Don’t worry this will not be political in nature but it is somewhat ironic that it looks like Roe v. Wade is about to be overturned while we have the most liberal administration in the history of the United States presiding with nothing they can do about it. A couple weeks ago the Jansma’s, on one of the countless rainy nights this spring, went to see the new Fantastic Beasts movies. I’m not into Harry Potter and its offshoots so I had contemplated going to see the Nicholas Cage movie instead. However, there were no show times that correlated between the two movies so I decided to suck it up and join the family. We went to Celebration North and I pulled a rookie mistake, I didn’t look closely at the fine print and when we arrived we discovered that the showtime was for the IMAX, resulting in an out the door price north of $80. In an attempt to defray some of the cost we made our kids split a fountain drink, the way they reacted you would have thought I gave them a cup filled with for a beverage. Despite my rookie mistake, I had smuggled in all of the candy which resulted in a savings of at least $15. One of the major problems is the additional cost of the IMAX, the other is that it is super fucking loud. Even Parker noticed it was way too loud. An additional problem, and this is not just with IMAX movies, but with all movies these days, is the need to make it in excess of two hours. The movie was OK but would have been much better if it was a streamlined 90 minutes. They added a bunch of superfluous shit that did nothing to add to the plot or develop any of the characters.

When we got home we headed to the basement to eat the pizza we had picked up and watch Young Sheldon. Our basement typically is used two to three times a year when I hide down there to avoid Shirley’s family. However, we are balls deep into a home renovation that has us with no kitchen or much of anything else on our first floor. If you told me I would be willingly admitting that I watch Young Sheldon when I started writing this blog I wouldn’t have believed you. But the truth is, it’s an ok show. As we were watching it Parker had a question, he asked Shirley and I what it is called when a guy has sex with two girls (he’s in third grade). I wanted to say fortunate but Shirley jumped in and told him there isn’t a word for it, it was tough for me to hold my tongue, who doesn’t enjoy saying menage a trois? (and who doesn’t enjoy being part of one as long as it’s the components are right, two girls and one guy) Whenever our kids ask a question that they shouldn’t because they shouldn’t have any knowledge of the subject matter that is the basis for their question we ask them what gave them the idea to ask the question. Parker claimed he heard it on the bus, but my kids are smart enough to not say their devices, and I am certain the idea of a threesome came from Youtube or something similar to it. What my kids know is that we can’t and won’t take away the bus, but we can and sometimes, but only under extreme circumstances, take away their devices.

This particular episode of Young Sheldon dealt with Sheldon’s older brother George getting his girlfriend pregnant. In one scene George goes to speak to his grandma’s boyfriend who is also his boss at the sporting good store. He asks him what he should do and his boss questions “is she going to keep it? are you even sure it is yours?” To which Aiden responds (he’s in fifth grade) matter of factly “she can get an abortion”. It’s a good thing Grandma Jansma was not alive to hear that because she would have made him pay back the $75 she gave him on her last Christmas due to her extremely pro life stance on everything other than democrats.

I’d like to say it ends there, that was the only shocking question/statement I heard from my kids that week. Unfortunately, Parker on the way to school a few days later asked me if I knew what 69 was. Again, I asked him where he had heard that knowing he would never narc out his device as being the culprit for his way too advanced knowledge of sex. I can blame a lot of it on the internet, but the reality is that Shirley is also culpable. She ordered a book off Amazon entitled “It’s not the Stork” that explains the birds and the bees. Ironically I just happened to find it under our bed a couple weeks ago when I was doing some spring cleaning. She read it to them when Parker was either 5 or 6 and Aiden 6 or 7. How did I hear about the birds and the bees? On the playground at school like every kid did back when I was growing up. Thankfully my parents were not about to have the talk with me and decided to leave it up to Darlene Doornbos, who had 9 older brothers and sisters and knew just as much about sex when she was in fourth grade as Dr. Ruth. I didn’t believer her, no way my parents would do that, turns out they did it four times in the 47 years they were married, well actually 3 times, I was actually conceived out of wedlock.

(this is a page from ‘It’s Not the Stork’ there are a lot of things to nit pick about this illustration particularly the bed spread, were they doing it in their kid’s room? but the women smiling has to be at the top of the list)

For the past couple of years I have been living with a third nipple and it’s located int he middle of my back. I can’t see it, but Shirley frequently comments on how grotesque it is. I had figured that it being so disgusting distracted her from other parts of me that were bad, but not that bad, so I have held on to it. (it’s similar to a marginal looking chick hanging out with a bunch of land monsters so that she seems hot, but kind of the opposite I guess). Last month I ended up going in for my annual, or at least somewhat annual, physical. I think this is true with every doctor, but can only speak to mine, he asked me how much I drink a week. Now, I am sure there are people who are honest about how much they drink, those are the people who don’t drink at all. Everyone else is a fucking liar and downplays the severity of their alcoholism. I told him I have two to four drinks a week, the only way that could actually happen is if I was in prison or stranded on an island with absolutely no access to booze. Other than openly lying to him everything went well other than my cholesterol. At my previous physical it had been determined that my cholesterol was high and that I may need to go on medication if I didn’t change things. Well, I changed things, I stopped eating Doritos, but apparently that wasn’t enough to get me out of the danger zone. This time I was honest with myself, fully realizing that I like stuff with saturated fat and cholesterol way too much and medication would have to be the answer. I also asked my doctor about the thing on my back, he indicated that it was not anything to be concerned about but that he could refer me to a dermatologist if I wanted it removed. Now that I am 48 a colonoscopy is highly recommended so I have that to look forward to as well. The good news I guess, is that they can do a blood test to check your prostrate, I tried to hide my disappointment when he revealed this fact to me.

Ultimately I was contacted by a dermatologist and set up an appointment to have my third nipple removed. It was starting to wink at me when I looked at it in the mirror so I knew it was time, also my buddies were making fun of it in the locker room, again, something distracting people from noticing my average size penis is probably a good thing but it was time to have it removed. (There’s some guys in the locker room that I don’t even know how they are able to walk around with what they are packing, it’s almost like they have to wind it up like a hose to be able to function). The mask thing is still a requirement for visits to a doctors office so the assistant led me to a room and told me to disrobe and pointed at an oversized paper towel to use to cover up. I told her I’d just hang out in my underwear. She came back a few minutes later with the person running the operation (a female) and I was sitting there in my underwear and a mask. I was tempted to ask “do you gals like to party?” but it already was quite awkward. I think the person examining me was a PA and she asked if I wanted a full body examination of all my moles or just wanted her to look at a few. I opted for the full body treatment and she commented that I have a lot of moles. They did a biopsy of one of my moles that seemed like it might be a bit abnormal and told me something about setting up a patient portal to get the test results but if something was peculiar they would call. I never set up a patient portal and am under the assumption that since they didn’t call I am skin cancer free (liver cancer is probably a distinct possibility though). The PA then told me how awful it would be to have the cyst on my back removed, indicating that they would have to go all the way down to the fat (I wanted to tell her it would actually be muscle in my case, but didn’t) to remove the cyst and it would leave a scar three times bigger than the cyst. I decided to nix the operation, I don’t see it anyway, unless I go out of my way to look at it in the mirror.

I’m not the only Jansma who needed medical attention as of late. Aiden has developed a tic. He rolls his head to the right down to his shoulder. He just recently started doing this and as time has gone by it has become more frequent and exaggerated. The kid has enough problems without the tic, he and his brother still require Shirley to tuck them in. Should I object to this? Of course, but you have to choose your battles, I’m assuming that worst case scenario she eventually will walk in on one of them jerking off (my bet is on Parker) right before bed and that will put an end to the tucking in before bed thing. He also gets up every night at around 4am to pee, every night, and he will crack our door open if it is closed. On top of this he has to turn on every single light downstairs when he gets up in the morning after he spends no less than 20 minutes taking a dump. I will say I have had the motion sensor lights go off on me while dropping a deuce occasionally when I am at the office, but that’s because I am either really into whatever I am reading on my phone or stuck on the wordle of the day. I am a very efficient shitter, I pride myself in that fact. On top of the listed problems Aiden has, he also has ADHD and is on medication to treat this disorder. The doctor is hoping that changing his dosage will eradicate the tic. I have my fingers crossed because if that doesn’t work the cure may be worse than the disease. A lifetime of wearing a neck brace would really suck.

Typically I try to schedule a warm weather vacation in February to avoid turning into Jack Nicholson’s character from the Shining. Would I try to murder my family if I wasn’t able to get a brief respite from the Michigan winter in the shortest but worst month of the year? Probably not, but I don’t want to take that chance. This year the annual February trip was put in jeopardy by an ill timed trial that was scheduled in the fall to take place in late February. However, Covid saved the day by shutting down the Kalamazoo jury trials allowing me to plan a trip to Puerto Rico. We were scheduled to fly out of GR on February 18 and set to return on February 26. The afternoon of our scheduled flight out I received an email from American Airlines alerting me to the fact that our flight to Philadelphia was running behind and that may cause us to miss our flight from there to Puerto Rico. We decided to head to the airport anyway thinking that if the flight was not going to make it we could find an alternative much more easily if we were at the airport. When we were standing in line to get through security I received another email that indicated the flight was going to be further delayed, putting the likelihood of catching our connecting flight at about the same odds as Ukraine prevailing against Russia. Aiden lost his mind in the security line and started F bombing American Airlines. However, we continued on and went to our gate so that Shirley could track someone down to see what our alternatives were. I was desperate and jumped on AA’s website to see if there was anything that would allow us to get to Puerto Rico on Saturday but there were only flights that allowed us to board on Saturday and reach Puerto Rico no earlier than 22 hours from departure.

We ended up rebooking for Sunday from GR to Miami. Our flight left at a little after 6 in the morning and gave us an 8 hour layover in Miami. While the Miami airport has a bit more to offer than GR we decided we were going to go on a day trip to pass the time and ended up taking the bus form the airport to Miami Beach. We stopped for breakfast at a hotel on Collins avenue that was worse than Denny’s and didn’t have the catchy breakfast meal names ( I love Moons over Mihami). After finishing breakfast we bought a bunch of beach gear from Walgreens and one of the tourist beach shops and found a place to vacate at the beach. After roughly an hour the sky clouded over and it began to rain. Wandering around in MIami Beach with all of our shit must have been how the Israelites felt when they escaped Egypt only to doubt God and be cast into the dessert for 40 years, only they didn’t have the advantage of sun block. When the kids and Shirley returned from an additional trip to Walgreens with their arms full of snacks we decided to pack up and get back on the bus. On our ride to the beach there were only a handful of people and traffic was fairly light, on the way back to the airport you would have thought they were shuttling Ukraine refugees to Poland. Shirley snaged a seat for her and Parker, while Aiden and I were stuck with individual seats. After a couple stops some guy got on and sat in the seat in front of me and he smelled like the cheese from under a homeless guys balls, I had to put my mask on (which was required on Miami public transportation) to dampen the smell.

The Jansma’s managed to touch down in Peurto Rico a little after 9pm Atlantic time. Atlantic time is an hour ahead of EST. Initially, and this is one of the many reasons missing our Friday flight sucked, I had a Jeep reserved through Hertz. However, they only hold your reservation for 12 hours so Shirley grabbed a different rental car off Expedia. We had to take a shuttle to the agency and it was some name I had never heard of before. Sadly, the rental car was not only a complete pile of shit it was also $400 more than the Jeep. When we tried to put all of our luggage in it wouldn’t fit and we were looking at having to bungee strap Aiden to the roof. (Bungee straps were an additional $5 a day per strap) However, and I’m not sure why because when it comes to Karma I deserve none of the good kind, the rental guy upgraded our Shitsubishi, from a small SUV Shitsubishi (you could probably fit no more than 3 clowns in the small Shitsubishi) to a midsize Shitsubishi SUV, it even had XM radio so I could listen to the morning drive on NBA radio. We ended up arriving at our rental around midnight rode hard and put away wet so we decided to spend Monday lounging around the pool and hanging out at the beach. I had rented a place that had separate bedrooms because sex is a must on a tropical vacation and is much more likely to happen if Shirley and I have our own room. However, the first two nights Shirley slept with Aiden and I slept with Parker.

I had planned and booked the entire trip but Shirley, at least in her mind, had contributed the most because she reserved tickets to the rain forest for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. So, Tuesday we decided to make the trip to the rainforest to go on a hike. Roughly 63 feet before we make it to the visitor center Shirley asks me what the date is. Turns out our tickets were for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. When we get up to the attendant booth at the visitor center Shirley asks politely if there is a chance we can still get in the park, the attendant smiled and said no in response. However we were able to pay $16 to go into the visitor center, which was even more underwhelming due to the fact that I thought I was going to be hiking through waterfalls and a lot of cool shit in the actual park. We did find a swimming hole that was a quarter mile hike to get to and somewhat made up for the hour long round trip.

On Wednesday I took the kids to Super Wal Mart with me to get some supplies for our hike. We scoured the Super Wal Mart looking for ponchos but had no luck. However, the kids were able to find nips, for those of you who don’t know what nips are, at least the candy version, they are like werthers but unlike werthers your kids make jokes about them the entire time they are consuming them. On the way back we stopped at McDonalds to order some breakfast. I patiently waited in the Drive Thru line only to have the attendant talk at me in Spanish, this is where the 3 years of Spanish Immersion and $45,000 in tuition was suppose to be of some assistance. Sadly, that isn’t enough to allow you to order off the McDonald’s breakfast menu in Espanol. Neither kid was of any help and I somewhat panicked, backing out of the drive thru lane and hurriedly exiting the McDonalds, but not before Aiden could yell “Adios!” to the drive thru attendant. So, I guess that Spanish Immersion experiment wasn’t a complete waste.

The next few days were spent at the beach, in the pool, and going on a snorkel adventure. The crazy thing is Parker indicated midway through trip that he was sick of hanging out at the pool, I was tempted to Fed Ex his ungrateful ass back home. He also indicated that he missed his friends and was looking forward to getting back home. There was nothing I missed about back home other than our dog Max and knew that I would be in a deep state of depression once I returned back to the great white north. Our flight on Sunday out of Puerto Rico was at 8 am so we woke up at 5 to be on the safe side. Shirley and I come from two different schools of thought on travel. She is a white knuckle traveler worried about every unforeseen hiccup that could beseech us on our journey, where as I don’t sweat much of anything other than a deep seeded fear that my plane will crash. Shirley actually told me that she woke up Saturday night and was worried the rental car place didn’t open until 6 am. So, that context will help you appreciate what I experienced on the way to the airport. We stopped to top off the rental car tank but Puerto Rico doesn’t have pay at the pump so I had to go in to pay. When I approached the car Shirley was standing at the pump ready to fill the car with gas. In the 16 years I have known her she has never once pumped gas in my presence. She wanted to utilize the 30 seconds it took me to walk out so that we could get to the airport as timely a manner as possible. Sadly, she was unable to figure out how to work the pump so I had to take over.

In closing I do think the world can be divided in to two distinct groups, those who want to get on a plane immediately when boarding starts and those who prefer to wait until the last possible minute. I had been given a ticket that required me to get a seat assignment at the gate while Shirley and the kids had their assignments already. They boarded together and I lagged behind, but I let the societal pressure of boarding as soon as you can get the best of me and instead of waiting in line for Starbucks I boarded the plain with at least 45 seconds to spare.

A couple months ago Aiden won entrance into the school wide spelling bee by beating his classmates. I think that says a lot about his classmates and very little about Aiden. Regardless, Shirley decided that she would attend the spelling bee which was held in the Caledonia High School auditorium. About 45 seconds in to the practice round she texted me “A girl just got out on “studied” would have been ironic if Aiden got that word” (received that word would have been the proper way to communicate that, I suck at spelling but am just ok at grammar).

I asked her how many kids are in the thing and she responded with probably 50 and followed it by indicting “this is so painful.”

The spelling bee came up later in the day on the Nieboer text string and started with a facebook video from my mother in law from October 19 2013 when Aiden was just about to turn 3 and appeared to be his birthday party even though he was born on November 13. Regardless Sue followed the posting of the video with “And now he is winning spelling bees!” To which Aiden responded “but I didn’t win, only the class one”

I then asked “How did you do today”

“good”

“great”

“I got to the third round”

“Witch is good”

Shirley responded with a “Wow!!!” (apparently she has very low expectations for Aiden)

“Witch”

“Which” from Shirley

“sorry autocorrect” (in the history of autocorrect it is batting around a .324 success rate)

“That’s awesome! (Shirley is really into exclamation points unless she is referring to any of my accomplishments) Aiden what word did you lose on?”

“I don’t even remember, some fancy word for coat, the others got easy ones”

“Tunic?” asked Shirley

“way harder it starts with a c”

“Kaftan? inquired Shirley. (I don’t even know what that is)

“Chiton?” asked Shirley again (she must have had a fucking thesaurus near by)

“Cloak?” chimed in my mother in law.

“No, I said it was hard I can spell cloak”

“of coarse” Sue incorrectly came back with but no one gave her shit for it.

“Great Job” from Aunt Amy.

“Cape?” I asked

“No, I can spell cape”

“Cardigan?”

In my defense cardigan is not really a jacket and it’s not really a sweater but it’s way more of a sweater than it is a jacket. Regardless, I would probably blow my brains out if my kid was a tier 1 speller and I was forced to go the the regional version of this thing. Fortunately Shirley and I, but especially Shirley, realize Aiden could be tier 1 at some type of electronics type of activity so we have allowed him to explore his potential for greatness in that realm. It’s actually more Shirley’s fault, or possibly even Spectrum Health. Aiden gets home around 3 and hops on a device immediately. Typically I am not home and Shirley wouldn’t even realize someone was home if the entire cast of Cats came in and performed the first number from the musical. She is so deeply entrenched in her home office that the kids could, and almost did, burn the house down while she was in it, although I am quite confident Max is smart enough and likes her enough that he would alert her to her potential peril before it befell her. Parker on the other hand gets home and typically goes over to the neighbors to play. I’m not saying he doesn’t love electronics but he at least has some other interests.

My two sons also are on different spectrums when it comes to athletics. Saturday I took them to MVP to play tennis and broke out the ball machine. Parker was up first and did a pretty good job returning balls. However, Aiden missed almost everything that came his way and when he did make contact it typically went on to another court, where people were playing. Eventually, I had to slow the machine down for him. On top of that, it didn’t take him long to ask when we were leaving because he had already spent 45 minutes away form his electronics, I could actually see him quivering and shaking, a mini withdrawal was beginning to rear its ugly head. Parker on the other hand wanted to keep playing. They both took another round on the ball machine, I took one round as well, as they watched my phone. The burst of electronics gave Aiden a little more pep to his step and I played the two of them up to 15. Aiden continually botched things for Parker and there were a number of times Parker chased after him with his racket in anger. I beat them and we played again, and then one more time. Parker ended up throwing his racket twice, if I had any doubt about his paternity, I no longer do. In addition, he told me he needed a better racket. He is my son!

On Wednesday I took the kids to get their final Covid shots, it’s good, it was really a pain putting them in a haz mat suit every time I wanted to take them somewhere. After the doctor’s appointment we headed to the mall per Parker’s request because he wanted to look at Air Jordan’s even though Aiden is the one growing out of his shoes. It had been a minute since I had been to Woodland mall and there are a lot of new stores, and based on the traffic in those malls those stores will be replaced by other stores in a matter of months. Parker could not find any Jordan’s that he liked at the mall. I asked Aiden if he wanted to get some new shoes since he was outgrowing his and he said “no dad”. (he may not be my son) We decided to hit Cheescake factory and Shirley ended up meeting up with us. At the table Aiden had my phone for some reason and he stumbled on a screen shot of one of the girls on the booby calendar. He didn’t know she was on the booby calendar, (The booby calendar is an advent calendar where each day you can open a new video clip, but you can’t skip ahead, which is kind of the beauty of the booby calendar, I felt like a kid again actually having something to look forward to every day around the holidays instead of a lot of stuff to dread) and fortunately she was wearing underwear in the screen shot, but he immediately questioned the screen shot and brought it to Shirley’s attention. I somewhat explained the booby calendar and told them one of my partners had sent it to me. Shirley mentioned one of my partners by name but I did not admit nor deny, besides she had it wrong anyway. Eventually Shirley left with Parker and Aiden hung back so he could get a piece of salted caramel cheesecake. As he ate his dessert I scrolled through my photos and wiped my phone clean. There wasn’t a lot that needed to be erased but I did have some instagram photos of a former Thornapple cartgirl that would be nearly possible to explain and would come off as extremely creepy in my possession if my kids or Shirley were to have happened upon them.

On the way home Aiden started grilling me about the screen shot and asking why I would have such a thing. Part of me wanted to just tell him how it actually is, men are visual creatures who enjoy seeing the beauty that God has created in women and we prefer to see women, but only attractive skinny women, in their most basic form, naked. However, I kind of hemmed and hawed and danced around the subject. When I was a kid my neighbor friends and I stumbled upon 5 penthouse magazines when we were kids. That was the 80’s and those were the biggest beavers I had ever seen, and I watched Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom almost every week. Eventually, when my parents had a brush fire we put the pornos (precious gold) into a paper bag and discreetly threw them on the fire. Not sure what we were thinking. Regardless, had I had the internet when I was growing up there is no telling what type of sexual deviant I would have become. Sadly, there will be a day, and I don’t think it is that far off, where my kids will use the internet for something besides gaming with their friends.

Most of the time I have a feeling of superiority over the rest of society. Being Dutch allows one to legitimately feel better than everyone you come across, other than fellow Dutchmen and women. That being said, when we experience weather in West Michigan like we have the past two days I feel even more superior than everyone else except those in four wheel drive trucks. My vehicle prior to getting a Ram Longhorn was a Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit, it’s called a summit because you can’t get much higher than it. However, while the Summit did an admirable job in snowy conditions, the only thing holding my Ram Truck from treating what are impassible roads for some, like business as usual, are people in shitty cars. Yesterday there was some poor sap in some small Hyundai SUV trying to get up the hill on Michigan and doing such a poor job of it that someone with no arms or legs could have rolled up the hill past her. To her credit though, she did have her hazards on. That is something that has always boggled my mind, I am going below the posted minimum speed limit or driving like an imbecile but I have my hazards on so it’s ok and completely legal. Similar to someone who is petrified of Covid, people with shitty vehicles need to stay home when the going gets tough on the roads.

On the other hand, I never feel superior to Shirley, she holds the ultimate card, the sex card. This morning when we were getting up she said to me “we need to take care of the trampoline and get the snow off of it”. Typically “we” meaning me, takes the trampoline down in the winter so that it doesn’t accumulate snow on it. However, I left it up this year and somehow, despite all Shirley has to worry and perseverate over, she found one more thing. Some times I ignore her and don’t accomplish the things “we” meaning me, have been tasked to accomplish. However, business time did not take place as I had hoped last night so in order to secure its occurrence I begrudgingly grabbed a shovel and climbed into the netting of the tramp. I resembled someone wearing a straight jacket trying to climb a ladder in my attempt to make my way onto the tramp. Once I was on it I quickly realized it was slippery as fuck, and fuck is quite slippery. I began heaving snow shovel fulls of snow over the netting and quickly began to sweat my balls off. I had miscalculated how many layers were required for me to stay warm while also failing to factor in I sweat just getting up and walking to the fridge for a glass of water. The entire time I was shoveling off snow Max was under the tramp barking and nipping at me. I have no idea why he does this the only explanation would be that he is attempting to get me on level ground where he can more effectively manipulate me into hitting tennis balls for him. As I shoveled the snow off the tramp, and nearly pulled my hamstring due to the slippery nature of the tramp, I realized that Shirley wouldn’t be out here shoveling off the tramp to have sex with me, nor would any other women in their right mind, she’d be shoveling it off to not have to have sex with me.

While my truck and my Dutch heritage give me an irrational amount of confidence and empower me to be an asshole on the road and a valuable member of society off the roads, Aiden has a device that enables him to do things I would never have dreamed of doing as a kid. This week the kids were back to school and Shirley gave him a cell phone this year so he has something to do on the bus. He texted me the following on Monday:

“Dad, call mom and tell her to freaking turn the limit off she’s not freaking listening to me or picking up my calls (welcome to the club)”

“Please”

“Lord Please”

“God please”

“I need you to answer”

“Now”

“Answer now”

When I finally looked at my phone I was worried it was a text from a client who was in a pinch, I don’t have his phone saved into my contacts but probably should add him considering what had just transpired. My lack of a response and his need for data resulted in him taking it to an entirely new level. There is a Neiboer thread that has all of my in-laws on the thread. Aiden texted “I hate mom” to everyone on it. My mother in law responded “you do not!” Aiden responded by indicating that he didn’t he was just looking to get a response to see if the string works. Obviously he knew it works, he was just hoping the group text would get Shirley’s attention since the individual texts to her did nothing. My response to him on the group text was “testing? testing? would have been a better way to go” To which he replied “Oh well with that I’ll get a slow response” I texted him that “I love you mom would have garnered the quickest response time.”

A couple more text messages one from my mother in law where she tells Aiden positive is always better than negative (I strongly disagree with that but didn’t voice my opinion) and one from my sister in law where she basically said Aiden is routinely an asshole on the text string (I agreed with that) when suddenly out of nowhere my mother in law texts “grandma has Covid”. Aiden’s response was “it’s ok your vaccinated”. What I was trying to type was that Grandma wasn’t talking in third person like she normally does but was actually telling everyone that Great Grandma has Covid. However, Aiden texted “oh grandma Stadt” before I could reply. He then asked if Grandma Stadt was vaccinated, and thankfully she is, because if she wasn’t she might not only just have a runny nose but also a sore throat. Regardless, Shirley’s grandma is to the point where I am certain she won’t even remember she has Covid. On top of all this my mother in law threw in this classic tidbit “Aunt Nancy is sick too and waiting for her test to come in the mail” then she added an extra, quite important text, “she ordered a home test from Amazon.”

Unfortunately, even though I am Dutch and have a super sweet Ram Truck (Motor Trend Truck of the year 3 years running) this time of the year really brings me down. The parties and festivities, even though I tend to hate people, are something to somewhat look forward to. I had a happy hour set up with a couple attorneys and my super awesome truck was getting some body work done so I had to take Lyft to the location for the happy hour. My driver was black but strangely had LAV playing. As he began to drive me towards my location I started conversing with him and received no response. I quickly realized he had air pods, or some off brand equivalent in his ears. The guy put it on LAV because I am white and middle aged. How offensive! LAV is ok, but give me something that plays Maroon 5 or the Jonas Brothers regularly. Even though mentally this is the worst time of year for me we have somehow managed to plan a number of activities in January that will hopefully make it fly by and allow me to get to spring without having to engage in significant counseling or be prescribed a powerful antidepressant.

This will be the first Christmas season since moving the kids from North Pointe Christian to Caledonia Public Schools where there will actually be school concerts and programs taking place. I want to say that the transition from North Pointe Christian to the Caledonia public school system has been fairly seamless. One of the few blessings that resulted from all the Covid nonsense was the lack of any school programs all of last year. NPC put on a rather large Christmas program every year that was held at Calvin College. Last night I found out that Parker has a Winter program (they can’t even refer to it as a Holiday program) Tuesday night and he has a speaking part. I suggested that he scrap the one line and replace it with “Jesus is the reason for the season!” It would make no sense in the context it was delivered, but it would be hilarious. Shirley even offered him $100 to do it. Sadly, he cares too much what his class mates think about him and is refusing to change his line, or even attend the program for that matter. He did tell us the three songs that were going to be performed at the program, one of them being Polka Penguin.

Verse 1: I know a penguin who likes to polka
Eats tapioca, and lives in Boca Raton

He has some freckles, a lot of speckles
And that is why we call him Polka Dot

Refrain: One and two and waddle waddle
Do the penguin polka
One and two and waddle waddle
Polka, Polka Dot!
(repeat)

Verse 2: This little penguin can only waddle
But he’s a model for any toddling town
He may be spotted, but we applauded
Because we love our little Polka Dot!

Probably best that he refuses to attend the program. Seems like bad parenting to let him off the hook like that, but any parenting lessons that require me to sacrifice typically aren’t given. At least they could sing Jingle Bells or Last Christmas I gave you my Heart (best Christmas song ever RIP George Michael) something that actually pertains to Christmas even if Jesus isn’t even referenced. Regardless, Shirley sent the following email to Parker’s teacher this morning:

Hi Elena,

We are not planning on attending the Winter program.  Due to the current high COVID admissions at the hospital right now, we are trying to stay healthy for Christmas.  I honestly didn’t think it would actually go forward given the current positivity rate, but I understand this must be a political nightmare for the school to consider cancelling, so we are just going to politely bow out.

Parker has a one-line speaking part in the program, I hope it’s not too difficult for him to get a replacement.

So sorry for the late notice. I’ve been overwhelmed at work the past few weeks….

Thank you for understanding!

Shirley

I may have to refer to her as Karen in my blog moving forward. My email would have read as follows:

Dear Elena,

The true reason for the season is our lord and savior Jesus Christ, you have managed to replace my redeemer with a penguin who eats tapioca pudding and lives in Boca Raton. (that makes no sense by the way). While I realize Caledonia is a public school, there are a shit ton of churches in the school district so I’m sure only a few people would actually be offended if Christ is left in Christmas. I’m also a little troubled by the fact that Parker asked me what to call binary people since they don’t identify as anything. I have tried to just bury my head in the sand and ignore the entire issue but to be honest, pick a gender, you can’t just be nothing. If you don’t like the gender you were given pick another one and either pretend to be that one or commit 100% and get the surgery to facilitate that transformation. It is possible he picked up the binary thing during the 85 hours of youtube he watches per week, but as of now I’m blaming the school district. Needless to say, Parker will only be attending if you are wiling to capitulate and allow him to sing Joy to the world solo followed by a scripture reading of the entire Christmas story (the one with Jesus, not Ralphy). I look forward to hearing from you.

On top of the Tuesday Winter Program, Aiden is in fifth grade orchestra and performing in a concert on Thursday night. Not sure what that is called but I don’t think even Shirley can get us out of that one with her alleged fear of Covid. Not only does the fact that Aiden has taken up playing the viola make me question if he is actually my son, but he came in second in his class in the spelling bee. This is my response to the congratulatory email:

He must get that from his mom, I’m terrible at speling. 

Sincerely,
Jason L. Jansma Kortes, Hunting & Jansma, PLLCWEST MICHIGAN DEFENSE TEAM77 Monroe Center NW, Suite 700Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503Phone: 616-456-5457Fax: 616-456-5434Jason@wmdtlawyers.com
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Date: Thursday, December 2, 2021 at 12:42 PM
To: Katrina Mowers <mowersk@calschools.org>, Jason Jansma <jason@wmdtlawyers.com>
Subject: RE: Spelling Bee Finalist!

Awesome!!!!  Thanks for sharing!  

From: Katrina Mowers <mowersk@calschools.org> 
Sent: Thursday, December 2, 2021 11:40 AM

Subject: Spelling Bee Finalist!

Stop. Think. Read. This is an external email. Please use caution when clicking on the links and opening attachments in unsolicited email.

Hi Shirley and Jason, 

I wanted to share with you that Aiden came in 2nd place for our class spelling bee today!

He will move on to the school spelling bee, which will be on January 11.  I gave him the school spelling study list today, and I’ve attached it below for you as well.

Let me know if you have any questions.

In fact I am so bad at spelling that I frequently rely on spell check to fix my spelling errors as I go along. The only problem is that frequently I am so off on the spelling of the word that spell check has no suggestions for me. You know you are a bad speller when you can’t come close enough for spell check to give you a suggestion. In those circumstances, which I would like to say are rare, but aren’t, I have to pull up Google and put in my version of the word and then let Google do the work.

Speaking of Covid, and the irrational fear it brings, I’m on a text string with four other guys and one of them is friends with Shirley on Facebook. She posted something about what an inconsiderate asshole you have to be if you aren’t vaccinated. The guy who saw the post copied it and put it on the text string and indicated that he was tempted to put on the comments that maybe her husband should be vaccinated. I really don’t give a shit either way about the vaccine, if you want to get it, good for you, if you don’t and you end up dying of Covid I’m not going to feel too terribly sorry for you. However, I prefer to have Shirley gainfully employed for the income it provides, but also because it keeps her busy to the point that she pays no attention to me during the day. Had I not contracted Covid at least once, possibly twice, I may have considered the vaccine. However, it didn’t do shit to me the first time and if I had it again, it didn’t do shit to me the second time. I figured my natural immunity was sufficient enough and didn’t necessitate a vaccination that seemed to be a little fly by night as to how it came about. That being said, the idea of growing a third testicle pales in comparison to thought of Shirley losing her job and as a result micromanaging my daily activities. So why not?

Do I or don’t I? I was at a real crossroads as I was on my way to the jail to visit a client. On the way in to the jail I spotted signs advertising a vaccination clinic at the health department. After hitting the jail I stopped at the health department to get my unnecessary jab (I figure Shirley puts up with a lot of unneeded or requested pokes, why can’t I). It turns out you need an appointment but there is a walk in clinic, neither clinic was all that busy so it wasn’t a real big deal. The nurse administering the vaccine told me they had all three available and I indicated I wanted no part of the J and J. They also asked if it was my first time, indicating that they didn’t get many first timers in there anymore. I opted for the left arm so that it wouldn’t impact my forehand in tennis or shooting in basketball. After receiving the shot and getting my second shot set up I headed home and texted the entire Stadt family (Shirley’s mom’s side of the family) a photo of my vaccination card. My cool brother in law claimed that it must be fake and Shirley did not give me the praise I felt like I deserved for taking such a huge risk and sacrificing so much for the good of everyone else. Regardless, after thinking about it, and doing something almost 70% of the population had already foolishly done, it probably wasn’t that remarkable.

I also texted my buddies a screen shot of my vaccination card. They were much more supportive than the Stadt’s were. One of my buddies indicated he doesn’t get headaches but he had a splitting one after his first shot. The side effects are suppose to kick in 12 hours after administration of the shot so I was looking at a 3am onset for any potential side effects. The good news is no third testicle, headache, or anything else. On top of that I beat my buddy in a set of tennis for the first time in one seemed like forever. Good thing I opted for the left arm jab. I guess all those months of wearing a mask in my car while refusing the vaccine were completely unnecessary.

There is an old saying that goes “you can pick your nose, you can pick your friends, you can even pick your wife in most situations, but you can’t pick your relatives.” I don’t have any issues, at least for the most part, with my actual blood relatives. However, those who are related to me through marriage are an entirely different story. One would think it’s all Shirley’s side of the family and their poor choices when it comes to getting married but it’s actually an in law on each side of the family giving me blog worthy material. I have referenced Super Dave on a number of occasions. I made the mistake of inviting him into my golf league roughly seven years ago and he was legendary. First off he was terrible at golf, second off he was terrible at masking what a conspiracy theory lunatic he was and still is. Just to refresh everyone’s memory, he claimed last year at Thanksgiving that the O’bamas were responsible for the death of Joan Rivers. The obvious reason behind this was that Joan Rivers had called Michelle O’bama a tranny or bull dyke which resulted in her early demise (even though she lived to be 113). I believe what actually happened was that she died while undergoing plastic surgery for her 13th face lift.

Regardless, Super Dave made another appearance at Thanksgiving this year and he outdid himself. First of all, he had my sister text me early in the week and the text read “Dave wants to know how you are doing the turkey?” My response should have been, turkey? I’m not making turkey, I’m doing a vegetable lasagna. (when I was in college my grandfather’s new wife did do a lasagna for Thanksgiving, that’s fucking treason in my book). Anyhow, I eventually responded that I was smoking the turkey like I do every year. What was he going to do, not come if I didn’t use his preferred method to prepare the turkey? In hind sight I probably should have asked my sister what way does Dave not want me to do the turkey? And then told her I was doing it that way. Also, I had a sneaking suspicion my sister was pregnant again, she already has four kids six and under and she spaced those kids 18 months apart. She claimed to my mom when my mom was alive that the last two were accidents, there’s no way you can accidentally have sex with Dave, he probably talks about crypto currency during foreplay. When he arrived at our house he started with his usual “did you get your bitcoin yet?” He is the primary reason I want bitcoin to go to zero, that coupled with the fact that it seems like complete bullshit strikes me as a basis for it to fail ASAP. The good news is that my sister and Dave always come over to our house in separate vehicles so that Dave can get back home to his mine. The mine was actually confirmed on Thanksgiving along with my sister being of child. If you want to know what it is like to hang out with my sister and her brood just visit any daycare with at least 15 kids under the age of 7. She doesn’t have that many kids, but when you have 4 spaced out so closely you stop parenting and the four seem like at least fifteen. One of my nephews took a dump at our house and left it in the toilet, there was no toilet paper in the toilet, no 4 year old has a cutter good enough that they require no toilet paper. My sister just never got around to emphasizing the importance of toilet paper or flushing.

At some point amid the chaos Super Dave mentioned his mine, I though he was joking, but he wasn’t. My brother and I always joked that he sent his kids down to work in the mine, somewhat explaining why he was willing to have so many kids, the other part of it being that attempting to procreate is probably the only time he gets sex. He went on to say that he is mining ethereum and that he is able to mine roughly $28 a day. However, with the vast swings in crypto that seem to occur, I am guessing that he frequently spends more in electricity than he makes creating crypto. Ultimately, I took my dog Max for a long walk hoping that when I returned everyone would be gone. Unfortunately, they were not, but Dave was. The following day we were heading to my sister’s in the afternoon because they live near a Christmas tree farm and my brother who was in town with his wife, two year old, and newborn, wanted to pick up a tree to avoid having to go to the big lots parking lot in Gary this year to get one. My sister sent me another text about Turkey, actually two Turkeys, Dave and the left over bird I had in the fridge. She indicated that Dave was mad at her when she got home for not leaving the kids with us, as well as not bringing home any left over Turkey. She was hoping I could bring some with me. So, I grabbed two snack size zip lock bags (roughly half the size of a traditional zip lock sandwich bag) and filled one with dark and one with white. I also packed a gallon size bag of turkey for him that I presented to him after I gave him the two ziplock bags. The look on his face when I gave him the two bags was as if I had told him my sister was having triplets.

Typically when I write these blogs that hone in on how crazy my relatives are I delete them within 48 hours of being posted, it’s kind of like snapchat but for blogging. However, I may just leave this one up, no way Dave has the attention span to get through this entire thing, but if he does stumble upon it and read it I am going to really regret spelling Ethereum correctly.

There are a number of downsides to getting old but one of the worst parts about it is that I continue to get stinkier as I age. One of my odor problems has had nothing to do with my age, I have always produced foot sweat that smells like cat piss. Yes, my foot sweat replicates one of the worst odors on the planet. Before I could afford multiple pairs of basketball shoes to rotate, I would wear a pair for six months or so and the smell was so pervasive that when I would put my shoes in the trunk the funk would make its way into the passenger compartment. Unfortunately, this smell seems to be genetic in nature. Last week I took Aiden to get basketball shoes and when I took off his shoes to try on some basketball shoes I was pummeled by a familiar stench. Apparently, the cat piss foot stink gene is dominant. As if the kid doesn’t have enough problems to begin with, now he has to be concerned about taking his shoes off. “Aiden, most of the people who go in our hot tub take their shoes off.”

” I’m just going to keep them on Mrs Smith, I feel more comfortable leaving them on.” Typically I see something like this as an opportunity to ridicule my children so that they can experience what I went through as a child, examples which I may have mentioned before are as follows. My dad called me pizza face due to a bit of an acne problem that ironically was passed down to me by him. In addition, he would tell my younger brothers not to squeeze my head or it might explode. Lastly, he also called me bean pole because I was quite skinny. However, I chose not to mention the pungent smell that almost made me throw up in my mouth.

I have managed to control my foot stink by purchasing an inordinate number of basketball shoes as well as foot powders and arm and hammer balls that you can put in your shoes to keep them smelling fresh. However, I don’t think there is much I can do to combat the smell the rest of my body creates. On Sunday morning I played tennis against some random guy I hooked up with online, it’s not as scandalous as it sounds. The site I joined allows people to find other people to play tennis against and Eric and I squared off Sunday morning. Unfortunately, Eric was out of shape and we only played five games, bye bye Eric. Due to the fact that I did not get my tennis fill for the day I ended up Playing Joe that afternoon. I showered after playing Eric but somehow managed to start stinking so bad that I noticed it five minutes into my warm up with Joe. I smell so bad that our dog will go up to the laundry basket and stick his entire head in it and rub up against my soiled basketball clothes, he fucking loves it.

The fact that my dog loves to stick his head in my dirty laundry, roll in dead stuff, and cover himself in the seepage that comes out of our santicart when I clean it out as if it were cologne that attracts female dogs like moths to a flame, makes me wonder why I, and all other dog owners, other than Michael Vick, love our dogs so much. My dog is a royal pain in the ass, he takes the insole out of one of every pair of my shoes that he has been able to gain access to. I walk with a limp because my shoes are uneven and I have no idea what he does the insoles, I am hoping someday I will eventually find all my insoles along with all the socks I use to have who have lost their mates. That day will be the best day ever. My dog also wanders about the house sleeping in no less than a dozen different places at night, one of them being on my pillow above my head. He’s not a tiny dog, he is an Australian Shepard and is a medium sized dog. He also licks my bald head while he is on my pillow and will sometimes lick my pillowcase trying to lap up my head grease. If one of my kids came in and tried to sleep above my head on my pillow I would lose my shit, but I just pet max and move down on my pillow out of his tongues reach.

The torment Max inflicts on me pales in comparison to what he has done to the children. This past summer Shirley’s nephews were here and we went out to Green Lake for the day. The two of them were out on the water carpet that was attached to our walk out dock. I was sitting in a chair about fifteen feet from Max and saw him see them, unfortunately another disadvantage to aging is you don’t move real fast, before I could stop him he had made his way to one of Shirley’s nephews, nipped him, made him cry and quickly moved on to the next one, nipped him, and made him cry. His instinct is to herd and he was trying to herd them, and he thinks he must herd all children that come into his purview. My initial instinct whenever kids cry in front of me is to immediately tell them to stop being pussies. The reason I have this instinct is because that is exactly how I was raised. Neither my mother or father showed any type of sympathy for me or my siblings. Had I walked into the house with my arm pointing the wrong direction after playing with my friends they would have told me to shake it off. That is why my kids know to seek out Shirley when I acting like pussies and claim to be injured.

The reality of it all is that Max is the only one who is waiting for me at the door when I get home with his butt wagging (Australian Shepard’s get their tales lopped off) ready to jump up on me and greet me after I put in three to four hours at the office. The kids are on their devices, Shirley is up in her office working and oblivious to anything going on in the household. The only communication carried on is one of them asking me whats for dinner. It’s that unconditional love you can’t get anywhere else, that’s why I put up with Max-hole.

Legalized sports gambling has finally taken the country by storm and is legally recognized in most states. This allows those who choose to do so to sweat out bets where they need “their” team to cover by six in overtime after neither team has scored. Now when I say they, I actually mean me, I had picked the Cowboys to cover by more than a field goal against the Patriots and they didn’t manage to score a TD on the opening OT drive. Why was it crucial for that to happen in order for me to win? Because the odds of Dallas scoring a TD were akin to that of Joe Biden garnering a positive approval rating and turning his presidency into something that would even resemble a success. Was there a chance? Of course there was but I needed a miracle and that miracle came in the form of a missed tackle and Cee Dee Lamb managing to find his way into the endzone.

Normally, after the initial drive of OT fails the team that prevails just kicks a field goal to win because the game turns into sudden death at that point, and that is what Mike McCarthy, one of the dumbest coaches to ever put on a headset, planned on doing until Cee Dee Lamb pranced into the endzone. Normally it goes the other way for me, some miracle happens to prevent me from covering my bet not covering my bet. The reality is that sports gambling is full of anxiety and fraught with regret. Why didn’t I take the Eagles to cover against the Lions? Why didn’t I take the Harlem Globetrotters on the money line against the Washington Generals? Regardless of where you are at as a gambler, there is one gamble that is even higher stakes than betting on sports and that’s gambling on a fart. Typically I am inflicted with Diarrhea at least once a month so I don’t really get too worried when I get a case of the squirts because it usually lasts a day or possibly two max. However, my most recent bought started Saturday and didn’t end until Thursday. I have no sympathy for someone who lost on niners last week when 99% of the money was on them because they were going against Colt McCoy, yes they lost to Colt Fucking McCoy. You know why I don’t have sympathy for them because I lost my underpants after gambling on a fart when I was forced to discard them in a trash can at the park. (This may have actually happened to me more than once)

Diarrhea can be a nice change of pace when its for a day, but when it starts pushing a week, it’s exhausting. The uncertainty of never knowing if you sat on the toilet long enough, nope, there goes my stomach gurgling again, guess I need to go sit on the throne for another five minutes. I had two things putting the kabosh on my extremely regular poop schedule when the runs got me. The first was the runs and the second was being in Phoenix and a different time zone. I’m an 8 am EST pooper and then if it’s a good day I may have another around 10:30 am and if it’s a great day, I have another after lunch. My schedule usually has me arriving in the office for my first dump of the day which also has me with my phone surfing the web. However, my morning ritual goes to shit when I have the runs. I’m too focused on getting it all out to allow my phone to distract me from the task at hand. After morning number three of the squirts keeping me from my most favorite screen time of the day I decided it was time to take something for it instead of letting nature run its course. For a minute it seemed to get the job done but within hours of thinking I was out of the woods, the shits began to reek havoc again.

My return to Grand Rapids on Tuesday didn’t seem to settle my stomach so I doubled down and added pepto bismol to my imodium after a Wednesday night that saw me get out of bed four times in once night. I’m use to getting up twice a night to pee due to my age, but four times to poop is entirely unacceptable. Finally by Thursday night I began to feel somewhat normal and celebrated with a trip to Culvers after my bowling league. Did I jump the gun by going to Culvers? Only time would tell, that afternoon I had ripped off at least a half dozen farts without shitting my pants, why not put my bowels to the test by ingesting some fast food? Friday morning I experienced even more joy than the last time I hit a three team parlay, I had one of the most gratifying deuces in quite some time, oh what a feeling to be back on solid ground and only gambling on sports.

I have been meaning to write for quite some time but I had a couple things going against me. First of all, my laptop suffered an untimely death when it did a number of things I didn’t approve of a few weeks ago. It felt good to destroy it until I realized I would have to buy a new one or just spend the rest of my life without a laptop. The second problem was that my work computer needed to update it’s browser, a task that would be simple for most people, but nothing is simple for me when it comes to technology. Ultimately, I was forced to switch my browser from Safari to Google Chrome in order to have a browser up to date enough to continue on with my blog. A lot has transpired at the Jansma household since Max ate Parker’s helmet, here are a few of the highlights:

• Aiden continually uses the term “deez nuts” in response to just about everything even though he knows it will result in a ban from his devices. His defense is that everyone at school says it. Shirley and I’s response is that it isn’t funny, Shirley claims it was funny originally, I disagree, regardless it is no longer funny.
• Our dog Max seems to have a thing for the neighbor according to Parker, he and Shirley take Max to the bus stop every morning and the red rocket comes out when August mom appears, to Max’s credit August’s mom is kind of hot.
• Shirley signed Aiden up for basketball in Caledonia and this past Saturday morning at the skills evaluation, or lack of skills evaluation in Aiden’s and a lot of the other kid’s cases there were roughly 100 parents there and only one dipshit parent was wearing a mask, hopefully the guy had diabetes, asthma, and cardiovascular disease, other wise he should be hurled into the sun for his stupidity and failure to go along with what everyone else is doing.
• Parker’s football team had a BBQ at the coaches house and Shirley and I attended. I haven’t broken into the inner circle of the football dads on his team, nor do I plan on it at any point in his playing career, but it was weird to stand around in a circle with a bunch of dudes (and one mom) and have absolutely nothing to say. There was a story I wanted to tell but I got too nervous as to how it would be received by the cool dads who are part of the inner circle so I didn’t tell it, it was similar to the feeling you get when you want to tell a joke to a group of people but you only know a few of them well enough to be offensive and have it be acceptable.
• Shirley and I were invited to go to Boo at the Zoo with Aiden’s friends parents family. Shirley told me she turned the invitation down, which is quite unlike her since she loves the opportunity to engage in awkward small talk with complete strangers. I felt kind of bad, no idea why, and asked her if maybe we should reconsider, her response “I already have enough friends”. I don’t know if I have ever been more proud of her, even though she didn’t truly mean it, this has been my mantra almost my entire adulthood and something I frequently tell her when she involves me in plans with people I don’t know.

Those are some of the highlights and now I will get into the nitty gritty. Two Saturdays ago Parker had his final game up in Rockford. He had somehow managed to make his way onto the starting defense and his coach told me in an email how impressed he was with Parker’s improvement over the season. A normal parent would be proud and tip their cap to their child but I’m not a normal parent. I keep an eagle eye on Parker during the games as well as the scrimmages I am present at and I have seen little improvement when it comes to his aggressiveness. I am not saying he’s not able to be a good football player, because I think he can, I think he just doesn’t really care. Regardless, his attitude did change towards the middle of the season and he insisted on getting to practice early to make the most of the experience. I was half tempted to ask the coach if he had Parker confused with someone else but I decided to keep my mouth shut so Parker would remain on “gold” defense. The final game was slotted for a 10:30 kickoff and Shirley brought Parker up to Rockford where he had to be by 9:30. Upon her arrival Shirley was informed the the game had been pushed back to noon. She left Parker in Rockford and headed to a work related Halloween party that thanks to Parker’s game I was able to skip.

Parker didn’t have his water bottle so I brought it over to him on the bench, as I was walking towards his team Parker was headed in my direction, but not to get his water bottle, he had to hit the porta potty. Parker’s team was on offense so he thought it was safe to take care of business but they ended up turning the ball over right as stepped into the john. I ran towards the team but it was too late, the defense only had 10 players on the field, fortunately Parker typically runs away from any action on the field so it didn’t really matter that he was in the can with his uniform pants around his ankles. As I headed back to the stands he passed me and informed me he only had to do a rewipe not actually take a shit. Parker’s team trounced Rockford but Parker didn’t see much of the field in the second half. Not sure if it was due to the rewipe incident or the fact that his head coach wasn’t there and the playing time was controlled by a group of the inner circle who decided to play their kids the entire time. Either way it was bullshit, I didn’t drive all the way up to Rockford to watch someone else’s kid shy away from contact and run away to the other side of the field when the ball came his way, I was there to watch my kid do that. As we walked back to my truck I asked him if he was upset that he didn’t get to play much in the second half, he wasn’t.

On Monday Parker decided he needed a haircut, Pokemon cards, and new shorts in no particular order. When I got home he insisted that I take him for all of those things. When I told him I couldn’t because I had to make dinner he asked me again thirty seconds later, when I gave him the same response he asked Shirley and then came back and asked me again. I told him we could go on Tuesday instead only to get a text from Shirley mid day that we had plans to go out to dinner with Aiden’s friends mom and her boyfriend. (different parents than the Boo at the Zoo couple) Parker was not aware of the dinner plans and called me when I was on my way home from work. Things are a little different from when I was growing up, instead of utilizing a land line to call me, Parker calls me on our Alexa and it comes up as Shirley’s number. By now I should realize when I receive a call before 7pm it is one of the kids and not Shirley. It always catches me off guard when I hear a prepubescent voice on the other line and they start out with “Dad” followed by “Can you” or “Can I” or “Will you”. I informed Parker it would have to be Wednesday since his mom and I had dinner plans. Five minutes later the real Shirley texted me that the dinner plans were canceled freeing up my night and allowing me to be Parker’s bitch. Is Parker creative enough to send me a text disguised as Shirley in the hopes that it would make his shopping trip happen? I’d like to think so, but probably not.

We also decided to take Aiden with us since he needed some wardrobe upgrades as well. The kids initially wanted to go to Tanger but it was too cold to go to an outdoor mall so we settled on Woodland and landed at JC Penny. There was a lot of stuff on sale and we managed to compile quite a few items for what I deemed to be a fairly reasonable price. However, I do regret not speaking up when Parker picked out a couple of the ugliest pairs of shorts I have ever laid eyes on. When we got home Shirley chastised me for not vetoing the purchase and said she was going to return them, which means they will sit at our house for months before we drop them off as a donation at Goodwill. I also regret letting Parker badger me into buying him a white pair of Champion slides that were $25. I am certain I could find similar slides for a fraction of the price at TJMax or Marshals. However, having Parker constantly bother me until I brought home new slides was definitely not worth the money I would have saved.

On our way into the mall I told the kids about a client I had who “assisted” in an armed robbery that had taken place at the food court in the mall. I figured since they had just watched the first three episodes of Squid Games they were ready for a real life story about gun violence. They were quite interested in my story but bummed that no one actually got shot. There was one thing that made our trip to the mall even more catastrophic than witnessing an armed robbery, the discovery of the Van’s store. Last week I bought a pair of Van’s at Dick’s Sporting Goods that I had had my eye on for quite some time (I admittedly have an Imelda Marcos sized shoe fetish) and already have had one unsolicited compliment from a black guy about the shoes. I have received other compliments from black guys when I am in court complimenting me on my suits, whenever a black guy tells me they like what I am wearing I know I have done well. My parents never took me on a spending spree to JC Penny where I was able to pick out whatever I wanted but had there been a Van’s store when I was a kid my parents wouldn’t have even let me enter it just to look around. The store is just awesome, that’s all I can say, it’s has this warmth to it that makes it so you don’t want to leave and the skateboards on the wall are a thing of beauty (even though I am not a skateboarder). Ultimately, I was able to resist the temptation of adding another pair of Van’s to my extensive shoe collection but I can’t say the same for the kids. They settled on the same pair of Van’s and both of them wore them to school today. While Aiden is a roller blader at heart (I will explain in tomorrow’s blog) my hope is that Parker graduates from the long board I bought him a few years back to a skateboard so I can take him on many more trips to the Van’s store and not feel like such a poser.