For $724 per month, you too can be uninsured...

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Tennessee has denied coverage of our attempts to alleviate 10 or so years of pain for Holli with surgery.

So…

REQUEST FOR BID #25-06 October 30, 2008

We are seeking bids for the removal of the family uterus.

1.0 GENERAL INFORMATION:

1.1 Definition of Parties: We will hereinafter be referred to as the "we” or “the family." Respondents to the request shall be referred to as "Bidders." The successful bidder shall be referred to as the "Doctor” (hopefully).

1.2 Evaluation: Award will be made to the low bidder, provided that all other requirements are satisfactorily met, such as a medical degree from a medical school and an operating room.

1.3 Costs of Preparation: Bidder assumes all costs of preparation and any presentations necessary to the bidding process as well as all costs necessary to complete the job.

1.4 TV and Radio Broadcast Rights: The family will retain all rights to broadcast, re-broadcast or otherwise publish any information or footage from this event.

It was a four-foot scotch pine...

When I was in college (I tend to label the years between high school graduation and college graduation as such, and it’s only a minor violation of the truth) I got into a war of nasty practical jokes with a guy we’ll call Bill.

Bill had a girlfriend…that had been the girlfriend of a good friend and he kind of stole her away from him. I don’t know why this angered us (the friends of the guy) so much, but we were mad at the both of them (the girl and Bill).

One day at the Dairy Queen, I said so to a friend of hers. The news got back to her and she told her boyfriend and he came to see me. After about 10 seconds, I told him to get out of my house. Unbeknownst to me at the time, a friend of his was letting the air out of my tires. It was officially now 2 on 1.

So I got two friends (to make it 3 on 2) and we borrowed letters from signs around town and left him a message at a convenience store near his house. I don’t remember exactly what it said, but it wasn’t “have a nice day.”

We take time out from this riveting story for the Real Country Music lyric of the day.
Cook me up some bacon and some beans.
And go out to the car and change the tire.
Wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans.
Come on, baby, you can fill my pipe,
And then go fetch my slippers.
And boil me up another pot of tea.
Then put another log on the fire, babe,
And come and tell me why you're leaving me.

Back to the saga…

He then put a dead animal in a box and delivered it disguised as a Christmas present to my house.

So my two friends and I did the only thing we could do. We planted a tree in his yard. We got a tree out of the woods and went to his house in the middle of the night and planted it.

A few months later, he and his family figured out that they didn’t know how the tree got in his yard (they each thought the other had planted it).

We had gotten the last shot in, but he didn’t even realize it for months.

And that ended the war. I guess our response was so weird that he couldn’t think of a way to answer it.

One more thing I shouldn't write about...

Every once in a while I have thoughts on this subject, but I don’t have the guts to write about it but about once every year or so.

Warning: I’m going to quote the Bible here. If this isn’t your particular cup of religion, I’m sorry and will try to quote from the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and the Fargo, ND phonebook (in order to balance things out) at a later date.

Anyway, this is from Genesis 3:16, the part where God has kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden:

“Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children…”

Now this seems like a bad deal for the woman…and I’m sure it is. I’m not claiming I understand.

But my problem with the “Curse of Eve” is that there isn’t more information given. Given the opportunity, I would have liked one more sentence added:

“And thou shalt sweetly endure this curse and knoweth that thy dear husband is joyfully making a most sincere effort to make thy existence every bit as lovely as thy true beauty unequivocally deserveth.”

Obviously, this would have helped. But, as I believe the Bible to be the Inspired Word of God, I don’t believe leaving the clarification out was a mistake…and certainly not as big a mistake as I am possibly making right now.

The reason why I couldn't get a job in advertising...

Bud Light has a new ad campaign that says the great thing about their beer is, quote, “Drinkability.”

This is it? That you can drink it?

So I hear that this beer is drinkable (and by the way, I don’t think it is) and immediately I am convinced to purchase it against the thousands of other beers out there with ad campaigns that contain more information than "it's a non-toxic liquid"?

We take time out for the Real Country Music lyric of the day…
By the county line the cops were nipping on our heels
Pulled off the road kicked it to 4 wheel
Shut off the lights, tore through a corn field
What was I thinking?
Out the other side she was hollerin, faster, faster
Took the third road had the radio blastin
Hit the Honky Tonk for a little close dancin
What was I thinking?

Anyway, this brilliance is from same people that for 10 or so years milked to death the idea that everyone who might be trusted to bring you a beer was hard of hearing and that Bud Light was preferred as a beverage over a lamp, headlight, searchlight, spotlight or flashlight, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

And don’t get me started on the “More Taste League.” More than what?

It takes five quarts of 10w-30....

Don’t get me wrong, the hospitality and caring nature of Southern women is a wonderful thing. If someone is in the hospital or the cable goes out, a group of ladies get together and bring over a casserole.

I believe this tradition started before it was discovered you could microwave hot dogs.

And while I love tradition, I think we can tweak this a little. So I have composed a letter.

Dear Ladies,

I very much appreciate your willingness to help with food while my wife is in the hospital. However, I believe your charity could be focused somewhere else that would be more useful at this point. Below is a list of things we would love your help with during our time of difficulty.

1. There is a lot of debris in the yard from the last seven or eight storms we have had. If you could bring a wheelbarrow and a truck, I don’t think it would take you more than two or three hours.
2. I’m going to go watch Monday Night Football at the Buffalo Wild Wings this week. The kids need to be bathed and in bed by 8:00. I’ll be back around 11:30 or so.
3. Change the oil on the car.
4. I think there is a dead raccoon in the crawl space under the house. The cover-alls (if you don’t have your own) are in the hall closet.
5. The day you come, call me when you are on the way…I may need you to pick up a six-pack of beer.

Again, thanks for thinking of us in our time of need.

Sincerely,

Following the People for Fewer Telemarketers meeting...

The Citizens against the Post Office just had an impromptu session.

It was decided they could raise their rates at any time (who do they think they are?) and they do stupid things, like send mail 200 miles away to then send it back to deliver it to only 20 miles down the road.

They put mail in the wrong boxes. They have hours that a banker would envy.

The Citizens against the Post Office was formed when I was a small child when members of the committee worked somewhere that dealt a lot with the local Postmaster, who happened to be the father of one of my friends. At a certain point, the Citizens against the Post Office made it uncomfortable for me to play wiffle ball on a regular basis at their house.

As the meeting continued, the Citizens against the Post Office related recent stories of incompetence that complaints by the Citizens against the Post Office eventually led to the local Postmaster calling a member of the committee nasty names that the minutes of this meeting dare not reflect, due to the family-oriented nature of this blog.

This cemented the harsh view of the post office that the Citizens against the Post Office still harbor to this day.

After the room calmed down, the committee adjourned, announcing that the Group for Better Service at the Drive Thru Window would be meeting in a few minutes.

Angus Young and the Restless...

I heard the other day (and I wasn’t listening) that AC/DC is about to release their first album in eight years.

This came as a surprise to me. I would have guessed more like 20 years. I guess three guitar chords can be reworked a lot of different ways.

When I was an impressionable youth, these guys were the definition of evil in music. They were the one of the groups cited as evidence that music had gone straight to hell. People packed into churches to hear horrible lyrics and backwards devil-filled coded messages.

They were horrible drug abusers and womanizers, we were told. It was our duty to burn their albums (along with our Dungeons and Dragons books) and save our souls. Now they are the subject of video games and guests on the Martha Stewart show.

All of this makes me wonder, who are the bad guys now?

Can you hear me now?

I’m sure this has been covered by someone else, but I was too busy answering my cell phone to notice.

This “on-call” 24 hour-a-day thing has got to stop. There are no more areas (that I can find) that a cell phone won’t work. Now, you either answer your phone (no matter where you are) or someone will think you are ignoring them. Or you are in the bathroom.

(I suppose this is how my wife could know if I’m drinking enough fluids)

I draw the line at the bathroom, but there are some out there who will answer two calls at the same time, if you know what I mean.

If this is a part of your particular lifestyle, do me a favor and try to keep it a secret. Don’t flush. Don’t use the air dryer or pull down the paper towels from the dispenser.

I just don't want to know.

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in...

Back when I gave golf lessons for money, I felt like a crook.

Thirty-percent of the people wouldn’t work on what I told them. They didn’t believe me afterward that what I told them would make them better (when it didn’t work EVERY SINGLE TIME…and nothing works every single time)…and sometimes they probably were right.

Twenty-five percent couldn’t do what I told them they needed to do. Their body just wouldn’t do it or they didn’t have time to work on it enough to make a change.

Another twenty-percent didn’t understand what I told them (sometimes my fault, sometimes theirs) and they worked on the wrong thing and didn’t get better.

Twenty more percent just wanted someone to watch them hit balls and listen to them talk about their golf game. Kind of like a therapist that only says, “I see…”

This kind of personal attention is how a lot of golf pros get fired, by the way.

But five percent listened, worked on what I told them and got better. I have a few people that I actually took from one place and got to another place, a better place.

But 100% of them paid. This type of con game (although it wasn't my fault) began to wear at me, so I swore I’d never give another golf lesson.

This worked out until today (at 4 pm…only an hour from now)…if you have any advice to give me on how to have a better attitude about it, I’d be happy to:

1. Listen and ignore it
2. Or just listen
3. Or listen and try to do what you tell me and fail
4. Or listen and do the wrong thing to correct it

Just let me know.

It's who you know that counts...

The basketball hoop is finally up.

In difficulty, it was somewhere between the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima and the building of Tower of Babel.

A few weeks ago, when I thought I could do this without the aid of the Army Corps of Engineers, I had the first pole put into the ground during the driveway paving. I then consulted the directions and realized that I was never going to have a basketball hoop, just a 4-foot pole in my driveway to taunt me and a box full of parts in the garage taking up space.

The directions were like the prophecies of Nostradamus…easy to see what they meant after you got it done, but not very useful in predicting what to do before it happened.

But into town rode a hero. We’ll call him Rick, mostly because that is what his name is. He read the directions and said he thought we could do it.

After a few detours and a couple do-overs, it was complete. The directions called for three capable adults. Rick was two short, but his leadership pulled us through.

We celebrated by shooting a few baskets and I congratulated myself on knowing someone like Rick.