Making right with the world...

It’s unfortunate, but real life is not an ABC after school special...

Cheaters are not always caught (thereby losing their prominent football scholarships)...

Most kids can’t get mom to quit drinking by joining “ala-teen” with Kristy McNichol...

A socially-crippling stutter is not likely to be overcome by learning how to figure skate...

And god help you if you ever decide to confront the mongoloid who keeps taking your lunch money by offering a well-reasoned plea to help resolve his insecurities about being abnormally proportioned by taking him to a baseball game.

...especially if it’s “bat day”

Childhood just doesn’t usually work that way. Often, the same boys that are spitting in other peoples’ food, keying the teachers’ cars, and “pants-ing” the retarded kid in the middle of assembly are the ones dating the cheerleaders and getting jaguars on their 16th birthday.

It’s not fair, but that’s the way it is...

Apparently, the karma-centric idea of being rewarded or punished in life based upon personal responsibility for your actions doesn’t hold jurisdiction over anyone below the age of 20.

But one time... for me... it did.

Doug was an obnoxious little twit who had developed an aptitude for two things: playing soccer, and making my life a living hell (at least in as much as a middle-class white kid’s life CAN be a living hell).

This led to many days of torment and anguish (both on the field and off), the gory details of which I’ll spare you for now. Let’s just say that while he never actually physically abused me, Doug was able to make me heartily resent the fact that my school didn’t have a tighter “anti-dick” policy.

For a while there it seemed like I couldn’t turn a corner without hearing some sort of derisive soliloquy hurled in my direction. Monologues on everything from my clothing and my hair, to my actions, my music, my speech patterns, and even my parents’ car were commonplace. Anything was fair game... it was all but fuel and fodder for Doug’s ever-emotive onslaught of ridicule. Now I can’t say I was the sole recipient of these dishonorable discharges, but if Doug’s insults were Shakespeare, I was his crowning achievement... his Hamlet... only there was no question... the answer was always “To be.”

To put it mildly, I didn’t like the guy very much.

Then, as I made my way into high school, a funny thing happened... I started seeing Doug less and less. I’d like to say it was because he noticed the err of his ways and decided to leave me alone - becoming a reformed man, helping little old ladies cross the street and raising money for UNICEF... but that was hardly the case. The truth was simply that our schedules had drifted apart, and we weren’t crossing paths quite as much anymore. In fact, I probably went an entire year or so without ever running into him.

Then, it happened.

One afternoon in gym class they were short on staff, and they decided to combine a couple of sessions together. There were about 40 of us in the gym that day... 40 of us, including Doug. Now with that many guys in one room, you might think it would be easy enough to stay anonymous, but I’ll tell ya... it sure didn’t take Doug long to find me. And the joy and excitement on his face at that moment could only be likened to that of a cat who has discovered a mouse trapped in the open.

After some early verbal sparring (I was at least starting to get a little indignant by this age if nothing else), we were corralled into groups and instructed that we would be playing handball. Skip ahead 20 minutes, and there’s 4 sets of teams engaging in what some might call a loosely-organized sport, but what more would probably say closely approximates the sight of someone with “terrets” trying to ice skate in a shooting gallery... balls were flying... BALLS were flying... and general unrest was the order of the day.

Then, the gym teacher told us he had to step out for a minute, and my beautiful moment of retribution came...

At the time the teacher walked out, Doug was playing goalie for one of the teams. Then, not 30 seconds after he left the gym, a strange event started to occur. Without direction, without forethought, and without planning, the 38 other kids in the gym spontaneously began to gather around the area where Doug was playing. These 38 kids (including the members of his own team) assembled into a loose semicircle around the goal Doug was defending. And once in place, these 38 kids proceeded to pelt Doug repeatedly, using every one of the 12 or so handballs that were in the gym. It started with the jocks, but eventually almost everyone was taking part. Nerds. Preppies. Heads. Geeks. One by one they threw... harder and harder... until Doug’s arms and legs were red, his voice was hoarse, and a tear was running down his cheek.

And while it was all going on, the 39th kid in the gym was perfectly content to just sat back and quietly watch the whole thing... an enormous smile spreading across his face.

I still have no clue why the planets aligned on that particular day to make that wonderful moment happen. Much to my astonishment Doug had always managed to be a pretty popular guy, so I don’t know if he had pissed off the wrong person that morning, or if the jocks had just thought he might make a fun target (never try too hard to figure out “jock logic”)...

Either way, it was a moment that I knew instantly I would always remember.

One thing did surprise me though... while watching Doug get up close and personal with 8-inch spheres of educationally institutionalized vulcanized rubber, a strange emotion rose up in me... pity.

There he was... receiving exactly what he deserved... and for a moment, I actually felt bad for him.

But only for a moment.

And I never stopped smiling.



Now... a few more words from Hamlet and Uncle Willie:

“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! - Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.”

Random thought #25

72 16-oz. bottles of Poland Springs water... 3 additional one-gallon jugs of H2O... a stick of deodorant (right guard)

...and a six-pack of pudding snacks.


That’s what the guy in line behind me at the supermarket last night was buying.

20 hours or so have passed since then... and I'm still puzzled by it.

InSensitives #1

I don’t understand why they put all those "handicapped only" parking spaces so close to everything. I mean, c'mon... don't most of those people already have chairs?

Justifying the eggnog...

Since we’re heading into December now, I figured I should probably just address this one out in the open...

I have an opinion to share...

And some of you may not like it...

Ok, here goes...


As far as I am concerned, Christmas is not a religious holiday.


There, I said it...

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas... the whole she bang... swadling, reindeer, angels... chimneys, frankincense, wise men... sugar plums, stockings, fashion-challenged midgets with yellow hair who aspire to be dentists... heck, I’d fully endorse a wider acceptance of the Wassail if you could actually tell me what one was...

Yes sirree, I loves me some Christmas... hands down, it’s my favorite holiday of the year.

But as far as I'm concerned, it aint about the Jesus.

It’s not like I think he was a bad guy or anything... I don’t.

Actually, from what I’ve seen in Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, it seems like he had a pretty good handle on the whole “how to treat your fellow man” thing, and hey, I’ll be the first to admit he rocked a sandal like it was nobody’s business... but I’m just too analytical a guy to wholly (pun intended) accept the idea of anybody as my personal savior without first seeing at least some shred of empirical evidence.

Maybe that’s just my lack of faith... maybe it’s flawed judgment... maybe it’s not... either way, for now, I’m going to cast my vote for evolution... and if I pray for anything, it will be for evolution to hurry up and... well, evolve... cuz there’s nothing I’d like more this year than to gets me some mad gills or wings or something... oh, and it’d be totally kick ass if I could have both.

Don’t worry... I’d only use them for good.

But anyway, where were we? ...oh right, Christmas!

So yeah... me... not so much about the religion... but that doesn’t mean I think any less of those who do embrace this as a time to celebrate the birth of our... or rather, their, lord... after all, they did name the holiday and pick the date and stuff (historians can’t reach any kind of consensus as to when Jesus was actually born... estimates vary in month, date, and even year), and at the end of the day, who am I to judge?

(judge not lest ye be judged and all that)

You see, in my life, Christmas has always been more about family and friends than finding a cake and party hat for the big guy in the sky. For me, Christmas is a time to celebrate the people in your life, not the life of the king of a certain people...

You may think that’s strange, or that I’m missing the point of the holiday entirely, and that’s ok... to me, it’s just normal... it’s Christmas... and I embrace it all...

I get the tree, I do the decorations, I fight with the tinsel, and generally, I make my apartment look like it’s the beachhead for a massive elf invasion (albeit a friendly one filled with knickknacks and scented votives).

And yes, I sing along with the carols too... it doesn’t matter if it’s “Let it Snow” or “O Holy Night”, I’m gonna belt it out with the best of them, and I’m going to do it with a smile on my face... and not the least bit of irony in my heart.

Now, before you start asking how someone who doesn’t appreciate the religious overtones of Christmas can derive such pleasure out of singing songs that reinforce the ideology its based on, I think it’s important to point out that I’m not really a “lyrics” kind of guy...

I don’t mean for that to sound flip, or dismissive, or anything really... it’s just the way I am...

I think of it like this... to this day, I derive great pleasure from songs that feature drug-induced stupors, tales of dragons and wizards, and the romantic entanglements of two men, but that doesn’t exactly make me Timothy Leary, Gandalf the Grey, or that guy on the corner wearing assless chaps who’s fond of asking if you know what a “Lithuanian Trumpfart” is...

It just means I dig the tunes...

And as my somewhat obsessive 900-some-odd song deep Holiday iPod playlist will attest, I certainly do dig them Holiday melodies...

Add in the nostalgia factor of having years and years of memories based around all those songs, and forget about it...

Yup, I’m just as happy to sing about snowmen, reindeer and the jolly guy who doles out the toys as I am to harmonize on the plight of Joseph and Mary. But the way I see it, all I'm doing is refusing to discriminate.

What's more Christian than that?!?!

(heck, ask me nicely, and I'll happily participate in a round or two of "The Dreidel Song")

I know that come this time of year you often see signs and billboards calling for everyone to “put the ‘Christ’ back in Christmas” and hey, if that’s what works for you, go for it.

But as far as I’m concerned, to really make it “Christmas” all you need is some good tunes, a glass of eggnog, and a few friends with which to deck the halls.

Ho, Ho, Ho.

And now that we’ve got that out of the way... BRING ON THE PRESENTS!

(just kidding)