Here's an interesting conundrum...

Scenario #1

Say you're the proud parent of a brand new baby boy or girl. Whichever makes you the happiest. You're in a wonderful marriage, and you both have been so eager and ready to start your family.

(Now I know this will be a stretch for a lot of people out there. You'll REALLY have to work hard to totally suspend reality as you know it to truly imagine this scenario...but bear with me)

9 eager and joyous months pass, and the long awaited and anticipated day finally arrives...the baby is here!! Labor is a breeze. One hour between breaking water and launch. Epidural is King.

The doctor takes the snap from the mother, he cuts the umbilical cord left, hands off to the nurse, who wraps the baby tight...she jukes, she spins, around bed pans, around placenta, she reaches out, and extends the baby into the mother's arms...TOUCHDOWN!!! The baby celebrates in the end zone by sucking nip!! Way to go!!

And as you look down into your baby's eyes...for the first time...as proud, pouring-tears-of-joy parents...you are met with the round, smiling, wide-eyed smile of THE UGLIEST FUCKING BABY IN ALL OF HUMAN EXISTENCE. Before a word is even muttered, the parents slowly turn toward each other with looks of disbelief and sheer shock that can only be compared to the look George Bush gets when asked a question that has not been approved by his entire cabinet. This kid makes ugly look like Angelina Jolie. He transcends ugly to plains and dimensions the likes Stephen Hawking dare not speak of, let alone attempt to comprehend.

For the entire childhood of this baby, you will endure stares, cringes, and the most insincere compliments on "how cute....it.....is." You have one goofy looking baby. No one dares to tell you which one of you they think the baby looks like. In fact, no one has EVER uttered those cruel and unusual words. No one claims responsibility for this genetic massacre.

Eventually the kid begins to morph out of fuglihood, and at the point of adolescence turns into a halfway decent looking individual. The gore and horror that was this child has peeled off like the skin of a rattle snake, leaving behind a dry, crusty, deteriorating shell of U-G-L-Y.

Through their teenage years and into adulthood, eventually blossoms a physically beautiful and attractive individual. A hot ass chick comparable to Angelina Jolie...wait, I already used her. Like a Kristen Boyce! You've heard the story from these pretty Hollywood types:

"I was the ugly duckling growing up...I was the geek, the nerd, the awkward one"

And here they are, adored by millions...phony millions...due large in part to the fact they are gorgeous. Keanu Reeves can't act for shit. But people out there think he's hot, and he therefore gets roles. If he had half the looks he has now, he would be selling corndogs at minor league baseball games; angering his section as he takes 5 minutes to figure out how to make change. "Like, a fifty-cent hot dog...and, like, a dollar...how much does this dude get back?"

You are now the proud parent of a hot adult who has it a little easier in life due to his or her beauty. But you had to endure a childhood of ugliness to get there.


Scenario #2

The same storyline from Scenario ..1 applies here. Happy couple, yada-yada-yada, here comes the baby!! Baby pops out, travels the doctoral conveyor belt, and into the arms of it's mother. Except this time, they look down upon what can only be described by all who encounter it as an angel sent down from heaven by the hand of God himself. This child beamed, and glowed, and emitted such a profound, enlightening and calming peace on all who gazed upon it. Beaming, gentle eyes, with the fairest, soft-as-silk skin. And all this child did was smile and laugh. The baby's farts and shits possessed the faint smell of lavender. This was indeed, the most beautiful child the world had ever seen.

The child becomes older and the parents are at their peak of pride in the life of their pride and joy. Years pass and around 6th grade, the child starts to develop more mature features from the infancy it just evolved from. The child had now entered...well, childhood. This once work of indescribable beauty eventually "settled in" and leveled out to a halfway decent looking kid. No longer was the child the center of attention. Dad was no longer able to meet hot chicks when taking walks with the child in the park. Throughout the baby's infancy, many hours would be spent walking in the park, preying on MILF's. Of course, Dad wasn't looking to pursue any of these women. Instead, he viewed it as a practice field to ensure he maintained "game" for his wife. That rationale never made sense to anyone who heard it, but he always stuck with it.

The adolescent years are filled with all of the things that can go horribly awry, almost overnight, in those early teen years. The acne, the creaky voice changes, the "awkward" phase that can only be described as "awkward", the uncontrollable erections when being called to the front of the class to solve a problem on the chalk board, the first peach fuzz upper-lip hair (on a girl), and the ever apparent need to wear deodorant. And the only way you find out you need it is when the person you have a crush on finally breaks the news to you that you reek of unholy rat carcass.

As we approach the end of the teen years and on into adolescence, this child not only maintains the awkward phase, but swallows it whole. Awkward eventually becomes a compliment and before you know it....

Clint Howard is born.

(The brother of Ron Howard people...come on now...everyone knows who he is. If you don't, do a Google image search. Hell, even if you DO, do an image search!)

The unfortunate part of this scenario is that the child will likely not become as successful as Clint Howard. Or maybe he or she will. But whatever the child does, it will go through life as one goofy looking bastard. And that usually means they'll have a higher hill to climb in our deranged and shallow society.


So that's the little conundrum (that word's beginning to annoy me) that popped into my head an hour or so ago.

You're the parent to be. You have a choice. Which do you choose?


I SAID SUSPEND REALITY!!!! MAKE BELIEVE!!!!

Damn pessimists.

I was sitting at the computer this morning with my essential cup of coffee, browsing ESPN.com for any new updates on NFL free agency, trades, scores...the usual. ESPN is my "non-world/national/local news" information sports entertainment destination. I am currently in the middle of an ongoing effort to reduce the amount of news I watch. I began to realize alarmingly quick that too much of that stuff will make you crazy, while creating an overwhelming sense of pessimism about the fate of the world around us. And as much as politics fascinates me, and as passionately as I feel about certain topics in this world, it was all just a bit too much. Besides...I am but one person. What the hell am I going to do? Spend the rest of my life worrying about something so massive that I can in no way humanly or otherwise control? Fuck that! This shit's been going on for as long as we have inhabited this planet. We are a species dominated by fucking idiots. How we allow ourselves to continually self-destruct through our greed, ignorance and sheer stupidity is beyond me. My only explanation is that the fucking idiots greatly out number those with common sense, rationale, and reason.

And so these traits...they tell me not to worry about it. To sit back and let the buffoons chuck shit at each other until every buffoon in the sandbox tries to obliterate each other, taking many of the innocent people who don't give a damn down with them. It's happened before, and it will surely happen again. Except this time we have some SERIOUS poo to fling. Poo like the world has never seen before. And I guess that's what I worry about. Or at least, I used to.

So I'm at my computer, which is right next to the front window of our house, and I look across the street to see one of our neighbors moving out. According to my daughter, they're moving to Jacksonville. I wouldn't know because...well, I don't talk to people. And besides, if you live across the street, technical "neighbor etiquette" does not apply. See Code 945.6a in your local county "Neighborhood Etiquette Handbook."

945.6a: "Any lot, home, trailer or makeshift residence separated from another separately owned property by a city road, the road herein shall act as a metaphorical 40' impenetrable wall, with a moat, a dragon, and a poultry farm filled with Avian Flu. All applicable Neighborhood Etiquette Laws no longer apply..."

See...It's in the statutes. And I'm a law-abiding citizen. I don't see anything across the street, do you? That's what I thought.

The neighbors next to you on the other hand...well, you can avoid them for as long as you can, but the time will come when you ultimately have to succumb and acknowledge their existence. Usually with a head nod, albeit the most subtle of head nods...like a base coach giving a base runner a sign to steal. If they're lucky, they may get a smile and a quick wave. You know...if the mood's right. The key to prolonging this avoidance of acknowledgement is in the eye contact. The better your peripheral vision, the greater your advantage. If you see your neighbor out of the corner of your eye, and you know they're positioned in just the right direction to set up an imminent exchange of acknowledgement, here's what you do...

IMMEDIATELY get the dull sigh and mumbling of "Fuckin-A" under your breath out of the way. That way you get it out before you make eye contact. Never rule out the possibility of your neighbor being a linguistics expert who has mastered the art of lip reading. They're out there somewhere, and that somewhere could be next door to YOU.

NEXT, look down at your watch just as you feel him look up in your direction. This will buy you time as you look away from him, but possess a legitimate reason in your need to know the time.

WALK HURRIEDLY! As you look at your watch, speed up the pace of your walk. Make it look like you're in a hurry. Your neighbor will then think to himself, "Better not introduce myself now...looks like he's in a rush."

Sucker. A rush to avoid YOU.

Now, to avoid being a total dick (which you just might be), glance up directly into your neighbor's eyes JUST AS YOU TURN TO THE DOOR, PLACING THE PRE-SET KEY IN YOUR HAND IMMEDIATELY INTO THE KEYHOLE. You will have approximately three tenths of a second to make direct eye contact, wave, smile, and nod.

Turn the door handle fast and thrust yourself through the door a la "Cops". Congratulations, you did it! You smooth mother fucker! DAMN you're good. Now treat yourself to a beer. You, my friend, have earned it.

Now, your hope would be that your neighbor thinks you're a pretentious jackass and avoid you on sheer principal. But, having a "neighbor" in retirement community tourism suburbia, it isn't very likely. And besides, we're both white. And we all know what it's like when white people live next door to each other. Right? Am I right? Heh heh heh....they'll never know.

But alas, the day inevitably arrives. You could be taking out the trash, chasing down 17 bottles of wine that collapsed from the colossal pile in the recycling bin, walking the dog, or peeing on the tree in the front yard at 7 in the morning because "I like the feeling of freedom it brings.... not to mention the crisp morning air on my boys". Whatever it is, your neighbor was waiting for it before you decided to do it. You'd swear he had a stakeout point atop his garage. You tiptoe around at the most obscure hours, hoping to avoid all contact, but he finds you.

You immediately turn your head away and act like you don't see a thing. And then it happens.

"Hi there!"

You ignore him and act like you didn't hear him. Maybe he'll give up and go away.

"Hello! How ya doin!"

(SIGH) "Fuckin-A"

"What's that?"

"WELL HEYYYY.... NEIGHBOR!"

Here we go. You knew the day would come, but you didn't know when. It's like the apocalypse...

"But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
- Mark 13:32


You drag your feet across the lawn like a dog being dragged to the vet for a good ol' neutering. Except you know he knows it. And he knows you know he knows it. You know?

You shake hands with your "neighbor", share an awkward conversation that is completely consumed and over-saturated with meaningless small talk as you attempt to get a read on one another. (My dick's GOTTA be bigger than his) The level of awkwardness is actually far greater than it should be as a result of your many months of blatant and unpolished avoidance tactics. But hey, you have to take risks in this business. The payoff far exceeds any price you will ever have to pay.

You shake hands and chat for a while. You talk cars, tools, and sports even though you KNOW he's gay (and you have a bigger dick). From that day forward, you are obligated to exchange small talk when you run into each other working on the yard on weekends, borrow tools you know he doesn't know how to use, fuck his wife, borrow some sugar...typical neighbor shit.

Follow these easy steps, and you too can maintain absolute ignorance to the existence of your neighbor! And if you fail...well, you basically formulate a meaningful relationship with your neighbor that last for years. It's a win/win really.


Wait a minute...wasn't I telling a story about the people across the street who were moving to Jacksonville? Son of a bitch, I was!! There was a whole other story there!

I guess I have something to write next time...