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My
family recently acquired a small, furry rodent to keep as a pet. The pet store owner claimed it is a guinea pig, but I am
not totally convinced. I have a suspicion that all rodents are actually rats, and those brilliant minds at the Rodent PR room
decided a long time ago they’d sell better if they passed them off as mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, and gerbils. This,
I believe, is simply load of hooey.
But
that’s beside the point. The point is that we actually have this creature inside our house. You have to understand that
my family does not have history of keeping pets, mostly because everything that comes into our house is usually broken within
two weeks. Somehow, however, my younger brother was able to convince my parents that owning a pet would teach us all about
responsibility and important life lessons, such as the lesson that guinea pigs poop all the time.
To
be fair, guinea pigs do more than just poop. They also eat massive amounts of food and sit in one place for hours on end.
In other words, they act just like babies and full-grown males. So owning a guinea pig is definitely a valuable learning experience
for our family. Doubtless, it will eventually make each one of us appreciate how fragile young lives can be, and cause us
to realize how much responsibility it requires to take care of a child.
Haha,
just kidding. What having this rodent is teaching us is simply that guinea pigs poop all the time.
And when I say “all the time” I’m not even exaggerating. Since we bought the guinea pig three weeks
ago, it has produced approximately 19 million skillion grillion drillion pellets, all expelled at various locations in our
home, such as: The living room floor, the dining room floor, the kitchen floor, the stairs, the couch, the upholstered chair
in our living room, the backroom floor, and outside on the deck and gazebo. This may not sound like much, but keep in mind
she has only had three weeks. I believe her goal as a pet is to eventually use the toilet on every surface of our house, possibly
winning her the annual Guinea Pig Award of excellence from the Guinea Pig Pooping Guild.
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Ahh, Spring
Well it’s springtime again. I know this with some certainty because
for the last few weeks I have had to mow the lawn approximately once every three hours. Mowing the lawn is one springtime
tradition I could easily do without, let me tell you. It wasn’t so bad when I first took over the job from my older
brother. I felt all mature walking out to the lawn mower and firmly yanking the ignition string about three skillion times
before the thing would start, because my arm had roughly the same strength as a moth in rehab. But eventually, much later
that night, the mower would dutifully rev up, and I would be on my way. Our lawn mower is one of those self-propelled models,
so when you push down the lever the machine starts moving on its own, with what appears to be a mind of its own. The first
couple times I tried I didn’t know how to set the speed of the movement, so I was stuck sprinting behind the mower,
clinging to it for dear life and hoping it wouldn’t run into anything important, while it zoomed around our yard at
top speed, laughing maniacally.
Eventually I did get the hang of it, though. And ever since then mowing
the lawn has been supremely boring and tedious. For one, it’s hot as anything. And the whole time the mower is running,
it is spewing gasoline fumes straight onto you and your clothes, so when you’re finished you smell curiously like you’ve
been swimming in--- I don’t know what, something really nasty. But the really annoying thing is that it is a never ending
job. It’s like making your bed or folding your clothes; you’ll just have to do it all over again. Actually, I’ve
realized that all chores we do are pretty pointless, since they very rarely stay done longer than a few days. Therefore, I
propose that we officially boycott all chores indefinitely. I suspect that, left on their own, they will all take care of
themselves anyway, through an implosive metaphysical process which I will not go into here.
Another spring tradition we are all familiar with is the sport we have
come to know as Baseball. Excuse me when I say this, because I know many of you will disagree, but I think that baseball is
quite possibly one of the top three most stupid and boring recreational activities ever, right up there with NASCAR racing
and maybe curling. I used to think differently. Back when I was a young, naïve little kid, I was convinced that baseball was
the coolest thing ever. All you had to do was stand out on a crusty field with a glove that was too big for you, and in return
it counted as your PE class. The thing that impressed me most about the sport was the fact that there was almost no physical skill exertion or needed! You could be 4’ 3’’ and weigh about 210 pounds (which
several of my teammates were and did) and still be a fine baseball player. They even had a special position for people like
you. It was called first base.
Ok, so there was that little issue of the sprint to first base, but that
wasn’t much to worry about because in order to have that obligation placed upon you, you actually had to hit the ball.
So no problem there.
But as I began to get older, I was struck by how boring this sport was. The most exciting thing about baseball, it seems, even at the professional level, is finding
out who has been injecting themselves with some illegal performance enhancing substance. In little league, we didn’t
even have to worry about that. Although, thinking back to the size of the players on the opposing teams, I wouldn’t
be surprised if we should have been running some tests.
My last year of playing baseball was a direct result of these mutated
“little” league players. Due to a rather confusing chain of events, it happened that my team, which consisted
of 13 and 14-year-olds, would have to be pitted against 15 and 16-year-olds for the entire season, since there were not enough
players in our own age group to make up enough teams. Now this sounds fine except for one little tiny fact. Something very
mysterious happens to boys at about age fifteen, something called—you might want to cover your eyes while you read this—puberty.
So as it happened, my team, which was comprised of normal 13 and 14-year-old
boys whose chest were about 14 inches around, and whose fastballs reached a speed of approximately 80 inches an hour,
had to play full games against teams comprised of fully grown men who shaved their chests, drove themselves to the games,
and whose fastballs easily reached 90 frillion miles an hour on a bad day.
This was extremely scary.
I’ll spare you all the gruesome details about the cracked ribs,
bruised legs, smashed heads, and wetted pants, and simply summarize that we lost every single game we played that season.
I came to wonder how this beautiful game came to be our National Pastime.
I think it has something to do with the hotdogs.
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The Appeal of Fear
I recently went on a vacation filled with candy, intense heat, candy, a large amusement park, and candy. The time spent
at this amusement park alerted me of two things. One: Humans are pretty much fools when it comes to riding small metal cars
on large, rickety tracks and Two: Humans have an excuse to be fools once they have consumed large quantities of candy and
dragged themselves through a theme park in intense heat for long periods of time.
I’m not a huge fan of the amusement park scene so I hadn’t been inside one for a long, long time. But I
figured that it was time for me to join the millions of teenagers driven by their love of feeling like throwing up, and ride
a few scary rides.
Well, to be fair, I’ll admit that “scary rides” is a relative term. The roller coasters that scared
me half to death were also being ridden by giggling seven-year-olds. Just in case you are familiar with the rides I went on,
I will change their names so you won’t know just how low-level and un-scary they were. Okay? Hey... they were scary
to me.
Either way, the roller coaster experience was completely novel to me. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, aside
from the frequently mentioned sensations of “exhilaration,” “feeling like you’re flying,” and
“your intestines trading places with your esophagus.”
So I was gung-ho and feeling macho about jumping on the first big roller coaster that my friend and I came across.
It was called the Asteroid; a really big wooden thing that appeared to have been constructed sometime during the Kennedy administration.
It was a weekday, so the line wasn’t very long at all. At this time, the first of the three Roller Coaster Intellects
kicked in.
The three Roller Coaster Intellects are the three stages of thought and feelings you experience throughout the duration
of a Roller Coaster ride. The first Intellect is Pre-Ride Consideration, in which you survey the ride, assess the length of
the line, and convince yourself to get in that line, even though the ride is very scary and the people getting off the ride
look terrible. Pre-Ride Consideration draws you into the line and forces your body to stay there while you wait your turn,
however long that may take. This first Intellect is the most chaotic of the three since you have one side of your brain pleading
with you to get out of this line as fast as you can because you have no business or
reason for going on this ride, but the other side of your brain is demanding that you stay because the ride isn’t that bad… and besides, how stupid would it look
to get out of line now? And the latter side of your brain always wins out.
So you stand and wait for your turn to come, and as you do, the anticipation rises. Your excitement rises. You begin
to imagine every twist and turn of the upcoming ride. Then, without warning, a mental picture of your car suddenly flying
off the track and smashing to smithereens flashes through your brain. You grimace. And that is the beginning of Intellect
number two: Psychological Survival Mode. From this point on, you can’t keep yourself from imagining the horrible things
that could very well happen to you on this ride. The line is too long now; you can’t turn back. You are stuck going
on this ride, whether you like it or not.
Your anxiety only increases as you make your way to the coaster car and sit down. You notice how very small the seat
is, and how there’s a very large opening on either side, so you can get out when the ride’s over. Or so you can
fall out as you go over the first hill…
The sleep-walking attendant passes by and robotically lowers your safety bar; your only hope for survival. Psychological
Survival Mode begs you to scream for the attendant to get you out of this car and let you go in peace, but you remain silent,
sweating slightly. You stare down at the thin metal bar pressing up against you chest. This is it? This is all that will keep
you from launching into the air and to your demise? Are the ride operators crazy?
Well the answer is yes, the ride operators are crazy. Why else would they have a nasty job like this? They all get
a little thrill hearing kids scream for their lives as they whoosh by at the speed of sound. I do not know where carnivals
and theme parks get their ride attendants.
As you sit in the car with the metal safety bar poking you in the spleen and cutting off the blood circulation to the
bottom half of your body, you begin to question the meaning of life. You begin to speculate on what has drawn you to this
amusement park in the first place. You begin to wonder why you got on this ride. You begin to consider… What in the
world is the appeal of roller coasters?
And that is the question. What is the appeal of roller coasters? What is
the attraction of throwing yourself at the mercy of steel, wood, physics, and crazy ride attendants? You may say that roller
coasters are “fun.” First of all, shame on you for being so shallow. That’s a ridiculous answer.
Why is riding scary roller coasters fun? Excitement.
But what causes the excitement? Fear.
Is fear fun?
And what causes the fear? Danger. Albeit supposed danger. Theoretically, there are roughly ten thousand things that
could go wrong while you are riding the ride; anything from a single screw finally shaking loose and falling out to lightening
hitting the crazy ride operator, thus causing your ride to continue for eternity.
Why do we love the feeling so much? With so many variables involved in a safe return to the ground, why would we risk
it? Is the short thrill really worth it? Actually, why do we even enjoy the short thrill itself? The thrill is us being scared
out of our wits.
The car suddenly jerks away from the loading platform. The crazy ride operators flash their sick little grins in a
half-hearted effort to assure you that everything will be fine. You take a deep breath. Here it is. Here’s what you’ve
been waiting for the last hour and a half in line. You brace yourself. The line of cars starts its slow yet steady ascent
up the first incline, literally unstoppable. You think to yourself how helpless you are at this moment. You are utterly at
the mercy of something else. But what is that something else? The people who built this ride? Fate? Physics? God? Are you
tempting God with your life?
But you don’t have time to think about it, because here is the drop. Time slows… then comes to a standstill…
you sit at the brink of your life, the pinnacle of your very existence. And why are you suddenly using words like “brink”
and “pinnacle?” You’re not sure. Maybe it has something to do with the altitude.
You gaze briefly at the expansive scene far below you. There is the Visitor Center at the park’s
entrance. There is the parking lot. There is your car. There is the car thief trying to crack open your window and steal the
walkman you left inside your car. But all this means nothing. Time revives. You feel the roller coaster tip, and then…
BAM!! The ride is over. You are back at the platform, your pulse throbbing wildly, your back slick with sweat. You
sit numbly as the crazy ride attendant approaches and raises your safety bar. You get to your feet, your knees are shaky.
You try to clear your brain and remember the ride. All you can recall is gripping the safety bar, and willing yourself to
live. But due to Roller Coaster Intellect number three, named simply “Survival Euphoria,” you decide that you
absolutely loved that ride! It was the best experience of your life! And you can
not wait to jump back in line and ride it again!
It is my belief that this is why we like roller coasters. The feeling we get right when the ride stops and we realize
that all our limbs made it. We love the “Survival Euphoria” even more than the rush we get during the ride. As
we get off the ride, it is almost as if we have a sense that we conquered the ride. We looked Death straight in the face and
laughed (And peed our pants… but Death doesn’t need to know that).
In my opinion, you do not enjoy fear as you experience the fear. It doesn’t seem like that is possible. You only
enjoy the fear and danger after the fear and danger has passed. You look back on the scariness, and it’s not so scary.
You have conquered it. And we like that feeling. It makes us feel powerful. Invincible.
Can I throw up now?
Back to Index
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We love free
America loves free. We love its meaning,
we love its connotations, we love the way the word looks, we love the way it sounds.
Six
seconds ago, I was planning to write about the getting-stuff-without-paying-for-it kind of free. But after writing the first
sentence, I see that I’m beautifully set up for a patriotic, hail to America,
Fourth of July post. We’ll see where that leads.
There are two major things in America
that get products sold. One is sex, and the other is freeness. Since just another site
strives to maintain its good standing with the FCC, I will address only the latter.
It’s slightly ironic that offering free stuff
is a leading source of sales. (For the record, I’m not working with any official statistics here. Researching information
to back up my claims would be too much like real work. I’m completely making up erroneous claims that fit the view from
my computer.) We all know how the Free system works. Maybe you’ve seen a pop-up that says, “Click here to win
a FREE* digital plasma laptop!!” So you click there and they only ask a few unimportant questions, including asking for your
mother’s maiden name, your latest dental records, your social security number, and your Visa pin. A few weeks later
you have allegedly purchased a yacht, transferred $300,000 out of your bank to a Swiss account, and taken a two-month trip
to tropical Gweembaba.
Or, on a lesser scale, you’re in the grocery
store and you spot a box of cereal that offers an “Absolutely FREE* authentic Star Trek phaser!” And there’s
a lot of fine print. We know what the fine print says. The fine print always says
“*with the purchase of five over-priced boxes of cereal, and sending in $102.67 for ‘shipping and handling.’”
We know
this! We know that almost every “free” offer has more strings attached
to it than a troupe of marionette puppets. And yet, we can’t resist. We have
to check it out! We have to click on the pop-up ad! Why? Because it’s free!
Free!
We love free. We love the though of beating the system
and getting something for nothing.
Ever gone to a fair? There was a fair I used to go
to when I was younger. I loved going to the fair. For the rides? No. Forget the rides. For the funnel cakes and cotton candy?
Yuck. No. I love going because there was a huge airport-hangar type building called the Commercial
Building. In the Commercial Building,
there was row after row of booths that vendors and businesses had set up, each piled high with free stuff. There were free
buttons, balloons, stickers, food samples, information packets, coloring books, buttons, whistles, matchbox cars, and buttons.
Every little plastic knick-knack you could imagine. And all I had to do was go in there and take it! Every year I went and filled up a bag with my loot. Did I need the stuff? No. I didn’t really care
about the junk by the time I got home. But I kept coming back for more because I loved getting free stuff!
We love free.
And free stuff is a very integral part of the American
way of life. We are constantly bombarded with claims of freeness. On the internet, yeah… but a lot of other places,
too. Radio. TV. Magazines. Newspapers.
Open a FREE*
checking account!!
Buy two tires,
get the fourth tire absolutely FREE!!* (Good luck with your third tire, though.)
Actually, “Buy one, get one free” has almost
become an official American slogan. How many times have we heard that phrase? Hundreds? Thousands? Instinctively, we know
it’s some kind of scam, but we can’t help being interested in the offer.
Something’s FREE!!*
We love free.
But there’s always an asterisk, isn’t there?
There’s always more to the story than you originally thought. There’s always fine print and details attached to
the deal. But all that stuff is a small price to pay for not having to pay a price.
Whoa. Back up. That was an amazing quote. Let me say
it again. “It’s a small price to pay for not having to pay a price.”
Whoa. Deep.
That brings me to the other kind of free. The freedom
of our country. The freedom to worship God. The freedom to ban God from school. The freedom to act any ridiculous and irresponsible
way we chose. The freedom to know that we are free, and to be unafraid to walk
outside and live our life.
Freedom. So simple. So basic. So taken for granted.
And yet, like most other free things, freedom is not
free. Two hundred and twenty-nine years ago, a group of men who called themselves Congress risked their lives to present freedom
to America in the form of the Declaration of Independence.
At that same time, thousands more men risked and lost their lives fighting the British army for the same thing.
Freedom.
Such a noble concept. So precious. So fragile.
And the fight continues today. I could go on for hours
about the incredible sacrifice our armed service still makes to preserve America’s
freedom. They believe in a cause. Or they dropped out of high school and needed to “get their degree, tuition FREE.”
(Heh… sorry. Couldn’t resist.)
But seriously folks, we can’t stop fighting for
America. We can’t become apathetic about our gift of
freedom and take it for granted. We have too much to lose. And besides… We’re Americans…
We love free.
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Sell-by Dates and the Quest for Fresh Food
I’ve always been equally puzzled and fascinated by the art of deciding
whether or not a certain food is acceptable for consumption, officially referred to by the FDA as The Art of Deciding Whether
or Not a Certain Food is Acceptable for Consumption. You know what I’m talking about. A person may not give a rat's
behind about what they bring into their system, just as long as the sell-by date is a comfortable distance in the future,
preferably sometime in the 22nd century.
Take milk, for example. You buy
a gallon and the first 90/100ths gets used pretty quickly (a single breakfast, for my family). But for the following
two months, the jug sits in the refrigerator with only a little puddle of milk lying on the bottom, which, naturally, is not
going to be used because, naturally, that means that the unfortunate family member who ventured to drink it will have to suffer
the terrible and irreversible punishment of taking the empty jug and—cover your eyes, kids—washing it out and
putting it in the recycle bin.
Scary, huh? Oh it
is, which is why the nearly empty milk container sits in the refrigerator for eternity, utterly shamed by its failure to measure
up with, say, the cream cheese, a cousin dairy product which is regularly consumed and replaced by young, ruggedly handsome,
efficiently small packs of cream cheese.
But one day, a family member (usually mom), decides to put her foot down and,
goshdarnit, use that milk for something!
Because, I mean, c’mon! We can’t just let perfectly good milk go to waste! That would be an unpardonable sin!
So mom resolutely takes the jug out of the refrigerator, as it exchanges a tearful goodbye with last thanksgiving’s
leftovers, and looks for the sell-by date (always located in a very conspicuous location, usually Poland).
Ha, ha! No, the sell-by date is always right there near the top of the jar, always
stamped in its indecipherable black ink. One thing: If it’s important enough to go through the effort of putting sell-by
dates on product containers, why can’t the food industry put a little effort into making them actually readable? I’m
serious! They’re just a little blob of letters and numbers that are impossible to make out, even with the assistance
of highly sensitive scientific instruments.
So mom, with her jug of milk has to rely on the Sniff-Method, a time tested,
fool-proof way of making you feel like an absolute idiot. Because who in the world knows what milk is supposed to smell
like? You sniff perfectly good milk, it smells like sour milk. You sniff sour milk, it smells like sour milk. The point is—stay
with me here—milk smells a whole lot like milk, due largely to its enormous
amount of milk-like components, the most noticeable being, of course, its milky smell.
Got that?
As I was saying, mom sticks her nose down inside the jug, takes a few sniffs,
and Surprise! The milk smells like sour milk. But as we now know, this fact is not helpful at all. So just to be sure (of
what, I don’t know) she goes around to all of her family members with the milk, asking “Does this smell sour to
you?” Then shoves the jug under the person’s nose, thereby seriously annoying the person, who happens to not be
a family member at all, but is actually the plumber fixing the sink.
But each real family member has to take a gander at this milk issue, because,
naturally, they are all certified experts in the field. So they all take practiced sniffs of the milk, and then discuss their
professional opinion on the matter. However, mom has since thought up a perfect way to dispose of the milk: Serve it to the
plumber.
How about another favorite white dairy product… eggs. With eggs,
the question isn’t so much “Are they okay to eat?” (Hint: the answer is no. They’re baby chickens
in liquid form, for Pete’s sake!) The question is “Are they boiled?” (In which case they are baby chickens
in egg salad form.)
If the older women in our lives taught us nothing else, they sure taught us how
to tell whether or not an egg is boiled. Now normally, a person like me would not give a care about how to tell a hard
boiled egg from a non-boiled one. The only reason I took the time to remember it was I needed a good way to cheat at the 4th
of July egg toss.
Basically, there are two kinds of ways to determine an egg’s boiled status:
-
Incredibly ridiculous, completely made up by ancient
women who had nothing better to do at the time then to sit around and make up stuff to tell their grandkids when they came
for a visit ways, in which you perform completely senseless rituals with the eggs, all the while believing you are doing something
legitimate, and
-
Incredibly ridiculous, completely made up by ancient
women who had nothing better to do at the time then to sit around and make up stuff to tell their grandkids when they came
for a visit ways, in which you perform completely senseless rituals with the eggs, all the while knowing that it’s all
a complete load of hooey, but, sadly, it’s your best bet.
Some of my favorites are:
-
Spin the egg, and see how fast it goes. If it spins over 80 mph, and the speed limit for your kitchen
counter is 45 mph, you know that the egg is a sixteen-year-old male who just got his spinning license.
-
Put the egg is a glass of water. If it starts the breaststroke, or starts to perform complicated synchronized
swimming routines, it’s probably time for you to lay off on the narcotics.
Or how about fruit at supermarkets? Once again, everyone suddenly becomes produce
experts, like we all finished four years of Ripeness Discernment
School or something. Consumers will go through great pains to make sure they purchase
the super-most-extremely-without-a-doubt perfectly ripe piece of fruit in the store. And, as with eggs, everyone has their
own (equally bogus) set of rituals they go through at the grocery store. Because, you see, everyone wants everyone else in
the store to think that they actually know what they are doing, when, in fact, they don't even know what the name of the fruit
is they're holding (I will probably expound on this point in a later post!). First you grab a cantaloupe or something, and
thoughtfully weigh it in your palm, hefting it from hand to hand as if it were a football. Then you might scrutinize it carefully
from all angles, checking for who knows what; bruises maybe. Made in Taiwan
stickers, possibly.
But after the melon passes those two preliminary tests, it’s time for the
next phase, the real test called “Roll the Fruit Down the Aisle to See
How Its Alignment Is,” in which you roll the fruit down the aisle to see how its alignment is. If the fruit is still
up to par with your expectations (Hint: It’s not. You have just got done abusing it repeatedly), you then shift it in
your hands some more, sniff it, stare at it contemplatively, then decisively place it back on the shelf.
Back to Index
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Door to Door Saleskids
Ok, so has your house ever been shaken down by one of those sales children?
Worse yet, have you ever been one of those sales children?
It’s an
ingenious maneuver on the part of the sales companies and organizations, really. Send out innocent, fresh faced nine-year-olds
door to door to shove an order form for their products underneath your nose. Ever said no to one of these kids? Never? You
and every other home-owner in America.
It’s virtually impossible to refuse them. It’s literally impossible for mothers.
There’s a knock on the door. Mom answers it. The image of the little girl standing on the step in her crisp scout
uniform instantly begins to eat through mom’s monetary defense system and into her purse.
“Hi my name’s Kimberly and I’m from troop 132 and we’re trying to raise money to buy new supplies
and I was wondering if you’d like to buy some cookies?”
In less then ten seconds, the transaction is sealed. Mom goes to bed that night with a clean conscience. Kimberly goes
back to troop 132 and gloats and laughs with her friends about your neighborhood full of suckers.
But at least Girl Scout cookies are something you might actually want to have in your cupboard. I can’t say the
same for some of the other things kids are selling these days. Boy Scout popcorn for instance. I sold that for a few years
myself, and even my eleven-year-old brain could see what a rip-off that junk was. The popcorn came in these big, fancy tins
tubs. From the picture on the order form, it really looked like you were going to get a decent amount of product for your
substantial amount of money. But when the tin arrived (a loooong time later), you open it up and there’s a clear plastic
bag lying on the bottom. A bag containing roughly four pieces of popcorn. And that was the forty dollar can. The fifteen dollar
can (the cheapest, and one nearly everyone bought) was about the size of a Styrofoam cup. I’m not sure if there was
any popcorn in there at all. It might have just been a can.
But once you open the door, there’s no turning away these money-grubbers. The only ethical, moral and Christian
thing to do is quickly order one (1) of the cheapest products, wish them luck, then move to another state before this time
next year. Because once you buy something, you’re an eternal target. You have been marked as “easy prey”
by the underground network of kiddie salespeople. Like spam to a validated email address, your door will be flooded by hundred
of little kids, all hawking their wares.
“Ma’am, would you like to buy a years supply of titanium toilet paper tubes? It’s for a good cause!”
“Sir, how would you like to buy some fine Belgian chocolates? It's all American!”
“How about some nice little plastic beads on a string? You can’t turn me down because I’m missing
my front tooth and look so cute!”
But it will be your own fault. You should have said on when you head a fighting chance. You should have said “absolutely
not” when there was only one kid standing on your front porch. You should have—
Wait a second… someone’s at the door.
“Hi. Cookies? Okay. Let me see here. Only 20 bucks? Put me down for three!!”
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The Schulmeyer's Annual Christmas Letter
My apologies to any of you with the last name of “Schulmeyer.” It
is completely coincidental.
Dear friends,
Greetings and Happy
Holidays from the Schulmeyer family! I am sure there are many of you who have only met our family briefly once or twice, but
we have still added you to our mailing list, for which you should be overcome with gratitude. We want as many people as possible
to read about all the exotic places we’ve gone this past year, and how our children are far superior to yours. In fact,
we’ve enclosed a quick snapshot of our clan for your enjoyment. Don’t we look great? Notice how we are all smiling
and no one was caught mid-blink. Believe it or not, we got this photo in a single try. Guess why we are smiling. We’re
smiling because we know that you couldn’t even get all your kids together in one place, much less get them looking this
nice.
This past year has
been one of excitement and successes! All the kids that are still at home joined me and my husband on a month-long cruise
around the world last summer. It was the best time of our lives! We had so much fun, met so many interesting natives, and
spent so much money that we just HAVE to gloat about it!
Here’s an update
on all of us:
Toby, the youngest,
age 11 months, has passed the entrance exam into kindergarten where he is quickly learning to read the Level 3 Chapter
Book readers. His teachers are amazed at his ability to grasp concepts so easily. We, his parents, had quite a pleasant
surprise last June when we got a call from Gerber wanting him to star in an advertising campaign for their baby food
products. You may have seen the commercials on TV already.
Our second to
youngest, June, age 9, is doing very well in her studies on the oboe. She is diligently working through the Professional
Cantatas and Concertos for Oboe book by Frederic Wolfsteinberg. Her teacher at the conservatory in Chicago calls
June a “brilliant virtuoso.” She is also doing well in her other academic endeavors, including pre-calculus and
physics.
Jennifer, 15, our
budding artist, was recently notified that her latest painting, “Tears in a Rainstorm,” has been chosen
to represent the youth artists of North America on the World Youth for Art Advancement exhibit
in the London Museum of Art. She has been awarded a 10 billion dollar scholarship for her efforts.
Marc, age 17, has
been accepted into Harvard University
where he is majoring in Philosophy. He has started an on-campus discussion group with a few friends where they try to reason
out their differences and reach an agreement on important global issues. In his last letter home he said that he is working
on a novel and expects it to be published late next year. We are so excited!
Larry, our oldest
at age 24, is serving at an undisclosed location somewhere in Fallujah. The shrapnel wound he received in his leg mid-October
earned him a purple heart and a visit with President Bush. Both incidents have prompted him to consider running for president
in the year 2016.
I, the mother of these
wonderful children, am so excited and thankful for each one of them! I have been going to radiation so my elbow cancer is
almost gone! Praise God! The Lord is so good! Our beautiful 80,000 sq. ft. chateau we live in has kept me busy exercising
my love for interior decorating. In fact, our house has been chosen to grace the cover of Good Housekeeping’s February
2005 issue.
John, the wonderful
husband and father, is working hard as the CEO of an innovative new computer engineering company called BitWorks. He is blessed
with many creative ideas and has been mentioned many times in Forbes magazine. He continues to love each of us, and
I thank God every day for sending him to me. Praise the Lord!
Well friends, I must
close this letter. We hope each of you has a peaceful holiday season. Rest assured that however peaceful and perfect yours
may be, the Schulmeyers' will be ten times better.
Sincerely,
The Schulmeyers
John, Barbara, Larry, Marc, Jennifer, June,
Toby and Rufus
P.S. Our dog, Rufus, is doing very well. He’s
passed obedience school with an Honors Degree. We are very proud of him.
Back to Index
_________________________________________________________
Hype for the Holidays
We’ve arrived. It’s that time of year once again. The most wonderful
time of the year. Yes folks, believe it or not the calendar has rolled around and dumped us right at the winter-month holidays.
A time for reflection (Where did the year go?!). A time for thankfulness. A time for good cheer.
Hmmmm. At least it looks good in writing.
The fact is that the
holidays have slowly turned into a swirling mess of headaches and obligations. Whatever happened to the days of old (very,
very old) where the extent of the festivities was a turkey dinner with the grandparents, a wooden truck for Johnny, and a
new doll for Jane? Everyone had each other, and that was all that mattered.
Those days are gone.
Forever. Gone, dead and buried. Modern living, advertising, and vast Middle Eastern conspiracies have vaporized them. Now,
everything must be perfect, and we worry about whether our mother-in-law will approve of the house or aunt bertha will like
her bright red Cashmere sweater. Could it be that today we as a culture are pressing too hard for our idea of a perfect Thanksgiving
and Christmas? Perhaps we have been fed a misconception of the ideal, normal holidays. Somehow we are convinced that in order
to do the holidays "right," there must be a turkey at Thanksgiving. We must sit at Grandma’s house in a stupor of overfeeding
and watch football with the family. Christmas also has to follow procedure. Decorations go up a few weeks beforehand. Mom
and dad must empty their bank accounts to fill a respectable area in the living room for each child from a list the children
have carefully placed every toy in the world on. In addition, the presents must be hidden and never spoken about so as to
preserve the all important surprise factor on Christmas morning. Another thing: presents can only be opened on Christmas morning.
It’s amazing to the point of shocking how the "presents" aspect of a typical Christmas unfolds: Four and a half weeks
before the Twenty Fifth of December, the children start to think about presents. They write out the list. They wait. In those
next thirty to thirty-five days, the excitement and anticipation gradually grows into a bottled up inferno of hyperactivity.
Then, on Christmas morning, the cap is popped, and a month's worth of waiting is released in a half hour of unwrapping the
gifts.
They fly around the
room (the kids, not the presents. Unless of course it is a flying present, in which case both the kids and the present go
airborne), in a state of near delirium as one by one their requests for certain toys are filled. The kids babble in high pitched
voices, adorning the groggy, yet beaming parents with enough "I love you"s and gratitude to last until mid-June.
But, as the Law of
Fun states, all good and enjoyable things must come to an end, and the house winds down to a quiet Christmas afternoon. The
parents head back to bed as the kids proceed in draining the already dwindling novelty out of all their loot. By this time,
pretty much all the excitement has mysteriously vanished. Just like that, it's another normal day. Boom. It's over.
It approaches depressing...
so we must look ahead to the next event.
Easter! Yeah! Candy!
All right!
I doubt you can honestly
tell me you think Christmas makes sense. One day out of 365, for which you decorate the inside and outside of your house with
inflatable snowmen and tiny light bulbs on a string. One day, on which you exchange overpriced gifts with every person you
have some sort of a closer-than-average relationship with. You might argue we are celebrating the birth of Christ.
Give me a break. We
are not.
Aside from the Manger
scene outside the community church that momentarily jogs our memory as we pass, we're not really thinking about the itty bitty
baby Jesus and the connection it supposedly has with opening presents, hanging up garland, and decorating a tree. Most, if
not all, of the traditions that come with Christmas are just that. Traditions. We don't know why we do them. We just do them
because Mom and Pop did them when we were kids.
Now don't get we wrong,
I enjoy the holidays as much as the next guy. I enjoy the unexplainable feelings and happy emotions that go along with the
holidays. I like the presents (receiving end, of course). But I think most of all I like the Christmas music. I don't know
why it has such a strong allure to people, myself included. It's interesting how fans of all types of music can can stand
and even enjoy Christmas music. Classical lovers, Jazz enthusiasts, Pop fans; they all can agree on Christmas tunes. I really
can't even guess why. Somehow it's very universal for a month or two.
Even with all its odd
concepts, I have to admit that, overall, the holidays are a fun time. It's a month later when Mom and Dad start reviewing
the checkbook that things get messy.
And please understand
I am not crusading against Christmas. I think the only thing I really have a problem with is how there is such a over exaggerated
build of hype going that goes on and on until December Twenty-fifth, and then it is over in few hours. It's probably not healthy.
Consult a doctor.
Happy Holidays.
Back to Index
_________________________________________________________
Library Book Detectors (Gulp!)
In my short time as an employee of the Public Library, I have come to the conclusion,
through hours spent watching patrons while I'm supposed to be shelving books, that those book detectors are one of the most
frightening man-made objects in the known world. The other two are the Nuclear
Bomb and the Chinese Water Torture.
I've always wondered about the extent of the detector's detection ability. Before I worked at the library, I puzzled
over how two plastic appliances, placed three feet apart, could be set off by paper books. I have since been enlightened to
the depths of the operative process, but I am under oath never to leak a single word about it. Here's an excerpt from the
page handbook, section 398, paragraph D:
Any employee who reveals the aforementioned
secrets pertaining to
and of the heretofore-acclaimed
detectors will be punished severely
according to the ruling deemed
appropriate by the Library high council.
Punishments may include held paychecks,
prolonged underwater
submersion, time in the library
snake pits, and ordering the books in the
children’s section.
Now I watch from my vantage point as patrons stroll through the sliding doors and cautiously approach
the detectors. With a slight hesitation, visible only to the trained eye, they take a breath and pass through the threshold.
Without going into too much detail, I will say that a law-abiding civilian has nothing to worry about while entering. However,
if you are if you are an active member in Al Quida, the mafia, or John Kerry's presidential campaign, you should probably
watch your step around those things.
Anyway, as the people pass through, there's an unmistakable look of relief that passes over their
face when the detectors keep quiet. (Remember, all this is taking place in less than two seconds. I underwent extensive training
to be able to recognize and label these actions and reactions.)
But later, when they come up to the desk to check out, once again their apprehension returns. This
is the moment of truth. The final test. The next few steps separate the innocent bystanders from the hardened criminals.
You're handed your receipt and you quickly make your way towards the detectors, hoping that somehow
speed will prevent them from detecting #DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS#. And you imagine that if it does go off, immediately guys in dark
suits and expensive designer sunglasses will jump out of the back room, knock you to the floor, quickly slap manacles onto
your wrists, and take you outside and shove you into a Lexus that is idling on the parking lot, and they throw a sack over
your head, and the car peels away, and you take a long, long ride until the car stops and they bring you into a room, and
rip off the sack, and all that’s in the room is a chair and a single light bulb, and you're forced to sit down and a
Gestapo agent walks in a says in a thick German accent: "Where were you going with those books?" while he slaps his palm with
a gnarled pencil or something.
So you walk through. And the alarm—of course—goes off,
shattering the pane of glass in the front window and most likely audible all the way in Cleveland. It seems to me there
are less disruptive ways to alert the librarian of an escape. Rabid dogs, maybe. I'm just saying that the decibel level of
these detectors aren't exactly setting appropriate.
And next comes the part we loathe the most. Everyone in the entire
library stops whatever they are doing and turns and peers suspiciously in your direction, all of them wondering the same exact
thing: "What are his deep, dark secrets? What’s he got stashed away in his pockets? Narcotics? A homemade bomb? A copy
of Gigli?"
You turn around, convinced that the detectors have read through you and know every lie you've ever
told… ever cookie you’ve ever stole (there's a song in there somewhere) and you hope that the lady will say something
like, "Oh, go ahead! That's being going off all day… (another song?) we need to get it fixed."
But she doesn't. Instead,
you have to go back and have her recheck all your books as you grin stupidly at those people who are still looking at you.
Finally… finally…
you get out the door, only then realizing that you have to go back in to get your library card, which you left on top of the
copy machine.
_________________________________________________________
Computer Users: The good, the bad, and the totally clueless
For your benefit, in my time as a library employee, I have classified all people
into two groups: Those who know how to operate a computer, and those who don’t. From these two groups, I have made several
sub-categories. They are as follows:
The Incompetent:
The ‘Ask and Not Know-ers’
These people are the ones that don’t know what a URL address is and aren’t ashamed of
it. They repeatedly go up to the information desk to asking questions such as, “Is there supposed to be smoke coming
out of that thing I put the little black thing in?” or “What does ‘Strike any key when ready’ mean?”
The reason they are at the library using the computers is the simple fact that they don’t know how to turn theirs on.
My suggestion is that these people be shipped off to some remote, third world island, so they can create their own civilization
using chisels, stone blocks, and abacuses in the place of anything you plug in.
The ‘Quiet Not Know-ers’
They are exact duplicates to the Ask and Not Know-ers, except these people are possibly worse,
because they have enough pride not to ask for help when their computer flashes something like: "Fatal Internal Error F11010001,
beginning self-destruction in ten seconds." Instead, these people just sit there, sweating bullets and looking around nervously
as they computer makes high pitched clicking noises. Once the computer freezes up, the person quickly moves down to the next
unsuspecting computer (where the process repeats itself) trying to make this unnatural move look as natural as possible. The
third world island applies for this group, too.
The Competent:
Type-aholics
I’m not sure if the people in this group can even classify as humans. They might be another
species. These are the ones that sit stiff-backed and almost motionless at the computers for hours on end doing absolutely
nothing but typing. And tying so fast, it’s a wonder their keyboard doesn’t burst into flames as a result of the
friction. These people, usually middle-aged, professional men or women, sit there, barely moving… not even blinking…
it’s just their fingers in a blur, typing an email that is longer than the U.S. Constitution.
Geek Gamers
You know the type. Shrimpy kid. Acne. Glasses. There’s a kid exactly like this who hangs out
at our library’s computers a lot. Okay, so maybe “a lot” is an understatement. He’s there a WHOLE
lot. As in “I’ve never seen him come or go.” He’s on the computers, zoned out in front of some alien
game (it’s the same one every time) everyday when I start work, and he’s still going strong when I get off. I’m
not sure if he ever leaves the library. I wouldn't be surprised if he hides somewhere deep in the nonfiction section at closing
time and finds some reference book to sleep on. I know for a fact that this is possible to do, because I have done it more
than once while I was supposed to be shelf reading.
Anyway, my advice to these people: GET A LIFE!! Read a book! Do something!
I need to use the computer.
The Bad Patron
These are the very nervous ones that have the privacy screen covering their monitors. I have
no idea what they are looking at, so I can't say much about them.
I'm sure there are many more categories, but for right now I can't think of
any. And I have to that nice lady at the information desk about this 'Error 973F' thing…
_________________________________________________________
Talk Less.. They'll Hear More
This is something I have noticed over the last few weeks. The less you talk, the more people will listen. It’s
almost odd. People assume that you have important things to say if you keep your mouth shut.
Try this experiment. Your family is visiting another family. As everyone else yaks it up (Code name:
“Fellowshipping”), you sit quietly. It helps if you have a faraway, thoughtful look on your face. Then, at the
dinner table, when everyone is discussing some very unimportant topic (i.e. any topic), say in a loud, clear voice “Yes,
completely I agree.” Timing comes into play here. If you time it right, when you say the word “Yes,” the
room will instantly fall silent and every head will turn and look at you.
After you finish speaking, there will be a half-second pause before the conversation recommences
(results may vary), as you sit back contentedly and think, “That guy was right!”
Every time you try this experiment and it works, you will owe me $500 in royalties, which you can
pay by check or money order to
Eric Incorporated
P.O. Box 1625
Rochester St., ZN
31982
But the point is, if you are sitting quietly people suppose you must be thinking of ways to bring
peace to the Middle East, or solving trigonometry equations. In reality, you’re wondering what’s for dessert,
but they don’t have to know that.
So this is the secret to being smart. You don’t have to be smart; you just have to seem
smart. Don’t talk. Just don’t say anything, and people will come way from dinner saying, “Wow, that Eric
kid sure is bright!”
“Well, what did he say?”
“Uh… I don’t remember. He’s smart, though.”
“Huh.”
It’s as simple as that. So every time you go somewhere and don’t say anything, you owe
me $750, which you can also send to the address above. And remember: Even a fool is perceived wise if he keeps his mouth
shut.
Every fool out there owes me $1,000.
_________________________________________________________
The Truths Children Teach Us
Teaching in a Sunday school
class for any extended period of time will teach you a thing or two about the human condition. Kids are transparent versions
of ourselves. They have basically the same feelings, wants and attitudes that we do, except they haven’t perfected the
art of masking all that yet. They try, though.
But anyway, here are a few things I have observed:
We all have
a natural urge to destroy
Like it or not, and whether you admit it or not, if you saw a carefully constructed tower of blocks,
for a nanosecond, you would contemplate kicking it over. But long before you can translate that thought into an action, you
have safely suppressed it, and you continue on your way.
Toddlers, on the other hand, haven’t learned to cap the feeling. So when they see that wonderful
pile of blocks their playmate has built, instinct kicks in and they gleefully sprint over and take an Olympic-style soccer
kick at the base of the tower, sending the blocks flying across the room in a satisfying blur.
All this is done in a complete absence of malice. Little Johnny
didn’t kick over little Timmy’s tower because he hates Timmy’s attitude or something. He did it simply because
it was there. And ironically, while Timmy sits there sobbing, he is not sad because his liked his creation, he’s sad
because Johnny did exactly what he was planning to do five seconds later! Yes! Timmy painstakingly built up those blocks
just so he could have the pleasure of knocking them down shortly after.
As mature, sensible adults, we would never do anything like that.
Or would we?
People who
talk less seem older
This goes directly hand in hand with what I was saying earlier. The kids who talk less frequently,
regardless of their physical body size, appear to be mature and at least one year older than they really are. You could have
two kids that are the same age: little Sally, who would love to tell you all (and I mean ALL) about her new doll, and little
Jane, who wouldn’t tell you anything about herself even if you tortured her with a flaming Tiki torch. (Just for the
record, we do not torture our kids with flaming Tiki torches. We have found that the “Roasting Over the Spit”
method is much more effective.)
The point is, Jane is far more likely
to be perceived as eligible to enter the older class.
I have observed something along these lines with myself, also. If I meet a new person and launch
into soliloquy about myself, or just talk a lot, nine times out of ten, they will say later, “So you’re, what?
13?”
Not surprisingly, when I’m quiet in a group of new people, and they find out my age, they act
genuinely surprised and say something like, “Whoa! Fourteen? I thought you were fifteen at least!”
Now, to you, the difference between 13, 14 and 15 years old might be insignificantly small, but to
me as a fourteen-year-old*, being thought of as a year younger or a year older makes all the difference in the world.
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