If you have strong feelings about cargo shorts, then you are probably an infantile jackass.

I was surprised to see that a junior high newspaper editorial staff apparently took over The Wall Street Journal last week, publishing a infantile piece on cargo shorts in their esteemed pages.

The thesis of the piece is this:

Cargo shorts are ugly, and men who wear them are stupid and ugly. 

Seriously. That's their thesis. It's also the type of sentiment expressed by junior high school cretins who think that a classmate's choice of clothing is reason for ridicule.

This piece was paragraph after paragraph of petty, cruel nonsense, reported as if this matters in any way and absent of any condemnation for the critics of cargo shorts, which is all this piece should really be. 

Note: 

“Relationships around the country are being tested by cargo shorts, loosely cut shorts with large pockets sewn onto the sides. Men who love them say they’re comfortable and practical for summer. Detractor say they’ve been out of style for years, deriding them as bulky, uncool and just flat-out ugly.”

Detractors? Do you mean snobby jackasses who think that everyone should dress exactly like them or be derided for their alternative views regarding fashion? These people aren't detractors. They're disgusting, small minded, useless people who clearly loathe themselves and their life.  

Or how about this paragraph?

“Fashion guru Tim Gunn said in a 2007 interview with Reuters that cargo shorts were the least fashionable item of clothing in his closet. British tabloid Daily Express called cargo shorts “a humiliation for any man over 21 and should be sold only after proof of age has been presented.”

Humiliation? A person's choice of shorts is worthy of feelings of humiliation? I think that declaring any item of clothing to be humiliating should be the real cause for humiliation. This is not junior high. This is real life, where people get to wear whatever the hell they want without the self-professed popular kids saying mean things. Shut the hell up, detractors.  

This might be my favorite part of the piece (which means it's the part I hate the most): 

“Jen Anderson, a 45-year-old freelance writer in Brooklyn, N.Y., said she used to tease her husband gently about his fashion choices, until he made a purchase that crossed the line: denim cargo shorts. That was “just too far,” she said.

Through what Ms. Anderson described as “strong mocking,” she convinced him to return the shorts. She said she doesn’t like the idea of being seen in public with her husband when he’s wearing cargo shorts, which make him look like “a misshapen lump.”

“It’s a reflection on me, like ‘How did she let him out the door like that?’ ” she said.”

Despite Jen Anderson's advanced age, she has apparently not advanced in terms of maturity since junior high. Her husband's appearance is a reflection of her? Does she really believe that friends and colleagues determine her worth as a human being based in part on her husband's choice of shorts?

If so, who is she spending time with? Reality television celebrities? Fictional characters in John Hughes' films? Victims of traumatic brain injuries? 

Did Jen Anderson marry a toy poodle? An online avatar of some sort? What kind of sick and twisted lunatic looks at a person's clothing and makes any kind of assumption about the person's spouse?

People like Jen Anderson, apparently.

She 's worried that people will wonder "How did she let (her husband) out the door like that?"

Did Jen Anderson marry a toddler? Does her husband have no backbone? Is he on a leash? Must he scratch the door or ask permission to exit the home? Does she dress him everyday in the same way I choose my four year-old son's outfit on a given day? 

Is she really worried about what people will think of her based upon her husband's cargo shorts?

Actually, I think she is. I also think that is a fairly pathetic way of living beyond high school. 

Last bit of awfulness from the piece:

“GQ magazine last summer wrote that cargo shorts with slim pockets are acceptable, but not if “they look anything like the ones you picked up at the mall when you were trying to dress like a cool kid in middle school.”

I was so happy that GQ took the time to inform us about what is acceptable and what is not. Why they are the arbiters of what people can wear without being ridiculed by the likes of Jen Anderson, Tim Gunn, and Daily Express is beyond me. I suspect that few people give a damn about what GQ finds acceptable, and those that do aren't worth the pages that the magazine is printed on. 

I would like to propose a few alternatives to the idea that cargo shorts should be an item of ridicule: 

1. Why not let people wear whatever the hell they want and leave them alone?
2. Why don't we all grow up past our infantile junior high school sensibilities and let our fellow human beings look and feel they way they want without comment?
3. How about finding a real problem to worry about other than a man's decision to wear shorts with large pockets?
4. Why don't we all stop worrying about what the likes of Jen Anderson think of us when we leave the house?
5. How about we embrace and perhaps even celebrate diversity of appearance in all its forms? Even if that diversity comes in the form of cargo shorts?

I don't own any cargo shorts, and therefore, I don't wear any cargo shorts, but if you do, happy news!

I don't care. I probably won't even notice. 

If you wear pink and green cargo shorts with three dozen pockets and an upside-down No Parking sign woven on the ass, I don't care, either. If you are happy, I am happy for you. 

And if Tim Gunn or Jen Anderson or GQ anyone else tells you that your cargo shorts look dumb or ugly or are a source of humiliation, you can tell them to go to hell. Or tell them to go back to high school, where we were supposed to have left that nonsense behind.

Here is an idea: Just as you are about to open your mouth in criticism of another person's clothing choices, stuff an apple in your mouth and silence yourself, because you are more akin to a pig than a decent human being.  

Staging your home for sale is stupid and self-destructive. Kind of like lipstick. We must end the insanity.

My friends are selling their home. Moving away. It's miserable.

As a result, they are in the process of showing their home to would-be buyers, and part of that process is staging the home. Flowers on tables. Real and/or plastic fruit in bowls. Flowers on a side table. A second set of towels to replace the used ones in the bathrooms. 

And of course counters and desktops are cleared, toys are hidden away, a tablecloth is added to their kitchen table. Flower beds are maniacally weeded. The grass is cut to perfection. 

And my friends are only doing the minimum. Many staging guides online suggest hundreds of other tactics, often costing thousands of dollars. There are now companies that will stage your home for you, rearranging your furniture to make the house look bigger and adding furniture, lamps, vases, and other items from vast warehouses of home goods.

All of this in the service of making the home look more attractive to would-be buyers.

Here's the thing:

We all know that these houses are being staged. We know that the lack of clutter and clusters of fruit and flowers are not real. We know that bath towels are never as fresh as they appear in a home for sale. We know that children rarely make their beds. We know that paper-free desktops and dish-free drying racks are only found in the homes of the most compulsive people. We know that flower beds without weeds and refrigerators without magnets are unrealistic. 

And yet we allow this farce to continue. Sellers continue to present unrealistic and false projections of their homes, and buyers agree to continue to allow these fabrications to influence their purchasing decisions. 

I have an idea:

Let's just all agree to stop spending money on creating these falsehoods and instead agree to look at hones that appear like real homes. Absent of bowls of fruit. Complete with damp bath towels and cluttered countertops. Littered with Legos. Why don't we all agree to look at homes that look like real homes and not catalog-versions of homes that do not exist in real life?

Sellers will save money and perhaps pass these savings onto buyers. Buyers will get a true sense of what the house looks like when people actually live inside it. And ridiculous staging companies will stop stealing our hard-earned dollars to provide temporary lamps and momentary love seats to our already furnished homes.  

Staging a home is kind of like wearing lipstick.

We all know that you're wearing lipstick.
We all know that your lips aren't actually that shade of red.
We all know that you painted your mouth in hopes of making it look prettier. 
You're not fooling anyone. 

Staging is the same thing. When we walk into a staged home, we all know that it's a lie. We all know that the fruit and fresh bath towels are nonsense. 

If both parties are aware of the con, end the con.

Gender reveals: Another example of "Not every thing needs to be a thing"

Gender reveal shenanigans are pretty stupid on a couple levels.

First, they are stupid just because they are stupid.

Your doctor tells you that you're having a girl, so you plan a party. You bake a pink cake with white frosting. You send invitations to friends and relatives who have much better things to do that day. Your guests gather around the cake and watch you slice, revealing the pink interior and therefore the gender of your future child. People pretend to cheer. They shake your hand with false enthusiasm and wonder how long they need to linger at the party before leaving. 

If you need this kind of attention, try stand-up comedy instead. Or ballet. Maybe learn to joust so you can perform in the local Renaissance fair. Do something where the public attention you so desperately crave is part of the deal. Required, even.

Stop turning things like gender reveals and prom proposals into performance art. Every thing doesn't need to be a thing.  

But here's the other reason gender reveals are stupid:

There's no way of knowing what your child's gender is. You can know the sex of your child, but as we now know, gender is much more complex than the genitals that you have been assigned. Cutting into that pink cake is no guarantee that your child will identify as female later in life.

If you're going to engage in this stupidity, you'll at least need to ditch "gender reveal"" and instead call it a "sex reveal."

Or maybe a "Penis or vagina reveal" (though it would probably be more accurate to refer to it as a "Penis and vulva reveal" since the exterior female sex organ is the vulva and not the vagina, as everyone seems to think). 

 Hopefully, you find phrases like "sex reveal" or Penis and vulva reveal"  so disconcerting that you cancel the whole shebang and reveal your child's sex the old fashioned way:

You call your mom. You meet your friend for dinner. You tell your buddy on the golf course. Hang some pink or blue balloons off your mailbox. You post the news to social media. 

Or do what my wife and I did:

Wait until the baby is born. Check for yourself. Then tell everyone.

And if you thought the sex reveal cake was bad - and it is - check out this Mensa candidate revealing the sex of his child via colored chalk and explosives. 

There was a lot wrong with the 1970's, but these two things might have made up for it.

The 1970′s may have been bathed in second hand smoke and disco, and the dominant political figure of the decade may have been Richard Nixon, but people didn't speak about hummus like it was a religion, and travel soccer did not exist.

So maybe not so bad after all.

Thank you notes: Should you send an email or write a note?

A recent Infographic on thank you notes caught my attention:

It's a lovely infographic, but I disagree with the process of decision making that it outlines. 

Instead, I would like to propose my own rules about when you can write an email and when you must send a physical thank you note.

When determining whether an email or an actual thank you note is required, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is the recipient the kind of inane and pedantic person who would be offended by an email in lieu of a handwritten thank you note?

If NO, send an email. Not only is it more efficient, but it allows you to say more in less time.
If YES, answer the following:

2. Is the recipient someone whose opinions you care about?

If NO, send an email.
If YES, consider sending an email. If you're still uncertain, answer the following question.

3. Is the recipient the kind of small-minded, vacuous person who might underhandedly complain about your failure to send an actual thank you note to people who you know and respect?

If NO, send the email.
If YES, grudgingly send the thank you note.

When these rules are unavailable to you, you can always rely on this one question to arrive at an equitable solution:

Is the recipient a backwards-thinking, arcane traditionalist capable of underhanded, passive-aggressive, prickish behavior with far too much time on their hands?

If NO, send an email.
If YES, send a thank you note. Or better yet, eradicate this person from your life entirely if possible.

I sent an email in lieu of a thank you note about 90% of the time. I am capable to write far more meaningful and memorable things in an email than I can in a thank you note, and I usually do. As untraditional and impersonal an email may seem to some, if done right, it can be far more meaningful and impactful than a small piece of card stock with 3-5 scribbled sentences.

When I send a physical thank you note, it's almost always in situations that still demand a physical thank you note (in response to gifts, for example, though even then, I will send an email to close friends) or when the recipient is likely to be offended by the email and his or her response to the email will be more troublesome to me than the actual writing of the thank you note.  

It should also be noted that if you are a person who thinks that a thank you note sent via email is never acceptable, you should know that you are a dinosaur. You are slowly but surely becoming extinct. You may enjoy your thank you note perch high above the masses, but please know that the world is moving on without you. 

Most of us understand that it's the thought that counts. It's a lesson we were taught as children, and it remains true today. 

 The thought - contrary to arcane and dwindling belief - does not require ink, envelope, and postage to count. 

Wonder Woman's invisible jet is stupid.

The new Wonder Woman film is more than a year away, but a "trailer" was released last week showing the first glimpses of the film.

It got me thinking about Wonder Woman's invisible jet.

I hope the filmmakers abandon this ridiculous concept in this new iteration. While I certainly see the value of an invisible mode of transport, I cannot understand the value of an invisible jet that does not also make the passengers and their belongings invisible as well.

What is more noticeable?

A jet flying through the sky at 33,000 feet or a half-naked Amazonian princess with golden wrist band and a lasso flying by in an oddly seated position?

Jigsaw puzzles are a terrible, rotten, no good, very bad gift.

In this holiday season, please remember this one important fact when choosing a gift for a friend or loved one:

Giving your loved one the gift of a jigsaw puzzle is like giving that person a purposeless, meaningless chore best suited for someone who idolizes Sisyphus.

Jigsaw puzzles are ridiculous. Take an oftentimes lovely picture, break it into hundreds of pieces, and expect your loved one to re-assemble it into something less lovely than the original.

What a jerky thing to do. 

And once it's complete?

Stare at it for a few moments (even though the image is already on the box), break it into hundreds of pieces again, and put it away until the next time your loved one is hell bent on accomplishing nothing. 

It's a terrible gift.

Why not just tear a sheet of paper into a hundred pieces and ask your loved one to re-assemble it? Or break a plate? Or invite your loved one to twiddle his or her thumbs for an hour or two?

These pursuits seem just as entertaining to me as assembling a jigsaw puzzle. 

Granted, my opinion may be slightly clouded by the fact that I have great difficulty assembling jigsaw puzzles, but I suspect that I would hate them regardless of my prowess. 

Putting stuff that someone has purposely broken back together has never struck me as terribly amusing.

There are saboteurs in your organization, purposefully damaging productivity and morale. Here are 16 ways to spot them.

In their new book, Simple Sabotage: A Modern Field Manual for Detecting and Rooting Out Everyday Behaviors That Undermine Your Workplace, Robert M. Galford and Cary Greene, examine the "Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” a guide published by the OSS (the predecessor of the CIA) in 1944 to assist European spies undermine the Axis powers from within.

Galford and Greene examine eight techniques outlined in the field manual that are eerily similar to what often goes on in workplaces today.

Here are the eight tactics the OSS recommended for tripping up an Axis agency from the inside:

1. Insist on doing everything through channels. Never permit short-cuts to be taken to expedite decisions.
2. Make speeches. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your ‘points’ by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
3. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for ‘further study and consideration.’ Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
4. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
5. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, and resolutions.
6. Refer back to a matter decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
7. Advocate ‘caution.’ Be ‘reasonable’ and urge your fellow conferees to be ‘reasonable’ and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
8. Be worried about the propriety of any decision. Raise the question of whether [it] lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

In my nearly three decades of work in a variety of fields, I have seen these strategies deployed with frightening regularity. 

My own additions to the list would include:

1. Run meetings and training sessions with PowerPoint decks consisting of dozens of text-filled slides. If possible, read directly from your slides.  
2. Assemble meeting agendas in reverse order of importance, thus placing the most important item last and ensuring that if the meeting is running late, the agenda cannot be cut short.
3. At the beginning of every meeting, require grown adults to review (and if possible read aloud) a set of norms - a list of ways that reasonable adults behave decently - thus treating your meeting attendees like poorly behaved children.  
4. Assign seats in meetings and training sessions, thus reinforcing the idea that you view your meeting attendees like poorly behaved children. Infantilizing your subordinates is a highly effective means of generating discord. Do so whenever possible. 
5. Open meetings with meaningless "get to know you" activities. Activities that include sticking post-it notes onto colleagues' backs, tossing playground balls to one another, and scavenger hunts are especially destructive to both productivity and morale.   
6. When responding to email, use "reply all" whenever possible. Add unnecessary people to email distribution lists whenever possible. 
7. Before sending an email to subordinates, ask yourself: Could I include this relatively simple piece of information on the agenda of my next meeting, thus prolonging that meeting? If the answer is yes - and it almost always is - delete the email and add the information as an agenda item.
8. Never allow a string of emails to end. Always reply - regardless of the finality of the last email, with anodyne phrases like "Thank you" and "Sounds good" and "I understand." Every additional email sent amounts to productivity lost. 

Have any items that you would like to recommend be added to the list? Please let me know.

3 petty bits of nonsense that should never bother you (unless you are equally petty)

1. Friends or relatives who name their baby the same name or a similar name as your child

You don't own the name.
You didn't invent the name.
The name is not a reflection of you (even if you'd like to think otherwise).
Most important, the kid will never give a damn if someone else shares his or her name.

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, so be flattered that someone liked the name that you chose for your child so much that they decided to do the same. 

2. Failure to receive a thank you note

We don't send gifts in order to receive thank you notes. Sending a gift with the expectation of receiving something in return is called a trade, and in this case, a gift in exchange for a thank you note is a tragically inequitable trade. We give gifts because we love a person or at least like a person. We should be giving gifts free of obligation or expectation. To do otherwise is petty and sad and cloying.   

3. The cost of a gift given to you

If you are spending even half a second contemplating the price of a gift received or (even worse) comparing the cost of a gift given to you by a friend to the cost of the gift you gave to that friend, it is time to start volunteering in an orphanage or a leper colony in order to find some meaning in your life. Gift giving is not a dollar-for-dollar exchange of goods but a heartfelt offering unrelated to expense.

Management: Please stop signing your signs. It looks ridiculous and serves no useful purpose.

This sign was posted beside a plastic lion at Safari Golf, an excellent mini golf course near my home. 

The message itself is fine. Sadly, it's probably necessary to remind brain damaged teenagers not to sit on the pretend animals.

But here's the problem: 

What causes business owners to think that they need to sign their signage with phrases like The Management? To what purpose does this serve? Was it worth the additional expense (because it absolutely made the sign more expensive)?

Was management concerned that customers wouldn't take the sign seriously without an indication of where the message originated?

Did they worry that customers might think the sign had been placed there by someone other than management? A prankster, perhaps? Or maybe some strange offshoot of PETA that protects artificial animals?

Do they believe that the mention of management confers additional authority to the sign and therefore increases the chances of adherence.?

If any of this were true, then Stop and Yield signs would be signed by the federal government. Speed limit signs would feature the signatures of the local cops. Placards on airplanes would be signed by the pilot.  

Not every message needs to be signed. I barely sign my emails anymore. I agree to terms and service all the time simply by checking a button. 

We definitely don't need our signage to be signed. It doesn't make a sign more effective. It doesn't make it look more professional. It just makes the person who purchased the sign seem a little silly.   

The plague of the mason jar: Let us pray that it has reached its peak.

I suspect (or perhaps just hope) that we've reached peak mason jar, because those goddamn things are everywhere.  

Mason jars are lovely pieces of glassware, and if you have some peaches or prunes in need of preservation, I would be the first to recommend them.

But as for the drinking glasses, mason jars kind of suck. Unlike the standard drinking glass, with its smooth, uniform rim that allows easy transfer of liquid from glass to mouth, mason jars have a thick, irregular rim, designed for a metallic lid and not the human mouth, and are therefore simply not as pleasant or efficient for drinking.

Standard drinking glasses are also sized so that they fit easily into a human hand. Mason jars are large, clunky containers not meant to be picked up and put down repeatedly. Little kids have difficulty even lifting a mason jar unless they use two hands.    

Mason jars are also jars. They look like jars. They act like jars. When I see them on a table, I think jar. 

Even when they are transformed into things like this, I still see jars in need of pickles:

I understand why people are using mason jars as drinking glasses. They believe that mason jars will project a home-spun, old timey, seemingly effortless DIY aesthetic. They think that mason jars on the dining room table will add a sense of nostalgia and the ease of country living to their home. 

"Oh dear! All of my drinking glasses are down by the creek, waiting to be washed. But fear not, friends. We haven't harvested our cucumbers from the upper field yet, so we can drink from these empty jars today."

I understand the sentiment. I just think it's dumb.

I also think that mason jars become so ubiquitous and pervasive that they have ceased to appear different or special. About half of all pages on Pinterest and Etsy feature mason jars in some way. You can find them at restaurants and bars and hotels.

You can find mason jars in 7-11.

As a wedding DJ, it is rare for me to work at a wedding that does not feature mason jars in some way.

Mason jars are everywhere. They are the locust of the glassware universe.

Perhaps someday - sooner than later, I hope - we will return to a simpler time, when lemonade is poured into tall, thin drinking glasses and pickles and peaches are sealed into mason jars and stored in root cellars and overstuffed pantries for a later date.

That is real nostalgia.

Don't don't judge me.

This whole business about not judging people is nonsense. "I try not to judge" or "How dare you judge me!" are two of the most ridiculous statements that people say.   

We all judge.

If we didn't judge, we would embrace everyone exactly as the are and have an utterly random collection of friends, regardless of their personal values, interests, record of incarceration, personal hygiene, propensity to kick kittens, or ability to carry on a conversation without spitting.

We choose our friends carefully, and we do so by judging.

We do this all the time.

You're in a grocery store, rolling your cart to the cashiers. There are two cashiers ready to scan your groceries and accept payment. One of them is bright eyed and smiling. She looks ready to help. The other looks like a depressed troglodyte who wants to jump off a bridge but can't find a bridge high enough to do the job.

Who do you choose?

We spend our lives judging people, and it's okay. We are not obligated to be kind or friendly or even polite to every person in the world. 

Some people are rotten. Depressing. Disgusting. Chauvinistic. Smelly. Racist. Negative. Passive aggressive. Stupid. We are not required to spend time with people who we don't like, and we avoid doing so by judging what we can see and hear and drawing conclusions based upon our observations. 

So rather than advising people not to judge or admonishing them if they do, how about asking people to simply judge fairly.

Don't discount someone based upon a first impression. Don't assume that all obese people are lazy or all conservatives are uncaring or all old people are boring. Don't assume that the length of a woman's skirt or the number of tattoos on a man's arm says everything (or anything) about them. 

Judge fairly, with an open mind and an open heart. And if in doing so you discover that the person is a Red Sox loving, close-talking, inarticulate, racist heathen, by all means shun that person. Extricate yourself from their sphere of influence. Avoid them at all costs.

Just be fair. Make your judgments with as much information as you can gather. And don't publicize any negative opinions unless absolutely necessary. 

And stop telling people to stop judging. It's ridiculous.

Single use restrooms in all public venues must be made unisex because not doing so is stupid.

I would like to enact the following policy immediately:

All public locations with single use restrooms will hereby remove their male and female signs immediately, thus making both restrooms unisex.

There is absolutely no reason for single use restrooms to differentiate between male and female occupants. Not only will this make restroom availability more equitable amongst men and women, but for transgender people, this will make life a hell of a lot easier in many places. 

This does not solve all of the problems related to the struggles that transgendered individuals face with larger, multi-use public restrooms, but it's a start. And frankly, it's something that should have been done long ago.   

In fact, in some places, patrons have taken and stand and instituted this policy on their own. It is not uncommon for the female patrons at The Bitter End - a bar in New York where I frequently tell stories for The Moth - to simply begin using the single use men's room when the women's line is exceedingly long and the line to the men's room is nonexistent. 

So do me a favor:

Go forth and help me enact this policy. Forward this blog post to restaurant owners, museums, Turkish baths, municipalities, and any other public venue that has single use restrooms. Tell the owners and managers of these locations about this new policy when you frequent their establishments. 

This is one of those no-brainer, simple-to-accomplish acts that will improve the world in a small but significant way. Let's make it happen. 

“If you’re going to have a difficult life, it might as well be childhood, since it’s so short” might be the dumbest thing ever said.

Someone recently told me that “If you’re going to have a difficult life, it might as well be childhood, since it’s so short.”

I disagree. It’s the percentage of life that is difficult that matters most, and a difficult childhood skews that percentage for a long, long time. 

If you have a difficult childhood, that means that 100% of your life up until a certain age is difficult, and these are fundamental years upon which the foundation of our lives is often set.

This alone is exceptionally damaging to people. 

Equally important, it takes a long, long time for that percentage to even shift to a 50/50 split.

If you're life was difficult until the age of 16, for example, you won't attain a 50/50 split of difficult to not difficult until you're 32 years old, and that is assuming that none of the years between the ages of 17 to 32 were difficult, which is unlikely.

Even if that's the case, you've now only reached a 50-50 split. Half your life was hard. Half was not. You're still not looking back with rose-colored classes.  

You'll need to reach the age of 48 before two-thirds of your life wasn't difficult and 64 before three-quarters of your life wasn't difficult, and all of this is assuming that none of the years between ages 17 and 64 are difficult, which is, of course, a ridiculous assumption.

No, if you're going to have a difficult life, make it anything but childhood. I wish every person on the planet a childhood filled with love, joy, learning, productive struggle, and great success. 

If it's then followed by hardship, at least the foundation will be solid and coping strategies will be in place, and the person experiencing the hardship will be able to lean on the memory of those childhood years with a sense of what has been and could be again. 

Do you know what kind of person thinking that if you’re going to have a difficult life, it might as well be childhood, since it’s so short?

It's a person who experienced a childhood free of hardship and has no understanding of the long term impact that 100% of your life being difficult can have on the remainder of your life. 

Dentists need to tell stories, or they will end up with people like me in their chairs.

My dentist told me that I should have two of my wisdom teeth extracted. One of them has a cavity, and it's in a spot that is almost impossible to keep clean.

I asked what the extraction process entailed.

Dentist: We use some local anesthetic and some rocking back and forth, and that's it. Done in an hour.

Me: I have no idea what that means. Could you give me an actual account of the procedure? 

Dentist: What do you want to know?

Me: I don't know what I don't know, so I can't tell you what I want to know because I don't know what there is to know. But a step by step description of what will actually happen would be a great start.  

She looked a little annoyed. 

Me: Look, the entire bottom row of my teeth were knocked out in a car accident when I was 17, and then they were jammed back into place and wired down in the emergency room, which was the worst part of the car accident, and that's saying a lot since I went through the windshield and tore my leg open to the bone. And about five years before that I was stung by a bee and had to be brought back to life via CPR and about 50 shots of epinephrine over the course of a week, so now I have involuntarily associated needles with death, which I know is a little crazy but is how I feel and my therapist - who I don't see anymore - said it's completely understandable. So I'm a little squeamish about my teeth and needles. So I want some detail.

Dentist: This won't be a big deal. People have wisdom teeth extracted all the time.

Me: Yes, but for me, it will only happen once, so it will be a big deal. When someone wants to pull a part of my body out of my mouth, it's a big deal for me, even if it isn't for you

Dentist: I meant to say that we do extractions all the time.

Me: I would hope so, but that doesn't really help me understand the procedure.

Dentist: Maybe I should just refer you to our oral surgeon. 

Me. Great. Thank you.

Dentist: But don't look anything up on the Internet about the procedure until you meet him. 

Me. Why would you say that? That does not inspire confidence.

I know I can be difficult, and it may seem as if I was being a little belligerent, but in this case, I just wanted some information, which left me thinking this:

Dentists need training telling stories. Had my dentist told me a story that was reflective of what what I could expect when my wisdom teeth were extracted, complete with an arc, a splash of humor, and some clear but not graphic descriptions, I might have been fine.

But glossing over the removal of two of the largest teeth from my mouth deserves more, at least for me. And I suspect most people would appreciate a clear picture of the procedure but are unwilling to press the matter to the degree I did.

So dentists of the world:

I'm available for hire. Let me teach you some storytelling strategies that you can use to make your patients more relaxed and informed. Very few of us enjoy our dentist appointments, and while this may be inevitable, part of our dislike for our visits is the fear related to what may or may not happen while sitting in that chair. 

Alleviate some of that. Explain your procedures in engaging ways. Entertain and inform your patients. Tell stories.

Most of the time, your patients can't speak anyway. Instead of asking us how the kids are doing while we have a suction tube and an ice pick in our mouths, entertain and inform. 

We have a right to know, and wouldn't it be better if we didn't have to pry the information from you in the same way you want pry my wisdom teeth from my gum line?

If I ruled the world, here are 11 laws that I would immediately enact.

If I were ruler of the world, I would immediately enact the following laws in order to improve the quality of life for all of mankind:

1. Drivers who pull their cars alongside each other in the middle of the road and roll down their windows in order to chat (thus blocking the road for sane people) shall have their licenses revoked for a period of no less than 5 years. Get out of the damn car if you wish to speak to someone.

2. If a public building has two or more exterior doors, all such doors shall be accessible and open at all times. If a patron walks into a door expecting it to open and finds it locked, the business in question shall pay the patron a fee of $50,000. If said patron bashes his or her head on the door in the process (a feat I have accomplished several times), ownership of the business shall immediately be transferred to the bloody-nosed patron. Why install double doors if one of them is always locked?

3. Anyone wearing an article of clothing containing a brand name or any assemblage of words on the seat of his or her pants shall be required to remain seated for the rest of his or her natural life. This is the stupidest fashion trend ever.

4. Any parent who dresses or allows his or her child to dress in pants or shorts that contain a brand name or any assemblage of words on the seat of the child's pants shall immediately be removed from the home for psychiatric examination. Finding oneself staring at the butt of a twelve-year old in order to confirm that the word plastered across her butt is in fact “Juicy” is unnerving to say the least. What in God’s name are these parents thinking?

Side note: If I really had my way on all things, I would remove brand names from all clothing items and accessories, since the inclusion of these brand names are merely indicators of the approximate cost of the item and serve no useful purpose other than to advertise for the clothing company while making people who require such validation momentarily happy about their otherwise vacuous souls. 

5. It is hereby forbidden to congratulate a friend on the purchase of a vehicle if that friend exceeds the age of eighteen.  When the purchase of an automobile becomes congratulatory-worthy, priorities must be re-examined immediately.   

6. When going to the gym, one must drive to an open parking spot and park your car immediately. No more occupying the middle-of-the-aisle, directional flashing, minivan lunatics (its always a minivan) waiting for that prime spot ten feet from the doors. It’s the gym. Walk a little bit. Get some freakin' exercise.    

7. It is no longer permissible to refer to any article of clothing as “fun.” You sound ridiculous. 

8. If more than half of your social media posts pertain to your latest fitness or nutritional regime, you are hereby banished to Google+ for a period of no less than one year.  

9. Selfie sticks are immediately banned. It's bad enough that future archaeologists may judge our society based upon things like The Bachelor, Antonin Scalia, and hipsters who wear slouchy winter hats in the summer. We cannot allow the selfie stick to also define us. 

In fairness, Disney World Theme Parks have already banned these ridiculous and culturally embarrassing items, so I'm not the first to suggest this.

10. Movie theaters must be equipped with cellular jamming technology, effectively disabling the phones of every person within the theater at the onset of the film.

11. People who pay by check at the grocery store must take a mandatory class on the safe and effective use of debit and credit cards before being allowed to eat any of the groceries that they have purchased. 

Some fun facts are just facts

Sorry, LEGO. This fact is not fun in any way. 

There are so many things wrong with this sign.

The capitalization of Do and Not is terrible. Of course. I despise random and inaccurate capitalization.

The lack of punctuation is forgivable but still annoying as hell. 

But it's the existence of the sign that bothers me the most. Why taint a perfectly good table with a sign asking patrons not to move it and the adjacent furniture? It's as if the table only exists for the sign asking that it not be moved. 

Why have a table at all?

I would submit that a collection of poorly appointed furniture is far more egregious than this plastic and paper monstrosity. 

Dear Adam Cloud: “Yard Goats” is the definition of unique. Also, your argument that the name is offensive is absurd.

If you haven’t heard, the New Britain Rock Cats – the Colorado Rockies Double A affiliate – are moving to Hartford and have been renamed The Yard Goats.

The Yard Goats get their name from an old railroad slang term for an engine that switches a train to get it ready for another locomotive (thus harkening back to Hartford’s supposed railroad roots), but the goat will most assuredly play a role in the marketing of the team.

The naming was done via fan voting and revealed a couple weeks ago. 

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The Yard Goats is a great name. Perfectly befitting the kitchiness of minor league baseball. The Yard Goats will be perfect alongside such teams as the Savannah Sand Gnats, the El Paso Chihuahuas, the Casper Ghosts, and the Albuquerque Isotopes.   

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Hartford Treasurer Adam Cloud, who sits on the board of the Hartford Stadium Authority, doesn’t agree with me. He doesn’t like the name one bit. He’s not happy.  

I have no beef with Cloud for not liking the name. My wife doesn’t like the name, either. She was hoping for the Honey Badgers, and for good reason.

About a third of my students don’t like the name.

It’s admittedly an eclectic name.

What I take issue with is Adam Cloud’s comments regarding the name.

Cloud said the name is "neither creative, or unique."

We could argue the merits of the name based upon creativity (though it’s hard to argue that it’s not at least a little creative), but he couldn’t be more wrong in his assertion that the name is not unique.

It’s absolutely unique. No other sports franchise in the world is name the Yard Goats.

That, Mr. Cloud, is the definition of unique.

Cloud also said that Yard Goats is an “absurd” name and is insensitive to people in the city’s Caribbean community, many of whom at one time or another may have owned or tended goats.

That statement, Mr. Cloud, is far more absurd than the team’s new name.

How could using the name of an animal that a person may have owned at one time possibly be offensive to that former owner? The use of the name in no way impugns the current or former owners of said animal. In fact, if anything, the animal is being elevated to celebrity status by the naming.

Should owners of horses, which also eat grass, be offended by the Denver Broncos’ or Indianapolis Colts’ choice of names?

Should the owners of sheep, which also eat grass, be offended by the St. Louis Ram’s choice of name?

Should the parents of twins, which hopefully don’t eat grass (but might), be offended by the Minnesota Twins choice of name? Yes, the Twins are actually named after the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, but the Yard Goats are named after a type of train. If Cloud can conveniently ignore that reality, why shouldn’t the parents of twins also ignore the origins of the Twins name and feel similarly outraged?

There’s nothing wrong with hating the name, Mr. Cloud. My wife doesn’t like it either, and I don’t think any less of her for this opinion.

But the reason she doesn’t like the name?

She thinks it’s dumb. You probably do, too. But in defending her position, my wife doesn’t make any ridiculous claims about the name being offensive to goat owners or failing to be unique. It’s simply a matter of taste.

You don’t like the name. Too bad. Don’t spout nonsense. You sound ridiculous.

Yard Goats for life.

Ladies: Leave my choice of winter clothing alone. I’M FINE.

Over the course of the last seven days, I have been scolded by three different people – all women – for wearing shorts. In each case, I was either heading to or from the gym, but I’ve also been known to wear shorts in cooler weather simply because they are comfortable and I don’t require the warmth of a pair of pants. 

I was also repeatedly chided all winter long for wearing my winter coat of choice: a blue hoodie.

I own an actual winter coat. More than one, in fact. But with the exception of a few New England Patriots games, I wore a hoodie all winter long and was perfectly fine. Warm and toasty. 

Except that wherever I went, friends and strangers – also only women – admonished me for not wearing something warmer. People at the grocery store and outside restaurants and in parking lots told me to put on something warmer. Stop being ridiculous. Act my age.

Many of them also warned me that I would catch a cold if I continued to dress this way, disabusing themselves of hundreds of years of germ theory and reverting back to a time before science when it was assumed that a cold was caused by the cold.

Honestly, I don’t understand this.

Who cares if I’m wearing a pair of gym shorts on a 38 degree day?

Why would anyone be concerned with my choice of outerwear on a winter afternoon?

How is what I wear in order to stay warm anyone’s business other than my own?

And why is this form of criticism exclusively female?

For the last year, I have attempted to avoid any negative comment about anyone’s physical appearance, regardless of their physical eccentricity. And I have become fairly adept – albeit a little smug – in doing so. In fact, I’ve reached a point where thoughts about a person’s physical appearance often fail to register as well.

When they do, I push them back, reminding myself of how petty and cruel and absolutely juvenile they are, even when said behind someone’s back.

I realize that scrubbing your mind and voice of all comments on physical appearance is a ridiculous goal, but can we at least agree these admonishments over seasonal appropriate clothing should be eliminated from our societal lexicon forever? If these women – and perhaps there are male critics out there, too, but I have yet to encounter one – want to go home and tell their loved ones about the man at the grocery store wearing shorts and a hoodie, fine.

They are heathen, unkempt trolls for doing so, but still. Who cares?

But why must they verbally reprimand me in public for not dressing to a standard that they feel is adequate?

I had a mother. She passed away in 2007. I miss her, but honestly, I’m fine. I don’t need any ladies – young or old – treating me like I ‘m a ten year-old boy in need of verbal reprimands about the warmth of the clothing that I’m wearing.

Even my mother didn’t do that.

Please leave me the hell alone. I’m fine. If I wasn’t, I’d put on a pair of pants and a warmer coat, jackass.