Ten reasons for the lousy DFW weather.

1. Michigan people moving to Texas. Friends from Michigan moved to Houston in 2010 and though we were and are SO thrilled to have them four hours away, there is, as there always is, a price to pay when someone from MI moves to TX…usually is the weather. Michigan must really know it lost some good peeps to toss this mess on us, and Bob and Sue are great peeps. Officially, it is a UAW curse – nothing of substance comes from that outfit (other than ruining an industry and its suppliers) so…

2. Splenda. I believe I am responsible for the explosive growth of that product; I brought it up from obscurity. Once an arm starting growing out of my forehead and I noticed a tendency bum rush trees and bite them, I kinda figured I needed to get off the Powdered Juice. So many are on it now and it’s an ingredient in more things than you know….well….white, crunchy powder equals white crunchy weather.

3. Speaking of Super Bowl - Figure once Jerry and Roger Staubach said (for the 6345^th time), “…and OMG, the weather? Puh-leeze! Wait til you’re out on the roof of (some hotel), sipping a mojito, looking at some Dallas senioritos, and thinking, “My life, now that I’m here, is compete-o,” and the thermometer says 75,” that sealed this deal. If they’d stopped at 6,344, we’d be fine; but nooooo...

4. The pitchy contestants on American Idol. Disrupts the previously mentioned Hecktor Vector Schmector factor in our upper jet stream and before you know it; oooo, it’s cold in here; there must be some $%^$ weather in the atmosphere. (Sorry for the technical jargon. Not showing off, just doing my research.

5. Expired Bush tax cuts and Obamacare. We’ve blamed everything else on these two things; why not this?

6. iPhones. Just wait. Give it five years and the studies will start coming out. You’ll see.

7. Our continued celebration of the Ronald Reagan presidency. I remember the constant and consistent trashing he took before, during and after his terms. Now suddenly he’s pushing Ty Cobb, Thomas Edison, and Gandhi for supremacy in all those fields? There’s a price to pay for revisionist history – snow and ice about covers it.

8. Moose Tracks ice cream. First, it was simply MT. Then Chocolate Moose Tracks and Extreme Moose Tracks. I hear the next flavor is Sugar Coated, Triple E’rything, to Uranus and Back Moose Tracks. One cannot suck that much yumminess from the Universe, put it in a box and not expect consequences.

9. This item has been removed by the author who was hesitant it might offend some who think a certain resident of a very cold US state who had a reality show about pretty much nothing but being in the woods and might  *shivers* be a great Elephant nominee in 2012. The author wants to keep this a light, friendly, inclusive and diverse piece, and removed a ‘hook’ about maybe all of us meeting at a certain restaurant that serves chicken sandwiches. Except on Sundays.

10.  And the tenth reason for DFW’s horrible Super Bowl week weather…Rachel Ray dog food. God has punished and disciplined for much, much less.

I thought more companies were doing that sort of thing, but it's only come up one time during my interviews. What I want to know is this: anyone ever going say anything but, "No problem?” I think if there is a next time that someone poses that question to me I'm going to say, with as serious a look as I can muster, "Oh, I always test all my drugs, dude.”

Maybe not.

I've taken three or four of these personality profiles everyone uses, and I think they're a hoot. One VP was honest enough about it, asking if I had twenty minutes to take the "sex test."

"Excuse me?"

"It's one of those personality profiles, and about every seventh question seems as if it could be a thinly veiled query about sex, and so we call it the sex test."

"Um, sure, I have the time."

"Great. Have a seat in this room. When you finish, just bring it to the receptionist.”

She was right. You were given two statements and you had to pick the one that most fit you:

(a) I like to read books and plays that have plenty of sex in them.

The entire test was like that. When I finished I walked up to the receptionist and turned in my test.

Smiling, I asked, “Can I get a smoke and a cool towel? And an extra copy of the test?”

She didn’t laugh.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks, for sure. Me, trying to get the most I can; them, trying to get me for the least they can. I'll miss the game when it's over but after I land this perfect job, life will be wonderful.

Say, I wonder where a fella applies to be a test maker?

I may just be getting older . . . well, I'm definitely getting older . . . but there surely seems to be a lot of people handling my Visa card who are barely old enough to drive. The bigger department stores may be an exception, but those unique little stores seem staffed by zygotes.

* * *

What is this year’s Beanie Baby/Cabbage Patch/Power Ranger/Elmo toy? You can tell I haven’t bought for a little kid in some time! When it was Beanie Babies, I’d do this fun thing in the mall. I’d be walking with a friend, come up behind an obvious mom and say, " . . . and I heard they have a whole isle of Beanie Babies over at. . . “and then turn away so she couldn’t hear the end of the sentence. They always, always, asked me to repeat it.

* * *

There are two kinds of guys that Christmas shop. Those who go into Victoria's Secret and those of us who walk by and pretend we aren't looking in at all. Several times.

* * *

"How much is that necklace there?"

"Let's see, sir; well, the tag price here is $34,789,098.99, but it's a Red Tag Special, so that means. . . hold on, let me figure this. . . "

And she furiously pounds her calculator for a couple of minutes.

"Ninety-seven dollars. My, that's a good price for such a lovely piece."

"It's still a bit out of my range; do you have anything around seventy-five or eighty?"

"Let's see. . . . Oh, here's a nice 17 inch rope for ninety five, that's in your range isn't it?"

"No, it's still about twenty high, can you meet me halfway?"

Then the woman who allegedly just cut the price of a piece of jewelry over 34 million dollars says, "Oh, no, I can't take this below ninety five."

* * *

And the little guy is PLEADING with his mom to buy the nativity scene.

"But mom, we have to have a manger, and animals and everything!"

"Why do we have to have all that?"

“'Cause it's Jesus' birthday, and all that stuff is like his cake."

Right on, little man.

* * *

Oh, gosh, Victoria's Secret again; how did that happen?

* * *

By the way, what is your theory on parking at this time of year? The Missus circles near the front door like a pup hovering around the dinner table at a bbq. I make one pass around what would be the prime choice, and that's only if I came in that way, and then it's off to Saskatchewan to park.

* * *

"Which sweater," I say to the sales person who's working on commission, "do you think looks better with these pants I'm gonna buy for my wife? This one ($36) or this one ($22)?"

"Well," she says, looking them both over for a minute or two, "I think your wife can do more things, accessory wise, with that one ($22)."

Thank you. Thank you very much. We both know if she would have said the other one, I would have bought it, and yet she still gave me her honest opinion.

"Oh," she adds, "I think it's also 15% off." Remember Glenda, the Good Witch of the North? This is Maggie, the Angel of Women's Apparel.

* * *

All things considered, it was a pretty good year
For shopping, store hopping, and Holiday cheer.
I made my list, checked it twice
And never hesitated to ask for advice.
As I walked to my car, clutching my gifts,
I absently wondered what I would get.
I saw happy people, quite far and quite wide
And suddenly remembered. . .
I parked on the other side!

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions as a rule, but these are times that try our souls, so I thought I’d step up and make the world around me a better place. These are my resolved convictions for 2010:

1. I will beat my addiction to the phrase ‘that’s what she said.’ Don’t even watch the Office, but the kids do and that’s all they say half the time.

One evening last week, we head to the movies for a family night. I lay a ‘twss’ on ‘em all, and it’s a pretty good one. After the laugh dies down, Big Sis looks at me and the missus and says, “We’ve learned more about sex from you guys in the last two weeks from ‘that’s what she said,’ then we did during all of them ‘special talks’ when we were kids.”

2. I will get a new bottle of cologne. Can’t tell you how old my current bottle is, but the other bottle I owned was the Old Spice I got around the time Nixon was President.

3. My stand will remain firm on the thirty year statute of limitations rule when it comes to my kids. When Lil’ Sis turns twenty-one in 2010, she’ll get the same speech her brother and sister got years earlier.

“There is a thirty year black out on whatever you suddenly feel compelled to let us know you did as a kid or teenager. In other words, my child, if you start to spin a tale about, ‘…this one time, when I was fifteen,’ you can hold that thought and pick up the story when you are forty-five years old.”

Since Big Sis turns twenty-six in February, I theoretically have four more years of silence. Then she can tell me about stuff she did as a newborn. Until then, I don’t want to hear nothin’ about nothin’ from any of ‘em.

4. I will let empty thermos cups sit in my car no longer than…oh…thirty years.

5. No more fighting the missus when she gripes about me displaying the lid to my giant, humongous, fifteen quart, 3/8” thick, shiny aluminum restaurant grade, brazier pan. It’s up on the wall above the utensil rack because it is THE coolest place for a male compensation piece. Did I say compensation? I meant conversation.

Naw, skip that one.

6. In 2010, I will work hard to admit that even though I’ve attained a smidge of wisdom through more than half a hundred years, there are indeed things I don’t know or can’t figure out.

Mmmm, skip that one, too.

7. I will go through and consolidate some of the twelve million folders I have on my computer that are named, “Stuff (with a date in the late 90’s on it),” or “Stuff to Work On” or “Dad’s Stuff.”

8. I will work continuously throughout the year to find some chips made in ecofriendly rainforests that taste just like Tostitos but have no calories, salt, fat, fructose, sucrose or Ronnie Montrose. I will work todo el dia.

9. I will stop using babelfish to make it seem like I can habla in several languages.

Naw, skip that uno.

Act One

I'm talking with the missus yesterday – the subject being parents of kids our own kids grew up with - and I mention a certain family.

"What was the story on them; did they adopt those two kids? Was that the deal?"

"What are you talking about?”

"Weren't they adopted, or from a previous marriage, or something like that?"

"No, they've been married since they were eighteen and had Mary and Johnny early on."

"Well, you told me something about it. Something unusual about them."

She looks away and laughs.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Cue the organ music. Something is not right here.

Act Two.

"Hey," I asked the other night, "where's my calculator?"

"Mmmmm, think it's in your office," she says, absent-mindedly.

"I just looked there, it's not there. Who had it last?”

I text the kids (who’d all been over the other night) and ask them; they all plead ignorance and this time, I believe them. So I go back to Janet Leigh.

"They didn't use it, and it's not in my office."

I go and look again, I even move some stuff around; no small step for a man, but no calculator.

"It's not there," I say. "Forget it."

A minute later, she's calling to me from my office.

"What's this?”

And lying on my desk, right out in the open, is my calculator.

"I just . . . . it wasn't. . . . did you. . . "

She smiles and walks back into the living room and I swear I hear Psycho music.

Act Three

Now, I don't say she's doing it maliciously, I think maybe she's just doing it for fun. Or 'cause she can.

We pass each other in the kitchen the other morning (picture two zombies), and I mumble (the 6:30 AM language of love), “We doin’ anything tonight? I just want to chill, maybe watch a movie."

"Chill? You said we could (this), and you’d take care of (that), and you said for sure you would (the other)”

"Huh?"

"Kevin! I told you two days ago. . . “

She goes on to relate a conversation I can't recall one sentence of. She speaks specifically of things we both said.

"Huh?"

"I told you," she says, slowly and deliberately, ‘Next Wednesday evening, I need you to’ (something no two humans have ever discussed in the history of recorded time).”

"Ah . . .uh. . . “

And then it dawns on me.

“Hey, today's Tuesday, Goober."

"Oh, that's right," she says with a laugh. "Sorry.”

(Good Eeeeev-nink.)

Act Four

The proof is all there, but not to the naked eye. She's covered her tracks well.

"Mgrhfisnxit nkritghtif."

"What?” I ask.

"Huh, I didn't say anything."

I just don't know. Maybe it's just me. That must be it. Just coincidences, the both of us getting busy and forgetting things. Nothing to worry bout.

* * *

(Okay, hopefully she thinks this piece is done. HELP! Shhhhh! I mean, help. I think she's trying to drive me crazy. Send the authorities. Now.)

Dear Lt.General Fred Eze. Ndu National Special Adviser to the New President Alhaji Umar Musa Yara Dua Federal Republic of Nigeria,

I am the Highness, Director and Curator of the Department of Five Acre Lots Only in Flower Mound, the Republic of Texas, Mr. Kevin to the John Phillips, esq.

I was thrilled to obtain your email offering me the foreign part payment of 5.6 Million USD through an accredited security shipping company for my unpaid contract in service of your government.

Please to excuse me the wasting of some of your precious time, my brother. But I am delighted to inform you that through our computer added softwareness, YOU have to been chosen as our Nigerian contact for the transfer of fundage used to research global warming. How ‘bout them apples?

In exchange for your assistance. In taking the transference to your bank account of twenty four million US dollars a small fee will be granted to your. Self for your assistance. 4 million US dollars. I know this is not a high amount but due to Interpol scrutiny, we have to carefully suggest funds left to pay great citizens such as your own self so we might continue our fight against warm polar ice.

The twenty four million will be coming on bank wire – that is no concern of to you. Your small fee will be looking to find in several partially eaten Nutella jars at the Nigerian airport, locker # 458. Please do not be alarmed by the tall man who meets you at by the locker. At the airport. He is there for safety sake only. He will check your indentification, or you could. Simply send.

It to me now; your choise. If you smartly choose the ladder option, you may email me a copy of your passport and picture ID, address and phone number to this email :

Dontboggart@thething.tx

You will get other emails such as this and know they are not authentic without my personal  asphyxiate on it, thus: &

Please do not fall prey to them and the organization of them. All we need is the information I listed above and the activity can begin to happen with your fee being paid crisply. We indeed have contacted lesser men/women than your excellent abilites, so you must act now in order to act now on this matter of four million US.

Congratulations.     

Best Regards,  

Highness.  

Kevin Phillips, esq 

Republic of Texas

"&"

From today’s Dallas Morning News (10-2-09): “The Obama administration said Thursday it will seek to ban text messaging by (several government-type drivers) and push states to pass their own laws.” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, “Driving while distracted should just feel wrong…we’re not going to break everyone of their bad habits, but we are going to raise awareness.”

I agree that texting while driving isn’t in anyone’s best interest. Make it illegal then, I have no problem with that, but gol-lee did this guy just say something should just feel wrong and that the government is not going to break everyone’s habits (the implication being that they’d sure like to)?

Let’s fire up that crystal ball, shall we?

* * *

February 14, 2010, DMN front page: “The administration today shook its index finger at the country and said, ‘Now…we know it’s Valentine’s Day, but you have her home by 9:30, hear?”

6-28-10 AP wire: “The President’s press secretary commented in this morning’s briefing: ‘Just think…if we do this right, next year your kids will be taking a short ten minute break at this time, and then they’ll get back at that trigonometry through August. Now, if you feel like you want to be good parents, you make sure you push your kids to study hard 24/7 and let’s see if we can put that whuppin’ on those Chinese kids. If, like I said, you want to show us you’re good parents.’

11-14-10 USA Today: “Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack spoke to parents in Kansas City last night: ’As we approach the Thanksgiving season, I wanted to remind you all about the importance of broccoli. Now, we can’t punish you if you don’t cook and serve it– though good (small g so it’s legal) god almighty, we’d love to – we just want to raise the awareness. OK? Don’t make me come check up on you.”

11-19-10: From an advertisement paid for by the office of the Czar of Shopping: “Do you really, really love your significant other? Well, show how much by starting your holiday shopping early this year. Get lots of stuff, which means you love them, and makes us feel like you’re interested in helping the economy out at the same time. Spend money! Heck, we can always print more.”

12-31-10: From the business section of the DMN, “The President traveled to Grady yesterday in an attempt to try and spirit the all-important squash festival away from mayor Nick Nicholson and the residents of Grady. Dr. Benjamin Stone spent about three hours with the two men and though no decision was reached, a bailout for the county’s catfish farm was announced.”

March 11, 2011 Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and Czar of Food, Rachel Ray, on Oprah: “The administration has empowered this department to send the message that all Americans start eating right. I’ll issue a recipe of the week and good Americans across the land will be strongly encouraged to cook it for supper. Our first dish is a delicious thick, pudding-like savory delight using tomatoes and herbs. It’s an Italian dish I call Moose-a-leany. Mmmm.”

“Oprah, I’ve made some and we can dig in right now; I know the Secretary and I are fascists. I mean famished.”

Random day in 2012: A G-man looks at a guy walking to lunch and says, “Hey! I’m not trying to break you of your bad habit, but stand up straight!”

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good. 
_{Horace Mann 1796-1859}

I slept in a little late this fine Labor Day morning; up around 7:50. Coffee, paper, feed the dogs and then bum about the house for a bit. At some point I looked at the clock.

9:11

I wonder if I’ll always cringe? It’s imperceptible certainly, but most definitely there’s a little race to my pulse when I see those numbers on a digital clock, on a license plate or even an address.

Where were you that day? 

I had a trainee in town who’d flown in the night before. The plan was for me to pick him up around 6:30, make the three hour drive to the yet-to-open restaurant and let him see how training for a new store opening runs.

Sometime around 6:30 I picked up him and we headed north on I-35. We’d met earlier in the month and knew each other well enough to have things to talk about on our drive. That meant the radio was set to background noise level – loud enough to hear it was on, but not loud enough to make anything out.

We’d driven a little over two hours before our first pit stop. We’d had no cell phone reception for a good part of the way. I pumped the gas while Ben went inside. He came out and said, “A plane crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.”

Huh?

I don’t remember much about our conversation the rest of the drive, but I know the radio took center stage. Don’t know when we learned of the second plane, the Tower’s collapse and the rest. A little over an hour later we arrived at the training store in, of all places, Oklahoma City.

The fellow in charge of the whole thing pulled us all into a meeting and shared a prudent thought.

“It was only a little over six years ago these folks dealt with their own day like today, so I’d ask you to keep that in mind as you go about your training this morning and this whole week.”

I wish I had a large catalog of details to rummage through but I don’t. I know we listened to employees share their thoughts of their own experiences regarding the Murrah Building bombing and of how they felt on this September Tuesday morning. We watched the news, saw the price of gas jump to over $6 a gallon at some stations around town, learned of people sitting in living rooms with shades drawn, guns cocked and of other folks walking the streets with guns cocked.

I wish I had individual stories from all the folks I talked to that day, or some memories of my own reactions to the news as it unfolded. But for some reason, I don’t.

Some day, God willing, I'll be the old guy who was alive when this thing happened. Unfortunately I won't be able to share much. Strange how some historic days gift you with fine and plentiful details while others waft through the years, sort of muddled and murky. Strange how I can’t seem to remember much about a day I won’t ever forget.

A set of three circumstances twirled together – a 30% coupon from the folks at The Store, a need, and the missus busy with something else – giving me enough rope to do something I’ve never done before. Buy new underwear.

Certainly I’ve been the recipient of everything from new big boy pants to new old man drawers, but it’s been either a mom or a missus doing the buying. What I’m saying is…much like (shhhh) signing the back of my paycheck since I’ve been married, using the word “splendiferous,” or spitting (among other things) into the wind...I’ve never walked into the men’s section of a store, picked up a three pack of 100% cotton briefs or boxers and made my way to the check out. Never ever, but with time on my hands these days, I thought, “Why not?”

I learned why not. It is a frightening place, that there aisle.

First off, consider the pictures on the packages. Like plastic army men, there’s a series of the same basic poses the underwear model strikes, no matter the brand.

(There’s a job to put on a resume, “I strip down to my freakin’ skin tight, painted on, cotton/spandex briefs and let other folks take photos which then appear in stores around the world.”)

Pose number one is the running pose. It’s a neck to knee picture, and the fellow leans forward, obviously running or fixin’ to run. Looks like what they do is send the guy outside to get the newspaper and tell him,” Don’t worry it’s in a private mailbox,” when actually it’s on a four lane highway.

Pose number two is a guy who rolls with one or two hands on his hip and if the picture had one of those ‘press here’ things like tickle me Elmo does, we’d hear the guy growl, “We know who the man is around HERE, don’t we?”. Let’s call this the Robert Plant, Song Remains the Same, pose and if you’re pushing beyond 50, I figure you know what I’m talking about.

Finally, a standard commercial pose for products of all varieties; the “that was hilarious; and even funnier, look at the boog hanging from his nose!” laughing photo. I think they’re all French underwear models, slumming it for American companies and as the camera shutter clicks, they say, “Oui, I am een my….how you say…tidy whities…and I do not cair who sees me. I am getting…mmmm…good money for zis.”

All this and more closes in on me as I try to casually grab a package…um, let me rephrase…as I try to make a selection but the Underwear Brigade of running, laughing, and thrusting boxers, briefs, boxer-briefs, low rise soldiers flanks me and I surrender with a dive for the pots and pans section.

With a deep sigh, I run a shaking hand through my hair, trying to figure a next step. My phone rings and I see it’s the missus.

“Where are you?”

“At The Store; I need some undies so I came to buy ‘em.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I’ve been asking myself the same thing.”

“What? Just find some….”

“No, no; there will be no “finding” happening today; I’m outta here; the running, laughing, thrusting…I’m surprised I didn’t lose an eye. No ma’am; I don’t know what in the world I was thinking about, but what we’ll do is this: I’ll say hey babe, I need some new drawers can you pick some up for me? And you’ll say…”

She laughs, “Thrusting, eh?”

"O running stream of sparkling joy to be a soaring human boy!” _{Bleak House, Charles Dickens, 1853}

Did you ever notice what a terrific sound a little boy's voice makes? Wouldn’t it be grand to catch it in a bottle and then open as needed?

Tough day? Give the bottom a tap and out shoots that little screech from a poke in the anywhere. They're ticklish all over.

Can’t sleep? Pour a bit out and listen to uncontrollable laughter of two buddies spending the night together, unable to do anything but laugh harder when you holler for them to quiet down and go to sleep. (Eventually you go in the room to quiet them down. Five minutes later, your laughter joins with theirs!)

We could make a million with a bottle of this stuff.

Everything a boy does comes with some sound effect. For no reason at all, he’ll start to make a combination karate chop and whip cracking sound with every step – think of corduroy pants. When his Mom tells him to stop, he'll change the subject and a few minutes later, a new sound effect. She'll laugh at that one as he tells her what it is. 

When you hear him say something sarcastic . . . you're mistaken. Little boys don't do sarcasm. One needs cynicism to do sarcasm, and I can't recall meeting a little boy that knew cynicism. It doesn't come until much later and when it does, you're told to relax, take life slower. Like when you were a boy.

Listen to the words a little boy uses. He doesn't talk; he tries words on for size. Understand he enjoys the pleasure of language; he savors the letters and sounds rolling off his tongue and around his lips. If you overhear him in the bathroom and peek, you'll see him talking in front of the mirror. Just to see what the sounds look like.

A little boy’s voice is a breathy sound, and it warms you up and makes your tummy feel full. It scratches your back and makes you smile and look for something fun to do. It may be raspy, or high pitched, or quiet, but it always wants the world to know who its owner is.

It's usually preceded by a smile; a sincere, unselfishly given smile, and followed by a funny face or a "Hey I got a question," face. It sings constantly, not necessarily recognizable songs, but sort of hums and la-la-la-la's.

It's serious, yet can break into a laugh at any time and usually wants to, because what else is worthwhile, he will wonder, besides fun?

Maybe instead of a bottle, we’ll use a barrel.