Typically when I am shopping for a product, looking for a campground, or trying to find a new restaurant for date night I read the reviews, particularly the Google Reviews.  This led me to research the reviews for things that most people wouldn’t typically review:

scott esch

3 reviews · 1 photo

4 months ago

Had a great nigh with my pops for the first time in 10 years thanks.

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Malkovich Keel

1 review

9 months ago

Great place, beautiful sexy girls, good prices. Only thing is I got harassed by Raven into buying too many lap dances, then she b*tched me out about a tip. Biggest b*itch I’ve ever met AFTER she steals your money, looks like a moose too.

2

DEMONIK BLADE SLINGER

1 review

a year ago

tonight was my first ever strip club visit, the girls were all nice and good looking, star was the girl who gave me my first lap dance ever she was awesome and beautiful, the only thing is she didn’t let me know the price of a lap dance until the second song so I kinda got suckered in to two songs a total of 50$ but was worth it. at the tables in the main lobby its 10 dances and in the private upstairs rooms its 25 per song. not to bad for a first timer.

2

Chris Mc Shane

Local Guide · 5 reviews

2 months ago

Those were Grand beours boy!

1

Abel Knight

1 review

a week ago

Arson was awesome!!!

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Duane L Rudy III

1 review

a year ago

Great staff. Gloria always has a smile and is prompt with services. There is are great dances and beautiful girls. it’s hoping at omars show bar.

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Nether Relm

7 reviews · 1 photo

a year ago

Beers are a bit pricy at $5 but the dances put dejavu to SHAME $10 for a table dance $25 for private $60 for a shower dance

2

Cube Gleaming

12 reviews · 1 photo

a year ago

Sat there for two hours, even threw a few bucks towards the stage and still haven’t seen one boob or nipple. Place is lame and girls are beat. Super hot bartender, too bad she doesn’t dance

1

Andrea Hansun

12 reviews

a year ago

they have the best scat shows in town! dont forget the golden showers

7

Zach Riggle

Local Guide · 211 reviews · 46 photos

2 years ago

I’ve been here a few times over the years. The format is pretty unique, in that your $1 tip gets you to lay down on the stage and the girl crawls on you. $25 dances upstairs are topless but grabby.

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alice benson

1 review

a year ago

food was great, but a stripper farted on me and i lost my dignity

14

Do the reviews say it all, not quite.  Had a great night with my pops for the first time in ten years?  Does that mean he hasn’t seen his dad in ten years and they decided to hit sniffers row to get reacquainted?  Or that they have tried a number of different experiences together but have been entirely unsuccessful until they decided Omar’s was the locale for some father son bonding?  Go karting didn’t do it, paintball was a complete dud, let’s go to a titty bar son.  Sounds great dad, how many singles you got?

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars

6,928

4.3 out of 5 stars

5 star		71%
4 star		14%
3 star		4%
2 star		3%
1 star		8%

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afterenglit

4.0 out of 5 starsIgnore the old cleaning instructions!

September 9, 2016

Color: silverVerified Purchase

If you got the instructions that call for you to “remove the black inner blade cover” in order to clean it, ignore them. The company is now recommending that you hold the head of the entire assembled unit under running water in each of the two positions shown in the photos.

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Matt G.

5.0 out of 5 starsSuperior Trimmer

May 27, 2016

Color: silverVerified Purchase

I bought this to replace a Panasonic ER-GN30 I had for several years but which broke. I was never really that happy with the Panasonic as I felt like it chewed through batteries and often pulled the hair when cutting (and avoiding that is one of the main reasons I got a trimmer in the first place).

My first impressions of the ToiletTree was that the build quality was somewhat better than the Panasonic. It definitely rattled less and felt more solid, but the base cap and top assembly are all still primarily plastic. The function, however, is night and day above the Panasonic. Not only has it not pulled one time, it also cuts much faster. With the Panasonic, I felt like I had to spend a few minutes per nostril, but with the ToiletTree the job was done in 10-15 seconds. It’s like using a commercial lawnmower instead of a weed whacker.

I took a look at the cutters (Panasonic is black, ToiletTree is white), and the design seems almost identical. It could be that the motor on the ToiletTree is stronger, so it’s cutting more cleanly. Or it could be that my Panasonic was a lemon. We’ll see if the ToiletTree holds up.

6,928 Reviews for a nose hair trimmer!  That’s insane.  I don’t even care enough about my family to write a review about them, let alone a nose hair trimmer.  (obviously my review of my family would be scathing and they would be lucky to get 2 stars) it’s a good thing they aren’t currently for sale on Amazon or I would be forced to weigh in on them.

(I have to head out of the office so I will leave it this way). To be continued………

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.

I am convinced that no actual learning takes place during the last two weeks of the school year.  Between field trips, field days, and class parties, reading, writing, and arithmetic take a back seat to FUN.  I’m not complaining, and you know why I’m not complaining?  because I got invited by Parker to go to his EOY party.  This was a historic occasion, Shirley gets the invite over me to any function.  What was different about this party?  It involved bowling.  Parker knows I have my own ball, shoes, and mad bowling ability.  Ok, maybe he didn’t really think about it in that great of detail, but he knows Shirley can’t bowl and I can and that’s how I found my self at Northfield lanes armed with three dozen miniature cupcakes, my bowling ball, and my own shoes at noon on a Thursday on one of the nicest days of the year.

I arrived at the lane a little earlier than Parker’s class and the other parents who were going to be attending the festivities.  Was I suppose to meet everyone at the school?  The fact that they all may have been at the school waiting for me did cross my mind but I needed this time to scope out Northfield Lanes, my home alley is the Clique, I’ve bowled at Northfield lanes before, but it had been a long time and I need to familiarize myself with the setting.  I have bowled all over town, Eastbrook Lanes, Fairlanes, Spectrum Lanes, and even Alpine once in a while.  However, I have never felt out of place at a bowling alley but for one occasion, and that was at Paragon Lanes which is located at 2425 Division Avenue.  My brother, his girlfriend (now his wife), Shirley (when she wasn’t my wife), and I had gone out with my family for dinner, I think it was for my birthday.  Sadly, Bill Knapps had already gone out of business so it is likely that wherever we went was a huge disappointment.  Not sure why we picked Paragon because Fairlines was equal distance from the restaurant we ate at but when we walked in we looked like snow flakes in a mud puddle.  Believe me this fact did not go unnoticed.  However, I have found when you’re race is in the minority you just have to pretend like you aren’t scared, races are like dogs when they have the distinct advantage in numbers they can smell fear.

This was a point in my bowling career where I wasn’t taking it as seriously as I should have been and I didn’t have my own ball or shoes.  We all went up to the counter like it was entirely normal for four white people to be bowling at Paragon late on a Friday night.  The alley was full of crock pots and food and people were having a good time. And why wouldn’t they be, black people love the shit out of bowling and I’m pretty sure this was a weekly Friday night league.  Fortunately for all the white professional bowlers out there black people are so good at other sports that they don’t even bother trying to get in on the PBA (Pro Bowling Association)

Seriously, how much cooler would pro bowling be if black bowlers inserted themselves into the mix?  This guy is one of the preeminent bowlers on the entire planet and probably the seven billionth coolest person on planet earth.  Also, note the loaf of white bread sitting behind this guy, I’ve seen cooler people on the cast of Hee Haw.  As we entered our names and started bowling we pretended to act like we always hung out at venues full of black people where we were the only white people.  This required us to do no dancing, no celebrating, and very little of anything other than bowling.  A game or two in another group of white people came in to the alley.  Now what you need to know is the black people had control of the juke box.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved the music, but we were the only white people up to that point in the alley and we didn’t make any song selections.  Apparently this group of white people didn’t get the memo either and seeing us they likely thought it was socially acceptable to proceed without any caution.  Unfortunately, they did proceed without caution.  As they settled in Hotel California played on the juke box.  All the black people looked at us, or at least it seemed like they looked at us.  I wanted to shout at the top of my lungs “We didn’t do it!” but I just kept my head down and bowled.  We managed to make it out alive but I only go back to the Paragon when it’s light out.

Back to the EOY party.  When Parker’s class of 23 five year olds and accompanying parents did arrive it was complete and utter chaos.  After about ten minutes of children running around looking for balls and trying to figure out what lanes to bowl on things settled down enough to start entering names and establishing who was going to be on what lane.  Parker, his buddy Roman, and I were already entered in on a lane but we had room for a couple more.  We had a mother daughter combo join us to fill out the lane and away we went. (When Parker first got there he made sure everyone knew I had my own ball by pointing it out and saying that’s my dads ball, give him a few years and he will realize he should be ashamed of the fact his dad has his own bowling ball)

You now what?  Five year olds suck at bowling and they suck at concentrating so I knew I had my work cut out for me if I was going to put up a decent score.  My first frame was an open where all I had left to pick up was the ten pin.  I missed it and my first instinct was to kick the ball return and yell out “Fucking Kids!” but I managed to stay calm.  I then went spare, strike, strike, which is amazing because I could have bowled three entire games by myself in the time it took to get through those four frames.    The initial plan was to eat pizza between games and I knew if the kids got to the pizza prior to the completion of the first game I was likely going to lose my mind.  At one point, before the pizza was served, Parker and Roman went to the bathroom so I bowled for them just to speed things up (and keep my rhythm going).

I did miss picking up the turkey because one of the dumb ass five year olds was distracting me by bowling next to me when it was my turn and I had the right of way.  Is it that much to ask a group of five year olds to practice proper bowling etiquette?  Also, I was backing up as I admired one of my strike balls and at that exact same time some little girl walked right behind me, I almost tripped on her and would have likely crushed her to death had I not caught myself.  Once the pizza came out we went from a snail’s pace to the pace of an 82 year old writing a check at the supermarket.  I decided to grab some pizza and make the most of the interlude in bowling.

In the tenth frame on what could have been my last ball I picked up an amazing split that included my little leg kick that I do when I want some extra pin action.  However, no one even saw it, or if they did they didn’t fully realize how awesome the pick up was and what was on the line, I needed that pick up to get over the 160 mark.  Come on people we are making history here!

I had mentioned that there was a second game on the agenda.  As much as I love bowling and as much as I wanted to improve on my first game there was no way I had the patience to make it through another game of bowling with a bunch of five year olds.  I can deal with my five year old, I have to like him because he’s my kid, but I don’t have to like anyone else’s kids and for the most part I don’t.  As I made my way out Parker insisted that I pack up the cupcakes I brought and take the left overs home so he could eat them all.  It was tempting but I didn’t want to end up eating a half a dozen mini smores cupcakes on the ride back to my office.  As I was heading out the door I went over and said thanks to his teacher who must have been noticing me making it happen on the bowling alley because she said “163 that’s impressive.”  What she didn’t realize is handicapping in the 23 annoying five year olds made it more like a 200 game, but I didn’t mention that.  My response was, “Yep, I run a bowling league” she in turn said “Oh, you run a bowling alley?”   To be honest when she said that the first thing that popped in to my head was how awesome it would be to run a bowling alley but the second thing was what guy who runs a bowling alley wears a suit to work? (she’s seen me on multiple occasions in a suit when I drop off the kids).  I decided to immediately correct her and let her know I run a bowling league.  Although, it would have been fun to pretend for the rest of my kid’s educational careers that I ran a bowling alley.

Once in the parking lot I received the following text from Shirley “Pics?”  I proceeded to take a picture of the front of the bowling alley and was going to send that to her.  However, the amount of shit I would have taken for it wasn’t worth it so I  went back in the bowling alley and made Roman and Parker pose for a couple pics and then took a picture of Parker bowling.  I guess the big take away from the EOY bowling party is that my desire to do my best at everything often gets in the way of what truly matters, having fun and taking plenty of pictures while doing so.

About six months ago Shirley decided she was going to attend her friends wedding in California.  Initially I was planning on going as well but saw an opportunity to get out of the trip by claiming it would be too expensive for both of us to go and somebody needed to watch the kids.  The reality was I had no desire to go to California when the weather was more than likely to finally be nice here, and boy was I right.  Shirley left Thursday and Saturday was the nicest day we have had since last fall.  What was I passing up by not going to California?  Vacation sex was the only benefit I could see in traveling cross country for a wedding of one of Shirley’s friends who we see once a year and hopefully get to the point where we never see her.  Granted, vacation sex is worth traveling across the country for, you can’t put a price on the peace of mind of knowing your kid won’t be pounding on your bedroom door mid coitus.  However, I knew that if I went to California and it was nice in Michigan I would be miserable because I would be stuck there not doing the things I wanted to get accomplished in Michigan once the weather turned.  Granted, having to take care of my two kids was going to handcuff me to a certain extent, but I had ways of making sure they didn’t interfere with my ultimate objective of getting shit done, primarily allowing them to watch as much tv as they wanted.

Shirley flew out early Thursday morning and I was first in command once she was in the air.  The refreshing thing about not having the other parent around is there is no one to judge for how you conduct yourself as a parent.  If I wanted to feed them chocolate bars for breakfast no one was going to say shit to me about it (they actually were eating chocolate bars while they watched tv when I came in from cleaning the island in our driveway of old mulch, they appeared to be the happiest they have ever been in their lives at that moment in time).  Now, here is the difference between men and women, or at lest me and Shirley, Shirley seems concerned, actually somewhat preoccupied as to the kids missing her.  When I  am gone I don’t give a shit, and I am quite certain the kids do not miss me one bit.  Does it bother me?  Not at all, but for some reason women, or at least Shirley, need to be missed by their children. The reality is the kids made no mention of their mom while she was gone other than asking a few times when she was going to be home.  This was annoying because they don’t know their days of the week so when I responded to their question by saying Sunday really late, it meant absolutely nothing to them.

Rewind back to the weekend prior, Shirley’s grandma turned 89 that weekend or sometime within the past two months and this appeared to be a gigantic cause for celebration requiring a party at our house.  I have gone into how her sister and her sister’s husband are vegetarians, it gets worse her sister’s husband is now Vegan, so if you really want to double down on being lame, make your primary source of nutrients legume’s, lentils, and beans.   Now I don’t ascribe to the vegetarian bullshit, I think it is ridiculous and one of the best ways to deprive oneself of one of the most pleasurable things the world has to offer this side of sex, meat.  And boy did I make meat happen at grandma’s birthday party, I smoked baby back ribs and a pork shoulder.  Guess what the veggies main course was?  Lentil loaf, it looked even more unappetizing than it sounds.  Shirley’s sister set the Lentil loaf next to the meat and Shirley asked her to move it, pretty sure she didn’t want any of the lentils getting on the delicious meat and ruining it.  When my sister-in-law scooped a healthy serving of lentil loaf on her four year old daughter’s plate her daughter threw a shit fit.  It took 15 minutes of coaxing her in the to talk her into eating the loaf, and to be honest I could have pinched a loaf that looked more appealing than the lentil loaf.  Later on when I was clearing the kitchen I said to my sister in law “I would have reacted the same way as Maddie did if you had tried to put lentil loaf on my plate”. Her response was “I don’t get it, Maddie loves lentils”.  Does she?  Sorry, no one loves lentils, the only way lentils would be consumed with exuberance is if they were a cure for erectile dysfunction.  Maddie loves lentils, I bet she does cartwheels when that quinoa barbecue comes out, MMM MMM GOOD!  You know what would make this quinoa barbecue good?  Meat.

Fast forward to this past weekend, I invited the veggies over for a “barbecue” where I cooked up brats and also grilled their faux hot dogs.  The troubling thing is that the quasi dogs looked about as tasty as the weiners I see in the MVP locker room on a weekly basis.  I’m pretty sure that if I had tried to feed one to our dog Allie she would have given me a what the fuck is wrong with you stare, and she’s 90% blind.  However, the dietary choices of the veggies is not the primary point of this particular antidote.   I attempted to make a campfire, I even put a pop can with gas in it as an accelerator, however the fire died out and I was left using a very small flame that was likely a result of smoldering wood chips from last years landscaping, to roast marshmallows for smores.  Now, I have never had any issue getting a boner, knock on wood, (that wasn’t intentional) but not being able to start and keep a campfire going has got to be the most emasculating thing this side of not being able to rise to the occasion.

My desire to not put myself in such an emasculating situation had me staring at the possibility of being air lifted to the spectrum health burn unit last summer.  We had invited friends over for a campfire.  Shirley and the kids were down the hill putting up a tent while I “started’ the fire.  I had a gallon can of gas and had doused the fire with it but stupidly left the gas can sitting on the edge of our fire pit. Somehow the gas can caught fire, I immediately kicked it off the fire pit and into the wood chips, highly flammable wood chips, resulting in the wood chips catching fire along with a shrub and a small tree.  I kicked the can out of the chips and into the grass and it rolled like a pinwheel of flames through the grass all while Shirley and the kids unsuspectingly kept putting up the tent.  Our friends arrived just in time to see the tail end of this debacle.  Ultimately, I grabbed the hose and extinguished all the fire that was outside of the fire pit, but lost a shrub, a lot of wood chips, and a small tree. I also had a lot of explaining to do.

I guess glass half full is that our most recent campfire, if you want to refer to it as a fire, didn’t put anyone in harms way.  By the time Sunday morning rolled around I needed some me time.  My Sunday morning me time consists of going to D n W to get Starbucks a Sunday paper and some random groceries.  I had had enough of my kids and coaxed them into staying home and watching TV while I made the trek to D n W.  The only way this could end up being a problem is if our Dish Network went out, I’m quite certain the loss of television would have sent them canvassing the neighborhood looking for some other form of entertainment, heaven forbid they be bored.  I got back and it was like I had never left, they were glued to the tv and I had gotten my much needed Starbucks as well as a healthy dose of alone time.  The next dilemma was wether I should go for a run and drop them at the Y in the kids zone or just put them in front of the world’s best baby sitter and least expensive, television, and just run at my house.  I opted for the easiest route and put on Peter Rabbit, an hour later when I returned they were so deep into the intricate plot line of Peter Rabbit, they didn’t even notice me.

When I was at D n W and checking out at the U scan it asked me if I wanted to to donate to the special olympics.  Are you kidding me?  Now I have to feel like an asshole every time I go to D n W and choose not to donate to the special olympics?  I”m definitely not going to the regular check out while this special olympics drive is going on because I’ll either feel obligated to donate so I don’t look like an asshole, or I’ll feel like even more of an asshole than I do at the U scan.  Fun fact, when I see girl scouts, the felons who pose as salvation army bell ringers, or anyone else at the entrance of a grocery store I look for an alternative entrance to avoid having to give these unsavory solicitors the heisman.  Seriously, these grocery store charitable campaigns are like herpes, you never know when they are going to show up and you never have any idea how long they are going to stick around.

Charitable cause are great as long as I don’t have to contribute to them.  However, there is one charitable cause I would like to get off the ground.  Yogurt awareness.  Yogurt awareness you ask?  Yes, I don’t know who the lobby is for yogurt, or what marketing companies churn out their propaganda, but they may as well be putting cocaine in their product.  The kids and I took a quick trip to Meijer and the kids wanted yogurt, being the discerning parent that I am I said hold on here let’s see how much sugar is in this, 21 grams!  I may as well buy you a Milky Way candy bar and a mountain dew to wash it down with.  Not sure why 21 grams of sugar is alarming in pretty much everything but yogurt, is it because yogurt staves off yeast infections (don’t ask me to explain the science I just know it does). Seriously, refugees, global warming, the special olympics, all valiant charitable causes, but I think it’s time we step up and put an end to this yogurt facade, no sense in people settling on taste and opting for yogurt when yogurt is equally as unhealthy as ice cream but is the flavor equivalent of lentils loaf compared to meat loaf when up against ice cream.  Just say no to Yogurt!

As our time in Florida neared an end I became increasingly depressed and distraught.  I had been paying attention to the forecast in Michigan and it appeared I would be heading back to January like weather even though it was April.  While the high 60’s and low 70’s that I was experiencing in the Florida panhandle weren’t as warm as I would have liked, it was a thousand times better than snow, wind, and temperatures in the 20’s. The Friday night/ Saturday morning we were suppose to depart for Michigan I woke up at around 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep so we decided to wake up the kids and shove off even though no one was all that excited about returning to the frosty north.  We managed to get on the road at 4:15am.  This likely saved us about two hours of sitting in gridlock and we were able to make it home by 10pm.   Fairly efficient traveling in light of the fact that we had a five and seven year old on board, but in hind sight they were the least of our problems.  Unlimited movies and video games?  Had they not fallen asleep about an hour before we made it home they probably would have been fine continuing to drive around and watch movies or play video games.  (Aiden actually conquered a video game on the way home)

Much to my disappointment the fifteen day forecast that I had been keeping an eye on in Florida was fairly accurate and since our return from the sunshine state there has been very little of that.  The kids actually did not leave the house from Friday night until Monday morning this past weekend (other than an ill fated trip to the public library which I will get into later) a fact that exacerbated my intolerance for their behavior as they got ready for Colt Care on Monday morning (their school decided to call a snow day on Sunday at noon because they could).  Things had gotten so bad on Saturday that I was actually playing scrabble against Shirley and her sister out of a pure lack of better options.  My state of depression had become interminable, and dominating scrabble was just the thing I needed to brighten my mood.  There are two things that when coupled together were likely to be catastrophic for those involved in the scrabble contest, snow and me losing.  I had an inkling it was going to snow, but I had no idea Shirley’s sister would have every triple word score opened up for her thanks to Shirley, and would have such scrabble luck to be able to create three new words utilizing only three letters while scoring 30 points.  Why would I give a shit about scrabble?  Why would I give a shit about anything?  Because I am a competitive asshole that’s why.  I have been genetically predisposed to wanting to win every competition I engage in, and I behave poorly when I don’t prevail. (This makes beating me a particularly satisfying event for my opponents)  When I got down by an insurmountable margin I began to question every play by Shirley’s sister and snapped when she said a move I made was illegal. Ultimately I was trounced by over 100 points and also lost to Shirley.  They decided to play again, I envisioned myself flipping over the scrabble board mid game when Shirley’s sister played all of her letters including, X,Z,Q, and J on a triple word score to set the all time single hand scrabble score record,  and decided in the interest of domestic harmony to go make the kids lunch instead.  (it was also date night later on and I wasn’t going to jeopardize business time, it was the only remaining think that could possibly get me out of my funk).

After preparing lunch for my kids and Shirley’s niece I decided I needed to get out of the house or this was likely to happen:

I made my way to MVP to get a work out in and took my sweet time getting back home.  Upon my return Shirley and the kids were on their way out to go to the library (that’s how bad it has gotten, they willingly went to the library). When they returned Shirley had a clarinet and Aiden had a guitar, I figured the library was stepping up its game to attract more than just pedophiles and people who were too cheap to spring for internet to their branches.  Turns out the library was closed due to the weather so Shirley did the logical thing, instead of going to Barnes and Noble she went to Meyer Music and rented a couple of instruments.  If being relegated to the inside of your home isn’t torture enough, throwing in a Clarinet for Shirley, an instrument she hasn’t played since high school, and a guitar for Aiden led me to contemplate going into my garage turning on my car and letting the sweet odorless gas take me to a place void of bad weather and a compulsive spouse.  Shirley started playing, immediately saying that the clarinet playing was giving her a sore mouth, I wasn’t too worried, date night would have to go extraordinarily well for that to matter.  While Shirley blew on the Clarinet Aiden randomly plucked the guitar strings and pounded on the front of the guitar as if it were a set of bongos.  After three minutes he lost interest and the kids ended up watching a Scooby Doo DVD Shirley had purchased for them.  I’m quite certain neither instrument will receive any attention moving forward, and adding insult to injury they won’t be returned on time resulting in even more of a monetary outlay.  Now I realize that the rental of a clarinet and guitar seems somewhat random, but Shirley has been watching Mozart in the Jungle which I think is on Netflix and is about the New York music scene, so why not revisit your musical roots?  Especially considering she was first chair in middle school (out of 3 people).

Shirley isn’t the only one who has been turned on to this streaming thing, Sunday night I actually went up to bed at about 6:30 while Shirley and the kids watched a movie.  I fell asleep and woke up at about 8 knowing that it would be a while before I could fall back asleep.  I decided to search the best shows on Netflix and decided on Bojack Horesman which is their highest ranked show according to google, never mind that it’s a cartoon, it’s got Will Arnett as the voice of Bojack and sounded delightful.  The only problem is that when I jumped on my Netflix ap it was set to the kids profile and Shirley had put some type of child safety parameters on what could be streamed.  Damn you Shirley!  I was getting frustrated, but not frustrated enough to ask for Shirley’s assistance or to throw my phone against the wall.  I noticed that you could set up an additional profile, could that solve the problem?  Seemed to simple to actually work but it actually did.  Being the creative person that I am I titled the new profile Me (the other profile is titled Kids).  Yahtzee!  All the adult content anyone could want was at my fingertips.  It should be troubling to me, because if I can figure out how to usurp the parental controls on Netflix, then my kids most certainly can as well.  Fortunately, they are not at an age where they are dying for adult content, they are perfectly happy with the Netflix show Boss Baby (their current favorite) but I am sure there will come a day in the next couple of years where they want to see boobies and then it will be all over, the need to see naked women will consume their every thought and every action, rendering them incapable of being productive members of society.  I don’t want to know what my adolescence would have been like had the internet been around and had I had access to the countless streaming services that exist today, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance I would have never left my room.

Why am I not upset or troubled by what lies ahead for my kids? first of all I was exposed to good ole fashion porno as a kid, Penthouse to be exact, Penthouse from the early 80’s when the motto was the thicker the better.  The images I saw were quite harrowing and changed my perspective, but I turned out just fine.  Secondly, my kids are already technologically more savvy than I am, so other than not allowing them access to technology, which would probably require some type of sacrifice on my part if we were to eliminate all technology that could lead our kids astray, they are going to get their eyes on some inappropriate material.  (possibly the sole advantage to having only girls is that this is not a problem, very few girls want to see naked men, and if they do seek it out they typically don’t ever want to see naked dude porno again).   Had I held on to those Penthouse magazines I probably could have frightened them away from digging too deep into porn on the internet, claiming that if they made a wrong turn on the internet there was gigantic bush lurking around every corner.  So, what is the answer to have at least a some control over what your kids see on the internet?    There isn’t one, you just have to hope that your kids don’t stumble on the real nasty stuff, which I hope by the time my kids reach that age can only be accessed monetarily with a credit or debit card, which in theory should handcuff them from accessing the truly nasty sights.  I’m too much of a realist to think I can short circuit my kids attempts to see raunchy shit on the internet, it’s going to happen, but my hope, and this may be a bit naive, is that they know where to draw the line, or at least are smart enough to not do anything illegal, I don’t think that is asking or expecting too much.  (You show me yours and I’ll show you mine could have gotten me in a lot of trouble back in the day if it could have been done as easily as just a text message with a photo attached).

The question that I have often asked myself is are we better off as technology continues to evolve and make our life seemingly better?  I’m quite certain any road trip I ever went on as a child that was more than 45 minutes was complete hell for me and my parents. But now kids can watch movies and play video games non stop.  Is that a good thing? Part of me says no because my kids don’t have to endure the same shitty car rides I had to as a kid, but on the flip side I don’t have to endure the same shitty car rides as a parent that my parents did either.  Similarly, my kids should have to find porn the hard way, haphazardly stumbling upon tangible pictures of naked women in magazines.  Is the internet and streaming a good thing, of course it is?  No more trips to blockbuster only to find that every copy of  the one movie you wanted to watch was all gone, settling for some other movie you only had a half hearted interest in and ultimately never watched, returning it days late and having to pay a late fee.  However, there for every advancement we make there always seems to be a price.  Oh well, I need to get back to BoJack Horseman, I’m already on season 1 episode 6.

Been a rough week.  Last Sunday I thought I was going to be the last person in West Michigan to get that nasty flu bug that was going around all winter, still something I could brag about right?  I was so awesome that it didn’t break down my immune system until flu season was technically over.  Unfortunately it was worse, much worse.  My lower leg hurt but I hadn’t engaged in any type of activity that would result in a lower leg injury.  Something told me the pain in my leg, low grade fever, and fatigue were intertwined but there was a chance they were completely unrelated.  I decided to continue to try and plod on, hoping it would just go away.  Monday morning I felt a bit better, but by that afternoon I started feeling like ass again and realized this felt exactly like an incident I had about eight years ago where I almost lost my right foot to an infection.  A trip to the ER didn’t confirm or deny my suspicions, the ER doc was going to send me away empty handed.  However, I insisted that he give me antibiotics because I knew I had an infection due to the fact that this was playing out just like my previous infection, other than the fact that I ignored that one, kept playing basketball on an infected foot, attended a golf weekend in Saugatuck where the vast quantities of alcohol I consumed didn’t counter the infection but likely exacerbated.  Fortunately, when I woke up that Saturday morning at 6am and couldn’t put any weight on my right foot I realized it was time to stop being a hero and get some much needed medical attention.  I had to drive from Saugatuck to GR on one foot, that’s how badly my right foot had deteriorated.  When I finally arrived to the ER they put me in the front of the line and whisked me into emergency surgery.  I could have easily woke up with out an appendage, but the surgeon did a great job of cleaning it out and saved my foot.

This time I wasn’t about to go through that experience.  I started taking antibiotics on Monday afternoon and slept from Monday at 6 until Tuesday morning at 8am.  I sweat out a minimum of a dozen gallons of fluid Sunday and Monday night but by Tuesday I was feeling a bit better.  Wednesday rolled around and my mobility changed from that of a 95year old to a 75 year old so I figured I should play lunch basketball at MVP.  I’m glad I did, well sort of, I played amazingly well for a 75 year old.  However, the basketball may have compromised my immune system somewhat.  That night when I got home with the kids after a trip to Tanger Outlet for new water shoes (another blog topic for the future) Cara asked how my leg was, I said fine, unfortunately it wasn’t the infection was spreading and my leg was as hot as New Kids on the Block were in the 90’s.   Fortunately my mother in law was there picking up the dog and she stayed with the kids.  Shirley dropped me off at the ER and parked and I limped into the ER, holy shit, it looked like the scene from Walking Dead the one where the zombies try to eat you, everyone in there looked like they had been a zombie for at least a couple weeks and there was one guy moaning in pain in the waiting room.  I wanted to go over and tell the guy to quit being such a pussy, but didn’t want to lose my place in line.  I was actually behind a guy who was on crutches trying to push a women who looked like the crypt keeper in her wheelchair.  Needless to say, my glass half full approach to life was taking a serious hit, I don’t even think Mr. Rogers could find a silver lining to this evening.  Eventually I was wheeled to a private room and as I made my way through a number of hallways it was remarkable how each hallway was lined with people on medical beds who looked just about as bad as the guy who was screaming like a giant pussy in the waiting room.  I thought to myself “this would be a great place to find cast members for the Walking Dead, they wouldn’t even need makeup, and probably already have a hankering for human flesh so their acting will be spot on.”  Ultimately, I was admitted and given two IV’s of antibiotics which really did the trick.  What I didn’t see coming is that I would be released at 10:45 am the next day, it was like God wanted me to play basketball at lunch, which I did.  My partner called me when I was in the parking lot of Kuyper college and we were talking and I asked if I could call him back.  He asked me “Hey you’re not playing basketball are you?  Wait you wouldn’t play basketball would you?”  I may have responded with a “why would I do that?”  However, if I said no and you read this Mark, sorry.

Once again, an amazing performance by someone who was eligible to retire from the work force a decade ago.  I chose not to shower at Kuyper because I am pretty sure that’s where I picked up this flesh eating bacterial infection.  I was able to accomplish a few things at the office and then hit a quick spray tan before I went home.  I go completely naked and I will say this, I am a confident guy, but a spray tanned penis doubles my amount of self confidence.  When I got home I saw my father in law coming the opposite way out of our house.  Damn it!  I was hoping for some business time, Shirley had told me he was picking up the kids, I thought that meant and bringing them to his house but he was merely dropping them at our house.  When I got through the door I could instantly tell my kids were already amped up for the Florida trip that we were hoping to depart on at 3am Friday morning, likely an unreasonable goal, but Loyola made it to the final four so the Jansmas could conceivably get out the door by 3am.

My kids doubled down on annoying, it was my over confidence with a spray tan times ten.  What was perplexing was the fact that I would be spending the majority of the next ten days with them on a trip. People are full of shit if they actually pretend like they enjoy family “vacations” just as much as real vacations.  Oh yeah, why would I want to be able to drink as much as I want whenever I want, lay by the pool, read book(s), drink while I do that if I feel up  to it, have extravagant dinners and a LOT of sex?  The alternative sounds way better, yelling at my kids, yelling at my wife because the kids are driving both of us crazy and we take it out on whomever happens to be around, and then catering an entire vacation to someone else’s needs (my kids)  fucked up right?  One of my buddies is married and he and his wife made the conscious decision not to have kids, I use to think he was crazy, now I know who is crazy, everyone who actually tries to have kids.  I can see accidentally having a kid because you are horny and in the spur of the moment didn’t take the necessary precautions to avoid such a catastrophic mistake, but to actually plan it out, that’s just idiocy.

While I am not sure if I responded to my partner “why would I do that?”  There is one person who I did:

“I tried calling you this morning when you said you were being released”

“You did?”

“and you didn’t answer” (I saw her missed calls when I left basketball but didn’t think much of it, in hindsight I’m glad I didn’t call her back)

“I was kind of busy”

“Did you play basketball today?”

“Why would I do that?”

“When you didn’t answer I tracked you since we are on the same plan and you were at Kuyper college.”

(OH SHIT!)

The good news is, and this isn’t because I am an attorney by trade, its innate, when faced with answering a question that answering truthfully is against my self interest, instead of lying, I follow it up with another question and see where it goes.  That way,  if it appears that the lie would have been detected, I am not compounding the problem.  Obviously, this conversation didn’t go the proper direction.  Shirley took it better than I thought and I actually managed to get some business time under my belt prior to our long road trip.  It went better for me than her because:

1. My leg infection creeped her out.  (not sure why it’s not contagious)
2. I smelled like spray tan, a smell that should make everyone Randy.
3. I also smelled like a black bean burger.

apparently I was the trifecta of unsexy even more than normal

Guess what?  The apocalypse is near, how do I know that? The zombies at the ER?  No, the Jansma’s were on the road at 3:15 am making their way to the sunshine state.  The ironic thing is it had nothing to do with their parents and can be attributed to my eldest and his annoying habit that has replaced him sleeping on the floor next to Shirley’s bed.  He now wakes up in the middle of the night and pushes our door open, the light is on in the hallway and I am a light sleeper so this wakes me up.  I need pitch black typically but at that time in the morning I have no desire to get up out of bed and traverse the three feet needed to close the door, and typically when I do this Aiden gets up again and opens it.    Friday morning Aiden did it again and both kids were there and wide awake, this woke me up and the ensuing arguing resulted in me deciding to just get out of bed so we could actually shove off on time.

Friday’s travels were fairly uneventful.  I laid the groundwork for zero tolerance early with Shirley.  She immediately started critiquing my driving, ordering me to slow down.  She is so fanatical about it you would think that me being pulled over for speeding would result in the officer pulling me out of the car and shooting me execution style in front of my family instead of the small fine and points to my driver’s license.  I fought back and told her it was 3am we would be fine.  The reality is, there is a shift change with law enforcement, not sure when it is, but you have a window when you can speed your ass off without the fear of being caught.  Ultimately we made it to our hotel in Montgomery in about 16 hours, my sweatpants were 90% saturated with farts and sweat, but we made it.  The next day we were back on the road around 8 am EST and the only thing initially that went wrong is that a Starbucks, which was actually on our route, was completely ignored by the people we were following.  I just figured that he knew of one up ahead that was on our side of the street instead of having to make a left hand turn into the Starbucks.  What are the odds of there being another Starbucks somewhere in the next 90 miles?  100% unless you are traveling in Alabama then it is more like 0%.

Fortunately the Starbucks void in Alabama is filled by Chick-Fil-A and they serve an amazing breakfast as well as cold brew.  Going there for breakfast rectified the situation to a degree.  Even though I was satisfied with the Chick-Fil-A Starbucks trade off I was still on edge due to the fact that I had just spent more consecutive hours with my family than I had ever before.  As I was traveling I was stuck behind a Prevost and blinkered to get over to the left where there was plenty of room, this old bag in a PT cruiser sped up and started going nuts on me.  I yelled “Let me in you BITCH!”   Obviously, this didn’t sit well with Shirley even though the kids had headphones on and were watching the first Jumanji and I could have thrown Shirley out of the car without them noticing.  “The kids shouldn’t be hearing that.”  Boy was she right.

The kids are a bit too young to understand how the rules of the road work when using the word Bitch.  I was referring to this women as a bitch, and well within my right to do so, but bitch is a versatile word.  Furthermore, had it been a male driver I would have had to use the word asshole instead of bitch.  Exposing my kids to bitch this early would likely result in a complete mis understanding and mis use of the word by them.  What if they heard a guy referring to another guy as a bitch?  “You’re my bitch!”   That could be quite confusing.  Or, on the off chance that I referred to Shirley, my wife as a bitch when we were arguing and they just happen to be in ear shot?  Maybe once a year I get to pull out the bitch card, I don’t get to directly refer to her as a bitch, I tone it down.  “Why are you being such a bitch?”  It doesn’t result in divorce, because when she gets to this level  and looks at thinks retrospectively, she realizes she was being a bitch.

I guess I will have to find a movie for the ride home for the kids that uses the word bitch in its many different contexts and then have a sit down with Aiden and Parker to discuss how the word bitch actually works.  Knowledge is power.

“Mr. Roboto”

That Robot is fucking creepy, Shirley doesn’t like me using that word in my blog, but it is. You know what else is creepy?  When I get in my car and my phone knows where I am going before I do.  The other day when I was leaving my office to go pick up the kids from school it told me how long it would take me to get there before I even started my vehicle. How does it know I’m getting ready to drive?  And how does it know exactly where I am going?  I was quite tempted to not pick them up just to prove a point that my phone isn’t as smart as it thinks it is.  Damn you phone!  Sorry Aiden and Parker I couldn’t pick you up from school today because I had to prove a point to my phone.  It knows that I’m going to lunch basketball at MVP (which takes place on Monday, Wednesday and Friday), it knows that I’m going to my office from lunch basketball, it even knows that I am going Kuyper college to play lunch basketball which occurs on Tuesday and Thursday.  What about people who go to unsavory places like a crack house or an “oriental spa” does it tell them the expected time to reach those locations?   “You will be high out of your mind in 7 minutes”  “You will be finishing your happy ending in 22 minutes” (this time frame may be a bit harder for your phone to predict, but who knows it may know you that intimately)

What happens if companies use this to their advantage?  You get in your car and it suggests  a route and it tells you you are going to the nearest Taco Bell.  You weren’t actually planning on going to Taco Bell but who are you to question your phone?  Besides one of those grilled puntalitos sounds delicious (I made that up, I don’t eat at Taco Bell, and I don’t eat at McDonalds either, unless it’s breakfast, I”m a fast food snob).  Just think if companies are somehow able to accomplish this feat, people love their phone more than their pets, more than their spouses, and definitely more than their children, they are going to listen to their phone and do what it tells them to do.

The most troubling thing that was revealed to me just this past Saturday was frightening.  A few years back Shirley had suggested that we put an app on our phones that allows us to track one another.  I have nothing to hide but for the fact that I typically work about 12-15 hours a week if I’m really putting my nose to the old grindstone.  Shirley doesn’t know this, she knows I don’t work that much, but she has no idea how little I truly work. If she pulled up this app it would be fairly obvious when my phone is either at MVP, on the Thornapple river, or at Thornapple golf course that I’m not in the office.  I thought about getting a phone to put the app on that I could just leave at my office,  but instead I just refused since I knew that this idea would fade within the week just like every other idea she has.  However, we are now on the same plan and when I got back form my run on Saturday Parker said “we were spying on you.”  I asked him how that was possible and Shirley piped in that since we are on the same plan she can track my movements (we haven’t always been on the same plan).   I was tempted to immediately flush my phone down the toilet, but I played it cool and acted like it was no big deal.  Hopefully my non-chalante attitude threw Shirley off the sent and she was unable to detect my utmost anxiety at the thought of her tracking my every move.

Following up on my last post, the kids have been doing a fairly good job of staying in their beds.  However, I had Parker talked in a lizard in lieu of a cat but Shirley seems to think a cat is a great idea.  While it is frightening what technology has been able to accomplish, I do feel that it has let me down in its inability to create a cat with all the positive qualities a cat possesses (there may be none) while at the same time removing all of the negative qualities they possess (licking their buttholes which for some reason is way worse when a cat does it as opposed to a dog, shitting and pissing in a litter box and then walking on your counter, shedding everywhere, eating you when you die).