A Second Open Letter to Lifetouch School Portraits

Dear Lifetouch School Portraits,

I wrote you a letter at the beginning of this month, but it seems you didn’t get it. Since I only posted it in this column and never actually mailed it - like you were so kind enough to do with all those pictures I never ordered - I thought I would at least follow up in hopes that this finally reaches you.

I’ll start with a short recap of my last letter, in case this letter finds you still too busy to read your correspondence, what with all the printing of large quantities of photos that no one ordered.

A) I was satisfied with the pictures from the first time you came to my sons’ elementary school in September.

B) I did not understand why you showed up again in February.

C) I did not order pictures in February.

D) I really did not understand why you then proceeded to take pictures of all three of my sons in February when I had not asked you to do so.

E) Since I really didn’t understand why you took pictures of them in the first place, I really, really didn’t understand why you then took it upon yourselves to print a bunch of pictures of each one of them, including pictures of them on plastic items that heretofore have never needed pictures of children’s faces, such as poorly gradated rulers and hotel Do Not Disturb door hangers.

F) After printing all the pictures and handy plastic devices that I did not order, I further did not understand why you spent even more of your money to send me the three full packages of pictures I did not order. Each large envelope was stuffed to the bulging point with photo upon photo of my sons, proudly displaying the fact that they were not dressed for pictures that day, and in the case of Son Number Three, the fact that he had also recently eaten something, as evidenced by the food stuck to his face, so masterfully captured for posterity by your skilled photographer.

G) You told me I should buy the pictures or give them back to the teacher. I told you neither of those things were going to happen.

H) I was amused to learn that you thought I would think it was in my best interest to trust you with the disposal of all these pictures I did not ask for or want. After all, each package you sent me had my child’s full name, grade, and teacher’s name printed on the front, along with no less than twenty-four photos of how they look on any given day - not on picture day, since as I mentioned earlier, we didn’t dress them for pictures since we weren’t expecting you to take their pictures since we didn’t ask you to do so.

So, there’s the recap of the first letter. You can imagine my surprise when I received a “Final Reminder” notice from you the other day. I sincerely hope you meant it when you chose the word “final,” but somehow, I doubt it.

Far be it from me to tell you how to run your very successful business, but since you seem intent on wasting our teachers’ precious time by sending unsolicited correspondence home with my children, the least I can do is reciprocate. Here are my thoughts on your latest communication:

For starters, your “Final Reminder” team seems to be running at around 66% efficiency, because I failed to purchase or return three full packages of studio-quality portraits of my sloppily-dressed, dirty children, and you only sent me two final reminders. I anxiously await the arrival of the third as soon as someone over there comes back from their excessively long coffee break.  

  

Secondly, I think a little note editing is in order. Your bright pink final reminder notice invites the reader to “take this time to review your options,” which you list as:

Purchase the entire package

Purchase the package sheet(s) you want and return the rest

Return the complete portrait package

While I appreciate your starry-eyed optimism with that first option, I want to call your attention – if my original letter and the recap of that letter in this letter have not done it for you yet – to the missing fourth option available to me, the guy who did not ask you to take pictures of his children, nor ask you to then print those pictures on four plastic key fobs and a wallet-sized calendar. That would be: Take a moment to wonder in amazement at our business model and then dispose of the entire picture package yourself. As I outlined in my original letter, Option Four saves you quite a bit of money, assuming, of course, that your “Final Reminder” notices are not too costly.

Thirdly, I noticed that you offer a family plan, where the first two children’s portraits are full price and any addition children’s portraits are half price. That is a great option, especially at our school, where so many of the families have three or more children. I was able to notice that you offered this discount through my deft use of a magnifying glass. I was not aware that there was a font size smaller than 2, but you obviously found one. I guess my advice is this: If you don’t want people to know about the discount, then don’t print it on the order form at all, but if you do, you might want to print it large enough to be readable without needing Mr. Magoo’s glasses.

Finally, regarding Son Number Three who is in kindergarten: As I said, I was amazed and amused to see food prominently displayed on his face in the fine quality portraits you sent me that I did not ask for. In my original letter I suggested that your photographer might not have been on his “A-game” that day. I have since learned from Son Number Three’s teacher that it may not have been your photographer who was asleep at the wheel, but your scheduler instead.

It seems that – for obvious reasons – the kindergarten classes are normally photographed first thing in the morning on picture day. Your scheduler, for reasons unknown, brought the kindergarten classes to the camera in the middle of the day, after lunch. Knowing that fact now, I would like to formally apologize to your photographer, and commend him or her on the fine picture taken of my youngest son.

I have seen Son Number Three eat, and if your photographer was presented with him after lunchtime, receiving a picture with only food on his face is nothing short of a miracle. When he eats by himself at home he is able to get almost 80% of whatever the meal is into his hair. I’m quite certain that when he sat down in the photographer’s chair after eating lunch with forty-seven other kindergartners, he must have been covered from head to toe in meat, produce, and condiments. There is only so much one person can do, so kudos to your photographer!

Again, I hope my observations will help you to improve your business model. I will patiently await my missing final reminder notice, and I look forward to any “final, final reminders” you see fit to send my way.

Keep up the good work,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

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Google Some Life Insurance

I don’t know if you knew this or not, but Google is very handy. Not only can you use it to instantly find information on the theory that Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber are really the same person, or how to get your hand unstuck from a Pringles can (Note: I have only Googled one of those things), it also has a feature called Google Alerts.

Google Alerts allows you to create an alert based on any keyword or phrase, and once a day, Google will scour the web for you and email you the results. I like to keep tabs on my books, so for The Tree of Death, and Other Hilarious Stories, I created a Google Alert for the phrase “tree of death.”

That may have been a mistake.

The book is a collection of humorous essays, and its title comes from the smell the tree in my front yard gives off in the springtime. It has nothing to do with actual death, but once a day, I get a nice email from Google giving me all the stories from around the world about people who have died in some gruesome manner due to trees.

It’s kind of depressing.

There are an inordinate amount of people who are killed when the tree, which they themselves were purposely chopping down, falls on them. You would think that would be something you would be keenly aware of as a possibility, when chopping a tree down, and take the necessary precautions to avoid. Like, jumping out of the way, for instance. Many people – especially a surprising number in India – are apparently unable to jump out of the way in time.

I can see getting hit by a tree that someone else is chopping down, I guess, if they fail to yell “Timber!” as is the standard requirement obviously set forth by the International Congress of Lumberjacks sometime in the early 1700’s. This is never one of the news stories, though. No one ever gets killed by a falling tree that someone else was cutting down. It’s always the cutter himself. Go figure.

The other people that are getting killed by falling trees and large branches out there are all either in a car or a tent. Those are dangerous places to be, based on my Google Alert.

I have also learned that stationary trees can be just as dangerous. Besides the countless stories of out-of-control vehicles and skiers running into trees, many other folks climb trees for one reason or another, only to meet their maker when they touch a power line. That seems easily avoidable to this casual observer.

All this news of death at the hands of trees got me thinking. I own six trees. Two in the front yard and four in the back.

Holy crap. This place is a deathtrap.

This sobering revelation caused me to increase my life insurance recently. If Google Alerts is any indication, with this many trees – surrounding me constantly, I might add – I could go at any minute.

I applied for a new policy and had a phone interview. To tell you the truth, I don’t think the people at Minnesota Life have any idea what they’re doing over there. I mean, do they even have trees in Minnesota? The lady on the phone was perfectly nice, and made more than a few inquiries about my life and habits, but missed the big question.

Life Insurance Lady: “Do you currently engage in, or plan on taking up in the next five years, any of the following activities: Aviation, parachuting, skydiving, BASE jumping, bungee jumping, car/bike/powerboat racing, hang gliding, hot air ballooning, rock climbing/mountaineering, SCUBA diving, skiing, surfing, white water rafting, rodeo, professional or amateur wrestling, boxing, or demolition derby?”

Me: “No, I don’t do any of that stuff, and I’m not planning on doing any of it.”

Life Insurance Lady: “OK, sir, moving on…”

Me: “Wait, don’t you want to know about my trees?”

Life Insurance Lady: “Your trees?”

Me: “Yes, I’m not going to take up bull riding any time soon, but in the interest of full disclosure, I want you to know that we own six full-size trees, and there are at least three more owned by our neighbors that are near our fence.”

Life Insurance Lady: “OK, sir, that’s fine. Moving on…”

Me: “We also own two cars and a tent!”

Life Insurance Lady: “Have you or anyone in your family ever been diagnosed with a mental disorder?”

Me: “No, why?”

Life Insurance Lady: “OK, sir, moving on…”

They didn’t care. I own six whole trees and they didn’t even care. Well, the joke will be on them when they have to pay my wife big bucks after I’m inevitably attacked by one of these killer trees. They can’t say I didn’t warn them.

I was raving about this to my wife after the phone interview, and she suggested that maybe I should cancel the “tree of death” Google Alert.

Maybe she’s right. Google can be very useful, but it can also be scary.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find my axe and take care of all these trees before they kill me.

Actually, I think I’ll practice jumping out of the way first.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

The Four-Way Stop

I always thought operating a car was fairly simple. You have a steering wheel, a gas pedal, a brake pedal, and if you’re really sporty or from a third-world country, a clutch. Go early and easy on the brakes, unless you are from a third-world country, or a city like Los Angeles, then you drive seventy-five miles per hour toward the stop sign and decide when you are twenty feet away whether you will stop or just blow through it.

Keep a safe following distance when at highway speeds, which is a three-second gap for most of us, barring again, third-world countries and cities like Los Angeles. In those places, safe following distances have been replaced by simply connecting all the cars at highway speeds, bumper-to-bumper, with only an imperceptible air gap between them.

If the weather is wet or icy, you should slow down and remember that brakes only work when the tires are in contact with the actual road. If you accidentally go too fast in inclement weather and end up sliding, remember to maintain positive acceleration and steer into the skid. In practical terms, this means to scream, “HOLY CRAP WE’RE GOING TO DIE!” at the top of your lungs while using both feet to attempt to push the brake pedal all the way to the front bumper, and allowing the highway guard rail and adjacent cars to act on behalf of your steering wheel.

Yield to oncoming traffic, stop on red, go on green. It all seems simple enough, but there is one traffic control situation that tends to cause a lot of people grief: Four-way stop signs.

The four-way stop need not be difficult, since the rules are quite simple. The entire concept of the four-way stop has to do with Right of Way. This literally means that when two cars arrive at adjacent stops signs at the same time, the car on the right has priority. The driver of the car on the left must hang his or her head in shame and meekly wave for the other driver to proceed. Driving statutes vary, but in most states, the driver with the Right of Way is required to give a friendly wave, and a visibly smug smile.

If the two vehicles have arrived simultaneously at opposing stop signs, the car going straight has priority, and the other car needs to wait for them to pass and turn around them. It is not always easy to know the other driver’s intended path, however, since the turn signals on most cars operated by drivers under the age of twenty-five have apparently been disabled, while many of the over-seventy crowd’s turn signals have been cleverly rigged to remain on constantly.

In either case you will need to be cautious as you approach the center of the intersection. It helps to notice where the other driver’s eyes are focused. If the driver is young, their gaze will invariably be directed downward, into their lap, where their phone is. These drivers often do not even realize they are in an intersection. The older drivers often have a dazed look, similar to a deer in headlights. They may realize they are in an intersection, but they are likely terrified to be there. In either case, the other driver may do something unexpected. Be prepared. Many times it is best to just remain at your stop sign, ignoring Right of Way, and wait these people out. The young drivers will proceed on their way after they get done typing “OMG LOL,” making the decision to turn or go straight in the half-second they are able to devote to driving the vehicle before they receive their next text message. The older drivers often fall asleep, and after their car has rolled harmlessly onto someone’s lawn or slowly through the front window of the corner store, you may proceed on your way.

In the unlikely event that four cars arrive at each of the four stop signs at exactly the same time and Right of Way cannot be traditionally established, Standard American Rules apply, and the largest vehicle wins. (Note: If any of the vehicles are electric or those silly little Smart Cars, they are obviously automatically disqualified from any consideration.)

In the even more unlikely event that four similar-sized cars have arrived simultaneously at the four stop signs, we default to Majority Rules, and the vehicle with the most passengers wins.

In the even, even more unlikely event that all the similar-sized cars contain the same amount of people (or people and livestock in some rural counties), all drivers must exit their vehicles and meet in the middle of the intersection. They will pair up into their respective east/west and north/south teams, and play a single-elimination, sudden-death Ro Sham Bo tournament (also known as Rock Paper Scissors, or Reaux Sham Beaux if the four-way stop is located in New Orleans).

If the final Ro Sham Bo round ends in three or more tie games, Right of Way is determined by total combined height and weight of each team.

Pretty simple, really.

However, as easy as the four-way stop rules should be to follow, many Americans just cannot seem to grasp them. As a result, some towns are following Europe’s lead and going with roundabouts instead.

This is a mistake. A huge mistake. I beg you, impressionable traffic engineers of America, don’t give in to the hype. Roundabouts will only make the problem worse. All the case studies speak for themselves. Any driver who is even slightly confused about the rules at a four-way stop will be utterly mystified by a roundabout.

Let’s not make the problem worse. Instead, let’s spend all that wasted re-engineering time and energy on re-educating the public on the four-way stop rules. That will be a better use of our money, because it seems that for some of the population, if four-way stops are long division, roundabouts are Chinese algebra.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

An Open Letter to Lifetouch School Portraits

Dear Lifetouch School Portraits,

What in the world are you people at Lifetouch thinking over there? Our relationship this year started off fine. You showed up at my kids’ school in September and took pictures of them. That was great, with the exception of the fact that two of my three boys have smiling disorders (think Chandler from Friends), so we had to do retakes. While I can’t blame you for my boys’ painful-looking, forced camera smiles, I would think that as professional photographers with digital cameras, you might notice when a child’s smile resembles that of someone passing a kidney stone, and snap another one while trying a little harder to make them laugh or something. Anyway, the retakes came out just fine, and I have no complaints about the September photo session.

What I am a little befuddled by is why you showed up again in February. You realize that September and February are only five months apart, right? Why are we doing school pictures twice in one year? Are you planning to come back in June, also?

“Here’s Hannah’s first grade early year photo, followed by first grade mid-year, then first grade waning year, and finally, first grade graduation.”

Should we ramp it up a little more, so we can really overload the grandparents?

“Here’s little Jimmy on Monday of Week 1. Here he is on Week 2. Look how much he’d grown. Here’s Week 3. He’s getting so handsome. Wait until you see him on Week 4…”

OK, so you showed up twice in one school year. I guess if the school let you in, then that’s just fine. In January, I received all three of your order forms for the second photo session in my three giant weekly stacks of homework and never-ending school notices. I ignored them. (See reasoning above.)

Here’s another thing I don’t understand. Why, then, if I had ignored your order forms, thereby deliberately not returning them to you, did you proceed to take pictures of my three boys?

OK, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that maybe you just default to taking pictures of all the kids just in case someone forgot their order form. I did not forget my order forms, nor did I ever send you order forms after the fact, so…

Here’s what has me flummoxed: Why did you then send me three full picture packages, one for each of my boys, all including:

(1) 8x10

(2) Regular 5x7’s

(1) 5x7 with special swirly colored border complete with year and child’s first name

(4) Wallet-size with above-mentioned swirly border

and

(8) Regular wallet-size

All the pictures listed above were printed on standard film paper. In each package you also sent me pictures printed on a stiff plastic laminate sheet, consisting of:

(1) Wallet-size calendar

(4) Key chain fobs

(1) Ruler (Which handily measures from negative 1/16” to positive 5-3/32”)

(1) Bookmark

and

(1) Rearview mirror and/or hotel doorknob hanging accessory

Between the standard pictures and the plastic laminate sheet of highly useful picture accessories, that is a lot of stuff I didn’t order (on purpose, I might reiterate).

In each unsolicited picture package, you also included a handy order form with instructions; I could either buy the whole exciting package for $47, or choose which of the enticing – yet, wholly unsolicited - sheets I so desire. Easy payment options abound for me, the proud parent, and if I found myself not wanting any one of the beautifully printed picture sheets, I was instructed to return them to the school.

That’s not going to happen.

I’m not going to send you any money, and I’m not going to send you any pictures back. Here are the reasons why:

Reason # 1: I’m not going to buy them because I didn’t want them in the first place. That is why I deliberately didn’t order them in the first place.

Reason #2: I’m not going to send them back to you because that would just cost me time, and I don’t have enough time each day as it is. (See evidence of the three children in question that you took unsolicited pictures of.)

Reason #3: Sending the pictures back would also cost my school time, and they have less time in the day than I do. (See evidence of all the children in the whole school that you took pictures of.) They eat lunch standing up in front of a copy machine, for goodness sake.

Reason #4: Sending them back will also cost you money. I know I am saving you quite a bit of money since you will no doubt need to treat these three unsolicited picture packets like any other incredibly precious returned product bound for secure destruction; hiring a secure courier service to transport them to a secure facility to have them shredded and destroyed, documenting their pick-up, transportation, arrival, and destruction at every step of the process.

I mean, we obviously wouldn’t be treating dossiers that have my child’s photo, full name, grade level, and teacher’s name printed on them any other way, right? Right?

Those are just the top-level reasons why I’m not going to do what you asked of me, in an unsolicited manner.

Since I have taken time out of my busy schedule to address your unsolicited picture packets, I might as well take a little more time to explain some of the more subtle reasons why I won’t be purchasing any of these photos to keep. Hopefully you can use these observations to improve your business model.

We allow our three boys to choose their own clothes in the morning. My wife and I developed this revolutionary parenting style: a) to foster independence and self-reliance in our children, and b) to minimize crying fits and keep us from wanting to begin drinking at 7:00 A.M.

As such, since I was not intending to have you take pictures of my children, nor was I expecting you to take pictures of them anyway, just because you felt like it, they were not exactly dressed for posterity.

I see in these pictures that Son Number One is wearing a red T-shirt with a logo on the front. We are not really into free corporate advertising around here. Also, Son Number One is highly afflicted with the Forced Smile Disorder, and in this picture he does not appear to be happy. He appears to be giving a stool sample.

Son Number Two’s smile is just fine, but he is inexplicably wearing what appears to be either a pajama shirt, or some sort of English sailor costume. He must have had a sweatshirt over it when we left the house for school, because I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have OK’d that even on a normal day, let alone picture day.

That brings us to Son Number Three. As you know, based on the printout on the front of his picture packet you sent to us in an unsolicited fashion, he is in kindergarten. I would assume that any school portrait photographer worth their weight in negatives would step up their game, so to speak, when it comes to the five-year-olds, but apparently that is not the case. You spent a significant amount of unsolicited money out of your own pocket to send me a glossy package of assorted photos of a boy wearing an Angry Birds T-shirt, smiling like someone just stepped on his foot, with FOOD STUCK TO HIS FACE in two different places. Not a super-high probability that I was going to rush those off to the grandparents.

So, to reiterate, I will not be purchasing, nor will I be returning any of the unsolicited, and might I just say, somewhat sub-par photos that you decided to send me.

I don’t want you to worry, though. I have a shredder here at home.

I’ll send you the bill.

You’re welcome.

All my best,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

My Water is Being Flushed Down the Toilet

I must have been at the peak of boredom (if boredom can even have peaks… was I at the valley of boredom?) a few months ago, because I actually read my water bill. Normally, I look at the dollar amount, gauge its reasonableness with a highly complex and intricate formula that mostly involves the question, “Does that sound right?”, and then I pay it.

For some reason, I actually read the charts and graphs on the August/September bill and was amazed to find out that we used an average of 772 gallons per day.

ALMOST 800 GALLONS A DAY?

That seems excessive, to say the least. How is that even possible? That’s probably like nine or ten Olympic-size swimming pools’ worth, or, to put it in more understandable suburban terms, about seven billion 16-ounce Starbucks travel mugs.

Back in August and September, we Californians had no idea we were in for the driest winter we’ve had since the dawn of time, so I was watering my lawns dutifully, to keep up the ridiculous social convention of green grass being more attractive than brown dirt.

I stopped watering my lawn around the end of September, unwittingly ending up on the cutting edge of the self-righteous, drought-conscious Northern California homeowner scene. Now in February, after we have received roughly 0.0 inches of rain in December and January, I can point to my dying, brown, lawn-like substance with pride and say I cared about the environment and our precious natural resources long before you people with green lawns did. The truth is, I really stopped watering because I don’t like mowing. I just sort of stumbled into this whole self-righteous thing.

Curious about our water usage without all the annoying lawn care, I checked the December/January bill and I was shocked. We used an average of 292 gallons per day, which seemed a little high still, but what I was shocked to see was that the dollar amount of the new bill was only 36% less than the old one even though we cut our water usage by 62%.

How does that work, Placer County Water Agency? If I did my math correctly, based on your billing logic, if we stopped using water altogether you would still want $47 from us.

We have three young boys, all of whom play sports and wear clothes to school, and my wife owns nearly a third of all the clothes in North America, so our washing machine has basically been running continuously for nine years now. That makes the 300 gallons per day number a little more believable, but it still seemed high to me. Until last night.

I had just put the kids to bed and my wife was out of the house - wearing the third or fourth outfit of the day - so I was firmly planted on the couch in front of the TV, no doubt watching some manly show about wrestling alligators or blowing things up. The boys’ bathroom sits upstairs above the living room, and when the toilet flushes, it sounds like a medium-sized waterfall in the wall behind the TV.

When I heard what was probably the fourth flush in as many minutes, I started to pay attention. When I heard the estimated ninth flush, I began counting. Knowing which one of our children it was – I will not divulge the culprit’s identity here, to spare him from any future horrific embarrassment should his senior prom date happen upon this column - I decided not to intervene, even though nine flushes is obviously overkill for any bodily function a kid can produce. I was treating it more as an experiment than anything, mostly out of curiosity at just how many times one boy felt it necessary to flush, but also because I really didn’t want to drag my lazy butt off the couch.

At flush number twenty-four I got off the couch. He was up to twenty-six when I made it up the stairs. I’m not making this up. (Neither the flush count, nor the fact that I’m so old it took me two flushes to get up the stairs.)

I politely inquired as to what he was doing.

“Pooping.”

“Yes, I can see that. Why are you flushing so much?”

“I don’t want to clog the toilet.”

Hmm… While I appreciated his motives, I didn’t really know which subject to tackle first – The fact that the wipe/flush/wipe/flush/wipe/flush method, while effective in preventing toilet clogs, is not the most economical or conservative approach; or the fact that if you have to wipe twenty-seven  times, you might want to improve your overall technique.

Like so much of my really good parenting advice, I decided to put it off until later.

“OK, well, we obviously need to have a talk about pooping, but let’s do it tomorrow, OK?”

“OK dad. Goodnight”

“Goodnight, son.”

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“I like to have a clean butt.”

“We all do, buddy. Goodnight”

I walked back downstairs shaking my head. At least now I know how we manage to use 300 gallons of water a day. My son just accounted for half of it.

As summer approaches in the great parched state of California, we’re definitely going to need to work on more drought-friendly wiping methods around here. Not only will that help everyone water-wise, but it should also help our toilet paper budget tremendously.

Running out of water is one thing, but if my boys keep going the way they are now with the toilet paper, we might be forced to re-purpose that water bill, if you know what I mean.

Ouch.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

I May Have Accidentally Grown Up

I fear that I may have actually grown up. I guess it was a matter of time, but I was avoiding it successfully, or so I thought.

I never felt like an adult until I had kids. I guess I should say, adulthood didn’t occur to me until the kids arrived. Nine years have passed since that day they inexplicably let my wife and I leave the hospital by ourselves with a baby, and for most of that time I have only been masquerading as an adult. That has changed.

Apparently, sometime recently, I actually became an adult. I didn’t know it had happened until our best friends had us over for dinner a few nights ago. It was a lovely evening. The kids played upstairs together, sustaining only minor injuries, we watched some of the Sochi Winter Olympics and marveled at how simultaneously strenuous and boring cross-country ski racing is, and we ate a delicious dinner. Everything seemed perfectly normal until the end of the evening when someone remarked at how our dinner conversations were different than they used to be. We collaborated on a short recap of all the topics we could remember, and the mood fell somber.

Here’s a list of our evening conversation topics:

Back pain

Spine care

Life insurance

Prostates/prostate exams

Colons/colonoscopies

Health insurance

Arthritis

Health care providers

The Affordable Care Act

The bleak irony of the term “Affordable” in the name “Affordable Care Act”

School districts

Acupuncture

Cookie recipes

Taxes

Antacids

Podiatrists

Seasonal allergies

Mattress quality (unfortunately, with respect to back pain, not anything fun)

Heart disease

High-fructose corn syrup

Diabetes

The room was quiet for a minute as we soaked in the fact that none of us had thought the conversation topics were odd during the conversations. Only after the fact did we realize - Holy crap. We’re old. This is old people stuff. Since when are these things our stimulating conversation topics?

Looking back, it’s been sneaking up on me. When we got home from dinner and put the kids to bed, I put on my slippers and sat quietly in my easy chair under a quilt as I reflected. I realized I should have seen it earlier. There were warning signs.

I have begun to turn the car radio off when looking for an address or using the ATM, so that I’m able to concentrate. I used to give my parents endless grief for doing that when I was a kid. They are laughing right now.

I sit down to put on pants. Classic old guy move.

My face is going numb. I regularly have food stuck to my face while eating and have no idea. You see old guys all the time eating dinner with food stuck to their faces. My chin is completely dead.

I grunt when I bend over and I moan when I stand back up straight.

The other day I noticed my “Forever” postage stamps have the year printed on them. That made me think the U.S. Post Office wasn’t really planning to hold up their end of the “forever” bargain, and that made me mad. Only old men get mad about stamps.

And don’t even try to get me started on my joints. No, seriously. It’s really hard for me to get started on my joints.

There it is. I’m old now. I’m an adult, I guess. Bummer.

It won’t be long until I’m the old guy in the gym locker room, wandering around butt-naked for a half hour, just casually having conversations with other butt-naked old men, none of us ever once thinking to get a towel and cover up a little.

I may as well get my lawn chair now, to put out on the front porch and yell at the kids to stay off my grass. Damn kids drive too fast down the street, too.

Come to think of it, that was another one of the dinner topics.

Damn kids.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

A Salt-Free Valentine's Day

Son Number Three had surgery on Valentine’s Day last year. It was only ear tubes and adenoid removal, but it was enough to get me off the hook. I initially thought the doctor was making up the word “adenoid” just to help my cause, but he assured me later that they are a real thing. Anyway, my wife was so focused on making sure her little baby boy was doing OK that I was able to slide on all things Valentine’s Day related. Thanks, little man!

Our pediatrician sounded a little annoyed yesterday when I called to inquire about available surgery openings for this coming Friday. He started out caring and concerned when I mentioned surgery, but the conversation kind of fell apart after I told him I didn’t really have anything specific in mind, since all three boys are perfectly healthy at the moment. I explained that last year worked out so well for me, Valentine’s Day-wise, I was hoping he could come up with some kind of elective surgery for one of the boys. I told him it obviously didn’t have to be anything major.

He had the nerve to hang up on me, and I think we might need to find a new pediatrician. Geez, man, take it easy. A simple “No” would have been fine.

Since it seems that children’s medical visits won’t be helping me avoid Valentine’s Day this year, I am going to turn my attention to a global crisis instead.

Here’s my story: I was going to get my wife chocolates this year, but with the looming sea salt crisis, I just can’t in good conscience contribute to the problem any longer.

Sure, salted caramels are yummy, and the perfect Valentine’s Day gift, but what am I, a monster? Why don’t I just get her a coat made out of baby seal fur with a sea turtle shell purse?

Have you ever seen a salted caramel advertised with regular salt? Of course not. Everything is made with “sea salt” now. This must end. For goodness sake, my discount tortilla chips now advertise “made with sea salt” on the side of the 30-pound bag. Do you have any idea how much sea salt is required to properly salt 30 pounds of tortilla chips? I don’t either, but it must be a lot.

Our love of sea salt has gotten completely out of hand. I’m sure the world’s oceans are being desalinized at alarming rates, all in the name of nachos and chocolate, and it’s only a matter of time before the effects will be seen on our sea life. While it is true that humans cannot live without nachos and chocolate, we can source the salt more responsibly.

I’m sure there is some two-bit environmental activist group somewhere already hard at work trying to educate the public on this, but they are likely having trouble getting their message out because they spent their advertising budget on pot and Cheetos. It’s time for this disturbing issue to receive the kind of worldwide exposure that only Just a Smidge can bring.

World ocean de-salting must end! I don’t care if Valentine’s Day has to suffer. So be it. Our precious marine ecosystems deserve better than this!

Global oceanic catastrophes aside, let’s also not forget the human side of this. No one ever considers all the regular salt miners who are out of work. It’s not as if our demand for salt increased. We simply became enamored with sea salt. In the rush for our oceans’ salty booty, no one stopped to think about all the families that would be affected inland. Besides the obvious layoffs and associated lack of income, hundreds of thousands of people are being deprived of even saying, “Well, I guess it’s back to the salt mines.” That is tragic.

Let’s all work together this year to keep Valentine’s Day simple. No more expensive chocolates! Think of the fish. Think of the families. Think of the children. Think of the children of the fish. Tragic.

Roses? Sure, you could buy her some overpriced flowers if you don’t mind not breathing after we’ve cut down all the world’s vegetation in the name of love.

A $10 Hallmark card? Don’t even get me started on the trees!

A simple kiss on the cheek and an “I love you” should suffice for any couple truly in love. Don’t selfishly destroy the planet just to make me look bad!

And remember, if my wife asks, my objection to Valentine’s Day is an ecological one, not economic.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Bigger or Better

It’s a common tale. Your doorbell rings and you answer to find Pocahontas and a Boy Scout on your front porch carrying a toaster oven and a knife sharpener. You immediately invite them in, and a few minutes later they leave with your water skis. We’ve all been there, right?

No?

Well, I’ve been there, and the memory of that night was spurred by my favorite Super Bowl commercial this year.  I really enjoyed the Bud Light “Up for Whatever” series of ads with the unwitting guy named Ian who goes on a very lavish and totally pre-planned blind date, where he is the only one who isn’t an actor in on the gag. He has no idea what to expect, and ends up in a stretch limo with a DJ inside, rides an elevator with Don Cheadle and a llama, plays ping pong against Arnold Schwarzenegger who looks like Bjorn Borg on HGH, and winds up the evening onstage with a band called OneRepublic. All in all, a pretty weird night for Ian.

Those commercials brought back a lot of memories, actually. Sure, many of them are hazy, but still…

Here’s a checklist of things in those commercials that Anheuser-Busch has brought me over the years:

(I say Anheuser-Busch because many of these events were brought to me by Keystone Light, long before I could afford fancy beer like Bud Light)

Blind dates – check

Ending up in someone else’s limo - check

Drinking in elevators – check

Meeting Don Cheadle – no

Bringing livestock indoors as a prank – check

Playing ping pong – check

Meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger – no

Dressing like Bjorn Borg – check

Ending up singing on stage – check

The funny thing is, beer was not involved in the main event I was reminded of by the commercial, namely the Pocahontas/water skis situation. The randomness and the unexpected aspects of Ian’s Bud Light-sponsored evening were what jogged my memory, not the drinking aspect.

Pocahontas and the Boy Scout were college kids that showed up on my doorstep on Halloween night this year, after our kids had long since slipped into a sugar coma and been carted off to bed. On any other night of the year, if costumed twenty-year-olds show up at your door you would reach for the shotgun, but on Halloween you gladly open the door to offer them candy. Instead of leading with the standard “Trick or Treat,” they stood there timidly - the Boy Scout hugging a full-sized toaster oven and Pocahontas holding an electric knife sharpener - and began to explain that they were from the Christian college just up the road.

Bells and whistles went off in my head and I stopped the Boy Scout mid-sentence and said, “You’re playing ‘Bigger or Better,’ aren’t you?”

“Yes!” they both exclaimed in unison, obviously both shocked and relieved that I knew about the game.

I invited them inside and explained to them in great detail that this was their lucky night, because not only did I know all about the game, but I happen to be the reigning world champion of said game, as far as I know.

“Bigger or Better” is a scavenger hunt game played primarily on Halloween, since All Hallows Eve is really the only socially acceptable time to knock on strangers’ doors at night (Yeah, I’m looking at you, guy who wants to sell me magazine subscriptions and chocolate bars), and played primarily by youth groups looking for wholesome fun. The rules are simple: Each team starts with a single penny. At the first door you ask to trade that penny for something bigger or better. Maybe you get a dime. Maybe you get an old box of used paper clips. Whatever. You take your new-found loot to the next house to trade up, and so on and so forth. You are due back at the starting point at a specific time, and the teams are judged on which has returned with the biggest and/or best item.

I have been riding high for almost twenty-five years after my glorious “Bigger or Better” win on that fateful Halloween night in high school. The sleepy little town of Davis, California has yet to recover from the sheer magnitude of the victory. So when Pocahontas and the Boy Scout showed up on my doorstep a few months ago, I knew what I had to do. I needed to pay back the karma that helped this skinny little kid turn the world on its ear so many years before.

I knew I could never give them an item great enough to rival my victory, and frankly, I wasn’t about to try. That victory is, and always will be, mine, and Pocahontas and the Boy Scout don’t deserve it. I was going to try to help them win their game, however. It was the least I could do to somehow cosmically repay the good fortune of my youth.

They left my house and headed back to the judging panel with a pair of old six-foot-long, purple and black water skis. I’m pretty sure they won.

That wasn’t all they left with, though. They also walked away from my home with the story of the greatest “Bigger or Better” victory of all time. The story of the night that I turned a single penny into a regulation-sized ping pong table AND a Peugeot motorcycle in less than two hours. (I am not making that up.)

I know I will never top that win, so I will never try. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t give it a go. I highly recommend playing the game at your next Halloween party. There’s no reason why the youth groups of America should have all the fun.

And if you happen to be having an adult Halloween party, all the better! I say, don’t be afraid to take a cue from the intrepid Ian in the Bud Light ads. “Bigger or Better” would probably be even bigger and better if alcohol was involved. Who knows? You might just end up trading Don Cheadle a pair of water skis for a llama.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Soaked by Printer Ink

My mother-in-law gave me printer ink for Christmas. Some people are just better gift givers than others. There is simply no better gift for a writer than a full printer cartridge. We writers print a lot of stuff, and most of us are broke. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if printer ink wasn’t apparently made out of liquid platinum and powdered diamonds.

In the shady world of “factory-authorized” parts, there is no group more skilled in the fine art of price gouging than computer printer manufacturers and their ink, with HP leading the league.

I think if we were forced to buy drinking water from HP it would go something like this:

The super-cool stainless steel flip-top sippy straw container would cost 99 cents, and would come “pre-filled” with water, but really only filled 25%.

Refilling the container with delicious HP water would cost roughly $6000 per sip.

The flip-top sippy straw would immediately close and lock if the bottle was ever filled with tap water, and you would receive a corporately polite, yet obviously testy “courtesy email” from HP reminding you that your state-of-the-art HP water bottle can only perform correctly with genuine HP fluids.

We have an HP Photosmart printer that takes six separate ink cartridges. Why? Because I print a lot of high-quality, high-gloss photos that I take on my cell phone camer… No, that’s not it. I really only ever want to print in black and white. We have this printer because friends gave it to us for free when our old one stopped working. Six separate ink cartridges you ask? Why, yes. That would be Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, and Light Magenta. Hmm… Light Cyan and Light Magenta? I guess HP couldn’t figure out how to just use less regular Cyan when the print called for a lighter blue.

Just in case you got the notion that you didn’t need all those different colors, HP found a way to prove you wrong. On the face of each cartridge there is a raised plastic molded shape, like the preschool peg-in-hole star and half-moon shapes. Each color has a unique shape that has to line up with that same shaped hole in the printer body before the cartridge will seat properly, preventing you from substituting Cyan for, let’s say, Light Cyan. I know this is obviously not a ploy to restrict my freedom of choice if I am the type of person who could care less about color accuracy. I’m sure it’s a well-meaning way for HP to protect its good name in case I would have the gall to swap colors and make outrageous accusations about them printing mottled browns instead of vibrant greens. It is obviously not just a way to make me buy more ink cartridges. They would never do that.

Although… My printer did seem to get pretty testy a while back when I tried to put a cheaper refilled ink cartridge in it. (By cheaper, I mean cheaper the way buying one hamburger at a McDonald’s in town is cheaper than buying all the McDonald’s franchises in town.) I received an error message telling me, in essence, to get that interloping piece of non-gold-plated garbage out of there at once, or the printer may be forced to explode just to teach me a lesson about brand loyalty. The Corleone family could learn a thing or two from HP.

Undeterred, I did manage to find the LD brand of “remanufactured” ink cartridges that work in the printer and don’t require taking out a second mortgage to acquire. Take that, HP! My printer no longer threatens me with inaction or malfunction, but I did receive a pretty shady message from its LCD screen the other day.

Warning: Printer ink cartridge expiring.

Please replace, or hit arrow key for more details.

When I hit the arrow key, I got this condescending follow-up message:

The warranty will not be honored for damage due to expired cartridges. Press OK to continue anyway.

It no longer threatens me directly, I guess I should say. We’ve moved to vague threats about possible damage and warranty waiving “if, God forbid, sumptin should happen to this beautiful printer yous gots here.”

Come on guys! You already try to get me to replace the cartridges six weeks early as it is. You start warning me about low ink levels and suggesting cartridge replacement 500 pages before it actually runs out, and even then, I’m not really sure if it did or not, because I never get to see the words slowly get dimmer and then disappear off the page. The last page out of the printer looks perfect and then you just refuse to print anymore, citing an empty cartridge. What am I to do but take your word for it?

“Empty” cartridges or not, this expiration thing is a new low. I mean, really fellas? I’m not buying cartridges fast enough for you? Now you're trying to scare me with threats about disavowing my warranty because I apparently don't use my Light Magenta as often as you'd like? That’s pretty weak.

If you really want me to use more ink, why don’t you just make me print “test pages” every week or so, using a thinly-veiled ruse of “needing to check the printer alignment,” as if that’s even a thing. You could also double down on that idea and require “test pages” every time I change an ink cartridge. And no matter what cartridge I changed, each one of these “test pages” could use an inordinate amount of all the ink colors, so much so that the page is limp and wet when it comes out of the printer, making me afraid to get it near my clothes or the furniture.

Oh, wait… You already do that.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Drought Tolerance

Here’s the thing about water: We have the same amount of water on the earth that we’ve always had, and always will have. It does not evaporate into space. It changes forms and locations, but it doesn’t disappear. What does that mean to you? For one thing, it means at this time in the history of the earth, every drop of water that you drink has probably been pee at some point. Fun, huh?

Water changes locations all the time, and currently there is none in California. Whatever the hell a “Polar Vortex” is, there seems to be one gripping the entire country except California. It has basically been spring here in California since fall. We are apparently just going to completely skip winter. With no rain or snow to speak of, we are in the midst of the driest winter months ever since they started keeping track of these sorts of things.

We took a drive out to Folsom Lake near Sacramento this weekend to gawk at the astounding lack of water. At one point in December the lake level was dropping one foot per day, and it is looking a lot more like a mud puddle at this point than a reservoir. The marina docks are all sitting in the dirt on the bottom of the lake. We went out to see the remains of an old gold-mining town that was abandoned and flooded when the Folsom Dam was built to create the lake. We even walked across a really nice old stone bridge that has been uncovered, still in great shape after 60 years underwater. There are multi-million dollar homes up on the hills above the lake that now boast the impressive view of looking down on hordes of tourists walking around a dry lakebed.

Never afraid of making a profit from catastrophe, the state of California was charging $12 per car to come view the horror. Based on the parking lot traffic we saw while we were there I would estimate the state made well over $20,000 that afternoon, minus the salaries of the two gate personnel and the upkeep cost on the ONE functional port-a-potty at the entire lake. Nice job, California.

Things are looking bleak for The Golden State, which is great news for me.

As you probably know, I hate lawn care. I don’t like spending my time mowing and trimming, and I hate spending my money on water to attempt to keep my lawn green and therefore requiring more mowing and trimming. It’s a vicious cycle. It rained about an eighth of an inch in late September, and that was the day I shut my automatic sprinklers off for the summer. I foolishly thought we would have more rain during the fall and winter months. By the end of October my wife was asking me to turn them back on, but I refused, saying, “It has to start raining at some point.”

I was wrong. I think it has rained once since then. By mid-November my lawn was so yellow it made the house look abandoned. I was afraid my neighbors would stage an intervention. It was looking like I might be forced into action by the ridiculous social convention of year-round green lawns, but then I got really lucky and everyone noticed that we hadn’t been getting any rain or snow. By mid-December all anyone could talk about was how dry it had been. Excellent! I’m off the hook.

This is a double boon for me. Not only am I going to have a summer of almost zero lawn care, as the impending drought forces all of us to give up watering, but I can be smug about it, too. If anyone comments on my dead grass I can look down my nose at their green lawn and say something like, “Still watering, huh. I guess some of us care about preserving our natural resources more than others.”

This whole thing is making me look like I was drought-conscious before it was cool, and that’s what it’s all about, right?

The good news – besides of course my lawn care reprieve and impending smugness – is that the water is out there somewhere, and it will eventually return to California. The bad news, at least in the short term, is that we might not have any food later this year.

Bummer.

Food concerns aside, luckily quite a bit of the nation’s beer is brewed in other states, so we should be all right there. A big thanks to Colorado, Missouri, and Wisconsin. You guys are really saving our bacon out here! Triple win for me, since I will have more time to drink beer this summer due to the cessation of lawn care activities. Droughts are fun!

While it appears we’ll be fine beer-wise, you wine drinkers out there might want to stock up now. I don’t mean to be a doomsayer, but it’s looking like the only thing the folks in the Napa Valley will have to irrigate the grapes with this summer is their own pee.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Schooled Lunches

My boys surprised me yesterday, in a good and also annoying way. I was running late in the morning, and I arrived downstairs in the kitchen about fifteen minutes behind schedule to help them with their breakfast and to make their lunches for school. I was not concerned, because I had plenty of time to get everything done, but I became concerned when their plastic lunch containers were nowhere to be found.

As soon as I began to search for them, the boys piped up and said, barely able to contain their self-satisfied mirth, “Dad, you might want to look up on top of the fridge.”

I keep their insulated lunch bags on top of the refrigerator, and there they were, stacked neatly just like I had left them the day before. When I picked them up, however, they felt heavy, and the boys started giggling. They were all zipped closed, and when I opened them, there were the missing plastic lunch containers, filled with carrots, and crackers, and sandwiches. The boys had made their own lunches.

This was an unprecedented event, and a big surprise. I was initially filled with pride that my boys had been so industrious. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying my boys are geniuses for being able to put turkey and mayonnaise on two slices of bread. I realize kids their age in Bangladesh already know how to make Nike tennis shoes and sew Martha Stewart Collection pantsuits, but we’re talking about three boys who normally can’t work together long enough to build a blanket fort over a coffee table without starting a fist fight.

I hugged them and thanked them and beamed with pride for about fifteen seconds.

Then I started to get mad.

The lunches were perfect. They were well balanced and nutritious. I looked around. All the food was put back into the correct places in the refrigerator and the pantry, with all the lids snapped back on. The counter was clean. The utensils were rinsed and in the sink. Everything was done and done really well. I did the math. They told me they had gotten their little brother out of bed as his alarm was going off, so I knew what time they started. I knew what time they had finished. I subtracted. Holy crap.

They made their own lunches ten minutes faster than it takes me to do it, and the kitchen was cleaner than after I am finished. Holy crap.

I’m bad at my job!

My three little kids just schooled my ass in lunch making. I realize there are three of them and only one of me, but the fact that they are 9, 7, and 5 and I’m 41 should definitely cancel out that argument.

I have been making their lunches every day for six straight months and apparently I suck at it. Well, thanks for that slap in the face, you ungrateful little overachievers. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you just keep making your own lunches. Maybe you can cook yourselves dinner, too. While you’re at it why don’t you just do the grocery shopping, also? No car? I’ll give you the car. You’re probably better at driving than me, too.

Actually, now that I think about this a little more, I’m really not that bitter. I think this lunch situation just bought me another half-hour of sleep every morning. That’s huge. Come to think of it, I really should start teaching the oldest one to drive. That could really help out a lot.

I may be bad at my job, but at least I’ll be well rested.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Glory Chores

I’m discovering something about myself as I get deeper into my Mr. Mom role here at home. I’m tidy, but I’m not very clean. Not me personally, mind you, I mean the house. I myself shower every day and I smell terrific. Ask anyone near me.

The house, on the other hand, does not get cleaned nearly as often as I do. Neither do the kids come to think of it. The boys are lucky to get a bath twice a week, but that is really a conscious parenting decision, and not at all an obvious sign of laziness or neglect. We do not want our boys staying too clean. If we constantly remove all the bacteria from their little bodies they may be so clean they never get sick. That might be a convenient short-term parenting plan, but it will no doubt lead to adulthoods fraught with illness, possibly one day culminating in losing that coveted Taco Bell front counter cashier position to Timmy, who hasn’t had a sick day in five years because his genius parents hardly ever bathed him. No, we respect our children’s career ambitions too much to risk their future for our convenience. We’re good like that. Plus, cleaning up after a sick kid every so often, while disgusting at the time, is actually less work that bathing three squirmy boys every night, so it’s really a win-win.

Anyway, back to the house. Ever since I took over the housework duties, my wife has been nearly constantly reminding me of parts of the house that require cleaning, like countertops, and floors, and carpet, and bathroom mirrors. At first, I kept asking her, “Why? Did one of the boys throw up or pee on something?”, but as time went on and her answer to that question remained, “Of course not, you idiot,” I began to realize that she expected me to clean those things with startling regularity, just because.

I was quite taken aback by this. After further questioning, it came out that she expected me to be mopping our hardwood floors once a week. Once a week, people! What is this, Michael Jackson’s crazy hypoallergenic cleanroom?

As it turns out, when she was in charge of the cooking and cleaning, she would wipe things down and sweep things up every day. EVERY DAY. That’s crazy talk. This unnerving revelation has caused me to examine some things about myself.

I thought back to my days as a bachelor, and tried to remember what my cleaning habits - if any - were. I remember my little apartments always being tidy. I don’t like piles or clutter, except on my desk. My desk piles may look disorganized and random to the casual observer, but they are actually purposeful and well thought out. My desk piles are a sophisticated filing system consisting of nine specific categories:

Things I am meaning to read, but haven’t

Things I did read, but didn’t want to file or throw away for some reason

Things that will jog my memory about stuff I need to do

Things I need to do, but haven’t

Things I am blatantly ignoring until an unspecified time in the future

Things that need to be filed, but haven’t been

Things that don’t have a file yet, but need one

Things I need in the next month, so no sense putting them away in a file

Miscellaneous things I don’t know where to file

Besides my desk, I have always kept the rest of my square footage clutter-free. For instance, as a bachelor, I always kept the empty beer bottles nice and neat, back in their original carrying cases for easy disposal. I kept my kitchen mess-less by only eating food out of cardboard boxes or Styrofoam containers, and because I always made it a point to eat on the couch in front of the TV, the dining room table never had a spec of food on it. Dust, yes. Food, no.

I just don’t think it’s in my DNA to want a dust-free house, but apparently it’s important to my wife. This leads us to the thing I realized about myself the other day. There I was, standing in the kitchen looking for something to clean, and it hit me. I don’t look at the stovetop and think, “That really needs a wipe down.”  I look at it and think, “Would my wife think that needs a wipe down?” If my answer is yes, only then do I consider cleaning it.

I’m cleaning for the glory, not the actual cleaning itself. I am only wiping and sweeping and mopping to prove that I'm doing my job. More to the point, to prove that I'm not slacking off completely. I’m in it for the recognition. I have no real tangible personal need to keep things clean. I vacuum, but only when my wife is home to hear it. I sweep and wipe, but only when it can be readily seen that I, in fact, did it. Wiping down the counter every day without my wife noticing seems like a total waste of time to me.

Am I deeply flawed or just male? No telling.

One thing working to my advantage(?) in this situation is my apparent dust-blindness. I either don’t see dust, or it doesn’t register to me that it’s a problem, until after my wife has called me over, put her hands on her hips, and pointed out how dusty the top of the (insert any household surface here) is. Here’s where I’m in kind of a strange situation. When I do finally clean that surface, and she uses her magical dust vision to see that it is finally dust-free, I feel good about it because she can see that I actually cleaned something, and she feels like I am moderately competent for the time being. However, there is the problem of her feeling like I am totally useless on all those days leading up to the day I cleaned, when the invisible-to-everyone-else-but-her dust layer is building up.

It’s that time between cleanings that’s the problem.

I guess that could be solved by cleaning every day, but where’s the glory in that?

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

About the Author, Again

I thought we should start the New Year off again this year with a little meet and greet.  Just a Smidge gained quite a few new readers in 2013, so I thought another "about the author" segment would be helpful. I am the 41-year-old husband of an amazing woman, and father of three boys, affectionately known as Son Number One, Two and Three, currently ranging in ages from five to nine years old. My beautiful wife and I are holding them against their will in Northern California, where we were both born and raised, and where they will be, too, if we can keep them from escaping.

I think we should really start with my name. The following is a segment from “The Name,” the very first Just a Smidge column I ever wrote, way back in June of 2008. It is also the forward of my book, The Tree of Death, and Other Hilarious Stories.

I am a fourth-generation American who was born and raised in California, but you would never guess that when looking at my name, so I really feel like I should start with an explanation. It's spelled Schmatjen. It's pronounced "Smidgen", like a smidgen of this, and a smidgen of that. No one in the family knows why. It's German, but some kind of strange hill-people German that were more Austrian, or more Swiss, or more drunk than regular Germans.

So we all went by "Smidge." Once you pronounce it for people, that's your nickname. No getting around it, and all in all it's a pretty good deal for a kid. If you're destined for a certain nickname, it's nice to know ahead of time that it's going to be palatable.

In the Schmatjen clan, there is a general rule that because of the last name's inherent spelling and pronunciation issues, the first names had better be fool-proof. So, inexplicably, my folks named me Marc with a "C." I'm not sure what they were thinking at the time, but looking back on it, it seems ill-advised. I have always liked it, but it invariably adds an extra dimension to the name-explaining process that we Schmatjens constantly go through.

So that’s the story on the name. Now, here are twenty other facts that you should know about me:

1) My wife thinks I am a great driver.

2) My grandpa killed General Patton's dog. That is the single most important thing anyone in my family has done. We are high achievers.

3) Walking out into bright sunlight makes me sneeze. I inherited this trait from my grandmother. I am one of only an estimated seven people in the world with this disorder. We have a club.

4) I am related to a U.S. president, but I forget which one. I think it's either Grover Cleveland or Woodrow Wilson. I don't care. I would only be excited if it was Teddy Roosevelt, and it isn't.

5) My favorite movie is a three-way tie between Romancing the Stone, Fletch, and Caddyshack.

6) Until I was in my teens, I thought that coffee really would stunt your growth, and that drinking alcohol made your beard grow faster, because in the movies, when guys woke up with a hangover, they always had a five-o’clock shadow. I wasn’t too bright as a kid.

7) Now that I have kids, I cry at “proud parent” moments in movies. I think this is because based on my children’s behavioral history, I may never have any of my own.

8) I am slightly over six feet tall, I weigh just over 200 pounds, and I have the bladder capacity of a four-year-old.

9) My two favorite flavors are slightly burnt pepperoni and toasted sesame seeds.

10) I swam 100,000 yards in one week when I was in high school. I could not swim more than 100 yards today without needing a floatation device and a defibrillator.

11) I love bacon. See number 10.

12) I quit my day job in July to become a professional writer. So far, I have only managed to become an amateur homemaker, but I hope to get this column syndicated soon, so if you know somebody, please introduce us. Bacon is expensive.

13) I constantly get my left and right mixed up. It makes driving directions with my wife fun.

14) My favorite joke of all time is: A guy walks into the psychiatrist’s office wearing nothing but underwear made out of Saran wrap. The psychiatrist looks at him and says, "Well, I can clearly see you’re nuts."

15) Beer is in the top three on my list of most important inventions of all time, with only toilet paper and nachos beating it out for the top spot.

16) I have a deep, abiding hatred for cantaloupe. If bacon is a 10, cantaloupe is a negative 3000.

17) I was born without the ability to have any sympathy whatsoever for whining. This makes parenting difficult sometimes.

18) My father was a commercial airline pilot, and observing him while growing up has made me completely unqualified to fly anything.

19) My mother is a published author, and observing her while growing up has made me completely unqualified to write anything, but I’m doing it anyway.

20) My wife is still laughing right now about number 1.

So there you have it, folks. You now know everything you need to know about me. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week.

Happy New Year, everybody!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

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