Dude what happened to you?

You used to be pretty cool.  So easy going and carefree.  Now, well...now you're just kind of a dick.  I mean seriously, what happened?

I remember when I first met you man.  Freshman year in college.  You were dating that girl.  What was her name?  She was your high school sweetheart.  You had been together since the 8th grade.  God I suck with names.  Lisa, yeah that's right, Lisa.  You guys had been dating forever, well that is until she met me and then I started dating her.  That's how we met. You remember that?

And for the first 9 months that Lisa and I dated, do you remember how we let you tag along with us on our dates to the drive-in movies?  You remember that don't you?  You were quiet as a church mouse in the front seat of that car while Lisa and I made out in the back.  I'm sorry what was that?  Oh yeah well I guess it was your car but we didn't have to let you come along.  And we most certainly wouldn't have if you would have been the grumpy old pain in the ass that stands before me today.  Nope, back then my nickname for you was "Cool Breeze".  Nothing seemed to bother you.  I liked that about you.

Oh and do you remember that time that we all went down to Tijuana and got hammered drunk?  And we all swore an oath to go get a tattoo of Falkor from "The Neverending Story"?  You remember that don't you?  And you were so into the idea that you wanted to go first but by the time that our turn had rolled around, we had sobered up and completely chickened out.  God that was hilarious.  The look on your face.  And the shit that you got from your old man on Parents Weekend?  Wow he really dressed you down.  But it all just seemed to roll off you like water off a duck's back.  I'd have to imagine that if that happened today, you'd be a fucking baby about it.

Hey I was going to ask you, did you ever find your dog?  No?  I feel awfully bad about the whole situation but like I told you, I came over here to take him for a walk, like you asked.  I went in the front door just like you asked and he just ran right past me.  It was an accident.  Why didn't I chase after him?  Dude I was wearing flip flops, have you ever tried to run in flip flops?  It's damn near impossible.  Plus you look like a jack ass doing it.

So anyway, I really just came over here to say that I know we've been through a lot together, but in light of your recent attitude change, I just don't think that we should hang out anymore.  Well yes I do remember that you and I have those court side seats to the game this Friday that you bought. Seems to me the only right and proper thing to do would be to let me have them.  Especially after considering all that I have done for you.  Besides you don't even like basketball.  And I swear, this time I'll pay you back.  I get paid next week.  You're cool with that right?

Parents just don't understand.

Out and about this past weekend I noticed a rather disturbing trend.  Everywhere we went, we saw parents carrying their children.  Carrying them in strollers, rolling buggies, backpacks, front packs, wagons, carrying them like monkeys.  Any which way you can think of to carry these pint sized free loaders, we saw it. Can you believe that shit?  Lazy is the word that comes to mind but I don't really think that even begins to scratch the surface.  I was perplexed as to why all of these parents felt the need to mollycoddle these shiftless, lazy little future burdens of society.  And get this, even the parents that were making their kids walk on their own would pick them up after only a few short moments.  It would seem that whining, jumping up and down, and reaching for the sky is kid speak for "I'm indolent".  Are you kidding me?  The more I saw of this, the angrier I got until finally, I had to say something.

"Excuse me Sugar, can I ask you a question?"

"Sugar?"

"Shut up for a second will ya?  I am not a parent so I don't profess to know anything about parenting but don't you think you should put that kid down and let him start doing things for himself?"

"He's 4 months old, are you serio..."

"Listen lady.  I believe the children are our future.  Teach them well and let them lead the way.  You continue carrying him around like that and we are all going to grow old in a society that can't wipe its own ass. What's that teaching him???"

"...."

"Well?  I'm waiting."

"I'm calling the police."

A typical response from a typical overprotective mother.  Bottom line, these idle little grub worms are going to be living at home for their entire lives and when they do our society is going to crumble down around us while they are still suckling from their mama's teat.  It's all so sad.  And it's not as if I am expecting them to go out and find work in a factory stitching soccer balls somewhere.  I'm not a monster for Christ sakes.  I'm not Nike.  All I am saying is that these kids have legs and they should be using them.  These parents are not doing any of us any favors.  God I weep for our future.

I'm not topping this one for a while.

"Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."  - William Shakespeare


Take a look at the photo below:

What you are looking at is my house on a sunny June afternoon taken from Google Street View. Now let's take a closer look, particularly focusing on the lower right hand side and tell me what you see:

If you had guessed me giving the knuckles out devil horns to the Google Street View car, you'd win a prize.

The devils horns with the knuckles out. The universal symbol for I fucking rock!!! Due to my face being blurred, what you unfortunately can not see is my tongue sticking out, Gene Simmons style circa 1977. It was an all around one two punch of awesomeness. Now it's neither here nor there how this came to pass. In this particular case it's not about the journey.  I had maybe a second to react upon seeing the Google Street View car and this was the result. I think I made the correct choice in my actions.

Side Note #1:  You also may have noticed that I am not wearing any shoes.  We have a strict no shoes policy inside our house.  I have extended that policy to a 50 foot perimeter surrounding the house.

Side Note #2:  After carefully studying my picture, I sadly came to the conclusion that it bares an eerie similarity to the picture below:

Look at it.  Same awkward, lumbering gate.  Same slightly hunched over posture.  Same hair cut.  Same somewhat startled look on both of our faces.  Just as Bigfoot was not expecting some rube with a camera to be in the woods that day, I was equally not expecting a hipster in a Prius with a 7 foot camera attached to the roof to go driving through my neighborhood.