A big “Thank You” is going out to my youngest son this week. He has turned me into “That Guy.” Allow me to explain.
It’s really probably a common tale among parents. Before I had kids I would occasionally find myself at the mall or the grocery store in awe of some poor parent whose kid was melting down. The child would be yelling, screaming, and throwing a fit, and there would be the parent, doing one of two things:
1) Threatening the kid to within an inch of his life as they drug him out of the store.
2) Or, simply ignoring the kid and attempting to shop as if nothing was wrong.
Depending on the parent’s reaction I always had either a feeling of pity for them, or a mixture of pity and mild disgust.
No matter what the circumstance though, I always had the thought in the back of my mind that, “My kids won’t behave like that!”
Now, I am proud to report that at ages six, four and two, my boys have had very few public melt-downs. You will note I said “very few” and not “none.” I have unfortunately been “that guy” a few times in the last six years, and it quickly dispelled my theory that my kids were perfect as well as my hope that I would never be seen leaving a Target dragging a screaming three-year-old behind me.
It is not bad behavior, however, that I am writing about today. No, I am writing today about another kind of inevitable kid situation that provokes sympathetic, empathetic, and sometimes just pathetic looks from the other parents in the near vicinity. With the kind of situation I am talking about, I have given plenty of charitable “been there, buddy” looks to fellow dads, but last Wednesday, I really got a chance to be on the receiving end… big time.
I met my wife at the gym after work, where she was already splashing and playing with the three boys in the kids pool. Our gym has three pools; a kids pool with an adjacent water park, a lap pool, and a square, shallow, multi-purpose pool.
I had only been in and playing with the boys for about five minutes when the head lifeguard announced that everyone needed to get out of the kids pool and vacate the water park. He was sorry for the inconvenience, but we would need to remain out of the water for forty-five minutes. I asked my wife what was going on, and she said a little girl had thrown-up in the pool, and they were required to chlorinate and skim before they could let everyone back in. The water park is fed with the water from the kids pool, so that needed to be shut down as well. No more fun! Everyone out!
Now, every parent knows there is no way to predict when a child might throw up. They are a lot like coke bottles. Sometimes, they just blow. So, for the most part, I just shrugged my shoulders, and moved the kids out of the water. But somewhere in the back of my head, explicable only due to human nature, a little voice was saying, “Come on, dude! Why’s your kid chunking in the pool? Thanks a lot, man. Now I have to go to the annoying pool.”
The multi-purpose pool requires a much higher level of parental vigilance for us, because it has no gradual beach-entry shallow end like the kids pool. It starts at three feet deep, which is too deep for Boy Number Three, so I need to hold him, or keep him corralled on the steps. Holding him wouldn’t be so bad, as he is mostly calm and happy, but he is also intermittently scared to death of the water. It’s a lot like holding a koala bear that occasionally turns into a crazed spider monkey. If you’re not careful, he’ll rip your nostrils right out!
We spent some time in the multi-purpose pool, nostril incident-free, and then got out to have our dinner. My wife had packed the boys some foil-wrapped bean burritos, and we all spread out on the warm concrete deck to eat. My wife left us there and headed home, and the boys and I ate and watched the ensuing aqua-aerobics class that had taken over the multi-purpose pool. After we had finished our burritos and I had answered approximately six thousand questions about aqua-aerobics, the lifeguard announced that the kids pool was back open for business.
Yay! Back to the kids pool for some more fun, and then home for bed. We hit the water with gusto, and were soon surrounded by twenty or thirty other frolicking kids and parents. Everyone was very happy to have the fun pool and water park back after the shut down.
I was sitting in about two feet of water watching Boy Number One and Two swimming with their goggles on, diving for toys. Boy Number Three was behind me splashing water on my back, hollering and giggling. All was right with the world. Then I noticed it.
At first I didn’t know what to make of it. It looked like someone had dropped some Cheerios in the pool and they had started to disintegrate. The disintegrated Cheerios were suddenly floating all around me, coming from somewhere behind me. Just about the time I started to turn around to investigate, one of the lifeguards shouted, “Hey, what’s that?”
I turned around and sprang to my feet when I saw Boy Number Three standing at the epicenter of a two-foot radius “Cheerio spill.” I snatched him up and did the stomach-over-the-forearm-pull-up-the-back-of-the-shorts poop check, and sure enough! Number Three had gone number two.
The kids pool had been re-opened for a grand total of four minutes and my boy had shut it down again!
Apparently, today’s “swimmy diapers” can only do so much when you neglect to check them regularly.
One of the younger female lifeguards tried to make me fell better – probably after seeing the look of total disgust and shame on my face – by saying, “Don’t worry. It happens all the time.”
I just barely heard her, though, as I fireman-carried all three boys and our gear bag at a dead sprint toward the family bathroom.
The lifeguard haz-mat response team was on the case, and I was not necessarily interested in staying poolside to preside over the evacuation and acknowledge the looks of scorn or pitiful understanding that I was sure to receive from the other parents.
It may “happen all the time,” but I can assure you, when it’s your turn to be “That Guy,” you really don’t want to hang around to take credit.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Reuniting
My wife and I had our 20-year high school reunions this past weekend. We went to different high schools here in California, and twenty years later, our reunions landed on the same night. What are the odds?
After some debate, we decided the only thing to do was to go “stag” to our respective events. No sense in one of us missing out on their walk down memory lane. I was very disappointed by this, because I was really looking forward to showing her off to my classmates. When you marry up, you really want to tell the world. Plus, many of my former classmates would need living proof that I was actually married, not just another one of my tall tales.
About five minutes into the evening, I decided we had made the right decision after all, because as I found out, at a reunion you do a lot of explaining. Whenever two graduates reunited, after the “So great to see you’s,” the spouses were introduced. After the spouses were introduced, the explanations were made. “Bill and I played soccer together. We also had calculus together, and he used to cheat off me constantly. Ha, ha.”
Once you were through the explanations, you could move on to the “What are you doing now’s,” and the “Where do you live’s.”
If you were attending the event stag, however, you could skip the explanation portion of the conversation. That turned out to be a really good thing for me, because apparently, my brain didn’t fully engage and start paying attention until about age 30.
Twenty years later, my memory of high school events seems to account for about 45 minutes of the four year period. I don’t know what to attribute that to, but it’s all just one long blur.
Many of the names and faces were stored in the recesses of my brain, but the specific events that we all shared are gone forever.
If I had brought my wife, much of my evening would have gone like this:
“Honey, this is Bill. Bill, this is my wife, Sandy.”
“Honey, Bill and I… went to high school together.”
“Thanks for the update, moron.”
I think I dodged a bullet, there.
Seeing and hearing about what everyone was doing now was great fun. I am proud to report that we, the class of 90, are doing our fair share of producing offspring. The vast majority of classmates I caught up with had at least one or two children. And after adding twenty years and having kids, I was very impressed with how well the ladies of my graduating class were aging. They were in great shape and better looking than the day we matriculated. (Had a few of you looking for a dictionary just now, didn’t I?)
The men of my graduating class, for the most part, had slightly inflated. Nothing drastic, just an ever-so-slight increase in bulk density. (And, in more than a few cases, including mine, a not-so-slight loss of hair). I attribute the bulking up of my male classmates to the high quality women we all seem to have landed. It’s no surprise that we are a well-fed and well-cared for group after meeting many of the lovely and talented ladies my cohorts somehow talked into marriage. Knowing most of these guys in high school, I’m not sure how we did it, but we all really hit the ball out of the park in the wife department! Nice work, men!
Now, don’t get me wrong about the quality of our crew. We have our share of talented individuals, both male and female, from the Davis High School Class of 1990. We have teachers, doctors, firefighters, lawyers, computer geniuses, ministers, healers, Hollywood screen writers, coaches, TV and newspaper reporters, business owners, photographers, bodybuilders, entrepreneurs, performing artists, NFL football veterans, professors, big-time graphic artists, a famous DJ, an Air Force Colonel, and even a couple of children’s book authors!
Not to mention a whole lot of parents who are raising a whole lot of beautiful children.
It was a wonderful night. There is something magical about a high school reunion that I think stems from the fact that we were all together at what was effectively the start of our lives as adults. We all crossed the starting line at the same time, and ran out into the world, full steam ahead. A group of fearless 18-year-olds that thought they knew everything, hell-bent to take on the future. For one night, twenty years and a lot of miles later, many of us made it back to that starting line to compare notes on what we found out there. Turns out we didn’t know much of anything back then.
We had a few who didn’t make it too far past the starting line, and a few who have passed away, whom we miss terribly. But, all in all, the Class of 1990 is doing just fine. I am proud to report that I graduated with some excellent people.
Thanks, DHS Class of 90! Not only for a fun evening, but for a proud association.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
After some debate, we decided the only thing to do was to go “stag” to our respective events. No sense in one of us missing out on their walk down memory lane. I was very disappointed by this, because I was really looking forward to showing her off to my classmates. When you marry up, you really want to tell the world. Plus, many of my former classmates would need living proof that I was actually married, not just another one of my tall tales.
About five minutes into the evening, I decided we had made the right decision after all, because as I found out, at a reunion you do a lot of explaining. Whenever two graduates reunited, after the “So great to see you’s,” the spouses were introduced. After the spouses were introduced, the explanations were made. “Bill and I played soccer together. We also had calculus together, and he used to cheat off me constantly. Ha, ha.”
Once you were through the explanations, you could move on to the “What are you doing now’s,” and the “Where do you live’s.”
If you were attending the event stag, however, you could skip the explanation portion of the conversation. That turned out to be a really good thing for me, because apparently, my brain didn’t fully engage and start paying attention until about age 30.
Twenty years later, my memory of high school events seems to account for about 45 minutes of the four year period. I don’t know what to attribute that to, but it’s all just one long blur.
Many of the names and faces were stored in the recesses of my brain, but the specific events that we all shared are gone forever.
If I had brought my wife, much of my evening would have gone like this:
“Honey, this is Bill. Bill, this is my wife, Sandy.”
“Honey, Bill and I… went to high school together.”
“Thanks for the update, moron.”
I think I dodged a bullet, there.
Seeing and hearing about what everyone was doing now was great fun. I am proud to report that we, the class of 90, are doing our fair share of producing offspring. The vast majority of classmates I caught up with had at least one or two children. And after adding twenty years and having kids, I was very impressed with how well the ladies of my graduating class were aging. They were in great shape and better looking than the day we matriculated. (Had a few of you looking for a dictionary just now, didn’t I?)
The men of my graduating class, for the most part, had slightly inflated. Nothing drastic, just an ever-so-slight increase in bulk density. (And, in more than a few cases, including mine, a not-so-slight loss of hair). I attribute the bulking up of my male classmates to the high quality women we all seem to have landed. It’s no surprise that we are a well-fed and well-cared for group after meeting many of the lovely and talented ladies my cohorts somehow talked into marriage. Knowing most of these guys in high school, I’m not sure how we did it, but we all really hit the ball out of the park in the wife department! Nice work, men!
Now, don’t get me wrong about the quality of our crew. We have our share of talented individuals, both male and female, from the Davis High School Class of 1990. We have teachers, doctors, firefighters, lawyers, computer geniuses, ministers, healers, Hollywood screen writers, coaches, TV and newspaper reporters, business owners, photographers, bodybuilders, entrepreneurs, performing artists, NFL football veterans, professors, big-time graphic artists, a famous DJ, an Air Force Colonel, and even a couple of children’s book authors!
Not to mention a whole lot of parents who are raising a whole lot of beautiful children.
It was a wonderful night. There is something magical about a high school reunion that I think stems from the fact that we were all together at what was effectively the start of our lives as adults. We all crossed the starting line at the same time, and ran out into the world, full steam ahead. A group of fearless 18-year-olds that thought they knew everything, hell-bent to take on the future. For one night, twenty years and a lot of miles later, many of us made it back to that starting line to compare notes on what we found out there. Turns out we didn’t know much of anything back then.
We had a few who didn’t make it too far past the starting line, and a few who have passed away, whom we miss terribly. But, all in all, the Class of 1990 is doing just fine. I am proud to report that I graduated with some excellent people.
Thanks, DHS Class of 90! Not only for a fun evening, but for a proud association.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
What Did They Just Say? - Part 2
Let’s face it, America. It’s a really weird time in our history right now. We’ve got millions of gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico with no end in sight, and our President just addressed that problem by suggesting we fix it with a tax on carbon. No matter where you stand politically, that’s not good news.
We’re worried. We’re not confident. We’re not having a great couple of months, here.
So, I thought I would try to brighten the mood a little with some of the other, less troubling inanity I have encountered in the recent past. Enjoy!
Not too long ago I heard an RV company advertizing their “Grand Opening Liquidation Sale.” Uhhhh… What?
There are a lot of cool kid’s names out there today, and one I’ve always liked is Chase. I had to re-think it, though, when I overheard a dad at the pool hollering at his son, “Chase, walk!” Talk about sending mixed signals!
I have some money invested with Vanguard, and the other day I received a notice from them signed by: “Mortimer J. Buckley, Managing Director.” Really? Mortimer J. Buckley? Why not just call him, “Fifth-generation money managin’, giant stock portfolio havin’, yacht sailin’, bowtie wearin’, gin and tonic drinkin’, Bentley drivin’, huge stone house in the Hamptons guy?”
My computer locked up the other day and afterward it said that it just had an “unexpected error.” Yeah, I figured it was unexpected. I assume you guys already fixed all the ones that you were expecting.
I heard a Kelly Moore paint ad on the radio that proclaimed, “To a professional painter, paint is everything.” Well, sure. I guess that makes sense. Thanks for boiling that down for me.
Another radio ad asked “Do you have erectile dysfunction? Have Viagra or Cialis let you down?” I thought to myself, “Wow. Talk about being literal!”
During a major rainstorm this past winter I saw a story on the evening news with the headline, “Aquarium Flooding.” I wonder… is that really a problem?
I picked up a copy of Architectural Digest at the doctors office, and in big print across the cover it announced, “The Architecture Issue.” What is it about the other 11 months of the year?
I just came across a piece of industrial machinery with a warning sticker placed on the removable guard that read, “Do not operate this machine without this guard in place.” Now, I’m no genius, but how exactly is anyone going to get that memo if the guard is missing?
I heard a gold ad on the radio that urged me to “Call now, supplies are limited.” Well, yeah. If they weren’t, why would I want to pay money for it?
A few months ago I called the Loral Langemeier hotline to get my free copy her book “The Millionaire Maker.” As I chatted with the friendly person at the call center, a question occurred to me, and I had to ask… “If this book is so great, why do you still work there?”
There was a radio ad prodding me toward some major life decision and asked me the question, “Have you been waiting to put it off?” So… are you asking me if I’ve already done it? I’m confused.
Another radio ad for a company called “Food from the Hood” who billed themselves as the “nation’s first student managed company” told me, “Every bottle of salad dressing you buy sends a kid to college.” Now just wait a second, buddy. How much am I paying for this salad dressing?
Those all caused me to chuckle, but my favorite recent one has to be the insert that came with my health insurance paperwork. It’s a one-page document with a single paragraph written in English, Spanish, Chinese & Vietnamese. It reads:
“IMPORTANT: Can you read this letter? If not, we can have somebody help you read it... For free help, please call right away at the Member/Customer Service telephone number on the back of your member ID card…”
I’m pretty sure anything written after, “If not,” was a waste of ink. If it wasn’t a waste of ink, then they already have the situation all figured out on their own, and therefore, it was a waste of ink.
That insert just has to have been a government mandate! It’s got governmental logic all over it!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
We’re worried. We’re not confident. We’re not having a great couple of months, here.
So, I thought I would try to brighten the mood a little with some of the other, less troubling inanity I have encountered in the recent past. Enjoy!
Not too long ago I heard an RV company advertizing their “Grand Opening Liquidation Sale.” Uhhhh… What?
There are a lot of cool kid’s names out there today, and one I’ve always liked is Chase. I had to re-think it, though, when I overheard a dad at the pool hollering at his son, “Chase, walk!” Talk about sending mixed signals!
I have some money invested with Vanguard, and the other day I received a notice from them signed by: “Mortimer J. Buckley, Managing Director.” Really? Mortimer J. Buckley? Why not just call him, “Fifth-generation money managin’, giant stock portfolio havin’, yacht sailin’, bowtie wearin’, gin and tonic drinkin’, Bentley drivin’, huge stone house in the Hamptons guy?”
My computer locked up the other day and afterward it said that it just had an “unexpected error.” Yeah, I figured it was unexpected. I assume you guys already fixed all the ones that you were expecting.
I heard a Kelly Moore paint ad on the radio that proclaimed, “To a professional painter, paint is everything.” Well, sure. I guess that makes sense. Thanks for boiling that down for me.
Another radio ad asked “Do you have erectile dysfunction? Have Viagra or Cialis let you down?” I thought to myself, “Wow. Talk about being literal!”
During a major rainstorm this past winter I saw a story on the evening news with the headline, “Aquarium Flooding.” I wonder… is that really a problem?
I picked up a copy of Architectural Digest at the doctors office, and in big print across the cover it announced, “The Architecture Issue.” What is it about the other 11 months of the year?
I just came across a piece of industrial machinery with a warning sticker placed on the removable guard that read, “Do not operate this machine without this guard in place.” Now, I’m no genius, but how exactly is anyone going to get that memo if the guard is missing?
I heard a gold ad on the radio that urged me to “Call now, supplies are limited.” Well, yeah. If they weren’t, why would I want to pay money for it?
A few months ago I called the Loral Langemeier hotline to get my free copy her book “The Millionaire Maker.” As I chatted with the friendly person at the call center, a question occurred to me, and I had to ask… “If this book is so great, why do you still work there?”
There was a radio ad prodding me toward some major life decision and asked me the question, “Have you been waiting to put it off?” So… are you asking me if I’ve already done it? I’m confused.
Another radio ad for a company called “Food from the Hood” who billed themselves as the “nation’s first student managed company” told me, “Every bottle of salad dressing you buy sends a kid to college.” Now just wait a second, buddy. How much am I paying for this salad dressing?
Those all caused me to chuckle, but my favorite recent one has to be the insert that came with my health insurance paperwork. It’s a one-page document with a single paragraph written in English, Spanish, Chinese & Vietnamese. It reads:
“IMPORTANT: Can you read this letter? If not, we can have somebody help you read it... For free help, please call right away at the Member/Customer Service telephone number on the back of your member ID card…”
I’m pretty sure anything written after, “If not,” was a waste of ink. If it wasn’t a waste of ink, then they already have the situation all figured out on their own, and therefore, it was a waste of ink.
That insert just has to have been a government mandate! It’s got governmental logic all over it!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Mother's Day, Kinda
This Mother’s Day, I went above and beyond the call of duty and scored the best gift any husband has ever given any wife and mother of three. That’s right… Tickets to the Demolition Derby! For me… and my dad… and two of our three boys.
What’s that you say? “What kind of Mother’s Day gift is that?”
Funny… That’s exactly what my wife said.
OK, here’s what happened. A long time ago, I explained what a demolition derby was to my boys. Because their veins are coursing with my DNA, their eyes lit up at the mere mention of cars crashing into each other. They were almost unrestrained in their enthusiasm as I described how tow-trucks, tractors, and even giant forklifts remove the cars that can’t move anymore. And I had to peel them off the ceiling when I hit them with the best part… No mufflers, and sometimes, the cars catch on fire. It was love at first description.
“When can we go, Daddy?”
“We’ll go the next time there is a demolition derby anywhere around here.” I promised.
So, when I spotted the billboard proclaiming “Demolition Derby – May 9th” at the Dixon May Fair, it was obvious what I needed to do. I rushed home, got on ticketmaster.com, and procured four tickets. Boy Number Three is too young, so it was me and the first two, and my dad, since that happens to be his birthday. What better birthday gift for any American male than an evening watching total automotive chaos?
Beaming with pride at what an outstanding father I was, I triumphantly relayed the news of my ingenious purchase to my wife, to which she responded simply, “That’s Mother’s Day.”
Since I am such a genius, I assumed she was worried about the fact that I was taking my dad, and leaving my mom home alone. So, I replied, “That’s OK, my mom won’t want to go.”
I am an idiot.
After narrowly ducking a flying saucepan, I realized where she was going with that comment. Damn you, mouth! Quit instantly repeating everything the brain comes up with. Give it some time!
Since ticketmaster.com is non-refundable, and more importantly, the boys REALLY need to see a demolition derby, I had to think fast. But as it turns out, it’s hard to think fast about much else when you’re trying to dodge cookware.
After I made my escape to the garage, I applied steady pressure to my head wound, and began to formulate a plan. The tickets were paid for. No going back, there… Only one way to play it… spin it.
When I was relatively certain that my wife was no longer within arm’s reach of any pots or pans, I made my move. I kindly explained that if she had given me the chance to finish the story of my incredible purchase, she would have known that the demolition derby was at night.
“You’re going to keep the kids up late on a school night?”
“Let’s stay focused here, honey.”
Since the derby was at night, we would obviously have the entire day to celebrate her Mother’s Day any way she wanted. Then, in the late afternoon, I would whisk away two of her three children for the evening, leaving her with only the smallest child of the bunch to tend to. That in and of itself is the greatest gift I could give her for her special day, because when you spend all day refereeing three boys, suddenly only having one is tantamount to a vacation. Really, what I had purchased for her was a Mother’s Day vacation package.
Hello! Does it get any better than that? You’re welcome!
She’s still not speaking to me.
I’ll bet for a while there, my wife probably thought that giving birth to three boys meant she would only be looking after three boys. No such luck, honey. I am most certainly the fourth boy in the equation. Like the other three, I have wild ideas, and rarely consult the family calendar. But unlike the other three, I have a credit card.
Happy Mother’s Day, sweetheart. I love you. Please put down that skillet.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
What’s that you say? “What kind of Mother’s Day gift is that?”
Funny… That’s exactly what my wife said.
OK, here’s what happened. A long time ago, I explained what a demolition derby was to my boys. Because their veins are coursing with my DNA, their eyes lit up at the mere mention of cars crashing into each other. They were almost unrestrained in their enthusiasm as I described how tow-trucks, tractors, and even giant forklifts remove the cars that can’t move anymore. And I had to peel them off the ceiling when I hit them with the best part… No mufflers, and sometimes, the cars catch on fire. It was love at first description.
“When can we go, Daddy?”
“We’ll go the next time there is a demolition derby anywhere around here.” I promised.
So, when I spotted the billboard proclaiming “Demolition Derby – May 9th” at the Dixon May Fair, it was obvious what I needed to do. I rushed home, got on ticketmaster.com, and procured four tickets. Boy Number Three is too young, so it was me and the first two, and my dad, since that happens to be his birthday. What better birthday gift for any American male than an evening watching total automotive chaos?
Beaming with pride at what an outstanding father I was, I triumphantly relayed the news of my ingenious purchase to my wife, to which she responded simply, “That’s Mother’s Day.”
Since I am such a genius, I assumed she was worried about the fact that I was taking my dad, and leaving my mom home alone. So, I replied, “That’s OK, my mom won’t want to go.”
I am an idiot.
After narrowly ducking a flying saucepan, I realized where she was going with that comment. Damn you, mouth! Quit instantly repeating everything the brain comes up with. Give it some time!
Since ticketmaster.com is non-refundable, and more importantly, the boys REALLY need to see a demolition derby, I had to think fast. But as it turns out, it’s hard to think fast about much else when you’re trying to dodge cookware.
After I made my escape to the garage, I applied steady pressure to my head wound, and began to formulate a plan. The tickets were paid for. No going back, there… Only one way to play it… spin it.
When I was relatively certain that my wife was no longer within arm’s reach of any pots or pans, I made my move. I kindly explained that if she had given me the chance to finish the story of my incredible purchase, she would have known that the demolition derby was at night.
“You’re going to keep the kids up late on a school night?”
“Let’s stay focused here, honey.”
Since the derby was at night, we would obviously have the entire day to celebrate her Mother’s Day any way she wanted. Then, in the late afternoon, I would whisk away two of her three children for the evening, leaving her with only the smallest child of the bunch to tend to. That in and of itself is the greatest gift I could give her for her special day, because when you spend all day refereeing three boys, suddenly only having one is tantamount to a vacation. Really, what I had purchased for her was a Mother’s Day vacation package.
Hello! Does it get any better than that? You’re welcome!
She’s still not speaking to me.
I’ll bet for a while there, my wife probably thought that giving birth to three boys meant she would only be looking after three boys. No such luck, honey. I am most certainly the fourth boy in the equation. Like the other three, I have wild ideas, and rarely consult the family calendar. But unlike the other three, I have a credit card.
Happy Mother’s Day, sweetheart. I love you. Please put down that skillet.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh
I am one excited guy! My very first children’s book became available for sale this week. It’s entitled “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” written by yours truly, and illustrated by my wonderfully talented brother-in-law, Scott.
Scott and I self-published this book, and we couldn’t be happier with the result. It’s a collection of sing-song-y rhymes about ten African animals that come alive in a young boy’s imagination. Scott really brought the rhymes to life with his illustrations and the book turned out great!
Having three young boys of my own, I have read a boatload of children’s books, and the ones that my boys and I seem to gravitate toward have a common thread. They either have a storyline that goes beyond just silly stuff, or they have challenging words or rhymes.
With “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” I did something that I haven’t encountered in other children’s books, and it really makes it unique. I developed a repeating rhyme format and combined it with multiple-word rhyming. Here is the first rhyme to give you an example:
My Hippopotamus makes a-lot-of-fuss
when we play in the mud and muck.
And it requires quite a-lot-of-us
to get her feet un-stuck.
All ten rhymes carry the same sing-song format and most employ the multiple-word rhyming scheme, as in, “hippopotamus” and “a-lot-of-fuss.”
Younger children naturally pick up on the sing-song format, allowing them to easily memorize the verses as you read to them. As they do, they are learning a new dimension about rhyming that is most likely not being taught to them at school. The book also combines mostly plain and simple language with some more advanced words. This makes it an excellent book for children who are just learning to read on their own, as well as the older, more advanced readers.
I always thought it would be fun to write a children’s book, but I was never really motivated until my oldest boy was about three and a half. We had a pretty advanced comic-book-like story called “Captain Raptor and the Moon Mystery” by Kevin O’Malley. My son had checked it out from the library, no doubt based on the fabulous cover art by the illustrator, Patrick O’Brien. What three-year-old can resist space dinosaurs that fly in rocket ships? We liked it so much, we bought our own copy, and one night it happened. When I turned the page to continue reading about how the dinosaur crew, led by the fearless Captain Raptor (who sounds like John Wayne when I read it), was about to encounter a strange-looking group of aliens, my three-and-a-half-year-old son reached up and grabbed my arm and asked, “Daddy, can I do this page?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, to which he responded, “No one notices as a huge, menacing shadow passes over the clearing.”
He had just repeated, verbatim, the next line in the book.
That was the moment that I truly began to understand the power of a child’s brain and their capacity for information, and that was the day I decided to actually write a children’s book. I wanted to make sure that I contributed, however slightly, to helping children learn as much as they can in their formative years by challenging and stimulating those big, big brains they all possess.
We know you and your kids (or grandkids) will enjoy it, and we hope you will buy a copy or two to help me and Scott reach our goal of not having to go to those silly jobs of ours every day, so we can do this for a living! (We’re already working on the next book!)
You can get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh” today at Amazon.com, or you can get it at a 25% savings by purchasing directly from the publisher at www.authorhouse.com
Thanks! You’ll love it!
-Marc
About the Author
Marc Schmatjen (pronounced “smidgen,” as in, just a smidgen of this or that) and his wonderful wife Sandra reside in Rocklin, California where they spend most of their time trying to keep up with their three rambunctious boys.
Marc was born and raised in Northern California and has been writing weekly articles since 2008, providing humorous commentary on life in America from a common sense perspective.
This is one of thousands of children’s books that Marc has read to his boys, but the first one he has written.
About the Illustrator
M. Scott Arena and his fabulous wife Jill call Lake Oswego, Oregon home. They have a gorgeous little girl, and are constantly amazed and delighted to see the world through her eyes.
Scott grew up in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, and has always been an artist, although this is his first professional endeavor as an illustrator.
He has a natural talent for bringing words to life, to the delight of young audiences everywhere.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Scott and I self-published this book, and we couldn’t be happier with the result. It’s a collection of sing-song-y rhymes about ten African animals that come alive in a young boy’s imagination. Scott really brought the rhymes to life with his illustrations and the book turned out great!
Having three young boys of my own, I have read a boatload of children’s books, and the ones that my boys and I seem to gravitate toward have a common thread. They either have a storyline that goes beyond just silly stuff, or they have challenging words or rhymes.
With “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” I did something that I haven’t encountered in other children’s books, and it really makes it unique. I developed a repeating rhyme format and combined it with multiple-word rhyming. Here is the first rhyme to give you an example:
My Hippopotamus makes a-lot-of-fuss
when we play in the mud and muck.
And it requires quite a-lot-of-us
to get her feet un-stuck.
All ten rhymes carry the same sing-song format and most employ the multiple-word rhyming scheme, as in, “hippopotamus” and “a-lot-of-fuss.”
Younger children naturally pick up on the sing-song format, allowing them to easily memorize the verses as you read to them. As they do, they are learning a new dimension about rhyming that is most likely not being taught to them at school. The book also combines mostly plain and simple language with some more advanced words. This makes it an excellent book for children who are just learning to read on their own, as well as the older, more advanced readers.
I always thought it would be fun to write a children’s book, but I was never really motivated until my oldest boy was about three and a half. We had a pretty advanced comic-book-like story called “Captain Raptor and the Moon Mystery” by Kevin O’Malley. My son had checked it out from the library, no doubt based on the fabulous cover art by the illustrator, Patrick O’Brien. What three-year-old can resist space dinosaurs that fly in rocket ships? We liked it so much, we bought our own copy, and one night it happened. When I turned the page to continue reading about how the dinosaur crew, led by the fearless Captain Raptor (who sounds like John Wayne when I read it), was about to encounter a strange-looking group of aliens, my three-and-a-half-year-old son reached up and grabbed my arm and asked, “Daddy, can I do this page?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, to which he responded, “No one notices as a huge, menacing shadow passes over the clearing.”
He had just repeated, verbatim, the next line in the book.
That was the moment that I truly began to understand the power of a child’s brain and their capacity for information, and that was the day I decided to actually write a children’s book. I wanted to make sure that I contributed, however slightly, to helping children learn as much as they can in their formative years by challenging and stimulating those big, big brains they all possess.
We know you and your kids (or grandkids) will enjoy it, and we hope you will buy a copy or two to help me and Scott reach our goal of not having to go to those silly jobs of ours every day, so we can do this for a living! (We’re already working on the next book!)
You can get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh” today at Amazon.com, or you can get it at a 25% savings by purchasing directly from the publisher at www.authorhouse.com
Thanks! You’ll love it!
-Marc
About the Author
Marc Schmatjen (pronounced “smidgen,” as in, just a smidgen of this or that) and his wonderful wife Sandra reside in Rocklin, California where they spend most of their time trying to keep up with their three rambunctious boys.
Marc was born and raised in Northern California and has been writing weekly articles since 2008, providing humorous commentary on life in America from a common sense perspective.
This is one of thousands of children’s books that Marc has read to his boys, but the first one he has written.
About the Illustrator
M. Scott Arena and his fabulous wife Jill call Lake Oswego, Oregon home. They have a gorgeous little girl, and are constantly amazed and delighted to see the world through her eyes.
Scott grew up in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, and has always been an artist, although this is his first professional endeavor as an illustrator.
He has a natural talent for bringing words to life, to the delight of young audiences everywhere.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Insert Son A into House B
This weekend, my family had an impromptu picnic in our backyard to celebrate the return of the sun. As we lazed about on our blanket, my wife and I surveyed the hurricane debris-like spread of balls, Tonka trucks, scooters, bikes, baseball bats, mitts, and assorted plastic gardening equipment taking up approximately 90% of the back patio surface not already claimed by actual patio fixtures like tables and my giant manly stainless steel BBQ. We both decided it was time for some better outdoor storage for the boy’s toys, so off to our local home improvement warehouse we went.
We scored a sweet clearance deal on two 130-gallon storage chests that are approximately 2-1/2 feet wide by 2-1/2 feet tall and 5 feet long. They have a nice flat lid, that when closed, becomes a handy bench seat. That is no less than 62 cubic feet of clean, dry, weatherproof storage that should leave us plenty of room to acquire the inevitable 45 more cubic feet of toys in the coming years.
We tied those bad boys to the top of the Ford Expedition, and drove home triumphantly to begin the “easy assembly process.”
When I cracked open the first of the two cardboard boxes, I found just what I was expecting. Six heavy-duty plastic sides, two metal hinge assemblies (complete with gas spring-assist shocks), one long metal reinforcing bar for the lid, and the assorted corner brackets and hardware to fasten everything together. Piece of cake.
The good folks at Suncast Outdoor Storage Products were also kind enough to include three copies of the owner’s manual. One in English, and two in languages that I don’t understand. I went with the English version.
One thing that separates me from many of the other males of the species is that I always read the instructions before I try to put anything together. It saves time, and money. It also saves me from having to explain to the boys why some words are “adult words” that they’re not allowed to use.
Almost immediately I became skeptical of the instructions when I read on the first page, “Only adults should set up the product. Do not allow children in the setup area until assembly is complete.”
I thought to myself, “Uh-oh. The lawyers have gotten to them. There is no single part to this chest that weighs over 7 pounds. How could a kid possibly get hurt during assembly? Besides, how will my boys learn anything if I don’t at least let them watch?”
Then I lost all respect for the engineers at Suncast when I read, “Two adults required for this step” on the instructions of how to slide the 2-pound side panel into its slots in the front and back panels. There is no way that I could need another adult to help me with this step. My kids could probably do it by themselves.
Even though I was totally disgusted with the manual, I read to the end and then began the installation. I wasn’t even half way through before I started to change my opinion of the guys that wrote the manual.
With my three young boys playing all around me on the back patio, I went to work. I had the base and all four sides on the chest in a matter of minutes. Just as I had suspected, the “need two adults” step took me about 5 seconds by myself. Ha! What were those manual writers thinking?
Almost as soon as I got the last side wall into position, the new toy chest began getting filled with toys. Balls, baseball bats, and plastic trucks were hurled at me from all directions, ricocheting around the inside of the chest and flying at my head. Progress was halted for a few minutes as I explained to the boys that they needed to wait until Daddy was done installing the lid before we could fill the chest.
The lid hinges were to be fastened to the side walls with screws. I had never given much thought to the individual parts list and count that you always find in manuals, detailing exactly how many #5-type screws you should have received. I always figured there was no sense spending time counting them. Either I had them or I didn’t, and if I was short a screw or two, I would figure it out.
Well, I went to grab the eight #2-type screws I would need to fasten the hinges to the chest, and only two were sitting in the spot where I had left them on the patio table. One was on the ground under the table, and my two-year-old son was sitting Indian style a few feet away with three in his lap and one sticking out of his mouth. Two on the table, one on the ground, three from his lap and the one I just wrenched out of his mouth makes seven. I was supposed to have eight. Did he swallow one?!? Or did I even have eight to begin with? I never counted them!!
As I picked him up to inspect him for a perforated esophagus, the last #2 screw fell out of his pant cuff. Whew! That must be why they tell you how many you’re supposed to have. Mental note to self: Always count them ahead of time to avoid unnecessary trips to the ER for exploratory hardware X-rays.
OK, crisis averted, and on to lid attachment. After I had retrieved the four #6-type screws from their new storage location on the ledge high above the sliding glass door, and out of reach of all two-year-olds, I was ready to fasten the long reinforcing bar into place. Now, where did that long reinforcing bar go? It was lying on the patio right in front of the new storage chest a minute ago. A yellow plastic Wiffle Ball bat has taken its place, but no reinforcing bar in sight.
After a lengthy interrogation of the four-year-old and the five-year-old, I was led to the fort that they had made with the cardboard lid of the shipping box. My 5-foot-long reinforcing bar was stuck 2 feet into the mud, helping to support the fort’s roof. I had to give them points for ingenuity and structural integrity, but I was not amused.
After cleaning off the bar on one of their shirts, I went back to work on the chest. While I was away dismantling the fort, the two-year-old had managed to put away a few more toys into the new chest. The reinforcing bar attaches to the inside of the lid, so I needed to step into the chest to do the work. No problem. I just scooted the soccer ball and Tonka truck out of the way with my foot, and stepped in. Thirty seconds later, the reinforcing bar was attached and the first of two new storage chests was completely assembled.
I stood up straight, stretched my back and swung my right leg out of the chest. Just before the weight transfer was complete I realized that I was about to step on the two-year-old, who had taken up a prone position in front of the new chest. I quickly and awkwardly adjusted the landing zone for my right foot, narrowly missing my youngest son, but planting my foot squarely on the yellow plastic Wiffle Ball bat.
I’m not 100% sure what really happened next, but after some mid-air acrobatics, the end result was three young boys laughing hysterically, and me flat on my back inside my brand new Suncast Outdoor Storage Products 130-gallon storage chest with a soccer ball in my left kidney and my head resting rather uncomfortably on a Tonka truck.
As I lay there gazing up at the late afternoon sky, slipping in and out of consciousness, it occurred to me that the guys who wrote the instruction manual were some of the smartest men on the planet. They weren’t lawyer-shy wimps or limp-wristed computer jockeys like I had first assumed. They were dads.
They advised me not to let the kids into the assembly area, and I didn’t listen. Then they tried once more to keep me safe by suggesting that the project could not be completed without a second adult. It was my short-sighted machismo that kept me from seeing that warning for what it was. The second guy isn’t there to help you with the assembly. He’s there to keep a lookout for stray hardware and toys if you happened to ignore their first suggestion about no kids. He’s also the guy that drives you to the hospital when you step on the Wiffle Ball bat.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
We scored a sweet clearance deal on two 130-gallon storage chests that are approximately 2-1/2 feet wide by 2-1/2 feet tall and 5 feet long. They have a nice flat lid, that when closed, becomes a handy bench seat. That is no less than 62 cubic feet of clean, dry, weatherproof storage that should leave us plenty of room to acquire the inevitable 45 more cubic feet of toys in the coming years.
We tied those bad boys to the top of the Ford Expedition, and drove home triumphantly to begin the “easy assembly process.”
When I cracked open the first of the two cardboard boxes, I found just what I was expecting. Six heavy-duty plastic sides, two metal hinge assemblies (complete with gas spring-assist shocks), one long metal reinforcing bar for the lid, and the assorted corner brackets and hardware to fasten everything together. Piece of cake.
The good folks at Suncast Outdoor Storage Products were also kind enough to include three copies of the owner’s manual. One in English, and two in languages that I don’t understand. I went with the English version.
One thing that separates me from many of the other males of the species is that I always read the instructions before I try to put anything together. It saves time, and money. It also saves me from having to explain to the boys why some words are “adult words” that they’re not allowed to use.
Almost immediately I became skeptical of the instructions when I read on the first page, “Only adults should set up the product. Do not allow children in the setup area until assembly is complete.”
I thought to myself, “Uh-oh. The lawyers have gotten to them. There is no single part to this chest that weighs over 7 pounds. How could a kid possibly get hurt during assembly? Besides, how will my boys learn anything if I don’t at least let them watch?”
Then I lost all respect for the engineers at Suncast when I read, “Two adults required for this step” on the instructions of how to slide the 2-pound side panel into its slots in the front and back panels. There is no way that I could need another adult to help me with this step. My kids could probably do it by themselves.
Even though I was totally disgusted with the manual, I read to the end and then began the installation. I wasn’t even half way through before I started to change my opinion of the guys that wrote the manual.
With my three young boys playing all around me on the back patio, I went to work. I had the base and all four sides on the chest in a matter of minutes. Just as I had suspected, the “need two adults” step took me about 5 seconds by myself. Ha! What were those manual writers thinking?
Almost as soon as I got the last side wall into position, the new toy chest began getting filled with toys. Balls, baseball bats, and plastic trucks were hurled at me from all directions, ricocheting around the inside of the chest and flying at my head. Progress was halted for a few minutes as I explained to the boys that they needed to wait until Daddy was done installing the lid before we could fill the chest.
The lid hinges were to be fastened to the side walls with screws. I had never given much thought to the individual parts list and count that you always find in manuals, detailing exactly how many #5-type screws you should have received. I always figured there was no sense spending time counting them. Either I had them or I didn’t, and if I was short a screw or two, I would figure it out.
Well, I went to grab the eight #2-type screws I would need to fasten the hinges to the chest, and only two were sitting in the spot where I had left them on the patio table. One was on the ground under the table, and my two-year-old son was sitting Indian style a few feet away with three in his lap and one sticking out of his mouth. Two on the table, one on the ground, three from his lap and the one I just wrenched out of his mouth makes seven. I was supposed to have eight. Did he swallow one?!? Or did I even have eight to begin with? I never counted them!!
As I picked him up to inspect him for a perforated esophagus, the last #2 screw fell out of his pant cuff. Whew! That must be why they tell you how many you’re supposed to have. Mental note to self: Always count them ahead of time to avoid unnecessary trips to the ER for exploratory hardware X-rays.
OK, crisis averted, and on to lid attachment. After I had retrieved the four #6-type screws from their new storage location on the ledge high above the sliding glass door, and out of reach of all two-year-olds, I was ready to fasten the long reinforcing bar into place. Now, where did that long reinforcing bar go? It was lying on the patio right in front of the new storage chest a minute ago. A yellow plastic Wiffle Ball bat has taken its place, but no reinforcing bar in sight.
After a lengthy interrogation of the four-year-old and the five-year-old, I was led to the fort that they had made with the cardboard lid of the shipping box. My 5-foot-long reinforcing bar was stuck 2 feet into the mud, helping to support the fort’s roof. I had to give them points for ingenuity and structural integrity, but I was not amused.
After cleaning off the bar on one of their shirts, I went back to work on the chest. While I was away dismantling the fort, the two-year-old had managed to put away a few more toys into the new chest. The reinforcing bar attaches to the inside of the lid, so I needed to step into the chest to do the work. No problem. I just scooted the soccer ball and Tonka truck out of the way with my foot, and stepped in. Thirty seconds later, the reinforcing bar was attached and the first of two new storage chests was completely assembled.
I stood up straight, stretched my back and swung my right leg out of the chest. Just before the weight transfer was complete I realized that I was about to step on the two-year-old, who had taken up a prone position in front of the new chest. I quickly and awkwardly adjusted the landing zone for my right foot, narrowly missing my youngest son, but planting my foot squarely on the yellow plastic Wiffle Ball bat.
I’m not 100% sure what really happened next, but after some mid-air acrobatics, the end result was three young boys laughing hysterically, and me flat on my back inside my brand new Suncast Outdoor Storage Products 130-gallon storage chest with a soccer ball in my left kidney and my head resting rather uncomfortably on a Tonka truck.
As I lay there gazing up at the late afternoon sky, slipping in and out of consciousness, it occurred to me that the guys who wrote the instruction manual were some of the smartest men on the planet. They weren’t lawyer-shy wimps or limp-wristed computer jockeys like I had first assumed. They were dads.
They advised me not to let the kids into the assembly area, and I didn’t listen. Then they tried once more to keep me safe by suggesting that the project could not be completed without a second adult. It was my short-sighted machismo that kept me from seeing that warning for what it was. The second guy isn’t there to help you with the assembly. He’s there to keep a lookout for stray hardware and toys if you happened to ignore their first suggestion about no kids. He’s also the guy that drives you to the hospital when you step on the Wiffle Ball bat.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
My English is Terrible
My wife and I just returned from a long week’s vacation in England. I learned something while I was away that was really disconcerting. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the English language, but as it turns out, my English is terrible. Mind you, my American English is just fine. It’s my British English that needs work.
It all started just after we landed at Heathrow. We knew from conversations with my British relatives that we needed to get ourselves to “Bister” which was near “Northumsher.” Neither of those places were on any of the maps we found, and after quite a bit of deliberation we decided that we were supposed to go to Bicester near North Hamptonshire.
We were on our way to my cousin’s wedding festivities, but since “Bister” was a “long slog” (long way away), we needed to find a restroom first. Strangely, there were none to be found in all of Paddington station. That is, until I overheard a young lad tell his mum that he had to go. She told him, “the loo is right over there,” as she pointed to one of the many signs we’d already seen labeled “WC.” Mystery solved.
There was some confusion at Avis over which was the “boot” (trunk), and which was the “bonnet” (hood) on our rental car. It turned out the car was French, so that must have been the issue. We got it “all sorted” and off we went toward Oxford, which is spelled correctly on the maps, and very close to “Bister,” which is not. After a hair-raising left-hand-side drive, we made it into Oxford for the rehearsal dinner.
Shortly after we had connected with my cousin and his family, they received a call from his sister. She was going to be late to the dinner because they were having some trouble with their new baby boy. They were on the road, but apparently “changing a nappy in a lay-by.” We received a translation and found out that she was changing a diaper at a rest area. She said to go on without them and they would “catch us up.” I was wondering aloud just how much more of this “nappy” story there was, or how much more we really needed to hear when I found out “catch you up” means “catch up to you.” Go figure.
While at the rehearsal dinner we learned that hors d’oeuvres are called “nibbly bits,” water melon seeds are called “melon pips,” and Yorkshire pudding is nothing more than a puffy hollow biscuit. No pudding at all. We ordered chips and got French fries. There were no potato chips to be had anywhere, but “crisps” made an excellent substitute.
We learned that “bits and bobs” are “little things,” homeless people are known as “rough sleepers,” and a bachelor party is called a “stag do.” Brakes on a bicycle are known as “anchors,” jail is spelled g-a-o-l, and a whole host of words like “authorise” are spelled with an “s” instead of a “z.” Also, if you ask a Brit, “What color is your collar?” they cannot distinguish between those two words.
Anyhow, I had packed light for the trip, and as a result I was planning to wear the same pair of pants to both the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. I had ordered a tomato sauce dish at the dinner and I remarked to the bride-to-be, whom I had just met for the first time that evening, that I needed to be careful because I was “planning to recycle these pants for the wedding tomorrow.”
She gazed at me with a curious mix of bewilderment and disgust, as my cousin, who speaks both kinds of English, leaned over and informed me that I had just told his bride that I would be re-using my underwear.
Turns out I should have said “trousers” instead of “pants.” My bad.
She returned the favor (or favour) a little later in the evening when she politely told me, “Keep your pecker up.”
There was a very humorous exchange that followed involving a lot of shock and embarrassment as we both explained what that expression means in our respective countries. Turns out she was telling me to “keep my chin up” and not despair.
After the red-faced bride regained control of her emotions I advised her against using that particular expression when she visits the U.S.
We had a lovely, laughter-filled evening that ended with the best punch-line of the night. One of the other British ladies in our group exclaimed that she was “absolutely knackered” and was off to bed. She then asked if someone would “knock her up” in the morning.
I thought that seemed pretty forward, and kind of an odd request until our translator informed us that she was “dead tired” and wanted someone to knock on her door to wake her up in the morning.
Once again, I had to advise that she limit the use of that expression to the British Isles, for fear of sending the wrong message if she ever visited the U.S.
Between the language barrier and the driving on the left side of the road, we spend a good portion of the trip utterly confused. We had a wonderful time nonetheless, and I must admit I find British English to be wonderfully colourful.
Especially the new words I learned from the lorrie drivers every time I forgot what side of the road I was supposed to be on.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
It all started just after we landed at Heathrow. We knew from conversations with my British relatives that we needed to get ourselves to “Bister” which was near “Northumsher.” Neither of those places were on any of the maps we found, and after quite a bit of deliberation we decided that we were supposed to go to Bicester near North Hamptonshire.
We were on our way to my cousin’s wedding festivities, but since “Bister” was a “long slog” (long way away), we needed to find a restroom first. Strangely, there were none to be found in all of Paddington station. That is, until I overheard a young lad tell his mum that he had to go. She told him, “the loo is right over there,” as she pointed to one of the many signs we’d already seen labeled “WC.” Mystery solved.
There was some confusion at Avis over which was the “boot” (trunk), and which was the “bonnet” (hood) on our rental car. It turned out the car was French, so that must have been the issue. We got it “all sorted” and off we went toward Oxford, which is spelled correctly on the maps, and very close to “Bister,” which is not. After a hair-raising left-hand-side drive, we made it into Oxford for the rehearsal dinner.
Shortly after we had connected with my cousin and his family, they received a call from his sister. She was going to be late to the dinner because they were having some trouble with their new baby boy. They were on the road, but apparently “changing a nappy in a lay-by.” We received a translation and found out that she was changing a diaper at a rest area. She said to go on without them and they would “catch us up.” I was wondering aloud just how much more of this “nappy” story there was, or how much more we really needed to hear when I found out “catch you up” means “catch up to you.” Go figure.
While at the rehearsal dinner we learned that hors d’oeuvres are called “nibbly bits,” water melon seeds are called “melon pips,” and Yorkshire pudding is nothing more than a puffy hollow biscuit. No pudding at all. We ordered chips and got French fries. There were no potato chips to be had anywhere, but “crisps” made an excellent substitute.
We learned that “bits and bobs” are “little things,” homeless people are known as “rough sleepers,” and a bachelor party is called a “stag do.” Brakes on a bicycle are known as “anchors,” jail is spelled g-a-o-l, and a whole host of words like “authorise” are spelled with an “s” instead of a “z.” Also, if you ask a Brit, “What color is your collar?” they cannot distinguish between those two words.
Anyhow, I had packed light for the trip, and as a result I was planning to wear the same pair of pants to both the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. I had ordered a tomato sauce dish at the dinner and I remarked to the bride-to-be, whom I had just met for the first time that evening, that I needed to be careful because I was “planning to recycle these pants for the wedding tomorrow.”
She gazed at me with a curious mix of bewilderment and disgust, as my cousin, who speaks both kinds of English, leaned over and informed me that I had just told his bride that I would be re-using my underwear.
Turns out I should have said “trousers” instead of “pants.” My bad.
She returned the favor (or favour) a little later in the evening when she politely told me, “Keep your pecker up.”
There was a very humorous exchange that followed involving a lot of shock and embarrassment as we both explained what that expression means in our respective countries. Turns out she was telling me to “keep my chin up” and not despair.
After the red-faced bride regained control of her emotions I advised her against using that particular expression when she visits the U.S.
We had a lovely, laughter-filled evening that ended with the best punch-line of the night. One of the other British ladies in our group exclaimed that she was “absolutely knackered” and was off to bed. She then asked if someone would “knock her up” in the morning.
I thought that seemed pretty forward, and kind of an odd request until our translator informed us that she was “dead tired” and wanted someone to knock on her door to wake her up in the morning.
Once again, I had to advise that she limit the use of that expression to the British Isles, for fear of sending the wrong message if she ever visited the U.S.
Between the language barrier and the driving on the left side of the road, we spend a good portion of the trip utterly confused. We had a wonderful time nonetheless, and I must admit I find British English to be wonderfully colourful.
Especially the new words I learned from the lorrie drivers every time I forgot what side of the road I was supposed to be on.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2010 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Helpless Near Seattle
My family and I are currently up in Portland, Oregon for our annual family reunion. My dad’s side comes from the Pacific Northwest, and we make the pilgrimage back every year after Christmas to re-unite and catch up on the past year. We used to fly up, but a recent phenomenon in our lives known as “children” has negatively impacted another phenomenon known as “airfare,” so for the past few years we have made the nine-plus hour drive from California. This year, along the way up Interstate-5, we ran into a troubling phenomenon: Helpless Americans.
Now, I don’t mean to trash on Oregonians, because I have a lot of good friends and family from this fine state, but the two examples of helplessness happened to be directly attributable to Oregon life. So, do with this what you will, my friendly neighbors to the North.
The first incident took place yesterday in California. We were headed North, and a nice couple from Oregon was headed South. We met by chance, opposite each other at Chevron Station Pump # 5 in Willows, California. I pulled up to my side of the pump and got out, noticing the man, approximately 60 years of age, laughing nervously on the other side of the pump island. I began to insert my credit card into the pump as I heard him say, half to his wife, and half indirectly to me, “Boy, I just can’t seem to get this thing to work!” As I looked up across the top of the pump at him, he met my gaze and said to me, “It asked me to enter my ZIP code.” Then he qualified his bewilderment by adding, “We’re from Oregon. It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”
Now for those of you who have never had the pleasure of driving through the lovely state of Oregon, they have a long-standing state law that prohibits everyday, average citizens from pumping their own gas. The entire state is full-serve. You are only allowed to put gas in a car if your name is sewed on your shirt next to a gas station logo. I think it had something to do with preserving the gas station attendant’s way of life, but for whatever reason, you can’t fill up your own car, and it’s been that way for a long, long time.
I used to live in Oregon, and I’m very familiar with the no-pumping-your-own-gas rule, so I understood his dilemma almost instantly. I politely explained that the pump was asking for his ZIP code only to verify that it was not a stolen credit card. He said, “Well, OK. I already entered my ZIP code, but now it’s telling me to press the button. I assume that means I’m supposed to squeeze the handle trigger, but I can’t get any gas to come out.”
At that point, I ducked my head around the pump and showed him the three bright yellow buttons on the front of the pump that all say “push here,” to select what flavor of gasoline you would like to purchase. He was only mildly embarrassed as he selected 87 Octane and began to fill his Honda’s tank. He laughingly explained his dilemma by saying, “Boy, I guess I don’t get out of Oregon much.”
The second incident happened later that afternoon. We had made it all the way over the mountain range that separates our two states, and the rest of the way up the state with no problems. We were a mere 17 miles from our destination when an unexpected snow storm hit. The forecast for Portland had been rain, but a mass of cold air had slammed down the Columbia River Gorge at the last minute, and the result was five hours of big, fat, wet snowflakes the size of golf balls. Most of the afternoon travelers in and around the Portland area were caught off-guard, and the result was ugly.
We had traveled for nine hours without a hitch, and the last 15 miles ended up taking us another two and a half. We were in our four-wheel-drive Ford Expedition, so keeping the car straight was not an issue for us. The problem was all the two-wheel-drive sedans without chains that were pirouetting in front of us. As we made our way through the otherwise beautiful storm, we had no less than five quarter-mile-long waits as cars and small pick-up trucks were pushed and slid by their drivers and other helpful motorists out of their precarious road-blocking positions. Able-bodied folks near the distressed cars banded together to help out, as Americans will do, to help clear the way for those who could make headway.
The next morning, however, the news showed me a different kind of American. He was being interviewed the night before, in the middle of the snowstorm on the side of the road. As the giant snowflakes fell on his head, he complained to the reporter, “My car is just stuck over there on the side of this road. I can’t get up this hill.” Mystified by this unfair situation, and angry that he hadn’t seen a snowplow arrive at his location yet, he exclaimed, “What are they waitin’ for? We’ve got the tax money. Let’s go!”
These two stories; “bewildered gas pump guy” and “indignant snow plow guy,” are small, yet very poignant examples of what happens to people when we allow too much government involvement in our lives.
After years and years of living with a really weird gas pump control law, the State of Oregon has produced at least one fully grown adult male who can operate a motor vehicle, but has no idea how to actually fill it with gas himself.
“Bewildered gas pump guy” is a rather humorous anecdote, but “indignant snow plow guy” is actually a little scary. Mother Nature showed what she’s made of, catching this man off-guard and temporarily stranding him on the side of the road. Instead of revising his plans and making his way home by other means, he stood out in the snow and impatiently waited for the government to show up and fix his problem for him.
Ladies and gentlemen, the day that this country ever becomes 51% “indignant snow plow guy,” it’s all over. We might as well just re-name the place “West France,” and pull up a chair.
Do your part to stop this trend, won’t you, please? If you ever meet “indignant snow plow guy,” remind him why God gave him two legs and a brain.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Now, I don’t mean to trash on Oregonians, because I have a lot of good friends and family from this fine state, but the two examples of helplessness happened to be directly attributable to Oregon life. So, do with this what you will, my friendly neighbors to the North.
The first incident took place yesterday in California. We were headed North, and a nice couple from Oregon was headed South. We met by chance, opposite each other at Chevron Station Pump # 5 in Willows, California. I pulled up to my side of the pump and got out, noticing the man, approximately 60 years of age, laughing nervously on the other side of the pump island. I began to insert my credit card into the pump as I heard him say, half to his wife, and half indirectly to me, “Boy, I just can’t seem to get this thing to work!” As I looked up across the top of the pump at him, he met my gaze and said to me, “It asked me to enter my ZIP code.” Then he qualified his bewilderment by adding, “We’re from Oregon. It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”
Now for those of you who have never had the pleasure of driving through the lovely state of Oregon, they have a long-standing state law that prohibits everyday, average citizens from pumping their own gas. The entire state is full-serve. You are only allowed to put gas in a car if your name is sewed on your shirt next to a gas station logo. I think it had something to do with preserving the gas station attendant’s way of life, but for whatever reason, you can’t fill up your own car, and it’s been that way for a long, long time.
I used to live in Oregon, and I’m very familiar with the no-pumping-your-own-gas rule, so I understood his dilemma almost instantly. I politely explained that the pump was asking for his ZIP code only to verify that it was not a stolen credit card. He said, “Well, OK. I already entered my ZIP code, but now it’s telling me to press the button. I assume that means I’m supposed to squeeze the handle trigger, but I can’t get any gas to come out.”
At that point, I ducked my head around the pump and showed him the three bright yellow buttons on the front of the pump that all say “push here,” to select what flavor of gasoline you would like to purchase. He was only mildly embarrassed as he selected 87 Octane and began to fill his Honda’s tank. He laughingly explained his dilemma by saying, “Boy, I guess I don’t get out of Oregon much.”
The second incident happened later that afternoon. We had made it all the way over the mountain range that separates our two states, and the rest of the way up the state with no problems. We were a mere 17 miles from our destination when an unexpected snow storm hit. The forecast for Portland had been rain, but a mass of cold air had slammed down the Columbia River Gorge at the last minute, and the result was five hours of big, fat, wet snowflakes the size of golf balls. Most of the afternoon travelers in and around the Portland area were caught off-guard, and the result was ugly.
We had traveled for nine hours without a hitch, and the last 15 miles ended up taking us another two and a half. We were in our four-wheel-drive Ford Expedition, so keeping the car straight was not an issue for us. The problem was all the two-wheel-drive sedans without chains that were pirouetting in front of us. As we made our way through the otherwise beautiful storm, we had no less than five quarter-mile-long waits as cars and small pick-up trucks were pushed and slid by their drivers and other helpful motorists out of their precarious road-blocking positions. Able-bodied folks near the distressed cars banded together to help out, as Americans will do, to help clear the way for those who could make headway.
The next morning, however, the news showed me a different kind of American. He was being interviewed the night before, in the middle of the snowstorm on the side of the road. As the giant snowflakes fell on his head, he complained to the reporter, “My car is just stuck over there on the side of this road. I can’t get up this hill.” Mystified by this unfair situation, and angry that he hadn’t seen a snowplow arrive at his location yet, he exclaimed, “What are they waitin’ for? We’ve got the tax money. Let’s go!”
These two stories; “bewildered gas pump guy” and “indignant snow plow guy,” are small, yet very poignant examples of what happens to people when we allow too much government involvement in our lives.
After years and years of living with a really weird gas pump control law, the State of Oregon has produced at least one fully grown adult male who can operate a motor vehicle, but has no idea how to actually fill it with gas himself.
“Bewildered gas pump guy” is a rather humorous anecdote, but “indignant snow plow guy” is actually a little scary. Mother Nature showed what she’s made of, catching this man off-guard and temporarily stranding him on the side of the road. Instead of revising his plans and making his way home by other means, he stood out in the snow and impatiently waited for the government to show up and fix his problem for him.
Ladies and gentlemen, the day that this country ever becomes 51% “indignant snow plow guy,” it’s all over. We might as well just re-name the place “West France,” and pull up a chair.
Do your part to stop this trend, won’t you, please? If you ever meet “indignant snow plow guy,” remind him why God gave him two legs and a brain.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Santa Overload
Halloween was a month-long event this year. Between school parties, play dates, moms club parties and the actual night, I think my kids dressed up in their costumes every other day for the entire month of October. I thought that was a little excessive.
Then it was a quick transition to hand-print turkeys and construction paper pilgrim hats, we scarfed down some stuffing, and we were on to Christmas. If you had gone to the mall in early November, however, you would have thought that Thanksgiving was long over. There was Santa, the day after Halloween.
That’s nothing compared to our home improvement warehouses, though. I kid you not, they had the Christmas stuff out at our Home Depot in September. September, people! Now, that’s excessive.
It’s not so much the commercialization of Christmas that I’m worried about. I actually kind of like the fact that businesses try to drag out Christmas as long as possible. It ultimately serves to give more exposure to my favorite Christian holiday, hopefully giving more people a chance to remember that it’s really all about the birth of our Lord.
And since the Lord blessed me with a complete lack of sympathy toward whining children, I can easily dodge the “your parents will buy you this toy for Christmas if they love you” advertising onslaught by simply telling them, “No, you can’t have one of those. We’re not the Rockefellers.”
“What’s a Rocker-Fella, Dad?”
“Zip it, kid. Get in the car.”
What I am worried about is the amazing over-abundance of Santa sightings these days. I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, we saw Santa maybe once before Christmas if we were lucky. And that was only if we could convince our folks to take us to the mall, which was the only place you could find him.
I did a count this year, and my kids saw Santa no less than thirteen times this year, and actually sat on his lap at least five times. Five times! I don’t think I sat on Santa’s lap five times total in my entire childhood. Most years we had to write him a letter, because we could never find him to talk to him in person.
Now, the mind of a five-year-old is not as perceptive as an adult’s, perhaps, but they do pick up on more than you think they will. This can be an issue, because as with any commodity, when you start flooding the system with Santas, you’re going to get wide swings in the quality department.
At our number two son’s preschool Christmas party, we had the Santa by which all others shall be judged. His beard and hair were real, he was the spitting image of old Saint Nick, his voice was perfect, he had real black boots, and his outfit was real hand-made satin and fur that puts anything else I’ve seen to shame. Pair him against the 18-year-old Santa that came to our house in the red felt and white acrylic “fur” suit. The entire suit, hat, fake beard and hair appeared as if they were made from the same materials as one of those ultra-thin, bright red Christmas stockings that come in a six-pack from the dollar store. He had the black vinyl “booties” with the elastic strap that covered only the top half of his tennis shoes, and he was apparently too young to attempt to muster a Santa voice, so he just went with his own 18-year-old voice, complete with phrases like “little dude,” “oh, man,” and “super cool.” As it turned out, however, Number Three, who is one and a half, was OK with surfer-dude Santa, but scared to death of the real deal. Go figure.
The wide variety of realism with the Santas in our encounters have left me fielding more than a few questions, like, “How come Santa’s beard doesn’t look the same as yesterday?” and, “Why does Santa smell like Grandpa’s adult drink?”
Other questions arose this year when we ran into a proximity and time puzzle. When I took the boys to the mall to shop for Mommy, we spent a few minutes on level two peering over the railing at Santa, below in his chair, in Westfield’s version of Santa wonderland, diligently taking orders from all the little boys and girls who have parents willing to wait in the Santa line at the mall. Then, off we went toward the Sears tool department, where we shop for Mommy. Along the way, not thirty seconds after we left Santa in his chair, there he was again at the portrait studio on level two. Come on, fellas! Work with me, here. At least spread out a little!
“Daddy, why is Santa right there?”
Hmmm. “So that boys and girls can get their pictures taken with him.”
Crunch, crunch (sound of five-year-old’s brain working overtime)
“But, he was just down there.”
“Yup.”
“How come?”
Hmmm. “Well, he’s magic, of course. He can be in two places at once. How do you think he delivers presents to every boy and girl in the world on one night? Oh look boys, a 10-inch compound miter chop saw with a laser cut line! I’ll bet Mommy would love that!”
The thing I’m most concerned about is not the questions, and it’s not the daunting requirement for spontaneous yet non-conflicting answers. It’s the loss of wonder that I want to avoid. The boys will only be young for a short period of time, and I want them to be mystified by Santa for as long as possible, not bored with him.
This year we have seen Santa five times at the mall, five times at Christmas parties, once on the Polar Express, and once on a fire truck in our neighborhood. Oh, yeah, and once driving a Hyundai. That one was hard for my wife to explain.
Next year we’ll do our best to whittle that number down a little, because I never want to hear, “Oh, look over there. It’s Santa again. Ho-hum. Boring!” At least not until they’re fifteen.
Have a wonderful Christmas, everybody!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Then it was a quick transition to hand-print turkeys and construction paper pilgrim hats, we scarfed down some stuffing, and we were on to Christmas. If you had gone to the mall in early November, however, you would have thought that Thanksgiving was long over. There was Santa, the day after Halloween.
That’s nothing compared to our home improvement warehouses, though. I kid you not, they had the Christmas stuff out at our Home Depot in September. September, people! Now, that’s excessive.
It’s not so much the commercialization of Christmas that I’m worried about. I actually kind of like the fact that businesses try to drag out Christmas as long as possible. It ultimately serves to give more exposure to my favorite Christian holiday, hopefully giving more people a chance to remember that it’s really all about the birth of our Lord.
And since the Lord blessed me with a complete lack of sympathy toward whining children, I can easily dodge the “your parents will buy you this toy for Christmas if they love you” advertising onslaught by simply telling them, “No, you can’t have one of those. We’re not the Rockefellers.”
“What’s a Rocker-Fella, Dad?”
“Zip it, kid. Get in the car.”
What I am worried about is the amazing over-abundance of Santa sightings these days. I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, we saw Santa maybe once before Christmas if we were lucky. And that was only if we could convince our folks to take us to the mall, which was the only place you could find him.
I did a count this year, and my kids saw Santa no less than thirteen times this year, and actually sat on his lap at least five times. Five times! I don’t think I sat on Santa’s lap five times total in my entire childhood. Most years we had to write him a letter, because we could never find him to talk to him in person.
Now, the mind of a five-year-old is not as perceptive as an adult’s, perhaps, but they do pick up on more than you think they will. This can be an issue, because as with any commodity, when you start flooding the system with Santas, you’re going to get wide swings in the quality department.
At our number two son’s preschool Christmas party, we had the Santa by which all others shall be judged. His beard and hair were real, he was the spitting image of old Saint Nick, his voice was perfect, he had real black boots, and his outfit was real hand-made satin and fur that puts anything else I’ve seen to shame. Pair him against the 18-year-old Santa that came to our house in the red felt and white acrylic “fur” suit. The entire suit, hat, fake beard and hair appeared as if they were made from the same materials as one of those ultra-thin, bright red Christmas stockings that come in a six-pack from the dollar store. He had the black vinyl “booties” with the elastic strap that covered only the top half of his tennis shoes, and he was apparently too young to attempt to muster a Santa voice, so he just went with his own 18-year-old voice, complete with phrases like “little dude,” “oh, man,” and “super cool.” As it turned out, however, Number Three, who is one and a half, was OK with surfer-dude Santa, but scared to death of the real deal. Go figure.
The wide variety of realism with the Santas in our encounters have left me fielding more than a few questions, like, “How come Santa’s beard doesn’t look the same as yesterday?” and, “Why does Santa smell like Grandpa’s adult drink?”
Other questions arose this year when we ran into a proximity and time puzzle. When I took the boys to the mall to shop for Mommy, we spent a few minutes on level two peering over the railing at Santa, below in his chair, in Westfield’s version of Santa wonderland, diligently taking orders from all the little boys and girls who have parents willing to wait in the Santa line at the mall. Then, off we went toward the Sears tool department, where we shop for Mommy. Along the way, not thirty seconds after we left Santa in his chair, there he was again at the portrait studio on level two. Come on, fellas! Work with me, here. At least spread out a little!
“Daddy, why is Santa right there?”
Hmmm. “So that boys and girls can get their pictures taken with him.”
Crunch, crunch (sound of five-year-old’s brain working overtime)
“But, he was just down there.”
“Yup.”
“How come?”
Hmmm. “Well, he’s magic, of course. He can be in two places at once. How do you think he delivers presents to every boy and girl in the world on one night? Oh look boys, a 10-inch compound miter chop saw with a laser cut line! I’ll bet Mommy would love that!”
The thing I’m most concerned about is not the questions, and it’s not the daunting requirement for spontaneous yet non-conflicting answers. It’s the loss of wonder that I want to avoid. The boys will only be young for a short period of time, and I want them to be mystified by Santa for as long as possible, not bored with him.
This year we have seen Santa five times at the mall, five times at Christmas parties, once on the Polar Express, and once on a fire truck in our neighborhood. Oh, yeah, and once driving a Hyundai. That one was hard for my wife to explain.
Next year we’ll do our best to whittle that number down a little, because I never want to hear, “Oh, look over there. It’s Santa again. Ho-hum. Boring!” At least not until they’re fifteen.
Have a wonderful Christmas, everybody!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The Five Feet of Christmas I Despise
Since I’m a Christian, I really enjoy Christmas. We get to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ with our family and friends, joyfully thanking God for His greatest gift to us. And besides, I really love sugar cookies! There is, however, one aspect of Christmas that I don’t like. Actually, “don’t like” isn’t strong enough. Loath. Hate. Despise… yes, there is one aspect of Christmas that I despise. It has to do with Christmas lights.
It’s not the lights themselves. I love those. I really like the way they make the house look. My wife likes icicle lights; the kind with the individual light strands of differing lengths that hang down from the eaves to simulate a sparkling frozen wonderland. They give the house a warm glow while at the same time making us feel like we have a winter paradise in our otherwise non-frozen California front yard. It’s really quite magical, and brings joy to my heart every time I pull into the driveway from work.
It’s not putting up the lights, either. I don’t mind that chore. I might even go so far as to say that I enjoy it. It’s usually a nice, crisp fall day. I’m bundled up against the early December breeze, high on a ladder, as the boys frolic in the red and yellow autumn leaves on the lawn below. They “help” by holding the ladder, and climbing up to my feet when I’m down low. It seems like the essence of being a father and a family man is all wrapped up in that one chore, and it makes me feel content with my life.
The problem comes when I plug them in. Night falls, and I make the extension cord connection and then stand back to proudly admire my work. And there it is. The five feet of Christmas I despise: The five-foot section of icicle lights that is out, right in the middle of the string.
Dark. Nada.
We’ve got plug end, five feet of lit string, five feet of dark string, five more feet of lit string, and the prong end. Awesome! Right in the middle of the front of the house. My house could be a magical, sparkling, winter wonderland, but instead, that five-foot section of lights, out of the ninety-five total feet of lights, makes the entire house look stupid. The five-foot outage actually takes the whole effort and turns it upside down. Instead of improving the look of the house for the holidays, I have detracted from it, and made it look like the Christmas equivalent of the neighborhood delinquent’s house where the lawn is never mowed, there’s a car with a 2-inch layer of dirt and four flat tires in the driveway, and the screen door is hanging on one hinge. What a wonderful night!
My wife comes out and asks, “Didn’t you check them before you put them up?”
I grit my teeth.
My smart-ass neighbor yells from across the street, “You missed a spot!”
Yeah, thanks, Ted. Why don’t you go back inside now?
My son asks, “How come you didn’t put any lights right there?”
Time for you to go inside now, too, junior.
I would fix it, but I don’t know how. I don’t understand how it’s possible. Is the electricity jumping from one spot to another in the cord, bypassing some of the lights? How on Earth can both ends of a continuous string of lights be lit, but the middle is dark? It’s like turning the hose on at the house, cutting it in half in the middle, and still getting water out the other end.
I’m almost positive I used that string last year and it worked, otherwise I wouldn’t have kept it for this year, right? So please tell me what happened to it while it was tucked away in a plastic tub in my garage for the past eleven months. Did the copper wires melt during the summer? Did the electrons go on vacation? Does it just hate me?
To make troubleshooting even harder, I can’t recreate the problem on a string that works. I’m fairly sure it isn’t a bad bulb, because I can pull the tiny individual bulbs out of their tiny two-copper-wire-prong sockets in the lit strings, and the rest of the string stays lit. Why? Can someone please tell me why? Please! Why???
Oh, well. At least the Christmas tree lights work. Wait a minute…. The whole left side just went out. Great! Someone find the lawnmower while I fix this screen door hinge.
I need a sugar cookie.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
It’s not the lights themselves. I love those. I really like the way they make the house look. My wife likes icicle lights; the kind with the individual light strands of differing lengths that hang down from the eaves to simulate a sparkling frozen wonderland. They give the house a warm glow while at the same time making us feel like we have a winter paradise in our otherwise non-frozen California front yard. It’s really quite magical, and brings joy to my heart every time I pull into the driveway from work.
It’s not putting up the lights, either. I don’t mind that chore. I might even go so far as to say that I enjoy it. It’s usually a nice, crisp fall day. I’m bundled up against the early December breeze, high on a ladder, as the boys frolic in the red and yellow autumn leaves on the lawn below. They “help” by holding the ladder, and climbing up to my feet when I’m down low. It seems like the essence of being a father and a family man is all wrapped up in that one chore, and it makes me feel content with my life.
The problem comes when I plug them in. Night falls, and I make the extension cord connection and then stand back to proudly admire my work. And there it is. The five feet of Christmas I despise: The five-foot section of icicle lights that is out, right in the middle of the string.
Dark. Nada.
We’ve got plug end, five feet of lit string, five feet of dark string, five more feet of lit string, and the prong end. Awesome! Right in the middle of the front of the house. My house could be a magical, sparkling, winter wonderland, but instead, that five-foot section of lights, out of the ninety-five total feet of lights, makes the entire house look stupid. The five-foot outage actually takes the whole effort and turns it upside down. Instead of improving the look of the house for the holidays, I have detracted from it, and made it look like the Christmas equivalent of the neighborhood delinquent’s house where the lawn is never mowed, there’s a car with a 2-inch layer of dirt and four flat tires in the driveway, and the screen door is hanging on one hinge. What a wonderful night!
My wife comes out and asks, “Didn’t you check them before you put them up?”
I grit my teeth.
My smart-ass neighbor yells from across the street, “You missed a spot!”
Yeah, thanks, Ted. Why don’t you go back inside now?
My son asks, “How come you didn’t put any lights right there?”
Time for you to go inside now, too, junior.
I would fix it, but I don’t know how. I don’t understand how it’s possible. Is the electricity jumping from one spot to another in the cord, bypassing some of the lights? How on Earth can both ends of a continuous string of lights be lit, but the middle is dark? It’s like turning the hose on at the house, cutting it in half in the middle, and still getting water out the other end.
I’m almost positive I used that string last year and it worked, otherwise I wouldn’t have kept it for this year, right? So please tell me what happened to it while it was tucked away in a plastic tub in my garage for the past eleven months. Did the copper wires melt during the summer? Did the electrons go on vacation? Does it just hate me?
To make troubleshooting even harder, I can’t recreate the problem on a string that works. I’m fairly sure it isn’t a bad bulb, because I can pull the tiny individual bulbs out of their tiny two-copper-wire-prong sockets in the lit strings, and the rest of the string stays lit. Why? Can someone please tell me why? Please! Why???
Oh, well. At least the Christmas tree lights work. Wait a minute…. The whole left side just went out. Great! Someone find the lawnmower while I fix this screen door hinge.
I need a sugar cookie.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Veterans Day, 2009
First, a brief history of Veterans Day, brought to us by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs:
World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles in France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”
In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day. The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m.
The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a resolution in 1926, with these words:
Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and
Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.
Has anyone else noticed that our Government is not nearly as poetic today as they were in 1926?
Anyway, in 1938, Congress made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday—a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as "Armistice Day." Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I.
Unfortunately, WWI was not the “war to end all wars,” and after WWII and the Korean War, in 1954, Congress changed the name of the holiday to “Veterans Day,” and November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.
There you have it.
I am proud to say I have quite a few veterans in my family tree, and I reflect on their service and sacrifice for this country every year on this day. Of all the old war stories, one in particular always makes me smile.
Brad Dolliver, my mom’s Uncle Brad, was a WWII and Korean War veteran. He was the Captain of a B-24 bomber in WWII named the “What’s Cookin’ Doc?,” complete with Bugs Bunny painted on the nose. He led his outstanding men on 30 missions over Europe, only sustaining one single crew injury, when flak shrapnel hit one of his gunners on their final mission over Germany. That was an amazing feat, since their campaign tour included being shot down on Christmas Day, 1944. That is the story that I love.
They were hit hard by anti-aircraft fire that knocked out three of his four engines, and he knew they couldn’t make it back to their airfield in England. He was losing altitude and heading for the American lines in France when he told the crew to bail out as he tried to land in an open field he had spotted. They unanimously chose to stay with him, and as he recalled, he made the smoothest landing of his entire career that day. He and his crew hitched a ride with a French man in a pick-up truck, and Uncle Brad assumed they were being taken to the American lines. Fortunately, the navigator was paying attention, and informed Captain Dolliver that they were being driven in the wrong direction, toward the Germans. The way Uncle Brad told the next part of the story speaks volumes about his generation and their matter-of-fact style. As he put it, “Somehow my .45 ended up in that Frenchman’s ear, and we got that truck turned around the right way.”
Got to love it.
Uncle Brad and his crew were some of the lucky ones that returned home from the wars they fought. On this special day set aside to remember and thank our veterans, let us not forget those who gave their lives for our liberty, and the liberty of other nations.
As a husband and a father, I can imagine no sacrifice more grave or selfless than the one the soldier makes when he leaves his family behind to fight on foreign soil on our behalf. The physical, mental and emotional toll must be staggering, but we are reminded of the caliber of men that stand at our defense when we hear them say, as Brad Dolliver said, “We were just doing our jobs.”
The humility and grace of our nation’s finest always strikes me and inspires me, and I am always at a loss for words of gratitude when I get a chance to thank them. It’s always just a simple “thank you,” because anything else I would or could try to express would fall well short of the reverence deserved.
For all the thanks and praise our returning heroes rightly receive, sadly it is the men and women that we will never get a chance to thank who deserve our utmost appreciation. They gave their lives for us, and that is a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.
So, from this freedom-loving American to all you VFW’s out there, all I can say is, “Thanks for your service,” because I will never be able to adequately convey what you truly mean to me.
God bless you all.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles in France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”
In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day. The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m.
The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a resolution in 1926, with these words:
Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and
Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.
Has anyone else noticed that our Government is not nearly as poetic today as they were in 1926?
Anyway, in 1938, Congress made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday—a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as "Armistice Day." Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I.
Unfortunately, WWI was not the “war to end all wars,” and after WWII and the Korean War, in 1954, Congress changed the name of the holiday to “Veterans Day,” and November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.
There you have it.
I am proud to say I have quite a few veterans in my family tree, and I reflect on their service and sacrifice for this country every year on this day. Of all the old war stories, one in particular always makes me smile.
Brad Dolliver, my mom’s Uncle Brad, was a WWII and Korean War veteran. He was the Captain of a B-24 bomber in WWII named the “What’s Cookin’ Doc?,” complete with Bugs Bunny painted on the nose. He led his outstanding men on 30 missions over Europe, only sustaining one single crew injury, when flak shrapnel hit one of his gunners on their final mission over Germany. That was an amazing feat, since their campaign tour included being shot down on Christmas Day, 1944. That is the story that I love.
They were hit hard by anti-aircraft fire that knocked out three of his four engines, and he knew they couldn’t make it back to their airfield in England. He was losing altitude and heading for the American lines in France when he told the crew to bail out as he tried to land in an open field he had spotted. They unanimously chose to stay with him, and as he recalled, he made the smoothest landing of his entire career that day. He and his crew hitched a ride with a French man in a pick-up truck, and Uncle Brad assumed they were being taken to the American lines. Fortunately, the navigator was paying attention, and informed Captain Dolliver that they were being driven in the wrong direction, toward the Germans. The way Uncle Brad told the next part of the story speaks volumes about his generation and their matter-of-fact style. As he put it, “Somehow my .45 ended up in that Frenchman’s ear, and we got that truck turned around the right way.”
Got to love it.
Uncle Brad and his crew were some of the lucky ones that returned home from the wars they fought. On this special day set aside to remember and thank our veterans, let us not forget those who gave their lives for our liberty, and the liberty of other nations.
As a husband and a father, I can imagine no sacrifice more grave or selfless than the one the soldier makes when he leaves his family behind to fight on foreign soil on our behalf. The physical, mental and emotional toll must be staggering, but we are reminded of the caliber of men that stand at our defense when we hear them say, as Brad Dolliver said, “We were just doing our jobs.”
The humility and grace of our nation’s finest always strikes me and inspires me, and I am always at a loss for words of gratitude when I get a chance to thank them. It’s always just a simple “thank you,” because anything else I would or could try to express would fall well short of the reverence deserved.
For all the thanks and praise our returning heroes rightly receive, sadly it is the men and women that we will never get a chance to thank who deserve our utmost appreciation. They gave their lives for us, and that is a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.
So, from this freedom-loving American to all you VFW’s out there, all I can say is, “Thanks for your service,” because I will never be able to adequately convey what you truly mean to me.
God bless you all.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Monday, September 7, 2009
Howard I Ross, 1911-2009
My grandpa, Howard Isaac Ross who was born in 1911, passed away on August 12th, 2009. He was 97 years old. My advice to any of you out there with parents, grandparents or great-grandparents in their 90’s is this: Get as many of their stories out of them as you can now, before they’re gone. The “greatest generation” was an amazing group of folks who saw more changes over their lifetimes than you and I can imagine, and there are only a handful of them left, so make the most of your time with the ones that are still around.
They possessed a work ethic and a frugality that are largely unheard of and unseen these days. They went about their lives very matter-of-factly, always taking care of themselves and their business, never ever being so impressed with themselves and their accomplishments as we seem to be of ours. Because of their humility and their “it is what it is” view of the world, many times I’m sure it just never occurred to them to tell others about some of the amazing things they may have done along the way.
We got a lot of stories out of my grandpa over the years, but there are so many others that I wish we had asked him about. Here are a few handy tips I picked up from him after some prodding:
If you’re going to be involved in a cock fighting ring, it helps to be friends with the Sheriff….. My grandpa was a veterinarian’s assistant and the “handler” for his boss, a Beverly, Massachusetts veterinarian who raised fighting cocks. The cock fighting circuit was big business back then, but it was illegal. One of Doc’s good buddies was the town Sheriff, and as my grandpa put it “if they were planning raids, he’d let us know and we’d lay low for a while.” Got to love it!
Poor on the 4th of July? You don’t need expensive Chinese gunpowder to have a good time. If you know how to make acetylene, you’re golden!..... All you need is an old empty 20-gallon milk can with a wooden stopper and some calcium carbide from the local hardware store. Can’t find the calcium carbide? Look for it in the miner’s supply aisle. It’s what the coal miners use to light their way by burning it in a little lantern attached to the front of their helmet. Apparently a dime’s worth will last you all day. Drill a hole in the can, about two inches above the bottom. Put an inch or two of water in the bottom of the can, sprinkle in a little calcium carbide, and hammer that lid on tight. Wait a few seconds, and then hold a match to the hole. Ka-Boom! The acetylene gas that filled up the can touches off and blows the wooden stopper fifty feet in the air. Go find the stopper and repeat all day. Happy birthday, America!
If you’re going to dispatch lots and lots of dogs, make sure at least one of them is really famous….. As a vet’s assistant, my grandpa helped put quite a few dogs to sleep. He also served as the temporary Dog Constable for Beverly, Mass. when the regular guy was out with an injury. Apparently New England towns were so overrun with stray dogs in the 50’s that they needed armed constables to handle the influx. The Sheriff outfitted my grandpa with a twenty-year-old .32 revolver to make sure he would have the upper hand on the canine invasion. After his duties were fulfilled, he bought the little gun from the Sheriff for $10. I have the gun now, and after some internet investigation of the previously unheard-of brand, I am happy to report that my grandpa really got ripped off by that Sheriff. It is a seriously cheap Saturday-night-special, made by a defunct company that made guns and bicycles, and sold the revolvers new for much less than $10. The Sheriff probably took it off some delinquent involved in a bar fight somewhere. Anyway, my grandpa used it to shoot a few dogs, but mostly he would take them to the vet’s office to put them down. One day when the vet was out, General Patton’s granddaughter brought Willie in to be put down. William the Conqueror, “Willie” for short, was Patton’s famous English bulldog that rode everywhere with him in his Jeep. When Patton died in Germany after WWII, they shipped Willie home to live out his days at Patton’s horse ranch in neighboring Wenham, Mass. The family couldn’t bear to let Willie go, but he was getting senile and starting to bite the servants and the family, so one day, tears in her eyes, his granddaughter brought him to the vet’s office. My grandpa told her that the doc was out, but she said it had to be now, as they could not go through the goodbyes again. So my grandpa got the secretary to help him, and as she too began to cry, he put General Patton’s dog Willie to sleep.
Never buy a wooden boat in the winter…..My grandpa went with the doc to go look at a boat for sale one winter. It was stored out of the water on a trailer. They launched it into the bay and took it out for a spin and both decided that it was ship-shape. The doc bought it and re-launched it the following spring, ready to go do some fishing in the bay. Not ten feet off the dock he discovered his new boat had about fifty leaks all throughout the hull. Since it had been stored out of the water that winter, the moisture in the wooden hull was allowed to freeze up, plugging and perhaps causing a few of the many leaky spots. They didn’t have it out on the bay during the initial test drive long enough for the hull to thaw out.
And finally, if you’re not happy with your date for the dance, get another one…..The story of my grandpa and grandma’s first encounter is a humorous one. Details are sketchy on whether or not he had a date for the dance, but my grandma was escorted there by another gentleman. She and Grandpa hit it off, and after avoiding her own date for most of the evening, Edith allowed Howard to take her home. They were married until 2005 when he lost her to Alzheimer’s disease. He missed her terribly, right up until the day he died.
He was a horseman in his younger years at a hunting and riding club. He became a father of two, and in his later years he became a grandfather to six and a great-grandfather to six more. He was an Air Raid Warden in Beverly during WWII. He once bought a house and then picked it up and moved it to another lot. He was a carpenter who did everything from building houses to making beautiful fireplace bellows with wood, leather and brass. He also proved time and time again that you could make damn near anything out of plywood, including a pool slide, as long as you had enough varnish. He was an animal lover, a school crossing guard, an office building custodian, a day care provider, a bee keeper, and a maker of countless pieces of elementary school furniture. He had a wonderful sense of humor, predominantly a dry wit, and he was one of the funniest people I knew.
I was lucky enough to grow up with him. He and Grandma lived next door to us or down the street from us my whole childhood. For that, I will be forever grateful.
I’m going to miss you Grandpa. Give Grandma a big kiss for me.
See you much, much later, I hope,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
They possessed a work ethic and a frugality that are largely unheard of and unseen these days. They went about their lives very matter-of-factly, always taking care of themselves and their business, never ever being so impressed with themselves and their accomplishments as we seem to be of ours. Because of their humility and their “it is what it is” view of the world, many times I’m sure it just never occurred to them to tell others about some of the amazing things they may have done along the way.
We got a lot of stories out of my grandpa over the years, but there are so many others that I wish we had asked him about. Here are a few handy tips I picked up from him after some prodding:
If you’re going to be involved in a cock fighting ring, it helps to be friends with the Sheriff….. My grandpa was a veterinarian’s assistant and the “handler” for his boss, a Beverly, Massachusetts veterinarian who raised fighting cocks. The cock fighting circuit was big business back then, but it was illegal. One of Doc’s good buddies was the town Sheriff, and as my grandpa put it “if they were planning raids, he’d let us know and we’d lay low for a while.” Got to love it!
Poor on the 4th of July? You don’t need expensive Chinese gunpowder to have a good time. If you know how to make acetylene, you’re golden!..... All you need is an old empty 20-gallon milk can with a wooden stopper and some calcium carbide from the local hardware store. Can’t find the calcium carbide? Look for it in the miner’s supply aisle. It’s what the coal miners use to light their way by burning it in a little lantern attached to the front of their helmet. Apparently a dime’s worth will last you all day. Drill a hole in the can, about two inches above the bottom. Put an inch or two of water in the bottom of the can, sprinkle in a little calcium carbide, and hammer that lid on tight. Wait a few seconds, and then hold a match to the hole. Ka-Boom! The acetylene gas that filled up the can touches off and blows the wooden stopper fifty feet in the air. Go find the stopper and repeat all day. Happy birthday, America!
If you’re going to dispatch lots and lots of dogs, make sure at least one of them is really famous….. As a vet’s assistant, my grandpa helped put quite a few dogs to sleep. He also served as the temporary Dog Constable for Beverly, Mass. when the regular guy was out with an injury. Apparently New England towns were so overrun with stray dogs in the 50’s that they needed armed constables to handle the influx. The Sheriff outfitted my grandpa with a twenty-year-old .32 revolver to make sure he would have the upper hand on the canine invasion. After his duties were fulfilled, he bought the little gun from the Sheriff for $10. I have the gun now, and after some internet investigation of the previously unheard-of brand, I am happy to report that my grandpa really got ripped off by that Sheriff. It is a seriously cheap Saturday-night-special, made by a defunct company that made guns and bicycles, and sold the revolvers new for much less than $10. The Sheriff probably took it off some delinquent involved in a bar fight somewhere. Anyway, my grandpa used it to shoot a few dogs, but mostly he would take them to the vet’s office to put them down. One day when the vet was out, General Patton’s granddaughter brought Willie in to be put down. William the Conqueror, “Willie” for short, was Patton’s famous English bulldog that rode everywhere with him in his Jeep. When Patton died in Germany after WWII, they shipped Willie home to live out his days at Patton’s horse ranch in neighboring Wenham, Mass. The family couldn’t bear to let Willie go, but he was getting senile and starting to bite the servants and the family, so one day, tears in her eyes, his granddaughter brought him to the vet’s office. My grandpa told her that the doc was out, but she said it had to be now, as they could not go through the goodbyes again. So my grandpa got the secretary to help him, and as she too began to cry, he put General Patton’s dog Willie to sleep.
Never buy a wooden boat in the winter…..My grandpa went with the doc to go look at a boat for sale one winter. It was stored out of the water on a trailer. They launched it into the bay and took it out for a spin and both decided that it was ship-shape. The doc bought it and re-launched it the following spring, ready to go do some fishing in the bay. Not ten feet off the dock he discovered his new boat had about fifty leaks all throughout the hull. Since it had been stored out of the water that winter, the moisture in the wooden hull was allowed to freeze up, plugging and perhaps causing a few of the many leaky spots. They didn’t have it out on the bay during the initial test drive long enough for the hull to thaw out.
And finally, if you’re not happy with your date for the dance, get another one…..The story of my grandpa and grandma’s first encounter is a humorous one. Details are sketchy on whether or not he had a date for the dance, but my grandma was escorted there by another gentleman. She and Grandpa hit it off, and after avoiding her own date for most of the evening, Edith allowed Howard to take her home. They were married until 2005 when he lost her to Alzheimer’s disease. He missed her terribly, right up until the day he died.
He was a horseman in his younger years at a hunting and riding club. He became a father of two, and in his later years he became a grandfather to six and a great-grandfather to six more. He was an Air Raid Warden in Beverly during WWII. He once bought a house and then picked it up and moved it to another lot. He was a carpenter who did everything from building houses to making beautiful fireplace bellows with wood, leather and brass. He also proved time and time again that you could make damn near anything out of plywood, including a pool slide, as long as you had enough varnish. He was an animal lover, a school crossing guard, an office building custodian, a day care provider, a bee keeper, and a maker of countless pieces of elementary school furniture. He had a wonderful sense of humor, predominantly a dry wit, and he was one of the funniest people I knew.
I was lucky enough to grow up with him. He and Grandma lived next door to us or down the street from us my whole childhood. For that, I will be forever grateful.
I’m going to miss you Grandpa. Give Grandma a big kiss for me.
See you much, much later, I hope,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Handy Parenting Tips
I have been a parent for a little while now, and along the way with my three boys I have picked up a few helpful hints that I would like to pass on to all you new parents out there, so here they are:
Smidge’s Handy Tips and Helpful Advice for New Parents
Don’t take the side of the bed closest to the door in your room. As soon as your children start getting out of bed in the middle of the night, you turn into the go-to parent for any and all late-night activities. If your spouse won’t switch sides with you, simply turn the bed around.
Once the kids start crawling and climbing, get rid of all of your chairs. It will just be easier that way.
Never say anything within 1000 yards of your children that you wouldn’t want repeated in front of your in-laws or your pastor, because it will be.
Even if they have never been exposed to any kind of weapon, boys will naturally pick up a stick and pretend it’s a gun, a sword, or a bludgeon. It’s in their DNA.
Kids love to call other kids names. If your child is calling another kid a “stinky face,” the best response is to immediately call your child a “poopy butt.”
Up until the age of 18, when they can legally object, it is best to just put your kids back in diapers for long road trips. It’s really the only way to make decent time.
Never ever give your children sugar under any circumstances.
If all of your kids are ever invited to the same sleepover, drop them off and immediately turn off your cell phones and go to Las Vegas for three days. They will be fine. They are in good hands, and it’s really the only way you ever get to go to Vegas.
A handy way to tire your kids out before bedtime is to have them drag your spare truck tire up and down the street on a rope until they fall over. When they hit the sidewalk, viola, ready for bed.
Purchase at least four to five times the amount of sippy cups that you think will be sufficient. Once a week, lift up all the furniture in the house and retrieve them. Wash with industrial caustic high-pressure foam or throw away as necessary.
A handy way to combat the garbage can flies that inevitably show up when disposable diapers are abundant is to light your trash can on fire every other day. This keeps the flies manageable and reduces the amount of garbage you are sending to the landfill. Win-win.
When at the zoo, never let your kids get into the monkey cage, no matter how much they beg. Just trust me.
If left unchecked, boys will attempt to pee anywhere on anything. Keep an eye on them at the mall!
It will end up being cheaper in the long run if you simply remove all the ceiling fans in your house and replace them with bullet-proof light fixtures. You can have ceiling fans again when they graduate from college.
Never ever wear the couple’s matching shorts and shirt combos with the loud Hawaiian print. This has nothing to do with kids, it’s just good common sense.
We have 32,000 pictures of our first boy, 46 pictures of our second boy, and no photographic evidence that we even have a third boy. Try to even out the photography if you can.
Ranch dressing, when left on a kid’s face, produces a red rash. If done properly, it can end up looking like clown makeup that only lasts for about a half-hour.
And lastly, always keep a first aid kit handy. I imagine if you have girls, it should include Band-Aids and Neosporin. If you have boys it should also include a tourniquet, arm and leg splints, sutures, large butterfly bandages and gauze pads, local anesthetic, an immobilizing neck brace, saline IV bags, a defibrillator, a stretcher, and a fully-licensed paramedic.
I hope that was helpful for you. Good luck!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Smidge’s Handy Tips and Helpful Advice for New Parents
Don’t take the side of the bed closest to the door in your room. As soon as your children start getting out of bed in the middle of the night, you turn into the go-to parent for any and all late-night activities. If your spouse won’t switch sides with you, simply turn the bed around.
Once the kids start crawling and climbing, get rid of all of your chairs. It will just be easier that way.
Never say anything within 1000 yards of your children that you wouldn’t want repeated in front of your in-laws or your pastor, because it will be.
Even if they have never been exposed to any kind of weapon, boys will naturally pick up a stick and pretend it’s a gun, a sword, or a bludgeon. It’s in their DNA.
Kids love to call other kids names. If your child is calling another kid a “stinky face,” the best response is to immediately call your child a “poopy butt.”
Up until the age of 18, when they can legally object, it is best to just put your kids back in diapers for long road trips. It’s really the only way to make decent time.
Never ever give your children sugar under any circumstances.
If all of your kids are ever invited to the same sleepover, drop them off and immediately turn off your cell phones and go to Las Vegas for three days. They will be fine. They are in good hands, and it’s really the only way you ever get to go to Vegas.
A handy way to tire your kids out before bedtime is to have them drag your spare truck tire up and down the street on a rope until they fall over. When they hit the sidewalk, viola, ready for bed.
Purchase at least four to five times the amount of sippy cups that you think will be sufficient. Once a week, lift up all the furniture in the house and retrieve them. Wash with industrial caustic high-pressure foam or throw away as necessary.
A handy way to combat the garbage can flies that inevitably show up when disposable diapers are abundant is to light your trash can on fire every other day. This keeps the flies manageable and reduces the amount of garbage you are sending to the landfill. Win-win.
When at the zoo, never let your kids get into the monkey cage, no matter how much they beg. Just trust me.
If left unchecked, boys will attempt to pee anywhere on anything. Keep an eye on them at the mall!
It will end up being cheaper in the long run if you simply remove all the ceiling fans in your house and replace them with bullet-proof light fixtures. You can have ceiling fans again when they graduate from college.
Never ever wear the couple’s matching shorts and shirt combos with the loud Hawaiian print. This has nothing to do with kids, it’s just good common sense.
We have 32,000 pictures of our first boy, 46 pictures of our second boy, and no photographic evidence that we even have a third boy. Try to even out the photography if you can.
Ranch dressing, when left on a kid’s face, produces a red rash. If done properly, it can end up looking like clown makeup that only lasts for about a half-hour.
And lastly, always keep a first aid kit handy. I imagine if you have girls, it should include Band-Aids and Neosporin. If you have boys it should also include a tourniquet, arm and leg splints, sutures, large butterfly bandages and gauze pads, local anesthetic, an immobilizing neck brace, saline IV bags, a defibrillator, a stretcher, and a fully-licensed paramedic.
I hope that was helpful for you. Good luck!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Father's Day
As of this Father’s Day I have been a father for almost five years. We have been blessed with three wonderful boys, ages four and a half, three and one, and we are loving every minute of the ride!
The other night after we bathed them, I was lying on the carpet being operated on by my personal team of amateur physicians. Number One and Two were both naked with bath towels on their heads, draping down their backs like superhero capes. One towel had hippopotamus eyes, nose and ears on it, and the other had puppy dog features. Dr. Hippo and Dr. Puppy were using a plastic power drill and a toy airplane propeller to drill a hole in my hand and insert a pin, so that they could then “put a plate in there.” Two thoughts ran through my head as I lay on the operating carpet that night. The first was that I really need to evaluate my medical plan, because my doctors are really weird. The second was that it just doesn’t get any better than this. That is what fatherhood is all about. Strange Fisher-Price medical procedures by highly unqualified, slightly damp superhero animal doctors.
Here are a few other priceless moments from the past 5 years:
An exchange between Number One and me just before bedtime as we surveyed the day’s toy-tornado that had swept the game room:
“Do I have to clean up all my toys?”
“Yes, but you can do it tomorrow.”
“Wow, this looks like a lot of work. Dad, you should clean this up while we’re sleeping.”
I was about to leave Number One and Two alone in the backyard to go into the house and check on Number Three who was napping:
“Where are you going?”
“Inside to check on your brother. I’ll be right back.”
“But Daddy, how will we be entertained!?!”
An exchange between Number One and Mommy as they discussed the upcoming Christmas holiday:
“What are you going to ask Santa for?”
“Oh, Mommy, you know what we don’t have?”
“What?”
“Weapons!”
(That’s my boy!)
While doing a jig-saw puzzle with Number Two, he kept taking apart everything I put together. We were making no headway, and finally I said, “OK, you can do it yourself” to which he replied, “No, I’m too young!!!”
We had recently moved into our new house, and one evening after a TV show, it was time to go to sleep. Number One and Two were getting settled in bed when Number One made the astute observation:
“Daddy, if the guy that built our house had put the TV in our room, we could watch Disney Channel when it’s time to be in bed.”
I have told my boys on a number of occasions that they live in America, and that means that they can do anything that they want to do with their lives. One evening when I was not home, my wife served burritos for dinner. Number One, who does not like his food to be messy, accidently took a bite out of the wrong end of his burrito, leaving him with two open ends. He got a very worried look on his face and said, “Oh no!” My wife immediately thought he was concerned about the potential mess until he looked her straight in the eye and said, “Mom, it’s OK. You know why? Because this is America!”
(That’s my boy!)
Number One was shaking his brother’s ceramic piggy bank, trying to get a feel for how much money Number Two had stashed away. He was getting pretty vigorous with his shaking and ended up hitting himself square in the forehead with it. His response was classic:
“That’s one hard pig!”
Number Two was leafing through a blank notebook, pretending it was a menu of cakes that we could order from his bakery. He stopped, pointing to a page and said:
“Oh, how about chocolate and vanilla with sprinkles on top?”
“Wow, that sounds delicious! I’ll take that one.”
“Well, we don’t have that one, so we’ll have to keep looking.”
So here’s to all you dads out there! My hope for you this Father’s Day is that you too have the good fortune to be surrounded by doctors, garbage men, commandos, philosophers, tough bankers, tricky bakers, deep thinkers, big dreamers and future great Americans. There’s absolutely nothing better!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
The other night after we bathed them, I was lying on the carpet being operated on by my personal team of amateur physicians. Number One and Two were both naked with bath towels on their heads, draping down their backs like superhero capes. One towel had hippopotamus eyes, nose and ears on it, and the other had puppy dog features. Dr. Hippo and Dr. Puppy were using a plastic power drill and a toy airplane propeller to drill a hole in my hand and insert a pin, so that they could then “put a plate in there.” Two thoughts ran through my head as I lay on the operating carpet that night. The first was that I really need to evaluate my medical plan, because my doctors are really weird. The second was that it just doesn’t get any better than this. That is what fatherhood is all about. Strange Fisher-Price medical procedures by highly unqualified, slightly damp superhero animal doctors.
Here are a few other priceless moments from the past 5 years:
An exchange between Number One and me just before bedtime as we surveyed the day’s toy-tornado that had swept the game room:
“Do I have to clean up all my toys?”
“Yes, but you can do it tomorrow.”
“Wow, this looks like a lot of work. Dad, you should clean this up while we’re sleeping.”
I was about to leave Number One and Two alone in the backyard to go into the house and check on Number Three who was napping:
“Where are you going?”
“Inside to check on your brother. I’ll be right back.”
“But Daddy, how will we be entertained!?!”
An exchange between Number One and Mommy as they discussed the upcoming Christmas holiday:
“What are you going to ask Santa for?”
“Oh, Mommy, you know what we don’t have?”
“What?”
“Weapons!”
(That’s my boy!)
While doing a jig-saw puzzle with Number Two, he kept taking apart everything I put together. We were making no headway, and finally I said, “OK, you can do it yourself” to which he replied, “No, I’m too young!!!”
We had recently moved into our new house, and one evening after a TV show, it was time to go to sleep. Number One and Two were getting settled in bed when Number One made the astute observation:
“Daddy, if the guy that built our house had put the TV in our room, we could watch Disney Channel when it’s time to be in bed.”
I have told my boys on a number of occasions that they live in America, and that means that they can do anything that they want to do with their lives. One evening when I was not home, my wife served burritos for dinner. Number One, who does not like his food to be messy, accidently took a bite out of the wrong end of his burrito, leaving him with two open ends. He got a very worried look on his face and said, “Oh no!” My wife immediately thought he was concerned about the potential mess until he looked her straight in the eye and said, “Mom, it’s OK. You know why? Because this is America!”
(That’s my boy!)
Number One was shaking his brother’s ceramic piggy bank, trying to get a feel for how much money Number Two had stashed away. He was getting pretty vigorous with his shaking and ended up hitting himself square in the forehead with it. His response was classic:
“That’s one hard pig!”
Number Two was leafing through a blank notebook, pretending it was a menu of cakes that we could order from his bakery. He stopped, pointing to a page and said:
“Oh, how about chocolate and vanilla with sprinkles on top?”
“Wow, that sounds delicious! I’ll take that one.”
“Well, we don’t have that one, so we’ll have to keep looking.”
So here’s to all you dads out there! My hope for you this Father’s Day is that you too have the good fortune to be surrounded by doctors, garbage men, commandos, philosophers, tough bankers, tricky bakers, deep thinkers, big dreamers and future great Americans. There’s absolutely nothing better!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Mother's Day
This Mother’s Day, I thought that I would wax poetic about what it means to be a mother today. How important it is, possibly now more than ever that our children have good mothers at home to protect them from a seemingly escalating level of negative influences these days. And to teach them right from wrong and guide them with a firm yet soft and loving hand through all the trials and tribulations of their young lives.
I could do that, but it seemed like it would be kind of dull. So instead I thought I would write about what it means to be the mother of our three boys, ages four-and-a-half, three, and one.
Being the mother of our three boys means:
Becoming an expert on anything from dinosaurs to black widows to hurricanes, depending solely on what the oldest one is interested in at the time.
Resigning yourself to the fact that your lunch for the next five years will mainly consist of whatever the boys didn’t eat.
Never being afraid to go with chicken nuggets, even if it’s the ninth day in a row, because you know all three will eat them without complaints.
Having to constantly buy and serve sour cream, even though you despise it like the devil himself.
Having to put on a brave smile and trying to keep the horrified look off your face when your son beams at you with pride after rocketing down the driveway on a scooter at mach 3 and pulling off a turn onto the sidewalk that Mario Andretti would be proud of.
Having a standing weekly appointment at the pediatrician’s office, and a semi-monthly appointment at the ER.
Knowing when to say “No, you may not use daddy’s power tools anymore.”
Always being ready to sprint to the accident scene when you have to.
Never leaving Costco without $300 worth of stuff.
Being able to read the same book three times a day for twenty days in a row, and being able to watch the same episode of Backyardigans every night.
Being able to say “Use your big boy words” at least 75 times a day without losing your cool.
Being able to listen to nine straight hours of whining without going insane.
Sometimes having to open up a grade-A can of whoop-ass when Daddy isn’t home.
Never being shocked when one boy tries to clothesline the other because he stole his socks.
Wondering why the boys naturally love to play with guns, and having to say “We don’t shoot people. We only shoot monsters and birds. We arrest the bad guys” at least ten times a day.
Teaching the boys to play “slug bug” in the car as a means to keep them awake, but somehow miraculously training them to only lightly touch the other contestants instead of pummel them.
Rolling on the floor laughing when, out of the blue, the four-year-old says “Next time we go on vacation, I really think it would be best if I drove.”
Constantly being prepared for total rejection at the dinner table.
Always being prepared for anything from kissing a boo-boo to applying steady pressure until the bleeding slows, and everything in between.
Always having a ziplock bag of Cheese-Its. No matter what.
Being able to get three Tasmanian Devils fully dressed, fed, and in the car in less time than it takes a Nascar pit crew to change a tire.
Getting pulled out of bed at 2:30 am to help a boy go pee, even though he can do it all by himself.
Finding out what is inside snails, rattle toys, stuffed animals, spiders, and action figures whether you wanted to know or not.
Getting thrown up on, at a minimum of once a week.
Loving every minute of it, even if some days all you want to do is cry.
You’re doing a great job, baby! Happy Mother’s Day.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
I could do that, but it seemed like it would be kind of dull. So instead I thought I would write about what it means to be the mother of our three boys, ages four-and-a-half, three, and one.
Being the mother of our three boys means:
Becoming an expert on anything from dinosaurs to black widows to hurricanes, depending solely on what the oldest one is interested in at the time.
Resigning yourself to the fact that your lunch for the next five years will mainly consist of whatever the boys didn’t eat.
Never being afraid to go with chicken nuggets, even if it’s the ninth day in a row, because you know all three will eat them without complaints.
Having to constantly buy and serve sour cream, even though you despise it like the devil himself.
Having to put on a brave smile and trying to keep the horrified look off your face when your son beams at you with pride after rocketing down the driveway on a scooter at mach 3 and pulling off a turn onto the sidewalk that Mario Andretti would be proud of.
Having a standing weekly appointment at the pediatrician’s office, and a semi-monthly appointment at the ER.
Knowing when to say “No, you may not use daddy’s power tools anymore.”
Always being ready to sprint to the accident scene when you have to.
Never leaving Costco without $300 worth of stuff.
Being able to read the same book three times a day for twenty days in a row, and being able to watch the same episode of Backyardigans every night.
Being able to say “Use your big boy words” at least 75 times a day without losing your cool.
Being able to listen to nine straight hours of whining without going insane.
Sometimes having to open up a grade-A can of whoop-ass when Daddy isn’t home.
Never being shocked when one boy tries to clothesline the other because he stole his socks.
Wondering why the boys naturally love to play with guns, and having to say “We don’t shoot people. We only shoot monsters and birds. We arrest the bad guys” at least ten times a day.
Teaching the boys to play “slug bug” in the car as a means to keep them awake, but somehow miraculously training them to only lightly touch the other contestants instead of pummel them.
Rolling on the floor laughing when, out of the blue, the four-year-old says “Next time we go on vacation, I really think it would be best if I drove.”
Constantly being prepared for total rejection at the dinner table.
Always being prepared for anything from kissing a boo-boo to applying steady pressure until the bleeding slows, and everything in between.
Always having a ziplock bag of Cheese-Its. No matter what.
Being able to get three Tasmanian Devils fully dressed, fed, and in the car in less time than it takes a Nascar pit crew to change a tire.
Getting pulled out of bed at 2:30 am to help a boy go pee, even though he can do it all by himself.
Finding out what is inside snails, rattle toys, stuffed animals, spiders, and action figures whether you wanted to know or not.
Getting thrown up on, at a minimum of once a week.
Loving every minute of it, even if some days all you want to do is cry.
You’re doing a great job, baby! Happy Mother’s Day.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Here's My Passport, Baby
It’s 2009 and you know what that means. Time to crack down on the vexing problem of undocumented infants crossing national borders all willy-nilly. Yes, the new rules are in place. If you are going to Canada with a baby, that baby needs a passport. (If you’re going to Mexico, as always no problem getting in, but if you want to come back to the U.S., you’d better have a passport for that baby of yours.)
Three days old? Still needs a passport.
And I quote from the U.S. Department of State’s travel website: “All children regardless of age, including newborns and infants, must have their own passport”
Here’s just one of the questions that brings up for me: How do you go about getting a passport for a newborn? If it takes the government two months to make my passport and send it to me, how exactly do I get one for a two week old?? Do we take a passport photo of mommy’s belly at the 7 month mark and cross our fingers?
Speaking of passport photos, the website’s photo guidelines brought up another series of questions for me regarding newborns:
“Your Photographs Must Be:”
- “Identical “– Better make a copy of the first one, because this kid hasn’t stopped squirming since he was born.
- “In color” – No problem, he’s very pink.
- “2 x 2 inches in size” – Dang near life-sized on a 6 pounder.
- “Taken within the past 6 months, showing current appearance” – Um, Duh! And how do you take a picture of someone that does not show their current appearance?
-“Full face, front view with a plain white or off-white background” – His spit-up is off-white, so no problem there.
- “Taken in normal street attire:” – I hope normal crib attire will suffice, because we don’t let him out on the street just yet.
- “Uniforms should not be worn in photographs except religious attire that is worn daily” – He hasn’t joined the Army yet, but he does wear white onesies religiously. Does that count?
-“Dark glasses or nonprescription glasses with tinted lenses are not acceptable unless you need them for medical reasons (a medical certificate may be required)” – He has super-cool baby shades, but the only medical certificate we have is his birth certificate, so I think the shades are out.
-“If you normally wear prescription glasses, a hearing device, wig or similar articles, they should be worn for your picture” – No glasses or hearing aids yet, but he doesn’t seem to respond appropriately to sights and sounds, so we may look into it.
- “Do not wear a hat or headgear that obscures the hair or hairline” – We have to keep a cute little beanie on him or his head gets cold. However, he doesn’t have any hair to speak of anyway, so I’m not sure which way to go with this one. The beanie is his normal crib attire, so I think we’re in a gray area here….
Another bit of good news on the website is the ease with which the application process will progress. I was happy to learn that the child and both parents need to be present at the post office when we present our photos and form DS-11. If I’m not available, my wife can bring the ever-so-easy-to-obtain notarized letter from me stating that it’s OK for her to get my children their passports that we are required by law to get them. I guess one too many dysfunctional families ruined it for the rest of us. Can’t steal the kids anymore, sweetheart!
What genius (that we no doubt elected at some point) decided that newborns and infants needed passports? What are we trying to accomplish here?
“Immigration Team Bravo – Swarm on terminal 12 at the international gate – We have a Zulu Tango – I repeat, a Zulu Tango. It’s little James Smith. An alert Customs agent recognized his tell-tale soft spot. He’s on the Rocklin Mom’s Club Holy Terror watch list. He goes by several known aliases. “Jimmy-Jimmy-Bo-Bimmy”, “Mr. Poopy Drawers”, and when overseas, “Señor Poopy Pantalones”. – We finally caught up to him. Good work team!”
One bright spot is that minor’s passports are good for five years. That ought to work out great. I see no future problems at the immigration counter when my four year old’s passport has a photo of him as a three month old. Good job over there at the Bureau of Consular Affairs. You guys are really on the ball!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Three days old? Still needs a passport.
And I quote from the U.S. Department of State’s travel website: “All children regardless of age, including newborns and infants, must have their own passport”
Here’s just one of the questions that brings up for me: How do you go about getting a passport for a newborn? If it takes the government two months to make my passport and send it to me, how exactly do I get one for a two week old?? Do we take a passport photo of mommy’s belly at the 7 month mark and cross our fingers?
Speaking of passport photos, the website’s photo guidelines brought up another series of questions for me regarding newborns:
“Your Photographs Must Be:”
- “Identical “– Better make a copy of the first one, because this kid hasn’t stopped squirming since he was born.
- “In color” – No problem, he’s very pink.
- “2 x 2 inches in size” – Dang near life-sized on a 6 pounder.
- “Taken within the past 6 months, showing current appearance” – Um, Duh! And how do you take a picture of someone that does not show their current appearance?
-“Full face, front view with a plain white or off-white background” – His spit-up is off-white, so no problem there.
- “Taken in normal street attire:” – I hope normal crib attire will suffice, because we don’t let him out on the street just yet.
- “Uniforms should not be worn in photographs except religious attire that is worn daily” – He hasn’t joined the Army yet, but he does wear white onesies religiously. Does that count?
-“Dark glasses or nonprescription glasses with tinted lenses are not acceptable unless you need them for medical reasons (a medical certificate may be required)” – He has super-cool baby shades, but the only medical certificate we have is his birth certificate, so I think the shades are out.
-“If you normally wear prescription glasses, a hearing device, wig or similar articles, they should be worn for your picture” – No glasses or hearing aids yet, but he doesn’t seem to respond appropriately to sights and sounds, so we may look into it.
- “Do not wear a hat or headgear that obscures the hair or hairline” – We have to keep a cute little beanie on him or his head gets cold. However, he doesn’t have any hair to speak of anyway, so I’m not sure which way to go with this one. The beanie is his normal crib attire, so I think we’re in a gray area here….
Another bit of good news on the website is the ease with which the application process will progress. I was happy to learn that the child and both parents need to be present at the post office when we present our photos and form DS-11. If I’m not available, my wife can bring the ever-so-easy-to-obtain notarized letter from me stating that it’s OK for her to get my children their passports that we are required by law to get them. I guess one too many dysfunctional families ruined it for the rest of us. Can’t steal the kids anymore, sweetheart!
What genius (that we no doubt elected at some point) decided that newborns and infants needed passports? What are we trying to accomplish here?
“Immigration Team Bravo – Swarm on terminal 12 at the international gate – We have a Zulu Tango – I repeat, a Zulu Tango. It’s little James Smith. An alert Customs agent recognized his tell-tale soft spot. He’s on the Rocklin Mom’s Club Holy Terror watch list. He goes by several known aliases. “Jimmy-Jimmy-Bo-Bimmy”, “Mr. Poopy Drawers”, and when overseas, “Señor Poopy Pantalones”. – We finally caught up to him. Good work team!”
One bright spot is that minor’s passports are good for five years. That ought to work out great. I see no future problems at the immigration counter when my four year old’s passport has a photo of him as a three month old. Good job over there at the Bureau of Consular Affairs. You guys are really on the ball!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2009 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Dear Santa
December 23rd, 2008
Dear Santa,
All I want for Christmas is a LoJack for Snot Rod. Oh, and one for a baby spoon. Allow me to explain.
Last Christmas you brought my sons some “matchbox” type toy cars from the Disney movie “Cars”. One of them was the orange GTO with the big racing slicks, the supercharger, and the cylinder head-cold named “Snot Rod.” My four year old has grown quite attached to it over the last few months and likes to take it everywhere now. Likewise, my two year old has developed a fondness for carrying around spoons. He likes measuring spoons, wooden spoons, silverware, and most of all, baby spoons. He has a particular type that is his favorite. The “pokey baby spoony” as he calls it. It’s a metal spoon with a big fat plastic handle. We used to have a lot of them, but now we only have one. That’s because of the problem.
My boys really have no short-term memory at all. That’s the problem. They cherish a certain item almost more than life itself, but cannot remember where they set it down thirty seconds ago. Now, since Snot Rod and the baby spoon are both less than four inches in length and our house is 3400 square feet not counting the garage, you can see my dilemma.
Our boys aren’t allowed to take toys to bed, so they request that they be allowed to leave certain toys right outside their door for when they wake up. Occasionally (read: All the time) they get their heart set on a toy that they have recently misplaced. When this happens, it is important to gauge the level of heart-setted-ness. If it is high, you have two choices. Find the toy and put it outside their door so they will be happy in the morning, and hopefully entertained, or don’t find it, don’t leave it outside their door, and hear about that decision at 5:45 am.
Tonight was a night with a high heart-setitude rating for Snot Rod. My wife and I were lucky enough to be able to go out to a movie this evening by ourselves since Grandma and Grandpa are here awaiting your arrival tomorrow night. When we got back, well past both of our bed times, I was obliged to look for Snot Rod. The last sighting had been in the car. Oh joy. Well, off to the garage I went, flashlight in hand, to contort myself onto the floor mats to be able to inspect under the seats as well as between the car seats in kid row.
Here’s an abbreviated list of what I found:
Six Cheerios
Twelve raisins
One bell
Five matchbox cars (one of them was orange, but it wasn’t Snot Rod)
Two Dr. Seuss books
One Thomas Guide of Sacramento
Two baby wipes (unused, thank the Lord)
Seven acorns
One pinecone
Thirty-two goldfish crackers
Six pretzels
Three Legos
One sock
Here’s a list of what I did not find:
Snot Rod
After resigning myself to the fact that I would be dealing with a disappointed child in the pre-dawn hours, I went upstairs to sit down at my desk. I worked at my computer for thirty minutes before I glanced to my left. And can you guess what was sitting right on top of my desk, not 14 inches away from my left hand? Snot Rod.
So what I would really like for Christmas this year is a few small tracking devices that I can attach to the toy-du-jour. I really think a lot of time and sanity could be saved if your elves could come up with something compact that has a strong signal. We could also use a few for the sippy cups, and the binkies. Also, with regard to my wife, one for the TV remote, the cordless phone, her keys, and her cell phone. And one for Grandma’s cell phone. And her keys. On second thought, if you could just get me a whole bunch of them and I’ll take it from there. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to just LoJack the boys themselves when we head for the park or the mall!
I guess maybe I’d like some sort of desk organizer, too.
Thanks Santa!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Dear Santa,
All I want for Christmas is a LoJack for Snot Rod. Oh, and one for a baby spoon. Allow me to explain.
Last Christmas you brought my sons some “matchbox” type toy cars from the Disney movie “Cars”. One of them was the orange GTO with the big racing slicks, the supercharger, and the cylinder head-cold named “Snot Rod.” My four year old has grown quite attached to it over the last few months and likes to take it everywhere now. Likewise, my two year old has developed a fondness for carrying around spoons. He likes measuring spoons, wooden spoons, silverware, and most of all, baby spoons. He has a particular type that is his favorite. The “pokey baby spoony” as he calls it. It’s a metal spoon with a big fat plastic handle. We used to have a lot of them, but now we only have one. That’s because of the problem.
My boys really have no short-term memory at all. That’s the problem. They cherish a certain item almost more than life itself, but cannot remember where they set it down thirty seconds ago. Now, since Snot Rod and the baby spoon are both less than four inches in length and our house is 3400 square feet not counting the garage, you can see my dilemma.
Our boys aren’t allowed to take toys to bed, so they request that they be allowed to leave certain toys right outside their door for when they wake up. Occasionally (read: All the time) they get their heart set on a toy that they have recently misplaced. When this happens, it is important to gauge the level of heart-setted-ness. If it is high, you have two choices. Find the toy and put it outside their door so they will be happy in the morning, and hopefully entertained, or don’t find it, don’t leave it outside their door, and hear about that decision at 5:45 am.
Tonight was a night with a high heart-setitude rating for Snot Rod. My wife and I were lucky enough to be able to go out to a movie this evening by ourselves since Grandma and Grandpa are here awaiting your arrival tomorrow night. When we got back, well past both of our bed times, I was obliged to look for Snot Rod. The last sighting had been in the car. Oh joy. Well, off to the garage I went, flashlight in hand, to contort myself onto the floor mats to be able to inspect under the seats as well as between the car seats in kid row.
Here’s an abbreviated list of what I found:
Six Cheerios
Twelve raisins
One bell
Five matchbox cars (one of them was orange, but it wasn’t Snot Rod)
Two Dr. Seuss books
One Thomas Guide of Sacramento
Two baby wipes (unused, thank the Lord)
Seven acorns
One pinecone
Thirty-two goldfish crackers
Six pretzels
Three Legos
One sock
Here’s a list of what I did not find:
Snot Rod
After resigning myself to the fact that I would be dealing with a disappointed child in the pre-dawn hours, I went upstairs to sit down at my desk. I worked at my computer for thirty minutes before I glanced to my left. And can you guess what was sitting right on top of my desk, not 14 inches away from my left hand? Snot Rod.
So what I would really like for Christmas this year is a few small tracking devices that I can attach to the toy-du-jour. I really think a lot of time and sanity could be saved if your elves could come up with something compact that has a strong signal. We could also use a few for the sippy cups, and the binkies. Also, with regard to my wife, one for the TV remote, the cordless phone, her keys, and her cell phone. And one for Grandma’s cell phone. And her keys. On second thought, if you could just get me a whole bunch of them and I’ll take it from there. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to just LoJack the boys themselves when we head for the park or the mall!
I guess maybe I’d like some sort of desk organizer, too.
Thanks Santa!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2008 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Friday, December 5, 2008
Batteries are Draining Me
If you have kids in the house, then somewhere in that house you no doubt run a small side business warehousing batteries. Depending on how many kids and toys you have, you may actually own more batteries than some third-world countries. I know for a fact that I own more AAs than Bangladesh.
In the good old days of my youth, my toys took only one size battery. The 9-Volt. It had opposite terminals on top and you had to plug it into the vinyl-coated contacts at the end of two thin red and white wires stuffed into the battery compartment of your walkie-talkie or radio-controlled race car. When you took the old battery out it was always a gamble on whether you would rip those wires right out of the toy, because the used 9-Volt always managed to weld itself to the contacts. You could check to make sure the old battery was really dead by putting the contacts on your tongue. Everyone who has ever done it remembers vividly the first time they put a brand new 9-Volt on their tongue. The cattle prod-like shock across your taste buds and the lingering metallic flavor is unforgettable. Good times!
There were only two other sizes of battery besides the 9-Volt in my youth. The D-cell, which went in standard flashlights, and the gigantic, slightly smaller than a brick, ”lantern battery” with the two cone-shaped spiral spring contacts on top. They went in the molded plastic flashlight with the seven-inch-diameter lens and integral suitcase handle that every family had for camping or emergencies. It was six volts instead of nine, but no one ever thought about putting that one on their tongue! They always seemed to last for a sum total of 8-1/2 minutes in the 300-pound flashlight before it would begin to get dimmer and dimmer. At that point your parents or grandparents would let you turn it on and keep it on so you could stare at the faint glow from the bulb as long as you could to try to pinpoint the exact second that the battery went completely dead. Who needs a Playstation?
I rarely see the 9-Volt or the 18-pound brick nowadays. They have been replaced by approximately eighty-seven other models, shapes and voltages. The clear winner is the AA, which seems to have held the top spot for a long time now. I remember as a bachelor being indignant when I got my fist TV remote that took AAAs. “Why do I need these? The AAs works just fine! Now I have to stock two kinds of small batteries.” Little did I know, that was only the beginning. I got married, had kids, and somewhere along the line, someone brought 13 tons of toys into my home. With the exception of one old-timer wooden train, each and every toy requires batteries. Our portable plastic baby fence takes batteries. We have a wooden puzzle that takes batteries. We have stuffed animals, cribs and bikes that take batteries. And we have books that take batteries. Now come on! The last thing in the world that is supposed to require batteries is a book.
The manufacturers of the battery-operated books and some of the other toys have taken things one step further. In a creepy effort to make their products popular, or at least seem popular, the toys will actually try to get the kid’s attention back if they stop playing with them. When you put them down or stop turning pages for a minute, they call out to the child “Turn the page to hear more” or “Elmo’s lonely, play with me.” Why don’t they just be honest and have the toy say “Excuse me son, sales are down in North America. We would like this product to hold your interest for another three-tenths of a second so your mommy will distinguish it as being special and purchase one for your cousin.”
Until recently, my wife and I had a nice run where we were only stocking AAs, AAAs, C-cells, D-cells, and the occasional 9-Volt. Granted, we have to buy AAs and C's by the pallet pretty much weekly, but at least we only had to inventory five different kinds. That has all changed now. My sons just got their first set of walkie-talkies. Did their super-cool new Transformers Walkie-Talkie set come with 9-Volts like mine did when I was their age? No. They came with calculator batteries. You know the kind. They go in your car’s keychain remote. They look like a dime or a nickel. And they are from Hell.
When you go to the regular battery section at the store it is a straightforward affair. Need AAs, there they are. When you go to the calculator battery section of the store you had better bring some water and a snack, because you’re going to be there for a while. For reasons known only to the battery company engineers, they felt the need to designate them with a letter and a number. C124 or A534. Probably because there are only twenty-six letters in the alphabet, and they anticipated a need for at least three thousand unique sizes. Besides having an almost infinite amount of diameter and thickness combinations, they have cross-references between the model numbers printed in microscopic writing on the packages. It’s like a fun little treasure hunt where you have to find one dime in a pile of two hundred dimes. The D435 is compatible with the A534, the F129, as well as the H245, but not the D534 or the F534.
Just in case it was too simple, the battery companies’ marketing teams went ahead and designated some of them as “medical” and put the universal Red Cross symbol on the package. If I need an H432 for my kid’s toy, and it comes in “medical” and plain, which should I choose? Will the “medical” one last longer, or will it immediately recognize that it is not powering a Life-Alert necklace, and fail to work at all?
The good news is that the calculator batteries come in packs of one, and they cost $9.78 each on average. Our new walkie-talkie set takes four per unit, so if my math is correct, when the batteries run out in both units it should only cost me $3240.87 and six hours of my time cross-referencing in the battery aisle. That is sooooo much better than the forty cents and two minutes it would have taken me if they were AAs.
If you’ll excuse me, I have to go put the folks from Mattel and Duracell on my Christmas card list.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2008 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
In the good old days of my youth, my toys took only one size battery. The 9-Volt. It had opposite terminals on top and you had to plug it into the vinyl-coated contacts at the end of two thin red and white wires stuffed into the battery compartment of your walkie-talkie or radio-controlled race car. When you took the old battery out it was always a gamble on whether you would rip those wires right out of the toy, because the used 9-Volt always managed to weld itself to the contacts. You could check to make sure the old battery was really dead by putting the contacts on your tongue. Everyone who has ever done it remembers vividly the first time they put a brand new 9-Volt on their tongue. The cattle prod-like shock across your taste buds and the lingering metallic flavor is unforgettable. Good times!
There were only two other sizes of battery besides the 9-Volt in my youth. The D-cell, which went in standard flashlights, and the gigantic, slightly smaller than a brick, ”lantern battery” with the two cone-shaped spiral spring contacts on top. They went in the molded plastic flashlight with the seven-inch-diameter lens and integral suitcase handle that every family had for camping or emergencies. It was six volts instead of nine, but no one ever thought about putting that one on their tongue! They always seemed to last for a sum total of 8-1/2 minutes in the 300-pound flashlight before it would begin to get dimmer and dimmer. At that point your parents or grandparents would let you turn it on and keep it on so you could stare at the faint glow from the bulb as long as you could to try to pinpoint the exact second that the battery went completely dead. Who needs a Playstation?
I rarely see the 9-Volt or the 18-pound brick nowadays. They have been replaced by approximately eighty-seven other models, shapes and voltages. The clear winner is the AA, which seems to have held the top spot for a long time now. I remember as a bachelor being indignant when I got my fist TV remote that took AAAs. “Why do I need these? The AAs works just fine! Now I have to stock two kinds of small batteries.” Little did I know, that was only the beginning. I got married, had kids, and somewhere along the line, someone brought 13 tons of toys into my home. With the exception of one old-timer wooden train, each and every toy requires batteries. Our portable plastic baby fence takes batteries. We have a wooden puzzle that takes batteries. We have stuffed animals, cribs and bikes that take batteries. And we have books that take batteries. Now come on! The last thing in the world that is supposed to require batteries is a book.
The manufacturers of the battery-operated books and some of the other toys have taken things one step further. In a creepy effort to make their products popular, or at least seem popular, the toys will actually try to get the kid’s attention back if they stop playing with them. When you put them down or stop turning pages for a minute, they call out to the child “Turn the page to hear more” or “Elmo’s lonely, play with me.” Why don’t they just be honest and have the toy say “Excuse me son, sales are down in North America. We would like this product to hold your interest for another three-tenths of a second so your mommy will distinguish it as being special and purchase one for your cousin.”
Until recently, my wife and I had a nice run where we were only stocking AAs, AAAs, C-cells, D-cells, and the occasional 9-Volt. Granted, we have to buy AAs and C's by the pallet pretty much weekly, but at least we only had to inventory five different kinds. That has all changed now. My sons just got their first set of walkie-talkies. Did their super-cool new Transformers Walkie-Talkie set come with 9-Volts like mine did when I was their age? No. They came with calculator batteries. You know the kind. They go in your car’s keychain remote. They look like a dime or a nickel. And they are from Hell.
When you go to the regular battery section at the store it is a straightforward affair. Need AAs, there they are. When you go to the calculator battery section of the store you had better bring some water and a snack, because you’re going to be there for a while. For reasons known only to the battery company engineers, they felt the need to designate them with a letter and a number. C124 or A534. Probably because there are only twenty-six letters in the alphabet, and they anticipated a need for at least three thousand unique sizes. Besides having an almost infinite amount of diameter and thickness combinations, they have cross-references between the model numbers printed in microscopic writing on the packages. It’s like a fun little treasure hunt where you have to find one dime in a pile of two hundred dimes. The D435 is compatible with the A534, the F129, as well as the H245, but not the D534 or the F534.
Just in case it was too simple, the battery companies’ marketing teams went ahead and designated some of them as “medical” and put the universal Red Cross symbol on the package. If I need an H432 for my kid’s toy, and it comes in “medical” and plain, which should I choose? Will the “medical” one last longer, or will it immediately recognize that it is not powering a Life-Alert necklace, and fail to work at all?
The good news is that the calculator batteries come in packs of one, and they cost $9.78 each on average. Our new walkie-talkie set takes four per unit, so if my math is correct, when the batteries run out in both units it should only cost me $3240.87 and six hours of my time cross-referencing in the battery aisle. That is sooooo much better than the forty cents and two minutes it would have taken me if they were AAs.
If you’ll excuse me, I have to go put the folks from Mattel and Duracell on my Christmas card list.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2008 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Friday, November 14, 2008
Disneyland on Just $700 per Day
We just got back from a mini vacation at the happiest place on earth. No, not Wal-Mart. Disneyland! We spent three magical days at Mickey’s place, and I have the empty bank account to prove it.
Now, Disneyland probably isn’t the most expensive place you can go, but it has to be in the top three. You could go to Atlantic City or Vegas, but you’d have to be on one heck of a losing streak to match the wallet draining power of Anaheim, CA. “Let’s see…. Give me two hot dogs, three waters, and a box of popcorn. What’s that?? $84.50? That sounds reasonable. Why don’t we throw in some mouse ears and make it an even $200. Thanks!”
It really doesn’t matter how much it costs though, when you get to take your two year old on the Matterhorn Bobsleds to thwart the abominable snowman and you get to take your four year old down a 50-foot waterfall on Splash Mountain. Where else in the world can you do that? It’s all worth it when you hear “Daddy, I was pretty scared, but that was fun!” To see my little boys being brave as they got strapped in for the wild rides just melted my heart and made me proud!
I say it really doesn’t matter how much it costs only because my wife booked the whole package on Costco Travel and I really have no idea what admission to the park really was. It may be a total rip-off. You should look into it before you go. My boys probably could have had just as much fun if I dragged our mattress into the back yard and threw them off the roof.
One thing is for sure though. Old Walt really knew a thing or two about how to run an operation. In my opinion, every company in America should have corporate retreats at Disneyland. The customer service is second to none, the place runs like a Swiss watch, and the fact that my kids knew every character’s name speaks volumes about their marketing. (Or it means my kids watch way too much TV in the morning…)
And is there a more popular corporate brand out there? If you had to rank the most well known figures in the world, the list would probably go Jesus first and Mickey Mouse second. And if Jesus had charged people $9.75 for a diet Coke instead of giving away free wine who knows how that list might go.
Amid our reveling in all things Disney what ended up being one of the most entertaining parts of the trip was not the rides at all. It was the crowds. For two days, mixed in with all the other families like ours, were hordes of pale white face havin’, pitch black clothes wearin’, every available orifice piercin’ Goth freaks. They were having a convention somewhere in LA, and what appeared to be the entire convention felt the need to come to Disneyland. Two things about that surprised me. First, how are the socially disaffected, disenfranchised youth of America so organized that they can put together a convention? And second, why do the members of a super-weird, “I’m constantly unhappy and pale” death cult want to come to the happiest place on earth in the middle of the day?
I had never given the pale ones much thought, but seeing them all at Disneyland got me very curious, so I did some research. I always thought it was “Gothic” people, like the historical period. But that isn’t it at all. The entire club is based on a series of books about a fictional bat named Goth who talks and happens to be a cannibal. I’m not sure how that translates to the women dressing like Elvira the meth addict hooker, but I haven’t read any of the books.
After learning about the cannibal bat, I’m still unable to make the Disneyland connection, but go figure. Who am I to judge? Mickey rocks, and evidently everyone knows it! Even the frowning suburban see-through night creatures who are incapable of purchasing clothes in any hue other than black as coal.
Disneyland seemed to be making some of them smile though, but I’m thinking they might be a little happier if they looked up the first name on the popularity list. He has a Book also, just no theme park.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2008 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
Now, Disneyland probably isn’t the most expensive place you can go, but it has to be in the top three. You could go to Atlantic City or Vegas, but you’d have to be on one heck of a losing streak to match the wallet draining power of Anaheim, CA. “Let’s see…. Give me two hot dogs, three waters, and a box of popcorn. What’s that?? $84.50? That sounds reasonable. Why don’t we throw in some mouse ears and make it an even $200. Thanks!”
It really doesn’t matter how much it costs though, when you get to take your two year old on the Matterhorn Bobsleds to thwart the abominable snowman and you get to take your four year old down a 50-foot waterfall on Splash Mountain. Where else in the world can you do that? It’s all worth it when you hear “Daddy, I was pretty scared, but that was fun!” To see my little boys being brave as they got strapped in for the wild rides just melted my heart and made me proud!
I say it really doesn’t matter how much it costs only because my wife booked the whole package on Costco Travel and I really have no idea what admission to the park really was. It may be a total rip-off. You should look into it before you go. My boys probably could have had just as much fun if I dragged our mattress into the back yard and threw them off the roof.
One thing is for sure though. Old Walt really knew a thing or two about how to run an operation. In my opinion, every company in America should have corporate retreats at Disneyland. The customer service is second to none, the place runs like a Swiss watch, and the fact that my kids knew every character’s name speaks volumes about their marketing. (Or it means my kids watch way too much TV in the morning…)
And is there a more popular corporate brand out there? If you had to rank the most well known figures in the world, the list would probably go Jesus first and Mickey Mouse second. And if Jesus had charged people $9.75 for a diet Coke instead of giving away free wine who knows how that list might go.
Amid our reveling in all things Disney what ended up being one of the most entertaining parts of the trip was not the rides at all. It was the crowds. For two days, mixed in with all the other families like ours, were hordes of pale white face havin’, pitch black clothes wearin’, every available orifice piercin’ Goth freaks. They were having a convention somewhere in LA, and what appeared to be the entire convention felt the need to come to Disneyland. Two things about that surprised me. First, how are the socially disaffected, disenfranchised youth of America so organized that they can put together a convention? And second, why do the members of a super-weird, “I’m constantly unhappy and pale” death cult want to come to the happiest place on earth in the middle of the day?
I had never given the pale ones much thought, but seeing them all at Disneyland got me very curious, so I did some research. I always thought it was “Gothic” people, like the historical period. But that isn’t it at all. The entire club is based on a series of books about a fictional bat named Goth who talks and happens to be a cannibal. I’m not sure how that translates to the women dressing like Elvira the meth addict hooker, but I haven’t read any of the books.
After learning about the cannibal bat, I’m still unable to make the Disneyland connection, but go figure. Who am I to judge? Mickey rocks, and evidently everyone knows it! Even the frowning suburban see-through night creatures who are incapable of purchasing clothes in any hue other than black as coal.
Disneyland seemed to be making some of them smile though, but I’m thinking they might be a little happier if they looked up the first name on the popularity list. He has a Book also, just no theme park.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2008 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
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