to do? Of course not, and I was caught entirely off guard by a group of over privileged school girls and their over privileged moms. Not off guard enough to fork over 4 bucks for a box of cookies that contained maybe 12 cookies tops, but I still don’t like having to say no to people if I have an alternative. (It’s why I frequently tell my kids to ask their mom instead of just telling them no when they demand  gum at 8:30 in the morning) For goodness sakes at least throw a minority into the cookie selling mix. If you have a minority in there I have to believe your going to better your sales by at least 25%, granted I’m pretty sure the Forest Hills Girl Scouts would have no idea where to locate a minority to boost the sales of their cookies. Sorry, but I’m not buying cookies from a group of girls who all have better i phones than I have. Can’t you just have your rich parents buy a thousand boxes and leave me the hell alone?

The truly terrible part about this is that there was an alternative girl scoutless entrance/exit available, but I only was able to determine that, and exit that way, after I was ambushed entering the store.   In my mind supermarkets should be under some type of obligation to alert their patrons that there are solicitors present, and that customers need to be on guard when entering the store.  While this is somewhat of a solution to the problem it only works  for stores that have multiple entrances, where it doesn’t work is at the Ace hardware in Cascade.  There is only one way in and out of the store so making contact with would be solicitors is unavoidable.  Last summer some kids and a couple of adults were selling “gourmet” popcorn. It wasn’t entirely clear who they were affiliated with, and they may very well have been just some dudes who recruited random kids to sell over priced popcorn.

They got me, and it was one of those rare times in my life where I was incapable of being an asshole.  Furthermore, I made the cardinal sin that I’m pretty sure no Dutch person worth their salt would ever acknowledge or actually do, I failed to ask the price of the popcorn prior to saying “I’ll take two bags.”  In my defense it was chocolate drizzled popcorn, you put chocolate drizzle on anything and it sells, husbands out there who have wives who love chocolate but are not particularly fond of something else, well, I think this would be a good way to test the power of chocolate.  “You put chocolate where?  Have fun getting that off without my help.”

It ended up being something like $8 a bag and the bags were the size of the bags of chips you get with a subway combo meal.  The only thing worse than having one put over on you by a bunch of 12 year olds is being yelled at by the student life guards at the community pool.  “Sir, your kid can’t be in the deep end of the pool, it’s pretty obvious by the way he’s clinging to you he has no idea how to swim.”  “I’m really sorry, it won’t happen again, just don’t kick me out of here, this pool is the only thing that keeps me sane, don’t take it away, please don’t!”

While I’d like to think that the Girl Scouts and the popcorn selling kids are selling their products for worthy causes, I don’t.  What is the point of the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts?  Isn’t there an app you can put on your kids phone that takes the place of these organizations?  Do my kids really need be part of an organization that focuses primarily on knot tying and wears all brown?  I can over look the preoccupation with knot tying, but not the head to toe brown.  “If our kids could resemble giant turds I feel like that’s going to get the parents 100% behind our organization, well that and some gay scoutmasters.”

I was never in  the boy scouts, I was in something entirely worse, cadets, it’s boyscouts for kids who have the unfortunate luck of being born into the Christian Reformed church.  Not only did we learn about knot tying, we also had to learn about God and how to be better knot tyers (i’m not sure tyers is a word, but spell check isn’t giving me any suggestions for it) for Jesus Christ.  At the end of every cadet meeting we had to all stand in a circle holding hands with the lights off and sing “Living for Jesus”. (I still know all the words to Living for Jesus)  I learned early on you wanted to be between two kids and not two counselors, kids hands are much less sweaty than adults.  No way the Boy Scouts could have ever gotten away with doing something like we did to conclude our meetings, not with the rampant amount of homophobia running through that organization.   Well, at least we never had to sell cookies.

 

Everyone makes terrible decisions.  No matter who you are or how much common sense you have something is going to go wrong in your decision making process.  Wether it be that pair of skinny jeans that seemed to look fabulous in the dressing room mirror or that new spouse that you just had to have, choices are often done hastily and improperly.  Fortunately, or possibly unfortunately depending on how you look at it, my job is to fix peoples poor choices.  As a criminal defense and family law attorney I have seen some doozies over the years, the poor choices I have seen people make allow me to feel much better about that star wars action figure set I bought for $200 at a garage sale in Ionia prior to attending law school at a time in my life when I didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.  Furthermore, I don’t even think twice about when I bought that second pair of crocs when they had likely gone out of style (were they ever in style?  I’d like to think they were) after losing my first pair, in light of some of the decisions my clients have made.

However, there is one decision, which I initially wanted to blame on my wife, that is probably going to haunt me for the rest of my life.  Some may think I actually went through with that vasectomy reversal I had been contemplating (I really would like a daughter so that Shirley has someone to spend time with when Tod, Ted, and I are golfing, skiing or at Cedar Point)  but it’s much worse than that.  I bought the largest size container of crunchy peanut butter possible.  Not sure what I was thinking, but the other day I went to the cupboard to grab the peanut butter for a sandwich and discovered it was crunchy.  It was similar to the level of disappointment that occurs when I am expecting business time only to discover my wife in bed and sound asleep (some may say what’s the problem?  Unfortunately, she’s not that sound of a sleeper)  I’m not even sure why they make crunchy peanut butter.  First of all, it’s disgusting looking and second of all it’s rougher than a gravel road.

Have you ever tried to spread chunky peanut butter on bread? Unless your bread is made out of metal it completely destroys it.  On top of that it’s all nutty.  I have often thought to myself “I don’t like these nuts because they are way too nutty.”  Had I bought a normal sized container of crunchy peanut butter I could probably live with it, but it’s going to take months, if not years to get through this jar of peanut butter.  The best solution to solve the peanut butter conundrum is to make my kids eat it, but I haven’t introduced the crunchy peanut butter to my kids, and based upon the fact that the most innocuous of things is entirely unacceptable to them, they will throw a shit fit if I try to make them a crunchy peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  And while we are on the topic of nuts, why do they even bother growing any nuts besides peanuts, cashews and almonds?  Whenever someone receives mixed nuts they first eat out the cashews, then some of the peanuts get eaten, but when it becomes too difficult to sift through the other nuts that no one will eat to get to the peanuts the can just sits there for months until someone has the courage to throw it away.  Doe anyone even know what the nuts are called that accompany the peanuts and cashews in the mixed nut containers?

So, it looks like I am stuck with a gigantic jar of crunchy peanut butter until I either suck it up and eat it or just combine the peanut butter with something my kids like like sugar and get rid of it that way.  While crunchy peanut butter should be taken off the market due to it’s impracticality and the toll it takes on bread, what I really don’t understand is why anyone would put nuts in bread.  As I said, the problem with nuts often times is the nuts so I definitely don’t want nuts in my bread.  However, that seems to be the trend with the whole grain “healthy designer” breads these days.  Nothing stands out quite like actual nuts put into sandwich bread, it’s like a white guy trying out for corner back in the NFL “what are you doing here? the kicker try outs are over there by the field goal posts”  Nuts don’t belong in bread people, you know where they belong, with other nuts, that’s the only place they should be, hanging out with other nuts.  If  you want to  ruin a perfectly delicious chocolate chip cookie you put nuts in it.

While I can’t think of many things that nuts actually make better, there is one flavoring that completely destroys food even more than throwing nuts into it.  Banana,  that’s right even banana flavored crack would probably be terrible, that and green apple, green apple is down right disgusting, and if they decided to replace lemon flavor skittles with Banana flavoring I’m done.  I’m going straight to the sixth circuit court of appeals and getting an emergency injunction requiring the Skittles candy company to put lemon flavor skittles back into their candy and to require the person who came up with the idea of banana flavored skittles to have to wear a banana suit while they tight rope over Niagara Falls. Like I said, I love Skittles enough to pick out the green ones, but theres no way I can pick out the green and yellow ones, that’s just asking way too much out of me.  I suppose there is the option of switching over to tropical flavored skittles but that would be like dating a super model and then marrying anyone else.

Banana flavoring is so repulsive that I actually have never even gone near the banana slurpee dispenser at 7-11, it’s the slurpee flavor most akin to plutonium.  I love slurpees and would shower in them if it wasn’t cost prohibitive and likely frowned upon by 7-11 employees.  However, the true test for my banana disdain, and I am sure it will come to this someday since Starbucks is already struggling to come up with new seasonal flavors (they care currently trotting out butterscotch this season) is if Starbucks comes out with a banana flavoring.  Sounds pretty crazy doesn’t it?  Well, you know what else sounded crazy 10 years ago?  Paying four bucks for a cup of Coffee.  “I’ll take a Venti Cold Brew Ice Coffee with two pumps of banana flavoring and a little half and half.”   I love you Starbucks.

Lady and the Tramp, Cinderella, Snow White,  The Fox and the Hound.  What do all of these have in common besides being animated movies geared towards children?  They all suck, granted they probably didn’t seem to suck quite as much when they were originally released, but compared to todays kid’s movies, they are down right awful.  In light of the plots, quality of the writing, and over all animation, it’s no wonder my parents rarely took me to see movies when I was young.  Well, that and I probably didn’t deserve it, nor did they want to spend the $8 it would have taken to treat our entire family to a movie and refreshments (the refreshments would have been smuggled in to the theatre, no way my parents were paying concession prices for candy and pop) back when I was a kid.

Friday night the Jansma family decided to hit Celebration Cinema South to see Zootopia (No, Zootopia is not a film about the U2 tour back in the 90’centered on their Zooropa Album, one of the lowest points in the band’s history, there isn’t a single song on the album that I recognize or that is worthy of mentioning).   Zootopia is about a rabbit who dreams of becoming a policewomen and moving to Zootopia, a city where predators and prey live in perfect harmony.  The movie was way beyond the reach of my kid’s and probably a number of the adults in the theatre as well, but the strategy of theatre executives to make kid’s movie’s more appealing to adults makes complete sense.  Since kids are incapable of taking themselves to the theatre (unless they have an uber account) it is essential that the parents be willing to sit through whatever movie their children are currently clamoring to go see. (My kids typically aren’t clamoring to see anything, it’s mostly my idea)

Back in my day this was a fact that studios failed to realize and it resulted in movies about princess’s and dwarfs named happy, bashful, and sneezy.  On rare occasions my kids actually have watched All Dogs Go To Heaven which is on our DVR (I would erase it but I don’t know how and fear that I would delete all the other movies that placate my kids if I attempted to permanently remove All Dogs Go to Heaven), it is a truly awful piece of garbage plus everyone knows dogs don’t have souls, even my five year old should know that.  I would rather watch the original Toy Story for 312th time than be tormented by a showing of All Dogs Go To Heaven.   Disguising movies as made for kids when they are more geared towards adults is complete genius and has resulted in amazing profits for the studios that are smart enough to implement this movie making strategy.  It’s hard for me to imagine that any of the animated movies made back when I was a kid could even come close to the  financial success of the Toy Story franchise, Kung Fu Panda franchise, and all the other movies Pixar and Disney have managed to create with today’s computer generated animation.

I realize there are some of you out there saying “I don’t go to movies, the last movie I saw in the theatre was Blazing Saddles”  What bothers me the most about people who make these statements proudly is that they think not going to movies is something to brag about.  Are you even an American?  Do you not realize that one of the best ways to escape reality not using some type of controlled substance is by going to the movies.  (The other next best option is sleeping, which I do a lot of)  Who doesn’t want to be Tom Cruise for two hours, jumping onto taxiing jumbo jets, holding their breath for 8 minutes and somehow having a defibrillator ready when you reemerge from under water in a nuclear power plant in Morocco, and of course banging a whole bunch of hot chicks, all the while wearing impeccable designer clothing even though the US government is putting every single resource they have into finding you.  (I just described the most recent Mission Impossible Movie, which was totally awesome)

Now I can escape reality and at the same time actually be entertained and I can do all of this  with my kids sitting next to me.  What parent would have ever thought this could be possible?  I think I speak for all parents when I say kids can be a primary reason for wanting to escape reality, and it strikes me as somewhat ironic that it can be done while one of the main reasons for a parents miserable existence is seated right next to you, your kid.   There are actually quite a few benefits to me for taking my kids to the movies.

First of all, I get to see a movie.  Second of all I get to eat Skittles, because my kids demand Skittles now every time we go to the movies. (There may actually be a Skittles gene, only they are willing to eat the Green Apple, I’ve gotten to the point where I throw all of the green skittles out, sounds like a lot of work but totally worth it to avoid the godawful aftertaste that they leave behind)  On top of that if Shirley is with us we also get popcorn with real butter, something my Dutchness can not justify, but I’ve learned not to stand between Shirley and her popcorn smothered in real butter.  Lastly, it keeps my kids entertained for roughly 90 minutes which is 90 minutes I don’t have to entertain them.

Movie execs aren’t the only ones who have realized the monetary gain to be had by including adults in children’s entertainment.  Back in the day it was hunter v. prey (Elmer Fudd and bugs bunny), Cat v. Mouse (Tom and Jerry) or Has v. Has not (Wile Coyote v. Roadrunner) when determining what cartoon to watch.  On top of that cartoons were typically only aired on Saturday mornings and were on a select few stations, granted there were only a few stations to begin with back then.  Now the variety of cartoons and stations they are aired on are more plentiful than flavors of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

With that variety has come an increase in creativity and quality to the extent that it has caused many of the morning cartoons my kids watch to actually catch my interest and has me paying attention to them.  (the cartoons, not my kids)  Granted, Dora is still terrible as well as some of the other cartoons that focus on teaching kids things, but if you take the ones that actually try and implement learning into their programming out of the equation, cartoons are quite watchable these days.

The genius in that is this.  When I was a kid I remember waking up at the crack of daw on a Saturday morning so I could watch cartoons.  At the time I often wondered why I was given unfettered and uninterrupted access to the television pretty much every Saturday morning.  Now being a parent I am fully aware of why but I try not to think too deeply about it.  So, there I am a six year old being bombarded with all of these advertisements for products that I will never be able to obtain. “Ok Bob, we really need to hit that 3 to 9 year old demographic with our new advertising campaign, granted they can’t drive to the store, nor do they have any money to buy anything even if they could, but this demographic if we market it right is truly going to pay dividends.”

Cartoons back then sucked and I’m pretty sure even after parents of that generation got done doing the deed they still didn’t have any interest in watching cartoons with their kids.   However, now a days parents, at least me, seem to be willing to watch cartoons because they can be somewhat amusing. What this does is opens up the advertising to someone who actually has the ability to do something necessary for advertising to be effective, purchase the product being touted.  Nerf machine guns, drink boxes with no nutritional value, cereal with more sugar per serving than a Milky Way candy bar, just think of the things my kids (and I ) would be missing out on if I didn’t love them and their shows enough to watch cartoons with them.

 

The world is full of things that you would think at first glance would immediately fail.  Around Valentine’s Day there was a major advertising campaign for the International Star Registry.  Yes, for those of you who were unaware of this business, it allows you to name a star after a loved one and have it registered with the US patent office.  I’m pretty sure it’s right up there with HIV and Herpes as least favorite gifts to receive from a loved one.  How much do you have to not give a shit bout someone to name a star after them, what are there like 6 gazillion stars out there?

Regardless, the registry was established in 1979 and somehow still exists and has been profitable enough to put together a website along with various radio marketing campaigns across the country.  If I have stoked your interest it appears there are three options for you if you want to tell a loved one how little you care about them.  The first option is your standard star and that goes for $19.95, the second option is the Extra Bright Star for $39.95 and the ultimate in star gift giving is the Binary star that they are practically giving away at the low  low price of $64.95.  How pissed would you be if your significant other skimped on the standard star when there were still one billion binary starts available?

While the star registry is something everyone can give as a gift as they see fit, I recently received a mailing from The American Institute of Criminal Law Attorneys.   Apparently I qualified as one of the 10 best criminal defense attorneys in Michigan for 2016.  I’m not even one of the 10 best criminal defense attorneys in my firm (we only have 4) so obviously they are merely sending these out to every criminal defense attorney in Michigan.

This became even more obvious when I realized all three of my partners received the exact same mailing.  Is this something unique to the practice of law?  Are attorneys so egomaniacal that they fall for this bullshit?  Or, do they also have these hokey services for plumbers, electricians, and accountants?  What I really don’t understand is if I’m one of the 10 best why do I have to pay $275 for them to be one of the ten best in Michigan?  Wait a minute!  It says here in the application that I need to provide them with my name as I would like it to appear on my engraved plaque.

An engraved plaque changes everything, engraved plaque’s are all the rage these days and if I can post a picture of it on Facebook imagine how many likes I could get, I’d say at least 20.  It also may change the way I am perceived by all of my peers and by judges.  “Your honor, instead of addressing me as Mr. Jansma I’d like to be addressed as the 7th best Criminal attorney in Michigan, at least for 2016, my goal is to crack the top five by 2017, but I really need to work on my 40 time along with my dictation skills.”

While I realize most people won’t actually fall for this type of gimmick regarding their career, I feel like there is a potential market here that to this point has been entirely untapped, at least with commemorative plaques.  Granted, there are plenty of T-shirts, coffee mugs, and possibly even bumper stickers that have garnered the claim that the owner of that item was a #1 dad, but I’ve never seen a plaque commemorating such an achievement.  Of the billions of dads out there, there has to be at least a million or so who would be willing to shell out a couple hundred dollars for a plaque commemorating their prowess as a father and indicating that they are a top ten dad.

And speaking of number one dads, why is it that mom’s never make the claim that they are the best mom out there?  Honestly, I have never seen a mother wearing a number one mom t-shirt nor have I run across a mother sipping coffee out a mug that touts her as a mother who is unrivaled in her abilities as a mom.  Is that how pathetic men are?

“Why don’t we start manufacturing some number one mom coffee mugs?  We are missing out on an entire market to purchase our product?”

“What women in her right mind would be dumb enough to purchase such a product and allow other people to think that she thinks she’s number one?  All it would lead to is a motherhood of trying to prove that she is deserving of her coffee mug, constantly feeling the pressure of having to live up to her mug, thinking that her mug needs to be destroyed every time she yells at her kids or tells them she’s leaving and never coming back because they are such terrible assholes and undeserving of her love.”

“Ok, I see your point, there are different levels of mothers and men, well most of them, are basically marginal at whatever they do, so you could claim to be a number one dad and not have to be too concerned about living up to that claim because the bar has not been set too terribly high.”

“However, I like the idea of a number one husband mug, that opens up an entirely new market for us to sell our crappy mugs to, and once again we are dealing with men who will purchase just about anything if it tells the world they are good at something.”

 

I’m not sure if it is genetic or just a characteristic I have developed over my lifetime, but I am one of the world’s biggest procrastinators.  This fact was made painfully aware to me prior to leaving for our vacation at the end of February.  February is my birthday month and to help you celebrate your birthday the State of Michigan allows you the pleasure of renewing your license plate tabs.  This can be done in one of three ways, through the mail, on the internet, or in person.  The mailing from the secretary of state sat unbothered for the first three weeks of February.  Finally I summoned up all my where with all to do something about renewing our vehicle tabs.  The first step was placing the mailing into my vehicle, it sat in my truck for a few days before I finally brought it into my office where it lingered on my desk for another few days.  The clock was ticking and by the time I opened up the envelope we had had a major weather event that resulted in the premature closing of all SOS offices across the state.  Fortunately for me I had the option of going on line to renew my tabs.  The problem was that my most recent vehicle prior to my truck kept popping up so I was unable to use technology to compensate for my procrastinating.

No problem, I still have Thursday to get this done in person and the SOS office I go to is a block from my office and rarely busy.  Unfortunately, the weather issue seeped into the following day and the offices were closed for the entire day.  We ended up returning from Florida in March and at that point my tabs and registration were expired.  So, I was obviously going to get right on the renewal of my tabs first thing open of business Monday, right?  Nope, I strolled into the SOS office at around 3:30 pulled a number, 99 to be exact, the clicker was at 33.  At the rate the SOS operates I was looking at sometime after Easter before my number was going to be called.  I decided to head back to my office intending on returning around 4:30 to get things taken care of once and for all.  Well, I  ended up blogging about what will eventually be an entire revamp of my blog (the way I operate this change will probably take place when my kids are nearing the completion of high school) and never made it back to the SOS office.

After a morning meeting with a client I finally wondered over to the SOS office again.  Pretty sure I am the only person with a full time (mostly full time) job and access to the internet and stamps that personally goes to the SOS.  If you want to rub elbows with the dregs of society renew your tabs in person.  Knowing what I have known about the SOS for quite sometime my biggest mistake was not bringing an industrial sized spray bottle of Fabreeze with me.  While the experience of renewing my tabs in person was not real positive, as I was at the counter writing my check to the good old State of Michigan, “Excuse me mam, how many potholes is this $330 going to fix?  “A half of a pot hole?  Really, well that’s definitely money well spent, why don’t you give me one of those recreational stickers while you are at it so I can actually get something of value out of this experience.”  Excuse me, where was I?  Oh yeah, I was at the counter and one of my most memorable Elton John songs was playing in the background.

“Hold me close I’m Tiny Dancer” was playing.  You haven’t heard of it?  It’s one of his best songs ever.  Ok, that’s not really the name of the song, but I though it was for the first 30 plus years of my life.  Makes complete sense doesn’t it, my legs are so tiny that I need you to hold me for support.  Of course what makes even more sense is that I’m tired of dancing and I need some support from you hence the actual lyrics to the song, hold me close I’m tired of dancing.  I think what was problematic for me about the lyrics is that when I’m dancing I’m so completely liquored up that I don’t get tired, I’m the energizer bunny, I have never needed anyone’s support when dancing due to exhaustion.  Of course the support of my friends to tell me to stop dancing would have been welcomed.  You would think with the advent of the camera phone someone would have video taped me bombed out of my mind getting jiggy with it to show me when I’m sober the next day.  “Jason, this really has to stop, this is what you actually look like when you dance, you are  no where close to a hybrid of John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever, Justin Timberlake, and Adam Levine that you think you are.”  (Some time in the not too distant future they will be able to take the DNA of these three people and create the most amazing human to ever dance the night away)   When I start moving my limbs somewhat in conjunction with bobbing my head that’s a warning sign that I’ve probably already had too much to drink.

When I was single I didn’t mind going to the SOS.  The reason being is that every once in awhile there was an attractive employee at the SOS that worked behind the counter.  “39, 39, 39”  “yeah that’s me sir but I’m just going to wait until that attractive women over there is free to help me, no offense but I don’t have a lot of interaction with the opposite sex, you’d understand if you saw me dance.”  This always strikes me as odd when I see an attractive person working in a job that seems should only be designated for unattractive people.

Since 7-11 no longer exists in the West Michigan area I will use that as my example so that I don’t offend anyone (I’m trying to get through an entire blog post void of any material Shirley would object to)  I’m not sure why 7-11 is now defunct in West Michigan but I love Slurpees almost as much as I love Elton John (The Elton John before he wore the powdered wig and started doing sound tracks for Disney movies, I don’t much care for that guy)On top of the Slupries, 7-11 use to also carry the Melting Moments Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches  (I capitalized every word because they are that good)  and of course they are good they have 32 grams of fat and 59 grams of sugar per cookie, it’s a weeks worth of dessert packed into one ice cream treat.

On top of slurpees and artery clogging Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches, 7-11 was also the place my dad would take us when we would skip church.  Every so often my mom would stay home for whatever reason and we would pretend like we went to church only to get slurpees.  (My mom doesn’t read my blog so I don’t think my dad will catch any grief for his awesome parenting)  So, obviously there was a myriad of reasons why I frequented 7-11’s across the West Michigan area.  In all of my time venturing in to their stores there is only one time I saw an attractive person working there and it caught me entirely off guard. Wait a minute, you are way too good looking to be working here, attractive people don’t have to engage in menial labor, that kind of stuff is reserved entirely for ugly deformed people who don’t have access to a shower or anything else that helps lessen their overall hideousness.  Under normal circumstances I would have gotten really nervous, been super creepy, and likely embarrassed myself in the presence of someone that attractive, but the fact that she was working at 7-11 threw me entirely off kilter and I merely paid for my slurpee and walked out of the store.

There, I think I did it, I wrote an entire blog that was unoffensive, unless your ugly, but if you’re ugly, what I say in my blog is the least of your problems.  I’m pretty sure Shirley doesn’t work with any ugly people so I shouldn’t catch any grief when she gets home tonight.

When I heard they were going to do a Breaking Bad spinoff involving Saul Goodman as the primary character I was quite skeptical.  Saul made a hell of a periphery character but I truly doubted he could carry an entire show, especially an hour long drama.  Boy was I ever wrong,  the first season was tremendous and the second season is getting off to a terrific start.   The start of the second season has Saul (Bob Ordaway) quitting his job as a public defender and working for a large and prestigious law firm in the private sector.  He’s not exactly big firm material, but since he was able to bring in a large class action suit the firm is willing to take a chance on him.  The demographic for the suit is senior  citizens and Saul has some interesting ways in which he recruits potential clients to become part of the suit.  Ethically it is impermissible for attorneys to directly solicit clients.  They can send out mailers, advertise on television, radio, and the internet but they can not directly approach someone who hasn’t requested contact with them.

Saul stretches the boundaries of acceptable client recruitment but determines that he needs to do things by the book or he will likely lose his job and possibly his license to practice law.      He decides to produce a commercial for the firm to use as a tool to recruit potential participants in the class action suit.  However, he does not get permission of the lead partner prior to running the TV commercial and when the management of the firm catch wind of the commercial the shit hits the fan.

Saul, prior to going to work for a big firm was a one man show.  He had what many of us only dream of having, and if we actually do think we have it, it’s often times illusory.  Autonomy, how many of us can say we are completely autonomous.  Everyone has to answer to someone, but Saul as a public defender didn’t answer to anyone but his clients so he was free to do as he pleased.  In one segment of the most recent episode he actually goes back and does some pro bono work and bamboozles a couple of detectives with a far fetched story about his client so that they will put a stop to their initial investigation into his drug dealing.  He’s not doing it for the financial gain, he’s doing it because he loves the leeway and ability to free lance that his old job provided.

Unfortunately, I have also lost my autonomy as I have traveled through life, not only the work place but also in my private life.  My lack of autonomy became quite evident last night when my  wife began reading my blog.  She hadn’t read it in weeks, if not months, and began laughing immediately.  However, it was short lived and it only took a few minutes for her to be upset with the content of my blog.  Her complaints about my blog can be broken down into three categories.

I did a Peyton Manning piece that was entirely what I believed would be his voice, not my voice but his voice.  In the piece I had Peyton use the word lesbo.  Shirley indicated that she works with lesbians and what if they were to read my blog?  This is what I didn’t want to have to do, explain what I thought to be an intelligent and clever piece that was not meant to be offensive to lesbians, and didn’t want to have to defend myself and my writing.  My take on lesbians is that if I were in their shoes I would do the exact same thing.  Men are truly disgusting and I can’t blame women for being attracted to other women, I’m attracted to women.  Now, here is where it gets a bit dicey, an attractive lesbian is akin to a unicorn, they are quite difficult to come by.  My question is, why aren’t there more attractive lesbians?  I’m sure I will receive a fair amount of flack from my toughest critic for this observation, but it’s merely an observation.  If the lesbians of this world want to prove me wrong parade out some attractive lesbians and I will immediately recant my statement.

Gay men on the other hand are a bit more difficult to comprehend.  As I stated earlier, men are disgusting.  I’m not opposed to the whole idea, it’s just one of those things that takes some getting use to and at some point it won’t be remarkable to see two guys holding hands or making out.  The plus to the gay thing that may actually over come the disgusting nature of two men being together (at least in a heterosexual couple there is by definition one women to enhance the over all attractiveness of the couple) is there is absolutely no chance of pregnancy out of wedlock.  One of my biggest fears as a parent (other than one of my kids  becoming a hipster) is knocking a girl up at a young age. My youngest is already a total player and he’s only three years old.  Honestly, part of me is really damn proud of the kid, I can already tell he’s going to be able to pull a lot of tail, but part of me knows the pitfalls of  such an overdeveloped affinity for the opposite sex.  Your son tells you he’s gay and you have nothing to worry about in terms of an unplanned pregnancy, unless your son and his boyfriend forget to spayed or nuder their toy poodle.

The second issue that is problematic to Shirley about my blog is that she works with fat people.  Who doesn’t?  What if someone who was overweight read your blog, they would be quite offended.  Offended enough to go on a diet I should have asked.  Fortunately I didn’t.  “You know a lot of people think that husbands and wives share the same viewpoints and  I would hate people thinking that I have the same viewpoints you do.”  This had me a bit puzzled, I’ve never actually thought husbands and wives share the same viewpoints.  Granted, I’m sure many wives think their husbands share their viewpoints but chances are they really don’t.  “Oh yeah honey I’m totally fine with having sex once a month, that’s a terrific idea!”   I would hope that anyone who knows what I think would not leap to the conclusion that someone who is either related to me by marriage or blood doesn’t share my viewpoints.  My viewpoints are entirely my own and are  shared by no one.

As far as overweight (fat) people go, in my  mind the ones I am really going after are not the fat people who like to eat.  It’s the fat people who like to eat and then do absolutely nothing ever.  The people who  are so lazy they ride around on an electric shopping carts and have one and only one hobby, stuffing their face, are the people I am going after, at least for the most part.  If you have a healthy appetite, sweet tooth, or love the salty snacks I’m not going to hold it against you if you at least get out there and exercise a little bit or exhibit enough self control that electronic carts aren’t your primary mode of transportation.  I will add a caveat to this though, those people who are on a perpetual diet, but never seem to lose any weight, and often times manage to gain weight while dieting, they deserve to be ridiculed.  Just tell the world you are overweight, you have come to terms with it, and that it’s no one else’s business as long as you aren’t a drain on the health care system (which you probably are, when I was at the hospital frequently for my mom’s surgery 90 percent of the patients were morbidly obese).  Stop thinking you are fooling people into thinking that you are actually trying to combat your weight problem by merely claiming you are on the latest diet fad.

The last objection Shirley has to my blogging is my use of shocking words and phrases, primarily the F word.  If you looked at my F bombs per word this blog would barely get a PG-13 rating.  I realize the F word isn’t naturally funny like a fart is.  (My kids laugh every time they fart and I didn’t even teach them to do that, ok it probably didn’t help that when I farted in their presence I automatically laughed, I couldn’t help it it’s innate, but honestly they have a keen grasp for what is funny, and farting is hilarious).   What the F word does is it really drives home a point.  Shirley was complaining about my use of the term fat F#ck.  So, I edited it to fat people, I’m sorry but fat people doesn’t adequately describe the people who were waiting in line to get electric wheelchairs at Bush Gardens.  There are other terms and phrases that are also  seemingly unnecessary to Shirley, she indicated that shocking phrases don’t add any humor so why even bother.

What troubled her even more was how upset I was that I was loosing creative control of my blog.  “You don’t get paid for this, what’s the big deal?”  What she doesn’t understand is I have at lest 3 or 4 loyal readers and they need me in order to get through their boring and miserable existence.  My blog is that refreshing warm breeze at the end of a long winter.  Besides, I like writing and it is a creative outlet that does little to no harm to anyone, at least in my mind.  Granted she did bring up a point, what if your parent’s friends read your blog?  Well, I’m not gearing my writing to people in their 60’s but hooray for them if they have managed to find a way to get on the internet and stumble upon my blog.

The harsh reality is that happy wife =’s happy life.  As long as I continue uninhibited blogging it will be a cause for concern at home.  So, I need to reboot the blog to maintain my autonomy or I need to lose some of my autonomy.  I’ve been toying with new blog names and new pen names that will allow me to be somewhat anonymous.   Like Saul I just can’t lose my autonomy, there are certain things one must stand up for, and the freedom to express myself is one of those things.  My hope is that I create a name and an alias that brings about an increased readership and also allows me to enhance the blogging experience by adding pictures and other cool shit to my blog.  As I brainstorm I will be rolling out new site ideas to my loyal readers and should be able to come up with something much better than serenitynowinsanitylatercom.com.  Stay tuned folks.

 

 

Michael McDonald, some of you may actually have known that he use to be in the Doobie Brothers, until he decided to have an amazingly successful solo career and ultimately end up having his music played religiously on every light music station across the United States.  What most people don’t know is that he collaborated with Nate Dog and Warren G to do a second version of Regulate where McDonald sings a chorus from one of his many terrible songs “I Keep Forgetting we’re not in love anymore…” (my apologies, that’s probably going to be in your head all day now) at various points in the song Regulate.  I love the original version of Regulate, but this  second version, every time I hear it, it just takes me to a special place, but it also makes me wonder how two West Coast rappers were even aware of one of the whitest singers around and secondly why they would think collaborating with him would be necessary to increase the popularity of what was surely their biggest hit?  (I would have provided the link to the youtube video but I’m on vacation and even more technologically handicapped than normal)  I can just hear Nate and Warren discussing this over a bowl of cheerios before they get ready to record another monster hit.  “Hey Nate, you know what could get every single black person to hate us and the song Regulate?”

“I have no idea, why don’t you enlighten me Nate.”

“If we can that guy Michael McDonald, dude who use to sing for the Doobie Brothers, to inexplicably sing one of his choruses from a song of his in the middle of Regulate.”

“You’re right that could turn every black person in America against us, but it may get a few  white people to like the song, let’s get in touch with him, I heard he likes to go roller skating on singles night at the local skating rink, maybe we can talk to him about it there.”

“Sounds like a plan, can you pass me the milk?”

I have honestly been driving down the road and a Michael McDonald song will come on the radio, midway into the second verse I am so hypnotized by his melodic voice that I don’t even realize I am still listening to the song, instead of immediately turning the station at the first clue that a song of his is being played.  For whatever reason the guy has a hold over me even though his music is terrible.  The reason I go into this is because for the first time in my life, and this could only happen in Florida, I heard the song Escape two days in  a row played on the radio.  For those of you who are not as familiar with Escape as I am, it’s the “if you like Pina Colada’s” song.  This may be one of my favorite songs of all time.  Whenever I hear it it instantly puts me in a good mood no matter how bad of a day I am having.  The premise of the song is that a guy is tired of his “old lady” (try getting away with using the term “old lady” in a song today) and puts an ad in the personals about what he is looking for in a new mate.  He wants someone who obviously likes frozen alcoholic beverages as well making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape (who doesn’t?)  along with them not being into yoga and having half a brain.  Ultimately, he sets up a meet with someone who responds to his ad and it turns out to be his old lady.

I’m not sure why I like the song, it seems like it would be something Jack Tripper would play at the Regal Begal when he’s trying to score some tail, but to me it tells a great story that is often times all too common in relationships.  Complacency causes boredom which in turn causes wandering by one party or both parties in the relationship.  According to the song, he didn’t even know that his old lady liked Pina Colada’s but now he does and that is a solid way to reboot an other wise failing relationship, a mutual affinity for Pina Colada’s. Escape was written and sung by Rupert Holmes and was the final song to be number one when 1979 concluded.  Now I know Shirley like’s Margaritas, but I’m not sure what her stance is on Pina Colada’s, does she like them, merely tolerate them, or disdain them?  This family vacation has been a bit taxing on our relationship so maybe I need to pull the Pina Colada card to get us heading in the right direction as our trip concludes.

While it took a lot of courage to admit that Escape is one of my all time favorite songs,there’s something else that actually occurred on this very trip that is somewhat shameful and could actually keep me from consideration for the parenting hall of fame.  Last night I ran out for Margarita mix and Tequila, but the real reason for my excursion was so I could go out for ice cream by myself.  I did some Googleing and had determined what the best ice cream place in the Bradenton area appeared to be and I decided that last night was the night to find out if it stacked up against the likes of Shermans’ (the best ice cream I have ever had but unfortunately inconveniently located in South Haven, I actually stopped at Wal Mart one time and bought a styrofoam cooler so I could transport two half gallons back with me to GR on my way back from court in Beton Harbor)

I was flying solo and loving it, obviously I felt a bit guilty about that fact, but it was amazing for two reasons;  because I didn’t have my kids with me it was as if I had just been released from a lengthy prison stint and on top of that all the old people were already off the roads and likely in bed (it was 7:45pm).  The traffic around here is truly dreadful during the day when the old farts are out and about and I actually considered just driving around for a couple hours to enjoy the lack of gridlock and kids.  The name of the ice cream place I decided on was Tylers and as I entered it felt all wrong to not have my kids with me, but all wrong in all the right ways.

I scanned the ice cream selections and scanned them again, something I would never been able to do with my kids, take my time on my ice cream selection, because they immediately clamor for ice cream the minute they see it.  As I scanned the flavors one particular flavor caught my attention, Creamy Goodness, I was immediately intrigued.  I asked one of the teenage girls behind the counter what exactly creamy goodness was (even when I’m not trying to be creepy I still come off as creepy) and she said it was chocolate ice cream, crushed oreos, and marshmallow.  I’m not a big fan of marshmallow, but thought I would give it a taste.  It was delicious!  So I decided on a waffle cone with that flavor on bottom and a scoop of malted milk ball on top.  You know what makes ice cream taste even better than normal?  Not having your kids around to dampen the ice cream eating experience.  Typically both my kids, even thought they have their own ice cream, are more interested in mine than theirs and are constantly asking for bites of mine.  Of course, when I ask for some of theirs they never oblige.  Without my kids around I had no one I had to share my ice cream with, although I did offer some creamy goodness to one of the other patrons.  (sorry I couldn’t resist that last line)

The true question is why we as humans willingly enter into a parasitic relationship?  Out in the wild parasites are avoided at all costs, but we openly walk into this thing called parenting where are children will take, take, and take with very little in return.  Granted, Ted is quite cute, but if I want cute I can get a puppy, and no puppy I have ever owned has tried to get at my ice cream.  On top of that puppy’s love you no matter what, kids do not.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “I don’t like you daddy” because I am not giving in to my kid’s unreasonable demands.  That being said, I probably need to go back to Tyler’s with my kids to determine if the ice cream is actually good, the euphoria of not having my kids with me may have caused me to misjudge the actual quality of their ice cream.  I’ll have to write my google review after a trip there with my kids, or maybe I’ll just go run out for some Pina Colada mix instead.

 

(This may be my last blog from Florida, my battery is down to 12 percent and Shirley left the charging cord at home.  She has her work computer, but knowing Shirley she probably won’t let me use it for blogging purposes, but I will try my best, Florida is blogging heaven with all the material to write about)

 

 

 

 

Hollywood seems to be banking on remakes and sequels lately.  Anyone who goes to the movies will see posters for a myriad of sequels and remakes that look to be pretty awful.  What isn’t in the works for a remake, at least as far as I can tell, is the original Vacation movie starring Chevy Chase.  Granted, some studio rolled out Meet the Miller’s or Were the Miller’s with Jennifer Anniston and Jason Sedakis about a road trip, but it was loosely based on the original vacation concept and they traveled in a luxury RV.  Part of the reason a studio couldn’t remake Vacation is because it isn’t plausible.  No one wold believe that a family would load up in their station wagon and travel from Chicago to Southern California, it’s just not plausible.

I’ve mentioned before that part of me wants to put my kids through all of the miserable shit I had to endure as a child as a “character building” exercise.  However, one thing I wouldn’t want to put my kids through is any of the vacations that I went on as a kid.  Not because they don’t deserve to be put through the misery that I suffered through on multiple road trips to Colorado, Maine, and Florida, but because I would absolutely loose my mind if I were to attempt to replicate the trips my parent’s took me on as a child.

My first trip involved a Ford F-150 and a truck bed camper.  My mom, dad, my brother and I took my grandparents truck and camper out to Maine.  My brother and I rode in the back of the truce bed in the camper for most of the trip.  Two things still stand out to me from that trip, first of all my mom made us go to Amish Acres before we made our way out east. Amish Acres is located in northern Indiana and it’s as awful as it sounds, my mom would have been better off just watching the movie Witness (Harrison Ford has to live with a bunch of Amish people because some Amish kid witnessed a murder) instead of wasting our time forcing us to go hang out with Amish people.

The second memory from the trip was waking up in the morning in the parking lot of a McDonalds and having to pee really bad.  Unfortunately, my parents locked us in the trailer so we wouldn’t fall out while they were driving, I think they were worried that we would jump out while they were driving just to escape the misery of the trip, in hindsight it probably would have been worth the risk of injury.  My only option was to empty the contents of my bladder into red solo cups, I believe I filled up three solo cups while my parent’s were inside chowing down on Egg McMuffins, selfish jerks.

Things were definitely different back then, pretty sure I would never allow my kids to ride in a truck camper while I drove down the rode.  On top of that I would never agree to take a trip to Maine in a camper that was the size of a truck bed. The four of us somehow managed to sleep in that camper, I can’t imagine trying to do the same with my family.

We also took a Honda Civic wagon out to Colorado when I was ten and my brother was two.  My most vivid memory from that misadventure was stopping at a rest stop in Iowa on our way back to Michigan.  My brother had a complete meltdown, likely do to consuming a weekly recommended amount of sugar in the span of an hour, and ripped off his diaper while in the back of the station wagon.  He was inconsolable and entirely spastic, the patrons at the rest stop thought my parents were abusing him based upon the way he was acting.  I had no idea that that particular incident was a sign of things to come and that behaviorally my brother was only going to decline from that point on.

The final major road trip we took, at least that I was forced to be a part of, was to Florida and we drove on that one as well in my grandparents Cadillac Seville.  The reason we had to use my grandparents car is because we owned a chevy citation that was a four speed with rusted out floorboards that allowed water to seep in when you drove over large puddles and a Ford Grenada that was a three speed that went 0-60 in a roughly 40 seconds.

While it would be difficult to find the actual vehicles we took on these vacations in order to replicate the trips exactly as they had occurred.  However, what would be even more difficult is to not allow our children to watch movies on these trips.  I’m not sure what we did back then to pass the time while in the car traveling, but we weren’t watching movies, I’d like to think I read books, but I highly doubt that was the case.  As inconceivable as it is to imagine loading up a station wagon and traveling across country, imagine doing it without the benefit of DVD players, smart phones, and todays modern vehicles.

The crazy thing is that we are much better equipped to travel by car with what we have at our disposal, but even the thought of doing brings about immediate anxiety.  On top of that, if we had driven down to Florida for the trip we are currently on, we probably would have never left because we would’t have had a specific departure time that we needed to leave by.  The reality is that if I had to travel with my kids in a 1986 Honda Civic Wagon all the way to Colorado without today’s technology, they would have been “accidentally” left at a rest stop somewhere outside of Chicago.

However, if we owned a mini van traveling across country could be plausible, I still probably wouldn’t do it, but it would be a possibility.  We currently have a Dodge caravan as our rental and it is something to behold.  I have vowed to not purchase a mini van because in my mind it means that I have finally waived the white flag and given up on life.  However, I am now open to the idea of Shirley driving one so that I can avail myself of it’s many benefits.  First of all, instead of having to bring our portable dvd players and all the corresponding power cords you merely load your dvd into the player in the front of the car and whalaa your kids are immediately calmed down and entertained.  It also has automatic doors and third row seating that is easily accessible and comfortable.  Currently, in Shirley’s crossover the only person I’m willing to put in the third row seating is my mother in law.  One of the many great things about having two kids, as opposed to three, is that there are two doors on a minivan so they each have their own door to shut by pushing the button, not sure what we would do if we had another kid, I guess we could just send them to the back of the van and have them shut the tailgate but that would be kind of a pain in the ass.  Not sure how people made it back in the day when minivans only had one door, that must have been a trying time in history for parents.

This leads me to my latest stroke of genius when it comes to parenting and on elf the things I would likely need to implement if I was to survive any type of lengthy road trip with my family.  Any of you parents out there feel free to try this one if your kids are fighting over something.  Currently if my kids are fighting over something I tell them we are going to do eennie meenie minie moe to determine who gets to choose what they want.  This works out great because I can rig it to make sure whichever one of my kids is being the biggest dick doesn’t win.  On top of that, they love the playing the game, and to my surprise are always content with the outcome.  “And you are not it!”  If they had a parenting hall of fame and the induction criteria wasn’t based upon your entire body of parenting work but merely on one event, I’m pretty sure this moment of brilliance would have punched my ticket to Cooperstown (that’s where the baseball hall of fame is, may as well put my imaginary parenting hall of fame there as well).