December 9, 2008

 

Tim Baer

Target Inc. Legal Department

1000 Nicollet Mall

Minneapolis, MN 55403

 

 

Dear Mr. Baer:

 

I have been retained by Mr and Mrs XXX. My client’s accepted an offer made by your company on their website to purchase car seats. They purchased five car seats at a price of $42.99 per unit for a total of $227.85 (please see the enclosed copy of the order form pertaining to this transaction). Upon finalizing their purchase by making payment arrangements, they were informed by your company that this transaction would not be honored and the agreement your company had reached with my client was void.

 

Unfortunately, your company made an offer to sell car seats for the advertised price and my client’s accepted that offer with consideration. The Potvins expect your company to honor the transaction that was entered into for the quantity and price originally agreed upon by Target when the initial order for five car seats was placed. Please fulfill your end of the agreement no later than December 27, 2008. If the order is not completed by the requested date we will take legal action to enforce the agreement that was made between my clients and your company.

 

Should you have any questions or concerns regarding this matter feel free to contact me at my office.

 

Very Truly Yours,

 

Jason L. Jansma

Attorney at Law

 

The above letter was in the initial stages of my other wise promising legal career.  I considered redacting (and ultimately did after my buddy said he didn’t want his last name in my blog) the letter to protect the names of the innocent, but there are no innocent when it comes to this debacle.  Let me start out by giving a brief history of my legal career to give this letter a bit of context.  I started out as a prosecutor in Ogemaw County, the county seat is West Branch and it is located between Bay City and the Bridge just off I-75.  I was there for a year and upon leaving they ended up getting a Super Wal Mart, it was akin to a large city landing an NFL franchise.  From there I went into private practice at a firm where we were compensated based upon the actual revenue we brought in the door. This created an environment similar to what you would find at used car lot and it was a constant battle between the attorneys to get the best calls.   My primary practice areas were family law (which I had never done before) and criminal defense, as well as handling a couple of auto cases which were fairly easy and paid out quite well.

From there I went to work for ADAM (American Divorce Association for Men) which was actually HESS, HESS, & KMETZ.  My goal was to grow a criminal defense practice for the firm, but the lead partner unexpectedly passed away a year after I was there and the entire thing fell apart like Swedish furniture.  Ultimately, after dabbling in the mortgage business (have you seen the idiots who do mortgages?  not to mention the money they make) I hung up my own shingle and set my sites on Target.

My clients, the X family, didn’t have five kids in need of car seats at the time I made my demand letter to Target, nor do they have five kids now.  Ultimately, they wanted to resell the car seats at a profit.  Jon, the leader of this whole scheme, was and somehow still is a friend of mine, and is the one who put me up to writing the letter.  In his mind it was an open and shut case, apparently he had watched just enough Law and Order Special Victims Unit to be dangerous.  Unfortunately for him and me, they don’t cover basic contract law or the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) on LOSV, nor do they address basic common sense.  What they do have which makes up for it is Ice Tea in the prime of his acting career, how the guy never received an Emmy for his role in the show is beyond me.

Needless to say, Target never got back to me regarding my demand letter.  My only regret is that I couldn’t be there when Mr. Baer (or his secretary) opened up my letter.  Here is how I imagine it played out:

Mr. Baer, I feel like I can call him Tim even though we aren’t that close, is handed the letter by his secretary.  Normally a letter  like this goes directly into the shredder, but this one is so ridiculous, and my Tim Baer has a terrific sense of humor, so his secretary hands it to him to read.  He reads the letter once, then he reads it again.  He immediately calls a number of other attorneys from the Target legal department into his office so that he can read them the letter.  One of the newer attorneys begins to ask questions about the advertisement and other issues he believes pertinent to the case so that he can prepare a legal memorandum, all of the other attorneys bust out laughing.  They spend about five minutes making fun of the letter and decide that it needs to be taped to the fridge in the break room for posterity’s sake.

In my mind, the letter is still on the fridge in the break room, likely laminated to preserve it as it was beginning to yellow and fade.  It’s generally acknowledged around the office that if someone seems to be having a bad day the remedy is either a stiff drink or a referral to the break room to read the “letter” in order to lighten their day.  While I realize I may have breached attorney client privilege by posting this letter in my blog, what are your damages Potvin family?  What are your damages!!!

I am considering sending a proposal to John Grisham to co-author a book loosely based upon this scenario where a big corporation like Target walks all over a needy family like the Potvin’s (who reside in Crystal Springs and drive a Town and Country minivan)  it would be similar to the Rainmaker about an insurance company that completely f’s with a kid who has terminal cancer, the name of the book would likely be “Babies on Board” and in the book all of the kids die in a car accident because the parents don’t have the appropriate car seats for their brood of kids.  While Ice T has been over looked for his exploits as an actor, a pulitzer prize would undoubtedly be coming my way if I get this book off the ground, or at the very least it would be selected for Oprah’s book of the month club.

 

 

The first week of April I spent some of my time researching locations to relocate to in light of the fact that it was April but felt like February.  North Carolina seemed to be the perfect place to live, temperate climate, lots of lakes, and Cam Newton.  Amazing what a week can do for your state of mind. Winter?  What winter?  If you live in Michigan the only way you can cope with the cruel and awful season called winter is to treat it like that slump buster you had back in college or the last time  you were single (I feel sorry for my wife, she married a slump buster, never marry a slump buster), “Hey, who is that fat chick  trying to get your attention?”  “What fat chick?”  “The one who is waving at you”  “I have no idea who that is.”  At this point I have no idea what winter is and if it tries to re-introduce itself to me, I ‘m going to tell it to fuck off.

That being said, when the weather does finally get nice the knuckleheads typically get outside and start getting themselves in trouble.  That’s great if you are a criminal defense attorney since the primary  demographic of most criminal defense attorneys is knuckleheads, unless you are one of those knuckleheads.

Saturday was a gorgeous day and I managed to fill my day with early morning golf and an afternoon of spreading mulch (wood chips) and doing chores.  We had family friends coming over later in the day for a BBQ and a campfire so prior to their arrival I decided to get a head start on the campfire.  Unfortunately, I had the intention of having a fire a couple weeks ago and I had put two “fire starter” logs in the firepit along with a few other logs and kindling.  Against the advice of Shirley, I left it all in the firepit and since it had rained and snowed quite a bit since I laid the ground work for my first fire everything was quite saturated.  So, I had a small gas can filled with a mixture of oil and gas or gas and oil which I didn’t feel like dumping out in the woods by my house for environmental reasons, and thought utilizing it to start a fire would be the ideal way to dispose of it.  There was a little bit more in the can than I had remembered but I didn’t think it would be a problem so I poured a good deal of it on the contents of the firepit.

So, I set the can on the ledge of the firepit and ignited the aim and flame to start the fire.   Immediately a wall of flame sprang up from the firepit singing what little hair I had left on my head and starting the gas can on fire (fortunately I had sunglasses on which saved my eyelashes and eyebrows).  Meanwhile, Shirley and the boys were 40 feet away setting up a tent, completely oblivious to the pyrotechnics going on at the top of the hill.   I kicked the can off the ledge of the fire pit and it did a cartwheel into the bed of woodchips near the fire pit.  Not only was the gas can still engulfed in flames, it started the woodchips on fire as well as a couple of recently planted shrubs, while also threatening the well being of a small tree.

I proceeded to kick the gas can through our yard and into a nearby field as it continued to flame due to the significant amount of gas/oil remaining in the plastic container, resembling a molotov cocktail.  I moved at a somewhat brisk pace to go retrieve the hose, but I couldn’t move too fast out of fear that Shirley and the kids would be alerted to the potentially explosive situation that was unfolding.  Sure enough, as I made my way to the hose Shirley noticed the wood chips and shrubs that were ablaze and immediately went into panic mode.  “Hurry up! What were you thinking!  How did this happen!”  Luckily I was able to put out the gas can as well as the wood chips and the shrubs, and I think the small ornamental tree is going to pull through.  However, I left the hose running and Tod tried to put out the actual campfire that I had masterfully constructed.  That would have been adding insult to injury if he had somehow managed to extinguish it.

While I had done most of my mulching on Saturday, I still needed a couple of yards of mulch and was traveling back home from Lowes on Sunday.  I stopped in at Fruit Basket Flowerland to grab more mulch due to the fact that Lowes only sells bags of mulch (buying by the bagged mulch makes the cost of mulch about $100 per yard).   I had been purchasing my mulch from Harder and Warner at a price of $27.50 per yard and felt that that was a bit pricey.  However, it was $35 per yard at Fruitbasket and I almost didn’t pull the trigger on my mulch purchase.

Say what you will about how the price of gas is controlled, but at least I know when I purchase gas at Speedway (and sit and stare at their fountain drink dispenser out of pure amazement) that the Shell station down the road isn’t selling it 50 cents per gallon cheaper.  We need something akin to OPEC to control the global price of mulch.  Granted, a good Hollander would have called around to various mulch dispensing businesses and found the cheapest price, then they would have done a thorough cost benefits analysis based upon unit price/price of gas to get there/travel time, to determine where to purchase mulch.  I went based off what I always go off from when I am purchasing something, convenience.

While I chose Fruit Basket for it’s convenience, my plan was about to become quite inconvenient due to an Asian man driving a Toyota Sienna that was pulling a U-Haul trailer. There was no way my description of the U-haul trailer would do it justice so I had to get a picture of it so those reading this could realize how much of an idiot the guy was, especially in light of the fact that U-Haul rents utility trailers, but who knows maybe he was planning on doing some human trafficking later on and needed an enclosed trailer to effectively transport his cargo.

(it took me 45 minutes to figure out how to do that, and it’s sideways, but still I am pretty damn proud of myself for 1. not  throwing my computer out the window or breaking any thing, and 2. for actually getting an image to upload)

So, the guy had order at least a couple yards of stones that were about the size of golf balls (i’m assuming I don’t have to upload a picture of that since pretty much everyone knows how big a golf ball is) and the Bobcat can’t get the scoop into the trailer to unload the stones because Mr. Dipshit decided to go with the 4X8 enclosed trailer instead of an open air gardening/utility trailer.  The worker, who must have smoked at least 8 bowls of marijuana at that point is shoveling the stones out of the scoop of the Bobcat and into the trailer.  The reason I say he must have smoked a ton of pot is because he was shoveling the stones himself instead of making the guy do it himself.  No way anyone who isn’t baked doesn’t hand the shovel to the guy and say “good luck” or do what I would have done and hit the guy over the head with the shovel and bury his body with said shovel.  You could make a mighty nice life in Mexico with a Toyota Sienna and a 4X8 enclosed U-Haul trailer.

Ultimately, the guy finishes shoveling out the stones, at this point I’m assuming he’s coming my way to load me up with the mulch I ordered, nope, he’s heading over for more stones.  Instantly I run over as if my would be mulch is on fire and needs to be extinguished and ask the guy to get my mulch before he loads up the guy with more stones.  Unfortunately, I’m not as fast as I use to be and the guy already has the stones in the scoop.  I politely ask the driver to put the stones back  and get my mulch with a somewhat exasperated look on my face, immediately the Asian guy starts objecting in broken English “he no, he no, he already have stones loaded up!”  The guy unloads the stones in front of the U-Haul trailer and goes to get me my mulch.

As the worker loads up my mulch I turn to look back at the U-haul trailer only to discover that another worker has stepped in to shovel the stones as Mr. Dipshit talks on his phone. (likely arranging a pick up point for the trailer full of illegals he is about to turn a tidy profit on)  While this is complete bullshit, it doesn’t directly affect me so I don’t intervene since Franks worker number 2 seems like a big boy and perfectly capable of sticking up for himself.  Finally my trailer is full and as I take a final look back I see Mr. Dipshit with a shovel in his hand slowly scooping rocks into his trailer.  I bet he opts for the utility trailer next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my younger days I frequently woke up in strange places and had no idea where I was.  Construction zones, parks sleeping amongst homeless people, even a park bench in Scottsdale Arizona.  Those instances all had one thing in common, the over consumption of alcohol.  Now a days, other than when I’m on vacation, I’m fairly accustom to waking up in my own bed.  However, my kids seem to find ways to make sure I have interrupted and restless nights on a fairly frequent basis.  A routine has been established where I rub my kid’s backs, say their prayers, and then cuddle.  Somehow I ended up falling asleep with my oldest at roughly 9pm last night and ultimately awoke at 12:30 am with no idea where I was.  Once I was able to collect my thoughts and realized that I had fallen asleep accidentally, I went down stairs to grab my phone, which doubles as an alarm clock, and went to bed in my own bed.

Around 3ish my youngest awoke and demanded that his mom go into his room and sleep with him because he claimed to be scared.  It was a half yell/half cry and my wife’s response was “I’m sweaty and naked so you are going to have to go see what his deal is.”  Sweaty and naked?  How come I didn’t know about this?  And why didn’t I have anything to do with your current condition?  Regardless, I didn’t have time for questions out of fear that my youngest would wake up my oldest and it would be a complete shit show.  My youngest demanded that I sleep in his bed with him, and due to the fact that it was 3am and he had all the leverage, I obliged.  As I got into bed with him I let one go and he immediately responded by asking “did you fart daddy?”  I probably could have blamed it on one of his stuffed animals, or possibly even him,  but due to my lack of sleep I merely admitted to my transgression told him to slide over a little more so that I had enough room to fully sprawl out, and attempted to fall asleep.

Not only is my three year old more fidgety than a Meth addict who can’t score any  Meth, he sleeps on a  twin IKEA bed.  I think IKEA is Swedish for ultra shitty furniture, and there is a high likelihood that if I continue to join him in bed his bed is going to fall apart like a Chinese motor cycle.  (Who knows, now that China is such a world power and may be half way decent at building things the saying moving forward may have to be “it’s going to fall apart like Swedish furniture”)

I wish I could say this was an isolated incident, but it happens quite frequently, both me farting in the middle of the night and me having to get into one of my kid’s beds to placate them or having one of them climb into our bed. My resolve as a parent is usually mediocre at best, but in the middle of the night it is non-existent.  I guess the big question is, what are the long term consequences of allowing your children to run rough shod over you regarding bedtime protocol along with their constant refusals to remain in their beds?  Was Hitler’s mom a sucker when it came to bed time?  Did Donald Trump’s parents come running to climb into bed with him upon his first request for their immediate presence?  What were the short comings in Justin Beiber’s parent’s parenting style?

Obviously there are certain parenting choices that lead to obvious and immediate consequences.  Allowing your kids to eat candy after every meal or feeding them McDonalds six times a week will lead to their teeth falling out of their head and along with acquiring an uncanny resemblance to honey boo boo.  Coddling them, well it isn’t immediately evident that this leads to problems, but it’s quite evident that when kids know they can screw with their parents they screw with their parents.

This is primarily the reason I avoid hanging out with people who have well behaved children, it magnifies my shortcomings as a parent and makes it even more obvious that there will be consequences for my inability to be firm with my children.  One of my friends claimed his children behaved well on their car ride back from Florida, while I would like to think this is complete bullshit, I have been around his kids enough to know that it is entirely possible.  Whereas, had I dared venture with my kids down to Florida in an automobile, the only way my kids would have actually made it to Florida is if we were only driving when they slept, so it probably would have taken us 12 days just to get down to Florida and we would have ended up flying home.

Likewise, I’m sure most parents are hesitant to let their kids be exposed to the Jansma’s.  I’m sure the fact that it makes them realize “yeah we’re doing the right thing in how we parent” is offset by the reality that any exposure to our kids could send their’s into a complete tailspin, our kids are the equivalent of Ebola, any type of contact could lead to life altering consequences.

When I tell stories about my poor parenting to other parents part of my rational for admitting to such parental negligence is in the hopes that they will also share stories of their parental shortcomings.  Rarely does this ever happen, am I the only one who is being dominated by his children routinely?  Another rational is so that the parents I am speaking with will assure me that I am doing a fine job (similar to when your wife tells you she looks fat in something and she is expecting you to tell her she looks lovely) the only problem is these parents, unlike me with my wife, have absolutely no incentive to lie to me and tell me I am doing a fine job.  Oh well, looks like I am going to have to come up with something more creative than farting on my kid to avoid having to spend half the night in his IKEA bed.

It doesn’t take much to figure out that marriage coupled with raising children is a difficult task.  There are a number of reasons for this fact, but basically it comes down to the fact that they broke the husband/father mold when I came along.  I’m not sure on the actual statistics as to marriage failure rate, but I think it is hovering right around the 50% mark.  Now, there has been a steady decline in divorce filings, but that ‘s because more people are choosing not to get married.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  So, why get married when marriages typically fail? Unless you can marry me, and they are currently trying to clone me so that women all across the globe can enjoy the marital bliss that Shirley does, it’s likely to be a constant struggle.

While I am joking somewhat about how truly terrific I am (I am the only one who knows what the lint screen is in our dryer and I do make a mean meatloaf) one of the fundamental problems with marriage is that traditionally it has involved men marrying women.  No new news here that men and women are entirely different in their way of thinking as well as how they go about doing things.  I think my point can be illustrated when looking at at the game of golf.  9.6% of the population plays golf, of that 9.6% 77.5% are men and the rest are women (I don’t think they ran the stats on the trans gender population).   What I also found interesting was the fact that 68% of the golfing population is married, it didn’t say how many times they have been married or wether they are happily married, but a huge chunk of the golfing population is married.

What I also didn’t find out in my little fact finding mission is what percentage of the 68% of married golfers golf together.  My guess is not a real large percentage due to the fact that only 22.5% of the golfing population is female.  Now, why all these statistics abut golfing?  How does golf illustrate the difference between men and women?  Well, it shows what men value and what women value.  Most golfers, unless they are me, or are retired, have to golf on the weekends or evenings when they aren’t working.  For me, weekends and evenings are prime family time where I get to enjoy spending valuable time with Tod and Ted as they find new and exciting ways to torment me.

What the casual observer who is unfamiliar with golf also needs to know about golf is, not only is it primarily played on nights and weekends, it is one hell of a time suck.  On the occasion that I do get out and play on the weekend I typically schedule a tee time around 6am to avoid the typical 5 and a half hour round of golf.  I also avoid hearing “you’re just playing 9 right?” from Shirley due to the fact that I am typically home from golf before she even makes it out of bed.  9 holes? That would be akin to having a date night with your wife and concluding the night by dry humping on the couch (quite unsatisfying to say the least).

Most men who are avid golfers and enjoy playing have no qualms about spending 5 and a half hours out on the course separated from their family.  If you gave a women the option of spending five and a half hours on the golf course away from her kids the only thing that would seem more crazy is giving out bj’s when it’s not a holiday or somebody’s birthday.  (Don’t want to start that precedent now do we ladies?)  “I didn’t think it was my birthday today, but based upon what just happened it must be.”

Now, I realize there are men out there who have been fortunate enough to avoid picking up the sport of golf, and to all of you I say F off, you have saved yourself a lot of time, money, aggravation, and possible marital conflict.  However, the men I know who don’t golf have some other sort of hobby that allows them to escape from their family.  Here in Michigan that hobby is typically hunting or fishing.  In all honesty, I would rather spend my entire weekend with my kids on their very worst days than freezing my ass off in the woods or trying to catch a fish, but some men really enjoy dressing in camouflage and dousing themselves in deer urine.  To each his own I guess.  While I truly enjoy eating fish, the actual task of trying to catch a fish seems extremely boring as well as unnecessary since all of my wife’s relatives fish and are more than happy letting me eat their spoils.

So, a typical problem that men and women run into as they trudge through marriage is the fact that men often times have time consuming hobbies that can even require entire weekends away from their families.  Women typically don’t have similar hobbies and are often miffed by the fact that men are so willing to turn their backs on their families so that they can engage in such fruitless pursuits.  The reason why men are able to do this is two fold:

1. Men are typically better at stuff then women so going on things like a golf trip are actually fun as opposed to complete misery.  (Shirley played in a scramble with four women at Egypt Valley and she said it was one of the worst experiences of her life, it’s what I imagine she would feel about a golf weekend, or any weekend spent entirely with women, women are the worst)
2. We are fully cognizant of the fact that our children, as much as they seem to love us now, will eventually become annoyed by us and even possibly end up resenting us while doing everything in their power to pretend like we don’t exist.  This allows us to have a completely clear conscience  when engaging in our various hobbies.  While I realize this is somewhat flawed logic because we probably should maximize the time with our kids while they still can stand the sight of us, but the male brain rarely thinks on that deep of a level, unless it involves negotiating sex.

This way of thinking, which completely contradicts how the female mind works, results in them often times questioning their husbands and thinking either to themselves or out loud, “you don’t care about our kids as much as I do.”  You’re right.  However, are women void of hobbies? There was only one way to find out, so I Googled women’s hobbies and this is what I came up with:

http://www.herinterest.com/hobbies-for-women/

Yes, foraging is actually a hobby women engage in along with a number of other activities that don’t even seem like hobbies.  Pretty sure cooking is about as much of hobby for my wife as is cleaning out a lint screen.  Some other hobbies of note are :

• Wine Tasting (not really a hobby, it’s a disease called alcoholism)
• Pole Dancing (not really a hobby, it’s a job called stripping)
• Caving-  This seems like something that would be reserved for really outdoorsy lesbians
• Host a Board Game Party-  This is just an excuse to have a bunch of girlfriends over so that you can talk about your kids while you go through the motions of playing board games because you can’t have a party and claim it’s for the sole purpose of talking about your kids, even though it is.  On top of that, playing board games isn’t a hobby, pathetic and depressing yes, hobby no.

Lastly, sports, and more specifically sports radio, is something that truly delineates men and women/ husbands and wives.  I have slowly weened myself off from sports radio and rarely listen any more.  I truly can’t stand the local shows that primarily consist of listener calls, these are the worst.  Who gives a shit what Joe from Hudsonville thinks about the Tiger’s bullpen or who wants to hear Carl from Wyoming weigh in on whatever the latest controversial sports topic is.  I would guess that maybe 2 percent of the sports talk radio audience is comprised of women.  There is no parallel to sports radio for women.  However, I feel like there could be a parallel, and it could be a gold mine.  They need to start a show hosted by a mom or mom’s where other mom’s can call up and talk (brag) about their kids.  “hi, I’m Shirley from Alto, and guess what my kids did the other day…..”  Topics could include:

• Should my child still be having skid marks well into his teens?
• How to broach the crusty sweat sock problem with your teenage sons?
• At what age will your kids stop believing mom and dad were just wrestling ?
• The educational value of cartoons broadcast on the Cartoon Network?

The other night Tod came into our room at around 1:30 am.  Parents with a fair amount of backbone would have immediately sent him back to his room, but when it comes to parenting we have the back bone of a jelly fish and our lack of discipline is exacerbated when our kids try to climb in bed with us in the middle of the night.  I actually suggested to Shirley that we sleep in the basement one night, so that when our kids try to climb in bed with us we wont be there and they will freak out in all sorts of ways.  Surprisingly, she didn’t go for it  (maybe if she ever goes away for a weekend I can sleep in the basement).  Regardless, we put up little resistance and once he was in bed he indicated that he didn’t feel well.  He had done this before, and due to his fragile nature I didn’t take him seriously the first time.  Ultimately he ended up blowing chunks all over our bed.  So, I immediately escorted him to the toilet and turned on the light.  He screamed “the light makes it worse!” and bolted back towards our bedroom.  “Damn you light!”  Upon making it to our bedroom he hurled all over the floor, one of the worst sound in the world is that of vomit being projected onto carpet.

I did my best to clean up the carpet, nothing like the smell of vomit to awaken your senses and make it almost impossible to fall back asleep, and made my way to the guest bedroom.  The smell of vomit, wether real or imagined, was still there in our bedroom so I had to opt for a safe harbor.  It’s amazing how sympathetic even I can be when my kid is sick.  That type of behavior (opting to puke on a carpeted surface when you were appropriately positioned in front of a  toilet) normally would elicit a severe tongue lashing and a threat to take away TV or desert the following day.  Instead I quietly consoled him and went about cleaning up his puke without saying a word.

I have gotten to know Tod quite well, and that first experience with him where he ultimately threw up in our bed was a result of my knowledge of him based upon past behavior.  He’s a bit of a drama queen and has a tendency to exaggerate the dire nature of his condition.  That being said, there seems to be a reluctance to use empirical data to determine future behavior.  What I mean by this is that over my 42 years of experience I have come to certain conclusions based upon what I have witnessed in society.  This is best explained on the road way.  Often times I will be driving and there will be a car up ahed on the highway impeding everyone’s progress.  I immediately jump to a conclusion as to what that driver looks like, age, gender, sometimes ethnicity.  Even if my exit is quickly approaching I will do what I can to catch up to the driver so that I can determine if my conclusion is accurate.  99% of the time I am dead on with my assumption and can exit the highway knowing that if everyone was like me and drove amazingly well the highway would be a much enjoyable experience.

Typically the people impeding traffic have one thing in common.  I use to think handicap license plates were given out so that people could get parking spaces near the entrance of buildings.  However, I have realized that is their secondary purpose.  The real reason for handicap plates is so other drivers can be warned of the ineptitude of the person operating the vehicle with the handicap plate.  When I come upon a vehicle that is driving poorly and I see that they have a handicap plate I think to myself “that makes perfect sense their handicap.”  Then I think to myself why do they let people who are handicap drive?  They are obviously compromised in some way, shape, or form.  Even the people who are merely fat and get a handicap plate because they can’t walk more than ten feet without becoming short of breath  are problematic drivers because their fatness affects their reaction time as well as their ability to turn their head to see if other vehicles are near them, not to mention they are usually distracted by whatever food item they are trying to consume while they are driving along with the customary big gulp beverage to wash it all down.

So why is it that we are only singling out handicap individuals for other driver’s to be cognizant of?  Can’t we utilize this for other segments of the driving population?  How about anyone over the age of 65 has to have a caricature of a person hunched over with a cane in their hand depicted on their license plate?  Furthermore, people should be allowed to take a test to determine if they are good enough at multi tasking, in order to legally text and drive.  These people would be given a plate number that starts with TX and they would be allowed to text in the far left lane.  On that note, and due to the fact that I am an awesome driver, they should also allow for a special lane where you can disregard the speed limit if you have proven yourself worthy (similar to the autobahn)

This special lane reserved for the top tier drivers would likely consist of white male driver’s in their 30’s and 40’s.  This is where you have to understand my conclusions are all based upon my personal experience and are in no way related to what my opinion is of a specific race or gender.  Men are better driver’s than women just like men are funnier than women, it’s just a fact.  On top of that, and I’m not sure why this is, but a lot of minorities seem to struggle with driving.  African Americans for example, now I’m not saying they are all terrible driver’s so don’t go crazy on me  here, are typically gifted athletically.  I have played a lot of pick up basketball and black people are good at hoops, besides you just have to look at the NBA and NFL to realize they dominate when it comes to those two sports.  So, I would think this would translate to exceptional driving skills.  However, my experience on the roads has led me to believe this is not the case. (Pretty much ever NASCAR driver is a white male in their 30’s or 40’s, there’s one women but the only thing she brings to the table is her looks and typically finishes at the back of the pack in every race)

Maybe it has a socio economic aspect to it, inner city kids, who are primarily African American have to go to shitty public schools so they probably also have to go to shitty driver’s education schools.  The inequality in public schools is problematic but the driving thing is something Trump really needs to jump on and put as a major plank in his platform,  he could really go places with that.  Now, the socioeconomic aspect doesn’t explain why Asians on a whole are horrendous drivers.  I don’t have a real theory on why they are, but maybe there is some type of ethnic specific bad driving gene that is plaguing most of Asia.  It may be similar to the gene that is dominant in people of Asian decent that causes them to struggle in metabolizing alcohol.  (Please see below, which was taken from an article on the internet)

Some people of Asian descent have noticed that they have difficulty handling alcohol, expressed by excessive facial redness, sweating, increased body temperature, and a higher heart rate after consuming a small amount of alcohol. This syndrome is called “Asian flush” and can be deeply embarrassing, especially if it arrives unexpectedly. This causes many people to think that people of Asian descent cannot process alcohol, although this is not strictly true. The reaction can affect non-Asians as well, but the genetic mutation that causes it is much more common among people of Asian descent.

To temper my comments about minorities being inferior driver’s (and so I don’t come off as a complete racist, just a partial one) when compared to white males I feel like I need to acknowledge that white males are terrible at a number of things minorities seem to be pretty good at.  Here is a list:

• Dancing
• Being Cool
• Dressing
• Taste in Music
• Sex

I’m sure there are plenty more things white males are terrible at, but I need to keep this thing brief and to the point or I may lose the four readers I currently have reading this thing on a fairly regular basis. APRIL FOOLS!  I don’t really believe any of this stuff, or do I?