This Column is Going Downhill Again

Our regularly scheduled column has been rudely preempted by Ski Week, again!!

Yes, that’s right, I said Ski Week. Instead of celebrating the glorious birthdays of Martin Van Buren and William Henry Harrison on two separate Mondays in February, like we all did when we were young, our school district changed things up a few years ago. Apparently, they think we’re all rich.

They tacked on three extra president’s days to the previous two, and lined them all up in a row this week. This phenomenon is nicknamed “Ski Week,” so the idea, apparently, is that we’re all supposed to head up to the slopes and spend the education-free week on a ski vacation. I guess I forgot to let our school district know that we don’t have thirty-eight thousand dollars lying around for just such an occasion.

And our school district failed to check with any of the surrounding districts to see if they were also populated by the idle rich and doing the same thing. Turns out they’re not. Since my wife teaches in a neighboring district, our ski week, could we afford it, would be momless.

Sure, we might be able to shave a few thousand bucks off the total cost with one less lift ticket and no overpriced ski lodge chardonnay, but if you think I’m taking these three monkeys skiing by myself, you’ve obviously been drinking something a lot stronger than wine.

So, what I’m telling you is, the kids in Rocklin, which unfortunately includes MY kids, have the ENTIRE damn week off. And not only that, but this particular week has weekends on BOTH sides of it! Do you know what that means? It means my three boys have been here at home with me now for five whole days in a row already, and we still have four more whole days, also in that row, left before they go back to school.

Those of you with kids, or those of you who have met kids before, should now understand the fact that I’ve got nothing done in the last five days, and that trend will continue for the next four. In particular, I haven’t been able to write this column. I haven’t been able to do anything useful. (Author’s note to aspiring writers: Take notice of how I deftly implied that this column is actually useful through the trickery of italics, even though there is absolutely no historical evidence that would support that claim.)

So, to all of you who are not currently on a weeks-long ski vacation, I apologize for not having a column for you today. I don’t know why our school district is choosing not to celebrate the President’s Days as our forefathers intended, but one thing is certain – our distinguished eighth and ninth presidents are rolling over in their ornate, gold and diamond-encrusted graves.

As for you folks who are swooshing down the slopes this week and sipping expensive ski lodge cocktails in plush leather chairs in front of magnificent fireplaces while I spend another day eating cold pizza and refereeing at the World Brothers Wrestling Federation, I’ll say this:

I am NOT sorry that I don’t have a column for you this week. You’re probably too busy to read it anyway, what with all your swooshing, and expensive sipping, and plush fireplace sitting, and stacking gold coins in your Rolls Royce, and snorting caviar, and whatever else it is you people do.

But I’m not bitter. I would never wish for you to have a skiing accident and break a bone or anything like that. That’s just not right.

But I do kinda wish you’d fall off your wallet in the lodge and get a mild sprain.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2021 Marc Schmatjen

 

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This Column is Going Downhill

Our regularly scheduled column has been rudely preempted by Ski Week.

Yes, that’s right, I said Ski Week. Instead of celebrating the glorious birthdays of Martin Van Buren and William Henry Harrison on two separate Mondays in February, like we all did when we were young, our school district changed things up. Apparently, they think we’re all rich.

They tacked on three extra president’s days to the previous two, and lined them all up in a row this week. This phenomenon is nicknamed “Ski Week,” so the idea, apparently, is that we’re all supposed to head up to the slopes and spend the education-free week on a ski vacation. I guess I forgot to let our school district know that we don’t have thirty-eight thousand dollars lying around for just such an occasion.

And our school district failed to check with any of the surrounding districts to see if they were also populated by the idle rich and doing the same thing. Turns out they’re not. Since my wife teaches in a neighboring district, our ski week, could we afford it, would be momless.

Sure, we might be able to shave a few thousand bucks off the total cost with one less lift ticket and no overpriced ski lodge chardonnay, but if you think I’m taking these three monkeys skiing by myself, you’ve obviously been drinking something a lot stronger than wine.

So, what I’m telling you is, the kids in Rocklin, which unfortunately includes MY kids, have the ENTIRE damn week off. And not only that, but this particular week has weekends on BOTH sides of it! Do you know what that means? It means my three boys have been here at home with me now for five whole days in a row already, and we still have four more whole days, also in that row, left before they go back to school.

Those of you with kids, or those of you who have met kids before, should now understand the fact that I’ve got nothing done in the last five days, and that trend will continue for the next four. In particular, I haven’t been able to write this column. I haven’t been able to do anything useful. (Author’s note to aspiring writers: Take notice of how I deftly implied that this column is actually useful through the trickery of italics, even though there is absolutely no historical evidence that would support that claim.)

So, to all of you who are not currently on a weeks-long ski vacation, I apologize for not having a column for you today. I don’t know why our school district is choosing not to celebrate the President’s Days as our forefathers intended, but one thing is certain – our distinguished eighth and ninth presidents are rolling over in their ornate, gold and diamond-encrusted graves.

As for you folks who are swooshing down the slopes this week and sipping expensive ski lodge cocktails in plush leather chairs in front of magnificent fireplaces while I spend another day eating cold pizza and refereeing at the World Brothers Wrestling Federation, I’ll say this:

I am NOT sorry that I don’t have a column for you this week. You’re probably too busy to read it anyway, what with all your swooshing, and expensive sipping, and plush fireplace sitting, and stacking gold coins in your Rolls Royce, and snorting caviar, and whatever else it is you people do.

But I’m not bitter. I would never wish for you to have a skiing accident and break a bone or anything like that. That’s just not right.

But I do kinda wish you’d fall off your wallet in the lodge and get a mild sprain.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2020 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!

Alert FEMA, there's a Stormy on the Horizon

My phone went crazy in my pocket today, buzzing like a giant insect and making a sound very similar in tone and annoyance factor to the noise made by my radio during an emergency broadcasting system test. At first, I thought I might be having another episode, so I was relieved to learn that it was just a test of the new Presidential Alert System for wireless devices.

Oh, that’s nice… Wait… the WHAT?

Oh, sweet mother Mary and Joseph! Do you mean to tell me that the U.S. government just gave President Trump unfettered access to text me? That can’t be good.

Looking into the news story, it turns out the Department of Homeland Security posted a reminder about the test on Twitter on Tuesday. I guess Twitter is how all branches of the government now communicate. They apparently attempted to reassure phone users that their numbers are not being shared with anyone. Umm, yeah, not being shared with anyone except YOU GUYS!

Reading further, the story said, While users can choose not to participate in messages of missing children and natural disasters, they are required to receive presidential alerts, which are sent out at the direction of the White House and activated by FEMA.

Rules outlined in a 2006 law states that the White House can issue a presidential alert only if the public were in peril, or during national emergencies. The alert cannot be a personal message on behalf of the president.

Well, that’s a relief! It can’t be a personal message from the president. But wait a minute… it says I’m allowed to opt out of emergency messages regarding natural disasters, but not out of messages from the president about national peril, which will come from FEMA? Correct me if I’m wrong here, but FEMA is our natural disaster organization. They are in charge of stepping in during a natural disaster and making it much worse.

So what other situations beside natural disasters could require the president to need to get in touch with me immediately? What will constitute “public peril” with our revolutionary new alert system?

I mean, the entire free world is obviously propped up and functioning only because of the amazing democracy and general badass-ness of the United States. So, ostensibly, anything that could upset that delicate balance of our constitutional liberty would then threaten the stability of our government, thereby threatening the stability of our entire nation, thrusting each and every citizen into peril. I mean, what would constitute more public peril than the crumbling of the governmental foundation we rely so dearly upon?

Truth be told, this new development wouldn’t be nearly as concerning if it was happening on another president’s watch. A quick search on the history of the cell phone tells us, surprisingly, that Richard Nixon could have been the first president to use a wireless Presidential Alert System.

The first call from a handheld mobile phone was made all the way back in 1973 on a Motorola phone, which was the approximately the size of twenty-six iPhones duct taped together. It took ten hours to charge and had a call time of just thirty minutes. That didn’t matter, though, because it was so heavy you could only hold it to your ear for a minute and a half.

Nixon could have sent out wireless emergency messages, but they would have only been received by three Americans – two Motorola executives and their golfing buddy who received one as a gift when they got tired of calling each other.

Cell phones have been improving on an exponential pace ever since, as has cell phone ownership, so later presidents would have had a progressively bigger audience. Still I think the Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 administrations would probably have been conservative in its use, had it been around. I’m not so sure about the Clinton presidency. I think we all might have received emergency presidential photos of his interns, asking us to rate them in overall hotness.

We know for sure that the Obama administration could be trusted with this newfound power of communication, because the news story tells us that the wireless alert system actually launched back in 2012, and as far as I know, today was our first Presidential Alert.

Something makes me doubt it will be our last.

We know the first tweet ever sent was in 2006. I’m not sure when the first presidential tweet was sent, or if it was from Bush or Obama, but I do know when the latest presidential tweet was sent. About thirty seconds ago. The next one will be along any minute.

I’m assuming there was a constitutional amendment in the works requiring all citizens to follow the president on Twitter, but now that point seems to be moot. Anything that affects the White House will trickle down to affecting the whole country, right? The citizens need to believe in their leader in order to have a strong country, right? I mean, even someone attempting to besmirch the president’s good name could constitute public peril if it was allowed to get out of hand, right!?

Fire up the texter, boys! We’ve got Presidential Alerts to send.

Maybe all the alerts go through FEMA because her name is Stormy?

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2018 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 Breakfast Club

It’s the day after election day in the craziest and most undesirable presidential election any of us have ever seen. Since Just a Smidge is not a political column, the only endorsement you’ll find here is for the Nacho Party. We love nachos here, and this is nacho political endorsement. I’m not here today to discuss the candidates or the new president, even if you wanted to, which you really don’t. You just want a drink. Go get one and come back. I’ll wait...

OK.

Even if I wanted to discuss how deeply ridiculous and troubling the quality of this presidential race was - which I don’t - that would be the wrong thing to worry about in this process. We should really be focusing on how ridiculous our election system is.

Don’t even get me started on the electoral college. Seriously, I can’t start. I don’t know what it is or why it is whatever it is. I was apparently absent during that day/week/month of middle school or junior high or high school or college when I was supposed to be taught how this whole thing works.

What I do know about it is that if you live in a state that doesn’t agree with your political views, it totally invalidates your vote.

Imagine this scenario. Ten people are trying to choose a movie to watch. You vote for Movie A, but you are sitting on a couch with four other people and three of them chose Movie B. The other couch had four people choose Movie A and only one chose movie B. Your Movie A won the popular vote six to four, but since your couch can only hold five people, and the other couch can hold eight, you all have to play Jenga instead of watching a movie. That’s how the electoral college works.

But never mind that. Just put that out of your head because there’s nothing we can do about the electoral college. Majority voting is unthinkable, and besides, counting every single vote, preventing people from voting twice, and preventing non-citizens or people who aren’t registered to vote from voting in this day and age is completely unrealistic.

We simply don’t have the technology. It’s not like we all have unique numbers assigned to us at birth that could be tracked in some sort of electronic database or something. That’s just crazy talk. Hang on, let me use my phone to track the exact location of my UPS package real quick...

OK, I’m back. That only took four seconds. What were we talking about? Oh, yeah. We don’t have the technology to get rid of the electoral college. Let’s focus instead on the fact that we have a multiple political party system where only two of the parties ever get to debate for your vote. Sure, Washington D.C. likes to placate you with some preliminary debates with a stage full of candidates, but come closer to election time the “presidential debates” only feature two out of the six candidates.

If they let all six candidates debate, you the voter might screw up the nice two-party system they love so much. It would be a whole lot harder to funnel all those tax dollars into their brother-in-law’s pockets if a bunch of Libertarian or Peace and Freedom party losers were hanging around D.C. watching what’s going on.

Since the two-party system is the only way to keep all the money and power in the hands of the little club that knows what’s best for you, the lowly voter, it’s best if they don’t let you get too out of control with a lot of choices.

Think of it in terms of breakfast cereal, since it’s harder to do this example with nachos.

You can only have one breakfast cereal for the next four years, but since this is a free country, you get to choose. There are at least six cereals to choose from. One out of six is pretty good odds. You should be able to find one you like.

OK, let’s get to taste-testing.

Great. Here are your two choices.

Wait, what about the six?

We decided you didn’t need to sample the other four.

But I wanted to try all six.

No. Two is enough for a taste test.

But you didn’t even let me choose which two I get to taste.

These two are our best sellers. Just taste these two.

But I want to taste all six.

We don’t have the time or the money for all that tasting.

That’s ridiculous. Just give them to me and I’ll taste them all.

No can do. Just taste these two here and choose one.

What if I don’t like either of them?

No problem. You can always choose any one of the six.

But I have no idea what they taste like!

Look at the boxes.

How do I know what’s inside?

We labeled them for you.

That’s ridiculous. I can’t choose without tasting them.

You have to pick.

This is ridiculous.

It’s time.

Well, crap. I guess I’ll take this one.

Sorry, you’re on the wrong couch.

That’s the U.S. election process, folks. Until we vote them ALL out, nothing changes. Enjoy your crap-tastic flax nuggets with extra yellow dye number five.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2016 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!

Let's Make America Awesomer

We have no good options left, America. This election is looking like a choice between Holy Crap! and Are You Kidding Me? That’s why during the recent Cinco de Mayo tequila tasting at my house, a new partnership was formed to give you, the concerned voters of America, a more palatable option. Derek Miller (my neighbor) and I will be running mates for president. I lost the Ro-Sham-Bo for the vice president slot, so I’m the presidential candidate.

Now, I know many of you might be saying to yourself, “But I don’t know Derek Miller.” That’s a fair concern, so let me tell you a little about him. He’s tall and handsome with no hideous facial scarring, he has an actual job and a lovely family, he has some really good tequila at his house, and he’s not Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

I’m sure many of you are also saying, “Can Smidge really be president? Is he qualified? All I’ve ever seen him actually do is be sarcastic. What is his IQ?” Those are also fair concerns, so let me put your mind at ease. Technically and legally I can be president, and after the presidents I’ve seen in my lifetime I’m starting to think I might be overqualified. I think the office needs a lot more sarcasm, and as for my IQ... that’s none of your business. Sure, I have no idea where Kazakhstan is, but does anyone? And does it really matter? Of course not.

And I’m also not Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

I think I’ve made the case for Schmatjen/Miller 2016.

At this point, I’m not sure we can actually get on the ballot, chiefly because neither of us have looked into it at all, so please just write us in.

And we only have $2.58 in our campaign fund, which was the amount of money we got from recycling the Cinco de Mayo beer bottles, so donations would be greatly appreciated.

Even after all the good reasons I’ve already given you for voting for us, if you’re still on the fence, here’s a list of our major platforms. (This is only a partial list since we’re still trying to remember everything we came up with that night. Seis de Mayo was a little foggy.)

First and foremost, free beer for every person in the U.S.A. That’s a no-brainer. We did the math, and with 323 million people in the country getting a fourteen dollar twelve-pack of beer each month, it only costs us $54.3 billion. Done! We can handle that just by eliminating the State Department.

And keep in mind, in case you think we’re being stingy, you get a twelve-pack for every person in your family. If you are married with three kids, and grandma lives with you, that’s six cases of beer headed your way each month, like a huge, frosty-cold paycheck. And if you’re like me and have Mormon or Muslim friends and neighbors - score! They usually have a ton of kids, and you can probably have their beer, too.

Speaking of eliminating the State Department, we’re going to be doing a lot of that as well. The short list of redundant federal departments doing things that are already being handled by the states will get $336 billion back in our pockets. Goodbye Departments of Energy, Education, Labor, and Transportation. It was nice knowing you.

You nice folks can have that money back in the form of a $1000 check for every single person in your family. Spend it however you want, America.

In the interest of inclusion, all this applies to the nice folks in our outlying territories as well. It’s about time they got full citizenship, voting rights, and free beer. And it’s about time we got five new states. Welcome to statehood, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. Glad to have you aboard.

Subsequently, we’ll be launching an exploratory committee to figure out how best to fit five more stars on the flag, and also to determine where exactly those five new states are. The committee will also look into whether Costa Rica is the same thing as Puerto Rico. There has been some question.

Back in D.C., we’ll be firing everyone we have the power to fire. Then we’ll hire lawyers to figure out a way to fire the people who say we don’t have the power to fire the other people. Then we’ll fire all the lawyers.

We’re going to pay ourselves $10 million a year for the eight years we’ll obviously be in office, but don’t worry. That’s only a couple of drips from the faucet in Washington, and it will reassure you that we’re not for sale to special interest groups. We’ll still take tons of money from special interest groups, but we’ll turn around and give it all to you! As a thank-you, you guys can vote to repeal term limits for us. That’s a win-win.

And lastly, we’ll immediately instate Cinco de Mayo as an official national holiday, on par with the Fourth of July and Memorial Day. To reduce any potential hurt feelings or appearance of North American favoritism, we’ll also adopt a lesser Canadian holiday to be named later.

Also, recognizing the brilliance of the New Year’s Day holiday immediately following the New Year’s Eve celebration, all national holidays will now have a minimum of two days off work and school. Welcome, Fifth of July and Seis de Mayo. You’ve always been there, but now you’re official.

Thanks for your support, and tell your friends.

“In 2016, write in Schmatjen/Miller. Free beer and money is totally killer.”

I’ll get back to you if we come up with a better slogan, or if we can remember any more of our great ideas on how to make America awesomer.

Vote early and often!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2016 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!