Five rules to guarantee a successful the public marriage proposal

I just watched three of the most gut-wrenching failed public marriage proposals ever. The most cringe-worthy moments you could ever imagine. For your enjoyment, I have posted them (along with one of the best public marriage proposals of all time) below.

As a veteran of a successful public marriage proposal, please allow me to offer a few simple rules in order to ensure that your public proposal does not end as tragically as it did for these gentlemen.

 

1. If you are nervous about proposing to your girlfriend, you should not be attempting a public marriage proposal. You probably shouldn’t be proposing marriage at all if you are nervous, but if you must, do so privately.

2. Though you will be framing your proposal in the form of a question, this should be a formality rather than a genuine request. You should be 100% certain of your girlfriend’s answer before attempting the public marriage proposal. This probably means that you have discussed the possibility of marriage with your girlfriend beforehand and even checked with her closest friends to ensure that she will be amenable to the offer.

3. If you are someone who does not speak effectively in public, do not attempt the public marriage proposal. Most women would prefer a heartfelt, well spoken, private moment to a stilted, sweaty, semi-articulate public proposal.

4. The public marriage proposal is not the time to try new things. If you are not a professional singer, do not attempt to sing during your proposal.  If you are not a poet, do not propose via verse. You are asking a woman to marry you.  Not some new, amateur version of yourself.

5. Most important, remember that you are also jeopardizing your girlfriend’s feelings and dignity when attempting the public marriage proposal. Placing a girl in the position of having to walk away from a man on bended knee in front of an audience is unnecessarily cruel and tragically stupid, so this is not the time for any fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants risk-taking. You are not the only one who can get hurt by a failed marriage proposal. Act with appropriate prudence.

These men did not:

And now, I give you one of the greatest public marriage proposal of all time:

Three new Father’s Day laws

As Father’s Day draws to a close, I’d like to propose the following new Father’s Day rules:

1. All golf courses should be set up in their most ideal conditions.  Tee boxes should be positioned as close to the greens as possible. Pin placements should be ideal. Every effort should be made to ensure that a Father’s Day round of golf goes exceptionally well.
2. Fathers should never be required to wish one another a happy Father’s Day over the phone. The old “I’ll put him on the phone so you can tell him yourself” line should never be used on Father’s Day. Fathers don’t like the phone. A “Happy Father’s Day” by proxy should be perfectly acceptable. Every effort should be made to keep fathers off the telephone whenever possible.
3. In the event that trash collection day falls on the Monday following Father’s Day, it should be moved to the Tuesday so that fathers are not required to end their day separating recyclables and dragging trash cans to the side of the road.

Father’s Day is perfectly placed on the calendar

It occurred to me that Father’s Day is placed ideally on the calendar in order to garner maximum benefit for fathers, and oddly enough, mothers everywhere.

Sure, Mother’s Day gets considerably more attention. It comes first on the calendar each year, and it seems to possess, unfairly perhaps, more gravitas than Father’s Day.

People even spend more money on Mother’s Day gifts than Father’s Day gifts.

Mothers just seem to get more attention than fathers.

But fear not, fathers of the world. All of these attributes work in favor of Father’s Day.

First, by allowing mothers to be celebrated first, fathers are able to establish the expectations for their own day, and in doing so, they can take advantage of a mother’s greatest weakness:

Guilt.

Provide the mother of your child with the day of her dreams, and she is invariably going to feel the need to do at least the same for you, if not more.

Even more important, a mother’s notion of the ideal Mother’s Day is unlike anything that a father might consider ideal. In fact, it’s not uncommon for a husband to think his wife slightly insane for the way she chooses to spend her Mother’s Day.

Take my most recent Mother’s Day, for example. When given the choice to do anything she wanted, my wife optioned to drive two hours to her aunt and uncle’s home in New York so that we could visit with her mother, grandmother and aunt.

While I was happy to spend time with these people, all men know that the word visit is actually code for "sitting inside a house and talking," which is in no way ideal to the average man.

In fact, it is one of the last things a man would choose to do on a Sunday.

But like a dutiful husband, I happily went along, because I like the people who we were visiting, and most important, it was Mother’s Day.

My wife’s day.

Fast forward to Father’s Day.

What are the chances that any father in the world would choose to drive two hours through holiday traffic in order to spend an afternoon sitting in a living room, eating sandwiches and chatting?

Very little.

Not only that, but Father’s Day falls in June, when the weather is more likely to be warm and sunny and outdoor activities become more viable.

And since I willingly and happily abided by my wife’s request on Mother’s Day, even though it was laden with more than four hours on the road and an absence of any preferred activity, the potent combination of fairness, guilt, and a genuine desire to want for a wife to want her husband to be happy provides most men with the ability to do almost anything they want on Father’s Day.

This is why men often spend portions of their Father’s Days on the golf course, at a ballgame, in front of the television, in a movie theater, or even mowing the lawn.

Yes, even mowing the lawn is sometimes better than spending the day on the road and sitting on a living room couch.

This actually works out well for mothers, too. While men are typically asked to sacrifice when it comes to Mother’s Day, women are required to do almost nothing on Father’s Day. In fact, they are oftentimes able to equally benefit from Father’s Day by joining their husbands for dinner, or perhaps a movie or a ballgame.

Take last year's Father’s Day, for example.

It opened with an early round of golf, during which my wife and daughter were asleep. We then had mutual friends over for brunch, which my wife also  enjoyed.

After brunch, the fathers headed out for another nine holes of golf while the ladies sat around the house, chatting, which my wife surely enjoyed.

Later on, we went to dinner. The plan was to eat pie for dinner, though it eventually transitioned to ice cream.

That’s it.

Brunch with friends, an afternoon with friends, a dinner of ice cream, and nothing more.

A great day for me, and by all accounts, a great day for my wife absent of any sacrifice.

A win-win situation, and once that could only happen if Mother’s Day preceded it.

The people who will die first in a zombie apocalypse

• People who pre-wipe gym equipment
• Women who wear sweatpants with the word Juicy on the butt
• Anyone who prefers calling roadside assistance rather than changing their own flat tire
• People who shout when they are angry
• Ethical vegetarians and anyone keeping a kosher household
• Men who expect engagement gifts from their future brides
• Anyone who sleeps past 8:30 AM on the weekend
• People who expect a thank you note in exchange for a gift and gossip about you when the note is not sent
• Men with shy bladders
• Every single person on the television show The Jersey Shore
• Every single person who has watched every single episode of The Jersey Shore
• People who talk more than they listen
• Men who do not apply toothpaste to their own toothbrush
• Anyone who is regularly watching daytime television
• Women who believe that it is inappropriate and/or disrespectful to wear the same dress to two different weddings
• Parents who send their children to Princess Camp

Sadly, no ducks or deer but lots of old people

I see Duck Crossing and Deer Crossing signs all the time, but rarely do I see any ducks or deer. It’s almost a tease.

After all, who wouldn’t want to see a deer and a bunch of ducklings crossing the street?

In terms of crossing signs, it seems to me that the Elderly Crossing signs are the ones that hold the most promise in terms of actually seeing the fauna that they describe.

There’s an Elderly Crossing sign down the street, and there’s always a good chance of catching sight of an elderly person in the wild.

Not always in the crosswalk, which is frustrating, but then again, the few ducks and deer that I have seen haven’t always been in the crosswalk, either.

How to be pretty

Today’s message to my daughter:_____________________________________

An important thing to remember, little one:

Attractiveness is more closely related to IQ than actual physical appearance.

Nothing is uglier than a stupid person.

Explanation at last

Pretty damn funny.

And some truth to it, perhaps?

Raptured!

At least one reader decided to follow through on Wendy Clinch’s Rapture idea, which makes me extremely happy considering I forgot about it completely.

I’d like to use the excuse that my daughter’s great grandmother was staying with us for the weekend and we spent much of the day at the Connecticut Book Festival, listening to illustrator Wendell Minor and author Wally Lamb speak.

And while this is true, it is no excuse. That Rapture idea was brilliant, and Raptures don’t come around every day.

I’ll probably have to wait a least a year or two before the world ends again.

Bringing the May 21 rapture to life!

An brilliant idea from the mind of author Wendy Clinch:

“Rapture prank: On Saturday, take some of your unwanted clothes and shoes and leave sets of them arranged on sidewalks and lawns around town.”

Pretty ingenious.  Huh?

And considering that my wife informed me that I have no nice clothes and that the best shirt she could find in my closet for me to wear for a recent television interview was “inoffensive”, I probably have some items that I can spare.

The damning and the damned

In almost every relationship, there is one person who is always ready to exit the house and one person who is not. In almost all relationships, these roles never change. One person is ready every single time and the other is not.

The former spends a lifetime waiting by the door, shuffling feet, thumbing through magazines, arranging sofa pillows, trying to remain calm.

The latter spends a lifetime listing a series excuses for the delay, in addition to expressing practiced confusion and outrage over any attempt to by the former to expedite the departure or simply provide a reminder as to the current time.

I have always been the person ready to exit the house.

Always.

What about you?

But I’ll take this, too.

Yesterday I wrote about a possible Father’s Day gift for me. 

If it proves too hard to find, I’d be perfectly happy with this as well.

I want this real, real bad.

Wondering what to get me for Father’s Day?

THIS.

There is only one appropriate and respectful time to host a toddler’s birthday party and to say otherwise is just stupid and poopy

Blessed be the parents who schedule their toddlers birthday party for 10:00 AM on a Saturday morning.

There are so many good things about this decision, most specifically the respectful acknowledgement of the value of a day off.

Want to play golf in the morning?

No problem. Squeeze in 9 holes before you come over. There’s no need to even be on time. This is a toddler’s birthday party. Arrive at 11:00 and leave around noon. Your kid will never know the difference.

Want to preserve the majority of the day for yourself?

Great. Stop by around 10:00 and leave before noon. You still have the better part of the day to yourself, including the entire afternoon, and we’ve even sent you off with lunch in your bellies.

Your toddler is still napping regularly?

Good for you. Drop by for a couple hours, eat some cake and then bring your now-exhausted child home for a nap, probably right around his or her regular naptime.

Genius.

I’m not a fan of any toddler birthday party, and I generally try to avoid them at all costs.

But after experiencing the 10:00 AM birthday party firsthand last weekend, I can assure you that it is the only way to go.

It makes the toddler birthday party almost enjoyable.

What’s the worst time for a toddler’s birthday party?

Any time other than 10:00 AM.

Noon? You probably ruined somebody’s afternoon nap, and by the time we leave, we’ve lost the better part of the afternoon.

2:00? You’ve now stolen the best part of the day, and you’re still probably ruining someone’s nap.

4:00? Now we’re eating an early dinner with a dozen screaming, slightly poop smelling toddlers.

6:00? So much for any Saturday night plans.

10:00 AM people. Seriously. Anything else is just plain selfish and rude.

4 truths about sneakers

I bought a new pair of sneakers last night, which led me to the following sneaker-related observations: 1. By the time a man is 30-years old, there is no further need to try on a pair of sneakers before purchasing.

A size 9 is a size 9 is a size 9.

If you think you need to try on a pair of sneakers to make sure they fit, you’re just fooling yourself and wasting everyone’s time.

2.  By the time you can afford the coolest sneakers on the market, you no longer have any need for the coolest sneakers on the market.

Unless you are a douchebag, of course.

3.  As a little kid, I liked shoe boxes more than the shoes that came inside.  For someone who grew up poor, a shoe box had so many more uses than a shoe.

4.  The coolest shoes I ever owned were pair of 1985 Air Jordans, purchased with the money earned from my first job as a farmhand on Jesse Deacon’s horse farm. I spent $110 for them, which remains the most I have ever paid for a pair of sneakers to this day.

The Facebook like button gender gap

The Facebook "Like" button appears to have a severe gender bias.

I noticed that the majority of people who like my status updates are female and wondered if this trend is isolated to me or consistent throughout the Facebook universe.

I also realized how unlikely it was for me to ever click the Like button, in part because I tend to use the button judiciously.

As a writer, if I have something to say, I’ll write it. Not click a button.

Based upon other people’s use of the Like button, I suspect that my choice of when to like something may differ from most.

For example, if your status update indicates that you took your kids out for ice cream for the first time this spring, I’m happy for you, but I ‘m not sure how this equates to liking your update.

So while an update like this might receive a dozen or more likes, I am unlikely to like it.

I typically click the Like button for a witty remark, an interesting piece of data, or a laugh-worthy update, and only then if I have nothing to say in response.

So I wonder:

Is there a difference in the way that men and women view the Like button?

Do men view the button like me, and if so, what is the female perception of the button?

Or am I an outlier in terms of my use of the button?

Is my set of Facebook friends also an outlier?

Sampling my front page feed for a period of three days, I counted all the uses of the Like button on status updates that were not my own.

86% of the Likes on these pages were clicked by women. Though 61% of my Facebook friends are also women, this still amounts to quite a disparity.

In addition, I noted that only a small sample of men used the Like button over the course of these three days. While more then 30 different women accounted for the 86% of clicks, only five different men accounted for the remaining 14%.

It would seem that only a certain breed of man uses the Like button with any frequency.

What causes these men use the button while so many other do not?

Unfortunately, I have no answers. I know how I use the Like button, and I know what the data tells me in regards to my small, admittedly biased sample, but that’s about it. When I finish my teaching career someday, I’ve often thought about becoming a sociologist, and this is the kind of research that I would love to do.

In fact, I’ve toyed with the idea of declaring myself an unaccredited sociologist and beginning research on my own, absent any formal degree or training, but it remains a low priority at the moment.

So absent my proposed research, what do you think?

Is my data typical for most Facebook users?

If so, what is the reason for this disparity?

Most important, what does this disparity say about the difference between men and women in general?

These are the kinds of questions I’d like to answer someday.

Actually, just writing them down and seeing them on the screen bumps my unaccredited sociologist idea up a few pegs.

Perhaps I’ll be Matthew Dicks the Unaccredited Sociologist sooner than I thought.

A proposal in an author’s acknowledgements? How do I top this one?

After thanking his publisher and various bosses in the acknowledgements at the end of The Ottoman Hotel, first time novelist Christopher Currie thanked his girlfriend.

"If it's possible to fall more in love with someone every day, then that's what I do. To my favorite, to the reason I live my life, Leesa Wockner, who, if she reads this, I hope will agree to marry me, despite the number of commas in this sentence."

That’s right.  He asked her to marry him in the acknowledgements.

Damn.

And I thought my engagement story was good.

My immediate reaction was the story was this:

How do I top it?

What can I include in the acknowledgements of my next book, or perhaps in the book itself, that can one-up a wedding proposal?

I guess I could also propose marriage to someone, which would be even more noteworthy considering that I’m happily married already.

But that would feel like copying.

So what else?

I could reveal one of my deepest, darkest secrets in the acknowledgements, except I think I’ve revealed most of my deepest, darkest secrets on this blog already.

I could announce the pregnancy of my wife, if she were pregnant, and if we could time the pregnancy to the publication date of the next book, and if my wife was patient enough to wait until next May to get pregnant, and if she could keep the pregnancy secret for more than twelve seconds, which she was not able to do the first time.

So I guess that isn’t going to happen.

For a moment I thought about seeking revenge upon someone in the acknowledgements. Acknowledging them as a poopy pants or a cowardly, backstabbing evildoer. Goodness knows I have more than a few people in my life who are deserving. But I’ve already written an unpublished manuscript that serves this purpose nicely and is much more subtle about the whole thing.

And someday it’ll be published.

So what other big moments in life compare to a marriage proposal and the birth of children?

Landing on the best seller list? Finding the perfect grilled cheese recipe? Shooting under 90 in a round of golf?

Probably.  But none of these conform well to an acknowledgements page, and none are likely to happen anytime soon.

Especially the golfing one.

Perhaps I could use my acknowledgements as a shout-out to someone I’ve always wanted to meet.  Express my appreciation to Derek Jeter or David Sedaris or Bill Bryson or Paula Poundstone, even though none of them have nothing to do with the book, in hopes that one of them might reach out and give me a call.

Maybe even offer to meet me for dinner.

Or maybe step outside the box a little more and acknowledge the people who know the truth behind the JFK shooting or the fine folks working on that crashed spaceship that the US government has hidden away in Area 51.

Imagine getting that call.

“Hi, I’m one of the astrophysicists working on the crashed alien ship in Area 51. I just wanted to thank you for acknowledging our work on your Acknowledgements page. As you can imagine, we don’t get a lot of attention or fanfare here. Everything is always Top Secret this and Top Secret that.  We’ll execute you if you tell anyone about the alien bodies we have in the freezer. So thanks for remember us down here. You made my day.”

Now that might top a silly little marriage proposal.

Professional best man for hire

New job idea: Professional best man. While I meet many outstanding best men in my role as a DJ, I also meet many who are too nervous to deliver the toast, too drunk to assist a groom in need, and too disinterested in the role to be of any use.

Besides, why burden your best friend with this role if all he wants to do is have a good time at the wedding as well?

Instead, hire me. Your professional best man.

What, you may ask, are my qualifications for such a job?

They are, admittedly, quite extensive:

• I’ve attended more than 400 weddings as a DJ, guest, groom, member of the bridal party and best man, so there is little that I have not seen. As a result, I will be ready and able to assist in almost every unexpected or unusual circumstance.
• My experience and expertise will allow me to ensure that the DJ, photographer, caterer and other professional staff are doing their jobs to the best of their ability and serving the bride and groom to my exceedingly exacting standards.
• I have extensive experience in dealing with in-laws, drunken guests, angry girlfriends, belligerent uncles and any other potentially disruptive wedding attendee and am adept at deflecting these distractions away from the bride and groom.
• I can deliver an outstanding toast. I am often instructing criminally- unprepared best men on what to say just minutes before their toasts and make them sound quite good.
• I am a skilled party planner and will give you the bachelor’s party of your dreams while also ensuring that you do nothing that you will regret the next day.
• I possess a wide range of interests and am skilled at ingratiating myself to a wide range of people. I can do jock and nerd equally well and rarely meet someone who I cannot find common ground. We may not be best friends after your wedding, but for the duration of our nuptials, I will be surprisingly likable and chameleon-like in my ability to blend in with your group of friends. And who knows? One of my best friends is a former client. It could happen for you, too.

And what if you want to hire a professional best man but have a friend who also wants the job and would be upset to learn that you went with a professional?

No problem. Simply have two best men.

One who will get drunk during the cocktail hour, hit on one of the bridesmaids during photos, deliver a humorless speech and forget to end it with an actual toast.

The other will not drink at your wedding except when capping off an amusing and heartfelt toast, will keep your best interests in mind at all times and is skilled and experienced enough to ensure that everything goes smoothly on your wedding day.

Don’t you deserve another friend on your wedding day?

A friend absent of personal needs and petty grievances on your big day.

A friend who will guide you through and past every awkward, annoying, unfortunate, and potentially disastrous moment of your wedding.

Don’t you deserve the services of a professional on your wedding day?

A professional best man.

Top 10 post-wedding thoughts

Last night’s wedding was the first of the year.  Amidst the mixing of music and making announcements came the following random thoughts: _______________________________________________

1. I have no respect for a minister or justice of the peace who requires a microphone at a wedding ceremony. The ability to project one’s voice should be a prerequisite for the job.

2. Vodka and Diet Coke are two words that should never be spoken together.

3. One of the most embarrassing moments as a DJ was the night that I accidentally played the Jerry Maguire mix of Springsteen’s Secret Garden, with dialogue by Tom Cruise, Renee Zellweger and Cuba Gooding, Jr. interspersed throughout the song. A four-minute cringe that I am reminded of every time I play the correct version of the song (I deleted the Jerry Maguire version immediately after playing it).

4. The bride and groom should never be criticized for scheduling their wedding on the Saturday before Easter. There’s no such thing as Easter Eve, jerk-face.

5.  If you are so tall that you can see over the restroom stall, you should never choose the urinal directly adjacent to the stall, especially when the DJ is changing into his tuxedo and likes to put on a fresh pair of underwear prior to a wedding because it makes him feel a little better about the next seven hours he will spend on his feet.

6. When your dress is shorter than the tee-shirt that my wife wears to bed, it ceases being attractive.

7. Announcing that the groom’s favorite hockey team is winning is never recommended, because when the Bruins give up the tying goal with eight minutes left and are eventually forced to win in a shoot-out after a full overtime period, you spend the remainder of the wedding worried that Boston might lose and you will look like a jackass for insisting that the DJ announce the score before the game was over.

8.  Flirting with the DJ in order to get him to play The Cupid Shuffle is both ineffectual and embarrassing for the both of us.

9.  The value of a competent, experienced maid of honor cannot be overestimated.

10.  As much as I love Louis Armstrong’s "What a Wonderful World," Joey Ramone’s version of the song is emphatically better.

Full contact yoga?

You know that Living Social is a successful business model when I purchase their “20 yoga lessons for $20” deal. Me. Yoga.

I know.

I was told that improved flexibility would help my golf swing, and I figured that if I didn’t like it, I could just pass the lessons onto my wife or someone else who might be interested.

Plus I have a friend who is a yoga instructor who might be interested in partnering with me in creating a new form of yoga that includes score keeping, offense and defense, winners and losers.

I want to take the boring out of yoga.

Feminine hygiene products meet SOMETHING MISSING

Ever think that your feminine hygiene product could use a little more pizazz?

Kotex did, and that’s why they are sponsoring a design contest that allows you to “Make your Mark on the Future of Feminine Protection.”

I opted to design a pad, though I could have restyled “a period stash” or created an “inspiration board” as well. 

Unsure what either of these things are, I went with the pad. 

And while I was at it, I thought I’d throw in a little bit self promotion as well.

I think my publicist would be proud. 

Can you imagine if Kotex contest judge and “fashion visionary”  Patricia Field chose my pad design out of the millions she will surely receive?

Has there ever been a more captive audience?