Science Has Given Us More Furniture

Years ago a stereo was a piece of furniture. It took up a good amount of floor space and was usually prominently displayed. It often wasn't called a "stereo" either. It was typically referred to as a "system." When visiting a friend for the first time, he would invariably ask,

“You want to see my system?”

A System Used for Playing Songs

Then you got a very detailed rundown of each component. All good systems had a 32 lever equalizer with more lights than an Umphrey's McGee concert. The individual components were stacked in a cabinet that was commonly several feet tall. The brains of the system was the receiver, the component that integrated all the other sound producing pieces. True audiophiles swear that the receiver is the most important component. I don't know about that. I always figured the speakers were the most significant items in regards to replicating sound. It must be one of those things in science that doesn't lend itself to common sense like using hot water to make ice cubes or bees flying.

Stereo sales people were the first nerds. They were well versed in technical jargon that they were all too willing to share at length. Not online sharing like we have today. I'm talking about in store sales pitches that went on for hours. Dudes just talking about how Dolby has come a long way, that the shape of the stylus is more important than the material it was made out of, or that quadraphonics will become the de facto standard for all hifi systems.

I once got trapped in a sales pitch in which the guy convinced me to sit at a desk and pull from a palette stickers representing stereophonic components. I was supposed to stack them up into "my dream system." I wasn't sure why I was doing this, but I did anyway. They say that one geek experience doesn't make you a nerd, but I'm not sure. When I finished, the sales guy asked,

"Will we be getting speakers with this system?"

Being the ever present consummate dick that I've been now for most of my life, I answered,

"Yes, otherwise we won't know when it’s on.”

The sales person wanted me to take my little art project home and stick it on my refrigerator to motivate me each morning on my way to work. After a few years if I was lucky, I could afford my dream system. That's the way we did things before computers back in the day because we were lame.

How could something so substantial and referred to as a system be replaced by a puny iPod? People never pull out a mobile device from their back pocket and say,

"Let me show you my system."

iPod

Dolby is dead. Needles passé. Stack stereo systems have gone the way of the waterbed, the CD tower, land lines, clackers and Rick Springfield. Steve Jobs probably had a large system. He likely had a fulltime guy hired just to manage his system. One day after belittling several employees, Steve went home to rock out to some Talking Heads on his system. After staring at his system for several minutes, mesmerized by the lights and levers, the Dolby, the sharp point of the needle, Steve declared,


"Wouldn't it be nice if this thing had a phone?"

He spent the remainder of the afternoon placing a red dial up phone on top of his system. After getting it in just the right place, Steve waxed,

"This thing would be great if it was smaller."

The real question with the first iPods was whether the sophisticated ear of the public would accept the lower quality music from the device. I'm sure it was argued in heated meetings at Apple. The audiophiles on one side of the table, the nerds on the other, debating the merits of quality versus portability. Admittedly, music from an iPod sounds the same to me. True audiophiles say vinyl is the best. I can't tell the difference between one of those Edison drums and an iPod. If I was in attendance in an Apple meetings I would have said,

"For fuck sake, getting rid of the dust biscuits alone makes it worth it."

It turns out that no one really cared about the minute degradation in sound quality experienced with the first iPods compared to the huge piece of furniture that once sat in our family rooms. Only hardcore audiophiles have stack stereo systems today. I suspect most of them can't hear the difference in sound quality either. 

Vanilla Ice

When you wanted to listen to music back then, you had to actually find the physical copy, an album or tape, and place it on or in the stereo. Every time you played a record, it degraded just a little. Your music collection was continuously edging towards oblivion with your favorite tunes leading the way. Every so often your system would eat a cassette or a vinyl record would get scratched resulting in a “skip.” Eventually compact discs took hold ensuring that your collection would last far longer than your interest in the music of your youth. This is why people my age still have a CD by a guy called "Vanilla Ice" who today openly admits that his music sucked back then. Today he hosts a home improvement show on cable flipping shithole houses. Technology has come so far that we are able to carry our entire music catalog with us on our phone. Now, at any time and in any place, I can play the music I listened to in high school even though I hate all of it as much as I hated high school. It's a good time to be alive.

Some scientific advances bring forth lifesaving vaccinations, others get you from point A to point B more quickly. Mobile devices allow you to stay connected to your friends and family while also buying shit you don't need with a currency you can't hold from an internet you can't see. It lets big tech companies track your every move and surveil your activities so they can send you targeted ads for overpriced merchandise manufactured in a country suspected of gross human rights violations.

Sure, the iPod gave you all that and more. Today without a stereo in your family room, you have yet another place to sit and listen to all the music you dislike. It doesn't get any better than that.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on January 17, 2017.

Let Me Tell You Something Good About Ryan Seacrest

Ryan Seacrest

Back in December of 2009, I was in New York City with my wife, Christine and our then six year old son, Aidan. We were partaking in some after holiday festivities in the city while visiting friends. That afternoon we neared Times Square as I balanced Aidan on my shoulders. We had just purchased some funky hats. Aidan wore a monkey hat complete with tassels and matching gloves. As we rounded a corner onto the square, I spotted Ryan Seacrest exiting a building being led by a woman wearing a headset and microphone. No one took notice so I made my way to him while skillfully balancing Aidan. As I threaded through the oblivious crowd, I thought I would tell Ryan that we were all dedicated fans of American Idol.

As I approached, I noticed the crowd had grown in size. What I didn't know was that there were a few thousand people behind me moving in as well. When we were right in front of Ryan, the hordes pressed in. Suddenly, I felt like I was at a Who concert. As the large gathering began vying for position, we were pushed and pulled in every direction. Being no more than ten feet from Mr. Seacrest made it impossible for us to escape. Worst yet, the crowd moved in such random directions that I felt myself step off a curb and then back up again. I was very concerned that I would stumble and with my son on my shoulders that would be catastrophic. Just when I thought I could manage the situation, I spotted a young girl, not much older than Aidan, directly in front of Ryan. Her father was fumbling with a camera.

I watched in horror as the tiny girl began to disappear into the sea of admirers. I let go my son's leg and outstretched my arm to help steady the little girl. She was out of my reach. The frenzied crowd paid little attention to this child about to be trampled. As a father, I see things differently. Some people say that babies keep you up at night, but the truth is when you have kids, you never sleep again, no matter what age they are. Just when I thought the little girl would be consumed by the crowd, Ryan exclaimed,

"She's falling!"

Then he reached out, grabbed her arm and held her upwards. Ryan's handler was not happy with him and actively tried to dissuade him from coming in contact with the crowd. Seeing this, her father having satisfactorily adjusted his camera shouted,

"Ryan! Take a picture with me and my daughter!"

He was a big dude, who pushed his way in then spun about lowering himself to his daughter's height as he held the camera aloft and snapped away. Ryan dutifully released the girl to her father's care then positioned himself at the apex of the picture. That was many years ago. I learned that day that celebrity encounters can be dangerous and as a family we swore off seeking close proximity to famous people.

Years later as Aidan entered high school, I was listening to Ryan Seacrest on 102.7 KIIS FM, a radio station out of Los Angeles which I picked up on Sirius XM radio. On the show called On Air with Ryan Seacrest, they do a bit called "Tell Me Something Good" whereby callers phone in and relay an uplifting story. People tell about being cancer free, having a child, landing a dream job or a pending graduation. It's a real feel good piece.

I've heard many people tell Ryan and his cohosts, Sisanie, Patty and Tanya about all sorts of good news. The callers always seem to be FM listeners from the Los Angeles area. Undaunted I decided to call into the station and tell them about how I once saw Ryan save a little girl's life. After a few attempts at getting through, I was briefly put on hold until the call was answered by Ryan himself. He said,

"What do you got to tell us?"

Now, I wasn't sure who I was talking to, but I launched into my story anyway. By the time I got to the part where we encountered Ryan in Times Square, I figured it was him on the phone even though I wasn't sure. When I said that he saved that girl's life, they were all silent like a Scooby Doo reveal. Ryan eventually said something like,

"Things can get out of hand in the city which happened many times."

I sensed that he didn't recall this episode so I told him,

"You might not have realized what you did, but I saw it because I was just a few feet away which was cool but scary."

They all laughed when I told them that the guy wanted a picture of Ryan with his daughter. We didn't use the term "selfie" back in 2009, but the dude got one off anyway. I told Ryan I would unearth pictures and more details about the event, and he showed genuine interest. He thanked me for "reaching out."

After digging through a gig of picture and talking with many of our friends with us that day, I finally traced the date to December 29, 2009. Unfortunately, Christine was unable to get a picture of Aidan and I with Ryan due to the size of the crowd. Later in the day, we took this picture which shows Aidan sporting his monkey hat.

Aidan with his
Monkey Hat in NYC

Even though I don't have a picture of the event, someone certainly must have taken one. I know for sure that a guy snapped a photo of Ryan with his daughter right in front of us. So if you were in Times Square on that afternoon in December and saw Ryan Seacrest and possibly took a picture, then see if in the shot there's a bearded guy with a kid on his shoulders, wearing a monkey hat. That would be us. The father who took the picture with Ryan was Hispanic and from his accent, I surmised he wasn't a tourist. He was on Ryan's left side with his daughter to his right. Ryan was wearing a brown suit. He had a makeup induced tan that looked a little unnatural. They missed a spot by his right ear. That's all the details I recall.

Before Ryan got off the phone during my call in, he said that I was "obviously a good dad." I like to think that I am a good father, but when I recall that day, I witnessed Ryan have the same response as I did, that is, concern for a child that was in peril. Ryan does another bit on his radio show called "Ryan's Roses" in which Patty or Sisanie call someone suspected of cheating on their spouse. They pretend that they own a flower shop which is offering free roses as a promotion. The dude usually gives the roses to his girlfriend and not his wife. Ryan often refers to this as a "public service." I always root for the guy to be loyal to his spouce. They usually get more mud on the dude from the note included with the flowers. I always tell Christine if they ever called me for an episode of Ryan's Roses, I would send the flowers to her with a note reading,

"If God made anything more beautiful than you, he kept it for himself."

I listen to 102.7 KIIS FM because I enjoy the banter of Ryan, Sisanie, Tanya and Patty. When it comes to relationship advice, I'm almost always at odds with the cast. For example, recently a woman called in to say that her husband who is in the military was being stationed in Missouri for four years, and she was conflicted about leaving her "dream job" to go with him. Ryan suggested that they try living apart for a year "to see how it goes." It is probably a generational thing, but I disagree. I would have answered that she should divorce the guy because anyone who chooses a job over their spouse doesn't deserve to be married.

Another time a woman called to say she was soon to be married and was unhappy that her ex-boyfriend was attending her wedding with his new girlfriend which she didn't like. Ryan and Sisanie weighed in that "it was her day," and she had the right to object to her ex-boo's new significant other. Call me ole fashioned, but I think during all weddings the only guy present who hooked up with the bride ought to be the groom. I was listening to the radio show for a year before I realized that "hooking up" meant having sex. In my day, hooking up meant meeting someone somewhere as in "we hooked up at the club." This revelation adds new meaning to the on air conversation Ryan had with a caller who exclaimed that she "hooked up with her ex at the movies."

Another time a woman called seeking relationship advice. She and her husband were separated but had recently agreed to give it another try. They each compiled a list of three things that they wanted the other to do. She sought Ryan's opinion in regards to her husband’s list which she photographed and emailed to the show. The first item on the list was that he wanted his wife to wear more makeup which all agreed was acceptable. The second petition was that he wanted her to wear nicer clothing which was also deemed agreeable. Although Ryan specifically expressed that the man's last item was okay with him, he elected not to read it on air. After perusing the apparently handwritten list, Patty asked,

"What is G9?"

Tanya said, "That's not a G. It's a 6."

Ryan exclaimed, "This is supposed to be a family show!"

I think all this relationship turmoil has caused Ryan Seacrest to suffer from premarital stress syndrome since he often avoids any on air conversation about marriage, but I once saw him being bigger than himself. He has the foundations of a terrific father. We should all encourage him to commit to a wonderful woman and start a family. I know this because only a man who would be a good father would see that in another in the crowd...

and reach out to save a little girl from certain harm.

Update: On January 9, 2018, Ryan Seacrest said on air that he was into boxing. He's such a mildly mannered, evenly tempered guy during the day. Who knew at night he was into Fight Club?

Editor's Note: Originally posted on October 17, 2017.

One Less Privileged Brat

Caillou

Earlier this month, PBS Kids announced that the animated, educational children television series, Caillou, will no longer be broadcasted. Originally airing in the fall of 1997, the show followed the everyday life of a four year old boy and his younger sister, mother, father and paternal grandparents. The first thing everyone notices about Caillou is that he's bald. Although many over the years have suggested that he has the big C, the show’s animators indicated that when they drew hair on Caillou as he aged, he became less recognizable so they opted to keep him hairless. His sister, Rosie, is the only redhead in the family which should make Boris, the father, suspicious of Doris, the mother, but this issue never surfaced in any of the five seasons of Caillou.

Created by Hélène Desputeaux, a Canadian educator and illustrator, the story chronicles the arrested development of a boy whose features some believe are blended together to make him appear as though he's not from any particular ethnic background. Additionally, the show employs "an authentic voice" driven in part by expert child psychologists and psychiatrists to capture "a rich and fully developed content." The second thing everyone notes about Caillou is that the sound of his authentic voice is like a corkscrew drilling through your head. His go-to whine and subsequent Pavlovian balling, coupled with incessantly calling out for his mother, makes Munchausen by proxy a more understandable syndrome. To say Caillou cries a lot is like wondering aloud if bees shit in the hive.

In one episode, Caillou falls from a seesaw. The narrator, who sounds like an old blue blood that probably uses terms like "you people" a lot, states that he was uninjured from his tumble. This doesn't stop Caillou from calling to his mother who swoops in to comfort her little sobbing bundle of need. Caillou is quick to rat out anyone who doesn't live up to his high expectations. In one show he complained to his mother that a deaf boy wasn't listening to him. Another time he ejected his little sister from his room only to acquiesce after becoming bored by himself. He also once whined that he didn't want his father to go to work. When his sister was a newborn, Caillou pinched her face causing her to cry out in pain.

Rosie learns how to be ass hat just like her big brother. She balls uncontrollably when things don't go her way. In one episode, she tosses a cookie onto the floor while saying, "Cookie good." Her mother dutifully picks it up. Caillou once expressed his preference for cookies over vegetables and got up from the dinner table to retrieve the cookie jar. Caillou scuffled on the playground with an equally snot filled boy, named Jimmy, who wanted Caillou to push him on the swing. This caused Caillou to throw himself into his grandfather's lap as the narrator states,

"Caillou didn't like Jim because he always had to get his own way."

Caillou wished to go to the circus after he learned that two of his friends were planning a trip. Caillou invited himself instructing his friends to swing by and pick him up. After he got himself dressed and brushed his teeth, his father tells him that he wasn't going with his friends to the circus today but would be going with his family tomorrow. Caillou wanted to go now so he breaks a toy then tosses himself onto the bathroom floor while kicking his feet and hands in a full blown meltdown. In yet another episode, Caillou fantasizes that he is a king.

All of this rich and fully developed outpouring of emotion wouldn't be so bad if Boris and Doris got on the same page and occasionally punish Caillou for being such a bone deep ass pain. Admittedly, I didn't watch all the episodes because our oldest son, Aidan, lost interest in the show after one season. Good thing that he did in lieu of embracing Caillou's modicum of coping skills otherwise Aidan would be an only child. The best I can tell Caillou's parents, being Canadians, were high which is why they were so mellow all the time. Sure, I know cannabis wasn't legalized in Canada until 2018, long after the five seasons of Caillou aired, but I'm certain that the level of tolerance depicted in the show for such crap ass behavior, even from your own genetic offspring, requires lots of powerful mood alternating drugs.

The Canadian Supreme Court once ruled that Ms. Desputeaux as well as the network jointly shared the copyrights to Caillou even though both parties claimed exclusive ownership. Shortly afterwards the Court legalized pot making Canada the second country to do so nationally, right behind Uruguay. This added weed to the list of chief exports from Canada which prior to the landmark decision included only Canadian money and Justin Bieber.

So I've read online that this month we're getting rid of the pale, petulant, privileged, hair-challenged, whining, egocentric, unruly, holy terror. They mean Caillou, right?

The Birth of a Liberal

I used to sit in a cube farm when I worked for a company that made online software for motor vehicle registration. I sat across from a guy who was a quality assurance specialist named Ted. He was retired from the military and was exceedingly conservative. I used to say that Ted was to the right of Attila the Hun.

It was hard not to hear Ted's conversations because we were stuffed into a tiny workspace, and quite frankly, motor vehicle registration was about as absorbing as the Ice Capades. Anytime someone brought up a topic, I was certain that my colleague over the partition would offer the most right-wing perspective.

If someone's stapler broke in the office, Ted would say that it was probably fabricated in China and wouldn't have broken if made in the USA. If it snowed a lot outside, Ted would quip that the unionized state workers plowing the streets were probably going to bilk the state for excessive overtime. If the internet went down in the office, Ted would suggest that it had something to do with bandwidth being consumed by the liberal media. I learned a lot sitting next to Ted.

One day Ted was on the phone with what sounded like his insurance company. Apparently, he bought a cheap curio cabinet from Ikea for his wive's Hummel collection. After they put it together, he and his wife arranged the cherished figurines on the shelves. The prized Hummel was a large statue of a boy sitting in a tree. From Ted's description it was several inches in height. If you don't know, Hummels are hand painted porcelain statues based on drawings made by Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel, a Franciscan Sister. A small figurine can sell for hundreds of dollars. Limited editions can go for even more.

Evidently, Ted and his wife packed the shelves before assessing the sturdiness of the cabinet. It was a bit ironic that a QA guy would overlook something like that. Apparently the shelving let go sometime in the middle of the night, crashing one on top of the other until all that was left was a sad pile of Humbits at the bottom of the cabinet. The next morning at work Ted was on the phone with his insurance company trying to get them to pay for the damages. The volume of his contribution to the conversation was slowly rising as he was discovering that his policy did not cover cheap furniture that he purchased to house his wife's collectibles.

"What do you mean I needed a rider?" Ted blurted.

He was going to learn the hard way that if you have something special like an expensive, rare lot of figurines, you need to declare this to your insurance company and likely purchase a special provision, called a "rider.”

"I don't get it. I have a homeowner's policy. Don't I?" Ted reasoned.

You do, but it doesn't cover defective or improperly assembled furniture that should only be used in a college dormitory.

"You cover my other stuff if in a fire or a flood so why not my wife's Hummels?" Ted angrily asked.

Well, not flood. You need a special policy, called "flood insurance." Even so your curio cabinet collapsing is not the same thing as an electrical fire or a tornado. Insurance is very complicated.

"You mean to tell me that my homeowner's policy doesn't cover the things that are actually in my house?" Ted exclaimed in exasperation.

No, you're covered for loss up to a certain dollar figure for damage caused by unforeseen events, natural disasters or "Acts of God." You are not covered for "Acts of Ted."

"So if someone drove a tractor trailer through my house and ran over my wive's Hummels, you wouldn't cover them?" Ted inquired.

No, they're covered for that. If your wive's Hummel were hit by lighting or a hurricane, your homeowner policy would kick in and reimburse you. Additionally, significant liability is shared by the truck driver and his employer. However, your homeowner's policy does not cover bonehead moves by the insured.

"So I guess I'm just out $2000 worth of Hummels!" Ted exclaimed as he slammed the phone down.

Rest assured that insurance companies won't cover you in case of loss if there is any way for them to wiggle out of it. The former mayor of Philadelphia, Frank Rizzo, once said,

"A conservative is a liberal who got mugged the night before."

Rizzo implied that robbing a liberal will change their views. I often wondered what would it take to change the views of a conservative. Now I know.

About $2000 worth of Hummels.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on March 14, 2017.

The Myth of Santa

Aidan with Santa

“You’re not going to light a fire on Christmas Eve are you?”

Aidan, our oldest, asked with genuine trepidation as we corralled him into going to bed early. It was 2007 when he was four years old. He was a kindergartener betrayed only by his height since his clear articulation made many people think he was much older. I explained that a man who had the superpower to get through such a small flue could surely manage a little fire in the hearth. I imagined finding Santa, overcome by smoke, smoldering at the base of our Christmas tree. Performing life saving CPR on the Fat Man would guarantee top billing on The Nice List. My wife, Christine, continued the charade,

“Santa will still come even if there is a fire because some kids don’t have fireplaces, but Santa still leaves presents for them.”

This reassured Aidan who went off to bed, certain he was on the proper list, especially since he left milk and cookies. Like most fabricated stories additional embellishment is necessary to keep the ruse going. Some parents take the more honest approach by telling their children the truth about Santa. Hollywood couple, Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell, told their two daughters, age five and three, that Santa “is just a fun thing we pretend while it’s Christmas.” Like many parents they prefer not to lie to their children.


William with the Christmas Box

When it comes to holiday traditions, Christine and I are consummate storytellers. We do The Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. We even made up our own falsehoods to extend the already elaborate bullshit associated with Christmas. Some time ago a friend of mine, who is a particularly skilled woodworker, made several Christmas boxes which he gave as gifts. The box contains twenty-four decorated drawers which Santa fills each night right up to Christmas as if he doesn’t have enough to do already. For school, Willy, our youngest wrote up the morning ritual of discovering the contents of the box as one of our family traditions. He’s in fourth grade and still believes mostly because his school is shutdown and the subsequent isolation prevents alternative points of view from entering our bubble. We are approaching the edge of skepticism as he poses logistical questions like,

“Does Santa carry everything on his sleigh or does he go back and forth to the North Pole to resupply?”

I usually rely on Special Relativity to answer these questions, drawing on my formal education in engineering to further the misinformation. I've explained that Santa travels very near the speed of light so time slows down for him and lengths are foreshortened, allowing more room for the many presents hauled on his sleigh.

Each year William watches The Polar Express which combines his youthful excitement for Christmas with his love of trains. He cherishes a silver bell that he received when we rode a local steam engine at a holiday event, mimicking the movie which likely legally borders on copyright infringement. Each year before hanging his bell on the tree, William shakes it vigorously while asking,

“Dad, can you hear this bell?”

I always tell him that I can’t. He has me hold the bell and recite,

“I believe! I believe! I believe!”

Then I tell him that I can hear the sweet sound, emanating from the silver ornament. The truth is I never believed. When I was three years old, my oldest sister took it upon herself to come clean with me about Santa Claus. She explained,

“Santa is not real, but you get presents anyway.”

She crushed The Easter Bunny as well along with The Tooth Fairy. I never believed in any children’s fables. Later in life she tried to introduce me to other things like cigarettes, alcohol and pot. Throughout the 70's when she was high, she was fond of an occasional smack down that surpassed normal sibling rivalry. My distain for her groovy, hippy lifestyle kept me off drugs, and puberty put an end to most of the abuse. The fact is the common horrible influences in life often originate from within one's own family. In it all, I was luckier that most having another sister, Jeannine, closer to my age. Any sense of family I recall from my childhood always involved her.

When Christine and I finally told Aidan the truth about Santa, he was coming off two years of homeschooling and entering the public school system in our town. His limited exposure to other kids allowed us to continue the tale of Christmas longer than we thought was wise. Now as he was entering middle school, we surmised his classmates would eat him alive if he expressed a belief in Santa. When we finally revealed the truth, Aidan exclaimed,

“Why did you have to do that? Let me be a kid already!”

Turns out Aidan knew for quite some time and was just going along with the notion of Santa because it was his way of hanging onto a time in his life that he cherished. Childhood is all so very fleeting. Aidan wanted to believe in Santa even in the face of middle school torment. I thought that it it was very astute of him to appreciate something in the moment instead of much later when it's gone.

Today, my son is taller than me, has a deep voice and sharp mind. He’s an honor roll student and accomplished musician who writes musical arrangements as easily as algorithms in Java. He’s interested in artificial intelligence and cyber security. He sounds Taps on his bugle at military funerals as a Petty Officer in the Naval SeaCadets. Aidan is very busy now with his studies and the college application process. He doesn't decorate the Christmas tree anymore preferring to spend his free time blasting away bad guys with his horde of online friends. I guess that was a time I used to cherish.

The other day William retrieved his silver bell, and as he shook it in his hand he asked Aidan if he could hear the sound. Aidan bent down and embraced his little brother. His eyes were fixed off in the distance as if he was watching a passenger train pull away, then he answered,

“No William. I can’t.”

I couldn’t help but think that he was saying his final farewell to childhood. William told him to recite the declaration that he believed three times while holding the bell. Aidan complied. Upon the final assertion, Aidan shook the bell then looked to William with astonishment. Willy smiled.

Eventually when William is older all of us will no longer hear the sound of the bell. The myth of Santa will fade from our home, debunked by adult sensibilities and logic, and as I often suspected, the truth does not always set you free.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on December 25, 2018.

Thanksgiving Dysfunctia

When I was a kid, Thanksgiving at my house was an opportunity for me to mess with my sister's boyfriends. Once at the holiday meal, I launched into a seemingly meaningful story explaining to the guy a family tradition in which my mother would put an almond or something in the indian pudding. He listened thoughtfully as I explained that whoever drew the special something in the pudding would win a prize, then I gave a rundown of who won over the past ten years after which I said,

"This year my mother put in the pudding a toenail."

My sister would roar with laughter. My mother was suitably disgusted. My father usually wasn't paying much attention. He had the paper folded on the table so that a crossword puzzle or the word jumble was visible.

My mother always cooked a wonderful Thanksgiving meal, except as she got older she started burning the turkey because "undercooked turkey will give you worms." My wife, Christine, loves to cook. She tried to jump in and help out, but my mother always regarded everyone as incompetent. After five years Christine hadn't made it past preparing a few minor vegetables as the main course was deemed out of her range of cooking ability. So my wife would whip out the corn and beat potatoes into a mash while my mother roasted the turkey into a tiny, dried, dense ball of chalk.

My mother had a lot of good traits. She was an accomplished artist and could be very helpful when you needed to know how to do something like remove a stain from a porcelain sink or sew a complicated stitch. I always found my mother to be a little like the female lead in a Rogers and Hammerstein musical, one part dingbat, two parts well meaning. She had friends who were just like her. They all mostly stayed at home, inside. Women from the 1950's kept their worlds well organized. They never wore jeans, preferring polyester pantsuits. They had "house coats." They talked incessantly, rarely absorbing anything anyone said. In my youth I learned not to bother to tell my mother what was going on in my life. I once confided in her about something that was troubling me when she tilted her head back to look through her bifocals. I knew she wasn't paying any attention to my lamentations, but I continued with my story anyway. When I finished, she said,

"How long have you had that blackhead on your nose?'

I just explained how I was struggling with a stressful situation, and my mother's sage advice involved when to pop a zit. What do you expect from a generation who slept in separate beds by age fifty?

For my entire life, I've hated lima beans. Some people have tried to convince me that they were just not prepared correctly, but it's not that. I hate them. Every Thanksgiving for decades my mother made lima beans, and when she noticed I didn't have any on my plate she inevitably commanded,

 "Have some lima beans."

"I don't like them," I answered.

She asked incredulously as if this was new information,

"You don't like lima beans?"

"No, I don't. Going on forty years now."

Lima beans weren't the only vegetable that was an issue. Corn caused a lot of problems too. I like corn, but only so much. On Thanksgiving we loaded up our plates, then we all pretended like we were religious by reciting some immutable, incantation of a prayer, approved by the Second Vatican Council. I learned not to eat all my corn on my plate, but instead to leave a few kernels behind. My father picked up the newspaper looking for a four letter word that began with "d" for "opposite of Jane."

"You want corn?" my mother asked.

"I had some," I answered.

My father looked up, grabbed his pencil and said, "That's easy. Dick."

Then the heat came on and the baseboard hot water radiators began to expand. My mother issued,

"We need to get the water out of those pipes."

"It's a baseboard hot water system. It's supposed to have water in it," I explained.

"There has never been water in those pipes," she insisted.

I had a four year college degree in mechanical engineering and a masters in the same that I earned all with high honors, but somehow my mother never thought I knew what I was talking about when it came to a forced hot water system. It probably didn't matter much had I explained that if air was in those diminutive copper pipes, there wouldn't be enough mass to transfer sufficient energy to heat the house. Then my mother asked,

"Aren't you gonna have some corn?"

"I had corn, and I ate it," I answered.

"The sink in the kitchen is leaking," she then announced.

Every Thanksgiving since 1994 I had to sit through the Kitchen Sink Affair which happened in the summer of that year. On a warm day in July my mother had lifted the handle to the kitchen faucet to turn on the water. It broke off in her hand. Water shot to the ceiling. I dove under the cabinet for the shutoff value. It was behind a can of Easy-Off and a slew of products to remove pet odors. My mother was in a complete disarray. She sat in a rocking chair with the faucet handle still in hand and shouted profanity at the people who built her house in 1951.

Earlier that year she had called her plumber, Tony, to fix a drip in her kitchen sink. Tony, being the master plumber from the old country, replaced the stem in her sink with one that didn't fit correctly. You had to push up on the handle unusually hard to get it to work. Eventually the mechanism broke which led to the Fountain of Trevi in my mother's kitchen.

After inspecting the faucet I said, "This can't be the right stem."

"Tony knows what he's doing!" my mother exclaimed.

Christine is also a mechanical engineer with a masters specializing in thermodynamics. She looked the faucet over as well. Being a more diplomatic problem solver, she focused less on who did what and more on the task at hand.

"Let's go to Home Depot and get a whole new faucet," Christine declared.

She's smart like that. This wasn't a court of law in which blame was to be assigned. She just wanted to fix the faucet. So off we went. When we jumped into the car, Christine said,

"Don't say it."

We purchased a chrome faucet and hoses and installed it in under an hour. It worked beautifully. Shortly afterwards my mother had the faucet inspected by Tony the Plumber, and every Thanksgiving thereafter the story surfaced over dinner. Often she started with,

"Remember that faucet you installed?"

How could I forget the outpouring of gratitude?

"Well, I had Tony look at it, and he said that you installed the wrong stem."

"I installed the whole faucet. The stem was the one that came with it."

"No, Tony had to installed the right one," she insisted.

"And it leaks now right?"

"That's because you don't know what you're doing. Just like the baseboard."

"It didn't leak after we put it in," I professed.

"If you had put the right one in the first place, it would've never leaked!"

My father stirred as I mused that he was looking for a seven letter word that begins with "a" for "unpleasant person." My mother had no need for logic. She just pushed through life espousing her baseless assertions as facts. She was a free thinker in that she didn't let not knowing what she was talking about stop her from expressing her opinions. She never let faith in good intentions lead her astray as she recalled the sordid side of any story. She looked to my plate.

"Have some corn."

"I've had some corn. I don't want anymore. If I did, I would just get some more corn," I said in an overtly condescending tone.

I got up to use the bathroom before my head boiled off like the turkey. When I returned, my mother asked,

"Did you jiggle the handle?"

"What handle?"

"The toilet!" she shouted, "You need to jiggle the handle or the toilet will keep running. I thought you were an engineer?"

"We should replace the valve," Christine chimed.

"Home Depot is closed on Thanksgiving," I gladly offered.

"Tony will to do it. He knows what he's doing," my mother said.

Sure he does. Tony installed a used stem in my mother's kitchen sink which eventually broke, then he pulled out the guts to the faucet I installed and replaced it with another old stem that he just yanked out of someone else's house. I'm sure he was waiting for another call from my mother to fix her kitchen sink yet again. The wind rattled the old single pane storm windows.

"I need to get NewPro windows for the whole house."

My mother had one window replaced in the family room with a NewPro window. She called them incessantly about every little issue including a spot on the outside. Their lifetime warrantee came to an end shortly after a year.

"They're guaranteed for life, you know," she said.

"Or a year, which ever comes first," I added.

My mother looked about the table then asked, "You want some corn?"

As I stirred, I caught a glimpse of Christine communicating the nonverbal message,

"Don't say it."

I looked to my mother then my father who I assumed just got a seven letter word that began with "f" and ended with "g" which I wanted to use to describe the corn. Christine reached over and scooped a small pile of corn onto my plate. My father mumbled as he peered at the paper in the low light,

"Five letters, ends in 's' for 'fermented mare's milk.'"

"Kumis," Christine offered.

"That fits," my father exclaimed as he eagerly scrawled the word down.

When dessert was served, I drew the almond from the indian pudding. I buried it in the remains of my corn. We left shortly afterwards. Everyone hugged like we were a close family, but the reality was we were as close as we were religious. On the drive home I asked Christine,

"Why did you put that corn on my plate?"

"Because I'm sure it tasted better than your tongue," she answered.

More recently at our house we started a tradition on Thanksgiving to go around the dinner table and say what we are thankful for. Often the answers from younger family and friends involve gratitude for the support they received from their parents. I usually say something about my wife and our two boys then fan out from there to relatives and friends. Often I'm thinking of how lucky I am to be part of such a loving family given my experiences in my youth. People exposed to terrible things like drugs, physical abuse or racism often perpetuate the worst aspects of their upbringing. On Thanksgiving I'm thankful for not what I experienced but for what I avoided.

Come to think of it, I'm thankful of that everyday.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on November 23, 2016.

Ode to the Otoscope

 

The otoscope was invented in 1363 by Guy de Chauliac, a French physician and barber. Today, medical professionals embrace this optical tool used to look into patient's orifices, most notably the ear. The secrets of the otoscope are held firmly by medical practitioners who make their bread and butter off this finely tuned instrument. As part of the Hippocratic Oath, doctors all over the world recite this pledge popularized in the movie Full Metal Jacket.

This is my otoscope.

There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My otoscope is my best friend.

It is my life.

Without me, my otoscope is useless.

Without my otoscope I am useless.

My friend Roger, a Yale educated emergency room physician, travels on family vacations with many medical instruments, the tools of his trade. Roger is the guy who is a legitimate keeper of the otoscope. He says it comes in handy. Every time he’s on an airplane, the captain invariably announces,

“Is there a doctor onboard who has one of those otoscope things?”

Roger is the guy you want in the ER should you wipe out on the highway or choke on a chicken bone since his expertise and skill are the only things that will get you on a bus ride home in lieu of brunch with Jesus. We travelled with Roger and his family many times. Once on vacation my ear was killing me. Roger pulled out his otoscope then told me I had an “effusion.” When I got back home, I went to my doctor and told him, 

“I have a contusion.”

“In your ear?”

“No, I mean an emulsion.”

“You mean an effusion?”

“Yeah, that.”

Anyway my wife, Christine, was so impressed she thought,

“I need to get me one of those otoscope things.”

And so she did.

A few months ago she purchased an otoscope from Amazon to assist with her mom diagnoses. Christine is a very do it yourself, get it done alpha type. Like the professor on Gilligan’s Island, she subscribes to the notion that if you want something done right, then do it yourself. She said,

“In twenty years everyone will have an otoscope thing.”

She might be onto something. The otoscope just might become the tweezers of tomorrow. Christine’s instrument came with a little chart complete with pictures, indicating a particular ear malady, perforation, infection, fluid, insect etc. She wasn’t sure what any of the structures were that she was looking at in the pictures or her otoscope, but she knew that if the blob to the lower left was pink and swollen, then your ear was infected. Armed with her finely tuned optical instrument, Christine embarked upon the rest of life diagnosing ear infections sans the time, money and bother all associated with an actual medical degree. Give a mom an otoscope, and she'll see the world as ears.

Against my advice our youngest, Willy, was probed first. Christine arrived at the conclusion that he had an ear infection in his left ear. After hauling Willy to the pediatrician, waiting an hour surrounded by coughing, puking kids, and parting with a $30 copay, she finally got Willy in to see his doctor. On the way home she called me to say,

“Ear infection just like I said.”

It’s a good thing she can’t write prescriptions. The other day, Willy wiped out on his bicycle. Christine was bandaging up his scrapes as I passed by the bathroom. When she finished patching him up, she whipped out her otoscope and checked his ears.

“What do you expect to find in there, the handlebars?”

“Just being thorough,” she explained.

She stuck the scope in my ear once and pulled so hard on my earlobe, I was sure that the light would emerge from the other side of my head. As she looked through the otoscope, she said,

"Ah, huh."

"What?"

"Looks like you got..."

"Scurvy?"

"No."

"A blown eardrum?"

"No."

"An above the knee effusion?"

Then it came in all its glory. The diagnosis that relays the important piece of information that may very well save my life. This is likely what Christine admires most about the otoscope, being in the know.

"Ear infection," she confidently decreed.

"Really? You don't even have to check the chart that came with that thing?"

"I know an ear infection when I see one.”

It didn't matter that I was not in secondary school nor prone to sticking things in my ears. Even though I was not surrounded by a cadre of nose picking tactile friends, Christine’s expert medical opinion was that I had an ear infection. She was so sure of herself. That’s how it happens. Doctor’s learn something in medical school and then confidently espouse that advice as fact for the rest of their life. They hate it when mere mortals like us read something on the internet that we offer during an exam.

“You know I read on WebMD that memory loss is associated with a turmeric deficiency.”

Truth is I hate that thing. Having someone who didn't take gross anatomy in college diagnose my maladies doesn't sit well with me. A tool is only as good as its user. Sure, Christine was right 100% of the time with her ear infection diagnoses even though she doesn’t have a medical degree and never stayed in a Holiday Inn Express.

In the end, she's just pre-screening our kids to help decide if we should schlep them in and part with the ever increasing copay. That's what the copay is for, you know, to dissuade you from using your health insurance. Insurance companies should, as a matter of policy, issue otoscopes as a means of avoiding the use of healthcare.

I suppose the otoscope thing can stay, but I'm putting my foot down if she wants a colonoscope.

Editor’s Note: Originally posted on November 7, 2017.