Middle School Boys: They Don't Listen

I probably didn't look like the most compassionate coach in youth athletics when I strode over to my player (who was lying fon the sidewalk crying and clutching his ankle) and I started yelling "I told you! Didn't I tell you!" but you really had to see what happened moments earlier . . . I passed by the same player on my way into the building and told him "Stop juggling the ball in your cleats on the pavement-- YOU ARE GOING TO GET HURT, if you have to burn off some energy and jump around, do it on the grass-- DO NOT GET INJURED BEFORE THE GAME" and then I walked inside, happy that I had given an eighth grader some clear and concise coaching advice, so when I came out of the building and the girl's coach-- young, concerned and earnest-- rushed up to me and told me one of my players was injured and that he had rolled his ankle on the curb, I was, of course, in no mood to play the role of Florence Nightingale.

Know Your Audience

This is the kind of joke that only gets a laugh in a room full of Shakespeare geeks-- some student left a CAPITALISM SUCKS pin on a desk in the back of the room, so I held it up and said to the class, "Someone left a CAPITALISM SUCKS pin here . . . would anyone like to buy it from me?"

Don't Count Your Giants Before They Play

My friend from Ohio promised me that the Giants would destroy the Browns, so I didn't even attempt to stay up and watch the game . . . and that's the last time I trust anyone from the Midwest

Steady as He Pees?

Sometimes, in the early morning, I hear the sound of a stream of liquid cascading into a pool of water . . . punctuated by several ominous silences, and the number and length of those silences determine how much of my son Alex's urine I will have to wade through in my bare feet to get to the sink.

Am I Getting in Good Shape or Full of Intestinal Parasites?

I don't mean to get all Brigitte Jones on you, but between playing lots of soccer, running around with my kids, coaching and having no kitchen, I'm down to just a shade over twelve stone (186 pounds) and I've been on a reverse diet-- plenty of ice cream and candy and pizza-- so I'm very happy with the weight loss, but of course, there's the chance that I have giant intestinal roundworms again.

I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing

We didn't get the message, and so Alex wore his Darth Vader shirt on school picture day-- and if he becomes infamous or famous in some way, you can bet someone will dig that photo up and attach some sort of symbolic value to it.

Thirteen Goals is Much More Fun Than Nil-Nil

Those of you who don't think soccer is high scoring enough would have enjoyed my team's eight to five victory over Old Bridge-- and this was a real score, not one of those games in which the score gets padded when the subs go in-- it was five to five several minutes into the second half.

Great Moments in Teaching Episode #287

                                        

I told my Creative Writing students to get up and make a big circle so we could play a memory game-- and so all the kids stood up and started arranging themselves: pushing desks out of the way, and shuffling between them-- except for one girl, who did not stand up-- she sat in a desk in the middle of the circle, head down, doing something in her notebook; finally, she picked her head up and looked around at everyone standing around her . . . and with a sheepish grin she held up what she had been so diligently working on-- she had taken my directions literally and drawn a circle.

The Earth, She is a Swiftly Tilting Planet

Yesterday signified the end of something: we went to the beach and the day started cold, rainy, and windy but by noon it was sunny and the ocean was freakishly warm and both boys got completely wet, and after I changed them we went to Pete and Elda's for pizza and then they slept all the way home . . . it was hard to remember that soon enough we're in for a long dark winter.

A Very Cheap Buzz

If you're an eighth grade soccer player on the bus after a game, then the height of fun is to sniff the inside of a fellow competitor's cleats.

Dave is a Rejuvenated Cucumber (or melon)

This morning, I was feeling tired, and so when I showered I used some of my wife's Cucumber Melon Rejuvenating Body Wash, and it was very refreshing: almost instantly I felt like a ripe and fresh cucumber (or melon) sitting plumply in a spring garden, dew dripping down my firm and smooth cucumber (or melon) skin and-- just like a rejuvenated cucumber (or melon) I was ready to face the day.

Two For One Pizza: Sounds Like A Good Idea, Right?

A fond memory: Aposto's, the narrow Italian bistro where we ate the other night, was once a far grubbier pizza joint called 2 For 1 Pizza, and the deal was this: when you ordered one pie, you got two pies for the price of that one-- in theory this was a good deal, but the same absurd dialog comprised every order . . . I'll take two pies . . . okay boss, two pies . . . so that means four pies? . . . you want four pies? . . . no, no, because then I'll get eight pies, right? . . . you want eight pies? . . . no I want four pies . . . okay, four pies . . . yes, so I'm only ordering two pies, so I get two for one, like the name, right . . . yes, then you get four pies . . . okay, just ring up two pies, okay . . . okay . . . okay . . . okay . . . just to be sure, I'm going to walk out of here with four pizza pies, right? . . . right . . . okay . . . right . . . okay.

Huh?

Republicans: the party of financial regulation.

Remembrance of Zills Past

There's a tambourine in the back seat of my car, but the only time I remember it's there is when I hit a bump.

The Doppelgangers is a Bad Name for a Sitcom

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree . . . Alex likes to use the right word for things, a fairly useless and frustrating characteristic; yesterday in the stroller, we passed by the house that has the same model and color Subaru as we do, and Alex reminded me of his fantasy about the family that lives there: that they are our twins in most every way-- number, age, appearance, etc.-- and then he asked me what we called them and I said, "I don't know" and made up a nonsensical rhyme of our last name and he said "No, not that kind of name" and then I remembered what word he was looking for . . . "our doppelgangers?" and he said, "Yeah, doppelgangers, they're our doppelgangers!" and I'm hoping he doesn't bring this up at pre-school because he's already weird enough.

Dad Shame

Sometimes when my children find other kids to play with at the park-- which is happening more and more often-- I get bored, and sometimes when I get bored, especially if I've forgotten something to read, then I toss whatever balls we've brought in the wagon at my kids; I did this the other day with a Nerf football, I chucked it over the top of the jungle gym, hoping to surprise little Ian, but my aim was too precise and I hit him in the side of the face, and so he turned to me and said "Daddy, you hurt me" and then went back to playing . . . and then I noticed that another father caught the whole thing, and his look of disgust for me was priceless.

He Hates to Say It . . . But He Loves to Say It

You're not supposed to like saying "I told you so" but in his book The Black Swan, all Nassim Nicholas Taleb has to say about the current financial crisis is: "I told you so"-- and there's nothing more enjoyable than saying "I hate to say it, but I told you so."

Caster Disaster

Last Saturday, I was that asshole: I chose a shopping cart at Target with a bad caster that alternated between making a loud clattering sound and a high pitched shriek, and I was too lazy to switch carts, instead I suffered the frowns of employees and shoppers alike-- it was early-- AND I got into the "express" lane at the grocery store and before I realized that I had more than twelve items, there was a line behind me . . . I thought I didn't have much but I did -- six bottles of seltzer, four cans of SpaghettiOs, two things of lunch meat, rolls, a loaf of bread, hot pepper rings, two packs of paper plates and a pack of paper cups-- for a grand total of eighteen items-- 50% more than the limit; once I realized my transgression I turned bright red, and all I could do was bag really fast and race out of the store, the shrieking caster broadcasting my shame.

Greek Myth = Wet Kids

I thought reading the kids some Greek myths would be at worst innocuous (and a bit boring) and at best a nice basis in the most common allusions in literature, but when we were out splashing in the rain the other day, I turned around to find both my children lying in a large brown puddle, faces in the water, making some kind of kissing fish sound; I asked them what they were doing and Alex said: "I'm that guy, Narceesusus, looking at himself in the water!"

Stress at the Stress Factory

Sometimes the comedy club isn't funny-- like when the table next to you can't stop chatting and you ask them repeatedly to please be quiet because you can't hear the jokes, and the waitress asks them to be quiet, and finally, you lose your temper and tell them to shut up and the young guy at the table-- put in the awkward position of having to defend his womenfolk, stands up and yells at you and then Patrice O'Neal stops the show and asks what the fuck is going on and your wife tells him and-- when O'Neal questions the offending table-- the annoying and loud drunk lady says (seriously) to Patrice Oneal "I didn't know I couldn't talk while you were doing your act" and Patrice Oneal lays into her and her table for a while and then on the way out a member of our table asks for an apology and soon enough there is a scuffle and a very effective brother/ sister tag-team pins the young guy who yelled at me to the floor and we throw several other folks into the tables and chairs and then we make a quick exit before the police detain us-- Catherine knew the hostess and so they let us out without delay-- and we retreated to the Corner Tavern, where we watched the police cars race past, on their way to a comedy club melee.