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?