41 at 41

I am turning 41 years old this week, and since I have inexplicably made it this long, I thought I might as well share some of my thoughts, observations, and acquired wisdom from my life thus far. I pared it down to one for each year. You’re welcome.

1.  There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who prefer the toilet paper to come off the top of the roll, and those who prefer the bottom. The people who like it to come off the bottom of the roll are wrong.

2.  If beds were advertised the same way as tents, a queen-size mattress would sleep nine adults comfortably.

3.  The three second rule has almost infinite extensions depending on how much you like the food that dropped.

4.  You never fully appreciate how crazy your family is until you have to explain them to your new wife.

5.  I don’t understand why disappointed is not the opposite of appointed.

6.  Pi and the circumference of a circle have a similar relationship to pie and the circumference of a person.

7.  Here’s the difference between men and women: Men can look at a picture of women's underwear and get excited. Not women in underwear, just the underwear itself. Women do not get excited looking at pictures of boxer shorts.

8.  The toothpaste tube is the most amazing invention ever. You get four days of toothpaste out of the large main body of the tube, and six weeks of toothpaste out of the last 10% of the tube, up by the cap. If we could make automobile gas tanks out of the same stuff that the last 10% of the toothpaste tube is made of, cars would get 700 miles per gallon.

9.  The clearest evidence that America is the greatest country on earth is that the Red Bull beverage company put a man in space. Take that, Belgium.

10.  If you give enough money to the right charities, you will never have to buy address labels again.

11.  I have reached the electronic tipping point. At this point, I would much rather lose my wallet than my phone.

12.  A really good financial goal in life is to have your bank account balance be larger than your bank account number.

13.  Life without beer and cheese would be horrible, but life without bacon would be pointless.

14.  When packing thirteen suitcases into the car for your wife, is it impossible to have ten of them be “on top” so she can get to them easily.

15.  Never get a woman personalized license plates like "HOT QT" or something like that, because eventually the boyfriend or husband will have to drive the car, and he will be mercilessly ridiculed by the other male drivers.

16.  You can ask someone to do something, or you can tell them how you want it done, but you cannot do both.

17.  A good indicator of where you are in life is this: Does the advertisement of free food still affect your decision making?

18.  It makes more sense to become a strong swimmer than a strong runner. You don’t die when you stop running.

19.  There is no “t” or “t” sound in the word across. There is no “b” or “b” sound in the word supposedly. Please pronounce accordingly.

20.  Men are far more likely to clean things with spit than women are.

21.  Money and toilet paper have something in common – They are both easy to take for granted until you run out. Also, in totally opposite, but equally dire situations, they can be substituted for each other.

22.  Pets and skull tattoos have something in common - Just because yours is badass does not mean you are badass. In fact, it usually means the exact opposite.

23.  If you ask a guy to tell you a story about a time he almost died, he will have four stories just off the top of his head, and one will be from this year. If you ask a woman the same question, she will look at you like you’re crazy.

24.  One sure sign of getting old – When you start sitting down to put your pants on.

25.  Children and ceiling fans are incompatible. Plain and simple.

26.  In life, it is very important to remember where you are and why you're there. That way, when your podiatrist tells you to drop your shorts, you ask some questions first.

27.  The hotel alarm clock - You can either take the time to figure out how it works before you go to bed, or you can figure it out in the dark at 4:30 A.M. when it unexpectedly goes off.

28.  Probably the funniest thing ever written is this: “We’ve upped our contribution. Up yours!”

29.  People who don’t use their cruise control on the freeway should be pulled over and arrested.

30.  There are 21 words in the English language that need to be used more. They are: Bailiwick, Hootenanny, Skullduggery, Scofflaw, Ballyhoo, Shenanigans, Donnybrook, Catawampus, Chicanery, Cajoled, Hullabaloo, Besmirch, Boondoggle, Haberdashery, Melee, Befuddled, Flummoxed, Hoosegow, Wiseacre, Tomfoolery, and Kerfuffle.

31.  Nothing is more interesting to a child than what you are doing, provided that what you are doing is easier without children involved.

32.  You cannot claim to be a grown woman, fully capable of taking care of yourself, and also claim that you do not know how to operate a toilet seat.

33.  Fried chicken and touch screen devices do not mix well.

34.  A carsick child and a blender without a lid have a lot in common.

35.  To be or not to be is not the question. The real question is, which towel in the guest bathroom am I supposed to use to dry my hands?

36.  Give a boy enough time with any object, whether it be a stale Cheerio, a bouncy ball, a doll, or a book, and he will eventually turn it into a weapon.

37.  "The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys" is a pretty accurate saying, but it leaves out the other major difference: the speed at which they heal when they fall off those toys.

38.  The best thing to do when your infant cries at night is to set a timer for ten minutes. If the timer runs out before the baby stops crying, reset the timer.

39.  The people investigating alternative energy sources should take a look at my wife's side of the bed. When she comes to bed she is in a near-frozen state, but the bed somehow heats her up to roughly 8,000 degrees in the middle of the night. I have never once plugged the bed in or recharged it in any way.

40.  As I get older, I find myself dividing the people of the world into two categories: People I would let watch my kids for five minutes, and people I wouldn’t.

41.  The person who invented the hotel shower curtain rod that curves out away from the tub so the shower curtain doesn’t stick to your arm should receive the Nobel prize.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Give Me Your Money

I was browsing my way through the Yahoo headlines today, keeping abreast of the hard-hitting news items of the day, such as what dress Kim Kardashian was wearing inappropriately this week. (Abreast… get it?) Anyway, after I got done being outraged at the fact that a New York City traffic officer would have the unmitigated gall to give J Lo a parking ticket, I came across a headline that caught my eye in a different way.

New utility scam is popping up across the nation

Hey, wait a minute. This actually looks like something that could affect my life. This actually sounds like something I should read in order to better protect myself against the seemingly ever-increasing population of no-good, rotten scammers out there. Someone named Cameron Huddleston apparently has penned an article for Kiplinger.com, a well-respected financial magazine’s online presence, that will equip me to do battle with thieves. I’m interested.

The Better Business Bureau says that a new utility bill scam is popping up throughout the U.S. and Canada. And it involves an approach to get people to part with their money that's been growing in popularity over the past couple of years: prepaid debit cards.

Huh? I thought this was going to be about someone piggybacking onto my gas or electric bill? Debit cards? OK, I guess I’ll read on.

The BBB reports that scammers are calling people and claiming to work for a local electric, water or gas company. The callers tell people that they're late on a utility bill and that their service will be cut off if they don't pay immediately. Then they instruct people to purchase a prepaid debit card to pay their bill and call them back with the card number. Thieves then drain the value from the card.

Huh?

Scammers have turned to prepaid debit cards recently because wire transfer services have increased their fraud detection systems -- making it more difficult for them to use this once-popular method of stealing money from people. Scammers also like prepaid debit cards because they don't have to show a photo ID to collect or spend money on the cards.

Huh?

For help spotting a utility scam, the BBB offers these tips:

Then the article listed helpful tips like, “Utility companies would never operate with high-pressure tactics like this,” and “it’s a red flag if you are asked to pay by prepaid debit card.”

Huh?

Who is falling for this? How do you not know if you are behind on your gas payments, and even if you know you’re behind, who would go buy a prepaid debit card to pay the bill? Apparently it works, or it wouldn’t be “growing in popularity” among our nation’s degenerate scallywags.

Since there are obviously people out there who need my help, I have done the Better Business Bureau one better, and developed Smidge’s BBBB tip for spotting a utility scam: Live until you’re old enough to be responsible for paying the utility bill somewhere, then if you are still naïve enough to fall for a scam that idiotic, stop what you are doing and call me. I will walk you through whatever process we need to use to have you send me your entire life savings. I will give it all to charity, and you can consider it a valuable lesson and thank me later.

The article reminded me of a letter I received a while back from Ruby Addo Mills. She was the second wife of the late Ghanaian president who died not long ago. She was contacting me in view of the fact that we could be of great assistance to each other. She currently inherited the sum of ninety five million US dollars ($95,000,000.00) which she intended to use for investment purposes, specifically in my country of origin. She was very adamant about the fact that she would obviously never ask me for any of my account details until we met face-to-face in the bank’s vault in any of these three countries of my choice: Madrid, Spain, Johannesburg, South Africa or Kampala, Uganda. For security reasons, she wanted all communications go through her son. She wanted me to send her son, Samuel Kofi Atta Mills, the details to enable her contact me for more details, and she would explain more to me in next detailed fax to me.

Sam never did show up in Kampala like he promised.

Anyway… The end of the Kiplinger.com article had this to say:

Also, a utility bill scam that began last year has resurfaced. Utility companies in several states, including Kentucky and Tennessee, have received reports from customers who have received calls claiming that the federal goverment will help pay their electric bills. Click here to learn more about this utility bill scam and how to avoid it.

Since “government” was misspelled in the last paragraph, I’m half wondering if the whole thing wasn’t a brilliant double-reverse by some hacker, and the link to learn more was really going to steal my money somehow. Maybe it was going to trick me into paying to read the rest by entering a prepaid debit card number. The only problem with that is, I have an I.Q. above room temperature, and since I have been living a normal financial existence where I keep my money in something called a bank, and pay my bills with things like checks and credit cards, I have no idea where I would go to buy a prepaid debit card.

If it really was a real article, I guess maybe it was aimed at the same folks who care if J Lo is getting a parking ticket, or know where to buy a prepaid debit card.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

A Boys' Mother's Day

My wife is a mother of boys. When she was younger, and dreaming of getting married and having her own family someday, she always said she wanted to have four boys. That’s the only part she ever tells me. She won’t tell me what kind of husband she dreamed she would have, so I will have to assume that I obviously met or surpassed all of her expectations.

While she likely met 400% of her goal in the husband department, we ended up with only three boys, so she made just 75% of her goal in the offspring department. That is just fine with her. After we had Son Number Two she began to question her earlier logic, and by the time Number Three was on the scene, she knew that four was just crazy talk.

Every once in a blue moon she will see a cute little baby girl, or one of our nieces all decked out in a pretty dress, and she will make that “awww” sound that women make when they find something unbearably adorable. Then she hears a story from a friend about eight-year-old girl drama, and breaths a quiet sigh of relief. (And so do I.)

While we both think that having only boys takes a lot of the stress off us as parents, I don’t think she was fully prepared for all the fighting. She may not have been prepared for all the peeing, either.

Fighting, to boys, is like climbing. It is ingrained in their DNA. See a tall, dangerous-looking structure or tree? Climb it. See your brother over there looking smug or having fun? Go tackle him. It’s just a fact of life. They start very young by wrestling each other down as toddlers. It’s a fact that infant boys with older brothers learn to roll themselves over at an earlier age, due to the desire to keep from getting pinned and avoiding the three count.

She was initially concerned with how much fighting was taking place between the first two, but by the time the third one was in the mix, she had resigned herself to the inevitable melees. I knew she had finally come around one day when I heard her tell Number One regarding his youngest brother, “Be gentle if you’re going to fight with him.” No one but a mother of boys would ever utter those words.

As far as the peeing goes, she definitely wasn’t prepared for that. Truth be told, I wasn’t really either. This is the area where the parents of girls probably gain back some ground. Sure, there’s drama and fashion and hairstyles to deal with, but the peeing is at least straightforward. Or should I say, straight down. With boys, there’s a moving part to the equation, and it can be unpredictable.

Son Number One summed it up for her about a year ago when she was questioning him outside a public restroom. We were all dressed up for a wedding rehearsal dinner, and he came out sporting wet underwear, with his pants still undone, looking for some help. When she asked, slightly exasperated, how his underwear and his nice dress pants had become covered in pee, he explained, “My penis just went wild.”

When she brought him back and told me the story, I just nodded. “Yep, sometimes that happens.”

I knew exactly what my son had meant, and I could even envision the whole thing happening. The mistake I made was assuming he also knew what had happened and why, and he was just giving his mom the condensed version of the events. As it turns out, maybe I should have been doing a little more coaching with the boys when it comes to peeing. That became evident recently.

Son Number Two came out of our downstairs bathroom the other evening with a forlorn expression on his face.

“Mom, something just happened.”

Nothing good has ever preceded those words. Since it was obviously a bathroom incident, and my wife happened to be cooking dinner at the time, I bravely stepped in to help.

“What’s up, buddy?”

“Well, I started to pee, and then all of a sudden, instead of going down, it was going up.”

As we rounded the corner and stepped through the door to the little bathroom, I was amazed at what I saw. There was pee on the toilet seat, on the top of the toilet, on the wall behind the toilet, on the step stool next to the toilet, and all over the floor. There was even a puddle of pee on the floor all the way behind the toilet, between the base of the toilet and the wall. How do you get a puddle directly behind the toilet??

It took me a whole roll of toilet paper to clean it all up.

“What happened, buddy?”

Not one for long detailed explanations, and perhaps to try and figure it out himself, he opted for a reenactment. He dropped his drawers in front of the toilet and said, “I don’t know. I was standing here like this, and then it just went all over the place.” He was standing with both hands down at his side, simply thrusting his hips forward.

“Well, it helps to aim it down.”

“Is there a hole or something?”

Come again? Is there a hole or something? You can’t be serious right now.

“Uh, yeah, buddy. Right there. That’s where the pee comes out. You need to aim it.”

“OK, dad. I will next time.”

What was that all about? How have you had this penis for seven years and not figured out how it works?? Depending on the time of day, that thing can be pointing anywhere. You’ve got to aim it, man!

Oh, well. I guess I need to do a little better job explaining the obvious to my boys. We should probably go over the wonderful benefits of wiping your butt again, as well.

Happy Mother’s Day, sweetheart! You are doing a fine job of being a mother of boys. I on the other hand, am obviously falling down a little bit on the fatherly end. I was concentrating on teaching them important man skills like how to field a grounder and how to use a saw without removing any of your fingers. I figured peeing was self-explanatory. I guess not.

I will try to stay on top of all the bodily function-related issues, and I promise I will be all over the future penis conversations when it comes time to talk about its other function!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Mowing the Lawn

Either I'm a genius or just really dumb-lucky. I’m not sure which. I think if I really examined my past and took an honest look at it, the answer to that question would be clear, but we don’t have time for that. Let’s just go with genius.

Here’s why I’m a genius: My two oldest boys now constantly ask me if they can mow the lawn and all three of them beg to wash the cars, and they fight over who gets to do it. You heard me.

Do I pay them? No.

Am I a genius? Obviously.

Do I know how I made this happen? Never mind about that.

OK, I’ll admit, my genius is subtle. So subtle, in fact, that even I didn’t realize what I was doing until the results made themselves clear, but the results speak for themselves. I have three sons begging to do chores.

The key to my genius was making the activities forbidden for a long time. With the car, the secret was never letting them play with the hose. At first I thought I was making the hose off limits because I didn’t want to be sprayed, and I was too lazy to get out of the way, but that’s the thing about the depth of my genius. Even I didn’t fully understand what I was doing. By keeping the hose from them, I was actually creating little minions who will do anything to be able to operate a high-pressure spray nozzle.

“Dad, can we wash the car?”

“I don’t know… will you promise to be careful with the hose, and not spray me or the house?”

“Yes, yes, yes.”

“I don’t know… are you sure you can handle it?”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

“OK, you can do it. But make sure to take turns with the hose so Number Three gets a turn. Don’t hog it.”

“OK, we will! Thanks, dad!!!”

“You’re welcome.” (smirk)

This last time they washed the car, Son Number One felt like he didn’t get enough hose time, so he asked if he could wash down the driveway after they finished the car. I said, “I guess so.” He and his younger brother cleaned out every crack in the driveway and blew all the dirt down to the street. I waited until they had it completely clean and then said, “You’ve been playing long enough. Time to turn it off.” (smirk)

Genius.

The older two have just begun to mow the lawn this year, and if the hose is considered a 7 on a 10-scale of fun, the gas-powered push mower is a 200. They fight over who gets to go first.

Genius.

Unlike the hose, I was keeping them away from the mower for obvious safety reasons. Mowers on their own are pretty dangerous pieces of machinery even for adults, but on top of that, I keep my lawn mower's deck set fairly high. I'm not running a golf course here, and I have found that if I leave the grass a little longer, it hides the bare spots a little better than if I cut it super-short. I would be fired as a greens keeper. Anyway, when you combine the high deck height with my boys’ propensity to relocate sticks and rocks into the lawn and leave them there, my grass and the surrounding 100-foot radius can resemble an artillery range on mow day.

Safety glasses and closed-toed shoes are mandatory. Shin guards are a good idea.

Now, I think my dislike of lawn maintenance is fairly well documented. One must look no further than my lawn itself to understand my level of enthusiasm for spending any amount of my free time taking care of something that should be able to fend for itself. Given my distain for this suburban chore, I was really looking forward to passing it off to my boys. I told my wife that I was waiting until they were big enough to handle the mower safely. That was true, but what I didn’t say was that we also needed to wait until they had a large enough overall blood volume that they can lose a few pints and still live through it. Just in case. Shin injuries can bleed like the dickens, believe me.

After watching them operate the mower the first time, I made up a few new safety rules on the fly, so to speak. The first one is no other brother is allowed within 50 feet of the guy running the mower. There was always an unofficial 25-foot shrapnel safety zone, but the first time I saw one of them spin the mower around, I extended it. They are still short enough that to get the mower up on its back wheels to spin it around, they have to tilt the push handle way down close to the ground, presenting the spectators with the full underside of the mower and its spinning blades of death. Back up a little more, boys.

The second new rule is that all mower operators that aren’t daddy should wear their baseball cups when mowing. Like I said, they’re short, and a misplaced ricocheting object that catches me in the shin might catch them in a far more important body part than just a leg bone. I want to have grandkids one day, after all. Safety first.

We boys are a funny breed. When you sit us down to tell us how dangerous an activity can be if done wrong, that only makes us want to do it more. If I told them they had to wear a full suit of armor to mow the lawn, they would be salivating to get started. So basically, I’m a genius for having boys, and since I provided the Y chromosomes, I can take full credit.

Unfortunately, as my wife reminds me frequently, that also means I have to take full credit when their male genes direct them to jump off the roof into an inflatable pool, or attempt to ride the ceiling fan.

Oh, well. I’ll take it. I’m just happy to finally be able to sit and watch the chores get done. Maybe I should start telling them it’s really dangerous to clean up their room?

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Defending the Tooth Fairy

The other day I went to our kids’ elementary school and had lunch with Son Number Two for his birthday. I got to sit at the table with his class, and let me tell you; if you ever have the chance to go to an elementary school and eat lunch in the multi-purpose room with 200 little kids, go ahead and pass on that. Just take your lunch and eat it quietly in the car by yourself. Holy crap. The twenty minutes I was in that lunch room took at least three years off my life.

The noise level alone is enough to make you nuts, but when you also factor in the constant barrage of questions directed your way by your tablemates and the children from the surrounding tables, your head is spinning the entire time. Yes, I can help you open your applesauce. Yes, I am his dad. No, I am not as bald as your dad. Yes I am much balder than her dad. No, I am under seven feet tall. Yes, I do like guacamole. No, I do not have a riding lawn mower. No, I do not want any of your yogurt. No, Pluto used to be a planet, but now it’s just a rock, I guess. And Mickey’s dog. No, seven million is much smaller than infinity. Yes, I do know how to play kickball. Yes, George Washington was the first president. No, I don’t know what your front door looks like. Yes, we do have a backyard at our house…

Amid the myriad of questions, one of my son’s classmates pipes up out of nowhere with a statement. Sam, we’ll call him to protect his identity, since I suspect he will be in trouble with the law one day, says, “There’s no such thing as the Tooth Fairy.”

Why, Sam? Why do you have to be like this? My son, who is about to lose another tooth, is sitting right here. Why are you undermining me by trying to disprove this universal parental lie?

“That’s crazy talk, Sam. The Tooth Fairy is totally real. Why do you think she (or he?) doesn’t exist?”

“Because my tooth has been under my pillow for a week, and I haven’t got any money.”

OK, Sam, I can see your point.

“Do your parents know you lost the tooth and put it under your pillow?”

“Yes.”

OK, Sam’s parents, you’re killing me here! Write yourselves a note and put it under YOUR pillow! Come on brain, work with me, here. I know you’re tired from all the questions and the noise, but we need to focus on solving this problem. Must lie convincingly…

“OK, Sam, here’s what you need to do. Ask your parents to call the Tooth Fairy hotline. In emergencies like this, we parents have a special number to reach the Tooth Fairy. She was obviously too busy to get to your house the first night. That happens sometimes when lots of kids lose teeth on the same day.” (Or when your dad has too much of his “special drink” and forgets to take care of business before his head hits the pillow.) “Usually she just comes the next night, but your name must have fallen off the schedule somehow due to a clerical error at Tooth Fairy headquarters. It’s rare, but it happens.”

“Are you sure? I think you’re making that up. I don’t think she’s real.”

“Of course she’s real.” Work with me, kid. “Who do you think takes your tooth and leaves you money?”

“Parents.”

“What?!? Parents? That’s crazy talk. I have never left a nickel under any of my kids’ pillows.” (I leave gold presidential dollar coins, not nickels.) “Why would we want your teeth, anyway?”

“I don’t know, but you do.”

This isn’t going well. This kid is not buying any of this. Sam’s parents, this is all your fault! If you were here right now, we would be having some words!

Just when I thought the ship was sinking and I was going to lose the battle, and my son’s reality would be shattered right in front of my eyes, my own child came to the rescue. Son Number Two, who had been listening intently and rather wide-eyed to this whole exchange, suddenly had a flash of brilliance. He said to his doubting classmate across the table, “There has to be a Tooth Fairy, because there is no way your mom or dad could put their hand under your pillow without waking you up.”

“That’s true,” said Sam.

Nice going, Number Two! Never mind the fact that at eleven o’clock at night I could grab you by the ankles, drag you out of your bunk bed, stuff the dollar coin up one of your nostrils, and throw you down the stairs without waking you up, but OK. I guess when you’re debating a seven-year-old, it helps to use seven-year-old logic.

“See, I told you so. Have your parents call the hotline.”

Crisis averted. The lunch may have taken three years off my life, but it was totally worth it. I helped keep my kid, and hopefully a bunch of other kids in his class, from growing up too quickly. Plus, I got to trade my lame Cheez-Its for someone’s awesome fruit roll-up.

I answered about 30 more random questions and opened five or six more yogurts and snack packs, and then it was time to be dismissed for after-lunch recess. As we were about to get up from the table, Drew, one of my son’s best buddies from class pipes up, “Well, there might be a Tooth Fairy, but there’s no Santa Claus.”

Come on, Drew’s parents! Give me a break.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

The DMV

A few weeks ago, I received one of the most dreaded pieces of mail an American can receive. I was being summoned to the DMV. My driver’s license was about to expire, and if I wanted to continue to operate motor vehicles legally, I was required to actually go to a DMV location to take a vision test, take a new picture, and most importantly, I suspect, pay $32.00.

My immediate reaction was, “Nooooo! Not the DMV!!! Why do I have to get a new license, anyway? I’ve only had this one a few years. Nothing has changed!” My wife then pointed out that I had a full head of hair in the picture, so it had obviously been a few more than a few years. She might have a point. As I was admiring my hair in the photo, a thought occurred to me. “Man, I was good looking with hair…” Just kidding, that’s not what I thought… What I thought was, “Why am I smiling in this picture?”

Only two groups of people ever see your driver’s license. People you are buying something from, and police officers. I couldn’t care less what the Safeway clerk and the bartender think of my picture, and I really don’t care what the cops think of it either, but if I were to get pulled over by a patrolman, I don’t think I want him looking at a jovial smiling idiot picture of me. I want the picture to be useful to me in some way. I will no doubt be trying to talk my way out of whatever traffic violation he has me dead to rights on, so I want that picture to be helping my case.

But, what look should I go for in the new picture?

Sad and pathetic? Never good.

Surprised? Like, “Wow, I can’t believe I did that! That is literally the first stop sign I have ever rolled in my whole life. I don’t know what came over me!” Probably not.

What about tired? No… exhausted! That’s the ticket. Or should I say, my ticket to no ticket. My story will be this: With the seven little mouths to feed at home, I am forced to work three jobs (due to the economy and so forth) just to make ends meet. Meat. There’s something we haven’t had in a while. Things are tough, but we don’t complain. We have our health, for the most part, although, momma’s cough is getting worse. How much do these tickets normally run, anyway? I guess we could take it down to one meal a day for a while to pay for the ticket, but with junior being as skinny as he is now, I sure hope it doesn’t take too long to pay off. I know I broke the law, and I hate to be a pain, but I’m almost late for my shift at the manure factory, and I really can’t afford to lose that job, due to all the aforementioned reasons… Yes, exhausted it is!

The letter I received in the mail strongly suggested that I make an appointment at my local DMV branch. Based on my past DMV waiting room experiences, I thought an appointment sounded like a really good idea, so I went on the DMV’s handy website and used their appointment system. I clicked on the DMV branch in my town and they gave me an appointment time for three weeks later on a Thursday at 9:10 A.M. Now, normally I’m working on Thursdays at 9:10 A.M., but I took it, no questions asked. I had the option to pass on that one and see what else was available, but that option scared me to death. We’re talking about the DMV here. If I tried for something else, it was surely going to be worse, and there would be no going back. The next available appointment was probably ten weeks after my license would expire. Thursday at 9:10 A.M. it is!

I walked into the brightly-lit, modern-looking DMV office at 9:05 A.M. There were about 8 or 9 DMV employees behind the counters, and no less than 75 people sitting forlornly in the waiting area that consisted of two large banks of plastic chairs on either side of the spacious facility. There they sat, dead silent, staring straight ahead, each holding a paper ticket with a letter and a number. A woman holding A32 was sitting next to a man with G14. Holy crap, I’m going to be here all day! What was the point of the appointment?

I stood in the three-person line at the ticket dispensing lady, and when I got to the counter, she asked if I had an appointment. I said, “Yes!” with a non-DMV-ish level of hopefulness in my voice. She smirked and gave me ticket H42 and told me to have a seat. I walked to the waiting area with the proper DMV-ish level of dejectedness. I will be here well past dinner time.

My butt was not in the molded plastic seat for more than 15 seconds when “H42. Now serving number H42 at window 12,” could be heard echoing through the facility. H42! That’s me! I sprang out of my seat with renewed non-DMV-ish vigor, and stepped quickly away from the waiting hordes over to window 12.

The lady behind window 12 asked me a few questions and had me sign my form in her presence, swearing under penalty of law that I was me and I was being truthful to the best of my knowledge. Then she took my thumbprint, and had me write her a check for $32.00. She took my check and then asked me to cover my left eye and read line 3 on letter chart B hanging from the ceiling behind her desk. I contemplated asking her why she took my money before she verified that I was able to see well enough to renew my license, but I figured I already knew the answer to that question, so I just went ahead and read line 3 to her.

When I was done with the left eye, she apparently had some more typing to do, so there was a lull in the conversation. I figured it was a good time to ask her a few driver’s license-related questions that had been on my mind. Namely, how come somebody who doesn't have a driver’s license qualifies to be your passenger in the carpool lane? I mean, if they can’t drive, you're not carpooling, you're just being a taxi service. And what qualifies no-passenger Prius hybrids and motorcycles for the carpool lane, and not my Partial Zero-Emission 4-Cylinder Camry? I mean, I burn less gas than the passenger-less guy in the big pickup truck. Shouldn’t I get to use the bonus lane for at least part of the time? And, really, when we get right down to it, shouldn't the people who pay the most taxes get to use the carpool lane whenever they want? I mean, they paid for it, right?

She just looked at me blankly and said, “Please proceed to the picture area.”

Okeydokey.

The moment of truth. I have been working on my “exhausted and earnestly struggling to make ends meet” look for three weeks.

There were three people ahead of me in the picture line, but it moved very quickly. When it was my turn, the picture lady asked for my paperwork, and then said, “Step to the blue screen place your feet on the marks on the floor look straight ahead OK done.”

What? Did you take it already?

“You should receive your new license in the mail in three to four weeks please exit to your right have a nice day next.”

Dammit! I didn’t even have time to do my exhausted look. I have no idea what look I was doing. I don’t even know at what point the picture was taken. Maybe I’ll end up with surprised. That’s better than nothing.

Oh, well. Even though the picture didn’t turn out like I had hoped, the upside was I was in and out of the building in 11 minutes. Every one of those 75 people were still sitting there when I walked out the door. Make an appointment, people!

I would have been in and out in more like eight or nine minutes, but I stopped to question the security guard at the exit door. He didn’t know anything about the carpool lane, either.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Tax Day

Your taxes are due on Monday, so I thought I would try to make you feel a little better about your tax bill by calling to your attention some of the wonderful government agencies that your hard-earned dollars go to fund. So I went to USA.gov (“Government Made Easy” is their catchy tag line), and looked up the A-Z Index of U.S. Government Departments and Agencies.

After reading for a while, I decided that there isn’t too much that is going to make you feel better about this, so instead I bet myself that I could click on every letter of the alphabet and come up with a ridiculous agency that should never have been started in the first place.

I was wrong. I could not easily find an insane waste of money under each letter of the alphabet, but that was only because there were no agencies that started with the letters K, Q, X, Y or Z.

Here’s where your tax dollars are headed:

Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Interagency Coordinating Committee

Bureau of the Public Debt

Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee

Delaware River Basin Commission

English Language Acquisition Office

Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board

Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration

Helsinki Commission

Indian Arts and Crafts Board

Japan-United States Friendship Commission

Legal Services Corporation

Millennium Challenge Corporation

National Mediation Board

Open World Leadership Center

President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports

Rural Utilities Service

Susquehanna River Basin Commission

Tennessee Valley Authority

U.S. Access Board

Voice of America

Washington Headquarters Services

Keep in mind, folks, I limited myself to only one department per letter of the alphabet. This list could have gone on for days. I will guarantee that in each one of these agencies, their whole years’ worth of “work” consists of compiling reasons why they need funding for next year.

In true federal government style, the “Complete A-Z Listing” of government agencies doesn’t list all of them. If you can stand to be on USA.gov for a little longer, you can find even more agencies listed under the authority of the executive branch. There’s the list of Independent Agencies and Government Corporations, the list of Boards, Commissions, and Committees, the list of Federal Advisory Committees, and my personal favorite, the list of Quasi-Official Agencies. Super.

But, as you marvel over your tax bill this year, and wonder what righteous deeds will be wrought with your offered treasure, I invite you to forget all the agencies, boards, commissions, committees, and departments, quasi-official or not, and ponder this:

According to congress, it takes $5.3 billion per year just for them to turn the lights on and run the show. Not all of Washington, D.C., mind you. Just congress. Not the white house, plus the supreme court, plus the pentagon, plus the army and stuff. Just congress. Five and a third billion dollars. Billion with a “B.” Five thousand millions.

They work about 175 days per year. That means we’re talking $30 million a day.

Even if we generously assume they work 12 hours per day, that’s $2.5 million an hour.

That’s $42,000 per minute.

That’s $700 per second. For congress to keep the doors open.

If you have a million dollars, you can run congress for 24 minutes. If we were super-generous with the math and said that they work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, that same million dollars would buy you a whole hour and a half.

In the time it will take you to read this sentence, the U.S. Congress will spend $7000 of your money on nothing more than working hard to dream up even more quasi-official agencies to help spend the rest of it.

April Fools’ Day is not on April 1^st. It’s on April 15^th!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Family Pictures

My wife announced the other day that we were all leaving in 20 minutes to go get family pictures taken professionally. I immediately protested. “We just did that!” I guess she was prepared for that argument, because she brought me Son Number Three and stood him next to the wall where our last family portraits are displayed.

OK, you have a point. He’s almost five years old now, and he looks to be about one in these pictures.

I tried a different resistant approach. “Why are you springing this on me 20 minutes before we have to go?” I guess she was prepared for that one too. “This has been on your calendar for the last two months, and I have reminded you about it at least six times. Would you like to see the list of dates and times that you were reminded? I wrote them all down for you.”

No, thanks. I guess I’ll just go get ready. She was definitely prepared for that. “Don’t you dare try to dress yourself! Here, put these on,” she said as she handed us all shirts we’d never seen before.

Now, I have to give her credit, in that, if it wasn’t for her, we would have a total of seven cell phone pictures of our kids, because the only time I take pictures of them is when they are wearing something on their heads, or have something stuck to their faces, that I find funny. My main problem with organized family photos is that they are all the same. And they are unrealistic. And kind of annoying.

They have always been this way. In the days before digital cameras, all family portraits were very rigid, in-studio affairs, with the whole family standing around mom seated in the middle. Muted purple-black background, frost the edges to give it the “this picture is magically hanging in a cloud” look, and you’re in business. Now that everyone has digital cameras, we’ve left the studio in favor of the field.

Everyone’s family photos today take place in a field. There are also the auxiliary action shots of the family walking to the field, either down an old dirt road, or down an old set of railroad tracks, and the intermediate stops at the old wooden structure, or the old brick wall, or both. But, we always end up in the field.

There we all are, wearing jeans and solid-color Oxford shirts, un-tucked, with bare feet, hanging out in a field. There are occasions when we’re on vacation or happen to live near the water, and the beach is substituted for the field. In many of those cases, the jeans are substituted for a pair of khakis, rolled up to the calf as we stand carefree in the ankle-deep sparkling water. Magical.

Here’s my issue with the whole thing. The only time my family has ever sat under an oak tree in a grassy meadow was for this picture. We had never even been to this field until we met the photographer here, because it’s one of her favorite shoot locations. (Oh, yeah, I think I remember this meadow from the Smith’s family pictures.) Come to think of it, we really don’t even have good access to a field of our own, even if we did want to hang out in one.

We have never walked down any type of dirt road while holding hands, five-abreast, taking up the entire road, and we sure as hell never do that on train tracks. Normally when we come across a rustic, wood-planked building from the 1800’s my wife is yelling at the kids to stay away from it, for fear it will fall on them, or they will get punctured by a nail. But on picture day, we’re all over that thing. If I tried to walk with my kids on railroad tracks on any other day, I would never hear the end of my irresponsibility and poor example setting, but on picture day, we’re like five happy-go-lucky drunk hobos.

And un-tucked Oxford shirts with jeans and bare feet? I have never in my entire life dressed like that. When I do go to a field, I wear boots. When I go to the beach, I wear shorts.

Then there’s the photographer. In the days of the studio, I think there was a little more quality control involved with the person behind the camera, due to some company training, and the facts that they were using expensive film and the studio lighting never changed. Now that everyone has digital cameras, it’s like the photography wild west out there. Seemingly half of the photographers out there today have not been trained in anything. They bought an expensive camera that came with a removable lens, took a couple thousand pictures of their dog/cat/child/fruit bowl, and answered the call when one of their friends said, “These pictures are great, you should do this for a living.”

That is not to say that there aren’t some talented self-trained folks out there, but for many, simply owning the expensive camera seems to give them the idea they are a pro. You may be holding the Nikon XP48 there, with the 9-inch parabolic f-stop, but if you don’t have the patience to wait for all three of my kids to be looking at you, I have to question your qualifications. And no, I’m not interested in coming to your computer and searching through 5000 pictures with you to find the one where all five of us happen to be looking at the camera at the same time, and you finally got all the shadows to cooperate. I thought that was your job.

Then there’s the fact that professional pictures cost money, and they seem to be the only ones my wife is willing to hang on the wall. Before we left I offered to take some less costly, more realistic photos for her, but she wasn’t interested. I guess pictures of the boys fighting, or pictures of her behind the wheel driving them somewhere, or pictures of them drooling in front of the TV, or pictures of us drooling in front of the TV after they’ve finally gone to sleep just don’t do it for her.

I guess moms get enough realism during the regular days, and want the pictures on the wall to be a fantasy land.

Oh, well. Off we go to the field.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Man Hugs

As I get older, I am noticing that man-hugging is becoming more and more common, so I thought for my boys’ sake, as well as for the general public, the topic deserved a little discussion.

There are two distinct types of man hugs. The half and half, and the full hug. The half and half starts with a hand shake, then moves into a one-armed hug, and the full hug is, of course, self-explanatory. The problem with man hugs is that since there are two distinctly different types, it is sometimes difficult to gauge which one is appropriate, which one is coming, or in the case of the half and half, whether one is coming at all.

The half and half is the tamest of the two man hugs, though both are fraught with potential disaster. In its basic form, the half and half is this: shake hands with the right while simultaneously doing a left-handed shoulder double slap. The potential for disaster comes in the execution. Without a clear historical precedence of man hugs with a particular male, the only way to know if you’re doing the half and half is if one guy keeps coming forward after the hand shake has begun. This requires quick, decisive action from the other party if he was not expecting the half and half. If he does not act fast enough to keep his momentum and get the left arm up and over, the hug is a total loss. When men are hugging, there is no room for error. The slightest misstep, and things get uncomfortable. The last thing you want is the start-and-stop, or the stutter-shake-stall-and-hug. The worst thing that can occur during a man hug is awkwardness. Hugs are already uncomfortable enough for us, so we need the mechanics of the hug to go very smoothly.

Even with the smoothest hug execution, there are requirements for relieving the innate uncomfortable-ness that comes with hugging another man. Hard back slaps are a rule. Under some circumstances - like if someone has died and it is a condolence hug – a stationary hand on the back is considered marginally OK, but rubbing of any kind is never allowed. Talking throughout the hug is also very helpful for relieving the natural tension. Things like, “Great to see you, man,” or “Take care of yourself” are fine, but never anything too long or drawn out. Man hugs are short, crisp affairs. If you are hugging a relative or a best friend, and the situation warrants - like if someone has died and it is a condolence hug - “I love you, man” may be uttered, but it must be loud, and it must have “man” on the end.

Also, this should go without saying, but during any man hug situation, the bodily contact should be initiated by leaning forward from the waist. No body parts below the waist should be anywhere close to touching. Not even feet.

Speaking of the above-the-waist rule, it is important to keep the handshake high. The last thing you want is for the hands to get forced downward toward waist level during the lean-in. As far as the initial handshake goes, the half and half is actually a lot easier with the bro grip instead of the business grip. The bro grip is where the elbows are down and the hands are up. Your thumbpits still match up the same, but your fingers wrap around the base of the other guys thumb instead of the bottom of his hand. It’s the grip you would use if you were trying to pull that same guy up and over a wall or a cliff, or helping him out of a Dumpster. With the bro grip, you can both push your forearm against the other guy’s chest, creating a comfortable air gap between your bodies while doing the double back slap. The back slap can be an open palm, or a closed fist back bump, but in either case, the harder the better to help relieve natural awkward tensions.

The full hug is a little easier, in that it does not have as many moving parts, but it is no walk in the park either. Again, execution is key to eliminating any excessive awkwardness. If you’re going in for the full hug with no intermediate hand shake, it’s very helpful to throw up the right hand and arm at a 45 degree angle early on, well before you are in handshake range. You must also give the lean to the left, with the left hand and arm down at a 45 degree angle. This should clearly signal to the hugee that there will be no handshake, hopefully eliminating the awkward un-received outstretched hand, and the even more awkward need for a quick hand pull-back. When the unrequited hand extension and subsequent pullback occurs, it leads to excessive and uncomfortable laughter and talking about the hug. You never want to have to talk about the hug. The hugging itself is stressful enough.

Obviously, the full hug ends up with a lot more body contact than the half and half, and should be used sparingly. One major full hug concern is a drastic height difference in the huggers. Ideally, both parties would be of roughly equal height so that the heads can be safely out over the shoulders on their own. The last thing you want is one guy’s chin on the other guy’s shoulder, or worse yet, his face buried in the other guy’s chest. No good. If you must hug, stick with the half and half on any height differential over four inches. Also, due to the increased body contact area with the full hug, the hug duration should be much less than the half and half. Half of the half and half is a good rule, along with harder back slapping. Louder talking can’t hurt, either.

Whether you are going full or half and half, the most important thing to remember is to lean to the left. The absolute worst thing that can happen during any type of man hug is for both of you to try and go to the same side, resulting in faces accidentally coming too close, as if you’re both going in for a kiss. This causes immediate recoiling from both parties, and ratchets up the awkward tensions tenfold. The end result of the same-side-near-kiss is usually a lot of uncomfortable laughter and an overly exaggerated business hand shake. Sure, it was funny, but not the fun kind of funny. Everyone involved, even witnesses, walk away with higher blood pressure. No one wins with a same-side mistake. Remember, no matter what your political views are, when it comes to man hugs, you lean to the left!

Above all, since you never know what is coming, you need to be on your toes and prepared for anything. Man hugs seem to be here to stay, so please, men, do us all a favor. If you’re new to man hugs, practice with your wife or girlfriend until you get it right. I mean left.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

The Java Cloud

Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” On that note, I would like someone at Oracle to explain Java to me. And, I would also like someone at Java to explain Oracle to me.

About once a week, my computer alerts me to the fact that my Java desperately needs to be upgraded. Apparently, Java is made by Oracle. Oracle is a computer software company, I think, although I have never been truly sure what they do. All I really know is they have an office complex near my house, with signs at the street that say Oracle. I assume they are rather successful, since the place is pretty big, and the signs at the street are really nice, and their founder bought Hawaii last year.

Java is something they make, or made, or do, I think. They are vague on that subject. When they notify me that my Java is out of date, they say this: “There is a Java update available. Java provides safe and secure access to the world of amazing Java content.”

Great, so if I install Java, or update my existing Java, I can look at Java safely, in a secure manner.

Then they give me even more reason to update. “From business solutions to helpful utilities and entertainment, Java makes your internet experience come to life.”

OK, now we’re getting somewhere. My internet experience will come to life. So Java is involved in the internet somehow, with business, entertainment, and utilities. Internet-based business and entertainment utilities, perhaps.

Finally they explain it. “3 Billion Devices Run Java. Computers, Printers, Routers, Cell Phones, Blackberry, Kindle, Parking Meters, Public Transportation Passes, ATMs, Credit Cards, Home Security Systems, Cable Boxes, TVs...”

OK, we are finally there. Lots of other stuff besides my computer uses Java. Parking meters, for instance. And my credit card. And my TV. Loads and loads of things are benefiting from this safe and helpful entertaining business utility experience, made possible by all this amazing Java content.

Thanks, Ora-java-cle, you’ve made it perfectly clear why I need whatever it is that you are doing to my computer. Actually, I’m being sarcastic. It’s not clear at all. It’s actually perfectly cloudy. That’s another thing I don’t understand, by the way. The cloud.

I think at this point all my computer-based activities and data are in a cloud of some kind. Much like Java, I keep hearing about it, but I have no idea what it is. Everybody has a cloud these days. I’m not sure if they are all separate clouds or one big one. I would imagine they are separate, since Apple has a cloud, and I’m sure they don’t use the same one as everybody else. Theirs would have to be special, since it needs to be called the iCloud, and has to be perfectly puffy and white. Everyone else’s is probably gray and costs half as much. Who knows?

What I do know is that whoever came up with the term “cloud,” and decided to run with it, needs a lesson in marketing. “Carbonite keeps what's important to you safe in the cloud.” When was the last time you thought to yourself, “I need to keep this item safe and secure, free from harm and theft. I think I’ll store it in a cloud.”

Never? Thought so.

The only good thing associated with clouds is rain, and rain is only considered good in certain situations. Crops, yes. Torrential downpours and flooding, no. Rain has never been considered good for computers and phones, and the concept of “raining down” is not very attractive when it comes to your data. You don’t want your bank statements and the pictures of your family raining down out of the cloud all over Eastern Europe. Not good. Also, clouds are made of vapor. Vapor is another thing that you rarely want to associate with things that you wish to retrieve someday.

“How’s the outlook, Bob?”

“Great! The future looks really cloudy.”

“Super! Can I get that sales report from you?”

“Absolutely. It got vaporized.”

Whatever it is and however it works, we need a new, more reassuring name than the cloud. How about, “the vault?”

“Carbonite keeps what's important to you safe in the vault.” Now that’s more like it.

I’m not sure if my Java updates are coming from the cloud or not, but I do know they seem to be coming more frequently these days. I think I might know why, too. With every Java update lately, there is a pop-up screen with the “next” button, and the screen has a check box with "Install the Ask Toolbar and make Ask my default search provider." The check box is small, innocuous, and conveniently already checked for me.

Hmmm…

Could it be that the cloud has delivered this Java-rific update to me simply so that Oracle can try to trick me into using their internet search tool? It’s tough to tell, because Oracle was kind enough to sum up why I need this latest update by telling me this: “By installing Java, you will be able to experience the power of Java, brought to you by Oracle.”

Hmmm…

Back to Einstein’s quote, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Now, I’m not naïve enough to think that Oracle doesn’t understand what their own products do, so I have to conclude that old Albert left out an important second option. If you decline to explain it simply, even though you can, you’re probably trying to hide something.

I’m starting to think these Java updates with their cloudy explanations are just an elaborate ruse to get me to use Ask.com. That begs the next question: Does Oracle own Ask.com or is Ask a separate company that paid Oracle to push their service on me?

Good question. I think I’ll Google it.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

The QWERTY Conspiracy

I am really mad at someone, or maybe a lot of people. I just wish I knew who they were, so I could yell at them. You see, I can’t type. Up until yesterday, I thought that was largely my own fault. Up until yesterday I took full ownership of the fact that I avoided high school typing class like the plague. At the time, I think I would have rather cut a few fingers off in shop class than have sat through one hour of typing, and ironically, the way I type, missing a few digits would not slow me down at all.

As I write this, I am using the index fingers on both hands, along with the middle finger on my right hand and occasionally, the ring finger on my left hand. My thumbs operate the space bar, and that’s it. Six fingers out of ten make up my typing tools. I look like E.T. phoning home on the Speak and Spell. Since I don’t have proper typing form, I have to look at the keyboard instead of the screen while I type. I did not see this entence being written.

Now, since I am a writer and an author, you may be wondering to yourself, what’s the matter with you? Believe me, I have been wondering the same thing for years! I actually type pretty fast using my caveman style, but yesterday I figured that I’d better finally bite the bullet and teach myself to type correctly. I was curious how fast I currently type with my head-down, six-finger style, so I timed myself. I cruise at 50-60 words per minute, with occasional bursts of up to 3,000 words per minute when I get into sentences like, “I am at an inn.”

I was pretty impressed with myself until I looked up average typing speeds. I am definitely not dragging the world-wide average down, but I was shocked to read about how Stella Pajunas banged out 216 words per minute on a typewriter in 1946. That’s impressive. Then I learned about Barbara Blackburn, and how she could hold steady for hours at 150 words per minute, with a top speed of 212. That was also impressive. Then I learned that Barbara didn’t use a standard QWERTY keyboard. She used a Dvorak Simplified Keyboard.

Excuse me? A what?

That is when I started to get mad. The QWERTY keyboard layout has always seemed a little off to me, but I just figured that it was laid out in some optimal manner for true typists that my small brain couldn’t understand because I don’t type correctly. That could not be further from the truth! It turns out the keyboard layout was designed strictly from a mechanical point of view, to keep the first typewriters from jamming. If you are under 40 years old, you will just have to take my word for it. The first typewriters had long “hammers” with the letters on the ends of them, and when you pressed the key, the hammer had to swing up and out and hit the paper. I know, crazy, right! OMG, how did people even live back then?

Are you kidding me, typewriter manufacturers? And are you even more kidding me, first word processer manufacturers? There was a better keyboard and you guys never adopted it? Now I’m trying to learn how to type correctly, and I am burdened by the knowledge that this infernal keyboard layout has absolutely nothing to do with typing efficiency or ease? Now I’m really mad! Why did I just have to hit the “shift” key and the “1” key to make an exclamation point? Why do I have to hit “shift” to make a question mark? There it is again! And again. Why would either of these frequently used punctuations get second billing to a number and a slash?!?

And why is my right pinky finger wasting away over here resting on the colon key? I use a colon about twice a year. I use a semicolon never. And why are the vowels spread all over the keyboard like a shotgun blast? What are F,G,J, and K doing in the home row? Look at a Scrabble board, people. Those are high value letters[shift][1]

And speaking of brackets, how is it that the normal (parentheses) are “shift” keys that live over the “9” and the “0” in the infernal top row, but the ridiculous [brackets] and {whatever these are called} that nobody ever uses end up being main keys?

The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is genius. At least, it’s way more genius than this now confounding QWERTY mess. The home row of keys on the Dvorak is AOEUIDHTNS. Imagine that! Being able to type the word “the” without having to lift a finger. I’d call that genius. Why wasn’t this immediately adopted the day after IBM came out with their first electric typewriter? Or at the very least, when the first word processor came along???? Sure, it might have been painful for a week or two for anyone who could already fly on the QWERTY, but let’s be serious; they would have learned the Dvorak quicker than anyone. If you can master this stupendously incomprehensible key layout, you can learn anything. You could be a classical guitar player, a rocket scientist, or a genetic physicist, if that’s even a thing. If you can type 100 words per minute on a keyboard that has F and J as your home keys, you have no limits.

I really do want to finally learn how to type, but now I’m conflicted. I think maybe I want to hold off, and instead, launch a nationwide campaign to adopt the Dvorak keyboard. If it catches on, I could save myself a ton of time and headache.

Maybe I’ll roll the metric system into the campaign as well. Its time is finally coming, too. I can feel it!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

545 People

If the United States government is not going to do their job, then neither am I. First, we were going to go off a fiscal cliff. That drop-dead date came and went, and I’m not sure if we went off or not. Everyone stopped talking about it as soon as “sequestration” was mentioned. Whether or not we’re falling off a cliff, we’re also sequestered now, whatever that means. What I do know is that they were supposed to get a budget passed by a certain deadline, and they chose not to. I was supposed to have a column posted at a certain time, but instead, following the government’s lead, I chose not to. Instead I decided to just use someone else’s column. If they don’t have to do their job, then neither do I.

In keeping with my new governmental work ethic, I thought it would be appropriate if my low-effort column had a government theme, so I am posting a column that every person in America should be required to read before stepping into a voting booth for the first time. (Don’t worry, it’s short and really good.)

The below piece of simple genius is commonly (and mistakenly) called “Charley Reese’s Last Column.” Charley Reese did in fact write it, but it was not his last column. He refers to it as “The Frankenstein Piece,” because of how many times it has been copied, brought back to life and added onto. It has probably been re-printed and re-posted thousands of times. It’s that good.

As near as I can tell after my exhaustive two-minute internet search on Snopes.com, this is by and large the exact column written by Charley Reese way back in 1985, however the specific names of politicians and places have been removed by someone else along the way  to make it timeless, without changing the point at all.

I think the main reason that this piece is so timeless, is that it’s written from a plain old citizen’s point of view, with party politics left out. I also think that the fact that it is timeless, still holding true to this very day, some 28 years after it was written, means we are totally screwed. Enjoy.

545 People

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million who are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stands up and criticizes the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in a foreign country it's because they want them in a foreign country.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - Provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.

Charlie Reese is amazed that some people find this column so eye-opening, because he says that it’s just Civics 101. Unfortunately, he’s right about that. It was all true before he wrote it, and it’s all true today, almost three decades later. Nothing has changed.

I guess we’re fresh out of gumption around here. See what I mean about being screwed? We get the government we deserve, plain and simple. Save this column and make sure your kids read it over and over when they are old enough, and make them send it to twenty of their friends, like a chain letter. If we all do that, maybe their generation will be the first in a long time to finally understand who has the power and who works for whom.

As good as Charley’s column is, please don’t fret about the direction this column is taking. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled humor format and content next week. Unlike the 545 people in Washington, D.C., I have a low tolerance for shirking my duties.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!