Monthly Archives: September 2012

The Business of Parenting:  What’s the most important aspect of parenting? Money. Double-Duh! Thus the theme of today’s blog, accompanied by the usual photos. Special thx to Trudy Tessaro for her “science show” shots.

Terry Works Twice as Hard:  Recently my wife, Terry, had to fly to Toronto on business, got stuck in Vancouver due to airline eff-ups, ended up arriving at 3:30 a.m., all the while looking forward to a 7:00 a.m. meeting. Later she called and vented. I listened, quaffed beer, and offered magnanimous sympathy as I “looked” after the kids. She told me, “I work so you can play.” I said, “I watch three kids so you can work.” She said,  “Message to stay-at-home wives who think they have it tough. I have no sympathy for the stay-at-home wife.” What she meant, though, was that she has no sympathy for the stay-at-home husband.

Kitchen After Six Months:  Compare above left by clicking here for a photo from the day the house closed, when Pops, Jan, Layne, & Cindy came by. My sister Sarah replaces sis-in-law Tracy.

PCC Grocers:  There’s a co-op in our neighborhood: PCC Natural Market. It stands for Puget Consumers’ Co-op, though I always thought it meant Politically Correct Capitalism, because you pay Cheech & Chong high prices for an organic carrot, giving credence to myths about organic food, and fueling my conviction that only willfully exploited suckers would pay for feel-good-moral-placebo produce. However, my wife likes PCC, and even my right-wing-thinks-Bush-was-too-liberal father has bought into the co-op way. And his cholestoral and fat have dropped. So I’ve gone there a few times, and little by little I’m becoming a believer. Processed foods are bullsqueak unhealthy, and PCC prices aren’t so sky-high as thought. And, well, I just feel better about myself.

TOMS Shoes:  One day my wife came home, gave me a pair of shoes, and told me, “These are great! And we’re helping needy children.” The company? TOMS Shoes. Their shtick? “With every pair you buy, we’ll give to a child in need.” I tried on the quasi-cardboard slippers, and freaked when I found out she paid forty bucks for the bugigangas. I said, “This shoe is worth a buck and a quarter, no thanks.” But somehow she still believes in TOMS and talked my sister, Sarah, into buying a pair. One day I open the dishwasher to TOMS. Evidently, the salesman said this is the best way to clean them. It ruined them, as well as spreading pinkish water on the rest of the dishes, an apt metaphor for the racket. TOMS overcharges and gets away with “charity for profit” marketing, charging the consumer $20 to donate $2.

Booing Tiger:  How nice that Tiger hasn’t won a major since MistressGate. But the question begs asking:  Why can’t you boo in golf? Or cheer someone’s mistake? A missed free throw or field goal can often be greeted with cheers. I’d pay to see Tiger choke on a putt and have someone in the gallery scream, “Yahoooo!!!!”

Two Types of Humor:  I was sitting with Terry and her family, and I expounded on the nuances of humor:  Either you’re a laugh slut and find every moronic attempt at humor funny. Or you never laugh, but you crack people up unintentionally but uncomfortably. Then I said, “But rare is the person who can make people laugh, who knows when to laugh, and has awareness of when they or others are not funny.” After I finished my wife said, “You mean not like right now, when you’re boring everybody.”

Comedy? Drama?  So Terry’s watching a show one night, and I ask her, “So, is this a drama or comedy?”

She tells me, “It’s a dramedy.”

I tell her, “I’m a frenemy of dramedies.”

The 22-Ounce 24-Ounce Beer:  I’m sure Andy Rooney or someone has raged about this, but why are so many “24-ounce” beers 22-ounces or even less? Gallons of paint are not quite a full gallon, ice cream quarts and pints are shrinking, cheeseburgers are the size of peppermint patties, but they ain’t lowering the price. If I was a marketer, I’d package my product as the full deal.

Geico Scam: I’m looking over Puget Sound and see a small propellor plane flying with a Geico banner. Why? How can you make money by being so ubiquitous? On radio, TV, everywhere, US society is saturated with Gecko-drek. Save 15% My Ass! My wife and I compared, and Geico did not save.   Their insurance is expensive or lower quality because 40 cents of every dollar they receive goes to their advertising campaign.  Giving credit where credit is due, though, the Eddie Money Geico Ad is pretty funny. (See below)