Death, taxes, and Santa Claus

I love Christmas music.

Silent Night.  Last Christmas.  Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  Walkin' 'Round in Women's Underwear.  You name it, I'm all about it.  (Wait, what?)

But there is one Christmas song that absolutely terrified me as a child, one yuletide tale of doom that kept me up nights, and to be honest, still makes me a little uncomfortable today.

The creepy carol I'm speaking of: Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Maybe it's because when I was a kid, getting a bag of switches underneath the tree always seemed like a very real possibility to me.  That was the supposed consequence if you were deemed to have been naughty during the year.  And I was always quite confident I had NOT been nice.

(Yes, I'm aware many children were threatened with a lump of coal.  I would have given anything for a lump of coal instead!)

Today, let's examine just a few of the lyrics from this longtime holiday standard.  I think you'll see it's not all rooty-toot-toots and rummy-tum-tums.

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout 

What?!?!  I'm EIGHT.  I'm probably never gonna be a Congressman.  When else am I supposed to pout?

I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town

It's so definite.  So final.  There's no chance he won't come.  All you can do is hope you survive it.

He's making a list
Checking it twice

See, if he only checked it once, maybe I could slide by.  This was the reasoning of my eight-year-old brain.  But he's checking it twice???  There's no way I make it.

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake

Um, in our neighborhood, we called that a Peeping Tom.  And he lived across the street and two houses down and all us kids were forbidden to go in his yard.  But seriously, a little stalkerish, Santa.

He knows if you've been bad or good 

Who is this guy?  God?!?!  What chance did I have?

So basically,  Santa Claus coming to town was like having judgment day every single year.  At a time in my life when I should have been dreaming of Larry Bird, the Dukes of Hazzard, and Smurfette, I was instead having cold sweats about a brown paper bag full of switches.  (I'm not sure why, but when I pictured them they were always in a brown paper bag, never anything nice like a book satchel or burlap sack.)

I would try to sleep, I would!  Close my eyes and pretend to sleep, but the words kept haunting me... He knows when you're awake.  Eventually, it all just got to be too much and I would get out of bed and run into the den in my Dallas Cowboy pajamas and tearfully confess all my sins to mom and dad.

"I'M the one who broke the window!  I'M the one who took the clothes off all the Barbie dolls!  And I'M the one who put the neighbor girl in the washing machine!"  (What?  I'm sure all of us have locked a child inside a large household appliance at some point in our lives.)

There was just so much pressure.  It's a wonder I didn't take up smoking.

Of course, there were toys under the tree again that year instead of switches.  And I would think to myself, "Wow, Santa must have made some mistake."

But somehow, I managed to squeak by every year.

And somehow, I still do.

"In the office there's a guy named Melvin / He'll pretend that I am Murphy Brown..."

Man discovers innovative new way to improve life, career, relationships

(This is my second post for FakeOnion.com, a website that exists only in my mind.)

Harry Pitts has lived much of his life like most people -- giving effort only when it is absolutely required, and not really caring all that much otherwise.

But recently, Harry discovered what he says could be the secret to life -- trying.

"I've found that by actually trying, you can often do amazing things."

Pitts, 47, said the discovery hit him like a ton of bricks.

"I was home alone one day, and the heat didn't seem to be working.  So I was going to check the furnace, but dad has like a ton of bricks stacked in the basement, so I couldn't get to it.  Normally, I would have just waited for him or mom to get home, but I was cold.  So I told myself, I can move these bricks.  And golly gee, one by one, I did!"

Did he fix the heater?

"Well, no.  I'm not even sure that was the furnace I was looking at, but that's beside the point."

Though no scientific proof exists, Pitts claims his groundbreaking idea works in virtually all phases of life.

"Weight loss, career, you name it.  Even relationships.  Heck, I have a girlfriend for the first time in twelve years, all because I decided to walk up to a girl and ask her out."

Sound too good to be true?  Well, it just may be.

"There is but one downfall to my program.  Trying, as it turns out, takes quite a lot of effort.  So it may not be for everyone.  For example, now my girlfriend wants me to buy her gifts for certain occasions, and like, think of things for us to do all on my own!  She even suggested I move out of my parents' house.  I was like, 'Whoa, let's not get crazy here.  Don't you think we're moving a little too fast?'"

While it remains to be seen if trying is sustainable, brief spurts of effort do seem to help a little.  Keep in mind the sample size is very small, and trying may lead to other unwanted and unforeseen consequences, such as added responsibility and worst of all, expectations.

So for now, try at your own risk.

"I turned my microwave on and I cooked my chicken ravioli / The last ten years of my life I've been feeling kind of lonely..."

And they shall call his name...

I figure one of the most important decisions I will ever make is what to name my kids.

Right now, my life is all Frosted Flakes or Apple Jacks, NCIS reruns or Golf Channel, and take out the trash or see just how much more I can stack on top of the can without it falling.  (FYI, my record is 2 ft. 4 inches above the rim, wall-aided.)

But someday that will, in theory, change.  My decisions will begin to mean more, have more lasting consequences.  And I gotta tell ya, that freaks me out a little.

I'm pretty sure they hand out manuals at the hospital that give you tips on how to raise your kids.  But no one tells you how to name your kids.  

Oh sure, there's the Big Book of 60,000 Baby Names, but that's got like a thousand names.  Who among us can choose just one?  I have enough trouble trying to decide what kind of cereal to have.

So today I am relieved to be able to say I have made this important decision.  I have picked out names for my kids.  And I will reveal those to you now, with the understanding that you agree to sign a non-compete agreement at the end of this post stating that you will not steal my names.

If it is a boy, they shall call his name.... Luke.

Pros: It's Biblical.  It's one of the Dukes of Hazzard.  Also, easy to spell if he's not very studious.  And for every day of his life, I can (and will) say in a Darth Vader voice, "Luke.... I am your father."

Cons: There are no cons.

OK, I have to admit I stole that idea from Facebook.  But my girl name I came up with all by myself, as I'm sure you will have no trouble believing.

If it is a girl, they shall call her name.... Adrian.

Pros: About once a week when I'm letting her out at school, I'll purposely hide her lunch or a book or something, so that she "forgets" it.  Then just as she's almost to the door, in the midst of all her peers, I'll roll down the window and yell in my best Sylvester Stallone voice, "Yo, Adriaaaaaaaan!!!!!  You forgot your protractor."

Talk about years and years of fun.

Cons: Again, there are no cons.  For me, anyway.

I'm so thankful to have this major life decision behind me.  Now all I have to do is get their mother to go along with this.

But today, that seed has been planted.

Actually, that's probably a poor choice of words.

"Some gal would giggle and I'd get red / And some guy'd laugh and I'd bust his head / I tell you, life ain't easy for a boy named Sue..."

The real meaning of NoShavember

Thirty days had NoShavember.  I made it through eleven.  It just got too itchy. (That's what she said?)

There shall be no pictures because, well, that would only serve to embarrass myself, as well as possibly some of my family.  Also, I did not take any.  That's a lie.  I took a couple, but the hair wasn't showing up to my satisfaction, so I deleted them.  Must've been bad lighting.

However, the entire experience has given me a new-found respect for the guys in ZZ Top, Duck Dynasty, and my uncle Carl.

I saw that many of the people participating in NoShavember were doing so to raise awareness for some charity or cause.  This sounded like an excellent idea.  So I dedicated my NoShavember to raising awareness of my own laziness, which was, ironically, the main reason I was even participating in the first place!

But it wasn't the only reason.

Once in a while a guy just needs to grow some hair on his face.  Amiright, guys?  Just to prove he can, or maybe for no reason at all. 

You see, those fertile facial fields are the last bastion of male expression and self-experimentation.  Sure, we still have the toilet, but no one gets to see what we do in there.  (FYI, it's mostly reading and pondering our how our life turned out like this.  Maybe an occasional nap.)

These little beard and moustache excursions?  This is all we have. 

We understand women are ultimately going to get their way in pretty much every other decision.  (I'm sorry my future son that I hope to have, if you're reading this, but it's true.)  We know your little ploys.  We know you got rid of our favorite shirt from 1987 and then pretended to be all dismayed and you "don't know WHAT could have possibly happened to it."

But somewhere along the way, a deal must have been struck, perhaps a line drawn.   Men said, "Enough!" 

You can put your frilly rugs and decorative lamps and froufrou throw pillows all over the house.  You can throw away our twenty-year-old clothes when we're at work.  You can even force us to begrudgingly pose for pictures and post them to your precious Facebook wall.  But this -- *admiringly rubbing my chin* -- this is where it ends.

So next time you see a guy sporting facial hair, no matter how hideous or 1970's-porn-star-ish it may be -- and it will be -- perhaps you'll have a little more compassion, maybe even a modicum of respect for those amber waves of keratin. 

Remember, he's just exercising his right to be a man.  In the only way that he knows.  The only way that he has.  Putting his manhood on display for all the world to see.

"They come runnin' just as fast as they can / 'Cause every girl crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man..."

Music Monday: The smell of hospitals in winter

Second jobs and time spent in waiting rooms have kept me away.

There was a hiking accident, then a three-and-a-half hour drive wondering if a loved one was OK and how bad she would be injured when I arrived.  (She was OK, mostly.  A kindly family of hiking Mennonites stopped to comfort her while waiting for emergency personnel.  A three-hour rescue operation followed, and yada yada yada, she'll be walking again in 8 to 12 weeks.)

There have been new and scary concerns about Nephew Bone.  Thankfully, an EEG and MRI -- two months apart -- were both deemed normal.  We have prayed for the best while fearing things unspoken.

Somewhere in the midst of it all was a stretch of seven days in a row spent in some hospital, doctor's office, ER, or other medical facility. I guess the worry and stress must have piled up on me, because I developed a cold sore for the first time in my life, then ran a fever for three days after.

There was a bit of good news, as I landed my first-ever paid writing gig.  It's nothing grand, but is exciting for me.  And it probably would have gotten its very own post but for everything else going on, so celebrating seemed out of place.

Oh, and if all that wasn't enough, I overflowed the toilet, flooded the bathroom, then came downstairs to find water pouring through the ceiling.  Long story short, if you ever come to my place and have a choice, don't sit in the recliner.

I have a confession.  It's really hard for me to focus on anything else right now because... herpes!  I have herpes!  And according to something I googled, it could have been lying dormant inside my body for years without me knowing!  With my swingin' lifestyle, I could have infected as many as five, yea, six girls over the past decade.  How can I live with myself?!?!

Unfortunately -- or perhaps very fortunately -- I could find no songs about herpes to feature on this week's Music Monday.  So instead, I have called upon an old friend.  (No, not Tone Loc, though that would have been super cool.  And how did you even know he and I were homies?)

I first heard Nate Ruess when he was lead singer of The Format.  For a while, their "She Doesn't Get It" held the coveted title of most played song on my iTunes.  After they broke up, I figured I'd never hear from him again.  Like an ex-girlfriend you long for wistfully who says she wants to stay friends but never answers her phone when you call.... as an example, I mean.

And then...

One glorious day two or three years later, I heard that unmistakable voice again.  "That sounds like the guy from The Format," I thought.  And it was.

He'd started a new band called Fun.  It was good to know that he had moved on and I.... well, he had moved on.

The Format never really became a huge mainstream band, so it's been kinda cool to see Ruess enjoy much success with Fun, even as my own success has remained almost eerily unchanged.

I like this acoustic version of "Carry On."



I would like to dedicate this song to all of us afflicted with herpes, the silent killer....... what?  What is carbon monoxide......

Oh my God!  I may never fall asleep again!

"The smell of hospitals in winter, and the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls..."

Kids, it's not that difficult

As my blog has evolved, I have gone from posting at near Twitter-speed anytime a thought wafted through my mind, to posting a day or two after an event happened, and now to this.  "This" being some sort of massive blog slowdown wherein I am just now getting around to blogging about Nephew Bone's birthday party.  Which took place in August.  Of 2012.

OK, 2013.  But still.

Is evolved the right word?

Devolved?  Decomposed?

Nephew Bone turned five this year.  Ah, five...  I don't actually remember much about being five.  I think that may have been the year I got my Starsky & Hutch matchbox car.  Nephew Bone had a Duck Dynasty party.

Boy, this post really isn't going anywhere.  I think I will instead make this a general info post on how to throw a proper birthday party for a child under seven.  Yes, that's what I shall do.  I decided that just now, on the fly.

Bone: Making virtually every life decision on the fly since 1980-something.  This explains oh so much.

I know what you're thinking: Bone, you don't even have any kids that we know of.  How would you know anything about throwing a birthday party for one?

Exhibit A: I, Bone, have attended somewhere around EIGHT of these little germ fests over the past five years, so... yeah.

Exhibit B: One of my sister's favorite sayings is "I can't wait 'til you have kids."  I can only take this to mean she knows what an excellent rearer of children I will be and she is anxiously awaiting it, probably in much the same way Houdini's sister anxiously awaited his escape the first time she buried him alive.

(I also wrote a post several years ago wherein I may have poked a little fun at the time-out method of discipline and a couple of people took it to mean I was advocating spanking children.  Yeah, that cost me about half my readers at that time, so I no longer include it on my parenting resume.  I was even reprimanded by the World Order of Mommy Bloggers, aka WOMB.  Ironically, my punishment wound up being, you guessed it, a 15-minute time-out.  Oh well, live and learn.  Or, in my case, just live.  Not all of this paragraph is factual, but probably more than you think.)

Now that we've established my credentials, let's get this party started... in a manner of speaking.

The first thing you're gonna want to do is minimize the number of kids you invite to this party.  This is because of Bone's Theorem of Kids and Fun, which states:  The number of kids at the party is inversely proportional to the amount of fun your child's "adult" friends will have at said party.  And really, what's more important than that?

Chances are your child isn't going to remember this party anyway.  I mean, how many of your birthday parties before the age of seven do you remember?  And besides, are these really your child's friends?  Or are they, more likely, children of your friends whom you have forced upon your child in some sort of medieval-esque arranged friendship.  Hmm?

Mmhmm, stepping on some toes now, am I?

Now personally, I prefer a 1:1 child-to-parent ratio.  I wouldn't go any higher than 2:1.  If someone shows up with more than two kids, I recommend scolding their child in front of them.  It has been my experience that they will leave fairly soon after that.

The second ingredient for a successful children's party is renting one of those cool, inflatable water slides.  Nephew Bone had one of these at his party.  Actually, he's had an inflatable slide at two of his parties, and those were two of the funnest days of my admittedly not-all-that-exciting life.

Going down an inflatable water slide at 40-years-old dressed as Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty... I'm just not sure where else my life has to go after that.

Now, there is one danger of which you should be aware with these inflatable slides.  Inevitably, one of the smaller kids winds up getting hurt by one of the bigger kids and starts crying.  This also happened at Nephew Bone's party.  And no, the "bigger kid" in this instance wasn't me, thankyouverymuch.

Although I did make two kids cry on the trampoline.

But it's not my fault!  I have to do my high jumps!  It's family tradition.

And that's it.  Two simple steps to hosting a successful kids birthday party, from a guy who's never even hosted one. 

If I could proffer one final piece of advice, it would be this:  No one's perfect.  Actually, that's not really advice, is it?

Hmph.  Let's try something else.

Kids are a crapshoot.  We're all gonna make mistakes.  (Well, you're gonna make mistakes. As stated earlier I've not had kids yet, so...)  They're resilient.  They'll adjust.

And if they question you, respond as my Dad always did to me: "Because I said so."  (Bonus side note:  This works OK with kids.  Not as well with girls you may be dating.)

Besides, your kids have most likely figured out by now that you control the flow of Goldfish and juice in the household.  And once that pecking order has been established, what could go possibly go wrong?  And if they're still getting on your nerves, just send them up to bed early.  Problem solved.

Wow, if I already have this much knowledge about kids, once I get a couple years of actual experience, I'm gonna be a scary good parent.

No wonder my sister can't wait.

"Do you think for one minute that this is it / Your party is bogus, yo, it ain't legit / You better put on the Hammer and you will be rewarded / My beat is ever boomin' and you know I get it started..."

Music Monday: This time of year

It comes at first in bits and pieces.  Hinting at itself with a single crisp morning, only to be swallowed up by the heat of a midday Sun.  Then a week later, perhaps two, you get an entire day of it, the oppressive humidity removed and replaced by a feeling so familiar yet not fully describable, so that it can only be called "fall."

September seems to arrive on a gentle breeze.  At first it's just a breeze, stirring the still warm air.  But after some days, it begins to turn and to chill.  Soon here the cotton will be dried and full, ready for picking.  Then the leaves begin their spectacular but all-too-brief magic show, as the sun begins to set on the year.

For me, fall will always be a Friday afternoon in 1989.   It's high school, and a pep rally.  The students have long since mailed it in for the week, and most of the teachers have done the same.  It's intentionally accidentally bumping into the girl I've wanted to ask out since the first day of Physics after school, then not quite getting up the courage to.  But still smiling because I got to talk to her.  And besides, there would always be next week.

It's those few perfect days where no heat and no AC are needed.  It's driving with the windows down and singing at the top of my lungs to my "Unchained Melody" cassette single because Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield knew just how I felt.

Fall is a reminder -- of itself, of other falls gone before, and of so many other things you hadn't even planned on remembering.  But damn that breeze and all it conjures up...

Taking advantage of the change in weather, we ventured down to the Clarkson Covered Bridge Sunday afternoon.  I have included some iPhone photos for your ocular delight.  The scenery is God's (and the Alabama Historical Commission's).  The captions are mine.

As covered bridges go, she seemed like a long one.

Historical markers: The original Wikipedia

"I don't ever wanna feeeeeel, like I did that day.  Take me to the place I looooove..."

I like to call this one "Tree on Side of Hill, Hashtag Nature."

I did everything I could to save this dog, but as it turns out he actually was not dead in the first place.

And it being Monday and all, I know it's a little out-of-character for me to do a Music Monday.  But what the heck.  I haven't blogged in a month.  May as well throw everything I've got out there at once.

I had a couple of songs in mind.  One was "This Time of Year" by Better Than Ezra, but it's really hard to find decent live versions of songs and I couldn't find an official video for that one.  The other song isn't anything all that remarkable.  But it was written by a guy from my home county, and a couple of the people mentioned in the song are real people who do or did exist, and I'm pretty sure the gin is still there.  So in that sense, I guess it is pretty cool.  It's called "Sweet Southern Comfort."  And again for lack of a decent live version, this is the video for the song.  Try and ignore the cheesy phone call bit at the start. 



"Well, there's a feeling in the air / Just like a Friday afternoon / Yeah, you can go there if you want / Though it fades too soon..."

Man perplexed by friends' lack of Zynga games activity

(Source: FakeOnion.com)

Mr. Cy Berstocker thinks he has uncovered something quite alarming about the world in which we live.  After suffering through a two-hour-plus period of a workday during which none of his friends played a single move in Words With Friends, the Alabama man began to wonder what was happening.

"I've got forty-seven games of Words With Friends currently in progress," Berstocker confessed as he showed off his sparkling career 25.1 points-per-word average.  "Now, I could see twelve or fifteen of these people having plans or just getting sick of playing, and losing.  Maybe even twenty or thirty.  But every single one?  It didn't seem likely."

That's when Berstocker began reading the premillennial book series, Left Behind.

"I'd always heard of the rapture, and I figured this might be it.  I remember those books being out so I picked one up and started reading.  Well, I probably don't have to tell you, it was pretty boring.  So I only got to page four.  That's when I decided something even more disturbing might be going on."

His hypothesis?  People at work, were actually working!

"I know it seems unlikely, but that's all I can come up with.  Look at this.  Normally, by this time of day my battery power is down to twenty or thirty percent.  Today?  Seventy-eight percent.  Meanwhile, I've been nudging people left and right, like an extroverted goat.  It's like a Twilight Zone where the protagonist wakes up and goes to work.  He's still goofing off, but suddenly everyone else is doing actual work.  It's freaking me out, man."

For now, Berstocker mostly sits and stares at his iPhone, pondering things like whether he has enough chip clips for all his potato chips, and maybe someday interacting with another human face-to-face.

Pulling down and releasing the screen every few seconds to refresh.

Hoping, praying, for any sign of life.

"Now I'm looking to the sky to save me / Looking for a sign of life / Looking for something to help me burn out bright..."