I Failed at No Sweets February

February’s over. Thank God. It tied for the coldest February ever in Chicago. We should get a prize or something for that, shouldn’t we?Since the month is over, it’s time for a recap of my progress for the month in my Year of Doing Without. I went vegan for January, and that went just swimmingly. For February I decided to do without sweets. And that went…well, did I mention that I succeeded in going vegan in January?When I announced my no sweets goal for February, I knew I had my work cut out for me. I’m a sweets guy. I like sugary cereal, jelly, ice cream, cookies, pastries, candy and most anything else that contains sugar. However, since I conquered vegan January, I figured I had a reasonable chance to do sugar free February.And things started out so well.By “started out” I guess that I mean the first day went okay. The first day as in daytime. As in before dinner. As in prior to me driving myself to McDonald’s to buy an ice cream cone.Yes boys and girls, sugar free February lasted fewer than fifteen waking hours. February’s short, but it ain’t that short!I’d like to blame my wife for my failure, since she’s the one who mentioned the ice cream cone. But it’s not her fault. After we put the kids to bed she mentioned that she was going to get an ice cream cone. (Yes, we’re the sort of parents who go for ice cream after the kids go to bed!)But I’d resisted plenty of foods in January. I was committed to going vegan for a month, and nothing anyone said was going to change my mind. I passed on some good animal-based food because I didn’t want to “ruin” my month. Temptation had no effect on me.So I can’t very well say that her mere mention of ice cream shattered my will. I just wimped out.Now, at this point, let me remind you that I was vegan for January. You know, just in case you forgot from two paragraphs ago. And vegan means no ice cream. So I’d already gone an entire month without eating ice cream. Was I supposed to go a second month without it?Come on, let’s not be barbaric about this! The dude needed some ice cream, so the dude bought some ice cream. And ate it. And it was good.It’d be nice if I could say that after that ice cream cone I went back on the straight and narrow and avoided sweets for the rest of the month.But what about Valentine’s Day? And Fat Tuesday? And Washington’s Birthday? And Lincoln’s Birthday! Don’t forget about Harry Potter Book Night (February 5). So many opportunities to eat sweets. How can I say no? I was committed to sugar free February, but I’m only human. It wasn’t my fault.Actually, maybe it really wasn’t my fault. There’s growing information that sugar is actually addictive. And as someone who once ate an entire sleeve of Samoa Girl Scout cookies while sitting at his desk one afternoon, I believe that. So maybe I shouldn’t feel bad about not having the self-discipline to cut out sweets for a month.Still, I’m sorry that I didn’t do it. Success is cooler than failure. And sweeter, too. No one ever mentions the sweet smell or taste of failure. Unfortunately, success is just about the only sweet thing I avoided in February.The calendar on the wall tells me that’s it a new month though. So let’s try again. March will be the month of no sweets. I mean it this time!I’ve already declined ice cream. Last night I went to Baskin-Robbins and bought some ice cream for my kids. (See, I’m not always ice cream selfish.) None for me though. No, siree.I mean business this month. Saying no to Baskin-Robbins helps lay the groundwork for the rest of the month. Besides, I stretched sweet February just about as far as it would go when my wife and I went through the McDonald’s drive-thru on Saturday, the last day of the month, and I ordered an ice cream cone at 11:59 PM.It’s March now. No sweets for me until April 1. That just happens to be April Fool’s Day, but I’m serious about this.Conveniently, it also just so happens to be the day that our local ice cream shop opens for the season. I’ll end no sweets March with a large twist cone dipped in butterscotch. I can’t wait.Only 30 days to go!PREVIOUS POST: The Dress Made Me Wonder These ThingsIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: When to Eat Food That Fell on the Floor+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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The Dress Made Me Wonder These Things

In case you don’t have the Facebook or the Twitter or the Tumbler or anything else that might be connected to a computer, or you haven’t talked to another human being in the last twenty-four hours, or you haven’t heard raised voices in the distance as people “discuss” their opinions, you can read about The Dress controversy/ debate/ issue/ throwdown here.Just for the record, I see white and gold. However, I sometimes have trouble distinguishing between reds and oranges and greens and blues so maybe I’m not the best source.(My wife and I have had a long-term disagreement about our kitchen counter in fact. I’m 100% sure it’s green. She says it’s blue. The amazing thing is that we lived in our house for about six years before I even knew we disagreed on the color!)We could go back and forth on the color question all day. But really, how interesting is it to read:“It’s black and blue!”“No, it’s white and gold”“Are you on acid right now? How can you say it’s white and gold.”Blah, blah, blah.There are some things to think about though.--The big winner in all of this is the retina. I mean other than optometrists and the like, who knows anything about the retina? Sure it’s part of the eye, but is it in the front or the middle or the back? Is it the colored part? The white part? It’s not the black part because everyone knows that’s the pupil. Whatever the case, the retina had a good day.--Rods and cones. I can’t believe that those are the actual names of the photoreceptor cells in the retina. Shouldn’t they be called something more scientific? I’m pretty sure we used the terms rods and cones to describe body parts in middle school, but we were talking about entirely different parts of the male and female anatomy.--If some people see the dress differently, can the poor sap that incorrectly answers his wife’s question, “Does this dress make me look fat?” claim that he just sees the dress differently than everyone else in the world?--Has this dress become more famous than Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress?--Is anyone ever going to buy this dress? I mean it might be cool to have, but if a woman buys it she’s pretty much guaranteeing that she’ll have to listen to the “What color is it?” debate the entire time she wears it. Forever. And if you thought it was annoying to see the dress coming up non-stop on your Facebook feed, imagine how annoyed you’d be if you had to have that discussion with every person you encountered.I bet it wouldn’t be long before the dress had splatters of red on it from the pummeling you’d hand out when you reached your breaking point.--FREAKOUT! I’m a white and gold guy. However, I’ve been staring at this black and white screen in Word for the past twenty minutes or so, and when I went back to check on the dress in the CNN story, it’s blue and black. So either CNN is messing with me, someone switched my rods and cones with another person, or perceptions can change.I really hope no one switched my rods and cones. I’d grown attached to them.--I’m no fashion expert, so maybe this doesn’t even make sense, but I bet this is a ploy by a shoe company to increase sales. Some lady buys the dress. She buys some shoes to go with it. But then she thinks, “Oh shit, what if it looks like a different color when I get it home?” And then she buys another pair of shoes to match the other color of the dress.Genius.--Maybe this is why the sky looks different colors as the sun rises and sets, too. The “scientists” tell us it has to do with the way light refracts through the atmosphere as the sun changes angles. But why should we believe them? They faked the moon landing. I bet it’s really God’s way of saying, “Don’t believe everything you see.”--I now have an excuse for when I dress myself and realize two hours later that I don’t match. What relief!I just checked again. That sucker’s still blue and black.Do my eyes even work?PREVIOUS POST: My Life at 100 Years OldIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Meeting the Future Me+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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My Life at 100 Years Old

On April 20, 2078 I’ll turn 100 years old. I plan to be alive then. And that’s the first step, right? Having a plan. So I’m on my way.First of all, we’re going to have a party that day. I know some people get to a point where they don’t celebrate birthdays, but I like ice cream cake damnit, and my birthday gives me an excuse to order whatever kind of ice cream cake I like. So I’m celebrating my birthday every year.Ice cream cake forever!I tried to imagine what my life might be like when I turn 100, but it’s difficult. What am I going to be like in 63 years? Probably nowhere near as dashingly handsome as I am now. And how about the world? You think it’s f&$@ed up now, just wait to see how we humans can screw up over the next six decades. But let’s not focus on the negative.We should add some perspective though: Someone who’s turning 100 today was my age on January 4, 1952. Things have changed since then, for that person, and the world.But thanks to Dr. Emmett Brown and his flux capacitor, I’ve been to the future, so I know what it’s like.Believe it or not, still no flying cars. Apparently it’s just too dangerous to have the general public moving their vehicles in three dimensions instead of two dimensions. However, since computers drive our cars, you’d think we could program the computers to handle such a task. But you’d be wrong. So George Jetson is still ahead of us.Now, for less disappointing news. There is no oil. I mean, there is oil, but nobody cares anymore. At some point, many decades before, a visionary president of the United States devoted the full force of the country behind an effort to find cheap, useable, renewable fuel within a decade. Eight years later the transition to complete reliance on solar energy began.In 2078 everything on earth is powered by energy from the sun. We’ve discovered how to store it, transport it, deliver it, and convert it. All with no waste. My great grandchildren marveled at how any society could be so stupid to rely on the finite remains of dead plants and animals for energy. In their eyes, we might as well have thought the world was flat.There’s plenty more to tell about the world in general. I could tell you how Texas finally got its wish to form its own country. And how it’s been begging to come back into the U.S. ever since.Or the Cubs dynasty teams of the 2020s and 2040s, although some people debate whether just six World Series championships in ten years can be called a dynasty, especially after the ten straight they won a couple of decades before.Or how health care costs shriveled to practically nothing after we finally realized that the way we produce, grow and eat food was killing us.Or about the explanation behind the Kennedy assassination, which was revealed when a set of secret papers were released.That’s all big picture stuff though, and I want to talk about me. Enough about the world.My four kids have grandkids of their own and once a year we have the entire extended family out to the family compound in Colorado. We all catch up with each other, talk about our travels, the movies we’re making, the books we’re writing, the experiments we’re conducting, the food we’re growing, the lessons we’re teaching, the people we’ve met. It’s a blast.I’m still running. My 5K time has decreased over the past few years, but my doctors are still amazed that my knees are holding up after seventy-three years of pounding the pavement.My wife and I have made plans to go back to the mountains of Tennessee next year to celebrate our seventy-fifth wedding anniversary. It’s the diamond anniversary. Time to go big or go home, so I’ve got a whopper of a gift to give her.I don’t sleep much any more. Four hours a night is more than enough. We’ve always liked staying up late, but now when we do it we don’t sleep until ten o’clock the next morning. You’d be amazed at how much you can accomplish when you’ve got twenty waking hours every day.But let’s not jump ahead too far, here. We’ve got a long time to go before I turn 100. There’s much to experience. The next sixty-three years will pass fast enough. No need to hustle them along.Better to remember the best advice anyone has ever given or received: Stop and smell the roses.This post was written as part of Blogapalooz-hour, ChicagoNow's monthly writing exercise in which we're given a prompt and one hour to write on that prompt. This month's prompt: "Pick any point of time in the future and write about what you hope/think/fear/expect your life will be like then"PREVIOUS POST: Rudy Giuliani is an Idiot Who Loves AmericaIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Meeting the Future Me+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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Rudy Giuliani is an Idiot Who Loves America

Rudy Giuliani is an idiot. Unfortunately, he’s an idiot that a lot of people agree with. But he’s not really the leader of the idiots. He’s more like the exploiter of the idiots, and many of the idiots are more than happy to go right along with him.In my summary of Rudy, I’m referring to his recent comments about Barack Obama. Rudy said that Obama—who just happens to be the President of the United States, a position that Rudy tried to attain the same year that Obama did attain it—wasn’t brought up to love his country the way that the rest of us were.A couple of days later, given the opportunity to back away from his statement, Rudy refused to do so. “I want to repeat it,” he said. The words he wanted to repeat were spoken at a political fundraiser: “I do not believe the President loves America.”I’m embarrassed for the guy. Rudy, not Obama. I mean he’s like that old, partially senile uncle who used to be really important, but now nobody pays attention to him, but he still thinks he’s important so he spouts off every now and then just to say, “Look everyone, I’m still here!”As maddening as Rudy’s comments are, the more disturbing thing is that a large section of America agrees with him. A newly released HuffPost/YouGov poll shows that 69% of Republicans and 38% of Independents think that Obama does not love America.Are you kidding me?How did we get so stupid? And by we, I mean America, collectively. Everyone.When did it become possible that we’d believe that the President of the United States, the Chief Executive, the Head of State, the Commander-in-Chief, doesn’t love the country he leads? Do people know how ridiculous that sounds?I’m sorry to say this, but it’s just another sign of the absolute dumbing-down of America. Rudy Giuliani is an idiot, but he’s got plenty of company. At some point it became en vogue to question whether people involved in politics love America. And if someone doesn’t do certain things that the Love America crowd has decided must be done, then it’s a sign that they don’t love their country.I’m all for loving your country. I think people should take pride in where they live, and in their heritage and history. But for the love of God, you can’t replace thinking with love. Just because you love your country doesn’t mean that you can stop all brain activity.Remember those months shortly after 9/11 when it seemed we couldn’t turn in any direction without seeing half a dozen American flags? The terrorist attacks reminded people that they loved their country, and the only way anyone knew how to show it was to display the flag.It sure didn’t take long before that simple act—displaying the flag—became an indicator of whether you loved your country or not.Seemingly overnight every politician from the town council to the President began wearing an American flag pin on their lapel. If politicians love their country then they should wear the flag on their lapel, right?But then in 2007, Obama had the audacity to stop wearing an American flag on his lapel. It was news. Really. Fox News aired a story about it. Talk radio hosts—those wretches of American political life who cloak their profit motive as genuine interest in issues and policy—devoted programs to it. And plenty of American voters were up in arms about it.And it all proved Obama’s point. His patriotism was being judged not by what he said, or what he did, or what he proposed, but rather whether or not he wore a lapel pin! No lapel pin, no patriotism. When people accept that sort of generalization, it’s easy to see how they can be fooled into questioning whether the president loves his country.(Incidentally, I’m wondering if Al-Qaeda realizes that they can setup an entire network here in the United States and no one will question them one bit as long as they all wear the American flag on their lapels and fly it in their yards.)Which brings me back to Rudy. The sad has-been mayor who tried to capitalize on the last four months of an eight-year term. Four months during which he was beloved, admired, respected, and universally praised for his leadership. He hoped those four months would lead him to the presidency, but things didn’t work out.But instead of using his long public service experience for something positive, he has devolved into the sort of simple-minded, fear-mongering, watch-out-for-people-who-are-different-from-you nitwit that excels in today’s political culture.And as long as a sizable chunk of the American public thinks that “loving” their country excuses them from having to think, idiots like Rudy Giuliani will continue to attract attention.Luckily, they’ll never do well in a nationwide election.PREVIOUS POST: Why Are Parents so Dumb?IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Voting with NRA is Pointless for Democrats+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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Why Are Parents so Dumb?

Every year in school some teacher tries to encourage us to ask questions by saying “The only stupid question is the one that isn’t asked.” Yeah, well the only stupid sayings are the ones that teachers repeat over and over again.But in the spirit of asking questions, let me lay one on you. Why are parents so dumb?I mean really, if they’re adults and they have all this wisdom, then what makes them so dumb? Do they just get so old at some point that their brains stop working? Why can’t they figure out the easiest things?Things that should be obvious aren’t.Like, first of all, leave me alone. I don’t want to spend time with you for no reason. If you’re buying me something, or taking me somewhere then I’ll spend time with you. Otherwise, I’ve got things to do.And quit it with the “life lessons.” If I have to hear them say, “You’re too young to understand,” one more time, I’m going to scream. It’s not that I’m too young to understand. It’s that they’re too damn dumb to know that what they’re saying doesn’t make sense.They need to stop trying to act like life is so complicated that there’s just no way I could ever understand it without their guidance. I know how things work. And they can continue to claim that “It’s not that easy,” but I know the only reason it’s not that easy is because dumb parents make it so it’s not that easy.“You’ll thank us for doing this someday.” That’s just parental-speak for, “We’re going to do something really shitty to you, and it’s going to make you mad, but we’re geniuses and we know what’s good for you.”Uh, hello! They aren’t geniuses. They might think they have all this “wisdom” but the world’s different now. This isn’t the olden days like when they were kids. They don’t know what it’s like to be a kid. It’s difficult, and the constant nagging—“Do this, do that, don’t do this, why did you do that”—doesn’t help at all.By the way, just because they had to learn a bunch of stupid stuff in school doesn’t mean that everyone should have to learn it. Like algebra. Do you know how many careers require algebra? One. Algebra teacher. So if no one uses algebra, why the hell do I have to learn it? I’m never going to use it, so stop wasting my time.Speaking of time, they need to stop worrying about how I’m spending my time. I know they’re old and they probably don’t have much time left, but that doesn’t mean they have to constantly hover around me and concern themselves with how I spend every second of my day.I mean if I want to stay up past midnight on a school night, why shouldn’t I? I’m the one who will be tired in the morning, not them. So they need to chill. And who cares if I always have my phone with me? If I can’t hang out with my friends, I should at least be able to text them.And yes, I do have to check Facebook every fifteen minutes. Why is that their business anyway?Leave me alone about my room, too. They’re always on me, “Clean your room. Why do you have so much junk on your floor? Those clothes are clean, fold them and put them away.”Maybe they forgot the part about it being my room! It’s not their room, so they should back off. I know where everything is, and if I can’t find something, that’s my problem, not theirs.The worst thing though is the “When I was a kid” advice. I get it. They used to be young, now they’re old. But I doubt that anything they did when they were a kid has any bearing on my life. This goes back to the fact that this isn’t the olden days. They need to stop comparing their youth with my youth. Their youth is over. They lived their youth like they wanted, they should let me live mine how I want.I can’t wait until I get older, and when nothing they say makes any more sense then than it does now I’m going to yell, “I told you so!”PREVIOUS POST: What Happened When I Ate Food from a Stranger's PlateIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Hey Kids, Michelle Obama Didn't Make your School Lunch+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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What Happened When I Ate Food from a Stranger's Plate

I tend to ask, “What would happen if…” quite often. The subject of the question is usually rather benign.What would happen if I tried to make it to work and back without filling the gas tank? (I should know the answer to that question, but I’m a slow learner.) What would happen if I went vegan for a month? What would happen if I skipped down the hall at work?

Other times, the questions have more dire consequences. What would happen if the sun didn’t rise tomorrow? What would happen if I put my finger in the hedge trimmer while it was on? (That answer to that one is nothing good.)

This past weekend I discovered the answer to one of my oldest “What would happen if…?” questions.

Saturday night some friends invited my wife and me to meet them at a local pizza place. It’s the sort of place that attracts a good crowd on a Saturday with fantastic pizza, a wide beer selection, and a fun atmosphere. We jumped at the invitation, even though we’d just had dinner with other friends at a more upscale restaurant with great pizza and beer.

(Really, can you ever have too much pizza and beer? I mean this rhetorically, as the answer is obviously yes. But you know what I mean.)

We sat with our friends and enjoyed a few beers. (Diet Coke for me, as I was driving. No need to find an answer to the question, “What would happen if I drove drunk?”) While we chatted I noticed that the people at the table next to us ordered a plate of buffalo wings. So I posed a question that frequently comes to mind when I’m at a restaurant, “What would happen if I just walked up to those people and ate some of their food?”

Usually this question leads to a few minutes of back-and-forth discussion, laughter at the ridiculousness of such an idea, and a decision that such an endeavor is just too risky/ uncomfortable/ stupid to try.

But then a friend said, “I’ve got twenty dollars for you if you do it.” Now wait a minute! I like twenty dollars as much as the next guy. And twenty dollars would have been enough to pay for the drinks my wife and I had consumed to that point. But is twenty dollars enough for me to walk up to people I don’t even know, take food from their table, and eat it?

I don’t think so.

However, another of our friends at the table spoke up and said, “I’ll do it. Will you pay me twenty dollars?” When our first friend agreed, the second friend took a few deep breaths to urge himself to action. He looked at the table next to us, then back to us, said something like, “I’m scared!” took another deep breath, looked at the table again…and did nothing.

Within a minute or two it became clear that he wasn’t going to be able to do it. The discomfort of the situation just proved too much. And with good reason. I mean we didn’t know those people, a guy and a girl, both in their mid-twenties. All we knew about them was that they liked buffalo wings. But just how territorial were they about their buffalo wings?

I had to find out.

I said, “I’ll do it,” and stood up from my chair, took a couple of steps toward the table, and my wife stepped in front of me. “You can’t do that!” she said. I assured her everything would be fine, and she stepped to the side.

The guy and the girl were sitting across from each other, the tray of buffalo wings between them. I walked up to their table, took a wing from the tray, said, “Sorry about this,” and proceeded to eat the entire thing while I stood next to them.

Luckily, the wing was boneless so I didn’t have to worry about what to do with the bone. I hadn’t thought about that beforehand, which might have been bad news. The wing was good though.

After I finished the wing I apologized to the couple, explained that my friend had dared me to do it, and turned to walk away.

Then I found the answer to my question.

As I turned to walk away, the woman picked up the tray of wings and handed them to me. “You can have them,” she said.

“I don’t want them,” I said. “I just wanted one. You eat them. I didn’t touch any of them except the one that I ate. They’re fine.”

“I’m not eating them,” she said. “You ruined them.”

“I didn’t ruin them. I didn’t even touch them. They’re all fine.” She didn’t buy my explanation though and insisted that I take the remaining twelve or so wings on the tray. I started to feel a little bit bad. I heard the people at my table laughing at my stunt, but this woman failed to see the humor. “How about this...I’ll take these wings and I’ll pay for new wings for you.”

“Okay,” she said.

Before I left the table, I apologized again and thanked the guy for not punching me in the face when I ate his wings. “He’s not the one you have to worry about punching you in the face,” the woman said.

I patted her on the shoulder, thanked her, and took a step back from the table just in case she changed her mind.

I ordered a new tray of twenty wings, and returned to my table. My friends hadn’t heard the conversation, so I relayed the details. They were surprised at her reaction, but appreciated the humor and outrageousness in my act.

A few minutes later I left to go to the bathroom, and when I came back my friends told me that the woman had turned around and questioned why I would do such a thing. They explained that we had been talking about it, that they dared me to do it, and that we hadn’t meant any harm in doing so. She suggested that my actions ruined her night, and that she no longer had an appetite.

Meanwhile, my friends and I ate their leftover wings.

Toward the end of the night, as we were ready to leave, I made sure that the replacement wings were charged to me, and paid for them with the twenty dollars my friend gave me for fulfilling the dare. As we left, we passed their table and I heard them talking to the manager and I heard the manager say that we should pay for both orders of wings, not just the replacement order.

I kept walking, but two of our friends—one of whom dared me—stopped and talked to the manager. They explained the situation and that we had bought a new order of wings after I “ruined” the first order. The manager replied with some not-so-kind words, and my friends left.

The whole episode can be summed up in one word: surprising. It’s surprising to me that I actually walked up to a stranger and ate food off of their plate, and it’s surprising that the people at the table reacted that way, and it’s surprising that the manager would suggest that we pay for both orders of wings.

There’s a television show called Impractical Jokers in which four friends do all sorts of outrageous things. On one episode they went to a Chinese restaurant and ate from a stranger’s plate without saying anything. Their experience went better than mine.

I’ve often wondered how I’d react if someone came and ate from my plate. And I can honestly say that if someone came to my table at the pizza place the other night, and took one of the wings off a tray—not even my plate, off of a tray on my table—I probably would have laughed and high-fived the guy. The amount of idiotic gumption it takes to do such a thing is incredible, and I respect that.

I realize that not everyone has the same sense of humor. What’s funny to one person, isn’t going to be funny to another. But despite the woman’s reaction, I still think it was funny. I’m sorry that I upset her, but I don’t think I ruined anything, other than any respect she might have had for me.

But more importantly, I answered the question, “What would happen if…?”

PREVIOUS POST:Little White Lies Can be Dangerous

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Little White Lies Can be Dangerous

Little white lies sound harmless enough, don’t they? I mean the word little is right there, implying that the falsehood is of no practical importance. I’m not sure where the white comes from. Maybe innocence, like heaven, as opposed to the darkness of doom. The only part of the phrase that I’m sure of is lies. Everyone knows what a lie is.And while we think little white lies may be of no importance, consider the following quote from William Paley’s 1785 work, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy: “White lies always introduce others of a darker complexion.” (By the way, that quote appears in the Oxford English Dictionary, which is where I lifted it. I don’t remember quotes from random 18th century philosophy books. I’m not that smart.)Instead of weighing the innocence and dangers of little white lies, let me just tell you a story.During my third year in college I took a business ethics course. I was a business major at the time, and the course was required, but I wasn’t at all enthusiastic about it. In fact, I wasn’t enthusiastic about business at all, and ended up changing my major. However, at the time I had no choice but to take the business ethics course.I went to a different class on the first nice spring day, and then decided I’d rather goof off than go to the business ethics class. So I left campus and drove to a friend’s house to hang out. Business ethics was a piece of cake, so I didn’t mind missing one class.However, when I returned to campus the next day and joined a couple of friends hanging out at the student union, one of them asked me why I missed the exam.Exam? What exam? My friend informed me that I’d missed the mid-term exam the previous day.Bad news. Most philosophy professors are rather laid back, casual folks and this dude was no exception. He had only one rule: no makeup exams.So you see my predicament. This is a required course. The mid-term exam is a big chunk of our grade. And I forgot to take the exam, choosing instead an afternoon of rollerblading.I did the only thing possible. I lied. To a guy teaching a business ethics class.As my friends and I discussed the situation, we speculated as to whether the professor’s no makeups rule was absolute. He’d taught us all semester to be wary of absolutes. Why should we think his rules were any different?One of my friends informed me that her dad owned an automotive body shop. He could provide me a fake estimate for car repairs, and I could bring the estimate to the professor and tell him that I’d been in an accident. My car was heavily damaged. No way could I have made it to campus to take the mid-term. Surely he’d be sympathetic.So the next day my friend shows up with a $4,000 estimate to repair my car. Apparently her dad had helped some of her friends before, so he had some experience. I felt a little uneasy about the whole thing, but I had no choice.Before class I went to see the professor, gave him the estimate, and pleaded my case, making special mention of my respect for ethics and his no makeups rule. He listened intently, nodded, rubbed his chin, said “Hmm,” at all the appropriate times. I thought my plan might work. I thought my friend was a genius.He paused for a minute, and said something like the following: “It’s not that I don’t believe you, but I need something more official. How about you get a copy of the police report?”Oh shit.How had we not thought of that before? It’s such an obvious question, how had it escaped us? I thought my friend was an idiot.Quick thinking is not my forte, so I stood there dumbstruck for a moment, uttered “Uh” and “Um” a few too many times, and quickly calculated that I had no way to forge a police report. Not to mention that I suspect a forged police report is against the law.“There was no police report,” I said. Luckily, I’d refrained from being too specific in my description of the accident, so I left myself free to concoct a fantastic story on the spot. I could tell right away that the professor didn’t believe me.After assuring him that I wasn’t making it up, he said he needed time to think about it. I should see him the next day before class.Cut to the next day, twenty minutes before class, I go to his office and a man in a shirt and tie is sitting across the desk from him. The professor sees me, waves me into his office, and introduces Detective Rueth from the police department in a neighboring town.I peed my pants. Not literally. I think. But I was scared.Turns out that when my professor said “Hmm” the previous day, he was actually thinking “Hmm, this is the same kind of car involved in the hit-and-run I read about in the newspaper this morning.” And I just happened to have no police report. Convenient.He calls the police, gives them the repair invoice, and of course they want to talk to me.Left with the choice of sticking to my story and risk getting sent to the hoosegow, or recanting and failing the midterm, I sang like a canary! I told the two men that I made the whole thing up. I had blown off the class. I hadn’t been in an accident. The estimate was a fake. I’d accept my punishment.Funny thing about lies though. They’re sometimes hard to get out of.When I tried to tell the truth, neither man believed me. They guessed that I was trying to cover for myself. I pleaded my case, tried to convince them that I was lying, but got nowhere. The detective suggested I come with him for some questioning. I suggested he call the body shop.He agreed. Unfortunately, my friend’s dad, who just wanted to be helpful to me, assured the detective—who had conveniently failed to identify himself as an officer of the law—that the estimate was legit. The damage was extensive.Oh great!Just as I had visions of spending my twenties behind bars, a moment of completely intellectual clarity washed over me. Why not just look at the car? It was right in the parking lot.The three of us went to the parking lot and saw my car parked there. No damage. Rust spots showing that nothing had been recently replaced. Confirmation that I hadn’t been in an accident.The detective chastised me for making up a story and wasting his time. My instructor apologized to the detective and told me I’d have to take an F on the mid-term.And all from a little white lie.So be careful. What starts as a little white lie can get you in big trouble. The police might get involved. You might fail a class. You might pee your pants.Even in the best case scenario, you might make some people mad.Almost as mad as you probably are to learn that I just made up this entire story!The theme given to ChicagoNow bloggers to write on this week was "Little White Lies." This is my contribution.PREVIOUS POST: Dr. Seuss is TupacIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: The Time I Saw a UFO+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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Dr. Seuss is Tupac

After reading that a new Dr. Seuss book will be released in July, it occurred to me that Dr. Seuss is just like Tupac Shakur. The similarities are uncanny.It all begins with this new Seuss book, titled What Pet Should I Get? Seuss’s wife found the material for the book shortly after his death in 1991. She forgot about it, and just rediscovered it last year. And since everyone loves a good Dr. Seuss book, Random House has decided to publish it.So twenty-four years after his death, Dr. Seuss is going to release a new book.To which Tupac Shakur said, “So?”Actually, Tupac didn’t really say that. He died in 1996.First, let me backup. It could be that you, Dear Reader, aren’t familiar with Tupac Shakur. If that’s the case, then let me explain.Tupac was a rapper from New York City who became very popular in the early nineties. His popularity has soared since then, and he’s sold 75 million records. That’s about the same as Aretha Franklin, Nirvana, Kiss, Alabama, and Beyonce. The dude is popular.And while selling 75 million records is impressive (that’s 15 million more than my favorite band, Pearl Jam), it’s even more impressive when we consider that Tupac only released four albums before he died.Four albums. Seventy-five million sold. Those are some good selling albums.Well…Actually, Tupac has released seven albums (Seven!) since he died. He’s the most prolific dead guy of the past couple decades.In fact, he’s released so much music since he died, that there are people who actually believe he faked his own death and that he’s still alive.So now that you’re up-to-date on your Tupac info, let me explain the eerie similarities between him and Dr. Seuss. So eerie, in fact, that I almost wonder whether they’re actually the same person!Seuss’s full name was Theodor Seuss Geisel, which makes his initials TSG. As in Tupac Shakur, Gangsta. I don’t know if Tupac had business cards, but if he did I bet that’s what was written on them.Both men used psuedonyms: Theodor Geisel was Dr. Seuss and Theo LeSieg. Tupac was 2Pac and Makaveli.Dr. Seuss warned that the threat of communism was overhyped. Tupac was active in the Young Communist League.Dr. Seuss won an Academy Award for work he did on a U.S. Army animated film called Design for Death. Tupac’s last album before he died was released on Death Row Records.Dr. Seuss was known for his rhyming and colorful use of language, just like Tupac.Dr. Seuss wrote Hop on Pop. Tupac helped create hip-hop. Since they’re both still releasing new work, perhaps we’ll see a book or album called Hip-hop on Pop released soon.Dr. Seuss wrote a book called I Can Read with My Eyes Shut! Tupac released an album called All Eyez on Me.Dr. Seuss wrote Oh! The Places You’ll Go! Tupac wrote I Get Around.Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat. Tupac was known for wearing a bandana.Dr. Seuss’s first book was called The Pocket Book of Boners. Tupac did nothing comparable to that, but I love the title of that book so much I had to include it here!I could go on and on. It’s almost as if Dr. Seuss wrote for kids, and then when those kids grew up a little bit he handed them off to Tupac, who would take their well-fed imaginations and impart a bit of street wisdom.How else do you explain both artists’ fondness for inventing new words, or new ways to spell old words? I mean Holla If Ya Hear Me could be a Dr. Seuss book or a Tupac song. Even with regular old words, the lines are blurred. Who created a work called Come Over to My House?You might think I’m stretching the comparison between the two men. Maybe they don’t have any more in common than they both continue to release new work.However, did you ever see them in the same room together? You didn’t did you? So you can’t actually prove that Tupac isn’t Dr. Seuss.I rest my case.PREVIOUS POST: Bring it on, WinterIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: I Wish I Could Live my Kids' Dreams+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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