Category Archives: family

Holiday Email Fowards

Do your family and friends a big favor, and try not to confuse sending this holiday email forward with spreading Christmas cheer

Gifts with Hidden Agendas: Tony’s Story

“Bad” is too broad an adjective for gifts, and if you’re going to survive this Christmas, you need to be able to accurately identify the enemy. First on the list is gifts with hidden agendas. You know them because you’ve received them. See if Tony’s story sounds familiar.

Mom, why did you give me sisters?

I have one older sister and one younger. This birth order and the lack of brothers has both downsides and benefits.

Damaging

I have long forgiven my parents for dressing me like a miniature golf caddy from the 18th century, but I know the adverse effects still linger somewhere in my psyche.

Crying Wolf

Certain personality traits lend themselves to mythologizing, and in light of certain events, even common words can take on mythic proportions and special connotations. Most of these small, quite ordinary happenings take place on the way to the grocery or church or baseball practice.

We’ll call it our DeSextroyer.

If only we could both be like McGyver and use his favorite hair pick, his Braun electric razor, the blade from his Simplicity riding mower, and parts from his Daiwa fishing reel to make a ray gun that would castrate every sexting jerk in the universe.

I'm Paying You to Make Me Feel Foolish?

Let’s me get this straight, I’m paying you to make me feel foolish?

Playboy, Creed, and Captain D's

Please no one give me a subscription to Playboy or a Creed album or a gift certificate to Captain D’s. My self-respect couldn’t take it.

Who are the parents of these kids?

“Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Lay down your life for your brother” get thrown out the window with any variety of projectiles—balloons, eggs, donuts, festive gourds, even biscuit dough.

How I lost my curfew

My goal was always to be as quiet as possible. They needed to remember in the morning that I had satisfied the requirements of our arrangement, but I wanted drowsiness to prevent them from focusing too much on the exact time of my arrival.