Programmed to despise shopping

I was listening to a former student, a boy, describe his recent adventures in the mall. Though he spoke for about five minutes, the crux of his story was this: My friends and I went to the mall and other retail establishments in town and acted like twelve and thirteen year old boys. We ran up escalators, gorged on free samples and made a general nuisance of ourselves. As a result, we were repeatedly asked to leave these establishments.

I had many similar experiences as a kid, some stretching into adulthood. My friend and I used to play a game called Mall Football in which one of us (usually me) walked in a straight line from one end to the mall to the other without deviating course or speed while the other had to block for us, finding ways to remove innocent and unaware shoppers from our paths. If the shopper was not removed from the path, the ball carrier was required to bump into him or her to get by while maintaining course.

The last time I played this game was less than twenty years ago.

I won’t be more specific.

This game and the many others I once played sounded strikingly similar to the stories that my former student was telling me, and I think most boys have similar stories from their past.

And then it hit me.

No wonder so many men don’t like to shop.  We’re programmed to despise retail establishments like the mall from an early age.

Young girls can head off to the mall and be perfectly content by spending the day staring at clothing that they cannot buy, chatting with friends, and trying to look pretty and catch a boy’s eye.

Boys aren’t happy unless they are running, fighting, competing or causing general mayhem. Even today I must suppress the desperate urge to run up the down escalator. I was at the mall last week and the escalator was broken. I almost used it as an excuse to run up it, even though a perfectly good staircase was adjacent to it.

To a boy, the mall is very much like a church. It’s large, open, gleaming and full of boyish opportunities for fun and adventure, but for reasons that baffle us, we must be on our best behavior or a Rent-a-Cop will throw us out (although getting thrown out of church is nearly impossible. As a boy, I tried like hell but never succeeded).

Even suitable diversions like arcades no longer offer boys a retail sanctuary, as most have been replaced by boring shops and stupid boutiques. Retail is simply not a welcoming place to an adolescent male, and as a result, we grow up to despise these places.

If society could accept a little more Mall Football and the occasional clogging of the escalator, women might find their boyfriends and husbands much more amenable to a day in retail hell.

Preferred parking for managers and administrators is really just jackass parking.

I don’t understand the preferred parking spots set aside for the managers of companies, the presidents of golf clubs, and the owners of small businesses. The signs that say Reserved for the Manager. Club President Only. Presidential Parking.

Or even worse, when one of these jackasses puts their name on the sign.

I realize that my managerial experience is limited to fast food franchises and a brief stint with a marketing company, but I started managing McDonald’s when I was 16 and didn’t really stop until I had finished college at the age of 28, and I’ve always believed that if you can manage a crew of 50-80 McDonald’s employees, ages 16-60, you can manage almost anyone. High school students, retirees, non-English speakers, drug addicts, impoverished parents working three jobs, parolees, and a girl who once threatened to kill herself if I didn’t date her were just a smattering of the hundreds, if not thousands of people who I managed over the years.

One of the most important lessons that I learned was that the more in touch a manager is with his employees and their lives, the more effective that manager will be. When employees feel that the manager is pulling an oar just like everyone else, productivity, respect and commitment result. Sticking up a sign beside the building that separates yourself from your employees for the sake of a few steps is just stupid.

And I've heard managers and administrators argue that they need a closer parking spot because they are coming and going all the time and need immediate access to their vehicle in order to save time.

Nonsense.

Even an extra 50 steps acorss a parking lot a dozen times a day isn't worth this level of douchbaggery.

Near the end of my career with McDonald’s, I worked for a man named Jalloul Montacer, and in the two years that we spent together, he taught me that one of the most important parts of my work day was the five minutes I spent saying hello to each of my employees at the beginning of my shift and the five minutes that I spent saying goodbye at the end of my shift. He taught me that when you care about your employees and demonstrate your commitment to them, they will perform, and this can done with a gesture as simple as a hello and a goodbye.

He was right.

Jalloul would never have tolerated a Manager Parking sign at our restaurant. More likely, he would’ve given away his spot to a pregnant mother, an elderly employee, or simply left the spot for a customer and parked somewhere in the back.

It takes a special breed of jackass to think that you're important enough to park a little closer to the front door than everyone else.

Where is your engagement ring?

Two questions for the divorced women of the world, and for anyone else who has an opinion on the subject:

1. What does a woman typically do with her engagement ring following a divorce?
2. More importantly, what is the moral, ethical, equitable and sensible thing to do with it?

In one sense, an engagement ring is a gift, so a woman has a right to do whatever she would like with it following a divorce. Right?

Then again, if an engagement ring is truly a gift, can a happily married woman return or exchange the ring once she becomes tired of it?

Probably not.

When an engagement is called off, it is expected that the woman will return the engagement ring to the man. All other gifts given and received during the relationship typically remain with their recipients, but the engagement ring occupies a different space. It comes with the promise of marriage, and so if that marriage never takes place, the ring is returned to the purchaser.

What if the ring was a family heirloom, handed down on the man’s side of the family for hundreds of years?

Upon the disillusion of the marriage, would the woman be expected to return the heirloom to the man and his family? I think we would all agree that this is probably the case.

In short, an engagement ring ain’t just a gift.

I would argue that the engagement ring is a gift that is given to the marriage, and as such, it must be treated differently than a pair of slippers or a bottle of wine. It is a requirement of sorts. An expectation. A demarcation of the initiation of a journey that the man and woman will take together.

It is also a gift absent reciprocation. The man will likely never receive anything as valuable or significant in return from the woman.

It’s also expensive. Self-proclaimed experts claim that an engagement ring should cost a man about three months of his salary, making it one of the most expensive items that he will ever purchase. This also makes it the largest gift that a woman will ever receive.

With all of these factors in mind, I ask:

What should a woman do with her engagement ring upon the disillusion of the marriage?

I’ve been asking divorced women this question, and I have received three answers, two of which I consider less-than-satisfactory:

1. The ring is still sitting in her jewelry box, gathering dust.

2. The woman sold the ring, keeping the proceeds for herself.

3. The woman is keeping it with the intend of giving it to her daughter someday.

Option #3 is ideal. The couple has children, including a daughter, and so upon the disillusion of the marriage, it is agreed that the ring will be given to the daughter at a specified moment in her life.

Perfect.

As for the other two options, however, I find them ethically unsound.

To maintain possession of the ring, with the intent to sell it or keep it for an unspecified period of time, strikes me as wrong. The husband deserves at least half of that ring’s value. As stated before, an engagement ring is not a gift in the truest sense of the word, and just like it would be returned if the engagement is broken off, it should also be returned in the event that the marriage ends. At the very least it should be sold, and the proceeds divided between the couple.

Frankly, selling the ring and keeping the proceeds for oneself strikes me as classless and fairly despicable. To view the ring as a simple gift is casting a blind eye at the idea of the inherent differences of the engagement ring, and to sell it with the expectation that the profits belong solely to the woman seems selfish, petty, unfair and rude.

If it's just left to linger in the jewelry box, add ridiculous and illogical to the list.

Obviously exceptions can be made if the husband has cheated on his spouse, bankrupt the family through illegal gambling or burned the house down while cooking meth, but in most divorces, a woman who simply keeps the ring for personal profit is fairly loathsome.

Disagree with me? Let me ask you this:

A couple gets engaged, and three days before the wedding, the bride calls the wedding off. Does the ring go back to the man?

I think most would say yes.

What if that same couple gets married and then decides to annul the marriage a week later? Should the ring go back to the man?

I’m willing to bet that most people would say yes.

What if that same couple decides to divorce after three months of marriage?  Does the ring go back to the man?

I think a majority of respondents could agree that the ring should go back to the man.

So what if the couple divorces after ten years? Is it not reasonable to ask the woman to sell the ring and divide the proceeds? Or even give the ring back? Is it only time that effectively transfers full ownership of the ring in the event of a divorce, and if so, how long must the marriage exist for this to happen?

Does this not strike you as a little ridiculous as well? In fact, I tend to believe that the ring should simply be returned to the man, but absent of this, I think a division of the ring is acceptable.

Frankly, I’m not really sure how women who don't return these rings or at least forge an equitable split are able to justify their claim to the jewelry or live with themselves after profiteering from the ring. It’s a decision that moves well past presumption and into the realm of the greedy and despicable.

I'm afraid that I will someday be an unwanted wedding guest

Yesterday friends of mine attended the wedding of their friend’s daughter. While it was nice of them to go and certainly an honor to be invited, I suddenly find myself terrified that all of my friends will one day invite me to the weddings of their children.

How dreadful.

While I’m certain that these parties would be great fun (provided that they are scheduled with careful consideration for the NFL schedule), it pains me to think how these poor children might be forced to add their parents’ friends to the guest lists when they can barely find room for their own friends and family.

How awful it would be to know that a bride or groom had to exclude an actual friend from the guest list because one of my friends insisted on inviting their twenty closest friends to the wedding, regardless of whether or not these friends meant anything to their kids.

While I am certain that some of these children would invite us anyway (my friend’s four-year old twin boys would undoubtedly invite Elysha and probably hit on her in the process), it would sadden me to think that any child would be asked or required by their parents to invite us.

Particularly if the Patriots are playing that day.

She is much too thin

This past week I heard no less than four women complain about another woman being too thin. They reminded me of New Yorker writer Ariel Levy mentioning Cindy McCain’s size zero in her litany of Cindy McCain faults during an interview about an article she wrote a couple years ago. “She has been taught her whole life to be the little woman. She was a beauty queen. It was her job to be docile. Pretty. Really, really skinny. Remember, she’s a size zero. That’s a thin woman.”

Cindy McCain’s dress size had nothing to do with her ability to function as First Lady, yet Levy, a well-known feminist, brought it up in the interview anyway.

Ladies, could you please stop tearing down one another based upon physical appearance, particularly when it comes to a woman’s weight, and especially in regards to women being too thin.

Let’s face it: If a woman is too thin, she’s either:

Super healthy Genetically gifted Sick Obscenely self-conscious Borderline anorexic Already suffering from an eating disorder Some combination of the above

None of these seem reason enough to insult the person.

More important, every time a woman complains that another woman is too thin, the one doing the complaining always comes across as petty, jealous, stupid, insensitive and/or mean.

Every time without exception.

You’re also further undermining women in general.

Open your mouth and complain about a woman being too thin, and you are nothing more than a mean bitch.

No more neckties

I often think of tradition in terms of aliens. If aliens landed on the planet right now, what would they think of the activities in which we are now engaged?

As a DJ, this thought most often occurs to me as I’m leading 50 wedding guests in the Macarena. If a flying saucer landed and a three-headed alien emerged and vaporized everyone on the dance floor, myself included, in fear that this ridiculous tradition might spread to other galaxies, I would not complain very much.

I’ve been thinking about neckties in this same vein. For reasons that I fail to understand, it is considered fashionable for men to tighten their shirts around their necks and strap on a patterned noose that is literally capable of asphyxiating them if tightened enough.

How did this ever become normal?

The tie serves no useful function, and if examined objectively (through the eyes of an alien), it is utterly ridiculous. Other than the apt metaphor that the tie serves, marking man’s forced enslavement to cultural norms, this self-strung noose is nothing but an unnecessary expense and a stupid looking accessory. When I see a man wearing a tie (myself included), I can’t help but think how ridiculous and conquered he appears, the pathetic victim of a cultural norm gone awry.

I thought I stood alone in my opinion, but happily I do not. Tie sales have suffered a sharp decline in recent years as people of similar thinking take similar stands. Kathryn Hughes of the Guardian (I love the British) attempts to explain this trend by writing that “the tie is the sartorial equivalent of an appendix - an entirely redundant bit of kit left over from a much earlier phase of evolution. …it is at least a couple of centuries since men felt it necessary to protect their throats in the street from anyone making a lunge at the jugular with a sword.”

She also indicates that the tie serves as an outdated means of defining class, and that these markers of wealth and distinction are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

So a few years ago I stopped wearing ties, and in order to reinforce the point, I threw most my ties away.

Yet on Sunday I wore a tie.

This was the first time that I had worn a necktie in more than two years. The last time I wore a tie, I only did so because I was a member of my sister-in-law’s bridal party. It was part of the uniform.

On Sunday, I wore a tie because I was serving as minister in a wedding and was asked to do so, but as soon as I arrived at the reception and assumed my role of DJ, the tuxedo went on but the tie came off.

Except in specifically requested and understandably necessary circumstances, I do not wear ties. Even so, it frustrates me that there are still days when I still find myself strapping that noose around my neck to appease a cultural norm.

And even though I believe that most people would agree with my assessment of the tie if they take the time to examine the situation objectively, few are willing to rise up and challenge the norm. Still fewer are willing to allow norm-breakers to be themselves. In debating the need to wear a tie with a man recently, he said to me, “Look. It doesn’t matter how you or I feel about wearing it. Just put it on. It’s expected.”

Have we forgotten that less than fifty years ago, the hat was even more ubiquitous than the tie? Men wore hats almost wherever they went, and hat racks could be found in every public establishment. Ask a man in 1955 if hats would ever become a thing of the past and he might sound as short-sighted and narrow-minded as the guy who told me to “Just put it on. It’s expected.”

In 1955, the disappearance of the hat would have been unimaginable. Yet it happened. American Poet Laureate Billy Collins wrote a brilliant poem about the extinction of the hat that I have attached below.

I mentioned this fact to the man I was debating, and he scoffed, insisting that wearing a tie was expected and wasn’t asking much of me.

How pathetic, I thought, that this man no longer has the strength of character or gumption to stand up for what he believes, or at least stand aside while others do so.

The boyhood version of himself would be appalled.

I couldn’t help but think that he deserved that paisley noose around his neck.

Death of the Hat

Once every man wore a hat.

In the ashen newsreels, the avenues of cities are broad rivers flowing with hats.

The ballparks swelled with thousands of strawhats, brims and bands, rows of men smoking and cheering in shirtsleeves.

Hats were the law. They went without saying. You noticed a man without a hat in a crowd.

You bought them from Adams or Dobbs who branded your initials in gold on the inside band.

Trolleys crisscrossed the city. Steamships sailed in and out of the harbor. Men with hats gathered on the docks.

There was a person to block your hat and a hatcheck girl to mind it while you had a drink or ate a steak with peas and a baked potato. In your office stood a hat rack.

The day war was declared everyone in the street was wearing a hat. And they were wearing hats when a ship loaded with men sank in the icy sea.

My father wore one to work every day and returned home carrying the evening paper, the winter chill radiating from his overcoat.

But today we go bareheaded into the winter streets, stand hatless on frozen platforms.

Today the mailboxes on the roadside and the spruce trees behind the house wear cold white hats of snow.

Mice scurry from the stone walls at night in their thin fur hats to eat the birdseed that has spilled.

And now my father, after a life of work, wears a hat of earth, and on top of that, a lighter one of cloud and sky--a hat of wind.

It’s your house and your rules, but I don’t have to like them.

Slate’s Emily Yoffe offers advice to a woman who would like visitors to remove their shoes upon entering her home. In the words of the advice-seeker: “How do I let guests know that I want them to take off their shoes without posting a nagging sign by the door? I always take my shoes off, and I think it’s a polite gesture”

Yoffe’s advice is good. She tells the advice seeker that removing one’s shoes upon entering the home is a reasonable expectation in Japan, but here in America, she needs to forget this ridiculous expectation and allow her guests to keep their sneakers on.

My advice, however, would be slightly different.

I have friends who ask guests to remove their shoes upon entering the home, and they go so far as providing a basket of slippers for their guests (which is nice). Like Yoffe, I find the requirement ridiculous, but I would never tell them that they should end the practice. It’s their home, and they have the right to set the ground rules.

They just have to accept the fact that most people, including myself, find the rule ridiculous.

And because I am who I am, I have made my feelings clear. Upon entering their home a couple year’s ago, the woman said, “You don’t think it’s a big deal to take off your shoes. Right, Matty?”

Clearly she was either sensing my annoyance or had dealt with someone's   complaints earlier. Either way, I answered honestly, “Actually, I think the rule is ridiculous and a little rude, but it’s your home, so I follow your rules.”

There were attempts on the woman's behalf to explain why the rule was a good one, including the likelihood that their newborn daughter would soon be crawling on the floors, but ultimately I had to explain to her that I would probably always find the rule ridiculous, but that it would not change the way I felt about her or my desire to visit their home.

Though her husband seemed fine with this, I got the sense that this did not sit as well with her, and I suspect that it would not sit well with the advice seeker in Yoffe’s video, either.

In her letter, the new homeowner is essentially asking Yoffe to explain how she can ask people to remove their shoes upon entering her home without appearing ridiculous, annoying, off-putting and strange.

But here’s the thing:

When you establish rules and customs outside the norms, people will almost always think of you as ridiculous, annoying, off-putting and strange.

You need to either learn to live with this perception or conform.

You can’t ask Americans to remove their shoes upon entering the home without annoying a majority of your guests. It’s simply not something that is done in the majority of American households. Fortunately, most people will lie under these circumstances and assure the homeowner that the rule is understandable and completely sensible. But rest assured that in most cases there will be a subsequent conversation in the car after the visit about the oddity and annoyance of the rule.

I just choose to be upfront and honest when asked a question, even if the answer might make the questioner uncomfortable.

Had I not been asked, I wouldn't have said a word.

In fact, my friend has warned his wife to avoid asking me questions if she might not like the answer.

This is an example of my own ridiculous, annoying, off-putting, strange non-conforming behavior. I have great difficulty telling white lies for the sake of politeness. While I know there was probably a conversation about it after I left the house that day, I understand and accept this. I am being true to myself, and I know that oftentimes that is considered rude.

Unfortunately, most people are unwilling to accept that their non-conformity is different, strange or off-putting.

When my daughter was fourteen months old and still not watching a minute of television, many of our friends and family thought my wife and I were being acting ridiculous. There were probably conversations about us behind our backs.

We were fine with that.

When I threw all my neckties away and began showing up at formal occasions like weddings without one, I am sure that there were many people rolling their eyes and thinking that I was acting like a child.

I’m fine with that.

When I refuse to engage in conversations about the cost and appropriateness of certain gifts, I know that there are people in my life who find my decision to walk away from these conversations rude and unnecessary.

I’m fine with that, too.

I have a whole host of oddities that I am sure offend people.

I don’t say “Bless you” when someone sneezes because doing so presumes a religious belief upon the sneezer and is an empty blessing from me considering my lack of religious belief.

When a guy squeezes too hard when shaking my hand, I say, “Ow! That’s hurts! Who taught you how to shake a guy’s hand?” because accepting the pain without complaint seems silly and subservient to me.

I used to sleep in the shape of a question mark in order to allow my dog to sleep on the bed wherever she liked.

All of these behaviors are not normal, and I would expect my friends and family to think of me as a little odd and possibly foolish.

I accept this.

So I would tell Yoffe’s advice-seeker the same thing I told my friend:

Asking people to remove their shoes upon entering your home is a perfectly reasonable request given that it is your home, but you must also understand that your rule is ridiculous, silly, annoying, and makes you look a little strange. You may believe that this rule is perfectly sensible, but most people do not. As a result, you will always be perceived as the weirdo who makes people remove their shoes at the door.

Just be willing to live with this perception and everything will be fine.

Words of marital wisdom

Maria McBride, the wedding style director at Brides Magazine, describes the enchantment with the 10/10/10 wedding date as this: “You cross your fingers and hope it lasts a lifetime.” Therefore, the prospect of a perfect ten times three, she explains, suggests good luck.

Is this really what people are feeling when they get married?

Are brides and grooms crossing their fingers and hoping for the best when they slip the ring on their partner’s finger?

I was fortunate enough to marry a couple on 10/10/10, and over the course of that day, I saw no dependence upon hope, luck or superstition in order to make their marriage last. These were two people who had known each other since elementary school, and they were clearly in love.

In fact, they didn’t even realize the numerical significance of their date until after it had been set.

I hope Maria McBride is wrong. Yes, marriages fail at a rate of nearly 50%, but it’s my hope that no one enters into marriage with their fingers crossed.

And if you want your marriage to last a lifetime, allow me to offer a few tips.

Though I am not a style director of a bridal magazine, I have been married twice (one failed and one near-perfect), have married more than a dozen couples in the last ten years, and have worked with more than 300 others in planning their wedding day in the capacity of DJ and wedding planner. I am also responsible for salvaging at least two marriages (in the words of those involved) and am frequently looked upon as a source of martial advice from people I know.

I’m not an expert, but I know some stuff.

So here are three things to keep in mind prior to getting married:

1. Don’t get married before the age of 30.  It’s not a sure sign of disaster if you decide to get married earlier, but it doesn’t help. People over the age of 30 are more established, more aware of their own needs, and better prepared to share a home and life with another person. In short, they are more mature and better able to meet the requirements of marriage.

Don’t believe me?  Survey the people you know in your life.

How many are divorced?

How many of those divorced people were married before the age of 30?

If you are like most people I know, the numbers will tell the story.

2. If you are in a relationship in which the negotiation required for a night out without your future spouse or a Saturday afternoon on the golf course requires you to carefully time your request and barter one obligation or privilege for another, don’t get married.

If you are in a relationship in which you find yourself “getting in trouble” with your future spouse, don’t get married.

When a husband, for example, must wait until his wife is in a good mood to ask if he can attend a football game, or when he worries about getting in trouble with his wife for staying out an hour or two later than planned, it is not a relationship on equal footing and it should be avoided at all costs. The marriage might last, but it ain’t going to be a happy life.

3. Do not marry someone who is unwilling to combine their finances with your own.

I have known couples who keep separate checking accounts and divide household expenses via complex formulas, and while some of them are still married today, they are simply not as happy as a couple who stands together as a team, under one financial umbrella.

A couple who keeps their money separate is a couple who is crossing their fingers and hoping the marriage will last while keeping one foot in the doorway just in case it doesn’t.

It’s a recipe for disaster. Money is already a contributing factor in most divorces. Don’t give it room to create any more trouble than it already does.

My good friend, Kim, tells her children that choosing their spouse is the single most important decision that they will ever make.

I agree with her.

Make it a sensible choice, and one that will give you the greatest chance at happiness. I know far too many unhappily married people and count myself extremely fortunate to be in a marriage that brings me nothing but joy.

You deserve the same.

Small comforts

A friend of mine was telling me the story of a former college roommate and how absolutely awful she was. There were many stories illustrating her loathsomeness, but here’s the best of the lot: After boarding the plane with her boyfriend on the way to Aruba, she handed the poor guy a list of expectations for the trip.

Number one on the list: No disappointments.

When society collapses, zombie infestation sweeps the planet, or aliens invade, the only solace I will find is in thinking about people like this and knowing how ill-equipped they are for a life without electricity, indoor plumbing, gossip magazines, and designer handbags.

The Internet is not always necessary

While in the vet’s office, I noticed a sign that read: For your convenience we are now online at ctvetcenter.com.

While I appreciate the effort, I’m not sure how an online presence makes a veterinarian more convenient. Perhaps if I could schedule appointments online, that might be good, but no, this is not one of their offerings.

Sure, they list their hours of operation, but my vet is a 24-hour emergency care facility, which means that they are always open, no matter the time. I once brought my dog in at 3:00 AM.

Apparently there are employment opportunities at the location, but how many people bring their pet in for a checkup, hoping to land a job as well?

And yes, there’s even a place to upload photos of my pet, but this can hardly be termed convenient.

When I can schedule an appointment online, find some ideas on how to get the cat to shut up at night, or arrange for a staff member to administer Kaleigh’s eye drops each day, I’ll be impressed.

Killing pigeons and swimming in sync are both dumb

With the Olympics less than a year away, I have a couple complaints that I would like the IOC to consider:

First, I do not support the inclusion of any sport that is not played in childhood. Synchronized swimming is a good example. No kid jumps into the pool, hoping to find a friend who will swim around “Just like me!” while accompanied by music.

Children who might want to do something like this invariably have no friends to swim with anyway.

Sports like synchronized swimming also require the use of judges to determine a winner, another practice that I abhor. If your sport utilizes a judge as the sole means of deciding the gold, silver and bronze medal winners, it is no longer a sport. It is a performance.

We might as well include break dancing, poetry slams, and magic shows as Olympic events if we’re going to rely on judges to decide a competitors fate.

I also do not like it when Olympic sports are removed from the games. In 2012 baseball and softball are being removed from the list of events.

Why?

Have these sports become so unpopular that nations can no longer field teams? With the amount of baseball talent coming out of the Caribbean, South America, and Japan, I hardly think so.

So what gives?

Golf was once an Olympic sport as well, more than a hundred years ago but not since. It will reappear in 2012 but only on a trial basis.  Yet the PGA tour is full of international players, and Europe has its own version of the PGA tour across the pond, not to mention the international Ryder Cup competition each year.  So why not include a sport as popular as golf as an Olympic event?  If sports like judo and badminton remain on the schedule, why not genuinely popular sports like golf and baseball?  It would seem to me that the more events, the better. Right?

Of course, I guess removing the occasional event isn’t all bad. In 1900 live pigeon shooting made its first and only appearance in the Olympic Games. The object of this event was to shoot and kill as many birds as possible. The birds were released in front of a participant and the winner was the competitor who shot down the most birds from the sky.

I know it’s wrong to assume that people living a hundred years ago were stupid and barbaric, but an event like live pigeon shooting make it difficult to think otherwise.

Unacceptable, even in a restroom

This placard is posted in the men’s room of AC Peterson’s, a local restaurant and ice cream parlor. 

Do you see what I see?

The half-exposed drill hole on the right-hand side?

The screws placed in such a way that they cover up part of the letters?

The unleveled mounting of the placard on the wall?

I know it’s just a tiny sign in the men’s room of an ice cream parlor, but someone is responsible for this shoddy work, and it drives me crazy.

Do your best in whatever you do, damn it, and if you can’t manage that, at least cover up the old holes in the wall.

If you have to announce it to the world…

I saw a vanity plate today with the word CREATIVE on it. I ask you:

Is there anything less creative than expressing your creativity by tagging your car with the word creative?

Men would never put up with this Tupperware party nonsense

My friend is scheduled to attend one of those Tupperware-type parties next week, where someone tries to sell the attendees a kitchen gadget, styling cream or knitting accouterments. My question:

Why is this almost strictly a female phenomenon?

Why aren’t there parties for men, where tools, golfing gadgets, ties or other male accessories are sold?

Perhaps more accurately, what would possess a woman to want to gather her friends in her home or a friend's home and subject them to a three hour sales pitch? It sounds perfectly dreadful to me, but women do this all the time, and at least some of them respond positively to the invite.

Even more mystifying:

Those that have no desire to attend these kinds of parties (and I use the word parties loosely) attend anyway out of a misplaced sense of obligation.

It's bizarre.

If your friend opens a beauty care shop, I’d expect you to eventually stop by and at least to check the place out. But if your friend wants to bring that goop into your living room on a Friday night under the pretense of a party and convert your home into a retail outlet, I think it's perfectly acceptable (and perhaps advisable) to say no.

Tragically, many women will not say no. Instead, they call on their friends and acquaintances  many of whom despise these parties as well, and they all gather 'round the coffee table so that their friend or a friend of a friend can pitch product under the guise of entertainment. Worse still, because of the plethora of free samples provided at these parties, women feel obligated to purchase something even if they hate the product and just want to get the hell out.

And don't let anyone fool you. If given the choice, the majority of women would wipe these parties off the face of the Earth and never give it a second thought. For every women that enjoys attending these retail living room shindigs, there are at least two Lady Macbeths at these parties adopting a "false face must hide what the false heart doth know" countenance.

As pervasive as these parties are, they are not popular.

I was discussing this issue with my friend recently and she thought that I had hit on a great business idea:

Sales and marketing parties for men.

“Yes,” she said (into my voice recorder). “That’s a great idea. Tools and ties and sports stuff would be perfect. You might have found a real moneymaker.”

Sadly, I had to explain to my friend that hell would likely freeze over before any male friend of mine would attend a party like this.

In fact, there is an unspoken male pact, infused in our genetic code, that demands that if any man were to invite us to a party like this, we would be required to beat him to death with the claw end of a hammer lest this vile ritual infect our world as well.

Connecticut automotive eccentricities

I’ve been in Connecticut for seventeen years now, almost as long as I lived in Massachusetts, and long enough to think of myself as a resident of this place rather than a transplant from the Bay State.

When I first moved to Connecticut, there were many, many things that bothered me about this state. I have learned to overlook most of them.

The ridiculous practice of covering up alcohol under tarpaulins in grocery stores after 7:00 PM.

The paltry state of local television news.

The practice of referring to the Department of Motor Vehicles as Motor Vehicle, as in “I’m going to Motor Vehicle today.”

The existence of a one newspaper town.

But there are a few that continue to bother me, and two specifically pertaining to the rules of the road.

First, and perhaps worst, is the presence of a traffic light on route 9, a major north south highway running through the center of the state with an average speed limit of 65 miles per hour. It is possibly the only place in the world where one can be tooling around in a convertible at eighty miles per hour then suddenly find oneself at a red light, waiting in a half mile of traffic.

Stupid stupid stupid.

Connecticut also plants four way stops throughout their towns like dandelions, seemingly one on every corner. It’s impossible to drive for more than five minutes without encountering one.

In Massachusetts, the presence of a four way stop sign signals the location of a previous automobile accident where a car full of drunken teenagers undoubtedly met their untimely end.

There’s something reassuring in knowing that precautions are based upon historical precedent and not just wishful thinking.

Is good food enough?

Elysha and I went to Mo’s Midtown this morning for breakfast. The food was good, and Elysha actually likes their pancakes a lot, but these are several subtle oddities about the restaurant that had us wondering if we would return any time soon.

Let’s start with the name of the place: Mo’s Midtown.

This restaurant isn’t even close to being midtown. In fact, it’s actually one street over from the border between Hartford and West Hartford. It couldn’t be farther than midtown.

So why this name?

Things like this really bother me.

The word restaurant was also misspelled on the menu. Instead, it reads restorant.

This bothers me as well.

And that’s a lot of issues centering just on the name of the place.

But there’s more.

Elysha and I went to breakfast without cash and were pleasantly surprised to discover that they accept debit cards “for our convenience.” While I think all restaurants (and restorants) should accept credit cards, it’s not uncommon for a small diner like Mo’s to deal only in cash.

However, after handing the waitress my bill ($15.24) and my debit card and entering my PIN number, she handed me back a receipt and $3.76 in change.

“Oh no,” I said. “This isn’t mine. I gave you a debit card.”

“Yes, I know,” she said. “I withdrew $20 from your account for the bill and here is the change.”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“It’s like taking money out of an ATM machine. I withdrew $20 to pay your bill. I can only withdraw money in increments of $20.”

“So we’re essentially standing in a giant ATM machine?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, finding my sarcastic comment amusing.

“Is there a charge for using this giant ATM machine?” I asked.

“Yes. One dollar,” she said.

I eat out quite often, but I have never found myself paying in such a manner. And frankly, I thought it was a lousy way for the Mo’s to avoid credit and debit charges.

For my convenience? I don’t think so.

These issues alone would have been enough to keep me away.

But there’s more.

Add to the list the need to explain to the waitress of a diner known for its pancakes what silver dollar pancakes are and then still not getting them for our daughter when the food arrived. “Sorry,” the waitress explained. “He didn’t understand, so he just made one big pancake.”

And then there was the lack of fountain soda, serving Diet Pepsi in cans instead, as well as the waitress’s inconceivable decision to bring me and Elysha our breakfast a full five minutes before bringing my twenty-month old daughter hers.

Actually, this happens more often than you might imagine. Is it that hard to understand the mind of a toddler?

As a result of this odd series of eccentricities, we may never return to Mo’s Midtown, as much as I enjoyed the French toast and Elysha loved her pancakes.

Sometimes, if you can’t choose a geographically accurate name for your restaurant/ATM machine, that’s enough to keep me away.

Am I being picky?

Did we need to see the veins?

My wife and I took Clara apple-picking at Karabin Farms. I cannot recommend this place enough. Hay rides, apple cider donuts, farm animals and lots and lots of low hanging apples. The day was nearly perfect.

Except for one thing:

Adjacent to the cow field was this cute trivia board, where I learned that the average cow produces about ten gallons of milk a day.

But did you notice the udders?

Did we really need all the veins?

Eww…

Bad wedding advice from another white, middle aged advice columnist

Slate V produces a regular Dear Prudence video blog in which Slate contributor Emily Yoffe attempts to pass on advice to people in need of help regarding manners and morals. I find this whole setup to be offensive and ridiculous. Though I understand that advice on manners is occasionally required, it is often dispensed by individuals with the most rigid, traditionalist, religious viewpoints known to man.

If H.L. Mencken or Matt Groening were passing out advice on manners, I might listen. But the only people engaged in this line of work seem to be middle-aged, conservative white women.

Ann Landers. Emily Post. Dr. Laura. Joyce Brothers. Amy Dickinson.

And now Emily Yoffe.

To be honest, the people typically seeking Yoffe’s advice come across as the kind of person that I tend not like very much:

Self centered, self involved individuals who are overly invested and indoctrinated by tradition, religion and societal norms and who are under the delusion that their minuscule problems equate to Shakespearean tragedies.

Honestly, what kind of person writes to a stranger with hopes that the public airing of their problem, accompanied by the stranger’s solution, will actually prove to be meaningful?

Take the most recent advice seeker who wrote to Prudence about being asked to serve as a maid of honor in a cartoon-themed wedding. The bride and groom, as well as their attendants, will be wearing costumes of their favorite cartoon characters on the day of the wedding. The uptight, self-absorbed maid of honor claims that she is not “horrified” by the idea but is a little uncomfortable about two hundred people staring at her during the ceremony and reception.

“Should I say something or just go along with the bride’s wishes?” she asks

Equally uppity Emily Yoffe says that she finds “noxious the trend at turning a wedding into a day-long free pass for the couple to act out their fantasies and corral innocent friends and loved ones into being decorative elements into their tableau vivant.”

She then recommends that the maid of honor inform the bride that she is “too self conscious to carry it off” and would prefer to attend the wedding as a guest.

I don’t know where to start.

First off, here is my suggestion to anyone who is invited to participate as a member of the wedding party, and especially to those so honored to be asked to serve as Best Man or Maid of Honor:

Shut the hell up and do as you’re told. This is not about you. This is a day dedicated to the couple, and whatever they want or desire is acceptable. It’s their goddamn wedding and it’s one goddamn day. Deal with it and smile.

As “noxious” as Yoffe may find it, times change. Traditions evolve.  Underwear becomes less constrictive and the formality and tradition that has stifled creativity and expressions of individuality for so long are becoming a thing of the past. More noxious than a couple of cartoon fans looking to make their wedding a day to remember is a maid of honor who places her own self interest and insecurity ahead of her friend’s desires.

And I have a news flash for this maid of honor:

How will she feel when the guests at the wedding see the bride’s best friend sitting alongside them in a pretty little summer dress on her friend’s most important day of her life, rightly assuming that the bitch wouldn’t wear the Daisy Duck costume that her best friend asked her to wear?

How uncomfortable will she be feeling then?

Is she worried that the guests might assume that she dresses like a giant duck every day?

Is she concerned that the guests will make assumptions about her intelligence or character based upon her choice of anthropomorphized fowl?

I would like to assure this woman that the only self-conscious feelings that she should be feeling should be in regard to the opinions that guests will have when they discover that she was too selfish and self absorbed to agree to her best friend’s wishes on the most important day of her life.

That might be something worthy of self-consciousness.

As for Yoffe, her advice is par for the course. Safe, traditional, indoctrinated nonsense. And though I know what the phrase tableau vivant means, was this type of erudite language necessary in an advice column?

Yoffe made one other comment that ruffled my feathers a bit. In dispensing her advice, she suggested that the costume might be better than the “atrocity” that most bridesmaid are forced to wear.

Is it true that every bridesmaid dress is horrible, and if so, why do women do this to one another and then spend the rest of their lives complaining about it? And why doesn’t Yoffe come down equally hard on all of these brides for sticking their friends in dresses that they hate or make them look like fools?

What’s the difference between a pink tutu and a cartoon costume?

Whether it is pink taffeta or a chicken costume, I think that women should shut up and wear what’s been chosen without complaint.

But perhaps they should also stop choosing dresses so uniformly displeasing.  I can’t think of a single circumstance in which men routinely ask one another to do something that is universally despised.

If we did so, we wouldn’t have friends.

Ladies, what gives?

Germans continue to win despite their defeat

A couple of my closest friends live in the town of Berlin, CT. That’s Ber-LIN. Not BER-lin.

I got wondering about why the town’s name is pronounced differently than the German capital, and I learned that in response to war against Germany during World War I, the citizens of Berlin changed the pronunciation of their town in deference to the American cause.

What a bunch of pansies.

Had I been a German soldier fighting at the time and heard about this decision, I would’ve considered this a symbolic victory for my country. Not only did my presence in the trenches change the course of events half a world away, but 80 years later, that symbolic victory remains. The pronunciation of the town remains altered, causing confusion to many.

Can you imagine what would have happened if these Berlin pansies had run the country during the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812? Half the towns in New England (and maybe more) are named after English cities and hamlets. What if each of those names was changed in response to war with England? No one would be able to pronounce the name of a single town in New England without instruction.

This is not the only instance of a time when America has chosen to change tradition and ritual and bend to the power of perception in response to an enemy. The Hitler salute, the heil, was a variant of an early Roman salute that was adopted by the Nazi Party in 1933. But similar salutes were used worldwide at the time, including the United States. Francis Bellamy, author of the original Pledge of Allegiance (the version that does not violate the First Amendment by including God) instructed Americans to salute the flag during the pledge with their “right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it.”

Very much like the Nazi Party’s salute.

But this salute was abandoned in 1942 when it was perceived to be too similar to the Nazi salute.

What the hell? America changed the way that it salutes the flag because a bunch of fascists across the pond copied us? I thought that this is why we fight wars… to preserve our way of life (at least this is why we used to fight wars). Not to change our way of life when lunatics start adopting customs too closely resembling our own.

Why not sail across the ocean, kick those fascists’ asses, and take the salute back for ourselves? Reclaim it as our own, damn it. Don’t allow a bunch of fanatics to change our way of life.

I get a little emotional over this subject.

And even though American soldiers kicked those fascist’s asses and won the war in a decisive manner, the change in our salute remained. Today, we place our hands over our hearts if we choose to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and every time I do so, I think of it as the echo of a Nazi victory.

I would resume the Bellamy salute in protest of this terrible decision if I weren’t afraid of a brutal death at the hands of an angry mob of patriotic fanatics, spurred on by the same kind of fanaticism that propelled the Nazi Party to power in the first place.

The bride is pretty

I have noticed a disturbing trend over the past year that I have managed to document and analyze in order to determine if my observations have been accurate. As a wedding DJ, I have heard hundreds, if not thousands, of toasts, almost always by the best man, oftentimes by the father of the groom, and lately by the maid or matron of honor as well. Ten years ago a toast from the maid of honor was a rarity, but today it happens more often than it does not.

Though these women are all fine speakers and often do an excellent job with their toasts, I have noticed that they tend to limit their positive comment about the bride to physical appearance only. The typical maid of honor comments on how beautiful the bride looks and then follows this compliment with a story or anecdote about the couple. Sometimes she talks about the bride and groom’s first date, and sometimes she describes the moment when the groom asked the bride to marry him.  Stories from childhood or college are often included, and then glasses are raised and the microphone is passed to the best man.

In the last twelve weddings that I have worked in which a maid of honor toasted the bride and groom, she has limited all positive remarks about the bride to physical appearance.

Every single one.

In contrast, best man speeches never reference physical appearance (unless done in jest) but instead center on a groom’s character. Loyalty, friendship, selflessness, and even courage are often referenced.  Sometimes stupidity and clumsiness enter the fray as well.  From this past weekend, for example, the groom was described as loyal family man, dependable, funny, intelligent, risk-taking, hard working, sentimental, and kind.

All of these glowing remarks while the maid of honor limited her remarks to “You look so beautiful today” and “You look simply stunning today, as you always do.”

Granted, there was more to the maid of honor’s toast, but stories were told to promote laughter and reminiscence and not for the purposes of highlighting the bride’s many positive attributes.

Other than the bride’s degree of beauty, all other compliments (and I would argue the more meaningful comments) were reserved for the groom.

Thankfully this was not the case on our wedding day. Elysha’s sister’s toast including a glowing tribute to her sister, describing her as a warm and genuine person and not the pretty object that most maids of honor focus seem stuck on.

And my best man offered a long but excellent toast, full of stories that I had long since forgotten, but nothing about my physical appearance, probably to my benefit.

Prior to every toast, I review the use of the microphone with best men and maids of honor, and if needed, I will review their toasts as well, to ensure that nothing is missed.  At a recent wedding I suggested to the maid of honor that a few positive comments related to something other than the bride’s physical appearance might be in order, and she scoffed at the idea, looking at me as if I were from Pluto.

“Have you even heard a maid of honor toast before? I got all these ideas from a web site and (the bride) is going to love them.”

Though I didn’t think that she was wrong in her prediction of the bride’s reaction to the toast, I wished that she were.