A Hearty Soccer Dad

My wife is very sneaky. Either that, or I don’t listen. I prefer to think of her as sneaky, but it’s probably the latter. Either way, due to her sneakiness or my inability to pay attention, this past spring I ended up being a baseball coach without my prior knowledge. I showed up to my oldest son’s first T-ball practice ready to watch from the bleachers, and she handed me a jersey and a hat and said, “By the way, you’re coaching.”

“What!?! Honey, I have no idea what the schedule looks like! I don’t have a clue if I can make any of the practices or the games!”

“Don’t worry, you can make all of them.”

“Oh, OK... Well kids, who wants to try to hit my curve ball?”

“It’s T-ball, honey.”

“OK. Who wants to make dirt circles with their cleats?”

So, toward the end of this summer when my wife casually mentioned that our oldest would be starting soccer this year, I immediately got defensive.

“Honey, I don’t know the first thing about soccer! It’s been 32 years since I played AYSO, and I was a goalie, because I didn’t understand it then, either. There is no way I can…”

“Relax, Captain Overreaction, you’re not the coach.”

“OK, great. When’s the first game?”

After experiencing coaching kindergarteners first-hand, I was looking forward to a relaxing soccer season, sitting on the sidelines in my lawn chair, leading my two youngest boys in “Ra-Ra-Sis-Boom-Ba” cheers as we watched their older brother dominate the field and score goal after exciting goal.

That didn’t happen.

I arrived with my family at the Rocklin soccer fields the first Saturday morning completely unprepared for what I would experience. Not unprepared in a “did we forget something?” sense, because believe me, we didn’t. The soccer game was only scheduled to last one hour, but I was packing more gear than I would normally take camping for a week. Chairs, blankets, water bottles, snacks, beach umbrellas, shade tents, hats, jackets, coolers… we almost didn’t fit in the Ford Expedition.

I had inquired a couple of times to my wife that morning as to why we needed so much stuff, to which she finally responded, “Shut up and help me close this tailgate.”

I started to get a feel for the program when we turned down the street toward the soccer fields. I remember the soccer fields of my youth looking something like this: grass fields with goals on each end with kids playing soccer and parents standing on the sidelines watching. I saw none of that at first. What I saw looked like a cross between an upscale refugee camp and the midway at a state fair. Shade tents were everywhere, but it was only 78 degrees. There were four soccer fields laid out side by side, and the areas in between them were so full of chairs, blankets, umbrellas, shade tents and coolers that it was hard to discern which field they were set up to view.

Twenty minutes later, after I had unloaded the car, we began to make our way past the ends of the fields, looking for the field that my son would soon dominate. At the first field I noticed that each team had a 4 x 8-foot vinyl banner, staked into the ground on their respective sidelines, being held in place with very well-made PVC banner stands. The banners weren’t homemade. They were the real deal, straight out of the custom print shop. Any U.S. corporation would be proud to have banners that nice at their next trade show. They were professionally printed, emblazoned with the team names and artistic logos. One had a flaming soccer ball and the other had an alligator wearing soccer cleats. They both had all the players' names on them, ensuring only one season of useful life.

“What couple of over-achiever parents came up with those?” I wondered aloud.

“Every team has one, including ours. You helped pay for it.”

“I did what?... This is the five and six-year-old league, right?”

“Get over it, sweetheart.”

We reached our field, and the other team dads and I spent the next 20 minutes setting up our tent city. By the time we finished, it was game time. Time for my son to dominate the soccer field!

I have already mentioned that I was unprepared for this new experience. This was not due to the game being more thrilling than I had anticipated. My son didn’t dominate anything. No child on the field dominated anything. The hopeful feelings I had about an exciting and action-packed soccer match quickly vanished with the first play near the goal.

We had the ball.
One of our boys kicked the ball toward the opposing goal.
The parents leaned forward in their seats.
He stood and admired his kick.
The other players stood and admired his kick.
The ball rolled in front of the goal.
The goalie, not two feet from the ball, stood and admired his kick.
Some of our players and some of their players ran toward the ball.
The parents leapt to their feet in anticipation of a happening of some kind.
The two teams' players arrived at the ball at the same time.
They stopped.
No one was sure whose turn it was to kick it.
They discussed it.
The parents lurched forward, hearts in their throats, shouting, “Kick it!”
No one kicked it.
The goalie wandered over and picked it up.
The parents fell back into their seats, hands thrown into the air, looking at each other with desperate and wild eyes.
“Why didn’t they kick it?”

We repeated that process no less than 40 times over the course of the first half.

There is the emotion and thrill of a fast-paced professional sporting event, and then there is the raw, gut-wrenching, breath-taking angst that comes from a sporting event where nothing is happening like it should. The sheer amount of highs and lows we experienced inside a five minute period was enough to leave a healthy adult gasping for air. My head pounded. My heart palpitated. My palms sweated. I was emotionally and physically drained. And absolutely nothing had happened.

When the other team finally scored a goal against us in the third quarter, it was strangely welcome. They had scored against us, which was not the situation I was rooting for, but at the same time, I was so darned relieved that an actual play had occurred with an actual outcome, I found myself happy and momentarily at peace. When the post-goal wave of normalcy rolled over me, I realized for the first time that day just how tense the game was making me.

I’m not sure what it is about soccer. I mean, nothing worked quite right when I coached these same aged boys and girls in T-ball, but it wasn’t nearly as nerve-racking to watch. It probably has to do with the fact that the soccer ball is always in play, so we the parents are always expecting the players to actually keep playing. When they stop with the ball at center field to inspect the grass or chase a butterfly, it is tolerable, and even humorous to witness. But when the ball is mere inches from the goal and all the players seem to suddenly forget what to do next, the breathless anticipation is almost too much to bear.

Whatever the reason, I was watching five and six-year-olds play soccer, and the emotional strain was so great, I was actually starting to worry about a possible sideline heart attack. I’m almost 40 now. I have to start taking my heart health seriously!

So, after the game, the team dads got together and we decided to all chip in and buy one of those portable defibrillators. The way we figure it, if the kids don’t improve to a level of at least kicking the ball and following it, the chances are pretty good that one of us is going down before the season is over.

It was an expensive unit, but we decided, what the heck, we already bought an expensive banner, and there’s no way that thing is going to save one of our lives. I guess when we finally revive the first poor, unfortunate dad who succumbs to the cardiac arrest-inducing inaction on the field, we can always break down the PVC stand and use the banner as a stretcher.

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!

Hot Chicks and Cool Dudes - Re-Post

Original posting 07-07-2008
Enjoy, and stay cool.


One of the main differences between men and women can be seen in the simple truth about ambient temperature. Men are comfortable in a thirty-degree temperature range, and the range is the same for all men. From 56 degrees Fahrenheit to 86 men will do just fine. Some may be a little sweatier or chillier than others, but no one is complaining. This range is hardwired in the male DNA and stays the same from birth until death.

Women on the other hand, are comfortable in only a three-degree range, and not only does that range vary widely from women to women, but throughout the course of an individual women’s day, week, month, year, and lifespan, it will jump all over the board.

These are indisputable facts. You just can’t argue with science. This disparity in the comfort zones of the sexes invariably leads to problems when men and women attempt to share an office, car, home, bed, table at a restaurant, tent, etc. The issue is most often solved by adjusting the temperature to fit the female’s needs. As long as the three-degree range is still falling in the male comfort zone, everyone gets along. If there are two or more women sharing the same space, the inevitable problem is usually solved with layers. It is not uncommon to visit an office where the secretary in the blouse with the personal electric desk fan is working right along side the HR manager in the parka with the personal electric space heater.

Financial issues can arise from this problem when men and women get married and buy a house that contains a thermostat. Men will do some rudimentary math, and pick one temperature to keep the house livable, foolishly assuming that this temperature will be acceptable for the entire season. Little do they know that the temperature they picked will not even be acceptable for an entire seven minutes. Women who normally complain that the clock radio is too complicated can decipher a thirty-eight-button, eleven-switch thermostat in a matter of minutes and operate any home’s A/C system like they were seated at a NASA control center. In many cases the temperature swings during the day are so violent that a man can actually see the money being sucked out of the double-pane windows.

I think the temperature issue is a physical manifestation of a psychological difference in the sexes. Women are genetically programmed to worry about more things than men are. I have no idea why, but again, you can’t argue with science. When women have no life-threatening situations to deal with, they will inevitably begin to search out things to be concerned about, often making things up to fret over. Hair, weight, money, age, wrinkles, relationships with friends, relationships with co-workers, me-time, us-time, down time, play dates, date night, pre-partum, partum, post-partum, carpet, color palates, window treatments, balanced diets, safety recalls, consumer reports, outdoor tableware, biological clocks, school districts, undercooked poultry, guest lists, footwear, closet organization, furniture, pediatricians, and the list goes on and on. And on.

With men, pretty much twenty-nine days out of the month if the cars are running OK and the house isn’t on fire, it’s all good.

So I hypothesize that women, being less comfortable inside about all the little things in life, try to micro-manage the external temperature settings to feel more comfortable outside. A way to gain some measure of control over their surroundings when life seems otherwise wildly out of control. Either that, or it’s a hormone thing and they actually are less comfortable. What do I know?

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!

The Day the Internet Died

It happened at 3:14pm on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010. It was a day like any other day. Millions of people across the country were at work. A vast majority of them were bored, because it was 3:14pm on a Wednesday. One of the most bored, Bob Singleton, sat at his computer in his six by six standard office-gray cubicle. He was a mid-level manager of the inside salesmen at Sparteck Industries in Sandusky, Ohio. It would later be uncovered that his computer terminal, in the northwest corner of the third floor, in the nondescript concrete and glass office building at 3rd and West, was ground zero for the largest electronics melt-down the world had ever seen.

As I said, Bob was bored. Google’s home page was on his screen. He was searching for himself. He was searching for cat videos. He was searching for videos of dads getting hit in the groin by their son’s Wiffle Ball bats. Those videos cracked him up. Then it occurred to him… What if he asked Google to search for Google? What would happen? That could be funny. With his two index fingers, he typed g-o-o-g-l-e, and at 3:14:28 on 10-06-2010, he hit “Enter.”

Google diligently began its search.
0.0032 seconds later, the search engine back-traced the search string because its findings led back to the original search criteria. Then it started over. As the search repeatedly produced the same unanswered question, the search engine began using more and more server bandwidth in an effort to solve the problem, something the Google engineers had designed into the program without ever having thought of this one simple scenario. The search engine was stuck in a logic loop – sometimes called a “divide by zero” error – and there was no exit ramp on the circular path. The circle just kept getting bigger.

At Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, the ballooning bandwidth being used for one search set off alarms that had previously never been heard. One Google accountant was so shocked, she assumed the building was under attack from Bing, and leapt from a second story window. Fortunately, she landed on one of the many corporate bean-bags used to make Google seem like a really cool place to work, unencumbered by “the man.” Ironically, as an accountant, she knew all too well the truth. She had always scoffed at those bean-bags, but not today.

Three seconds before the Google servers did the digital equivalent of eating themselves, the engineering manager on duty figured out what had happened, but it was too late. Google was offline.

The chain reaction that followed was cataclysmic. Google Chrome was offline. Minutes later, Microsoft Internet Explorer went down because nearly 99% of all applications rely on the Google Toolbar. The engineers would later discover that even Bing was using Google Toolbar, much to the chagrin of Microsoft. Windows was immediately rendered useless, although the engineers never did figure out if that was due to the crash, or just another Windows bug.

With Microsoft and Google down for the count, all mobile devices except for the iPhone went offline. Skype, texting, and even the camera functions quit working. All digital cell tower traffic ceased, rendering even the least-used function of the mobile devices, the phone, totally useless. Apple’s iPhones and their other super-cool small white devices lasted another 2-1/2 minutes, but finally succumbed to the meltdown due to the ill-fated Microsoft Office Applications recently integrated into the otherwise pristine machines. There were unconfirmed reports that some non-Wi-Fi enabled iPads kept working during the catastrophe, but the forensic engineers could neither confirm or deny those rumors after the fact, primarily because no one really knew what they were for in the first place.

With all mobile devices gone black, millions and millions of young adults, ages 16 to 28, were completely offline for the first time in their lives. Their reactions ran the gamut from unbridled panic to catatonic paralysis. Most just began wandering helplessly in the streets, attempting to text each other on blank, black screens, weeping softly. No one was really sure how to help them, because they were unable to communicate their needs verbally, and their handwriting was completely illegible.

The nation had gone to Electronic DEFCON-5 in a matter of 7-1/2 minutes.

When President Obama was alerted to the situation, he was conveniently already in the Situation Room, dealing with another Biden tongue-slip debacle. After being briefed on the loss of the internet, he thought for a moment, then calmly commanded, “Get me Gore.”

“Brilliant!” his staff exclaimed. After all, Al Gore had invented the internet, so he would surely know how to fix this problem.

No one was sure how to call him, since all the mobile phones were dead. Then, someone remembered that the oval office had that really cool red desk phone. No one had ever used it, but they knew it was used in the past to make calls, somehow. After several attempts to dial his number, no one could find the “send” button with the little green phone receiver on it. They gave up after realizing they only had Gore’s mobile number anyway, so they wouldn’t be able to call him, even if they could figure out how to use the ancient phone. There was a lighthearted moment of discovery, however, when several of the staff members finally understood what the little green symbol was, after seeing the desk phone’s receiver, and finally making the connection. They also finally realized why they were called “mobile” phones, after seeing the cord running from the desk phone to the wall.

By that time, a senior Pentagon official had summoned his aide and they used the hand-crank radio in the corporal’s Hummer to broadcast a short-wave radio call for SOS. Earl-John Bullox from Hogsweat, Illinois, a 43-year veteran Ham radio operator was the first to receive their distress signal.

Upon receiving his official orders to track down Al Gore using the Ham radio network, Earl-John sprang into action. This was the day that he and his short-wave compatriots had been training for their whole indoor, weird, socially handicapped lives. Seven hours later, after networking with thirty-two Ham radio operators and exchanging three different recipes for grits, Earl-John patched Al Gore through to the White House.

Gore had been in a bar in Massachusetts, attempting to “interview” a cocktail waitress for his next documentary, “An Inconvenient Masseuse.” He was now in Thurmond Crummly’s basement Ham radio base/bomb shelter, talking to the President, and having to remember to hold the button down and say, “Over.”

After skillfully dodging the issue at hand for a few minutes, he was finally forced to admit that he actually had nothing to do with inventing the internet. When pressed further, he also admitted that he had no idea what Google was, no idea how Microsoft Excel works, and that he had real doubts that global warming is even a thing.

That was it. By 10:30pm all hope was lost. The internet had been off for nearly half the day. Life was simply not worth living any longer. There were people who hadn’t even seen one YouTube video all afternoon. It was over.

But before anyone was able to commit hari-kari, a ray of hope came crackling over the short-wave. At 11:10pm, Bill Gates made contact with the President through Earl-John.

“We’re completely blacked-out here in Washington, but I might know someone who can help. Someone off the grid.”

“You’re in Washington? Come over! We can hang out.” replied the President.

“The state, sir.” said Bill.

“The state of what?” asked the President.

“Never mind. His name is Elbert DeGroot. He lives in Lynnwood, Washington with his mother.”

“Where’s Lynnwood? I’ve never heard of it. Is that near Georgetown?”

“Can you put someone from the Pentagon on, sir?”

Elbert DeGroot, was the unknown former classmate and friend of Bill Gates and Paul Allen. After a bitter dispute over a Hardy Boys t-shirt, they kicked him out of their “Three Amigos Computing Club” just weeks before they launched Microsoft.

As a result, Elbert would not be caught dead with a Microsoft product, or anything related in any way, shape, or form to those bastards, Gates and Allen. He was still running a Commodore 64 with his own proprietary version of DOS, and he was fond of saying that anyone who needs more than 64Kb of RAM is a wuss. “Old 64,” as he referred to his machine, was connected to the world with a modem that had a telephone cradle for his rotary phone. He rarely used the modem, however, since the only other computer he could communicate with was one he had built for his brother, and they hadn’t spoken in years due to a bitter dispute over a Hardy Boys lunch box.

When the military envoy arrived at the DeGroot home, Elbert’s mother showed them to his room. After admiring his extensive Star Wars action-figure collection, they got to the point. The world needed his help. He would have been quick to dismiss them, knowing he would be helping his enemy Gates, but Elbert was a smart man. He could see that this was his ticket to computing stardom. The world would finally bow down to the greatness of DeGroot. He alone could save the world. And maybe later, the military guys would want to go out for pizza and talk to girls.

He quickly wrote a five-line program in Basic. He grabbed his rotary phone and dialed Google’s 1-800 number. He kept dialing “0” for the operator. When the senior-officer-in-charge questioned what he was doing, he simply held up his hand. Elbert DeGroot knew damn well that he would never get an operator. He also knew that on the eighth try, he would be dumped into the company’s general voicemail box.

You see, Elbert DeGroot, while totally unknown to most of the world, was actually quite famous in one small segment of society. He had invented the infamous corporate “general voicemail box.” He had originally developed it out of spite after the success of Microsoft. It was intended to be a cruel trick on the world that had otherwise abandoned him. What he hadn’t counted on was its wild popularity with large American corporations. When they learned of this new and handy way to ignore their customer base while giving them a cheery-voiced, yet completely false shred of hope that their call was in fact important to the company, they snatched it up.

Elbert Degroot was a rich man. He lived with his mother in his 20,000 square-foot mansion on a 45-acre estate. By all accounts he was almost as rich as Bill Gates himself. He was the billionaire on the Forbes list that no one ever recognized.

But, this was his chance to gain some real respect from the world that had done him wrong so many years ago. When the buttery voice of the Google girl came on the line, announcing that he could leave a message (that no one would ever hear), he set the receiver down on the modem cradle and hit the impossibly large enter key on his ancient keyboard. The five-line program sprang to life at a blazing seven kilobytes per second, and the Mighty DeGroot back-doored into the Google servers and interrupted the fatal infinite logic loop with a single command: “Quit.” Take that, Gates!

By midnight, the Google engineers had re-booted the servers, and everything was back to normal. As often happens in these situations, the NSA “locked down” on the whole mess, and the powers that be decided that no one could ever know about what had happened or how it was fixed, for obvious national and recreational security reasons. Elbert DeGroot would remain the most anonymous rich man in the world. Damn Hardy Boys t-shirt!

As for Bob Singleton from Sparteck Industries in Sandusky, Ohio, the man responsible for the whole mess… After his computer quit working, he just left the office and went to the bar to catch the game. When he got to the office the next day, everything was back to normal. It’s good to be Bob.

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!

I'm Finally That Guy

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!

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!

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!

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!

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

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!