This past weekend my uncle had his 60th birthday party.  It has been a love hate relationship between my immediate family and extended family that mostly has involved hate.  Fortunately, the last few years, thanks to my maturing and Shirley’s ability to get pretty much anyone to like her and tolerate me, things have steadily improved relationship wise between my immediate family and extended family.  That being said, here is a text I sent to my brother Andy who lives in Chicago regarding the party being held at Green Lake this past Saturday in my uncle’s honor: (I realize I could redact this string of texts to protect the innocent but what fun would that be?)

Me: “What time are you planning on getting to the party?”

A: “I’m already there, it’s at Brans steakhouse right?”

“Yes, the one where Brett and Sara had their reception and you and I got obscenely drunk, should we try to recreate that night?”

“I totally forgot that was at Brans” (this could be for a number of reasons, it was at Brans, we drank more alcohol between the two of us than a fraternity, it was at Brans.)

“Yes, probably one of my worst wedding reception performances of all time, almost as bad as when I was hitting on all of your friend’s wives at Dave and Brittany’s reception (Brittany is my sister and Dave is the guy who is going to make it big on Bitcoin).  It really explains why the Jansma’s continue to hate us”

“Yeah those weddings tend to be real shit shows.  Who’s wife were you hitting on at Dave and Brittany’s wedding?”

“The question is whose wife wasn’t I hitting on?  I remember taking warm shots of really warm Vodka at Brett and Sarah’s wedding.  I feel like that night I got back at mom somewhat for all the child hood trauma I suffered at her hands, she couldn’t do a damn thing to stop me from going off the rails.  Can you imagine what would have happened if Jesse hadn’t been in Australia?”  (Jesse is the middle brother)

“Someone would have ended up in jail.  Brans would have burned to the ground”

“It’s truly amazing that we were invited to any other Jansma weddings after that.  You remember the table of misfits at Nicole’s wedding?  The guy who was missing an arm sitting next to the 60 year old women holding a teddy bear? Can’t make that shit up”

“That was so odd.  The guy missing an arm was also very unkempt.  I think he was using an extension cord for a belt.  I just wanted to know their story.”

“I think their story somehow involved human trafficking, should have sent Dave over there to chat them up about bit coin, he would have gotten to the bottom of things.  Couldn’t you just see him walking over there with his phone and asking them if they wanted to see his bit coin balance?”

Now in my defense, I was at a really bad place in my life when my sister got married, I had two young kids and a terrible attitude about everything, fortunately my kids have gotten older and I now enjoy their company for the most part.  However, the text exchange I had with my brother did bring a flood of memories that made me question how I am still alive to this day.  Typically when you get two of the Jansma brothers together it’s a recipe for disaster, and when you get all three of them together someone is likely to get arrested, which has actually happened.

The summer after Aiden was born I went on a golf trip up to tree tops with a bunch of guys including my brother Jesse.  We played 18 holes on a Sunday morning and then had a break before we played the tree tops par 3 course which involved quite a bit of treacherous terrain for sober people, but for those whose BAC is above .20 it could be considered deadly.  I managed to consume an entire fifth of scotch in the break which not only made me incapable of teeing the ball up, it also impaired my judgment to the point that I allowed my brother to drive the golf cart even though he was probably drunker and higher than I was.  Somewhere in the midst of the par 3 course my brother flipped the cart on its side, not his side but my side, and my head, shoulder, and fingers were skidding along the asphalt car path.

There is an argument to be made that had I not been so drunk I probably would have died or at the very least lost the ability to use my arms and legs, but there is also an argument that if the two of us hand’t been that drunk none of it would have ever happened.  I ended up with a raspberry on my forehead and no hair to hide it, a raspberry on my shoulder with a minimal amount of hair to hide it, and the pad on my right ring finger looked like hamburger.  Beyond that, the cart was pretty Effed up, not as Effed up as I was, but if the clubhouse caught wind of the damage there would be financial penalties.  To avoid this from happening we left the cart in the back of the parking lot and got the hell out of there.  The problematic thing was that I was on a golf trip with a bunch of guys and none of them had any type of Florence Nightingale instincts, as a matter of fact they just left me in the back of a van to die while they had dinner at some crappy Mexican restaurant.  Surprisingly, the following day I played well, at least for me, I feel like the near death experience really allowed me to focus on my golf game.

That scenario involved two Jansma brothers but there was one in recent memory that involved all three of us.  Years ago we ended up going to Royal Oak to see Adam Carolla, it was the three of us and one of my brother’s friends.  I drove so I wasn’t a contributing factor to the absurd behavior that took place.  My brother Andy decided to pick up a fifth of Seagram’s gin (obviously the good stuff it came in a plastic bottle) and smuggle it in in five hour energy drink containers.  Things seemed to be going ok until my brother forgot he was at comedy show and not a dance club and decided to start slamming his five hour gin.  Things accelerated extremely fast and he started talking shit to some people around us and before I could say Man Show the bouncers were on my brother like white on rice. My other brother and his buddy didn’t seem to care, or they didn’t want to have to go out into the frigid December night to see if Andy would wind up getting the shit kicked out of him.  So, being the oldest, and most sober, I followed Andy and the bouncers out watching him struggle with them the entire time.

Once they were outside I was able to deescalate the situation and the bouncers ended up walking away from my brother and to the door but told my brother he couldn’t go back in.  Not sure what got into my brother, but he got up and started drunkenly sprinting towards the bouncers before I knew what was going on and could stop him.  This time they weren’t giving my brother a second chance, they beat the crap out of him because he was being a dick and because they were bouncers and that’s what they do.  To add insult to injury the Royal Oak police were called and ultimately arrested my brother, I never asked him if he was able to smuggle in some of those five hour gin’s but I am guessing he hasn’t had a sip of the stuff since that fateful night.  I can’t imagine what would have happened had my parents had four boys.

 

If I were running for president in the 2020 election I am quite confident I could win in a landslide with the following platform:

The bedrock of my platform would be turning the 4th of July into Independence Day(s).  Independence Day would take place on the first Friday of July or even better Independence Day(s) would either be the first Thursday and Friday of July or Friday and Monday of July.  The only thing more depressing than coming to work on a Monday after the fourth of July is the first work day after New Year’s when you realize the next thing you have to look forward to is Memorial Day.  I realize the fourth of July has some historical significance, but not enough to overcome the overwhelming support that would be garnered by suggesting a four day weekend in July.  We already do this with Thanksgiving by having it land on the fourth Thursday in November and Easter Sunday is a complete crap shoot it can either be in mid March or sometimes mid April.

The second plank of my platform would be doing away with US postal service.   If you are over the age of 60 you may have just crapped your pants with the notion of doing away with the mail.  My mom has turned sifting through her mail into a hobby, she actually has one of those official US Postal service bins that she puts her mail in and she actually took it with her as a carry on when she went to visit my brother in Seattle.  This along with every other trait my parent’s possess is why I try to avoid spending any meaningful time with them.  My genetics are derived directly from them and as much as I like to think I can avoid their “eccentric” behavior, its impossible for me to side step everything, granted I will never watch Fox News or listen to right wing talk radio, but my mom’s knack for disappearing and not saying good bye when leaving our house, a wedding, or any other social function is something I could see myself emulating.

Back to the mail.  There is one thing even more outdated with than the mail, it’s called a facsimile. Even the name sounds like something from the 1800’s, could you please send me a facsimile?  Granted, it’s been shortened to a fax, but it is still entirely useless.  I have two partners and we rotate having the phones forwarded to our cell after hours.  One time a Chicago number continually attempted to send a fax to our land line when I had phones.  It was maddening, and would be a great way to screw with someone.  Maybe this app is already out there, but if you could get a fax machine to attempt to send a fax to someone you don’t like every minute or every five minutes, they would need a straight jacket within an hour.  When people ask me for my fax number I don’t even know it off the top of my head and have to retrieve a business card or pull up my website to get it for them.  Instead of giving them my fax number, I want to ask them if they prefer wiping their ass with newspaper instead of toilet paper, because that’s about where things stand regarding the utility of a fax over an email.

It would be easy to get rid of the facsimile all together if everyone would agree to shut down their fax number.  This would leave people with no alternative but to email the documents instead of faxing them.  I could be missing something here, but I don’t believe a facsimile is any more reliable, and may be even less reliable, than email.  In fact, determining if your fax actually made it to it’s intended recipient can be almost impossible to figure out where as if your email bounces back you get an email telling you it didn’t make it.

There was a time when I thought the US postal service was going the route of Blockbuster (there is only one blockbuster store left, it’s in Alaska, seems fitting) but suddenly there is a resurgence to the point that I see mailperson(s) delivering mail on Saturdays and Sundays.  Why?  I don’t even like the mail I get during the week why do I need it delivered on the weekend?  I pulled out a stack of recently received mail and this is what I had:

• Consumer’s energy bill (I pay that online no need to get a paper copy of it in the mail)
• A safety recall from Chrysler for our mini van no way we would likely open the envelope let alone schedule an appointment to get it rectified and this information could be emailed.
• Coupons for Smokey Bones, that place fucking sucks.
• Bank of America credit card offer
• Fifth Third Banking statement (we do all our banking online)

Nothing that couldn’t be handled through an email.  Furthermore, you can’t make the mail stop, it just keeps coming and coming no matter what you do.  I wonder what would happened if I removed my mailbox and there was no place for them to deliver mail? My driveway is fairly long and I can’t imagine anyone who has a government job would be ambitious enough to put forth any more effort than what is minimally required to get their job done.  They would likely just throw it away.

My third plank would be outlawing singles at the golf course, not single people, can’t penalize them for making the right choice and not getting married, I’m talking about random golfers who show up and want to be paired with people who actually have friends.  Nothing is worse than having a threesome and getting stuck with some random golfer.  Sometimes I just book for four even though I know there will only be three so they don’t stick me with the rando golfer.  On top of that, how do you figure out who gets stuck riding with the rando?  Furthermore, golf is an activity that you pay for and it is quite presumptuous of a golf course to think that they can just stick some stranger with you for a four to five hour round.  Typically, by the time I have completed around with my friends I have had enough of them, when it’s a stranger my orneriness is exacerbated.

While the random golfer throws a monkey wrench into the enjoyability of a round, what is even more frustrating is the rando who acts like they have a ton of buddies they typically golf with but none of them were available so they decided to golf with three strangers.  I’m not falling for it, if you typically golf with friends you know it is way better than golfing with strangers and you wouldn’t knowingly subject yourself to the contempt and hatred of the other three golfers for being  “that guy”.  Your a loser, you probably go to movies by yourself as well.  I have rarely gone to movies alone, I can think of two occasions in my life, I went to the second die hard by myself when I was in high school (possibly the lowest point of my life) and to Hail Caesar.  There are two things that are problematic when you attend a movie alone.  The first is the previews, I have to discuss the previews with whoever I am with “Not going to that” or “That looks awful” is my typical comment.  Sometimes I figure out how many of the previews are worth making a trip to the theatre to see and say “2 out of the 5 are theatre worthy”.  The second issue, and this was particularly true with Hail Caesar, is that you have no one to discuss the movie with as you are leaving the theatre.  Hail Caesar was highly received by the critics, my belief is because it was a Cohen brothers movie and you have to like the Cohen brothers.  The movie was awful and I had no one to discuss it with which was quite frustrating.  I could have tried to run down one of the four other people in the theatre and attempt a post movie diatribe with them, but that would have been awkward.

I have only witnessed one occasion where the single golfer had it blow up in his face.  My brother-in-law and I were golfing with my Father-in-law, Big Al, and a rando showed up and had to ride with Al, he initially had signed on for 18 holes but after nine called an audible and was seen running with his bag to the parking lot.  That poor bastard had no idea what he was in for, Al is a great guy but he asks a lot of questions that have no need to be answered and makes fairly obvious observations such as “there’s a lot of cars at that gas station”.   I use to respond to these observations but now I am perfectly comfortable just letting the silence speak for itself.  Now that I have a platform I guess it’s time to start vetting running mates.

 

 

 

 

A week ago we rolled out the red carpet for one of the most celebrated former residents of Wet Michigan I have ever known.  One of Shirley’s friends moved out to the California and every time she comes back to Michigan, or at least it seems like every time, we need to throw a party for her.  I like her and the party isn’t really in her honor, it’s just more convenient for her to go to one place to hang out with all of the friends she left behind, as opposed to having to go visit each one individually.  However, this is not about that.  What it is about is how much more fun life can be without kids.  I have heard of BYOB (Bring your own beer, bring your own booze, even bring your own brats would work I guess) and I am all for these types of parties.  What I am not for is BYOK (bring your own kids) parties.  There were at least twelve kids at this party and only two of them were mine.  I have stood by the fact that the only reason I like my kids is because I am genetically obligated to do so, so I sure as hell am not going to like, or want to be around someone else’s kids.  The party got off to a great start with the youngest mobile child at the party going down our 50 foot slip and slide and then crying for some unknown reason.  Someone asked why he was crying and I wanted to say “because he wants a haircut”, the kids two, a boy, and I don’t think has had a haircut yet.  It only got worse from there and I said to all the adults “I suggested no kids but no one listens to me”.

In response to the question you know what would make this better? The following are acceptable:

• More booze
• More lube
• More booze and lube

What is not acceptable response is: Kids or even worse, more kids.  The party ended up reaching a point where the adults grew so tired of the kids that they were put into our TV room to play video games and stop annoying the shit out of us. Now, when you get this many kids there is always that one kid who is a complete asshole and I can typically spot that kid immediately.  The reason I was able to spot this asshole so quickly is because he was jumping on our homemade corn hole game.  I yelled at him to get down because I have no qualms about being the adult asshole.  Towards the end of the evening, after multiple glasses of wine had been consumed by Shirley, one of the kids asked her where there was a scissors to which she responded “right over there”.  Moments later the asshole kid had punctured himself with the scissors and was bleeding all over our patio.  In my mind, as is often the case with my kids, he was being a gigantic pussy so I had no sympathy for him.  Surprisingly, Shirley, by far the nicest person in our marriage (kind of like being the world’s tallest midget, not really that much of an accomplishment) immediately went for the hose and was spraying blood off our patio.  Yes, he was dripping blood onto our patio but he was still being a pussy.

Within the same general time frame of the party I ended up going golfing with a couple buddies and my buddies 14 year old.  We teed off at 6:30 in the morning and the kid was on his phone from the first shot to the last.  Not sure what he was doing at the time of the morning on his phone since I am quite confident all of his friends were hours from waking up, but whatever it was it kept him from being able to do basic math.  He continually was unaware of how many strokes had been played on a hole and was often times seen sprinting to the golf cart after a shot so he could reunite with his precious phone.

Was I aware of the fact that teenagers are even more annoying and difficult than younger kids?  Of course I was, I was a teenager and I had three younger siblings who went through their teens and I had no choice but to soak most of it in as their older bother.  In addition, there was a large gap between myself and my next sibling making matters even worse and causing me to withdraw even more than a typical teenager would from their family.   So, I distanced myself form my family as much as I could but there was the obligatory birthday celebration for everyone of us.  Even though my parents despised us they always seemed to want to celebrate our birthdays, which seemed quite ironic.  However, looking back I realize it was more of a punishment due to how it was celebrated.  Bill Knapps, that was the destination for every single birthday celebration.  Free cake and the percentage of your age off your bill, no Hollander in their right mind could turn that down, and I am quite certain they didn’t, ultimately leading to the demise of Bill Knapps, giving away free chocolate cakes and knocking a percentage off a bill is no way to turn a profit, especially when most of your customers are older than Yoda.  “I turned 106 today, looks like you guys owe me some money this time”.

Had I had a cell phone when I was growing up it would have definitely eased the pain of the Bill Knapps birthday experience.  When one of my siblings threw the inevitable tantrum in the middle of the restaurant, I could have just put my ear buds in let music drown out the noise.  Better yet, I could also look at all the hot girls (there weren’t very many) I went to high school with on snap chat or Instagram or pull up a youtube video of somebody doing something really stupid that resulted in either death or loss of a limb.  Pretty sure had cell phones been around during my middle and high school days I wouldn’t have said a word to my parents.  Granted, my parents would have been way too cheap to buy me a cell phone or pay for a plan that would have given me enough data to keep my hourly porn needs satisfied, the fact that I got my first job at 7 would have allowed me to come up with the cash to finance my cell phone and data usage.

So where does this leave me as a parent?  My kids are kind of annoying, granted I still love them, but it doesn’t keep me from questioning why I had kids in the first place.  The only logical answer that I can come up with is people have kids so they don’t have to be alone on the holidays.  How depressing would it be to always be alone on the major holidays?  If you have kids it’s pretty much guaranteed that you will have somebody to hang out with you on the holidays.  Granted, if you didn’t have kids you could probably afford to go anywhere in the world when the holidays rolled around, easing the pain of being alone, but still there may be at least one purpose for kids that is legitimate an necessary.  However, my experience golfing with a 14 year old made me realize that I only have a few years left.  My kids, as much as they can be difficult, think I am great and actually want to hang out with me.  They look up to me, however misguided that may be, and I am a rather big part of their life right now.  My guess is that all that goes away even sooner than it did when I was growing up.  Phones and social media have brought about the demise of the parent child relationship much quicker than the erosion took place prior to the advent of phones, texting, and Instagram.  Just don’t buy them a phone, don’t cave in to the pressure.  That’s an easy position to take until you realize every other kid will have a phone and if your kids don’t they will be completely disconnected no matter how cool they may be in person.  So, to my may readers out there (I think I just cracked the double digit mark last month)  how do we solve this problem?  I need answers because I am running out of time.