There may be no sadder word in the English language than the word paracme. I’d never heard of it until an NPR story a couple of years ago, so don’t feel bad if you don’t know it.According to the Oxford English Dictionary, paracme means, “A point or period at which the prime or highest vigour is past.”Essentially, paracme means you’re a has-been. The pinnacle, the zenith, the climax of your life happens. Everything after that is paracme.It’s not a pleasant thing to think about. The pinnacle of our lives probably doesn’t last very long. If we’re lucky it’s not just a moment, but rather days, or months, maybe even years. Whatever and whenever it is, it’s likely that paracme lasts much longer.Our ChicagoNow blogging community challenge this week is to write about our “Favorite Year.”I’m lucky enough that it’s easy to choose some good years. I’ve got four kids, a wonderful wife, great friends, and I had the best childhood ever. My entire life has been filled with good years. Almost embarrassingly so.But if I have to choose my favorite year, then I’m choosing this year.No, not 2014 necessarily, but this year. Whatever year it is when the question is asked. If you pose the question to me right now, then I’ll say 2014 is my favorite year. If you ask me 13 weeks from today, on New Year’s Day, I’ll say 2015 is my favorite year.To answer any other way would be a step toward admitting that I might just be in paracme, and for the love of God, I refuse to think about that.Another way to think about the question of my favorite year would be to look to the future. Maybe next year should be my favorite year. After all, if the story of humankind is that of continual progress, then next year should be better than this year, right?However, if we always look forward to next year, then don’t we risk not appreciating this year? And wouldn’t it be horrendous if this year ended up being a hundred times better than next year, but we missed out because we were too busy thinking about next year?No, if we want to think about our favorite year, we’d do best to concentrate on the year we’re in.I mentioned my four kids. Ever since I became a father I’ve told myself to appreciate that particular day. Even when they were babies and they were crabby because they were teething, or they puked for three days straight, or when they don’t listen now that they’re older, I remind myself that they’ll never be that age again. Savor it. Appreciate it.I’m a sentimental guy and I spend plenty of time thinking about fun times that I’ve had in the past. My memory works in such a way that I can think of a particular event and often instantly bring myself back to it.But if I believed that one of those memories was the zenith of my life then it’d be rather difficult to look back so fondly, I think. It might be easy to become bitter at the thought that things will never be as good as they were then.Instead, it’s better to look at the past, appreciate it, remember it, and then think of things that are happening right at that moment for which you’ll develop fondness five or ten or fifteen years later. Tomorrow makes today cool, but by the time you realize today is cool it’s already over.So I’ll look forward to next year. “Wait ‘til next year” isn’t a popular slogan for nothing. And I’ll still think about last year. “Those were the days,” Edith and Archie Bunker sang.But if you want to know my favorite year, then I’m happy to say that we’re living in it. There’s only one 2014, and I’m not going to let it slip away. Whether I’m playing outside with my kids, or reading a book, or writing a blog, or out on a date with my wife, or stuck at work, or cutting the grass, or hiking a two-hundred-foot sand dune, today’s the day.It’s the only one we’ve got.Like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes.Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.
The Years I Played Baseball
For twelve years in a row I spent my summers playing baseball. I started with T-ball when I was five years old, and played through the summer that I turned sixteen.Sandy Koufax also played twelve years, but that’s where the similarities between the two of us end.My dad instilled a love of the game in me at an early age. I have vivid memories of watching Cubs games in the living room on a small television that sat on top of a larger television that didn’t work. We used Visegrips to turn the channel. During the summer, my dad would call from work, and my sisters or I would have to put the phone next to the television speaker so he could hear the score.Such was baseball’s importance in our house.When I played baseball the entire family was involved. My dad helped run the league, my mom was in charge of the concession stand, and my two sisters and I would spend afternoons at the field doing maintenance before the games began at night.For about half the years that I played, my dad managed my team. That didn’t mean that I got more playing time than everyone else. My dad made sure every kid on the team played the same number of innings throughout the season. Perhaps that’s why we never finished a season better than 8-8.We had fun though. Any kid who ever played on any one of the teams that my dad coached ended up having fun. We were competitive, but we were there to have fun. After all, we were just a bunch of kids playing a game. No need to take it too seriously.I was fortunate enough to be a pretty good player. I was a very good pitcher, and a decent hitter. I was solid on defense, and had a good arm, but my dad used to tease me that I ran like I had a piano on my back.The summer when I was thirteen was particularly brutal. That’s when we made the shift from the Little League-sized field to the major league-sized field. The basepaths were longer, the pitcher and the outfield fence farther away. I ended up with three or four hits that season, in about 45 at-bats. Brutal.The next year my dad didn’t plan to manage, but at the last minute another manager quit. I was already on a team though, so when my dad volunteered to manage, it meant that we’d be on different teams. Twice that season my team played his team. We lost both times. I thought maybe he would try to throw the games—you know, me being his son and all—but he didn’t, and I’m glad.At sixteen we played on a travel team. It was the first time, other than all-stars, that I played on a really good team. I had a good year and continued to improve.However, like almost every single kid that ever played baseball, reality eventually set in.At the end of the season of my sixteenth summer, I got a job at a grocery store. Baseball season was over, I was getting my license, I wanted a car.By the next summer, the job and the car took precedence over baseball. I never played in a league again.The job is just an excuse, actually. I was good, but I was cut from my freshman and sophomore year baseball team, just like Michael Jordan on his basketball team. I was no Michael Jordan. So I have no illusions that I would have been able to play college or professional baseball. The odds of anyone doing that are miniscule.I still think about those years playing baseball though. The friends I made, the teams we hated, the jokes we pulled, the injuries sustained. Entire Saturdays spent at the little league field. The bat stinging my hands at the early-April practices. Diving catches. Base hits. A ground ball double play to end a season. The stillness on the field, under the lights, after the last game of the night when everyone else is gone and my dad and another guy are dragging the dirt. My mom telling me I played a good game, even though I struck out four times and made three errors.Twelve years may seem like a long time, but it goes by in the blink of an eye. And when it’s gone, it’s gone. Then all we have is memories.And baseball. Because even though I’m not playing, it’s still there for the next kid.This was written as part of ChicagoNow's monthly Blogapalooz-Hour, in which bloggers are given a prompt, and then have one hour to write. The prompt that elicited the above post was to write about something in my life that I've given up, but that I wish I still did. You can read other blogger's entries here: https://storify.com/ChicagoNow/chicagonow-s-blogapalooz-hour-volume-xiiiLike my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes.Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.
Short Fiction: Pizza Please
“I’ll be back at nine o’clock to pick her up,” the woman said. Marcy Plimpton nodded, smiled and began closing the door. “Is that okay?” the woman asked. “Nine o’clock? Tomorrow morning.”Marcy opened the door. “That’ll be fine,” she said. “All of the other girls’ parents are planning to pick them up around that time, too.”“Good,” the woman said. “And be sure to call me if Sophia needs anything. She’s never spent the night away from family before. She’s only been away from me one night. So if she gets scared or sad or whatever, give me a call. I texted my number to you when I RSVP’d. Do you still have it?”“I’m sure I do,” Marcy said, as she tried to shut the door again.“She’ll be fine though,” the woman said. “I’m sure she will.”“I’m sure she will, too. Goodnight.”With that, Marcy closed the door. Sophia was the ninth girl to arrive in the last fifteen minutes, and all but one of the mothers sought the requisite reassurances that their little darling would be just fine. As a mother Marcy had failed to inherit the worry gene. She always assumed everything would turn out fine unless she had reason to think otherwise. Mothers who required constant reassurance annoyed her to no end.She walked down the hallway and joined the ten girls, including her daughter, Audrey. They all stood around the kitchen counter, half of them with phones in their hand, and laughed as one girl told a story about a boy named Owen.Marcy stood in the shadows and listened for a couple of minutes as the storyteller reached the climactic point of the story in which Owen fell off his bike while trying to do a wheelie to impress her.The girls roared in laughter and nodded in approval as the storyteller described how Owen landed on his butt and held his cheeks with both hands as he limped away.“He deserves it,” one girl said. “He’s always trying to act cool.”“Yeah, he has to act cool because there’s no way he can ever be cool.”“No way,” four girls said in unison.“I hope he’s limping for the rest of the year,” Audrey said. “He’s a creep.”Marcy planned to wait for a lull in the conversation, but then she remembered that eleven-year-old girls don’t have conversation lulls, so she interrupted.“All right, who likes pizza?” she asked.The girls all raised their hands, and three girls exclaimed, “I love pizza!”“Should we order some? I’ve got snacks and drinks, but those are for later.”“Yeah, we’re going to stay up all night,” Audrey said. “My mom said there’s no bedtime for us tonight.”“Really?” a few of the girls asked.Marcy nodded. “But you all have to be ready to go when your parents pick you up in the morning.”An eruption of cheerful approval.“Now, who wants pizza?”“Pizza Please!” one girl shouted.“Yeah, can we order from Pizza Please?” another girl said.“Pizz-Za Please. Pizz-Za Please. Pizz-Za Please,” the girls chanted in unison. They banged their hands on the counter to emphasize their point, and when that wasn’t loud enough they stomped their feet.“Everyone wants Pizza Please?” Marcy asked.The girls cheered.Pizza Please opened two years before and did almost no business for the first eighteen months of their existence. Then during the previous winter a Hollywood celebrity stopped in while driving through town, mentioned it on his Twitter account, and ever since Pizza Please had been the most famous pizza joint in the country.Marcy phoned in the order—two large cheese and one large sausage—confirmed that they’d still deliver to the house despite its somewhat rural location just outside city limits, and went down to the basement where the girls had relocated and were now in the midst of dancing (more like maniacally writhing and jumping) to a song that Marcy couldn’t identify.Twenty minutes later, in the interlude between songs, Marcy heard the doorbell. “Pizza’s here!” she said.The girls again began chanting. “Pizz-Za Please! Pizz-Za Please! Pizz-Za Please!” and paraded up the steps into the dining room.“Coming!” Marcy yelled as the doorbell rang again. She wondered if the deliveryman could hear the herd of preteen footsteps stampeding through the house.She opened the door, and a gust of wind almost pulled the knob from her hand. “I didn’t realize it was raining,” she said to the deliveryman. Sheets of rain blew across the yard from the direction of the house, which provide some shelter for the poor deliveryman on the front step. Still he wore a poncho buttoned up to his neck, with a hood pulled down over his eyes. “How much do I owe you?”The deliveryman chuckled for no reason, and then said “$32.75.”Just then a shriek came from behind her as all the girls reacted to the something at once.“It’s so crazy in here. My daughter’s having a sleepover for her birthday,” Marcy said. “I don’t have a headache yet, but I’m sure it’s coming.”The deliveryman chuckled and gave Marcy the pizzas. “Oh, new boxes?” she asked.“It’s been a busy night,” the man said. “We ran out of our normal boxes a little while ago, so it’s the plain boxes for tonight. The pizza’s the same though.” He chuckled again.Marcy gave him a twenty, a ten and a five and told him to the keep the change. The man nodded, chuckled, and walked away.The girls accosted Marcy as she made her way into the room with the pizza, and she had to use a stern voice to tell them to be patient. They’d always thought of her as the Cool Mom, so hearing her yell brought a hush over the room.She passed out the pizza, and the girls ate in silence for a few minutes, until Marcy mentioned a teenage singer, and the girls realized her sternness had been temporary.After everyone ate they returned to the basement and danced, although somewhat less enthusiastically, heeding Marcy’s warning about the danger of mixing stomachs full of pizza with intense physical activity. No one wanted to be forever known as the Girl Who Threw Up At The Party.When they had their fill of dancing, Marcy bounded up the stairs to get makeup and nail polish to begin the salon portion of the evening. As she reached the top step she heard the doorbell. All the girls showed up on time, and they weren’t expecting anyone else, so Marcy immediately thought a worried mother had returned.She opened the door and saw a teenage boy standing in front of her, pizza delivery bag in hand, and a cap with the familiar Pizza Please logo on it.“Can I help you?” Marcy asked.“I have a delivery for Marcy,” the boy said. “I’m sorry it took so long. We’re super busy and I’m the only driver tonight.”“Uh, I already got my pizzas,” Marcy said.“You already got your pizzas?” The boy pulled a receipt out of the delivery bag. “It says right here two large cheese and a large sausage. Is this the right address?” He took a step back, looked at the address on the house, and said, “Yeah, that’s it.”“But a man already delivered our pizzas. About half an hour ago. Two cheese and a sausage.”“I’m the only driver tonight,” the boy said. “The other two guys called off.”“No, we already ate our pizzas. Another man brought them. He had on a poncho. He told me about how you guys ran out of boxes so they had to use the plain boxes.”“Ran out of boxes? That’s crazy. We’ve never run out of boxes. They have stacks of those things up to the ceiling. What kind of pizza place runs out of boxes?” He pulled the boxes from the delivery bag, and sure enough, they were the usual boxes, with the Pizza Please logo right on top.“But we already have our pizza. The man…” Marcy looked behind the teenager, as if she expected to see the first deliveryman standing there. “And we ate…” she said, as she turned around and looked at the kitchen.“Hey, don’t worry about it,” the teenager said. “My boss said these are free anyway. Everyone’s waiting so long we can’t possibly charge them for the pizza.” Marcy said nothing. She just stood there looking at the teenager, trying to figure out what was going on. The boy handed the pizzas to her, and she took them without thinking about it. “No charge for the pizza,” he said. “We’re happy to bring it out to you. All the way out here. On such a busy night.”Marcy understood the man’s disguised tip request. “Oh, sure. Absolutely.” She put the pizzas down, grabbed two dollar bills and gave them to the teenager. He thanked her, walked away, and left her standing in the doorway.The thump of the car door as the teenager closed it startled Marcy and cleared her head. She raced to the kitchen and picked up the phone to dial the police. After she dialed the 9, she thought better of it, and instead decided to dial Pizza Please. Surely they’d have some rational explanation.She put down the phone and went to the refrigerator, opened the door, and saw one plain brown pizza box, the remnants of the first pizza. She wasn’t going crazy.Pizza Please’s phone number was right at the top of the receipt she’d been given by the teenager, and now that she thought of it, the first driver hadn’t given her a receipt. He hadn’t worn a Pizza Please hat. And what about those plain brown boxes?Marcy’s heart raced as she picked up the phone, hit the talk button, and held it to her ear to check for a dial tone before calling the restaurant.Instead she heard a familiar chuckle.
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Bad Driving and Satisfying Solutions
I can’t be the only person who knows how to drive, can I? Obviously there are many people behind the wheel, but as I sat in traffic on Interstate 94 in northwest Indiana yesterday afternoon, I did some rough calculations, and discovered that—Holy Crap!—I am the only person who knows how to drive.Or so it seems.How else can I explain the hair-pullingly idiotic actions of so many people behind the wheel? Sure, there’s my trusty stand-by explanation of “People are idiots!” but, as is often the case, that seems an oversimplification. So all I’m left with is the conclusion that most people just never learned to drive in the first place.Take merging, for example. The great, all-knowing people who plan road construction projects have come up with a fool-proof system to help alleviate traffic jams. They put signs up a mile or two before a lane ends so that drivers know that the lane is ending and they can merge into the lane next to them.John Q. Idiot behind the wheel is given plenty of notice that the lane they’re in will be no more. But instead of doing the reasonable thing for the good of the whole, which is to merge into the next lane, John Q. Idiot decides to continue in his lane until he can go no further, and then merge.This is great for Mr. Idiot. He doesn’t have to wait in line, and inevitably some poor sap with a smaller sense of entitlement will let him into the open lane at the last minute. And since we’re all wrapped up in our automotive cocoons, Mr. Idiot doesn’t really have to show his face to the hundreds of other sensible, patient, for-the-good-of-the-group non-Idiots.John Q. Idiot doesn’t just live up to his name when traffic is slowed or stopped though. He’s true to form when traffic’s moving as well.I often see Mr. Idiot come up behind me in the left lane as I’m passing other cars. My willful disregard for the posted speed limit isn’t enough for Mr. Idiot. He wants to more willfully disregard it. My ten miles over the speed limit pales in comparison to his desire to drive twenty-five, or thirty miles over the speed limit.And it’s big trouble for me if I don’t immediately impede my own progress and merge behind a slower car so Mr. Idiot isn’t forced to curtail his own maniacal speed. Behold the wrath of the flashing headlights as Mr. Idiot makes his displeasure clear as he approaches a sea of cars that doesn’t immediately part.These problems are further complicated by the fact that I am not an idiot. So when John Q. Idiot does these things, I don’t give him the finger, or shout obscenities, or prevent him from merging, or slam on my brakes. Those are John Q. Idiot responses. Things like that plant the seeds of road rage. Instead, for the good of everyone on the road, I shake my head, curse under my breath, and continue on my journey.Wouldn’t it be great if we could figure out a way to tell John Q. Idiot what we thought of him?I’d love to invent a new horn. A multifunctional horn. So instead of just honking it—which I also avoid doing—and having just one sound come out, it’d be great if there were different sounds for different occasions.It could be like the hand wave, which every driver knows means “thank you.” But instead, it would have different tones, sort of like Morse code. So you push one button on your steering wheel and out come two long beeps and a chirp sound, and everyone knows that means “You’re an asshole!” Or another button lets out one long chime, one beep and a squeak and everyone knows that means “I hope you get a flat tire!”Ahh the gratification!You could do nice messages, too. A short foghorn, and a long warble would mean “I like your car.”Those wouldn’t be as much fun though.
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We Should be Like Banned Books
In case you haven’t noticed—which is probably impossible, since I’ve seen it mentioned everywhere recently—it’s Banned Books Week. This is the week that the American Library Association has chosen to spotlight the ridiculous existence of banned and challenged books.It’s rather hard to believe that people are still challenging books. There are celebrities known for their sex tapes, football players known for their arrest records, and 75% of high school students in Oklahoma can’t name the first president of the United States. (Not many books read among those three groups, are there?)So how is anyone shocked or offended by something in a book?Yet the effort to ban certain books continues. The American Library Association has an Office for Intellectual Freedom that tallies the effort to ban books. Yahoos who want to ban books attempt to do so for a variety of reasons. Here’s a small sample of their book-banning justifications: offensive language, violence, sexual explicitness, religious viewpoint, homosexuality, Occult/Satanism, and political viewpoint.The book with the most attempts to ban it last year? Captain Underpants, for offensive language, because it’s unsuited for its age group, and violence. Maybe they should put a sticker on it that says “Not intended for adults!” At least that might take care of the “unsuited for age group” problem.I suppose there will always be some narrow-minded people who think we’ll be better off if we ban certain books. And thought they might mean well, there’s no doubt they’re narrow-minded.There are plenty of people who will make the case against banning books. I don’t need to do that, and, since you’re so stinking smart (I mean you are reading this blog after all!) hopefully you don’t need me to do that.Instead, I’ll suggest that we should strive to be like the banned books.People try to ban books because the books make them uncomfortable, or they depict things that they’re not used to reading about, or they contain ideas that they don’t like.We should strive to be like that.It’s easy to go along with the crowd, and think like everyone else, and never do anything that will rock the boat. But we have enough people who do that already.Better that we propose new ideas, or challenge authority, or question the reasoning behind something, and then watch as things improve, both for us and for society. The only way to progress is to challenge what’s already there, and that’s what these books do. That’s why some people are scared of them.Since you’re so smart, you’re probably wondering, “Why would I want to be like Captain Underpants?” or “What greatness has come from Captain Underpants?”Captain Underpants is a series of children’s books, in which the adults usually play the fool. And there’s nothing more entertaining to children than when they’re right and the adults are wrong. The adults cause the problems and the children have the solutions. So obviously children are going to be entertained and enjoy reading these stories.But perhaps they’re more than entertainment. If a kid reads Captain Underpants and sees that sometimes the kids are right and the adults are wrong, then maybe they’ll realize that people in authority aren’t always right. And maybe they’ll begin to ask questions about other things. And there’s nothing more valuable to a person or to society than asking questions.We should strive to ask questions. We should strive to try new things. We should strive to challenge those who provide answers like, “That’s just the way things are,” or “It will never change,” or, even more dangerously, “You can’t do that.”People try to ban books because they ask questions. Maybe those questions aren’t explicit, but they’re there. And when we read them, we ask questions. And when we ask questions, we change. We progress. We’re happier. We’re smarter. The world becomes better.So the irony of banned books is that the people banning the books think they have all the answers, but really what they want is for us to not even ask the questions.By the way, if you like what you're reading here, you should like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes.You should subscribe to this blog, don't you think? That way you'll never forget to come back. Forgetting is bad. So why don't you just type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.
Why I Secretly Hope my Kids Won't Listen to Me
I’ve always thought that I speak English, and that my wife speaks English. We understand each other well enough, and other people who speak English understand me. And damn it, this is America, and I frequently hear people say, “We speak English in America!”So then why the hell can’t my kids understand me when I tell them to do something?If I had a dollar for every time the past week or two that I’ve had to tell my kids to do something more than once, I’d have enough damn money to go somewhere exotic, where people don’t speak English!And since we’re not idiotic, absentee parents, we’ve chosen not to beat our kids into submission. So in the parental bag of tricks, that leaves only our wits and guile. Luckily, we have those in spades.In order to get my kids to listen better, I’m going to stop listening to them. By my calculations, it’ll only take a few well-placed “Oh, I didn’t hear you” responses before they begin to catch my drift.And the best part? I’m actually sort of looking forward to it!We’ve got four kids—aged 17, 10, 8 and 3—so my wife and I make a variety of demands each day. You’d think that at some age kids would become better listeners, but that doesn’t seem to happen until they get much older. Like 30.Until then, let’s have some fun being parents who don’t listen!My oldest daughter works at the YMCA and every week her work schedule changes. She’s constantly saying things like, “Pick me up at 6:45 tonight.”Easy enough, right? Well after I put on my kid ears, I’ll fail to hear the 6:45 part. So when 6:45 arrives and there’s no one there to pick her up, maybe she’ll think about better listening skills, or maybe even learn a little geography as she tries to navigate her way home.If nothing else she’ll thank us someday for providing her with a good story to tell her own kids. “You think you have it bad? Your two-bit grandparents used to leave me at work on purpose. Then I’d have to walk 10 miles home, while worrying whether some loser in a creepmobile was going to pick me up and take me God-knows-where. Count your blessings, kid!”My oldest son brings a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to school for lunch every day. Even though we know this, my wife and I always ask him what he wants for lunch the next day, as if he’s going to surprise us and ask for a Brussels sprout and beet salad.I’d love to see the look on his face when I misunderstand his standard “peanut butter and jelly sandwich” reply for “refried beans and tomato paste sandwich.” The colors should be similar, so it’s possible he won’t even notice until he takes a bite.“Who made my lunch today?” he’d ask when he got home. And my wife would say, “Dad, why?” And he’d go on to explain in great detail the horrific sandwich given to him, and how it was so disgusting, and how he couldn’t even eat it.And then at the end my wife would say nothing, and my son would say, “Mom!” when he realized she hadn’t listened to a word he said.My younger son is the most athletically-inclined of all my children. He’s been training himself to do pull-ups recently, and he’s been obsessed with planking for almost a year. He’s always asking us to time him to see how long he can plank.So maybe next time he’s planking, and he tells me to time him, I’ll say “okay” and then just sit there. He’ll plank for two, three, four minutes, and eventually become so tired that he collapses chest-first onto the floor. He’ll look up at me, out of breath, and ask, “How long was that?”And I’ll say, “Was I supposed to be timing you?”And don’t think that just because she’s three-years-old that my youngest daughter is off the hook. Oh no! She loves to go to the park, so maybe next time she asks, I’ll say yes, and then after she’s put her shoes on and she’s waiting by the door, and she’s calling my name to bring her outside, I’ll just act like I don’t even hear her.Eventually she’ll get so impatient that she’ll come upstairs and hunt me down. And inevitably she’ll yell, “Dad, when are we going to the park?” and I’ll say, “What?” like we didn’t just talk about it.Doesn’t that sound fun?This post is so lonely. It wants to meet some new people. Can't you please share it? You don't want to be responsible for a lonely post, do you?+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++By the way, if you like what you're reading here, you should like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes.You should subscribe to this blog, don't you think? That way you'll never forget to come back. Forgetting is bad. So why don't you just type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.
Warning: It's Wife Appreciation Day!
My calendar almost got me killed today. Somehow it managed to figure out that the first day of Autumn is tomorrow, and Rosh Hashanah begins on Wednesday, yet it has nothing but silence for today. And that's very dangerous.If you don't know why, then you might be in trouble.Today is Wife Appreciation Day. Look it up. I'm not kidding.How on earth can a calendar overlook such a thing? I can think of few other days of the year more important to be aware of than Wife Appreciation Day. Mother's Day, for sure. And I'd say that my wife's birthday and our wedding anniversary fall into that category as well, but those days are different for everyone, so I'll cut the calendar some slack.But Wife Appreciation Day? Come on. That day needs to be in bold on every single calendar ever produced.Now you may say that it's such a minor holiday and so few people observe it that it doesn't really matter. And I agree. However, it's one of those holidays where it doesn't matter what everyone else thinks. It only matters what your wife thinks.As that great philosopher, Mr. T, always says, I pity the fool who's unaware that today is Wife Appreciation Day, while his wife has had it circled on her calendar for months. It's probably been a day of increasingly cold silence around that poor schmuck's house, and it's not going to get any better.Luckily, my wife is stupendous. She told me about Wife Appreciation Day this afternoon. And while she suggested that cheesecake might be a great way to celebrate, she didn’t want me to go through the trouble. Instead, I just fed her fountain Diet Coke addiction, and she was happy.And that’s just a small example of why I consider every day Wife Appreciation Day!However, my wife is one-in-a-million, so if you have a wife, and you don’t know what today is, you might be in trouble. I wish I had some sage words of advice that would be helpful, but I don’t. Instead all I can offer are a few tidbits to help you avoid making the situation worse.First, don’t ask her if she knows it’s Wife Appreciation Day. It’s best to assume that she does know, but also pretend that you don’t know. Then figure out a way to show her you appreciate her.No, I can’t do this part for you. Take some initiative, lazy ass. You know your wife, I don’t. If you can’t figure out a way to show her that you appreciate her, then this single day isn’t your biggest problem.If your wife figures out what’s going on and accuses you of false appreciation only because it’s Wife Appreciation Day, and she’s upset, do not make the “when’s Husband Appreciation Day” argument. This is the tactic of scoundrels and you’re only going to seem like an idiot if you ask such a question. (But just so you know, Husband Appreciation Day is April 18 next year!)Also, say nothing about Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, her birthday, your anniversary, or any other day of the year set aside for her. She doesn’t want to hear it. She’s married to a guy who doesn’t appreciate her, and can’t even act like it for a day. You think she cares whether you think she’s got too many holidays? She doesn’t, so shut the hell up.And lastly, do not, under any circumstances, say something like, “Well the wife of the guy who writes the blog didn’t care about this holiday.” Leave me and my wife out of it. Don’t make us scapegoats for your thickheadedness. Not all wives can be awesome. I hit the jackpot. That’s just the way it goes. Sour grapes isn’t going to make it any better.The better path is to acknowledge your former ignorance, apologize, and never forget again.And by the way, it wouldn’t hurt to show some appreciation in the process. You’re undoubtedly better off with her than you would be without her, whatever delusional notions you have of the bachelor lifestyle. So stop reading and get to it. Show her that you appreciate it her.She deserves it.I've written this. You've read this. Now share it and like it. Please!+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++By the way, if you like what you're reading here, you should like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes.You should subscribe to this blog, don't you think? That way you'll never forget to come back. Forgetting is bad. So why don't you just type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.
iPhone Release Day Enthusiasm
It’s iPhone Day! It’s iPhone Day! Can you believe it? I’m so stinking excited I can’t stand it. I’ve been waiting in line for twenty-nine hours so I can be sure to get my new iPhone as soon as possible. And now it’s only about an hour until the Apple store opens and I can get my brand spanking new iPhone.I’m writing this post on my MacBook Pro, which has a long battery life, and a 15-inch retina display, both of which helped me get through the chilly Chicago night in my lawn chair on Michigan Avenue.It’s been a long night, but a fun one. There are plenty of other people to talk to, and when we run out of things to say we just listen to the new U2 album, which Apple so graciously added to my iTunes account. I didn’t even have to ask for it!I’m so glad they gave it to me though. I didn’t even know U2 was still making music. Luckily, Apple knows just what I want, and they were smart enough to release the new iPhone 6 right after U2’s album, so now we’ll all have these fancy new phones to listen to the album. What a coincidence!This new iPhone is going to be so awesome. It’s got a 1.4 GHz processor, which is a full .1 faster than last year’s version. .1 I say! And the display…Holy Moses the display! The basic phone is now 4.7 inches, which is .7 inches larger than the previous phone. And Apple really knows what we want so the iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5 inch display. Another eight-tenths of an inch! Do you have any idea what we can do with an additional eight-tenths of an inch? Well, neither do I, but I’m sure it’s something awesome!Oh, and I haven’t even touched on the thickness of the phone yet. It’s so thin! I mean when you hold it on its side you can barely even see it. How does Apple do that? I’m so glad it’s thinner. Last year’s iPhone, which was 2 millimeters thicker, was practically unusable. But this one—oh, good Lord—I’m going to use the hell out of all 6.9 millimeters of thickness on this new phone.I simply cannot believe the curviness! This is like the Kim Kardashian of phones. The sides don’t cut nearly as sharply as the previous iPhone, which is good. I can’t tell you the number of times I cut my hand while holding that machete.And don’t even get me started on the new features. I have three words for you: optical image stabilization. Do you know what that means? It means that when I’m on a long run and I’ve been working real hard and I’m all sweaty that I don’t even have to stop to take a selfie. And since it has a longer battery life I can go on longer runs.That’s not all they’ve done for the camera though. They’ve also improved tone mapping and noise reduction and invented new Focus Pixel technology that will help it focus better. That’s important because the only things keeping my photos from being awesome before was the impossibly lackadaisical tone mapping and noise on the old iPhone.The amazing thing about all of this is that I didn’t even know I wanted these things. For the past year I’ve been living in bliss with my iPhone 5S, and never even realized what I was missing. Luckily, Apple’s there for us, so we’re no longer missing out on the things we didn’t know we were missing out on.Thank you Apple!The thoughts, declarations, enthusiasm, cultishness, spendthriftiness, and general tomfoolery contained in the words above do not belong to this blog’s usual author. The words overtook his mind early in the morning, and his fingers had no choice but to record them. The blog’s usual author maintains his commitment to a cell phone-free life, and has no explanation for where the words above came from. He strongly suspects they were put into his mind by Apple, possibly genetically engineered into the pulp of the thirteen honey crisp apples he’s eaten this week.Possibly.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Please share, like or comment if you like this. Please. I'm begging you. By the way, if you like what you're reading here, you should like my Facebook page, Brett Baker WritesYou should subscribe to this blog, don't you think? That way you'll never forget to come back. Forgetting is bad. So why don't you just type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.