Category Archives: comic relief

What to do with Christmas money

Perhaps you remember—but hopefully you don’t—back in February when Ellen DeGeneres put a lock of Justin Bieber’s hair up for auction on eBay. Complete with plexiglass box, Justin Bieber’s signature, and a letter of authenticity signed by Ellen, the auction closed with a final bid of $40,668. Proceeds benefitted The Gentle Barn, a charitable organization […]

The Danger of Using Stereotypes

I spent Thanksgiving with my wife’s family in Indiana. Some of these fine Midwestern folk enjoy slipping in a joke or two about my Tennessee roots. Apparently, Southerners are racist, drink moonshine, and have crucial gaps in their education. In both the historic and more contemporary meanings of the word, Southerners aren’t “classy.” I’ve run […]

How to Spread a Rumor

Like hot wings and Nicholas Cage movies, rumors are most satisfying in small quantities. Spreading one successfully requires a keen understanding of human behavior and thoughtful timing. Creativity, believability, deliverability—these ingredients mingle to enhance a rumor’s inherent potential to spread and flourish. One must lay out enough concrete details. One must sprinkle enough sensationalist glitter […]

“Hey, I’m not a man!”

My great-grandmother was ninety-six when she began to lose her mind. Just think what she lived through: two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights movement, the Cold War, her husband’s death, and the substitution of corn syrup for sugar in Coca-Cola, her favorite drink. We tend to be more patient with the idiosyncrasies […]

Breaking My Leg

I have shared my only two athletic achievements worth mentioning: scoring my first soccer goal in Honduras and winning a croquet game in Oxford, England. I know what you’re thinking: the words “achievement” and “croquet” don’t belong in the same sentence. That I would even think to share these two should help to emphasize the […]

Explain this to me

What I Said To A Celebrity

Most of the time I have no awe of celebrities. They wreck their lives like the rest of us. They just have bigger budgets and thus bigger bills when they have to clean up the mess from racist jokes, soliciting prostitute, DUIs, drug rehab, mental instability, divorces, and tax evasion. They make the same mistakes […]

Halloween for Christians

Halloween for Christians is always a time of controversy and moralistic rants. 21st Christians have resolved the conflict two ways: For otherwise conservative and demure Christian girls the holiday offers an excuse to dress as slutty as possible and feel scandalous for once in their lives. How could one of these young women possibly dress […]

Boys Will Be Boys

When my soon-to-be best friend Hunter moved into the house three doors down, we both acquired the brother that neither of us had. We found a partner in crime. When the Little Harpeth River flooded in the late March and April, we would sneak the pool floats out of my garage and raft down the […]

Forever Lazy

The first post that I ever wrote for gu.e was about Snuggies. Hopefully, the last time you thought about those fleece garbage sacks with arm holes was when you were adding them to the pile of “Christmas Gifts To Be Returned Without Receipts.” Thanks to Target’s unaccommodating return policy, you probably had to put your […]